25 replies to this topic

[Littiz]

Hi folks!

Long time indeed   

 

I happened to notice this discussion almost by chance.

Well, I haven't heard from TG Maestro anymore, sadly (I hope he's doing well!).

I can speak for my part, but I'm sure he'd agree (couldn't see why not): as the bigg said, there's no problem if the mod gets "adopted".

Actually, I'd be happy if the mod's life could be extended. It was SUCH a big work at the time, and I still love what came out of it in the end.

I'd only think it would be best to clearly state what gets changed, in order to avoid confusion with the versions and to know what's what.

I'm sure any modder who would be interested in "adopting" it wouldn't entirely alter what the mod is and does, anyway.

Two points:

 

- Some of the concepts were obviously taken from the 3rd Edition. In this regard, we willingly deviated from the canon AD&D 2nd Ed., but so did the introduction of HLAs in the vanilla game already. Also, it added flavor.

 

- That said, Planetars and Fallen Planetars were in vanilla ToB already.. or am I missing a subtler point of the discussion?   

 

Best wishes to you all, and again thanks to the bigg who's kept the mod in good shape for all this time   

Edited by Littiz, 08 December 2014 - 10:11 AM.

[Cuv]

Littiz!!!   long time no see. 

[The Imp]

Littiz!!! long time no see.

You haven't been seen much here either ... heard that you have been working on the EE version of the Ascension, but... anyways, let's not go off topic here, k so I will anyways, but to a less of an extent and to a different direction, no need to reply if you think it won't fit in. Ahh, what would the Chaos be without Imps maintaining it's inner gears... and go off on evil rants.

- Some of the concepts were obviously taken from the 3rd Edition. In this regard, we willingly deviated from the canon AD&D 2nd Ed., but so did the introduction of HLAs in the vanilla game already. Also, it added flavor...

Actually to consider the BG2 to be anywhere near a canon AD&D of 2ed is a heresy of a great kind, for both of the rulesets, the BG2's infinity engine has near real time strategy like ruleset, much like the Starcraft 1 &2(s, the only difference is there's no randomization via near d20-like system in SC, and the ruleset^TM). BG2's system is based on ticks, as the game is nearly always played at 30 Frames Per Second, where the standard 6 seconds is a turn, which is the base that the player is told about the rules, which is 90 ticks (6 times 15 ticks). Turn that up to 60 FPS and each turn is 3 seconds and your warrior hits a lot "more in shorter time", but still has every rule accounted as with 30 FPS, it just last half as long to watch and see. As the same amount of ticks has been spent.
Ticks are also the time that the AI uses to check different states, unless it's given timers which again are counted with ticks. So the AI normally checks all the conditions on it's script 15 time per second, on 30 FPS.
So anything that is not balanced in the ruleset given in game is to me out, should not exist, like summonable demons with 200 hitpoints etc. when clearly 100 should be enough cause the warriors can't have 200 hitpoints, cause the hit point attaining is capped partially to party members at levels 9 to 11.

Edited by The Imp, 11 December 2014 - 11:02 AM.

[Littiz]

Littiz!!!   long time no see. 

 

Cuv!

Indeed! Didn't expect you to be around

What's up

So sad that RtW could never be finished. It would have been the greatest mod ever. Did you ever reveal the identity of the new NPC?

 

 

Actually to consider the BG2 to be anywhere near a canon AD&D of 2ed is a heresy of a great kind, for both of the rulesets, the BG2's infinity engine has near real time strategy like ruleset, much like the Starcraft 1 &2(s). It's based on ticks, as the game is nearly always played at 30 Frames Per Second, where the standard 6 seconds is a turn, which is the base that the player is told about the rules, which is 90 ticks (6 times 15 ticks).

 

I'm afraid, after all these years, the finer points of such debates might elude me (but you do raise some interesting points).

I just wanted to give my blessing about the use of the mod, if someone happens to be interested

[Cuv]

@Littiz   I gave RTW to Beamdog sorta under condition that if they do it I am involved.   Will make sure everyone gets their credit if that happens.  Up to them now - still pushing for it - it was all but finished.   And no, don't think it ever got publically revealed about the NPC, heh. 

[subtledoctor]

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="Littiz" data-cid="573832" data-time="1418061406">That said, Planetars and Fallen Planetars <em class='bbc'>were</em> in vanilla ToB already.. or am I missing a subtler point of the discussion?</blockquote>

Wow, look at all of these people coming out of the woodwork for this discussion! Amazing. Littiz, we were not criticizing Refinements, we were criticizing TOB itself. I take Planescape to be 2e canon when it comes to planar beings; there were tons of PS source materials available for Bioware to adapt for interesting summons, but instead the gave us wizards summoning planetars and dark planetars.

The main issue here is, people want to use Refinements with BG2EE. What I would consider doing is to make a new mod, called "Refinements HLAs Refined" or something, which takes the HLA component (probably only that component), update it to work with the EE games, and maybe add an optional component that would sort out the summonses to make more sense (basically, give planetars to clerics, and give something else to wizards (either powerful demons or elementals).

From Valerio's clarification it sounds like that would be permissible. The other issues are, do I have time to do that (not really) and do I have the skills to do it (maybe not, I've looked at the Refinements tp2 and you guys are on a completely different level than me). But hope springs eternal!