18 replies to this topic

[Roxanne]

File Name: Deep Gnomes on the Sword Coast (EET)
File Submitter: Roxanne
File Submitted: 17 Mar 2017

 

 

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This mini-mod actually is an extract from a larger mod still in the making for (EE)/EET, however well-known to old BGT-adventurers. So, consider this a teaser for the "Aurora's Shoes and Boots" mod. It restores part of the basic Aurora by Bookwyrme.

The full mod will add animations, tweaks and more to the game, including choices to balance xp gain, store prices or quest rewards. It is under development by another modder.

This teaser just contains Tomthal and Karaea, Aurora's assistants, and a number of items that can be found randomly throughout the game. In addition, you can encounter some other svirfneblin who made it to the surface. And, of course, Aurora the merchant herself.

Svirfneblin or deep gnomes, are a sub-race of gnome. They live underground, usually in the Underdark and closely resemble their surface-dwelling brethren, save for their paler complexions.. Svirfneblin are usually of neutral alignment. In EET you meet some near Ust Natha, the drow city.

This is a quote from the original readme:

"Have you ever wished that Athkatla were a little livelier? Ever wanted to know just what Lord and Lady Ophal got up to in their spare time? Wished that the shopkeepers had more than two lines apiece? Had lives of their own?

Ever wished you could buy some Boots of Speed looked a bit more, well, dashing? Thought about buying Imoen some pink boots of stealth? (Note - this was not really added to the mod by the author later on) Wanted to use the Stinking Cloud that must form around your travelers for some truly *useful* purpose?

Aurora's Shoe Shop introduces more than a dozen new pairs of boots that are both useful and stylish. In addition, Aurora herself is there to add a bit of spice to Athkatlan life. She'll chat with you about nobles and commoners alike, providing exciting (if not always accurate) information about their daily lives."

 

The mod adds to all three parts of the game, therefore it is for EET only.

 

Support & Contact

 

 

 

Edited by jastey, 23 August 2022 - 02:01 AM.
removed invalid links. This is an inofficial mod version.

[Miloch]

Interesting... Who is it in the portrait? It is a nice one, but deep gnomes do not have dark hair...

[Roxanne]

Interesting... Who is it in the portrait? It is a nice one, but deep gnomes do not have dark hair...

It is Karea. Suitable male portraits are available for EE formats, but no females - so a lifely female shopkeeper may just have dyed her hair to go with surface fashion. (The male deep gnomes look authentic.)

 

..remember, the mini-mod is just a placeholder until the real Aurota for EE is released.

Edited by Roxanne, 04 April 2017 - 08:49 PM.

[Miloch]

It is interesting how much of this looks familiar from Aurora and how much does not. Either I've forgotten what we did or this mod is a fork that adds/changes content...?

 

Offhand, I'd say the reputation modifications (whether from NPCs or the boots) are not cumulative, or at least not in EE, but that is just a wild guess. One question would be: have you tried wearing the boots (after removing them if necessary) when the penalizing NPCs are already in the party?

 

Not sure about Deep Gnomes, but Aurora did nothing with weapon breakage. Offhand, I'd say that could be an EET bug (again, just a wild guess).

 

Regarding the worg animation, as you said, that is personal preference. I guess it could be an optional component if there was more demand. You know that the original (BG) "worg" uses the same (albeit slightly recolored) animation as the wolf, war dog, wild dog, etc., right?

 

Regarding the "bitmap" edit - first, why do you need to do it? Second, what exactly (which files) are you editing? If it's tileset-related, this works differently in EE, but I'm not sure what you're talking about.

[Roxanne]

It is interesting how much of this looks familiar from Aurora and how much does not. Either I've forgotten what we did or this mod is a fork that adds/changes content...?

 

Offhand, I'd say the reputation modifications (whether from NPCs or the boots) are not cumulative, or at least not in EE, but that is just a wild guess. One question would be: have you tried wearing the boots (after removing them if necessary) when the penalizing NPCs are already in the party?

 

Not sure about Deep Gnomes, but Aurora did nothing with weapon breakage. Offhand, I'd say that could be an EET bug (again, just a wild guess).

 

Regarding the worg animation, as you said, that is personal preference. I guess it could be an optional component if there was more demand. You know that the original (BG) "worg" uses the same (albeit slightly recolored) animation as the wolf, war dog, wild dog, etc., right?

 

Regarding the "bitmap" edit - first, why do you need to do it? Second, what exactly (which files) are you editing? If it's tileset-related, this works differently in EE, but I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Here is what the mod description says (this has been agreed with Sam, who maintains the Aurora mod):

 

"This mini-mod actually is an extract from a larger mod still in the making for (EE)/EET, however well-known to old BGT-adventurers. So, consider this a teaser for the "Aurora's Shoes and Boots" mod. It restores part of the basic Aurora by Bookwyrme.

The full mod will add animations, tweaks and more to the game, including choices to balance xp gain, store prices or quest rewards. It is under development by another modder.

This teaser just contains Tomthal and Karaea, Aurora's assistants, and a number of items that can be found randomly throughout the game. In addition, you can encounter some other svirfneblin who made it to the surface. And, of course, Aurora the merchant herself.

Svirfneblin or deep gnomes, are a sub-race of gnome. They live underground, usually in the Underdark and closely resemble their surface-dwelling brethren, save for their paler complexions and the fact that they have little or no hair. Svirfneblin are usually of neutral alignment. In EET you meet some near Ust Natha, the drow city."

[Miloch]

this has been agreed with Sam, who maintains the Aurora mod

LOL, that is news to me. He offered to maintain all of my mods, to be sure, and I gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up on that account (as a side-note, Aurora is not my mod alone, but the other modders are either just as scarce or as reluctant to have anything to do with it). But then his response was maybe something like "uhm..." (if I got any response... I can't recall, though I have been in contact and chat with him frequently about other stuff). Maybe he looked at the actual code. That would certainly explain any reticence.

 

As for the (forked) mod description, I have only one objection. Maybe you got it from ours; if so, we messed up on that: "the fact that they have little or no hair." This (wikipedia-based description apparently) is only half true and is a gendered description. A more accurate one is from the 2e MM: "Male svirfneblin are completely bald; female deep gnomes have stringy gray hair." (This is also why I raised the question about your portrait for Karaea ).

 

On another note, the last poster referred to not being able to find some stuff (mirror, ioun stone, etc.). From what I recall, that stuff is rare and hard to find, but "Gast" seemed to know that. So I'm wondering if it's just not present in this version?

 

Addendum: If either you or Sam. are willing to maintain the original mod for real, I'm willing to consider sending you a bottle of scotch, albeit likely a much cheaper one than Sam. sent me for not maintaining the mod at all...

Edited by Miloch, 25 July 2017 - 11:24 PM.

[Roxanne]

Hello, Roxanne!

First of all, thank you for the report. It helps to improve the mod.

 

     I played Deep Gnomes on the Sword Coast a while. Find a lot of yellow berries as loot on little critters, two shields with papers and three gems introduced by this mod within containers also introduced by this mod. I am missing stuff like gems, Auroras items, mirrors, an ioun-stone in Athkatla and things the original mod offers as loot. Guessing it is due to version 0.1.

These things are left out to be introduced by the *real* Aurora mod. The teaser here was in no way intended to replace the full original mod. It will be withdrawn as soon as Aurora becomes available for EE/EET.

 

I bought the boots lowering reputation by two from Karaea, but they are worn without any effect. The goblin shaman, Viconia, Baeloth and Hexxat are lowering the groups reputation by two. Dorn (SOD) does not either. Did not invited him in Amn. So there he might have an influence on the groups reputation. I think these boots are useful if you plan to deal with the evil aligned npc's and they are working as promised.

The boots have been repaired. A new version is uploaded already that makes them work as intended.

 

I lost Karaea in Trademeet while entering the tavern at night. Saw her leaving, but she never made it into her chamber or return to the pub.

In EET you have one worldmap by which you can revisit all areas you already have explored before. This is part of the EET continuity concept. As such, Karea will still be in Nashkel even in SoA part of the game. It probably was a small engine delay that made you see her in Trademeet at all - she is not supposed to be there.

 

I was wonderring that normal weapons can break in Amn, too. Only EET and Deep Gnomes are installed.

This is not part of the mod.

Anyway it makes sense to me. The corrupted iron was in circulation for a time period. Tools and weapons forged from it were traded all over the Realms. Some of them made it to Amn, either in the hands of travellers, merchants, or mercenaries. Why not? And , there is also the *normal* breaking of non-enchanted weapons by time. You need no iron crisis for everyday items to break.

 

Concerning Karaea's portrait I enlarged the original and put it in the overide folder. It is not the picture standard but I use it. An other point of personal taste is area AG4301. I think the original worg animation suits in this place better than the animation from IWDII.

 

I tryed to alter the bitmap of area BG4300 (transition to AG4301). Thanks to Yovaneth's tutorial I succeeded in a way, but the result is horrible. My changes do not looking good. And I am gathering horizontal stripes where no horizontal stripes were before. And the southern part (water?) crashes the whole game.

For whatever reason you do that...

Changing area graphics for EE games (the TIS files) result in those lines unless you convert your modded file to the PVRZ format. All my mods do that. However, when you change a map you need to produce those new files yourself (there is support in Near Infinity to do this.)

 

So, thank you for the Gnomes in Amn and around. I plan a new installation.

[Miloch]

Anyway it makes sense to me. The corrupted iron was in circulation for a time period. Tools and weapons forged from it were traded all over the Realms. Some of them made it to Amn, either in the hands of travellers, merchants, or mercenaries. Why not? And , there is also the *normal* breaking of non-enchanted weapons by time.

Well, we've both acknowledged that this is not relevant to the mod(s), but normal breakage aside (which other mods/tweaks handle), corrupted iron does not make sense in BG2. You've played BG1 right? If I recall rightly (and it's been ages even for me, but I recently replayed it just to whoop Aec'Letec one last time for vengeance and Sarevok's thugs, just for kicks), corrupted iron stops being a factor even after charname stops the iron crisis in BG1.

[The Imp]

corrupted iron stops being a factor even after charname stops the iron crisis in BG1.

Usually that's cause the player switches to using magical weapons, or ranged, not nearly because the effect stops, which might happen, or might not.

[Miloch]

Usually that's cause the player switches to using magical weapons, or ranged, not nearly because the effect stops, which might happen, or might not.

Well yes, if you're smart (or have played the game before), you can avoid using normal breakable melee weapons early on. But my point was, the player unavoidably ends the iron crisis midway through BG1 due to the plot progression, and that in turn effectively "turns off" normal weapon breakage in the unmodded game, aye?

For what it's worth, BGT Tweaks or some other such mod has a more universal "normal weapon breakage" component, doesn't it? But in any case, Aurora certainly does not (and I doubt this Deep Gnomes does unless Roxanne or Sam. stealthed such a component in on the sly).

 

Edit: Gast, is that area North Nashkel Road? I forget, but a screenshot or more description might help. One such transition (maybe not even in this mod, I've so many half-forgotten and unreleased ones) is supposed to be hidden, so maybe it's intentional, maybe not.

Edited by Miloch, 26 July 2017 - 03:02 PM.

[Roxanne]

Edit: Gast, is that area North Nashkel Road? I forget, but a screenshot or more description might help. One such transition (maybe not even in this mod, I've so many half-forgotten and unreleased ones) is supposed to be hidden, so maybe it's intentional, maybe not.

It is Noruth Nashkel Road area, the one directly north of Nashkel. (BG4300 in EET, AR4300 in BGEE)

On the rocky wall in the North there is a hobgoblin camp with campfire. Two mods add entrances here, DIotSC for the dwarf nephew quest and Aurora/Deepgnomes adds a cave. In both cases, the entrances are using existing cracks but not a special *cave entry* overlay. I think this is intented. A cave near the frequented north-south road nearby would long have been explored by the people. This is not a lone wilderness here. So these entrances are in fact hidden and secret.

Edited by Roxanne, 27 July 2017 - 01:37 AM.

[Miloch]

Oh, thanks for the screenshot, that helps. We totally put a very visible cave entrance there, exactly where your arrow is pointing. It's a BAM overlay, and I remember consulting with Yovaneth about it (the expert on this subject at the time, still is), since it was the first time (but certainly not the last) that I had done this back then in the Mesolithic. Are you sure you copied over/patched all the right files in your version?

 

Side note: "Haiass totally pwns Orc Mage..." Classic. (For the record, I don't recall us adding either worgs or orc mages here, though I think I might've toyed with hobgoblins a bit, but as usual I'm not even sure if that was in this mod.)

 

Edit: I'm not sure, but are you saying you intentionally deleted this overlay because the cave should be hidden? There's a good reason why this wasn't the original intention. The cave is well guarded, and at least one brave (albeit foolhardy) soul found this out the hard way a long time ago, as you'll discover if you manage to explore the cave thoroughly.

Edited by Miloch, 27 July 2017 - 01:09 AM.

[Roxanne]

Oh, thanks for the screenshot, that helps. We totally put a very visible cave entrance there, exactly where your arrow is pointing. It's a BAM overlay, and I remember consulting with Yovaneth about it (the expert on this subject at the time, still is), since it was the first time (but certainly not the last) that I had done this back then in the Mesolithic. Are you sure you copied over/patched all the right files in your version?

 

Side note: "Haiass totally pwns Orc Mage..." Classic. (For the record, I don't recall us adding either worgs or orc mages here, though I think I might've toyed with hobgoblins a bit, but as usual I'm not even sure if that was in this mod.)

 

Edit: I'm not sure, but are you saying you intentionally deleted this overlay because the cave should be hidden? There's a good reason why this wasn't the original intention. The cave is well guarded, and at least one brave (albeit foolhardy) soul found this out the hard way a long time ago, as you'll discover if you manage to explore the cave thoroughly.

I found the cave bam, I tested it and it works fine in EE without horizontal lines. The bam was simply not copied over due to a typo, although it was compiled into the area correctly.. So this is corrected now.

Everything else is like you describe (and how I encountered it in many BGT playthroughs before).

The orcs in the area are outside the cave and they belong to another Mod's encounter, they were on the screenshot just by coincidence.

Thanks for your hint.

Edited by Roxanne, 27 July 2017 - 02:01 AM.

[Miloch]

The bam was simply not copied over due to a typo, although it was compiled into the area correctly.. So this is corrected now.

Awesome. Now if you can make your Karaea portrait look more like a proper deep gnome (i.e. change her hair color light gray and her skin to a dull gray), we'll have hit the jackpot.

Oh, and uh, go ahead and make the rest of the mod EE-compatible while you're at it. Feel free to come in on Sunday if you need to. Mkay? Thanks! (I said that in my best Lumbergh from Office Space voice, if that wasn't evident.)

 

(Incidentally, I wrote and coded a huge add-on to this mod concerning a certain Gwalhaudh aka Galahad on Earth, but never tested or released it... think you could help with that too?)

 

PPS: Did the name "Aurora Rebooted" ever occur to you? I so dislike puns, but that one had a certain kick to it when I thought it up just now. Uhm, I'll just go ahead and show myself out...

Edited by Miloch, 27 July 2017 - 04:38 AM.

[Roxanne]

The bam was simply not copied over due to a typo, although it was compiled into the area correctly.. So this is corrected now.

Awesome. Now if you can make your Karaea portrait look more like a proper deep gnome (i.e. change her hair color light gray and her skin to a dull gray), we'll have hit the jackpot.

Oh, and uh, go ahead and make the rest of the mod EE-compatible while you're at it. Feel free to come in on Sunday if you need to. Mkay? Thanks! (I said that in my best Lumbergh from Office Space voice, if that wasn't evident.)

 

(Incidentally, I wrote and coded a huge add-on to this mod concerning a certain Gwalhaudh aka Galahad on Earth, but never tested or released it... think you could help with that too?)

 

PPS: Did the name "Aurora Rebooted" ever occur to you? I so dislike puns, but that one had a certain kick to it when I thought it up just now. Uhm, I'll just go ahead and show myself out...

In the discussions I had with Sam about the possible adaptation of Aurora for EE/EET, it was agreed that my mini-excerpt would not qualify as a basis for that work and it was his long term project to do (or not). *Deepgnomes* is an interim to keep a bit of it alive in EET until the real thing comes one day. There are no plans to extend it.

The Gwalhaudh thing sounds like it would complete the obviously unfinished story of the shield and the bones in the caves. This may just be a mod on its own (although it would require those two locations - on the other hand, they are part of the Aurora mod but not really connected to it?) One could just put those caves and items in that other mod and start from there, while Aurora and her friends are contents of their own mod. And a whole lot of other mods take care of animations and XP tweaks and item prizes etc.

[Miloch]

This may just be a mod on its own

Yeah, we really should've fragged Aurora into separate mods from the start. Most of the optional components are unrelated tweaks. I think GeN1e/Ardanis is still disgruntled with Aurora slurping up his Store Prices mini-mod, but we had a lot of ideas around this at the time and wanted to address the whacked Toril economy in general, particularly in a store mod. Besides, I wanted to get him back in advance for hacking our election (a cheap joke, but if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm all about cheap jokes, and if I can attempt to revive the Cold War ih the process, that's just bonus points).

I suppose Realistic Kobold Commandos (an Aurora subcomponent, again, totally unrelated) could be its own mod too. But there's such a thing as having too many mods, and CamDawg seems to be fussy about what he allows in the ginormous Tweaks Omnibus or whatever it's called these days.

As for the Gwalhaudh thing, I totally forgot about it until the subject of this cave came up. But I did actually code it, and it was even like 95% complete, like so many of my unreleased mods. I think Bookwyrme even proofread and approved the dialogue, though she's too nice to tell me if it sucked. One of Murphy's Unwritten Laws is something like, "Projects proceed rapidly until they're 90% complete. Then they remain 90% complete indefinitely." (True for most of what I touch, anyway.)