153 replies to this topic

[Leonardo Watson]

Finally a new version of BWP is ready to release. In the meantime, I doubted that it would ever be finished. Again and again new unexpected problems did arise.

The install order is changed due to some updated mods and some former issues are solved. Of course new mods are added.
The BWP Installpack is completely overhauled and many new functions had been added.
Now it converts  on the fly some BG1 mods to BGT, "downgrades" some BG2EE mods to BGT, corrects single lines or whole text blocks in faulty files and much more.

A few things I am working on are not finished yet. I will add them soon.

There are still some conflicts I don't know how to resolve this:
1. The main component of Aurora's Shoes and Boots should be installed before Stratagems. However, Aurora's main component adds its own scripts to lot of creatures. As a result, some creatures have all 5 script slots filled and SCS would skip those creatures. This could be avoided by installing the main component after SCS.
Because Sandrah should be installed after Aurora but before before Stratagems I decided to install Aurora and Sandrah before Stratagems accepting that Stratagems skips some creatures because I think thats is the minor problem.

2. Also the Rogue ReBalancing components "Revised Thievery" and "Shadow Thief Improvements" add their own scripts to lot of creatures. As a
result, some creatures have all 5 script slots filled and SCS would skip those creatures. This could be avoided by installing both components after SCS. I don't know what is the better solution.

3. Stratagems AI component 6000 cannot be installed with all that mods from BWP. Obviously there is a limit how many files this component can handle but I didn't figure out where the limit is.
With fewer mods or with the AI component from BP there is no such problem. The messages I get are like this:

Failed to apply general-AI patch to DOGHMA (error message Out of memory)
ERROR: [DOGHMA.CRE] -> [override/DOGHMA.CRE] Patching Failed (COPY) (Out of memory)

and ERROR: Failure("hd") despite of more than 200 GB free disc place and 16 GB RAM

4. There are a few problems with he newest WeiDU.exe

TDD:
 

 

[action list near line 30, column 38 of DLGCASH/POCRE001.D] PARSE WARNING at line 31 column 1-33
Near Text: )
    [AddMapNote] argument [The Lake] was expected to be an integer

[action list near line 30, column 38 of DLGCASH/POCRE001.D] PARSE WARNING at line 32 column 1-36
Near Text: )
    [AddMapNote] argument [Sunlake Inn] was expected to be an integer

imoenromance:
 

 

[imoenRomance/dialogues/SOA/Banter/Classes.d] loaded, 52687 bytes

[trigger list near line 287, column 82 of tb#_compile_eval_buffer/imoenRomance/dialogues/SOA/Banter/Classes.d] PARSE WARNING at line 287 column 16-76
Near Text: )
    [CheckStatGT] argument [GLOBAL] was expected to be an integer
Processing 1 dialogues/scripts ...
[./override/BIMOEN2.DLG] loaded, 208764 bytes

Kivan:
 

 

[Kivan/tra/english/BP#DEH.TRA] has 398 translation strings

[action list near line 216, column 2 of Kivan/d/BP#DEH.d] PARSE WARNING at line 229 column 1-19
Near Text: )
    [PlayDead] argument [P#DEHER] was expected to be an integer
Processing 1 dialogues/scripts ...

ToBR:
 

 

[ToBR/Saradush/scripts/bedo.baf] PARSE ERROR at line 6 column 8-32
Near Text: )
    [StartTimer] argument [bedocast] was expected to be an integer

[ToBR/Saradush/scripts/bedo.baf] PARSE ERROR at line 11 column 8-31
Near Text: )
    [TimerExpired] argument [bedocast] was expected to be an integer

[ToBR/Saradush/scripts/bedo.baf] PARSE ERROR at line 14 column 8-32
Near Text: )
    [StartTimer] argument [bedocast] was expected to be an integer
Processing 3 dialogues/scripts ...

 

[ToBR/Cleansing/cre/WGdestru.cre] loaded, 1360 bytes
Copied [ToBR/Cleansing/cre/WGdestru.cre] to [override/WGdestru.cre]
Compiling 1 dialogue file ...

[action list near line 105, column 3 of ToBR/Cleansing/dialogue/WGcleric.d] PARSE WARNING at line 108 column 1-274
Near Text: )
    [EraseJournalEntry] argument [Cleansing the Temple of Bhaal
    A priestess of Kelemvor has asked that I cleanse a neighboring temple of the undead inhabitants.  She gave me a bottle of cleansing and a warning of a fearsome apparition.  However, she does not remember the exact location of the temple.  Perhaps I will find it in time.] was expected to be an integer
Processing 1 dialogues/scripts ...

 

SandrahRTF:
 

 

[./override/CVCut402.bcs] loaded, 2514 bytes
Compiling 65 dialogue files ...

[action list near line 4, column 58 of SandrahRTF/D/MystraDrizRTF.d] PARSE WARNING at line 4 column 1-52
Near Text: )
    [SetName] argument [Midnight] was expected to be an integer
[./override/SLOTS.IDS] loaded, 837 bytes
Processing 65 dialogues/scripts ...

CDTweaks
 

 

Installing [Romance Cheats] [v2]
Compiling 1 dialogue file ...

Remove racial requirements for romances? (Select 1 or 2)
  1) Remove
  2) No changes
ERROR: cannot convert remove_romance_racial_requirements or %remove_romance_raci
al_requirements% to an integer

 

You can however install those mods with the previous WeiDU.exe


5. The Divine Remix component Implement sphere system needs to be installed at the very end of the installation procedure.

6.  The readme of the Sorcerer's Place Collection states to install the components Archer of Sylvanus and Sylvan Mystic after the Divine Remix mod v7. I don't know whether this is valid for DR v8.

7. The Paladins of Faerûn Kitpack v5 uses files from DRv7. DRv8 includes no longer these files. (The code is included, however in other files). So the dependies of DR are no longer given. I don't know whether the POF kits will work with DR's sphere system as intended.

8. From it's readme Might and Guile should be installed before Refinements and therefor also before Stratagems. However there is a technical problem. Since this mod is using Aquadrizzt's qd_multiclass function many of Stratagems BG2 Tactical challenges can only be installed with warnings, the components 8000, 8050, 8180 cannot be installed at all. When Might and Guile is installed after Stratagems there is no problem.

9. The newer code of Scales of Balance's component 200 SBO - Stat Bonus Overhaul conflicts with the code of some of Stratagems tactics components if Scales of Balance is installed before Stratagems.
 

 

Warning: it looks as if some entry that should be a key=>value list, isn't (~list~ is currently %RESREF_D5I15SPL_KIT_EFFECTS_REMOVE% %RESREF_D5I16SPL_KIT_EFFECTS_REMOVE% %RESREF_D5I17SPL_KIT_EFFECTS_REMOVE%, key=%RESREF_D5I13SPL_KIT_EFFECTS_REMOVE%)

I don't know why the author states to install Scales of Balance before Stratagems, but if it is installed after Stratagems there is no such problem.

For this reason in the current guide I have installed Might and Guile as well as Scales of Balance after Stratagems. However, if there are any good reasons to install them before stratagems I will change the guide shortly.


 

[Creepin]

"downgrades" some BG2EE mods to BGT

Wow, this is so... wow, I can't even... wow, really! I wonder if this functionality could be made standalone tool? If it could convert me Lava's Southern Edge to BGT I will be ever so happy!

4. There are a few problems with he newest WeiDU.exe

Sounds like WeiDU maintainers losing the grip on backwards compatibility. Do you think this should be reported on WeiDU forum?

Edited by Creepin, 29 September 2017 - 02:26 PM.

[tomkaz]

Hi Leonardo:

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you ! ! !

 

I tried BWS for a while.  Its OK, but to my way of thinking I did not enjoy the making of the BWS mega-mod game as much as I did the BWP mod game.  I did not like the lack of version numbers, I felt some components were left out as the component numbers were not available, and I felt there was no effort to fix the incompatibilities between mods. Yes, I understand I did not put as much effort into learning BWS, but I felt there was some of the functions were missing from what that program was suppose to be.  So for the past two months I have been working with BWP v16 on putting a new game together.  I have some medical problems and the meds I take for them mess up my memory.  That results in pushing the wrong key at the right time which ends in computer crashes.  Ten days ago I took out all three of my computers and lots of data and have no idea how I did it. 

 

Some things I would like to see:

    1)  Locations of where to download mods.

    2)  A Kill switch in BWP.  So when I mess up installing the game, I can go back to the beginning with a               new game.  Of course, there is a point of no return.

    3)  If possible better instructions for a few mods.  One that comes to mind is Cespenar's Audio and Item             upgrade.  I have never got that mod installed.

 

Thanks again for the terrific job you have done.  Most of the work you have done has been with Basic.  It has been stable and downward compatible with many of the changes Microsoft has made since 1998.  Only now do I see some earlier versions like Windows 98, Windows ME, and Windows XP not keeping up with the new versions of Basic. Some languages may be easier to learn and use, but how many languages have come and gone over a short span.  Looking at the books on my shelf I see at least five.  I use Windows 7 now, but it is a killer.  I keep getting a message that says I am not allowed to do something.  I think that may interfere with installing my game. 

 

Looking forward to the 17th version,

 

Tom

Edited by tomkaz, 29 September 2017 - 05:46 PM.

[Cahir]

Hi Leonardo, I must admit I didn't follow BWP development for quite some time, but how viable is BWP for EE users? I've heard some opinions that BWP is a tool tailored strictly for vanilla users whereas BWS was developed lately with EE audience in mind. I enjoyed using BWP couple of years ago, before EE's l were even a thing, but now I play only Beamdog versions. But I'm itching to try BWP out someday, if of course it's viable and up to date tool for EE versions.

Edited by Cahir, 29 September 2017 - 09:00 PM.

[Leonardo Watson]

@tomkaz

Thank you for your comments.
 

Some things I would like to see:
    1)  Locations of where to download mods.
    2)  A Kill switch in BWP.  So when I mess up installing the game, I can go back to the beginning with a               new game.  Of course, there is a point of no return.
    3)  If possible better instructions for a few mods.  One that comes to mind is Cespenar's Audio and Item             upgrade.  I have never got that mod installed.

 

 

1)    That is on my to do list. I thought about an automated download function but what me keeps off from doing so is that the download links would change with every mod update and I would have to maintain the link-list constantly.

2)    There is a similar solution in BWP. At the end of an installation a file named "Big World Project.installed" will be created. When you start again the Install.bat you will not be able to install anything. Instead the Install.bat offers you a few new options. One of them is to rebuild your game folder with all mods ready for a clean installation.

3)    I noticed the problem with Cespenar's Audio. It is already solved in v17 and the mod will be installed correctly. (It is one of the new tools)


@Cahir
The BWP does not support EE and I don not plan to support it for several reasons. In my guide there is a chapter BG classic vs BG EE where I discuss the reasons.

[Cahir]

Leonardo, fair enough, although I would not agree that "Most players are disappointed by the Enhanced Editions and say they are not worth the money." Maybe this statement was more accurate couple of years ago when both BGEE and BG2EE were bugged (especially BGEE had a very rough start), but now both games are in really good shape and there is a new patch along the way, which I hope will squash remaining bugs. SoD is a good expansion, way better than ToTSC and ToB if you ask me. There were massive rants by GamerGate haters, because developers dared to put some minor transgender NPC to the game, who has just about one line explaining her lifestory, but that was just that... hater's speech. The only thing that in my opinion is problematic with SoD is that it's currently English-only.


Besides I see the trend is starting to reverse. More and more modders (even those who did not fancy EE's at the beginning) are starting to switch solely to modding EE's, especially after patch 2.0, where many mod-friendly features of the engine were softcoded. I don't think there will be many more new mods made solely for vanilla engine anymore. True, some megamods and more obscure and less popular mods will probably never be converted to EE's, especially those where modders retired from modding and are now unreachable, but restricting BWP to vanilla engine only would in my opinion only limit the audience of this great tool.

But it's your tool and your entitled to do with it anything you want, of course. Just my two cents.

Edited by Cahir, 30 September 2017 - 12:35 AM.

[Roxanne]

@Alien

Short question - I used to do manual EE/EET installs in the past. I used BWFixpack but not BWP. It worked. - BWS uses BWP when installing EET, why? It did not hurt in the past, but with BWP1.7, BWS installs fail. Can it just be unselected? What does it add to EET that makes it necessary?

[Roxanne]

Recent problem with BWP 17 is caused by those lines inside BiG World Textpack.bat:

IF exist "BiG World Install.bat" (
    if "%BWIP%" == "" (
        echo.
        echo Please start the "BiG World Install.bat"
        echo.
        echo Bitte startet die "BiG World Install.bat"
        echo.
        echo Veuillez lancer le "BiG World Install.bat"
        echo.
        pause
        exit
    )
)

I assume that "BiG World Install.bat" is renamed before executing "BiG World Textpack.bat" to indicate that it was executed successfully. Then "BiG World Textpack.bat" check if "BiG World Install.bat" exist and if yes, then it thinks that it wasn't executed. But BWS doesn't execute "BiG World Install.bat" at all (except if you use "Install.bat" option for BGT, doesn't matter for EET). Ugly workaround would be renaming of "BiG World Install.bat" before executing "BiG World Textpack.bat".

 

I had indeed such an *ugly* workaround in mind for BWS installing EE:

 

CMD;IF EXIST "BiG World Install.bat" REN "BiG World Install.bat" "NoInstall.bat"
ANN;Run the Fixpack (now includes Trimpack changes), Textpack and Smoothpack batch scripts

Edited by Roxanne, 01 October 2017 - 12:10 PM.

[Leonardo Watson]

The last time when I looked into that unauthorized plagiarism of my Fixpack I was discouraged by its absolute mess. Fixes for previous versions of mods (NEJ for example) are also there as translations or parts of the Trimpack. Fixes for classic mods are mixed together with fixes for EE. This is far away from my neat arrangement.

At that time it was defined to create separate packs for different patches. For one thing players should be able to use them despite of the Installpack if they want to install manually, for another thing there were copyright reasons.

The various packs forbid to be installed as a precaution if the Installpack exists in the main folder because if one starts one of them unintended it will ruin the installation quite at the beginning. If there exists no Installpack then there will be no problem.

I have plans for at least three major updates for BWP. As long they are not realized I don't think about EE. Beside this I don't want to offer up half of the mods especially not the big mods only in favor of a handful EE NPCs.
 

[Almateria]

Can you please start sharing you tools and knowledge in case when you will go offline or hit by bus?

 

Eesh. You said the same thing to Wisp re: weidu

Why so morbid, maaaan.

[The Imp]

Can you please start sharing you tools and knowledge in case when you will go offline or hit by bus?

Eesh. You said the same thing to Wisp re: weidu

Why so morbid, maaaan.

It's actually a reference to an "old" movie, or the like, and it being morbid is the point kinda. Just like dropping down the elevator shaft trope. Or Jesus.

[The Imp]

@Leonardo

.. No wonder why you don't like EE if you don't even try to see beyond you closed door. I suggest you to rethink you biased opinions towards EE because it look silly.

Let's pretend that you didn't say that, but rather... say the same though behind the curtain with something like this:

 

"I don't doubt that the non-EE game works best the way it's it for now. But consider this works use of it in the long run where the new player doesn't even realize the the EE and non-EE games are different, just like where the BGT doesn't mean the -weidu version one, without going into it in the specifics".

Now then, if we replace the BGT-weidu with EET(within the EE games), and use the most up to date versions of the mods, that are not even EET exclusive, but compatible with both BGT and EET, after a few patches that the BWS fixpack contains already, we can use the same work in both the BWP and BWS. Except that the SoS is not yet compatible with the EET, nor is there an official release of NTotSC, just the Roxanne's version... and other such things that NEED to be resolved between you guy's, so we don't have the NEJ debougle yet again!

 

I know that the English language is not the best suited transference of information in a text form to most of us, but it's the best way as none of us know telepathy yet, as I myself am shit at this, and I have bad perspective of some of the members, but I try to navigate the middle all the same, and have found that if taken into the others perspective without preconception, the others opinion can be seen very much valid. Yes, I hate HOW: ALIEN says the things, but not the legitimacy of what's said as in most cases it's at least proportionally true. And then I just chulk the rest of the what's said by him to TV speech, or whatever. In case you failed to know, 90% of face-to-face communication happens non-verbally ... according to the myth that's probably 99% wrong, but still.

So just try to not miss-communicate.

 

... the EET requires the BGEE:Siege of the Dragonspear, not just the regular BG1EE, and other such things that need to be noted, that we don't all have *access to.

Edited by The Imp, 01 October 2017 - 03:00 AM.

[Creepin]

You can't ignore them by saying "I don't like it/I don't need it".

The facts says otherwise.
 

No wonder why you don't like EE if you don't even try to see beyond you closed door.

Knowing "what", "how" and "by whom" was done is sure enough to hate EE.

I suggest you to rethink you biased opinions towards EE because it look silly.

I suggest don't put filthy EE fingers in our good and nice classics, it looks bad any way you look.

[Leonardo Watson]

I have played EE but i don't like it as much as the classic game. That's my personally preference but I am not the only one who thinks so.

The installation procedure of EE will be different from the classic game and it will take time to figure out the best solution. I cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. As long I have not completed BWP (one of the best mods ever made for BG still is not included) and Siege of the Dragonspear is not available in other languages except in English I won't waste my time with EE. When BWP is completed and I'm not hit by a bus maybe I turn towards EE.

As for the different packs: long-standing members of SHS will remember the never ending discussions lasting several weeks about manipulating other's mods and breach of a copyright. The way BWP handles the fixes (with separated real fixes and patches for compatibility reasons in the fixpack) had been the common thread that modders agreed an I promised to conform to rules. Of course there could be easier ways but that's the compromise that had been made and I will never break my promise. The easiest thing would be to offer a complete modded game ready to use. But that would also be illegal.

[Almateria]

I'unno, I think most people related to the drama were just chunky neckbeards who are just really angry on making games in any way relatable to the real world, in which they are lousy incels everyone hates.

 

I mean that's my take on it as a trans person lol.

[Creepin]

@Creepin
Thank you for showing you true colors. You have joined to the EE-haters trio along with Vlad and micbaldur and I fell that you are proud of it.

Excuse me, joined? Now that's an insult - I started hating EE before it became popular and never hide it, as if there's something not to be proud of. And telling people there's only three of us is a blatant lie.

Edited by Creepin, 01 October 2017 - 07:14 AM.

[The Imp]

The easiest thing would be to offer a complete modded game ready to use. But that would also be illegal.

No. Why, cause people want to actually have a say on what the mods do, not just install one thing and have it there, or is there a popular LARGE mod that you know that has no options on install ?
Games today even give different kinds of options to mock about the ruleset. Likely far more than before.

@Leonardo Watson, could you to check up this BWP/S Fixpack, that the BWS is using. You only need to contribute to the BGT side... and it would be appreciated by all.

[Cahir]

Geez, guys, I just asked if BWP can be used to mod EE games. It can't, so EOT for me. No need to throw insults on each other. I respectfully leave this discusson now.

[s20dan]

The easiest thing would be to offer a complete modded game ready to use. But that would also be illegal.

There are ways around that. It would always be a grey area but as long as you don't distribute a *working* copy then it's usually ok.

 I have seen mods for other DnD games use and distribute entire sections of other games, however the installer requires certain files from the originl copy in order to work.