144 replies to this topic

[Sergio]

Trollford -> I didn’t like this mod and I don’t recommend it at all.

Story: you go to umar hills and a woman asks you to find her son. You rescue the son and come back. Then if you act polite you get a reward from the mother. The son will then ask you to find his girlfriend (that you fred while exploring the dungeon). Charname comes back to Windsp... I meant trollford and finds the girl bottom right (the nimph place in windspear). 

Notes:
1) the woman giving you the quest speaks from the fog of war and you cannot refuse her quest.
2) Trollford is a clone of Windspear hills.
3) There is another robe of Vecna waiting for you in the place where you would find the anti-dragon weapon and armor in vanilla firkraag’s dungeon.
4) mod is as linear as it can get.
5) You (almost) always have 2 dialogue options, but rarely people react when you behave badly.

TL;DR: why do I have to play a copypasted area with the excuse of rescuing a child, when it’s already done better with Firkraag Dungeon?




 

[Sergio]

Purskal -> I didn't like this mod and I don’t recommend it at all

 

You buy a map from a guy in Five Flagons inn (but you have to be of X level before this guy appears).

You enter the village and go talk with the chief. He tells you something strange is happening in a mine nearby: miners die and it is thought it is due to a disease. The chief asks you to cooperate to find what’s the source of the issue. He assigns you two quests before going into the mine:

> get wood

> get a bird to check the air inside the mine.

 

You enter the mine, go deep, find they unsealed an ancient tomb, the chief of the village dies in a cutscene drained by an undead, then go deeper. You finally find the culprit of every death: a lich.

You kill him, then go back to the village, no one cares about what you’ve done, it seems. No one cares about the chief dieing as a fool either. 

 

 

- Purskal is a clone of bandit camp area. 

- Clicking on people named (town lad) does nothing, they have no dialogues.

- If you refuse from the chief the quest, he won’t speak to you anymore and as such the area is now totally useless.

- the first level of the mine is a clone of level 1 BG1 mine

- The mod is as linear as it can get.

 

TL;DR: it’s just a mod with an excuse to destroy X undeads

Ah wait, there is also a fetch quest: inside the tent in the center the father of a child asks you to go fetch a herb for his dieing son. You go to the docks in Akt and you find the npc selling them (he is near the harpist headquarters). The herbs costs 500 gold coins, and so I chose to steal it. The npc that gives the quest won’t talk to you if you steal the herb. Seems like this “path” was overlooked. If you don’t steal the herb you can heal the npc, but the mother near him won’t acknowledge. The father does and you get

+1 rep

2900 xp

 

[Sergio]

Riatavin -> I played it and I didn't like it. I don’t recommend it

Spoiler

You meet a dwarf in Copper Coronet that tells you he comes from Riatavin and marks it in your map.
You go to Riatavin and a bard here tells you that there are strange happenings in the city: rogues seems to have “invaded stealthily” the city and are murdering some of the most preminent people, but mostly traders.
You are told to go to an inn where you could find some informations, and the tavern bartender tells you the rogue are acting like that because Riatavin is a trade center that provides Athkatla with lot of goods: the rogues (that are from Calimport) wants Calimport to have the precedence over Athkatla.
Also you are said that Artemis Entreri is leading this group of thieves.

You explore the city until you go north-east and enter the fortress with the guards. They asks you to go with Amroch, their chief, and Amroch tells you they sent the major with soldiers to Athkatla to inform them of the issues in Riatavin but they never came back. You are asked to go to the city gates to discover if they at least got to Athkatla, not before Amroch casts a spell on you to help you in your “travel”.

As soon as you leave the building with the guards inside, a cutscene appears and you are revealed that
1) Amroch is working with Artemis entreri in exchange for riches.
2) Artemis has the control of the whole guards thanks to a gem
3) the convoy was killed by Artemis
4) Then Artemis kills Amroch.
5) The spell casted on charname should be a pain soon.

You reach the city gates where you are told that no convoy reached Athkatlaand you are told to go to the council of six buildings to talk with the director of Athkatla trade, Aramir Estel. You tell him everything but suddenly a new cutscene starts: you are interrupted by a mage that tells that you have on yourself a malevolent aura and that you are the source of the issues in Riatavin.
Sadly here, your charname talks out of the blue saying “[...] the wench! She has placed an aura on me [...]”.
You get jailed.

A new cutscene starts in the jail. The mage that detected your malevont aura tells you that in the council they have talked about your case and that you would be sentenced to death if they had evidence but they do not. Charname tells him “you are making a mistake, old man” (reminds me of Sarevok).
So you get sent to Spellhold instead of getting sentenced to death.

Well you get sent to Spellhold via ship.

Meanwhile another cutscene starts. Tolgerias (how lovely) inside the council of six buildings tells that the evil is still in Athkatla and that they have sentenced to Spellhold the wrong people. Meanwhile the mage that detected the evil on you, goes to Artemis to inform him of this happening and Artemis kills him.
Artemis then decides to use the gem to have Nelanther pirates storm the docks of Athkatla, to make them appear as the culprit of all the trade issues (instead of Calimport being the reason of these problems).

Meanwhile you are in the ship and the captain of the ship after seeing that all different bands of pirates are storming Athkatla decides to go back to alert the council or w/e and you happen to be once again in the docks of Athkatla.
 

You kill all the pirates in the docks of Athkatla and after trying to leave the docks from north a shadow thief  (?) accompanies you to the council of the six where you get a reward for helping deflecting the pirates. Charname tells him it’s shadow thieves fault this happened (?). I still don’t understand how the shadow thieves got involved in this but whatever. You get a prize from shadow thieves, the order of the radiant heart, and then the shadow thieves ask for your help again.

The shadow thieves tell you the city was searched for the great evil and all it was found was a gem on a dieing mage; the dieing mage told he got orders from a masked man that cooperated with drows. The dieing man also mentioned a place where drows and the masked man hide. You are tasked to go there.

You go there and it’s a clone of the area of BG1 where you find the two druids fighting each other and the stonehenge monument top right. Here you meet at north-west a bladesinger (named Sorovin) that tells you the area we are in is inhabitated by a banshee (also his sister) and that we have to stop her because there is a chance she may summon a creature so powerful that it will be the end of all things (it didn’t say exactly that, but you got the idea). They tell you it’s south east, I went south east, but it’s not exactly south east, you have to leave the area -.-.

The new area is a clone of suldanesselar forest. You find a door middle-east. Youy are now brought to a clone of umar temple exterior area. You enter the cavern north-west and meet the banshee. You stop her but the creature whose summon you were trying to stop is already summoned.

The banshee in his last grasp tells you that if you wish to stop the beast you have to go hell, before the creature gathers enough energy to be unstoppable. And if you kill the beast, you can get from her a claw that will grant you any desire you wish.

To go hell you have to go to talos’s temple and ask for informations.  Talos’s servant sends you to hell.

A new cutscene appears: the creature has now spawned and clashes with Tartarus, the actual demon lord of this plane. You are then teleported to Tartarus. You find Tartarus and kill him for the claw.
The claw is supposed to give you three desires, but, well, these are not chosen by the player but happen automatically (the claw reads charname mind):
1) it heals you and your party
2) second desire: it opens a portal
3) Third desire: you wish to be a drow on the eyes of Artemis entreri and all the others in the area (and no, you have no other desire to choose manually).

You go once agan to the forest of mir. You meet Jarlaxle and he asks you what you are doing there. You ask him to join him and he says you have to prove your worth.

He teleports you to the underdark and you have to kill three dragons for him. You kill the three dragons, Jarlaxle starts a ritual you interrupt simply by moving. The ritual is done just to communicate with Artemis Entreri but our moving made Grazzt himself gets summoned.

I don’t know if you know who is grazzt: https://forgottenrea...om/wiki/Graz'zt

While escaping, Grazzt challenges charname and you have to fight him (doubt very much charname would resist grazzt unless it was endgame ToB). You then go near the portal that summon earth golem and find
a githzerai from sigil that wants to help you. He teleports you to the surface.

You go to umar hills, go north, a child tells you someone is hiding in umar cave. You go into umar cave and kill Jarlaxle. He drops: Paws of cheetah, Mithral armor+4, edventar’s gift, elven bane (belt), batalista’s passport (ring).

The good:

I liked the beginning. And hoped the mod would turn out better.

The bad.

There is so much to say that I will just say: what’s the point of having to go in the nth cloned area just to kill and kill and kill non stop.  I will use some notes to make everything faster:

- Riatavin is a clone of Beregost
- The cloned areas take you out of the game
- The mod is linear
- Dialogues are cheesy
- Charname dialogues are cheesy
- The story is cheesy
- The story turns confusing sometimes (why are you doing a ritual to communicate with a person and doing the ritual wrong summons one of the three ultimate demon lords)

There also few more optional quests:

- Orgot’s tower: enter the house where in Beregost there are the 4 spiders you are supposed to bring the corpse to firendly arm inn. Here, a mage asks for your help: he tells you that when Amn went through some sort of political struggle, the blame was put on the mages that were exiled to the wild. Most of them died; but Orgoth found a fortress and made it his home. To exact revenge he summoned many demons, not before putting up many contingencies to ensure his safety. But Errtu, one of the demons he summoned, turned on him. As soon as Orgot died, a contingency he set before was activated – and all the demons died. But they have now returned.

You use the world map to reach the tower of Orgoth (a clone of Spellhold area) and in one of the cells you find a slave. He was imprisoned by Orgoth and has been there for 100 years. The “prisoner” tells you he was a prisoner of Orgot, and Orgot put on him a curse to make him never die from starvation, but to always feel the hunger. He asks you to bring him a healing salve.

You go to the second floor, and it’s a copy of Nalia’s fortress. The area behind you is now “barred” in the sense that you can’t use it to go back from where you came and you are now forced to explore the area.

There you have three choices:
> You go to the library of Nalia’s fortress, take the stairs and reach Spellhold second floor (all this area has are just crimson death monsters that you have to kill)
> take the golem stairs to reach spellhold first floor
> go to the right stairs and appear inside an area clone of flaming fist  cellar.  (here you find the healing salve).

The salve has no effect, so you go inside the experimental chambers (library stairs).

One minute long of you seeing a cutscene with special effects on the corpse of the guy. You didn’t expect it (no one did) but the guy in the cells was Orgoth.
The mage tells you he wants to destroy Riatavin and leaves right after. You now have to go to Riatavin.

As soon as you leave the area, a cutscene appears. In my case it crashed badly.

So you kill some demons in Riatavin, in the middle of the map Orgoth appears. You kill him and a cutscene starts where the quest giver and Orgot face each other, while friendly demons are in the middle just doing nothing (I take it was probably an oversight, but w/e).



- Mage district. You pay 3000 gold to a mage where the road leaves the town towards the east. You are now in Sigil (the area is copied from planescape torment).

1) As soon as you enter you are asked to bring some items to a guy to restore his memory (Another fetch quest, yay!). I kindly refused.

2) I entered the huge building to the east, only to find in an area that is a straight copy of Council of Six in Athkatla where you meet Khelben Blackstaff, Elminster and other people. They task you to find a diamond that power the wards that make magic possible in Athkatla. If you won’t get the diamond for 500 years magic (even magic from items) won’t work anymore.  They assign you this quest because being so powerful these mages would be discovered as soon as they entered Calimshan, where the diamond is supposed to be.
You will be escorted here by a genie near a black obelisk

Note: near the black obelisk there is The nameless one. You can’t talk with him and he is just playing with his dagger.

Given that I could not find the genie, I almost lost the will to keep playing this mod. But I will endure, for great content lies ahead of me.

I asked Roxanne why the genie was not here; she answered: « Djinni should be standing in the shadow right side of the obelisk. Check C:GetGlobal("tz_enterhhelbhall","GLOBAL") if it is 9 he should have spawned, if it is below 8 you have not received the quest that spawns him.Otherwise, if nothing helps C:CreateCreature("genietrv")»

Variable in my game was 3, that’s why the genie didn’t appear.  Anyway I summoned the genie and now a new great adventure awaits us. The genie brings you to the place where the diamond is; he adds he won’t be escorting you back and that you are going to have to find another genie to do your bidding and to come back home.

You enter a huge building on the left and charname offers himself to work for the pasha (the one that has the diamond you’re looking for). You go downstairs and meet the Pasha (he is a djinni). He gives you a quest: he asks you to go to the prison and take the heart of one of the guards, because this guard is starting to believe the story of the prisoners and he is “starting to believe them”.

You go to the guard and you can either kill him for the heart (but the dialogues with the Pasha will contradict a bit what you’ve done) or use a heart from the horses in the area.
You see, when you talk to the pasha, he will ask you where the body of the jailor is: but if you killed him, you just left his body in the prison. But you can say only that you’ve fed the body to the jackal or buried it, because the author expects you to have gone the good route and asked the jailor to hide.

Anyway the pasha is happy with what you’ve done and tells you he has a strong relic that will make him renowned and become the supreme pasha. He asks you to kill some people north because they know the pasha has the relic. Note: one of the people here has maevar’s strongbox key but it seems that only the name is wrong and that the key will be used later (?)
 

Anyway the pasha is happy you killed everyone and assigns you one last task: go to the arena to fight some creatures to prove your mettle.
But even there I met another bug: the pasha was not there and the arena was empty. I asked Roxanne for help again and she suggested me to use the code “C:CreateCreature("salam02")”. That worked. The pasha said I’ll have to face some monsters.

Turns out the Pasha knows we were after the stone and wants us to fight to death in the arena. We fight a few mobs, then the pasha fights us personally. But it turns out we got his lamp and he can’t restore, so we use him for our three wishes. Charname decides that:

1) Pasha has to deliver the stone to <charname>
2) Pasha has to teleport us to Riatavin


And 3) the player can now choose between these possibilities:
a) banish the djinni
b) send him to the abyss
c) be gifted a fry and that the pasha suffers all the pain he has inflicted

Well I chose the abyss. Then you come back to elminster and you are rewarded with a stat gain.

All in all, even the optional quests did not match my expectations and I didn’t like them.

Edited by Sergio, 03 October 2019 - 09:56 AM.

[Sergio]

Onnset of the darkest day -> I don’t recommend it at all

Spoiler

Note: When I use this style of writing, it means I’m straight up writing the dialogues of the mod in the review.

After you summon the avatar of Rilifane, you’re supposed to speak with elhan twice. You are teleported to candlekeep. You get teleported to a dark version of candlekeep, the one that Irenicus shows you in one of your dreams (the one where you get the chance to choose the bad answer and rain of lava engulfs all the scenery).

A npc named Karan speaks with you to tell that while you were into Suldanesselar, something evil worked in the shadows to influence the Time of Troubles and to stop that he asks you to go downstairs and to speak with “the high order of candlekeep”, made by Karan, Tethoril, Bendalis, Firebead and Phlydia.

You talk with them and they say you the darkening of the Candlekeep halls is due to an evil god, but they are not able to identify what is currently happening and they task you to go north to find a master of the art.

The other components of this council will travel South to find these masters too.

We are tasked to find Alustriel in silvery moon (https://forgottenrea...riel_Silverhand)

A dwarf, named Gandar, will be our escort to the North. Given that the lady is used to travel between 10 different cities at the heart of winter, we will be finding her in the village of Easthaven.

As soon as you arrive to the place, a commoner asks you for help. The village is being invaded by many monsters, last but not least Balors and Glabrezu. As soon as you kill everyone the Alustriel appears and after resting (I rested right when I met her), you talk with her in the temple.

She tells you this: an elf lost his family to drows and plead the Gods for help to resurrect his wife. Only Cyric answered him; but instead of resurrecting the wife, after a brief ritual, Cyric inhabitated the body of the wife right before the time of troubles ended. The wife has still a little piece of Cyric residing in her body. And it seems that even if the body has still no godly powers, the body still has some sembiance of power due to the possession of the gem that was used to do the ritual (? I got confused too, don’t worry, had some difficulties even writing all of this?)

How is Cyric doing all of this while Jon is currently sieging Suldanesselar? Thanks to Jon! Jon is doing much damage to the realm (I take she is probably talking about the material plane or w/e), enough “to disrupt the balance of magic and time. That allows Cyric’s essence to return to the Prime to serve him here”.

Cyric is using the “relic” to drain the land of his strength and to gain enough power to open a gate to the heaven – “a gate that will allow him to walk the land in his material form at full strength. We can’t allow that to happen”

So... the relic is the fuel of his fortress, and to enter the fortress we need another relic of equal power and that’s Crenshinibon (https://forgottenrea...ki/Crenshinibon).
The demons we faced before talking with the silver lady were servants of Errtu (https://forgottenrea....com/wiki/Errtu) and we have to ask him where to find the relic.

To fool Errtu we will have a ring that masks us as Balors and conveniently Errtu is east of the village. He will bring us to the Shard. You gain a ring that makes your appearance become that of the Balors.
Just to test how bugsproof the mod is, I didn’t actually equip the ring and yes, Errtu will still talk to you without noticing you are a human. He asks you if you got confirmation about the shard being in the place it is supposed to be. You tell yes, and follow him into a cavern (full of mobs) and when you reach the place the shard is not there. Errtu gets mad.

He tells you that the relic gets his power from the sun and given that the sun is drained, the relic does not emit enough heat to be detected instantly, to the point that even infravision is useless. Thanks to an “error” on the dialogue made by charname (but I need that relic! Of course Errtu notices the I) and a fight ensues.

The fight gets interrupted by Alustriel; she teleports both the party and the balor to the temple, then proceeds to banish the demon. Alustriel tells you that our search was in vain, that the relic cannot be found and that we should return to Amn.
You go to the bridge and find Gandar here. You go back to Athkatla

So.. as soon as you are back two things happen:
> a commoner tells you he saw a mountain moving and marks a place on your map
> a cutscene starts where you see a couple together inside their house. The wife leaves but gets killed by the bandits. Then the husband comes and sees the wife and asks for help to someone. Cyric answers and resurrects the girl, then disintegrates the husband.

By the way, Alustriel tells you to go to Suldanesselar, but it seems that you can’t go there and the solution I’ve published above actually tells you that in Suldanesselar you’re not going to find anything. So we are lucky the marker point was disabled.

You go to the new place, named Rusted Scabbard (it appears South-east of Suldanesselar marker points). It’s the place where the cutscene with Cyric killing everyone happened.
When you talk to the people here , they complain about a strange disease killing them and the innkeeper tells you about a Castle/mountain in the sky. You go east and find a mage trying to get inside the castle\mountain in the sky. This mage tells you he needs a wardstone to get there and to find it for him.

You enter the house of the couple, but it crashed on me twice. So I had to ask for help to Roxanne here: http://baldursextend...8/#Comment_5888

Luckily you are not required to go to that house. After you were given the quest to find a wardstone, go north and near a ranger. A man with no memory will spawn, and after you’ve talked with him, he will drop a letter that tells you he was in Lathander’s temple in Athkatla.

So after you go into the temple, you find this priest that was healing the guy. You talk with him and he turns into a monster. As soon as you kill him he possesses every npc you got in the party. Given that the game bugged badly during this part, I decided to just drop all my companions when facing him.
So I killed the elemental, but I lost Imoen because when I dropped her instead of coming to talk to me she entered the temple. We will miss you, Imoen.

You bring the wardstone to the mage. You teleport with him to the fortress.
You go inside, kill many monsters.
Then you find a ghoul asking you to play a game with him (I didn’t, I just killed him).
Then you go upstairs, find a key on the east, open a door, go further in, go upstairs, and you find the wife.
You kill her and you find the relic on her.

You bring the relic to the mage to teleport back to Athkatla. You meet some people and they tell you’ve finished the Darkest day.

> Text errors
> the phrasing on dialogues is not good at all. E.g “each one of us” -> we
> Why would you talk twice to Elhan, unless you knew that the mod adds content to Elhan
> Why would you stop following Irenicus right before he is going to become a God, to do this quest?
> Story is cheesy and contradicts game lore.



 

Edited by Sergio, 05 October 2019 - 04:48 AM.

[Sergio]

Also a note important enough to be in his own post: all the TDD content lacks of map markers. Why is this a flaw? Because it's not fun to go into a place knowing there is a tons of generic and filler content. The map markers should be a way to give direction to players on where the meat of the mod is. It's not fun having to enter all the houses just to read some generic mumble or to raid everything. 

Iylios npc mod -> I didn’t like it and I won’t install it anymore

The good: Iylios has a strong personality.

The bad:
- I can’t see my charname having Ilyos with him all the time. Why? Because he acts like an entitled prick all knowing. He constantly tells you that he is watching over you and that if you choose the wrong path you will pay the price. I guess that one time it is fine, second time too, but at the third it is so annoying that I can see any of my charname, including the good-aligned one turn into the slayer and feast on his body.

- I had hoped that having Iylios with you during the Balthazar encounter would have changed something. But it seems like there is no content, apart from a banter Iylios will tell right after killing Balthazar where he screams that he will make amelyssan pay.

Edited by Sergio, 03 October 2019 - 05:11 AM.

[Shuv-Oohl]

With respect to Purskal:

You're not supposed to walk back to the town but instead You get teleported about 5 or 6 rounds after killing the lich (or maybe after looting the chest he guards). Arriving back in town a cutscene starts that explains some background and thereafter the chief of the town thanks you and gives a reward. This is the end of that mod.

 

I didn't check if there are some variables set within this cutscene but Your experience (with the Nameless One) in Riatavin makes me believe that this is the case.

 

Anyway I'm just writing for sake of completeness and I doubt very much that the cutscene would change Your opinion on that mod.

[Sergio]

Shuv-Oohl I appreciate your remarks. 

What do you mean when you refer about my experience with the nameless one? The solution here mentions http://www.geocities...an3001/tdd.html that the nameless one can be attacked, but that he will always respawn and w/e.


Mod for the orderly -> I won’t install it anymore, but I would advise you to try it .

So north of the slums, you’re approached by a grey-cowled guy in the slums that asks you to bring him a scroll of “friends” in exchange for a ring.

What I didn’t like:

1) No matter how many “friends” scroll you have, he will take them all.
2) Given that the mod is just another container, I would have preferred it to be sold at Ribald rather than having a quest you can “stumble” into.
3) They key-ring, sadly, does not work like in Arcanum. In Arcanum, once you got the keyring every key will just be automatically added to the keyring, while here, being just a mere container, you could just use a bag of holding and you would have the same effect. It's merely for cosmetic reason.

 

Edited by Sergio, 04 October 2019 - 05:44 AM.

[jastey]

As far as I know, the mod offers two choices: add the contaner to a shop, add it via quest. From the readme:

 

2'. Subcomponents (or which version should I install?)
Following a suggestion from a mysterious and alluring stranger, this mod now offers you a choice of installation:

Component 1: Nanoquest version
This installs a tiny, tiny, tiny little quest that you must complete in order to gain the keyring. The keyring itself comes with a wordy irrelevant description that may or may not be mildly amusing (hey, I wrote it, what else do you expect?).
Component 2: Consistency Plus version
This installs the suggested version where the keyring is found in a storekeeper's possession, much like the in-game gem bags and scroll cases. ie You buy the keyring rather than complete a quest to get it. The keyring's description is brief and to the point. Stop cheering.

 

 

It's a bit unfair to give a bad review if you chose the wrong install for your taste?...

[Sergio]

Thanks, I didn't know that!

I installed it via Roxanne's BWS. I will report this to her.

 

Still, the review is far from bad. I reviewed the "quest" option and the point 1) is still true: No matter how many “friends” scroll you have, he will take them all.

And the point 3) still remains: <They key-ring, sadly, does not work like in Arcanum. In Arcanum, once you got the keyring every key will just be automatically added to the keyring, while here, being just a mere container, you could just use a bag of holding and you would have the same effect. It's merely for cosmetic reason.>.

Edited by Sergio, 04 October 2019 - 02:49 AM.

[jastey]

I meant the "won't install it again because" and then your reasons being your dislike of the quest.

 

Thank you for your reviews!

[Sergio]

Anyway... Thanks for your comments. I liked also the comment by Shuv-oOhl so I get the full picture for the mods I actually play.

Edited by Sergio, 04 October 2019 - 05:54 AM.

[Almateria]

Iylos gave my charname a wet willy

You might think theres a punchline to this sentence but no thats just what happened in a dialogue

[Almateria]

Anyway for the key ring to work like in Arcanum would be an impossibility. Im not even gonna count out but youd need an active script larger than any area has them running combined or literal tens of thousands of item combinations

[The Imp]

@Sergio: You might want to edit the first post and index the review posts per mod.

[Sergio]

Never Ending Journey (only available for classic Baldur’s gate)  -> worth it. I think I will be reinstalling it every time I play classical BG2.

Difficulty in reviewing the mod: It is difficult to review this mod, because Vlad thinks of it as an unicum that has to be appreciated together with the entirety of components of Vlad’s compilation: in fact Vlad’s compilation has components that actually integrate and are being used inside NEJ.
So when reviewing Nej I will actually be referring to how Vlad wants Nej to be experienced and so some components from Vlad’s compilation will be “considered” too.
The meat of the mod will be NEJ, not the other stuff being added.

Story, as explained here (http://forums.blackw...p?showtopic=988): This mod is actually a whole game in itself without any connection to the main BG2 plot. The first part of the mod takes you from Irenicus's dungeon back in time approximately 100 years to a small town in the Spine of the World known as Easthaven. If you have played IWD then the plot follows the IWD game from there with many new items and dialogues between NPCs. There is also a new optional kit for Imoen, which retains her original class as thief if you wish, designed specially for her, and three new joinable NPCs. The second part takes place after you have returned to and exited Irenicus's dungeon. There are three more new NPCs whom you can add to your party. Hrothgar's is the main quest/plot and is what NeJ is all about. Throughout the game he will take you into the past several times and also, into the future in order to complete his very important quest. There are many, many new areas to visit as well as those of Baldur's Gate. You will have the opportunity to gain new spells on the completion of mage specific quests and discover new items. All new NPCs come with quests of their own, and all come with their own weapons and items.


Never ending journey is divided in three parts:

- One takes you to IWD
- The second takes you to Halruaa
- The third takes you to IWD

Spoiler

- When you start Never-ending Journey, the first thing you’ll notice is that there is a new person inside Irenicus dungeon. That person is Shar-teel: I really really enjoyed the way she is written and I found her interesting. She has content for both NEJ1 and NEJ2, but none for NEJ3. It is advised you bring her with you because she is likely to express her comments about a lot of things you’ll be doing in these places.

- To actually start Nej, you are supposed to go to the portal next to Jaheira. When you go there, you’ll get teleported to IWD and you will begin in Easthaven. Truth be told, after doing a couple of quests, you’ll be joined by Hrothgar (the main protagonist of NEJ) and Accalia (if you wish).
Here you’ll find the first “completionist” problem, because.... you are supposed to clean Irenicus dungeon before going to IWD.
But if you clean Irenicus dungeon, you’ll probably have Jaheira, Minsc, Imoen, Shar-teel, then yourself.
But in the first part of NeJ, Hrothgar will suggest you to bring Accalia with you and later you’ll also find a cleric half-orc (Dar) that can join you.
All of these have banters with each other and also with the BG cast.
So... prepare to play more than once?

- Irenicus dungeon is also touched by Nej with various things being added, one of these being the cambion having really good stuff on his body.

- After you come back from NEJ1 and to the future, you’ll be asked to be joined by another npc (Melora)
and you can find another in Trademeet (Taffic).
All of these characters have quests related to their background linked to the actual game.
So...
- Dar will have a quest concerning slavery;
- Melora will have a quest concerning a bounty hunter hunting her.
- Taffic has a quest concerning a demon (I didn’t bring Taffic with me)
- Sharteel will have a quest concerning Firkraag

You’ll get new map markers after you come back to the future and you can start Nej2 whenever you wish by going to Ulcaster ruins.

After going to Ulcaster ruins you’ll get back once again and you will be brought to Halruaa. They are not used “just for the sake” of having different areas, but it seems that “thoughts” have been behind the various additions.
In Halruaa, you will actually try to prevent the destruction of Ulcaster and you will meet many mages, even from your “future”, or should I say “past”, like Xan, or Mordekai, etc.
You will also have different quests that will actually be proposed to you, like:
1) Get a body of a strong mage for a necromancer
2) Find who is actually thieving a shop
3) Various encounters in the sewers, like some people actually trying to kill you because you have found them, and they are supposed to be waiting a mage that should pay them for “precious” ore.


Said this, after having finished the quest of Nej2 you will be brought to the future.

Also, don’t think npc won’t act on their desires. They will leave you.
 

You will be able to enter NEJ3 by going into the air elemental portal inside the underdark. I have to say that the last part of Nej3 is quests from IWD and sadly Hrothgar is silent during everything, beside when you enter and when you leave the place. But still, I was satisfied by the content and I actually will replay it.


So Nej’s quest is now done.

What can also be added?

1) Vlad’s actually moved some stuff in sensible spots: for example, you’ll find the entirety of flails of ages inside the Nalia’s fortress, rather than having to actually go inside watcher’s keep to get all of it.
2) The itemization is pretty great, making you face a new world with new items and be drowned in a lot of equipment; you are going to find many new items and Vlad added an “item upgrade mod” written by him where you will find yourself amazed by how strong you are going to get.
3) Vlad tweaked some rewards you get in the quests: like the ring of Gaax or the reward you get from the nymph inside Windspear hills.


Are there issues?

1) Apart from some text errors due to the magnitude of the mod, I found only a bit of confusion in one part: when you go back to the future, the last cutscene you imply you’ll be using a certain tool. There are also some dialogue options where you can suggest you’ll be going back to the future from Kuldahar, but not choosing them, will make the npcs answer you as if you had actually chosen that answer. This is a bit unimmersive and I think was recently added to make the player actually go back to Kuldahar and solve the last quests there.

2) There are some nitpicks that I will be probably be publishing in a topic inside Vlad’s forum, but these are mostly nitpicks and reading them can provide you with some suggestions for the playthrough you would be doing someday.

3) Remember that NEJ and Vlad are not supposed to be installed with other mods. So ... if you're in, you either play the way it is envisioned by Vlad (http://forums.blackw...?showtopic=5425) or forget about it. 
 

 

Edit: Review was edited tue to the fact that I'm going to talk about vlad compilation in a separate review.

Edited by Sergio, 17 October 2019 - 03:05 AM.

[Azazello]

All said, I like NEJ. But we must be honest...

 

Never Ending Journey (only available for classic Baldur’s gate)  -> worth it. I think I will be reinstalling it every time I play classical BG2.

Funny (not haha) that you complain about other mods rehashing areas from the base game, but are thrilled by NEJ's usage.

 

Also a bit confused- there's been a version of NEJ available for 'BP' (i.e. MegaInstalls) for years.

 

So when reviewing Nej I will actually be referring to how Vlad wants Nej to be experienced and so some components from Vlad’s compilation will be “considered” too.

Another funny - if you really want to experience NEJ the way Vlad wants, you would never include it in a MegaInstall!

And the funnies keep on coming- when Vlad made the 'Vlad Compilation'. Looks like a megainstall to me!

 

Edit: Review was edited tue to the fact that I'm going to talk about vlad compilation in a separate review.

I hope you put that not only in a separate thread here, but also on BWL. Vlad will love that.

 

 

Keep the reviews coming!

Edited by Azazello, 24 October 2019 - 01:16 PM.

[Sergio]

1) I don't think you got my opinion right when I talk about area reusage. What I don't like from mods is when they copy paste areas without the minimal effort just to fill it with barely an ounce of content and expect me (and some would say "charname") to actually believe it's a different area just by naming them differently. 

What actually happens in Nej is that the author(s) actually used original areas as link to their new content. So, for example, you get a new slavery quest in the old bandit camp, that is used by slavers after all the time passed and the camp got deserted due to your meddling in the past. That actually is a smart way to add content without it feeling like a sore thumb, because you are making new “believable” content for the old areas.

 

2) The other comments left me a little indecisive about what you want me to realize. All in all, I wrote inside the review that the version I used was the one Vlad published on his website, that Vlad wants it to be installed it in a certain way (see "issue 3" inside the review) and that Nej proved to be stable and without bugs of any sort. 

[Sergio]

Vlad’s compilation -> Worth trying. I like some components more than others.

Readme

Spoiler

 My present compilation comprises the following components:

1. Baldurdash Fix Pack for SoA-ToB, v1.76 WeiDU
2. Tortured Souls v7.06
3. Keldorn Romance v1.0
4. Third Path
5. Improved Monk Class (by Vlad)
6. "Firewalker" Shar-Teel (custom kit and continuous character) plus her unique quest, improved Firkraag's Dungeon and Firkraag himself (by Vlad)
7. Leina - New Bard NPC Character, Romance, Flirts (many and all the time) and Quest (by Vlad)
8. Priest of Sylvanus (Druid) Kit and Improved Character Jaheira (by Vlad)
9. New Jaheira Portrait (by Vlad)
10. Restored Anti-Dragon Items and Powerful Swords (by Vlad)
11. Restored Twisted Rune Quest (by Vlad)
12. Improved Copper Coronet and Slavers Encounters (by Vlad)
13. Improved Shadows and Shadow Dragon (by Vlad)
14. Restored Dak'kon's Blade (by Vlad)
15. Improved Nymph (Woodland Being) Script (by Goeran Rimen)
16. Dual Wielding Fix for Rogues (by aVENGER)
17. Cromwell in Brynnlaw and Item Upgrade (by Vlad)
18. Captain Golin and any-time voyage from Brynnlaw to Athkatla and back (by Vlad)
19. Cespenar's New Items Upgrade
20. Improved Character Anomen - Stats and Items (by Vlad)
21. Improved Character Nalia - Stats and Items (by Vlad)
22. Improved Character Jan Jansen (by Vlad)
23. Improved Character Aerie - Wildwanderer of Baervan (custom kit, stats and items) (by Vlad)
24. Improved Character Edwin - Red Wizard (custom kit, stats and items) (by Vlad)
25. Improved Character Viconia - Darkcloak of Shar (custom kit, stats and items) (by Vlad)
26. Charming Rogue - Continuous and Custom Kit Imoen (by Vlad)
27. Enhanced Encounter with Illasera in ToB (by Vlad)
28. Enhanced Encounter with Gromnir in ToB (by Vlad)
29. Enhanced Encounter with Yaga Shura in ToB (by Vlad)
30. Enhanced Encounter with Abazigal in ToB (by Vlad)
    

 

 

 

                                                    [Baldurash fixpack]

Spoiler

Nothing to report.

                                                                [Tortured Souls] http://forums.blackw...p?showforum=163 -> Worth playing, but I doubt I will install it again.

Spoiler

Story: Tortured souls makes possible to remove Yoshimo’s geas and see his relationship with Kachiko grow into love.

Pro:

- the sceneries are cool;
- the mod is finely written;
- it can prove a nice diversion to the usual “you are going to get betrayed”, provided you go for the good ending of the mod.

So why I will probably not install it again? There are a few things that made me dubious about reinstalling it:
 

1) After you save Yoshimo, there is an issue I met by entering the asylum as a patient. The issue is that Irenicus spills his beans and “kinda” tells you everything about him. I don’t like this, because it totally diminishes the impact of Irenicus by making the player carefully sum each clue he is finding during his time. Reading Irenicus saying that he hates her (Referring to ellesime), that he was an elven mage, etc etc, that he studied necromancy falls short and make the game feel like those bad movies where things are told rather than shown.
Image: https://imgur.com/a/5no4Hh6

2) There is also a chromatic dragon in the island, but you don’t seem to get any note on how to beat it. You are supposed to have done Watcher’s keep for that.

3) TS also adds Sime and Valygar romance, but:

- Sime romance is only for SOA. There are no ToB banters, so the romance is incomplete. There are a few banters (sarevok is an example), the encounter with the master wraith and an ending for TOB, but that doesn’t satisfy me at all.
Said this, I still played Sime romance SoA and the romance didn’t match my expectations and I didn’t enjoy it very much. The only “piece” of content I liked was related to you meeting her father and her father blackmailing you to treat Sime well.

- Valygar romance: I don’t like Valygar as a character and I do not care much about male romances. So I didn’t experience this piece of content. Note: Valygar has ToB romance.

4) The evil path is not as intuitive as it could be:  http://forums.blackw...?showtopic=5453

                                  [Keldorn Romance]
             This romance was a rollercoaster. I won’t play it again. Suffice to say that

Spoiler

a) this mod is about YOU falling in love with Keldorn.
b) Prepare to see your expectations be whipped around, because there are some concepts thrown around that aren’t exactly faced by other mods (e.g Virginity)
c) you have to go deep in the romance before sailing to Brynnlaw
(http://forums.blackw...indpost&p=57347)
d) The author has a personal idea of how you should be romancing Keldorn – for example, there is a certain scene where even asking a question about what is going to happen to Keldorn without immediately sacrificing yourself is seen as “doubt” and will make you not get the best reward.
e) the author expects you to use the journal, when there are sudden changes. Sometimes the “news” are delivered by the journal rather than you seeing them.
f) It adds an option I personally don’t agree with that makes you able to spare Sendai.

 

                            [Third path] -> almost a must.

Spoiler

This component makes it so that you can go to Gaelan and tell him that you don’t care about the help of the thieves guild and that you will extract the informations you’re looking for from their hides. Bloodlusty? Of course. Worth it? Very much so. The dialogue with Gaelan, when you tell him of your proposal is a little bloody, but it is still acceptable.
When you kill Aran, you’ll find a message on his corpse related to Saemon, where it is written that Saemon will be awaiting for Aran in the Sea Bounty’s Tavern for the following 10 days. When you feel it, for 10k Saemon will bring you to Brynlaww.

The integrations is (almost) seamless and there are only two gripes:

- when meeting Drizzt the game acknowledges you’ve joined the thieves guild rather than having just cleansed them.
- betraying the thieves makes it so that you are continuosly ambushed by thieves in some areas every time you return, and these encounters never stop. They should be “deactivated” after underdark.

Images: https://imgur.com/a/UJjwaUe

 

 

6.            "Firewalker" Shar-Teel

Spoiler

I enjoyed Sharteel. If you are planning to enjoy her the most I would play like that: after finishing Nej1, go straight for Nej2, then do Firkraag’s quest. That’s because she has banters with the whole Nej’s cast but not the bg2 cast.

My suggestion on how to enjoy her and Nej the most:

1) Take Hrothgar, Accalia, Taffic, Sharteel with you
Accalia will leave you after Nej1, so you can go get Melora (I met her near Waukeen’s promenade) and Taffic (he is in Trademeet).

2) Do their quests in Nej2, and they will all leave apart from Sharteel and Hrothgar.

3) Then go straight for Firkraag’s quest with Sharteel in your team.


Note: Sharteel has no ToB content nor any banters with Bg2 cast and will leave you after you finish her personal quest.

 

7. Leina

I got a bug with her that made the romance stuck: so I can’t write my experiences about her. From the little I’ve seen it seems to be decently written.

10. Restored antidragon items

New items to kill dragons. Do I need to add more?

12. Improved Copper Coronet and Slavers Encounters (by Vlad)

This component not only toughens the slavers and makes it so that if you destroy the slavers they will ambush you in some areas of the city every time you return until Underdark.
Also, it seems that the slavers are now linked to the compound you have to enter via the use of a rogue stone in the bridge district, but I didn’t start the quest so I cannot express my thoughts on that.

 

17 + 19.  Cromwell in Brynnlaw and Item Upgrade + cespenar's New Items Upgrade

I already mentioned this in Nej’s review. I like the new upgrades to the items and you are going to get really powerful, as a Bhaalspawn deserve.  

 

 

All the rest

I won’t make any note about kit mods and difficulty enhancing components. You either like them or don’t, and that is all related to personal feelings.

Edited by Sergio, 18 November 2019 - 01:49 AM.

[Senka]

Thank you for your report!

I answered to you in BWL

[Sergio]

For anyone curious about my exchange with Senka, click here: http://forums.blackw...t=0

Another mod review: 
 

The minotaur and Lilarcor [BG2: http://www.shsforums...r-and-lilacor/] -> I won’t install this mod anymore

According to me,  this mod has several flaws:

 

Spoiler

1) IT DIMINISHES PLAYER’S IMMAGINATION FOR ONE OF THE (MANY) DIFFERENT ANSWERS. In vanilla, when you see the minotaur, it’s up to the player to actually fill the voids of what you just saw. Why is the minotaur there? What was he planning to do ? Were they hiding because they are monsters? Were they actually hunted?  So, every player can have different answers according to the player himself.

Not here: the minotaur actually tell you he is searching for a sword.

2) IT DIMINISHES THE BEAUTY OF THE AREA. Everything that happens in this area is somewhat obscure, concealed. There are oddities around, like pipes talking, Quallo being a friend with a vermin and “non-hostile” kobolds. You even meet “the hidden” here if you do Jan’s quest. The minotaur is just another one of these oddities, especially when you read his words while dieing once you enter the place.

But with this mod, the minotaur speaks to you and talks about a sword being hidden inside the place: by doing so mod author actually changes the underlying tone of the area itself – maybe the player won’t immediately realize that the sword the minotaur is referring to is the prize of the riddle, but still... half of the “magic” for the player is actually discovering what’s the prize of the riddle...

3) I DON’T FIND THE MINOTAUR REACTION “REALISTIC”. I don’t understand why the minotaur should be actually spilling you everything and telling you everything about what his purpose was.
Beside I find the encounter really really odd. The minotaur actually explains you everything after he saw everyone of his party die.... Okay. So, a minotaur just saw a massacre of his party and is so polite to actually explain you everything: but the reaction I would probably be expecting is blind rage (he would be probably bloodlusted – frenzying) or him being silent after realizing that he is going to die like his friends here.

4) LINEARITY. The mod itself is slave to his own “linearity”. So the party of the minotaur dies, but why can’t I actually resurrect the party and everyone else given that it seems you just reached them while the clash was just happening?

I didn’t enjoy this mod and I won’t install it anymore.