25 replies to this topic

[Magus]

So, following up on the fiddling, I went on and packaged a formal release. At this point, most people have probably moved to EEs, but anyway...

 

I would say that it's "unofficial", but it's not like TobEx has ever been "official". I also could say that you use it at your own risk, but it's always been that way, too.

 

Changes are here. Basically, spurious saving throws and magic resistance messages should no longer be displayed. Also, there's a fix for user patches applications, which means that various mods such as 1pp HQ music or Show HP on NPC can do virtual patches instead of modifying the exe directly.

 

What else... I guess if there are other issues, feel free to report them to github (I don't check this forum regularly). I'm way over my head with this, so can't promise anything about fixes, and it's extremely unlikely that any new functionality would be added. Still, there's no harm in asking.

[Vlan]

Does it require a new BG install or can I install it over my old one?

[skellytz]

Thanks for attempting to fix those issues I'd really like to say "good job," but it seems like you've lost a lot of credibility by stating you know little about the inner workings of the injector, only copy-pasted some portions of the unreleased WIP version, and haven't checked if everything actually works as intended. Personally, I don't feel comfortable downloading an untested DLL and can't really recommend this version.

 

I suggest testing the affected features thoroughly to make sure the overwritten code didn't mess anything up and writing a short report detailing what you've tested. If you need help testing, it's probably better to ask if anybody would like to help; otherwise, few people would be interested in providing feedback.

 

I'd be grateful if you could do some in-game tests and report back here with more confidence I'm sure then some other players (myself included) will give it a go and confirm the results.

[Bloodtitan]

I have not moved to any EE and with all that we have here and a few selected other places, I see no reason why.

[subtledoctor]

I have not moved to any EE and with all that we have here and a few selected other places, I see no reason why.

There is crazy shit that you can do with the latest EE engine that you can't do with the old engine + ToBEx.

 

That said, holy crap, a new ToBEx release in 2020?  That's amazing.  Maybe @Bubb could pitch in...? If some of the new EE stuff could be backported to ToBEx (opcode 321, opcode 318, opcode 316, SPLPROT.2da), I would happily port all my mods to the old engine...

[Vlan]

I have not moved to any EE and with all that we have here and a few selected other places, I see no reason why.

There is crazy shit that you can do with the latest EE engine that you can't do with the old engine + ToBEx.

 

That said, holy crap, a new ToBEx release in 2020?  That's amazing.  Maybe @Bubb could pitch in...? If some of the new EE stuff could be backported to ToBEx (opcode 321, opcode 318, opcode 316, SPLPROT.2da), I would happily port all my mods to the old engine...

Define crazy shit. Are there any big game changer mods for EE out there that completely revamp the game system?

[The Imp]

Define crazy shit. Are there any big game changer mods for EE out there that completely revamp the game system?

Meaning ? You are fasmiliar with EET, a mod that imports other mods from BG1EE and BG1 into BG2EE ? That a lot more than BGT-weidu did. There's the kit etc stuff that were not possible in non-EE games.

[Vlan]

Am still using my old BGT build and still havent seen a reason to switch. That's why I was asking.

 

Also, I am familiar with BGT, and I am pretty sure that you can play mods from BG1 in BGT (???). Not sure what exactly you're getting at here.

[Cahir]

Am still using my old BGT build and still havent seen a reason to switch. That's why I was asking.

 

Also, I am familiar with BGT, and I am pretty sure that you can play mods from BG1 in BGT (???). Not sure what exactly you're getting at here.

Jarno meant that you can visit BG1 areas once you complete BG2. Modders can add stuff i.e in Baldur's Gate city, that you can experience after completing Underdark or killing Irenicus. For instance modder can add a mod that would uncover true mind flayer conspiracy in Baldur's Gate (which is one of the conspiracy theory circling in the web). As far as I know there is only one mod that uses this EET feature: The Cowled Menace.

 

As for other EE-only features, there are a bunch of rule/mechanic changing mods that are dependent of it like: Scales of Balance, Tome and Blood, Might and Guile, Faiths and Powers, Will of Power, Golem Construction, quite a few gorgeous UI mods and many more. Those mods *can* make your gameplay rules *very* different from your vanilla/BGT experience. Can't tell if it would be enough of an incentive for you to switch for EE, but yeah, EE engine allows for much more than classic engine in terms of modding.

[Vlan]

Am still using my old BGT build and still havent seen a reason to switch. That's why I was asking.

 

Also, I am familiar with BGT, and I am pretty sure that you can play mods from BG1 in BGT (???). Not sure what exactly you're getting at here.

Jarno meant that you can visit BG1 areas once you complete BG2. Modders can add stuff i.e in Baldur's Gate city, that you can experience after completing Underdark or killing Irenicus. For instance modder can add a mod that would uncover true mind flayer conspiracy in Baldur's Gate (which is one of the conspiracy theory circling in the web). As far as I know there is only one mod that uses this EET feature: The Cowled Menace.

 

As for other EE-only features, there are a bunch of rule/mechanic changing mods that are dependent of it like: Scales of Balance, Tome and Blood, Might and Guile, Faiths and Powers, Will of Power, Golem Construction, quite a few gorgeous UI mods and many more. Those mods *can* make your gameplay rules *very* different from your vanilla/BGT experience. Can't tell if it would be enough of an incentive for you to switch for EE, but yeah, EE engine allows for much more than classic engine in terms of modding.

Ah ok, thanks for the clarifying that.

[The Imp]

Jarno meant that you can visit BG1 areas once you complete BG2.

No, I didn't. I meant that you install your favorite BG1EE mods into BG1EE, and then you use EET to bring them into the BG2EE game.
Yes, you can play BGT-weidu compatible BG1 mods in the BGT-weidu... but that was not always the case that there were BGT-weidu compatible mods for the BG1 portion of the game. There were Tutu only as well as BG1 only mods. Before, most of them were converted. Try to get official Finch NPC mod for BGT-weidu. Ups, there isn't one... there's only the unofficial BWP one. ..for example.

 

Also the EE's allow multiple campains in the same start menu, so eventually you'll be able to start from anywhere you want, have the IWDEE and BG1EE, BG2EE and other starts in the same game.

 

But this is off topic of course, so let's get back on to it.

Magus, I wish good things to you.

Edited by The Imp, 28 July 2020 - 07:19 PM.

[Magus]

Does it require a new BG install or can I install it over my old one?

You can install it on top. If you have previous Tobex installed standalone, you can just replace the dll - faster than reinstalling all mods installed after Tobex.

Thanks for attempting to fix those issues I'd really like to say "good job," but it seems like you've lost a lot of credibility by stating you know little about the inner workings of the injector, only copy-pasted some portions of the unreleased WIP version, and haven't checked if everything actually works as intended. Personally, I don't feel comfortable downloading an untested DLL and can't really recommend this version.

 

I suggest testing the affected features thoroughly to make sure the overwritten code didn't mess anything up and writing a short report detailing what you've tested. If you need help testing, it's probably better to ask if anybody would like to help; otherwise, few people would be interested in providing feedback.

 

I'd be grateful if you could do some in-game tests and report back here with more confidence I'm sure then some other players (myself included) will give it a go and confirm the results.

Man, where's your sense of adventure? .

I don't really care whether someone recommends this version. I just made a fix and shared it with hopes it'll be useful to someone, that's all. (That goes for all of my public work.)

The changes to the actual code were trivial. And I would actually love to make a playthrough, but unfortunately I don't have the time for it at the moment.

As you can see even from this forum, Tobex always had bugs, sometimes serious ones... That didn't prevent people from testing it. You're free to follow your preference.

 

That said, holy crap, a new ToBEx release in 2020?  That's amazing.  Maybe @Bubb could pitch in...? If some of the new EE stuff could be backported to ToBEx (opcode 321, opcode 318, opcode 316, SPLPROT.2da), I would happily port all my mods to the old engine...

It's just small bug fixes. I think that now any serious effort is better spent on GemRB. My understanding is that it's quite playable now, the only thing that prevents me from switching is game speed/fps.

Edited by Magus, 28 July 2020 - 07:19 PM.

[skellytz]

No offense intended or anything. I was just excited about the update and didn't want it to disappear without actual player feedback like the macOS version of BGT We're on a roll right now: staff members are active and several modders are working on classic mods that haven't been updated for over seven years. This productive phase will go away eventually and before that happens (and I say goodbye to the community), I'd really like to see the main mods offering a faithful alternative to the EEs updated with staff-approved releases on the forum downloads and the official GitHub. So, now is the best chance for TobEx download page to get updated to v28; we need to convince the staff that the fixes are valid.

 

Looking at the commits, compiling must have been a pain (241 files changes just for the workflows compiler to work, only 1 file with the actual fixes).

 

Correct me if my understanding is wrong: the excessive saving throw messages were caused by incorrect type conditions and missing checks if the save has already been made, ie bSavedVsType returned true five times in a row (because there are five types of saving throws). Ascension64 didn't fix the magic resistance messages, but it looks like you've figured it out on your own: an incorrect variable was used in the condition (cRollMagicResist instead of rollMagicResist) which caused it to continue through each effect.

 

Doesn't look like anything that might break the saving throw fix or magic resistance mod fix, but we'll have to test these features:

* If an effect has multiple saving throw types (e.g. all five), then the best saving throw of the target is used.

* If a target of an effect does not save versus any type, but modifiers result in a successful save (i.e. effect save bonus, save bonus versus same mage school type, and specific save bonus versus object type), then a successful save is not reported in the dialogue bar.

* Targets with improved invisibility should get a +4 saving throw bonus against effects from creatures that cannot see invisible.

* Magic resistance mod fix

 

Thank you for all the work!

[Salk]

I would love to have ToBEx officially updated and improved on.

 

It is an exceptional piece of software that could be made even better if some opcodes that are currently EE-only were to find their way into it. 

 

I do understand where skellytz is coming from and I do agree with him that this is a wonderful opportunity to inject new life into the classic Baldur's Gate games which I personally keep playing with no intention of "moving on" to EE.

 

Keep up the good work, Magus!

[Vlan]

I would love to have ToBEx officially updated and improved on.

 

It is an exceptional piece of software that could be made even better if some opcodes that are currently EE-only were to find their way into it. 

 

I do understand where skellytz is coming from and I do agree with him that this is a wonderful opportunity to inject new life into the classic Baldur's Gate games which I personally keep playing with no intention of "moving on" to EE.

 

Keep up the good work, Magus!

Can only agree to that. I would love to see new OpCodes for BGT as well. 

[khelban12]

Congratulations to Magus for his work.

 

I tried it too in the past and it was very tedious. Every MFC version (or whatever was the framework needed) i tried, resulted in crashing. There was only one MFC version that i could make work and only in a certain compilation mode. And after some testing (i think it was Salk that posted in this thread that found the error), it didn't work correctly.

 

So, i understand the labour Magus has put to make it work. Thank you for your time.

[subtledoctor]

mods for EE out there that completely revamp the game system[s]?

Mine...

 

But, I have no particular loyalty to the EEs.  (Not a particular fan of Beamdog, personally.)  It's just that there are about 8 particular things that I can do in the EE engine that I can't do with TOB+ToBEx.  If someone managed to port those 8 features into ToBEx, I would 100% be modding BGT instead of the EEs.  (Well, probably the EEs too, I like that I can play on an old iPad, I never managed to get that working with GemRB.)

 

Most of the stuff I use in my mods came in the 1.4 patch - which was when Beamdog integrated a bunch of opcodes and actions from IWD.  Considering that IWD is out there for anyone to dig into... Beamdog aren't rocket scientists, if they could hack IWD opcodes into the BG2 engine, then other people can too.

 

I mean the main things I rely on in the EEs aren't a lot:

 - EE opcode 321 (cancel effects by resource)

 - EE opcode 337 (cancel effect by opcode)

 - splprot.2da and EE opcodes 318/326 (conditional immunity/conditionally cast spell)

 - extended functionality for opcode 233 (including the ability to decrement proficiencies)

 - splstate.ids and opcode 328 are nice, but not even necessary if you have the extended opcode 233 functions

 

I guess lately I've done some stuff with the EE UI that could not be replicated.  But it's not much.

 

EDIT - now I'm thinking, wouldn't it have been amazing if instead of people porting IWD into the BG2 engine, they ported BG2 into the IWD engine?  Then a lot of the stuff I've made could have been done 15 years earlier...

Edited by subtledoctor, 04 August 2020 - 12:05 PM.

[The Imp]

Then a lot of the stuff I've made could have been done 15 years earlier...

Really? OK, try to get an NPC to join the party. How about it... feel stupid now ? Yeah, they broke the original games functions of the game by making it multicharacter singleplayer start game, it's the same in IWD2, which is why the IcewindGate project failed. Quote from IWD NPCs mods readme:

 

For the original Icewind Dale:

To start playing, create your protagonist in the first slot, and import your
companions(O#Holvir, O#Korin, O#Nella, O#Severn and O#Teri) alongside. Make
sure to choose correct soundsets(O#Holvir, O#Korin, O#Nella, O#Severn and
O#Teri) for them.

IMPORTANT! IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO STOP AND WAIT FOR A FEW SECONDS FROM
TIME TO TIME, ESPECIALLY AFTER ENTERING A NEW AREA, TO ENSURE THAT PC-NPC AND
NPC-NPC BANTERS TRIGGER WHEN THEY SHOULD.
(classic IWD only, not IWD-in-BG2 or IWD:EE).

These limitations are not present in IWD-in-BG2 conversion and IWD:EE.

...

So what they actually did, was they brought the IWD into the BGEE engine via BG2, just like DavidW did with his mod. As it was their actual pre-alpha.

Edited by The Imp, 05 August 2020 - 03:03 AM.

[DavidWallace]

Jarno is right: it wouldn't have been viable. The BG2 engine has enormous amounts of functionality that the IWD engine lacks. The IWD engine is basically the BG1 engine with new opcodes (and, I think, less party support), whereas the BG2 engine is a significant expansion of the BG engine's functionality. For instance, PRO files and CLAB files are new as of BG2: in BG1 and IWD, projectiles and class abilities are hardcoded. And of course IWD doesn't have kits.

 

BG1TUTU is a *relatively* straightforward conversion because practically all the functionality of the BG1 engine is replicated in the BG2 engine - you just need a careful, systematic mapping of resources and tlk entries. IWD-in-BG2 is much less straightforward but it's possible - the extra work is mostly un-hardcoding the hardcoding content and hacking around the various new opcodes and the like. (And about a hundred other small-to-medium things, because the IWD engine evolved in lots of small ways from the BG2 engine, but I won't bore you with them - the point is, most of them could be worked around).

 

BG2-in-IWD wouldn't have been possible at all: far too much is missing. BG2-in-IWD2 (Weimer's 'Icewind Gate' project) wasn't quite so obviously impossible, because the IWD2 engine is much more powerful than the BG2 engine and incorporates much of its functionality, but it turned out not to be viable. IWD2-in-BG2 is probably viable (particularly given EE functionality) if you don't mind back-converting the rule system from 3e to 2e, but hasn't been done yet. (Beamdog obviously don't want to take a liberty as drastic as dropping the 3e system, which I think is why they haven't taken that route.)

[DavidWallace]

So what they actually did, was they brought the IWD into the BGEE engine via BG2, just like DavidW did with his mod. As it was their actual pre-alpha.

That's nearly right. I actually wrote the IWDEE alpha from scratch (it's not been publicly released) but it was very heavily based on v7 of IWD-in-BG2. The main differences were
(i) I took out all the hacky conversions of opcodes and projectiles, because I knew Beamdog would be able to sort those out at the engine level (that's where 318/321/324 come from, they're replicating very powerful IWD opcodes not in vanilla BG2).
(ii) I did a systematic remapping of strref entries. IWD-in-BG2 followed the TUTU/EET strategy of just appending the whole tlk file onto the BG2 tlk file, but that's ugly and bloated for a standalone game. For IWDEE, I wrote code to map the 3000-odd lines in BG2 used by non-game-specific resources (spell descriptions, etc) into unused strings at the end of the IWD tlk. If you compare IWD and IWDEE, their tlks are virtually identical up to 35,000 or so.