Baldur's Gate 2 - Modded Beyond Belief

[The Barbarian]

Hail!

The Barbarian was cruising the internets, not so long ago, and he stumbled on something of great import.

Behold:

http://www.shsforums.net/topic/44661-big-world-project-bwp-v90/

The Big World Project for BG1/TotSC/BG2/ToB.

Essentially, Conan understands that this is an easy-to-use set-up for installing a combination of BG megamods. For example, players can now install Baldur's Gate Trilogy - allowing them to play BG1 using BG2's engine, and as a seamless experience - combining it with a number of megamods (Darkest Day, Shadows Over Soubar, Check the Bodies, Reign of Terror etc. etc.), and Big World makes it all... function.

The Big World Set-Up is a standalone executable that:

1) Offers a number of different install options (Minimal, Recommended, Standard, Tactics and Expert - these are all different combinations of mods, the selections of which are customizable) and explains them, in turn.

2) Automatically locates the individual components and downloads them for the player.

3) Automatically extracts and installs them in the correct order.

Nift-ay, if the Barbarian does say so, himself.

For his part, he's rolling with a Darkest Day/Check the Bodies set-up, moderate numbers of new NPCs, lots of new item packs and some rules tweaks.

It seems reasonably stable, to the Barbarian, who will now go ahead and masturbate over his completed set-up.

This has been a community service announcement, brought to you by Faggots Excluded, Inc..

 

[Konjad]

another game to replay again, damn

 

[roll-a-die]

I think I knew about this around 4 years ago when it was first discussed(or possibly released) on spellhold, I didn't really care because BG2 never really impressed me that much.

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

There's certainly something to be said for variety combined with convenience.


Usually it's 'make backup, install a few mods, check stability, then repeat' for hours if you want to heavily mod pretty much anything.

 

[roll-a-die]

I can batch install around 60 mods for oblivion or morrowind and still be relatively stable. Same thing but more so for NWN.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Conan! What is best in Baldur's Gate series?

 

[The Barbarian]

Conan enjoys merciless slaughter in honorable combat. That is best in BG2.

He also enjoys shanking mages, who are fairy whores. There is no honor in them.

(Conan would suggest skipping BG1, and doing the BG2-only Big World install. Sexy, yet streamlined.)

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

I can batch install around 60 mods for oblivion or morrowind and still be relatively stable. Same thing but more so for NWN.

I typically hit the install limit, which is 255 for both. Fortunately, programs like Wrye Bash, BOSS, OBMM and several others take care of much of the problems with load order, sorting out conflicts, merging lists and other things. Which means I just have to read comments or descriptions by other folks who have played them, to get an idea if the mod will bugger the whole setup if I add it.





The chief problem with practically any relatively recent game is new releases of official patches, which will always break 5-10% of the mods out there, and then create a buffer of days to weeks where modders have to adjust.

Fortunately, none of the games mentioned so far really have that problem anymore.

 

[denizsi]

I'l never understand how people manage to find the motivation, patience and time to browse through, install and try hundreds of mods, decide on a final list, sort out conflicts AND still have the stomach to play Beth games, which are still shit in the end. Last I tried that, I was having a nausea after the 5th mod that caught my attention.

I miss modding, though. Scripting to create new functionalities was an entertaining practice.

 

[madbringer]

The Darkest Day was awful last I tried, though (that was when it was new). Horrible ports of areas from PS:T, bad writing, retarded super-powered everything. Was that ever improved or what, Mr Barbarian?

No. For all intents and purposes TDD is a balance shattering abomination created by what seems to be a team of 10 year olds who had little to no idea of what they were doing.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

(Conan would suggest skipping BG1, and doing the BG2-only Big World install. Sexy, yet streamlined.)

Why, BG doesn't try to drown you in mostly average writing, it focuses on adventure and killing things. Actually playing it instead of pretending to care about the plot is much more fun than playing BG2.

 

[pipka]

I remember when I played big mods for BG2 they were all crap. Better to stick to small ones which spice up the playthrough.
Darkest Day is horrible, it was the first of the big mods, so the makers back in the days (old TeamBG) tried to put every "cool" thing that sounded remotely amusing. But in the end you were stack with: unbalanced classes, worthless items, useless NPCs (silent with low stats from old BG) and stupid quests. And I'm pretty sure that it's still crap if it's based on old mod.
Check the Bodies was okay, but the creator put the stupidest thing I've ever seen: tedious chores in Candlekeep. You're child with slow walking speed and you have to run around Candlekeep from one point till another 20 times because your inventory is full. What do you get from this? Well, special abilities( scribing scrolls or brewing potions, Lathander's Boon). After that I just uninstalled the mod.
The only good big mod I'd tried was the Neverending Journey. It's porting of bigger part of IWD to the BG2. The portal behind the cells from Irenicus Dungeon is for time-travelling to the time of IWD 1. It could be considered a faithful port, cuz it's just copy-paste of interiors and monsters, the last dungeon being the fortress of Severed Hand I think. Ofc he changed the plot with his NPCs(Hrothgar is recrutable now). Oh, and it has a "beautiful"(with high CHA) emo half-orc, cleric of Ilmater(god of suffering) as NPC.

 

[denizsi]

SHIIT I just remembered I never played Trials of the Luremaster.

 

[deranged]

View my post on 'optimal' BG2 mod configuration.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic ... ht=#667076

 

[madbringer]

Check the Bodies was okay, but the creator put the stupidest thing I've ever seen: tedious chores in Candlekeep. You're child with slow walking speed and you have to run around Candlekeep from one point till another 20 times because your inventory is full. What do you get from this? Well, special abilities( scribing scrolls or brewing potions, Lathander's Boon). After that I just uninstalled the mod.

God, those chores were horrible. Worst one was milking the cows - doing it once, then standing around like a fucktard till their sacks refill, which took about 10 real time minutes. And i think on day two or three you had to do this four times. Jesus christ...

Still, the rewards were pretty nice. You could also get some nice combat manouvers from that guard guy if you did all the chores for the day, and ol' Papa could teach you a spell (IIRC you could choose between Dispel Magic, True Sight and something else).

I don't even recall what the other content from that mod was.

 

[CrimHead]

Hmm. Sounds interesting. I don't keep up with the BG modding scene, so forgive me if this is a stupid question, but I recall hearing that this let you play all the installments in the series as one continuous game. Is that true?

 

[madbringer]

Yeah, basically. Barbie said it already, BGT turns BG1 into a "mod" for BG2. You play all the content from the first one on the second one's engine, and once you're over with that, you go straight into Irenicus' dungeon with your character intact (minus the items, of course).

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

The only good big mod I'd tried was the Neverending Journey. It's porting of bigger part of IWD to the BG2. The portal behind the cells from Irenicus Dungeon is for time-travelling to the time of IWD 1. It could be considered a faithful port, cuz it's just copy-paste of interiors and monsters, the last dungeon being the fortress of Severed Hand I think.

Interiors are indeed plain old IWD, but monsters are not. They are, way, way more difficult. You have to use retarded stuff like "protection from undead" scrolls, and even then it's very difficult. Sort of tactics in the snow. I hated tactics, I hated this.
I think I tried all big mods for BG2 and they range from shit to subpar.

 

[-=DarlSephiroth666=-]

Modded or not, it's still a shitty RPG.

 

[pipka]

The only good big mod I'd tried was the Neverending Journey. It's porting of bigger part of IWD to the BG2. The portal behind the cells from Irenicus Dungeon is for time-travelling to the time of IWD 1. It could be considered a faithful port, cuz it's just copy-paste of interiors and monsters, the last dungeon being the fortress of Severed Hand I think.

Interiors are indeed plain old IWD, but monsters are not. They are, way, way more difficult. You have to use retarded stuff like "protection from undead" scrolls, and even then it's very difficult. Sort of tactics in the snow. I hated tactics, I hated this.

At least, you had to use those scrolls. While most of the time I sold them in vanilla BG2.
Funny enough, my playthrough of NJ coincided with Tactics. I used Improved Undead part, and those undead-themed dungeons became unbearable.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I think I tried all big mods for BG2 and they range from shit to subpar.

So give us a list of must-have mods, you cunt

None. Last time I re-played I only used some ease of use components and cosmectic stuff (like nice ioun stones animations).

But I'll take the opportunity to mention this, it's a total conversion, recreating old D&D modules. It has many flaws, but it's certainly more interesting and ambitious than any goofy gigantic add-on.

 

[Barghest]

I'm using BGT (http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/bgt) with a few helpful mods. I would stay away from BWP unless you enjoy substandard content...

 

[Lothers]

I'll rather check this out.

 

[SCO]

The must have mods are the "no-cd mod", fixpack, tweakpack, unfinished business.

Soon maybe there will be a executable wrapper that will fix in memory some engine bugs and limitations like only (a small number) of kits, some crashes, scrollable spellbooks, etc, etc.
http://www.shsforums.net/topic/43639-bg ... tal-tobex/
And a animation replacer that puts animations from other games into bg2 and fixes some animation bugs (though i don't know if this is included in the fixpack - it should imo)

It's interesting to see how a game can combine mods if the modders use the right tool.

Right Wesp? Isn't it interesting? Want to see bloodlines mods combinations? Use something like WEIDU for the bloodlines scripts.

 

[The Village Loon]

Interesting. Already got my Baldur's Gate boxes out of the closet a week or two ago with the idea of replaying them (again) with BGT. Thought about checking out the IWDs first as I've never replayed them.

 

[Konjad]

i never replayed iwds while i replayed bg dozens of times

 

[coaster]

View my post on 'optimal' BG2 mod configuration.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic ... ht=#667076

I'd agree, except I'd add the BG2 Fixpack from Gibberlings 3 near the start, and Assassinations mod from PPG which has some nice quests for evil types. Oh and Wheels of Prophecy also from G3 to add some non-linearity to Throne of Bhaal.