Baldur's Gate & Baldur's Gate II Mod Thread

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Game just downloaded a 1.5 GB update on Steam. The fuck did they do? Can't seem to find any information.

Icewind Dale got a 35 MB update as well.

This is one of the things I hate most about Steam. Games update automatically. There used to be a way to turn it off, but they disabled it and now the best you can do is have it update only when you start it.

I think Infinitron is posting the change logs in the other thread.
BG1 and Dragoncrap:
https://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/ind...enhanced-editions.69788/page-211#post-5752230
BG2:
https://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/ind...enhanced-editions.69788/page-209#post-5688444

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

What the fuck managed to kill BWS? That was a stable for at least a decade...

Number 1 thing is that Spellhold Studio's website is down. A least one core competent is hosted there. Not sure why everything isn't at least backed up on Github at this point.

And Beamdog is still updating, so all the mods need to be update and so does BigWorld.

But it's not abandoned from the devs? They are basically just waiting till everything calms down? I think with EET there are lots of new possibilities opened...

No idea if it's really abandoned, but it' been broken by SHS's outage for nearly a month now and they haven't done anything about it. I see someone updated the translations in the last month for the setup, but no idea about the installpack, textpack or if the project is ever going to be updated again.

 

[agris]

Do any of you remember which mod gave red pommels to high quality / fine (non-magical) weapons? It isn't the Tweaks Anthology, it isn't the old G3 Icon Improvements.

I thought it was either Hard Times, or SCS's component "Replace many magic weapons with fine ones", but Hard Times doesn't have any BAM files in it, and I checked the SCS bams and didn't find them.

Grunker Sensuki

 

[Grunker]

Hmm, no idea soz

 

[Baardhaas]

Do any of you remember which mod gave red pommels to high quality / fine (non-magical) weapons? It isn't the Tweaks Anthology, it isn't the old G3 Icon Improvements.

I thought it was either Hard Times, or SCS's component "Replace many magic weapons with fine ones", but Hard Times doesn't have any BAM files in it, and I checked the SCS bams and didn't find them.

Grunker Sensuki

It's part of SCS Item Tweaks.

 

[Anomander Rake]

Today, I tried the EE tool I told you to avoid. The author deliberately removed some mods that would be available on BWS fork because she really has the attitude of making you play her game, not the game you envision it to be.

The most notable absence between BWS fork and her EE fork is that she removed the disable enhanced edition npc mod.

Another thing - for example nowadays we got EEtweaks for EE - well, she won't make you install it unless you use EET. But that mod is also compatible with each installment of BG ee that came out and you are not supposed to have to use EET.

But she wants you to install EET, otherwise, get fucked

 

[Chippy]

So I appreciate this is bad form, but I've only been skim reading posts here and there - but is is a somewhat accurate summary to say that Beamdog are killing the Mod scene because they break mods with every patch, the modders are all / mostly a bit pissed off, and we would all have been a bit better of if they got the EE edition mostly working about 3-4 years ago and just let the modders fix and improve it?.

Only asking becasue I need to give it about 6 months to a year to memory wipe my recent/first playthrough including SOD and if the modding scene is dead, I'll just go back to the originals and not wait on any significant mod from the community. Which if true is another crime against art Beamdog have commited.

 

[Anomander Rake]

Nah, you are over thinking it.

Beside, are you referring to anything in particular or just the mod scene per se? Beamdog revived the modding scene and made new blood flow.

 

[Grunker]

Mod scene is alive and kicking thanks to EET

 

[agris]

Level1NPCs was even updated to support it. Now that I know about Lefreut’s UI mods, I’m coming around to the 2.x line.

It’s still a head-shaking shame that you can’t pick the resolution to play in.

 

[Grunker]

Level1NPCs was even updated to support it

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSS! I see it just came out like a week ago. Great news. I lost hope that would ever happen.

 

[Chippy]

Nah, you are over thinking it.

Beside, are you referring to anything in particular or just the mod scene per se? Beamdog revived the modding scene and made new blood flow.

That's good to know. I was keeping an eye on a mod at SHS that I think was a multi kit pack (x3 conventional kits at once, still in beta AFAIK) & EET, but from just reading their forum stumbled on another mod called Neverending Journey that apparently already has IWD1 modded into BG1 & 2. I can't find much details on their mod though, because true to form for most modders, they spend years making these fantastic mods and then you go to their site and the FAQ doesn't work, or they haven't written a readme or even a paragraph of information describing what their mod actually is.


But nice to know its all still alive and kicking.

 

[ghostdog]

So, mod-wise, are there any good new mods for the BGs, or is it basically updating the old ones to fit the EE?

 

[Grunker]

good new mods

Depends on whether you use quest mods. There are a bunch of new ones which are more well made than the often very amateurish quest mods (save quest pack etc.) of the old mod scene.

With total conversion mods, I believe there's a couple much more functioning IWD/IWD2 into BG2 mods compared to the old ones.

If you're like me and don't use quest mods, not really. Just couple of upgrades like EET and Tweak Anthology.

 

[agris]

I'm hard-pressed to think of quest mods that aren't poorly written and chock-full of balance busting spells and items.

 

[Grunker]

That's the general case, yep, hence why I don't use them much. I found Tower of Deception to be an exception IIRC

 

[agris]

That's the general case, yep, hence why I don't use them much. I found Tower of Deception to be an exception IIRC

I think I agree, it's been a long time since I played it - but I don't have an averse memory of it like I did NTotSC, TDD, or a host of other ones. Or the Planar Sphere mod *shudder*. Did you ever play any of the Colours of Infinity mods? I've never tried them, and never read an opinion of them from someone who doesn't slavishly eat up mod content.

 

[hell bovine]

Slightly off-topic, but I couldn't dig out the old IWD thread. A new combat-enhancing mod for IWDEE is out. (haven't had the chance to test it yet, as usual )

 

[Grunker]

That's the general case, yep, hence why I don't use them much. I found Tower of Deception to be an exception IIRC

I think I agree, it's been a long time since I played it - but I don't have an averse memory of it like I did NTotSC, TDD, or a host of other ones. Or the Planar Sphere mod *shudder*. Did you ever play any of the Colours of Infinity mods? I've never tried them, and never read an opinion of them from someone who doesn't slavishly eat up mod content.

Nope, but I hear they are almost PS:T-like in their gameplay, very little combat.

 

[non]

Hi KK1001 these are your essential mods for BG1 non-enhanced.
In the following install order: install BG1 and BG2, BGTutu, BG2 Fixpack, Degreenifier (to be safe some computers make the water green), BG1 NPC Project, BG Sword Coast Stratagems, BG Tweaks.
I also like Coran enhanced dialogue. If you want to doublecheck install order check cmorgan's post at Gibberlings III.

A lot of people will recommend X number of different mods or big install pack stuff, but this list has the very best mods and isn't overly long to get through your choices during installation. I always play with just those mods for my own playthroughs. : )

"BG Tweaks" is deprecated and is now replaced by "Tweaks Anthology" though right?

Also, I'm interested in just running BG 1 in the BG 1 engine for a more pure experience (no BGTutu, BGT, or EE). What kind of mods and fixes should I get then? I'd just like to have a very stable and "conservative" setup with minimum risk of breaking things through incompatibilities or adding unbalanced stuff.

I just want bug fixes, a widescreen/resolution mod, and some quality-of-life tweaks (like maybe bigger arrow stacks).

 

[Tigranes]

I haven't checked out the mod scene for a couple of years, but it looks like they merged all the tweak/fixpacks/ease-of-uses into one:
http://www.gibberlings3.net/tweaks/

So I would just pick and choose the sensible, conservative fixes there, plus widescreen mod.

 

[non]

Tweaks anthology seems to be exclusively just tweaks though - no bug fixes (which I'm pretty sure you'd want as well?). But it's cool that they rolled a lot of tweak mods into one thing.

Edit: Or maybe just running with the latest official patch is good enough concerning bug fixes?

 

[Gorn]

Anyone's got first-hand SCS + Spell Revisions impressions to share?

What about the BWS 'recommended' quest mods - Back to Brynnlaw, Eilistraee's Call, Spellswords etc.?

 

[hell bovine]

Anyone's got first-hand SCS + Spell Revisions impressions to share?

What about the BWS 'recommended' quest mods - Back to Brynnlaw, Eilistraee's Call, Spellswords etc.?

I didn't like the arcane spell changes (SR tones down horrid wilting and skull trap, but improves other spells too much), but liked the divine. Both druids and clerics have sufficiently different spell lists that it makes sense to run both in the party, e.g. clerics get healing, druids get regeneration. I probably wouldn't play with this mod again, but it made for an interesting playthrough, where druids felt like their IWD cousins, instead of insect plague dispensers.

 

[Jarpie]

There is some mod which expands the Xan/Harpers quest so that you can screw the harpers and help Xan. That was pretty well made, but it was just small addition, which is probably why.