In Progress LP Big World BGT

I'm a masochist at heart. I relish in self-inflicted pain. So when I found out some maniac (or group of maniacs?) had compiled every goddamn mod ever made for BG2 into a giant installer to make the biggest retard-fest in all the west, my curiosity was piqued. But there's a limit to how much I'm willing to suffer before it becomes personal.

And this has now become an ordeal which I must share with the world. You're all going down with me. The world must know of the full extent of the travesties unleashed by this "tool."

Look upon it and despair.​

And don't get me wrong, I'm well aware of the endeavors of other LPers to document the atrocities of the modding community; but none have been able to capture just how *truly terrible* the experience can be. Audiovisual elements were missing. Mods were left out of the coverage. I will bring you the full experience - it's coming. The train has left the station.

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This is our main guy. In an ideal world, I'd be anything else. But in Big World, nothing matters, and the cheese factory is hiring with an equal opportunity policy. The basic mechanics of the game will still give him hell at the start, but it'll quickly dissipate.

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Things start innocently enough, though we're already getting feedback from arcane mods tucked away in Big World's interminably long installation order. Some mods are familiar enough to where it's obvious what they're fucking with, and others...

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Not as much. This spawns in our inventory whenever a new game is launched. Examining it summons a modder from a list of modders, who promptly spouts an in-joke and/or casts a random particle effect. We'll get to that when the time comes, because there's something more important to gawk at.

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This potion is one of several which gets added to every merchant in the game. We get three for free at the start, and they aren't prohibitively expensive. I really hope I don't have to connect the dots for you on this.

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Also, we get to pick a subrace. We're going with Aasimar because Tieflings are overrated and I prefer the bonuses to WIS and CHA. The stat bonuses stack if you keep importing the same character, but the XP penalties also stack.

And after all that rigamarole we can finally, y'know, walk around.

Table of Contents (open) Table of Contents (close)

THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN

THE TABLE OF INFINITE SUFFERING:

UPDATE 1
UPDATE 2A
UPDATE 2B
BONUS 1
UPDATE 3
UPDATE 4
UPDATE ???
UPDATE 5
UPDATE 6
UPDATE 7
UPDATE 8
UPDATE 9
UPDATE 10
BONUS 2
UPDATE 11
UPDATE 12
UPDATE 13
UPDATE 14
UPDATE 15

 

Saerileth?

 

Call me intrigued. Do you by chance have a weidu.log of your horrible mod install, or do you want to keep it a secret?

 

Just make BG3 and make it good God dammit.

 

Spoiler alert: BG3 is BiG World with “Select All” activated during the install.

 

I wish I could say I didn't.

I do have the .log file, but uh



it's better left a surprise, I think. Anywho here's some more buggery

UPDATE 1: The Living Shall Envy the Dead (open) UPDATE 1: The Living Shall Envy the Dead (close)

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Where we last left off, we had just finished examining the various bits of mod debauchery dumped on us after character generation. Since I didn't get a chance to post the full descriptions of the two items that were added in our inventory, here they are now...

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Expect to see these quote dumps quite a lot in favor of screencaps (except on special occasions when the description screens hold visual fuckery.) It'll save us all on sanity, bandwidth and vertical scrolling because Big World does not hesitate to vomit gear all over us. The gag reflex has been fully emancipated, and the floodgates are open. The express train to the vomitorium is in full throttle.

Also, since I promised I'd demo the functions of the amulet, I can think of no better time to do that.

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When examined, you're given this menu. Each option summons a member of the website listed in the description (which seems to have been active as of 2019, but isn't in English and therefore isn't relevant to this conversation. Big World tries to translate a lot of mods, but some of its translations aren't complete. We'll get to those.)

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I seem to have been talking shit when I declared the amulet's summons to be "useless." I never really used this thing outside of a few curious test runs during heavy combat. They're almost all free buffs, though because the NPCs have to be in range, it's possible they were useless at the time because I was in combat back then and... Liches got in the way? Fuck if I know. This one casts Draw upon Holy Might for free.

Anyway, we're saving the Inn for last. It's the denouement of the whole tutorial area - everything else is a pale fart in comparison. So let's ride that goddamn fart wind and check out what the rest of this fort has to offer.

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Many of the .CRE models are randomly replaced with models from other IE games (mainly Planescape.) I'm pretty sure this is the work of One Pixel Project. It's not terrible, but the models look kind of wonky when they're outside their native resolution and they're way too animated for BG2. I'd rather see it than blood in my urine, I'll put it that way.

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Alright. Shank: here we go. Let's do this.

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I decided to try conserving my potions for this. Not because I actually need to conserve them - by the powers, no. It'll become evident soon that any semblance of conservation is a farce and Big World laughs at you for even considering it. I just wanted to try to pretend this was still an RPG and there was strategy involved. So I tried summoning my Sigilian friends instead.

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...Which would've been a sound strategy if I had memorized who they were and what they did.

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YOU MOTHERFUCKER

He deathspelled me!

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That's it. Fuck conservation. The kid gloves are off. Shank can eat missiles.

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The rest of Candlekeep is pretty bog standard, if I'm being honest. But this NPC stands out.

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This NPC stands out like a clown in a denim competition. This is Finch, the first in a long, bloody and painful line of mod NPCs. I'll let the audio speak for itself.

Not the worst mic quality we'll have to put up with, but the leveling isn't great. I'll leave the other "qualities" up to you to judge.

In any case, that's about it for the exterior of Candlekeep. The Priest of Oghma has a modded item table, but most of what he has isn't worth noting. It's all stuff shared by everyone else.

Also, special shoutouts to this fucking guy. I don't remember him being here and I'm suspicious.
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Right then. The inn. Its all been leading up to this. And frankly, after getting deathspell'd out of nowhere, I'm not sure it'll live up to the expectations. I wasn't anticipating that. Kind of killed my groove, if I'm being honest with you.

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Immediately, we're greeted with this goonery.

Braegar is a German mod. We could talk to him and get hints about his quest, but I don't speak Schnitzel and his dialogue in Candlekeep is the only part of the mod Big World bothered to translate. It has something to do with retrieving Mithril and a scroll or something. We'll run into bits of it down the line, or what I can only assume are bits of it.

Before we can move, a wolf approaches us.

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All three options put "Haiass's Whistle" in our inventory, meaning we're getting ass wolf whether we want it or not. The first option gives us a chew toy which we can't remove without Shadowkeeper. It's the most painful option, and we have elected the way of pain. (We pick the first option.)

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The wolf acts like a familiar, or summon or whatever. The difference is that he's ludicrously, mind-numbingly broken. The key is in Biotic Charge. You might not have noticed it, but your brain did. It's an ability added by a mod kit, which ass wolf just *has* for some unfathomable reason.

If you were paying attention, literally none of those disadvantages apply to ass wolf because he isn't humanoid and has no use for weaponry.

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Oh right, the game.

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One wonders how the Candlekeep Guard stood their ground against wolves trained in the ways of the Biotic Vanguard. Maybe we've been snorting the red sand this whole time and decided to put it to a better use.

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He made short work of Carbos. You might even say... He made him his bitch.

Or you might not, because that's a horrible pun. Anyway, you know how the rest of it goes.

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That was the longest tutorial ever, gahdamn.

 

Jesus Christi.

 

World of Baldur's Gate is bigger - all of the above + Icewind Dale+addons+IWD2.

world won't survive to the end of this LP

 

This is fascinating.

Endure as much as you can. Reading the horror and poor design is marvelous.

Through the failures of others, wisdom.

 

It's almost like playing vanilla Oblivion!

 

It's been a while. How's everyone doing? Me, I've been trapped in a world made of dripping, oozing insanity. A world where voices from the past scream through a veil of shitty microphones, and heaps of metal rain through a hole in someone's pocket into a boundless null-space. I've been trapped in Big World, and I think it's about time I had some guests.

UPDATE 2A: And there shall be much Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth (open) UPDATE 2A: And there shall be much Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth (close)

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Last time, we just barely made it out of Candlekeep, because progress is for the weak. But to all the hypothetical progressives in the audience, don't worry! You and your hypothetical friends will get plenty of progress this time around... At your own peril.

Oh yeah, we have an NPC now. Let's check that out.

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What the fuck is this shit

This is a far cry from last update's "Biotic Vanguard," but I just want to let the description sink in for you. Does that really sound "fitting?" We ended last update with Imoen complaining about the lack of decent loot in Candlekeep. I know she's kind of a blank slate in the original game, but that's not exactly a detail that perfectly jives with this kit description. I don't... Y'know what? Whatever, fuck it. As you'll soon see, this is the least annoying thing happening here.

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Looting one's own dead foster parent is always a good idea. One of the mods in the installation makes all NPCs and creatures drop their equipped items, meaning we get to steal Gorion's clothes. He also drops a "Bronze Scroll Case," which uses the same generic description as the scroll case in the vanilla game. (So, you know, I'll spare you the grisly details.)

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I haven't really been keeping tabs on the inventory, but I figured now would be a good time to take one last look at this beautifully cluttered mess before it turns into a hellscape of numbers filing in and out of a nether portal.

What fresh hell is this?​

Phew. Now that we're done with that, I think it might be prudent to check on our stats, since those're going to fluctuate quite a bit.

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The subrace mod is a little fucky in the way it applies its stat bonuses, and I couldn't tell you the exact specifics of it without doing some rigorous testing (which I might do offscreen at some point just to self-flagellate myself some more.) The big takeaway here is that our mental stats (INT, WIS, CHA) are fantastic. Our physical stats (STR, DEX) are lacking, but that won't be a problem for long. Our CON is okay but it's going to take a hit soon.

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that Imoen's race was listed as "adventurer." This is because of the way the subrace mod handles applying the effects to the main character. I wish I could tell you what exactly in the code is wrong about this, because this isn't the only mod with this problem; probably because they're all made with the same tool or coding tutorial. In multiplayer, if you have two people in the game with these mods active, only the host (which the game treats as CHARNAME) can receive these effects, and anyone else who wants them has to import a character from single player.

The main takeaway is that all NPCs (aside from the vanilla BG2 NPCs, who have their races/subraces manually applied by the subrace mod) are now just physical manifestations of their classes and kits instead of people.

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Oh for the love of... Help me, ass wolf! Don't just stand there!

This is the work of the BG1 NPC project. It's a good idea on paper: The problem? The original BG1 NPCs are mostly blank slates who don't really contribute a ton in the way of interactive banter. The solution? Use BG2's updated engine to give them banters just like in BG2. Again, it's an interesting idea on paper.

The problem is that they never shut the fuck up. Imoen in particular was given a simply ludicrous amount of banter and interjections. Imoen, a character who spends most of the first game saying next to nothing and most of the second game trapped in an insane asylum. Just... Just internalize that.

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In any case, it's about time we moved on. On the way, we're assaulted by ass wolf's distant cousins.

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He makes mincemeat of these genetic rejects, for they have no place in his canine imperium. The sleeper must awaken! The red sand must flow!

...Lost myself for a bit there. Anyway, this update's going to get split into parts because my internet's being a piece of shit as I write this and can't handle the sheer volume of vomit. So until my connection stabilizes (hopefully later today,) enjoy these messages from our "sponsors."

 

Methinks this wont last long, but so far, so good. Neatly done.

 

This certainly is something, no question about it.

 

I'm a man of my word; I promised more of Update 2 when my internet stabilized, and stabilized it has. Loose threads will be stitched. Context will be filled. This is it: the real Big World starts here.

UPDATE 2B: And the Rivers will Run Yellow (open) UPDATE 2B: And the Rivers will Run Yellow (close)

Here, these gentlemen look trustworthy.

I love how the NPC project's lack of any sort of extra dialogue for these two if you have Imoen makes Montaron accidentally prescient at the end.

Anyway, Xzar is still a necromancer. Montaron on the other hand...


Is an assassin? Okay. I guess it's fitting, but not really as useful as fighter/thief. Now he just has a bunch of STR which is only useful for carrying shit and occasionally stabbing things with ineffective weapons.

There's not much else in the starting area, aside from this fat bastard hiding behind a tree

and a courier. There's no way talking to him will be a horrible idea.

Mmmm, spicy. Imoen's commentary for this man is easily the exact length of his dialogue plus more. Moving on, we're taken to the world map.

Those of you who used Baldur's Gate Trilogy instead of TuTu as your go-to mod of choice to unite the two games are probably familiar with this map, but I'd just like to take this moment to point out that this map is huge.

Ball-Bustingly Huge (open) Ball-Bustingly Huge (close)

Mind-bottlingly, earth-shatteringly, insanely huge.

The majority of the eastern-central sections of this map are vestigial, there for modders who never used them. The entire western end of the map, however, is ours to plunder. Yes, even Icewindale. This map doesn't include any installation option for just the relevant sections of the map; instead its helpful options are "large" (this map) and "huge" (a map of all of Faerun, which is presumably almost entirely for looks.)

As we continue onward, we're assaulted by Ed Greenwood!

Ed fucks off, and we're immediately assaulted by bandits!

I try to make a break for the exit. Maybe I can raise Imoen at the Friendly Arm? Not that I'd, y'know, want to.

It immediately becomes clear that retreat was never a card on the table. That icon on our portrait is the "dying" status effect, added by "Game Over on Party Death." We lapse into it when our health gets critical, but only if we have NPCs. It makes us immune to damage for the duration, but we can't do anything because we're basically dead.

If at least one NPC is left alive once combat is over, we enter cutscene mode and "stand up." Then we get this journal update which seems to have the update name and entry text reversed. This effectively means we're invincible as long as we have NPCs, with the tradeoff that there's no way to heal the dying status and we have to endure this every time we get to critical health.

ass wolf takes care of the rest of the scum single-handedly (pawedly?)

On the way out, we're accosted by a man who's made himself blissfully ignorant of the true extent of the bandit scourge.

Right then, the Friendly Arm. It's just an inn. Nothing can go wrong there.

Right?

Oh hey look it's the Ring of Wizardry. This time it's the original BG1 version that doubles all of your 1st level spells.

Everything's fine so far, honestly. I don't see how this could possibly be turned into a shit show.

Wait, who the fuck is this?

Who? Why? How?


I've been teasing at this the whole LP. This is it, the moment when Big World violently rips the cable out of your hands, cranks the distortion on its amp all the way past eleven to "provolone" and starts blasting its worst rendition of "Metal Squad" from Thunder Force IV.

It doesn't have to be now. I don't have to do this. But even if I delay the inevitable, it'll happen anyway. It could be later in this game, or in BG2. There's no sense or use delaying it.

I tried to rationalize *why* these items are here at these prices, so early in the game. I put a great deal of thought into this list.

1. It's pure LARP background clutter. We're supposed to look at the merchants with their exotic warez in awe and feel like a peasant.
2. The modders assume you'll be running so many other mods that you'll accumulate enough quest gold to afford these.
3. The modders assume you'll be running so many other mods, you'll accumulate enough artifacts to pawn off and afford these.
4. You have to grind gold for these. (See point 1)
5. Other merchants in the early game (Candlekeep, Ribald Barterman's) will stock shit you can't afford (See points 1 and 4)
6. The modders assume you'll be running so many mods, you'll have the console open to debug their shitty code.

So that's it. You win, game. You want to get goofy?

LET'S GET GOOFY!​

EDIT: fucking christ, I hit enter too many times. Looks like we're splitting this again.

 

You should have noticed already how stupidly OP that wolf is.

 

Don't go full retard already. He is the best arms dealer along the Sword Coast after all!

 

mayhaps you have link to this mod? I can't seem to find anything about it.

 

It's not ONE mod, but a lot of different mods installed together.

Look up Big World Setup + Baldurs Gate and you will find the tool for an easier installation of the whole thing.

 

downloads
http://baldur.cob-bg.pl/wobg-work?pg=1,3

components (some titles were translated to Potato)
also - it might not say that you need IWD or IWD2 but you surely can put them as additional components
they took sweet time to finally update that part, it's on the bottom
http://baldur.cob-bg.pl/wobg-work?pg=1,2

 

Yes I know. I did installation for BGT using BWS before. I was referring the mod that combines BG and IWD.

Ah yeah its in Polish. I did found a post in Beamdog Forums but it was in Polish as well. Thanks!

 

I haven't combined BG and IWD with this thing, unless there's another realm of horror awaiting me in the stygian depths. I really hope not. I've looked at the world map with all the locations filled in with NearInfinity, and none of the expected IWD locations are where you think they'd be. Then again, a lot of mods like to send you to maps via dialogue teleports. So y'know, take that as you will.

Your words of encouragement are moving - you're absolutely right. I shouldn't let this damn mod installation break me so easily! We were only 20 minutes into the 2 hours of prerecorded footage I had to work with though, so I'm going to have to go back and record twice as much. Just for you!

Also, you don't know the half of it. The weapons dealer has both variations of the Mace of Disruption.



In the mean time, though, here's a little glimpse at what abysses we might've gazed into had we taken the other route...

BONUS 1: CRAZY MERCHANT SHIT AND SOME STUFF I MISSED (open) BONUS 1: CRAZY MERCHANT SHIT AND SOME STUFF I MISSED (close)

The Friendly Arm is now populated with a variety of merchants. We've already seen Maltz, but there's also this wizard merchant and several others. I won't be detailing everything we'd have gotten from them since I'd rather it be a surprise, but I think this is worth mentioning.

Al-Mustafa's wand stocks are infinite, and all have maximum charges of 200. This means we can summon trash mobs and call down flamestrikes as much as we want.

This is made especially devastating because the summoning cap has been removed. The game still whines at us about it, but it doesn't actually do anything to limit our attempts to summon armies upon armies of ogres and hobgoblins. The only limit is the engine's own rendering limits in tandem with your hardware, which in the early game is usually "the entire screen."

Tarnesh stood no chance. But that's a story for another time - we've collectively decided to play by our own rules, not Big World's. So it's time to shift our focus to another brave adventurer, called forth from the nether realms to trace back our progress and point out things I've overlooked.

STUFF I'VE MISSED - PART 1
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Since I skipped straight to Sorcerer for this LP, I missed a lovely little feature added by TobEx: Scroll bars. These allow us to consume all the kit mods ever made, because we can scroll past the hardcoded limit. This also in theory allows us to scroll down on the Sorcerer spell selection menu and benefit from modded spells, but that feature is broken for me. We'll get to that later.

This is our hero of the hour, a master of Clown Bushido. Only he has the finesse to retread the incredibly important garbage we've yet to imbibe with our eyes. (We'd do it with our main guy, but then everything would get all tangled and fucked up and just not very great to manage. Nobody wants that.)

First up: Linda here in the Candlekeep Inn.

The goal here is to reunite Linda and Sir Trun, if you were paying attention to any of that.

I glossed over Winthrop in the first update, under the logic that his modded items are "shared with most of the other merchants." While this is true, it would have been a perfect opportunity to introduce just how silly some of the items added to the merchant tables are.

For example, he has a bag of holding which we could buy for every last GP we have, and a selection of "beer potions" which restore "thirst points" and make you intoxicated if you drink them enough.




We skipped past this guy in the first update because he's mostly irrelevant. He still is, but he ties back in to someone familiar...

I like this dwarf's style. It's a shame this quest is the only part of the mod they cared to translate.

You might remember this fucking guy. Turns out I was right to suspect him.

I like to imagine this guy's head got ripped off anyway. Don't fuck with a dwarf's light reading material!

The infirmary is down here. I'm reasonably certain it's a new thing.

Holy hell, this guy is mouthy. Anyway, talking to him finishes the quest and wraps up just about everything we've missed so far.

So until we meet again, here are some more words from our "sponsors."

 

My Gods... it's a thing of obscene beauty.

 

So... level cap is still 7 ?

 

But is this AuThOrItAtIvE™℠®©?

 

Let's ask Lilura