Baldurs Gate 2

[Gfted1]

I'm not replaying BG until I can think of another character who will be as interesting as Silence.

 

 

Silence is a mod or a character you made? Assuming the latter, what was the "theme"?

[roshan]

tutu = hit and miss. could be that you're not playing enough, could be an issue with tutu, could be something completely unrelated. i played tutu a few times and had enough problems with it that i stopped.

 

the one i was looking forward to was icewindgate, but due to a lack of time and resources, weimer could not complete it.

 

i'm starting to miss BG again...

 

taks

 

Theres an Icewind Dale tutu in the works, but that is taking years. I believe there is also an ongoing project to convert Icewind Dale to BG2.

 

If you dont want to wait, there is also a mod called Neverending Journey that I believe ports the entire Icewind Dale campaign into BG2.

[Walsingham]

I'm not replaying BG until I can think of another character who will be as interesting as Silence.

 

 

Silence is a mod or a character you made? Assuming the latter, what was the "theme"?

Sadly I am not talented enough to write a mod. Silence was the name of a character I used. The idea struck me of....

 

~

The scream emanating from the cattle sheds made Elminster and the new Keeper of the Tomes, Ulraunt, wince in unison. Rain, in cold a constant drizzle draped over them like cloaks.

 

"She shouldn't be here," Repeated Ulraunt peevishly. "She didn't bring a book. No good will come of it"

 

Elminster chewed the callus on the end of one finger and glowered at him. "There are rules and there are rules, Keeper. You cannot tell me you'd have let that poor woman die on your doorstep?"

 

"Yes, well, precisely," Continued Ulraunt, undeterred, but was interrupted by the form of a serving girl catapulting out of the stable in a startling haze of candlelight.

 

"Come quick, sirs! It's getting worse."

 

Elminster pushed his way into the enclosed space, to see the local midwife holding the hand of the woman who seemed fairly cracked by pain and anguish. Her left hand gripped the nearby manger with such force that she had snapped part of it off. With each spasm her features became wilder, and more intense but equally more distant.

 

"It's a bad sign, having a woman in here dying like this. No good will come of it," Ulraunt stated from the back, being universally ignored.

 

Suddenly, with a final surge, obscured by a flurry of activity by the women, the noise rose to a crescendo and then there was nothing. Elminster's shoulders fell, and he turned to walk away, expressionlessly. Ulraunt seemed unnaturally relieved.

 

The midwife's voice broke their private reveries on the threshold. "It's a girl," She said, almost wonderingly, and it was. Held in the light of the candles, mired by blood, was a tiny infant. The child's skin was the cold pure white of marble, and her eyes were the rich black of an animal's. As Elminster came forward the eyes regarded him from a face of absolute calm. He smiled, and reached down to place his little finger in the babe's hand, marvelling at the unexpected grip.

 

"She must have a name, sir," the midwife insisted, staring down at her with the universal care a certain type of woman projects towards all babies. At which cue, the serving girl, still appalled by the scene, tugged a blanket diffidently over the mother's sightless features. "She must have a name, or she'll come a wrong 'un."

 

Elminster's expression was hard to read. It was neither wholly happy or wholly sad, as he stared into the eyes of this unnaturally quiet and self-possessed child. "Silence," he finally said.

 

"You can't call a baby, Silence," Interjected Ulraunt, laughing bitterly.

 

"It is what she is. It is who she is. Silence can mean many things good or bad. It can mean everything and it can mean nothing. When she is old enough she will decide for herself what it means," Growled the old wizard.

 

Ulraunt, peering over the midwife's shoulder, shivered briefly. "No good will come of it."

 

~

 

Silence grew up, gaining strength and vigour, but remaining completely cold. Infected on the one hand by the general air of Candlekeep she became playful and enjoyed obscure humour. On the other hand she eventually learned of the way here mother had been initially denied care by the Keeper, and as she neared adolescence, came to despise both the guards who slavishly had kept her waiting in deference to rules, and the swines who had been responsible for her being there in the first place. Was it some lord, or angel, or bandits who were responsible? No matter. Unable to forgive either group, lawful or chaotic the child became savagely self-reliant.

 

~

 

I tried to play the character as being generally quite selfish and thereby evil. Completely focussed on survival. But equally capable of random outbursts of kindness, particularly to children, and women in distress.

 

Made for an interesting time. Silence eventually (spoiler regarding the end of the game)

Chose to become the Lady of Murder. Perhaps out of a desire to slip the bonds of mortality and in some small way escape the legacy of her birth.

 

 

I've always wanted tow rite BG3 where the character follows on after Silence, and takes orders from her, becoming her true servant, changes her nature, or perhaps aiming to supplant her.

[Pop]

Riddle me this: I've got a green kid, new to IE games and Baldur's Gate II, who wants to play modded first time around. I won't let him go crazy, but besides Fixpacks and Unfinished Business what would you all say are mods that add to the experience of BG2 as opposed to providing mildly interesting excuses for old hands to play the game again? Links would be nice.

[Tale]

If it's to include Throne of Bhaal, I'd recommend improved Bhaalspawn powers.

[Pop]

Blargh. I'm playing through with probably too many mods. Saerilith, Kelsey, Unfinished Bizness, Ascension, BG2Fixpack, and D-B-G, and now it seems as if whenever I enter the Windspear Hill dungeon there's some kind of massive memory leak or somesuch that allows me to play for around 30 seconds before locking up and killing the game.

 

The thing is, I remember reading about a particular mod that did something like this, but I can't remember what it was. Any ideas?

[Tale]

I've heard there's some conflicts between Unfinished Business and the G3Fixpack.

[Pop]

Hmmm, perhaps. Which should I opt for, if I have to choose? I mean, I've played through BG2 many times without either.

 

At this point I'm starting a new game, and then using the console to teleport to the Windspear dungeon, and testing to see whether it crashes. I tried taking off the Saerilith mod (pretty good mod, btw, impressive that they added in the PST areas without ****ing up the game), and that didn't help.

Edited June 26, 2007 by Pop

[taks]

tutu = hit and miss. could be that you're not playing enough, could be an issue with tutu, could be something completely unrelated. i played tutu a few times and had enough problems with it that i stopped.

 

the one i was looking forward to was icewindgate, but due to a lack of time and resources, weimer could not complete it.

 

i'm starting to miss BG again...

 

taks

I believe there is also an ongoing project to convert Icewind Dale to BG2.

that's the icewindgate mod i was referring to.

 

If you dont want to wait, there is also a mod called Neverending Journey that I believe ports the entire Icewind Dale campaign into BG2.

how does that work... they port all the maps? i heard that was difficult due to differences in the way they burned the graphics in IWD/BG2.

 

taks

[taks]

btw, i reinstalled BG1 and IWD1 into my system. win XP with DX9.0c and an 8800 GTS vid card at 1600x1200. we'll just say that there are "issues" with the graphics. IWD isn't as bad, but still strangeness abounds.

 

taks

[Guard Dog]

Hokay, by a show of hands. How many people have started up new BG and BG2 games because of this thread?

 

*Guard Dog raises hand*

[Deraldin]

Haven't started one yet, but I probably will soon. Maybe after I play Overlord.

[taks]

BG and IWD. i'm thinking BG may already be finished because of the graphical issues.

 

btw, i thought it was possible to configure BG for 800x600 in spite of lack of support. is that an INI mod, or am i just dreaming?

 

taks

[Wistrik]

BG/IWD won't display properly, if at all, beyond 640x480, and BG2/HoW/IWD2 look best at 1024x768; go beyond that and you either end up with a mangled GUI or the engine doubles the size of GUI elements (the rendered world appears at the chosen resolution). After trying several settings, I decided 1024x768 was best; no GUI scaling and I can still see more of the game world than I used to years ago.

 

I always have the IE games installed for modding purposes and whatnot, so I tend to fire them up whenever the mood strikes me, regardless of what thread is created.

Edited June 26, 2007 by Wistrik

[taks]

the only reason i had to reinstall is because this is a new build for my OS. in fact, i wiped the screwed up build last night (i posted on the issue in the tech forums), and reinstalled BG1/IWD afterwards. the artifacts with BG1 are almost intolerable, huge blocky fog of war stuff.

 

taks

[Wistrik]

the only reason i had to reinstall is because this is a new build for my OS. in fact, i wiped the screwed up build last night (i posted on the issue in the tech forums), and reinstalled BG1/IWD afterwards. the artifacts with BG1 are almost intolerable, huge blocky fog of war stuff.

 

taks

HAve you tried running it in windowed mode? Enter Full Screen=0 (space between Full and Screen) in the baldur.ini file, under the Program Options header.

[Pop]

Hokay, by a show of hands. How many people have started up new BG and BG2 games because of this thread?

 

*Guard Dog raises hand*

Me too.

 

So which mod to choose? UB or Fixpack? Tick tock.

[Tigranes]

Both...?

[CoM_Solaufein]

Hokay, by a show of hands. How many people have started up new BG and BG2 games because of this thread?

 

*Guard Dog raises hand*

Me too.

 

So which mod to choose? UB or Fixpack? Tick tock.

UB.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Hokay, by a show of hands. How many people have started up new BG and BG2 games because of this thread?

 

*Guard Dog raises hand*

I always have the IE games installed. I decided to play a mod after myself and others fixed. But that is on hold now since my CD3 from the Original Saga of BG is cracked and unreadable. Now I have to wait for a new set to arrive.

[Xard]

Why don't you get No-CD Crack instead?

[Wistrik]

That's what I did for all of the IE games. It's too annoying to swap discs every time I want to fire up a game, and if I'm modding across games, I tend to fire up different games often. Of course, I don't trust stuff I download, so I did file compares (DOS' FC still works great for this) of the original and NO-CD EXEs and noted the differences, then implemented the patches without any excess. I always keep a backup of the original EXE and other critical files so I can avoid having to do a re-install if I mess up.

[Qwerty the Sir]

Full installs also eliminate the need for swapping discs (except for Planescape: Torment).

[mr insomniac]

You can do a full install of Torment. You just have to play around with the .ini file a bit, thats all.

[Pidesco]

You can do a real full install for Torment too, you just have to copy the files manually, and then edit the CD paths.