Old friends from BG1 now available in BG2 - More Manveru's NPCs

Manveru · Post by **Manveru** » Sun May 13, 2001 10:58 pm

I've updated my page - now I included frames so I believe that it looks much better, but nevermind...

The most important thing is that there are several new NPCs to download :

Ajantis - 10th level paladin (However Keldorn will not notice his existance)

Branwen - 11th level cleric

Dynaheir - 11th level invoker (though there is the problem - at this stage there is one logical inconsequence - Minsc will not notice Dynaheir's existance.

Kivan -11th level archer

Xan - 11th level enchanter

Xzar - 13th level necromancer

All these NPCs are compatible - you can use them all in your game - just copy all files from archives to override directory.

I await for any comments, suggestions..

[ 05-14-2001: Message edited by: Manveru ]

ThorinOakensfield · Post by **ThorinOakensfield** » Mon May 14, 2001 12:00 pm

Kivan, Thankyou very much, Manervu

ThorinOakensfield · Post by **ThorinOakensfield** » Mon May 14, 2001 12:00 pm

double posttttttttttttttttttttttt

[ 05-14-2001: Message edited by: ThorinOakensfield ]

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Mon May 14, 2001 12:05 pm

BRANWEN NO MORE ANOMEN *Goes over to manveru and hugs him/her(can some one clarify?)*

cheesemage · Post by **cheesemage** » Mon May 14, 2001 2:59 pm

you have done a very good deed indeed

Nick_Dude · Post by **Nick_Dude** » Mon May 14, 2001 5:45 pm

So I don't need to use the infinity add on patcher to use these NPC's?

ThorinOakensfield · Post by **ThorinOakensfield** » Mon May 14, 2001 6:28 pm

Manveru could you make Khalid, because it would be so sweet having him alive and Jaheria would be ...

GrimReaper · Post by **GrimReaper** » Mon May 14, 2001 7:59 pm

Nice work Manveru. For your next NPC I believe a single class thief would be great as that is what a lot of people seem to want. This would probably be best as a neutral thief so that they would work in any party. Or you could have a good and an evil thief separately. Also, Khalid would be great and would make for an interesting twist to your Jaheira romance.

Manveru · Post by **Manveru** » Mon May 14, 2001 10:56 pm

Ok.. I'm back with next two NPCs : Kagain and Montaron (However there are no interactions between him and Xzar - I will do it in future)

About thief : I plan to make Alora and Coran (however for Coran I will have to spend more time because he is in BG2 and my Coran will have to show up after meeting with real Coran)

Hmm.. Khalid - to be honest - this is one of the biggest my problems here - I know that he could exist in the same manner as Dynaheir - but I will have to think about it.

Usually for any interactions Infinity add on patcher is needed - to add new dialogues - my NPCs use only original game dialogues.

Manveru · Post by **Manveru** » Tue May 15, 2001 12:58 am

Ok. I may continue my musings :

There are the following problems with Khalid :

1) The same thing as with Dynaheir - Minsc relation : Jaheira has too many dialogues where she mentions Khalid and I would have to write for her new interaction dialogues in case when he was found by the party. (it is impossible without hard hex editing to change dlg files of existing NPCs - I still wait for next version of IDU - cat's utility to dialogue making)

2) Logical problem similar to Minsc-Dynaheir - If player romance Jaheira what are the events after finding Khalid ? I know it could depend on the stage of romance - in the first stages he just joins the party , Jaheira is happy that she has her looser- husband back and it is the end of romance with PC. But in case when we finished harper quests (after killing Dermin) it could more difficult - what do you thing how she should behave ?

If she forget about romance with PC then only one think I could do in this case as the player (Kick them both from my party - Khalid because he appeared in inconvenient moment and he is the king of the loosers, Jaheira because it all means that she never loved PC)

If she forget about her husband, that would be alive it also could be very strange - because she claimed that she loved him so much.

In conclussion IMHO Khalid is not worth to be ressurected - he will just mess up the whole story (to be honest he is on my black list with Faldorn ). What is more there are more better fighters than he.

One could ask : Why did you ressurect Dynaheir in this case ?
Answer : Because I liked her (I don't like Khalid at all) and she was good mage in BG1. She was in almost all my parties and Khalid was usually killed in Cloakwood and replaced by Coran.

Probably I will ressurect also : Yeslic/Tiax (he was funny) , Alora, Coran (as I said), Shar-Teel and Quayle (I will have to change something in his normal dialogues from circus and then he will be joinable)

I think also about sir Garrick (I like this speech when he is in panic - "sir Garrick very brave, sir Garrick runs away..." or something like that....

Rail · Post by **Rail** » Tue May 15, 2001 2:10 am

I'm glad to see your working on Yeslik. He was about the only dwarf in either game different from your stereotypical axe-wielding, grumpy, toughguy, fighter.

Also, Tiax was a riot. Way to go. I'm very impressed with the work you've done, and I thank you.

KensaiRyu · Post by **KensaiRyu** » Tue May 15, 2001 8:47 am

Well now you have done it... I was going to put of making any NPCS till TOB but you got my NPC fever up there so I started making some from Bg1 that I liked.
I wanted a somewhat different NPC so I created an updated Korax that will join your party (in ghoul form and has all the ghoul attacks and resistances). Would you be interested in putting this NPC on your page?. He is ready to go as is, however I just need to edit an area and add him in somewhere, which I will do tonight when I get off work.

He comes with custom portraits, and a few extra abilities besides his ghoul attack (which paralyzes unless sav vs death at -4).

He has the innate ability call undead, which summons 1-2 skeletal warriors usable once per day.
He can use any armor or weapon a fighter could use, however he is not proficient in any weapon. Also ghouls are immune to posion, necromancy magic, Horror, Panic ,sleep spells, confusion, and petrification, so there are some benefits to having him in the party.

By the way great work with all these NPCs.
I am working on some more interesting Npcs too.Next one is gonna be a vampire, Lich or DragonKnight NPC, or maybe I will make all three...

Ok I got a lich NPC also now.Comes with custom portraits too.

Am currently working on vampire NPC.Would like to do a doppleganger, however I dont think the engine could handle a true to ad&d doppleganger.
Any other monsters anyone would think would make a good npc?
Maybe a silver dragon that could shapeshift into a human (2 get past all them small places dragons cant go (might be fun in TOB))?

[ 05-15-2001: Message edited by: KensaiRyu ]

ThorinOakensfield · Post by **ThorinOakensfield** » Tue May 15, 2001 12:25 pm

Originally posted by Rail:
<STRONG>I'm glad to see your working on Yeslik. He was about the only dwarf in either game different from your stereotypical axe-wielding, grumpy, toughguy, fighter.
</STRONG>

In that Yeslck is a unique dwarf aka odd aka wierd

Nightmare · Post by **Nightmare** » Tue May 15, 2001 6:45 pm

Sorry to ask again, but have you thought about Artemis Entreri?

Manveru · Post by **Manveru** » Wed May 16, 2001 12:17 am

@KensaiRyu : Yes, of course I would be interested in putting on my page your Korax.
However I have got the questions :

1)Does he require using Infinity add-on patcher (custom items/spells) ?
2)In what manner are you going to put him into game ? I ask about that because if you are going to add him via area scripts (As I did with all my NPCs then we must choose the location that wasn't used by me in aim to make this NPC compatible with other mine NPCs (to not receive error messeages that there is missing file or something like that - to be honest I didn't check what is going on if I put two or more NPCs via script and their *.cre files are not included in override)

If you are going to put him via *.tbg file then it is not the problem - he could be anywhere.

The same thing about other your NPCs - Lich, Dragons or other..

3)Did you use custom sound packs for them ? If so then there is another problem - current version of TBG mass installer doesn't support entries with parse text and attached sounds - it only writes strrefs with strings to dialog.tlk - I asked about that on TeamBG. However now there are no choice - we could only use existing entries with sounds attached and parsed text.

We could use for some cases Khalid's or Faldorn's sound entries - I'm not going to make them as playable NPCs at all

Khalid - explained above.
Faldorn - she was relatively weak in BG1, I haven't seen any interest from others in case of this NPC - so she will be still in Druid Grove where she will be killed by PC/Jaheira/Cernd..

@Gaxx_Firkraag : I was thinking about your NPC, however I wait for next version of neccessary developing utilities - so far I cannot use custom soundpacks - and it could be boring to use soundpack of existing NPC. However I don't know what do you think about Valygar's sound pack (I think it could be good for such an NPC). Firstly I will have to finish my BG1 NPCs projects : Alora, Coran , Yeslick, Shar-Teel and Eldoth.

Btw, is there anyone that knows where I could find queen Ellesime's portraits pack (in game there is only the small portrait) ?
(I know I could make them by myself but I haven't got enough time for this)

velvetfreak · Post by **velvetfreak** » Wed May 16, 2001 5:15 am

Here's a vote for cute li'l Alora.

I remember thinking when I first recruited her that she'd drive me batty with the "smile & think happy thoughts" banter, but she actually cheered me up

funny isn't it - after all, it's only a game...

She's the perfect offset to Xan when you think about it.

Favorite quotes: "Hey there hi there!" "I'm so sweet - I've got rotting teeth and gums!" and the immortal "Happy happy joy joy! Happy happy joy joy!"

Manveru · Post by **Manveru** » Wed May 16, 2001 5:35 am

Hmm.. now I have only her chr file (all my NPCs started as the children of Bhaal

) and 2da files needed to establish new NPC. The greatest request was for her and Yeslic, so I will finish them at the first possibility. However I don't know if it occur this week because I have very important assesment from maths

.

Then I will make other NPCs including requested Artemis Entrieri (Suggestion about soundpack and portraits needed).

In the meantime I want to start making some strange things (I think about speaking items, pit fiend as your familiar

- it is something for Manveru, mighty priest ) as well as continue my development work in case of Fallout (so far I wasn't able to make many things - I'm focused mainly on scripting and creatures making - Items and spells are my weaker sides). I planned to make some NPCs known from Fallout (Marcus, Myron, Lynett (she was real bitch)) - so far impossible because there are no solution for some technical problems.

After purchasing my ToB I will make the patches for all my NPCs for this game if needed (It depends on what changes will be made in area scripts)

I will probably make also more dialogues for them, but installing these dialogues will unfortuantely require using of Infninty add-on patcher.

Still thinking about custom romances . Request here : My English is not the best one and I have no experience in writing good romance dialogues, however I can handle all technical aspects of writing romance (scripts/ dlg files).

If there is anyone that could write romance dialogues for any of NPCs I would be grateful. Please contact me : manveru@poczta.onet.pl

[ 05-16-2001: Message edited by: Manveru ]

KensaiRyu · Post by **KensaiRyu** » Wed May 16, 2001 6:30 am

My two NPCs I have created thus far Korax and Shentyr (the lich) are added via scripts also, however Korax has custom innate abilities that will require Add-on patcher.
I suppose I could make a version of him that dosent have any custom abilites however he would not be as useful to have were that the case or as fun.
Korax is found in the sewers under the Copper Coronet. And Shentyr is found under the graveyard, near Bodhi's abode, after chapter 5.

Shentyr does not use any custom items/abilites yet, so he is installable in game without add-on patcher.I added him later in the game because he is a pretty strong character (has all the lich immunities and strengths) and may create inbalance, however he is a great help for destroying Bodhi's lair.I have some great ideas for him to add a neat twist to the plot.

I would like to use Korax's original soundset, however I am not sure how to extract it from bg1.

I am also working on the above mentioned npcs currently, as well as my newest Dragon AI scripts, which will use the difficulty level to pick which script for the dragons to use, so I too got alot going on.

I will email you my four Npcs when I complete them all (Korax the Ghoul, Shentyr the Lich, Linfalas the silver dragon, and Drawg the death knight).

Next step after creating them is adding some custom NPC quests for them, which should be fun, and tying them into the game more with party dialogues.I am definatelty gonna have custom items for Drawg, maybe for Linfalas (she is a silver dragon, what more does she need?).

Also Manveru I noticed what you said about the pitfiend and I have been attempting to create a script that will run from Baldur.bcs to allow you to have a follower (like a Bear or panther for a Ranger or a pitfiend for a strong wizard), similar to the spell find familiar.
Something that will be able to change areas with you.Unfortunetly I am having problems with my compiler, I was worked on this for about four hours the other night and could not proceed further because of errors it was having.(not my script writeing utility but the compiler itself)

Heres my idea (that I could not test)

I create a creature that has a death variable (Custom .cre file).

I create a custom spell(or innate ability) to summon this creature.

When the spell is cast It sets a global variable to One when the creature is created.

Another script running from Baldur.bcs says if the creatures death variable is seen than reset the global variable to 0.

If the global variable is one and the creature is not present, then create the creature.
I am not sure how this will work as i could not test this, however I am sure it will need a lot more work, as everytime you change maps a creature will be left behind on the last map and a new one created.

However it is a start, too bad Bioware uses an eff file for the familiars, as that format is still virtually unknown.
I know there is a way to do this the trick is figuring it out.

[ 05-16-2001: Message edited by: KensaiRyu ]

KensaiRyu · Post by **KensaiRyu** » Wed May 16, 2001 7:33 am

Also I am using Cats newest IDU tool (1.03). Will there be any problem with my npcs overwriting your npcs dialogues? I want them all to be compatible in game.

triface · Post by **triface** » Wed May 16, 2001 10:38 am

What is the adress for your wed site?