Redeeming Irenicus - a new mod (spoilers!)

dorotea · Post by **dorotea** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 9:00 pm

Redeeming Irenicus - a new mod

A new mod is now available and should be installed on top of SoA-ToB-Ascension trio. It can be downloaded at :

http://www.onlinefiction.net/Redemption/Redemption.html

If you did not play Ascension before - now is an excellent opportunity to do so! The Redemption add-on does not change it much and you can still refuse Irenicus if you don't like his attitude, but then you will never know what he is hiding under the mask, and will never play riddles with Demogorgon!

The Redemption mod changes the ending of the SoA - ToB once more, since it gives you the possibility to redeem your archnemesis - Jon Irenicus who once was one of the most talented and respected elven mages.

The mod gives you an opportunity upon entering the Throne of Blood to talk Irenicus into siding with you, playing on his sense of wounded pride by reminding him that Melissan goaded him into cooperation. After you defeat all possible and impossible enemies (including some new appearances by old foes) and right before you are to make a final choice about your Bhaal essence Jon will speak to you and request that you keep your word and petition the Seldarine for another trial for him. The result is rather unexpected, and very different from what he hoped for. But I am not going to disclose it here!

Another face (or rather two) to show without a warning in this addition is our old friend - the Prince of Demons. Demogorgon gives his little performance and asks you some strange questions before engaging in yet another battle. It is possible to humiliate him without actual combat. The puzzles used in this part are shamelessly taken from the books by Raymond Smullyan (Satan, Cantor, and Infinity and The Riddle of Scheherazade), the Demogorgon dual personality is described in the latest Wizards edition of Book of Vile Darkness.

VonDondu · Post by **VonDondu** » Mon Dec 30, 2002 10:55 pm

That sounds like a really good MOD, and I'd like to try it out. However, in my humble opinion, you're revealing way too much of the plot and spoiling the surprises. Save something for the game.

fable · Post by **fable** » Tue Dec 31, 2002 12:06 am

I've added "spoiler' to the thread title, and moved it from the SoA to the ToB forum, where it naturally fits.

How compatible is this mod, btw, with some of the other mods, such as Kelsey?

dorotea · Post by **dorotea** » Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:52 pm

Redemption mod

So far the Redemption was tested with Kelsey, Soulafein, Item's upgrade and Valen mods. It works fine. I am confident it will work with any Weidu based mods ( it is a Weidu mod). I am not that sure about TeamBG mods, since I never tried any of theirs.

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Jan 02, 2003 9:48 am

Thanks for the info. It certainly sounds interesting, though it would require some fairly developed writing skills to envision the psychology of the individuals involved, and to reflect this in brief pieces of text. Editing skills, too: we've all seen mods that boast more spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors than would be permitted from even a brain-sapped illithi slave. Good luck with it. May I suggest that you copy your post into the BG Reference Crossroads sticky thread, at the top of the page? That way, it'll be permanently available for view by all.

Hopefully, we'll get a few opinions here at some time in the near future.

dorotea · Post by **dorotea** » Thu Jan 02, 2003 5:27 pm

Redemption fluff

Well, the mod was developed in the Attic (http://www.gamejag.com/Attic) - a venerable Baldurs Gate fanfics forum that was around for at least 4 years - since BG1 release. It was written by me, posted, discussed and spellchecked by at least 20-30 people half of whom spend all their free time writing BG fanfictions! We have a few fledgling professional writers and a couple of editors. I do believe the spelling part of the mod is solid, since I had it proofread so many times by so many people.
As for the literary content ... well I cannot vouchsafe for this but many a reader sent me very positive replies some of which made me blush.

fable · Post by **fable** » Mon Jan 06, 2003 12:45 pm

Do you have a website with a screen or two from your mod? Or can you attach a couple of screens, here?

Nippy · Post by **Nippy** » Mon Jan 06, 2003 2:16 pm

There are screenshots on the website Fabster...

fable · Post by **fable** » Mon Jan 06, 2003 3:36 pm

So there are. Thanks for pointing that out.

dorotea · Post by **dorotea** » Mon Jan 06, 2003 8:10 pm

Screenshots.

Sorry for not answering at once. The screenshots are indeed on the website. If you want more or different ones - please let me know. Though I rather not post too many spoilers.

Regards,

Dorotea

fable · Post by **fable** » Mon Jan 06, 2003 11:44 pm

I did try installing this, and found that Dungeon-Be-Gone 1.2 lost its dialog and froze. I'll have to experiment further.

fable · Post by **fable** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 11:31 am

I did a clean boot, and reran the game. It's confirmed: Redeeming Irenicus overwrites dialog files for Dungeon-Be-Gone. The latter will run, but freezes because it can no longer access its dialog files. When I reinstalled DBG, it ran perfectly.

Of course, one possible fix for this is to use DBG, get your characters out of that first dungeon, then install Redeeming Irenicus. It's a bit of a workaround, though.

Nippy · Post by **Nippy** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 12:09 pm

It does look like a very entertaining mod, but I'll leave it for now as I have enough problems with my party size as is! On the next time around, it'll be on there.

@ Fable, do you find much use for DBG? I can see it being incredibly useful, but I was nearly out of there by the time it was done. Apart from getting you out of the dungeon, what else does it do?

fable · Post by **fable** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 12:19 pm

Originally posted by Nippy
@ Fable, do you find much use for DBG? I can see it being incredibly useful, but I was nearly out of there by the time it was done. Apart from getting you out of the dungeon, what else does it do?

That's all it does, but it's pretty inclusive. You get all the experience you would have gained, plus the nifty weapons and items in that dungeon, and quest stuff like the seeds.

Mind, I like the first dungeon quite a bit. I've just played it too often. I even saved a game about 6 months ago right after exiting out of that dungeon, but of course it doesn't let me reset my character class. With DBG, I can choose a new class and change my party composition.

jcompton · Post by **jcompton** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 3:07 pm

Originally posted by fable
I did a clean boot, and reran the game. It's confirmed: Redeeming Irenicus overwrites dialog files for Dungeon-Be-Gone. The latter will run, but freezes because it can no longer access its dialog files. When I reinstalled DBG, it ran perfectly.

This is... unlikely. What, SPECIFICALLY, are you observing? Who freezes? When?

fable · Post by **fable** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 3:17 pm

Originally posted by jcompton
This is... unlikely. What, SPECIFICALLY, are you observing? Who freezes? When?

Thank you for your...restraint.

When I approach the demi-god (post Redemming Irenicus install), an empty dialog box appears. After about fifteen seconds, my character's name appears on the left side of the screen. Another fifteen seconds later, it appears once again. After that, nothing happens, and I have to close the game down. It closes normally.

When I reinstalled DBG after Redeeming Irenicus and approached the demi-god, the dialog box appeared with full content, and your voiceover began. Everything proceeded as normally.

If I can be of assistance in any other way, just ask. And if I'm wrong about the source of the problem--hey, I never claimed to be a programmer. But as I've uninstalled and reinstalled both mods repeatedly on my machine, it would appear that there is some problem, somewhere, in all this.

dorotea · Post by **dorotea** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 6:41 pm

Dungeon - be-gone freeze?

It is the first time I heard of incompatibility with Weidu mod. I am downloading it right away to test.

Sorry about it!

dorotea · Post by **dorotea** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 7:12 pm

Hmmm

I downloaded DBG, and tried to install it - first after Ascension and Redemption - then first DBG and THEN Asc/Red. Created 2 dummy characters - never had any problems.

What I can suggest - download Redemption again and use primary link for download - not the mirror sites. jcompton just discovered I accidentally saved my backup game file into the zip - it should not have hurt anything but you never know. I updated the zip 15 min ago and used 'clean' version for testing with DBG. Also - I don't recommend uninstalling - reinstalling the mods many times on top of each other. Best way to do mods is to keep a 'clean' override folder zipped and clean dialog.tlk ( by clean I mean just SoA-ToB and ToB patch) and every time you need uninstall the mods replace the dialog.tlk and override.

Again - my apologies. Please download the file again if you need to. Unfortunately I was not able to reproduce your problem.

jcompton · Post by **jcompton** » Wed Jan 08, 2003 4:58 pm

Originally posted by fable
Thank you for your...restraint. When I approach the demi-god (post Redemming Irenicus install), an empty dialog box appears. After about fifteen seconds, my character's name appears on the left side of the screen. Another fifteen seconds later, it appears once again. After that, nothing happens, and I have to close the game down. It closes normally.

Quite, quite odd. Neither mod comes anywhere NEAR the other.

(BTW, Jasper isn't a demi-god, Blue is. Jasper ASPIRES to be one, though. )

When I reinstalled DBG after Redeeming Irenicus and approached the demi-god, the dialog box appeared with full content, and your voiceover began. Everything proceeded as normally.

If it happens again, use WeiDU (grab the .exe or just make a copy of a setup-blah and call it weidu.exe) and do weidu fwjassy.dlg, and send me the resulting fwjassy.d.

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Jan 09, 2003 9:22 am

Originally posted by jcompton
If it happens again, use WeiDU (grab the .exe or just make a copy of a setup-blah and call it weidu.exe) and do weidu fwjassy.dlg, and send me the resulting fwjassy.d.

Will do. I don't expect to run into this anytime soon, however, unless you and your associates produce further interesting character mods.