I'm going to do it.

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 6:56 am

I'll be curious what you find out about that Planar Sphere mod, Qwinn.

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 7:34 am

fable -

I managed to find a forum where it seems to be getting some maintenance (it wasn't obvious, I found it in the Forgotten Wars "Mod Ressurections" forum):

http://forums.forgottenwars.net/index.php?showforum=127

I'm not the first person who has reported these errors, but I started my own thread anyway seeing as no one else that I could find ever mentioned that they got those errors while installing on top of a virgin TOB-Fixpack install.

At any rate, it doesn't appear that these errors are showstoppers, cause they seem to've been around for a while and yet people are still managing to finish the mod (albeit with bugs). So I'm just going to go ahead and keep installing.

As for balance, one thing I picked up from reading the various threads is that you actually get a 1.5 million xp award for finishing the final bad guy. Seems just a liiiiiittttle excessive, heh, since I don't think you get that much even for all the accumulated exp of the bottom two levels of Watcher's Keep. I'm going to play it out, but I suspect this one's not going to pass the "balance" test, not by a long shot.

Qwinn

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 7:38 am

13) Rahul Kanakia's Potion Quest (I'll let ya know if it's any good)

I've never heard of this. Please do let us know how creative it is, and how well-balanced.

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 8:16 am

Will do

The mega-mega-install is finally complete (and there was much rejoicing... yaaaay...). On to Chateau Irenicus!

EDIT: HMPH! Fine, fine, I can't take the peer pressure anymore, I've installed Refinements too! Sheesh, y'all didn't have to twist my arm so hard...

Heh, obviously I'm kidding. Actually, I looked at it again mainly cause I was interested in SwashImoen, but after reviewing the HLA's again, I decided it wasn't as unbalanced as I thought. What won me over is that the non-pure-fighters no longer have Greater Whirlwind available, which is frankly what -all- of my fighters kept taking over and over in previous games, so if nothing else Refinements balances out that overpowered HLA. But for the record, I'm still registering my complaint that Undead Hunters are clearly gimped with this mod! *grumble whine ***** moan* Actually, it looks fun. Okay, NOW to Chateau Irenicus!

Qwinn

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 7:48 am

fable,

Since you said you were curious, just letting you know I got a response about the Planar Sphere Mod:

"Ignore those errors, the mod will work fine. Some are just NI utility warnings, they cause no harm whatsoever. The .ids "unfounds" are actually there, but are not being seen by weidu during compilation. (I don't know why.)"

http://forums.forgottenwars.net/index.p ... opic=12780

Qwinn

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 3:54 am

Okay, well, here's one you can DEFINETLY scratch from the list - Leutian's Miniquest Mod.

Just to give you an idea, after a completely disjointed introductory dialogue, you get an NPC joining your party with a Drow avatar that is a Fighter-Mage-Thief with 2 million xp, 25 for every single stat, a -10 armor class, and 1,111,133 gold that gets immediately dumped into your gold pool. I suppose the reason this NPC makes nearly no sense in the initial conversation is because us lowly mortals simply can't understand the godlike 25 intelligence and wisdom of this uber-being, and are too busy drooling with lust for the 25 charisma...

Why even play the game? Just go into Notepad and type "I'm a big winner!" over and over and get the same satisfaction...

Qwinn

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 8:46 am

I think I'll skip on both, Qwinn. Concerning the Planar Sphere mod, I'm just not interested in getting a bunch of error messages. As for the Miniquest mod, that's just ridiculous: it's not a mod, it's a god cheat. I suppose if I felt really badly about how my life was going and chose not to deal with any of it, I could retreat into a fantasy game where I could take out my frustrations by succeeding at everything. But as I'd prefer dealing with real life, I wouldn't do that.

Thanks for the info!

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 4:06 pm

fable,

Agreed on the Leutian mod. As for the planar sphere mod, eh, as long as the error messages are accounted for and deemed not to actually indicate a problem, I don't really care about it (though it'd be nice if such an issue were explicitly stated in the readme, so that it didn't provoke a full reinstall like it did for me).

I can't recommend the planar sphere mod yet, as I haven't gotten to it. All I know so far is that I'm interested in trying it because it promises to turn the planar sphere into a populated mini-city, with lots of quests and an actual population as opposed to a vast empty mansion with, at most, a handful of citizens whom will most likely get killed off by the player's greed - heh. I -really- like the idea of turning it into an interactive and productive mini-city, and if it's implemented well and in a balanced way, I couldn't care less about a few errors during the install (assuming they don't manifest as actual bugs). That said, I'll let ya know how it goes when I get there!

Qwinn

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 3:05 pm

[QUOTE=Qwinn]
Refinements: Eh. I know a lot of people consider this one a must have, but from the readme, several of the HLA's seem both overpowered and not well balanced to me. In particular, I can't see why anyone would -ever- want to play the Undead Hunter paladin kit with it, as all paladins get HLA's that make the Undead Hunter's abilities redundant, and the HLA specific to Undead Hunters looks downright lame (if I want to "repulse undead", I'll have my cleric turn undead). That seemed so obvious to me from reading the readme that it made me suspicious of the rest.
[/QUOTE]

We work hard to spot all of the possible implications of what we do, but sometimes you can't just address everything. What seems balanced from many points of view, can surely be considered un-balanced from many other ones.
But we try to improve where possible.
I know posting in the forums is time consuming, but if you have some possible ideas/suggestions about Undead Hunters, I'll be happy if you want to drop a few lines at ours

V2 will hold massive additions/upgrades anyway, and we hope to have it ready in a couple of months; hopefully we can do something about them too, if necessary.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 3:23 pm

Littiz, are you having problems with your website? I just tried loading it in, and a minute later, nothing's opened. I appear to have contacted your site, but for sheer speed it can only be measured in geological ages.

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 7:40 pm

EDIT: I had a big long post in response to Littiz's request for suggestions, and afterwards I realized he was suggesting I post them to the Refinements forum, so I moved it there:

http://forums.forgottenwars.net/index.p ... ntry174816

Qwinn

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 2:26 pm

@fable:
you seem to be right, it goes unusually slow...
Tried three times: once it loaded, once it didn't, once it did much too slow

If it persists I'll contact our (kind) host (Seifer), but I'd give him some more chances before bothering him. Can you give it a few more tries, if you're so kind? I could even post directly the download links, but I'm not sure about the netiquette...and you might prefer having a look before downloading 5 megs of stuff

@Qwinn:
You have some good points there, thx again for your time.

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 6:08 am

Just adding a note to my "running coverage" of various mods I mentioned earlier...

I just completed the mod "Black Rose Part 1: Market Prices". Nice little quest. The reward is well balanced versus the challenge (which isn't high). No reason at all not to install it, if you like quests. Particularly well done when you consider that the author's primary language isn't English. As the author promises that it's only the first part of a trilogy, I look forward to good things.

The only constructive criticism I would lend (that wouldn't be a spoiler) would be that he should create journal entries for the quest. Currently, there are none.

Another point of interest is that this quest -seems- to "overlap" with some other mod, and I'm not sure which is which.

SPOILERS/QUESTION (highlight to read):

In the graveyard, in the tomb right next to where you find the little girl to whom you introduce the paladin, I met a mummy-like creature for whom you wind up arranging a meeting with his ex-girlfriend. I have -no- idea what quest pack/mod introduced this quest. On the one hand, it could easily be Black Rose, because a quest item for that quest is in the same tomb, but on the other hand, that item was in that tomb in the unmodded BG2, and the mummy-girlfriend quest has journal entries, no other part of Black Rose does. Different style too. Anyone know where that mummy-girlfriend quest comes from?

Since I'm already spoiling and you've decided to read, also be aware that you won't be able to -officially- complete Part 1 until Part 2 comes out, as there's an item (a cloak) you're supposed to give to an NPC that won't be there again until Part 2 (according to the forum, this is by design)

Oh, one last note for the mod's author, if he ever reads this. One constructive criticism that -is- a bit of a spoiler - the mage you fight in this quest seems a bit obsessed with casting "Secret Word" after a certain amount of time. He cast it on Aerie like 4 times in my game. He's quite good at defending himself, but after a certain point I think he should actually go on the offense...

Qwinn

SimDing0 · Post by **SimDing0** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:42 am

Quest Pack is the mod that introduces the other encounter in that tomb. I'll have a chat with the Black Rose author, since there are plenty of tombs to go around.
On a related note, did you get my PM?

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 1:12 pm

SimDing,

The two quests don't actually interfere with one another in any way, unless the Black Rose people were particularly intent on having the character fight for that loot. If anything, it meshed together quite nicely, if you ask me.

As for your PM, nope, sorry, hadn't noticed it, but now that you pointed it out I have responded

Qwinn

Ellester · Post by **Ellester** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 1:15 pm

Even though I hate most of tactics, there are some I enjoy (about 40%), and feel complement the game quite nicely. Here’s my take on the ones I like. The ones that I don’t comment on, I’ve tried and do not like (too hard or they give out too many items), and do not get installed a second time.

Improved Undead, Improved Golems, I won’t play without these now. The undead gives weaker undead (doesn’t touch the lich) some spell abilities like shadows now casting ray of enfeeblement, and the Golems now will throw rocks from a distance. Both make the game more challenging but are still pretty easy. I like the differences.

The Lich in the Docks is very hard (but not like some of the other tactics stuff), but I wait until Chapter 6 and it turns out to be not that bad. This is one of the few hard encounters that I still like (because I can still beat it without cheese)

Improved Demon Knights are harder and the fight in the underdark is tough, but I can still win without cheese, so I keep this one installed.

Gnome fighter/Illusionist in the docks is fun and actually not challenging at all.

Improved Crypt King all he does is a bunch of summoning, but he’s still a pushover and you can usually kill him before he even gets his summonings off.

Toughest random spawns in dungeons is fine as it uses the in-game tables, so your not getting anything you wouldn’t normally get in a game.

Improved Mind Flayers I like as they go invisible, but really they aren’t any harder (as long as you have true sight, oracle, etc…), so I use them. The only problem is I’ve had a bug installing this one the last couple of times.

Improved Nymphs, another must have. Just smarter AI for your call woodland beings spell.

Slightly Tougher Demons – Real hard, but still beatable. I probably won’t be reinstalling this one though as they were tough.

Smarter Vampires – they just ignore people with charm protections and anti-draining items. So some of your characters get drained now, but the fights are not any harder so I like it.

Improved Copper Coronet – Just adds some extra low level guards during the final fight. This is easy and adds some extra content. Must have, imo/

So, imo you can add some of the content from tactics without making it a cheese fest.

Also, The Planar Sphere mod I’ve almost finished. I’m on the “can you do me one last thing”, so I assume I’m trying to find the last baddie. Well I can’t find him, as he’s nowhere on the map (a bug is my guess), so I guess I’m glad, if he gives out that much experience. But, this was the only bug I noticed, at least in my game. For the rest of the mod it worked pretty good for me (didn’t try a lot of the new spells), a lot of new content that was fun and not too challenging. Although there were some item drops that unbalanced the game, giving you too much stuff. I just left the stuff on the ground after the encounters, not wanting to get too much stuff. Overall, I liked this new mod quite a bit.

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Wed Dec 22, 2004 11:24 pm

Well, I'm working on Rahul Kanakia's Potion Quest at the moment. It's a -very- interesting quest to begin with. Pretty challenging. A lot of the potions he asks for are pretty damn hard to find - I still haven't found a handful. That said, I really think I've run into a bug, and I don't know where else to post about it. There doesn't seem to be a forum for discussing that mod anywhere, so I'll post it here.

SPOILER:

Early on in the quest, after you hand him the third potion, you have an opportunity to tell him to go talk to his wife and child (the quest giver turns out to be -real- father of the child in the temple district whose mother tries to con every man into believing he is the child's father, a very nice touch). He doesn't want to talk to her, but if you insist and tell him "no more potions till you do", he says he's going to do it, tell her off, and then you can get back to the important work. Then he walks off and disappears. You're -really- left with the impression that if you go up to the mother and child, you'll see a cutscene involving him and her. But there isn't. You can talk to her or the child, but they don't say anything different from what they always did. The quest guy never seems to reappear (I've waited quite a few days of game time for something to happen, but nothing seems to). The quest remains open in the journal, however (it actually adds an open entry saying that he's gone off to talk to his family, but that's it). If anyone's aware of what's supposed to trigger the next step in this quest, please do let me know. I know that I could just never suggest that he reconcile with his family in favor of completing the quest, but 1) that would be very out of character for my PC, and 2) it'd mean I'd have to go back to a pretty old saved game. If this isn't a bug, it'd be nice if there was any hint in the journal or elsewhere on how to proceed.

I've tried leaving a note to the author of the mod in the section he provides for comments at the download site pointing him to this post, but my comment never appears.

Qwinn

jcompton · Post by **jcompton** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 9:47 am

Potion Quest is being integrated into Quest Pack, and the backstory is being altered slightly. Along with that, you should get the sort of interaction you're looking for.

Qwinn · Post by **Qwinn** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 1:23 pm

jcompton,

Well, that's actually the best reply I could've asked for

Thanks! (although, just curious, -was- what I found a bug or did I just miss something?)

By the way, I retract any objections I had to the flirt pack earlier. Yes, the line that I got overexposed to (not the writer's fault, I restarted a bunch of games) does go away once the romance is in full swing. I've enjoyed the additional options afforded by the flirt pack a good deal - thanks for a fun mod

Qwinn

SimDing0 · Post by **SimDing0** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 1:34 pm

There's dialogue and coding for when the guy shows up to confront his family, so if you're not seeing it, then yes, it's a bug. However, one of the big changes for Potion Quest Remix feat. jcompton & SimDing0 was that the guy's wife and child are no longer the same ones you meet in the Temple District, since we didn't feel this was appropriate characterisation.