Mods: Which to install...

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Greets.

Wanted to ask the advice of the players concerning all the various BG2 mods out there. I've tried playing with Darkest Day and a few others, components or full mods(when allowed). Question is what mods are dangerous and add more bugs then they're worth and which are more or less harmless while still adding new and fun dynamics.

Basically if you all could share your personal experinces and rate a few of them I'd much appreciate it. I've noticed a few things about TDD that seem somewhat off, but some things I've enjoyed.
Thanks

[ March 14, 2005, 13:55: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

First of all, I would suggest playing through once(at least) with no mods. My two favourite mods are;
>Dungeon-be-gone
>Unfinsihed Buisness

Though both have no bugs(that i've come across) and are useful and fun to have.

 

Dungeon-be-gone doesn't add anything, rather it (as the name implies) removes the dungeon part at the beginning of the game so its a really useful mod if you've played the game so many times that you're sick of Irenicus' dungeon.

Try checking out the mod reviews section, iirc a new review on a bg2-tob npc was posted recently.

 

Yeah, i have both dungeon-be-gone and Unfinished Business installed(although recently). Started my first game using them a few days ago.

I've played the game so many times i wanted a change.

Tried it a few times with TDD, didn't really enjoy it other then the new class kits that it adds.....it's from that right? Things like Hunter(ranger), and Ninja(thief)....i 'think' i got them when i installed TDD.

It wouldn't let me install Unfinished Business unless i manually selected each component, and ommited the two new class kits(forget the names of them)

Another question i had was, does TDD uninstall ToB somehow. If i click on the ToB game launcher icon it says i need to install the expansion. If i launch from TDD i can play it though. I'm wondering if it screwed it all up somehow

 

Mods that I recommend are
- Ease of Use
- Tactics
- Rouge Rebalancing (that is if you like playing as a thief and/or bard)
- Solaufein
- Improved Asylum (one obtains some extremely powerful, even obscenely overpowered, items through it, especially for mages. given you figure out how to survive. no easy feat. it also seems to be a bit buggy in its main part...)
- Item Upgrade
- Subraces

All mods which will add a sense of novelty to a well-known game, as well as some new challenges.

Besides those I have lots of other mods installed - around 12 actually .... but my game is stable and with very few exceptions free of bugs. So spoil yourself.

 

TDD is very buggy if installed with other mods (don't know about the Weidu-version) At the moment I play BG2 with Shadows over Soubar, Unfinished business and Ease of Use.

 

Which mods you play with really depend on what your skill level is. If you're a vet, then you might have Tactics, Solaufein, Unfinished Business, Ease-of-Use (one or two select tweaks) and a few other smaller add-ons, or something like that. If you're a 5-timer or so, then Item Upgrade, Ease-of-Use (full install) and maybe one of the more controversial NPC's such as Chloe.

I'd encourage you to take a peek in over at the Mod Reviews section. Valen (reviewed by yours truly) offers a great gameplay expierience, even if it is short lived. Dungeon-Be-Gone is honestly one mod I'm not sure I could live without. I'm familiar with the plot and all the possible characters, so I don't need (or want) the intro. I just want to get out ASAP, which DBG does, thank God.

Anyhoo, it's really up to you. Cruise around Sorcerers.net's downloads and read the blurbs of the mods and see which one's appeal to you. Chances are there's a review for it too, which will give you loads of info, and then you can decide whether it's worth your o-so-valuable time.

 

Tactics, unfinished business, ease-of-use, underrepresented item, solaufein, Kelsey, Chloe, banter pack. These are the mods I usually have installed, and they add to the game without being buggy.
I once tried improved Assylum, but I thought it was buggy, and the items you gain are way to overpowered to be any fun. IIRC you can gain a cloack that grant 75% magic resistance, add immunty to a lot of spells and give like 4 extra level 9 spells. Enough in my book to bring the game down to a munchkin level.
I would suggest to only use Weimer mods, since these are the most used ones, and Wesley Weimer has very good mods on his homepage.

 

If you limit yourself to only Weimer mods, you're missing out on an awful lot of good stuff. Perhaps you mean WeiDU mods, since you mention stuff like Unfinished Business and Kelsey. Yeh, stick to WeiDU mods. http://modlist.pocketplane.net/ lists all mods with a specific notice if they're non-WeiDU, so you can treat those with suspicion.

 

Thank you all for all the contructive replies. I'll keep all of what you said in mind. One question though, how do i go about uninstalling TDD....i've unistalled it but then i couldn't play soa/tob via the regular game luancher icons. I think TDD messed up my registry somehow. I've tried installing ToB afterwords but nothing happens when i press 'instal'. I might have to remove all the files manually, which would be a pain but oh well.

Again thanks.

 

I think you might have to reinstall the whole damn thing to dump TDD. You should have tried the recently released WeiDU version perhaps?

The closest thing to an "official" mod is probably Ascension, written by BG2 designer Dave Gaider. Sort of hilariously hard, but it eases you in a bit if you install all the "improved" battles. Also makes the last bits of ToB plot much more interesting, fixes some danging bits, etc. There's also Unfinished Business, which tries to fix up bits of code/quest that remain in the game but were cut.

Beyond that, there are lots of NPCs ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. Keto is great, though ToB content for her is still being finalized... Most are a bit too different in tone and (lack of) polish from the standard chars to really fit in; some are plain overpowered.

Are there any quest/area mods that are actually polished, bug-free, and non-munchkin?

 

While Ascension certainly was developed by David Gaider, and as such the writing is pretty much where it needs to be, there are certain parts of it which don't feel quite as "authentic" as a few other mods. (The difficulty of the battles, the lack of voicing, and one of the epilogue portraits are all things I recall as a bit of a giveaway that it's mod content.)

Keto-ToB is definitely worth looking out for. I'd say she's the best NPC mod around.

As far as quest/area mods go, sadly it's no secret that Quest Pack v1 was... not the great success of bug-free-ness that I'd hoped it would be. v2, however, it currently being tested extremely thoroughly by some pretty prominent community members, so hopefully it should be a worthwhile release. (My main aim in mod development is to create content that feels as if it could have been part of the game from the very start-- quite a few other modmakers take a similar stance.) So right now, no, I don't think there are really any decent quality quest/area mods, but that's hopefully set to change in the near future.

 

Hello everyone! My first time posting here.

I'm replying to this because the topic seems to be more or less the type of problem that I am having. I also have a few questions/ideas on how to fix the problem, but I certainly am not a computer expert, which is why I've decided to seek help here.

Situation: I have Baldur's Gate II, with ToB installed. I also have quite a large number of mods installed, and I installed all non-weidu mods (including TDD) first, along with the baldurdash fixpacks, before installing any weidu mods. My os is win 98se.

Problems:

1. Whenever I enter ANY building in Umar hills, the game hangs/freezes. I have to do a hard reboot to restart the game. I have no idea why this occurs. There are a number of good quests in this area, so I classify this as a game-crashing bug.

2. Viconia is "stuttering" badly, although I suspect the reason for this is she did not get a chance to finish her dialogue (I entered a building or two just when the romance music started playing) earlier in the game. No biggie, because I think based on what I've read so far, the solution is to reload when that happens and let her finish the dialogue. It's too late for this game though, alas.

3. Some weidu mods will not install. It seems to be at random. I can give you a list of which ones installed ok, and which ones didn't, if you want. Mainly, it's new npc (party members) and "campaign-style" mods that didn't install correctly.


Questions/possible solutions:

1. I have heard there is a weidu-based TDD out, and the website I found for it looked like it was still a work in progress. Can I just uninstall my non-weidu TDD and install the weidu TDD?

2. Does anyone have any ideas on why some weidu mods will not install? Has anyone else ever had this problem?

3. Since weidu seems to be so popular now, when I reinstall BGII (I have a feeling I will have to to fix this) should I ignore baldurdash and all things non-weidu when all start the looong reinstall process anew?

4. And, dumb question of the day here: I LOATHE the idea of having to start a campaign all over AGAIN because of mod problems. Is it possible/practical to just put my saved game on my desktop, uninstall/reinstall, then fire up my saved game?

Sorry for such a long post, but I really love this game, and the modders' hard work that makes an awesome game even better. I wasn't sure where else to turn.

Many thanks to any/all that can post a helpful reply!

 

You should install the baldurdash fixpack right after the ToB patch. Most mods assume you have it and work from there.
There are very few mods left which are not Weidu compatible so if you spend a few hours going through various famous download sites you should find enough Weidu compatible mods.
A few mods/parts will not intall if they cant find a particular file. This will most probably happen due to some other mod you installed.
Your savegame probably wont even load if you try it after a fresh install with different mods. Take a look here for more.

 

Thanx for the post Shrikant. That helps me with the install info.

My original and most serious question remains, however. How do I stop the hanging/freezing of the game whenever I try to enter any building in Umar Hills?

Has anyone else had a problem similar to this?

Thanx for any help you guys (and girls) can give.

 

You can install only one Non-WeiDU mod. You wrote, that you installed all non-weidu mods first, so maybe this is the problem.

 

Aha. I think I will uninstall all of the non-TDD, non-weidu mods, and see if that makes a difference.

Thanks for the info!!

 

Non-WeiDU mods are also pretty infamous for non-functioning uninstallers.