Problem fighting Torgal

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Maybe, maybe not, but I'm not a developer of the BG2 Fixpack, and (apart from two or three conversations on random boards, I think) have had exactly nothing to do with it.

I replied, and have been replying, because I wasn't and aren't convinced your analysis of the cause of the bug was supported by evidence, so I thought more details would be useful to affected players.

@Baronius:

No, I'm not saying anything in particular about how a given phenomenon *should* be addressed. You might well have very good reason to think that a fixpack has a responsibility to avoid ever introducing incompatibilities, so that when they arise that's invariably the fixpack's fault. I take it that is your position, in fact (I don't agree, but I think it's defensible.) I'm just saying that it's confusing to call those incompatibilities "bugs".

(Example: suppose that Bioware released another official patch. They probably wouldn't give a damn about mod compatibility, and it might well break lots of things. That might make it annoying from the mod community's perspective, but it wouldn't make it buggy.)

 

This is what you've written:

Since we're talking about "G3 fixpack", and you didn't explicitly state that you exclude it from the possible substitutes for "mod A" in the above text, I have a good reason to believe that your above statement is meant to apply to the "G3 fixpack" as well (especially because what you objected is that we say it has "hidden bugs").

So, to sum up, what you said is: if "G3 Fixpack" does something that "isn't uncontroversially bad but which breaks mod B", it isn't reasonable to call it a "hidden bug", the term plain incompatibility is more suitable.

What I meant is that your words (especially the 'plain') imply that "plain incompatibility" is something you consider less severe than "bugs"; at least, something which is more 'natural', acceptable than bugs, and as such, it doesn't matter if testing doesn't detect them: they can be fixed (= addressed) later as usual ("plain") incompatibilities.

We can call it a bug, because it's something that hinders planned functionality (= e.g. causes a crash or serious problem) in a supported environment, and could have been avoided by proper (proactive) solutions and (more importantly) thorough planning (plus, as Sikret said, testing). Why the supported environment? Well, it isn't run on Planescape Torment, it's run on BG2.

This is irrelevant, because Bioware is over any mods, it is basically an "authority". Let me tell you an example. Here is a standard European plug. It fits into a standard socket. If a European manufacturer produces a plug which doesn't fit the standard socket, e.g. due to an error in the manufacturing process, it is going to "buggy", and no one will use it. On the other hand, if the standardization organization/authority ("Bioware") accepts and releases a new socket, it will make all earlier plugs incompatible, but manufacturers will have to follow it.

It's about numbers. "Incompatibilities" (or "bugs" or whatever we call them, doesn't matter) that could be avoided by proper design, implementation and verification are indeed unacceptable. Especially if they appear in large numbers, and in hidden form. (One might say that I want to force industrial software verification discipline to IE modding, but that's not true: thorough design and verification is doable in IE modding too, no need to be experts for it.)

As far as I've noticed, this is how "G3 Fixpack" developers imagine it:
1. We find things that can be fixed (= made better) somehow. Definition of 'better'? E.g. something which the majority likes, and sounds 'cool'.
2. We add them to the mod, presenting our wonderful WeiDU skills to write binary manipulation codes.
3. We release the mod, and wait for bug reports and incompatibilities. If incompatibilities arise, we tell the mod authors how they can adjust their mods to solve the incompatibility with fixpack (in other words: how to fix what fixpack has broken in their mod).
4. The mod contains a lot of untested or poorly tested features, but players are eager to install it. They are already influenced by the propaganda ("the only fixpack" which "supersedes" all previous ones; "baldurdash plus a *few hundred fixes* more"; and, of course, the name itself: "BG2 Fixpack"), the "hundreds of new fixes" impress them very much.

If it was more thoroughly tested and tweaks would be incorporated into a different mod (as I suggested them very many times in the past), it wouldn't be beneficial for them because:

1. Thorough, comprehensive testing is hard work: they enjoy writing WeiDU code and showing their brilliant TP2 skills, but they don't enjoy testing, don't want to allocate time for it, players will do it anyway
2. New features would be incorporated to the fixpack less often: many less players would be excited, it wouldn't do good to the propaganda (or site traffic and google ranks, they are related)
3. More mods would be compatible with fixpack without the need to change their code:
   (a.) They could educate less people to brilliant WeiDU skills => less traffic for their WeiDU tutorials and support solutions => less traffic for the site
   (b.) The propaganda about "patching can make all mods technically compatible" would get smaller publicity, because mods would be compatible with fixpack even without adjustments => this would publicly confirm my view that modding isn't just about "coding" and reactive solutios, it's also a field for thorough design and proactive solutions.
4. Generally, sites which mostly build on the concept of "many small but compatible" mods would get less traffic, and one of the biggest of these sites is G3. G3 mods works with fixpack because their authors agree with the approach that it's OK for a fixpack to break mods and it's a mod author's duty to make his/her mod compatible with fixpack. These small, not too complex projects can be made compatible with fixpack relatively easily, unlike big complex projects. And they expect the authors of these big complex projects to spend five times more time than they to ensure compatibility with the fixpack, and they know many authors will refuse this => even more traffic for "compatibility-friendly, well-designed" mods of sites such as G3.
5. MOST IMPORTANT: There aren't many important things to be fixed, because the game isn't so horribly buggy (or it would have been a failure already when it was released). So CamDawg's statement "the game contains bugs and we decided to find and fix each bug" is a poor justification. The funniest is that exactly jastey, an enthusiastic G3 modder, one of the biggest faithful defenders of the "G3 fixpack" publicly admitted she did not encounter any (!!) bug while playing the original game. So since 90+% of the "hundreds of new fixes introduced by G3 fixpack" are some sort of "cool" improvements and not bugfixes, admitting that the game isn't buggy would be a "suicide" for G3FP's reputation and propaganda. Because there wouldn't be anything new to add to the fixpack! It would be e.g. like my Grey Clan Episode One mod -- no bug reports, no traffic, because it's not new, not extended, not refreshed.

So basically, what we can see is a propaganda (and perhaps they consider it a honest way of increasing a site's popularity, as a "fair marketing" to make the "business" go well).

• Propaganda: to convince all players that all G3 fixpack "fixes" are actual corrections or "cool additions", and more importantly, the bugs that appear are natural, inevitable ("each mod has bugs"), and the frequency of incompatibilies is normal, usual.
• Propaganda: to convince all modders to support the G3 fixpack => (1.) it becomes even more widespread (=> more traffic for G3) (2.) more modders are forced to learn complex WeiDU coding to fix their mods broken by G3 Fixpack, and visit G3 to ask for WeiDU support (=> more traffic for G3)

It's all about traffic and site reputation. CamDawg is a wonderful diplomat and businessman, and a good speaker. One might ask: and what's your problem G3 having big traffic due to G3 fixpack? Oh, nothing. My problem is the powerful but unnoticeable propaganda and the fact "G3 fixpack" developers have misled many modders and players, making them believe false things about mods, modding and compatibility.

And what's the reason I'm writing this? The fact I see so many misled people, who even don't start modding due to the unnecessary difficulties introduced by the abovementioned propaganda. For example not all people have time or preliminary skills to learn advanced WeiDU, but since they see their work would be buried and ridiculed if they don't learn G3 WeiDU and don't make their works compatible with "fixpack" and/or other mods, they rather drop the whole idea. I'm trying to open the eyes of modders and players.

For example, what happens when a completely new person who has great ideas reads the following part from this "FAQ":

What *is* this if not PROPAGANDA?

(1) It's condescending due to its cynical statements.
(2) It lies: it implies that the game will be very buggy without G3 Fixpack. It doesn't say it would "lack cool new features and improvements", it says it will crash more.
(3) It's manipulative: it says that you won't get support from people if you choose not to support fixpack ("but it's your choice")
(4) It's unfair and condescending towards people who don't have possibility or preliminary skills to learn advanced coding.

A reply there, my favourite:

Doesn't it perfectly hit the nail on the head?

Note that the topic I linked to used to be pinned, but after I linked to it on more places in the past, they unpinned it because they realized it's actually quite awkward (They can't delete it, as it would be against their "nothing is deleted" policy).


So what I would expect from them:

• Make a fixpack which has real fixes, and stop the propaganda and brainwashing.
• If you don't want to do the above thing because you're afraid of traffic and reputation loss: OK I understand you love that project and it brings a lot of traffic to your site and promotes WeiDU coding. But then, put all the subjective and ambigious "fixes" to a different mod AND design and test that mod thoroughly, comprehensively.

As a partial solution, design and test (the current, overloaded form of) "G3 fixpack" thoroughly, comprehensively, but I'm not really happy with this one. But it would be undoubtedly a big improvement anyway. I doubt it will ever happen though.

On a side note, in case it's not obvious: the severe technical problems of G3FP, mentioned by Sikret and myself, aren't some sort of pretext e.g. because we don't like propaganda. The technical problems do exist, exactly because G3FP developers need to add and keep a lot of things in the mod quickly to keep the popularity => quick and unthoughful modding results in incorrect decisions, and lacks comprehensive testing. So one of the tasks of the propaganda is exactly to disguise the fact that G3FP is poorly tested and unthoughtfully designed. (In fact, the bugs themselves increase G3 traffic too: the fixpack creates new bugs, players report them in the fixpack forums as "game bugs", so they can fix the bugs created by their own fixpack. I *don't* state that these self-created bugs are intentional though, they are the consequence of poor design and testing; though I'm sure they don't mind them exactly because they bring traffic and can be fixed for next releases => EVEN more traffic and audience).


By the way, I would like to emphasize that Sikret and myself aren't the only people who have objections with the fact the G3 Fixpack adds a lot of unnecessary tweak things, which are -- on top of it all -- untested:

• One of the authors of BG1NPC project (does it sound familiar?), Blucher said the following:
  
• Wounded Lion even offered to HELP them to solve the problem (as Wounded Lion also believes that changes aren't tested at all), and his offer was practically refused, and a troll also attacked him. No one, *no one* did anything with the troll (It's interesting that CamDawg, administrator of the whole G3 site is one of the key developers of G3 FP, and he didn't do anything against that troll who tried to disturb Wounded Lion).

For example, Wounded Lion is completely independent from us.

So for those who believed this has to do with Improved Anvil or "Sikret or Baronius hating G3" can now see that it's a wrong assumption.

 

Okay, I have no idea how this degenerated again into a rehash of certain anti-fixpack arguments, and since I don't have any particular brief to defend the fixpack (and since there's no arguing with paranoia) I'll leave it alone.

To return belatedly to the original bug report, though, which was and is still the point of this thread: here's my diagnosis for dertpk, with apologies for accidentally having provoked another essay on the fixpack:

• The BG2 fixpack gives Torgal the same regeneration power as other trolls, correctly as far as I can determine.
• As with all trolls, this can occasionally mean that you need to back off on attacking them for a moment, once they're at Near Death. That's my guess as to your bug
• Tactics will remove the regeneration power again, though it will make Torgal dramatically more powerful.
• As Baronius notes, savegames store creature statistics, so installing or uninstalling a mod won't necessarily remove changes to a creature whose area you've already entered.

 

Perhaps because it somehow connects to this. Have you ever been thinking why Sikret, Wounded Lion, Blucher, myself and others had those objections?
Perhaps if more people who are intelligent (like you) joined and wouldn't side with something which is developed with arrogance and subtle propaganda, everything would be much better.

If your diagnose is correct, then the lesson is still the same: if "G3 Fixpack" hadn't arbitrarily manipulated something that a fixpack should never do, the problem wouldn't have appeared at all for dertpk.

A typical example (regardless whether your diagnose is correct or not) again that the "G3 fixpack" overrides the developers' choice with the poor justification that "TorGal should also have those immunities". Every creature is unique, perhaps TorGal sacrificed this native ability for getting more strength and power (e.g. it was the offer of a powerful Troll Shaman). In the Forgotten Realms setting, only imagination is needed to find a reasonable justification. What the G3FP developers do gives evidence about the lack of imagination, and the propaganda they do to brainwash players is disgusting.

The point is, all those arbitrary tweaks of the fixpack would be OK and even "cool" in a different mod. But if they are in a fixpack, and there is many of them, it manipulates so many dependencies and may break so many mods that even thorough testing cannot really help.

 

In which case I think you'd be better placed to make the case somewhere else (open a thread dedicated to the fixpack at BWL, for instance). I'm moderately interested in the issue from an intellectual point of view (though charged language like "disgusting" and "arrogance" don't usually add much to a debate) but I'm deliberately trying to avoid derailing this thread.

 

Thank you for your post. I think I've written all important points anyway, those who aren't convinced by those won't be convinced by any. So I'll just link back to that long post when needed if there is a question somewhere "Why don't you recommend G3 Fixpack?". My answer will be: "You can read it <here>", where the last part is a hyperlink -- if you believe this is acceptable. I also think that Sorcerer's Place shouldn't become the place for such monotonous discussions of IE modding, so I couldn't agree more with you.