A question for the specialists...

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Does anybody know of a patch/mod that transforms a french-spoken version of IWD into an english version?

The french version is for sale on ebay, but I prefer to play it in english...

 

Then get the English version

Sorcerer's Place - Buy PC Games

[ August 22, 2005, 13:28: Message edited by: Lynadin ]

 

Taluntain is correct - you could use the dialog.tlk file from an English version of the game, though sounds would still be in French.

 

I still don't understand why don't you just get the english version ??

 

He wants to play multiplayer games:

http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/14/2487.html

@Taluntain & Andyr: I'm surprised, I did manage to get English sounds in a French BG1 installation. Is IWD so different from BG1?

 

I played a dutch game once (and only once!) with every text, voiced or otherwise, which was completely converted to english when installing the english patch.

I have no idea though if it works with IWD.

 

Well, the sound files are stored as .wavc files and are not part of the text file (dialog.tlk). I have heard that BG2 has different sounds for different languages, in which case copying just the .tlk would not change the sounds, so I assume the same is true of IWD1.

I only have English versions of the games myself, so this is not first-hand information.

If Apeman says the English patch converted his Dutch to English then I would suggest that means it works, and the Dutch game probably has English voicing.

 

To clarify the game in question I mentioned was not IWD but a strategy game called Knight and Merchants. Sorry for the misunderstanding, maybe in a longshot applying the english patch could help.

But again no idea if it works, most probably not.

 

Oh, right; well in that case as Tal and I posted I am certain getting an english .TLK file (from an English copy of the game, or you could download the English TotLM) will still mean the sounds are in the original language.

 

I can unerstand why Spliff Krieger prefers to play the original versions of these games. The french translations were done by a team of morons. It's riddle with errors. The voice acting is so bad it's not even funny. The provided soundsets are ridiculous. Avoid the french versions at any cost, even if it's given for free. I was lucky to be introduced by the DVD versions of BG1 and BG2 (which contains 4 or 5 language versions). I wanted Tales Of The Sword Coast very badly so when I saw it cheap in a shop I bought it. When I installed it, it transformed my BG install voice and text to french. This was catastrophic. Hearing Minsc now inpersonated by an underpaid, unconvincing, talentless french actor gave me headaches. I tried to get it in english online. I tried Amazon US but you couldn't order anything for Europe because of some stupid export restriction for software. I tried Amazon UK it was no longer available.

So I ended up using Winbiff to extract all the NPC/Creature sound files before installing ToSC in a folder. After Installing ToSC and patching it. I dumped them all (a few thousand) in the override folder. Then I also grabbed the dialog.tk from baldurdash's webside. Voila, BG was back to its VO glory except for a few ToSC specific sounds that I could sort of live with.

Now let's go back to topic. To patch a foreing version of IWD you need the following files:
- "SNDcreat.bif", "SNDVO.bif" that reside in the "DATA" folder
- all the content of the "Sounds" folder (for the sounsets)
- "dialog.tk" (the official patch doesn't contain this)

The whole thing wheighs 102 MB. If you manage to find someone who can provide you those files your game will be in english. Maybe the Sorcerers Place should host a page with language patches but I doubt it. Taluntain will probably chicken out at such a usefull idea. The files are useless for anyone who doesn't have the original games anyway so it can't be labelled pirating. There is a precedent called "soundsets for all the NPCs" that can alredy be dowloaded for BG1 and BG2. Anyway I'm willing to help if such an endeavour is deemed possible. Hey moderators if you are listening what do you say?

 

It's true that Interplay are almost dead. But we shouldn't count on it, they and their assets will eventually get bought.

The bandwidth issue could be solved by setting up a tracker for a torrent. I know torrents are usually used for seedy exchanges. It is also used for legitimate stuff like Linux distros or game patches and demos. As you said not many people are likely to be interested so the seed might die quiet fast.

The least we can do in the mean time is determine what are the critical files for each games that need to be obtained for a patch