Weimer's Icewind Gate 2 HoF

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Hi guys,

I'm going to play Icewind Gate 2 in HoF mode now, and I'd like to lay the groundwork so that other IWD2 players can enjoy it too.
There has been little interest in the project since Weimer abandoned it, but the bugs can be worked around (read the walkthrough) and it offers a tremendous potential for extra gameplay.
Thankfully there's a walkthrough detailing most of the problems encountered during play. What I want to do is iron out the problems getting the IWD2 mods to work in IWG2. All IWD2 mods seem to be stable in an IWG2 installation, provided you install them BEFORE IWG2 (otherwise BG2 section often crashes on loading), but there are issues getting some of them to work.
3 mods have problems in IWG2:
Weimer's Ease-of-use pack and similarly crucis' Light of Selune mod add non-druid spells to the druids spell list, these new spells become uncastable, but memorizable when IWG2 is installed. Magic Circle Against Evil is uncastable regardless whether IWG2 is installed BTW.
Wu Min's (where is his bug-reporting forum anyway?) Tactics for IWD2 gives bonuses to HoF characters, and the extra hit points do transfer over to the BG2 part, but not the AC bonus.

If you're interested in this, please check the IWG2 bug reporting forum:
http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/topic,23874.0.html

If you have any useful insight into the matter, posting a reply at PocketPlaneGroup would be ideal. But if you prefer to stick to Sorcerer's Place, this thread will do fine - I'll keep PPG updated of any progress.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help out!

 

Dude, good luck.

 

Update: Progress report.

I've found the Icewind Gate II beta surprisingly playable, even in HoF mode.

So far I've only encountered 3 drawbacks:
1) The point where Bodhi's vampires appear, as mentioned in the walkthrough, is indeed debilitating for my party. So much code rushes through the dialogue screen that they can hardly move. The advice here was to jump the party to another map. Since I didn't know any area codes, I just Ctrl+J jumped to an exit point and left normally. Returning was no problem.
2) When entering the cult o/t Unseeing Eye's HQ, I get a cutscreen where a new worshipper gets killed while trying to remove his eyes, but I never regain control of my gamebar. Had to Ctrl+Alt+Delete to exit game. I reloaded and Ctrl+Y killed the two characters in question on sight. No cutscreen, no problems
3) The cloak of the Sewers still has transformations, but disables the Item Abilities button. Since the transform-back-to-human is an item ability, there's no way to transform back, unless you're a druid. Had to reload.

As you can see, I made it this far in the game, only encountering these few problems. Unless you have no clue how to use cheat codes, I would recommend playing it. It's an unpolished diamond!

Other gameplay remarks:
There is a balance issue, as all enemies are enhanced. This makes powerful enemies a bit stronger, but greatly enhances the danger of random foes. Being waylaid by enemies is now a real danger for my high level party. Simple thugs with unenchanted daggers have the potential to backstab you for lots of damage! I nearly got my sorceress killed once. I must say it doesn't bother me (yet), because I like the challenge.
The sequencers are gone from the game, but certain enemies still fire off insta-cast spells upon sight, so the enemy may still have them.
What I've seen so far is that the most dangerous spells from BG2 which aren't in IWD2 have been replaced with summons mainly. This makes me very glad I installed Min Wu / Nameless One's Tactics4IWD2 mod, because this makes all summons (mine too) start off with 10-20% hitpoints - Near Death. Summons are only useful IMO if you have the chance to (Mass) Heal them.
All mods I installed appear to be functioning properly, with the exception of those I mentioned in my first post.
Spellblasting is no easy killer anymore. When facing any decent opponent my level 30 wizard casts a 30d10 DBFB, and this is sufficient to get opponents Badly Hurt mostly, so you can imagine how much hitpoints they have.

I have HoF mode on, Insane (monsters do double damage), and the IWD2Tweak 'Max HP for non-party NPCs'. This isn't to show off, just to illustrate that IWG2 HoF is playable.

 

delta 1 version of IWG2 by Nameless One

Nameless One has been making some improvements to the code, and created an unofficial delta for IWG2!

He mailed it to me, and I'm offering it to anyone interested in testing it. I can't report yet what kind of improvements there are, but so far I can tell you that this version has an uninstaller, and there are little clues that hint to the chinese language it was made for: The word 'journal' in your journal is in chinese, and the names of the months in your saved games are in chinese now too. The savegames can still be loaded, so it's a very minor issue, more like a cosmetic thing. When playing, the game plays exactly like Weimer's beta.

find it here:
http://www.shsforums.net/index.php?showtopic=34232&st=0#entry398247

 

Just thought I'd make mention of some progress I made with Icewind Gate 2: I finally got the new druid spells to work in IWG2, this problem was bugging me for a long time, and spoiled my gameplay, as I couldn't use my druid as I wanted to.
It involves altering the LISTSPLL.2DA file in the Override folder, which IWG2 overwrites. For more details, read my most recent post in the thread linked in my first post.