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Request for... um... collaboration? Redistribution?


subtledoctor

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I'm writing to get the attention of anyone who can be considered the caretaker of this mod. I haven't seen CamDawg around in ages do I guess that would be... maybe Mike? Not sure.

 

Anyway, I'm collaborating with Grammarsalad on a new mod for clerics and druids, called "Faiths & Powers." Details here:

 

http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=27627&page=1

 

We have a working sphere system with 21 spheres. To fill them out and make them balanced, in addition to changing the level of some spells and borrowing some wizard spells, we also make use of the many new spells in IWDEE. This allows us to have a really rich and varied set of spheres, instead of a much more limited set. (I could only come up with 14 spheres when using the base BG2 spell set.)

 

To allow BG2 players to get the benefit of that system, we rely on the players installing the IWDification spell packs. With just a few exceptions, this mod covers the same spells as IWDEE and it provides us with a nice uniformity of spell selection.

 

However, a few of our beta testers have missed that requirement, or didn't know where to find IWDification. We would like to make this as easy and fun as possible for players, but right now we are limited to mentioning the requirement in our Readme and providing a link. Those can both be easily missed.

 

So, I wonder if you guys might be amenable to some kind of tighter integration. An obvious possibility us to simply bundle components 30 and 40 of IWDification in with Faiths & Powers (with due credit of course - IWDification is already, literally, an integral part of our mod!)

 

Alternatively, we're open to other ideas. It seems like IWDification kind of flies below the radar of a bunch of players, and we want to make it as easy as possible for players to a) get these spells in their game, and b) get the further benefit of our kid that builds on these spells.

 

Please contact me and/or Grammarsalad if you are interested or acquiescent, or have thoughts about this. We can take this to PM as well (I just don't know who to PM :p )

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Oh, that's already in the mod right now.

 

I'm thinking about trying to create some kind of tighter integration. Right now, if a user's game doesn't already contain IWDification, the result is simple and annoying: install failure. Followed by re-reading the Readme, possibly complaining of bugs on our forum (which has already happened), then scrounging on the web and finally a whole new download. None of those things are particularly horrible, but they can be annoying.

 

I'd like the result to be something friendlier, like, automatically install IWDification. Once upon a time mod components would be contributed to various different mods for various different uses... look at the overlap between BG2Tweaks, SCS, BG1NPCs, FixPack, and yes, IWDification, for examples. That doesn't seems to happen anymore, but why shouldn't it? (I donated my wizard class tweaks to Aquadrizzt for Tome & Blood, I'm happy to see them used there. Zupsky had a little kit mod, and he donated the kit for use in my NPC_EE mod, rather than only relying on dependencies. Etc.)

 

Maybe keep the mods separate, but bundle an entire instance of IWDification *with* our mod, so our instructions could be something like "install this .exe, then install that .exe." But each would still be a distinct product.

 

Or I could have FnP trigger a shell script that auto-downloads and unpacks IWDification...? But that seems a bit crazy. Or anyway, fragile.

 

I don't know. I'm not asking for a handout, just trying to think outside the box a bit.

 

(Of course this all may be moot if the SoD patches for the EEs add the IWDEE .spl resources to the BG games. Then we may just make the mod EE-only, and devote my time toward developing the mod, instead of backwards compatibility.)

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here is a way that you could code it:

COPY_EXISTING ~spell.ids~ ~override~ //just to have it ready for FILE_CONTAINS checks

ACTION_IF FILE_CONTAINS ~override/spell.ids~ ~ CLERIC_BLESS$~ BEGIN
  LAF RES_NUM_OF_SPELL_NAME STR_VAR spell_name = ~CLERIC_BLESS~ RET ~spell_res~ END
  COPY_EXISTING ~%spell_res%.spl~ ~override~
    //do your patching
END

than your mod will be compatible with vanilla game and with spells added by other mods. You could create an array with spell names to make the code shorter, if you're doing the same patching to multiple spells. Unless IWD spells are crucial for your system I don't see a point in forcing everybody to install them.

 

edit: nevermind, I missed this part:

To fill them out and make them balanced, in addition to changing the level of some spells and borrowing some wizard spells, we also make use of the many new spells in IWDEE. This allows us to have a really rich and varied set of spheres, instead of a much more limited set. (I could only come up with 14 spheres when using the base BG2 spell set.)
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Yeah, that's the thing: the IWD spells are crucial to the sphere system. (We were originally going to release it as IWDEE-only, but we want everyone to be able to use the mod. A spell pack like IWDification lets us do that. (We could recreate all the IWD spells ourselves, but honestly that's crazy.)

 

You could create an array with spell names to make the code shorter, if you're doing the same patching to multiple spells.

Yes, we already use an array organized by spell IDS name, that is the heart of the sphere system. Also, we can arbitrarily add spells to the array and the system does not depend on them being installed or not. So e.g. I just contacted Galactygon to get his SpellPack spells into our system. Because the array works via IDS name, any Sunscorch spell will be added to the sphere of Light, whether it's from IWDification, SR, SpellPack, or the native IWDEE version.

 

It's really quite clever. :)

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