Masochists sought for IWD-BG2 project

[grogerson]

I thought it was for real, what with all Cam's work on Item Upgrade, Unfinished Business and the Tweak Pack updates. I'm glad I didn't fall for an April Fools joke.

 

I, for one, am glad to see the attempt, and wish for its success. I love IWD, limited though it is. Great music, artwork and an excellent story.

 

As Kulyok, among others, has said, the two weaknesses of IWD (and IWD2) are the lack of NPC interaction and its lineal structure. By porting it into the BG2 engine it will allow (I'm guessing here) easier modding to add more areas to make it less lineal, and adding joinable NPC's with banters, conflicts, romances, etc...

 

Cam, I'm on-board for what little help I can provide.

[CamDawg]

Yeah, you should already have access to the workroom--it'll probably be the last forum you can see on the index.

[Guest Guest]

What are the benefits going to be, Cam, if you don't mind my asking?

[CamDawg]

What are the benefits going to be, Cam, if you don't mind my asking?

More or less the same benefits as Tutu or BGT--higher res (though Widescreen can now do this as well), expanded race/class/kit selection, dual-wielding, etc. I'm also hoping for more modding interest as well--some BG2 mods (kits, for example) should work with little to no alteration on the conversion. Once Tutu and BGT stabilized, you saw a lot of mods come out for them and I'm hoping for something similar here.

 

Realistically, I don't think it will--BG was always more popular than IWD regardless--but it's still a fun project.

[Kulyok]

About higher res: Heart of Winter gives the same thing. But, yes, IWD->BG2 engine not just rocks, but ROCKS, and all that.

[Guest interested]

Is Trials of the Luremaster included in the Icewind Dale Ultimate Collection? I'd never heard of it before this thread.

 

Also, does the version included in the Ultimate Collection require an official patch?

[Kulyok]

If you install Trials of the Luremaster, you do not need any patches - TotL already has the lattest patch. It's ~70mb, though:

http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IWD/index_misc.php

[grogerson]

I started a thread over at SHS back in February '06, asking about japheth's original attempt. Ironic that it was because Fred's IWD-Tutu project started here just a month earlier. It almost degenerated into a flame-war.

 

I'm linking it here only for reference. There might be something here that will help.

 

IWD to BG2 - Tutu Style, Has this been done?

 

Glad to see the modding community isn't as hostile or apathetic about this project, and that their creativity hasn't slowed.

 

Cam, Sim, thanks.

[Kulyok]

(A64 asks, two years ago:)

 

How complex must an NPC need to be in IWD to warrant inclusion of BG2:ToB scripting commands? In other words, please give some examples, or a complete analysis, of commands which make BG2:ToB scripting far superior to the IWD:ToTL system that will be of dominant use in the making of NPCs.

 

(weeps)

 

Weep 1

Weep 2

Weep 3, still unresolved

[BuddyRich]

I'd go for this...

 

I always liked the art and music of IWD better, and the plot... for all that it was bashed for its linearity, remove chapter 2 from BG2 and its just as linear...

 

While NPCs would be good, in general I found most of BG2's NPCs annoying... I tended to make my party via MP, leaving a spot open to pick up an NPC to do their quests, sticking with the least annoying one after chapter 2.

 

IWD allowed that from the get go...

 

Benefits from moving IWD to BG2 engine -> Kits, dual-wielding... support for the rock-paper-scissor high-level spells (triggered with contingencies). Adding the best of IWD resources art and anim wise into BG2 can only be a good thing IMO...

 

My only question is, can monster animation be moved over (giants and the like) I always thought they were hard coded in the .exe (not the anims themselves, they are bams, but the reference to them) unless ToB changed this.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Its good to see that there is still interest in modding Icewind Dale. Its often neglected in favor of BG2. IWD was the first game I made a mod for. It was a learning experience.

[CamDawg]

My only question is, can monster animation be moved over (giants and the like) I always thought they were hard coded in the .exe (not the anims themselves, they are bams, but the reference to them) unless ToB changed this.

I'm going to answer with a definite maybe. In my crude conversion, only some were imported, but DavidW just coded up a converter tool that may allow us to bring them all over (we're testing it ATM).

[Loz]

Sounds like a great project, as with some of the above comments, i found iwd's music art and story to be great fun. The main problem i always had with the game was that the mage class(which is so well done in bg2) is somewhat lacking in iwd. With the addition of all the bg2 features to the mage such as clones, pro. magic weapons type spells, triggers, contingencies and, dare i say it - Improved Alacrity, i think the game would certainly recieve a huge breath of life. On this note i was wondering what you'd do for the enemy mages, would their scripts remain as their original iwd ones, without any new features from bg2? or would you simply give them a generic mage20b type script from bg2? Or would you write a new one from scratch? I guess the same question goes to various other scripts in the game aswell.

 

Also i found in iwd that the character avatar's animation lacked the 'ready' animation from bg2... which always made them look rather odd while fighting. A real shame since the graphics in iwd were always one of its strongest points. I guess this would be fixed in such a project though.

 

I wish you luck with this project, with the iwd npc mod aswell i imagine iwd could feel like a new game. In a few years someone will probably end up trying a pst->bg2 mod .

[Guest Guest]

uhm... a rather strange and daring project, it is. This is going to be a total conversion, right?

Maybe it's would be more interesting to try and resurrect Weimer's IWG? It would be no less masochistic=)

[DavidW]

Maybe it's would be more interesting to try and resurrect Weimer's IWG? It would be no less masochistic=)

Nah, this is a lot easier - partly because the engines are more similar (and the BG2 engine isn't far off being a straightforward improvement on the IWD engine), partly because both use basically the same ruleset (no 2nd ed/3rd ed problems).