Fourth Wall Fixer in Candlekeep?

[tatterdemalion]

I had a novel idea for a mod which should be relatively simple to implement, I think, and which would improve the experience of play in BG1.

 

I'm thinking about those damned tutors wandering around in their cloaks and hoods telling you how to click on things - immersion-breaking, and some of their information is downright incorrect for the Tutu engine.

 

It doesn't seem like it should be all that hard to change their repertoire of lines.

 

Has anyone tried their hand at making such a mod? I'm thinking of doing it because I need to get more conversant in IE coding and this strikes me as good practice. Limited scope, etc. Basically changing their dialogue to something more in-character. ("Oh, Charname, I remember when you were knee-high to a grasshopper." "The sages speak of a battle to come, but we are safe inside these walls." Etc.)

 

Alternately, there could be an option which gave them fourth-wall-breaky lines which are player advice suitable to modded installs ("Don't install Improved Ilyich, he'll kick your butt clear to Halruaa!")

 

Any thoughts? Am I suggesting something which already exists somewhere?

[Adanedhel]

DavidW may be working on something about those monks (probably just removing them though) http://forums.gibber...showtopic=24058

 

Edit : as a SCS component

[Dakk]

[Original post destroyed by wonky browser]

 

I very recently asked DavidW about this in a thread on SCS, from this post onward, and he is not disinclined to add a component that will disable the monks/tutors in some way or another. Feel free to add your appreciation of such component there.

 

There is no other mod - that I know of - that changes the monks in any way.

[tatterdemalion]

I like the idea of adding something cool rather than merely subtracting something goofy. :-) So I think I'll go to the thread and suggest mine...

[DavidW]

SCS v22 will just offer the opportunity to delete them, following Dakk's suggestion (as I said to him, it's all of two minutes' coding, so why not?). By all means don't let that stop you coming up with something more substantive for your own mod.

[Miloch]

I like the idea. Deleting the tutor monks is not really a solution. By lore, Candlekeep has such monks wandering about, so a true solution would be either to silence them (not a good solution either, but better than nuking them wholesale) or giving them even some sort of random comments that aren't fourth-wall breaking.

[DavidW]

Agreed, in principle; in practice I can code a monk-zapping component in two minutes flat, so I'm happy to do that on request and wait for someone else to do something more elaborate.

[tatterdemalion]

Hmm. While we are at it... Any other fourth-wall-breaking dialogue that people find annoying/problematic?

 

I'm not talking about Biff the Understudy (who serves a useful purpose, as far as I think of it) but... while I'm at it I might as well write a component to do something with Lord Foreshadow, who spouts a cutely dated ad for NWN 2.

 

I think he's amusing the first couple of times, and, as per his name, is sort of *supposed* to be fourth-wall-breaky, like Biff. But it could be interesting to replace his dialogue with something maybe IC foreshadowing... or a similarly winky/nudgy reference to something which people are actually still waiting for.

 

Any other suggestions?

 

Also, if people would like to write one or two lines of their own for the Candlekeep sages, feel free to post them to this thread... I'm writing my own right now but I love mods with variety.

[Jarno Mikkola]

or a similarly winky/nudgy reference to something which people are actually still waiting for.

Any other suggestions?

Well, if you do it clever enough, there could be a nice nudge to the Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition in the normal game... and then to complement that, the same component can also install different lines to the BG:EE's version ... "You should also try the Original Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast game, that has been available for the last decade." ... or some such.

[Dakk]

or a similarly winky/nudgy reference to something which people are actually still waiting for.

Any other suggestions?

Well, if you do it clever enough, there could be a nice nudge to the Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition in the normal game... and then to complement that, the same component can also install different lines to the BG:EE's version ... "You should also try the Original Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast game, that has been available for the last decade." ... or some such.

But that would be contrary to the entire purpose of a "Fourth wall fixer"

[DavidW]

Incidentally, it occurs to me that the green-robed monks are entirely absent in chapter 6, when you return to Candlekeep. That seems to argue in favour of just zapping them.

[Adanedhel]

IIRC it's a different area resource.

[DavidW]

IIRC it's a different area resource.

 

You do RC. But my point is: they only show up in Candlekeep in tutorial mode; they don't seem to be part of the general background ambience.

[Dakk]

IIRC it's a different area resource.

That's probably obvious to DavidW I suppose David is arguing that if BioWare didn't put the monks there in the first place (in chapter 6) it reinforces the notion that they are only "tutorial monks" placed there to spout tutorial oneliners. So they are not really part of the monk population like Miloch said: "By lore, Candlekeep has such monks wandering about".

 

I'm for (the unified) SCS just zapping them - if only because that's realistically the only thing David will do - but I'd really like to see another mod changing their commentary.

 

PS. David; I donate the name "Unified SCS" for you to use in your next release

[Adanedhel]

Yeh, my bad of course that's common knowledge to you