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The Black Pits for EET


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I think Roxanne included it in the Sandrah mod somehow. But it would be great for some modder to incorporate it in a way that isn't dependent on a huge, sprawling mega-mod that some people may not like (and which is itself is dependent on various huge, sprawling megamods that some people may not like... etc.).

 

Here's a really basic idea: add the BP1 tavern to the Ulgoth town, to sort of mark this out as "TotSC-level" content. Make it exclusive with having Baeloth in the party - disable access to the inn if you take Baeloth into your party, and vice-versa disable taking Baeloth into your party if you have gone to the inn before talking to him. Then just make it basically like TotLM is in IWD: you get teleported from the inn to BP1, you fight your way through it, and then get teleported back. And then continue on your adventure.

 

This could really be a straight BGEE mod, it wouldn't need to be dependent on EET.

 

Hmm, come to think of it, maybe I'll suggest this very thing to Roxanne. She could do an excellent job of it, and I read a post where she already indicated that she's not very content with how the BP integrates into Sandrah. Maybe she'd be willing to break it off as an independent mod.

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Make it exclusive with having Baeloth in the party -

But have you actually played the BP1 at all man ? Cause Baeloth is the arena master, not an NPC you fight with against the opponents ! You revert the whole plot with this cheese ! And what about the 6th player char ... if Baeloth is the master etc etc etc.

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Actually, it would be much better to have the dungeon be a requirement to get Baeloth. As in, you first beat it, then run into B, and he won't mention it ... but you can see from him, that he just lost most of his power in where ever he came from. That's actually written in his origin. Don't know how to interconnect the BP2 into that, but what ever... maybe he gets entrapped/enslaved to the commentator post.

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This could really be a straight BGEE mod, it wouldn't need to be dependent on EET.

 

 

Are you sure that is technically possible at all. The essence of EET is that it makes all parts of the game into campaigns accessible from the BG2EE engine. I have no idea how BGEE and BP work together in the original package, I doubt that they do at all. This means, you cannot just travel to BP areas from a BGEE game, those areas are not part of the same install. Unless you create another *mini-EET* to import BP and all of its resources into BGEE. I do not think with the given quality of BP this is even worth considering. And why invent the wheel twice as EET is there to provide the capability already?

Edited by Roxanne
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You just need to make a door between the areas. Should be VERY simple as that.

Besides, the EET doesn't make anything different from BG2EE, it just adds one more interface to switch between the games. As that is what the BGEE SoDs does, to the base BGEE game... in the patch I looked at, the same thing is there in BG2EE, it might look different, but it's the same interface as was between the BG2SoA and BG2ToB campaigns in the original nonEE game 15 yearts ago, and you could move easily between the two, all you had to do was use the CLUAConsole, or fix a door between the two areas, update baldur.bcs to the new 25baldur.bcs and you had a go at it.

It's not like you have learned anything in moding the game, man.

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Exactly. Why limit it to only players who own SoD+BG2EE when it's not technically necessary? Every BGEE install contains all of the resources of BP1 within it. Make a door that goes to the arena, make s script that starts the dialogue and teleportation, and the whole thing is available. The fact that the vanilla game gates it behind a "campaign" is basically an arbitrary decision enforced by the game's UI.

 

As a comparison, look at Heart of Winter in IWDEE. It's a separate "campaign" in the game UI, but you can also play the content by simply walking into a house in Kuldahar. The only things stopping BP1 from being exactly the same are 1) I don't have the time to figure out how to do it, and 2) people with the skills and time to do it have not decided to do so.

 

As far as EET: it could be just like any other BG1 content mod - DSotSC, NTotSC, BG1NPC, etc. It would be compatible with EET, but there's zero reason to make it dependent on EET.

Edited by subtledoctor
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If it's a simple modding matter, I don't see the problem by just adding it in somewhere. The only thing to make sure of is that all the characters don't lose their inventory. I would prefer it become available that is detached from the Sandrah Mod since Roxanne already has it laid out, and I'm sure others will like that as well.

 

Also there will be probably need to be some editing as I believe you meet the guy AFTER he lost all of his power right? So what needs to be done that he is locked as a available character to meet in Chapter 1 until you cleared the Black Pits. His dialogue will probably to have to be slightly altered when you meet him again. Or another way is simply meeting him the normal way, but slightly altering his dialogue that he owns the Black Pits (which has not failed yet), but after the black pit events is up to the Modder.

 

Multiple ways to tackle this really.

Edited by Kaliesto
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I think it's easy to deal with Baeloth. If you meet him and take him into your party, he talks about how BP occurred in the past and he has fallen from power, at this point the content will be barred to that PC forever. It's something you hear about from Baeloth, but it happened to someone else. If you go there and start playing it before taking Baeloth in, then the version of him in the FAI disappears and you are barred from taking him in.

 

Easy-peasy.

 

The quest XP thing should be similarly easy to handle.

 

Dealing with items is a bit of an issue - in addition to not losing what you have when you begin, you don't want the expansion to be a place where you can go shopping and buy duplicates of powerful stuff, and make the main game too easy. On the other hand maybe you <I>should</I> lose your items... a splash of cold reality is good for you. Like the middle of Half-Life. You lose some stuff but you can buy some other stuff in the stores there.

 

Or have two install options, let the player decide how hardcore they want it to be.

 

Either way, it would be great to get a proof-of-concept done first... the fiddly bits could be figured out in good time.

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here's my idea for mechanical BP integration (no real ideas for narrative integration yet)

 

- black pits is a quest in SoD, because, as i envision it, it's too hard for BG:EE

- you get no xp rewards for arena victories, only the final quest xp reward

- you are stripped of everything when you come in, including gold

- your gold and possibly some quest items are placed in a certain unreachable chest; you are able to retrieve the contents of this chest at the end of the questline

- the rest of your inventory is placed in one merchant's stock, and that merchant sells nothing else; there is another merchant that sells some cosmetic (functionally inadequate for beating BP) enchanted equipment, and another who sells a few potions and scrolls

- you get a a starting amount of gold and gold rewards for arena victories; you only get gold as a reward, not the items

- to win battles you *must* spend the gold you've got to buy back your equipment because the battles have been revised with this in mind (you will be told that you will face enemies immune to normal weapons so you have to buy back some of your enchanted weapons, and if you didn't have them when you got in, or if you squandered your reward money on something stupid like your fanciest armor, you might even get brickwalled but that's acceptable design because it resembles how unfair ToTL can be to someone who doesn't know what he's getting himself into)

- the total amount of gold that you get during BP is sufficient for you to buy back around 80% of your equipped items (not consumables) in an average scenario (typical SoD mid-game level of party equipment which should be valued at a certain point, i'm blindly guessing somewhere around 40k) but there isn't enough money to buy back the other stuff that you had (your hoard), so you have to make some sacrifices

 

this removes a lot of hoarded weapons and armors, and consumables from the game and reduces item bloat which is great. if you carry your stuff over to SoA, especially so.

 

an additional idea:

BP could be used as an alternative for the gold-removal mechanic in SoD. so instead of the demented pro forma way you lose your gold there, BP becomes the actual way you lose gold. (the trivial SoD stuff regarding this matter gets removed). however this would mean that it's unskippable. i think that it's okay that it should be unskippable. so structurally it would fit right in at the start of SoD

Edited by bob_veng
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Anyone is working on this ?

This is now incorporated in the Sandrah mod:

 

 

A strange dwarven pub on the west side of the Waterdeep fish market contains the entry to the Black Pits. If you trigger the right dialogue option (maybe talk to the guy several times), he will reveal a backdoor that leads to the arena.

 

These are Baeloth’s Black Pits which are only accessible as a separated campaign otherwise.

The visit is not really related to the Sandrah mod, although she will comment at some points on the events.

Black Pits is simply a series of arena fights of your party against other groups with increasing difficulty. The mod allows you to play this extension with your current group and leave with that group again afterwards. You do not get the experience point rewards of the original but some limited gold and you can buy equipment from merchants in the pits.

Once you enter the pits you can only leave again by defeating Baeloth himself in the last battle. To get there, you need to win all previous battles. There is not much story content in this episode, just tactical fights.

The final challenges are slightly modified taking into account also a lower level party. Difficulty depends on your party level but you can visit there at any time during an EET game. To get the full final fight, the party must be at least level 9. Lower level parties can convince some other slaves to side with you instead of with Baeloth for the showdown.

When you succeeded, you free Baeloth’s djinni slave who helps you to return to the pub. Confront the *dwarf* on your return to find he is actually another duergar.

In addition some bugs that led to CtDs or freeze in cutscenes are repaired (those appeared when going into Black Pit s campaign from EET directly.)

 

 

You can only play this without Baeloth in the party. In addition, Baeloth will not be available during the BG1 part of EET anymore. He will be there in SoD in his restored/resurrected incarnation. Due to the limited contents/fun to play, this is all I invested into this minor episode.

Edited by Roxanne
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