Q & A

[DavidW]

Q: What is IWD-in-BG2 ?

 

A: It's a conversion of Icewind Dale (IWD) to the Baldur's Gate II (BG2) engine.

 

Q: Catchy name.

 

A: It has the advantage of being descriptive. (We played with Ice-TUTU, and that might also catch on, but it's less obvious what it means).

 

Q: What's the point of this conversion?

 

A: In the short run, it allows you to play with the various features BG2 has but IWD doesn't: notably kits, dual-wielding, sorcerers, monks, barbarians, and various extra spells. In the longer term, it should be a much better platform for modding IWD - in particular, it should allow fully-fleshed-out joinable NPCs.

 

Q: What's the status of the project?

 

A: We have a complete, installable conversion. It's been tested all the way through, and we've fixed most of the bugs we're aware of. It should now be basically playable.

 

Q: Can I play-test it?

 

A: Please do: play-testing is very welcome indeed. I don't promise that it won't be full of annoying bugs, though.

 

Q: Who did this?

 

A: CamDawg, DavidW, Ladejarl and Nythrun. Cam and David did pretty much all the core coding (Cam in spring 2008; David in two goes, in spring 2009 and then summer 2010; Cam and David jointly in winter and spring 2011, and then David again in winter 2011). Nythrun did lots of research on spell and item effects, and coded bits of the converter for them too. Ladejarl converted the GUI. We also borrowed code from all over the place, and in particular we're very indebted to Infinity Animations, BG1TUTU, EasyTUTU, BGT, and ToBEx (which we package with the mod).

 

Q: Is this compatible with Icewind Dale without Heart of Winter?

 

A: No. It might be at some later date, depending on demand, but probably not. At the moment it requires Heart of Winter as well as Trials of the Luremaster.

 

Q: Is this compatible with BG2 without Throne of Bhaal?

 

A: No, and almost certainly it never will be.

 

Q: Is this compatible with OSX systems, or is it Windows-only?

 

A: Windows-only at the moment, though we might be able to change this once we've got it a bit stabler.

 

Q: Is the conversion perfect?

 

A: No, but it's pretty comprehensive. See the list on the forum for the things we haven't been able to do.

 

Q: What do I do for a party?

 

A: See the forum topic on this.

 

Q: How does this work on a technical basis?

 

A: It uses a batch file to make a copy of your BG2 installation (minus things we don't need, like the area graphics), and another batch file to copy over needed resources from your IWD installation. En route, it installs the BG2 and IWD fixpacks. Then it uses BGT-based software to convert the areas.

 

That's the easy bit; once all that's done, it runs the most convoluted WEIDU script you've ever seen, to (a) convert all the resources in an automated way as far as that's possible; (b) do a million and one small fixes (out of the two million and one that are actually needed, no doubt). The actual process is much messier than TUTU, because the BG1 engine is basically just a restricted version of the BG2 engine, whereas the IWD engine was developed in new directions and differs from BG2 in surprisingly many small ways.

 

Q: Why does the FAQ shift inconstantly from first person singular to first person plural?

 

A: Because several people worked on the mod, and deserve credit, but I (David) was solely responsible for it through 2009 until late 2010, and I don't want to blame others for my mistakes!

 

Q: What is the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics?

 

A: The Everett (Many-Worlds) interpretation. My book explaining why would have been finished a good deal sooner were it not for this damn mod.

Edited December 30, 2011 by DavidW