No one can claim to be a serious (PC) RPG player, if he hasn’t played Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn and Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. This year Baldur’s Gate is 10 years old. But not forgotten. Lots of mods were released after. That’s why I intend to replay it. The mod that caught my eye integrates Baldur’s Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast into the Infinity II Engine of Part II and allows to play all games by just starting BG II.
To do this, all games along their add-ons have to be installed and then patched up. After this, the Baldur’s Gate Trilogy-WeiDU (1.05b) can go to work. It moves/integrates BG into the BG II folder, the first game can be uninstalled when it’s done. To enjoy more recent resolutions, a widescreen mod comes to help. Finally, the BG2 Fixpack looks like it will kill every bug left in the game.
Some other mods look promising as well, but I don’t want to overload it. I’m not even sure I want to see a blonde Imoen. :P
With this much action around the game, it would be a waste to skip a replay. Now to find my CDs. ;)
//Edit
Right now, this is to just collect the links:
Baldur’s Gate Trilogy Tweak Pack (7)
Restored Textscreen Music – English Language Pack
//Edit #002
After doing all this, I started a BG I game. Whenever I tried to travel, the BG _II_ map appeared and the only active place was Waukeen’s Promenade. Choosing it created a crash. Perfect. I resolved this by installing the Bp-BGT-Worldmap v7.0.a. On this map all places from all BG games are listed. It’s awesome. I’m almost glad this bug surfaced, because I never would have tried the map otherwise.
//Edit #003
The Widescreen Mod didn’t work for me at first, but it was my own fault. The trick is, to run the game or bgconfig.exe once. Only after that the Mod should be installed. If it was done wrong, the game will keep 800×600. In that case, which was my basis, the WSM has to be uninstalled, then the game can be run once and now the installation of WSM will have the right effect. Phewww! But now there’s nothing left to keep me from playing, finally!
//Edit #004
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Baldur’s Gate II – Shadows of Amn – Throne of Bhaal
—————————
An Assertion failed in InfScreenWorldMap.cpp at line number 2120
—————————
OK
—————————
And I celebrated too soon. After the last edit everything worked. Now, after my resume (I was looking forward to so much), every time I try to traverse from the area where you can add Xzar and his buddy to the party, the game crashes back to desktop with the quoted dialog box. I’m really loosing patience right now…
//Edit #005
Okay, okay, okay. It seems I’m down now with the mods. My countless and perceptive readers probably suspected it all along. The clues were wide in the open all the time! When did it work? Correct: Before I applied the WSM! Therefore the solution is so easy (I need sleep). After applying the WSM, the Worldmap has to be reinstalled. Now everything is in working order… I’ll keep you posted… But now, into action!
//Edit #006
With 1.05b there is a problem when transitioning (after killing Sarevok return to the palace and talk to Belt) from BG to BGII (I know, that 1.06 is now available where this is fixed, but it doesn’t accept old savegames, so I have to continue my game with 1.05b anyway…), lucky for me (and everyone else) there is this separate patch to glue it together again. Phewww!
//Edit #007
Ahhh, you guessed it: Another problem surfaced, but was resolved as fast. :) The guilty component (Faster Chapter 1&2 Cut-Scenes and Dreams) should be removed from the pack. :P
//Edit #008
The BG2 Fixpack should be applied before BGT. I noted it the other way around.
//Edit #009
I’m now slowly closing in on ToB, therefore I’ve chosen the Mods I will install for this final part of the adventure:
Ascension/WeiDU, Turnabout and “The Longer Road“. This should also be the correct order of installation.
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Pingback on Jul 30th, 2008 at 9:37 PM
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Pingback on Aug 5th, 2008 at 10:05 PM
[...] Schwarze Auge 3 – Schatten über Riva very intense. So I try to remember this for later. Thanks to BG I’m swamped right now. And upon completion of it PST is already queued. No Comments [...]
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Pingback on Sep 17th, 2008 at 2:14 AM
[...] 17, 2008 in gaming In this row there came the moment I had to reach Icewind Dale. I red before, that there was far less going [...]
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[...] way back in the late nineties. So I was already used to the setting. Usually I’m rather the DnD guy. BUT having the general idea of RPG very much down, in the end, it’s hardly getting used [...]
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2008/07/30 at 2:40 PM
I didn’t know there was still an active community around this game, some of the mods seem a little weird to me, but the fixpack is great!
Seems like I’ll have to try this myself…
2008/08/01 at 12:36 AM
Sounds awfully complicated…
2008/08/01 at 12:54 AM
@Jaquish
No it’s really not. Installing it can take a lot of time though. It can take a full hour, considering that some programs offer many options, which all have to be answered and of course there’s the dependency on the amount of selected mods. The basic stuff doesn’t require much work.
2008/08/27 at 10:04 AM
Haven’t tried it myself yet – needs another mod a working d/l of which I’m having trouble locating – but one on a Czech site sounds fascinating. “Paladins of Faerun” offers the following:
“6 new cities – Neverwinter ( Blacklake District, Docks ), Baldur’s Gate, Waterdeep (Trade District, Docks ), Targos ( City center, Docks ), Siluvanede (elvish city) and Har–Al–Dur (cleric city) – each of them has it’s own CITY–QUEST. It’s a large quest, mostly about the help for the city or the rescue of it.
Other Features:
The PoF mod brings you a lot of new areas (150), which you can visit. – e.g. The Anauroch desert, Islands, Shaar, High Forest and many others – see section screenshots.
• Creatures • 50+ new creatures and new animations – barbarians, worg riders, new thieves animations and more – see section screenshots.
• Quests • Aside from the main quests and the city–quests, you will walk into another 35 regular quests and many other mini–quests.
• Items • PoF mod offers you new types of weapons – Broad sword, Falx, Falchion, Stars, Pikes, Partisans, Tridents, Battle axes, Two handed Bastard swords, Magic books and new types of armour. Except the new types, we have add 200 new magic items – see section content.
• Graphics and sound • PoF brings whole new GUI to the game, alters graphic of all BG2 items into IWD 2 graphic, adds 10–15 entirely new locations. New sounds in the cities, in battles. Part of PoF are also czech voices to dialogs, only czech – see section screenshots.
• NPCs • In the first version of PoF you will encounter only one entire and 3 tutorial (You will find these NPC’s only in PoF prologue) JoinAble NPC – Kevhorn. I plan to add up to 3 new NPC’s to the next version – see section content.
• Kits • PoF kitpack replaces all the old kits with 3 new kits for each class.
• COMPATIBILITY • To play the mod, you will need BG2 SoA with ToB + patch 26498 installed. PoF will be a stand–alone mod. This mod won’t be compatible with other Quest mods like RoT, SoS etc. ToB can’t be played after finishing PoF.
List of the CITY–QUESTS:
* The Merchant King – Atkathla
* The Hidden Castle – Waterdeep
* The Luskan threat – Neverwinter
* Icewind Dale – Targos
* False Charge – Siluvanede
* Sarevok returns – Cleric city
* Artemis Entrerey, The thief guild – Baldur’s Gate
List of the regular quests:
* The lost blacksmith
* Moonwood
* The book of the dead
* Trademeet caves
* Contact
* Advanturer
* Easthaven
* The Forgotten Temple
* Pirate Isle
* Woman and child
* The book of magic
* The troubles in mines
* Challange
* Moonwood part 2
* Brotherhood
* Treasury
* and more…
• Specially • Mod brings a new location to Atkathla – Merchant district – residency of one of the 6 Merchant kings of Amn.
City defense – Neverwinter – part of the main story.”
P.S. This is NOT spam! I am in no way connected with this mod except as an interested RPGer.