I somewhat already anticipated what I was going to do. Beside fiddling with Triton and Prey I spent a whole lot of time trying to figure out all the mods for the two Baldur’s Gate to be able to join them into one seamless game.

The new boxed set I ordered arrived on Monday, on two DVDs for each game and two CDs for each expansion. The choice was to use BG1 TuTu mod, that allows you to play the first Baldur’s Gate in the BG2 enhanced engine (640×480 doesn’t cut it anymore) and that seems slightly more popular or BGT – Baldur’s Gate Trilogy, that does the same thing but also merges the two games into one, with a seamless transition.

I decided to go with the second because I didn’t find significant differences between the two and also because I like that idea of the seamless transition.

(here begins the updated part)

The installation isn’t too complicated, but I had to repeat it a few times before getting it right and without errors. The first steps are standard:
– Custom install BG1 (install all components)
– Custom install ToTSC (install all components)
– UK Patch (5512)
– Start BG1, make your settings, create a character and make a quicksave with Q in Candlekeep
– Full install BG2 (different install directory than BG1)
– Total install ToB
– English patch (26498)
– Start BG2 and ToB, make your settings, create a character and after the autosave quit the game

(apply CD crack)

-After these installs open and edit the “baldur.ini” file from the BG1 directory to delete the references to the CDs. Make sure that your backup filename doesn’t end still in .ini (which will lead to errors, as I found out).

(the following two steps are to be done early to avoid conflicts with BGT)
– Install Ascension (1.4.23)
– Install BG2 Fixpack (v8)

– Install BGT (1.07)
– Run setup-GUI.exe
– Run setup-BGTMusic.exe

(after Baldur’s Gate Trilogy is installed you can delete the directory where you have installed the original BG1)

– Restored Textscreen Music (v7, two files – one with localized music files and one with the patch)
– Mini Quests and Encounters (bgge) (4.1) minor quests
– g3anniversary (v5) other quest to check
– Oversight (Just the Tougher Sendai patch) (v12)
– bg1npc (v17) banters for BG1
– bg1ub (v7) Unfinished Business, just added material cut from release and minor additions
– bg2ub (v18) Same as above, but for BG2
– scs (v12) Sword Coast Stratagems, enemy AI improvements for BG1
– BGTTweak (v8) Tweaks for BGT
– BG2_Tweaks (v7) Tweaks for BG2 (and 1)
– ItemUpgrade (v37)
– TacticsMod (v24) enemy AI improvements for BG2
– eSeries (v1.8) scripts for party
– DEFJAM (v6) experience adjustments to fit larger games

– There are also three other mods that I wanted to add, but that it is better to patch in only after the transition to BG2 to avoid possible conflicts (Banter pack, de’Arnise and NPC flirts).

All these mods/patches can be found on four sites:
– BGT dir (BGT, restored textscreen, BGTTweak)
– WeiDU page (Ascension, Item Upgrade, Tactics)
– Gibberlings3 (BG2 fixpack, mini quests, g3anniversary, bg1npc, scs, BG2 Tweaks, eSeries)
– PocketPlane (de’Arnise, Unfinished Business 1&2, flirt&banter packs, DEFJAM)

Check the weidu log I added for details about which parts I used.

( here ends the updated part, May 5 2009)

I dared to set the XP mod so that monster only give 25% of their experience, no xp for learning spells, 25% for thievery actions and 50% for the quests. Since I intend to keep the difficulty at “core rules” I wouldn’t mind some challenge considering that it’s quite easy to get too powerful (and the bored) in these kinds of game.

I have all set up nicely right now (I included the WeiDU log if you want to see my install in detail, but I’m far from being an expert). I played the very beginning and it all works nicely. The only problem is that new version of the mods come out often, with more bugfixing and features, but it seems that upgrading your install isn’t so simple and you even risk to have to restart from the very beginning in a few cases, if there are certain changes. So when you start you are sort of stuck with what you have, and hope everything will be okay till the very end.

Now the only problem is about having enough time to play the whole saga from the beginning to the very end. That’s a considerable chunk of real life ;p

EPIX!

(I wonder if I like more to setup/research things more than actually playing. Like with Linux, I used to spend lot of time playing with Debian and tweaking everything to perfection. But at the end I never really *used* anything. It just sat there being pretty and polished. Duh.)