So, in my ongoing campaign to waste time, I recently reloaded Baldur’s Gate II, ToB, and, to my surprise, found that people are still making mods for the game. I’ve loaded a few of them (mostly just the fix pack) and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on which other one’s would be good. In particular, I was wondering if anyone had used the Wheels of Prophecy mod.
Not sure if it matters, but I have been looking mostly at the Gibberlings 3.
Don’t use G3 directly. Instead, HI THEE TO SPELLHOLD STUDIOS!
That hapens to have the incredbly awesome tool known as “BiG World Project.” Also known as “having multi mega mods.”
BG, despite being a great game, was never designed to be modded. It was really before that time. However, that didn’t stop people. The trouble is that its mods do not play well with others. BiG world basically fixes that and lets you play lots and lots of mods. Setting it up is a bit of a pain, but once it gets rolling it’s incredible.
I’m a fan of the Pocket Plane Group, myself. Kelsey, Xan, and Keto are good new NPCs, and Dungeon-Be-Gone is a great way to skip the long starting dungeon part after way too many times running through that place. The Banter Packs and NPC Flirt Packs are fun additions of “color.”
But, with BiG world, you can get all of those mods pretty much. And you won’t screw up your installation.
Would it matter if I already had loaded some mods if I tried to use BiG, or would I have to delete all of them before using it?
Thanks for the responses… wasn’t sure if many people still played the game
After I upgraded to Vista, about three years ago, I wasn’t able to install BGII. IIRC, it’s because my version is the original release, and not a later package, and there’s something screwy with the install path(s), such that it worked with XP, but everything changed with Vista. Or something. I spent a couple of days looking for a solution that worked, trying everything I came across, to no avail. I haven’t tried installing it since, as I have no reason to believe it would be any different with Windows 7.
I miss BGII, and would love to play it again. Anyone know if there’s been a fix or workaround for this issue?
I had no idea that Spellhold was able to finish their project. The mods I’ve used and enjoyed are:
Tactics/Ascension: Really bumps up the difficulty of fights, not by cheese (usually) but by very clever scripting. I find BG2 boring without it now. Google for SixofSpades’s review of Tactics, to give you an idea which components you want to implement or not.
Unfinished Business: Cleans up a lot of the quests and content that Bioware/Black Isle weren’t able to originally complete.
Kelsey: He’s as good or better than the original NPCs. Gobs of dialogue, side quests, and it finally allows you to have an NPC Sorceror. Much better than Tashia.
The Pub Crawl is a fun little quest from G3.
I downloaded a lot more mods than these, on my computer that just died a few days ago (always back up your data, everyone). The above mods are the ones that I remember fondly w/o looking at the file directory. Staggering, just how many hours I’ve spent playing that game.
GESancMan - what kind of problems are you having? I’m pretty sure my copy was one of the original releases, and while I had to screw with some things to get it to work properly, I never actually had a problem loading it. I managed to get it loaded on Vista a while ago, though I think I had fewer getting it loaded on 7?
Gray - I’ve been hearing a bit about the Ascension mod, and I think I may need to look more into it… Also, the pub crawl one, is that one mostly just for fun?
Ascension is pretty much a ToB mod. Weimer’s site has more info about it, and his other mods. My praise of Tactics/Ascension should really be reserved just for Tactics, as I haven’t played all the way through ToB. The improved Demogorgon fight is in Ascension though, and is a lot better than the original.
The Pub crawl is for fun, challenging for low level BG2 characters only, but the dialogue is nice, and it’s a nice bit of fun.
I can’t remember for certain if the game installed but wouldn’t run, or if the installation process wouldn’t finish, but I think it’s the latter. I recall being told to try running the install program in compatibility mode, as an administrator, etc. I finally determined that it had something to so with the way the game installs; I said “paths” above, but now that I’ve thought about it some more, I seem to remember the problem had to with registry entries not being set correctly pointed at the game, because something was different about Vista and the way it installs programs. Anyway, I determined I’d have to hunt down and change literally hundreds of registry entries by hand, and that’s when I threw in the towel.
Again, this is all from memory, and took place three years ago, so there’s every possibility I’m completely wrong. 