177 réponses à ce sujet

[Qwinn1234]

The Readme says pretty much everything, so I'll just post it here, below the next couple of paragraphs  

One thing I'll add here:  I noticed that there are a couple of smaller fixpacks out there specifically devoted to fixing bugs in Alistair and Zevran's dialogues, mostly having to do with issues directly related to having a romance with them as a female player.  As a straight guy, I didn't really run into them, but of course I would like to see them addressed.  For the time being, I chose to *not* make any changes to either Alistair or Zevran's dialogues, which hopefully leaves those mods compatible with mine for now.  I do plan on fixing those bugs for my next version, however.  If you are the author of one of those mods and would like to help see those fixes integrated properly into this Fixpack, with credit given in the readme of course, drop me a post here!

Oh, and as for the +Healing Items Received bug, this mod should be fully compatible with Nukenin's fix.  For the time being, use his mod as well if you want that bug fixed.  I'm in contact with him and if I do integrate a fix for that specific bug in a future release of this Fixpack, it'll be with his advice and consent.



Anyways, on with the show   I hope everyone will enjoy!

Qwinn's Unofficial Dragon Age: Origins Fixpack
Author: Paul Escalona (aka Qwinn)
Release Date: April 15, 2010

This is a collection of fixes for bugs in Bioware's Dragon Age: Origins that are still unaddressed as of the official patch 1.03. If/when Bioware releases another Origins-specific patch, I recommend that you do not install this mod until I have had some time to review their patch and my mod to make sure everything's compatible. Once I've done so, I'll update this mod, if only to update this readme and say everything's fine with 1.04. Honestly, though, I don't expect a lot of problems in that regard. And if you're worried, a few times during development I uninstalled this Fixpack and then force loaded a save game that was created with the Fixpack installed, and I didn't encounter any problems. This fixpack shouldn't - I stress shouldn't - make your save games incompatible with future Bioware patches unless the Bioware patch itself isn't compatible with older save games for whatever reason, but of course, not knowing what's going to be in that patch, I make no guarantees. Use at your own risk. Just saying it *shouldn't* cause any problems, and I can pretty much guarantee it'll solve a whole heck of a lot of problems.

Note that my intent here is to fix the game, not tweak it to my liking. I only change something if I believe the game's behavior in any given instance was more than likely -not intended-. In other words, I try to fix bugs. Actual bugs. As opposed to, "I forgot to talk to the guy in the Lothering Chantry for the Blackstone Irregulars and now I can't get back to him, that's a bug, fix it!". No. That was actually intended, as is clear if you read the completed failed entry for that quest. Now, if I make a change to something that someone believes was intended, please do offer up arguments/evidence in support of that in the comments section where you downloaded this or any other forum I may come up with to support this Fixpack. I enjoy hashing that sort of thing out.

This mod has *nothing* to do with Dragon Age: Awakening. Yes, I know Awakening has a lot of bugs that need fixing. Perhaps Bioware would like to contract out for me to do the same thing for the expansion that I've done for Origins, and include that work as part of their official patch. I'm actually quite serious about that, Bioware, I contract out game design and development for a living. I'd be interested in full-time, part-time or contract work. Please contact me at pescalona@verizon.net if you're interested. Consider this part one of my resume.


How to Install:

Use daupdater.exe (found in your Dragon Age installation's bin_ship directory) to install the accompanying .DAZIP file as an addon (viewable and toggle-able from the Downloadable Content menu option).



Changelog (Warning: SPOILERS GALORE):


A. General fixes:

1. The Stealing and Dog Fetching bugs introduced in patch 1.03 (where they could not generate random items) are fixed.


B. Origin related fixes:

1. "Human Noble": At the beginning of the main hall battle, it was briefly possible to initiate dialogue with Ser Gilmore and prematurely trigger his post-combat dialogue. Doing so would make the exit never open, forcing a game restart/reload. Now, if you talk to him during that brief interval, he just shouts one of several combat barks instead.

2. "Mage": During the Harrowing, if you have acquired your staff and you talk to Bear Mouse, he would prematurely shout, out of context, "And there is a spirit of rage". Then, when you actually got near the spirit of rage, he'd initiate a casual conversation, again quite out of context.


C. Companion Quests and Dialogue

1. Infinite approval exploit in Sten's second camp dialogue fixed. Can no longer repeatedly ask "Why do the Qunari care about the Blight?" which led to a +4 approval option.

2. "The Sword of the Beresaad": It was possible to go directly from the scavenger in Lake Calahad to Dwyn, skipping Faryn completely, leading to odd and confusing dialogue.

3. If Lothering was destroyed and you never even talked to Sten, you were still getting a codex entry about his death that implied you had met him.

4. "Oghren's Old Flame": Removed infinite loop approval exploit in conversation where Oghren gives his personal quest ("Oh, Maker, we don't have time for this." can only be picked once now.)


D. Ostagar:

1. "The Hungry Prisoner": This quest will no longer close with an erroneous entry if you leave Ostagar having acquired the key by feeding the prisoner but without using it on the chest. The quest will remain open, just as it does if you got the key by killing the prisoner. Note that you have an opportunity to use the key during the Return To Ostagar DLC, though I have not been able to verify yet if that will properly close the Hungry Prisoner quest. Let me know if it does/doesn't and I'll update this entry!

2. Dwarves can now hear the tale of Luthias Dwarfson. They actually even have dialogue specific to them during the story.


E. Lothering:

1. Ancient Elven Boots will now appear in the Lothering Chantry cabinet. This was only bugged in the PC version of the game.

2. "Traps are a Girl's Best Friend": This quest will no longer reset to the beginning after completion.

3. "The Qunari Prisoner": Removed exploit to get maximum Morrigan approval in Lothering by repeatedly failing to intimidate the grand cleric.

4. "Bandits on the Road": If you intimidated the bandits as a mage, and then "practiced your spells" (attacked), one of the bandits would run away in terror. If you then killed the rest off, the quest became uncompletable because that last bandit couldn't be killed. Fixed by removing that fleeing bandit from the bandit team before he runs away.


F. Denerim:

1. "Honor Bound": Unimplemented XP reward for persuading Ser Landry that Wardens would never ally with Darkspawn restored. That this was intended is supported by a comment attached to that reply: "ACTION: The PC should get a good xp bonus for this because he's put doubt in a staunch opponent of the Grey Wardens. It should at least equal the XP for killing him in a duel." A line matching that description already existed in rewards.2da, so I just activated the reward that what was already there.

2. "Crime Wave", subquest "The Lady's Maid": Completing this quest would put a permanent quest marker on Slim Couldry that overwrote all subsequent quest markers. The quest flag on Slim Couldry will now accurately inform the player when he has a new quest available.

3. "Crime Wave", subquest "Steal Ser Nancine's Sword": As an exploit, you could get the sword from her in dialogue, and then use the Stealing skill to pickpocket a second copy off of her. Also, in various dialog paths, you could get Nancine to indicate she was giving you 5 silver or 2 gold, but you didn't actually receive any money in either case. Now you will.

4. "Crime Wave", subquest "Stealing the Teyrn's Crown": This quest has been *completely* reworked. Many of the options that were clearly intended as valid ways to bypass the guards did not actually work when you tried them (the guards would spot and attack you even if they were drunk/unconscious/etc.). They now work as they were intended to. This quest now has five entirely different fully functional methods of being solved (previously, only two of them worked: intimidate or very very high stealth). Also, similar to Ser Nancine, you can no longer get the crown via dialogue and then a second copy via stealing.

5. "Crime Wave", subquest "Steal Master Tilver's Key": Talking to the messenger boy during this quest would (possibly very prematurely) initiate the "Trial of Crows" quest line, even before meeting Zevran or talking to Ignacio. This caused all kinds of havoc with that quest chain.

6. "Crime Wave", subquest "Tears of Andraste": The guards *are* coded to react to your poisoning the drinks table, but due to a scripting error it just wasn't firing properly. I made it fire and I also move them a little during that sequence so they don't fall through the walls quite so much. Now if you find it surprising that a sleeping draught can make someone bleed, hey, me too, but that's apparently as was intended, and the blood does fade away after a few seconds.

7. "Crime Wave": When the entire quest chain was complete, Slim Couldry was supposed to exit the area but did not do so, and would talk about an already completed quest when clicked on.

8. "Change in Leadership" (Final Blackstone Irregulars Quest):  You will no longer meet Taoran in a random encounter before talking to Raelnor in Denerim. That you could do so was definitely a bug, and could easily make this quest uncompletable.


G. Circle Tower:

1. Bel's Cache will no longer get reactivated as an openable empty container every time you re-enter the Circle Tower second level.


H. Redcliffe:

1. "Arl of Redcliffe": You could break the game by talking to Ser Perth at the very beginning of the fight with Bann Teagan (assuming you entered the castle with Ser Perth, of course). Doing so would repeat the dialogue you are only meant to have with him at the gate, before you actually enter the castle, with game breaking effects. Now he responds to dialogue attempts during that brief interval with one of his combat barks instead.

2. "Arl of Redcliffe": If you allowed Isolde and/or Connor to die, their codex entries would say that they lived, and vice versa.

3. "Arl of Redcliffe": Infinite XP exploit, where after completing the quest the vault door in Redcliffe Castle would be locked every time the area loaded and could be picked again and again for 50xp, fixed.


I. Brecilian Forest:

1. "Lost to the Curse": Under the following conditions, you would get neither XP nor Athras' Pendant when telling Athras of his wife's fate: 1) He actually promised you the amulet when you took the quest, 2) You choose the specific reply "She died, Athras. But not before she sent her love.", and 3) neither Leilana nor Morrigan are present at the time.

2. "Nature of the Beast": The Mad Hermit explicitly requires only one werewolf pelt from you, but if you have a stack you give him all of them. Fixed.


J. Orzamaar / Deep Roads:

1. "Precious Metals": Tons of bugs in this quest fixed. A) Godwin will no longer vanish after talking to him once the Circle quest is completed, which unnecessarily forced you to leave the area and return to talk to him again. The reply option "Why do you need all that lyrium?" was nonsensically appearing the very first time you talked to him with Rogek's quest in your journal. It wasn't meant to appear until after you'd either sold the lyrium to Godwin or denied it to him. That could cause events to play well out of order. C) You could threaten Godwin that you would turn him in to Greagoir, but you couldn't actually do it. Now you can.

2. "A Paragon of her Kind", subquests "Vartag Gavorn" and "Dulin Forender": If you initially talk to Dulin and/or Vartag but end the conversations before accepting either of their first quests, then talk to the Steward and ask what you can do to help break the stalemate, you would get permanent quest markers for these two quests stuck over Dulin and/or Vartag (whichever you'd spoken to) for the rest of the game.

3. "A Paragon of her Kind", subquest "A Lord's Favor: The Second Task": If you were publicly working for Harrowmont but planted the papers in Jarvia's chest for Bhelen, when you reported to Harrowmont that you had killed Jarvia, a journal entry for this quest would remain stuck open and you'd lose out on the rather hefty experience reward for dealing with her.

4. "A Paragon of Her Kind": If you sided with Bhelen before going into the deep roads (whether openly or as double agent) such that you had his version of the "A Paragon of Her Kind" quest open in your journal (Harrowmont has his own version, and you can have both if a double agent), and then you chose Harrowmont as king, the quest would remain open in your journal forever telling you to go back to the assembly to crown a king.

5. "The Shaper's Life": This codex miniquest will now give the player one of the 3 previously unobtainable Shaperate's Blessing weapons, dependent on the player's class.

6. "Thief in the House of Learning": You can sell the tome to a fence for 2.3 gold and 150 XP or return it to the Shaperate for nothing at all. Comments in the Shaperate questgiver's dialogue indicate that returning it should give a "moderate" xp reward, as compared to a "minor" xp reward for selling it. Returning the tome now gives a 250 xp reward.

7. "The Golem Registry": The Shaper tells you "Warden, I hope this artifact from our archives will suffice as a reward.", but if you have recruited Shale, you get nothing. The following comments exist in the script: "// If Shale is Recruited, give player a special golem crystal; otherwise he gets a generic magical item as a reward." The "otherwise" actually works, without Shale recruited you get a Master Hale rune. No golem crystal is given out if you have Shale, however. Going with Small Flawless Spirit Crystal.

8. "An Unlikely Scholar": Removed the quest marker over Janar's head once the quest is completed. It was previously permanent once the quest was initiated.

9. "Asunder": Fixed exploit where, by placing all party members near the altar, pausing, and then having each one spam-click the altar, you could spawn the beast multiple times, receiving his reward as many as ten times over. You cannot get more than one beast now.

10. "A Mother's Hope": If Filda learns that Ruck is alive, the dialogue, graphics, quest journal and comments all indicate that she leaves immediately for the Deep Roads to look for him, but she'd actually stay where she was, still praying but facing the street instead of the stone. She'll actually leave now.

11. "A Mother's Hope": If you asked Ruck to trade after completing Filda's quest, it would put a permanent quest marker on Filda, but it would remain impossible to talk with her.

12. The unique crossbow Nugbane can now be stolen from the Mines Commander in Orzammar. He has it in the vanilla game, and the "Stealable" flag is clearly checked, but it could not be stolen due to being equipped. As there is no other reasonable explanation for his having it in his inventory (his graphics displays his battleaxe, not the crossbow), it being equipped is almost certainly a bug.

13. "Of Noble Birth": This quest is only available for male noble dwarves, but *everyone* got a closed failed journal entry for it after the coronation in "A Paragon of her Kind". No longer.

14. "Of Noble Birth": A number of dialogue errors fixed. In particular, it should be a lot less common to get "If X becomes king, he'll take care of you" reply options after the king has been crowned, and you will no longer get Mardy giving her mid-quest dialogue in the castle after the quest is completed.


K. Haven/Ruined Temple/Gauntlet (Urn of Sacred Ashes):

1. "Urn of the Sacred Ashes": After you find the Urn, zoning from the Gauntlet to Mountaintop gives you 750xp. Go back into the gauntlet and exit again, another 750xp. Repeat ad nauseum and hit the level cap quite quickly. Exploit fixed.


L. Landsmeet/Alienage/Epilogue

1. City Elves only: Cyrion will no longer appear during the coronation if the player allowed Caladrius to kill or enslave him.

2. "Rescue the Queen": You can get into a fight with Ser Cauthrien, "kill" her, and loot her sword. If you are then killed/captured by the rest of her group, you will meet her again just before the Landsmeet. That has not been changed: it's quite possibly intentional that she was revived in the same way your own party members revive after being "killed" if your party doesn't actually lose a battle. However, if you looted her sword during that first fight, she will now no longer have a second copy of that unique sword when you meet her again, she will instead have a normal red steel greatsword.

3. Ser Cauthrien would show up in the epilogue *only* if you killed her just before the Landsmeet. Obviously an error. She will now only appear in the epilogue if you did *not* kill her just before the Landsmeet or during "Rescue the Queen" (meaning, you didn't wipe out her entire group).

4. In the conversation with Ser Cauthrien just before the Landsmeet, what was meant to be a high Persuade check was actually checking for high skill with Poison.

5. "Something Wicked": Clicking twice on the same clue, or asking the beggar about "Bad Men" twice in one conversation, could screw up the quest journal updates.

6. "Something Wicked": Telling Otto about the beggar wasn't registering as a "clue" if you told him about that one first. He'd then refer to your "both your clues" when you had to give him 3.

7. Dog can now be interacted with during the post-coronation sequence, but don't expect much from this. It's mainly here just to reassure the player that, yes, Dog *did* survive. It was hard to be sure previously.


M. Sidequests/Other

1. The following plot items will now actually be removed from inventory when they are given to someone or their associated quest completed: Scroll of Banastor ("The Scrolls of Banastor"), Corpse Gall ("Skin Deep"), Topsider's Hilt, Pommel and Blade ("An Admirable Topsider"), Grey Warden Documents (given to Riordan during or after "Rescue the Queen"), Worn Amulet ("Hearing Voices"), Feldspar Ring ("Have You Seen Me?"), Rigby's Last Will and Testament IF lockbox given to Jetta ("Last Will and Testament"), A Letter ("Friends of Red Jenny"), and Bundled Testimonies ("Defending the Collective"). In addition, accepting the Blackstone Irregulars quest "Notices of Death" now gives the PC 4 letters of condolences, not 5, as there were only 4 widows this would leave an extra letter in the PC's inventory at quest end.


Release History:

Version 1 released April 15, 2010


LINK:  http://social.biowar...m/project/2563/

Modifié par Qwinn1234, 16 avril 2010 - 09:41 .

[Challseus]

Wow. I've been hearing about all these bugs (I haven't updated to 1.03 yet myself), but I didn't know it was this extensive. Good work!

[Nukenin]

It'd be amusing if between now and before Qwinn has a chance to finish Awakening Bioware dropped a 1.04 that fixed some (but frustratingly not all) of these bugs, thus creating a nice mess of work to bring the fixpack back up to speed.

Well, amusing in a "not really" sense. 

Note that the Stealing fix currently included in the fixpack will only apply to the core Single Player Origins campaign, not to custom campaigns or Awakening.  If you need Stealing fixed for Awakening or custom campaigns, and/or want stolen item notifications (and/or dog find notifications), *plug* my Stealing and Dog Find fixes (see sig) seem to coexist fine with Qwinn's fixpack (or if need be the specific .ncs and .GDA files can be downloaded individually and plopped into one's {Dragon Age}/packages/core/override folder).

Qwinn might be able to fix his fix *cough* :innocent: to work in Awakening (and custom campaigns) as well, so this may only be relevant as of the initial release.

Great work, Qwinn!  Any one of these fixes is worth the download alone.  Here's hoping you can turn your fixiness to Awakening at some point; there is definitely a need.  

Modifié par Nukenin, 16 avril 2010 - 02:50 .

[Worrow]

And this is the reason why I bought the PC version.

Modifié par Worrow, 16 avril 2010 - 11:24 .

[Qwinn1234]

Released version 1.1 today, just updates the information in the downloadable content screen, fixes the greatsword Ageless's rune slots, makes the stealing fix work for Awakening as well, and corrects an error made to one of the fixes (re: Ser Cauthrien showing up in the epilogue).

Qwinn

Modifié par Qwinn1234, 17 avril 2010 - 10:18 .

[DLAN_Immortality]

I'm betting my mod and yours are not compatible, but it could be great if you could create a list with the files you modified (like this one) so I can be sure where to add it in my compatibility list.

Btw, nice to see you here too ;-)

[Qwinn1234]

Hiya Immortality! It *is* nice to see someone I know around here

And your wish today was my command yesterday... The readme you can download from my project now has a full listing of all files affected by my mod.

And yes, I do a minor tweak to Ser Gilmore's dialogue, so we probably aren't compatible Probably wouldn't be that hard to make them compatible though. Just so you're aware, this is the bug I fix that caused me to have to touch that file:

"1. "Human Noble": At the beginning of the main hall battle, it was briefly possible to initiate dialogue with Ser Gilmore and prematurely trigger his post-combat dialogue. Doing so would make the exit never open, forcing a game restart/reload. Now, if you talk to him during that brief interval, he just shouts one of several combat barks instead."

bhn000pt_main.ncs/nss
bhn100cr_gildmore.dlg/dlb
plt_bhn000pt_main.nss/plo

I guess the best way to make them compatible would be for you to incorporate the same bug fix into your files?

To the plot file, I added defined flag: "BHN_MAIN_DURING_MAIN_HALL_BATTLE".

To the script, I added the conditions for that flag to the defined section:

case BHN_MAIN_DURING_MAIN_HALL_BATTLE: // Qwinn: This is used in Gilmore's dialogue bhn100cr_gilmore.dlg.
            {
                int nBattleBegun = WR_GetPlotFlag(PLT_BHN000PT_MAIN,BHN_MAIN_BATTLE_BEGUN,TRUE);
                int nBattleOver  = WR_GetPlotFlag(PLT_BHN000PT_MAIN,BHN_MAIN_BATTLE_IN_MAIN_HALL_COMPLETE,TRUE);
                if((nBattleBegun == TRUE) && (nBattleOver == FALSE))
                {
                     nResult = TRUE;
                }
                break;
            }

And to the dialogue I added a line at the very very top that says IF that new flag is true, link to the "CONTINUE" of the branch just below it, the one that leads to "Hold them back!", "Don't let a single one through!", "Give the teyrn time to escape!"

Hope that helps

Modifié par Qwinn1234, 18 avril 2010 - 03:58 .

[Qwinn1234]

Actually, looking at the link you gave, no, there shouldn't be any incompatibilities with our mods, since it looks like you must have used a different dialog file for Ser Gilmore apart from his original one during the human noble origin. So, at least for now, we should be fine!

Unfortunately, that won't last, I know I'll be having to make changes to cutscene_slideshow_dlg A lot of bugs in there

Modifié par Qwinn1234, 18 avril 2010 - 03:58 .

[DLAN_Immortality]

Yes, I used a different dialog for him. I even used a different creature file.

Cutscene_slideshow is actually the ending of the game (and of course my mod). I can send you a b2b with mine (and the relevant plots), like I sent to Lady Olivia to make her mod compatible with mine too.

You can incorporate my lines into your fixed dlg and we're good to go :-)

(I'm told that that sounds easier than what it truly is, because the toolset is some buggy thing that does not import b2bs that easily.)

EDIT: The list in your readme... is it complete? Because cutscene_slideshow is not there. From what I read, yeah, for the rest, is all fine...

Modifié par DLAN_Immortality, 19 avril 2010 - 09:31 .

[Qwinn1234]

Yes, the list is complete. As of v1.1 I don't make any changes to cutscene_slideshow *yet*, but I will probably do so in the next version.



Sorry, but it's too early in the morning to go hunting... who is Lady Olivia and what is her mod? Perhaps I should use *hers* as a base, if hers already contains yours? Rather than winding up having to do it all over again.

[Qwinn1234]

I'm actually thinking that the way to handle this would be for me to have my Fixpack include a fix of the vanilla file, and then, as a separate file, have a "Compatibility Patch" for other mods, to be installed separately. We could then both include that patch as part of our projects. That way, people can install a "clean", just bugfixed patch if that's what they want, and then we can localize all multi-mod versions of the relevant files separately. Might even be easier to keep things organized that way for all of us. What do you think?



Qwinn

[Lady Olivia]

I must say that's one impressive list of fixed bugs you've got there!  


Regarding the compatibility with Alistair Dialog Patch and Dialog Tweaks, I invite you to join us in the Companion Mod Authors group where we've talked a lot about compatibility, merging mods and such. We're also putting together these detailed change-logs (the one for DT is complete, I think, the one for ADP is in the works), which should come in handy if/when you decide to delve into fixing these dialogs yourself.

In any case, kudos for great work, and many thanks! 

Modifié par Lady Olivia, 19 avril 2010 - 01:30 .

[DLAN_Immortality]

Well...Qwinn, about the compatibility patches... that's also a mess, because you have to make different ones for mod A, B, C... Z, so if people want to play with mods A, H, J, and K you might have a problem... and the more mods out there the more work for you...

So I just like the idea to make mods compatible... period. What I do with mine is to say "it's not compatible with A, B and C, it is compatible with D, E and F"; and then I try to contact other modders to see if we can work together to make our mods compatible...

Olivia: Maybe it could be an idea to write a tutorial or something, on how you do it ?

I also think we really should find a way (ugh) to be able to send .plo via b2b... otherwise people will have to copy and re-create other people's plots... and that will be a mess, not only because of the higher chance of screwup, but because of future updates...

I'm up for creating b2bs with the .plo and .dlg I've modified from the game and distribute them to any mod author that wants them. Also my char_stage and other party camp information... I may just create the b2b right nao...



EDIT: DL link for the compat b2b (under the miscellaneous files section): http://www.dragonage...file.php?id=851

Modifié par DLAN_Immortality, 19 avril 2010 - 07:06 .

[ladydesire]

DLAN_Immortality wrote...

I also think we really should find a way (ugh) to be able to send .plo via b2b... otherwise people will have to copy and re-create other people's plots... and that will be a mess, not only because of the higher chance of screwup, but because of future updates...

I'm up for creating b2bs with the .plo and .dlg I've modified from the game and distribute them to any mod author that wants them. Also my char_stage and other party camp information... I may just create the b2b right nao...



EDIT: DL link for the compat b2b (under the miscellaneous files section): http://www.dragonage...file.php?id=851

We must be thinking about the same things today... I was going to ask for this so I could make sure Lealion and Ser Gilmore could both be in the party and do the Broken Circle quest.

[Qwinn1234]

Lady Olivia:



Thank you for the invite! I've joined the group and am reading through... obviously I'm walking into a well-trodden area with some of these dialogue fixes :/



In terms of working out compatibility, this is a bit awkward for me I'm afraid. In the case of Immortality's Ser Gilmore mod, yes, we'll have to work out those issues in the normal context, since what she's doing is an actual *mod* of new content, not directly related to what I'm doing. But with other fix mods out there, like yours, or Dialogue Tweaks or Zevran Dialogue Fix, I'm afraid it's not going to be a matter of compatibility as much as duplication :/ As you can tell from the nature of the project, I'm hoping I can make my fixpack comprehensive, and as such I'll be needing to fix all the same bugs that all the other fixpacks do (and more besides). Will that be stepping on anyone's toes? Is anyone going to feel I'm "stealing" their work? I hope not, as I really do all my work from scratch... generally the most I've ever gleaned from anyone else's mod is a look at the description only to identify what the bugs are, and even that much I've only done in the last few days, since my last update.



I don't know how the other modders will feel about me duplicating their efforts. I know some people are possessive of their mods and might resent someone trying to, well, to put it bluntly, obsolete their work. Should I be concerned about this? If not, I certainly would be grateful if I could ask the existing modders how they pulled certain things off... for example, I'd love to know how you managed to get rid of references to Alistair being king in the Dark Ritual dialogues. I could just look at your files, but that would be cheating (and I appear to be having trouble doing so even if I wanted to... I tried looking at some of Nukenin's files with his permission, and I get an "Out of Memory" error when I try to open dialogues from other mods with the toolset.)



Anyways, if there are some fix modders out there who'd be willing to help me fix the same bugs in my fixpack, I'd certainly appreciate the help. If they don't wish to, that is absolutely totally understandable, and I will proceed to try to find and fix them on my own.



For the record, I've managed to fix these on my own so far for my next release:



1. City Elf: When asked by Morrigan about your mother, you can no longer reply "My mother died at childbirth", which conflicts with the city elf origin story. That reply is replaced with the accurate "My mother died a long time ago."



2. City Elf: When talking to your romance interest during your conversation with Shianni in the Alienage, and you are romancing someone other than Alistair, Alistair will no longer suddenly replace your romance interest mid conversation.



3. City Gates: The final companion dialogue sequence would abort prematurely while talking to Alistair if his approval rating was hostile. Fixed.



4. City Gates: During the final companion dialogue sequence, you would get Zevran's "Friendly" lines if he was in love, and his "Warm" lines if he was friendly. Fixed.



5. Several dialogue bugs wherein Alistair or Loghain would talk about details about Morrigan's ritual without ever having been told (and later forget them) have been resolved. Also, during Morrigan's dialogue about the ritual, one reply option "Why didn't you tell me this before?" was conditioned on Alistair no longer being in the party, rather than that Morrigan hadn't previously left the party.



6. Talking with a romanced Zevran about the PC marrying Alistair or Anora can now only happen in the party camp - outside of camp, it would cause game-stopping graphical errors.





I found out about some of those bugs by reading project descriptions (mostly Zevran Dialog Fix so far), but I suspect I'm fixing some of them (particularly #5) differently. Again, hard for me to say, as I haven't (and don't believe I can) look at other modders' dlg files in the toolset.



Anyway... what do you think? Any advice on how I should proceed with my goal here without causing any avoidable angst?

[Qwinn1234]

Oh, another thing I'd like to ask about, m'lady Olivia



I noticed this page in one of the discussions in the group you invited me to:



http://social.biowar...iscussion/3369/





Here's the odd thing. In my most recent playthrough, Alistair *was* in my party, and he was not king (I was a human noble marrying Anora), and Anora did in fact give the speech. And I didn't export any of the files in question. Did that get fixed in 1.03 or something?

[Qwinn1234]

Well, as far as taking references to Alistair as king in Morrigan's Dark Ritual dialogue, the way I think I would handle that is to take the sound clips that currently mention it and chop out the problematic bits:



1. Take "Do you let Alistair, the future king of Ferelden, take the blow instead? And what if he does not make it to the archdemon, either?", and create a new wav file where she says "Do you let Alistair take the blow instead? And what if he does not make it to the archdemon, either?"



2. Create a new .wav from "Do you think Alistair will fail to do his duty as the future king and save his country? And if you take the blow instead he loses the woman he loves. How do you think he would feel about that?", removing the words "as the future king".



And hopefully Morrigan's intonation will still sound right after doing that.



Is that how it's currently being done?



I don't think that'd work for all of Alistair's lines in his conversation about it, though, he refers to himself as king all over it and not in ways that make subtracting text feasible.

[Qwinn1234]

Gah, sorry, should've said this, but it seemed obvious to me so I didn't think of it: absolutely, if any of the original modders are willing to lend a hand implementing fixes in this project, particularly if they contribute stages/cutscenes/any necessary reworked sound files, of course I would happily give credit for any such help in the readme. Sorry if I made it sound like I wasn't willing to do so, that's not what I meant at all.

[DLAN_Immortality]

But if you know you are duplicating fixes, then why do you do it? Many many people use Dialog Tweaks and Alistair's fixpack. They are compatible between themselves already. Why would you like to work double in something already out there, tested and being played?



Olivia is making my mod compatible with Ali's fixpack too, and in that case people will be able to play Ali's FP, DT and SerG together...



Anyways, did you have the opportunity to check the B2b? Probably you won't need it all, but cutscene_slideshow and party_events you will for sure (and therefore the main plot, the party plot and the stg).

[Terra_Ex]

Qwinn1234 wrote...
I don't know how the other modders will feel about me duplicating their efforts. I know some people are possessive of their mods and might resent someone trying to, well, to put it bluntly, obsolete their work. Should I be concerned about this? If not, I certainly would be grateful if I could ask the existing modders how they pulled certain things off... for example, I'd love to know how you managed to get rid of references to Alistair being king in the Dark Ritual dialogues. I could just look at your files, but that would be cheating (and I appear to be having trouble doing so even if I wanted to... I tried looking at some of Nukenin's files with his permission, and I get an "Out of Memory" error when I try to open dialogues from other mods with the toolset.)

Anyways, if there are some fix modders out there who'd be willing to help me fix the same bugs in my fixpack, I'd certainly appreciate the help. If they don't wish to, that is absolutely totally understandable, and I will proceed to try to find and fix them on my own.

For the record, I've managed to fix these on my own so far for my next release:

---

I found out about some of those bugs by reading project descriptions (mostly Zevran Dialog Fix so far), but I suspect I'm fixing some of them (particularly #5) differently. Again, hard for me to say, as I haven't (and don't believe I can) look at other modders' dlg files in the toolset.

Anyway... what do you think? Any advice on how I should proceed with my goal here without causing any avoidable angst?

To me Qwinn, it does seem like you're setting yourself up to tread on a lot of people's toes and potentially undermining the work of modders who have put a lot of time and effort into their individual dialog fixpacks - not saying you intend to come across this way. but from the way you've worded this I get the impression that you intend to amalgamate the fixes that others have taken the time to find and fix regardless of whether they wish to aid you directly or not. Worse yet, you admit yourself you are gathering info on some of these fixes from the project description pages of the mods in question.

The Companion mod project that has been referenced is at least attempting to make things compatible in a co-operative manner, to me, your approach is a tad heavy handed and lacking in modder decorum, imo (which surprises me if you are indeed the same Qwinn who worked on the planescape fixes). This is the exact same problem that faced the BG2 community before the advent of WeiDU, with lots of issues with DLG files and its naturally difficult to co-ordinate all efforts into a single cohesive patch, particularly because new issues are constantly being discovered and individual mod authors would probably prefer to receive credit themselves on their own project page / DA nexus page rather than being forcefully superceded by a singular mod with only periphery references to the people responsible for the original fixes.

Superb work on the existing fixes tho btw, but that's my take on the matter.

Modifié par Terra_Ex, 20 avril 2010 - 08:15 .

[Qwinn1234]

Terra_Ex,

First, let me say thanks for bringing your concerns civilly.

To your points:

I get the impression that you intend to amalgamate the fixes that others have taken the time to find and fix regardless of whether they wish to aid you directly or not.

Actually, this is correct. It's not a matter of intentionally wanting to amalgamate other people's work, the intent is to fix every bug in the game in one fixpack, however that needs to be done. I think the number of fixes I've already implemented should speak seriously to that intent. If others have done partial work on that - with what is apparently a heavy focus on companion dialogues - then I regret that some may feel I am "undermining" their work by fixing the same bugs, but ... no one owns a bug (except maybe Bioware, heh), and short of just directly taking files from other people's mods and including them in mine without permission (which would be odious, and I would never do that), I don't think I should have to apologize for fixing them in my mod as well.

For the record, in addition to the fact that fixing all bugs was the project's original goal, I should note that several players have already posted *requesting* that I implement fixes for the bugs that are addressed by some existing mods into my own. In fact, it was links from players saying "please fix these same bugs" that led me to discover the mods in question.

I'd like to avoid drama, I really would. Hate the stuff. But I *do* intend to complete the project in it's stated goal ("fix every bug, period"). If existing modders want to pitch in, I think that would be great, and I'm exceedingly happy to extend credit where it's due (as I have already done on the project details page for Nukenin, who very willingly and supportively offered his advice on how to best go about implementing the stealing and dog fetch fix, and whose advice I heeded... I only regret that I didn't include that credit on first release, I should have).

Anyway - if others don't want to be involved, and would prefer to remain in a competitive position, and fight for download count, that's perfectly within their rights and perfectly fine. I'm not going to fight about it, I'll just fix the bugs on my own. If some players prefer to download a mishmash of different (excellent, well constructed) mods, with all the complexity and potential for incompatibility that that entails, then those mods are doing something right that I'm not, and they deserve all the downloads they continue to get.

your approach is a tad heavy handed and lacking in modder decorum, imo (which surprises me if you are indeed the same Qwinn who worked on the planescape fixes)

I am indeed that same Qwinn.

In terms of what you desire as part of modder decorum, I'd like to ask, how would you like me to behave that does *not* require me to abandon the core purpose of my project, or to say no to the players asking me to fix the same bugs? Or is a single comprehensive fixpack not a worthy purpose for a project? I am extending an invitation for anyone who has previously addressed some of these bugs to participate if they wish, with a full willingness to extend credit should that aid be given. I'm not sure what else I *can* do that doesn't force me to abandon the project's main purpose entirely. But I'm not just asking rhetorically - if you can offer advice on how I should proceed in a way that generates minimal drama, as long as it doesn't require me to abandon the project's purpose or require me to acknowledge that someone else "owns" a bug and only they may provide a fix (which would seem to me to be a breach of proper modder decorum itself), I am genuinely listening.

At any rate, reading the Companion Mod project's discussion on making a cohesive mod, it started off on this basis, from weebeady:

Also, simply by existing, such a project could imply that we were actively seeking to find and fix *all* the bugs in the game. Unless that's the case? Is it? I said before that wasn't my intent, but if we do it collectively, the idea is slightly less intimidating. Slightly. I also wouldn't want to get player hopes up that this mod would be the answer to every problem in the game. That's a scary thought. All that pressure and not nearly enough time. I suppose in the project description we could explain that we've focused primarily on fixes related to romances/companions/NPCs and any other fixes we do are a "bonus"?

Ok, so, the companion mod authors are explicitly not willing to make a mod that addresses all the bugs in the game. Fair enough. It *is* exceedingly time consuming, trust me, I know. But they're not willing to go that far, even collectifvely. I am. Is this something I should apologize for, or not do so as to prevent potential drama?

How about thinking of it this way... by undertaking this project, I'm freeing all the other modders up to work on NEW content mods.  I have no real interest in creating new content, I think others (such as Immortality) can do a much better job in that respect than I can.  My strength is in fixing lots and lots of bugs quickly and effectively, and I'll focus on that. 

Superb work on the existing fixes tho btw

Thank you! I appreciate that, sincerely. Although I haven't tested anyone else's mods yet (besides Nukenin's Healing Received fix), I've already confirmed that many of the bugs the other mods address *are* genuine bugs, and kudos all around are well deserved in even spotting some of them.

Modifié par Qwinn1234, 20 avril 2010 - 08:49 .

[Terra_Ex]

Thanks for your response Qwinn, I personally am in total agreement with you that everyone's ultimate goal/ideal situation would be an all-inclusive patch that addresses all issues with the core game. Absolutely no issues with you there and please don't think I want to start an argument with you as that wasn't my intent at all. If I could fire up a BW game on release and know I wouldn't be encountering a bunch of issues, I'd be a happy man, so don't think I'm in any way trying to dissuade you from your goal, which is certainly an admirable one - I'm a huge fan of all in one fixpacks and its just a shame that games can't ship in such a state. A group of Morrigan fans & myself recently uncovered some missing scenes from her character quest (among many other bugs that likewise remain unaddressed several months since DA's release) that I've just finished restoring, so believe me I understand the desire of getting things working as per the writers' original intent. I hope to have it finished up pretty soon and certainly wouldn't be adverse to provided you with my amended files via B2B.

To address the decorum comment, I think my issue primarilly stems from your initial post which seemed to imply that the onus should be on said mod authors to stumble upon this thread in order to become aware of your project. As others have commented, mod authors have already fixed issues pertaining to many of the romance bugs for example, I would have thought a more expedient and proactive way to acheive your goal would be to contact these authors on their project page/via PM, drawing upon their existing knowledge, avoiding any potential drama and hopefully acquiring their B2B files and assistance in your project - a side by side comparison of their fixes compared with the vanilla game files would surely streamline your own processes. The impression I got from your follow up posts was that you hadn't done this.

On this issue:

Qwinn1234 wrote...

Well, as far as taking references to Alistair as king in Morrigan's Dark Ritual dialogue, the way I think I would handle that is to take the sound clips that currently mention it and chop out the problematic bits:

1. Take "Do you let Alistair, the future king of Ferelden, take the blow instead? And what if he does not make it to the archdemon, either?", and create a new wav file where she says "Do you let Alistair take the blow instead? And what if he does not make it to the archdemon, either?"

2. Create a new .wav from "Do you think Alistair will fail to do his duty as the future king and save his country? And if you take the blow instead he loses the woman he loves. How do you think he would feel about that?", removing the words "as the future king".

And hopefully Morrigan's intonation will still sound right after doing that.

Is that how it's currently being done?

Most mods that I've seen haven't gone into altering the voiceovers, though that would certainly be a nice touch, and are instead either altering the condition for the offending line to the correct plot flag so it defaults to Alistair not being the king (I think there's a few instances where the condition check simply doesn't exist) or pasting a link to a more appropriate existing line within the conversation that fits within the current context of the scene. But, I'd imagine this varies for from mod to mod.

In closing, I do definitely wish you luck with this endeavour.

Modifié par Terra_Ex, 20 avril 2010 - 10:29 .

[ladydesire]

It might surprise you, but sometimes not everyone wants all the fixes in one pack; they like to be able to pick and choose which ones they have. Sounds dumb, I know, but there were people that complained when Obsidian integrated a community AI mod for NWN2, because they liked the "dumb" AI.

[ejoslin]

I am the author of Zevran Dialog Fix, which is the major fix for Zevran out there. There is a problem with Zevran's Dialog Fix not being compatible with the various Alistair ones, because we deal with many of the same files (Zevran's main problems are in party_events.dlg and genpt_zevran_defined.ncs). I have fixed quite a bit more, however, with varying degrees of completeness, and I can make any/all b2bs available.



The way I dealt with references to Alistair being king was to just route dialog around the various references. It actually works remarkably well, and is quite simple. That doesn't mean that recycling dialog wouldn't work better, but you may want to look at how I've handled it (you may not).

[Qwinn1234]

ejoslin,

Thank you! That's a very gracious offer, and yes, I'd like to take you up on it. I have no experience yet with B2B files, but I'll look them up tonight and see how they work.

And yes, I'd most certainly like to see how you handled the Alistair-As-King stuff. It looks like I'm going to have to order a sound card so I can work with the FSB files (Audacity doesn't play well with my current onboard audio and Windows 7, won't accept any input devices except maybe a mic), so I won't know how well just chopping the king references out of some of those sentences will work for a bit. So plenty of time to look at the other options first

Thank you again! Anything you need from me? My email is pescalona@verizon.net.

Oh, just curious... how'd you handle the Alistair-Sometimes-Knows-About-The-Ritual-When-He-Really-Doesn't-And-Forgets-Again-Later stuff?  I tracked all the problems down to the cli_morrigan_ritual.plo variable MORRIGAN_RITUAL_KNOWN being set unconditionally when Morrigan first tells *you* about the ritual, but there's several dozen other checks that clearly interpret that plot flag being set to mean that -Alistair or Loghain- know about it.  I just replaced that set in Morrigan's dialogue with a different plot flag (MORRIGAN_RITUAL_PC_KNOWS_RITUAL) so that it could be used to activate the attached codex entry, and this way MORRIGAN_RITUAL_KNOWN doesn't get set except in conversation with Alistair or Loghain.  Did you handle that the same way, or did you change the various places where the flag is checked?

Modifié par Qwinn1234, 20 avril 2010 - 11:10 .