Help! Tons of questions about BGT! Options

[Salk]

Hello! I am pretty new to the forum and have no knowledge of modding so I ask your help with some questions. To what I had understood, both BG1 TuTu and BGT let the player play the whole saga using the BG2 (or ToB perhaps ?) engine for Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. The difference that makes me want to play BGT is that it would let me give a marvellous sense of completition by merging the two stories and the two worlds into a single experience. Here I come with questions: is BGT enough bug-free to play the game without major problems ? Would you recommend installing it ? I think I have understood BGT is a TeamBG production and that their website has been down for a long time. Can you tell me why and what happened to the main coder of this great project ? What are the main differences between BGT and the mods BP-BGT / BP-BGT-DSOTSC which are hosted in Forgotten Wars ? Do they include more stable versions of BGT ? Are Wei-Du mods all compatible with BGT ? What are the system requirements for BGT ? Is there any valid documentation on the net which explains in the details how BGT works (installation and configuration) ? Can I take advantage of Dudleyville's fixes for Baldur's Gate 1 if I install BGT (or BP-BGT / BP-BGT-DSOTSC) even if they're not written in Wei-Du (they are installed in the Override folder of BG1) ? Please help me if you can. I am really interested in opening new horizions for Baldur's Gate and BGT seems what I do need to have the best experience possible. Thanks!

[Domi]

It still has some annoying bugs, but definitely isn't as bad as certain people say or imply (due to the fact their mods are compatible with - in fact usually work ONLY with - BG1Tutu).

I think you are mixing up cause and effect here, Baronius. I cannot speak for everyone, but for my part, when I understood, that the only efficient way to make BG1NPC was to make it for one of the two conversions, I looked at both BGT and TUTU and then chose one of them as the coding environment and the mod to install on my PC and play personally.

The people I discussed the things with included Horred

I weighed information I gathred and came to the following conclusions:

1) From the start iirc Bardez had had problems of CR nature, since his mod actually distributes CR material. As far as I know, Horred put a license checker on BP version of it, but I still feel uncomfortable about this aspect.

2) As a modder I also feel that I'd rather ask a player to make a good install and convert to TUTU, rather than upload a humangous mod in order to play BG1NPC.

3) I know that Seanas, Horred and Billy took over BGT maintenance, but I do not want to play a game where bugs come who knows from where and which contains mods of inconsistent quality. Horred's work on BP was monumental, and he had done a heroic deed. Yet, the result of it is not for everyone. I did not want to have a brown dragon added to Small Teeth Path... just for the sake of it being added.

4) My next objection to BGT was logical - I feel that BG1 and BG2 are different games, and my interest did not lay in taking the same protagonist from Candlekeep to the Throne of Bhaal. There is too many difference between the two games for me to believe that it was the same protagonist.

5) To my woman's eye TUTU felt like a smarter, more modern, more gracefull and flexible mod, while BGT felt like a huge, heavy, unmanagable thinggy of the past, whose only advantage was the automated party transfer between the two games.

6) Additionally, to me the value of this transfer was negated because BGT does not further support the transferred NPCs in terms of content - otherwise, if I ever want to play BG2 again, I will be perfecty happy with exporting TUTU last save and starting BG2. I also thought that it is not inconcievable that a patch will be written for TUTU that will allow a smoother transition. I thought and I still think that it is more likely than BGT ever becoming slick and convenient.

7) Finally TUTU bought me with its flexible NPC kitting option.

Therefore, I chose TUTU and never even tried to download BGT. I am very greatful to Hlidskialf for porting BG1NPC-Ph1 into BGt format but myself I will never change my BG environment to BGT.

This post has been edited by Domi: Jan 13 2005, 10:29 PM