Hello there, Mr. Lava. Excuse my lack of avatar/signature etc. because I literally only registered to post here and tell you my thoughts about your mod. Took me a while too, had to go open a yahoo account because gmail's now allowed here and the capcha was...difficult.
Anyway, it was the 'guess people don't like the idea' that made me do it, what with my being a loyally-lurking fan of your work and all. I loved the idea of a BG2 bromance - the NPC modding has been so romance-oriented over the years that unfortunately it feels as though the idea of 'merely' a true friendship with one bores the players.
Anyway, I literally downloaded the mod yesterday for my Big World installation and I'm not finished playing it yet (I've just had the friendship talk that says my PC feels as though he and Aeon can defeat Irenicus together) so this won't be a COMPLETELY formed opinion yet, but I'll be back to give you one when I have it.
On to the point - the initial part of the mod takes a bit of 'getting through'. It's not bad, don't get me wrong (just going to get the negative bit out of the way before I start raving
), but let it be said that it's very, very obvious this is your early work. For example, when Rea showed up, it took a bit of suspense of disbelief for me to buy that Aeon was so desperately in love with her as he turned out to be. Their relationship was presented a bit hastily and off-handedly. "Rea, my love! Charname, can she go with us? I love her." Now, I picked the no-spying option so I don't know yet if it's elaborated further in the scene where you spy on them, but the whole situation when the party first encounters her could've been presented by 'showing', rather than 'telling' and throwing the word 'love' around. I realize many people aren't fans of it in Baldur's Gate, but I feel that their first encounter could've been presented with much more depth if you focused on the descriptive, letting us see Aeon's expression and behaviour, rather than on the dialogue. I'm not sure if it's possible to add/remove content at this point, but if you ever decide to change something stylistically, maybe it wouldn't be bad to take a look at that bit.
Also, the encounter with Aoen's best friend(?) later. Now, I played bits of this mod late at night, half-asleep, maybe it was that, or maybe it was because I chose some conversation option that made me miss it, but I had NO idea who this person was, all of a sudden. It was even more surprising to find out later that Aeon had such an emotional attachment to him as well as Rea. The man did explain why he was attacking, but it was just so out of the blue, I had the feeling that these were some random muggers we were fighting and not people that he cared about. Oh, there was also a small bug here, but like I said, I'm running BigWorld, so it could be a plethora of reasons - Rea's new boyfriend (ugh, this is ridiculous, I can't remember his name, sorry!) didn't turn hostile with the others. But I attacked and killed him and everything went on according to plan, so that was okay.
Anyway, a bit more foreshadowing before that battle would've been nice, just to know what's going on later.
Now to the praise part!
Okay, where to begin, I'm such a huge fan of your mods...(may go off at a tangent and into mindless lauding, feel free to ignore). The writing is brilliant, as usually. There's something about your style that I can't put my finger on, but it usually makes me feel like I'm reading a mysterious fairy tale, rather than playing a computer game. To put it simply, it's as though I'm not just playing a mod, I'm actually enjoying something that has artistic value as well.
As I said before, I loved the idea of bromance (sorry I keep calling it that, but I love that word xD) in BG2. If you ever had doubts about it, I'm glad you didn't cave in and make Aeon a romanceable character. In the end, it's OKAY to be "just" friends with an attractive person of breeding age and a mod that has that is in no way inferior to any romance mod out there.
I loved the music - it set the mood wonderfully, especially for those little scenes when there isn't much talking involved. It really gave them more impact. And since I mentioned it, I -loved- the no/little dialogue scenes. I don't really know, but I get the feeling people don't really like those in mods or those that focus on description rather than dialogue, but don't listen to them - you are brilliant at description, so use that to your full advantage.
I also loved the fistfight between Aeon and CHARNAME. I've never played an NPC mod that did that (that is not to say that there isn't one out there). It was something new, original and unexpectedly awesome which seems to be a trademark of all your mods. (no, I'm not trying to suck up to you, believe it or not, I actually mean it xD)
Good grief, look at all I've written. ;_; And there'll probably be more to say after I finish the mod. Well, I hope this will make you at least a bit more confident about this mod - you seem to be unsure if it's any good or not. xD And I hope it may encourage anyone who reads this to download and try it themselves. I've been recommending you to everybody I know likes BG2 on reddit and in real-life, so hope that'll help a bit.
Chin-up and all that.
