Dynaheir in BG2

[BR4ZIL]

Well guys, i forgot we had a "mod ideias" section   so i will just repost what i did on SHS

Well, i know this might be considered beating an dead horse (i have seen some topics about this that are a couple years old) but since we already have the "Khalid in BG2" mod, i was wondering if anyone is currently or interested in bringing the Rashemen witch to BG2 (i did read something about "dynaheir" being the next project in the Khalid mod topic, but i suppose that was never mentioned again.)

I have no skills with IE modding (the only thing i ever did was to edit some dialogues in already done mods) but from a storytelling perspective, bringing her back shouldnt pose much of a problem, especially since shes barely mentioned at all by anyone except Minsc.

Couple ideias that would be explored in this mod:

-She would be spared by Irenicus because of her Divination powers ( such as Irenicus forcing her to discover what CHARNAME is draming about, and lets be honest here, if Irenicus didint killed good old Minsc, he would have spared her, since she can be much more useful to him)

-More insight of Rashemi culture (such as the Iron Lords or the "long hair = respect" subjects, in case your wondering)

-Giving people Lawful good pure mage, for those who dont like Edwin.

-Dynaheir would assume the role of CHARNAME's mentor/counselor (i always thought BG2 needed someone like this. Some can say jaheira has such role, but instead of druidic/true neutral speech, Dyna would give more situational/down to earth advice, always trying to lead the bhaal child away from his dark origin)

.-A possibility to continue the romance for those that played the BG1 NPC mod (i belive only Ajantis has an romance that spams all the BG games, an addition to him would be nice)

As for an explanation for her evading her self aware fate (as hinted by her dialogue in the NPC mod), it can be explained that by being in contact with (or maybe by the action of) the bhaal child changed her fate. This could be also used as an personal quest, maybe some Wychlaran really dont like those that escape fate and dyna gets in trouble for that.

Maybe i am just rambling on and nobody actually has any interest in the Rashemi witch, but i hope maybe someday such mod will see the light.

What you guys think?

What i forgot to explain to support my "The bhaal child's presence can save Dynaheir" theory is that Dyna (being one of the Wychlaran) can see (by physical contact) peoples dreams. With that said we could had an background where Irenicus forces Dyna to look into CHARNAME's dreams (for his EVIL research or whatever), but somehow that triggers an "soul" tranference between Dyna & CHARNAME (like with Sarevok) , this event would either change her original fate (to die), as apparently bhaalspawn arent affected by what the gods want. We can also have the explanation that this soul "power" helped her survive Irenicus tortures, thus providing another reason for her to be alive and in the starting Dungeon as a prisioner.

I am currently learning how to mod in the IE engine, if ever get good at this, i might try to do such mod, but if anyone is interested in picking up this ideia, please go ahead!  

EDIT: forgive if my spelling is lousy or lack of more complex info, i am writing this at almost 2 AM here  

[Smiling Imp]

I dig the idea of Dynaheir being able to see <CHARNAME>'s dreams. Stick with it and don't be afraid to ask questions if you get stuck. Lord knows I don't have all the answers, but there is probably some seasoned modder out there that probably does.

[Sir_Carnifex]

I never cared for Dynaheir that much in BG1, though I wasn't evil enough to bump her off.  I just left her in a lone building off in some forsaken lands because I wanted Minsc.  However, I didn't care for the fact that she was unceremoniously bumped off in BG2... and bumped off off-screen at that, so I'd be glad to see her get a little extension, if only to restore a tad of dignity to her character.  Good luck with your modding attempt (if you do it)!.

[BR4ZIL]

Hey Its great that at least some people took interest this ideia  

Well i am getting the hang on this modding stuff  . Made some banters & area comentary for Waukeen's promenade, now i am thinking about the Dynaheir-NPCs dialogues and i got quite stuck on what should be their personality (or in this case, what should they talk about), i will admit i havent played BG2 in a while and cant quite remember whats everyone's quirks & perks are (save it for those NPCs i recall, like Aerie/Jan/Keldorn, for example). So if anyone has any sugestions on dialogues between Dyna & the BG2 crowd (especially for NPCs that i dont ever remember touching (*cough* *cough*, Valygar) it would be very helpful.
Also, do you guys think i need to replay BG2 all over again before writting the dialogues or just taking a look at each NPC banter files is enough to get an ideia?

[BR4ZIL]

Argh, sorry double post

[Sir_Carnifex]

Glad to see you're picking stuff up fairly quickly.  I'm still trying to do that! 

I can't help too much on personality because, for one, I never had her in my party much prior to the BG1NPC mod.   What I remember of her is not much, but I don't think too many of the characters were really given a lot of personality in BG1.  For the most part they didn't talk, so you kind of have to look at joining/leaving dialogues, a few things they might say to other NPCs (in the case of Dynaheir, try looking for her meeting with Edwin), the lines they speak when you give orders, etc.  There's not a whole lot else to them.   You could probably also look at the BG1NPC Project dialogues if you want clues on how they went about developing her personality.  From what I remember (it's been a long time) the dialogues themselves seemed well-written and fitting with the character (although I found her a boring character as a whole).

You don't really need to play the game to get dialogue lines.  If you have Infinity Explorer, you can look up any dialogue you want.  It's much faster.  If you don't know the file name, you can look by area, find the creatures that spawn there, click them and find their dialogue file.   Still, playing through the game isn't a BAD idea because it may spark ideas, help you remember characters you wouldn't have before, and so on.   What I did was just went down the entire list of dialogues one by one and read them to see which ones I wanted my character to interject in.   That took a long time, but still considerably shorter than playing through.

Valygar should provide some interesting banters.  Just search his banter file (BVALYGAR I think) in Infinity Explorer and you can see how he interacts with the other NPCs.  I'd say that in general he's fairly calm, quiet, and sensible, but remember that Dynaheir is a mage and Valygar strongly dislikes magic.   You've got a clue on something you can do right there.  As for specifics on ideas, I can't give any right now.  I always have difficulty in coming up with banter topics for NPCs... probably because I'm the exact same way as a conversationalist in real life.   "So how's the weather today?"  Might work for a druid.   

Oh, and also, in exchange for feedback here, I expect feedback on my mod once I start posting about it.  Fair's fair!  Actually, I'm kidding.  Feedback is nice, but I'd never try to guilt anyone into doing something!

[BR4ZIL]

Glad to see you're picking stuff up fairly quickly.  I'm still trying to do that!  

Thanks, but its not that much really, by "made some banters" i meant 3, 2 "Minsc-Dynaheir" and one with CHARNAME, also, my dialogue files are very primitive ,i have it all inside one .d file (wish i knew how to make a .TRA file, i know how they are *supposed* to work, but i failed to discover what i must do in the .tp2 to get them working).

Well, another problem i came across is that in the BG1NPC mod Dynaheir's dialogue is all written in a very formal way, for example:

"Thinkest thou that this starlit land is the most fair thou hast seen?"

Since english isnt even my native language and i already make alot of mistakes while writing (i already asked my english teacher if he can proof-read this mod for me, hes a huge fan of D&D), making her lines all like that is something which i cant do it myself, even so, i want to try to continue the romance as portrayed in the mod (i still have to see how i can i make it work with BG1NPC  ) so for now, Dyna will just speak normal english  

I will probably give a read of all her BG1 dialogue (even tho i just finished an BG1 playthrough) so i can remember how shes like. As of now, i would like to know if the BG1NPC mod romance GLOBALs carry over BG2 if your using BGT mod (i remember my that in my last BG2 playthrough i saw something about DYLOVETALK while editing variable in shadowkeeper, but i i might be wrong). I would be great if i can make an special intro dialogue for those that are already *acquainted* with the Witch.

...I always have difficulty in coming up with banter topics for NPCs.

Yeah, tell me about it, i thought making conversation between the NPCs would be easy, but after writing 2 for Minsc i ran out of ideias, maybe if i ever taken Valygar into my party i would have at least another dialogue ideia (he hates magic, you say? that already sounds interesting).

Oh, dont you worry, i will give some feedback on Halbo as soon as i get my BWL account working  

[Sir_Carnifex]

Glad to see you're picking stuff up fairly quickly.  I'm still trying to do that!  

Thanks, but its not that much really, by "made some banters" i meant 3, 2 "Minsc-Dynaheir" and one with CHARNAME, also, my dialogue files are very primitive ,i have it all inside one .d file (wish i knew how to make a .TRA file, i know how they are *supposed* to work, but i failed to discover what i must do in the .tp2 to get them working).

I got my test TRA file working easily enough.  Perhaps I can post the coding here at some point.   Note that you don't HAVE to do a translation file, but it sure makes it easier if you (or someone else) want to add other languages at some point.

Well, another problem i came across is that in the BG1NPC mod Dynaheir's dialogue is all written in a very formal way, for example:

"Thinkest thou that this starlit land is the most fair thou hast seen?"

Since english isnt even my native language and i already make alot of mistakes while writing (i already asked my english teacher if he can proof-read this mod for me, hes a huge fan of D&D), making her lines all like that is something which i cant do it myself, even so, i want to try to continue the romance as portrayed in the mod (i still have to see how i can i make it work with BG1NPC  ) so for now, Dyna will just speak normal english  

I forgot entirely about the old English dialogue for Dynaheir!  I suppose she must have spoken that way in the original conversations, too, otherwise the modders wouldn't have done that.  It would make it somewhat more difficult to write. 

I will probably give a read of all her BG1 dialogue (even tho i just finished an BG1 playthrough) so i can remember how shes like. As of now, i would like to know if the BG1NPC mod romance GLOBALs carry over BG2 if your using BGT mod (i remember my that in my last BG2 playthrough i saw something about DYLOVETALK while editing variable in shadowkeeper, but i i might be wrong). I would be great if i can make an special intro dialogue for those that are already *acquainted* with the Witch.

I can't help you with BGT since I've never used it.  I'm sure someone else will know something about it.

...I always have difficulty in coming up with banter topics for NPCs.

Yeah, tell me about it, i thought making conversation between the NPCs would be easy, but after writing 2 for Minsc i ran out of ideas, maybe if i ever taken Valygar into my party I would have at least another dialogue ideia (he hates magic, you say? that already sounds interesting).

Yup.  You can usually get at least one dialogue for each NPC based on some major personality feature or a plot point.  For instance:

Mazzy:  Talk about her hometown of Trademeet.
Minsc:  Everyone comments on Boo.  Of course, Dynaheir would have a lot to talk about with him, I'm sure.
Valygar:  Dull personality, but can always make something of his hatred of magic.
Edwin:  Pyromaniac.
Cernd: Nature

And so on.

Oh, dont you worry, i will give some feedback on Halbo as soon as i get my BWL account working  

Hah, I forgot I had that in my signature.  Actually, I was referring to my new concept, though I'll probably revive Halbo at some point.

[Smiling Imp]

Hey BR4ZIL. When you are ready to TRA-ify your text, take a look at this post that Aldark posted here.

http://www.shsforums.net/topic/50964-bg1-npcs-for-soa/page__view__findpost__p__542007

I just recommend doing this when you are close to done, otherwise you will have to edit/add new text in TRA format, which if you didn't learn that way like me, can be confusing.

[Raven]

Dynaheir would be great. At one time I was going to do a mod on her and even Sola was going to. Nothing happened.

[BR4ZIL]

Hey BR4ZIL. When you are ready to TRA-ify your text, take a look at this post that Aldark posted here.

http://www.shsforums.net/topic/50964-bg1-npcs-for-soa/page__view__findpost__p__542007

I just recommend doing this when you are close to done, otherwise you will have to edit/add new text in TRA format, which if you didn't learn that way like me, can be confusing.

Thanks for the tip! I have indeed noticed that writting in "TRA-fied" format would require much more work (at least IMO).

At any rate, coded some more NPC-NPC dialogues (Aerie,Viconia and 1 more for Minsc) and remade the entire initial join dialogue (now with Minsc interjection and actually belivable "Dynaheir-esque" dialogue). Still, i cant write for sh%# in "old english", belive me i have tried, but things came out horrible.

I already have some other dialogues written on notebook (i mostly write them in-between classes  ), but otherwise progress is quite slow due to alot of studying and barely any time at home for coding (i dont have a laptop).

As i once said in the shout box, i hope to get alot of free time once this year is over  .

[Smiling Imp]

Hey BR4ZIL! How are things coming along with Dynaheir?

[BR4ZIL]

Quite stuck as they were last time (actually, as i remember i was trying to learn how to force NPC-NPC dialogue at a specific moment).

Unfortunately these last months were VERY busy for me with finishing school and (as of now) getting into federal university. I will surely get back to it mid january-februnary, dont worry!  

If your asking because you might wanna implement Dyna on your BG1NPCs mod, what i previously state is still valid, i am very noobish and i dont really know where this whole modding road will take me (writing alot of dialogue in-character is much harder than i thought) so if you have modding ideias, dont let me hold you back

On a positive note, i think i wrote (on paper) 1 or 2 Dyna-Viccy dialogues between now & my last post (hint: both women still dont get along very well).

[Smiling Imp]

Meh.. I ask b/c it is nice to know that I am not talking to myself at all times as I slowly descend down the rabbit hole of madness! 

I wish you the best of luck at school.

[BR4ZIL]

Meh.. I ask b/c it is nice to know that I am not talking to myself at all times as I slowly descend down the rabbit hole of madness!  

I wish you the best of luck at school.

Ha! Yes, your a very active member here, that much i have noticed  

Also, i would like to report that i almost lost all my modding progress due to HDD failure, the unit in which i kept my games (and the my five BG2 folders  ) went RAW (non formatted state) and i couldnt acess no matter what (tried reinstalling windows, downloading alot of supposed HDD repair tools but nothing). In the end i had to use a special tool that would recover my files and copy them to another hard-drive, with no other option to go i had to buy a new HDD (since the my other drive is very small and is only for the windows files).

With that said, the sad part was most of my installed games & programs didint get recognized within the new drive. On the bright side, i didint lost my Dynaheir mod and i now have a additional HDD (after formatting, the other one is working again)

Oh and thanks  , i am currently finished with school now, studying for tests to join a university is all i have left to do.