Speeding up the keep?

[masteraleph]

Wondering if there's any chance that the Keep and associated quests will be sped up?  I've played through the game enough times, and there are enough healing potions and whatnot to go around, that other than hitting the sleep button a bunch of times there's no way for me to ever finish the keep quest before going on to chapter 7.  Any chance it'll be sped up?

[jcompton]

Hmmm. I never have had any trouble finishing the Keep, although admittedly I tend to do the quest very early in chapter 2 as it has copious loot and a relatively low degree of difficulty (and it makes Nalia happy.)

But if it seems to be a widespread problem I'll see if there's some way to conveniently cram in the new content without making people loiter around the game forever.

[Kish]

I normally have to wait a couple weeks after finishing everything else in Chapter Six before the Roenals invade, as well.  I suspect it may have to do with how much is left to do in Athkatla when you go to Spellhold--for me, this is usually nearly everything.

[Ruben]

I do probally half of the Major quests, Plannar Sphere, Keep, Theater, Thieves Guild depening on my class. After trudging through several of the place I find that the monsters get to easy, and my level is high enough to actually get on with the story. Sometimes I've only had one or two keep messages cause its hard when you ready to kill the Shade Lord, or kill the Beholding in the Unseeing Eye to rush back at the inoportune times it says "Gold has been place in your keep"

Most games recently I've only gotten through I woudl guess half of them before heading on to spell hold.

[arithar]

Hell, I just leave Immy to rot. I do every quest first, then get her.

[Cybersquirt]

I would suggest speeding up the invasion - I've not gotten it before (played it a few x's) and never knew it existed til I read it somewhere. 

I assume it's dead by chapter 7, aye?

edit: now that I think about it, I always dump Nalia for Imoen, which wouldn't be a problem if I'm playing the romance.  But that's never apparently affected the Keep goings on.  I've also always done the quest on the 2nd day.

[masteraleph]

As a few others have implied, it's always been an issue even when I do it early on (and I do keep nalia usually- call me a softy, but I feel guilty leaving her, while I don't with Aerie, or even Imoen).  Might be because I try and go sleeping as few times as possible- I'll finish every dungeon within, say 2 sleep cycles at most.  Also, I'll go ahead and do minor quests quickly- finished the windspear hills with moderate health, and fatigue isn't kicking in, time to go rescue Haer'daelis.  Tends to keep my games shorter, but also screws up the timed quests.

I'm not really a modder or a programmer, but I'm trying to think of ways it could be done.  I know that romance dialogues are typically timed based on "real time"- i.e., a romance will advance once a certain amount of time has passed in real time.  That's annoying, but it's relatively easy to fix- either leaving the game paused or else CLUACing or Shadowkeeping the variable down to 1 will typically cause a dialog to occur in short order.  The Keep, on the other hand, seems to be game time based- every week or so someone comes.

I'm wondering if maybe there's a way to script a dialogue to advance one or both.  Something like <The romance is taking too long> or <The Keep is taking too long>.  Would it be possible to throw that in as a dialogue option, and have clicking on it change the variable? (For the romance, changing it to 1 would probably suffice, I'm not certain what would be required on the keep quests but I'd imagine they're also based on some sort of timer- I'm just not sure how).  That way people who finish everything early could choose those dialogues, and people who don't would have things go on at a normal rate.

[jcompton]

I'm not really a modder or a programmer, but I'm trying to think of ways it could be done.  I know that romance dialogues are typically timed based on "real time"- i.e., a romance will advance once a certain amount of time has passed in real time.  That's annoying, but it's relatively easy to fix- either leaving the game paused or else CLUACing or Shadowkeeping the variable down to 1 will typically cause a dialog to occur in short order.  The Keep, on the other hand, seems to be game time based- every week or so someone comes.

There are certainly ways to alter both the pacing of the existing Keep events and of the romance, yes.

I'm wondering if maybe there's a way to script a dialogue to advance one or both.  Something like <The romance is taking too long> or <The Keep is taking too long>.  Would it be possible to throw that in as a dialogue option, and have clicking on it change the variable?

Possible, but I'd never do something like that, as it's terribly non-immersive.

[Cybersquirt]

if a Keep week were shortened to.. 4 days,, it'd help a bit.

[Nesquaam]

Hell, I just leave Immy to rot. I do every quest first, then get her.

JEEJ, it gives me an unsatisfying feeling when I haven't done quest that are still open when leaving for Spellhold.

[mcruz]

Yup the Keep takes a while to get done but it shouldn't be at all based on real time like it was with Jaheira's unpatched romance.  I remember though that it's usually one of last quests i did (i.e Roenall Invasion) before i went head to head with Irenicus in the Tree of Life.  I must admit that my party did a fair bit of pointless wandering between areas just to get to that point.....Trademeet still okay.......maybe somethings's wrong with the Druid Grove....ah nuts.....back to the Docks and check on good old Aran Linvail...well at least i said 'hello" again and again to a lot of characters.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Keep's quest usually take about one to two weeks game time before they go to the next....

[BevH]

I spent a fair amount of time resting in the Keep just to be sure I got them all.  So, yeah, having a way to shorten the week between times would be appreciated!