Author Topic: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!  (Read 10719 times)

Offline Kulyok

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TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« on: February 04, 2013, 12:13:33 AM »
Thanks to Kaeloree's gracious efforts, we now have a BG:EE compatible copy of XanBG1Friendship.

I have tested it myself on BG:EE, and I believe the English version works perfectly. It uses Weidu beta 23107, however, and as such, I consider it in beta.

The link is here: http://mods.pocketplane.net/kulyok/XanBG1Friend_v7.zip

Unpack the mod into your BG:EE directory, and run bgee_install_xanbg1friend_setup.bat to install, reinstall or uninstall it.

Languages other than English:  open "bgee_install_xanbg1friend_setup.bat" with a text editing program, and replace all instances of "en_US" with your language (ds_CZ, de_DE, es_ES, fr_FR, pl_PL). Save and run the .bat as above.

I recommend backuping override and lang directories, your baldur.exe and your chitin.key before installing ANY mods. It's good practice for all IE games.

If you're in trouble, please check CamDawg's instructions for making your game BG:EE ready:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/6950/player-how-to-getting-mods-to-work-on-bgee/

Offline Kulyok

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Re: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« Reply #1 on: February 04, 2013, 12:20:36 AM »
(If you're not a BG:EE player, you can comfortably skip this topic and download v6 of the mod - it'll still work for Tutu/EasyTutu, BGT and vanilla BG1.)

Offline hook71

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Re: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« Reply #2 on: February 04, 2013, 03:13:28 PM »
Nice! Maybe, the typos I reported here could be included in version 7?: http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/topic,24286.msg328948.html#msg328948

Offline Kulyok

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Re: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« Reply #3 on: February 04, 2013, 11:34:32 PM »
Certainly! I'll do a update for both versions when this one is declared stable - then I'll update the site(secretly, so when our Evil Overlord returns, it will all be over, myahaha!). I've already updated Xan(well, still in testing), Assassinations and IWD NPC, so it is only a matter of time for Xan's Friendship.

And folks, if you play Xan's Friendship for BG:EE and find out it works okay(and it should), please drop me a line - I'll probably need at least two "it works" reports before uploading it on-site.

Offline Kulyok

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Re: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2013, 12:05:40 AM »
Included all typo corrections(thank you very much again!), and most of the suggestions from Xan's friendship thread. The version 7 BETA for BG:EE is also available on Xan's page - please, install it on BG:EE installations only, and use v6 for BGT/BG/Tutu.

I'll update v6 once we have a stable version of Weidu for dealing with BG:EE stuff(for now, Weidu 23107 is still in beta and I don't know how it can affect other mods, especially on BGT installs).

This beta works fine on the English install, but I would appreciate a report from players who installed and played it in French/German/Russian.

Offline Isaya

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Re: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« Reply #5 on: May 14, 2014, 05:00:44 PM »
Hello Kulyok,

Sorry for resurrecting this post or more exactly for the delay.

I tested Xan Friendship on BGEE V1.2 (actually V1.3 beta but it doesn't matter in that case). There are flaws in the TP2 file and the BAT file that prevent a proper installation in a language other than English. The conversion to UTF8 may be done but is not used during installation, which cause the game to freeze whenever there is a special character in a text using a non-UTF8 encoding (this is the "normal" behaviour since V1.2).

I submit you an archive containing several changes that were needed to get the mod to install on BGEE:
  • an improved conv_tra.bat to allow setting the proper origin encoding, which differs according to language (CP1252 for Western Europe, CP1251 for Russian)
  • a new conv_tra.sh, to handle Mac OS X and Linux installation (both came from work done on BG1 NPC)
  • an updated TP2 file, to account for Mac OS X and Linux, and to fix the missing LOAD_TRA which was the cause of not using the UTF8 converted file until now (I also replaced all the tests on specific files by the new internal check in WeiDU)
  • an updated WeiDU (236), required for proper support of BGEE (game language choice in addition to mod language, checks to determine the game type)

I tested French successfully and checked by obtaining the "did you go to Baldur's Gate" dialog.

I also tried Russian, but on a game set for French : it does handle the fonts required for cyrillic (they were available with some version of the patch but were removed latter on) and the text is completely empty, save for spaces and punctuations. I guess it will need a proper release of BGEE in Russian before it can be used, an probably only if you select Russian as the language game. However the conversion to UTF8 works and I can clearly see cyrillic characters in Notepad++, for instance.

Here is a link to an archive containing these changes.
The mod version in the TP2 will need to be changed (I added my nickname as suffix to distinguish at the moment).

Offline Kulyok

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Re: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« Reply #6 on: May 15, 2014, 12:31:53 AM »
Oh wow! Thank you! That's quite a list of changes! I'm rather scared it means I have to re-package all my mods - but thankfully, my other mods are on BG2EE, not on BGEE itself. Okay, I am downloading the changes and I'll see if I can upload them ASAP.

I have only one question(and I'm sorry if it seems like I am a total newbie in all things BGEE - in a way, I am!) - backwards compatibility. If I implement these changes, will things be all right for those players who use Xan Friendship with an older version of BGEE?

Offline Kulyok

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Re: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« Reply #7 on: May 15, 2014, 02:30:46 AM »
Thanks to your changes, I have been able to upload a v9 for Xan Friendship for BGEE, but for Windows only - I'm sorry, but my knowledge(lack of it, really) doesn't allow me to create a Mac version for BGEE, I'm afraid(though I would happily upload a ready link, if needed).  I do have a Mac for BGT/Tutu regular Xan friendship version, because I have a template of "how it should be done", but I don't trust my Mac conversion skills much. I listed you as Isaya together with Kaeloree in the readme - please let me know if you'd like the credits changed. And thank you very much again!


Offline Isaya

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Re: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« Reply #8 on: May 17, 2014, 03:02:56 AM »
Thank you Kulyok.

Yesterday I installed Xan Friendship V9 on BGT without error. I played a bit until I got the first talk. By mistake, I installed the mod in Italian. This allowed me notice that the italian tra file was actually encoded in UTF8 instead of CP1252, so that there are bad characters in the text displayed anytime a special character should be displayed.

I compared the three archives, v8 Windows, v8 Mac and v9 Windows. They all include the same tra files. So the italian file is in UTF8 in all of them and has to be replaced by the CP1252 version in all of them.
The fact the italian tra file is already in UTF8 is also an issue for the BGEE version, as converting the file from CP1252 to UTF8 when the initial file is already in UTF8 will generate some garbage characters in the resulting file.

Moreover, the tp2 file is identical between v8 Windows and v8 Mac. Basically the only difference between the two versions is the readme file and _xan.baf/xan.baf files, where a timer is set with different values. So Windows and Mac versions are identical, except for the weidu binary and the command file for Mac, and the readme content, which you could probably unify by adding section for Mac and Windows in a single file.

Comparing v8 Windows and v9 Windows also show the only difference is the tp2 file (and the readme), plus the fact that v8 is using NSIS (I compared after NSIS extraction). In the tp2 file, the main difference is the ALWAYS block, which will be enabled only on BGEE (it won't interfere with others), and the fact that BGEE specific parts are within comments in v8.
I'm fairly certain that changing the tests to determine the base game from checking file presence to using internal WeiDU GAME_IS capability is not going to break anything. In my opinion (and the successful installation of v9 on BGT confirms it), you would be able to establish v9 as the unique version for BG, BG1Tutu, BGT and BGEE.

You can find the italian tra file converted to CP1252 in this archive.

I noticed a mistake in the conv_tra.sh file I gave you: it's using Windows end of line instead of Mac OS X/Linux one. It will probably not work on Mac OS X as is. I put a fixed version in the archive.

I also suggest you remove the bgee_install_xanbg1friend_setup.bat file from the v9 archive together with weidu.exe. The bat file is enforcing the use of the english language in the game. Now that WeiDU 232 and beyond is available, the player can select the BGEE language when installing the first mod, so there is not need of a bat file to tell the game language to add the texts to.

To sum up:
- replace the italian tra file in all versions of the mod
- replace the conv_tra.sh file in the BGEE archive
- remove bgee_install_xanbg1friend_setup.bat and weidu.exe in the BGEE archive
- you could keep a single unified Windows version based on the v9 archive with these changes


After reading the guide posted on G3, the Mac version seems to met all conditions in the TP2.
I expect the adjustement for BGEE should be compatible (given you replace the conv_tra.sh file as mentioned above).

Regarding a Mac version for BGEE, my understanding is it's no use providing WeiDU in the archive as the player has to download a version suitable for its Mac OS X version (contrary to Windows, there can't be a single executable). For reference, you can find instructions to install mods on Mac OS X for BGEE in the following thread.

Offline Kulyok

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Re: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« Reply #9 on: May 17, 2014, 04:39:50 AM »
Thank you so much! Will do after the weekend. :)

Offline Kulyok

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Re: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« Reply #10 on: May 20, 2014, 04:09:35 AM »
All right, done, I think, thank you very much! I have implemented all your suggestions and updated Xan's v9 for BGEE/BGT/Tutu/BG1. I have also created a unified OSX version has one Weidu 236 in it(but I added a warning to the readme with your link and a request for players to download a version of Weidu that would fit their operating system).

Offline Isaya

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Re: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« Reply #11 on: May 23, 2014, 04:04:42 PM »
Nice work with updating the archives. They look good, except for one mistake I made for the Mac version.

It was bound to happen, as I didn't check it: the conversion script for Mac OS X is not working. AstroBryGuy reported the problem for the current WIP version of BG1 NPC in the G3 workroom and provided a fixed version.
Here is an updated version of the script adapted from his fix for BG1 NPC.
Sorry for the inconvenience. I do hope it's over now.

Offline Kulyok

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Re: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« Reply #12 on: May 24, 2014, 12:04:16 AM »
Done and done, thank you very much! And it's me who needs to be sorry her mod was in bad shape for BGEE - you, on the other hand, fixed everything. :)

Offline Isaya

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Re: TESTERS NEEDED: Xan's friendship for BG:EE!
« Reply #13 on: May 26, 2014, 03:45:16 PM »
Thank you Kulyok. I'm happy to contribute with my own skills (I'm not a writer unfortunately).

 

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