I never tried any mods back when I played the original BG1, but I recently decided to give the "experimental" version of the NPC Project for BG:EE a try. Although I only tested it out relatively briefly and experienced only a fraction of its content, I was curious to see other people's feedback on it, and perhaps get some advice on how to better my experience with it.
For anyone who needs a refresher, here's a list of the mod's components, nearly all of which are optional (except for the one that explicitly says "required modifications"):
http://www.gibberlings3.net/readmes/readme-bg1npc.html#compon
An issue that I had expected to have even before I installed the mod, is that I appreciate the "less is more" approach of the BG1 NPCs' personalities, which allows you to form your own interpretations of the characters. However, the Project projects someone else's interpretation of the NPCs into the game, which may not necessarily be the same as my own.
On one hand, I do like what I've seen from Imoen. The little snippets of dialogue that we see from her in the original game suggest that she's upbeat, outgoing, nosy, intrusive, and somewhat childlike - but this portrayal was greatly undermined by the fact that she was a late addition to the game and lacked properly developed dialogue. With the Project now installed, Imoen's behavior is much more consistent with her "nosy little sister" personna IMO - pestering me with questions, interjecting herself into nearly every conversation with characters that we meet, etc.
By contrast, I'm much less enthusiastic about how Kivan was handled. To me, Kivan had always presented as a quiet, gruff, occasionally offensive character (hence his low charisma), but the Project depicts him as talkative, reflective, even somewhat polite. I imagine Kivan as someone who would tell Imoen to "Shutup!" or "Leave me alone!" rather than engage in extended conversations with her. Even in the few conflicts/arguments with other NPCs that I've seen, his responses were far too polite IMO. I also don't like that he talks about his background, which I would prefer to be shrouded in mystery.
After having Kivan share a party with Xzar and Montaron very briefly, a conflict developed between Kivan and Monty over the fact that Monty apparently has "torture tools" in his possession, which ended with me having to decide whether to keep one or the other in the party. I didn't like this altercation because,
1. It seemed to happen far too quickly after having added those NPCs to my party,
2. Kivan's responses still seemed uncharacteristic to me - they were still somewhat polite even in defiance, and I'm not sure that he is the kind of character that would object to the possession of "torture tools," even if he had been tortured himself. I imagine him as the kind of character that would want to give his enemies "a taste of their own medicine."
In general, I felt that the intra-party banters happened far too often - sometimes with barely a minute in between. Likely not coincidentally, I did install the component that accelerates the frequency of banters - perhaps I shouldn't have done this?
Alternatively, I'm toying with the possibility of not installing the "banters, quests, interjections" component of the mod (which is considered the primary feature of the mod), and instead just installing some of the smaller features like the accelerated banters or the added portraits for non-joinable NPCs - has anyone here ever tried that?
I'm also a bit curious about some of the romance options that are available for my (female) character - but what should I expect from a romance that's described as "adult" rather than "teen"?
Thanks for any feedback.
PS, is anyone else running into a problem where any time a mod is installed, it causes a problem with scrolling to the left? I know others have complained about this, but it seems to happen to me only when I have a mod installed.
For anyone who needs a refresher, here's a list of the mod's components, nearly all of which are optional (except for the one that explicitly says "required modifications"):
http://www.gibberlings3.net/readmes/readme-bg1npc.html#compon
An issue that I had expected to have even before I installed the mod, is that I appreciate the "less is more" approach of the BG1 NPCs' personalities, which allows you to form your own interpretations of the characters. However, the Project projects someone else's interpretation of the NPCs into the game, which may not necessarily be the same as my own.
On one hand, I do like what I've seen from Imoen. The little snippets of dialogue that we see from her in the original game suggest that she's upbeat, outgoing, nosy, intrusive, and somewhat childlike - but this portrayal was greatly undermined by the fact that she was a late addition to the game and lacked properly developed dialogue. With the Project now installed, Imoen's behavior is much more consistent with her "nosy little sister" personna IMO - pestering me with questions, interjecting herself into nearly every conversation with characters that we meet, etc.
By contrast, I'm much less enthusiastic about how Kivan was handled. To me, Kivan had always presented as a quiet, gruff, occasionally offensive character (hence his low charisma), but the Project depicts him as talkative, reflective, even somewhat polite. I imagine Kivan as someone who would tell Imoen to "Shutup!" or "Leave me alone!" rather than engage in extended conversations with her. Even in the few conflicts/arguments with other NPCs that I've seen, his responses were far too polite IMO. I also don't like that he talks about his background, which I would prefer to be shrouded in mystery.
After having Kivan share a party with Xzar and Montaron very briefly, a conflict developed between Kivan and Monty over the fact that Monty apparently has "torture tools" in his possession, which ended with me having to decide whether to keep one or the other in the party. I didn't like this altercation because,
1. It seemed to happen far too quickly after having added those NPCs to my party,
2. Kivan's responses still seemed uncharacteristic to me - they were still somewhat polite even in defiance, and I'm not sure that he is the kind of character that would object to the possession of "torture tools," even if he had been tortured himself. I imagine him as the kind of character that would want to give his enemies "a taste of their own medicine."
In general, I felt that the intra-party banters happened far too often - sometimes with barely a minute in between. Likely not coincidentally, I did install the component that accelerates the frequency of banters - perhaps I shouldn't have done this?
Alternatively, I'm toying with the possibility of not installing the "banters, quests, interjections" component of the mod (which is considered the primary feature of the mod), and instead just installing some of the smaller features like the accelerated banters or the added portraits for non-joinable NPCs - has anyone here ever tried that?
I'm also a bit curious about some of the romance options that are available for my (female) character - but what should I expect from a romance that's described as "adult" rather than "teen"?
Thanks for any feedback.
PS, is anyone else running into a problem where any time a mod is installed, it causes a problem with scrolling to the left? I know others have complained about this, but it seems to happen to me only when I have a mod installed.