Balduran Sea Tower, additional levels

cdadare

Hi Roxanne, I hope this posts in the correct section.  I'm currently working through the Sea Tower areas, that Mind Flayer Dungeon (Beholder) was by far the hardest area in BG1 that I've come across, but in looking through a Beamdog post, there are other levels, like the Mind Flayer Dungeon (Doppleganger) and the Tombs of the Restless Dead, that I can't find.  It states that the Mind Flayer Dungeon (Doppleganger) level is accessed through the Sea Cave Hub, but I can't find it.  Are those areas done yet?

Roxanne

There was a lot of talk about various projects that wanted to do a Sea Tower mod. After all, this location is an often mentioned building in the lore about Baldur's Gate city and consequently there were many ideas to use it in a mod.

Those discussions have nothing to do with the current mod and are all from projects that never were done.

If you did that mind flayer level after you found the key and journal in Winski's place then you finished this part of the mod. Making it VERY hard is an optional mod component, there is a light and a hard version of it you can choose from.

Note - in SoD in Korlasz' dungeon and in the former Bhaal temple you will find a "sequel" to the mind flayers' activities if you do the side quests from SoD.

Other levels you can find are the cave with the headless ghost and the lair of the brown dragon - you may have found them already. (There are stairs up and stairs down in the area where you met Bill, the checker of invitations.)

cdadare

Ok, thank you.  I did the Dragon quest by obtaining the Pirate Skull (Valley of the Tombs) and combining it with the Teleportation Scroll at the Sorcerous Sundries, but I'm assuming that was the Skull I was also supposed to give to the Headless Ghost?

Roxanne

cdadare said:

Ok, thank you.  I did the Dragon quest by obtaining the Pirate Skull (Valley of the Tombs) and combining it with the Teleportation Scroll at the Sorcerous Sundries, but I'm assuming that was the Skull I was also supposed to give to the Headless Ghost?

Yes and no

This "dilemma" is a part of the quests, both can be solved in various ways just as you decide. There is no good or evil way supposed to be here. There is one option to solve both quests peacefully - if you give the skull to the ghost and listen to his story about Balduran and agree with him, then you can talk to him a second time and he will ask you to give him the chance to die as a warrior. After the fight you can pick up his skull again and use it for the dragon quest.

WithinAmnesia

I still feel the odd pang of guilt after spending time away from this. Yet as of late my life is taking steps all to its own :-P.

In my absence I have founded my own company, co-founded a corporation and the first house I am working on is starting to ramp up to finish the renovations this year. I just need to first patch the roof for now so I can finish the bathroom and then later in the year throw metal roof on it XD.

Anyway I love making this kind of thing yet I can do only so much in order. It seems that to do things right one must muster themselves to the depths of their ability and do things in lines of progress. Lest one get overwhelmed and over burdened with too much at once; too much on the go XD!

It is really neat see people play this kind of thing yet I feel odd in a way. If I stop making Baldur's Gate content all of these projects and plans I have set out are nothing but words and memories; like dusk blowing away in the wind. I feel a lost if I abandoned them I suppose.

I think of this place every now and then, a little spick of land in an ocean of change. It seems that Roxanne has built up a community yet there are so few of us. It feels like an in-group within an in-group within an in-group.

An odd set of circumstances has brought us together I suppose. When I take a step back and look at the odds it is quite astonishing how few people do this in comparison to the rest of the world. One in 10 million perhaps. The NASA watercooler is full of rocket scientist. Even if being a rocket scientist is one in 100 million people; there are still ways to beat the odds. Things get a bit ridiculous when one stacks a bunch of esoteric abilities though lol XD.

I am still thinking about that Baldur's Gate Arms and Armour Emporium though. I have worked on World of Warcraft vanilla servers and my own rpg game like Zelda / Diablo 2 in the mean time. It feels like in order to be a proper video game developer I have to create new product worth playing and sell it like any successful game series.

I kind of wonder if I am doing things in inefficient orders at times. Money makes things happen along with hard work. I like the world and theme and setting of Baldur's Gate and the relative ease to use a preexisting engine and game to add new features to. Yet I feel a bit like I should learn what I can and then endeavor to make my own game series in the best way possible with what skills, tools and resources I have available at my current disposal. I feel like I might sell myself short if I do not take risks and make my own game series.

Yet being alone is a journey that very very few successful game developers have ever taken and even then they had strengths that I do not currently possess. So I must try my best to find people who are like minded, even just for the sole sake that life is strange and everything is interconnected. Only a fool doubts the future XD.

I have learned that tools and assets alone do not make games great, people do. In that the quality of the tools and assets pale to the grip on fate that the quality of the creative people behind them do hold. Every great game had great people behind it. The trick is finding great people. Offices are the dark horse in this race, if you try to combine a team of developers online it is like herding cats and the worst enemy are time zones XD.

Also people need to be in the same physical space to synergize and combine into more powerful entities stronger than the sum of their parts. As it is we don't do much together, nor does this medium have room for such things yet I feel that if we did perhaps we would be better friends than either of us would like to imagine. Yet here we are digital strangers talking around the world yet so close yet all the same like if we were nothing but text on a screen devoid of our humanity.

It is really odd. I have played vanilla World of Warcraft and retail for over a combined total of a decade. I have been in guilds, parties and talked with tens of thousands of like minded people from all around the world yet I have nothing I can show for it.

I have raided in a few dedicated guilds and played with people and yet everyone I have raided and played with over the years does not make video games; I keep asking though :-P. I have talked in voice chat over a microphone to hardcore raiders and casual players all the like from around the world. Thousands of players and no game developers. The more I look the more I feel that I am not doing something efficiently. I have the suspicion that the idea of finding more creative like-minded people is good but the way I execute myself is lacking perhaps.

I feel that I have to make my own game series and create a beacon of sort to find people. I suspect that I must get people to be attracted to something I make in order to beat these odds. With this realization I feel torn in parts. I want to work on these projects and yet I feel deep down that I should strike out to make my own way in life and challenge just how far I can go; even if to find others I must start the hardest part alone.

To make a world for people to enjoy that I will never meet yet they will enjoy it all the same as I have done in the past to all the games that I love. For myself to complete the cycle; to create memories and experiences for others to inspire.

Roxanne

@WithinAmnesia

Good luck with whatever you finally decide to do in the future.

Life is just one long apprenticeship and there is no guarantee that you come out a master.

WithinAmnesia

@Roxanne Yeah I am underway with a business venture right now. Right now I am working on my forestry business. I must work hard to stop being poor basically XD.

I have some plans right now to modify an excavator to hook up a hydraulic winch and add a cable boom over the main boom and use the excavator to pull with block and tackle (a lot of pulleys) cedar logs out of the mountain forests so that is taking a lot of work.

If I can do this I can make some serious money and hopefully later employ coders and devs to work on my own rpg and finish building my family houses. I must work hard and smart to make this happen. I have an opportunity to make some serious money but I have to be one hell of a manager to get this together.

Right now I have access to around 200 hectares of forest with 600-800 hectares underway with the salvage license process for my corporation. It sure would beat hiking up a mountain and roaring up a chain saw, busting blocks with an axe and stacking slings for helicopters and hand loading the small cedar blocks onto a double trailer flat bed semi-truck destined for a mill. The corporation is working on building it own mill and it already has it own log sort. Cedar salvage is a hard business but with smarts and ingenuity and mechanization a lot more money can be made and hopefully from inside a cab from time to time XD.

Who knows if I can pull this off I can get some capital and make a proper rpg with a proper budget. I might come at this dev project from a different angle. If I can get some proper capital and working full cycle pipeline and employ proper devs I can make rpgs. I will be aiming to make great rpgs. To be a serious game designer (my dream job) I need serious money to employ people first.

Hell maybe after some success in that I can be granted legal operations to develop an expansion pack to sell; god knows I've spent years and hundreds of hours of work on Baldur's Gate. My hair is already going grey at 24 so I am working hard as it is and I still have a lot more years in myself if I play my cards right. Love has no meaning without sacrifice; yet sacrifice has no meaning without love.