Player how-to: Getting mods to work on BGEE

When it launches next week No older mods will currently work on BGEE because the current version of WeiDU (the tool used by mods to install) won't be able to understand the BGEE setup. There are, fortunately, workarounds that will allow WeiDU to work on the BGEE setup while we await a new version of WeiDU.

Please note that mods may have issues with the content of BGEE itself; these steps just get you to the point where you can at least try to install them. There will be a transition period where a lot of modders have to make minor adjustments to account for BGEE content--I strongly suggest you take advantage of the contact information in the readmes to let authors know about any issues you find so that they can address them.

Note: When I refer to the 'game folder' or 'game directory', it means the folder that contains chitin.key.

Step One

Go to your game directory and make backups of chitin.key and the Tutorial.bif file in the Data directory. Double check that an 'override' folder exists and create one if it doesn't.

Step Two

WeiDU has a problem reading one of the files that contains game resources, so we have to manually extract them as a workaround. Download the latest jar of Near Infinity (NI), which should work on OS X and Windows. (If it doesn't open when you double-click it, you may need to download the Java Runtime Environment for your OS as well.) The first time you open it will ask for your key file; navigate to your BGEE directory and select chitin.key. (If it doesn't prompt, you can select your BGEE game by selecting Game > Open game in the menu.)

Once BGEE is loaded in Near Infinity, go to Edit > BIFF; select Data/Tutorial.bif under 'edit existing'. Select all the files on the left, hit the right-facing arrow in the middle, and press the save button. It should give you a small window showing six steps completed and an OK button. Hit OK and then close NI.
Tutorial.bif should no longer be a problem, so step two can be skipped.

Step Three

WeiDU expects the tlk file (which holds all the text in the game) to be in the main game directory, but BGEE puts it in subdirectories to allow for multiple languages. We can create a hard link, tricking WeiDU into thinking it's in the main game directory while leaving it where it is. First, figure out which language subdirectory inside the lang folder is yours. English is the en_US directory inside lang; other languages have their own directories inside the lang folder.

In Windows...

...open a command window and navigate to your game directory. (In Windows 7, you can shift-right-click on the game folder in Explorer and choose 'Open command window here...'. In older Windows, you'll need to Windows+R for the run dialogue, run cmd, and then use 'CD nameofdirectory' to get to the game directory.) Once you're at the command prompt in your main directory, type

mklink /H dialog.tlk .\lang\en_US\dialog.tlk

Change the en_US part to the name of your language directory. Some languages actually have two tlk files, so you'll need to run the same command again, but with dialogF.tlk in both places instead of dialog.tlk. If you ever want to undo this step, you can delete dialog.tlk (and dialogF.tlk) from the game directory as if they're normal files.

ALIEN has an alternative method for Windows XP users a few posts down.

In OS X...

...open Terminal and navigate to your game directory. At the terminal prompt type

ln -s ./lang/en_US/dialog.tlk dialog.tlk

Change the en_US part to the name of your language directory. Some languages actually have two tlk files, so you'll need to run the same command again, but with dialogF.tlk in both places instead of dialog.tlk.

Go Forth and Install Mods!

You're now ready to try mods on BGEE! Again, this will just get you to the point where WeiDU will work. Individual mods may still have issues and I urge to contact the authors if you encounter any so they can get fixes in.