All Newcomers Please Read This Thread.

[Dundee Slaytern]

First of all, welcome to the Baldurs Gate II: Shadows of Amn Forum, one of the many forums that you can find on the Ironworks Gaming Forums. The following contents of this post will hopefully help you to quickly settle in among the veterans and other regular members of this particular forum.

Secondly, you may want to read the Rules And Regulations, if you have not done so already. It is a pretty short page, and very concise, so spend a few minutes to go through it. If at any time you need to refer to it again, go to the top of almost any page and click on the button that looks as likes this,


With that out of the way, on to other matters.

GAME PATCHES:
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As many of my fellow veterans will know, there tends to be a tendancy for newcomers to not have the latest official patch for their Baldur's Gate 2 game. They suffer from game bugs and ask for help from us when a simple visit to any of the official sites( or a quick search on Google) would have given them the latest patches and most probably solve their problem.

Why? Why do gamers not try to see whether there is a patch for their game? Games are rarely made perfect, and patches are common and considered part and parcel of gaming.

Anyway, I hope as many relevant newcomers as possible patch their game first to see if it solves their issue. Of course, there are the Baldurdash Fixpacks which are lesser known and harder to find, so bugs covered under them are understandable, as the official patches do not resolve them.

If you do not have ToB installed, get the Official SoA Patch first, then get the Baldurdash SoA Fixpack v3.61.

If you do have ToB installed, get the Official ToB Patch first, then get the Baldurdash ToB Fixpack v1.12.

Happy patching, may it solve whatever ails you. If it does not, let us know and we will try to help you as best as we can.
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SPOILERS:
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I quote from the Rules And Regulations,

Warn before you Spoil: A spoiler is something that reveals information about a plot twist or the location of some object/character/hidden place in a game. Spoilers are by their nature subjective - you will need to use your judgment to determine what these are. Many people in this forum talk about 'general' game issues, such as "What is the best party for whatever" or "Should I drop whoever from my group?". These types of posts usually don't require spoilers as they are general information. Other people might have specific game questions like "How do I get past so-and-so" or "Where is such-and-such". These would be considered posts requesting spoiler information. Some are obviously bigger spoilers than others. There are also posts which refer to specific plot twists in the games here, A lot of people who come here do NOT know about certain plot twists which the rest of us might take for granted. Unmarked spoilers about these detract from these people's gaming experience. The majority of people don't like finding out about a plot twist before they were meant to. (Like someone telling you the ending of a movie before you see it) As a courtesy to other board members who may not have gotten as far in the game as you have, please abide by the following when requesting or revealing spoiler information: Do NOT reveal the spoiler in your title. Put a SPOILER tag in the title so people know you will be revealing spoiler information. Put spoiler spaces just before the part where you are revealing the information.

If you want a summarised version, you may refer to this thread, "On Spoilers"

In addition, it is common practice to point out to a person if he/she has spoiled. I emphasise though, be polite about it. Ask the person nicely to edit his/her topic title if it is a spoiler, and add a spoiler tag to his/her post if necessary. You may be wondering now, what is a "spoiler tag"? Allow me to give an example below.

Case 1: The Wrong Way Character X is actually a Gibberling!

Case 2: The Right Way Spoiler ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Character X is actually a Gibberling!

Also, if you want to mention ToB( Throne of Bhaal, the SoA expansion) issues in a SoA context, add a ToB spoiler tag. If you want to discuss ToB issues in a ToB context, go to the Baldurs Gate II: Throne of Bhaal Forum. Remember, not everybody has the expansion, so what you say may not make sense to them, and it will also spoil them.

Lastly, if you are referring to a mod, make sure you make it known that you are talking about a mod, lest you confuse people who do not have the mod. As before, add a mod spoiler tag as well( not strictly necessary though, it is more important that you just mention you are talking about a mod).
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MULTIPOSTING:
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Whether by accident, or intentional. Multiposting is not encouraged in this forum. We are not blind. We can see a topic even if you only post it once. We have lives. Do not expect instantaneous answers, believe it or not, we may have other things to do and cannot observe the forum all the time. It may take a few hours before somebody answers. Be patient. Spamming the forum with threads that deal with the same question will only invite trouble for you( and may annoy people who would otherwise answer you).

Use the edit/delete function to delete the excess posts/threads. On every post that you make, there is a button that looks like this ----> . This is your edit/delete function.
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LANGUAGE:
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Refer to this thread, "Forum rules (please read)" for more details.
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SPAMMING:
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This is a game forum, and deals specifically with the game, "Baldurs Gate II: Shadows of Amn". Topics not relating to this game are considered spam in this forum. If you wish to discuss something else, choose an appropriate forum for that particular issue.

There is a General Discussion Forum where you can post a wide range of topics from "Beef vs Lamb" to "What I did in school today". Have fun there.
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Okay, I think I have covered all the major areas. Please adhere to these guidelines, and enjoy your stay.

[ 10-29-2002, 10:51 AM: Message edited by: Dundee Slaytern ]

[Horatio]

Nice work, Dundee. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]
Obviously you've taken a lot of work over this, so we can only hope that it's followed!

[TaSSaDaR]

Great post, Dundee!

Bumping routine on?

[Dundee Slaytern]

Originally posted by Horatio: Nice work, Dundee. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] Obviously you've taken a lot of work over this, so we can only hope that it's followed!

Thanks, most of the work was already done by others. I just decided to compile everything into one thread and add a few comments of my own.

[Dundee Slaytern]

Originally posted by TaSSaDaR: Great post, Dundee! Bumping routine on?

More or less. I made this thread so that only one thread needs to be bumped, not two.

[Zarr]

Nice work Dundee lets just hope everyone sticks to the rules.

[ 09-02-2002, 09:27 AM: Message edited by: Zarr ]

[Sparhawk]

Nice work Dundee...
I hope that neewbies´ll read this and follow this like the bible

Spawkie

[Alson]

As always, great post Dundee!
They should really 'promote' you to Moderator status... [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[Sparhawk]

I second that idea Alson...

[Raznar]

You should've left that to one of the Mods its their job after all

[ 09-02-2002, 04:15 PM: Message edited by: Raznar ]