Anyone interested in a speed run?

[Tom]

Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn has been beaten in 23 minutes! I was very interested in seeing how this was possible.

http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/i...p?topic=8955.0

commentary:

Alright, I think the best way to try to comment on this monster is chronologically. Character Creation: I chose Mage to get some higher level spells, Polymorph Self specifically, early on. Transmuter was chosen for the extra spell slot, and since it didn't prevent me from casting any spells that I needed. I minimized my Strength to be able to become encumbered at will, which allows you to have dialog with anyone in sight without walking up to them. Charisma also needed to be 14 or more, but the other stats didn't matter. The only spells I used are the following: Level 1 Find Familiar Level 2 Blur Invisiblity Mirror Image Level 3 Clairvoyance Haste Melf's Minute Meteors Lightning Bolt Level 4 Polymorph Self Stoneskin All the other spells were only chosen because you have to choose that many. Irenicus's Dungeon, First Floor: When I end a segment, you'll see one frame of the "Save" screen and one frame of the "Load" screen. All other loading/save screens are edited out to making timing easier and make the video more fluid. Since Throne of Bhaal is installed, the game doesn't pause when the map is brought up. If the map is brought up, then another menu (other than the inventory) is brought up, the game continues to be unpaused. I used this trick to add spells to my spellbook while Imoen and I were walking to where we needed to be. I recruited Minsc and Jaheira to help me save time later in the run. For now, they'll help me do the "Polymorph Teleport" trick. Some shapechange abilities, such as Polymorph - Mustard jelly, turns a smaller character into a bigger one. If the character will not fit where he was (because things like monsters, walls, or NPCs are in the way), the game will try to put the character into the closest available spot. This placement disregards obstacles like doors or walls. With careful positioning of enough characters and kobolds, I am able to make the closest place be inside the key room. Credit goes to clone_rizzo, for both the concept and this specific use of the trick. Quickly after teleporting the party rests. This removes the Mustard Jelly form (which is much slower than natural form). Mirror image is used to absorb some of the traps on the chest. When I pick up the key, Imoen uses the portal which brings the whole party to the second level of the dungeon. Irenicus's Dungeon, Second Floor: I allow Yoshimo to join the party. He ends up becoming the most valuable player in this speedrun. I must kill the mephit portals for the exit to be unlocked, so that's exactly what I do. Jaheria shapechanges into a bear and makes short work of the lower two portals. Smilge, the main character, casts Melf's Minute Meteors to kill the farthest portal. Yoshimo kills the third portal. Meanwhile, Imoen opens a chest and gets a couple potions and a gem, both of which a vital for the run. Minsc gets ready by the door. As soon as it unlocks, he exits. I had some party members get into specific postions while Minsc headed to the dungeon exit. These positions are related to the cutscene skip ahead. The cutscene skip is extremely difficult to pull off. Even harder to make it work in a timely manner. The idea is that there's a split second between cutscene mode starting and the party being put in Waukeen's Promenade. If you can get someone to force you into dialog during the cutscene, it breaks you out of cutscene mode and you're free to move as you wish. So when Imoen asks if she should leave the party at the exact right moment, you'll be in Waukeen's Promendade with full control, before the cutscene has started. If you wait a moment, the characters appear and being acting out the cutscene. If you move, they won't appear. As a bonus, you get to keep Imoen in your party outside of the dungeon. The City of Amn: The first thing I do is get lots of gold to buy items and to pay the 15,000 to Bohdi. This is done with the potion and the gem from earlier. Drinking a potion doesn't drink the potion immediately, since the inventory screen pauses the game. Instead, it issues the game an order to use one charge of whatever item is in that slot. You can drink the potion in a certain slot, then switch it out with another item (in this case a gem), and it will use the switched out item instead. When a gem is "used" it depletes one "charge" or gem. The gem goes from a stack of 1 to a stack of 0. For some reason, it still exists as an item. If you "use" it again, it becomes a stack of -1. Since there's no such thing as -1 items, it instead wraps around to the maximum number of items in a stack, 65535. 65535 gems provide all the gold needed to beat the game, and then some. The items I bought from the Adventure mart are: Girdle of Hill Giant Strength Ring of Air Control Rod of Resurrection Scroll of Protection from Undeadx2 Potion of Master Theiveryx2 Oil of Speedx3 Potion of Invisibility Robe of Venca Vhailor's Helm Scroll of Clairvoyancex3 Scroll of Monster Summoning I Scroll of Limited Wish Scroll of Symbol: Death On the way to the district exit, I memorize more spells with the game unpaused by opening the map first. I rejected Gaelan's offer, choosing instead to side with Bohdi. Once in the docks, something very important for the run happens. I use the Helm of Vhailor by drinking a potion and putting the helm in its place, similar to how I "used" the gems earlier. Simulacrums can use anything in their quick item slots without using the real item. In this case, the Simulacrum casts Limited Wish from a scroll. Yoshimo quickly talks to the genie, so he becomes the benefactor of the wish rather than the Simulacrum. Yoshimo wishes to "become anything I desire" which is basically a shapechange spell. Meanwhile, Imoen gets into a specific position and Minsc goes to the door to Aran Linvail's lair. This door is barred from the other side and cannot be entered... if it weren't for a glitch discovered by ExplodingCabbage. This particular door is diabled in a strange way. Rather than disabling the door, they game kind of stamps over it with a different button that notes the door is barred. Fortunately for me, the "stamp" doesn't quite line up with the real door. By clicking in the exact right spots, you can enter the door with no issues. Imoen had to be kicked out of the party to go into Aran Linvail's lair. Luckily, there is another glitch that allows her to rejoin the party while still in the docks. Each area has a map, and the map is broken down into coordinates. The game doesn't actually check if your party members are in the same area as you when they talk. It only checks coordinates. So if Imoen is at (500,600) and the main character is pretty close to those coordinates, she will try to talk to him, even if they are on different maps. Now Imoen can do tasks in the Docks while my party is in Aran Linvail's lair. I'm killing Aran Linvail now because Bohdi doesn't care when he dies, just that he does die. Yoshimo, with his ability to shapechange, has no problem jumping into Aran's chambers with the help of careful placement and some summoned monsters. The monsters are summoned from a scroll with the potion swap trick. Yoshimo hops the first door while in Mind Flayer because of an issue with shapechanging. If someone shapechanges into something big (Iron golem), then into something smaller (Mind Flayer), the game occasionally moves the player as if they were the bigger creature. If you shapechange into natural form, this effect is removed. Meanwhile, Imoen drinks potions of Master Theivery to improve her pickpocketing and steals the package from Mook (as per Bohdi's first quest). Aran Linvail is alone, as I never stepped on the floor trigger that summons his minions. I had Yoshimo backstab Aran while in Iron golem form (!) for 72 damage. Yoshimo then uses the potion swap trick to cast Symbol: Death, which has a chance to kill anyone with under 60 current Hitpoints. Both Yoshimo and Aran die from this, and Smilge exits the area (the door on this side is broken in the same way the one on the outside is). I let Minsc and Jaheira die because they are easier to carry around as dead bodies than if they were alive. I've got a rod of resurrection to bring them back when they are needed. Upon exiting, my Simulacrum is waiting to help me jump over the wall. I am able to jump over it because I went from Mustard Jelly (big) to Wolf form (small) without returning to natural form in between. Imoen rejoins the party and Yoshimo is resurrected. Yoshimo no longer has the shapechange buff on his portrait since he died, but he retains his ability to shapeshift. The special abilities to shapeshift are normally removed when the spell exires. Since the buff was removed from death and not from time, the abilities are never removed. Yoshimo will be able to shapechange at will for the remainder of the game. Yoshimo goes into Iron Golem form because it is much faster than natural form, and I need him to get into position to do the previously mentioned "different area dialog" glitch. Yoshimo rejoined my party when I entered the Graveyard and repositioned himself. He rejoined again in Bohdi's chambers. I left Imoen behind at the entrance to the Graveyard. I'll pick her up again later. When Smilge first talks to Bohdi, she accepts Mook's package (which, like all quest items, was transfered to the main character's inventory when the party member carrying it was removed from the group). Bohdi then gives me a quest to "rescue" Pattern Flynn, a halfling in the Shadow Thieves' Guildhall. Yoshimo is already there, waiting for him. When he appears, Yoshimo kills him. Smilge is able to turn in this quest (although the quest is failed, Bohdi doesn't seem to mind much). Finally, Bohdi gives the quest to kill Aran Linvail. Since he is already dead, I can turn in this quest as well, and I'm off to Spellhold! Spellhold: Getting into Spellhold is easy enough. I bribed the door guard and convinced Desharik to send me there as an inmate. Rather than dealing with Irenicus at all, Yoshimo hops over the locked doors by shapechanging and we enter Underdark through the portal without much fuss. Underdark: Jaheira is sent to aquire the light gem so Smilge can get into the Dragon's Lair. Jaheria prevents the halfling from turning hostile by first being given the command to talk to him, then given a different order. Any enemy that is not hostile will be shut down this way, waiting several rounds to be spoken to before making any other action. The light gem is transferred to my inventory when Jaheira is removed, and we enter the cave. As it turns out, if the Silver Dragon becomes hostile, the egg quest is failed and the doors to the surface are opened. The quickest way to make her hostile was to very carefully aim and fire a lightning bolt at her. You can even see the quest update shortly before I leave the cave. I let Minsc die and I exited the underdark. One thing to note is that I summoned a Familiar to help me exit. Two skeletons were blocking the door I needed to go through, so I targeted a summon Familiar spell behind them. When I ordered the Familiar to exit the area, we both exited. The familiar died shortly after Surface: On the surface, I was able to "talk lock" an elf, similar to the halfling in underdark. This time, I prevented him from initiating dialog and dragging me into a cutscene (I'm sure most people remember the annoying interrogation). Instead I headed straight for Bohdi. The Different Area Dialog Glitch is used again here, this time to keep Minsc at the underdark exit. Drizzt is talk locked because it's faster than the dialog with him. I'm not sure why Catti Brie starts shooting me with arrows. At Bohdi's Lair, I protected Smilge and Yoshimo from undead via scroll. This prevents undead, even Bohdi, from even targeting us. I also grabbed a Scroll of Finger of Death, which is useful later, and a stake. Why vampires leave wooden stakes in their lair is a question I really don't know the answer to. Yoshimo takes advantage of Iron Golem's high damage and his backstab multiplier, hitting Bohdi for 124 damage! She cannot die in one hit, as she needs to start the dialog "No! It's mine! This life is mine!" before she can truely die. Yoshimo Finishes her off with a second hit, and Minsc goes to talk to Elhan. The general is "talk locked" so he doesn't start a cutscene of his own. Elhan tries to do his inital conversation, with the interrupting elves saying "Truth" and whatnot. However, since the cutscene didn't play, these elves haven't been created yet. So when it is their turn to talk, the dialog just stops. When I talk to Elhan again, it's as if the interrogation is over. I've killed Bohdi, so he teleports the whole party (even the ones still in the vampire lair!) to Suldanessellar. Suldanessellar: Immediately upon entering Suldanessellar, I ordered the party to exit. Normally, a cutscene would play and the elves would cast some spells before running off (presumably to their deaths). Exiting the area causes the game to be stuck in a never ending cutscene mode. This is useless. However, if you load the autosave that was made from leaving, the cutscene never plays and you are free to do as you like. The first thing I do is have Smilge summon a Simulacrum (with the potion swap glitch). The Simulacrum begins to cast Limited Wish while the party members run off to do their jobs. Yoshimo takes the Horn and barely escapes. He uses the Ring of Air Control to turn invisible. I turned him into a troll because trolls run a bit faster than normal. Minsc gets the Amulet from the puzzle box. Smilge and Imoen then enter the sword room. Remember than Limited Wish spell the Simulacrum was casting? The genie forced the Simulacrum into dialog. Dialog causes cutscene mode to end. I am then able to skip the show and steal the sword I need from the elf. Afterwards I quickly rest to recharge the helm and cast another Simulacrum (which casts another Limited Wish). Yoshimo was outside when he was kicked from the group, so he had been making his way towards Smilge. I recruit him again while Imoen goes to deal with the dragon. Imoen simply gets a lucky hit with a Finger of Death, and the dragon is dead before he can even begin to speak. Smilge and Yoshimo enter the Temple (and Imoen rejoins the party, again wit the different area dialog). Smilge summons the Avatar and took off his belt, encumbering himself. This allowed me to talk to the Avatar as quickly as possible, so the cutscene started faster than normal. Again, the cutscene is interrupted by the limited wish spell. During cutscenes like this, where the party is not shown, they are often moved to someplace they will not get in the way. In this case, the location was coordinates (0,0). The game moved the characters to the closest location they would fit, which ended up being on the bridge to the dragon clearing. That's why we ended up way over there. The final item I needed is the Harp, and Imoen is able to help me with that. I had her kill herself with a lightning bolt because it is faster than going into the menu and kicking her out myself. The reason she doesn't die, and instead starts screaming and leaves the group is because she isn't the normal Imoen. She is the Imoen from Irenicus's dungeon (remember?). That Imoen cannot die, as she is needed to be in the cutscene that sets up the story for the whole game. That's why she says "I've got to get out of here!". "Here" refers to the original dungeon. Yoshimo gets the nuts and uses the statues since his troll form is a bit faster than me. The Tree of Life: I used a scroll of Clairvoyance here to make multi-tasking much easier. Though the spell can only be cast outdoors (and the tree counts as indoors, go figure), the scroll can be cast anywhere. This time, Yoshimo uses the Vhalior's Helm to summon a Simulacrum, and the two Iron Golems make short work of the parasites. Smilge kills the Fire Elementals with a wish "I wish all my enemies would die!" If you remember Irenicus being a bit harder than I made it look, don't worry, he is. Irenicus has a script to cast contingencies of spell protections (Immunity to Magical Weapons, Stoneskin, etc.) when he sees an enemy. For some reason, Irenicus is not hostile to me for a few moments after we finish talking. You may notice he doesn't have a red circle around his feet immediately. This moment is all it takes for Yoshimo and his Simulacrum to defeat him. Hell: After we are dragged to hell, Smilge goes and gets the easiest and fastest tear of Bhaal. When you use a tear of Bhaal on the wall of eyes, two things happen. First, there is an animation on the wall and you get a bonus (Immune to weapons +1 and less). A moment passes, then the tear is removed from your inventory. If you drop the tear after you close the eye but before it is removed, you can use the single tear five times to finish the quest. I removed Yoshimo at the perfect moment, and you can see him running to Smilge to ask to rejoin the party. The cutscene is broken, and I am able to set up Yoshimo while Irenicus gets ready. Killing Jon at this point causes the game to not complete. You need to kill him in slayer form. After Irenicus finishes his speech and turns into Slayer, Yoshimo hits him for a huge 128 backstab, which is enough to end him for good. Irenicus doesn't put up his spell protections, again, because he doesn't see an enemy.

[SixOfSpades]

I hear there is a "Game-Be-Gone" mod, which, as soon as you finish the Character Creation process, immediately plays the end movie and final credits.

That sounds like it would probably be more fun than playing a game like the one described above.

[Illumina Drathiran'ar]

I read the whole thing, and failed to see where the game was beaten. I request clarification.

Edit- Or maybe I was wrong, after I tried this myself. After Imoen lets you out of your cell, pull up the ol' CLUA console and create AMUL27. Ten seconds. Victory is mine! I don't need Game-Be-Gone because I can probably find that end movie on YouTube somewhere.

[Hivetyrant]

I would like to see a speed run on a fully patched game and using no bugs to skip certain parts of the game. I know there are a few, but nothing spectacular

[TheBoxSeat]

Originally Posted by SixOfSpades I hear there is a "Game-Be-Gone" mod, which, as soon as you finish the Character Creation process, immediately plays the end movie and final credits. That sounds like it would probably be more fun than playing a game like the one described above.

Couldn't agree with you more Six!!

I have always maintained that those people who use game cheats might as well have the Uber one which simply provides a "pop-up" of "YOU WIN!!!)


It is just all too funny...or is that sad?

I started to read the post, but got bored half way through

I was actually hoping that it was real..i.e a genuine race..

Oh well too bad

Cheers