Concerning the Morrigan Restoration Patch

[freemanphd]

I keep eyeballin' this mod, unsure of whether to add it. I love the Morrigan romance, and I want the full effect. But part of me wonders if this interferes with anything. Like, maybe the scenes and dialogue were removed because that's the way it was intended. And another part of me wonders if an official patch would ever be released that fixes these problems, and then would interfere with this mod.

 

Not to mention, all the glitches in the dialogue seem to have created some kind of strange super - ending for me so far. Would this affect it I wonder? For example, I'm with Leliana (much to my chagrin, but it's kinda movie-esque in a way I guess), but the epilogue says the whole ring sequence, even though I equipped the ring on Morrigan. And even though I had the conversation that reverts Morrigan to Friendly (dangit), I still managed to trigger that scene. Which is cool but kinda confusing. And considering that, how much does it affect my Awakening ending scene?(I still haven't beaten it)

 

And just out of curiosity, has any one else encountered this strange occurrence?

[TerraEx]

Well, my opinion may be somewhat biased :) but I'd encourage you to crack open the toolset and then you can see for yourself what's going on under the hood with Morrigan's files. You'll find they're littered with comments from the devs stating TBD (to be done). Things like making the real grimoire a gift were a method to cut corners to get the game out of the door. I think when you've taken a look at just how messy some of this stuff is in the vanilla game you'll draw the same conclusion that I and many others did.

 

Take Flemeth's real Grimoire - what do you think bioware really intended for the final act of Morrigan's sidequest? A quick 4 line "thank you... blah blah." or Morrigan actually asking you what happened between you and Flemeth and whether you got the grimoire or not? The scene is in the game but none of the correct flags for it to trigger were completed by the scripters, hence it didn't trigger. The flags it was dependant on were coincidentally marked TBD in her script files.

 

Another example, the Greagoir betrayal scene states categorically in the scripting comments section that it was cut as the devs had not completed the cinematic sequence for Morrigan to escape. Innumerable parts of her dialog have incorrect/non-working condition checks - refusal to teach shapeshifting, indifferent break up dialogs - the list is extensive. Essentially, for whatever reason, the developers simply didn't properly finish many parts of the game. This is true across all romance companions and other scenes in the game. Ask any modder who's worked on the dialogue/script files for the single player campaign and you'll get the same answer - the game is bugged and liberties were taken to meet deadlines.

 

So taking these things into account and the discussions that people have had with the writers over on the bioware forums I and many others feel that the patch brings Morrigan closer to what was originally intended than what we got in the vanilla game. My mod corrects all these issues and restores Morrigan to what the writers intended, going off notes in the toolsets and various discussions with the writers on the Bioware forums. As with all mods there is a certain element of risk involved, there are no guarantees obviously. Ultimately the choice is yours whether or not you want to experience the restored content :tongue: Were an official patch to be released that corrects all these issuess, well I'd be delighted but I really can't see it happening.

 

When I started the project I too held similar view to your own, I didn't want to alter anything that could potential screw me over in any future sequel and I was holding out hope for Bioware to fix some of these issues. Eventually however I got sick of waiting and resolved to fix the stuff myself. The question I asked myself before taking the proverbial plunge was "do I want to continue playing a bug-ridden romance & side quest" and my answer was no, and the patch came into being. The same thing happened with the Baldurs Gate series - fantastic titles but still riddled with bugs even after Bioware's final official patch, since they don't have the resources to fix up every issue it fell to the community to fix the remaining bugs (and that took several years iirc to finally accomplish).

 

Regarding your issues with the vanila game, well you've pretty much answered your own question in a roundabout sort of way :) - you're in the "friend zone" because at the end of the game there's a conversation with Morrigan (optional) that allows you to talk about last night. This conversation deactivates the romance and activates the STILL_IN_LOVE flag. This has the side effect of giving you her "friend" dialogs in the post game. Awakening looks at Morrigan's Romance_Active flag, and since in vanilla, that gets deactivated in the final optional conversation in Origins you end up missing out on Morrigan's epilogue in Awakening - one of a litany of bugs throughout both games sadly.

[danscott84]

TerraEx, my quiestion is does it work with Dialogue Tweaks? I have been on the fence also regarding this because I like to romance Leliana over Morrigan, but also been interested in what is missing from Morrigan's story.

[TerraEx]

Yes, it works perfectly alongside Dialogue Tweaks, just be sure to use the latest version of Dialogue Tweaks since the older versions used to modify morrigan_main.dlg.

[Shacary]

yay! thanks terra , dans question was my question!

[freemanphd]

Wow, thanks for that cohesive and quick response. I'll definitely be using your mod then because I need that full story man. I probably would've held off if I wasn't so sure part two was right down the line and if it was Leliana's romance, but this is Morrigan man. Gotta have it all haha. But, later; right now I'm on a Sims bender, should wear off in a week or so.

 

Sometimes I wish Bioware had all the time they wanted on this game, because I know there is so much missed potential in this. Hopefully they aren't as pressured in making part two.

 

Again, thank you for your response, and your wonderful restoration patch.