Install PC Mask of the Betrayer on Mac Neverwinter Nights 2

Visit macnwn2x for a GUI program to complete the install!

Some Initial Warnings:

  1. (8/7/08) Reports are mostly positive about v1.12 and MotB. I have confirmation from smurfk1 over at the IMG forums that the following works:
    • Install NWN2
    • Upgrade to 1.12
    • Install MotB
  2. (8/7/08) My own extremely limited testing seems to indicate that upgrading to 1.12 after installing MotB works okay as well, but I haven't received definite confirmation of that from anybody who has logged any significant number of hours.
  3. (7/21/08) Reports have been mixed about the 1.12 update, with people reporting different levels of success. If you've experimented with 1.12 and MotB, please let me know!
  4. (3/20/08) This was tested with v1.11 of NWN2, which is the version that ships on the DVD. v1.12 was recently released on the PC, and I certainly hope it reaches the Mac soon. Amongst the changes are re-arrangements to the 2da files, and I have no idea how this might potentially affect a Mac NWN2/MotB install. My suspicion (and I could be wrong) is that the updated MotB 2da files won't be included with Mac v1.12, which means we'd need to get them from a PC install for everything to work properly. My understanding is that 2da's from v1.11 or earlier won't work with v1.12 onwards
  5. This method requires that the developer tools be installed, and that you have some knowledge of compiling Unix programs and the command line.
  6. Be careful, and don't blame me if you mess up your NWN2 install. Good news is that it's super-easy to reinstall. Heck, just back up the folder before you proceed just to be safe. I have a vanilla NWN2 folder and an NWN2+MotB folder on my machine.
  7. Did I mention the limited testing? All sorts of things might go wrong that I just haven't encountered yet.

What Have I Personally Done/Tested?

  • Started up a new MotB campaign and created a character
  • Loaded PC save games from my Boot Camp partition from the middle of MotB
  • Played a MotB-requiring user made mod (specifically Harp & Chrysanthemum)

Known Issues:

  • (4/23/08) A couple of players have reported issues with being unable to leave the Death God's Vault on their first visit. Apparently no doors, objects, or perhaps even character models are visible. At least one player managed to fix this merely by switching resolutions. I am suspicious that MotB interior tilesets might not be getting loaded properly, but nothing solid to back this up. (7/21/08 This has been reported by more than one person now, so this appears to be a general issue with the Mac/MotB install)

A few other Mac NWN2 Resources:

Step 1) Copy the following files from the MotB DVD to a folder on your hard drive:

  1. data1.cab
  2. data1.hdr
  3. data2.cab
  4. data3.cab
  5. dialog.TLK

Notes on Step 1

  1. There is also an "engine32.cab" file - however I did not install anything extracted from it, as it was all .dll files
  2. You probably don't actually have to copy these to your hard drive - see Step 3.

Step 2) Install "unshield" from http://www.synce.org/

Go to "Synce Downloads", follow the link to Tarballs, and click on the "unshield" link (you don't need the rest). You can install via the typical

./configure
make
sudo make install

If the above is not familiar, you'll want to find somebody familiar with the command line to help you. Also, you will need the developer tools installed. I'm running 10.5.2, so it's possible other OS versions (ie 10.4.X) may have installation issues

Step 3) Unpack everything with the following command in Terminal.app from the directory you copied the .cab files into

/usr/local/bin/unshield x data1.cab

Notes on Step 3

  1. This makes several subfolders in the current folder. In step 1 I said you didn't necessarily need to copy things to your hard drive, since I believe with "unshield" you can specify a directory to extract to. I didn't play around with this though.
  2. This single command seems to extract data from each of data1.cab, data2.cab and data3.cab

Two Important Asides:

  1. Now you'll notice you have several directories - the important one is "Game_Component"
  2. There are two "Data" directories on the Mac. There is the main Data directory, which lies beside the NWN2 application, and which contains a bunch of subdirectories, including another Data dir. Generally below, I'm referring to the main Data directory.

Step 4) Copy the following entire directories from Game_Component into the main Data directory inside your NWN2 Mac install directory

  1. Ambient_X1
  2. Music_X1

Step 5) Copy the contents of the following directories into the mirrored directory in your NWN2 Mac install

  1. Campaigns/ (into Data/Campaigns/ - there should be one folder with the MotB campaign information)
  2. Data/* (into Data/Data/) - 44 .zip files
  3. Modules/* (into Data/Modules/) - 6 .mod files
  4. Movies/* (into Data/Movies/) - 4 .bik files

Notes on Step 5

  • In all cases, it's okay to hit "replace all"

Step 6) Replace UI/default/ in your Mac install with UI/default from Game_Component

  • 6b) Retrieve chargen_skills.xml from the old default directory and place it in the new directory TWICE (once as chargen_skillsx1.xml)
  • 6c) Retrieve levelup_skills.xml from the old default directory and place it in the new directory TWICE (once as levelup_skillsx1.xml)

Notes on Step 6

  • If you don't complete 6b and 6c, you will be unable to assign skill points to your character during levelup

Step 7) Copy dialog.TLK into your Data/, overwriting the old version.

Step 8) Optionally, copy everything from Localvault (a bunch of .bic files) to your Mac NWN2 Localvault - these are pregenerated characters

Step 9) Edit ~/Documents/Aspyr/Neverwinter Nights 2/nwn.ini to include the following two lines:

  • ambientX1=.\ambient_X1
  • musicX1=.\music_X1

Thanks to linuxpng for Step 9

That's it! (hopefully)

Some Possible Gotchas:

  • At least one user has reported issues relating to permissions of the files which were copied over, specifically a "2D Missing Texture" bug. If you get this or a related error, check the permissions on the files (they may be owned by root and set to read-only). You should be able to fix this either from the command line (chown and chmod) or via the Finder, using the "Get Info" command. Thanks to Tristan for this one.
  • Consider adding your MotB CD Key to ~/Documents/Aspyr/Neverwinter Nights 2/nwncdkey.ini. It isn't added there by default. Thanks to Tristan for this one.

Additional Notes:

  • You may also be wondering about the "Effects" directory, and why I didn't copy anything over there. Well I tried this the first time, and it resulted in a bunch of visual glitches to the character models in game. So I left the original Mac version intact. I have no idea what this means.

msykes