Modding (newbie)

[Timstone]

Hi,

I'm very new to the modding scene of D2. Because I heard nothing but good things about you on other sites (and read your name A LOT), I think you're the best person to turn to.
I wanted to try a mod. So I searched and found many, many mods for D2. I read a lot of mod-descriptions. Then I came across the Zy-El mod. I like it, it has many runewords and other cool stuff build in. There's only one big problem (almost every mod has it (in my opinion)). Before I decided which mod I would try to complete, I tried a few more mods, but they all suffered (including Zy-El) from the same annoying fault. They all set the HP's of the monsters at 8x normal, 10x nightmare and 12x hell and more of those unpleasant settings. Yes, I know it's al nescessary to bring balance to it all, but it affects the speed of the game a great deal. I don't mind combatting wave after wave of (quote) "nasty, wicked, hard, tough, fast buggers.", but it is sooo slow. It really annoys me. The whole speed is virtually drained from the game. Instead of evolving reasonably fast into a mean killing machine you first must go through a very long training (up to level 12 or something) to be able to kill something like Bloodraven.
To counter all this, I would like to (try to) change some parameters of the Zy-El mod for personal use. But how do I do this? I searched through some of the files of Phrozen Keep, but none of them brought the light I hoped for. Could you please help me?

[*Astalion*]

You should have posted this at either General Mod Making, or at the Zy-El forum.

You would have to edit the .bin files themselves to alter this, and I can tell you decoding them isnt that easy (I have figured out the structure of a few .bin files myself, and it takes some time). I recommend you to either play another mod, or make your own, since decoding monstats.bin would take really much time, because it has so many columns. for making your own mod, I recommend reading the idiots guide to modmaking.


Btw, Deathfile isnt here that much anymore.

[Timstone]

Thanks for the swift return message.
Hmm... nice name for the modding reading material, hehe...
I'm sorry for posting this message in the wrong thread, but I thought this was the best way to contact Deathfile. I've read (on his site) he isn't online that much. But I'm patient, so I would have waited.
I'll read through the material you pointed to and get back on you when I have further questions (in the right thread that time).
BTW, do you know any mods which have many runewords and many other added special thingies and aren't as slow as the Zy-El mod?

[Alkalund]

BTW, do you know any mods which have many runewords and many other added special thingies and aren't as slow as the Zy-El mod?

Sanctuary in Chaos is a very good option here

[Timstone]

Thanks! I'll try it.

[deathfile]

i am still here occasionally. you can PM [Private Message] me if you need to.

If you are interested in making your own mod or editing an existing one, check out the idiots guide astalion mentioned, and any of the mod making forums and tutorials. then, if you decide to edit a mod already made, contact the author (Kato in Zy-El's case) and ask if he can give you the txt files you will need. for this change you will probably be fine with just monstats.txt. then, after editing it and making the bins (read about this in some tutorials), delete all bins except monstats.bin and run the game in -direct (not -txt), and leave the Zy-El MPQ in your D2 folder.

some mod makers will not give you their .txt files. It is private if they want it to be, and occasionally those files can contain secrets that wouldn't be secret if you could read them. if this is true, .bin editing is quite hard and binutil will not work well enough for you to make the changes you want.

i havent played it since a couple versions ago, but Ancients: TFW used to be a very fast paced mod.
ancestral recall, one of my all-time favorites, is very fast-paced as well (Skills enhanced is at least), but does not have any added runewords, and hasnt been updated in a very long time.
Try SiC like alk said.

[*Astalion*]

You could always make your own monstats.txt, and generate monstats.bin from it, but with the ZyEl mod that isnt a good idea, due to unused monsters now being used, and when those are supposed to spawn it will probably crash instead.

[Timstone]

Sorry for the long delay in replying.
Thanks for the good advise, but in the meantime I've experimented with some more mods and some small changes (right out of the Idiots Guide) and they really worked. All worked, but the most important one.
I made some changes (the stack example) to the Misc.txt, tested it and was ready to pack it all into the mpq file. So I used the DOS program for it and made the preparations according to the Idiots Guide. All of a sudden it all went wrong and the program protested, it wouldn't compress it into the mpq file. I tried DLínd another version, but that didn't work either. So I tried the Windows version. It gave no errors, but I couldn't succesfully compress it into the mpq. Could you please help me with that?
I know this isn't the right thread to ask this question, but it fitted into the message quite nicely.

[NewbieModder]

Well, if you still care...


You can avoid having to pack into the mpq.

just make a subdirectory in your diablo II folder called "data", put another folder in data called "global", and a third one in global called "excel". put the txt files there. Then add -direct -txt to the Diablo II shortcut.

For example:

Code: Select all

C:\program files\diablo ii\data\global\excel\monstats.txt

and in the shorctut:

Code: Select all

"C:\program files\diablo ii\game.exe" -direct -txt

That is what I do most of the time.