[02-12] December, 2002

[02-12] December, 2002

Description: Archived Keep updates.

Categories: Keep Updates


December 24, 2002

by JBouley (Jeff)



Got real, real busy and wasn't able to update the home page as I had hoped to this past weekend. But now that we're
reaching a holiday midweek/weekend period, it seems a nice gift to y'all to update the home page tonight. So, happy
Christmas Eve! And as a couple 'big days' approach, let me say Happy Holidays (and a very belated Happy Hannukah to our
Jewish members), Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all that jazz. Christmas is the key day for me, being a Baptist deacon.
Normally, I keep my religious feelings to myself, but let me just say this much: Christmas is for everyone, even if you're
not a follower of Christ. After all, Jesus' mission was for the benefit of the whole world.

8-)



Now, back to things Diablo 2 related. ;-)



Damned Downloads

First thing is to apologize for the changes to the Fileplanet download system. I didn't even realize things had
changed until like a week or so after the fact, and I've had my first experience with it a few days ago. Although I cannot
say I like the changes, let me stress something to all of you: It is still free. Yes, you now have to sign up with a
user name and password, but it doesn't cost anything, and as long as you're careful which boxes you check when you sign up,
you should be able to avoid or minimize annoying spam in your e-mail.



Also, you will find that when the download page loads up after you sign in, the free public server links are just about
the last thing to load on the page. If they don't show up, or if no download links show up at all (which has happened to
me a couple times), simply refresh the page. Again, we are really sorry for this, but it's beyond our control. We are happy
to have all this free web space, bandwidth and download capability from GameSpy, but we've never been 100% thrilled with
the way Fileplanet was designed. Oh, well.



Phrozen Heart is working on some ideas to possibly mirror our files (some of the most important ones, at least) to
someplace that will help ease the pain, but it's unlikely we will abandon Fileplanet completely. It's simply a deal that
we cannot find anywhere else, and neither Phrozen nor I can afford the expense of a paid server...with the number of hits
and downloads from this site, he and I would both end up homeless and starving in a matter of days. But we will try to
find some alternate solution for people who aren't fond of Fileplanet. Bear with us, we really are trying.



We Love Noobs, Really


Also, something else apology-wise. Sorry if anyone, especially our non-American members and visitors, thought the
'Idiot's Guide to Modmaking' was intended to insult newbie modders. Actually, there are two series of books for people
who are beginners, called 'The Dummies Guide to...' and the 'Idiot's Guide to...' They cover topics as diverse as beer
making, planning weddings, using Excel, starting a business and having good sex. We were simply playing off those names.
But, to prevent confusion and hurt feelings, we will probably change the name of the guide once patch 1.10 comes out,
because we'll have to update the guide at that point anyway.



Too Late for Christmas, But...

One last bit of general news before I get to seriously modding oriented stuff. Blizzard is coming out with some (hopefully)
cool toys for us relatively soon. Here is an excerpt from the 'The Blizzard Insider #12,' which came out 12/19, to tell
you more:



Q: What Blizzard figures is Toycom developing and when will they be out?



A: Our designers are working closely with the artists and sculptors at Toycom creating figures based on characters
from the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo universes. We'd love to tell you exactly which characters, but that would spoil
the surprise! The first wave of Warcraft figures should be in stores sometime in April, 2003. Notice that this is the
first wave - we are already in full gear designing a second series, with more to come. Close on the heels of the Warcraft
figures will be the first set of StarCraft figures, followed by the first series of figures from the world of Diablo
- all of which are new designs and not a re-release of the figures created previously.



250 Levels...and More!

For a long, long time, we had a pair of 250-level plugins here at the Keep, not even realizing that they had a huge bug:
They ignored the experience cap in D2. Thus, you couldn't really reach level 250 because the game would crash upon you
reaching that 4 billion+ experience point cap, before you got to level 250. But now we have a couple new uber-level
plugins, both of which I think are clean and bug-free in terms of experience points. One goes to 250 and the other goes to
255. You can find them amongst our 'standard plugins' in the Plugins
section
of our File Center, or you can use the links below:



250 Level Plugin by Red Havoc

(download now)



255 Level Plugin by Kato

(download now)



Time to Head to Class


Two new tutorials to help out the newbies, intermediate modders and experienced folks. They are, of course, in the
Tutorials area of our site, but you can also use the links below to get there right now.



Increase the Inventory/Stash/Cube Size by Nefarius

(read the tutorial)



Changing the Loading Screen by Nefarius


(read the tutorial)



More Help on Modding

Tutorials aren't all we have to help you understand what you need to do. We also have the file guides for the various
.txt files. Here again, as with the tutorials above, Nefarius has been a busy man...but this time at least we were able to
tap someone else to help out so that Nefarius could sleep at least one day this month.

;-)

Monstats.txt (updated) by Nefarius

(read the file guide)



Levels.txt (updated) by Nefarius


(read the file guide)



Objgroup.txt by Nefarius

(read the file guide)



Montype.txt by SilentX

(read the file guide)



Need a Smile?

Brother Laz provides smiles and laughter with our newest addition to the Humor section of our site...well, Phrozen Heart
and I thought it was hilarious. It's the 'A Good Modder's Diary After 1.10,' and you can get right to it by
clicking here. Now, we hope his fictional diary won't turn out to be the
truth. We've had to wait forever for patch 1.10 but we hope it won't be quite this bad. If it is, our laughter will turn
to tears really quick.

;-)

Cry Warcraft!

Still more sound files from Warcraft courtesy of Phrozen Heart. He's been quite busy, he's made a lot of progress, and he
has a lot of files left to convert. But, rather than make you wait, here is the next batch, which can be found in the
'Sound Effects' area of the File Center, a subsection of the Plugins
section's
'Audio Plugins' area. You can also use the links below for quicker delivery.



Kobold

(download now)



Spider

(download now)



Wendigo


(download now)



Banshee

(download now)



Forest Troll

(download now)






December 13, 2002

by JBouley (Jeff)



Since announcing our need for a new reviewer (or reviewers) on Dec. 3, I've received several responses. In fact, as
you'll see below, we even have our first new review. But I just want to encourage anyone who might be interested to contact
me for details on what you can do to 'try out' for the job. Actually, it may not be a single job. We will likely settle on
one or two primary reviewers and also accept freelance submissions as others submit them. So, if you have the time to
play a mod through, are thoughtful enough to give a balanced review, and have decent writing skills, join the fray! Also,
if you're one of the people who already expressed an interest, start sending me some reviews, folks.



On a similar note, we need a new staff interviewer or two, and we're also open to freelance interviews. Basically, the
idea is to interview modders who have something new out, or haven't been interviewed before. Again, contact me if you're
interested and we can discuss how to proceed with your tryout.

;-)



The New Review


So, we have a fresh review for y'all to read, this time from one of our first candidates for mod reviewer, Eisead, who
has reviewed the Zy-El mod. Head to our Mod Reviews area, or just
click here
to head right to the review.



Eisead is already planning his next few reviews. We hope he'll keep 'em coming for some time to come...but we also hope
some of the rest of you will join him in 'Mod Reviews' providing other new material.



New Hosted Mod Site

The Wheel of Time mod by Blackheart has joined our hosted sites. You can reach it through our navbar at left, or you can
simply click here. Aside from the fact it looks like a
good mod...and it's a nice looking site, I really encourage you to visit because Blackheart had the damndest time trying
to get hosted. Took a couple weeks to finally get the set-up information to him, as his e-mail account didn't want to speak
with me, with Phrozen Heart or with the GameSpy/Planet Diablo tech support team.


:-O



Sound Off!

We have another trio of sound files from WarCraft 3, thanks to Phrozen Heart. They can be found in the 'Sound Effects'
area of the File Center, one of the subsections in the Plugins
section's
'Audio Plugins' area. You can also use the links
below for quicker delivery.



Bristleback

(
download now
)



Centaur

(
download now
)



Centaur Archer

(
download now
)



More Space...But Not TOO Much

Maybe you want a mod in which the inventory size stays the same and the Horadric Cube as well, but darn it, you just
cannot settle for the meager stash size increase of unmodded, 'vanilla' D2:LoD. Well, we have a new plugin for you:
Expanded Stash Only by Myhrginoc. Get it in our Plugins section,
or
click here
to go straight to the source.



Beware the Dark Riders

Can't wait for the new Lord of the Rings movie? Well, sub-atomic has sent us a Ring Wraith plugin to replace the
Gargantuan Beast animations. Visit the 'Animations' area of our

Plugins section
to get it, or

click here
.



Working on Animations Yourself

OK, so you want to do your own animation manipulations for D2 modding? Well, we have a new tool in the 'Animations' section
of our File Center's Mod Tools area. It's called the DR Tester v0.05,
it's by Sloan, and you can reach it directly by


clicking here
. It's an MPQ graphics test bed...and anything new is welcome when it comes to D2 animations.

;-)



DCC Assistance

In our Downloadable Resources area, we now have the
DCC File Format Description resource by Billian Belchev and Paul Siramy. For direct access, just go ahead and

click here
.



Clean-Up Time!

The November news has been banished to our
News Archives, but we
allow the prisoners to have visitors, so feel free to head over there and read old news if you've been away and need
to catch up.






December 3, 2002

by JBouley (Jeff)



All righty, many of you probably didn't notice the thread by Maxx Power that he is more or less hanging up his
reviewing pen...or pencil...or keyboard...or whatever the heck he used. It's sad to see him go (he might be back
to review one or two mods that are currently in the works, but we're not even sure about that), but we need to fill his
shoes if possible. If you have the willingness to play a mod through a few times in at least a couple difficulty levels
and can provide a complete review of pros and cons and you have some grasp of grammar and punctuation, let me know.
Or, if you don't want to be a permanent reviewer but would like to submit one or two reviews in the foreseeable future,
let me know that as well.



New Tools for You

Lot of stuff in the Tools section is available to you to make modding
easier...or possible for that matter in some cases. We have a couple new ones to add to the mix this week:



MonEdit v3.1.7 by The Wizard

Updated version of the monster editing tool we had the pleasure of introducing here at the Keep a few weeks ago.

(download now)



Diablo II Unique and Set Editor v1.02 by Colby Clary

Another updated tool, which coincidentally was unveiled the same week as MonEdit above.

(download now)



The Third of the Bunch

Last time, I announced the first two om-jbouley item packs that are in the
Plugins section
, and this time I have the third of them. Currently, there are no more on-jbouley packs planned, though
that could always change if om digs up a bunch of new graphics. To get the OM-JBOULEY item pack #3,

click here. This item pack is almost all weapons (swords,
polearms, maces, flails, and more) plus a few miscellaneous gem-type items.



Hear, Hear!

More converted sound files from WarCraft 3, thanks to Phrozen Heart. Like the ones from the last update, they are
found in the 'Sound Effects' area of the File Center, one of the subsections in the
Plugins section's 'Audio Plugins' area. You can also use the links
below for quicker delivery.



Goblin Zeppelin

(download now)



Ogre

(download now)



Sylvanus WindRunner

(download now)



Loading Up!


Also in the Plugins section, we have a new DLL Plugin,
which fixes the problem with 'chance-cast' skills. These are skills placed on items that have a chance to be cast either
when you attack a monster, hit a monster, or are hit by a monster. Problem is that the patches after 1.09b, including the
current one, 1.09d, mussed up the skills and made them so that they don't work. They look like they are
working because the visual effects occur, but they do no damage nor work the way they should.



As a result, most modders for a while (myself included) have certain 1.09b DLL files with our mods to allow people
to revert to 1.09b and eliminate the bug while playing the mod. Now, though, thanks to FoxBat, we have a nifty little
plugin for 1.09d to fix the problem. Get it by clicking here.

Link to this article: Select all

[url=https://www.d2mods.info/forum/kb/viewarticle?a=143&sid=f855c1c9d570b7738de0b8d954368e14]Knowledge Base - [02-12] December, 2002[/url]