Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by Doombreed-x » Wed May 09, 2007 8:25 pm

The quick answer is to lower the value in the unique field of treasureclass.txt, however to what and why is something you can find in our file guides. I suggest you take a look there, you can find them on the left side of your screen, under Mod Making.

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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by larx » Fri Jun 29, 2007 2:54 am

okay for starters i dont have microsoft excel so i used afj..one of yur recomendations..

okie so when i finish editing the file for example runes.txt and i save it doesn't save a .bin. it saves a txt and a .bak what ever a .bak is it doesn't work lol..

so i was wondering how do i get it to work. i did all the steps right but it doesn't make a bin file when i save :(

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Post by Doabli » Fri Jun 29, 2007 3:05 am

The .txt file is used to generate the .bin file. And the .bak file is made by AFJ's to backup data. If you made mistakes you can just rename the .bak to .txt to recover what you made. To make the .bin file, run the mod in -direct -txt mode, see step 2 of the tutorial.
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Post by larx » Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:32 am

dude..i'm not retarted.. i did that and just to make sure i'm not retarted i double checked... no matter what i do it doesn't make bin files on my god damn computer...what else could i be doing wrong?

btw i know yur just tryn to help so sorry if you feel that i'm being an ass..

hhhhelllllpppp!!
Last edited by larx on Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Doabli » Fri Jun 29, 2007 5:30 am

Did you set up the shortcut as Nefarius said?
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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by SCM » Fri Jun 29, 2007 6:02 am

I can only think of 2 reasons why it wouldn't generate bins using the -direct -txt extensions

1. character didn't load (for whatever reason)
2. wrong file structure

so if your character loads fine then make sure your data folders in the same place as your 'start in' field

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Post by Doabli » Fri Jun 29, 2007 6:05 am

IIRC if you don't set it up correctly the game will instantly generate .bin files from the original files in Patch_D2.mpq if you use the -txt switch... probably in the Diablo II folder, if you don't set up the start in field correctly like SCM said.
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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by SCM » Fri Jun 29, 2007 6:15 am

the start in field tells the game where to read it's data, the default is the diablo folder,
but if you don't have a data folder in the same place, it will read the files from the mpq's and won't generate bins as it has nowhere to put them.

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Post by Doabli » Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:05 am

Yippee. :oops: . Who would do that anyway? ;)
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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by kangaxx » Sat Jul 28, 2007 5:34 pm

umm how to make a unique monster in that lvl? like in stony tomb lvl 1 i want to make a special boss how to make it the only one?

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Post by Shakewell28 » Sun Sep 16, 2007 2:01 am

Save the text file as Tab-Delimited Text in Excel (press OK on both messages it will display!)
What do you mean by this? "Tab-Delimited Text"? I am using D2Excel and what I'm trying to do is make it so that you can only make enigma on ladder so it cant be made in SP, so i set it's SERVER to 1(true) on d2excel.
what do you mean by "Save as Tab-Delimited Text"?
please help its my first day of modding.

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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by Myhrginoc » Sun Sep 16, 2007 12:38 pm

I see two problems here, one serious. The simple part is, D2Excel automatically saves in tab delimited txt format, so nothing more needs to be done.

But you mention making this change to be good only on a server, not in single player. That says you are modding for a private realm, which is a forbidden topic here if you had bothered to read our Terms of Service. The rule is enforced whether you read it or not. So you have earned your first warning, please avoid further violations of our rules or your access privileges will be revoked.
Last edited by Myhrginoc on Sun Sep 16, 2007 12:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Shakewell28 » Sun Sep 16, 2007 1:36 pm

Lol i'm not modding for a private realm, ive never made a mod before and yesterday i decided i'd try to learn, so i kinda took my own route with "disabling runewords on SP" instead of "enabling ladder-only rw's on sp"
I'm just trying to learn stuff, im not doing anything!!
sorry, please respond :cry:

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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by Myhrginoc » Sun Sep 16, 2007 7:38 pm

what I'm trying to do is make it so that you can only make enigma on ladder
You would be surprised by what people try to do starting out...your request was worded as if you were setting up a server-only runeword, but I'll buy that you were intending to disable it. You could put a zero in Complete to do that, or a 1 in Server as you planned. Check out the Runes fileguide for additonal information.
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Post by Shakewell28 » Sun Sep 16, 2007 7:48 pm

Thanks for understanding :)
By the way I got it to work, AND a sweet dropmod :)
You guys are the greatest,
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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by Zwelgje » Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:12 pm

Hello happy modding community,

Im quite new to this and have only yesterday started to read into the modding business with the ultimate goal of somehow enabling all the ubers in the single player game.

Im using Excel2003 and MPQViewer from the site. I started with this simple tutorial and it took me some time to figure out that i have to close the Excel file (which i just modded) before running the game. this means "Open" -> "make adjustments" -> "Save file to mod directory" -> "Close the excel file". If i don't close the excel file Diablo2 seems unable to generate a new .bin file (with my modded data) and just uses a original copy of the file.

Anyone else noticed this or is it just silly me? I didn't find this in the tutorial and it was quite annoying to figure out why my mod didn't work.

With kind regards,

Zwelgje

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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by Nefarius » Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:14 pm

This is normal behavior for the flags they use on ReadFile, just don't keep the files open after saving them. You can also use PlugY to enable D2 to read them even if they're already open in excel.
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Post by Zwelgje » Thu Nov 08, 2007 9:25 pm

Thnx alot Nefarius. I'll look into the PlugY thing. Thnx for the tip :)

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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by Romka » Sat Jan 12, 2008 11:27 pm

Hello Phrozen Keep!

I've only just started to even try to understand how modding works. While I understand the general idea, I can't get the specific steps to work. For example, I've downloaded the MPQViewer, but it doesn't work for me (when I try to open an MPQ file, the program tells me that it's done, but I don't see anything); I'm also unable to locate the .txt file the tutorial mentions. Most importantly however, I'm unable to understand what's what. What's storm.dll? What is it for? Why was it included in the MPQViewer package.

Is there a tutorial written that explains the whys?

Of course I can ignore the whys and go on with the hows, but the hows seem to be out of order, as I have mentioned before.

I appreciate any clues! :)



I should also mention that I'm working with Windows Vista.

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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by Myhrginoc » Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:15 pm

If you are just starting modding, you might want to check out the Beginner's Guide (see my sig links). Exercise #1 includes discussion on setting up and using MPQ Viewer. Look at the part which talks about Opening a Data File. That file you have to obtain separately, but you can find it in the File Center. Notice we have several, so pick the one you need. Once you have a datafile loaded, MPQ Viewer will remember it, so you only need to open a new datafile if you are looking into a non-D2 mpq.

Now that you have a datafile loaded, select Open Archive and find the mpq of interest.

Storm.dll is an older version of the mpq access library that Blizzard includes with their games. You need the one that comes with MPQ Viewer even though there is one in your Diablo II folder. Don't overwrite the D2 version or you won't be able to play the game.
Last edited by Myhrginoc on Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:22 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by Nefarius » Sun Jan 13, 2008 3:47 pm

Extract MPQView and the data file, then run the program (MPQVIEW), first click FILE > OPEN DATAFILE and select the data file (not the MPQ, the txt file you downloaded before). Then, click on the large OPEN ARCHIVE button, and select PATCH_D2.MPQ.
Step three in the tutorial explains how to use MPQ view.
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Post by Shakewell28 » Mon Feb 18, 2008 1:42 am

how can i make the drop mod without changing the items ilvls

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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by Nefarius » Mon Feb 18, 2008 5:04 am

Just skip the step. This is only mentioned in the tutorial because people generally don't want to get rares when a mlvl is too low to spawn the unique item.
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Post by Shakewell28 » Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:03 pm

doesnt work :\

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Re: Ladder Rune-Word, Drop and Boss Mod Tutorial

Post by Nefarius » Thu Feb 21, 2008 4:47 am

It does work fine, you either didn't do it properly or expected some different results ;)

You either set the qlvl of everything to 1 or live with the fact you also get rare items in the process (or set the mlvl of everything to 99, which as the same effect as setting the qlvl to 1). The only other way is to edit the code and remove the qlvl filter.
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