MM3-5 modding?

The role-playing games (I-X) that started it all and the various spin-offs (including Dark Messiah).
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GreatEmerald
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MM3-5 modding?

Unread postby GreatEmerald » 06 Oct 2009, 22:04

I'm curious about modding for MM3, MM4 or MM5... Is there a way to do so at all? We can see that fans managed to create Swords of XEEN (And NWC managed to create a merge for MM4 and MM5), so it should be rather modable? Would be nice to try out something like that and add new features (Protection from Magic against those Demon Lords!), new locations and such... And it could be even easier than modding for newer MM games, since these are grid based.

Also, were there ever any patches out for MM1-5? They could use some, for example, in MM3 you can get infinite EXP if you have full inventory or have 255 AC if you put a -1 AC item on you when you have 0 AC...

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Unread postby solitaire345 » 09 Oct 2009, 13:35

http://xeen.wikia.com/wiki/CC_File_Format - about the file format
http://xeen.wikia.com/wiki/Filenames - list of files in xeen.cc and dark.cc
http://www.angelfire.com/comics/thewiza ... xtract.xex - extractor for cc files. change extension to exe, to make it work.
usage: extract.exe - [CC-file name] [File name to extract from CC]
http://www.angelfire.com/comics/thewiza ... /extract.c - source

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Unread postby Corlagon » 09 Oct 2009, 16:42

Thanks a LOT for that extraction program. I've been looking for something like it for ages, being a coding noob.

Do you know if there's a list of the files in the SWRD.CC on the interweb, or at least if there's a way to view the list through some other means?

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Unread postby vladimir-maestro » 09 Oct 2009, 19:34

and what about "packer"? to be able to pack new files back to CC?
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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 09 Oct 2009, 21:44

Yea, I had that question as well. And are those music files (indicated as .M) are in form of MIDI files? So a rename to MIDI would simply work?

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Unread postby Corlagon » 09 Oct 2009, 21:47

I just gave that a try, unfortunately it doesn't work as simply as that, but the Xeen Wiki says it isn't all that difficult to convert. However, they don't exactly tell us how ;|

EDIT: I found the answer and managed to convert one of the themes into MIDI successfully! This WizardStan guy deserves a prize.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessa ... c=50194802

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Unread postby vladimir-maestro » 10 Oct 2009, 08:12

I think that modding earlier mm games are useless.
Much better to made your own game with rpg-maker =) =)
You can contact me here:
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Site about MODs: http://www.mmgames.ru
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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 10 Oct 2009, 16:33

rebirthofxeen.com seems to be down :(
Hmm, it seems from the archive at the end of the discussion there that the sci-fi theme is not found yet... It's probably in those "Unknown music file" slots... If only we knew the name... Or it's SF05, it seems to be wrongly extracted in the archive there. A good find anyways :)

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Unread postby Talin_Trollbane » 10 Oct 2009, 17:06

so this program can extract the midi music from all 3 games?
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Unread postby Corlagon » 10 Oct 2009, 17:11

GreatEmerald wrote:rebirthofxeen.com seems to be down :(
Hmm, it seems from the archive at the end of the discussion there that the sci-fi theme is not found yet... It's probably in those "Unknown music file" slots... If only we knew the name... Or it's SF05, it seems to be wrongly extracted in the archive there. A good find anyways :)
It's fine for me, I just tested the links. If it's a browser problem or something, give me your email address and I'll send you the music extractor.

I'll check out SF05. My main difficulty is with some of the extracted text files, though. Unlike the .BIN ones, the per-map event files, when opened in Notepad, are gobbledygook.

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Unread postby solitaire345 » 10 Oct 2009, 17:58

you talk about evt files? they are in event language, for this the xeen wiki has a category http://xeen.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Event_Opcodes

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Unread postby Corlagon » 10 Oct 2009, 18:31

Nope, I'm talking about the map event texts, like AAZE0001.TXT for instance. When opened they give me a load of random Chinese characters. I believe the game dialogues are inside them, which would be a motherload for my projects.

How do you decode them?

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Unread postby solitaire345 » 10 Oct 2009, 18:43

they're ok at my pc. try to go to regional and language options advanced tab, set language for non-unicode programs to 'english (united states)' and extract the text file again
Last edited by solitaire345 on 10 Oct 2009, 19:00, edited 1 time in total.

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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 10 Oct 2009, 18:45

Interesting, it seems to be back up now. The Files section there is very interesting:
http://www.rebirthofxeen.com/files/
As you can see from revisions.txt, someone is trying to create a port of Xeen... However, I can't open the exe, it says that it failed to initialise (maybe 64bit compatibility problem?).

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Unread postby Corlagon » 10 Oct 2009, 19:31

There's nothing wrong with my unicode regional options, they're set to English. I don't understand it.

Could I ask you to send across one of those unicode text files? At least I'd like to know if they're indeed the ones I'm looking for.

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Unread postby Talin_Trollbane » 11 Oct 2009, 14:02

GreatEmerald wrote:Interesting, it seems to be back up now. The Files section there is very interesting:
http://www.rebirthofxeen.com/files/
As you can see from revisions.txt, someone is trying to create a port of Xeen... However, I can't open the exe, it says that it failed to initialise (maybe 64bit compatibility problem?).
hey wait, you are that musicboy from youtube, the one who is uploading the Might and Magic 3-5 music, right?
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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 11 Oct 2009, 14:15

I'd put that a little differently, but essentially you're right :D

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Unread postby Talin_Trollbane » 11 Oct 2009, 17:31

so this is how you got the music from the game? i was wondering if you simply stood still ingame and recorded it or had found some way to extract it. :)
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Unread postby GreatEmerald » 11 Oct 2009, 17:49

Nope, this is the first time I hear of such method. I actually got the MIDIs off the internet + I record the "Direct Recording" versions by standing still.

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Is there a way to create a game engine for World of Xeen?

Unread postby Rune_Caster » 01 Jun 2010, 07:25

Sorta like Exult for Ultima 7 part 1 and 2. Even include changes like minor graphics updates and music updates etc while still using all the available game resources...


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