Hellfire Patch v1.02.A5: Classic HF with less bugs and more polish!

[Belix]

I don't personally consider the addition of a new graphic any more moddish than the use of an unused graphic -PROVIDED- that whatever new graphics are added do not stand out with an inconsistent art style. This is honestly a major reason that I've never been able to enjoy many D1 and D2 mods that add new items, enemies, objects, etc... very often what's added will have a strong visual dissonance because the modder simply picked something they found that looked cool to them.

I hear that. Within reason I accept that mods are going to look "different" but a lot of times stuff is borrowed from OTHER games, and as someone who has played a lot of games, seeing stuff I recognize from other games is often rather jarring, even if it fits in well aesthetically or was recolored etc. This stuff distracts me so much I often can't really give a mod a fair chance.

I'd be willing to try my hand at a few new item graphics that maintain the original D1 style... provided you're okay with the idea and find the time for another big update. It's up to you though and I do understand the concerns you have about it.

Even if I don't update this 'patch mod' again, I imagine this sort of thing may be of interest to future modders as well. So on that note, I actually did try to make a unique graphic for Plate Mail (assuming Plate Mail means mix of plate and chain, to differentiate it from a Field Plate) that should look 'official'... here's what I came up with. It uses pixels from the original Field Plate, Full Plate Mail, and Hellfire's Armor of Gloom, plus some hand-placed pixels. If you look at how the Sorcerer looks with plate on, this icon closely resembles that (although he seems to have Gothic pointy plate shoulders for some reason).

New plate:




Comparison:


Somewhat frustratingly, the Armor Class mix up makes this look funny since the plate with more protection (now both visually and in terms of stats) requires less strength than the Field Plate. Plate Mail 42-50 AC, req 60 STR, vs Field Plate 40-45 AC and req 65 STR.

Here's the .bmp file that should be properly indexed and ready for conversion into a .cel file to be implemented as an icon, if anyone wishes to use it.
http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/attac...hp?aid=321

Onto another topic, I was playing recently and noticed that when I save & reload while in the dungeon the game doesn't retain the Reflect spell if I have it active on my character. It's mostly just an annoyance than any sort of hindrance but I do find it a handy spell to have active for classes with lower max mana and it's screwed me over a few times that it doesn't stay active between loads - unlike Mana Shield.

Is this a known bug? Better yet, is it an easy fix?

The search spell is also affected. However, in a game loaded that was safed with an active search spell, you will hear when the search spell duration ends. So it seems to be partially active, but it is not working.

I wasn't aware of Reflect or Search being omitted in SP saves, but to be fair I usually play multiplayer (even solo). When you cast Search a spell effect is created upon cast with a timer (if it doesn't already exist). In multiplayer it causes all other players to be able to see item outlines when cast, iirc. However, both Reflect and Search (and Mana Shield in this older version of Diablo) don't update when other players enter the floor. Other players ONLY see these active if you cast it while they're present. So, Reflect and Search clearly had some oversights in the code.

I couldn't even guess if that's a simple fix or not. Assuming I could find the save behavior and expand on it, then I'd have to worry about what happens when Hellfire starts trying to load saves that -did not- contain Reflect/Search status (possible crash). I'll make a note about it though.

I did wish I could fix the Mana Shield (and Reflect) not showing up when other players enter the floor, but after some tinkering it looked like one of Blizzard's later patches restructured part of the player information table/network behavior to add some unique handling to Mana Shield, and was likely far too complex for me to try to imitate through something as slow and awkward as ASM edits.