Hellfire Patch v1.02.A5: Classic HF with less bugs and more polish!
#41
I am nearing the release of v1.02.A4. It addresses over 10 more issues with Hellfire/Marsh's Mod. I hope to have it out within two weeks at the very latest. I am very happy with it so far, but I need to finish a few features and spend more quality assurance time with it. See you soon!

EDIT: Just wanted to deposit a note here. Version A4 has become much larger than I intended. I will be spending extra time playing through the game from start to finish with all of these new bug fixes and features in place in an effort to be as certain as possible this version doesn't introduce any new problems, since one has snuck past me in each previous update.

That said, I've found a problem that exists in version A3 that is my fault that should be corrected in A4: In multiplayer games, the durability of an item can be transmitted incorrectly when exchanging it between players. This is due to a mistake I made in the code changes to prevent items exchanged between players from having overflow bugs (negative armor class becomes positive, etc.), which itself worked but fetched incorrect durability info.

Because this problem can negatively impact gameplay (strengthening items significantly, free repairs, or breaking items by setting them to 0/0 dur), I am offering the change to the mod file necessary to fix this issue to all of you immediately so you don't have to wait for A4. It will, sadly, only prevent the bug and not 'fix' the durability of an item already affected.

The fix: If you are playing multiplayer games with v1.02.A3, insert this new code at the top of your .dat file and save it:[/b]
Code:
start HF1.01 "Prevent negative values on items becoming positive - Multiplayer Origin"
00422878 8888E26368008B4D48 E9FB32060090909090
00485B78 050505050505050505050505050505 8888E26368000FBE4D48E9FACCF9FF
end

Apologies again for the occasional new problem that I miss; this work is quite complicated and I'm still relatively new at it. I do hope the next version will make up for it! Smile
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#42
Keep up the good work Man! Even though its late, we all appreciate the work you're doing and I enjoy the aspect of "insert code here" idea. Makes assembly much easier
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#43
(05-04-2014, 12:11 AM)silverdragon7 Wrote: Keep up the good work Man! Even though its late, we all appreciate the work you're doing and I enjoy the aspect of "insert code here" idea. Makes assembly much easier

Thank you. I'd like to make it even easier yet, but it would take as much or more work simply to improve ease of use than the entire project has been itself so far. I hope to get there some day though despite the amount of extra work it'll be.

v1.02.A4 will be released within a few days. I've nearly finished a full play through with it using a brand new character and caught 3 minor bugs that would of been introduced with it and fixed those. I'm aiming for a flawless release if I can -- it should be worth the wait. Smile
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#44
Hi, I played your Hellfire fix and i enjoyed it really well.

Grisword still selling Helms when wearing Veil of steel. lol

I have a question thought, does the patch can only be played by loading the game with ''loader.exe'' ?

Because Hellfire.exe only load 1.02 vanilla for me, not .A3
looking forward to see .A4 Soon. Smile
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#45
(05-05-2014, 07:36 AM)mayhem666 Wrote: Hi, I played your Hellfire fix and i enjoyed it really well.
Thanks! Always nice to hear someone else enjoying the result of hours of work.

(05-05-2014, 07:36 AM)mayhem666 Wrote: I have a question thought, does the patch can only be played by loading the game with ''loader.exe'' ?

Because Hellfire.exe only load 1.02 vanilla for me, not .A3
That is correct; without the use of loader.exe, you're purely running Marsh's Mod (v1.02).

Because I did not want to hard-code my changes into Hellfire, the use of another program is required to apply changes to Hellfire -- in this case, PlugUlmo's loader.exe is used to patch Hellfire in memory each time it is run, which means the change (my patch, if you like) is only temporary. That's why you see plain v1.02 again when you run Hellfire itself afterwards.

The memory approach also has the benefit of isolating the changes in a seperate file, which lets users disable anything they may not like. But the downside is that loader.exe must be run to start Hellfire every time. I think the minor inconvenience is worth the flexibility. Smile

Check back soon, I intend to upload v1.02.A4 before this weekend arrives.
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#46
(05-05-2014, 08:25 AM)Belix Wrote:
(05-05-2014, 07:36 AM)mayhem666 Wrote: Hi, I played your Hellfire fix and i enjoyed it really well.
Thanks! Always nice to hear someone else enjoying the result of hours of work.

(05-05-2014, 07:36 AM)mayhem666 Wrote: I have a question thought, does the patch can only be played by loading the game with ''loader.exe'' ?

Because Hellfire.exe only load 1.02 vanilla for me, not .A3
That is correct; without the use of loader.exe, you're purely running Marsh's Mod (v1.02).

Because I did not want to hard-code my changes into Hellfire, the use of another program is required to apply changes to Hellfire -- in this case, PlugUlmo's loader.exe is used to patch Hellfire in memory each time it is run, which means the change (my patch, if you like) is only temporary. That's why you see plain v1.02 again when you run Hellfire itself afterwards.

The memory approach also has the benefit of isolating the changes in a seperate file, which lets users disable anything they may not like. But the downside is that loader.exe must be run to start Hellfire every time. I think the minor inconvenience is worth the flexibility. Smile

Check back soon, I intend to upload v1.02.A4 before this weekend arrives.

Okay well, good to know, even though i'm not sure where i need to activate or deactivate things if you can elaborate on this.

I almost forgot about it. I'm not sure if it's a bug or not but theres a problem with the Auric Amulet.

Though i think you removed it in your patch? Saves played with Hellfire 1.02 containing Auric amulet is still duplicating gold x2. So in .3A i can Stack 20k gold per lol

EVEN if i remove the amulet the pack can still contain 20k gold.

Also, even if the cowquest file is activated. Cow is not spawning for me.

Alway the farmer. Don't really know why.

But yeah i'll stay close to see the .4A
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#47
(05-05-2014, 05:06 PM)Mayhem Wrote: Okay well, good to know, even though i'm not sure where i need to activate or deactivate things if you can elaborate on this.

If you open the cowqueston.dat file that came from A3 with a text editor like Notepad, you should find a list of named codes. Sections can be disabled by inserting a # (pound symbol) at the start of each line in it, or you can enable features like the Cow Quest by removing the #'s from the start. Take care to only comment or uncomment an entire code from 'start' to 'end' as uncommenting only part of it will have undesired results.

The Cow Quest can be found near the top of the file; it must be activated here now since Marsh modified Hellfire to ignore Command.txt, which was the traditional way of activating the Cow Quest; v1.02 *always* enables the Bard, Barbarian, Celia etc.

(05-05-2014, 05:06 PM)Mayhem Wrote: I almost forgot about it. I'm not sure if it's a bug or not but theres a problem with the Auric Amulet.
That is a bug I created unintentionally - fixed in the next version. Smile
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#48
(05-05-2014, 05:52 PM)Belix Wrote:
(05-05-2014, 05:06 PM)Mayhem Wrote: Okay well, good to know, even though i'm not sure where i need to activate or deactivate things if you can elaborate on this.

If you open the cowqueston.dat file that came from A3 with a text editor like Notepad, you should find a list of named codes. Sections can be disabled by inserting a # (pound symbol) at the start of each line in it, or you can enable features like the Cow Quest by removing the #'s from the start. Take care to only comment or uncomment an entire code from 'start' to 'end' as uncommenting only part of it will have undesired results.

The Cow Quest can be found near the top of the file; it must be activated here now since Marsh modified Hellfire to ignore Command.txt, which was the traditional way of activating the Cow Quest; v1.02 *always* enables the Bard, Barbarian, Celia etc.

(05-05-2014, 05:06 PM)Mayhem Wrote: I almost forgot about it. I'm not sure if it's a bug or not but theres a problem with the Auric Amulet.
That is a bug I created unintentionally - fixed in the next version. Smile

In fact, the patch is likely all the contain of cowqueston.dat ?

It would be a really different way of making modification of Hellfire. kind of impressive for me Smile I would love to do such a thing.
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#49
(05-07-2014, 05:20 PM)Mayhem Wrote: In fact, the patch is likely all the contain of cowqueston.dat ?

It would be a really different way of making modification of Hellfire. kind of impressive for me Smile I would love to do such a thing.

All of my changes are contained in that file, yes, but most of Marsh's changes remain hard-coded into the Hellfire.exe; only a few of them can be turned on/off in the file at this time.

Eventually I can probably get all of Marsh's changes in there to be turned on/off too and make this compatible with Hellfire v1.01 (without the need for Marsh's 1.02 exe) but that will take a lot of time and patience I don't have at the moment. Tracking those undocumented changes down and figuring out what each one does is rather tedious.

I'm satisfied enough with v1.02.A4 to release it as I haven't run into any more unintended quirks. I'll be rewriting a lot of the documentation that details all the changes before I upload it before the weekend. Just a bit longer now! Smile
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#50
(05-07-2014, 07:50 PM)Belix Wrote:
(05-07-2014, 05:20 PM)Mayhem Wrote: In fact, the patch is likely all the contain of cowqueston.dat ?

It would be a really different way of making modification of Hellfire. kind of impressive for me Smile I would love to do such a thing.

All of my changes are contained in that file, yes, but most of Marsh's changes remain hard-coded into the Hellfire.exe; only a few of them can be turned on/off in the file at this time.

Eventually I can probably get all of Marsh's changes in there to be turned on/off too and make this compatible with Hellfire v1.01 (without the need for Marsh's 1.02 exe) but that will take a lot of time and patience I don't have at the moment. Tracking those undocumented changes down and figuring out what each one does is rather tedious.

I'm satisfied enough with v1.02.A4 to release it as I haven't run into any more unintended quirks. I'll be rewriting a lot of the documentation that details all the changes before I upload it before the weekend. Just a bit longer now! Smile

Good i'll get it and see ingame Smile

I'm looking forward also to see all the changes in first post.
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#51
I apologize for not being punctual with my release. Last minute testing revealed that the Block Bonus bug was fixed for single player games but only worked for the host in multiplayer. I of course was not satisfied with this and began working on it again immediately. My fix had to be almost completely re-written from scratch, but the Block Bonus now works properly in multiplayer games, with the value for each character synchronized correctly over the network.

Unfortunately, like many other 'random' chance events, the actual act of blocking is not synchronized over the network, so players may appear to block when in fact they were hit in their own game, or appear hit when they actually blocked. At least, however, with the Block Bonus synced properly in Multiplayer you won't see other players blocking less frequently than they actually are.

v1.02.A4 is the largest update yet. It also added a significant amount of information to the change list, which prompted a massive edit of the original post. I will also be adding proper information for installation and configuration, and a troubleshooting section.

I am working diligently to finish updating the documentation so that the update can be released within the next couple days. Until then, here is a teaser of a few features you can look forward to in v1.02.A4. Smile

• Monster Ranged Attacks: Most monsters previously couldn't hit you up close with arrows or spells; now they can
• Block Bonus: Each class now gains its intended block bonus (previously always ignored in Hellfire)
• Resurrect: The spell sound effect was set incorrectly and would never play; now you'll hear it as intended
• Rejuvenation Potion: A bug with the amount of Life and Mana restored for Monks and Bards has been fixed (50% more effective for each)
• Fast Attack: Now works on Bows like Diablo v1.09; this makes The Needler & of Swiftness useful again (esp. for Rogues)
• Warlord of Blood Quest: Now enabled by default in Multiplayer again (now that several issues with it are resolved)

I will not post again until I bring you v1.02.A4. See you then!
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#52
Better late than never lol

But well, seems like it will be a quit bigger release than previous works.

I'm enjoying all these resolved bugs. I'm looking forward to see the complete list of feature/change for the v1.02.a4.

Keep up the good work Smile
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#53
v1.02.A4 has finally arrived! I appreciate everyone's patience. As usual, this post will contain only changes over the previous version, A3. For the download and the full change list, please see the original post.

Most of the change list has been completely reformatted and reorganized in an attempt to improve readibility. It has also been expanded to include information about installation, troubleshooting and more. The mod file itself has been reorganized and the names of codes have been altered to better match their titles in the change list, which should make modifying this to your own tastes much easier.

Please keep in mind that this update will overwrite your mod file, so any customizations you have made will need to be made again. It will not be necessary to add the durability code fix for multiplayer games again as it is, of course, included in this update.

Though this release was thoroughly tested, there could be issues that I've missed. The sooner you report anything I broke, the sooner I can fix it. Smile

Thank you all. Forgive any inconsistencies in the formatting, as organization and neatness are not my strong points.


_____________________________
Changes over the previous version:


• aqrit's DDraw wrapper: No longer included; it won't fix some issues that other wrappers can. Replaced by registry files.
• A3 Durability Bug: A bug when exchanging items in multiplayer that could transmit incorrect item durability has been fixed. Sorry about that!
p.s. Regretfully, fixing this bug will not restore the durability of any items already effected. Lost durability can be restored with oils.

• Fleshdancer: Marsh brought this unique Soul Burner over from Hellfire: Fixed, but forgot to enable it - this has been corrected
• Monster Ranged Attacks: BEWARE! Most monsters previously couldn't hit you up close with arrows or spells; now they can
• Block Bonus: Each class now gains its intended chance to block bonus (previously always ignored in Hellfire)
• Doppelganger's: Cloning effect disabled in MP games due to sync issues and crashes
• of Peril: Now properly updates your Life Orb to show damage taken (previously only updated if you had Life Steal)
• Resurrect: The spell sound effect was set incorrectly and would never play; now you'll hear it as intended
• Rejuvenation Potion: A bug with the amount of Life and Mana restored for Monks and Bards has been fixed (50% more effective for each)
• Rejuvenation Potion: No longer looks identical to Full Rejuvenation while on the ground; is now a dim gold, as seemed intended
• Warlord of Blood Quest: Now enabled by default in Multiplayer again (now that several issues with it are resolved)
• Warlord of Blood Quest: Warlord is hostile in MP, no speech (his speech would not activate for all players, making him invincible on their games)
• Warlord of Blood Quest: Steel Tome dialogue does not replay every time you re-enter floor in Multiplayer
• Warlord of Blood Quest: Appears in only 50% of Multiplayer games if enabled (previously he was present every single session)

• Combat Effects (Bows): Many combat effects ignored or bugged when using Bows now work correctly
........Affects: • Jester's • of Bashing • of Blood • of Devastation • of Peril • of Piercing • of Puncturing • of the Bat • of the Leech • of Vampires
....................• Deadly Hunter • Ring of Engagement • The Undead Crown

........Notes...
............Deadly Hunter: Yes, the +200% Damage vs Demons on this bow finally works now after all these years - good luck finding one though!
............Penetrate Target's Armor: Unchanged, listed for reference: Piercing = 1, Puncturing = 2, Bashing = 3, Ring of Engagement = 4 (multiple sources stack!)
............Penetrate, 1 Point: Unchanged, effectively ignores 25% of monster's Armor Class (resultant AC rounded down)
............Penetrate, 2+ Points: Unchanged, 1st point ignored, every point after it accumulatively halves effective AC: 2 = -50%, 3 = -75%, 4 = -87%, 5 = -93% etc.
............Penetrate, Point Bug: In plain Hellfire, Bows affected by Penetration actually raised a monster's AC by the number of penetrate points!
............Blitzen & Flambeau: These attack as spells, and will not gain these modifiers
............Remember: Life Steal, Mana Steal and Jester's don't normally appear on bows (but you can use the Undead Crown for Life Stealing bows now!)
............Obsolete: Former alterations to Deadly Hunter to make up for +200% Dam vs Demons not working have been revoked

• Attack Speed Behavior (Bows): Bows with Fast Attack Speed or better now fire faster; arrow speed bonus removed
........Reasoning: Diablo had it right! Hellfire made Swiftness bows & The Needler junk: Fast Attack granted +2 arrow speed, flying a mere 6% faster at best.
........Affects: • of Haste • of Speed • of Swiftness • The Needler
........Notes...
............Behavior: Should be identical to melee; 1 frame faster with Fast, 2 frames with Faster/Fastest. Rogues will benefit most
............Gnat Sting: Unaffected; has Quick Attack which doesn't shoot faster, but retains its +1 Arrow Speed behavior
............Remember: Speed and Haste don't normally appear on bows
............Obsolete: Former alterations to The Needler to make up for Fast Attack not working have been revoked

• Monster Chance To Hit Overflow (Melee): Chance To Hit more than 255% would be erroneously reduced by 256%
........Affects: • Nightmare • Hell
....................• Diablo • Na'Krul • Flesh Thing

........Notes...
............Obsolete: Former alterations to the stats of Diablo, Na'Krul and Flesh Thing made to bypass this bug have been revoked

• Wirt: Stops favoring the sale of item types you don't have (i.e. if you carry 3 bows, he'd virtually never sell a bow)
• New Game/Quit: To prevent accidental exits, these options are now disabled while you are dead in a multiplayer game
• Chain Lightning: No longer scans for targets further than the corners of your screen (reduces gapping)

• Black Deaths can now steal your Vitality
........Black Deaths now have a 75% chance to steal 1 Vitality per hit, offset by Magic Resist (75% Resist Magic = immune to Vitality drain)
........Reasoning: Restores Black Death life reduction without the old permanent damage to your max life. Also less harsh as the effect is resistable.
........Notes...
............Drain Limit: Black Deaths will never reduce your Vitality below your current character level

• Search spell duration fixed AGAIN (lower level durations were still incorrect)
........Now matches the formula in Jarulf's Guide: 12.25 + 10 * Spell Level + Character Level seconds (Lvl 15 Search cast by Lvl 32 Sorc = 3.2~ minutes)
........Notes...
............Original Behavior: 12.25 + 0.5 * Spell Level + 0.1 seconds; Lvl 15 Search cast by Lvl 32 Sorc: = 20~ seconds (yes, it ignored character level)
............Duration Stacks: Unchanged; every cast of Search adds the spell duration to its current duration if it is already active

• Multiplayer Characters are no longer saved as Hidden System Files
........They're still saved in your WINDOWS directory as hr_info#.drv (but now they're a lot easier to find!)
........Notes...
............Existing Characters: This change will only unhide existing characters after each one is played again (just host/exit with each one quickly)

• Experience is now divided between players again
........In the current implementation, exp is always divided by the number of players in the game, NOT just the same floor! So play together!
........Reasoning: In the original game, only players who struck a monster got a cut of its experience, divided by the number of entitled players.
............Marsh's mod introduced a Shared Exp feature that rewarded all players on the same level, but it gave everyone 100% of the experience,
............making leveling in MP games faster. This is my attempt to retain the Shared Exp feature while returning Exp gains to normal behavior.
............Unfortunately I couldn't get it to work without dividing when players are dead or absent, but this does have the unintended benefit of
............making it harder to get ahead of teammates. I will further refine this to act more like the original game when/if I can.


• Shorter Spell Wall Durations
........Extra time per level halved, Lightning doesn't last longer than Fire any more
........Reasoning: Wall duration was more annoying than helpful. Level 15 Lightning Walls lasted 3.4 minutes!
........Affects: • Fire Wall • Lightning Wall • Ring of Fire

• Altered Unique Bows - Life & Mana Steal
........Now that bows can leech in v1.02.A4, 4 mid-range unique bows gain Life or Mana steal
........Affects: • Bow of the Dead • Flamedart • Fleshstinger • The Blackoak Bow
........Notes...
............Amounts: Bow of the Dead: 3% Life, Flamedart: 5% Mana, Fleshstinger: 5% Life, The Blackoak Bow: 3% Mana
............Vitality Curses: Bow of the Dead had no room for a new enchantment, so I replaced -3 Vitality; for consistency, I replaced -10 Vitality on Blackoak also

• Altered Diablo Uniques - Improve Usefulness
........This is by no means a comprehensive rehaul of Diablo uniques!
........These are a few Uniques I found I felt would be considerably more appealing with only minimal changes.
............• Blackoak Shield: -10 Vitality >>> Fast Hit Recovery
............• Harlequin Crest: +2 All Attributes >>> +4 All Attributes, +7 Life & Mana >>> +15 Life & Mana (AC penalty might be worth it now)
............• Helm of Spirits: Life Stealing [size=-3](was: Hit Steals 5% Life; this very rare helm can now be stacked with normal Life Steal)

............• Messerschmidt's Reaver: -50 Life >>> +2 Damage From Enemies
[/size]
• Elixir of Strength: No longer looks identical to Potion of Mana while on the ground; is now a bright white bottle, like Vitality Elixirs
• Adria: Her shack has moved near the Town Portals (bridges leading to her old home are gone, to help remind you she moved)

• See the Resistances of other players
........Mousing over other players now shows Resists next to Life; for consistency, max resists on your character page now show as 75% instead of MAX
........Reasoning: Now you can check a teammate's resists before going somewhere dangerous, or selling something they might need.
........Affects: • Multiplayer • LCS (Lying Character Screen)
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#54
Really nice work Dude :O

The only thing i hate in all the changes of A.4 is the Black Death thing. I would rather keep them not doing such a thing.

Except that, it's a wonderful release.
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#55
Looks awesome Belix!
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#56
Thank you both!

By the way, Black Deaths may not be as bad as they sound. They move slow, attack slow and are relatively one of the least accurate monsters in the game.

A Level 5 Sorcerer with base Dexterity (15), and some decent Basic Items you can buy from Griswold for at most 400 Gold for +15 Armor Class (AC 12 Leather, AC 3 Skull Cap) will only have a 50% chance to be hit by a Black Death, if one even gets close enough to take a swing. Other characters could have higher AC from Dexterity or gear, such as a shield.

And speaking of shields, a Level 5 Warrior with base Dexterity (20) would have a 49% chance to block Black Death attacks if it got past his armor. Between both shield and armor he now has about 25% or less chance to land a hit on you.

If one does finally hit you, there's only a 75% chance it will steal Vitality (reduced by Magic Resist - you can find 10-15% resist magic on some items early on), as opposed to the 100% it used to be. This can easily be made up with a Vitality shrine or two later, or a couple Vitality elixirs.

They also only appear on floors 3 to 5; some new characters won't even encounter them their first time through the dungeon. On higher difficulties, most characters should have 50% magic resist or more, vastly reducing or even eliminating the chance of losing Vitality if hit.

And for anyone who really doesn't like it (totally understandable - I'll be the first to admit Black Deaths were given a rather harsh special ability), it is very easy to disable: Just open cowqueston.dat with a text editor, search for the words 'Black Death' and erase or comment the section out. Smile
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#57
(05-13-2014, 07:39 PM)Belix Wrote: Thank you both!

By the way, Black Deaths may not be as bad as they sound. They move slow, attack slow and are relatively one of the least accurate monsters in the game.

A Level 5 Sorcerer with base Dexterity (15), and some decent Basic Items you can buy from Griswold for at most 400 Gold for +15 Armor Class (AC 12 Leather, AC 3 Skull Cap) will only have a 50% chance to be hit by a Black Death, if one even gets close enough to take a swing. Other characters could have higher AC from Dexterity or gear, such as a shield.

And speaking of shields, a Level 5 Warrior with base Dexterity (20) would have a 49% chance to block Black Death attacks if it got past his armor. Between both shield and armor he now has about 25% or less chance to land a hit on you.

If one does finally hit you, there's only a 75% chance it will steal Vitality (reduced by Magic Resist - you can find 10-15% resist magic on some items early on), as opposed to the 100% it used to be. This can easily be made up with a Vitality shrine or two later, or a couple Vitality elixirs.

They also only appear on floors 3 to 5; some new characters won't even encounter them their first time through the dungeon. On higher difficulties, most characters should have 50% magic resist or more, vastly reducing or even eliminating the chance of losing Vitality if hit.

And for anyone who really doesn't like it (totally understandable - I'll be the first to admit Black Deaths were given a rather harsh special ability), it is very easy to disable: Just open cowqueston.dat with a text editor, search for the words 'Black Death' and erase or comment the section out. Smile

The fact that we can enable/disable thing is a fantastic feature of modding.

I really like how this patch is made. I would like to know how this method of modding really work, it's awesome.
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#58
It appears I made a (harmless) mistake in the .dat file entries in v1.02.A4. There is a loose entry that reads:

Code:
start HF1.01 "Penetrate Target Armor works properly on Bows"
end

The penetration fix was merged into the entry above titled "Combat Effects (Bows)" and I forgot to delete this empty section. It does no harm being there, but feel free to erase it. I'd be surprised if there wasn't another mistake or two somewhere, honestly - I moved around and renamed so much stuff. Sorry about that little bit of clutter I missed when cleaning the file up.

EDIT: These unnecessary lines have been removed from the original attachment, so only the first 5 of you that downloaded it will encounter these extra lines.



(05-15-2014, 01:49 AM)Mayhem Wrote: The fact that we can enable/disable thing is a fantastic feature of modding.

Agreed. There is a quote, I believe, by Bill Cosby: "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone." I know ultimately some change(s) I make someone won't like - because using HF: Fixed and Marsh's Mod, I had the same experience with both - and I eventually I realized how great it is that other people don't get 'stuck' with changes they don't want this way, so I'm keeping the customization now as an integral feature in all future releases.



(05-15-2014, 01:49 AM)Mayhem Wrote: I really like how this patch is made. I would like to know how this method of modding really work, it's awesome.

I'll try to explain the basics in a couple paragraphs. The code contained inside the .dat file are little pieces of Assembly Language (ASM). Compiled programs, such as Hellfire.exe, exist in this language. ASM contains instructions to be executed directly by your computer's processor.

What most Hellfire modders have done is write changes to its code directly into the executable itself (Helfire.exe). This makes customizing a mod virtually impossible for the average user. PlugUlmo's loader.exe lets me provide the location of data in Hellfire's memory, then tell it what the original code is and what the new code should be. Here's an example from the mod file to illustrate:

Code:
start HF1.01 "Long War Bow - Gains what seems its intended inventory graphic"
4A4858 77 78
end

At memory address 4A4858, change the value from 77 to 78. In this case we're changing what inventory graphic ID is associated with the Long War Bow. This is a very simple change as all we have done is change one number. Some of the other changes are far more complex and involve rewriting sections of game code, or writing new code into empty memory regions when there isn't enough space.

Hope that was what you wanted to know. Smile
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#59
Hello,

I would like to thank you for all your effort, from the bottom of my heart.
I didn't play Diablo for a very long time (i was a kid back then...!!!) and one of my friend mentionned it some days ago.
Since then i can't refrain the urge to play it again. I just downloaded everything and I'll try to make it works when i have some times.

Thank you!

edit : also your website (Khanduras) is awesome sauce. You're truly amazing.
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#60
When I updated the documentation for this mod, I misplaced the link to another little patch I made that fixes some issues with hero graphics (not included in this, since this is Hellfire only and the other works with both D1 and Hellfire). I will repeat the link here for those of you who are following the thread but missed this other offering:

Belix Wrote:You may also be interested in...
Another little patch I made for hero graphics issues, such as the Bard flickering between bright and dark when attacking in plate with dual weapons. You can get that over here in this other thread:
http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/thread-15743.html
Enjoy!



(05-23-2014, 11:16 AM)Zephkiel Wrote: I would like to thank you for all your effort, from the bottom of my heart.
I didn't play Diablo for a very long time (i was a kid back then...!!!) and one of my friend mentionned it some days ago.
You're welcome, though, your thanks might be undeserved until you get it set up and working. Smile

(05-23-2014, 11:16 AM)Zephkiel Wrote: edit : also your website (Khanduras) is awesome sauce. You're truly amazing.
I'm afraid I can't take credit for Khanduras -- qualakon is the mastermind behind that. Smile
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