After long time since last release I finally built this development release.
Changes were mostly in the inner engine workings:
new filesystem by Ivan. I guess he’ll be willing to write a few words about new possibilities it opens.
Warmonger finished commanders (they have now level-up window), added new quest window dialog and did numerous improvements to the adventure AI.
I’ve rewritten battle callbacks and expect to start work on the new battle AI soon.
As always, please correct me if I made a mistake or missed something.
The layout of the package has been changed to follow ERA’s convention. Thanks to that our resources no longer affect H3 installation. Please check if I did the package right. Please check if there are no issues with extracting it over older versions.
The 0.9 reelase is expected on October 1st. More development builds are to be expected before that.
First of all - two example mods:
New main menu by Dru, repackaged as mod.
Fully 32-bit, does not uses any .def files - they were replaced by json files. dl.dropbox.com/u/22372764/vcmi/ … w-menu.zip
Two simple creature replacement mods. Both creatures are part of HotA mod (orc and halbedier).
Despite that both mods replace icon in .def file these mods are not conflicting with each other. VCMI allows to replace single frame from .def file. No more .def rebuilding dl.dropbox.com/u/22372764/vcmi/ … atures.zip
Apart from this VCMI and WoG data files are also handled as mods.
How it works:
VCMI loads all resources from game root directory using file config/filesystem.json
Engine looks for any additional filesystem.json files in “mods/mod name/” directories
Each of these files is loaded in the same way as main one
After this all files can be accessed in exactly same way no matter where they are located: in game archive (lod\vid\snd), in “game root/data” directory or in one of mods.
For example you can create map pack and place it into .lod archive - this will work.
Differences from Era:
load order is determined only by mod name. User-defined load order is still todo.
no automatic loading of archives due to mismatch between H3\ERA and VCMI file systems - everything should be specified in filesystem.json. May change in future along with more complete modding system.
no binary patches or scripts. At some point VCMI will have its own scripting system.
Of course you don’t have to install ERA - VCMI will still work on classic “H3 + WoG” installation as well. The only difference is location of WoG resource files
Looks OK, overwriting old versions should be OK - resources in mods/vcmi/ will override old data.
I like the new file system. Keeps things neat. I guess it will make it way easier for the user to get rid of one mod or another, but simply removing a folder, without the risk of altering anything, and/or the headache of having to trace x files in n folders, like we had so far (that it was safer to just use a clean install if you wanted to get rid of a mod sometimes). Thanks!
One detail though for the 0.9 announcement: it should clearly say that from now on Mods should go only to the new folder. I put Dru’s high res mod in the root again (same as in 0.89), which overwrote mainmenu.json, but this time it led to a crash when I wanted to enter the Single Player menu.
hello, I don’t know where to post ideas or questions on this forum, but I also wanted to ask you a question because I get some errors I usually didn’t get in the older version. For example, I cannot start any campaign, as soon as I press the particular campaign, the game crashes.
There have been some variables exported into config files. If the game doesn’t find them, it might crash. See if you’ve transferred all data and config files from the SVN to your test installation.
Randjan, all you need to install vcmi is to unpack archive from first post. Campaigns are not completely supported right now so try scenarios instead (single player and hotseat should work).
Ivan, thank you. I could post bugs on their proper places, but I don’t know if I need to register on mantis bugtracker or just log in with my VCMI account. Or is there another place for bugs?
