At the moment it is based on ERM from WoG, but if someone wants to help out it would be greatly appreciated by the project members! 
Someone will be here soon to explain a little about it.
Best regards,
Steven.
The succession wars mod, is a mod for heroes 3 with all graphics converted to look like in heroes 2. Of course, the mod is not just graphics, almost everything is changed in the gameplay. The game is like heroes 2, but with more options and more variety that heroes 3 has, like all creatures having upgrades, more upgrades, and much more.
It’s not really easy to explain it until you see it. So you are free to ask any questions you want, and it’ll be much easier for me to explain it. There is an old video from the beginning of the mod’s development, the mod looks much better now. I’ll post a link later if you want to see it.
I think it would make sense if you explained what kind of help you need and what is there to do.
I have played a little with the mod and the graphics give a special magic-land feeling to the game (imo). I would prefer them over the H3 ones.
From what I understand, the mod is more than just H3 with H2 graphics. Frankly I think a lot of people will be just interested in playing plain old sod (or whatever mod), spliced with just H2 like graphics, interface and maybe sounds and nothing else.
So my proposition would be for VCMI to split things in 2 mods:
- HeroesII-like look and sound for H3.
- Whatever else.
HeroesII-like look and sound for H3 would be a nice cool thing to show off in VCMI screenshots.
I would volunteer time for “porting” as a mod the first one to VCMI. But I will need lots of help in starting all this.
Can anyone with more insite provide an overview on what is possible with just mods and what would need code changes and to what degree of complexity? Would the interface mod be feasible at all or is it too hard-coded?
Are you asking only about UI?
That depends on what you want to change. You can replace images used in UI but you can’t change position of elements or their function. Implementing these feature will required large amount of work.
And considering that all H3 gui consists from image you can completely overhaul UI appearance without editing code.
The first part would be only graphics replacements. (UI, map, map objects, castles, creatures, battlegrounds, spellbook). But each element replaced would have the same functionality. (A save button is a save button but with different graphics). A griffin is still a griffin with same stats and all but with different animations, icons, maybe sounds also. etc.
So If positioning of gui elements would be moved to modding it will work?
If you don’t need to change positioning then such mods will work as it - just add image with same name into your mod.
In case of replacing moddable objects graphics (towns, creatures, etc) you can instead replace path to image/animation.
It would be great to move UI positioning into mods (or more precisely - into config files) but this not easy as it sounds - coding this feature is relatively simple but you need to apply it to every GUI class that we have right now. This is huge amount of work.
Mod system already permits changing of built-in creatures stats and abilities, so just placing Succession Wars files to root of //Content/Data, /Sprites will help replace H3 graphics by H2 graphics, and changing creatures through json will help make them as H2 creatures.
Only difficulty - is a lot of time needed to convert it.
Also town building coordinates changed, so they also must be ajusted
I started making just a town mod for the H2 mod, but it takes me a lot of time, and I’m not really sure how to make everything.
I am trying to make right now mods for the original factions (castle, tower, etc). But it will take some days.
He is talking about Succession Wars conversion, it’s a graphics and balance of Heroes 2 in H3.
If you already made some big work, could you tell me which areas have you already made or started working on? Just so I don’t do the same thing, it would be useless. If you started making castle, then I should do something else, though I don’t know how, I just look at the mod format.
No, I didn’t started yet, just prepared files.
I think I will start from middle of next week.
By the way, to save you time on town screen buildings coordinates: find file “Succession Wars.erm”, there is a function
"!?FU6704; //building moving function"
If building’s coordinates change from standart, there is a record like:
"
!!VRy1:S0; //city (e.g. Castle)
!!VRy2:S32; //building ID (pikeman)
!!VRy6:S2; //frames num in new def
!!VRy3:S330; //new x
!!VRy4:S250; //new y"
So right coordinates for pikeman building are x:330, y:250
How’s the work going?
I couldn’t start doing something this week.
Hope next week will be more free to convert some towns.
By the way, on SW site there are new screenshots - seems they redrawed war machines to H2 style and made siege screen for Castle:
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/7828/37880290.png
If you are wondering about my making SoD as mod stuff…
There are some points where the modding system still needs some touches so that SoD or H2 mod will work without to many workarounds. (imo).
Here an update on the .json s I’ve made for castle faction (I will finish the code part that moves the original files in 1-2 days and then I will start with the other factions).
I still am offering to do the 1’st conversion step (graphics only).
By the way, if someone wants to help, there is a need to make all Succession Wars heroes with their specialities, bios as mod for VCMI.
There are 156 heroes, but some of them have portraits of standart H3 heroes, so they can be left behind or have portraits replaced by some portraits from endless packs.