Add over-5-PC crack to new release . . . yes or no?

My point about all this was...

Think about the end-users who aren't "hackers". HOW many questions are asked here about the order to patch things in, and how many problems have come up for people because that order wasn't followed originally?

I'm not trying to be provicial and snotty about "end-users", here. My point is, they want to add a patch, and just have it work, most of the time. People can't be bothered to read docs, or remember details, they pretty-much just want to PLAY. And I can really understand that point of view.

So it's best (IMHO) to make this an option for the "hackers" of the group who have to read at least *something* to enable it, and therefore should have SOME idea about the risks of doing so.

I'm all-for having the option, but not something that can crash the game if you "don't know what you're doing" being turned on automatically for every end-user to get bitten by.

-- dulcaoin

 

The thing is, even it's turned on, it's not obvious you can have more than 5 PCs. Only 5 slots show up in the party management screen. So people would have to read the documentation that says "Hey, you can now use more than 5 PCs, this is how it works" which could also include "If you try to have more than 8 total party members, the game will crash."

 

I'd like to ask once more whether the .exe can be hacked to allow for a command-line option to determine whether the hack is enabled or not.

Or perhaps reading an environment string?

I realize that the space for mods in this manner is getting tight, and the space might be better used in some other way...

An alternative might be to create a patcher .exe that will do the "dirty work" of installing the hack in a somewhat intelligent manner, so it doesn't have to keep getting "hacked in" with new releases (I'm presuming that the file offset to patch in the value has been changing?)

-- dulcaoin

 

Patcher EXE now available

OK, I created a patcher .EXE to solve this problem. But I can't upload, it's 215KB, and the limit on .zip's here is 100KB (huh? Anyway...)

If anyone wants a copy e-mailed (especially Morpheus, so we can upload for everyone), please PM me.

-- dulcaoin

 

As a regular player and not a hacker, I would say just put something in the faq about scenarios where npcs come in packs and add the hack OR just limit the amount to 7...

 

The .EXE I created today allows you to specify any number from 1 to 8 to be patched in. You click a button, browse to your temple.dll (and you're ONLY allowed to pick files by that name), and it opens it up and displays the current value in an edit-box, complete with spinner control (hey -- I'm all ABOUT lazy here ). You can change the value to anything between 1 and 8, and click a second button to update the value in your temple.dll (the old copy is backed up for you automatically to temple.dll.bak). It's about as straightforward as I can make it.

Oh, yeah, it checks the previous 6 byte values for the specificly correct pattern, to try to ascertain that it's patching THE right temple.dll in THE right spot, too (I'm also ABOUT thoroughness).

Now I just need to get it uploaded here to the board. Morpheus, help me out...

Once people have tested it and like it, it can become a part of the dist if people like. Lots smaller (and flexible) than two copies of temple.dll hanging around...

-- dulcaoin

 

Neat. Check your PMs, dulcaoin.

 

I've uploaded dulcaoin's excellent ToEE PC Count Patcher:

http://www.co8.org/files/tools/TOEE_PCCount_Patcher.zip

It worked fine for me, please test this nifty little tool and post your opinions, people.

 

I agree, this is the correct way to do it.

 

Nice!

Dulcaoin's patcher worked great for me. Thanks alot!!

 

Glad to do it, easiest program I ever wrote. spOOL gets the real credit, though. I'm just standing on the shoulders of giants when it comes to the patch location.



(Borland gets a large heaping of credit too, they made such a program terribly easy to write).

-- dulcaoin