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Silver_fox

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Silver_fox last won the day on December 15 2015

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  1. Big thanks to Hooyaah and SX for running this thread. It made me smile when it was just starting and it still does. I went through all the pages again and was once again amazed by the amount of beautiful designs and psychedelic bugs that are abound in this game. Makes me want to play Sacred 2 again as well as to unearth the screenshots I have saved from my many previous playthroughs. A special "thank you" goes to Hooyaah for finally answering the question of whether or not there are any foxes in Ancaria. Back in the day when CM Patch developers were adding animals to their MP Island zoo, Marcuswob said that every developer, designer, translator or other crew member can be represented by any small creature that exists in the game world. I never asked for a special beast, but somebody thought to put me here as my namesake nevertheless, which made people look for foxes in Ancaria. At the time none were found, and I was amazed to find out that czevak and Marcus made one specially for the zoo (out of a small wolf, I believe). And now you found out that there are supposed to be some of these animals running in the woods (and probably swamps) of the game world. It makes me kind of happy to know that my personal animal is not a sole member of its species. Also, recently I met this most interesting fellow: This encounter reminded me that it's been more than a year since a certain well-respected Temple Guardian placed an order with my small item-crafting enterprise, but the item in question still hasn't been shipped to its rightful owner. I decided to remedy this sad fact as soon as possible. Putting it simple, I'm currently inventorying my unfinished modding projects with a plan to complete and release them to the general public. But just in case I get caught and eaten by some real-life emergency once again, and won't be able to release all the items properly, I'll leave the models of the explorer's hat and Inquisitor's hood modified for TG's doggy stature right here. The hood (which was obviously inspired by SX's current avatar) can be seen in the above picture, and hopefully can serve as "I'm sorry for taking so long" gesture. I'll just say that SX never ceases to amaze me with his drawings - they are very amusing and very fitting at the same time (one would think a Shadow TG working for the Inquisition during the main campaign ought to get one of their customary robes). The download contains the models only - they are linked to Ascaron's original textures. I'm still planning to make them a part of a proper mod a bit later, but for now I'll just leave them there: Download Link
  2. It's good to hear that you decided to add all available skills to the list. At least now players won't be asking why you added one skill and not another. However I'm not sure about window height value that would fit everybody. Which UI design are you currently using? Is it the D2F one? I'm asking because with the default CM Patch UI and fonts the window height of 620 looks like this (both with and without UI scaling): Maybe it's just a weirdness on my laptop's part, or maybe different UI frames actually do affect the size of the space available inside the windows.
  3. Hello again, Flix. It's really great to see that you're still doing the mods for this game. It's a bit sad that its community is not as active as it once was, so I decided to drop by and give you a heads-up on the new version of the Spell Mod. Adding new skills is a great idea as it adds more character build opportunities and for some people might warrant a few more playthroughs. I would have suggested adding everything for everybody just for variety's sake, but I know that some things are technically impossible, or at least incredibly hard (the High Elf is not going to Dual Wield unless you spend an insane amount of time making animations for that). As it is, your list looks reasonable and I'd say to go for it, but like Shadowflare I would have suggested to add all three remaining offensive skills to DM's roster as well as maybe throwing in Hafted for seraphim and Staffs for SW. I wonder what's the reason for the limitation? Do you think it unbalanced to give them a greater amount of skills? If you feel limited by the technical side of the business, like fitting all skills in the window, then it's not hard to remedy, at least in DM's case. If you actually removed Pacifism from the game, then DM should have 4 Basic Defensive skills and only 2 Advanced ones. You can shift Spell Resistance to the Advanced level and thus free some room in the window (it's a personal opinion, but I can't think of character whose only defensive skill is Spell Resistance). Alternately you can make the window slightly bigger to accommodate the changes (that's what I did in my game when I thought about expanding the amount of skills). To do so you need to edit Attributes.xml from skin-xml: look for where it says "CWindow name="skilloverview"" and change height from 590 to 640 or 650 (640 is enough for everything to fit, but you might think that 650 looks slightly better). That adds enough space for one more row of skills but keeps the window small enough to fit the screen well at 720p (I've never seen this game running at 800x600 and even if this resolution is possible, I don't think that many people would try it nowadays). Anyway, regardless of what you'd decide with the skills, I'll be looking forward for the new version of the mod. I was going to recommend it to my friends next time we think about playing Sacred 2 co-op, so it's great to know that the more polished version is on the way.
  4. Well, if asking one human to enslave another seems strange to you, then what about asking a Seraphim to do it? I mean the Seraphims are considered to be noble warriors of light, and one would suppose a holy warrior should be irritated by such ignoble request. And yet the guy who offers this quest would offer it to everybody regardless of appearance. He probably just thinks that all wandering adventurers are rogue outcasts who only care about the money and that his money is as good as everybody else's. If you are playing a Light Path char, you quickly prove him wrong by demonstrating that some adventurers do put morals above the money. By the way, it seems to be a common attitude among Tyr Lysia questgivers - if you are playing the Dryad you even have some people openly assume that you are adventuring due to being unfit to stay home and treat you as a renegade. As for the Dragon Mage - there are several characters who are openly called "Dragon Mages" in game. The playable character appears to be human (round ears, sturdy body and so on), and, as Flix said, is formally classified as such. Three other Dragon Mages he encounters during his quest (Gemblik, Fangil and nameless Dragon Mage Adept you find on the road) share the human appearance with the playable character, and the fourth (Varmin) is a definite High Elf. On the other hand these characters do not ever call themselves anything other than the Dragon Mages, and put a lot of value in being chosen and mentored by the Dragons. We are never told how the Dragons choose their apprentices, so it might be that there are Dragon Mages who belong to different races, and the different look of the guys encountered during the Dragon Mage's class quest seems to support this theory. From the journal entries and spoken comments, the playable Dragon Mage appears to be rather sarcastic and looking down on pretty much everybody except for Dragons. He is not kind toward humans, but his remarks on the High Elves he meets during his class quest are no better, and let us not start on goblinoids. So it appears that being a Dragon Mage is a cultural thing - their race is secondary if it matters at all. The Dragon Cultists of the Dragon Sea Islands are Elves for sure, but they are never actually called Dragon Mages. They are described as "dragon worshipers" and appear to be the servants of the Dragons but it is never mentioned that the Dragons teach them anything or see much value in them at all. They never use much magic, preferring to attack with polearms. From the quest about the conspiracy within the cult we learn that the leaders of the cult are conning their subordinates and only want to rob them of their money, so they are probably charlatans and there might not be any real Dragon Magic behind the cult at all. Then again, some of the cultists - certainly not all of them - might be actual Dragon Mages. In the end it's up to the player whether or not to think of the Dragon cult and the Dragon Mages as related groups. The game leaves room for both opinions. One more angle that might be worth considering is that there are two locations themed around Dragons and their followers - the Island in the Jade Sea where the playable character starts and the caves under the Dragon Sea Islands. In the first place you meet a couple of human-looking Dragon Mages, and the second one is populated by elven Dragon Cult. So it's possible that the southern Dragons choose their apprentices from some human tribe, and the northern Dragons from the elven cultists. My personal opinion is that the playable Dragon Mage is technically (biologically) human, but he renounced his origin when he was chosen to be apprenticed with the Dragons. Now that his study is complete, he considers himself a superior being and would be offended if someone bundles him up with the commoners of Artamark who never had an honor to talk to a Dragon let alone study from one. Then again, the Sacred 2 lore is a bunch of confusing and mutually contradicting texts - you can read rather different descriptions of the world, its races and events depending on which character you play and which path you follow - so every player can make everything he wishes out of it.
  5. Removing CM patch v150 is pretty easy. You can do it by running cm-disable executable that is included in the CM Patch download, or by downloading and running CM Reset tool from here (https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6mWJPtqErDcdFJfR1VlM202ek0&usp=sharing&tid=0B6mWJPtqErDcSkg0eGdubGdVaHM) The separate reset tool would only come handy if you modded the game after installing CM and cm-disable does not run correctly. Otherwise, the regular CM patch package with enable and disable executable files has all you need. However, disabling CM patch won't help you link to the console. The console version is Fallen Angel without expansion or patches, so PC Gold version without CM is already different from it.
  6. Since I'm doing 3D modelling and new visuals for characters and items for Diablo 2 Fallen, I guess this question is more to me than to Flix, who has his hands full working on mechanics, spells, stats, lore and pretty much everything else. Well, it's not the first time such suggestion comes up. Some time ago in Item Mod thread there also were requests to re-create Sacred 1 sets. I agree that many of these items were awesome and unique-looking, but re-making their models and textures to match the quality standards of Sacred 2 is going to be a difficult and time-consuming project. It's not an undertaking I want to plan for the nearest future, and certainly not for Diablo 2 Fallen. For this mod the goal is to create items visually or at least stylistically similar to what can be seen in Diablo 2, especially things that won't be fitting in Sacred 2 otherwise (for example, it does not make sense for the Dragon Mage to wear Druid pelts, but they are the most logical choice of equipment for the Druid). And items from Sacred 1 can fit into a world of Sacred 2 any other day, they don't need to be a part of a Diablo-themed mod to do so. Thank you very much. The pictures Flix posted are from work in process, so the final set for the Amazon might be slightly different in appearance. I'm planning to add leg armor and make a different helmet because the one pictured has been already implemented as Griffon's Eye unique, but the overall style of the set would remain the same.
  7. Actually, Gilberticus is right. There is a slight glitch in the wings textures. I noticed it too, and tried to tell about it during the internal testing of the Item Mod. But I got the same answer that the set never looked differently, and was not able to pinpoint the issue myself, so I let it slide. Now I found that the culprit is the volume texture. On most computers, when the game starts up, there is a slight delay in the loading of the volume maps and application of volume and fur effects. So you really see the base texture for a few seconds, then the volume map applies and you suddenly see black spots where there were none. Maybe on more powerful machines there is no such delay, so some people see the applied volume instantly and can never guess that the coloring might be different. That is how the wings look without volume texture (very flat, but the point is to notice the coloring): And that's how they look after the volume map is applied (notice the black spots with straight edges in the back view): The reason for the difference in looks is trivial - Sacred's game engine does not support mip maps for volume textures, and Pesmontis saved the wings' texture with mip map generation turned on (because it should be turned on for all other kinds of item textures). So while the volume map was originally created to match the diffuse texture, the engine interprets it differently, considering the area of the image filled with scaled down mip maps as part of the main texture, and applies the result a bit strangely. If you re-save the volume map with mip map generation turned off, that's how the wings would look: By the way, for the diffuse textures (and other textures for which the engine supports mip mapping) it does not matter if you turn the mip map generation on or off - the result looks visually the same. When you see the difference, it means that the engine does not support this function for the particular kind of texture, and therefore the save setting should be "off". EDIT: I attached the re-saved volume map for those who might want to try it out. You just need to extract the DDS file from the archive, and drop it to the folder named "pak\mq\maps\heroes\seraphim\sets\genesis" inside your game installation. n90vol.zip
  8. I'm not a GIMP user myself, so the only thing I can advise is to check GimpChat for appropriate tutorials. Their tutorial index can be found here: http://gimpchat.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5148 There seems to be a couple of tutorials about adding the alpha channel here, maybe they'd help.
  9. Making a certain part of the armor invisible using textures is possible, but not for all armors. For some of them you really need to edit the model itself if you want to get rid of some parts. As far as I know, you should not have trouble with editing Angeldust set, but for other items, it's better to open itemtype.txt, search it for the model that is used for the item in question, and check the list of flags. If FLAG_EQUIPCUT is present, it means that the character's body is not rendered beneath the armor, and therefore making some parts of such armor invisible can effectively cut holes in the character. Does not mean that such items can not be edited, only that you should be careful with them. To make a part of armor or weapon invisible using its textures, you need to do the following: Open the diffuse (_d) texture and check if it has alpha channel. Add it if it is not present. Editing the alpha channel, you need to color the parts that you want to remove black, and all the other parts white. Open surface.txt (found in scripts\client inside the game's folder) and find the surface entry for the item you are editing. To do so, you can simply search the file for the name of the texture without the extension (for example, for the Angeldust torso, searching for "c_sera-angeldust-torso_d" gives you the correct surface entry) Check the flags. If the surface entry has SURFACE_FLAG_MASKED on the list, then no change is required. However, if it has SURFACE_FLAG_OPAQUE, it should be changed to SURFACE_FLAG_MASKED. Save the texture, save the script and check in game. Note that the changes to textures can be done while the game is running and they are applied in game as soon as game's renderer reloads the texture. But any changes to scripts should be done when the game is not running and would apply only on the next launch. Note that if the item has fur or t-energy effects, making some parts of it invisible might be troublesome, because these two effects also use the alpha channel of the diffuse texture.
  10. With I&B addon, more and more people began advocating for the active usage of Regeneration Per Hit socketables to recharge the combat arts of melee and ranged fighters. It really is a good approach, and if you take it investment in Stamina becomes unnecessary. Another approach is to push Chance to halve regeneration time to 100%. But if you don't have Bargainer characters to supply you with good RPH and Chance to halve rings and amulets and/or plan to fill your sockets with something else, Stamina can come in handy. Unlike Strength, Stamina had not become redundant with the expansion, because it still has noticeable effect, but the items can do better job at reducing the regen times. So take your pick - it actually depends only on how much gear-dependent you want your character to be and how much time you plan to spend hunting for the said gear.
  11. To be able to start the game at difficulties that are not supposed to be unlocked yet, you can do the following: - Open balance.txt script that can be found in the "scripts/server" subfolder of the main folder where the game is installed. - Find the string that says: LevelMinForDiff = {1,1,60,100,140}, and change all numbers to 1. That would allow any character to create and enter Multiplayer games of any difficulty. - Go to Multiplayer lobby and start the LAN game with the character you want, teleport to Sloeford, save at the monolith, and exit to the main menu. - Now, if the character you have was made for Singleplayer, you can go back to Singleplayer and press Continue with the character - it would start a new Singleplayer campaign at the same difficulty at which you started in Multiplayer before. If it was a Multiplayer character, this step is not even necessary, you can continue playeing after the previous one. Alternately, you can get the Character Editor tool here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6dnJV_74z7jTU9oajlPa2s5NlE/edit?usp=sharing open your savefile with it, set the "Difficulty reached" parameter to Niob, save and exit. However, if your character's save is already bugged, editing it with this tool can make the situation worse, so it's better to backup the savefile before trying.
  12. If you are building a close combat fighter, than survivability would be much more important than whatever damage increase you can get from stats, so vitality+willpower is a good choice. Damage bonus from stats is not as big as what you can get simply by keeping your weapons at optimal item level, and extra defense never hurts. For a Seraphim or a Temple Guardian who use energy shield buffs willpower becomes better investment than vitality because it boosts the shield as well as magic resistance. If you are building a ranged character and considering a glass canon approach, putting some points to dexterity can be a valid choice, but for melee characters it's simply not worth it.
  13. The Item Mod replaces nothing in the game. It simply adds to the variety. The Mod added a large number of new models to the pool of random items because they were not interesting enough to make them into new uniques, but it set them to spawn alongside the original random models, not to replace them. Everything that was originally present in game can still spawn just like it did before Item Mod and CM v150. Also, for everybody who struggles to install CM v150 over V140hf - while complete reinstall of course helps to solve the issue with CM not being able to update itself correctly, it is not always necessary. Some time ago Marcuswob uploaded a CM Reset tool which can return any version of the game to vanilla I&B 2.65.2. You can grab the tool from his Google Drive here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6mWJPtqErDcdFJfR1VlM202ek0&usp=sharing&tid=0B6mWJPtqErDcSkg0eGdubGdVaHM
  14. File Name: Christmas Cap File Submitter: Silver_fox File Submitted: 24 Dec 2014 File Category: Fallen Angel General Items This chest contains a festive item present in Sacred 2 - the Christmas Cap that is present in game files, but can not drop normally and can be only accessed via modding, or using this chest file. The chest contains the Cap for the six original characters and is compatible with the base game. It is not clear whether the Cap was added in the same patch which adds the Christmas Sets or before it, therefore it's recommended to open this chest with fully patched version of Fallen Angel or Ice and Blood. The information below applies to all versions. Item levels: Bronze difficulty: Level 1 The Christmas Cap has no bonuses and no value besides its looks, so only one version per character was packaged in the chest. Instructions: The chest file should be extracted from this archive and copied to the savegame folder. The location of the savegame folder is given below. For Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<userID>\My Documents\Saved Games\Ascaron Entertainment\Sacred 2 For Windows Vista and Windows 7: C:\Users\<userID>\Saved Games\Ascaron Entertainment\Sacred 2 Be sure to back up your existing chest.sacred2chest file before doing anything! Installing this file will overwrite the Shared tab in your player chest. Click here to download this file
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