Intro! - How to get started.

[Xander9009]

If you're new to modding the Duels of the Planeswalkers games, then it can be a little daunting to get everything running the way it should be. This simple guide should direct you where you need to go for the information you need to get started.

First up, what is a mod for DotP? | Open

For the purposes of DotP, "a mod" is a file with the extension ".wad". That's the file type the game uses, and it's what we package all of our files inside of. It's an archive, like ".zip" or ".rar".

Where do I get the mods? | Open

There is, generally speaking, only one mod you need for playing DotP 2014, which is the Community Wad (that's the thread for discussing it). It contains all of the mods that came before it and is the only actively updated mod at the time of writing this. To see how best to install the CW, as it's usually referred to because we're lazy typists, there's a website specifically devoted to it here, which contains instructions for installing it. While there is a separate site for the mod, it's best to try to keep as much of the discussion here or in the Discord channel.

What is the Community Wad | Open

It's a massive mod containing thousands of cards, with nearly every card that the game's engine allows the possibility of using. It's been contributed to by several modders and kept updated as new sets have been released by a handful of people. It also has an associated deck catalog which users have made and shared. These can be seen on the CW's website and downloaded from Google Drive, which provides the backbone of the bandwidth requirements of the CW. The CW itself, however, is only the cards themselves and the files needed for those cards to work. It does not inherently include any decks.

What else do I need, besides the CW? | Open

The Community Wad contains every official card that's been coded for DotP 2014, so no other mods are really needed. The closest you'll get to possibly needing another mod is RiiakShiNal's Manual Mana Functions mod. The functions themselves are included already, but if you find that you want your basic lands to always have the manual-tap ability, then installing that will do so.

That said, there are a couple of other files you'll need. You'll need the DLL and the deck builder. There are a few other things you might want, such as if you want the deck builder to update automatically, but they're covered in the installation guide on the CW's website, as is the DLL and a link to the Deck Builder.

There might be some mods you find that you want the deck from. However, it's better to convert a deck for the CW than it is to simply install the other mod. Other mods ended up with unfixed bugs and they may conflict in other ways with the Community Wad. Because of its nature, it's not advised that you run other mods.

Sometimes, though, there's another mod you really want that isn't part of the CW, such as custom card wads. NeoAnderson, for instance, made a few of these. For this, you'll need to ask about each individually.

So, what is the Deck Builder | Open

Several deck builders have been made for DotP 2014, but when we say Deck Builder, we're referring to Riiak Shi Nal's. It's the most powerful, and it has the most useful features, including error checking for many of the most common causes of crashes. The deck builder itself has its own wiki created by Riiak, and you can find that here. You should definitely try to get acquainted with the program, since it's an invaluable piece of software for modding the game. It's still being updated occasionally.

It also got a couple of very small updates that didn't make the wiki, yet. With a card highlighted in the main card list (the list that changes when you filter), you can press backspace to remove a copy of that card from your deck, or press delete to remove all copies of it.

What about the wiki? | Open

The wiki here on this site was created as time went on by many users mostly focused on the original release of the game. When sequels came out, they'd switched to the sequels, but the older wiki pages had no information detailing which game they were for. Unless something about a page specifically marks it as being for 2014, it very well might not apply to that game. And even then, the wiki is only partly complete. There is a lot of information missing from it. If you learn something and would like to update the wiki to include it, everyone will be quite happy to see it getting some love.

So what if I have more questions? | Open

First, try this FAQ. Then, since you can't necessarily trust everything the wiki says since it can be difficult to tell which version of the game it's for, the best way to find information that's already known is to search the DotP 2014 forum. If that doesn't work, then ask in either a forum post or in the Discord channel. There might not be many of us at the time of writing this, but we try to help out as much as we can. We recognize how daunting it can be to mod a new game, especially when there isn't a ton of documentation on it.