thefiremind wrote:spirolone wrote:I verified it's possible to overwrite a file from a previous archive, so I think we had better to don't edit DATA from 000 to 041 and simply add a new DATA_91.ZED file (as example) obtained from DATA_41.ZED and with all the files we want to change or to add...
Sure it's possible to overwrite a file by making a new copy with the same name... but if you make a DATA_091.ZED with your ZipToZed tool starting from DATA_041, its Header.xml file will still mention DATA_041 as directory. The ZED file name can be probably renamed with no consequences, but I think that they will appear as the same file from the game's perspective and I'm not sure about what side effects this could have.
On a different note, do you think it's possible to modify your ZipToZed so that it can use compressed zip files? I'm not sure about what is the problem in doing it (totally unfeasible or just time-consuming?), I'd just like to know if you think you can do it sooner or later, otherwise I'll start considering other possibilities: for example, putting only illustrations in ZED files (TDX are already compressed so they couldn't be compressed much more anyway), and all the rest in WAD files.
Xander9009 wrote:The next thing, I think, is to figure out what we're going to do about the card limit.
I see 2 possible courses of action:
- We collect all the files we produce (cards, illustrations, functions, text_permanent, etc.) and we keep them organized as they were into a WAD/ZED file, but without creating the WAD/ZED itself. Everyone can download the cards they want and build their package as they want.
- We make a WAD or ZED (or both, see my idea in the paragraph above) with all the files we produce, except for the CardPools XML. Everyone can download the whole package and then build the CardPools XML with the cards they intend to use.
sweetLu wrote:I think with 2015 we need a deck building utility more than ever. I'm not sure of how many of you have used the in game deck builder or not but it can get quite cumbersome. Especially if we are going to increase the card pool to 2 to 3 times it's current size. IMO the best option is to have a deck builder that generates a CardPools XML based on the decks you've made.
On a side note I heard they aren't changing the deck builder for Duels Origins. While this probably won't be an immediate problem I think it'll compound into something unmanageable if the expansions are as large as some people claim and are continually added to the DO engine.
This is largely what I was thinking. My main concern is with how multiplayer will be handled.
I can write tools to do all of the file management, but AHK would be a pretty bad language to write a complex GUI like what would be needed for a deck builder. I'm also not very good with other languages, so that would be up to someone else (I would be willing to attempt it, but I have no doubts it would be bug prone and sloppy due to my inexperience with such things).And what happens to the decks you've created if you change the card pool? Do they remain intact or do they show cards based on index, and thus changing cards would give those indices to new cards, causing existing decks to change? (I find the latter much more likely.) Will the deck builder only need to modify the card pool, or will it need to make an xml (something similar) for each deck, and then modify the profile after any changes to make the deck appear, or what? AHK can do binary input and output, but not very efficiently. I might need someone's help (be it spirolone or thefiremind, both of you seem competent with python, which appears to handle binary editing well).
Riiak's deck builder already reads directories, so we could potentially just use that. Put the cards in a directory for the deck builder to read, make a deck, and output to wad or directory. Run a tool to process the game folder's decks by making the appropriate card pool and modifying the profile, and we should be set, at least for single player.
Since the art apparently needs to go in a zed file, we should be able to convert the art wads to zeds instead, and then they should be pretty much usable right off the bat (they only contain tdx files and headers).
Man it'd be nice if we could figure out how to remove or get around the card limit. Does the limit affect the loading of the game or duels, or does it only affect viewing collections of cards? Because if it only affects viewing collections of cards (such as the deck editor), then we might be able to manage the decks using only the deck builder and a tool to write those decks into the profile. Doing so might be a workaround for the limit. Unfortunately, we'd need to figure out how to add a deck to the profile directly before we could actually test it. If it worked, then we'd have access to however many cards we want, we just wouldn't be able to modify the decks in-game. We'd only be able to do so through an external editor, but considering that's 100% of the deck management many of us already used for a long time in 2014, that's not too bad. Losing the in-game deck editor would suck, but if it means not having a card limit, it might be worth it. It's definitely worth knowing, either way.
Tejahn wrote:Excellent! The CW for 2015 will help us stay organized. I'm still waiting for the official thread so I can know how we will structure things. Thanks again for the creature types TFM!
And I agree with sweetLu. We definitely need a deck builder for 2015.
Made.