Community Wad 2015 - Development

[Xander9009]

I wasn't clear. It works using WADs also. No need to move anything. I placed the WAD in the directory and it worked if I remember correctly. I just prefer to keep everything in one file while testing. And I downloaded the latest CW yesterday so I'll go ahead and get a look at the morph code shortly.

Fantastic. Then the art is ready to go, just the cards will need to have their own separate wad or zed (due to the changes). At least we don't have to deal with the art. The cards are negligible by comparison (regarding filesize).

[spirolone]

That's why I suggested replacing cards.

Excuse me if I'm saying something stupid, but what do you mean with "replacing cards"? I think that 1024 cards limit is only for cards we want to use for human player. We have no known limit for total cards in game, and AI should play normally even if we remove old cards from 1024 ones, or I'm wrong?

[Xander9009]

That's why I suggested replacing cards.

Excuse me if I'm saying something stupid, but what do you mean with "replacing cards"? I think that 1024 cards limit is only for cards we want to use for human player. We have no known limit for total cards in game, and AI should play normally even if we remove old cards from 1024 ones, or I'm wrong?

The original way we added cards was by picking a card we didn't want to use and replacing its text. I was meaning that we could replace the cards already in the game to give us more slots. However, thinking about it more, they only use slots and count toward that limit if they're player cards, not AI cards. However, we should still be able to remove cards with the lower IDs and use those now unused IDs for new cards.

[spirolone]

I don't know if it could be usefull, but I made a Java program to import a deck created with RiiakShiNal Deck Builder into profile.
It accepts four argoments: profile file name (default: 1.profile), deck number inside profile (default: 0), deck xml file name (default: DECK_MYDECK.xml), "CardPools" file name (default: CardPools.xml).
In CardPools file I copied ids for standard Magic 2015 cards, but you can edit it as you want (max id number: 1024), but remember that you have to modify CardPools in game too.
Then, remember that RiiakShiNal Deck Builder uses, actually, wad files to read cards from, so you have to create a wad with cards you want to use.

[Tejahn]

Thanks spirolone! And I'm a bit perplexed about WADs and ZEDs. I created a WAD with the same content as official ZEDs and the game read it with no problem. Either format seems to work so I guess it's just a matter of preference.

Also, I noticed that the game recognizes all cards in the 'CARDS' folder even if they're not in the CARD POOL. I was able to generate a custom Token and Liliana, Heretical Healer without including them in the CARD POOL. But to be able to add them to a deck using the deck builder in game the name of their XML has to be included in a CARD POOL XML.

Perhaps this is what we need to do for our XML Managers now.

[Tejahn]

Lurking Arynx - This one is possible in 2015, right?

I'm going back reading through the 2015 forum for things I may have missed.

Yes. I was able to get Avalanche Tusker to work. Additionally, it's been simple for me to enable 2014 WADs to work on 2015. Give them the same folder structure as 2015 and they instantly work after adding them to a CARD POOL XML to make them appear in game. I use the thefiremind 2015 Mod. It's mod ready. Just add the name of your XMLs to the CARD POOL along with putting the XMLs and their Illustrations in the appropriate folders and you're golden.

[Chakan]

Lurking Arynx - This one is possible in 2015, right?

I'm going back reading through the 2015 forum for things I may have missed.

Yes. I was able to get Avalanche Tusker to work. Additionally, it's been simple for me to enable 2014 WADs to work on 2015. Give them the same folder structure as 2015 and they instantly work after adding them to a CARD POOL XML to make them appear in game. I use the thefiremind 2015 Mod. It's mod ready. Just add the name of your XMLs to the CARD POOL along with putting the XMLs and their Illustrations in the appropriate folders and you're golden.

So you're saying that stuff for 2014 works, without changing anything, in 2015 too? Does that mean the whole 2014 Community project can work in 2015? We're just at a stand still with how many cards that can be used in the game at once?

[Tejahn]

Yes. The entire Community Wad or any other project can be added. Everything works. You can even use the WAD format. I tried WAD and ZED and they both worked. As far as the card limit everyone keeps mentioning, I'm not sure there is a limit based on the information that has been gathered. But someone mentioned that it was somewhere over a thousand. I've personally added over a hundred cards (which is nowhere near the 1,000 mark) and the Deck Builder accepts them just fine. The cards are fully functional. I gave a slight example of how I manually add cards in the following link:

Tejahn - How I manually add cards

[thefiremind]

Yes. The entire Community Wad or any other project can be added. Everything works.

That's not 100% true, there are some changes that need to be made. I discovered 2 so far, that you can read in my "Modding tests" topic, but there could be more.

[Tejahn]

In the Tejahn - How I manually add cards link I explained the few minor changes that need to be made and how to make them. I didn't reiterate those changes here in the above post since I provided the link. But I suppose I should have for more clarity. If anyone is going to use WADs, it's important to make sure they follow the same structure as the official ZEDs. Folders and their content in a WAD must be identical to how folders and content are arranged in ZEDs.

The best starting point and the one I use is thefiremind's 2015 Mod. I included a slight explaination here also after authenticating that Avalanche Tusker works. I do apologize for assuming that any modder would gravitate towards thefiremind's 2015 Mod but from my experience TFM always provides the first initiation mods to help beginners and veterans. An example of such is his reply that provided a starting file in the topic Hey! How about a begginers guide 2013?

I hope this clears up any confusion concerning content structure. And be sure to follow his Modding tests (what changed from 2014, what didn't) topic. Myself and others will be posting the results of our test in that thread.

EDIT: Concerning XMLs, below are the two discoveries TFM is referring to. XMLs that use such will need to be updated.

[*]Layer 4 is now called 4B. Be sure to change it when you port a DotP2014 card, or it won't work.

[*]card:Reveal() doesn't exist anymore: now the cards to reveal need to be put in a chest and then you call player:RevealToMe(chest).

I also erroneously assumed others had read this as well. There are probably more things we've not noticed also but so far all the cards I've tested work.

I'll look at official and unofficial cards from both games using an XML comparison app to highlight the differences. That way, we can narrow down the differences.