Building a new Magic TG - DotP CD-rom

[hip63]

Hello all,

Just posting here to let everyone know that I'm working with Huggybaby on a new updated Magic DotP CD-Rom with a brand new installer, reworked Autorun Menu and a New Tutorial Viewer.

DVD Features:
-----------------
Professional grade installer created with Installshield 2008. Allows the user full control of the installation.

Reworked Autorun Menu featuring animated splash screen and original CD art work and sounds.

New Tutotrial Viewer, sorry but only the AVIs are displayed at this time. I'm trying to figure out a way to grab the other animations but this is proving to be very difficult and may not be possible.

Installer Features:
---------------------
The new installer presentation borrows the slide show and music from it predecessor that we have all come to expect when installing magic. So it "feels" like you are installing an old friend.

All the original reg entries are created by the installer.

The full game is installed already patch with mana link 201 plus all the card latest community card packs!

A new Magic the Gathering Launcher Application. The allows for starting the Deck Builder, Magic or Shandalar directly from the Launcher as well options for enabling and disabling the Magic Key in the registry. The Manuals can also be viewed from the Launcher.

However the BIG feature of the new installer is the fact that it automatically installs Smiling Spectre's ACT Fix WITHOUT having to install and use the MS Application Compatibility Toolkit. It's all done silently and yes it has been throughly tested.

And all of this will still fit on a single CD-Rom.

hmmm... not a bad first post!

BTW - This is all Huggybaby's fault!

hip63

[Bog Wraith]

Ya, we know what a trouble maker that Huggy is!
You have to watch him, closely, all the time!

Welcome aboard hip63. I've talked with Huggy about your enthusiastic involvement in getting this DVD install created and I've been psyched since hearing about it.

I love reading what you've included in the install so far and look forward to the finished version.

Again welcome to ManaLink and to our great community who love this amazing game that refused to die!
It's guys like you and the tremendous group of programmers we have here that will guarantee this game will be rebuilt and get better all the time.

[Huggybaby]

Welcome hip63 (aka Major Hippie), thanks for joining the CCGHQ team!

As a brief intro, the hipster is responsible for bunches of custom game installers, which include but are not limited to:

1) Fighter Squadron Screamin' Demons Over Europe We released this torrent 88 weeks 2 days 14 hours and 52 minutes ago, and it's still going strong which I'm quite proud of. You never know when a torrent is really going to take off. The success of this one may be due to the fact that there were and continue to be zero other FS:SDOE torrents available, so this game was rescued from oblivion. Or maybe people in Japan love the game. I have a suspicion that it has a following somewhere besides America.
Hippie really upgraded it with all kinds of mission packs and terrain and extra vehicles and compatibility fixes, so it's actually way better than the original game.

2) As a follow up, he just released the Fighter Squadron World War 1 Plane Pack 5 All-in-One DVD ISO.

3) Here's The Babylon Project DVD he did, with some neat installer pictures. He also did a Freespace 2 DVD I think but I can't find it.

I'd like to thank Smiling Spectre for his ACT Fix too. There are lots of posts about it on the net, but no good links. Well, I was able to raise him on ICQ and he graciously searched his hard drive and provided us with it, so another piece of history has been rescued.

We could use your help with this new installer. Hip63 wants to make the Tutorials viewable from outside the game. You can watch the tutorial AVI's no problem, but there are example cards that pop up during the tutorial and the game does the compositing. This effect is NOT viewable just by watching the AVI's. So I think the tutorials need to be played in-game and then RE-captured. If anyone has a fast new machine and some video capture experience, please help us out. OR, if anyone can figure how to make the videos play using Tutorial.exe outside the game, that would probably work too. I get "Script error: Handler not defined, #FileIO". FILEIO.dll will not register with regsvr32, and that's all I know to try.

<edit> Help Needed 2: Hey Bog Wraith, since you own all these games, we could use some nice color scans of every manual you have. The don't exist and it would be a VERY nice CCGHQ exclusive. Take the staples out and take them to Kinko's or something if you have to. Do it for the gipper! Or you could mail them to extreme or PresetM for expert scanning and processing, only they don't live in Canada.

[hip63]

Well I can't get the tutorials to play in game either, If I could I'd be done already, LOL.

One big question tho, is there any big show stopping issues with new and recent card packs? Becausing I have them currently added and they are one of the sweeter features of the new disc.

hip63

[Huggybaby]

Someone else will have to answer that.

I just tried playing from a clean, unpatched install, and it won't work, it says it needs to be installed when it clearly is. Is this one of those games that has to be run from the D drive? Because my Daemon Tools virtual drive is E:.

[jatill]

One big question tho, is there any big show stopping issues with new and recent card packs? Becausing I have them currently added and they are one of the sweeter features of the new disc.

hip63

By this do you mean will any of the new cards break anything else? They will not.

[hip63]

SWEET!

Ok Bog Wraith and Huggybaby, check your PMs for an important link!

hip63

[Huggybaby]

OK.

And installing from D: didn't work either. Maybe it won't work from a virtual drive.

[Bog Wraith]

Install went very well!

PM'd hip and will be continuing to test this as he works on it.

[hip63]

UPDATE:

I gave the whole thing an overhaul this weekend, added some new features to the disk and I think I just might have the final product on my hands

One major new change to the new Magic CD is that now you have the option to view the video tutorial from the CD to save hard drive space or you can install the video tutorial files to your hard drive for better performance.

I'll have it uploaded to the testers in a couple of days.

hip63

[hip63]

2nd Update!

While it is still a wip, I think I've got the new tutorial viewer worked out to show the animations as well as the videos, but please note that it is not fully interactive like the original. It's more of a "sit back and watch the show kind of thing."

hip63

[Huggybaby]

Excellent work on the tutorials, this will be groundbreaking.

I'm going to add those to the downloads page eventually, so people can see what they've been missing. I think they should go on youtube.

[gmzombie]

is it possible to be a tester on this part of the project..i have to do a new install on my laptop anyways and seen this. just curious

[gmzombie]

i just wanted to say that everything setup correctly...smooth as silk man your doing a great job.

[Tower_Mazer]

Need anymore testers? I would like to see the great work that went into this. I also am curious to see the tutorial. It's nice to see someone take the time to do this for the abandoned games we love and make them better and more professional.