Shandalar 2012 Revisited

[deadsy]

yea even through 2 expansions, this game never got the bugs out did it heh. for all the praise sid meier gets, his bug devs sure were a bunch of bums =) kinda reminds me of blizzard nowadays, releasing beta versions of games and fixing them later if they feel like it hehe. This may be a random bug unrelated to the particular card cast, maybe the game just decided to chomp away my library arbitrarily if its been confirmed that this card has been cast similarly before without any repercussions. To whom it matters, at least i have this logged on the interwebs now. thank you guys again =)

[grizzledmage]

Downloaded the package, double-clicked on the clickme.bat file... and nothing happened.

Four times. Waited ~5 minutes between each trial. Did get a quick ghost image of what appeared to be a DOS window which then immediately disappeared.

Using Windows 7. Any suggestions?

[CirothUngol]

Do you still have the same 3 files you started with?
Clickme!.bat
Shandalar_2012beta.arc
a.___

If so, then something's blocking the BatchFile from executing. Here's the .CMD file:

Code: Select all

@ECHO OFF
CLS
RENAME a.___ Arc.exe
Arc.exe x -display -i2 -mt2 -y Shandalar_2012beta.arc
DEL Shandalar_2012beta.arc
DEL Arc.exe
ArtMod_Default_Shandalar2012.exe
SoundMod_Default_MicroproseOriginals.exe
DEL ClickMe!.bat

All it does is rename the archiver, unarchive the install, run the DefaultMods, then remove the temp files and itself. Do you still have only those three files, instead of a Program folder, ArtMods, SoundMods, etc?

[abkaal]

Hello.
I have a similar problem: when I click "ClickMe.bat" it starts "cmd", creates file "Program" and deletes the rest of itself. I'd like to play this game, so please help.

[CirothUngol]

So, there's nothing in the Program folder?
Apparently, ARC.EXE isn't working on some systems. Go to FreeArc.org and download the windows package (install or portable) and see if you can extract the .ARC file. If so, just click the two "Default" Mods and you should be good to go.

...I'll drop the FreeArc archiver on the next release.

[abkaal]

I know what caused my problem. This program needs quite a lot of RAM(about 400MB). Since I'm using a netbook my IE took too much space. After I turned it off everything worked just fine.
Thank for the help anyway.

Now I have another problem: I can't open "Shandalar.exe". It says that it can't find "MSVCP100.dll" and "MSVCR100.dll". I downloaded both but now there is a problem with something inside MSVCR100.

[CirothUngol]

That figures... I've forgotten just how much memory FreeArc requires on it's highest compression. I'll replace it in the next install.

As for the .DLL issues, just install the Visual C++ Runtimes for your system (x86 or x64) and everything should be fine. You can find them in the WinUpdates folder.

I'm glad you were able to get it to work, and thanx for posting the problem and helping to make the final install that much better. Please let us know if you run into any other issues.

[abkaal]

Thanks for the help. Everything works just fine except 1024x600. The game cuts off lower part of the window, but that's not a problem for me. I just thought I'll let you know.

Thank you very much for the help. Dziękuję bardzo. ありがとうございます。Danke schön... etc.

[zombero]

I notice that when looking at a card's text outside of a duel it is different than the text the card has inside of a duel. Is this intended? Is there a way to get just one or the other?

[Aswan jaguar]

I notice that when looking at a card's text outside of a duel it is different than the text the card has inside of a duel. Is this intended? Is there a way to get just one or the other?

If you want to play only Shandalar=adventure part then download and use the magic the gathering 2010iso and your problem will be solved.This is the best and easy way.

[zombero]

If you want to play only Shandalar=adventure part then download and use the magic the gathering 2010iso and your problem will be solved.This is the best and easy way.

Thanks for the response. I have tried the Shandalar 2010 install, and this does *reduce* the card text differences between duel and the deck builder screen, though there are still some differences. However, I have a few other issues with the 2010 version that seem to be resolved in the 2012 version. I tried following all the instructions for it, but I still can't get the text to show up consistently. When alt-tabbing out of the game, I can't get another window to take priority over the game window. I sometimes get multi-clicks (like when I try to buy food, and I wind up buying 4 food at once). And sometimes the game doesn't full screen (seems to be a known issue).

2012 does have a display issue with the card text being slightly out of alignment for the card's name and type, but thusfar, I haven't had any *gameplay* issues with 2012, I'm just wondering if there's a way to get consistency in the card text, or if there are other options for card text that could be used from other versions.

[CirothUngol]

OK, here we go...

The executable for Shandalar 2012 (ie. Shandalar.exe) uses the file Cards1.dat for all CardInfo. Titles, Names, Rules Text, Flavor Text, Colors, ManaCost, etc. This file is identical to the Cards.dat found in Manalink 1.3.2, and therefore has all the old-skool CardInfo, including all text.

The DeckBuilder is the same one from Manalink 3.0 and uses the file Cards.dat for all CardInfo. I created this file by truncating the new Manalink.csv at CardID#952 (last card available in ML1.3.2), correcting a few misplaced entries (like Clone), altering all the CardName spellings to coincide with Shandalar's specific needs, and running the new .CSV through the Magic_Updater (found in the official Update\Patch).

So to answer your question... Yes, it is possible.
You would have to either edit all the entries in the Shandalar_20111207.csv file to reflect the text you desire and then run it through the Magic_Updater to produce a new Cards.dat for the DeckBuilder, or replace the new DeckBuilder and .DAT file (Deckdll.dll and Cards.dat) with the old ones, which you can find in an old Manalink 1.3.2 install.

The second of the two would by far be the easiest, but you'd lose all of DeckBuilder's new abilities. You'd also have to copy the DeckBuilder.csv file and replace both the \CardArt\ and the \BDArt\ folder with the old ones as well, losing all the new ArtWork for Cards, CardFrames, ManaSymbols, DeckBuilder, etc.

I just tried it and it works, but there are a few incompatibilities with Duel (eg. no ManaSymbols). Like i said... possible, but not easy. You could also just use the DeckBuilder in Manalink 1.3.2 and then move the PlayDecks to Shandalar 2012. That would also work.

2012 does have a display issue with the card text being slightly out of alignment for the card's name and type

That's a font issue. Replacing the \DuelArt\Duel.dat file with the old one should resolve that issue.

[zombero]

Thanks, I went ahead and deleted the post I had regarding this outside of this topic. Sounds like I'd have to do it the first and long way, but it doesn't sound *too* bad, just a day's worth of copy/paste grinding and possibly touch-ups here and there (assuming there are CSVs for both versions of the .dat, I'll have to check it out later).

For the font issue: I'm actually addressing that now I've managed to make some tweaks to the fonts and card arts to produce some better text/card art placements. I can post screenshots in my graphics enhancements thread once I have a finished product. (btw, I'm doing these modifications with the "classic" card arts, not the default ones, though some of these could benefit both)

Am I correct in assuming that there isn't any information readily available on how to do things like: change where the game positions a graphic on the screen, change the dimensions to which the game sets the graphic, or change which graphic the game loads?

[CirothUngol]

...just a day's worth of copy/paste grinding and possibly touch-ups here and there (assuming there are CSVs for both versions of the .dat, I'll have to check it out later)

The .DATs are actually rather different. If you choose to edit the .CSV that comes with Shandalar 2012 you have to use the new Magic_Updater and can only produce a .DAT for the new DeckBuilder, and I've never seen a .CSV for any version of Manalink earlier than ML2.0 circa 2009. You can use the PlayDeck Analyser to convert .DATs to .CSVs, but I'm only certain of it's accuracy on ML2.0 .DATs... and Shandalar uses a ML1.3.2 .DAT file. You might be able to use the ML2.0 utility for creating .DATs (SkyMagic Editor), but personally I've never used it and am unsure if it would work for Shandalar.
If you play with the Shandalar DeckBuilder .CSV, I would recommend changing a few entries first and then running it through the Magic_Updater just to make sure it works before dedicating many hours to the project. It should create these three files required by the new DeckBuilder:
Cards.dat
DBinfo.dat
Rarity.dat.

...of course, if you have any inkling of programming, it would be quite a simple matter to bash out a JustBASIC program to do these substitutions for you. Even if you've never programmed before, I guarantee you could learn to write such a simple app in less time than it would take to do 953 x NumOfFields edits manually. JustBASIC is a simple straight-forward procedural learning-language and comes with some excellent tutorials. A program like this would be 20-30 lines, tops. Some quick PseudoCode:

Code: Select all

OPEN InputFile1
OPEN InputFile2
OPEN OutputFile
WHILE EndOfInputFile1 is NotTrue
    LINE INPUT Variable1$ LeftSide of InputFile1
    INPUT Variable2$ ReplacementField of InputFile2
    LINE INPUT Variable3$ RightSide of InputFile1
    WRITE OutputFile Variable1$ + Variable2$ + Variable3$
END WHILE
CLOSE OutputFile
CLOSE InputFile2
CLOSE InputFile1

END

...I'm tellin' ya, it'll be much faster, and it's absolutely free (as in Free Beer).

For the font issue: I'm actually addressing that now I've managed to make some tweaks to the fonts and card arts to produce some better text/card art placements

Great! If you can come up with a better-looking FontScheme or an accurately updated .DAT file I'd be glad to include 'em, 'cause I spent absolutely no time at all on that. ^_^

Am I correct in assuming that there isn't any information readily available on how to do things like: ...

Nope, not really. Most everything I learned was by trial-and-error. You can grab the Pic Conversion Tools or a set of Pre-Converted BitMaps so that you can see which graphics are named what and where they go, but only the DeckBuilder and DuelArt are replaceable BitMaps. All other ArtWork is still in the inaccessible and highly proprietary .PIC format from Microprose.

Additionally, while answering your last post I may have succeeded in isolating the Manalink 1.3.2 DeckBuilder so it could be run from it's own folder, seperate from Shandalar. Perhaps it might prove to be a cleaner and easier solution, even if there's no Stone-Throwing Devils or Akron Legionnaire.

[zombero]

On the Cards.dat: I tried fiddling with PlayDeckAnalyser and SkyMagic Editor, but it doesn't look like they will work for this specific purpose. From what I understand, I think it would be possible for me to write a program that could edit the .dat file directly, updating pointers as necessary, to make text edits that way. I'll try exploring that after I finish with the art stuff, unless you come up with a Deck Builder solution before then

On the .PICs: I'm actually able to open the .pic files by just dragging them over to Paint. From there I can save them as .PNGs, edit in Photoshop, open in Paint again, and save as .PIC. It works, though to be honest I have no idea *why* it works and why Paint can open these files when Photoshop can't, I don't question.

Specifically, my reason for inquiring was that in Deck Builder, the image within the card is 1 vertical row of pixels to the right of where it should be to line up with the card's frame. The left side of the card frame is 17 pixels deep, but the card image doesn't start until the 19th pixel. This *would* be easy to fix (via edits in the .PIC files), except in duels the card frame is stretched to 18 pixels deep, and the card image still starts on the 19th pixel. Thus it lines up perfectly on the lefthand side in duels. Since Deck Builder and duels both load the same .pic there's no way to *perfectly* resolve this issue without changing where the position at which the game displays the image (which I assume is in one of the game's compiled files, and while I've done some hacks in the past, I'm not prepared to try and dive for that ) or change *which* file the game displays, but that is probably also in a compiled game file.

It also happens to be the case that the picture within the card displays 205 pixels wide, while the cardback is an even number of pixels wide. Hence, they will never line up perfectly, and once again this can't be fixed by editing .PIC files. I know the physical MtG cards were at one time also off-centered in print. I don't know if this would have any relation or if it's just a humorous coincidence, though. For those cards, one of their borders was narrower than the other.

All isn't lost, though. Even if no other methods outside of editing .PICs are found, I can still make some improvements to the current display of cards, they just won't be immaculate.