My 2000 Installation and FAQs

My 2000 - What is it and why do I need it?

Manalink has a 2000 card limit (i.e. only 2000 cards can be in the game at one time). However, more than 2000 cards have been coded for this game. The 'My 2000' application allows you to choose which 2000 cards you want to use in your version.

Installation

This add-on must be installed separately from the latest Manalink patch. Here's how:

• Download the latest Manalink release and art if you don't have it already
• Create a new folder in your magic directory called custDeck. This is where decks for the custom version will live. Create another folder called cardArtCus. This is where your art will go for this version.
• Download and unpack this 1-time only download to your magic directory: http://www.mediafire.com/file/ywyoldjhjjl/my 2000 - one time.zip

If you make changes to your custom set and then re-download this file, you will clobber your changes.

• Download this exe file to your magic directory: http://www.mediafire.com/file/umqin2mtxby/CustomSetEditor.exe
• If you try to run the above download and you get an error that you are missing files, try using this installer first, and then re-download the above file: http://www.mediafire.com/file/ndzm1jnwktz/set editor.zip
• Run My2000.exe. The first time you run this, some setup is required. Uncheck the "Only show missing cards" checkbox and wait for the new list to load. Check "Only Copy Art". Click "Refresh From Library" and wait until it is complete (a couple minutes just for the art- not hours). Now your cardArtCus folder should be updated. Setup is complete.
• Once you have closed My2000, run patch.exe. Choose to update the custom version. This will bring in code changes that were made since I uploaded MagicCustom.exe.

Usage

• To run this application, run My2000.exe

Running CustomSetEditor.exe will not work.
This program is very slow to load (up to a minute).

• Now just choose a card from the "Card Library" and choose copy.
  
• Click on a card in the "Custom Version" that you want to replace. Click "Paste".
  
• After waiting several seconds, you will get a confirmation message that you have copied over the card successfully.
  
• To run your custom version of Magic you can either:
  

(1) Run MagicCustom.exe -or-
(2) Run Magic.exe and choose Switcher -> Custom

FAQs

Q: I get runtime errors. What's wrong?
A: Try installing Servicepack3 and the latest VBruntime

Q: My art is wrong is the custom version
A: Follow the directions in the installation section to refresh all art from the database.

Q: My token-generating card doesn't work. What's wrong?
A: Make sure that you have copied over the appropriate token create as well.

Q: Why do some cards start with --? Why can't I replace every card?
A: Some cards have their ids hard-coded in the binary exe files. These cannot be changed.

Q: Why would I want to refresh everything the database (besides art)?
A: If data entry errors are corrected in the original versions, those updates will not automatically be applied to your custom version. To apply them, you need to refresh your database. This refresh can take several hours, though, so it is recommended you start this and let it run overnight.

Q: How does the Custom version interact with updates and fixes? Let's say that now I spend a couple of hours to create my custom library, but then you release a new official version where you fix some cards Then what does happen to my custom version? Will it still be bugged or will it automatically update?
A: Any code changes to modern cards (i.e. cards coded after March 2009) get applied automatically to every version, since they share the same code base. However, some bug fixes require changes to Magic.exe or the csv files. Those changes will not come over to the custom version since they use different files. To get those changes applied to your custom version, you need to run the resfresh script that takes about 8 hours.

Notes for developers

1. Do not use hard-coded ids when writing code. Ever. Use get_id_by_name instead.
2. Challenge mode relies on all the cards in the challenge decks still being in the constructed version. Do not remove them.
3. There is a file called customSetEditor.txt that contains the list of files that are used by this application. You can do a couple really great things with this. First, if you want to copy cards from Limited to Constructed (or vice versa), you can do that by just changing the source and destination files here. Second, if you are working on new cards at the same time as someone else, you can save your work as Magic2.exe and Manalink2.csv, use those as source, and then copy your work into the updated Magic.exe (which will be the dest). Finally, if a ton of new cards get added to the game and a new module of 2000 cards is needed, just add it as a source, and people can automatically start importing cards from that version into their own custom version.