I really love this game, but I have to play with the Wiki open and my 12 page print-out on my desk in front of me because the game doesn't tell you what items do. I would love for the pop-up window to tell me that a Potion of Dire Empowerment gives me +1 Necro Dmg & Resist, +1 Burliness, +2 Critical and lasts for 47 turns, or that a Potion of Radiance grants me +2 Righteous Dmg & Resist, +2 Sagacity, and +2 Sight for for 47 turns. I would, of course, like this to extend to wands, shrooms, etc. Does anybody know if a mod like this is in the works? I know not everybody likes this idea, but that's the great thing about mods....you don't have to use it if you don't want to. And I know I've seen other people complain about having to constantly look up what everything does on the Wiki. It look like there are a lot of great mods out there already - I hope something like this comes out eventually!
Wasn't there a mod that did exactly this? oh boy I think it was one of the first mods, it was made before mod support. Check the very last page perhaps, but since it was made so far ago it may not work anymore.
Pretty sure you're thinking of Lutefrisk, and no, there aren't any mods that do what he's asking. I don't even think there are any modders here hardcore enough to create a pop-up window in-game; it's certainly not supported in the XML.
I thought there was a mod that added more booze or something, and the guy said he hated not having descriptions, and had changed all the potion descriptions and such to say what they actually did. It was before mod support so it edited in-game files.
While I do agree that there's no descriptions and that they could be added, it's not like you can't remember 10 or 12 potion effects. I mean, even if you only remember basic stuff, for as long as you were using potions you should vaguely remember what their effects are.
I might be confused by what you are saying, but I'm simply looking to change the current pop-up window that gives useless information like "The bottle glows with a faint light" to "+2 Sight". I'm not suggesting an additional pop-up. 17 Potions, 12 Wands, 12 Shrooms, and these are only the ones I have on my cheat sheet And some of them modify 5+ attributes each, all with different turn lengths, etc. In addition, the skill descriptions are equally vague. For instance, the Sword Lore skill tells me "You have a chance of executing exceptionally grievous attacks" but that doesn't help me much. I'd love it to tell me that it can confer Bleeding Out on target, which procs 8% of the time and deals an additional 8 piercing dmg, lasts 24 turns, can stack up to 3 times, and applies -1 Burliness and -3 Health on the target. That way, next time I have an hour to play, I can spend an hour in the game instead of 35 mins in game and 25 mins on the Wiki lol
For some of us the discovery of these things is half the fun. The other half the fun is thinking "oh yeah, I remember having one of these before it was awesome. Let's do it again!" Believe me, you remember the important stuff. Like how the tutorial teaches you to never drink Aqua Regia.
I totally agree that some people would like this, and other people wouldn't. That's why I think it would be great as a mod, so it would be easily turned on or off depending on your preference. I just feel like I'm playing Magic the Gathering with all the card text removed except for the name of the card. And I have to go on the internet to the Oracle card database and look up what each card does every time I draw LOL - Eventually, yeah, I wouldn't have to look up every card once I played a few hundred hours, but by the time I've played a few hundred hours, I would have spent another hundred hours or so just looking up cards in the database.... And some people would LOVE that [And yes, I realize this is an exaggeration]
Oh, well shoot, that's relatively easy if a bit time consuming. I'll do something like a few items every day and I should have something like this ready for you by, say, the 4th of July.
Hahaha sounds good! Seriously though, is this actually pretty easy (if a bit time consuming)? Do you think I could figure out how to do this myself, or would it require some in-depth modding skills? I've never modded anything before, but I'm thinking this might be as simple as opening the file(s) where the item descriptions are stored and just changing the text. Or is it far more complicated than that?
Some of these descriptions already exist here: http://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/dredmore-fungus-potion-descriptions.1061/ open the itemDB file using text editor of choice search for "____" without the quotes, aka four underscores in a row (step 2 should pretty much be all the potions and fungi IIRC) copy those items (the ones with separator bars followed by descriptions) to your itemDB file, overwriting the ones you have yell "SPOILERTH!" every time you find a mushroom or potion in the dungeon don't forget to feed your pets and take them on walks
I am assuming that the skill descriptions are not stored in the item database file, and will be more difficult to change.... But ill have to look into that once I mod my item descriptions :-D Edit: I see there is a skillsDB.xml too - PERFECT!!
Ok, so I was able to edit the item descriptions, and even make it into a mod that I can turn on and off in the launcher! Thank you all for being so helpful! I noticed something very odd though. I played like 10 games in a row really quick just to test the item descriptions. I noticed that the edits I made were showing up on some items, but not others. And then, even more frustrating, the edit for Potion of Radiance (for instance) would show up one game, but not the next! And then a couple games later, it would show back up again!! (This was happening for all the items, I'm just using Potion of Radiance as an example) Then I saw something that made me realize what was going on. One of the following games, I picked up two different Potions of Radiance - the pop-up for the first one showed my edits....the pop-up for the second one did not. The game was seeing two different items (and descriptions) for Potion of Radiance! So I had a Potion of Radiance from my modded itemsDB.xml file, and another Potion of Radiance from the unaltered itemsDB.xml file in the game directory. Needless to say, my next move was to backup the original file, and overwrite it with the one I modified. That completely solved all my problems. Now that the game can ONLY see the file that I modded, all items show my modifications all the time. So my question is, when I tell the game to load my modded itemsDB file, how do I keep it from seeing the original as well? Is this a known bug? Or am I doing something wrong? I figured it would either load one or the other......not both.
In your mod.xml have total conversion="1" This would require you to copy the ENTIRE game directory as a mod, and you ARE NOT PERMITTED to share the mod. But would let your mod be turned on and off while functioning properly.
Well it wouldn't actually, it's not impelemented, it just exists ahead of time. And the xmls as far as I know are permitted to share because they don't have a single piece of code in them, they're just xml.
good to know. But I know personally I wont be sharing any of the original xml's. Seems a bit sketchy unless someone working at gaslamp says its ok.
