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How do I install custom levels on steam version?

 
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Sen
Dianoga

Joined: 25 Oct 2009

PostPosted: Nov 07, 2009 12:44    Post subject: How do I install custom levels on steam version? View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

Nice to see a site for an old game like this still up.

I've always been amazed with the custom content that old games with a motivated fanbase can produce, Doom and Thief being other examples. I tried to play the Dark Tides I suggested on the frontpage of the site, but the .bat file starts looking for the DF CD-ROM.

Is there a manual method for installing custom levels?

The MAZZTer
Death Star
Death Star

Joined: 25 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Nov 07, 2009 15:43    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

Eh? Dark Forces requires the CD while it plays.

There are apps that work around that restriction though*.

* - Disclaimer: I made that. >_>

_________________
http://www.mzzt.net/ | I am a respectable admin with a respectable sig.

Sen
Dianoga

Joined: 25 Oct 2009

PostPosted: Nov 07, 2009 17:10    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

Sorry, I forgot to mention outside the title that I have the Steam version. Steam is a legal games downloading service by Valve software. I the Steam DF runs on a modified dosbox and altered .exe file, but theres no discs involved.

Barry Brien
Dark Trooper Phase 1

Joined: 26 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Nov 07, 2009 17:12    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

The no-cd crack Mazzter mentions should sort you out.

Gez
Gamorrean

Joined: 05 May 2008

PostPosted: Nov 07, 2009 17:39    Post subject: Re: How do I install custom levels on steam version? View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

Sen wrote:
I tried to play the Dark Tides I suggested on the frontpage of the site, but the .bat file starts looking for the DF CD-ROM.


Solution: edit the .bat file. It's text.

Sen
Dianoga

Joined: 25 Oct 2009

PostPosted: Nov 07, 2009 19:14    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

Barry Brien wrote:
The no-cd crack Mazzter mentions should sort you out.


I don't have any problem getting the game to run as the Steam version doesn't require a CD. The problem is that the .bat file that installs the Dark Tide custom level looks for a CD that I don't have.

dt1se.bat wrote:

@echo off
cls
if exist dfbrief.lfd ren dfbrief.lfd dftemp.lfd
ren dt1brief.lfd dfbrief.lfd
echo The Dark Tide: Episode I- Wasteland Survivor (Special Edition)
dark -uDT1SE.GOB
ren dfbrief.lfd dt1brief.lfd
if exist dftemp.lfd ren dftemp.lfd dfbrief.lfd



I'm very much a gamer of the 00s, venturing into the 90s is scary for me (unless its on an Amiga). I don't know what I'm looking for, so I don't see any references to CD checks in the file.

Thanks for the replies!

Burning Gundam
Kell Dragon

Joined: 28 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Nov 07, 2009 19:33    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

That's interesting because the CD.ID file exists in the game's Steam directory, so the .bat (if it were looking for a CD at all) should have been able to identify it.

_________________
I don't think outside the box... I customize it.

sheepandshepherd
Trandoshan

Joined: 01 Apr 2008

PostPosted: Nov 08, 2009 00:28    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

You do have the Dark Tide files all in the DARK directory, right? Just making sure . . . that could be the problem.

EDIT: This may not apply to the steam version (idk if its CD is configured the same way), but take a look at this article's section on running DF without a cd. Obviously you'll have to do it a bit differently if the game is installed in Steam's directory. If you don't know where to put the files, just find your Dark.exe and cd.id for me - maybe I can figure it out.

Sen
Dianoga

Joined: 25 Oct 2009

PostPosted: Nov 08, 2009 01:04    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

The structure goes something like this. C:\\***\Steam\Common\Dark Forces\ which contains \Dosbox\ and \Game\. Dark.exe and CD.id are inside \Game\.

I tried to install by placing the .bat file inside \Game\. When run it would look for the CD and then stop.

Edit: Wait, I assumed it was looking for the CD-Rom so it could pull some files off it for installation. Is it actually trying to start the game?

Edit2: Would it be possible to run the .bat using the Dosbox provided with the Steam version? As its pre-configured to run the game, it might skip the CD check. What DOS commands would I use to do this?

The MAZZTer
Death Star
Death Star

Joined: 25 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Nov 08, 2009 03:06    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

Sen wrote:
Sorry, I forgot to mention outside the title that I have the Steam version. Steam is a legal games downloading service by Valve software. I the Steam DF runs on a modified dosbox and altered .exe file, but theres no discs involved.



Actually Steam uses the same method to no-CD crack it that I do, haha.

I have like several hundred dollars worth of games on Steam (and that pic is very outdated). So I know what Steam is thanks. Smile I just misunderstood your question, the batch file isn't asking for the CD, Dark Forces is.

The CD check is indeed because Dark Forces is trying to start up, but it doesn't see the no-CD crack because it's not running inside DOSBox. LucasArts set the game up so that it could find the no-CD crack when running inside DOSBox (since you can't have CDs with Steam, and they lost the source code to Dark Forces a loooong time ago).

Batch files can't be used with the Steam version because they won't use DOSBox... which you need to use for the no-CD crack. Smile

You can set the crack up to not need DOSBox, but Dark Forces will not run very well if at all on modern systems without DOSBox. So I'm going to walk you through a couple of alternate solutions instead.

First, run DOSBox in the Dosbox directory you found.

Then you have to enter some commands by hand at the prompt:

mount c C:\\***\Steam\Common\Dark Forces\Game\
c:

This is what Steam normally does using DOSBox to run Dark Forces, but next it would run dark.exe, which we don't want to do. Instead type the name of the .bat file and it will do its magic and the mod will load.

The tool I linked to above can automate all of this but it takes a bit of work to set everything up correctly. If the above solution works for you and you're happy you don't HAVE to do any of this. If you're interested, keep reading.

1) Make a directory called "Levels" in Game.
2) Extract (or move already extracted) each mod to individual directories. Each directory should be the same name as the mod's .GOB file.
3) Run my tool and it should locate Dark Forces automatically (it's set up to autodetect Steam Dark Forces) and your mods should pop up in a list right away. If Dark Forces is grayed out, click the folder icon next to Dark Forces and find dark.exe manually.
4) You'll have to click the drop down arrow on the Dark Forces toolbar, click Game Options, and select DOSBox to use DOSBox (highly recommended). You'll have to use the Browse button to locate dosbox.exe.
5) If the mods aren't popping up make sure your folder structure looks like this:

Code:
Dark Forces
\- Game
   |- Levels
   |  \- GOBNAME
   |     \- GOBNAME.GOB
   \- LFD


Etc. If you correct a mistake you can go into the drop down menu by Dark Forces in Knight and select Refresh to reload the list of mods.
6) Knight comes preloaded with settings for hundreds of Dark Forces mods, but if you have one or more that don't have settings (the name of the mod will just be the gob name, and if it has a briefing or text crawl those will be missing in-game) you can try to add them in yourself:
6a) Right click any mod and click Rename to change the displayed name.
6b) Right click and click Properties to select the extra files the mod provides. In most cases you'll need to be able to analyze the batch file to figure out which files need to be selected here.

_________________
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Gez
Gamorrean

Joined: 05 May 2008

PostPosted: Nov 08, 2009 11:17    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

The MAZZTer wrote:
Batch files can't be used with the Steam version because they won't use DOSBox... which you need to use for the no-CD crack. Smile


You can start DOS Box and run the batch from there... Wink


Anyway, hopefully some time this year we'll be able to use DarkXL.

The MAZZTer
Death Star
Death Star

Joined: 25 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Nov 08, 2009 14:20    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

Yeah that's what my instructions are for. Razz I meant you can't just run the batch files directly from Windows.

Batch files won't work for launching DarkXL either. Razz

_________________
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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Death Star

Joined: 25 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Nov 08, 2009 18:28    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

Since it occurred to me this may be a common issue I've posted a sticky thread with the same info I've posted here.

_________________
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Sen
Dianoga

Joined: 25 Oct 2009

PostPosted: Nov 08, 2009 19:56    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

Well, thats all working very nicely now, thanks for the help.

But for some reason Knight forgets what directory Dosbox is in every time its closed. Its only mildly irritating, but any suggestions how to fix that?

The MAZZTer
Death Star
Death Star

Joined: 25 Sep 2003

PostPosted: Nov 08, 2009 20:13    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Reply with quote

Huh. It shouldn't forget. At least it never has for me.

It's possible Knight is unable to save its settings to disk, in which case every time it starts up it has no settings and acts like it's the first time it has been run.

Check the following folder:

On XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<Your Windows Username>\Local Settings\Application Data\The MAZZTer\Knight

On Vista/7: C:\Users\<Your Windows Username>\AppData\Local\The MAZZTer\Knight

The folder should exist and should have three files totaling a bit over 50kb. If for some reason the folder isn't there or is empty than Knight can't write its settings to disk for some reason, probably a permissions problem.

Oh also try checking Windows Update for patches for the .NET Framework 2.0. It's possible you've run into a bug in the framework I suppose.

_________________
http://www.mzzt.net/ | I am a respectable admin with a respectable sig.

Sen
Dianoga

Joined: 25 Oct 2009

PostPosted: Nov 08, 2009 20:54    Post subject: View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote

Ah, I changed installation directory but it was still trying to save its options in the directories you indicated. Working fine now.

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