Mod Studio v1.05

Mod Studio history:
v1.0 May 26, 1999
v1.02 May 29, 1999
v1.05 June 9, 1999

Changes in v1.05
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- Fixed a bug that would not save armor and shield occurances correctly, thanks to azril for pointing this out!
- Separated a lot of pages with tabs and some other general interface changes, which save desktop space.
- Added a character behavior section to the character page, thanks go to azril again!
- Did a MAJOR optimization of the code, which made the unique item page much more efficient, while all of the other pages benefitted some too.  This shrunk the program size to 845kb from 903kb in version 1.02, even with the new features added.  It may not seem like that big of size reduction, but you have to consider the graphics make up about 50% of the program's size.  Hopefully I didn't create more bugs from all the optimizing.

Changes in v1.02
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- Made this text file a little easier to read.
- In Item Prefixes and Suffixes it no longer showes Hellfire only effects on the effects listwhen you are editing Diablo v1.07.
- Disabled auto to hit% because that is not what it really was changing.
- Removed the vitality requirement on the Items page because the game does not check for it anyways.
- Changed the picture labeled "Lightforge" to "skull crown" because it was not Lightforge.
- Fixed the crash where if a unique item had a base item number greater than 68 in Diablo 1.07 or 69 in Hellfire 1.01 it would crash.
- Recoded the spell casting sound part of the Spells page.  It should only show valid values as choices now.
- Fixed a major bug where if you closed a page with it on an item/spell/monster/ect.. other than 0, and opened the page again without closing Mod Studio completely, the navigation combo would start at item/spell/monster/ect.. you left off on, and anything before that would not appear on the navigation combo.
- Resized some things on forms, the most obvious (to me at least) is that I shrunk the vertical size of the miscellaneous form quite a bit.
- Added ability to enable jog in town for Hellfire multiplayer.
- Recoded the way the base items for unique items were added to the combo.  Now if you change a base item, it will actually show up on the unique item base item combo next time you load the unique item page.
- Loading up premade mods should not crash Mod Studio nearly as much, if at all.
- Added the option to remove the restrictions on dungeons for Diablo v1.07.
- Recoded the way the ini file works, which is what saves the last directory you opened Diablo or Hellfire in.

What's in version 1.0 of Mod Studio:
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Support:
Diablo 1.07 and Hellfire 1.01
These are the only two version I plan on supporting, so if you don't have them, you'll have to update your's.

Editing:
Mod Studio will allow you to edit Items, Unique Items, Item Prefixes and Suffixes, Monsters, Unique Monsters, Spells, Character Class stats, and some other miscellaneous stuff.

Safety:
I tried to make it so you can't put out of range values in and such, but I'm sure there are loopholes somewhere, so use common sense.  You should not be able to open files other than the ones you are supposed to.

Ease of use:
I tried to make all of the forms as organized as I could, so it's not confusing to look at.

Coming soon (hopefully):
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I will try to implement some dat file hacks into my program, such as SubSpace's dat that lets you use the F1-F4 keys for spell hotkeys. I don't have any .dat files for Hellfire, so if you know where to get some, email me the url.  I would like a .dat to enable fast walking in town for Hellfire, and Diablo if it exists.

I am open to suggestions, at least reasonable ones, so if you have any please send me an email.

How to use Mod Studio:
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1. Make sure you have the Visual Basic 5 runtimes installed on your computer.
2. Run ModStudio.exe
3. Go to File > Open, and locate your Diablo.exe or your Hellfire.exe file and open it.
4. Now make some cool mods.

Known Problems:
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Some Unique Items in the V&K mod use values that are out of my programs range for the base item, so it will crash.

Changing a name of something to something shorter will change how many characters you wil be allowed to type into the name field.  To get around this, override the name length by going to File > Override > Name Length.  Putting in a longer name than there is room for in the file could overlap another name, so use override with caution.

Diablo and Na-Krul use default to hit% values that are greater than 135, so you you wish to change their to hit% value to something over 135, you must go to Override > CTH% on the menu.


Mini FAQ:
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Why is this program so big?
It has all of the item picture files in the game stored in it.  It does not read them from the .exe because I have no idea how to do that.

What kind of programmer are you?
I am a beginner programmer.  I wrote this in Visual Basic 5, and it took me about two weeks to make it.  This is by 	far the most complex program I have ever written, and the one I am the most proud of so far.  I don't know that much 	about programming, and the only language I know is BASIC, but I learn fast.  This project turned out MUCH better than anticipated.  Origionally I did not plan on having Hellfire support, but I'm glad I changed my mind.


here did you get your information on Diablo and Hellfire?
Most of it I got from Charlie's Retribution site at http://members.xoom.com/ElanTedronai/ Charle also happens to be 	the author of EZ Mod Maker, so if you don't like mine or it doesn't support a feature you want, you can use Charlie's 	EZ Mod Maker for Diablo and Zakarun's for Hellfire. Thank you for the information Charlie, I could not have made this without it!


Final Stuff:
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Please report all bugs reports, suggestions, comments, and anything you think will help me to jclark@northlink.net

The newest version of this program can be found at: http://users.northlink.net/jclark/html/index.html

I will take no responsibility for any damages caused by this program, you downloaded it, you ran it, so it is your responsibility.  Although I do not see how this program could damage anything but your diablo or hellfire executable, 	so use common sense and back them up.


Happy mod making,

Sgraffite