Getting old skeletons back possible?
 

As far as I can tell, the client was made to completly ignore the original skeleton models back when Luclin was released. With the release of LDON, the luclin skeletons became the "old" models (ref #60), and the LDON skels are the new ones. But i'm trying to somehow get the original EQ skeletons to appear. Is this even possible? The model info and textures are still there. There just needs to be a way to call them.

Edit: SUCCESS! Check page 4 for screenshots!

I emphatically second this. I remember when I started playing, and thought necros with their skels were cool, but I thought that brown, yellow-eyed, horrific skeleton they got around 27th or so was >really< cool. Then I go and make a necro, and get stuck with these gimp models =)

I think the horses/elementals graphics option also handles skeletons

Nope. I've had my Luclin models turned off since like... Luclin came out (I really hate how they look), and it doesn't bring the old skeletons back. EQ's client was changed to load the new skeleton models (and wolves) as part of the global file. I've actually went around deleting the skeleton s3d files just to see what would happen. All that happens is that I get humans walking around in the skeletons place :)

I'm surprised there is no way to force the client to load models that are still there. There must be a way.

Just a thought, have you tried renaming the old s3d files to the names of the new ones?

I really dunno then. On my box I see old skeletons, but I don't know why. Although, I do run pre-GoD.

Are you sure its the original skeletons? Like the ones from before Luclin? Cause if so, I want your EQ folder :)

Double check to see if they look like this:

http://everquest.station.sony.com/ne...hots/eq/04.jpg

to bad you cant make it so when people log into your serve the old skellys are there.. unless you use a patcher i guess?

The patcher has nothing to do with it. Its the client that is programmed to load a specific set of data. Unless you use a version of EQ from before luclin's release (impossible), there isn't much you can do with patching. still, there might be other ways to force the old models to load.

My bad. I've apparently grown so accustomed to fat-feet Luclin skeletons I don't recognize the old ones.

Corrrect me if i am wrong radd but isn't that picture the old skelle? i started eq at the kunark release and thats the skeletons i remember, the funny shaped looking ones, if there was one that came before that i don't know what it is. as for forcing people to see that, as long as it is still a global model, or it still exists in the most recent s3d files, you just need to change all the values of the skeletons (and the model numbers in the necro pet code in spells.cpp) models in the database. you can do this with a single sql command. just UPDATE mobtable set model=oldskellymodel WHERE model=newskellynumber; or somthing similar will work.

That picture I posted IS the old skeleton model. I posted that so Melwin could check to see if thats what he was seeing or not.

The problem with getting the old models to load is that the value of the skeletons (#60 if you check through the EQemu guidebook) ends up loading the luclin model and not the original model. The client completly ignores the old model and goes straight for the newer one located in a different s3d file. AFAIK there is no way to hack the client to make it load the old s3d file.

If you use EQinside, you can clearly see the original skeletons located in global_chr.s3d. The luclin skeletons appear to be in global6_chr.s3d (although I can't be sure since i have no way of opening dds files). But these are only the textures. I still don't understand where the actual MODEL file is stored. It can't possibly all be in that single .wld file inside the s3d file can it? If I could figure that out, I might be able to replace and rename some files and fool the client into loading the old skeleton. This is all just speculation though.

EDIT:

Actually, the luclin skeleton MODEL appears to be located in globalske_chr2.s3d, which was created on 12/20/2001 - just when luclin was released. So the client now appears to point to this file to load the skeleton model. If I could replace the .wld file inside here with the old skeleton .wld file, I might be able to get the old skeleton to load. The problem there is that I can't find the model file for the old skeleton. Either its someplace i'm not looking, or all the original global models are somehow embedded in a single .wld file.

Luclin skeletons have been model 60 since luclin came out(or maybe shortly after) - the original skeletons were never a model option after that. I suggest just using the new skeleton model instead, it's about as close to the old models as you'll get. It's also global so it shouldn't be too much of a problem using it.

I remember the new skellies and the wolves came out right before Lucilin did. I dunno if it was to get people excited about the new graphics or what but I know I had saw them before I got Lucin.

the old wolfs pwned so hard.. i dont even think theres a white wolf model anymore

Yeah there is. The only wolf model that was "lost" in the conversion was the velious dire wolves who got really messed up for some odd reason.

The velious dire wolves looked really wierd to me too until I deleted all my texture cache files *.txc. Maybe some patch way back changed up the texture cache.

Dunno if that's the same problem as yours, but worth a shot.

Is there an app out there that can read, write, and modify WLD files? I looked through the 3rd party apps forum but couldn't find anything useful. I saw a few posts that said it would be possible to replace existing models with new ones, but not add new ones. It might be possible to replace the new skeleton with the old model, if I could just somehow extract the model data.

what about the pre luclin wolves?

they dont exist anymore

Uhh, not true. The old wolf models are still there, just like the old skeletons. They just aren't being referenced anymore. If I can find a way to bring the old skeletons back, the wolves wouldn't be an issue either.

There are ways to do pretty much everything. However, messing with current EverQuest copyright material in any way could be pushing the wrong buttons, so I suggest you don't even bother with it for your own sake.

you heard the man. soe is going to sue you if you bring back old skellys and wolfes. Give up.

Internet lawyers can go home now. Stop spreading misinformation.

SOE will not sue you for messing with this, believe me.

Well, it depends on -how- you mess with this, right? lol.

They might sue you if you do it by hacking eqgame.exe and editting it there, assuming it's there, then make a wildly popular server that gets 2000 simultaneous players 24/7 and making your editted eqgame a requirement for playing there.

MIGHT.

I Wouldnt mind seeing old skellys / wolves ... I started playing EQ a day after Luclin came out :(

I spoke with a few people and while its possible to READ .wld files, its not *yet* possible to WRITE .wld files that EQ accepts as a valid format. So for now, its a no go. But i'll keep looking into it.

If the skeleton wasn't a global file, it would probably be possible to get the old skeletons back by simply adding it to every zone in the <zone>_chr.txt file and then calling it with the proper #. But all skeletons are #60 and that will automatically pull up the skeletons from the global file.

I assume there is no way to add new monster reference #'s to the game, right?

I suggest you learn to write C++, there is always a way to create a program that can read those files. It would take some time on your part, but its possible. Ive created programs myself to read various files.

-Aildaan

lol

lol c++ = a hardcore biatch :D

I know next to nothing about the graphical side of C++, i know its not like VB or delphi where you design the form in an actual design window, but well maybe a dev can answer, is it difficult to make a graphical program in C++? or are most of them run in the consol?

you can goto irc.freenode.net #crystalspace or #ogre3d if you want to talk to some real gfx engine programmers.

Both Mongrel and WC, arguably the 2 most experienced people here dealing with S3D and WLD file manipulation, are unable to get the game to recognize newly created models. And if they cant do it, well, someone like me who doesn't know a thing about coding certainly won't be able to.

However, they say its only a matter of time before they figure it out. And then we'll have oldschool skeletons and wolves for all!

The original skeleton model is in fact in global_chr.wld (along with a bunch of other models). There was a nice model viewer that used to be up at http://www.geocities.com/kaiyodouk/ but the link seems to be broken now. :x The Luclin skeleton model appears in global6_chr.wld. I'm not sure about globalske_chr2 since I can't open it in EQInside or EQ Model Viewer, but I'd bet that's probably the most recent skeleton.

Has anyone written a utility to edit the meshes in .wld files? It would be nice if you could copy and paste the skeleton model from global_chr into globalske_shr... :)

Another thought would be to find the original cd install it to a different directory and find the files used. And if you know what you are doing copy and paste the old to where the new is.
Let me know if it works

8)

that won't work.

Delete the files that the new models are in and bypass the patcher and login. This should force the client to use the old models.

I believe it loads the files in numerical order. So if you have files called global, global2, global3, etc, the later files overwrite the models in memory from the previous files. So if you delete the newer files, it shouldn't read in any new model information and display the old ones.

Worth a shot.

That won't work either. Believe me, i've tried in the hopes that if EQ doesn't find the new skeleton model files, it would default to the older ones. But the new skeletons are patched to everyone, so the client expects them to be there.

When I deleted the files, all I got were humans walking around where skeletons should be.

Have to write a "model-proxy" app for it I guess. :D