Exile 2 Items guide

[Hondero]

I've downloaded the file "exile2.book.of.items.sit.hqx," which I believe to be a book of all the items in Exile 2 (I got it a while ago, but I think I downloaded it from the Spiderweb site).

 

Unfortunately, I remember the file being marked for Macs only, and I have Windows. I tried opening the .hqx file with Winzip, but it didn't work. It just contained the .sit file which can't be opened by Windows either.

 

Is there any way to open Macintosh files like this on a Windows PC, or perhaps a Windows-compatible version of the list? I want to get back into Exile 2, and this would be very useful, since the editor doesn't show every item like Exile 3. Thanks for any help!

[Ishad Nha]

When you attempt to open the file you should get the pop-up screen asking whether you want to browse the web for a suitable program or whether you want to use a program already on your computer.

 

Sit is opened by the Stuffit Expander:

http://www.stuffit.com/expander

This is freeware?

 

I opened the program in a hex editor and I am not too sure what to make of what I see. There are small lists of items here and there. One list for helms and another for boots. along with the list for most of the other items.

[Ishad Nha]

Item editors for Exile 1 and 2 currently don't exist, I mean editors for all items.

 

Hex editing is now possible on save game files, the XOR encoding is easily removed by a hex editor like Hexplorer. It is simple to program. As for understanding the details, the BoE source code will give a few pointers. I will have to look into this at some point.

 

Edit:

I am not totally sure that Exile 2 has a unique BoE-style list of numbered items.

[Celtic Minstrel]

I downloaded this a while ago too. It's actually in DocMAKER format, which is a standalone Macintosh application. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on an Intel Mac, which is what I have, so I took some time to convert it to HTML format. It wasn't that hard, since all the information is stored in the resource fork in 'TEXT', 'styl', and 'PICT' resources. The result is probably not quite the same as the original, since I wasn't sure exactly where each picture was intended to appear in the text and hence had to guess, but at least all the information will be present.

 

I will upload it as soon as I can connect to filespace.org (it's not responding currently). It'll probably be at http://www.filespace.org/Celtic_Minstrel/exile2items.zip .

 

Since you're a Windows user, you won't be able to open the alias (≈ shortcut). You can replace it with a Windows .lnk shortcut – it points to the "files/1.splash.html". I'll even include a .ico for the icon it uses.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Okay, I uploaded it somewhere else instead. It can be found here. The link is valid for 86 days from the day of this post, so if someone wants to host it somewhere that would probably be useful.

[Celtic Minstrel]

64 days left. It would be nice if this file could be hosted somewhere a little more permanent...

[keira]

I've re-uploaded it to here and here. They don't ever expire as far as I know.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Thanks – now whenever the creator of this thread comes back (if he hasn't already), he will be able to find it.

[Eldibs]

*Steps out of hiding*

 

Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha

Item editors for Exile 1 and 2 currently don't exist, I mean editors for all items.

 

I beg to differ. However, I've not posted here in something along the lines of YEARS, so I'm not quite certain as to the taboo-ness of discussing such things.

[Ishad Nha]

I mean legal editors. Hex editing is not taboo per se, because it is not a good way to pirate anything.

 

As I have mentioned in other topics, Exile 2 may have no single list of items. Looking at town.dat I find that every town has provision for customizable items. Other Spiderweb games only supply the number of the item, whereas E2 supplies all data about it. This means that towns may contain wholly unique items.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Well, if you want to compile a list of all the items that exist in Exile 2, and it turns out there are some that were missed in this list, feel free to report them. I could even add them myself, I suppose.

 

(Note: By all the items, I mean both the basic list and the unique lists for each town.)

[Eldibs]

Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha

I mean legal editors. Hex editing is not taboo per se, because it is not a good way to pirate anything.

As I have mentioned in other topics, Exile 2 may have no single list of items. Looking at town.dat I find that every town has provision for customizable items. Other Spiderweb games only supply the number of the item, whereas E2 supplies all data about it. This means that towns may contain wholly unique items.

I think perhaps we are speaking of two different things. I'm referring to editing the items themselves, rather than adding the in-game items to your characters.

I would explain how the inventory/item system works for the Exile series, but that involves discussion of hex-editing save game files (even though such a discussion would not instruct one how to do so, and steers VERY far away from piracy), and once again, I'm lost in the gray area with no directions on which way is black, and which is white.

[Ishad Nha]

Currently I am unable to open the Book of Items at all. I am on Windows.

 

When I find the time, I will have to dig through each town and look at the custom item lists, then compare that with the list found in the Book of Items. There seem to be a whole lot of such custom town items.

 

Hex editing is generally okay. Generally, editing could introduce more interesting items

[Celtic Minstrel]

You should be able to open the version of the Book of Items in my signature... it's a ZIP file of HTML pages.

[Ishad Nha]

No go, 7zip says it is not a supported archive, while the usual zip extraction program says that there are no files to extract.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Hmm... wow, you're right.

 

Well, it's still available here. That one does work – I tried it.

 

If you or W-dueck could re-upload it somewhere, that would be nice...

[Eldibs]

Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha

Hex editing is generally okay. Generally, editing could introduce more interesting items

Indeed, like hand grenades (darts with the Weapon Poison graphic, very little damage, and the Exploding Missile property), or a Broadsword that creates a Wall of Blades. Both I've made. Just for fun, of course.

The way the inventory system works, technically you don't even really have inventory slots. Your characters have a permanent set of 16 (12 for E1 and 24 for E3) "blank" items, and when you pick up an item, the game just takes the attributes of the item you're trying to recieve, and applies them to the appropriate blank spot. For instance, you're trying to pick up Demonslayer, so the game takes your top-most blank slot, and gives it the "Two-Handed Weapon" type, applies the appropriate image, damage, and bonuses, and gives it the "Demon Slayer" ability. Then, when you save (because you always save after picking up powerful items, right?), rather than an item reference, the item's attributes are written to the save game file, in the area corresponding to which character/inventory slot. So, when you load your game, it doesn't see "This character has Demonslayer in this slot," it sees "This character has an item in this spot named 'Demonslayer' with X attack, X bonus, which is a two-handed weapon with this graphic and the "Demon Slayer" special ability, and it's worth X gold." I do believe there would be a list of all the in-game items somewhere in the data (like BoE Scenario Editor's item list), but it would probably be irrelevant, because Jeff could've always tossed in some code that changes some of the items through special events (like the weapon enchanters, for instance).

This would allow an enterprising individual (*cough!* Me *cough!*) to add items to the game without actually opening up any of the game files, other than their save game. For instance, my beloved Hand Grenades. Unfortunately, this tends to complicate things when compiling a list of every item in the game, because you have to look at every town and special node to figure out which items are there, and then figure out which ones haven't been added to the list, whereas in a game like Baldur's Gate, you could just open up the game's data files, and write down all the *.itm files. I would, however, think that this would allow Jeff to populate his game world with unique items in a simpler manner (instead of having a new item entry for each unique item, just give the player a regular item, but alter it).

I hope that wasn't overly complicated and/or long...

[keira]

CM: That one's giving me hate mail too. Perhaps uploading the unzipped files?

 

I thought I looked at that before I uploaded it. Hmmm.

 

 

EDIT: Heres why. The link was to a html page. So I ended up uploading a html page with a .zip extension.

fixed link (I checked it twice) is here: http://www.freewebs.com/wdueck/E2%20Items%20Book%20Fixed.zip

[Ishad Nha]

I can get it to unzip, there seem to be problems with getting it to run on a Windows PC. When unzipping the program says there is already a file in the Mac OSX fork and would I like to replace it?

 

I can't get a "book' to run but clicking on the individual html sheets will cause them to display properly. I had to activate the address bar and hit Enter before the download would commence.

 

I have read the game files, there are several item lists, a lot of lists in the program. Then each town has the capacity for its own 24(?) custom items. It is very much unlike BoE with its single authoritative list.

[keira]

Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha

I can get it to unzip, there seem to be problems with getting it to run on a Windows PC. When unzipping the program says there is already a file in the Mac OSX fork and would I like to replace it?

I can't get a "book' to run but clicking on the individual html sheets will cause them to display properly. I had to activate the address bar and hit Enter before the download would commence.

I have read the game files, there are several item lists, a lot of lists in the program. Then each town has the capacity for its own 24(?) custom items. It is very much unlike BoE with its single authoritative list.

Fork? What do forks have to do with Exile? And Why would OSX have its own fork?

If you care: I unzipped it using 7zip and then just opened the 1.Splash.html (not the one in the __MACOSX folder) with FireFox 3.0.1.. It also seemed to agree with IE (The tabbed version).

I will fart around with it and see if I can figure anything out.

[keira]

OK I ran through and did something worthy of a version 3.0!

 

I re-did the entire HTML into one page.

I uploaded it for on-line viewing, in case the .zip is still being unreasonable.

I made a nice .zip without all that other crap that's composed entirely of symbols.

 

For On-line Viewing: Click Here

 

For Downloading:

http://www.freewebs.com/wdueck/E2%20Files/Items%20Book/E2%20Items%20Book%20v3%2D0%2D0.zip

Optional - I forgot to add the .css file to the zip. just put this in the same folder as e2items.html:

http://www.freewebs.com/wdueck/E2%20Files/Items%20Book/style.css

 

 

EDIT: sorry for the double-post. I thought I was editing...

[Ishad Nha]

Good, 7zip did the trick.

 

By fork I mean folder, when unzippped the zip file has two folders:

_MACOSX

ExileIIGÇóBook of Items 2.

[Eldibs]

Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha

I have read the game files, there are several item lists, a lot of lists in the program. Then each town has the capacity for its own 24(?) custom items. It is very much unlike BoE with its single authoritative list.

That is interesting. I wonder if Exile 1 would have something like that as well. I assume Exile 3 would have a BoE-style list, because they seem so similar, but then again, I could be wrong. Would there happen to be a bigger list of base items by any chance (perhaps one used by monsters to determine what to drop?), or is it all a town-by-town thing (like, each town has its own stone shortsword, bronze broadsword, etc...)? I wonder if by changing the files, you could add items to the game that way, instead of my method of mucking around with saved game files. Either way is potentially bad, because if you screw up your save game, then you have to start all over, and if you screw up your game files, you have to re-install the game and start your edits all over.

Perhaps I'm not paying attention, but what are you using to open up the game data files to see all this? This would be interesting to look through, to see if I've correctly documented all the item abilities and types.

w-dueck: Version 3.0 is much easier to use and navigate (not to mention get ahold of). Nice work.

[Ishad Nha]

I have looked through E3 town.dat, so far I have seen no trace of custom items.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: Redundant Justice

EDIT: Heres why. The link was to a html page. So I ended up uploading a html page with a .zip extension.
fixed link (I checked it twice) is here: http://www.freewebs.com/wdueck/E2%20Items%20Book%20Fixed.zip

Yeah, that link was to the download page, not the actual file.

Originally Posted By: Ishad Nha

I can't get a "book' to run but clicking on the individual html sheets will cause them to display properly. I had to activate the address bar and hit Enter before the download would commence.

Of course you couldn't – that was a Mac alias (read: shortcut) pointing to the file 1.splash.html. And the icon which was included with it was the icon of said alias. So to make it work the same as it does on the Mac you would've had to create a shortcut to 1.splash.html, name it accordingly, and assign it that icon.


W-Dueck: It's nice that you've put it online, but may I request a table of contents? In the original, I was trying to mimic DocMaker by creating a popup table of contents menu using JavaScript. But the file you uploaded lacks any table of contents.

Anyway, thanks for doing that.

[keira]

I will put one in.

I've put one in. The online one has already been updated to v3.1 (no need to change those signature lines )

 

The new .zip archive is available here:

http://www.freewebs.com/wdueck/E2%20Files/Items%20Book/E2%20Items%20Book%20v3%2D1.zip

Sigh...I forgot to add the .css file again. Same deal as v3.0.

[Ghaldring]

The Book of Items is missing quite a few unique items that can be found in Exile 2.

 

When I was a little kid, I went through almost the entire game religiously noting down the location of every unique item, and then transcribed them onto my now defunct webpage. Yes, I loved Exile that much.

 

Anyway, I saved a copy of my raw HTML onto some floppies, and I've now uploaded them. Enjoy!

 

http://www.box.net/shared/g9sxuax440

 

[keira]

This information has been put in the book. Same place online.

 

The new .zip is available here:

http://www.freewebs.com/wdueck/E2%20Files/Items%20Book/E2%20Items%20Book%20v3%2D2.zip

I remembered to put style.css in this time!

[Ghaldring]

Why don't you integrate my information with yours, w-dueck, instead of just tacking it on the end? You're welcome to do so, as long as you mention me in the acknowledgements section.

[keira]

I don't think that would be a good idea. By putting the unique items in with the regulars, there might be a chance of mis-communication. Even if a heading were to be provided. Also I think unique items are unique enough that they should have their own special category.

[Ghaldring]

Why don't you colour code the name for each item? Non magic = Green, Magic = Blue, Unique = Red.

[Hondero]

It's been a little while, but thanks for converting this over! Very helpful item info.

[keira]

I've moved the Items book over to http://wdueck.free-site-host.com/exile2book/. The download link remains the same.