The Ultimate Mod is a compilation mod that works to improve the overall gameplay and looks of Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna whilst still being faithful to the original material and while being as lightweight as possible by changing only what's necessary.
Changes/Additions as of 0.5.0
1. Experience column in multiplayer.
2. Inventory GUI now states your uber level.
3. Fairies and pixies only give you mana and hp when you need it.
4. Overhauled sounds. (rain1, thunder, wind_02, wind_ice_cavern, woods_01, bow_shoot2, crossbow_fire, die_female, brook, button_stone, haunting, ocean, swing_01, swing_03, swing_04, gold_drop, door_standard and crypt)
5. UI window that shows your current buffs.
6. Max gold cap raised to 999,999,999.
7. Additional and slightly improved effects.
Planned Changes/Additions;
1. Updated graphics
2. More prefixes/suffixes (maybe?)
3. Models/meshes that match each inventory icon
4. Balance magic, melee and ranged combat. - for starters, crossbows would fire slower, but harder. Bows would fire faster, but softer, then finally guns would hit a bit harder. (the only real reason this bit hasn't been done is my lack of mathematical prowess.)
5. More overhauled sounds...?
6. Singleplayer dwarf, male/female utraean, half-giant, skeleton & male/female farmer
7. The ability to sell from your backpack and spellbook.
8. Unique name colors for Health and Mana potions and 'cosmetic' items.
Currently Overhauled Sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xrfm4IWg94
Sounds That Might be Overhauled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1WX-j49_SY
Credits
Lokiswaq for creating Uber UI and Buff UI (though both slightly lighter versions)
PsYcoSix for creating Experience Columns which the first listing is inspired by.
??? for patching Fairies and Pixies to work correctly.
Jomdom for improving some of the effects and - though minor - overall look of Dungeon Siege.
Icemage for, also, improving some of the effects and ultimately providing a basis of Jomdom's mod.
I listened to your video of the updated sounds. They do seem to make things more "atmospheric" and it's a clever idea.
Several of the features you mention are available in DS Revived and DS LOA Revived. I was also curious about your playable characters, since those have been around for years. Between iryan's heroes mod and the two versions of DS revived, all of those playable characters and more have been out a long time. I'm not sure if you are simply making a compilation mod of other people's work, or trying to accomplish original work of your own. From what I've read it seems you are trying to do both. (?)
I tried listening to your video discussing the mod, but it was very difficult to hear you speaking as the game noise was very loud in the background. I left a comment to that effect at your video.
I also noticed you wrote about a playable female dwarf, since Bare Elf just recently uploaded my and DDllulu ( I always get his name wrong, hehe, it's Dan. )....er, "Our" mod of the playable female dwarf. Just as a point of interest, while Dan gave free use to the meshes and animations and obviously his idea to create a fem dwarf in the first place, ALL the custom art textures in the mod available for download here were done by myself. That includes hair, face, spell icons and type 1 armor, plus spell and weapon templates and none of those are available as free use, *not* without direct permission. Perhaps you were going to just use Dan's mesh and animation work and the stock DS textures and I am making assumptions. If so, please forgive me.
I'm not trying to be offensive or rude about this, it's just that I put a great deal of time into those textures. Some were simple touch up and cosmetics, but several of the faces are original, and I spent quite a LOT of time working on them with stuff from other textures, plus pictures of faces downloaded from online.
Anyway, good luck with what you are doing re:prefix/suffix, sounds balancing and such.
Can you give that Experience column also in singelplayer?
For updated graphic you can use cosmetic 2.0 mod http://ds.gemsite.org//web/index.php/mody/GET/detail-148
I have seen at least one UI have an experience bar, but ultimately I think it's unnecessary, so it probably won't happen.
I honestly thought Cosmetics just added some more FX for the weapons. I already have it, so I might look more into it.
- About Credits -
I am aware many of these features are in other mods, however some of them change the core experience too much in my opinion, plus the whole point of this compilation is to improve the core experience while still feeling very vanilla. If I can help it, I'll use original work, or if I use other peoples works, I cut down some of it including some credits in the gas file to, once again, maintain the vanilla feeling and save as much space as possible. I have ever intention to NOT claim it all as my own. The experience column and the gold increase (while both simple) are done solely by my efforts and are all based on previously existing mods.
As for the ones that I grabbed directly from other peoples works, a lot of the people are, as far as anyone knows, not around anymore, and seeing as to how they didn't lock the DSRES (and in case of Lokiswaq's work) seemed to suggest that he wanted to give the chance of editing it.. assuming the notes weren't intended for himself.
- About Character Races -
As the previous section might have suggested, I was intending to grab it from any mod that I could get working to include only the vanilla characters from multiplayer. I seem to have recalled there being a female dwarf in multiplayer, but I might be mistaken. In any case, most of the mods that offer this full selection modify them slightly. For example, Maa-jussi's Heroes gives everyone backpacks. While, yes, this is nice, it's not faithful to the vanilla game. I was very close to using LoU Characters as a source, but after my cleaning of what seemed unnecessary, it didn't work.
As for the textures of the characters, I'm not really concerned with adding more; I like the idea that the recruitable heroes are unique appearances and I would rather keep this as close as possible, unless it's possible to split the separate textures to allow for more customization with the pre-existing assets, in which case I'd gladly accept this into my mod compilation.
- About My Video -
I don't know if you read my response, but I said that I was testing my mod, specifically a temporary replacement of the Dungeon Siege theme with a fantastic remix of it [link is at the bottom of this stupidly long post], and I forgot to turn down the audio before recording. If you read this post, you basically know everything that's absolutely necessary and that I said in the video.. except that it will come with Killah's Fix. As for the sounds (which I also found in an extremely obscure mod that was pretty hard to install), I have recompiled them into 'UltimateModSounds', making the sound replacements optional.
Also, about a day after posting this, the second link in the main post has since been added into the sound overhaul, with a few edits (such as a quieter ambient crypt and a slightly edited door sound, which you should notice when comparing the sounds).
- Ending -
So, sorry about not clarifying everything, I want(ed) the original post to be a brief overview of what the mod compilation is and what it will be. Thank you for your comments, questions, etc. Feel free to ask more or even offer your help.
Thank You, again.
Dungeon Siege Theme Guitar Cover by FamilyJules: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFnOrIffR1A
I just wanted to clarify that I was not accusing you of using other people's work without credit. I was only referring to my work on the female dwarf and pointing out that it was not "free use", unlike Dan's work (animations, meshes etc). It simply caught my eye as the fem dwarf mod was only uploaded to the site for user downloads several weeks ago and I guess I feel protective of it.
There was never a playable female dwarf until DDLllulu (er, Dan) created/modded one. The male dwarf was available in multiplayer. (I'm going on a personal rant now... Ooops!
)
Some game companies don't make playable fem dwarves as they seem to think female dwarves must necessarily be short (well, yes), stout and "beardy" and thus not cute or appealing to the average gamer.
Either that or they DO make the fem dwarf but she is completely and thematically different from the male. There was one really egregious example of that in some MMO, but I can't find the picture right now. The male dwarf was your typical dwarf dude, short and solidly built, older looking and bearded while the female looked like a little child with a large bosom. So gross, because it was supposed to be a wedding between the two. /puke (er, sorry for rambling on about that...)
Back to the main discussion...
I understand about the compilation part of your mod, and I do note that in my post. Thank you for clarifying your "mission" (so to speak) in regards to your mod.
You make a good point about some mods adding too much to the "vanilla" experience with many of the broad changes they do. Texture work for hero player characters does change that to a degree, yes, but in my own mods, I include the base textures in addition to my own (except for some really ugly starting shirts which no one sees anyway once they pick up their first piece of armor).
I haven't had a chance to go back to YouTube so I am not aware of your response, but I will give that a look. I didn't know if you were aware that the background noise was too loud, sometimes folks miss that when they edit their videos.
Anyway, I guess I have rambled on enough. It's early here and I haven't had nearly enough coffee. As I said, good luck with the mod.
So, I've tested the Cosmetics 2.0 mod, and I must say it's an overall improvement... however, there are some problems I personally have with it.
- My Problems With It -
I don't like the effect that follows every single bow shot. I think it'd be fine if they were done with magical bows. I'm willing to bet this is fixable/changeable, so if you know how, please do tell me and I'll implement it into version 0.5.0.
I like the idea of the burning/shining potions, but I think it's a little too much. especially when you're drinking the potions. I forgot to mention it, but I was intending on adding a unique name color to mana and health potions, and am still interested in doing this. Once again, if you can help with this, I'd very much appreciate it.
As you may notice with this mod, some monsters' (such as the Phrak Piercer) attacks have been given more flare with their attack. I am aware that, in engine, these monsters use a spell, so I'm thinking to fix this (in my opinion) is to create two separate versions; one that utilizes the added flare for a player character. making it seem more like he or she was conjuring it up and the other for the Phrak Piercer.
- End -
I know it's silly, but I'm sorry for writing my posts long and in such a strange-ish format. It's probably obvious, but it's to help organize my thoughts while I critique or answer things. What it comes down to is that I'd like to tweak the Cosmetics 2.0 files a bit to be what I think is a better look or utilization of the additions. Like I said, I think most of it is a definite improvement, even if they are only small.
Thank You for your suggestions, comments and criticism.
I've been away for awhile, and I can't guarantee I'll be back for long, but I wanted to at least finish off the additional cannon races bit. To remind, I want a Skeleton, Dwarf, Half-Giant and male and female Utraean to be playable.
If someone could do it, it'd be pretty cool to see the races from DS2 added into DS1 - the Dryads and Elves.
Seriously though, wouldn't that be cool?