Steam Users' Forums - View Single Post - Calling all modders! Let's fix/mod/tweak dead island!

oldbrokenlink · 09-13-2011, 11:15 PM

Warning

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Applying any of the fixes, tweaks, mods may result in your game crashing.

Getting Started Guide

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Before modding Dead Island it is recommended that you first watch the following video and read rabrock's guide to modding the game.

youtube video showing how to make changes
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=2109690

beginner's guide to modding dead island
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...postcount=1651

in this thread --EUTHANASIA-- documents in easy to read english just about everything that you may possible want to mod
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=2158462

default.loot, default_levels.xml, buffs.xml, hud.xui commented
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...postcount=1834

things to keep in mind when modding
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...postcount=2075

VAC Ban Warning

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warning do not directly modify dead island distribution files. any changes that you make to dead island distribution files can result in you being vac banned.

while nothing is 100% sure to the best of our collective knowledge we have come up with a way that we believe to be safe for you to mod dead island.

instead of directly changing the dead island distribution files we extract the files that we would like to change to the corresponding subdirectory in C:\Users\<username>\Documents\DeadIsland\out and then edit those files.

while a bit terse and vague here is what steam support and the game's developers have posted

Steam_Support twitter post about DI mods & VAC
https://twitter.com/#!/Steam_Support...10796128243712

DeadIslandGame twitter post about DI mods & VAC
https://twitter.com/#!/deadislandgam...96399760142336

to further reduce your risk of being VAC banned disable VAC in the games settings

also only play coop with other members that are also playing with VAC disabled.

finally regardless of how you have VAC set you risk being VAC banned if you join a coop game that is VAC enabled or someone who has VAC enabled joins the game that you are playing on.

+ so there is no need to edit any dll or exe or pak files. as i and others have posted a way has been discovered that allows us to make modifications that does not require us to change the dead island distribution files. which while not 100% safe from the risk of being vac ban, sounds promising and less risky. so if you have changed any dead island distribution files please verify cache content immediately and go back to the official distribution.

+ also before doing anything you see in this thread read and understand completely each and every post for the change that you would like to make

+ if you are vac banned, it's for life, it cannot be undone, it can be for all your vac secured games, steam support will not be able to help you, nobody here will be able to help you, so beware, be very careful, you are more than warned!

+ understand completely what it mean to be vac banned
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_...7849-Radz-6869

Backup your game files

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Regardless of whether you are playing an unmodded game or a modded game it is always a good idea to periodically backup your profile and single game save.

It is especially important to backup your profile and save when using mods in case the game save that is created when the game is modded is not restorable when running the regular game without the mod.

So, don't lose your progress, backup your profile and save!

saves and profiles are stored in
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...&postcount=388

corrupt save fix
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...68&postcount=1

Introduction

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a treasure trove of things to change can be found in in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\dead island\DI\Data0.pak

+ unpacking dead island pak files is as easy as opening them with 7-zip and pressing Extract

http://www.7-zip.org/

Call to Arms

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we can use your help, so instead of complaining or playing the game until you puke...

help us out, let's play a new roll playing game were by we scour the pak files , it's all there, identifying where fun things are to mod

and let's get modding!

Modders' Corner (information helpful to members creating mods)

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unofficial modding tools

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+ rick's dead island chrome tools
http://svn.gib.me/builds/chrome/

+ extract from .rpack files
http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.ph...=7351&start=20

+ program to extract .xwb files
http://aluigi.altervista.org/papers/unxwb.zip

+ tpfextract and tpfextractgui extract .tfp files
http://forum.orbsydia.org/showthread...=4348#post4348

+ dead island language bin editor
http://deadisland.moddingshack.com/?wpfb_dl=9

+ using texmod to extract and change textures (VAC must be disabled / Single player only / may trigger VAC ban)
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...postcount=1174

+ using offzip to extract from .rpack files (alternative)
http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...postcount=1187