WorldMerge v1.4a file

- Content Exploration Challenge -


An Overhaul Mod

by

youngneil1


Version 1.4a (18th February 2012)
Dear readers,

It has been a long ride to finally get here. And certainly I would have dropped dead from my horse ages ago without the continuous support of all the good people mentioned further below. So I will start this with a BIG THANK YOU for those who have accompanied me through all the crazy ramblings and experiments scattered wildly over hundreds of my posts across this great forum.

A. For those in a hurry

Worldmerge combines the Two World 2 main campaign, the eleven multiplayer adventure maps and the whole Pirates of Flying Fortress Expansion into one coherent, newly balanced singleplayer gameworld. The experience curve as well as the levels of the monsters have been adjusted accordingly - reach lvl 65+ and still find challenging adventures. Worldmerge ties everything together with a very long new questlinesending you all around the world of Antaloor, even to the most hidden corners. You will find three new difficulty levels (Novice, Expert and Master) with various tweaks and enhancements, each for a female or male player character, that bring a lot of extra challenge.

Furthermore over 130 new handplaced encounters with uniquely named (Mini-)Bosses and their companions are added. They guard well hiddennew treasures in the guise of potions that permanently increase parameters and grant skill points. The skill system has been revised significantly: higher level skills cost more skill points, a special, rather sinister “teacher” has to be paid in order to reach the really high skills levels and lots of skills, especially from the thieving arts, have additional skill effects now: Find extra loot with pick pockets, assassinate mid combat when attacking stunned enemies, especially with daggers, sneaky dodge attacks or disarm trap protected chests. Your enemies have learned new tricks, too: They refresh their health upon retreat, can take a last stand when severely wounded that regenerates their hitpoints in combat, have higher chances to resist crowd control effects and might even teleport to your position in a surprise attack. Combat is more refined as special attacks cost stamina now (a heartbeat sound will warn you of low stamina) and only timed blocking allows you to recover stamina fast enough. Also, there is no more hp regeneration of the hero in combat.

In addition to that many great mods by gifted modders from the Two Worlds 2 community are included (see details below). The singleplayer game time (compared to the 45+ hours of TW2+PotFF) is easily extended by more than 20 extra hours (30+ if you choose the Master Difficulty). All in all, you’re in for a 65+ hours role playing epic.
___

All you require is the original Two Worlds 2 game (PC) and the corresponding Pirates of the Flying Fortress expansion (which automatically patches your game to vanilla version 1.3). It is advisable, though not required, to use an English language installation. While all non-english languages will work, the installer also provides a somewhat extented support for a German language installation - written text from PotFF, the (former) multiplayer maps and the new questline will be in English though (this is only of cosmetic relevance).
___

For installation just double click "Worldmerge 1.4a setup.exe" and follow the prompts (please pay attention that you manually delete a - wrongly, due to installer glitch -suggested entry in the install path named “new folder”). All files should end up in your TW2 install directory\WDFiles\mods. Only the readmes (TW2 install directory) and the sound files (TW2 install directory\SoundData) are exceptions. The installer will also create a file called unins000.exe (and a corresponding .dat file) for uninstallation in your TW2 install directory.

Make sure to beforehand remove other mods, especially old installations of Worldmerge, if you're are in doubt whether these will conflict with (the newer version of) Worldmerge.
___

Concerning usage:

A fresh start is required - it will not work (properly) with old savegames.

1. Install the mod as described
2. Make a fresh character in the normal singleplayer main campaign
3. Save her/him
4. Go back to main menu
5. Start a Pirates of the Flying Fortress expansion game (worry not, this will due to modding lead to the normal start of the main campaign) - because of the added content (inter alia treasures and experience points) it's recommended - though not required - to set the ingame difficulty level to "hard"(regardless of choosing the Novice, Expert or Master variant of Worldmerge)
6. Import your fresh character into the expansion game without choosing to level her/ him up

It's advisable to activate subtitles so that you can read the new, non-voiced over quest dialogue and to look for hidden treasures right from the beginning.

When all works out as described, you will have a fresh level 1 character in Vakhmaar Castle. A new entry in your quest log should read "Two Worlds Colliding". When you find it, you're set to go. Just to rephrase: Trick here is that the character is created using the old campaign start option, but the game is played via using the PotFF option (with importing that lvl 1 char from the old campaign).
___

The new questline starts at the beginning of the game and is designed to run almost to the final end. The questgiver is a "Crystal Man" you will find on the bridge spanning the central chasm in Alsorna (the island where you will find yourself once leaving the dungeons of Castle Vakhmaar). Rogdor, Dar Pha and Ghortarius have new lines in the tutorial at the beginning of the game, explaining all the new features of Worldmerge.

If you should have trouble finding the - sometimes rather well hidden - questitems or simply don't like exploring the world in such a time and nerve consuming way (which is fully undertstandable as we all have different tastes) simply open the attached questitemlocations.txt file that contains all instructions for getting every questitem you need as quickly as you like.
___

Ah, and no mods allowed in multiplayer.

Enjoy it and please give some feedback here in this thread.

Many greetings to you busy ones!

youngneil1
18th of February 2012

P.S. : To all folks with time for some relaxed coffee, just lean back and continue reading .


B. Long Version

I. What is Worldmerge?

1. The CORE part of Worldmerge does the following:

a. It integrates all the eleven large adventure maps from multiplayer fully into the single player campaign (including their quests, enemies, treasures, etc.) - they are part of this one world map now.

b. It adds a new very long questline sending you to explore the farthest corners of the world and to discover 55 well hidden, hand placed questitems. This questline also explains why these new lands from multiplayer are suddenly there and will open your eyes for a new threat. The questline starts at the beginning of the game and is designed to run almost to the final end. The questgiver is a "Crystal Man" you will find on the bridge spanning the central chasm in Alsorna (the island where you will find yourself once leaving the dungeons of Castle Vakhmaar).

c. It integrates the Pirates of the Flying Fortress Expansion into the same game world as the main campaign (and the former multiplayer maps, see above). You can sail back and forth between the Pirate Isles and the other continents of Antaloor. Same goes for teleporting. The quests associated with the PotFF expansion (and its intro sequence) are started by talking with the Boat Trader in New Ashos (please talk to that Boat Trader prior to your first time visit of Pirate Isles - don't swim or water walk there on your first time visit, or you will encounter some nasty bugs/inconsistencies). Ending the Pirates Expansion allows you to continue playing now. You will find the Pirates Isles in the north western corner of the world. The iconoclastic Flying Fortress can be seen from all over Antaloor now. You are well advised to build up strength before tackling the expansion fully - nonetheless, you can do that Boat Trader's quest early on and travel back and forth between the expansion's Pirate Isles and the mainland anytime.

d. It adds over 130 encounters with uniquely named Mini-Bosses and their companions (all in all over 600 creatures) all over Antaloor. Their names, group compositions and locations will tell you many a story if you let your imagination run wild a little.... Here's what I heard about this:

"Shhh... don't wake the wounded scout, he needs his sleep. His wounds go beyond the black feathered arrow in his shoulder and the cuts on his arms and back - he has suf-fered a terror deep and black as ink, his very soul is bleeding.

In flickering candleshine and with a glass of whiskey as my companion in the cold of night I go through his belongings. Hold on - there are some notes:

The Varn invasion.. they prepare the final strike... their Generals arrived, oh Hatmandor, the last days have come... unlikely, fearsome allies are rallied in all camps... beware their coloured leader ranks... speckled, fallen, brown, charcoal, vermilion, crimson, indi-go, turquoise, miscoloured, jaden, bone, carmine, copper, brazen, azure, bronze, silver and gold... remember this as if your life would depend upon it.

On the far off isles the Vidon's gods are rising. They walk the earth as living now. Don't set your sail there in these dire times, there's no return. They search for sacrifices, young and bold. The pyre fires light the starry night... the God of Wardens, greatest of them all, is hidden near a temple old on far away Eikronas coast.

The Scapulari reclaim these very vast and rocky Eikronas' shores.... Brothers and Sisters, bound by parasitic worm and magic of the sea... don't underestimate the salty ones... Grandbrother Shriek they call the beast they rally under now...

It's not these people - Varn, Vidon and Scapulari - that worry me the most. There are... things... on Antaloor now, I never saw before. Did they come from this parallel, second world that merged with our own and laid to waste inner Eikonras land, or so they say?

A merciless princess of the Sea with her monstrous court, an Ant Queen with a tribe as numerous as grains of sands in the desert, an orcish army caught in battle with the eld-est Mantis of them all... I don't recognize the world no more. Danger abound, death comes so easily these days... the deepest evil though I have not seen myself, alas, only three names I hear whispered, cursed, wailed even from the dying, mad or torn: Feodo-ra, Razor... and only, when certain no one else listens and in the most of careful tones... Capsulath, the Sidheking, the Ravenmaster, Lord of Mirrors and Dancer in the Twilight..."

e. They guard parameter increasing gems as well as new types of potions that permanently increase parameters by one point (GEMINUS_ROBUR, GEMINUS_VIGOR, GEMINUS_DEXTERITAS and GEMINUS_VOLUNTAS) or grant a skill point (GEMINELIXIRS!). Also, about additional 90 of these gems and potions are carefully hidden at remote, hard to get to or easily overlooked locations. Herrbasan did excellent graphics for the new treasures (as well the nice Worldmerge loading screen you will see now)! Keep your eyes open. Finally each chest in the game has a very tiny chance to contain such a potion.

f. Only 3 (instead of 4) parameter points are granted per level now and I increased skill point cost for higher ranks of skills (lvl 5+: 2 skill points per skill level and lvl 10: three skill points). Slightly de-creased starting parameters (offset by treasures in the first dungeon, keep your eyes open right from the beginning and stick to that habit).

g. Skill ranks of lvl 7+ are only attainable when doing a certain new quest and paying quite a sum of money per skill to a rather sinister "teacher" - look near the burned down former house of the scribe in the Savannah to learn more... if you dare, that is...

h. Total revamp of the stamina system: special attacks as well as counter strikes consume stamina now. Also, stamina is not regenerated any more while in block mode. You will hear a heart beat sound when stamina is too low to do any special attacks any more. Lower block to regain it - block only when you see a blow incoming and recover stamina in periods where the enemies themselves wait for a chance to strike. Timed blocking is key now.

i. Sneak skill grants a chance of about 2 percent per skill level to dodge attacks completely. While you are in crouch mode this chance is quadrupled. You will see a text messge "Sneaky Dodge" informing you about a successful dodge.

j. Assassination skill will cause 10% per skill level extra damage against foes that are stunned, blinded, knocked down etc. On top of damage from other special attacks too and with all weapons. When using a dagger it's even much more damage: like 1.8 times the dagger damage per skill level, resulting in about 18 times the dagger damage with one single strike on skill level ten (note: this is not reflected in the damage number, but can clearly be seen on the displayed health bar of the enemy). You will get a text message on such attacks ("Assassination Strike or - with dagger - "Deadly Dagger")

k. Pick pockets skill grants a chance for extra loot - not only for picking pockets specifically, but actually for all looting (i.e. containers and fallen enemies, too). You will a message "Luck of Thieves" when this skill gives you more loot. Over the course of the game this is a real money maker.

l. Running skill has a much stronger effect on the stamina pool and also influences the stamina per second consumption of fast running/sprinting.

m. Block skill starts with 50%+4% per lvl instead of 56%+4% per lvl. In the end blocking is still vital, but now more damage will pass through (especially on higher skill levels).

n. No more health regeneration in combat. As compensation the regeneration rate per skill level is higher and also 2 points of vitality are granted per skill level (a little buggy right now, they will only appear the next time you increase something else, but appear they will in the end)

o. Lock picking minigame increased in difficulty (less time, more turn speed of the rings), especially for master lock (additional ring there).

p. New trap system for chests: Depending on your lock picking skill, you might trigger traps on chests. If this happens you suffer explosion damage (with nice effect) and the loot in the chest might be damaged (ie you will get less items than you would have without that explosion).

q. Additional, relative level difference depended crowd control resistance (stun , knock down, etc.) for monsters: If the player is much lower in lvl than the monster, it's very unlikely that successful crowd control can be applied. You can significantly increase your chances with the "Pull Shield" skill now: it lowers this very crowd control resistance. This works automatically - you don't have to use an axe for this effect. It also benefits spell casting (lowers/pulls the mental shield) or bow shooting heroes.

r. New tricks for enemies: All enemies (minus select few bosses and some odd specials) can refresh their health upon retreat "(Enemy refreshed" message displayed). If they are at least more than 5 levels higher than the hero (their names are colored yellow then; colored red if even more than 10 levels higher) they can take a "Last Stand" when severely wounded (lower than 15% of their max hp) that regenerates their hitpoints in combat (back to 15 % again) and might even teleport to your position in a surprise attack ("Mighty surprise" message displayed). These mechanisms inter alia help the enemy AI survive endless kite as well as stuck in the landscape situations. They also protect high level foes from being exploit killed by very low level heroes.

s. Reward from Marvin for the long Two Worlds Colliding quest line adjusted. Additional rewards for the new quest line around buying skills of lvl 7+ is in. It's also rumored that killing Capsulath (Beware! If you can find him that is ...) is rewarded richly with an obscene amount of experience points...

t. Revamped the multipliers for enemy hp and damage as follows (note: not in the tutorial section):

Master:
Monsterlevel < 11: *1.50
Monsterlevel < 16: *1.75
Monsterlevel < 36: *2.00
Monsterlevel >= 36: *2.50

Expert:
Monsterlevel < 11: *1.25
Monsterlevel < 16: *1.5
Monsterlevel < 36: *1.75
Monsterlevel >= 36: *2.25

Normal:
Monsterlevel < 11: *1
Monsterlevel < 16: *1
Monsterlevel < 36: *1.25
Monsterlevel >= 36: *1.75

u. Brought the vanilla bosses and minions from the mp part back into the (former) mp maps of Mar-vin's questline

v. As the game has now significantly more content, I have increased the difficulty of the two last chapters of the old main campaign (Swamp and Oswaroth) by a hefty amount (like for Lvl 65+). You will want to do the former multiplayer maps as well as the Pirates Expansion before going there (you can try it before though - even ending the normal campaign will allow you to continue playing, too). Furthermore all experience rewards for solving quests and monster slaying throughout the whole game (minus the early beginning) have been reduced by 30 percent to somewhat compensate for the extra content. Also the experience curve itself has been adjusted to better absorb all the extra exp.

w. To have enough space for the vast former multiplayer maps I have cloned the Eikronas continent. You will find a second "mirror" Eikronas in the southern seas. The questline mentioned above explains this. Mirror Eikronas has the potential to be used for all kinds of further modding in the future - for now it just holds the lands of four former multiplayer maps.

x. Just as a small addition I have fixed a dungeon on Erimos (Savannah) that could prove as a trap with no escape for the player. Also the starting clothes of the hero are not worn directly anymore, but can be found in a chest at the beginning of the game (take left at the first T-junction with water). This was necessary for the enhanced character creation (see below for details) to work out flawlessly. Also, a not working gate in a dungeon under the Savannah is fixed and finally a small chance is added to find loot from the lower levels even with a high level hero. All of these changes were done in the first place by Toccatta actually - many thanks for that.

y. Many of the new texts in quest dialogues and books found were greatly enhanced by Dark-Dragon-X's excellent language edits - many thanks again for this outstanding work!

z. Rogdor, Dar Pha and Ghortarius all have new lines in the tutorial that explain all the new Worldmerge features in game, too.

2. The CORE comes in three NEW DIFFICULTY LEVELS:

All of them intended to be used with the hard difficulty setting (+50 percent monster damage) in the main game menu (but also can be used with normal or easy):

a. MORE VANILLA: This is like NOVICE below but minus changes to the stamina system, to hero hp in combat regeneration and the new monster tricks of refresh, last stand and surprise teleport to hero. Its combat gameplay is much closer to vanilla than the other variants.

b. NOVICE: This is the CORE as described above with the mildest modifiers for monster hp and damage (see above).

c. EXPERT: Significantly increased modifiers to enemy hp and damage (see above). Additionally it applies the They fight back! Mod (most enemies are much harder to interrupt by using your standard attacks, no stun locks by spamming standard attacks) and the AI Mod (opponents chase you longer and are more aware of your very long distance attacks). Both of these can be deselected in the installer, but I advise to use them.

d. MASTER: Even slightly more increased modifiers to enemy hp and damage (see above). Besides applying the other tweaks of NOVICE and EXPERT(for both see above) this also: a) increases the move and attack speed of most opponents by about 25%, b) makes most healing potions ten times more expensive, c) allows many creatures to do gang up attacks on you (i.e. more than two or three attackers simultaneously), d) adds much improved mass healing abilities to many casters in the game and e) gives additional special abilities to the Ants and Rhinos in the game. Not for the faint of heart.

3. FEMALE and MALE variants

For each of these CORE version an additonal female option is available (many thanks to Helix666 for finding out how to get female player characters working and to Azraledark for many additional configuration options for the female model; she speaks one liners in female voice, but normal dialogue is still the male hero's voice; armours from the main campaign are adjusted to female versions).

4. Version variety

This results in the seven different versions ready for download below:
MASTER MALE
EXPERT MALE
NOVICE MALE
MASTER FEMALE
EXPERT FEMALE
NOVICE FEMALE
MORE VANILLA

5. Additional mods integrated in each CORE variant (these mods cannot be uninstalled separately):

Crafting upgrade mod lite by Toccatta, which does inter alia allow to dismantle rings and amuletts for raw gold, which can be in turn used to improve other rings and amulets. Look here for details: Insidetwoworlds.com. You will find the full version of the mod there, too, which makes changes to the effects of gem fusion.

More dyes, more slotsV2 by Toccatta, special thanks also to JackBaldy: This expands the available colours for dying items from 11 to 48 and makes colours of items more vibrant. It also allows to colour metal armors and to colour many parts of your equipment that couldn't be coloured before. From V2 onwards new icons for the inventory have been added to allow a better identification of the colours. See here (also for additional lanaguage files with descriptive text for the colours): Insidetwoworlds.com in post #33 of this threadInsidetwoworlds.com JackBaldy explains how to make hats/helms invisible).

View Distance of NPC/monsters and many other objects increased, HeliX666 discovered this functionality: You will see enemies and many objects a lot sooner now.

Equipment lvl down is a twist on the mod Weapons and Armour now equipable before epilouge by Ambrose: TW2 maingame contains high lvl weaponary and armor that could not be used by the player character in the vanilla maingame, because the items required the player character to have an experience level that could simply not be obtained within the game. This twist puts all weapons and armour on a new, slightly altered progression curve - spreading everything available over the doable maingame level range of 1 to 44 (respawn and now integrated mp maps should easily allow to reach this level). Balance is maintained because the easier accessible items do less damage (always appropriate to their level). The new high lvl weapons and armor of Pirates DLC are not affected and should nicely fit in the overall scheme (PotFF assumes you being lvl 42). This twist is slightly milder than Ambrose's original mod as it reduces item lvls by just 10% (and some more for very high lvl items). For the orginal look here:Insidetwoworlds.com.

Creature Respawn Module by Toccatta: This allows many more creatures in the world to respawn after some time. It prevents the world getting empty after a while and also provides surprises when passing grounds you thought to be safe. For those who like to play long epic games beyond the story line, this will be especially welcome I assume. Toccatta carefully chose by hand which creatures should be allowed to respawn as it obviously would be inappropriate for special monsters/NPC. You can end the respawn by simply not looting dead creatures - their bodies stay and new cretaures are not created in their place. See here: Insidetwoworlds.com

Remove Bow Restrictions by Toccatta, special thanks to SlackerLX for finding the right column in the twoworlds.par: This one allows to use bows with all armours. As heavy armors/cloaks still lack precision boni (or even have mali) and light armors have such boni there is still enough incentive to go for lighter armors when shooting. On the other hand you have the freedom now to combine the cool looks of heavy armours or cloaks with black feathered death. More information here: Insidetwoworlds.com

Heavy Cloak Fix by Toccatta: With this mod you can buy heavy cloaks through the whole game at weapon vendors. In the vanilla game these cloaks were only available during a very small lvl window of your character. Afterwards there was no chance to ever buy other heavy cloaks again. Feel free to go cloak shopping now whenever you like. More information here:Insidetwoworlds.com

New Ashos Armour by youngneil1: You can buy a new armour now - the japanese style armour of the New Ashos guards (with main armour, helmet, gloves and trousers). It's a lvl 30 armor in this compilation, becoming available from character lvl 26 on onwards. Live your inner Toranaga-sama! More info here: Insidetwoworlds.com

Mortal NPCs by Toccatta, special thanks to Ambrose and Gandohar for making the first steps here: In this mod Toccatta has removed unrealistic invulnerabiliy and immortality from many NPC, so that you can realistically punish them any way you find appropriate. Beware though - you can spoil your own quest chains by doing this uncontrolledly. Therefore use this new freedom with caution and most important: safe often on different slots! It's quite satisfying even to know that your sword is actually very sharp against those NPC, too. Great for immersion. More info here:Insidetwoworlds.com

Potion Animation 1.1 by Toccatta: This enables a formerly deactivated animation - now you can see your hero really drink a potion when you quaff one via "n" or the the quickbar! See here: Insidetwoworlds.com

Arcane Twins - Casting with all weapons by youngneil1: This mod adds a new weapon category to the game, so called Arcane Twins. For almost every buyable weapon in the game the shops now proudly sell an Arcane Twin. This Arcane Twin shares the properties of its normal twin counterpart weapon except that the Arcane Twin does allow to cast magic instead of melee/bow attacks while used! Gone are the days of staff only casting. In addition to that when blocking with an Arcane Twin you now block and counterattack based on the weapon type and properties of the Arcane Twin (two handed swords, axes and clubs miss one of the three block skills though -the Arcane Twins are just to delicately made to support this without danger of breaking ). And what's more: I suggest hot keying an Arcance Twin to one hotkey on the quickbar and its normal twin counterpart to a neighbouring hotkey (perhaps even assigning both hotkeys to side mouse buttons). Therewith you can - on the fly - with a single easy key stroke switch from magic to melee and back again. You won't even see the weapon change at all - it looks and feels as doing melee and magic with the very same weapon. More info here:Insidetwoworlds.com

Geminus V5 by youngneil1, thanks to MRG for inspiration and screenshots concerning the first tomb: The Geminus Mod makes use of our newly discovered ability to add content (e.g. creatures, treasures, books,...) via hex edit (see here for details on adding content via hex edit:Insidetwoworlds.com
It provides a story background for new content by adding a book called UNUS to the chamber of Ghortarius on Alsorna, right in front of the teleporter. This book begins telling the story of the Archmage Geminus, who is hunted by the sinister Tenebrae Mageblade master assassin "23". While Geminus will send all kinds of treasure to help the player on her/his quest, "23" will try stop the player at all costs by placing unspoken horrors into the way of the player. Or so says Geminus in UNUS... read UNUS to find out more about it.
From v3 onwards you will find an early Arcane Twin and a book on its usage in the mage tutorial dungeon that Ghortarius sends you in.
Within v4 I have added new encounters and new treasure to the first tomb in the Labyrinth quest series - watch out for the new monstertype "Mazewalker" bathing the claustrophobic corridors in eery twilight .
Update v5 brings the OGRILOPS to life - a flaming, rune covered cyclops, who carries a cruel branding mark of "23". He guards an immensely powerful artefact weapon send by Geminus: the legendary two-handed sword Whiskenshine (it has a golden-gleeming, whiskeycoloured blade, with a small imprint from Geminus on it; it's said inter alia to make its bearer stronger, to be deadly sharp and move very fast) and its Arcane Twin (which is rumoured to increase the Willpower of its bearer); you will find OGRILOPS on top of a hill some way south of Bayan. OGRILOPS is the first new mini-boss of a series - besides being a magnificient melee figther he can summon whole packs wolf fiends and heal himself when severely wounded - he's got very strong survival instincts, as some Elite guards send by Hatamandor already found out the hard way... Bringing him down will cost you sweat (don't even try before lvl 30), but the reward is sweet Note: The OGRILOPS on MASTER difficulty makes half-gods cower in fear. For more details on the Geminus mod itself see finally here: Insidetwoworlds.com.

Noinvbarrier_V2, it was HeliX666 who found out how to do it: There are some invisible barriers in the game, teleporting you back if you try to cross them. They are disabled now.

6. Further additional mods provided with each version (outside the CORE, i.e. these mods can be uninstalled separately by just removing their .wd file):

Smaller interface icons by Toccatta: Many onscreeen interface icons are reduced to 2/3 of their size interfering less with the gameworld. More details here: Insidetwoworlds.com.

Graphic cross invisible by Tranit: This makes the permanently present crosshair invisible. What a relief (for me at least). Don't worry you can still target perfectly with your bow/magic and manouevre in combat, too. There are also variants just making the crosshair smaller. More details here:Forum.worldofplayers.de.

Character Builder 1.5 by Azraeldark: This breathtaking mod allows for a myriad of additional options at character creation (new faces, tatoos, hairs, muscular structures...). In vanilla you really saw only the tip of an iceberg of customization possibilties. Version 1.5 even allows to play as dozends of different mosnter models and also brings in special specular skin effects. Note: The normal human heads are under the section "complexion" in the menu. Specular bodies, arms, legs, feet are always choice numbee 2. For use of normal heads just choose option 1 under "heads" and modify by using the option "complexion". More info here: Insidetwoworlds.com

II. Known Issues

The overhaul as described above is not flawless - please note the following known issues:

Loss of far distant horizon files: As I know of no way of creating fitting horizon info for the newly pieced together world map, I had to remove the old, now misleading horizon file. This results in the loss of long distance views of far away lands. Nonetheless, rendering distance is quite high and you will see them still from quite a distance. Also the beautiful Flying Fortress is now omnipresent and foreshadows the events for the Pirates expansion right from the beginning of the main campaign.

Sometimes odd dialogue cam: As the new camera system was not originally designed for the old maingame, you will sometimes have unfitting camera perspectives in dialogues. All in all they run very well though. Some gestures in dialogues are unfitting, too. Sometimes first line of dialogue is not voiced over. Sometimes the speaker in dialogues is placed a meter off ground.

A very small section of northern Eikronas coast (original and mirror) has some ugly graphic bugs (because I had to place Tir Geal a little more northwards).

At some places of Eikronas coast minimap and worldmap display is not aligned with 3d view of the real landscape.

You can sail off the rim of the world.

Mysterious, glitchy floating isles hidden in the north western sea (ressource files; these are the former mp maps or the data used for them, depending your perspective) - unless you go sailing into the blue, you will never find them.

All savegames labeled with Prologue (only cosmetic, no adverse effect).

Inner Eikronas is still a mess - enter the former mp maps only through the associated questline or via using teleporters; you won't notice this though unlesss you glitch climb or console jump into Inner Eikronas.

Mirror Eikronas undeveloped besides the four former mp maps.

Some small issues with worldmap: It scrolls a little more unresponsive and the newly integrated mp maps still have a somewhat rectangular outline (not like drawn boxes or such, but topography indicates it).

Minimap for mp map net_m_7 (Marshlands, now map 19_a1) is a little shifted from your real position - don't let that irritate you

Several of Toccatta's mods (Respawn, Armor dyeing, Removal of bow restrictions...) will work only in the maincampaign part of the game: So e.g. armor from Pirates expansion cannot be additionally dyed or creatures in the former mp maps won't respawn.

Don't use soul patchers. It's likely to screw up due to the new skill point system.

Ingame skill descriptions don't show all the new skill effects on mouse over.

Don't use two skill potions (GEMINELIXIR!) directly after each other (click click). Leave the inventory between uses, just to be sure.

Regeneration skill cannot be decreased once increased, even if you have not left the relevant menu. Also the parameter point increase associated with this skill is only applied once you increase another skill.

Item descriptions for the parameter permanent increase potions (like GEMINUS_ROBUR for strength e.g.) are off a little: they say 1% increase. It's actually a simple +1.

Block breaker skill is not grayed out - even if you cannot use it due to too less stamina. Best to listen for the heart beat. When you hear that you know you don't have enough stamina for any special attacks.

On some very rare occasions your hero's hp regeneration might refuse to work. Get distance from the place of your last fight or even better teleport to another area, if that doesn't help drink a health potion.

On even more rare occasions foes might refresh hp to 100% when knocked down. Try to reattack such foes after they stood up within five seconds and they won't refresh. As alst ressort try tro avoid knock downs in these very rare occassions.

III. Requirements

TwoWorlds 2 Game - Full version (PC) and
Pirates of the Flying Fortress Expansion (PC)

It is advisable, though not required, to use an English language installation. The installer also supports a German installation, too - written text from PotFF, the (former) multiplayer maps and the new questline will be in English though (this is only of cosmetic relevance).

When using neither English or German version, dialogue texts of the new questline will occassionally scroll a little fast. Also large parts of written text in your game will be automatically switched to Englsih, resuling in some imx of languages (only of cosmetic relevance).

IV. Installation and Usage

A. Installation

For installation just double click "Worldmerge 1.4a setup.exe" and follow the prompts. All files should end up in your TW2 install directory\WDFiles\mods. Only the readmes (TW2 install directory) and the sound files (TW2 install directory\SoundData) are exceptions. The installer will also create a file called unins000.exe (and a corresponding .dat file) for uninstallation in your TW2 install directory.

Make sure to beforehand remove other mods, especially old installations of Worldmerge, if you're are in doubt whether these will conflict with (the newer version of) Worldmerge.

B. Usage

A fresh start is required - it will not work (properly) with old savegames.

1. Install the mod as described
2. Make a fresh character in the normal singleplayer main campaign
3. Save her/him
4. Go back to main menu
5. Start a Pirates of the Flying Fortress expansion game (worry not, this will due to modding lead to the normal start of the main campaign) - because of the added content (inter alia treasures and experience points) it's recommended to set the ingame difficulty level to "hard" (regardless of choosing the Novice, Expert or Master variant of Worldmerge)
6. Import your fresh character into the expansion game without choosing to level her/ him up

It's advisable to activate subtitles so that you can read the new, non-voiced over quest dialogue and look for hidden treasures right from the beginning.

When all works out as described, you will have a fresh level 1 character in Vakhmaar Castle. A new entry in your quest log should read "Two Worlds Colliding". When you find it after starting via PotFF menu point, you're set to go. Just to rephrase: Trick here is that the character is created using the old campaign start option, but the game is played via using the PotFF option (with importing that lvl 1 char from the old campaign).

The new questline starts at the beginning of the game and is designed to run almost to the final end. The questgiver is a "Crystal Man" you will find on the bridge spanning the central chasm in Alsorna (the island where you will find yourself once leaving the dungeons of Castle Vakhmaar).

Ah, and no mods allowed in multiplayer.

V. THANK YOU

Where to start? This will be long and rightly so!

The first one is easy: Dear Devs from RP (Dopelganger, Beholder, JacekS, Olorum, Youngszem...), my heartfelt thanks! You have given modding an excellent support by your very helpful comments, documentation, release of special explanatory files (like the map object dump or the explanations of the abbreviations and workings of AI routines) and even of analyzing Worldmerge itself and helping to track down bugs! A wonderful game you have done, that has its own unique twist on open world, good humored and action oriented RPG! It does not have to hide from any other RPG game in the world in this respect (yes, including heavy weight Skyrim, that is amazingly wonderful, but also simply very different) and should be played by any self respecting RPG fan for enjoyment and widening of her/his perspective. It has a freshness and pace that's unparalleled. Keep more content coming - and if you ever think of Two Worlds 3 don't forget about this community for betatesting . Speaking of which, again my thanks for the opportunity to participate in the beta of TW2 maingame and especially for adding the betatesters' names to that book in the beginning - meant a lot to me.

HeliX666 - nothing, like in NOTHING, of this would have been possible without your fan created tools. I mod this baby for many months now and still I am left awestruck and totally baffled how you so fastly and so bug free did these tools: the WD Tool, the Paramreader and The Soundstore Editor. All of them were used to make this and all of them are brilliant. Many thanks, mate. Also many thanks to Phalynx for creating the excellent LangEdit Tool, which made doing translation edits a breeze.

Actually when I started modding TW2, I had no clue at all what's going on (not that it would be that much better now, hehe) - it was Toccatta who explained me what a bit flag is in the first place and patiently answered many questions (who would have thought that it would make me spend long nights trying to decipher the structure of database files based on hex code patterns alone...). He also did many of the great included mods above and does a superb job of moderating these forums. A lot of Kudos to you.

Then there's Azraeldark who has brought us his magnificient Character Creator- I can't image playing a round of TW2 without it. During my one billion restarts I still have not seen all character combinations possible with this awesome mod.

Furthermore there's all the good people who gave input, exchanged ideas, were there for feedback: Ambrose (remember how we pondered on expanding the world for higher levels? Wonder what you think about Worldmerge; I think the first seed for this was created in our dialogues back then),xxxMorpheusxxx (you did brilliant, hard work on that intro video for TW2 mods, I hope I will be able to make good use of it soon; man, I could need your excellent video editing skills now), Aeryn (hope you're fine - you were one truely reliable companion during the years of TW1 and TW2), Propheet (second to none when it comes to knowledge on TW1 and TW2; keeper of a great database at IGNVaults; not to forget a great dancer on pins and needles, who kept me going through the long nights solving the hex riddle) and 7Vincent7Black7 (who did not let TW2 down during all the time of long silence in this forum and kept the place alive).

My deepest regard to all the brave admins and moderators of insidetwoworlds.com (Unknown, Infamous, Syphedias, Majorlove...) - that great place has become a virtual home indeed by now. For everyone interested in modding Two Worlds 2 or playing Two Worlds 2 mods, it's simply the place to be. I feel fantastic things coming from there...

Many kudos also to Herrbasan for doing excellent artworks for Worldmerge, like the Worldmerge logo, the associated globe, the font, the banners, the loading screen, the wooden download buttons and all the potion graphics for the permanent effect potions. Many thanks to you for enriching and inspiring all of us with this.

Also a big thank you to dark-dragon-x for masterfully editing many of my English texts for Worldmerge - he did so in a very thoughtful and creative way, keeping as much of the original spirit as possible. It was a tremendous effort and I learned a lot in the process. Worldmerge has greatly gained from this - and I had lots of fun when communicating with you, Vince!

And last, but in no way least - the brave recent testers of Worldmerge Alpha, Beta and early versions: Lyrus (who rocked the Beta ), dark-dragon-x,GabrielK, jmark1, madsurgery, Redman, The_Exile, Vancer2, Breton Warrior (the coolest Tasmanian horse talker I have ever come to know ),tw_george (who is right now writing a walkthrough for Worldmerge), hammerhorde (who inspired me to do the MORE VANILLA Version)and RBradley(who with very keen eye and persistence saved us all from some very nasty bugs) .

Forgive me please dear those, who slipped through this list and my exhausted memory.

VI. Into the great wide open

And now? I actually find myself happily humming right now in front of the screen . It's done (well not as in perfect, but as in "God damn it's out! Never would have thought myself it would ever come this far...").

I will eagerly watch your feedback (btw they say it kills a sailor each time you lit a cigarette on a candle - you will not want to know what happens each time you download a mod without giving feedback... ) and adjust the mod correspondingly.

Feel free to spread the mod and word about it around the net (with the included readme file) - but please give proper credit and direct all discussion to:
Insidetwoworlds.com (in other words: here).

It's been hundreds of hours of very enjoyable combining, tinkering, hex-editing, scripting and creative designing for me to get this up and running - I hope it brings some of the joy I had while creating it to you, too .

All the best wishes a totally exhausted, but overly happy

youngneil1

DOWNLOAD LINK for Worldmerge 1.4a Setup.exe:



Note: You can use Worldmerge 1.4a on Worldmerge 1.4 savegames without problems (only the fix for Tomb of Qaa wil not work, nothing game brekaing)
___

Important Note for current users of Worldmerge Versions older than 1.2 (Beta, Release 1.0 or Release 1.1):

Lyrus discovered some nasty bug with the last quest step for Marvin's/Stoney's questline. After completing the last (former) mp map (the one you gathered the XI series for) you will be - as intended - teleported back to Marvin, but then he will fail to understand that you just solved this last map. With 1.2 this bug is cured, but this does unfortunately not cure your existing savegames. Therefore I have come up with the following hotfix:

1. Open ingame console (with ^ or tilde key) and enter:
twoworldscheats 1
quest.eq 990070

2. Then speak to Marvin - after you're done, enter:
quest.cq 990070

This will resolve the questline as intended. My apologies for this glitch and the associated inconvenience of this hotfix.
___

Update history since V1.0

V1.1
• Implemented a multiple choice installer.exe for all version combinations
• implemented Toccatta's fix for the "pitfall dungeon"
• Enhanced support for GER version (e.g. slowed down display of quest dialogues, preservation of German text at least in the maingame...)
• (again) fixed spawn of the Radiant Champion(s) in the second former mp map (thanks to redman)
• disabled use of personal teleports in Tir Geal/Tir Cailithe
(Note that 1.1 did leave betastage only for a short period of time and was then updated to 1.2, just in case you should wonder why you missed 1.1)

V1.2
• fixed nasty bug with the last quest step of the new questline (thanks for Lyrus)
• fixed a missing journal entry for the new questline

V1.3
• fixed a very nasty bug with the TwoWorlds2.dat file which led to crashes on start of game or reload with dx9 versions of the game.exe

V1.3a
• fixed a bug with the installer that caused the Level Ressource file to be not installed when choosing a custom install (thanks to madsurgery)

V1.3b
• dealt with minor technical issue; please use 1.3b from here on, even with existing Worldmerge savegames

• Added download for Worldmerge 1.4, Beta Version 3: strongly recommended for the most comprehensive experience!

• Updated Beta for 1.4 to Worldmerge 1.4, Beta Version 4: fixed a bug concerning health regeneration as well as one concerning the Scribe's quest in the Savannah, Erimos (many thanks to RBradley!); added an additional "More Vanilla" install variant that makes the combat more vanilla again (no stamina use for special attacks, hp regeneration of hero in combat possible, some extra tricks of monsters removed)

V1.4
• Very, very comprehensive Update to full 1.4 (see details above)

V1.4a
• Additional fail safe check for the Monster Refresh mechanism implemented: re-attack them within five seconds after breaking from combat and they won't restore their health; relocated encounter with Silver General (thanks to RBradley!); (former) mp bosses drop invulnerability flag now when only two or less of their minions live - this makes these battle even less to prone to already very rare glitches; Tomb of Qaa will not crash anymore in central chamber (thanks to tw_george and RBradley!)

Note: You can use Worldmerge 1.4a on Worldmerge 1.4 savegames without problems (only the fix for Tomb of Qaa wil not work, nothing game breaking)

Attached FilesQuestitemlocations.txt (2.2 KB, 791 views)__________________
Worldmerge - content, exploration, challenge.

Download:" target="_blank"> Worldmerge 1.4a

Thread: Home of Worldmerge