Thursday 4 April 2013

MaLDoHD actual situation

UPDATE 1: After the moment of anger, I have to admit that, although the list of unlocked variables remains small, they have made some interesting additions. For exemple, e_Tesselation now works directly without messing with objectdetail and changing all affected cvars minus tess. They have fixed the flickering decals over wind-blown fabrics in first level too (now the material has no decals). Another good thing is that they have fixed the multiplayer broken performance in less than three days. So although it is still not the global desired situation, they are taking steps in the right direction.  Hopefully they can release mod tools promptly.

Thank you for your comments. Jesse, I forgot about that bug (glitch when you're aiming and the weapon dissapears and you can see a small hand or scope), you can fix it deleting the file "Crysis 2\Mods\MaLDoHDv4\gamecrysis2\Scripts\Entities\actor\basicactor.lua". The modification in this file allow mod to change r_DrawNearFov automatically after respawn and others situations where Crysis 2 reset the value to 55. But then this bug can appear in some situations.

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Hi all, I want to share my actual situation about MaLDoHD.

First of all, the only problem that a few users were experiencing in MaLDoHD 4.0 for Crysis 2 with invisible walls and ceilings on the Roosevelt Island level, can be easily fixed. Although I put it in the comments of the other thread, it seems logical to add it here in case anyone still has that problem. As I said at the time, it's not a fault of the modded material used in these walls, but a conflict that is generated in the user profile under certain circumstances and causes the engine not draw some surfaces. How to fix:

- Delete autoexec.cfg into crysis 2 game folder
- Start game without mods
- Change global graphic preset to Ultra
- Close game
- Restart game without mods (profile config will be updated)
- Close game again
- Launch MaLDoHD configurator and select recommended settings and nothing more
- Launch MaLDoHD v4 mod

There is another problem with the AI of an enemy group at the end of FDR level. They are running against the walls instead of search for the player. I give up with that, sorry.



About OnTheFly Tool for Crysis 3, I want to talk a bit more.

The reason of this tool is that I hate the situation of locked console vars into single player campaign. Crytek games was always on my top ten because I enjoy a lot playing with cvars. Crytek games used to be "sandbox" gameplay (very open for a FPS), "sandbox" console vars configuration (you can modify all you want in game mode in realtime) and "sandbox" editor (SANDBOX is the name they use for the Farcry editor). All three sandbox experiences packed into a game (editor included into the game seems a crytek trademark). You can play the game, alter the experience through the console, or create a full new experience using the sandbox editor. Three pillars of a complete experience.

With Crysis 2 they reduced the amound of cvars and ripped the editor in the initial launch. They also restricted the gameplay. Crysis 3, including a large batch of pre-launch promises, does not solve the problem.

We lose the editor, we lose the console configuration, we lose big part of the gameplay. Finally, the triple sandbox experience becomes an ordinary shooter. A great shooter, but a different thing compared with original Crysis.

In OnTheFly, I modified Crysis 3 executable to enable "exec" command. This way, you can execute .cfg files with every locked or unlocked cvar and modify their value. You can bind those .cfg files or cvar changes to keys. But the big thing is the possibility of changing locked cvars.

After first and second Crysis 3 official patches, I modified the exe again to enable "exec" command and release a new OnTheFly version.

Crysis 3 1.3 patch changes everything. Crytek have enabled "exec" command in Crysis 3 now. Is this a good thing? In my opinion, no. Why? Because they have modified the way "exec" works. The new "exec" command only allow to modify unlocked cvars. So, now, using "exec" is the same that using ingame console. This modification is not listed in 1.3 patch changelog, but is important imo. The only way until now you can modify locked cvars (OnTheFly Tool) is destroyed.

Now, we can't enable tesselation indepently of global object quality, we can't change shadow shader quality indepently of global shadow quality and so on. The full list of hundreds of cvars becomes, again, a lite list with a few unlocked cvars.

Maybe this isn't a big problem for mayority of players, but in my opinion, is a bad movement at all, because at the moment, the developer is openly showing that not only is not capable of maintaining the three pillars of freedom that were specific to their brand, but intends to clip the wings of anyone who wants to get.

Surely they can say that is only way to fight the cheats in multiplayer, but there are different ways (more logical and more efficient) to get a clean multiplayer than limiting this way the possibilities for players who don't cheat or who don't play multiplayer at all.

At the moment, I give up about OnTheFly Tool too. I'm having a good time with a lot of games from my pending list. Many of them are not as ambitious in some aspects, but in general seem more honest with the player. If someday Crytek allows Crysis 3 mods, maybe I will do something.


Thank you for playing.

Shit, we are close to seeing the one million viewpages mark!!!  :P