Custom Card Size Mod?

[Myew Gelato]

I once heard about a custom graphic or size mod which makes cards dropped on the ground bigger, and therefore easier to see under large piles of loot or behind bushes/scenery. I have been unable to find any information about it on the interwebs. So, I have a few questions -

1: Is it illegal to use? (such as a hex edit)
2: If not, where can I get it?
3: Does it interfere at all with picking up the cards? IE: 'You cannot pick up the item' due to it being on a cell farther than the graphic edge.

[Najara]

Should be allowed. Plenty of players have made .grf modifications (such as the different kinds of valk helm versions, etc)
Also, you're changing it's sprite, so any card including the ones that give the 'You cannot pick up the item' message should have that sprite. (If that's what you meant? @_@)

I'll put up a link for you later unless a GM disagrees with this feature being allowed.

[Myew Gelato]

I'm not so sure if it's a custom sprite or a change in the scaling of the sprite. I have no clue what you meant by the second line.
I'll try to explain it better. Let's say you're position lagged, and you go to pick up an item that appears to be in the cell next to you. You will get the message 'You cannot get the item.' because you're not actually next to it, even though you appear to be. Let's say the mod scales the size of dropped card icons to 500%. It's now appears to be as big as 4 cells, even though the actual item is in a single cell. If you try to pick it up from one of the 3 cells that the item isn't in, will it not allow you to pick it up? Sorry, confusing I know. ._.

[Najara]

I'm not so sure if it's a custom sprite or a change in the scaling of the sprite.

It's impossible to decrease/increase the size of an item without using a sprite modification tool.
Altough (as I've seen on some other servers) there are some spriters that have done this, but since it's an item that is 'made' by the community and not by Gravity it's self; it'll still be considered as custom sprite, even if they only increased the size.

I have no clue what you meant by the second line.

It was directed at question #3, lol. But I guess I misunderstood, my bad.

[Auurium]

1. Changing the GRFs to have an unfair advantage over other players IS illegal (or should be). Spriters like me don't affect the gameplay by customizing some stuff (ex. LH3 Phantom Falcon). But changing sizes of certain sprites to make it easier for you CAN be considered illegal, and are some things that I don't touch at all.

2. To make custom sprites at least you require 3 programs.

3. No, your chara will most likely go to the cell where it dropped, it takes 1 real cell regardless of size. That's what I think tho.

[Fidelis]

1. Changing the GRFs to have an unfair advantage over other players IS illegal (or should be).

That's what I also thought all the time. It's a kinda unwritten rule, since ... well, let's be honest, it's pretty hard to detect (unless the offender posts screenshots of himself doing it), since it's purely a client modification, and cannot be checked with any server side methods. The only effective counter-measure would be to encrypt the GRFs, and modify the client to only read those encrypted files, although that'll kill off pretty much any of the non-official spriters.
Well, I don't think it's THAT much of an advantage, since how often do you have to fight for cards, unless you compete against another team for an MVP... still, it's unfair, and thus, should not be approved.

2. To make custom sprites at least you require 3 programs.

Well, for the simple task of creating a drop icon that's bigger than the normal one, you'll just need one tool to open those files, a website reference for the name, and MS Paint, i.e. it'll take 5 minutes. I did it in 4.

3. No, your chara will most likely go to the cell where it dropped, it takes 1 real cell regardless of size. That's what I think tho.

That's what happens. You'll be able to click on a larger icon from afar, but either way, your char will walk to the one cell it was dropped to and pick it up there. Well, and if you can't pick up the drop because you KSed and did not get the right to loot first, you'll get the error message as usual.

[Myew Gelato]

I didn't think it was an unfair advantage over other players, just to help you see rare items under piles of loot covered in sanctuary and magnus and terrain. o.o; I have no intention of using it to steal loot. Heck, I'm usually the one dead on the floor when people are grabbing at my mvp kill. ;A;

[Fidelis]

Well, not only that you can see it more easily, you can also click on it more easily. Let's say, there's an area covered with lots of jellopies and sticky mucus, and in the middle, there's 1 rare card, take two players, one with the modification, the other one without it. Who would be the one to loot the card? Clearly the one with the modification, since the other one probably could not even see the card, thus, he couldn't even click on it.
That's what you would consider as unfair, although you're right, it's probably only relevant in cases of loot stealing, since loot dropped from a monster that you killed is your loot, and if you pick up everything, and drop the worthless items afterwards, it's the same as if you only have to click on the card, except for maybe a time difference of 5-7 seconds.

Then again, look at other online games such as WoW or Runes of Magic, those have legal add-ons to make you see monster HP and other neat stuff which definitely gives you an advantage over players who do not use such add-ons. I dunno. *shrug*

[Auurium]

2. To make custom sprites at least you require 3 programs.

Well, for the simple task of creating a drop icon that's bigger than the normal one, you'll just need one tool to open those files, a website reference for the name, and MS Paint, i.e. it'll take 5 minutes. I did it in 4.

Well Fidelis, I did a whole spritesheet of a weapon once, it took me 3 programs Q>Q, Photoshop, a converter/sprite and other shit.

U TROLL U DID IT IN 4 QQ. (lol)
Oh well, Thanks for the clarification in point 1 and 3.

@last post: Kinda reminds me of an add-on on official servers too, but the situation is so strange that you can get banned or not just for using it, depends of the GM you're talking to, lol. But thats their issue...or something like that. <.<

Off topic: What was the game name of your avatar?

[Fidelis]

Well, for the simple task of creating a drop icon that's bigger than the normal one, you'll just need one tool to open those files, a website reference for the name, and MS Paint, i.e. it'll take 5 minutes. I did it in 4.

Well Fidelis, I did a whole spritesheet of a weapon once, it took me 3 programs Q>Q, Photoshop, a converter/sprite and other shit.

U TROLL U DID IT IN 4 QQ. (lol)

Well, I just took the next best sprite I saw (Valkyrie Helm), exported it to BMP, enlarged it to 1000% its original size, put it back into the sprite file, and replaced the jellopy sprite. Muahahaha! SUPER GIGANTIC VALK HELM DROPS EVERYWHERE!!

Off topic: What was the game name of your avatar?

It's Cave Story!

[Auurium]

Well, for the simple task of creating a drop icon that's bigger than the normal one, you'll just need one tool to open those files, a website reference for the name, and MS Paint, i.e. it'll take 5 minutes. I did it in 4.

Well Fidelis, I did a whole spritesheet of a weapon once, it took me 3 programs Q>Q, Photoshop, a converter/sprite and other shit.

U TROLL U DID IT IN 4 QQ. (lol)

Well, I just took the next best sprite I saw (Valkyrie Helm), exported it to BMP, enlarged it to 1000% its original size, put it back into the sprite file, and replaced the jellopy sprite. Muahahaha! SUPER GIGANTIC VALK HELM DROPS EVERYWHERE!!

Off topic: What was the game name of your avatar?

It's Cave Story!

Lol.
Oh yay thanks! *goes to play it on my free time now ithat I remembered*

[Myew Gelato]

Curly Brace~

[Brainfog]

i chose not to save you curly brace! imma so sorryy!!

[Myew Gelato]

So, I've been poking around in the .grf's a bit with GRF Tool and Gryff... and I realize that all of the files are in korean, whereas the sprite bible on RMS is in... ascii?
So you need a converter or something... I have some 'gayconv' I downloaded years ago but that seems to only go one way... *somewhat lost*
Trying to understand how files go from the pack to paint and back. I don't have any fancy sprite programs.
A friend once got the hearts out of Fortune's Kiss for me and turned them into aura floaties, I wanna customize stuff too. >:
I'd like to see a phantom falcon~
The one who leaves Curly Brace will receive a beating.

[Auurium]

So, I've been poking around in the .grf's a bit with GRF Tool and Gryff... and I realize that all of the files are in korean, whereas the sprite bible on RMS is in... ascii?
So you need a converter or something... I have some 'gayconv' I downloaded years ago but that seems to only go one way... *somewhat lost*
Trying to understand how files go from the pack to paint and back. I don't have any fancy sprite programs.
A friend once got the hearts out of Fortune's Kiss for me and turned them into aura floaties, I wanna customize stuff too. >:
I'd like to see a phantom falcon~
The one who leaves Curly Brace will receive a beating.

Well in my old comp I couldn't download the Windows file for oriental idioms, so I had to read like...square language all the way.
What you can do is extract the WHOLE GRF and put it on your comp as a normal folder to have the OS's search engine working on it to get the files asap, lol.

You can download my phantom falcon GRF somewhere. D:
I'm not sure if I should be posting this.
<.< >.>