Merciless GW Mod - 1.0 : GW Submissions

All credits go to Texmod



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Merciless Guildwars MiniMod 1.0
(For Texmod)
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Download Location: [url="https://home.comcast.net/~Prowlinger/Merciless_GW_Mod.rar"]https://home.comcast.net/~Prowlinger/Merciless_GW_Mod.rar[/url]

This mod changes textures only to enhance
your Guildwars experience. You must use
Texmod to utilitize this mod. If you
do not know what Texmod is or have questions
about it, Please read the Q&A section at
the bottom of this document for more details.

This mod is a compilation TPF and will not
be split into sub TPFs. We will work with
other GW modders if they wish to work
together on something etc.

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What does this mod include?

Xunlai Agent - Agents look more like they
are from Cantha with makeup and a new outfit.
Since they originally herald from Cantha,
they now look proper to their heritage.

Xunlai Storage - Since the Xunlai are from
Cantha, their storage devices should not be
made of standard wood. Now they are made
from Canthian spiritwood and marble from
the Aurios Mines. Most chests now in GW
will reflect their magical spiritwood nature,
to hold all of the players goodies.

BloodFX / CriticalFX - Reduced the 'star' particle
effects and replaced it with subtle blood particles.
You will now see a major blood splat when you critical.
Subtle bloodFX can now be seen on many skills also
(look for the little red blood drops).

Mini Map Dots - Reduced the size of the minimap dots
about 200%. Now you can view the maps and see where
you have traversed and it not be consumed with overly
huge red dots.

Blindness FX - Increased size of blindness effect as
much as possible. Subtle change but alittle more noticeable.

Red Flash Mesh Removal - Red flashing on meshes when hit
have been reduced. This is still buggy esp. on ATI video
cards. If you still see red flashes, sometimes it works
sometimes it doesn't. The vanilla GW engine still supersedes
this at unknown times.

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Suggestions or things to work on for Future Versions:

Minimap Shrine Icons - Change all minimap shrine icons
to a yellow icon. This enhancement really helps seeing
the gray shrine icons by changing them to a yellow color.
The problem why this isn't included is because Anet has
designated a "shrine icon" image for each zone. I was
able to locate a few zones and make the changes but
each and every new zone has a redundant shrine icon image.
Why? Makes no sense.. only 1 is needed but Anet knows
their engine and this was their design. So being hopeful
this much needed change could go in the mod, someone
truly dedicated to just this portion of the mod that
wants to do it... is welcome to help. I do not have time
to do it. What would it take? Run texmod and locate each
and every zone icon image address. Once all the addresses
are known for each campaign, I could compile the images
for them all. If you wish to do this, email me ... if
not, oh well... it was worth a shot.

Footsteps Mod - Tried reducing footsteps by 50%, which
worked but since the image is SO frequently used in memory,
Texmod eventually errored out and showed graphical errors
while in GW using the mod. So I removed this portion of
the mod for now.

Reduction in Staff / Wand Effect Sizes - Not sure if this
is even possible. Are the fireball effects tied to a mesh
or texture based on size? It is hopeful to reduce all
of the "shots" from staves and wands to reduce the visual
chaos during battles.

Xunlai Warrior Agent - May make a few subtle changes to
the male warrior agent so that he will fit the design
of the Xunlais in this mod. More Cathan like...

Hero Flag Icons - May change hero flag icons to reduce icon
size for minimap...

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Q&A SECTION:

Using this mod will get me banned or is this cheating?

No. No. No! Using Texmod is safe and has successfully
been used by myself and many many others for over 1 year with
NO negative incidents from Anet / the ULA / or whomever.
It is safe, 100%! Still unsure? Go to any big city in GW (LA)
and ask in the public channel about people using Texmod and how
many are currently doing it. You will see that there is nothing
to fear.

How does Texmod work?

Texmod runs in memory... when you load it, point to your
GW.exe and choose one (or multiple) TPF mod(s) to run, then
click Launch. It is as simple as that. Prime example -
When you run this mod using Texmod, walk up to a Xunlai storage
chest. What normally happens is that you see a wooden chest.
Texmod (and this MC mod) uses secondary textures that apply
to the same memory address. So instead of seeing the vanilla
wooden chest, Texmod knows that the chest should look different
in memory since you are superseding it with this mod... and
Texmod shows the new Xunlai spiritwood chest instead. Simple
texture alterations.

Memory Layers:
Texmod Textures----------------- Layer 2
Standard Guildwars Textures--- Layer 1
(High priority layer supersedes lower layers for textures in memory)

Texmod wins out in priority seeing as it supersedes the memory
addresses while playing.

Why does Texmod show as a quarantined virus (Mcafee Antivirus)?

Don't get too frightened, Mcafee is just doing its job even though
it IS NOT a real virus! Mcafee sees Texmod as a virus (and it isn't)
and quarantines it. Mcafee sees it as a memory resident program and it
thinks that all memory resident applications are viruses and logs
them. Feel free to check it yourself... Thousands of people have
been using Texmod for years and it really is trustworthy. (Mcafee
on the other hand... lol!)

Mcafee keeps quarantining my Texmod, what can I do to stop that?!

Good question... I keep the Texmod zip/rar on my desktop as well
as Texmod exe. If and when Texmod is quarantined, I just open the
zip/rar and decompile Texmod exe back out again. I personally
have tried to stop Mcafee from removing the exe to quarantine
and making it read only but so far no luck. Let me know if you know
a solution, I would love to know also!

Sometimes my graphics get glitchy, corrupted or blocky, what can
I do?

Simple... just ALT TAB to the desktop and ALT TAB back to Guildwars.
This should fix any graphic anomalies you were seeing. Something
about memory addresses task switching cleans them up. Simple.

Will the Merciless GW mod work with other Texmod mods?

Yes, granted the more mods you have loaded, your video card settings
and specs are all volatile. Texmod isn't flawless or bug free. As
example when using the Cartographer mods (which help see uncharted
areas on maps for reaching your Cartographer title) - it is common
on my personal ATI x1900 video card, for the gui to get graphically
corrupted at times... ALT TAB usually fixes this. I run about 3 mods in
conjunction with the Merciless GW mod. All is good.

Does Texmod constitute as "cheating"?

No. We are not changing anything that would change the game balance.
Just simple texture altercations for a truer GW experience.

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Known Issues with Merciless GW Mod:

BloodFX and CritFX show on all monsters and items, anything from a Charr to
a Golem to a wooden dummy. As of right now there is no way in the GW engine
to discern from a flesh based hit vs. a non flesh based hit (especially on
criticals). So you will see blood come from a hit golem, stone creature, or
even wooden dummies. Doesn't look too bad but isn't politically correct
either. Hopefully this will be addressed in GW2 based on folly hits vs.
material types.

CritFX almost glows in the dark esp. in dungeons. No doubt you WILL see
the crits in dark areas. This appears to be an engine issue where hit textures
are not darkened during dungeons or low light areas. So the blood or CriticalFX
will show more a brighter off red color than a darker blood red while in
dark areas. Seriously... a very minor issue for those color perfectionist like
myself... Maybe this will be addressed in GW2 also.

ATI Video cards may not properly show the removed red flashes on mesh hits.
I am not sure what is the cause of this. Even the other red flash removal mod
from some other GW modder still shows red flashes, so it points to a problem
with ATI video cards or drivers. If you know of a fix for this, please let me
know

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Historical Background:

Merciless has been the root of many mods in the past 10 years. Our internet
presence has waxed and waned over the years as well as our modding team.

Mods that you may recognize from other games include --

Merciless 1942 Mod - The massive Battlefield 1942 mod which changed most of
Battlefield 1942 to include greater realism and sounds etc.

Call of Duty MC Mod - Call of Duty 1 and 2 mod that added merciless blood
and effects, plus changed the MP game to include many new additions to new
styles of gameplay.

Total Annihilation / TADD Mod - The peak of its time mod for Total Annihilation
where we released over 100 new units, new maps, new tilesets and even created
the first TA revolutionary modding tools just for the TA community.

Over the years, great members of our Merciless Creations team have broken off
into real world game careers such as "Kinboat" going to Gas Powered Games and
"CAP" going to Treyarch. It is great to have a history of modding that has
real world impact and success for our dedicated team members!