Inconceivable, the royal pyramid besieged!

enderandrew · Post by **enderandrew** » Thu Jun 14, 2018 6:47 am

I've never played the 2 CD full talkie version. Sadly it looks like the GOG version on sale isn't this version and I'm not seeing any way to buy it legally today.

I copied files from my Might & Magic 1 through 6 compilation and ScummVM detected both World of Xeen and Swords of Xeen, but ScummVM crashes even with a nightly build trying to launch either.

https://imgur.com/a/15DdXSk

skite2001 · Post by **skite2001** » Tue Jun 26, 2018 6:38 pm

@dreammaster
world of xeen cd is running with my ripped mp3 tracks from my original cds. howewer it seems that the cd voice is not as loud as the hardcoded ones. can this be adjusted?

another question...
is it possible at some time to play the world of xeen cd (released english only) in another language, for example german?

dreammaster · Post by **dreammaster** » Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:37 pm

enderandrew wrote:I've never played the 2 CD full talkie version. Sadly it looks like the GOG version on sale isn't this version and I'm not seeing any way to buy it legally today.

This is actually something I consider a bit silly about how GOG packaged World of Xeen.. the game does actually have both the floppy and CD talkie version, but the game entry plays the floppy version by default. To play the CD Talkie version, you actually have to dig into the Start menu group for the game, or in GOG Galaxy go to the options menu for the game and select to play the talkie version.

enderandrew wrote: I copied files from my Might & Magic 1 through 6 compilation and ScummVM detected both World of Xeen and Swords of Xeen, but ScummVM crashes even with a nightly build trying to launch either.

https://imgur.com/a/15DdXSk

This may actually have been due to changes in the xeen.ccs data file.. if you downloaded a newer daily build of ScummVM at some point without also getting a fresh copy of xeen.ccs, it would explain the error. There were a few text strings in the engine's source I'd previously missed, that needed to be translateable, and so I added them to xeen.ccs to make it easier to translate the game's interface completely to foreign languages later on.

dreammaster · Post by **dreammaster** » Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:49 pm

skite2001 wrote:@dreammaster
world of xeen cd is running with my ripped mp3 tracks from my original cds. howewer it seems that the cd voice is not as loud as the hardcoded ones. can this be adjusted?

It should be adjustable via the ScummVM GMM options menu. However, currently the engine does have one remaining problem in that the music and SFX aren't respecting the ScummVM effects/music volume sliders, so they do indeed drown out the voices. I've been meaning to fix that, but I've been somewhat hampered the last few weeks due to a move from Boston on America's east coast to San Jose on the west. I've only just yesterday evening finally got my computer set up again, so plan to spend some further time working on the sound code this weekend.

skite2001 wrote:another question...
is it possible at some time to play the world of xeen cd (released english only) in another language, for example german?

Well, if you mean a fan translation, it's theoretically possible. Text strings are grouped in a few places:
1) The xeen.ccs (created by the create_xeen tool) has a lot of text strings that were originally hard-coded into the game executable. A set of translations for the new language could be added to the data file, and a bit of code to the engine to use them when a detection entry for the given language is used.
2) Each map has name resource that would need to be translated
3) Each map has a text resource that all the scripts refer to for all the text that gets displayed.

Oh, and you might also have to worry about modifying the font if doesn't have the correct accent characters you'd need. I can't remember off the top of my head whether the font has non-English accents or not.

skite2001 · Post by **skite2001** » Tue Jun 26, 2018 10:01 pm

dreammaster wrote: Well, if you mean a fan translation, it's theoretically possible. Text strings are grouped in a few places:
1) The xeen.ccs (created by the create_xeen tool) has a lot of text strings that were originally hard-coded into the game executable. A set of translations for the new language could be added to the data file, and a bit of code to the engine to use them when a detection entry for the given language is used.
2) Each map has name resource that would need to be translated
3) Each map has a text resource that all the scripts refer to for all the text that gets displayed.

Oh, and you might also have to worry about modifying the font if doesn't have the correct accent characters you'd need. I can't remember off the top of my head whether the font has non-English accents or not.

well..actually there is a german version for world of xeen, but not a cd-talkie version. I meant that maybe it is possible to use the german texts and add just the sounds of the english talkie version to it..or tell the english talkie version to use the german text files..IF this would be possible and don't need a rewrite of the whole code of course

dreammaster · Post by **dreammaster** » Tue Jun 26, 2018 11:15 pm

skite2001 wrote:
dreammaster wrote:well..actually there is a german version for world of xeen, but not a cd-talkie version. I meant that maybe it is possible to use the german texts and add just the sounds of the english talkie version to it..or tell the english talkie version to use the german text files..IF this would be possible and don't need a rewrite of the whole code of course
Ah, I get you now. That would actually be very difficult, since the game scripts in the CD version are different from the floppy version since they contain calls to play the cD tracks each time a voice sample is played. So converting the German floppy version to use the English tracks would be just as hard as trying to do a fan translation from scratch.

enderandrew · Post by **enderandrew** » Fri Aug 03, 2018 4:50 pm

dreammaster wrote:This may actually have been due to changes in the xeen.ccs data file.. if you downloaded a newer daily build of ScummVM at some point without also getting a fresh copy of xeen.ccs, it would explain the error. There were a few text strings in the engine's source I'd previously missed, that needed to be translateable, and so I added them to xeen.ccs to make it easier to translate the game's interface completely to foreign languages later on.

I just switched from my old MM 1-6 CD compilation to buying the GOG version since it is on sale, and the GOG version does include the CC Talkie version.

I mounted the ISO, pulled the CC files off disc 1 and renamed the xeen??.ogg tracks to track??.ogg as instructed.

I grabbed xeen.ccs again to make sure I have the latest version, and also grabbed the latest daily snapshot build. Again, I get a crash on trying to launch the game.

Here you can see the crash and what my folder looks like.

https://imgur.com/a/YjlRMv3

The log file shows nothing helpful sadly. I've tried deleting everything from the game folder except for xeen.ccs, the .cc files and the .ogg files (which I've tried in both the root game folder and in a music folder like GOG provides).

Nothing. It always crashes when starting the game.

I opened an issue for it.

https://bugs.scummvm.org/ticket/10649#comment:1

enderandrew · Post by **enderandrew** » Sat Aug 04, 2018 3:51 am

I discovered the problem.

Buildbot isn't making new builds. The latest "daily" snapshot is actually from May 12th. Grabbing the latest xeen.ccs from Master doesn't work with it. If I grab an older xeen.ccs from here, the game launches:

https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/blob ... a/xeen.ccs

klopjero · Post by **klopjero** » Wed Aug 22, 2018 10:35 am

Hi, I read this list and I wonder, if the world xeen is supported ..and swords fo xeen is supported.. and swords of xeen is part of the M&M trilogy..is Might and magic III Isles of Terra also supported?

Dark-Star · Post by **Dark-Star** » Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:31 pm

no (the engine is too different)

klopjero · Post by **klopjero** » Wed Aug 22, 2018 4:59 pm

Dark-Star wrote:no (the engine is too different)

thank you for clearing that up

Zadroter · Post by **Zadroter** » Sun Oct 14, 2018 9:10 pm

dreammaster wrote: This is actually something I consider a bit silly about how GOG packaged World of Xeen.. the game does actually have both the floppy and CD talkie version, but the game entry plays the floppy version by default. To play the CD Talkie version, you actually have to dig into the Start menu group for the game, or in GOG Galaxy go to the options menu for the game and select to play the talkie version.

If you choose to create shortcuts while installing, it chreate 2 shortcuts for ersion with voice and without voice.

Dark-Star wrote:no (the engine is too different)

Sorry, just interested, why port started from most advanced classic MM games? I guess MM3 engine is simplier with it's lesser animation support and other things that in theory make it more simple to port.

Anyway, great project! It be indeed very neat to play this game on tablet, since it is like almost desighned for touch screen