Dungeon Master Forum

I think I might have posted this before, but I can't find it...

CSBuild has options to view the item names from either the DM or CSB list. In my custom dungeon, I have changed a lot of the items names, and so it would be handy if the programme could recognise these new names, say from a editable list. It would make designing a lot less error bound. In DM extract, DMOUT 556 produces a full list of all items in the game and their edited names. If this could, say be copied into the CSBuild directory as an editable reference (much like the 'tiles' are) which is thenrecognised by CSBuild, I would be most grateful!!!

Ship me a list in the format you propose. I don't think
this should be difficult.

I received the list.

A couple of complaints about this list

--There is no distinction between the various types of COMPASS, WATERSKIN, etc.

--Should we allow renaming of things like Wall Decorations, Floor Decorations?

--Should we allow renaming of monsters?

--The list is a simple, ordered list of item names. That is a bit dangerous
in my opinion. Like this

APPLE
BANANA
CARROT
etc

If an extra one gets in there or one is omitted then the rest
of the list becomes totally wrong. I would much rather have
an ID or something associated with each item. Like this:

00-APPLE
01-BANANA
02-CARROT

This way one could easily rename a couple items and leave
the rest as they are. I would provide the default
list and you could change it. Or we could even do this:

APPLE,XYLOPHONE
BANANA,YARD STICK
CARROT,ZIPPER

to rename the items. The various versions of (for examle) the
compass have unique names like COMPASS_N (or something).

The reason why I submitted the list as produced by DMExtract is that if I use DMEdit and alter the names, the list is automatically updated and ordered (DMout556) Copy and pasting this list into CSBuild would therefore make running changes very easily.

However I see the problems that could occur if someone edited this list externally. In the end, anything that lets me change the item names in CSBuild would be most helpful.

Tell you what. I will allow you to submit a list of name pairs.

APPLE, banana
SQUARE PAD, Floor Thingy
AND/OR GATE, Quad-pole Relay
DRAGON, Cockroach

and so on. I will stuff them into a content addressable array and
use that array to translate at the last moment when I am about to
print the name of anything. Missing entries will not be translated.

IN this way, you can use your list quite easily. I will also not add
any entries without a translation. Like this:
After the '#' are comments. The GOLD KEY will
not be translated.

Try CSBuild version 1.67 from:

http://dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin

There are probably a few places I missed the translation.
Let me know what doesn't work.

1st impressions are that it works just fine. No more placing falchions and ending up with giant double edged 'kill with one blow' DeathSwords. I'll keep you posted, if it don't work, sods law is that I'll find it...
Thanks

Thanks Pauls. This will be very helpful to me in setting up my new adventure, as I plan to rename / redraw quite a lot of items. Like Paul H said it should avoid the embarassing situation where the party completes a mighty quest for the Triple-bladed Sword of Talon and ends up with a Tub of Lard.

I can't seem to change the names of the 'red buttons'. I suspect this has something to do with the following parantheses.

I put the following lines:
and it worked just fine for me. What are the symptoms of your problem?

Wow! This is easily the most useful addition for me, especially as you made it work for *everything* not just items. I'm trying to build a dungeon that replaces pretty much everything, and remembering which monster equates to my creatures is a nightmare -- this solves that problem fantastically! Thank you.

Er, I found my problem. I was originally naming them 'red switches'. Doh! I sometimes wonder about my sanity.

Found a little bug: it involves stamina potions and your naming, ie Mon and Ma potions. If you create a Mon(stamina) potion, as named by the editor, you get one of the 'unused' Mon potions. If you create a Mon potion, you get a Ma potion in the game. This is mainly due to DM naming giving them both the same names, but that stamina suffix could do with erasing.

Slightly OT, but related: Are monster names hard coded in the game or stored in the graphics.dat?

Where inside the game did you ever find their names?
I can only think of the Oracle (which is just an external file of text, I guess you already know it).

In the Amiga version, the 'Creature' scroll shows their names when you stand in front of a creature. I guess it's hardcoded into the game -- I thought I had edited it in the graphics.dat once before but obviously not as I can't see any way of doing that -- only items can be changed.

but it would be in an amiga graphics.dat, then. Atari's one (used by CSBwin) has no creature names.

I don`t get it. What do I need to change objects names in the editor?

You change them in the obj.txt file in the csbuild folder, with normal, then new names seperated by comma

I still don't get it. What do I need to do to change objects names in the real game? I managed to change names for the editor, but
the csbwin uses still the standard description for items.
It even crashed .. or had no effect.

I thought with Adge I would be enabled to edit the names for real, but somehow it would not let me change the names of items.
I am a bit out of ideas..

[For the editor change of object names, I have downloaded an
objnames.txt which worked , but maybe it is not used for that?]

You use adge for the real game, there is an item name editor probably first one down in the pull down menu. You are maybe not clicking 'ok' then 'save' to make it use your changed names?

Adamo was asking how you change monster names in the editor. You indeed use the objnames.txt

found it
Thanks Beo!