Daggerfall & Arena on Steam

Discuss Daggerfall Unity and Daggerfall Tools for Unity.
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Interkarma
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Re: Daggerfall & Arena on Steam

Post by Interkarma »

I'm thinking about how best to support Steam version. There's no doubt that being able to plug and play the two together is what people will expect.

I'm excited to see Daggerfall on Steam, even if it's not the best way to get the base game. Feeling really positive about it now and looking forward to the challenge.

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Ralzar
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Re: Daggerfall & Arena on Steam

Post by Ralzar »

Interkarma wrote: Wed Apr 27, 2022 6:41 am I'm excited to see Daggerfall on Steam, even if it's not the best way to get the base game. Feeling really positive about it now and looking forward to the challenge.
And that is the spirit that has made DFU actually happen instead of being yet another abandoned project :)

Allthough it is annoying and unnecessary that Bethesda did this, in the long run DFU is only served by being able to handle this version as it was allready a problem with the Bethesda Launcher.

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Jay_H
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Re: Daggerfall & Arena on Steam

Post by Jay_H »

In practice it should just be a matter of determining what files Steam provides, seeing what's in DaggerfallGameFiles.zip, and making a smaller compatibility patch to go from A to B. Perhaps?

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Metalhead324
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Re: Daggerfall & Arena on Steam

Post by Metalhead324 »

On the unofficial discord there's been references and posts to a Reddit thread that someone then posted as a Steam guide. It's kind of a hackaround way to trick Steam into opening DFU instead of its own exe. Here's the Steam guide https://steamcommunity.com/app/1812390/ ... 426737493/

It seems success rate with this working is sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. I haven't tried it myself yet, but I might (after backing up my working setup). For now, in the unofficial discord, I'm trying to steer people towards bypassing the Steam version as the easiest way to just get right to playing DFU.
Unofficial fan discord server https://discord.gg/NCrDfzSMpz

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Interkarma
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Re: Daggerfall & Arena on Steam

Post by Interkarma »

I've started unpacking this problem now. For the short term, please direct people to the following article showing how to manually patch Steam release to .213 and copy VID files, along with some other essentials.

https://www.dfworkshop.net/using-steam- ... all-unity/

Now in regards to supporting Steam release "out of the box", there are two broad problems to overcome.

The first is locating .VID files. For this, I can add bespoke logic to look for .VID files in primary ARENA2 folder first, then try path to ../DFCD/DAGGER/ARENA2 for Steam install.

For installing .213 patch requirement, here are the files changed by DAG213 and FIXMAPS:
  • QBN/QRC files (not required for DFU as it provides new quest files)
  • FLATS.CFG (not required as DFU embeds this file)
  • FNT files (not required as DFU embeds these files)
  • FACTION.TXT (not required as DFU embeds this file)
  • TEXT.RSC (not required as DFU embeds this data in localization)
  • Book files (DFU will start embedding books in 0.14 localization)
  • VERSTR.DAT (not required by DFU)
  • COUNT.DAT (not required by DFU)
  • REPORT.EXE (not required by DFU)
  • FALL.EXE (not required by DFU)
  • MAPS.BSA (required as not embedded in DFU)
So the only real gap remaining here is MAPS.BSA and fixed duplicate town names. There are a couple of ways we can overcome this, such as embedding MAPS.BSA file, providing a patched version of this file, or fixing on the fly in API's map reader.

Something I find interesting is all the files we've embedded so far was done specifically to resolve common reports from users running unpatched versions, or just to make DFU more functional. Essentially DFU is >this close< to supporting the Steam release and has been for some time now.

I'm confident we can make this work and provide a great out of the box compatibility experience between Steam and Daggerfall Unity.

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pango
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Re: Daggerfall & Arena on Steam

Post by pango »

I simulated MAPS.BSA patching in a PlayOnLinux install script few years ago, it wasn't that hard; So I can probably be done quite easily using runtime patching mechanism too

Code: Select all

# simulate the rest of DAG213.EXE work: patching MAPS.BSA
cp DFCD/DAGGER/ARENA2/MAPS.BSA DAGGER/ARENA2/
FILE=DAGGER/ARENA2/MAPS.BSA
cpatch() {
	string="$1"
	shift
	for offset in "$@"; do
		printf "$string\\0"|dd of=$FILE conv=notrunc bs=1 seek=$offset
	done
}
cpatch "Hal's Tavern" 1047962 1483930 3822533 5168320 11861871 12007237 18182800 18226618 19076460 19558619 19694830 20135365
cpatch "Chris's Inn" 1184610 1487514
cpatch " Heights" 6286605 7318532
# Expected MD5 hash 7121927d200ea03e5d833ae188a13cfa
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When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
-- Charles Goodhart

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Zavi
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Re: Daggerfall & Arena on Steam

Post by Zavi »

There's also a way to "trick" Steam into thinking that the default Unity client is actually the default client, and it seemingly works most of the time. So if you like Steam's playtime counter, screenshots, and overlay then that's definitely an option. It's what I plan on using as soon as I'm able to start playing the game again. I know that it's already been said, but it's also a good way to play Daggerfall. I could also see the Unity client getting its own Store page like with some certain other games on Steam too.

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XJDHDR
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Re: Daggerfall & Arena on Steam

Post by XJDHDR »

It looks like the Steam version of Daggerfall just received an update. It patches the game to v1.07.213. The patchnotes also namedrops DFU:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1812390/view/3326484488073970232

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Interkarma
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Re: Daggerfall & Arena on Steam

Post by Interkarma »

The Steam update includes .213 patch and all VID files in the right place, making it compatible with DFU out of the box. A very nice update!

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BadLuckBurt
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Re: Daggerfall & Arena on Steam

Post by BadLuckBurt »

Well, that's a surprise. Happy to see they decided to fix this situation, whoever pushed for this inside Bethesda did a good job :)
DFU on UESP: https://en.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=T ... fall_Unity
DFU Nexus Mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity
My github repositories with mostly DFU related stuff: https://github.com/BadLuckBurt

.

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