ARgh!*smashes keyboard in half on head, throws it out window*(need spell editing help

Im having major problems with spell editing. Any time i try and make a custom spell, ALL the spells in the world editor disappear. No way to add any abilities, much less my custom spell. ANd i can't for the life of me figure out what im doing wrong.

Ok. Let's go through a couple of things:

1. Are you using MS excel or a spell editing program to change spell data?

2. I'm assuming you've looked at the tutorials, so I'll skip the very basics and ask: In what way are you using to make your edited abilitydata.slk show up in WE? Mpq, local file in the directory, or map?

3. Have you made sure that the text files coincide with the data you've added to the abilitydata.slk file? Ie. the custom spell codes have the right data in the right place.

4. Have you tried restarting the .slk file? Perhaps it was currupted in some form.

5. What mpq editor are you using to import the files if you are importing them?

~kharma

Ok. Let's go through a couple of things:

1. Are you using MS excel or a spell editing program to change spell data?
A spell editing program, im do damn broke to afford excel

2. I'm assuming you've looked at the tutorials, so I'll skip the very basics and ask: In what way are you using to make your edited abilitydata.slk show up in WE? Mpq, local file in the directory, or map?
local directory

3. Have you made sure that the text files coincide with the data you've added to the abilitydata.slk file? Ie. the custom spell codes have the right data in the right place.

yes

4. Have you tried restarting the .slk file? Perhaps it was currupted in some form.

3 or 5 times

5. What mpq editor are you using to import the files if you are importing them?
win MPQ

Ok, that was helpful.

Now, what spell editing program are you using? I use excel so I may not be able to help you myself, but have you tried emailing the creator? Perhaps they've been notified before of this error and know how to fix it.

Hmm..Have you tried integrating your edited files in a different way? I'm sure another person had a similar error, and the reason was that they'd had some of the files leftover from something else/in the wrong directory using them locally.

~kharma

im pretty sure u "killed" the abilitydata.slk
what spell editor? weibbe's will make ur map unplayable anyway...

I am using daishi of deaths editor...

And i am becoming pretty convinced its that program that is doing it... im about {} this close to just using notepad *shudders*

you can probably get some sort of spreadsheet program for free from somewhere. I don't have excel but after looking around for awhile i realized that my computer has "Microsoft Works Spreadsheet" which seems to work...altho there is a weird thing going on with the quotation marks.

Wait, you have gotten works spreadsheet to work?!?!? I have that but it doesn't late me save in .slk format no matter wtf i do.

you guys you know what, you can forget about it. I just did what I needed to do in notepad.. and you know what IT WORKED, it is also faster and easier to understand than the spell editor was....

...gulp...

What's that you say? .slk format? uh oh.

Well, it opens the thing in the first place, anyways.

I just tried to open AbilityData.slk in notepad and got gibberish.

AAAAA!! All of a sudden I'm scared. Luckily I've spent a lot more time so far working out what spells I'm going to edit and what they are all going to do than actually editting them.

Question: if you edit in notepad, how do save THAT as a .slk file? And how do you open the damn thing in the first place?

The giberish you are seeing is part of the .slk format. You can easily modify the AbilityData.slk in Notepad and save it when you have modified your changes.

Let's take an example...
Say you wanted to modify values for the Archmage - Mass Teleport. If you do a search for "Mass Teleport", you will find a line like this...

C;X4;K"Arch Mage - Mass Teleport"

The several lines that follow will define such things as the Range, Cast Delay, etc... It takes a little more work, but you can easily identify what a line is refering to by the 2nd colon delimited value. In the case of the line above, this would be "X4". Now go to the top of the file, and you will find this line...

C;X4;AFGilson: :Put the Hero name and the ability name here

You can then figure out what what any line is simply by matching the second colon delimited value, and refering to the references near the top of the file.

As an added note, you can download StarOffice from Sun for free (www.sun.com), and it will allow you to easily modify .slk files. You can get binaries for win32, as well as Linux.