Towns mods repository?

[ThatOneGoblin25]

Hi.

I know this game is dead, but I discovered an old save on an old HDD backup on my old family PC and it appears younger me installed the Ether Realms mod which prevents me from opening it.

The forums redirect to the steampage so it looks like they're dead, and the mod page was not archived on the wayback machine so I'm lost. Is there any way to satisfy my curiosity or is this a fools venture?

Looking into modifying the save files as the prompt is the game cannot load "ether table", even if I couldn't play it unpaused I still love to look at this old save (which honestly could just be a new start).

Thanks.

[supermalparit]

Hi Durelian,

I have no idea what mod is that "Ether Realms". Doing a fast search I found an old post (from 2013) where I explain how mods are installed. Let me quote it:

"
To install a mod, you should unzip it in the mods folder. That folder should be located at:
USERFOLDER/.towns/mods

The USERFOLDER is Operating System dependant, so on Windows it should be:
C:/Documents and Settings/YOURUSERNAME
or
C:/Users/YOURUSERNAME/
"

So, you can try to delete that mod and hope it works.

[ThatOneGoblin25]

I get the error message which is the following:
"Error loading world [item does not exist in the data files [ethertablet]]"

If the mod is truly lost media then my only option is to manually edit the save and remove all mod-related items that cause loading errors. So a bit outta luck.

Thank you for your prompt reply.

[supermalparit]

Hi,

no idea how can you edit the save, that's just compressed game data in binary format.

To solve the error you are getting right now ("Error loading world [item does not exist in the data files [ethertablet]]") you should edit the items.xml file in the data folder and add a "dummy" item with tag "ethertablet". For example, you can copy & paste an existing item (IE: "rmstone") and replace the ID (rmstone) by the ID the error is showing (ethertablet).

Once you did that load the game again, check the new error that the game will throw and continue adding dummy items to the items.xml file.

After that, just pray a bit and see what happens.

[YetiChow]

Ether Realms is a mod that touches on most parts of the game -- it won't be compatible with a "clean" install of the game through Steam. Unless you can find your old install data to retrieve a copy of the mod, unfortunately there's probably no way to access that mod anymore. It's always worth checking on NexusMods; but from my memory it was only uploaded on Townsmods.com which is now defunct.

The process off adding "dummy items" that Supermalparit describes would be lengthy; that mod adds not only items but also at least one new livingentity (I think there might be more), new effects, and it may even interact with the events and map generation systems. I remember helping with the original mod, off the top of my head I contributed sprites for a new entity and some items, and ideas about how to set up effects. Moreover, even if you hand-patched every single error with a dummy item/entity/effect/etc, chances are you'd be left with a normal Towns game with a bunch of random placeholders. While the mod didn't add dramatic changes to the game (mostly it added new items, enemies, and effects all related to the idea of elemental magic), it added new lines to most of the different files that are used to create those items, entities and so on (not just the .xml files, but also the graphics and so on); so you'd be looking a significant work to "unhook" the mod from the normal game files by dummying out all of its new additions.