GUIDE- How To Use Custom Maps & Mods With EZ Boiii Client

[JStraun277]

Thought I'd put this post on in the hope it helps others, as trying to get a straight answer/guide on this (at least via Google) was a pain in the a*se, and even a lot of mod/map makers say on their Workshop page/comments that their mods don't work with the boiii client anymore, but yes, they do. There's just some more steps first. So hopefully, someone googling this in future, or indeed current sub members, find this guide useful.

In short, this is to serve as an answer to the question

Can I use custom workshop maps and mods with the Ez Boii/Boiii Client? - YES.

Do I just download the maps and mods from the workshop and they're good to use? - NO! (not quite anyway).

So, how do you use custom workshop maps and mods with the Ez Boii client? Well, quite easily actually.

Step 1 - Download the Ez Boii client from here "- https://github.com/Ezz-lol/boiii-free/releases" . Download whatever the latest release is.

Step 2 - Put the downloaded EZ Boii.exe in the same folder that your BO3.exe is (i.e., your install folder). For Steam, this would be "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Call of Duty Black Ops III" or whatever drive you install Steam games to.

So the above has the EZ Boii client good to go, and if that's all you want to use, then just launch the Ez Boii.exe and hit play, but for custom Zombies maps and mods, there's a few extra steps, and this is more the purpose of the guide, as I couldn't find the answer to this for a while. I eventually found a random YouTube video on it, which had part of the steps but for the old client, so I thought this guide would be easier for most to find and follow. Now for how to use the custom maps and mods.

Step 3 - In the same install folder that you put the Ez Boiii.exe, you need to create two new folders. The first folder should be named "usermaps", and the second folder should be called "mods". So both of these folders will be in your main install folder, alongside the BO3 & Ez Boiii exe files.

Step 4 - Open Steam, click on BO3, then open the workshop and browse for any maps/mods you want, as you would do normally (if you don't already have them installed, if you do, just carry on from here). Download each map & mod you want. Once you download a mod/map, it will download to "C:\Program Files (x86)\steam\steamapps\workshop\content\311210".

Step 5 - In the folder above, you'll find a new, numbered folder for each mod/map you download. Open any of the folders, and inside, near the bottom, you'll find a file named "workshop.json". Open the file in Notepad++ (download Notepad++ you don't already have it), and one of the lines of the file will say "folder name" and next to it will say, for example "zm_leviathan". Copy this name.

Step 6 - Open your "usermaps" folder you created earlier, and create a new folder and paste the name you found in the last step in to it. So in this case, you'd have a new folder with the name "zm_leviathan". then, open that folder and inside, create a new folder again with the name "zone". So now you have "/usermaps/zm_leviathan/zone/".

Step 7 - Copy all the contents of the map folder (the one you downloaded from the workshop, that has the "workshop.json" file in it) and drag/paste them inside the "zone" folder you created above. Or, you can rename the numbered folder on the individual map to "zone" then just move it inside the "zm_leviathan folder". Whatever is easier. If it is a mod instead of a map, do the exact same thing, but put it in your /mods folder that you created earlier instead of your "/usermaps" folder. So for example, you'd have "/mods/reap_collection/zone/" with the mod folder contents copied inside there.

Do this for each map/mod and that's it. Now you can launch the Ez Boiii.exe client, and play the game, and all maps and mods will appear in the menu's (just don't forget to unsubscribe again to each on Steam, or it'll re-download each one you moved next time it scans the game) There is one more potential issue you may run into with some mods (i.e., the All-Around Enhancement Mod), which I'll detail below;

when launching the Ez Boiii.exe and using certain mods (such as the All-Around Enhancement Mod), you may get a warning that the mod has tried to call an unsafe Lua script, and has been blocked unless you restart BO3 with the "-unsafe-lua" argument. This is fine to do, and is just the client protecting you from unsafe/exploitable commands. In the case of trusted mods such as the All-Around Enhancement Mod (which these Lua calls are necessary for, for them to modify the UI, original maps, console menu, etc), you'll need to launch with this command.

To add the command, you don't add it to the BO3 exe, but to the Ez Boii.exe, as it then passes it to the BO3.exe during launch (which you'll see on the console as the mod client launches).

To do this, go to your install folder again and right click on the Ez Boiii.exe file and click "send to" then "Desktop, create shortcut". Once the shortcut is on your desk top, right click on it and open "properties".

Inside properties, you'll see a line that says "target" and it will show the location of the file it is a shortcut to, so for Steam, it would say "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Call of Duty Black Ops III/boiii.exe". You need to add a space, then "-unsafe-lua" after the last quotation mark. So it will now say;

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Call of Duty Black Ops III/boiii.exe" - unsafe-lua

Now, each time you want to launch the game & client, just double click the shortcut on your desktop and hit play, and all mods & maps will work. Arduous, but easy enough to do, and just repeat step 4 onwards for each new map/mod you want to download.

Hope this helps someone enjoy the amazing custom maps and mods from the Steam workshop with their game whilst still getting all the added patches & benefits of the Ez Boiii client as well. If it helps save one person half the time that I spent trying to get an answer on how to get it to work (especially the last step with the -unsafe-lua argument, etc) then I've done my part... Enjoy.

[OGNewman]

thx buddy

[JohnCena123123]

BRO THANK YOU SAVED ME

[SuhhSavage]

Hi I tried this and got a cannot load fast file "zm_map". Appears to be fastfile error that I do not know how to solve this issue. Tried finding some answers online but seems people are trying to find fixes for the base bo3 game and not the boIII client. Thanks

[bread9410]

hi, first of all: thank you so much for this. Was so sick of the fps dfrops and crashes.

Secondly, I'm hoping you can help me. For some reason, when I use the All_round Enhancement mod with the boiii client, buying a perk makes me unable to melee, ads and switch weapons. I have no idea why.

As you cant have 2 things with the same name in the same folder I changed the 'folder name' of the lite version of AAE to '^5All-around Enhancement Lite' and then called the folder I put it in the same thing.

For the regular version I left it as '^5All-around Enhancement' and called the folder it was in the same.

Btw, I'm launching the normal AAE, not the lite version but rn it's unplayable with this bug. Pleasepleaseplease, I'm hoping you'll help

[Šʜᴀᴅᴏᴡ ᴍᴀɴ]

I can't do this for every single map every time i install something new, i already have tons of maps and tons of mods, could be hundreds

there might be an easier way to do so

[drinu019]

legend

[drinu019]

Originally posted by bread9410:

hi, first of all: thank you so much for this. Was so sick of the fps dfrops and crashes.

Secondly, I'm hoping you can help me. For some reason, when I use the All_round Enhancement mod with the boiii client, buying a perk makes me unable to melee, ads and switch weapons. I have no idea why.

As you cant have 2 things with the same name in the same folder I changed the 'folder name' of the lite version of AAE to '^5All-around Enhancement Lite' and then called the folder I put it in the same thing.

For the regular version I left it as '^5All-around Enhancement' and called the folder it was in the same.

Btw, I'm launching the normal AAE, not the lite version but rn it's unplayable with this bug. Pleasepleaseplease, I'm hoping you'll help

this happens after buying a perk. use nades. after drinking perk, first reload gun. Use a nade, then another nade to enable switching weapons. Figured it out by mashing keyboard lol

[saint blair]

there is no workshop.json in any of the folders?
this is what im seeing in every folder diff numbers...

583575122149538999_legacy.bin

i have 6 maps + 1 patch and im seeing 60 folders??

cant follow your guide doesnt match what im seeing......

[saint blair]

workshopDL 1.9.9

steam work shop 1.9.9 > steamcmd > steamapps > workshop > content > 311210 (folder containing the custom maps) > (custom maps)

still no workshop.json file anywhere. system cant even find the file so it doesnt exist....

copying workshop custom files into games directory hope it works?
if doesnt work them im at a complete loss on how people get this to work when even following guide doesnt work....

SOLVED!

workshopDL 2.9.9 > file > open downloads location (F4)

moved custom maps from above directory (workshop downloads location) into "usermaps" folder in boiii install directory.

[bread94]

Originally posted by SuhhSavage:

Hi I tried this and got a cannot load fast file "zm_map". Appears to be fastfile error that I do not know how to solve this issue. Tried finding some answers online but seems people are trying to find fixes for the base bo3 game and not the boIII client. Thanks

try putting steam in offline mode and then launching the boiii client. all the mods are there without having to do the steps OP provided.

[Gmoley]

For the people who want to make the progress of copying mentioned by JStraun277
automatic:
Here is a shell script that will copy from the 311210 folder to the usermaps/mods folders.
it does not handle the unsafe lua mentioned in the same message.

note that the from and to folder might differ for you.
to adapt the script to your case simply replace the fromFolder and baseFolderbo3 to you own locations. the rest should be handled automatically.

note that i will not assist with your own case regarding this script. it worked for me and i just thought it might be handy baseline for people wanting to make the process automatic for themselves.

#!/bin/bash

#Note that the variables are sensitive to spaces (even after the = sign)
#define the folder where mods/maps (packages) are installed aswell as the common BO3 folder where we need to move to
fromFolder="C:/Program Files (x86)/steam/steamapps/workshop/content/311210"
baseFolderBO3="C:/Program Files (x86)/steam/steamapps/common/Call of Duty Black Ops III"

#for the people who do not trust random scripts and want a better idea of what all commands do
# mkdir: create directory (creates a folder). the -p means to skip this if the folder exists
# jq: json processing tool. we need to obtain the mod/map name from a workshop.json. this command allows us to obtain this property from the json file
# tr: trim/replace characters from text. this allows us to remove " characters from the obtained name in the json file
# cp: copy file/directory from location to location. -r= recursive (so include subfolders) -u= update if exists

#define the usermaps, mods locations based on base bo3 destination
FolderBO3Usermaps="$baseFolderBO3/usermaps"
FolderBO3Mods="$baseFolderBO3/mods"

#create usermaps and mods folders
mkdir -p "$FolderBO3Usermaps"
mkdir -p "$FolderBO3Mods"

for i in `ls $fromFolder`
do

#get the name of the package
Packagename=$(jq .FolderName "$fromFolder/$i/workshop.json")
Packagename=$(tr -d '"' <<< $Packagename)

#if zm_ at start of package name, add to usermaps. otherwise add to mods
prefix="zm_"
if [[ "$Packagename" =~ "$prefix".* ]]; then
#for zm maps
#obtain the location where the package should be copied to
toLocation="$FolderBO3Usermaps/$Packagename"
toLocation=$(tr -d '"' <<< $toLocation)
echo "copying usermap: $Packagename"
#create the destination folder and copy all files from the package install location
mkdir -p "$toLocation"
mkdir -p "$toLocation/zone"
cp -r -u "$fromFolder/$i/"* "$toLocation/zone" #copy from to, the -r= recursive (so also folders inside and their content) -u= update if newer (to speed up transfer)
else
#equal to if statement but for mods destination. if you need info in the commands you can check that section out
toLocation="$FolderBO3Mods/$Packagename"
toLocation=$(tr -d '"' <<< $toLocation)
echo "copying mod: $Packagename"
mkdir -p "$toLocation"
mkdir -p "$toLocation/zone"
cp -r -u "$fromFolder/$i/"* "$toLocation/zone"
fi
done

[Fero]

there's no 311210 folder showing up for me, any idea why?

[Reiner ackerman]

i got a problem, i want to play the server of mc kino der toten, and i did all of what you said but it just donset work i can play the workshop map on local alone but i cant play it on the boiii client (i dont own the game on steam) is there any way i can play the boiii client server with my friends?