More corpses stay

For everyone interested, I found a way to let more dead enemy bodies stay instead of disappearing in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. Normally, corpses fade away once there are 2-4 in a level. With this guide, you can have 9 or more per level:

Short way: Download the 7 files in https://1drv.ms/f/s!AmZ1uD3rJiIUhoBUYCt6Wz1qo8s6bw , go to the "vpks" folder in the game directory (..\Steam\steamapps\common\Dark Messiah Might and Magic Single Player\vpks) and paste them there, replacing the old files. I recommend making a backup of the old ones first to be safe.


Long way (do the changes yourself):

1) Download a Hex Editor if you don't already have one (e.g. https://www.chip.de/downloads/Hex-Editor-MX_30351843.html)
2) Open the "vpks" folder in the game directory (..\Steam\steamapps\common\Dark Messiah Might and Magic Single Player\vpks)
3) To be safe, make backups of the files from "depot_2102_000.vpk" to "depot_2102_006.vpk"

4) Open the file "depot_2102_000.vpk" with your Hexeditor
5) Search for the text "MaxRagdollCount" (text search, not Hexcode search)
6) It should find and mark a hex code after which a number is written in quotation marks, most often "2"
7) Change that number 2 in the hexcode to 9
8) Continue searching through the file until you have increased all MaxRagdollCount to 9 (there will be several occurances in all of the 7 files, so be sure to search till the end).
9) Save, close and re-open that file.
10) Use your hexeditor to search for the text "VBSP"
11) Wherever it finds and marks the text (just "VBSP in capital letters, NOT something like detail.vbsp), it also marks the corresponding hex code. If DIRECTLY AFTER the hex code is the hex code "14 20 14 20", then change the latter from
"14 20 14 20" to
"14 00 04 00"
12) Continue searching and changing through the file. Save it when you're done.

13) Repeat steps 4 - 12 for all files up to "depot_2102_006.vpk"

You should now be able to play with 9 corpses staying all the time.

Screenshot

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/992386604133381065/FA9F944A86F235C65620ED83DDD7E54D98E55394/?imw=256&&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

[SKN The LISPer]

@player333676 & Penix 3 <=3

Or to put it less convoluted and simpler; Game uses strings for these settings, i.e; what you're seeing (in hex) is the character-encodings, and not actual values.

So to produce double-digit numbers, you'll need to introduce another byte (infront of every maxragdollcount value), with the digit in question.


Examples;

10 = 0x31 + 0x30
42 = 0x34 + 0x32

[gameman8998]

yeah so I downloaded the files but the corpses disappear has their ever been a fix for this?

[Penix 3 <=3]

@Didsu Even if I'm a little late for a reply, I'm pretty sure you could just replace the text string MaxRagdollCount" "9" with MaxRagdollCount" "10" . This would make the file size bigger but it should work.
@Player333676 Changing it to an "A" didn't work because even if we look at it in an Hex Editor, it's still a "9" as Ascii Text. The game probably read the file or at least the relevant values as text, not as hexadecimal :)

[Penix 3 <=3]

Also for making it a little quicker, you can "search and replace":
MaxRagdollCount" "0 with MaxRagdollCount" "9
MaxRagdollCount" "1 with MaxRagdollCount" "9
MaxRagdollCount" "2 with MaxRagdollCount" "9
MaxRagdollCount" "3 with MaxRagdollCount" "9
MaxRagdollCount" "4 with MaxRagdollCount" "9
and just "replace all"
In HxD Editor for example, you could just drag and drop all seven files, Ctrl + R, type in or copy in the first replacement strings, press "replace all" button, Ctrl + Tab and repeat. If you are used to using hotkeys on your pc, this should be really quick.

[Penix 3 <=3]

For step 11, you could just "search and replace" for "56 42 53 50 14 20 14 20" to "56 42 53 50 14 00 04 00" in hexa search.

[Manu]

@Player333676: There are several instances of VBSP(56 42 53 50), but none of them are followed by "14 20 14 20", all of them are already followed by "14 00 04 00". I think that a game update might have updated the "depot_2102_001.vpk". Comparing your file with the original one, they seem like totally different files.

[Player333676]

@Manu: It crashes when loading the third level because it does not recognize the map file, because the ID (has to be 14 00 04 00) does not fit. See my guide starting from point 9. Did you save, close and re-open the file? And search for VBSP without the quotation marks. Otherwise, just use my downloaded files.

[Manu]

Comparing my manually hex edited files with the downloaded ones, the resulting CRC is exactly the same in all files except "depot_2102_001.vpk". Manually hex editing the "depot_2102_001.vpk" file makes the game crash while loading the third level (after defeating the cyclope) but using the downloaded "depot_2102_001.vpk" file makes that level load perfectly. Are you using an old version of the "depot_2102_001.vpk" file? I also didn't find any "VBSP" text strings followed by "14201420" hex strings. Thanks!

[Player333676]

@Didsu Maybe, it's hexadecimal, so 10 would be A etc. in the files. It didn't work when I tried, but you can of course try it.

[Didsu]

Would I be able to make it more than 9 bodies at a time or would that cause the game to work improperly?