4.2 Testing Your Work Without MPQs

Testing your work without MPQs

This tutorial explains how to test your edits without repacking the MPQ every time you change something. At the end of the tutorial your WoW client will be reading directly from its folder to save your time.

Installation:

• Download the patched Wow.exe and replace the original one with it.

Recommended to make a backup of an original one

Create a folder named Patch-X.MPQ (any letter or number instead of X) and put your edited files in there.

WoW client reads patches in alphabetical order. First is reading of numeric patches (from 1 to 9), then reading of letter patches (from A to Z)

Since in 3.3.5a there are already patches from 1 to 3 you can name your patch as patch-4.mpq or patch-5.mpq etc. The count of available patch names is limited by unused numbers and letters

Now your client can read directly from that folder, so you don’t have to create patches.

Though, there are ways to make your work more convinient in Noggit too.

Find a string called Project Path and fill its value with a path to your patch-folder.

An example:

C:/Work/World of Warcraft/patch-4.mpq

Once done your Noggit will save files directly to this folder. You can run both Noggit and game client at the same time.

In order to see the changes you saved, you will need to reload the map in game. You need to teleport to a different zone and back.

Type these commands in your chat window (you can also create a macro for that):

.tele gmisland (teleports you to GM Island zone)

.recall (teleports you back to your initial teleport location)

Make sure not to save anything in Noggit while the client is loading a map and vice versa. It can be dangerous for your files

Advanced. Patching your own .exe and understanding how it works

You may want to do a similar hack to your own WoW.exe because it can be modified with something else. Here we will explain the way to do it.

Credits for the .exe patch go to schlumpf and Mjollna.

1. Start Sweetscape 010 Editor and open your WoW.exe in it
2. Edit > Search
3. Turn on Use wildcards, set the seach type to Hex bytes and search the following pattern:

E8 ?? ?? ?? ?? 6A 00 E8 ?? ?? ?? ?? 6A 02

4. Replace the beginning of the pattern with (for any version of WoW):

90 90 90 90 90 6A FF

or the entire string for WoW 3.3.5a with:

90 90 90 90 90 6A FF E8 2A EC 01 00 6A 02