I was wondering, would it be that difficult for someone to create a new race for your character? Offhand, the main modifications that occure to me would be the addition of a new sprite into the game, new portraits, new script, and that race's exclusive backround, but i know it's a little more difficult than that...
You'll need to find a good artist who likes to do really tiny pictures and works cheap for the new sprites. Or else get lucky enough to find another game that uses .ART files.
... Good point.. But what if you could just copy a sprite that's already in the game, and be a race you wouldn't usually be able to be? For example a full Ogre, or Orc, or one of those Lizard chaps!
I'm really sorry for the gravedig, but I completely agree with the above guy's post. I would love to be a full orc or something!
And you can even using the same sprites, to make different Human nationalities like: Blacks, Chinese, Indians, and Japense. This is because all of the Human Sprites are white people.
re: new races You want a PC of a new race. Problem 1: Most races such as Waroman count as monsters and don't have a race code (as you can see under there character sheet). Solution: There are three races with race "codes" (Dark Elf, Ogre, and Orc; 8-10?). Problem 2: They are not available at the start. Solution: just as I used Virgil to give me a sex change for female gnome, halfling, dwarf, you could have him change your race. (See my "Virgil sex-change" thread). Problem 3: PC's need to be able to use all the different weapons and much armor. The graphic files might not be set up for this. If you followed the above, then you'd look the same as your chosen starting race, not colored like an orc for instance. Problem 4: Most dialog files are generic. But there are some that have options for just the "legal" ones only (dwarf, elf, half-elf, human, half-ogre, half-orc, gnome, halfling). In that case, you'd get a blank response line. Solution: go through and add responses for the race(s) you choose. Not too tough, but you'd have to reload after every "find and fix".
That ones impossible, you'd have to alter every frame of the human sprite which provided you had the expertise to even do it would take so long you'd go mad.
Re: re: new races I believe this one is the touch of death. I could handle rewriting a couple hundred lines of dialogue for my custom race. But redrawing a couple hundred sprites? You'll go cross-eyed staring at all those pixels in no time. And I suffer from migraines enough as it is.
Yeah...the sheer number of sprites for every race is astounding. The implication that someone might try to do it is incredible, and implausible, but not impossible. However, I'm sure they'd never recover.