It's a bit unfortunate that Warhorse decided that "modding" means replacing whole XML files. The soul.xml I'm replacing, for example, contains literally every living soul in the game, from horses and cows to your mum and dad. So problems are just about guaranteed, every time they change anything in that file in a patch.
Hey there, I just downloaded this without reading the comments first.. Obviously as with a lot of other mods I expected it to maybe not work, however this one actually broke the game, giving the error message that mods may have removed characters
Sooooo I poked around a bit trying to figure out what it is (since a lot of KCD mods are just different types of config files), dived into it and basically 'fixed' it for the latest version of the game. I could probably upload it as a mod, thou I never uploaded anything here so I'd have to figure out how, but let's be fair to the original author, cuz their comments on the Roach version was what gave me the idea to track it down myself as well and fix it. So I'll just post the solution here
The issue, like others pointed out is the fact that the xml file that is edited by the mod contains every single npc in the game - and the mod works by providing a modified copy of the xml file to the game at startup, so as the game developer changed NPCs over time, adding new characters with DLCs etc, the rest of this old modified xml file is no longer accurate.
The fix? Get the latest version of said XML file from your own installation of the game, do the necessary tweak and pack it into this mod file.
How we do that? 1. For starters you can just install this mod with mod manager / vortex basically. If you load the game at this point, it'll complain how you probably uninstalled a mod that added new characters and your save file is tainted by them now bla bla..
2. Go to your game install folder (rightclick and manage -> browse local files in steam for example if you're unsure where that is but have the steam version) You will see a Mods folder, inside you will find your other mods plus the folder called Pebbles_is_the_BestXXXXXXXXXX (bunch of numbers after from mod manager) Go into that folder, you will see a Data folder inside, enter that too where you will find the actual mod file zzz_kcd_Pebbles_Is_The_Best.pak
3. Rename zzz_kcd_Pebbles_Is_The_Best.pak to zzz_kcd_Pebbles_Is_The_Best.zip You can now enter it as a zip archive and see the directory structure Libs/Tables/rpg/ and there you'll see Soul.xml - You can simply click that file and hit Delete and remove it from that archive, since we need to replace it anyway - keep this window open for later thou
4. Now to find our up to date soul.xml: Navigate back to your main game folder and this time instead of Mods, you go into the root Data folder. Among many other files you will see a file called Tables.pak Do the same thing with that file and rename it to .zip (you can make a copy of it an do it on that in case you're afraid, but basically we're not going to modify it other than renaming.) Now open the archive and once you navigate to the correct path (Libs/Tables/rpg/) you will see a soul.xml file there as well - this is the legit up-to-date version from the game files. You need to copy this file alone to a new location on your computer so you can work on it. Once you got your copy you can go ahead and change the name back of the Tables file to .pak
5. edit this fresh new soul.xml file that you just saved from there in notepad or notepad++ (prettier and more colorful, otherwise both work). You need to find the correct horse now, to do that, search for horse_sedivka, that's what Pebbles' soul-name is (he should be on line 499 of the latest xml - at least it was for me) Once you located the correct line, you need to find 4 parameters, all of them in that same line just scattered around amongst all the other parameters - and set them all to 20: agi="20", courage="20", str="20" and vit="20" Once you did that, save the file.
6. Now instead of tainting the original game files, we're simply going to insert this file into the mod we downloaded from here. Remember that window we kept open from step 3 after we deleted the old soul.xml? Now simply drag / copypaste this new modified soul.xml into that zip archive. Then lastly exit the archive and rename it back to zzz_kcd_Pebbles_Is_The_Best.pak instead of zip.
That's it, once you load up your game you should see Pebbles with maxed out stats and no error message or warning about your mods.
It might sound complicated... but actually it's quite simple and typing this comment took longer than doing it lol (and that includes finding the correct line - which was the real challenge)
You're welcome, there is a much easier way now though. When I made this post I wasn't really up to date with how the game works or how mods work for it as I just picked the game back up to replay it after like 2 years and apparently a lot of things changed, including mods :)
A while ago there was a game update that introduced a new way of changing these files, this old one still works too though, but you can now "patch" these xml files and only include the rows that you mean to change, allowing multiple mods modifying the same file to be compatible.
So your xml inside your mod needs to contain the full header section, where all the columns are defined and then the rows section only containing the rows you wish to make any modifications to. And the most important thing is the naming of the file. I needs to start with the original name of the file, followed by a double underscore followed by the mod name.
Applying that logic to this mod you'd need that long header section with all the column names of the Soul.xml, then the single row pertaining to Pebbles that you edited and the file needs to be named Soul__zzz_kcd_Pebbles_Is_The_Best.xml (would probably want to rename to something simpler at that point like idk "PebblesOP" so it's one word, both the xml and the whole mod pak and the folder and the load order entry) Aaaand that's pretty much it :) Your mod would now definitely not exclude any data even if there was a new game update and would most likely be compatible with all future patches of the game.
I learned it because a lot of mods I used to play way back with are now broken so I had to dive in and see how they work :P Made a couple of them and published them here too, mainly archery related thou
Also, idk if the original author is still active thou, but they could simply use the above information to make one single update to these horse mods and make them forever compatible as the change I described is literally a solution from Warhorse to the problem highlighted by this mod's author in the sticky above!
It's the worst mod I've ever installed, it deleted my dog, deleted Theresa, and also changed the color of my horse... Please remove this mod because it breaks the game, why did you upload it to the site in the first place? To what? To ruin the game for everyone who downloads this mod and makes enough saves to make it impossible to roll it back? I'm speechless... I'm complaining about this mod.
I'm sure it worked fine when it released over 5 years ago. Stop whining like a little b&@*$ and delete the mod if it ruins your game. You sound like a fuckin idiot lol
Heads up - this mod works with Pebbles, but it completely paralyzes the Perk system. With this mod, and only this mod installed, you get zero perk points. Weird.
It would appear this mod is abandoned! Out standing bug reports and last known working version of the game was for v 1.7.2 (Current game version is 1.9.6)
Out standing error delete's Mutt (Woman's Lot DLC Dog) from the save file and the game. No new updates or changes have been made to the Mod in a VERY LONG TIME (This is a preferred Mod in my opinion but can't recommend any one going for this mod with how out of date it is.
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It's a bit unfortunate that Warhorse decided that "modding" means replacing whole XML files. The soul.xml I'm replacing, for example, contains literally every living soul in the game, from horses and cows to your mum and dad. So problems are just about guaranteed, every time they change anything in that file in a patch.
Obviously as with a lot of other mods I expected it to maybe not work, however this one actually broke the game, giving the error message that mods may have removed characters
Sooooo I poked around a bit trying to figure out what it is (since a lot of KCD mods are just different types of config files), dived into it and basically 'fixed' it for the latest version of the game. I could probably upload it as a mod, thou I never uploaded anything here so I'd have to figure out how, but let's be fair to the original author, cuz their comments on the Roach version was what gave me the idea to track it down myself as well and fix it. So I'll just post the solution here
The issue, like others pointed out is the fact that the xml file that is edited by the mod contains every single npc in the game - and the mod works by providing a modified copy of the xml file to the game at startup, so as the game developer changed NPCs over time, adding new characters with DLCs etc, the rest of this old modified xml file is no longer accurate.
The fix? Get the latest version of said XML file from your own installation of the game, do the necessary tweak and pack it into this mod file.
How we do that?
1. For starters you can just install this mod with mod manager / vortex basically.
If you load the game at this point, it'll complain how you probably uninstalled a mod that added new characters and your save file is tainted by them now bla bla..
2. Go to your game install folder (rightclick and manage -> browse local files in steam for example if you're unsure where that is but have the steam version)
You will see a Mods folder, inside you will find your other mods plus the folder called Pebbles_is_the_BestXXXXXXXXXX (bunch of numbers after from mod manager) Go into that folder, you will see a Data folder inside, enter that too where you will find the actual mod file zzz_kcd_Pebbles_Is_The_Best.pak
3. Rename zzz_kcd_Pebbles_Is_The_Best.pak to zzz_kcd_Pebbles_Is_The_Best.zip You can now enter it as a zip archive and see the directory structure Libs/Tables/rpg/ and there you'll see Soul.xml - You can simply click that file and hit Delete and remove it from that archive, since we need to replace it anyway - keep this window open for later thou
4. Now to find our up to date soul.xml: Navigate back to your main game folder and this time instead of Mods, you go into the root Data folder.
Among many other files you will see a file called Tables.pak Do the same thing with that file and rename it to .zip (you can make a copy of it an do it on that in case you're afraid, but basically we're not going to modify it other than renaming.)
Now open the archive and once you navigate to the correct path (Libs/Tables/rpg/) you will see a soul.xml file there as well - this is the legit up-to-date version from the game files. You need to copy this file alone to a new location on your computer so you can work on it. Once you got your copy you can go ahead and change the name back of the Tables file to .pak
5. edit this fresh new soul.xml file that you just saved from there in notepad or notepad++ (prettier and more colorful, otherwise both work).
You need to find the correct horse now, to do that, search for horse_sedivka, that's what Pebbles' soul-name is (he should be on line 499 of the latest xml - at least it was for me)
Once you located the correct line, you need to find 4 parameters, all of them in that same line just scattered around amongst all the other parameters - and set them all to 20:
agi="20", courage="20", str="20" and vit="20"
Once you did that, save the file.
6. Now instead of tainting the original game files, we're simply going to insert this file into the mod we downloaded from here.
Remember that window we kept open from step 3 after we deleted the old soul.xml? Now simply drag / copypaste this new modified soul.xml into that zip archive.
Then lastly exit the archive and rename it back to zzz_kcd_Pebbles_Is_The_Best.pak instead of zip.
That's it, once you load up your game you should see Pebbles with maxed out stats and no error message or warning about your mods.
It might sound complicated... but actually it's quite simple and typing this comment took longer than doing it lol (and that includes finding the correct line - which was the real challenge)
Cheers!
When I made this post I wasn't really up to date with how the game works or how mods work for it as I just picked the game back up to replay it after like 2 years and apparently a lot of things changed, including mods :)
A while ago there was a game update that introduced a new way of changing these files, this old one still works too though, but you can now "patch" these xml files and only include the rows that you mean to change, allowing multiple mods modifying the same file to be compatible.
So your xml inside your mod needs to contain the full header section, where all the columns are defined and then the rows section only containing the rows you wish to make any modifications to.
And the most important thing is the naming of the file. I needs to start with the original name of the file, followed by a double underscore followed by the mod name.
Applying that logic to this mod you'd need that long header section with all the column names of the Soul.xml, then the single row pertaining to Pebbles that you edited and the file needs to be named Soul__zzz_kcd_Pebbles_Is_The_Best.xml (would probably want to rename to something simpler at that point like idk "PebblesOP" so it's one word, both the xml and the whole mod pak and the folder and the load order entry)
Aaaand that's pretty much it :) Your mod would now definitely not exclude any data even if there was a new game update and would most likely be compatible with all future patches of the game.
I learned it because a lot of mods I used to play way back with are now broken so I had to dive in and see how they work :P Made a couple of them and published them here too, mainly archery related thou
Out standing bug reports and last known working version of the game was for v 1.7.2 (Current game version is 1.9.6)
Out standing error delete's Mutt (Woman's Lot DLC Dog) from the save file and the game.
No new updates or changes have been made to the Mod in a VERY LONG TIME (This is a preferred Mod in my opinion but can't recommend any one going for this mod with how out of date it is.
Nothing shows love greater than naming a horse after Warhorse Dog.
go to talmberg, stole their item, sell to miller
repeat until i get my sweet pegasus