The Mystery of the Druids - any REAL "no-CD"?

[WaltonSimons]

The Mystery of the Druids. A classic, yet not widely known adventure game by House of Tales.

The game comes on 3 CDs: Install, Present and Past.

The game's protection is SafeDisc - and some CD checks here and there.

There are two cracks in existence. Taffydog's crack is on the site now. DEViANCE's... attached here.

Both remove only the SafeDisc protection.

I however am looking for a crack that would let me play without the CDs inserted at all.

Here's the deal: Resource.001 > .008 files are located on the Present disc. Resource.009 > .012 files are located on the Past disc. If the cracks were REALLY no-CD, copying these files into the game folder where Resource.000 and the rest of the files reside would result in the game being played entirely off the HDD.

Now, this is not the case. Despite copying the Resource.001 > .012 files the game asks for the respective discs to be inserted and worse - reads the files off them. The discs are getting scratchy - I really don't want them to mess up. Anyone could fix the existing crack to be REALLY no-CD?

[TippeX]

do the disks have folders on them ?
eg:
disk1\
disk2\
disk3\
disk4\

etc?

try copying the disk contents exactly as they are to the installation folder, i can see in the code it looks for \updates \disk*\resource. etc.. (where * = a number).

also, giving me the exact output of the message it shows when it wants you to put the disk in helps too...

[WaltonSimons]

No, no, no. NO FOLDERS. MOTD_PRESENT and MOTD_PAST have the files directly at the root. E.G. D:\Resource.001

So I copied the files to the exact same folder that Resource.000 gets copied: C:\Program Files\House of Tales\Mystery of the Druids

"Please insert the disk labeled "The Present"" if I remember correctly.

[TippeX]

remember correctly isn't really good enough to help
i need the exact text

there isn't even an import of GetDriveTypeA, so the check must be very minimal
either that, or its done from a dll or something...

[WaltonSimons]

Please insert CD 'The Present'.
Please insert CD 'The Past'.

[TippeX]

try hex editing the file and making these changes (make a backup first too)

File Offset      Patch        Original
000051B4:        B0           8A
000051B5:        2E           83
000051B6:        90           6C
000051B7:        90           09
000051B8:        90           00
000051B9:        90           00
00045448:        5C           3A

make sure you are also overwriting the original bytes and not inserting them

that may do the job

it seems the file names etc are built up as
*:\<string><string>

the patch changes the :\ to \\
and alters the * portion (it reads the letter from a struct, so the * would be the drive letter)

so it then looks like
.\\<string><string>

which hopefully will do the job if all the files are present

[WaltonSimons]

Doesn't help. Sorry.

[TippeX]

"doesnt help sorry" doesn't exactly fucking help, if you want me to help give more information otherwise simply forget it..

[WaltonSimons]

Well, that's EXACTLY what I typed, I don't understand your anger at all!

It doesn't help. I changed the values in the hex editor to those given by you, files Resource.001-012 in the gamedir, however it still asks for the disc = the situation is exactly the same as it was.

[TippeX]

you supplied no information at all thats why i was angry
"doesnt help sorry" helps NONE of us

next step would be to run filemon and see what files it accesses with and without the changes i suggested, to see if the area is even close

[WaltonSimons]

OK, I'll try. I'll check back with the results

[EMPiRE]

Did you try the RUSSIAN Fixed EXE, maybe this is also working for your version of the game

I've merged the english & russian pages into 1