Sonic Lost World (PC / Wii U) Hacking & Resources

I can't seem to get the latest version of Radfordhound's SLW mod loader workign. It launches, but it doesn't actually load. It can cause Steam or Windows Explorer to hang/crash, and it shows the "Loading" mouse cursor- but even hours later, the program never launches. I've been trying to get it working, to no avail. Am I supposed to manually patch something before it'll work? I don't remember having to do that before, but it does come with Cpkredir and also a DLLInjector. The old tutorial for 1.4 isn't helping me at all because I did everything that said to do (and that worked for that version).

 

From what I heard, the newest version of the mod loader is broken. I'd say just use cpkredir for now. All you have to do is rearrange the mod files to work with it instead of Radfordhound's mod loader and edit the ini once you patch the exe.

Also, can anyone help with exporting collision. I know there are some of us that want to get into stage creation but Generations collision format isn't compatible. I tried spending hours converting to hkx in every way I could convert it to no avail.

 

Actually, I had that error before to but if you force the reimporting process in quickbms, you can get the track to be replaced despite the new file being larger than the original.

 

Oh, that mod loader uses CPKREDIR now? Interesting. He didn't ask me.
The DllInjector is by me, but it doesn't work for SLW. Because if SLW isn't launched by Steam, it shuts down immediately and tries to restart itself through Steam, unloading CPKREDIR from memory. Therefore, SLW has to be patched. That can be done with cpkredirInst, a little program included in my distribution of CPKREDIR. Maybe Radfordhound implemented his own install patch.
Anyway, see the my original topic for a download link.

 

It does, but it's also a broken mess.. it launches the process multiple times, it hangs so badly I couldn't terminate it with Task Manager, the Command Line Kill tool, Process Explorer or even Process Hacker's extensive terminator options. It just does not work at all since they added cpkredir support. I'd like to be able to use cpkredir without faffing about with the command line, but I'd also like a program that actually works?

EDIT: I seem to be having the same issue with cpkredirInst.exe actually... maybe the issue IS cpkredir.

 

Sounds like you have a big problem. That obviously shouldn't happen.
As I've explained before, Lost Word requires to be launched through Steam, unfortunately. Here's what happens:

1. If you just double-click SLW.exe, or otherwise launch it without Steam, it shows a "Game not launched through Steam" message box with an OK button.
2. SLW immediately re-launches itself through the Steam API, whether you've already clicked that OK button or not.
3. Literally the first thing that SLW does on startup is to check if it's already running (via a Mutex). If it is, then it terminates itself and brings the already running instance to the foreground.
4. Now the problem is that the first instance of SLW is technically still running and waiting for you to click that OK button...

That's a nice programming mistake. SLW wants to start itself through Steam, which would be quite convenient, but at the same time it prevents itself from doing so - unless you can click that OK button fast enough.
It shouldn't hang in memory, though. Perhaps you missed that message box?

You don't have to deal with the command line at all, cpkredirInst works just fine when started without command line, and for setting up mods you just need to edit ini/text files.
Maybe the issue is that you're feeding SLW bad data. Try starting with a clean slate. Have Steam verify the game and fix it, if necessary. Then use cpkredirInst and run the game, but without mods. Just temporarily remove or comment out the "ModsDbIni" line in cpkredir.ini. You can also set "LogType=con" and "HandleCpksWithoutExtFiles=1" in cpkredir.ini, that'll make sure that CPKREDIR will get active even without mods, and it'll show you a log for confirmation. If it works, then great. If not, let me know. Afterwards, you can restore the ModsDbIni line and see if the game still works.


I just looked at the source code of Radfordhound's launcher, and it launches the game via a Steam URL, which is the right way to do it.
It also does delete cpkredirInst if present... not nice. And he implemented his own patcher. But as I suspected, it uses fixed offsets and/or dumb string search. Programmers ought to learn to navigate the PE/EXE headers in order to get to the import table and check the list of DLL file names there. Yes, it's more complicated, but runs much faster for exe files as large as SLW or Generations, and it's safer.

 

I love this person.

 

Alright, so I verified my game cache after deleting everything related to the mod loader (and basically everything that wasn't in a subfolder). I restarted my PC to make sure nothing extra was running. I didn't touch SLW.exe at all. I downloaded cpkredir Latest. I extracted the files into the SLW installation directory. I edited the cpkredir.ini like you told me to, then I ran cpkredirInst.exe, as administrator just to see if that would make a difference. The program still launches a total of three times. All with 120k memory being used up, and all cannot be closed or ended except by a reboot. Oh, and the window doesn't actually ever pop up, it hangs forever like I said.

I'm not doing anything wrong or different than what you told me to. I never ran the game from outside of steam launcher or the url icon that does the same thing in the first place. SLW.exe isn't even running, for that matter. Whatever this issue is, must be specific to cpkredir.

Edit: Just in case it's useful, here's all my hardware info.

 

Running as admin shouldn't make a difference, cpkredirInst will tell you whether it succeeded or not.
SLW launches three times? That's very weird. And if you use cpkredirInst again to uninstall, SLW works fine?
What does the cpkredir log say? In cpkredir.ini, set "Logtype=html" and it'll create slw.log.html in the same folder (unless you changed "Logfile" in the ini). You could upload that log to http://pastebin.com/ or wherever so that I can take a look. Anyway, we best continue this discussion in the CPKREDIR topic or with PM, because it doesn't really belong here.

 

Alright, I'll be sending you messages about this over PM from now on. Sorry, carry on guys. (Mods can move that discussion to the cpkredir thread if they want to.)

Anyways, on another note, have many mods even been adapted for use with cpkredir yet? I know JoeTE's mods are made with cpkredir in mind, but I don't know if the Classic Sonic mod was updated, for example.

 

Regarding using a ModLoader I would used this hacked version of GMI that I edited to work. Until Dario finishes up his. Since this works decently. I don't like that other guys mod loader honestly.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p865tf54sacnmz8/SonicGMIHack.7z?dl=0

Made it start by starting up a shortcut file for the Steam release of it. So pirates arggghh (I'm sure they can still do something)

 

It's probably easy to get around that, the same way there's a work around for Radfordhound's. Considering pirated versions don't run through Steam they can just edit its directory to the exe and it would still run. Not that I'll try it my self, I'm not supporting piracy or anything. People really should purchase the game though, it sold according to Steam Spy only around 6,800 copies. I wouldn't blame piracy for it, just a quick search shows no one is pirating Lost World, just it's selling bad as it is.

 

Not sure if this has been answered or can be answered at this point, but are all the "physics" looking areas of the game that don't use the gravity rotation (various loops, some hill set pieces, and the ice skating stages) scripted to accelerate like you via dash launchers?

Easy examples are the slopes and the loop setpiece in Silent Forest Act 4.

https://youtu.be/raec4fv3bwA?t=168

Or the loops in Windy Hill act 2?

https://youtu.be/I9466ivzS_Q?t=41

 

Really? Damn. As much as I've come to loathe this game I wanted to see it sell well to encourage SEGA giving us a few more Sonic games from his backlog. + - Like Unleashed.  

 

Here's a quick mod from SonicHyuga and myself.

http://youtu.be/8qpAjTd5_tA

 

So much yes. Say what you will about Runners, but damn if that music ain't fine.

 

http://youtu.be/iCacDkC2lWY

...It begins? Well, not really but.

 

But I've already done it. I'm just waiting for Dario on making GLVL basically for terrain importing and then we can merge the collision code in there for converting meshes into collision with properties.

 

Oh I know, but I think this is the first import video in a while and might as well show haha. I know it's not really a beginning or anything.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Jeun9VjCM

Believe there were some requesting this.