DBCtool (
) DBCutil (
) My Warcraft Studio (
) I believe that Warcraft Studio is out of date though, if someone has a permanent link, I'll update that here. Excel (Microsoft Office)
OR
CSVed (
) ------------------------------------------------------------------
On to a little education:
DBC files are database files full of mostly useless info imo becuase its managed server-side anyways, however one thing we do know is client side and that is location and apparently Zepplin/Boat paths (Maybe flight paths, but this has yet to be confirmed)
All the fun ones that I've messed with are found in DBC.mpq. We'll specifically be looking at 3 DBC files in this tutorial:
TaxiNodes
TaxiPath
TaxiPathNode
OK, lets go over the first couple steps to editing your path you want. You're going to want to use DBCtool for most of your research stages. Also, keep a Notepad file handy for remembering fields to come back to.
So lets open up DBCtool, now go to file > open dbc files > mpq file. Now open up dbc.mpq from the Wow/Data directory. Now there are a ton of gray folders on the left hand side. Right click any one of them and select "load all files." Don't worry about the folders that didn't turn yellow, its not important, even the ones with X marks.
We'll start at TaxiNodes. TaxiNodes lists specific locations of boat docks, zepplin yards, and even flightmasters. Scroll down to TaxiNodes and click it on the left hand side. There are now several columns on the right hand side. The first column will always be the ID number (I'll use the term a lot) Column 2 is either a 0 or 1, this refers to what continent you're on. 0 is Azeroth and 1 is Kalimidor. Column 3 is the x coord (how far east or west) , column 4 is the y coord (how far north or south) , and column 5 is the z coord (height, bigger the number, the higher you are) . Column 6 is really the only super necessary info besides the ID number. Column 6 actually says out where the heck this x y z refers to. Since we're looking up the Zep from Org to Grom, lets look for entries that are in column 6 that relate to those locations..... After looking around we see that ID number 35 has Transport, Orgrimmar Zepplins and ID 47 has Transport, Grom'gol - Orgrimmar. Write that info down somewhere, we'll need it later.
On to TaxiPath. TaxiPath is really simple. Column 1 is still the ID. Column 2 is the "from" location and Column 3 is the "to" location. But look carefully up at the top of those columns. See what they're labeled? TaxiNodes.dbc(from?) and TaxiNodes.dbc(to?). That is because we need those IDs we wrote down. Now, the way I find what I want to edit is by clicking the phrase TaxiNodes.dbc (from?) buttom so that it sorts it in order. Now I can look easier. So I start looking for 35. You'll find some 35's, but none that go to 47 like we need. So, we look in the TaxiNodes.dbc(to?) column. We find 35 and VIOLA! 47 on the left side. So, what have we found? The TaxiPath ID of Grom to Org, nice! . It's in column 1 and in this case is 285. WRITE THAT DOWN. Moving right along....
TaxiPathNode is the tricky one. Lots on info in here now. Hang on!
Column 1 is still your ID column. Column 2 is your TaxiPath ID column. Column 3 is the order in which each coordinate is travelled...0 is first 1 is next 2 after that and so forth. Column 4 is your 0 and 1 column again which is 0 for Azeroth and 1 for Kalimidor. Column 5 is the x coord, Column 6 is the y coord, and Column 7 is the z coor. I beileve Column 8 to be the code in which to tell the zepplint to slow to a stop, if its let to 0, its not stopping, 2 means it's stopping. Column 9 is how long in seconds the zepplin (or boat I suppose) will stay stopped. So since we know which TaxiPath ID we want to edit, lets click on "Column #2" on the top on the column and sort it by TaxiPath IDs. Scroll down to 285, which we know is Grom to Org after our reserach. From here we can see that Column 3 has entries from 0-26 so that's what we have to work with. We can see that 0 starts at TaxiPathNode ID 6263 and 26 is at 6289. WRITE THIS DOWN. Ok, lets extract this so we can edit. Firstly, don't close DBCtool, i'll have you back there soon enough though so no need to close. If you did close, just be sure to right click and load all files, it'll keep columns from being filled with ??? symbols and so that we can use worldmapoverlay (which I will explain soon). DO NOT EXTRACT TO CSV FROM DBCTOOL OR MYWARCRAFTSTUDIO, VERY IMPORTANT. Minimize it and open up My Warcraft Studio. Go to File > Open MPQ Archive and select the dbc.mpq from the Wow/Data directory. Now in the bottom left hand corner of the program select that little down arrow and select Database Cache fiiles so that we aren't bothered by anything but DBC files here. Click the + sign next to DBFilesClient folder and you'll see a familiar list. Scroll to the bottom and click on TaxiPathNode.dbc. The green face will turn orange when you've selected it. Now right click on TaxiPathNodes and Extarct File To. Put it whereever you want it to be, just be sure to get to it easily, we'll be using it next. When you've found the file that was extracted go ahead and open up the folder where DBCUtil was extracted to. Now click and drag the extracted DBC file right on over the DBCutil.exe and let go of the click. A black DOS window SHOULD (key word) flash and a csv version of the dbc should be in the same folder as the extracted dbc.
Open up the csv file with either Excel or CSved. Lets go to the start of the path which we know is TaxiPathNode ID 6263 and check it out. Now I'll try to answer what questions I would expect here:
Where can I find out what coords mean?: This is done in DBCtool. After you load the mpq and right click to load all files then you can view the mapoverlay. Go to Tools > sandbox > worldmapoverlay. From there select anything from the select drop down to see where the coords are. REMEMBER each continent has it's own 0-16000 for x and y. This means that for TaxiPathNode id 6263 I can see that the column 4 entry is 0 so if we look for those coords listed in mapoverlay on Kalimidor they would be wrong...very wrong. When I look it up under the selection Azeroth I can see that its in STV. So I now select STV from the menu and get a closer look I can see that the point is right about where the zep zones in. From here there are some more entried untill TaxiPathNode ID 6267 where column 8 is 2 and column 9 is 60, so that helps us know that thats when the zep gets to the port in Grom. What I did from here (because I know GM Island is on the Kalimidor side) is edit paths after the Org docking of the Zep. ID 6283 has a column 4 of 1 and has column 8 ad 9 at 2 and 60, so I knew thats where it stopped.
Now what I did personally is change IDs 6284 through 6289 to points on the way to GM Island. I think you could just put in one and it would go but I wanted a scenic route haha. I made coords through Teldrassil (Which I found with worldmapoverlay) for fun
So yeah, mine took an imediate left out of Org and travelled through mountains and stuff. Oh and it's fun to mess with the z coord to go up and down so that the long journey is kinda intresting So edit those coords (Not need to edit any other columns) to something you want to test and lets get to repacking. If you edited in Excel it will ask you if you want to keep the same formatting SAY YES OR IT WILL NOT WORK . If you used CSVed just save over it and exit. Ok, open up that DBCutil folder again. Drag this newly saved csv file over the DBCutil.exe and it should spit out the new dbc. If you still have the original DBC file in the directory the DOS window will stay open and ask you if it can overwrite it. Just press Enter to let it overwrite.
Now lets go back to MyWarcraftStudio. Go to Pack > Create MPQ Archive > Save it as speech2 in the Wow/Data directory. Now go to Pack > Add file to archive. Now click on the little botton to the very right. Browse for your new dbc and select it. PRESS THE OK BUTTON ONCE. You should now still be at the Add File prompt, but with your TaxiPathNode written in. If it's gone and the TaxiPathNode.dbc is already listed on the left hand column then you screwed up. Delete this mpq and start another one. Now, click to the front of the word TaxiPathNode.dbc and write in "DBFilesClient\" without the quotes obviously, so that it looks like this "DBFilesClient\TaxiPathNode.dbc" without the quotes again. NOW you can press ok . You should see in the left hand column a folder named DBFilesClient that you can click and find your new TaxiPathNode.dbc inside. If it doesn't show up EXACTLY like that, soemthing is wrong, start this part over. If it doesn't show anything, you may want to restart MyWarcraftStudio, go to File > Open MPQ Archive > and then select your new speech2.mpq in the Wow\Data directory to make sure.
Some things to know before you get all worked up to test this out:
You're zep is now on a different schedule, you'll get on at a different time than everyone else. You'll see people getting on and off an invisible Zepplin and it seems like yours will never come, don't fret, it'll come. It just takes forever to get to you and back EXPECIALLY if its on its way to GM Island and back.
You still "zone" with the server regardless. So whenver the normal zep it changing continents you're going to bug. You'll get stuck in two places normally, Stonalton and Alterac Mountains. I don't know of any way avoiding this, except by maybe using a boat TaxiPath that doesn't zone (such as Feathermoon) but I haven't tried. Don't try to move in these places, you'll have to wait untill they zone again to get to a place where you can move. so half of your journey is beneath ground and boring really
One thing that I have found is that as when you're getting close to GM Island the normal zep will zone and you'll be stuck underground again, but your zep is still actually moving towards GM Island (lol weird I know!) and so it might hit it and turn around before the normal zep zones again and then it was all for nothing. What I did to avoid this was to set my two last path nodes to GM Island coords and to put the wait codes in column 8 and 9. IMPORTANT ABOUT THE WAIT CODES: You can still just put the number of seconds in column 9 such as 30, 60, 90 whatever, but column 8 has to be 0x2 or 0x0 instead of 2 or 0. Thats just the way it is in the csv, it's converted back after the DBCutil to dbc. I suppose you could put as many wait codes as you want for a path, but know that you'll be waiting for the zep in Org for AGES
