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[Jaalenn]

QUOTE(roofus @ May 21 2005, 11:39 PM)

Sorry about that, should have been more exact with my wording!

The resigning process for morrowind is quite different from other games.  You do not want to click OK or APPLY when XSavSig calculates the new signature for the modified file.  Instead, take this 40 character long string in the "calculated" box (20 bytes in hexadecimal, 2 characters per byte) and overwrite, in hexadecimal, the first 20 bytes of the file vv.dat.  The vv.dat file should have come from the same folder as the ess file, and be 40 bytes long in total.  There are two signatures in there actually, but the second signature we really don't care about.  Just make sure you overwrite the first 20 bytes of this file with the calculated hex bytes, and you should be fine.  Do not copy the characters as ascii text characters; this will not work.  If all is well, you should only be rewriting half of vv.dat.

I'm fairly certain that this is a dead topic, but I would like to know how to change the forty (40) digit code recieved from XSavSig into 20 digit Hex format. I have tried a number of different methods but none have worked. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Jaalenn]

Sorry about the double-post, but I thought a bit of clarification was in order. I am playing Morrowind GOTY on the 360. I cannot locate a default.xbe file to edit, and nothing I have tried is working.

[roofus]

This is a simple how-to guide for hacking Morrowind Savegames with Morrowind Enchanted Editor 0.91c, and re-signing them with XSavSig.  Before you leap into this, I might warn you this guide requires a moderate level of technical expertise

To continue, you will need:
 -FTP access to your Xbox
 -Morrowind Enchanted Editor 0.91c
 -XSavSig 0.05
 -any Hex Editor of your choice (Hex Workshop, XVI32 both work nicely, I'm using Hex Workshop here)

First, if you haven't done so already, go ahead and install any of the above utilities you are missing.
Fetch your Morrowind save from your Xbox harddrive that you want to modify.  Go to E/UDATA/42530005/.  Under here, you'll have a list of funny looking hashes in hexadecimal.  There is a way to calculate what the hash will be for a given save game, but it's easier just to check in each folder until you find the savegame you want to modify.   It should look like yoursavenamehere.ess, and there should also be a vv.dat file in the directory as well.  Transfer the .ess file and the vv.dat file over to your computer to some easy to remember folder.
Done with that part?  Not so hard was it?

Basic Editing
Run Morrowind Enchanted Editor (might take a little while to start up on slower computers).  Go to File > Open..., find and select your ess file.  Enchanted editor will chew on it for a little while, then you should see a nice listing of every element inside your save file.  Most of it should be relatively straightforward, except for a few parts we are primarily concerned with:
Your main character information will be under Player Reference Data (REFR):
Character Attributes (Strength, Intelligence, Willpower, etc) is under REFR > ACDT.  You will notice that there are two variables for every attribute, the current value, and base value.  The only time they won't match in a save file is if they have been permanently modified by something.
Character Skills (Armorer, Athletics, Alchemy, etc) is under REFR > CHRD.  Same thing  for base vs current attributes goes here.
Alrighty, now that we can fix that stuff, onto some more important areas, namely your inventory (including gold!).  This is actually stored under the NPC copy of your player.  To check this out, go to Non Player Characters > NPC_player.  Here, you can edit your Name, your Head, your Hair, your Race, your Class, and even your Level.  There is a copy of the original values of your strength, intelligence, and such for your race, but this has no effect on your actual attributes.  Current Health, Magicka (SpellPoints), Fatigue can also be modified here.  Following the information at the beginning of this section and the FLAG section, is a list of the current items in your inventory!  Inventory items have the NPCO tag, and list the internal name of the item (ItemID) and how many of this item you have (count).  You can change the ItemID to something else if you wanted just by typing in a new name there, or click the "..." button next to the ItemID box to view a whole list of internal names in the original Morrowind.esm file.
You may notice some funky ItemIDs in your inventory if you are into Alchemy.  This is because custom made potions here are referenced by a number in the Alchemy section.  If you want to edit the potion, go to the Alchemy section, hopefully find it by its name, weight, value, etc and edit those attributes accordingly.  I can't say I know exactly what all the EffectID / SkillID numbers refer to, but here's a few:
Restore Health:
  EffectID: 75
  SkillID: 46
Levitate:
  EffectID: 10
  SkillID: 46
The rest you (or maybe someone else on this forum) can find out on your own by making specific potions and looking at how it shows up in the save file.
Spells that you have will show up under your NPC_player as NPCS.  They only list the names here as well; just like with Alchemy, the actual spell information is listed under Player Spell Data.
Inserting records of any type is relatively easy, but can be dangerous.  Just find the header of the section that you want to add to, then right click on it and click Insert Record.  Then, using a similar record as a template, copy information from that record and change the name or quantity or whatever as needed.
Also, a sidenote: to those looking to slimfast their saves to fix Dirty Disk Errors and such, for now I will recommend checking under Containers Altered by Player (CNTC LootBag) to cut and paste records from your LootBag or whatever into other containers, Creatures Altered/Killed by Player and NPCs altered or killed by player to clean up some corpses by deleting records, and if you really know what you are doing you can do a search through the Cells to clean up things you left behind on the floor, though it makes things a lot easier when they are lumped together in containers.  Maybe more on this later.
A warning: Deleting records with Enchanted Editor can take a long time for large savefiles!

Aside from that, I'll leave you on your own for the actual savehacking. Feel free to contribute to the scene and share your experiences or knowledge!

After you have modified your save, however, if you just copy it back to your Xbox as it is it will not work.  Why?  All game save files on the Xbox have computer "signatures" to make sure they were not tinkered with or corrupted.  There are two solutions for this:
1) Calculate the new signature for the file, and update it.  This works for any save file on modded or unmodded Xboxes.
2) Hack the XBE file to not check signatures.  This is only possible if you are running a modded xbox with Morrowind ripped to the hard drive.  
I might post a tutorial on option number 2 later, but for now, lets stick with option number 1.
First, you will need to go to the directory where you presumably installed XSavSig, and open up the resign.ini file in a text editor like Notepad.  Add one of these entries (or both if you want) to the file depending on what version of the game you own:

[42530001]
ID=42530001
Title=Morrowind
AuthKey=43CEAEEA15CE142AD396C448C81C6F9355BD559E
DataFile=yournamehere.ess

[42530005]
ID=42530005
Title=Morrowind Game Of The Year
AuthKey=C0E2D29B509DDE874E5AB749B4CD1C1A
DataFile=yournamehere.ess

where yournamehere is replaced by the actual name of your save.  Put your modified ess file into the temp folder in XSavSig (if it doesn't exist yet, make a "temp" folder in your xsavsig folder), then run XSavSig.  Select your version of Morrowind from the list and it will give you the current signature (not valid, ignore it) and the calculated signature.  Now, open up vv.dat with your Hex Editor and overwrite the first 20 bytes of this file with the signature calculated by XSavSig (a byte is 2 hex digits).  Save vv.dat, transfer your ess file and vv.dat back to your Xbox into the folder you got it from and you're finally done!  If it worked, give yourself a pat on the back  
If not, fire off a message so I can help you and / or see if the guide needs to be revised.

Enjoy!

roofus

[roofus]

QUOTE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reduce a 5mb Save Game File to 1MB (major FPS increase and kills most "doubling"")
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

This technique has some quirks like resurrecting all dead characters but does not break quests or change characters attitudes to you etc. The vast majority of space taken in in your save is NPCC (characters you've stolen from, killed etc) and CELL (Cells you've altered) records, so...

1. Load the save game

2. Turn OFF safe editing (Edit/Editing Options/Safe Editing or just click the symbol like a roadsign on the toolbar till it warns you and the symbol turns bright yellow and red)

3. Click the check box next to the "Cells" node to mark all cells.

4. Click the "Cells" node (not the checkbox) to expand it and show all cells and scroll down till you see the cell or cells where you keep all your loot (your home, if you have one). Uncheck this cell in the check box or you lose your loot.

5. Click the check box next to "NPCs Altered/Killed by Player" (NPCC) node to mark all altered NPCs.

6. CRITICAL: Click the "NPCs Altered/Killed by Player" (NPCC) Node to expand the node and show all NPCC record. Scroll down to the "PlayerSaveGame" record and UNCHECK it. You don't want to delete this specific record or your save game will be ruined.

7. Press Delete. All CELL and NPCC entries apart from your home and the PlayerSaveGame will be deleted.

8. Save your game. I got a 5MB game (LOTS of mods and Neverine) down to 1MB like this. Everyone I knew still thought I was the bees knees and I could walk around Balmora without feeling like a crippled snail on downers afterwards (much better FPS).

Quoted from the author's (Farren Hayden) savegame cleaning with Enchanted Editor guide.  1 block on the Xbox = 16,384 bytes, or 16 kb, this will most likely help with the 150 block savegame size problem.

[Hopeful]

The shit aint workin for me, man.  I'm sure there's a way to do it, however... When I edit the save per your instructions, then hex its calculated code into the vv.dat file overwriting the first 40 characters with those 40 characters like you describe... I get a 'can not load save' error, or almost exactly those words.

One thing that's unclear is, you must choose between two ways before you upload the save back to your xbox. You have to either click cancel or ok in XSavSig, if you click ok or apply it resigns your save, if you click cancel, it does not.  Do you want to hit ok and resign the gamesave, or do you want to cancel out and leave it like it is? Big difference. Also, do you know a way, with that editor, to remove being expelled from the temple?

This post has been edited by Hopeful: May 21 2005, 11:55 AM

[hoa]

QUOTE(Hopeful @ May 21 2005, 11:04 PM)

One thing that's unclear is, you must choose between two ways before you upload the save back to your xbox. You have to either click cancel or ok in XSavSig, if you click ok or apply it resigns your save, if you click cancel, it does not.  Do you want to hit ok and resign the gamesave, or do you want to cancel out and leave it like it is? Big difference. Also, do you know a way, with that editor, to remove being expelled from the temple?

i was mucking around with dis and all xasvsig does is changes the hex just like when u hex edit the vv.dat file. there has to be a way for this to work! post up how to hack the defualt.xbe so it doesnt check the signatures!!!!!!   and i dont think that u can use that editor to remove getting expelled

This post has been edited by hoa: May 22 2005, 12:17 AM

[roofus]

Sorry about that, should have been more exact with my wording!

The resigning process for morrowind is quite different from other games.  You do not want to click OK or APPLY when XSavSig calculates the new signature for the modified file.  Instead, take this 40 character long string in the "calculated" box (20 bytes in hexadecimal, 2 characters per byte) and overwrite, in hexadecimal, the first 20 bytes of the file vv.dat.  The vv.dat file should have come from the same folder as the ess file, and be 40 bytes long in total.  There are two signatures in there actually, but the second signature we really don't care about.  Just make sure you overwrite the first 20 bytes of this file with the calculated hex bytes, and you should be fine.  Do not copy the characters as ascii text characters; this will not work.  If all is well, you should only be rewriting half of vv.dat.

[Hopeful]

To start, I'll say thank you, because it was possible to unban a character from the temple this way. (Global Settings / ExpTemple) This is a helpful method, but it would be totally excellent if you'd post how to stop the signature checking altogether like you mentioned, if you know how.  I've gotten this edit-then-resign method to work once out of several meticulous and stressful tries. Plus when I got it to work all I edited was un-expulsion.

Don't get me wrong, this guide is quite very helpful, but... It's a great idea to also do the other guide, because there's a shitty-ly stressful amount of dicking around for exactness every time - save the file in enchanted, avoid accidentally re-signing, type in a precise sequence of 40 characters 1 by 1, and then make sure to save the vv.dat file and transfer them both. Also, if you can't load the save, you don't know if the problem is from the morrowind editor or a typo in the 40 hex characters. 7 out of 10 times, no matter how carefully you check, you're liable to make at least one typo. Plus even after you spend an eternity to get it exactly right it still doesn't always work for some reason. With a .exe file that doesn't check signatures, it may be a lot of fecal semantics one time, but then all the bullshit is dealt with from then on. Just an encouragement to your idea earlier of posting a guide on removing sig-check alltogether. Once again, thanks because I was able to fix the expelled problem in the save.

[roofus]

Sure, will do.  I have a few hacks for Default.xbe that can make Morrowind start up much faster (skips any intro videos and goes to main menu) and be able to launch modified (not resigned) saved from the main menu, but I didn't do it yet for Morrowind.xbe, so once in game, the load game function won't load "damaged" saves again.

I'll get right on hackin out the main save signature checks and post them both when I'm done.

[gr0don]

i have already tried to hack the gamesave check but didn't get very far with it. my knowlage of assembly language is pretty limited, i look forward to using your hacks   , could you post a small tutorial or the part of the code you edited ?, i would be interested to know where i was going wrong. cheers.

[Hopeful]

QUOTE(roofus @ May 22 2005, 08:16 PM)

Sure, will do.  I have a few hacks for Default.xbe that can make Morrowind start up much faster (skips any intro videos and goes to main menu) and be able to launch modified (not resigned) saved from the main menu, but I didn't do it yet for Morrowind.xbe, so once in game, the load game function won't load "damaged" saves again.

I'll get right on hackin out the main save signature checks and post them both when I'm done.

Xx-L-nt! If you run into some kind of ridiculous problem, then I think people will even applaud your effort to help. I'd be interested to see a section of the guide that even describes how to skip those videos since they're annoying as fuck, if you felt like adding that. But, I could do without it if it's too much writing for ya. The main thing is that it would just be real loveable to skip all that resigning crap.

(On a totally unrelated note, I heard that you can eventually own strongholds. I want to own these and be able to put belongings in them, but I want to delete all other cell nodes to shrink my save size. If anyone figures out which cells these are, that would be a great detail with this fantabulous guide.)

Thanks once again, roofus. I'm sure a number of peepulz appreciate your guide.

[grifter66]

Hopeful,
Can't the computer version be used to locate the cells?
Even though the PC and X-box versions of the game are different, I'm pretty sure that the cell locations are the same. So why can't someone just locate them that way?


This was just a thought.

This post has been edited by grifter66: May 23 2005, 05:30 AM

[hoa]

is it possible to make yourself invinceable?

[roofus]

Technically, you'd need a trainer for that... but you can get the next best thing, of being impossible to hit!  Enchant any old item to forify agility 1 pt, constant effect... pop it open in the editor, change it to something obscene like 1000 points, and nothing can hit you anymore!  Effectively invincible  

[hoa]

kool, with this editor how come i cant change health?
and i got a fee more questions
(1) is it possible to create a gamesave via the editor?
(2)how do u change gold?
(3) how do i upload support files?
that it is all