The Dark version 5.3 (October 8, 2006) by Zamal and Zenda -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Introduction and acknowledgement This Hellfire modification has been started in November 1998. It is based upon the famous HFMOD V2 from Varaya and Khan, dated September 2 1998. The reasons we used Varaya and Khan's version to work upon are that it was very well balanced and had a lot of bugfixes and nice enhancements in it. We saw no need to redo all this, mostly because we would not have able to do it at that time. You will be able to play SinglePlayer as well as MultiPlayer. See 'Notes on SinglePlayer' if you like the quests, or plan to do single player games for other reasons. All other information in this file is for both MultiPlayer and SinglePlayer, unless indicated otherwise. This game has been made possible with the help of many people. Ogden will tell you about them when you first enter a game. Special thanks go to ArthurDent, for his suggestions, feedback, playtesting, making the Guide, being a great co-op partner, and taking care of all image and sound related things in this version. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Installation and Playing To be able to play this mod, you must have access to the Diablo CD and have Hellfire installed on your computer. Place all files belonging to this modification, which are listed blow, in your Hellfire folder or, preferrably, in a copy of your Hellfire folder. HLFDRK53.EXE Main program THEDARKUI.DLL Menu program TD53.MPQ Resource file THEDARKREADME.TXT This Readme Use the program with its original filename, which is HLFDRK53.EXE for this version. This will help avoiding MultiPlayer games with other Hellfire versions over KALI. There is no longer need for a command file, and any parameters in such a file will not be used. Savegame files for MultiPlayer are named HLFDRK_x.DRV and placed in your Windows folder as hidden files (for Hellfire the names are HRINFO_x.DRV), for SinglePlayer it is HLFDRK_x.HSV in the folder containing the game (SINGLE_x.HSV for Hellfire). It is possible to copy savegame files from regular Hellfire or HFMOD V2 to these new files, but a lot of the character's equipment will change to useless stuff if you do this. We don't recommend doing so, for this and other reasons. In general, be careful copying savegame files between different mods with other basic items, because it will crash the program on playing and you might even lose your character. This means for example that you cannot transfer a character from this mod back to Hellfire. Although you can use characters from Hellfire and previous version of The Dark in this version, we strongly recommend starting new characters. Never continue existing single player games from other versions. Start the game by running HLFDRK53.EXE or a shortcut to it, and remember that it will be much harder than regular Hellfire. We strongly discourage the use of other hacks, like PATCHELP. Because so much is changed chances are very large that the game will crash. If you place the file DOOM.SMK in a subdirectory GENDATA, the intro of the game will be expanded with sound. You can customize your hotkeyed MultiPlayer messages (F9-F12) by creating a file TheDark.ini in your playing directory. It must be the same format as Hellfire.ini from Hellfire or Diablo.ini from Diablo. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Nest and Abyss Unlike in HFMOD V2, in this game you can enter the Nest, known as the Hive in Hellfire, too. While it appears easy at times, it can be unforgiving as Hell. The Abyss, known as Crypts in Hellfire, is the most difficult area in this game. Both can be entered from town by clicking the correct entrance. For the Abyss this is the black grave to the right of Tristram's church. For the Nest you have to blow up its entrance first. In MultiPlayer the farmer's Rune bomb must only be used by the game creator. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes on SinglePlayer Some quests are disabled, for various reasons. Others are placed one or more levels deeper, and sometimes use other monsters. This makes them slightly more difficult, but the unique items you get as a reward will be much better. Upon entering a new game the quest items from the previous game will be replaced with useless equipment, but you should be able to obtain them again without much trouble. If you happen to find one of these items outside its quest, however, it will remain with your character. Although the Blood Stones from the Valor quest appear to be the same as the Blood Stones you can find or buy, they are the only ones that can be used in the quest. As in Hellfire, you can only enter the Abyss in SinglePlayer with the Cathedral Map. In this mod you can find it on the last level of Hell, not in the Nest. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Do NOT contact BLIZZARD or SIERRA for questions or remarks about this mod. They do NOT support it. SIERRA does not support MultiPlayer in Hellfire, also. The creators of this modification cannot be held responsible for any damage that comes from using this software, but you don't have to worry very much: we use it ourselves very often ...