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 Elliander  |
Hi, I'm hoping someone could give me some advice. I stopped being able to Play Creatures since I went to Windows 7. I bought the GOG version, but since nothing worked with the GOG version I had no interest in it. Recently I decided to finally put together a virtual machine and want the most complete game possible (C1, C2, C3, and Village), but I see many of the old files are dead links. I seem to have quite a few of the missing objects for C3 at least. Metarooms that cannot be downloaded anywhere still exist spread out among the install folders for both a Windows Xp Install and an Ubuntu 7.10 Install. I've already recovered the files from the XP install and am currently working on getting access to the Linux file system so that I can get those files as well. My first question is simply this: Is there a good way for me to migrate these files onto a new install? Is it as simple as copying the files, or do I have to do more? And will I have to deal with passwords for Metarooms? For example: I purchased "Norngarden 2" and "Ostrova" on Friday February 22nd 2008, but wasn't immediately able to play them. Looking at my email history I had to reach out to "Chaos Created" after the orders were confirmed who then had to reach out to the creators who eventually got me the username and password a few days later, so I have a working username and password, but I don't remember exactly how that worked. Did the username have to be the player name? Important question since I can see that it's no longer available to purchase, but I still have all the related files in the "My Agents" folder on old hard drives. Oh, and for "Ostrova" looks like I have a special Sounds and Body Data folder too. My Second question is related to a bug I recall having. When using Norngarden 1, 2, and 4 together, having installed 1 then 2 then 4, using Docking Station. I noticed there are two doors. One from the Dockingstation's Norn habitat leading to Norngarden 1, and the other door is a backdoor from Norngarden 4 to another area on the docking station. When used just like this, there is no problem. But when I have a metaroom called "Hydroponics Bay" installed, which has it's only door on the creatures 3 ship, along with all the Norngardens, a bug occurred. When I clicked on the "backdoor" in Norngarden 4 it then correctly takes me to the docking station area, but when I click that docking station area it takes me instead into the Hydroponics Bay which does not have any door leading back to it. Does that bug still exist? If so I can't use Hydroponics Bay, but that was back in 2008 so I am hoping it works better now. I still have all of my original purchases in pristine condition, which means that I have all the official stuff, but aside from what I had installed on old computers I don't have anything else so my third question is if there exists a compilation of missing content for all the games anywhere? And if not would there be any way that I could share what I come up with without breaking any rules? I realize that every creator generally doesn't want content mirrored, but if the servers that once hosted the files no longer exists wouldn't it be sad to let the content die? While I feel that it is important to respect the wishes of creators who naturally want to ensure that people are using the latest version I also feel that is important to preserve what once existed so that people can continue to enjoy the content. And of course since I can't seem to find my old C1 and C2 backups (yet) all I have there is the physical media. I expect that it will takes me days or even weeks to put everything together. Hence why I am asking if collections already exist which I can build from. Lastly, regarding the Docking Station, is there any private server still in existence? Since the official page is permanently down I was hoping it would, but I see that "Albian Warp" is permanently down as well. Thanks! Immortal until proven otherwise. |
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 Peppery One Papriko |
Hey there, and welcome to the forums! It's been a while, but I'll try and have a crack at these questions. My experience is primarily with C3/DS, so I will answer everything with a focus on that. Question 1: Ideally, the .agent or .agents file should be self-extracting. In other words, you only need to drop it into the My Agents folder, open the game and inject it. It then checks what files such as sprites and sounds are still missing, and places them in the right spot for you. However, not all agents always work so flawlessly. I'd say try it with the simple method first, and if you encounter problems about missing files, you can get those from your old install folders. Passwords will most likely continue to be a problem. I never managed to get my grubby fingers on Ostrova, but I'm fairly certain that NG2 asks for a password every time you inject it into a world. The solution here is to write down the username and password somewhere convenient. I personally patched my NG2 file to not bother me with passwords anymore, but I am not sure if I may even redistribute it that way. Nor do I particularly want to, thinking about it, since my patch was rather poorly made. As for files that went MIA, you can try to see if you can revive the download links with The Wayback Machine, though success is not guaranteed. Alternatively, it's worth checking Eem Foo's Archive, a site specifically designed by Eem Foo to combat the issues you brought up. Oh would you look at that, they have all the Norngardens with the password list for 2. Though in the download it's called NG4 passwords, no clue what's up with that. Question 2: Sounds like a classifier problem to me. I doubt that anyone has cared enough to fix it. I have never played with Hydroponics Bay I don't think, so not sure what's up with that. Either way, you can navigate the rooms by clicking the blue icons at the top of your screen, by scrolling the mouse wheel and I think with the Page Up and Page Down buttons on your keyboard. That should at least help you "escape" the room even without door. As for a collection of lost downloads, I can only point to Eem Foo once again. It's still an active and ongoing project, and currently our best resource in that regard. Question 3: Albian Warp is down? Dang, when did that happen? Really gotta pay more attention to those things. But nope, if that's gone too, there might currently be no alternative to online play, unfortunately. Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... |
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Elliander |
Thanks for the response! 1.) OK, so I shouldn't have to copy over anything other than what is in "My Agents" unless there's an issue? Is it OK for me to just copy over the folders "My Agents", "Sounds", "Body Data", "Genetics" and overwrite the existing files for a fresh installation just to make sure there are no issues? And what about the "My Creatures" and "My Worlds" files? Will they port over OK? I see on the link you shared, "Remember to keep your password since you will need it every time you start a new world!" but what about the username? hmm... I took a look at the passwords download and opened the ng2 pass file (which oddly has no file extension) and it totally checks out. The password they assigned me was "Daisy" which makes sense given my username. With this document I should be able to use different usernames as well. It appears that if I have trouble with a new name there'd be no problem. Regarding Ostrova my email records indicate that the same username and password was used for both NG2 and Ostrova together so presumably if you have a working NG2 password you should be able to use Ostrova. Unless it's a coincidence that is. Have you ever tried? Would it be allowed by the rules for me to share this file with you since the online store selling it no longer exists? Even the wayback machine wouldn't be able to revive a file that was only ever accessible via an online store. ... assuming that's even needed. I see on the site you referred me to here: https://eem.foo/archive/downloads/2869-ostrova-mac-linux-zip That Ostrova for Mac and Linux is available. I have the Windows version so took a peek at the files and compared that download to what I bought. It's nearly identical. The "Body Data" and "My Agents" and "Sound" folders have the same number of files at the same total file size. The only difference I can see it that the unins000.dat file included is 9 kb with a file date of 10-31-2009 while mine is 15 kb with a file date of 2-22-2008 which reflects my date of purchase. The unins000.exe file is 70 kb in both and has a date of 4-14-2003 so I'm not sure what would be different about the uninstaller. I thought maybe some of the files could have been updated, but no, the body data files all have a creation date of 6-9-2003. The installation directions are to just manually copy the files, so unless there's an actual difference between Linux and Windows these should work as is. Overall this website is a great resource. Although it would be nice if there was a torrent mirror because I'd feel bad about running up the bandwidth since I'll probably download just about everything. 2.) That's a shame. Can the creatures at least escape if they end up in there? Not that the Creatures seem to really explore if all their needs are met. I once ran an experiment of running the game for over a week unattended where the creatures had all their needs met in one room and not a single individual ever set foot outside. 3.) Looks like eem foo saves the day here as well: https://eem.foo/eem-foo-warp-natsue/ Although now I wonder if the server code is floating around anywhere. I mean, what would we do if they go dark? It would also be nice if I could run server code to play over a LAN since a virtual machine running Windows XP really shouldn't be exposed to the internet. In any case thanks for pointing me in the right direction! Immortal until proven otherwise. |
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Peppery One Papriko |
You can copy over those folders, yes. However, if you decide to copy over the My Worlds folder, which, unsurprisingly, contains all of the worlds you created, you should go all-in with the other folders as well. There are no integrity checks. So if you still got an agent lingering around in a world that you are missing, say, a sound for, it will cause problems. Don't let the "for Linux and Mac" thing confuse you. Creature Labs did the same thing with the official breeds like Siamese and Astro norns. The Windows version comes as an .exe file that already pre-extracts sprites and body data into their appropriate folders. Why it was done I don't know, considering that the .exe also extracts a fully functional egg agent file that contains those files and which is itself able to do the job. Maybe they wanted to avoid the lag spike, no clue. Anyway, Linux/Mac version simply means "packaged as a .agent instead of a .exe", but they are still fully compatible with the Windows release. Oh, one more thing: when you yoink folders from your old partitions, make sure that you get the right ones. The folders in C: \Program Files for Windows and /usr/share/games for Ubuntu are only the base installs of the game. That is NOT where downloaded agents unpack their stuff to. You are will most likely need to take the folders from C: \Users\username and then either My Games or My Documents, as well as /home/username/.dockingstation respectively. My Games vs My Documents depends on the version of Windows you ran back then, and .dockingstation is a hidden folder by default. Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... |
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 Vermidia |
For the warp, there's current the Natsue warp by Eemfoo. You can find the details under the project/eem.foo warp. (That's primarily why Albian warp went down, since natsue works really well!) edit: I didn't read far enough, whoops :p You know...wait...nevermind... wait...no...umm...maybe later... |
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Elliander |
Papriko wrote: Thanks for the reminder. I think that explains why in my first backup I have two copies of each folder with slightly different contents. Well, I guess the best test would be to just copy them over and see if it works with an old world before tinkering any further. I'll just backup the install files before doing that just in case something blows up. On a related note is it OK to install the games in a custom location? I generally don't like having the C drive flooded with folders so I usually categorize on installations, but will that cause any problems for the installation of extras in general? I know that I will need to use the "Creatures Remastered Patch" on the Albian Years, Exodus, and Village to make extras work, but I am unsure if installation paths matter. I am seeing that the default install path for "Creatures: The Albian Years" is: C > Program Files ? Gameware Development ? Creatures Albian Years while the default install path for "Creatures Exodus" is: C > Program Files > Gameware Development > Creatures Exodus I'm assuming that there will be a sub-path created in the "Creatures Albian Years" folder called "Creatures" and "Creatures 2" and that there would similarly be a "Creatures 3" and "Docking Station" folders within the "Creatures Exodus" folder, is that right? In which case it would seem simpler to use the following install path for both games: C > Program Files > Games > Creatures So that all f the games are in one easy to find place, but would that cause any problems? (Keeping in mind that this is being installed within a Windows XP Virtual Machine which is being setup with other older games to run better alongside creatures and to make it easier to always migrate the game to any new computer in the future) Oh, and does the "Creatures Remastered Patch" include the Community Patches? Or should I install that on top of the Remastered patch? And would I install any game update files before the Remaster Patch? EDIT: And do the tricks for No CD patches still work? It's a bit of a pain changing CDs within a Virtual Machine and one of the great things about using a VM is the ability to run multiple instances. No CD (C1) No CD (C2) I know that Exodus doesn't have a CD check, but not sure of Albian Years does. I do see here that it's suggested to install in the "My Documents" user folder though to avoid issues with extras like the Emergency Kit. Seems weird to have an install path within that folder, especially if a computer will have multiple users, but maybe it's related to what you said about having more than one folder? Thanks again! Vermidia wrote: That's very interesting. I'm guessing it was easier to shut down the older project than to try and maintain them both? Immortal until proven otherwise. |
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Peppery One Papriko |
I don't really know much about the remastered patch and the community patch. I have frankly said never really experimented much with either. I primarily worked with a baseline C3 disk and Linux Creatures Internet Edition. CIE is a re-release of C3 bundled with DS and the Magma Norns. It's older than Exodus and, from what I have read on the forums over the years, a lot easier to tame as well. As for custom locations, it can go either way, really. Sometimes seemingly identical setups work for some people, but not for others. I'm fairly certain that I once managed to (on Ubuntu again) install CIE to my home folder. I also made the .dockingstation folder a symbolic link to the install folder, so I only had one save location for everything. These types of experiments tend to be very janky and unpredictable, so proceed at your own risk. As mentioned before, unfortunately I am not really able to say much of anything about Albian years. PS: on the navigation problems with Hydroponic Bay. DS comes with portable teleporters. You could drop one in there to make an escape route for your little buggers. There's also a bunch of third party alternatives that might be worth trying. Lets play plants! Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... Photosynthesis... |
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Elliander |
OK, based on what I am reading about the "Split Installation" issue here: https://creatures.wiki/Split_installation I am leaning towards installing into a user folder, but the problem with doing so is that if I install as an Admin it won't be accessible as an ordinary user so maybe I need some folder syncing software to try and replicate what you did on Ubuntu. Immortal until proven otherwise. |
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 Lacota |
Elliander wrote: EemFoo here (on my very old lacota account). The code for natsue is open source and available on github. The server code is unfortunately lost and Natsue was made without it. You could run a private natsue, but would take some work on your end. https://discord.gg/JDR5jCxZQ6 If you're interested in talking about the Natsue warp feel free to join the eemfoo server! We'd be glad to clarify or explain further. |
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Elliander |
Lacota wrote: Thanks for chiming in! I think I'll do that after I get things mostly setup. I'm probably going to need help getting it working on my virtual machine setup and I am curious about possible LAN uses. It's good to hear that it will be possible. Since I have you on the line I was curious: Is there a compilation archive of sorted folders for someone who wants to download everything? Or at least everything that fully works? The setup is very good for trying to find very specific things, but not so much for trying to get everything. I've been going through it all and it's been very tedious, espeecially with regards to making sure I have folder structures intact. For example, when downloading breeds I've been making sure to put them in subfolders like "Norn Slot E" although most other things seem to just be sorted by type of object. Some Metarooms seems to have conflicts, but not sure how best to structure folders for that. Even with simple agents the process of getting it all is very tedious since. For example, there seem to be 430 separate downloads just in the category of Food for Creatures 1. It would likely take me weeks to get it all manually because even though each download is small it takes a very long time to download each and every one of them. Plus it seems that there are overlapping categories to sift through. If such an archive doesn't exist it certainly should perhaps with a torrent link. That would make it much easier for someone to get started if they want the most complete game possible as quickly as possible. Immortal until proven otherwise. |
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lisdude  |
You won't need the Remaster Patch if you use the Community Edition. My recommendation would be to install the CE and then, from the main menu, run the registry rebuilder afterward. This will ensure you have all of the correct paths and compatibility entries (for older and confused tools). You also won't need no-CD hacks for C1 or C2 Community Edition. They take care of all of that as well. There's also no need to install into Documents if you use the Community Edition. The only issue with a split install is that you still have to put new COBs in the program directory. If you don't like doing that, though, you can change your 'Objects Directory' in the registry (just remember to copy all of your existing COBs into Documents). I might add that as an option in the next patcher update... Here's what I'd recommend for Creatures 2: 0. Uninstall any existing Creatures 1, 2, Albian Years, etc. 1. Install from GoG or Steam to the default location. 2. Apply the Community Edition patch (option 1). 3. Apply the registry rebuilder from the patcher menu. 4. If you're using GoG or Steam, apply the Science Kit patch from the patcher menu. (This fixes the dDNA tab.) 5. Start from 'launcher.exe' and create a new world. There's no need to apply any of the COB updaters; they're already baked into Eden.sfc in all of the versions of Creatures 2 I tested. You mention you're doing this in a virtual machine. If you're using a Windows XP virtual machine, I'd recommend deleting ddraw.dll from the Creatures 2 directory. If you're using Windows 10+, the GoG ddraw.dll probably won't work and will need replaced with something like dxwrapper. Steam should be good to go by default. Hopefully that's not too twisty and confusing! If you have any issues with the Community Edition or patcher, please let me know. EDIT: I see you want to install to a non-default location. That should work... in theory... but I haven't done a ton of testing with that configuration with the CE. I'm interested to hear how it turns out! Especially in XP. Most of my testing has been in Windows 11. |
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Elliander |
So GOG works now? And is preferred? Oh, is that because of the Community Patcher specifically? I still have the GOG version for both C1 and C2 and I didn't install creatures yet so I can still do that. Yes, doing this in a Windows XP Virtual machine so that all the old games will continue to work on any future computer. I haven't installed yet so I guess I will give this a try in a non-standard location first. I could even make a backup of the VM in case I screw anything up. What about Creatures 3? Is my Exodus CD OK or is there something better? Oh, and I also picked up a Creatures Village Disc. I actually never played Creatures Village before, but would like to at least give it a try. Oh, and a question about the installers. So, the Creatures 1 GOG installer is 103 MB while the Creatures 2 GOG installer is 76.8 MB. However, when I ripped the CDs (because it's easier to install an ISO into a virtual machine) the Albian Years is 121 MB. Aside from the DLL to delete (which is good to know) I'm curious why the GOG installers are bigger together than the Albian years. wow, now that I think about it, I own so many versions of this game. There's the original installation discs in storage somewhere, the Linux version of Creatures 3, the XP version of C1, C2 C3, and Village, and the GOG version of C1 and C2. That's more copies of a game than any other game I've played. I also found old print outs from the 90's I made from the cyberlife website that went into detail about the A-Life approach to programming which I still think is a superior idea to what the world ended up going with. I wonder if I should scan those somewhere into a PDF. Immortal until proven otherwise. |
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Elliander |
Well, I tried to follow those directions. First I redownloaded Creatures 1 and 2 from GOG just to make sure I had the latest version. Then I installed the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable (X86) which is needed to avoid a "VCRUNTIME.dll" error. Then I installed the GOG version of Creatures 1 and 2 and per the instructions on this page: https://lisdude.com/Creatures/Community/C1/#patcher_download I downloaded the Wing32.dll file, but I don't have a sysWOW64 folder on Windows XP 32bit. I did, however, already have that file in the system32 folder. I tried running the patcher, but it gave me an error. It doesn't matter if I run it from within the install path as instructed or elsewhere the error is the same: " ERROR: Unable to calculate the executable hash. ERROR: Unrecognized / Unsupported Creatures version. Please ensure you're using the latest version of Creatures 1 or Creatures 2 found on Steam or GoG. Press any key to continue... " The GOG version of C1 is pre-patched to 1.0.4 so not sure what else I should be installing. Since "creatures.exe" and "creatures2.exe" wasn't patching I also tried "Launcher.exe" for both installs and that didn't work either. What am I missing here? Immortal until proven otherwise. |
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Elliander |
It took me a while, but I partially figured out what the problem was. I was on Windows XP Service Pack 2. I used a disc image I created years ago to have updates pre-installed so didn't consider that there might have been relevant updates since, but after installing "Starter Pack 4" I was able to patch Creatures 1. Would have been nice to know that it depends on system updates, but oh well. In any case, this is what I see now: ________________ Select your Creatures 1 or 2 executable file to begin patching: Identifying game... Creatures 1 (GOG 2.1.0.16) Backing up original executable... OK. InternetOpenUrlA failed with error 2. Press any key to continue... ________________ Now, that last error makes sense since I have not yet exposed this VM to the internet, but I wasn't aware that this needed to talk to the internet to patch. What is it trying to do? I'm not entirely sure how to check if the error meant that it failed to patch so I tried the patch option again and the only difference was that it didn't try backing anything up so I'm assuming it worked. I then tried to Rebuild the Registry, but had some initial difficulty with this. The security settings in Windows XP SP4 wouldn't allow me to at first which was a pain, but after fixing that it worked and then I had no issues patching the science kit. So, I guess, it's done? Oh, and using a non-standard install path hasn't been a problem so far. Immortal until proven otherwise. |
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lisdude |
The patcher needs internet access to download the latest patch. Even if your VM was connected to the internet, it likely wouldn't work due to modern TLS and XP being old. I have an offline version of the patcher half-finished, I just need to find the time. Fortunately, the patcher program is just for convenience. You can still install the patches manually with some elbow grease. You'll need two things: 1. The patch itself: Download (build 15, the latest as of today (2024-02-15)) 2. The patching script / BPatch executable: Download 1. Unzip everything and copy all of the files straight into your Creatures directory. 2. Since you're installed in a non-standard path, edit PatchC2.bat to add your path. 3. Run the PatchC2.bat script. Similar procedure for Creatures 1. C1 patch: Download C1 script: Download You can always verify whether or not the patching worked by going to the game's Help - About menu. The Community Edition adds an extra version number indicating its patch level. I'll also mention that the backup is only created once. This is your original game executable and is used as the source for all future patches. If you delete the backup, you won't be able to apply future patches unless you reinstall the original game. To explain a bit what's going on: The patches are binary diffs that are applied with BPatch (the source code and latest binaries for which is available here). The batch file, which you can edit and read yourself, is to make it easier to run BPatch to apply the binary diff. Re: OS updates and internet access: I wasn't aware that it required any particular update. I always make the assumption that people are as up-to-date as possible and I don't run outdated versions for testing. I'm sorry if you feel I'm withholding information or deliberately being vague in documentation. I've tried to be as transparent and thorough as possible, but it's difficult to account for so many configurations and different versions of each game. |
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Elliander |
Thanks for the files and details. They worked! I checked in the C1 game and it says "Community Release 5" to the right of "Veersion 1.0.5 (Release". I haven't created a world yet for C2 so can't check there (yet) but the patcher said Community Patch 15 I think. Good to know about the original file being needed. I left that alone, but I would have kept it anyway. So this will allow me to use objects and kits and such? No, I don't think that you deliberately withheld anything. It's a non-standard setup on an old OS. Bugs are going to happen. That said, it's important for people like me to report back under what conditions bugs occur so that other people facing similar issues will know. So, to recap: - installation wasn't possible on Windows XP 32-bit SP2, but was possible on Windows XP 32-bit SP4 (which is unofficial) so it may or may not work on SP3 - Installation to a non-standard path with the offline installer worked provided that two lines in the batch file are edited to point to it. - Original files need to be left alone Anything else? Oh, and these are specific to C1 and C2. Is there anything special that I will need to do with C3 Exodus or Creatures Village? And is it possible to have multiple different worlds in C1 like it is in C2 and C3? Immortal until proven otherwise. |
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