HiswaRa: Okay, sorry for the delay, holidays and sickness kind of got in the way.
The short answer to your question is no.
bobbd2000: No problem. Thanks for the reply and I hope you're feeling better.
My copy of GRT is from Nexus as well. It's interesting that as far as I can tell CD Projekt Red did the Mac port. At least I can't find anything on the Feral or Aspyr sites. So they must have changed some files just for the Mac. Unless it was done for the Enhanced Edition. I may try to look into some of the dzip files that are on the Mac just out of curiousity.
There is a bin folder under game/Data that contains files like dzip2, dzip 3, etc. with no extension. I did try to add a dzip extension and run it through GRT but got errors.
Regardless, even if we can get into the scripts, it looks like we're out of luck for script-based mod being easy.
If I find anything, I'll report back here.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Okay, for any newer mod users who have been following the thread so far and have already gotten lost, here's kind of an update/explanation of how the dialogue has evolved over the last few posts.
My first post discussed the adding of mods to TW2 on a Mac platform. It explained how to navigate to your CookedPC folder and where to download pre-made mods by others in TW2 community. What Bobbd2000 and I have discovered, and was actually explained quite nicely very early in the thread by Pangaea666, is that base_scripts.dzip doesn't appear to work on a Mac, but any file with the extension .xml, have worked just fine up to this point. Two .xml mods I have personally tested are my original mod request, i.e. purchasing draug and draugir components in Chapter 2 so I could finish my Oath Breaker equipment before Chapter 3, and a mod that increases the time of potions, oils and reduces toxicity to zero.
File Extensions
So why care if a file has the file extension .dzip, .xml or .whatever and what is it? File extensions are the letters following the "." in a file name in indicate the type of file contained within. Most of us likely see file extensions and just kind of glaze over them, because if your computer is well programmed, double-clicking a file on your computer will automatically bring up the appropriate software to open and allow viewing/editing/executing (running), etc. of a file. Some examples of common file extensions on a Mac are things like ".doc", ".docx", ".ppt", ".xls", or ".xlsx", if you're running Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Excel respectively, "mp3" for audio files or "mp4" for audio and/or videos files, "PNG" or "JPEG" for photos, etc. Files downloaded from the internet are occasionally foreign to your computer, at least until you assign a program to open them up, or download new software to do the job for you. For example, in my first post I recommended that you download "The Unarchiver" to help with some of those foreign, internet-downloaded files. If you're curious to see for yourself some of the more exotic file extensions, check out the file extensions you can enable with "The Unarchiver" or just do a general internet search for some more examples.
I don't have a great summary for why file extensions are formatted the way they are, other than by formatting data in a particular way enables your computer to read it more easily, or allows it to make sense of that data in such a way that it produces the desired application. For our purposes, the downloaded mods are generally packaged in such a way that they take up less digital "space." This makes hosting large numbers of mods less expensive as sites can pay for less bandwidth to provide the same services, and it allows you to download your files more quickly because they're a smaller size. When you "unpack" these files you're changing the format from a compressed form (easy to send and receive) to a more voluminous form (easier to use and navigate). I guess a good comparison would be a collapsable toolbox (kind of reminds me of an accordion). Fully packed, it makes great use of space and is easy to take from job site to job site and/or store in your car/truck/garage/basement, but makes using any of the tools inside impossible. Unfold the extensions and it doubles in size but now you have access to a whole host of tools and implements.
Extensions .xml, .dzip and base_scripts.dzip
The two file extensions with which Bobbd2000 and I are most concerned with at the moment in this thread are the extensions ".xml" and ".dzip". ".xml" is a file extension for mods that works as soon as you drop it into TW2's CookedPC folder. While this is nice, not all mods have that extension. One of the more sought-after mods for TW2 has a ".dzip" extension and is called: base_scripts.dzip. This mod allows Geralt to gain an extra talent point or two per level, whic means that by the end of the game you can max out every tech tree option as opposed to tunneling on one or making a hybrid of two or three. It also means you maximize your mutagen additions to Geralt. It arguably makes the game more interesting with a greater diversity of combat options (not to mention making combat considerably easier). ".dzip" is a file extension made specifically for TW2, and base_scripts.dzip is enabled in the Windows version of the game by launching TW2, pressing "Options," checking the box for "Advanced Settings," clicking on "DLC Settings," and checking a box for "enable base_scripts.dzip." The Mac version of the game does not have that option under DLC Settings (which in case you're interested probably stands for Down Loadable Content Settings," and if it doesn't, well--it's good enough for our purposes).
So, the question we are trying to answer is: Can base_scripts.dzip be enabled on a Mac version of TW2? Currently, we believe the answer is "no--or at least not easily." There is a possibility that a development tool released by CD Projekt Red (the company that made TW2 and coincidently owns GoG), could do the trick. The tool is called Gibbed Red Tools (GRT for short) and can be downloaded from nexusmods, i.e. the same place we've gone to for all of the mods we've discussed so far. According to the Witcher wiki, GRT should be able to convert .dzip files (the extension made exclusively for TW2) to .xml files (versions which can be read when simply placed directly into your CookedPC folder). For the moment, we've run into two difficulties. First, my version of GRT won't run properly, so I need to find out why that's the case, and when Bobbd2000 ran some other dzip-looking files through GRT, it came back with an error message. Until we can get GRT to work properly (or learn how to properly use GRT), we won't know if using it will allow us to enable construct some kind of work-around to enable us to run base_scripts.dzip on a Mac version of TW2. It appears to me from the YouTube videos I've watched, that the activation of the "enable base_scripts.dzip" check box on the Windows version of the game was a hard-coded update provided by the developers of TW2. If that's true, and the GRT doesn't work, then our next step of recourse would be to simply ask the developers to add that extension to the Mac version of TW2 during their next update (if, of course, they have any planned).
For anyone interested in trying to run base_scripts.dzip through Gibbed Red Tools (GRT), GRT is only available in a Windows version, so unless you have set up a Windows partition on your computer through Bootcamp, Parallels, or some other software you might be able to unpack the file, but you won't be able to run GRT. The first time I set up a partition was through Bootcamp; and, if I didn't have a buddy helping me through the process, I might have just given up. There are a number of guides on explaining how to partition your computer to run a second (or third) operating system, but if anyone finds that my explanations (long versions followed by a shorter summary) have been helpful, I can try to take a crack at putting my own guide/set of instructions together. I may need to start a separate, more appropriate thread for it though.
Cheers!
