Cactus Porting Initiative

[fearedbliss]

(Video Version)

Hello all,

Today I would like to announce the Cactus Porting Initiative. Through this initiative, we can increase the usefulness of Cactus (within its current design), and help with preserving and promoting the history of Diablo II mods. Most Diablo II mods are very old (given the game itself is 20+ years old), and are either dead, or not actively maintained, which means that those mods are becoming harder and harder to play, and are slowly fading from existence. There are also many modern mods that are designed with the standard game layout and expectations, which automatically are compatible with Cactus, and thus can benefit from the all-in-one, sandboxed solution.

These ported platforms won't be distributed as part of Cactus itself, but will be made available through our Tamoe Highland section. As a proof of concept, I've ported the Zy-El, Hell Unleashed, Hellfire II: Lazarus, 1.07.41 Beta, and 1.09b Final Edition to Cactus. I'll be slowly porting some more mods over time and report back through the Cactus Porting Database. However, I would like to mention a few things:

1. Not all mods are compatible with Cactus.

Some mods have had extensive modifications done in which the mod places files in weird locations, hijacks the save path, or some other technical limitations, which may prevent the mod from running at all, or from interacting in a safe way with other platforms due to behavior leaking. Incompatible mods or mods that are compatible but have a risk of causing harm to any of the user's characters, will not be allowed to be listed in the database, other than to mark them as Incompatible.

Some mods are compatible with Cactus and can successfully be isolated and ran with it. However, there may be some "Known Issues" that you should be aware of, especially when mixing different mods. Please always read the "Known Issues" section for your desired mod to learn about them.

If a mod creator needs some advice for getting their mod working seamlessly with Cactus, please send me an email, and I'll try to provide basic "high level" support. Due note that this is all done during my free time, voluntarily. However, the closer you can make your mod in behavior to Diablo II, the better (specifically regarding file paths, save paths, etc). Please also take a look at the Cactus Porting Instructions page.

2. Not every mod creator will want me to port their mod or host it.

If a mod creator, for any reason, wishes me to not make their mod available through Cactus, please contact me with the name of your mod immediately at jon@xyinn.org. I'll remove it and annotate it in our database.

For mod creators that want to have their mod listed in Cactus, but don't want me to host the files, that's perfectly fine. You can create (or take over) the platform in the Tamoe Highland section, and link to your own sources. If I've already ported a mod that you wish to take over, please let me know by registering on the forum and making a post in the specific mod in question, you'll then be able to update your post with updated links, other information, and generally communicate with the community. I've added myself as the "Porter" to any mods I've ported, but I've left the "Maintainer" section empty since I'm expecting people to want to maintain these ports. It isn't feasible for me to maintain updates for every mod alone, however, having at least one version available in Cactus means that more people can play at least a preserved version of the mod.

3. Lastly, I want to say that as always, for everything I've done with Diablo II (Cactus, Singling, Alpaca, and Succulent) over the past 10+ years, has always been done as a labor of love and passion. I've never taken any money for this work, and I'm not planning on ever doing so, this is a promise to the community. Not only because of legal repercussions that can come from making money from files derived from copyrighted material, not because I also respect the work of other mod creators, but because I want to remain an independent creator and contributor in the community, in a way where money isn't a determining factor, and in a way where I can make creative decisions because I truly believe those decisions at the time I took them.

- fearedbliss

This post has been cross posted on PhrozenKeep.

[aytosy]

Great to hear. To be honest I used files (platforms) provided by Cactus for running some mods like Back to Hellfire, just without loader. Since some mods use custom save path, I just use virtual drives instead (.vhdx files).

I wonder if you plan to re-release some mods of yours? There are still some copies of Vanilla Frosting and Succulent flying around.

[fearedbliss]

@aytosy That is possible. We'll see what happens .