I decided to take some time, and try to do something. Take data\global\excel\levels.txt. Now, let's imagine that the OffsetX and OffsetY columns are the upper/left corner of an area in the worlspace of the game, and let's consider that the SizeX and SizeY columns are respectively the Width and Height of these areas.

The minimum coordinates for the upper / left corner are (-4, -40)
The maximum coordinates for the bottom / right corner are (5200, 3147). (Act 2 - arcane : OffsetX = 5000, SizeX = 200 therefore the right corner of the arcane is at 5000 + 200 = 5200).

I have take all areas of Act 1 (because acts areas overlap in that worldspace, so let's just use Act 1 for now), make a big image in paint shop pro (5200 * 3200 pixels), and paint the areas over it.

A preview of the result : http://paul.siramy.free.fr/_divers/ds1/ ... review.gif (780 * 480 pixels, 10 kB).

The CYAN areas are the ones that have offsetX / Y and SizeX / Y meaningfull (not negative values). We find the Den of Evil, Jail levels, Tristram, Cow level ...

The GREEN and RED areas are the others. I think that the negative value (like -1 usually) means that area is dynamically placed in the worldspace, and properly links with the necessary ones (but I can be wrong here).

As you see it's well organized. Large and regular spaces between each areas. At the far Right part of the image you can find the Tristram and Moo Moo Farm levels. Here's now the full size image : http://paul.siramy.free.fr/_divers/ds1/worldspace.gif (5200 * 3200 pixels, 57 kB). On this image, keep in mind that each pixel is a Tile (!).

Now, go on the right part of this image, and check carefully the Tristram area. Its size is 43 * 48 pixels (the sizeof the tri_town4.ds1, in number of tiles). If you have already try to resize some areas before, you know that there's a limit. According to Joel, the maximim of Tristram he could resize it is 200 * 148 Tiles. And this is very interesting because ... check that preview of this tristram area : http://paul.siramy.free.fr/_divers/ds1/ ... istram.gif (681 * 526 pixels, 9 kB). If in Paint shop pro you select the maximum area you can, without exeding the right border, and without entering in the cow level area, you'll have an area of ... 200 * 148 pixels.

So, and it's only theorical right now, if in levels.txt you move areas (by the mean of OffsetX / Y) in a bigger place, or just take the cow level and move it down, you should increazed the size of Tristram more than the current maximum. To help you, understand that I have placed each areas in the BIG image by taking the OffsetX / Y values and draw them at the corresponding pixel coordinates (upper right corner of Tristram is at Offsets 5000, 1000 in levels.txt, and in the image at pixels coordinates 5000, 1000).

Now, I don't know if they're some restrictions, maybe some areas are dynamicly made where you're currently only seeing dark. But even if it don't work, I hope it was still interesting

Good luck.


Edit : typo errors

It IS interesting!

Just to make sure I understood you correctly: If I have problems increasing the size of some areas, I could just change those offsets (and put the map area to another place on this "worldmap" where enough space is) and get around this? Of course only if there are no restrictions you haven´t discovered yet...

I think those offsets may be act spaces, not world spaces. Each town has the same coordinates, except for Act 1. And what are town coordinates in the other acts are shared by two different levels in Act 1 (Stony Field and Dark Forest). I think what might happen is 1000,1000 is a general starting coordinate from which the act space is laid out in all directions. And you could have two spaces for Act 1 because the Stony Field and Dark Forest are coupled underground, there isn't an overland route between them.

It would be worthwhile to look in ptGame and see if any of these offsets are defined in the embedded levels structures, e.g. within (ptGame +e0) for Level 2. Then we would see if the game fills the -1 values out at load time Finding the code that does that might point us to the code that assembles complex levels from ds1 parts.

In summary yes, that's what you should try. But in more details, you have to change the Offsets and/or the Sizes (but even if you didn't mentioned the Sizes, I think you still have tought of that).

Some litle areas are the size of a .ds1 (Tristram, Forgotten Tower ...) but some other areas are mazes that are using several .ds1, and I believe that these ds1 are placed onto the areas and never go outside them. So moving an area should be the optional 1st part of the increasing process, using bigger sizes is more important, and when 2 areas start to overlap, then it's ime to move them to be able to increase them more.

@Myhrginoc : You're right for the "act spaces". I only check the levels of act 1, and when I saw that Lut Gohlein were right into an existing area, I stopped my analyse. In any case, these Offsets and Sizes are used in 1 plane system, the trick will be to know which area is on which plane. I checked the Layer column in levels.txt, but didn't found any obvious correlations. I left the exercice of checking the datas at run-time in your hand, it's not a domain where I'm good

HI,
I've writen a tool which examines level size + offsets from RAM and draws a nice map of it, so we get 5 nice (accurate ) Pics of the 5 acts, with all random placed levels in it. Keep in Mind that eG for Act1 the stony field spawns at 1000/1000 always, but the other levels are placed randomly around it (!) and we have just a one-time shot here.
Act1: http://www.files.to/get/213431/tlzl8koxo7
Act2: http://www.files.to/get/213432/weyzgo6h81
Act3: http://www.files.to/get/213433/atrgxe033d
Act4: http://www.files.to/get/213434/8tc5xge3mq
Act5: http://www.files.to/get/213435/f7azlay3b0

Can you please re-post these files? Act2 - Act5 are no longer available

Thanks!