Note: Editing your SC2 files is against the ToS, and nobody but yourself will be responsible for anything that happens due to file editing. However, It is my understanding that you will not be banned for modifying your installation unless you are giving yourself some sort of advantage during gameplay.
After searching around on TL a few times for any information on people that have already done this, I decided to make my own thread since it seems un-covered. Also over at this thread people were asking how to get this done.
Today I decided to replace my Protoss music with the old Protoss music from BW, and was super happy with how easy it was and how nice it turned out.
An mpq file is basically a folder system just like all the other folders on your pc. Blizzard created mpq files as a way to package together all their files, sort of like a .zip archive. So in order to replace any file with another within the mpq, you just need to replace an old file with a new one that has the same filename and file extension. You can open this mpq archive with an mpq editor (since Windows cannot do it alone), and then replace anything you like. Often times the files within the mpq will have odd names. In instance that this happens, you use a listfile which is a file that contains a list of filenames, so that when you use the mpq editor to open an mpq file some of the filenames have meaningful names.
To get started download an mpq editor from here. Be sure to use the proper listfile.
You'll also need the BW music files, which you can download here: BW Terran Music; BW ProtossMusic; BW Zerg Music. If you wish to replace other sound files, I suggest getting a copy of Brood War somewhere and extracting the music yourself. You can do this with the mpq editor and just opening the BW mpq, navigating through the folder system, and dragging out whatever files you want. It's really easy.
The music files for SC2 are found in StarCraft II/Mods/Liberty.SC2Mod/base.SC2Assets. Once you open this file in the mpq editor, navigate to Assets/Music. All of the SC2 music files are on .ogg format, which is just a type of sound file. I suggest backing up any files you edit before editing them, in case you mess up. We'll need to be able to convert .wav files ripped from your BW installation (or the ones I provided for download) to .ogg. I used wavepad sound editor for this, but you can use any program you'd like. If you want to use my copy of wavepad you can download it here, which is I believe the free version.
Once you have converted your .wav files from BW into .ogg format, just rename your converted files to the same name as the file in your SC2 mpq that you wish to replace. For example, SC2 has 5 different Protoss music files, so I took my three music files from BW and renamed them to the corresponding 5 in SC2 (I had my first and second BW file replace 4 and 5 since BW only has three Protoss songs).
Now make sure to close the mpq editor before running SC2, and if you did everything properly you'll hear your newly replaced .ogg files playing in-game!
Read this before replying! If you want to change other files in any of the SC2 mpq's, simply create a replacement file with the same filename and filetype, and replace the old file in the mpq with your new one. Here and here is some more information on this.
On June 16 2011 16:03 Jtn wrote: It's cool you can do this but um.... can't you just turn off the background music and have the brood war music playing in your music player?
Yeah, but that uses up more PC resources than necessary, and it's also a lot more fun to put them into SC2 yourself.
Yes, scbw music back. I do like the starcraft 2 music, but BW and original music just gives a better vibe overall. It gives the feeling that there is more action going on, and gives better race impressions through sound.
The music in starcraft 2 just feels like watered down versions of the original game. Thanks for the tip (altho I was playing it on the background already lmao)
I actually stayed up too late last night just to listen to my switched music while playing. I'm still surprised at how happy that change has made me
And yes you can replace any file with any file as long as the filename and filtype is the same. However you want things like images to have the same resolution.
With all these hugely popular mods floating around, it certainly would seem to make sense if Blizzard included all these options so people who were interested could modify their client environments more easily.
Building it into the official client also removes the risk that people are editing files as gameplay-affecting hacks.
I want the old sounds from Broodwar aswell and not only the music. I wish Blizzard put that choice into the game so u can switch between Broodwar music and sounds and Sc2 music and sounds.
On June 17 2011 05:33 Gackt_ wrote: I want the old sounds from Broodwar aswell and not only the music. I wish Blizzard put that choice into the game so u can switch between Broodwar music and sounds and Sc2 music and sounds.
Check the links at the bottom of the OP for info and resources on doing that to a lot of units/sounds
EPT
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