AshesCricket2019
Club Captain
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2015
- Profile Flag
- England
Hello and welcome to the official Ashes Cricket 2019 Mod Topic!
ALERT! Ashes Cricket 2019 Mod Easy Installers & Instructions Now Available Here: https://www.planetcricket.org/forums/threads/ashes-cricket-2019-mod-official-downloads-topic.113911/
~ Background & Introduction ~
No this is not a joke! Around two years ago whilst I was watching England get hammered down under in the Ashes over Christmas time I decided I needed to take my frustration out by smashing the Aussies around with the bat and crashing into some stumps on a cricket game. Since AC09 is the only cricket game I've ever liked; I wanted to play it - but then I realised I barely had any of the current players and what fun would that be? Well... For someone like me, very little at all (and I'm sure I'm not alone).
Thus I began back then an effort to start working on upgrading many aspects of AC09 to try and make the most authentic and up to date version of the game that I could, so if the recent Ashes Series has left you feeling a little in need of some AC09 button-bashing then keep reading... At the time in all honesty I thought that I would never release any of my work because it wouldn't be good enough or no one would be interested but as I continued to work on things on and off and as time went on I started to vaguely consider trying to use what I had done so far as the basis for a full release in line with the 2019 Ashes Series. I actually thought it would be a lot easier than it turned out to be because I had made quite a few of the players that were in the test sides during the 2017 Ashes but of course there was huge chop and change and as I saw the squads announced for the first test this Summer I realised there would be a hell of a lot more to do even despite me having kept up with creating some of new test players that came into the sides following the 2017 Ashes.
Ashes Cricket 2009 was ahead of its time and is still a great game - a decade on from that now and it deserves a great send off - hopefully that is what this mod will provide! Personally I was always mainly interested in the Ashes Series aspect of the game and less so the other game-play formats. I watch England play as much as possible (I don't miss watching many matches for any of the formats) but the Ashes is of course always the highlight, even considering how entertaining the recent ODI World Cup was! Of course AC09 is not perfect, we're lacking DRS, certain batting shots like reverse sweeps/ramps as well as some others I'm probably unaware of as well as variable weather and limited control of the seam position but there is so much this game got right - providing you actually have a legitimate copy of the game and are using the latest patch (Open Beta 2) of course - if you're not I wouldn't even bother.
The great shame is that this game had huge potential and I can't understand how they managed to get it so wrong with AC13 when they had outstanding bare-bones to work with (software-wise) with AC09. I'd go as far as to say that even today if we could get the AC09 source code or Codemasters would use it (assuming they still have it saved somewhere!) As a platform for a new cricket game something outstanding could be achieved that would blow current cricket games away. There is something about AC09 that they got so right that all cricket games since have failed to capture, it's the right blend of fun, play-through speed, complexity and simplicity (in terms of controls and things like catching - the coloured rings are perfect and I can't stand the catching mechanisms in other cricket games) and it has at least some atmosphere in terms of the feel of playing the Ashes Series which is aided by the commentary. The commentary in fact - although repetitive after a while, still blows the commentary of newer cricket games away and the other game sounds are reasonable enough. Good sounds are essential to my brain enjoying itself. Again, if any Codemasters employees happen to stumble upon this then you should really consider that with a graphical update combined with implementing some of the things mentioned above and a bit more depth in places like the bowling and variable/real time live weather it would be an outstanding modern cricket game.
As someone who has played a bit of cricket but was a latecomer to the game (my primary playing sport was football followed by tennis) I have been watching England play cricket religiously for many years now and with this mod I've tried my best to produce an authentic look, feel and experience that is fun to play and I must say that in my own opinion, it really is! Of course, it's by no means perfect and despite having poured hundreds of hours into this project over the past couple of years it's still not totally finished and may never be 100% - but it's now at least at a stage where I'm happy to release it to gauge the interest and see if it's even worth me doing anymore work on it. I'd also love to invite anyone and everyone here who is willing and able to make a contribution to do so - if you can improve on something I've produced or create a better version of something that I have missed, or perhaps you have a great suggestion for something that is not accurate/authentic then I would love the assistance, it's been a very long & lonely project so far! Feel free to use anything I have created as a template if it helps too.
Again, I'll say as a foreword that it's not perfect - if you've ever tried modding AC09 before then you'll know how difficult it is working within the limited confines of the game's core code. You will often spend hours on a single face and it still won't end up looking that much like the player you are trying to design! Quite often it's simply a case of doing the best possible as you can't change the actual skeletal structure of the face/head, at best a few hair styles can be swapped between faces, that is, providing they have the same length names (characters) and you know how to use a hex-editor, which luckily I do! So don't expect the World with my work and you won't be disappointed - in some cases you may even be pleasantly surprised =) It's actually very difficult for me to accept that I've found it impossible to get a good result on certain players faces despite trying everything I could because I always strive for perfection but again, sometimes you just have to accept that some form of resemblance (if any!) Is the best you can hope for given the limited facial modding capabilities within AC09.
So I've rambled on for long enough about the background of this project, it's time to discuss some of the features of the Ashes Cricket 2019 Mod:
~ Squad Updates ~
- Complete Authentic England/Australia Squads for the 2019 Ashes Series.
- As well as some other players that have been in and around the test sides in the last couple of years.
- All English & Australian Player's Test Stats are 100% Accurate - exactly as they were before the start of the 1st Test. (FYI: ODI/T20 are largely outdated/inaccurate.)
- Original Player Roster heights were researched and matched as closely as possible to that of current players when selecting which original player to use for the template of the new player - where possible any players that may have had similar physiques and batting/bowling styles were also chosen (although I'm not entirely sure this will make any difference, Steve Smith's weird style seems quite realistic!).
It's noticeable that there are at least 3 different heights of players (short/average/tall) in the game though and I matched players down to the centimetre as often as I could to ensure that players heights would be as close as possible to their real height!
- A great deal of attention has been spent ensuring player's batting/bowling/fielding abilities are accurate and authentic with some adjustments based on those player's performance in the recent series as well as slight home bias considering the series was played in England. Certain values may seem incorrect at first glance but have been deemed necessary to try and overcome limitations of the game's core code. For example, swing bowling is probably a little underrated by the game's engine and spin a tad overrated so Anderson, Broad, Stokes & Woakes who can all swing it well have been given extremely high swing bowling abilities to try and compensate for that and Lyon/Leach/other spinners have had their abilities reduced slightly below what you might think they should be which has affected their overall bowling rating and hence the team's average too. Fast bowlers who can bowl in excess of 95mph like Archer have had to have that attribute maxed out in order to reach those speeds as well so it can make things look a little skewed (England are a 5* Squad whereas Australia are 4* for example).
- The lineups will match the lineups that played in the real 1st Test. Some small adjustments had to be made to the tail-end order of the Australian batting lineup in order to get the AI to select the bowlers in the right order and to ensure that if you are playing as England; Cummins will open followed by Pattinson as they did in the real test match followed by Siddle & Lyon. The AI always tries to pick the 4th bowler as a seam bowler unfortunately though which would lead to players like Wade bowling long spells before Lyon so a couple of these players who are known to be low-ability seam/medium/medium-fast bowlers have been set to zero ability spin bowlers, this is the only way I could find to stop the AI from selecting them and to ensure that Lyon is the 4th selected bowler. Of course, if you are playing as Australia you will select your own bowlers so this won't be necessary. I'm yet to try the game out playing as Australia though so something similar may be required to ensure that the England bowlers are selected authentically.
~ Graphical Updates ~
- A lot of effort (the majority of hundreds of hours probably) has gone into trying to create accurate player faces. I'm not an artist but I'm reasonably creative and I'm pretty good with Photoshop so some turned out pretty well, others just about capture a slight resemblance despite me probably (and sadly) spending the most time on those, one or two are pretty awful I must admit. I would love to improve on them if possible but I almost certainly won't be the one doing it, over to you if you can do a better job - please do and share it so it can become part of this project! Almost every player in both squads has had a face created for them, a couple are using stock faces and a couple of faces were created by other PlanetCricket Users in the past.
- As far as I'm aware I managed to match up every player with their correct eye colours. Light Green eyes will be overwritten with Dark Green because the Light Green looks demonic and unnatural. Dark Blue will be overwritten with Light Blue because as far as I can tell none of the players on either side have Dark Blue and the Light Blue is more noticeably - blue.
- Everywhere possible I've updated graphics and text with Ashes 2019 in place of Ashes 2009.
- I created my own Specsavers logo before the Ashes Series. I'll probably add the real logo too now that we know what it is so you can choose between them.
- I created Specsavers Pitch AD's, Boundary Rope, Advertising Boards and Stumps/Bails.
Unfortunately due to the way the game implements the Boundary Rope it's not exactly the same as the real one which is a continuous rope, the game puts small spaces inside the rope and due to the way the image is imported and multiplied by the game's engine I don't think it will be possible to do anything about it but if someone knows how to improve it please let me know.
Likewise with the Advertising Boards, some of them are stretched weirdly in different parts of the ground due to the game engine so I've tried my best to make adjustments for this in the image files themselves to make it less noticeable, it could probably be improved but I'm happy enough with the way it is. I've picked a few other advertising boards that I saw at grounds this Summer like Natwest / Hardy's - these may not be 100% accurate though.
The way the game engine implements the stumps image means that it's also not possible to have the phrase: "The Test Experts" on the middle stump, all 3 stumps show: "Specsavers" - but close enough.
- I made my own Hawk-Eye Logo.
- I made both sets of Wicket Keeper gloves that Paine & Bairstow were using before the 2019 Series began. It would appear from what I watched on TV that both of them used different keeping gloves though in the actual series itself. Paine used the yellow/green Australia Kookaburra gloves that are included in the game by default and Bairstow used a very similar but annoyingly slightly different set to the ones I made.
- There are plenty more graphical updates I would also recommend you to install made by other Users here at PlanetCricket that I feel are an essential part of bringing this project to life such as the Sky Sports Scoreboards / Overlays and Country Logos, I will be going through all of my files when I write the installation guide and trying to make sure I don't forget any suggestions.
~ Game-Play Updates ~
- If you're still playing this game in 2019 then you should be pretty good at it by now! If you're not then you're playing it all wrong! In any case, I built this project around what I feel is the best, most authentic way to play and experience the game. Examining the work of: AngryPixel and his Hardcore Patch with a Hex Editor I incorporated some of these modifications into my own files (as well as some of my own if I remember correctly - but I'm struggling to remember exactly as this was a long time ago). Without these modifications the game is simply too easy, even on hard mode.
- You are of course welcome to pick and choose what parts of this mod you use but I can only guarantee everything will work correctly with the files i provide. The best way to play in my opinion is with the late pitch point when you're batting but with the bowling reticle when you're bowling (because you need to know where you're bowling) and the easiest way to achieve this is by having two (nearly identical) async.big files and swapping them between innings by changing the file names. As you'll see in my upcoming videos I also remove the radar entirely to increase the beauty and difficulty of the game (you can still use the replays / instant replays to check where the field is set when you're batting and you can use the main menu to adjust your field of course when bowling).
- I also removed/switched off the majority of the HUD because I don't need a little bar to tell me when a Batsman is timid or confident or weary, I know as I'm playing the bloody game and can see if Steve just got hit with a 95mph bouncer! This stuff is just unnecessary clutter on the screen that spoils the view.
~ Sound Updates ~
(Or lack of them...)
- Music I obviously can't share as that would be piracy but you can obtain it yourself by purchasing it and overwrite the game's background music too: Ludivico Einaudi - Ancora is the song.
- There's a lot of untapped potential for sound mods such as commentary and atmosphere (The Barmy Army for example or Joe Root shouting "catch that") but I haven't found the time or desire to perform any yet.
- Some of the bowlers who are named by the commentators could also be used, "Lee" (Brett Lee) should be changed to Pattinson and "Johnson" could be replaced and used for Cummins/Starc or Hazlewood.
~ Stadia ~
- Ashes 2009 fixtures were held at the following venues in this order: Cardiff, Lord's, Edgbaston, Headingley & The Oval.
- Ashes 2019 fixtures were held at the following venues in this order: Edgbaston, Lord's, Headingley, Old Trafford & The Oval.
- Well they say 2 out of 3 ain't bad so I'll take 3 out of 5 I guess and without the source code of the game I doubt there's much anyone could do about changing any particular stadium. It's nice that the second test and final test will be at the correct scheduled stadium for the 2019 series and that Headingley is still close to the middle.
- There were certainly some graphics updates which I downloaded for some of these venues in the past from this site but I will need to determine which those were and locate them again.
~ Potential New Features / Updates / Mods To Come ~
(No guarantees & please help if you can!)
- Some squad changes for the latter tests mean that Overton is currently not included as I didn't anticipate him being required, I may still create him and release an updated version of the player roster though and if so, likely a face for him too.
- Sam Curran could do with a face too.
- I could use some help to make sure that each bowler has the correct run-up style.
- I made a few bats and downloaded some from this site but I have not had time to work on this aspect of the mod particularly. It would be great to try and match up all of the real bats the players are using or at least the batsmen's bats so if anyone would like to help with that it would be very much appreciated, a start would be cataloguing the actual test bats the players in the squads are currently using or used in the recent Ashes Series.
- I used the latest England/Australia Test Kits I could find on this site from recent years but they could probably use an update, I haven't actually checked to compare them with the current kits but I have noticed a few things that seem out of date.
- It would be really great to create the real umpire kits and maybe even possibly modify the Umpires with real names & faces.
- I'll be creating new arm-guards which are plain white and do not feature any logos. I'll probably make some batting pads that are entirely white as well as I don't like the black straps on the back.
- I've probably forgotten some things but will update this Topic if I find more as I work through collecting all of the files together.
Disclaimer: I'd like to state here and now that over the years of playing this game I have downloaded various modifications from this site and it's possible that there may be some that have crept into this project without me now remembering so I apologise in advance if that is the case - please let me know so I can give you credit if you notice something. Where I am aware of something being part of my project that has been created by another User I will give credit and providing there is still a functioning download link available on that User's Forum Topic I will link to that in my installation instructions - if the download link is dead then in the interests of AC09 and this mod made for the Users of PlanetCricket I will provide a new download link whilst giving credit to them in my own download Topic. I really have no interest in plagiarising anybody's work, I've done so much of my own to put this project together anyway that I hope we can be relaxed about this with such an old game and considering that a lot of the Users who made mods for AC09 have departed the site and can't even be contacted now. You are welcome to use anything I have produced for this project in your own work/projects/mods and you can give me credit if you like - if you don't want to - I don't care, no problem!
So without further ado let's take a first look at the squads and players:
Please don't concern yourself with the individual skills/abilities of the players or the overall abilities of the teams as if you've read through this topic you'll understand why they may not be quite as you would expect. I have paid a lot of attention to what the players were doing as well as what the commentators and pundits were saying with regards to things like Cummins being the most consistent, Hazlewood being the most accurate and Starc being the most inconsistent with his accuracy for example as well as which of them are best at swinging the ball and so and so on during the Ashes Series. I watched almost all of the 5 tests in full as well as many other tests over the past couple of years and I've attempted to reflect this level of detail into the game as much as possible. There will still be a final few tweaks made to player abilities before I release the Roster in any case and if you are unhappy with something you can always modify it yourself! If there's something you feel I've gotten really wrong then please do let me know though. I am aware that Mark Wood has the same face as Stoneman, I was going to make a face for him but then he was injured and unavailable to play in the series, I may replace him with Overton as I feel it's nice to leave Alistair Cook in case anyone feels like playing the nostalgia card and who needs Wood when you've got Archer - given some of the performances of our opening batsmen recently I had a sneaky feeling Cook may be called to come out of retirement for this Ashes Series but that didn't materialise in the end. There is of course a legendary player for Australia left in too (Mitchell Johnson).
There will be 3 more videos released which will be full recordings of me playing the 1st Test. Everything should be released for Download soon but I'm not setting a date. I would like to make a patch for the Open Beta 2 version of the async.big file to prevent you all having to install the mod file by file but I will only create this patch if I am able to include all of the files I deem necessary, some of which I did not create so hopefully the Moderators can give me permission for that, please let me know.
ALERT! Ashes Cricket 2019 Mod Easy Installers & Instructions Now Available Here: https://www.planetcricket.org/forums/threads/ashes-cricket-2019-mod-official-downloads-topic.113911/
~ Background & Introduction ~
No this is not a joke! Around two years ago whilst I was watching England get hammered down under in the Ashes over Christmas time I decided I needed to take my frustration out by smashing the Aussies around with the bat and crashing into some stumps on a cricket game. Since AC09 is the only cricket game I've ever liked; I wanted to play it - but then I realised I barely had any of the current players and what fun would that be? Well... For someone like me, very little at all (and I'm sure I'm not alone).
Thus I began back then an effort to start working on upgrading many aspects of AC09 to try and make the most authentic and up to date version of the game that I could, so if the recent Ashes Series has left you feeling a little in need of some AC09 button-bashing then keep reading... At the time in all honesty I thought that I would never release any of my work because it wouldn't be good enough or no one would be interested but as I continued to work on things on and off and as time went on I started to vaguely consider trying to use what I had done so far as the basis for a full release in line with the 2019 Ashes Series. I actually thought it would be a lot easier than it turned out to be because I had made quite a few of the players that were in the test sides during the 2017 Ashes but of course there was huge chop and change and as I saw the squads announced for the first test this Summer I realised there would be a hell of a lot more to do even despite me having kept up with creating some of new test players that came into the sides following the 2017 Ashes.
Ashes Cricket 2009 was ahead of its time and is still a great game - a decade on from that now and it deserves a great send off - hopefully that is what this mod will provide! Personally I was always mainly interested in the Ashes Series aspect of the game and less so the other game-play formats. I watch England play as much as possible (I don't miss watching many matches for any of the formats) but the Ashes is of course always the highlight, even considering how entertaining the recent ODI World Cup was! Of course AC09 is not perfect, we're lacking DRS, certain batting shots like reverse sweeps/ramps as well as some others I'm probably unaware of as well as variable weather and limited control of the seam position but there is so much this game got right - providing you actually have a legitimate copy of the game and are using the latest patch (Open Beta 2) of course - if you're not I wouldn't even bother.
The great shame is that this game had huge potential and I can't understand how they managed to get it so wrong with AC13 when they had outstanding bare-bones to work with (software-wise) with AC09. I'd go as far as to say that even today if we could get the AC09 source code or Codemasters would use it (assuming they still have it saved somewhere!) As a platform for a new cricket game something outstanding could be achieved that would blow current cricket games away. There is something about AC09 that they got so right that all cricket games since have failed to capture, it's the right blend of fun, play-through speed, complexity and simplicity (in terms of controls and things like catching - the coloured rings are perfect and I can't stand the catching mechanisms in other cricket games) and it has at least some atmosphere in terms of the feel of playing the Ashes Series which is aided by the commentary. The commentary in fact - although repetitive after a while, still blows the commentary of newer cricket games away and the other game sounds are reasonable enough. Good sounds are essential to my brain enjoying itself. Again, if any Codemasters employees happen to stumble upon this then you should really consider that with a graphical update combined with implementing some of the things mentioned above and a bit more depth in places like the bowling and variable/real time live weather it would be an outstanding modern cricket game.
As someone who has played a bit of cricket but was a latecomer to the game (my primary playing sport was football followed by tennis) I have been watching England play cricket religiously for many years now and with this mod I've tried my best to produce an authentic look, feel and experience that is fun to play and I must say that in my own opinion, it really is! Of course, it's by no means perfect and despite having poured hundreds of hours into this project over the past couple of years it's still not totally finished and may never be 100% - but it's now at least at a stage where I'm happy to release it to gauge the interest and see if it's even worth me doing anymore work on it. I'd also love to invite anyone and everyone here who is willing and able to make a contribution to do so - if you can improve on something I've produced or create a better version of something that I have missed, or perhaps you have a great suggestion for something that is not accurate/authentic then I would love the assistance, it's been a very long & lonely project so far! Feel free to use anything I have created as a template if it helps too.
Again, I'll say as a foreword that it's not perfect - if you've ever tried modding AC09 before then you'll know how difficult it is working within the limited confines of the game's core code. You will often spend hours on a single face and it still won't end up looking that much like the player you are trying to design! Quite often it's simply a case of doing the best possible as you can't change the actual skeletal structure of the face/head, at best a few hair styles can be swapped between faces, that is, providing they have the same length names (characters) and you know how to use a hex-editor, which luckily I do! So don't expect the World with my work and you won't be disappointed - in some cases you may even be pleasantly surprised =) It's actually very difficult for me to accept that I've found it impossible to get a good result on certain players faces despite trying everything I could because I always strive for perfection but again, sometimes you just have to accept that some form of resemblance (if any!) Is the best you can hope for given the limited facial modding capabilities within AC09.
So I've rambled on for long enough about the background of this project, it's time to discuss some of the features of the Ashes Cricket 2019 Mod:
~ Squad Updates ~
- Complete Authentic England/Australia Squads for the 2019 Ashes Series.
- As well as some other players that have been in and around the test sides in the last couple of years.
- All English & Australian Player's Test Stats are 100% Accurate - exactly as they were before the start of the 1st Test. (FYI: ODI/T20 are largely outdated/inaccurate.)
- Original Player Roster heights were researched and matched as closely as possible to that of current players when selecting which original player to use for the template of the new player - where possible any players that may have had similar physiques and batting/bowling styles were also chosen (although I'm not entirely sure this will make any difference, Steve Smith's weird style seems quite realistic!).
It's noticeable that there are at least 3 different heights of players (short/average/tall) in the game though and I matched players down to the centimetre as often as I could to ensure that players heights would be as close as possible to their real height!
- A great deal of attention has been spent ensuring player's batting/bowling/fielding abilities are accurate and authentic with some adjustments based on those player's performance in the recent series as well as slight home bias considering the series was played in England. Certain values may seem incorrect at first glance but have been deemed necessary to try and overcome limitations of the game's core code. For example, swing bowling is probably a little underrated by the game's engine and spin a tad overrated so Anderson, Broad, Stokes & Woakes who can all swing it well have been given extremely high swing bowling abilities to try and compensate for that and Lyon/Leach/other spinners have had their abilities reduced slightly below what you might think they should be which has affected their overall bowling rating and hence the team's average too. Fast bowlers who can bowl in excess of 95mph like Archer have had to have that attribute maxed out in order to reach those speeds as well so it can make things look a little skewed (England are a 5* Squad whereas Australia are 4* for example).
- The lineups will match the lineups that played in the real 1st Test. Some small adjustments had to be made to the tail-end order of the Australian batting lineup in order to get the AI to select the bowlers in the right order and to ensure that if you are playing as England; Cummins will open followed by Pattinson as they did in the real test match followed by Siddle & Lyon. The AI always tries to pick the 4th bowler as a seam bowler unfortunately though which would lead to players like Wade bowling long spells before Lyon so a couple of these players who are known to be low-ability seam/medium/medium-fast bowlers have been set to zero ability spin bowlers, this is the only way I could find to stop the AI from selecting them and to ensure that Lyon is the 4th selected bowler. Of course, if you are playing as Australia you will select your own bowlers so this won't be necessary. I'm yet to try the game out playing as Australia though so something similar may be required to ensure that the England bowlers are selected authentically.
~ Graphical Updates ~
- A lot of effort (the majority of hundreds of hours probably) has gone into trying to create accurate player faces. I'm not an artist but I'm reasonably creative and I'm pretty good with Photoshop so some turned out pretty well, others just about capture a slight resemblance despite me probably (and sadly) spending the most time on those, one or two are pretty awful I must admit. I would love to improve on them if possible but I almost certainly won't be the one doing it, over to you if you can do a better job - please do and share it so it can become part of this project! Almost every player in both squads has had a face created for them, a couple are using stock faces and a couple of faces were created by other PlanetCricket Users in the past.
- As far as I'm aware I managed to match up every player with their correct eye colours. Light Green eyes will be overwritten with Dark Green because the Light Green looks demonic and unnatural. Dark Blue will be overwritten with Light Blue because as far as I can tell none of the players on either side have Dark Blue and the Light Blue is more noticeably - blue.
- Everywhere possible I've updated graphics and text with Ashes 2019 in place of Ashes 2009.
- I created my own Specsavers logo before the Ashes Series. I'll probably add the real logo too now that we know what it is so you can choose between them.
- I created Specsavers Pitch AD's, Boundary Rope, Advertising Boards and Stumps/Bails.
Unfortunately due to the way the game implements the Boundary Rope it's not exactly the same as the real one which is a continuous rope, the game puts small spaces inside the rope and due to the way the image is imported and multiplied by the game's engine I don't think it will be possible to do anything about it but if someone knows how to improve it please let me know.
Likewise with the Advertising Boards, some of them are stretched weirdly in different parts of the ground due to the game engine so I've tried my best to make adjustments for this in the image files themselves to make it less noticeable, it could probably be improved but I'm happy enough with the way it is. I've picked a few other advertising boards that I saw at grounds this Summer like Natwest / Hardy's - these may not be 100% accurate though.
The way the game engine implements the stumps image means that it's also not possible to have the phrase: "The Test Experts" on the middle stump, all 3 stumps show: "Specsavers" - but close enough.
- I made my own Hawk-Eye Logo.
- I made both sets of Wicket Keeper gloves that Paine & Bairstow were using before the 2019 Series began. It would appear from what I watched on TV that both of them used different keeping gloves though in the actual series itself. Paine used the yellow/green Australia Kookaburra gloves that are included in the game by default and Bairstow used a very similar but annoyingly slightly different set to the ones I made.
- There are plenty more graphical updates I would also recommend you to install made by other Users here at PlanetCricket that I feel are an essential part of bringing this project to life such as the Sky Sports Scoreboards / Overlays and Country Logos, I will be going through all of my files when I write the installation guide and trying to make sure I don't forget any suggestions.
~ Game-Play Updates ~
- If you're still playing this game in 2019 then you should be pretty good at it by now! If you're not then you're playing it all wrong! In any case, I built this project around what I feel is the best, most authentic way to play and experience the game. Examining the work of: AngryPixel and his Hardcore Patch with a Hex Editor I incorporated some of these modifications into my own files (as well as some of my own if I remember correctly - but I'm struggling to remember exactly as this was a long time ago). Without these modifications the game is simply too easy, even on hard mode.
- You are of course welcome to pick and choose what parts of this mod you use but I can only guarantee everything will work correctly with the files i provide. The best way to play in my opinion is with the late pitch point when you're batting but with the bowling reticle when you're bowling (because you need to know where you're bowling) and the easiest way to achieve this is by having two (nearly identical) async.big files and swapping them between innings by changing the file names. As you'll see in my upcoming videos I also remove the radar entirely to increase the beauty and difficulty of the game (you can still use the replays / instant replays to check where the field is set when you're batting and you can use the main menu to adjust your field of course when bowling).
- I also removed/switched off the majority of the HUD because I don't need a little bar to tell me when a Batsman is timid or confident or weary, I know as I'm playing the bloody game and can see if Steve just got hit with a 95mph bouncer! This stuff is just unnecessary clutter on the screen that spoils the view.
AngryPixel said the following: "If anyone wanna start modding or wanna try out some different mods, he's welcome to carry forward my work. Just remember to give the credit where its due. Other than that, you can use the stuff however you want." in this Topic: AngryPixel's Crazy Download Zone-Index Updated[Hardcore patch readme]
~ Sound Updates ~
(Or lack of them...)
- Music I obviously can't share as that would be piracy but you can obtain it yourself by purchasing it and overwrite the game's background music too: Ludivico Einaudi - Ancora is the song.
- There's a lot of untapped potential for sound mods such as commentary and atmosphere (The Barmy Army for example or Joe Root shouting "catch that") but I haven't found the time or desire to perform any yet.
- Some of the bowlers who are named by the commentators could also be used, "Lee" (Brett Lee) should be changed to Pattinson and "Johnson" could be replaced and used for Cummins/Starc or Hazlewood.
~ Stadia ~
- Ashes 2009 fixtures were held at the following venues in this order: Cardiff, Lord's, Edgbaston, Headingley & The Oval.
- Ashes 2019 fixtures were held at the following venues in this order: Edgbaston, Lord's, Headingley, Old Trafford & The Oval.
- Well they say 2 out of 3 ain't bad so I'll take 3 out of 5 I guess and without the source code of the game I doubt there's much anyone could do about changing any particular stadium. It's nice that the second test and final test will be at the correct scheduled stadium for the 2019 series and that Headingley is still close to the middle.
- There were certainly some graphics updates which I downloaded for some of these venues in the past from this site but I will need to determine which those were and locate them again.
~ Potential New Features / Updates / Mods To Come ~
(No guarantees & please help if you can!)
- Some squad changes for the latter tests mean that Overton is currently not included as I didn't anticipate him being required, I may still create him and release an updated version of the player roster though and if so, likely a face for him too.
- Sam Curran could do with a face too.
- I could use some help to make sure that each bowler has the correct run-up style.
- I made a few bats and downloaded some from this site but I have not had time to work on this aspect of the mod particularly. It would be great to try and match up all of the real bats the players are using or at least the batsmen's bats so if anyone would like to help with that it would be very much appreciated, a start would be cataloguing the actual test bats the players in the squads are currently using or used in the recent Ashes Series.
- I used the latest England/Australia Test Kits I could find on this site from recent years but they could probably use an update, I haven't actually checked to compare them with the current kits but I have noticed a few things that seem out of date.
- It would be really great to create the real umpire kits and maybe even possibly modify the Umpires with real names & faces.
- I'll be creating new arm-guards which are plain white and do not feature any logos. I'll probably make some batting pads that are entirely white as well as I don't like the black straps on the back.
- I've probably forgotten some things but will update this Topic if I find more as I work through collecting all of the files together.
Disclaimer: I'd like to state here and now that over the years of playing this game I have downloaded various modifications from this site and it's possible that there may be some that have crept into this project without me now remembering so I apologise in advance if that is the case - please let me know so I can give you credit if you notice something. Where I am aware of something being part of my project that has been created by another User I will give credit and providing there is still a functioning download link available on that User's Forum Topic I will link to that in my installation instructions - if the download link is dead then in the interests of AC09 and this mod made for the Users of PlanetCricket I will provide a new download link whilst giving credit to them in my own download Topic. I really have no interest in plagiarising anybody's work, I've done so much of my own to put this project together anyway that I hope we can be relaxed about this with such an old game and considering that a lot of the Users who made mods for AC09 have departed the site and can't even be contacted now. You are welcome to use anything I have produced for this project in your own work/projects/mods and you can give me credit if you like - if you don't want to - I don't care, no problem!
So without further ado let's take a first look at the squads and players:
There will be 3 more videos released which will be full recordings of me playing the 1st Test. Everything should be released for Download soon but I'm not setting a date. I would like to make a patch for the Open Beta 2 version of the async.big file to prevent you all having to install the mod file by file but I will only create this patch if I am able to include all of the files I deem necessary, some of which I did not create so hopefully the Moderators can give me permission for that, please let me know.
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Thanks! I guess I need Moderators permission to create a patch because some of the files I would include were made by other users, if not I have to try and find who originally made the files, contact them and it'll likely be a waste of time because the majority have long since left the site I think.
