HeroSelect Created by Norrin Radd Table of contents 1. Overview 2. Getting Started 3. Using HeroSelect 4. Adding Characters 5. Removing Characters 6. Tips 7. Notes 1. Overview This program allows players of Activisions Marvel Ultimate Alliance to choose the characters they want to play with. Character selection had previously been done by decompiling, editing, and recompiling herostat.engb. With this program, a graphical interface can be used instead, and only initial file editing is required. 2. Getting started In this document, writing in red indicates important steps that may not seem obvious. Examples are marked in green. Blue indicates a web link or text that is in a file. Before you begin using you will need the following items:

nba2kstuffs xmlb-compile v2.2 (non-ui) which can be found at http://www.nba2kstuff.org/mua/

Unzipped HeroSelect files, unzipped to the desired directory Notepad, or some other file editing program Installed Moonknight and Colossus mods (unless you will remove them from

herostat.cfg, which is described later) After you have these items, do the following:

Put a copy of xmlb-compile.exe in c:\windows (or similar directory for your machine)

Paste the files (make sure to backup what you will be overwriting) from the \menus directory located inside the directory where you unzipped HeroSelect to \Activision\Marvel Ultimate Alliance\ui\menus\ (or similar for your machine). This is a very important step! If you skip this step, you will not be able to have 27 characters. The files allocate certain locations for the character menu.

You must now edit herostat.cfg to customize it for your machine. This step is identical as what you must do to use CharacterSelect (a similar program as HeroSelect, but without a graphical user interface).

Editing herostat.cfg: Open herostat.cfg (located with Notepad (or similar editing program) and look at the first line. This line indicates the location of herostat.engb on your machine. If it is not correct, change it using the same format as what is there now (using double slashes \\). For example: c:\\Program Files\\Activision\\Marvel - Ultimate Alliance\\data\\ Once you have completed these steps you are ready to use HeroSelect. At this point of course, you will only have the characters that I have included in herostat.cfg. If you want to try using HeroSelect right away, find out how in the Using HeroSelect section. If you want to find out how to add characters, go to the section called Adding Characters. 3. Using HeroSelect There are three main choices you have before making your team. You can either choose a custom team, a random team, or the default team (selected in the Selection Options menu). Each will be described below. After you have made your selection and configured the possible options, click the Accept Team button (shown below). This will run CharacterSelect in the background (CharacterSelect is included with the HeroSelect package) to decompile, edit, then recompile herostat.cfg. Once you click Accept Team, you will no longer be able to edit any team options. Example (Accept button):

After you click Accept Team, you can run Activisions Marvel Ultimate Alliance directly from HeroSelect. Simply verify that the game path (shown below) is correct, and edit it if necessary. Now click the Launch MUA button to exit HeroSelect and start MUA. Example (default game path):

The Custom team option: Choose the Select button from the Selection Options menu. The Character Select menu and character list will now be enabled. From the list you can choose the characters you want to add to your team (27 characters maximum). To choose a character, click once on their name. The Menu Location menu will now be enabled and you must choose a location for this character. Scroll through the menu location list (in the Menu Location menu) until you find the suitable menu location for this character. Look at the Menu Location map to see which positions the menu location numbers refer to (see below). Once you find the suitable location, click the Accept button. The menu location that was chosen will now be highlighted in the map to show this location is taken and no longer available. To remove selected characters, simply

uncheck them from the list and their menu locations will be opened automatically. Once you are done choosing all the characters on your team, click the Accept Team button. Example (choosing characters): These are the Character Select and Menu Location menus, and the Menu Location map after choosing Thing and Ghost Rider for menu locations 3 and 4 respectively.

The Random team option: Choose the Random button from the Selection Options menu. Select a random seed number (used to start the pseudo-random number generator) and the number of characters you want on your team from the Random Options menu. If you want to use the same random team from earlier, just use the same seed. If you always want a different random team, always use a different seed number. Once you set these options, click the Accept Team button to confirm your choice. Example (setting up a random team): The team chosen using this team will have 25 characters.

The Default team option: Before you use this option, you must add two characters to the herostat.cfg packaged with the program. This allows the default team to be made up of 27 characters. Choose the Default button from the Selection Options menu. You can now click the Accept Team button to confirm you would like the default team. The default team includes characters on lines 3-29 (27 characters in all) in the herostat.cfg file. 4. Adding Characters The first part of this section describes how to add characters to be able to use CharacterSelect (which is run by HeroSelect after you have chosen your team). The second part shows how to add characters to the list in HeroSelect. Both parts must be done to successfully add a character to the character list. Once a character is on the list, they will be there until you remove them. First part:

Open herostat.cfg Add the new characters name (without spaces) to the end of the character list that

is there presently (lines 2-28 in the version that came zipped) but before the endoffile word. Leave the endoffile word as the last word, always as the character name in the last spot will not work.

Example (adding Black Widow): Original File:

thing thor msmarvel wolverine endoffile defaultman stats { autospend = s

After Addition: thing thor msmarvel wolverine blackwidow Black Widow added endoffile defaultman stats { autospend = s

Go to the end of the file. Add the new characters name (the same way you wrote it at the beginning of the file) before the last herostat entry.

Example (adding Black Widow): Original file:

talent { level = 1 ; name = grab ; } } endoffile stats { autospend = support ; isteam = true ; name = team_character ; skin = 0002 ; xpexempt = true ; } EOF

After Addition: talent { level = 1 ; name = grab ; } } blackwidow Black Widow added endoffile stats { autospend = support ; isteam = true ; name = team_character ; skin = 0002 ; xpexempt = true ; } EOF Add the new characters herostat entry (provided by the modder) directly after

their name, which you have just written. The herostat entry will be given in text format, or you may need to decompile the modders herostat.engb file to get it.

Consult the modders documentation information on their herostat entry. Make sure you have the spacing as shown in the example.

Example (adding Black Widows herostat entry): talent { level = 1 ; name = grab ; } } blackwidow stats { Start of added herostat entry ailevel = 2 ; autospend = support ; body = 7 ; talent { level = 1 ; name = grab ; } } End of added herostat entry endoffile stats { autospend = support ; isteam = true ; name = team_character ; skin = 0002 ; xpexempt = true ; } EOF

Now your new character can be added to HeroSelect. Second part: You need to run (double click) Heroselect.exe and go to the Character Configuration menu. Click Add Character, enter the new characters name with any small side note you want (this will be the name that shows up on the checkmark character list), then enter the new characters name that you added to herostat.cfg (in First part).

Example (adding Black Widow): Before the new character is added, the Character Configuration menu looks like:

After you entered the information the menu looks like:

Once you are done adding the names, click Accept. Now the added character name will appear in the checkmark list and you can select them to play. The added name will appear each time you run HeroSelect until you remove the name from the list (to remove characters see the Removing Characters Section). 5. Removing Characters To completely remove characters from being selected by HeroSelect, you must complete two steps. The first part is done using the graphical interface while the second part requires file editing. First part: Open Heroselect.exe and select Remove character from the Character Configuration menu. Select the character you want to remove from the list using the up down button. Once the characters name you want to remove is displayed, click Accept.

Example (removing Black Widow): Now that Black Widow is selected, to remove her from the list, click Accept.

Second part: Open herostat.cfg and remove all the lines corresponding to the character you want to remove that you added previously. See the Adding Characters section to get a refresher of what you added. Make sure the spacing is correct after you remove the lines. Example (removing Black Widow): Remove the lines blackwidow and blackwidow stats { ailevel = 2 ; autospend = support ; body = 7 ; talent { level = 1 ; name = grab ; } } 6. Tips

When choosing menu locations, put the larger characters towards the back so they wont block the smaller characters.

When using the HeroSelect, avoid quickly clicking on multiple options. The program can only run instructions so fast, thus clicking very quickly on many things may crash the program.

To test whether you have added a character successfully, run HeroSelect, add that character to your team, them decompile herostat.engb and look for the added characters entry.

7. Notes Keep all the files that came in the zipped package in the same directory. If you

want to run HeroSelect from your Desktop, simply create a shortcut and place it on your Desktop.

Backup your herostat.engb file before running HeroSelect for the first time. To exit HeroSelect at any time, just click the X to exit the window. I am not responsible if anything negative happens to you or your machine while

using this program. Use it at your own risk.

HeroSelectTable of contents1. Overview2. Getting started3. Using HeroSelect4. Adding Characters5. Removing Characters6. Tips7. Notes