Overview
After a lot of work I´ve finally figured out how to play The Lord of the Rings: War in the North in local co-operative mode! The local co-op version of the game is included in the console versions of the game by default, but omitted in the PC version for some reason. With clever trickery, you can play the local co-op version of the game on the PC as well! The steps that have to be taken to achieve this are absolutely ridiculous but multiple gamepads and characters “saved” to a single pc ARE possible and work 100% PLEASE NOTE: The “local co-op” mode does use the internet, but does NOT require multiple computers. A single screen guide has been added to the end of this guide
Starting off: Requirements and step one
WHAT THIS GUIDE DOES NOT COVER:
-Setting up “splitscreen“. This guide sets it up in two screens but is playable on one screen too, but you have to make it fit on a single screen by yourself (might add something about it later!)
Check the end of the guide for a splitscreen tutorial!
-Setting up a game in “true” local co-op, this is more like a couch-co op mode with internet, meaning that you can play the game on a single computer which is something that you cant normally do on the PC version of the game. No internet, no couch co-op.
-Cracking the game to run illegal copies of the game, this guide uses two legit copies of the game
REQUIREMENTS!
- TWO (cannot invite yourself in to your game lobby) copies of the game, the game can be bought online for very cheap, I bought the game twice for 4 and a half euros. IF you are planning to play the game with 3 gamepads on a single computer, you will most likely require 3 copies of the game
(this requirement is unconfirmed) - TWO steam accounts with LICENCED COPIES of the game
- A program called sandboxie[www.sandboxie.com]
- A program called x360ce[www.x360ce.com], both can be downloaded for free off the internet
- Two gamepads or alternatively a gamepad and kb/m
- The game in separate folders
Things to tackle:
- Opening two steam applications and two separate copies of the game.
- Preventing the game from using input only from one gamepad (the game recognizes you always as player one)
- Or disabling gamepad input on the other .exe, since the gamepad input affects both .exes at the same time (for kb/m play)
STEP 1
1. Make sure you have the game on two separate accounts, the game is very cheap nowadays
2. Download Sandboxie -> Google “sandboxie” and click the first link, then click Download on the blue bar in the upper corner of the screen, click the Sandboxie icon on the right to download, install the program as usual.
3. HAVE THE GAME IN TWO FOLDERS, THE OTHER EXE WILL GET STUCK IN THE LOADING SCREEN IF YOU DONT HAVE MULTIPLE COPIES INSTALLED ON YOUR COMPUTER. (NEEDS MORE CONFIRMATION) (Multiple steamapps folders work fine, find a guide how to make multiple steam game folders if needed) Note: creating a game folder within the original game folder forming a LOTRception might be enough, please test
4. Find the x360ce program aswell, click download on the 32 BIT VERSION on the x360ce website, copy the program to both game folders, or just one if using a single gamepad and kb/m
Step 2
1. Open up Sandboxie and click on “sandbox” in the toolbar, click “create a new sandbox”, or use the “sandbox defaultbox” as a sandbox, creating a sandbox allows you to name your sandbox e.g “Steam Sandbox”, multiple sandboxes can only be used simultaniously with the non-free edition but multiple sandboxes can be created in the free version
2. Right-click on your sandbox in the view below the toolbar (the yellow icon) then click sandbox settings.
3. Click on “resource access” and then click “file access” then “full access”, click add and add the steam folder. (which includes atleast the steam program and the steamapps folder)
NOTE: If the game does NOT LOAD OR IT SIMPLY CRASHES, add your windows folder or the whole drive into the full file access list.
Step 3 (FOR SINGLE GAMEPAD + KB/M USERS, SKIP THIS STEP AND GO TO STEP 3.1)
1. Go to the gamefolder (does not matter which) open up the x360ce.exe, the program will ask to create a dll, and find configurations for your gamepads, press create and next and wait a moment when it finds the configuration, press finish, then it asks the same thing for the other gamepad, do the same steps again. If the gamepad does not configure right, configure it manually.
Step 3.1 (SKIP THIS IF YOU ARE USING GAMEPADS ONLY)
1.Create a shortcut for witn.exe (for the gamepad player!) inside the game folder
2.Right click on the shortcut, click properties
3.On the “target field” go to the end of the target text and press space, type in -AlwaysFocus, this prevents the game from not letting the gamepad player press face buttons in the menus when the kb/m players clicks his/her game window.
4.Open up the x360ce .exe and press create, next, finish, save and close the .exe
5.The program automatically creates an ini file. Open it up in any text program and delete everything after the Hookmode=1 line. Save and close. x360ce.exe is no longer needed. The x360ce game will think that the gamepads do not exist and will display keyboard buttons and the gamepad will no longer interfere with the controls of the keyboard player
Step 4 (SKIP THIS ON 1 GAMEPAD + KB/M PLAY)
1.Continuing from step 3, do the same for the other game folder, BUT this time, replace the FIRST InstanceGuid with the SECOND InstanceGuid
TEST THE GAMEPADS, open x360ce and push any button or thumbstick and check if the program recognizes one of the gamepads as both of the gamepads, then do the same for the other folder, but check the other gamepad. If the gamepads are not the same, as in different products, you might need to tinker with the configurations. I am not sure about this since I only own gamepads that are the exact same
2.Create shortcuts for both game .exes, right click the exes, click properties and in the “target” field, go to the end of the path and press spacebar and type in -AlwaysFocus, this will let you use face buttons on both gamepads at the same time in the menus etc.
Step 5
1.Open up normal steam and open the normal game through the shortcut
2.Open up steam in SANDBOXIE (right click on steam, click Run Sandboxed, click your configured Sandbox), login to the other account, OPEN THE GAME THROUGH THE SHORCUT IN SANDBOXIE MODE, NOT THROUGH STEAM LIBRARY
Et voilà! The game is now “couch co-op” ready! Simply invite the second steam account user from other account into your lobby. Adjust your games to fill their appropriate screens. GAMERS WINDOW LOCATOR is a useful tool for this job, pressing windows key + shift + left or right arrow moves windows between screens!
NOTE: The game has to be in Internet mode, rather in LAN, select this in the options if it is in LAN mode. I do not know if LAN works through Hamachi or Tunggle
PS. This is one-of-a-kind guide to making the local co-op with multiple gamepads work on the PC, please rate the guide so it becomes more visible and more people can get around this extremely annoying problem with no local co-op by default!
Author’s notes
If the “ranged attack” button (RT) does not work, flip your RT with your RB in x360ce. RT does not work sometimes when LT is pressed at the same time. Although that depends on your controller
If the game stutters, lower your resolution, or change the graphics options
The most common reason for crashing sandboxed .exe is that the sandbox does not have access to everything it needs to run the game. The simplest way to fix this is to give it full access to your entire drive. Also if the sandboxed .exe crashes and you have a program that can open .mdmps (e.g Visual Studio) you can troubleshoot the crash yourself.
If your buttons do not work, e.g everything else works but the d-pad, open up the x360ce program again and manually bind the disabled buttons (only needed for the “real” controller tab), save, open up the ini and replace the ProductGuid with the other Guid again.
When opening the exes, press shift+windows+left or right to move the .exe to the other screen, you need to be in windowed mode for this to work
You might want to mute music and other sound settings on the other .exe and keep the sound fx setting to a level where the other player can hear his audio. Otherwise all audio will repeat itself in double. Soundfx setting also includes the cinematics, so I recommend to mute audio on the other exe whenever an cutscene plays, unless if you want to listen to double gandalf
I have not tested three gamepads as I only own two, it probably does work the same but you probably have to do more work with the inis (and own three screens/split the other screen). Please confirm
Savegames should work, considering the game is running on two different accounts
I am not sure if the game would work in co-op with a single account, with the other player “dropping in” in a legit way. Im not sure if the savegames would work either. Please update me on this if you figure something out
PLEASE COMMENT if you run into trouble, I will update the guide and fix the problem, thanks!
For splitscreen players!
The game can also be played on a single screen but requires you to download the brianapps sizer[www.brianapps.net]
1. After downloading the sizer, open it up in the bottom right corner toolbar, choose to configure a new resolution, height should be the same as your normal resolution but divide the width of your resolution by 2 e.g 1920/2=960
2. Open up the game, press alt + tab to focus on another application, drag the game window down a bit so you can right click the game window “toolbar”
3. Right click the game window “toolbar” and click resize, click your splitscreen resolution, do the same for the other exe
4. If the other exe wont resize, click the sizer on the bottom right corner toolbar with no window focused, then click your splitscreen resolution, the windows toolbar will become as big as your splitscreen resolution, move the other game window “under” the gigantic toolbar and click the window.
Click the sizer in the gigantic toolbar again and choose the resolution you want.
If the gigantic toolbar wont change size to its normal size again after focusing on the game window, open up task manager (windows key + r, type taskmgr, or ctrl + shift + t) close explorer.exe and start it up again (file –> start, type explorer.exe)
3 players with one screen works the same, but have the third screen be half the height but full width. the other two screens would be half the width and height