Modifying a Patched Rom?

[Timbo]

The events are in TEST.EVT (inside fftpack.bin).  They can be modified without any error with existing tools.

It sounds like it would be pretty easy to copy these over to the psx version, wouldn't it?

[Jumza]

It sounds like it would be pretty easy to copy these over to the psx version, wouldn't it?

There's more to it than copying / pasting some files. That would be to easy.

[3lric]

Btw, I fully support a vanilla psx patch that adds wotl stuff
Maybe using this patch

I wouldn't likely be using the Vanilla Plus as a base, since most of the work for it was lost
in moves and/or harddrive crashs.

It sounds like it would be pretty easy to copy these over to the psx version, wouldn't it?

The messages are setup differently and need to be edited, I also have not verified that all
the commands used are same as what we have in the PSX version. Then you also have to consider
EVTCHR, because there is ~5 more sheets of EVTCHR in WotL and the EVTCHR.BIN in WotL
accommodates these extra sheets, the PSX EVTCHR.BIN does not. So they would need to be
somewhere in an existing EVTCHR sheet, which will inevitably mean you will need to at the VERY LEAST
play with the EVTCHR commands and add variables to a previous event to make sure you can jump to
said bonus/new event, and then reset them to their proper place in the progression line at the end of
that event. Honestly, it's really not hard if you know what you are doing, but it will be somewhat time
consuming.

In addition to ^^ You will also need to setup these extra events in the Worldmap and Attack.out
spreadsheets, as well as the Attack.out GUI (GUI Being the easiest part).

[Timbo]

Would it be compatible with FFT Complete or with Dome's impending GameFAQs translation patch? I'm afraid if you move to much stuff around you would lose the ability to use big patches like this. I know most people hate WotL but not everyone does and the synergy factor here is big.

Also, is there anyway I can help? Outside of the translation and a couple odds and ends, your project IS my project. I'd be more than willing to put my patch on hold or fold it into yours if possible.

[formerdeathcorps]

Simply put, Jack, we have a size problem.  The new TEST.EVT is larger (and requires ROM expansion to fix).  ONce you fix that, you have to expand the conditionals table in ATTACK.OUT and BATTLE.BIN or compress FFT's existing system to make room.  It is not a trivial copy and paste operation.

I'm still just seeing a bunch of extra content that people are just ignoring because... I have absolutely no idea why they're ignoring the new content. New content is nice.

I'm working on a personal PSP hack to reset the dialogue mostly to PSX standards, delete the movies, and make the rendezvous missions doable by one person, but even WITH that, WotL's mechanics code is totally unknown and undocumented (and I don't have a debugger, though I hear PPSSPP has one).

[RavenOfRazgriz]

Would it be compatible with FFT Complete or with Dome's impending GameFAQs translation patch? I'm afraid if you move to much stuff around you would lose the ability to use big patches like this. I know most people hate WotL but not everyone does and the synergy factor here is big.

Someone else (not us, since we're not interested in those) would need to decompile our TEST.EVT etc. and reinsert the scripts used for Complete or the GameFAQs Translation in a manner that is compatible with how we restructure our files.  Basically, you'd need to make a new version of those translations (or any others) compatible with ours if you want them to work with it.  Otherwise, it's not possible for those patches as they currently exist to be compatible with ours nor is it realistic to expect them to be so.

[3lric]

Would it be compatible with FFT Complete or with Dome's impending GameFAQs translation patch? I'm afraid if you move to much stuff around you would lose the ability to use big patches like this. I know most people hate WotL but not everyone does and the synergy factor here is big.

Also, is there anyway I can help? Outside of the translation and a couple odds and ends, your project IS my project. I'd be more than willing to put my patch on hold or fold it into yours if possible.

Guess I never responded to this. Unfortunately, this would never be compatible with patches such as those for several reasons:

1. This is a base patch, as is FFT: Complete and whatever that Translation you mentioned was. Base patches are not meant to be patched with other Base
patches, they are meant to be used as a base, a starting point for a NEW project.

2. In order to even get the ~50 extra slots we needed to get the WotL events into the ISO, we had to merge some of the conditional (battle dialogue) events
as well as nuke some choice events. Something like this would never be compatible with a translation patch as the event offsets will be completely different.

And to answer your question, yes there is a way you can help. Once Raven and I have everything setup and merged, we will need someone to manually
go in and change all the event offsets (they go in sets of 2000) to be correct with the newly added scenes, which basically means changing 1 line of text
in every single vanilla event + the new ones. It is not hard by any means, but it will be time consuming (we are talking hours or a day, not months or a year)
If that's something you can help with that would be great and would speedup the process quite a bit.

[Timbo]

I was under the impression that I could simply add your events to mine, which is basically FFT: Complete. Since I'll have to do all the work of your patch by myself, I'll have to decline. If there was a way we could both benefit, I'd be happy to help.

[3lric]

No idea why you'd be under that impression, the events won't all be located at the end of the TEST.EVT
(as i mentioned to you on IRC) events have to be moved around to make space for stuff.

So, unless you want to

-Rearrange the attack.out spreadsheet and GUI
-Rearrange and add to Worldmap spreadsheet
-Edit the events and EVTCHR.bin accordingly
-a buttload more stuff

Then I don't think you'll be adding these events in without using this patch.

For something this big you still need to change the structure of how the game works on the inside,
though on the outside from the players perspective, you won't even notice a change other than the added content.

If you don't see helping out with a base patch that everyone can use and build upon as a benefit
that's totally cool. I'm not doing this for me, I'm doing this for people to enjoy.

As with any other mod, normal ASMs should work just fine. However BASE patches (Which are NOT ASMs),
which are never meant to be applied on top of other base patches, will not be compatible either way, and
I did state from the beginning and in the Lion War thread that this is a base patch.

So I guess MY question based on this:

Also, is there anyway I can help? Outside of the translation and a couple odds and ends, your project IS my project. I'd be more than willing to put my patch on hold or fold it into yours if possible.

is, how are our mods the same? I'm not changing vanilla other than adding content that no one else has done
and won't without the proper knowledge (as it is this is a joint effort between Raven and myself) I am not making a mod,
I'm making a base patch that adds the PSP events to the PSX version (rescripted into PSX translation dialogue).
I don't see the similarity.

[Timbo]

It's not that I don't see that this is a good thing. It's just that my time is very limited. I basically have to put my patch on hold, help you, then either redo all of your patch or all of Cheatah's, by myself . Both of those tasks are outside of my skillset.  I have to do all of this while taking care of my baby by myself. It actually benefits everyone but me.

Let me see if I can get in touch with Cheetah. If he's able to help me reapply his translation on top of your patch, I will swear fealty to your project.

[3lric]

It won't be that simple, he'd also have to manually change the offsets in ALL of his events. I don't even think he works on Complete anymore,
as there are still text errors in events where different hyphen coding was used in PSP event scripts vs. what is used in PSX event scripts...

[Timbo]

If I'm changing all of your events offsets, I can surely change his as well. I sent him a PM. Does anybody know a better way to get in touch with him? Do we need him for me to be able to do this, based on what he has released for FFT: Complete?