An Overview of the Scene, Please

[Valendian]

Greetings board,

First post here just a little introduction of sorts. Im a reverser/modder from a programming background. Here are some of the stuff I am currently working on. It's all related to Vagrant Story I want to get a group together to mod this game. (as always PM me if you want to talk about it)

http://www.youtube.com/user/Valendian2009
http://www.zophar.net/hacks/playstation ... h-670.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44661908@N03/?saved=1

Though I see that you guys and gals are purely into FFT but thats cool I may be focussed on VS but I wont pollute the waters with off topic VS stuff. But I am a member of many modding forums and it was about time that I joined this forum too.

So to deviate from the introductions, How much progress has been made with this game? Are there still some features that have not been reversed / cant be modded. What tools have been released to help mod this game specifically? But most importantly could someone be so kind as to name / link some of the more impressive / complete mods that have been released so far.

[Mari]

I am new here too, but I think I heard some people mention some things they haven't figured out how to do yet.. I'm just not sure I remember what those are.
But as for the the other stuff! It's all on the main page - Tools are under Misc on downloads section and the Patches are under patches on download section..
There are lots of topic on how to get everything to work in the General Hacking, Hacking/Patching Tools and Help sections in this forum! (also the tutorial section on the main page)

Welcome to the forums.

(By the way I didn't mention the Vagrant Story stuff before, 'cause I have no idea what that game is except for that it has Ivalice.)

[LastingDawn]

Ah welcome Valendian, I am so glad to see you joined us here, I'd been experimenting with the directions you offered and I have to say they worked great (but the question remains, why is Joshua the most complete NPC in functionality save Ashley himself?) Also they added so much into that game that was never used. Samantha being left handed was interesting and I never knew she was. They went as far to give Merlose, Samantha, and Joshua unique voices inbattle (one really has to wonder for Joshua since the game makes a point to say that he's mute for the majority of it). I've been unable to locate Sydney or a working Hardin yet.

In any case FFT has gone Quite a ways, mainly because of this community and a little help from our friends overseas. There is the "FFT Patcher" (which you can download in the Downloads section of the site) which is a fantastic tool that lets you edit nearly everything about the battle system and unit placements in the game. Not to mention a full on Sprite Editor, which lets you modify any battle sprite in the game, and a Text Editor, which lets you painlessly change much of the text in the game.

There is also the Event Compiler / Decompiler, another fantastic tool which allows you to edit the game's events flawlessly. Best used in conjunction with the tools listed below.

In experimentation are a lot of excel books, World Map events, and their causes for activation, and inbattle event conditions, it's all there in the Excel books.

Aside from that there's a bit of info. not covered by any editor currently, but Formulas is our real problem. If you could figure out more about Formulas and give your info to us in a legible format (a few of us are code savvy so we should be able to understand it.) that would be a Fantastic help to us.

[Cheetah]

Freaking awesome stuff. VS is a great game, well worth sinking a lot of time into and deserves some hacking attention. VS is really related to FFT... Best of luck and I look forward to any advances you make on the game.

Lasting Dawn's comments about hacking FFT are pretty spot on, checkout the downloads section of the main page for the majority of the tools we use. There are definitely some things that it would be nice for a bit more hacking being done though.

[AshleyRiot2006]

Nice seeing you again ...here...
I really have nothing raging in my mind right now bearing mention about FFT mods/etc. but that sure is some awesome Vagrant Story mod work indeed.
Vagrant Story sharing Ivalice with FFT, and largely the same development team, would hopefully allow some virtue of proper content in my posting regarding Vagrant Story here, in this forum...?
Valendian, it looks of course like, you are heading the right direction, good start...
I will go "out on a limb" and state, without any intention of imposing on this forum, that, though FFT is a great game, and I own them all, I do, and always will, prefer Vagrant Story.
Long story short, I'll sure play FFT mods/hacks/etc. and they have been and are, very impressive but, my main interest, quite frankly and by a wide margin, is in Vagrant Story which is clearly lagging in the world of such developments.  SO, it disappoints me, of course, to see so few comments here in general regarding specifically, Vagrant Story and, absolutely none(?), showing a marked determination to mod Vagrant Story.
One man alone, or even two, cannot do with Vagrant Story whats been done by many, FFT-wise, this way.
How many here have an interest in potentially helping to make this/these Vagrant Story project(s) happen?
"Happen" meaning - Vagrant Story mod wise/etc..
Is anyone here willing to recognize that no man is an island and get serious about modding ...Vagrant Story...?
Needless to say, I have tons of "thoughts" re: Vagrant Story mods.  
Semi related address: http://s126.photobucket.com/albums/p106/AshleyRiot2006/?start=all

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

For some reason I can never get 100% map completion.  Can't do 30+ chains either.

So, what mods are you planning?  What can you mod?  What would be cool?  What can somebody without any asm knowledge do?  Are you going to develop an editor, a la FFTPatcher?

[Valendian]

I've got a couple of tools at various stages of development atm. As for what can be done w/o asm know how, well quite a lot of the basic stuff you can mod the enemies extensively (stats, 3D model, etc) Customising the text in the dialog ballons, and so on. But its still in the reverse engineering stage for most of the data files. The 3D models for the rooms (MPD files) is priority one for reversing atm.

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

Lovely avatar.

[Cheetah]

What are your goals Valendian?

[Valendian]

This year marks the 10th anniversary of VS. I would love to work on some serious mods before VS turns 20. There's a lot of work still to be done but Im soldiering on as best I can until I can get a few more people interested. I plan to turn out tools as I chip away at the file formats. At the moment I have a Minimap editor nearly complete, a Treasure chest editor in progress, and some more either on ice or waiting for me to get around to having another go at them. So much to do and so little time. But most of all I want to be involved in a seriously ambitious mod.

[Ryu]

Sounds like you're very dedicated to this project. I haven't played Vagrant Story yet, so I don't know if I'd want to join a team to mod it anytime soon.. but I'm sure others will be glad to work on a serious mod once your tools are completed.

Welcome to the forums by the way.