Interview Stuff + Hacking Woes
A couple things to discuss, but progress-wise, not much has happened.
First, check out reid’s interview here:
These are full of info. Check them out! Do it!
OK, anyway, about this project.
First, very little has happened in the last 2 or 3 days. People have been moving/camping/punching sharks. Right now though, despite all the awesome progress in only the last week or two or three, things are still looking kind of tough for our goal of November. sblur recently moved and starts school again shortly. byuu’s finding that Mother 3’s programming is pretty freakin crazy and it sounds like we’re going to have to totally scrap much of the original programming and write our own routines for some stuff from scratch… and that’s no walk in the park. Plus of course he has many other obligations/projects. So all together, the hacking side of things is slowing down, while the bugs and issues continue to pile up.
That’s not to say these guys aren’t talented or haven’t been working hard. They impress the crap out of me. All the new screenshots and videos so far have been because of them. They’re doing the REAL hard work here. That’s why I keep mentioning them and saying to wish them luck. Their work is HARD.
So right now we’re not really sure what to do. GBA assembly hackers are pretty rare, and none of us know any. About the best thing we could think of was to contact a GBA emulator author. If anyone out there in videoland has suggestions, please let us know. Hopefully this is just a little bump in the road. So much to do in so little time. Like, what, 10 or 11 weeks left? Oof.
But even despite the setbacks and everything that comes with it, everyone’s still working hard.
Heh. To lighten the mood, here’s a silly anecdote from the other day. I was FINALLY just about done with the first draft translation script! So excited! Finally, I finished the very last line in the game, yay! All done! So I hit the Stats button to finally get to see that satisfying “100%” on my screen… but it said 99.99% instead! Aaaaaaaaaaah! Apparently I had skipped a single line at some point, and trying to find it in a 2.5 meg text file… yeah it wasn’t fun. Eventually I just wrote a program to find it for me.
What was the line?
“Chirp chirp chirp.”
GOSHDARN BIRDS GET OFF MY LAWN
Chirp chirp chirp… I’m going to quote that for situations like this in the future. 😛
Go go hackers/programmers! I hope you guys can figure out the tricky programming stuff. I’m really amazed at how you can do something so complicated. Good luck!
Keep rocking! All of you working are heroes to us!
Thanks for the huge effort you put into this and good luck to the hackers.
That last thing made me laugh.
love the updates tomato! so much love for the people involved in this
I hope you changed the line to say “I’M A STUPID BIRD WHO CAN’T BE FOUND WAH WAH”
Also I want to live in your refrigerator. Creepy!
i wouldve said “wtf “chirp chirp chirp””
but hey atleast itll be done near december =]
TOMATO: If i remember correctly, the gba emulator for the psp was written from scratch (which is why it runs almost better than most on the pc) by a guy named Exophase.
Here’s a link for the info on the first release of it.
http://pspupdates.qj.net/gpSP-v0-5-Beta-GBA-emulator-for-the-PSP-Released/pg/49/aid/62479
Since it’s .5 beta, its its up to .9 and runs almost anything you can throw at it ASIDE from Mother 3 (which i believe has to do with the specs of the psp itself) but, if you were looking for someone who has the structure of the gba down, its probably this guy.
Unlike Visual Boy Advance (most popular gba emu for the pc), it doesnt rely solely on the brute force of the computer itself and ALSO unlike visual boy advance, has none of those annoying sound skips in games (usually during mode 7-type effects) and is just silky which im sure has SOMETHING to do with his understanding of the gba innerworkings.
Anyways, just throwing that out there.
Hope it helps!
evansucks: That’s actually who we contacted yesterday. Writing an emulator doesn’t always directly equate to ROM hacking experience, but I’m hoping it will in this case 😀 The guy sounds super smart.
wow, i thought this game would take a year or two more to complete, these guys really know what they’re doin! i cant wait!
Wow…one step ahead. I should expect no less from the demi-gods that translated most (if not all) of my favorite Super Famicom-only (ie, Japan-only) rpgs.
Kinda got a lil ego boost outta that one too, me being on the same wave-length as a whole crew of dudes that most DEFINITELY know more about the underground hacking/programming scene than myself…never woulda thought my useless knowledge would even come close (case in point) to being useful.
But yeah, if that guy signs on (crosses fingers that hes a Mother fan) hopefully the gba assembly knowledge he has will come in handy.
This has probably already been explored as well but, if you were looking for a super hacker, apparently there’s this dude by the name of Gemini that did in like two days what its taken another guy online like 7 years to even come close to accomplishing as far as hacking out Tales of Phantasia-psx for proper translation. I don’t know if psx hacking knowledge would come in handy at all but the project manager of the top translation has straight up said, and i quote, “He’s a wizard, and he’s capable of no error. (I actually mean that.)” or “Gemini’s hacks are nothing short of miracles”.
Kust saying, if master hackers are what youre lookin for apparently this where to find one.
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,3663.0.html
and heres where you can see the crazy amount of work hes done in less than a week on top-psx.
http://zettaizero.wordpress.com/posts/
Seriously, if his psx hacking skills could in anyway be translated to gba hacking, this guy might end your problems. I literally watched another guy translating this very same game tear his face off over this stuff for a solid 7 years. The same stuff that took Gemini 2-5 days.
Iam sure that the bugs and issues that continue to pile up will be solved with time and if some bugs and issues cant be solved I hope the game will still be playable with some bugs anyways continue the great work
Keep up the awesome! 😀
A little while ago I thought that NoA were being just plain unreasonable, that all they had to do was slap a patch on Mother 3 and ship it over and that was it. Seeing this, I now realize that’s not the case. They’re still being unreasonable, but the time! The effort! Not to mention the name changes they’d have to do!
And you guys, taking this tremendous undertaking by yourselves (sans the localization)… Y’all are real troopers, man!
Take the time you need to sort these issues out- I’ve already been waiting ten years for this game so if it takes a little longer to perfect it- I can hold on.
You guys are doing a great job- keep at it!
Shark Punching? Are you serious, Tomato? You don’t have to answer that question, though.
I feel for your frustrations. Let’s face it: Mother 3, like Earthbound, was not designed like other games. It is filled with texts and menus and dialog that many other games lack. I can only imagine that the very engine of its software is a Pandora’s box of complications. If you took EarthBound apart, you’d probably find the same problems (or similar ones). If you have to cut the Gordion knot by starting from scratch in a few areas, I say that it’s worth it. Give my regards to byuu.
Also, I have a legitimate question about censorship in this game. I imagine most of us know that many parts of Mother 2 were excised during the localization process. Some of those changes I agree with, and others I don’t. But anyway, my concern with this fan translation is not with alcohol references or even Ness’s gnarly Magicant nudity. It has to do with language.
I was once told (though not on good authority) that there are no swear words in the Japanese language, which surprised me, considering all the swear words I see in translated games, especially fan-translated ones. Some fan translations are so laden with obscenities that I begin to question the authenticity of the translation. So I must ask, will your translation have strong language? Keep in mind that I’ll still play it and thank you for it even if it does. I just want to understand this better, since I don’t know of any other fan-translating hackers to ask about this.
@ D – Chap, The game is already released… you should really just play it since you seem so anxious
@ MATO….. Thanks to you I have a new obsession….. learning the Japenease
I just want to wish the programmers luck and that I am amazed that they can work on this project together so well.
Coconut: The topic’s been brought up again and again in the past. I feel like I’m repeating myself over and over so I should just make a page on my site that explains it. It’s true that Japanese doesn’t have “swearing” as we do. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have language that should and shouldn’t be used.
Read through previous entries and previous comments for more info. Here’s a quick starter link. But look through the whole blog.
http://mother3.fobby.net/2007/08/07/quicker-update/#more-35
Well I believe in you guys and hope you finish without any bugs. LOL ‘chirp chirp chirp’. Also if I may ask do you have any future plans of translating MOTHER1+2? Thanks again!!!
chirp chirp chirp.
DAMMIT BIRDS GIDDOFF MY DAMN LAWN!
(That’d be a funny line to actually put in the game. If such a sitch actually exists.)
Hey guys after thinkning about ways i can help….. i just decided to RE do the OrangeKid font
http://rapidshare.com/files/52768160/M3_ORANGEKID3.ttf
Here is the download link I just edited so it doesn’t cut off
I hioe it helps!
We’re not using the “Orange Kid” font. We’re using the font ripped straight from EarthBound. The O.K. font is a TrueType font for computers. Console and handheld games don’t use TTF fonts.
If you ask me, Pollyanna has never fit so well in a real situation. I’m singing it for you guys.
Ways I can help? Well, I’ve thought up some fitting names for Kumatora so you don’t have to hack name length. However, I don’t want to waste your time so if you already have that aspect figured out, ignore this. But if you don’t, I’ll tell you.
Name lengths probably won’t be an issue, it looks like we MIGHT be able to make names up to 9 letters long. But the naming screens are still very buggy so it’s not for certain yet.
Much love to the project. Much, much love. I’m really excited to see things happening. It sucks that problems have finally started showing up in numbers, but it happens, as we all know. Keep up the good work and don’t give up guys! I dream of doing the things you do!
evansucks: I’ve been following the ToP PSX project for a while now, and I’m pretty sure that Gemini is part of the Phantasian Productions hack. Plus, I think he only translated the text and compiled it into a text file, not any hacking. I may be wrong, though. I haven’t gotten online in a while.
Hey, whatever happened to fobbio? He knows how to program in asm, and from my talks with him definitely knows his way around the gba architecture.
If you can get ahold of him I bet he would help.
Hmm… how can WE help?
It is written, I want to help the translation project.
spread the word on mother, and this project. i think that is the biggest thing us fans can do.
offtopic but no, Gemini has nothing to do with the phantasian production top translation, at least not until he’s done with the absolute zero one. That’s why cless (moderator of phantasian productions) was so peeved. Because this uber-hacker did what took Cless 7 years to accomplish and more in less than a week. Gemini has nothing to do with the translation itself. The guy doing the translation has been doing a fan translation text file for top for a while and decided to recruit gemini to help him inject it into top.
evansucks:Ah, you’re right. I’ve got my information mixed up. Ok, so cool, now TWO amazing games are getting close to translation perferction. With someone like that then, M3 could be done in a week! Joking aside, I thought they were the same person, thanks for fixing that.
ontopic: I hope everything works out on this. I’m not sure whether to continue playing in Japanese from ch7 or to wait and start over, so I don’t spoil things.
Keep going guys! Youuu cannn dooo it! Sorry had to put that in….This is my first time posting ever but all I have to say is “You guys are my heros” I love this series a ton, and have been loving it since Earthbound on SNES and I can’t thank ya’ll enough for taking the time to do this for all of us that can’t read or play anything in Japanese and allowing a wonderful game to be played in the states where NOA won’t let it be. Thank you thank you thank you! and Chirp Chirp Chirp I have had those days 🙂
chirp chirp chirp
oh man mato no offense but thats prolly among the funniest things i have ever heard but I’ve been there lol