Names, Names, Names
Not so much done in the last couple days. I really should just keep translating the various enemy descriptions and other files, but it always feels like there’s no progress (or at least any progress to show) when there’s this whoooooooole huge bunch of hacking left to do. So I did a very tiny bit of hacking, while Jeffman did a good amount of poking and prodding the game’s smelly programming code.
One of the main things he did was look into an annoying and mystifying bug that was on the naming screen. It turns out it was caused by another of our hacks, so that assembly hack needs to be redone. In the meantime, he managed to fix the naming screen problem AND make things look really nice and VWF-y as you’re typing your names in. Here are some examples.
Jeffman also looked into getting 8-letter names working in various parts of the game. It’s still ongoing work, but it looks more and more like 8-letter names will be possible in the final translation 😀
Some of these fixes have slightly messed up other parts of the game, but they shouldn’t be too hard to fix, since that stuff needed fixing anyway.
Anyway, while we’re on the subject of names, one of the things on the to-do list is a hack that has to do with a certain set of names that appear in the gray name boxes. These names are pulled out of like 3 or 4 different files, and even RAM in some rare cases. And on very rare occasions, it’ll pull names out of the list of enemy names (for some reason the enemy list has non-enemy names in it at the end), and this causes problems because of 8-bit/16-bit differences. There are only a few rare cases where this shows up, but it will require a couple different hacks to make the game load these names correctly. It’s ugly. And one of the routines is shared by lots of other parts of the game. Barf. Here are a couple examples of what I mean.
The good news is that my hack for abbreviated enemy names on the enemy list menu will come in handy here. The bad news is that there’s an 8-bit/16-bit discrepency here. Easiest way would be to write a hack to make it load stuff in 8-bit, but the code to do that is code Jeffman just changed already, when working on something completely different 😯 Anyway, it’s not a big deal, just a headache. Even the little things like this can be so annoying.
Anyway, that’s all that’s happened really. We’re starting to get to the point where only really hard hacks (and boring translation that’s not very show-offable) are left.
Glad to see more work,thanks for the update
I was just wondering what the release date for this is going to be? Or maybe you could just give a percentage of how much of the project is done.
Oh, and I heard that there are spoilers in SSBB, so will the patch be done before then?
😛 (just kidding!)
You guys are doing incredible work, and you are doing a great job of keeping all the Earthbound fans up to date. I applaud all of you for your effort on this immense project.
You guys are AWESOME~!
Great effort!!
Huzzah! Now people can input names without (much) hysteria! Kudos.
keep up the good job!
you guys n00b pwns
Hey Mato… just a few questions:
What’s the estimated release date for the final patch?
What percentage of the project is complete?
Will this be released before Brawl?
…JUST KIDDING! 🙂
Hope you can get through those hard hacks.
Great work, but I feel I have to say one thing;
When you update, could you perhaps not say things like “Not much progress”, or “not much done this time”, because it gives the impression of this being a never-ending project. Maybe just skip to the part where you say what you DID do instead of saying that you didn’t get a lot done.
Other than that, I’m glad you guys are making so much progress!
I just call ’em like they are. When there’s been a lot of progress, I say there’s been a lot of progress. When there’s not much progress, I say there’s not much.
have you heard the rumor that Mother 1+2+3 is coming to the DS? someone who is apparently a Nintendo rep let this on. they’re adding touch-screen functionality.
cdude1034: With what purpose? I’m not really into getting deceived, and what that would most likely accomplish would be making more people think the project’s gonna be done in a week. The fact that the team is honest and tells everything as they see it shows how they’re aware of the pace at which they are going, which is great.
And to the team (is Mato the only one reading these comments or are you just the only one who posts?) keep it up! The most important thing here is going at a comfortable pace. Even though no changes seem visible, little things like these are what’s gonna be part of the result as a whole later. I really appreciate the effort, and you know the whole EB community’s behind you, so keep going forward and don’t rush the project.
Finally, out of curiosity I’d like to ask, is this game as poorly programmed as you make it out to be or is this due to the obvious constrains that exist when rom-hacking? It just seems to me like the code’s all over the place from the way you talk on the updates. I am aware of the fact that rom-hacking is no easy task, but would translating any other GBA rom be any easier?
And if it is indeed so badly programmed, any specific reason why this is? I know games aren’t meant to be modified like this, but still, whenever programming I try to make it as readable and organized as possible, any other would be sloppy coming from a professional programmer/game developer…
Keep it up! (And keep updating us, each one of these is pretty exciting, as uninteresting as it might seem to you).
I appreciate every update even if they’re small, but why isn’t the video on your website of people using the menu patch in the recent previews section?
Good job guys, keep translating! ^__^
You have all my support. I have (with some friend) a Nintendo (italian) blog, with at least 500 visit each day, and I often post your updates to let people know your project!
(http://www.nintendarea.it/2008/01/26/la-traduzione-di-mother-3-procede/)
When you’ll have finished, I’ll do everything in my possibilities to publicise your translation.
Again, thank you 🙂
Wow! This means will get our translation patch sooner then I thought. ^^
Awesome stuff you’re doing man, you look near the end from what I see, but I can’t wait to play it all ready
I want to cook…
Just wanted to say how much I appreciate your efforts. It looks beautiful and the developer-blog style and updates really makes you appreciate and understand all the hard work that goes into it, especially with such a bizarre-witty script and dialogue that Mother games have.
Anyhoo, keep up the good work, no rush at all from me.
hey tomoto I am one of those people how think its cool to be the first one to post and would like a winner is me
Hey, A Winner I once was! 😀
Anyways… Tomato, its great you’re getting to “that” point. I’ll miss coming here when the translation is all over and done with though. 😛 But meh. (Of course, I know there’s a good amount of time left until that happens). BTW, are you waiting for some of the Super Hackers (TM) to come and help out with the hard stuff? Or once you’re done with the small stuff, if everyone is still busy doing their things, are you going to attempt them yourselves (including Jeffman in there).
Fireblend: Go to romhacking.net’s forums. 😛 I’m sure you’ll find information there. Some games (not just GBA) may have been very well programmed and are easy to hack and some are… Mother 3’s. 😛
@Fireblend:
You must realize that hacking and programming are similiar, yet two different things. When mato & co are hacking, they are dealing with the machine code binary in the rom. THere is no source code of the original programming to be found,so there are no nicely laid out comments. To get the ASM (assembly language) instructions they have to dissasemmble the binary of the rom (a process known as reverse engineering). The result of dissasembly is pretty messy as it was generated by a computer, so it is structered for efficiency as opposed to readability. So when mato & co are hacking, they are modifying the ASM, which is very cryptic and hard to work with. So while you may program very neatly and make it very well documented, the compiled and assembled file that you generate from your source code (and what mato & co are working with) most certainly is not.
Man, you guys rock. Too bad about the tough hacks though, but I’m sure you can do.
Keep on kickin’ ass!
Good Job! I can’t wait for this to come out. A lot has happened since the first time I came to this site.
Awesome work all of you. I am so jazzed about this. I put up an RSS feed on my blog (but no one really goes to it) Anyway keep it up we all love you.
Hey, even if you don’t feel like you’re making progress, I’m glad you update often just so we know that you guys ARE still working on it!
Hey guys, time to meet your newest member…
Me.
I’ve been keeping an eye on this site for awhile now and I’ve gotta say, great job guys… It looks like you guys are about finished with this patch. Keep up the good work
Awesome work, no matter how much has been done, progress is still progress…. I was getting a little worried after 3 or 4 days without an update ( i got used to the string of the little updates )
I too will also miss coming here checking on the updates when its all done.. or I will be too busy playing M3.
Vagn is right. ROM Hacking requires severely different strategy than plain ol’ programming. Assembly and binary are the bare bones of the computer’s mind, with no practical flow of thought. Those programmers/hackers who possess that rare ability to think like a computer (i.e. byuu, Harmony, etc.), can hack as fast as a Benihana chef. But Mato’s specialty is translation. Ideally, he should have all these hackers working under HIM, toiling over a hot CPU to conform the program to his majestic vision. But hackers have got to eat, too.
So now all the easy stuff is nearly taken care of, huh? That’s alright. That just means that after the main script errors are taken care of, you’ll have a playable game.
Don’t feel rushed, but I just can’t wait to play this game in English, because I don’t understand one syllable of Japanese.
Thanks for the update!
I love how you release updates so often, even if there’s not much going on, it’s still SOMETHING, it’s not like anyone is going to complain 🙂
I just recently found out about this fan translation, I played earthbound a long time ago and it’s always been one of my favorite RPGs. After watching the prologue preview, I actually got this crazy urge to play earthbound so I’ve actually been playing that… brings back great memories, it’s been so long since I played that it’s almost like playing it for the first time again 🙂
I can’t wait to play mother 3, it looks absolutely awesome. I tried it out with the menu translation patch, but I’m going to wait until the translation is done to play it through. I can’t believe anyone would play through an earthbound game not being able to read the dialog, it’s the best part!
Thanks again for investing all the time and effort translating/hacking. I look forward to future updates.
keep up the good work guys, like everyone else has been saying even a little progress is progress.
on another note i was just wondering if anyone knows how big of a spoiler is gonna be in SSBB? are we talking like ruin the ending of game? or something smaller?
Hey will we be able to put this on R4 when its done?
youre all going to be famous soon.
Anon: R4 doesn’t emulate GBA, so no, you’ll have to play it on an emulator or GBA flash cart.
Dangit, this entire translation team is pure L33T! Seeing all of this progress on stuff that a few months ago was ‘OMGHOWAREWESUPPOSEDTOFIXTHIS!’ is really cool.
I love you guys
Vagn:
I am aware of this; I have worked with assembly language myself, and I know how annoyingly cryptic it may be. I even have heard this game wasn’t compiled correctly, so I had to ask if the difficulties the project’s going through exist because of some specially bad programming job or if this complexity is to be expected in any rom-translation/hacking job.
Good job guys! Hopefull the project is going as well as some other comments say.
I do have one question, how tough is it to translate this game? I know it’s not only translations, it’s also hacking and stuff I don’t really get, but how difficult is it to translate and stuff compared to other games? I’m pretty sure this is harder than a Super Mario Bros game, but are other text-dependent games, or other RPGs this hard to do?
Wow. This is some amazing shit. Keep it up!
Couple of questions. Both of which may piss you off.
1) Someone was talking about having it done by 2009 in one of the other blogs. Do you this that is the case? If not, will you have it done before the end of the year? Having the project done in 2009 seems… unreasonably long.
2) This will REALLY piss off the hackers, but I’m going to be an ass. Since 8-letter names will be possible, do you thing you can push for longer? One of the characters I want to name has 9 letters in her name. If it makes it easier, it is for the mother. Will that be possible?
We do not have an estimated release date for the final patch.
it is the hopes of the active team members to have it done as soon as possiple and they hope to have it done within this year. there is nothing unreasonable about this because they have no controll over it and they are not on anybodys payroll
Q: I’ve not heard this rumor. Do you have any links to where this rumor is being talked about? Surprisingly, word of this hasn’t hit Starmen.Net in any form, nobody on the forums has even made a topic. So this is news to me. I only believe it 0.00000000001% though. It’d be cool if I’m wrong though 😛
Fireblend: No, Jeffman reads and replies too. It’s usually just us two, though. Also, I’m not an expert hacker, but I’d say 70% of the bad programming is the compiler’s fault, 30% is the programmer’s crazy designs. The reason we’re having such major hurdles with the script and battle text is the game’s design though. So the programmers get the blame for the really hard hacks that are still left. Getting all this lesser stuff has been a pain, thanks to the compiler. But, sometimes, the compiler’s inefficiency makes it easier for us to stick hacks right over the inefficient code, which is nice and convenient. I haven’t hacked any other GBA games before, so I couldn’t tell you if this is the norm or not. But I’m fairly certain that most console and handheld games prior to the GBA were programmed mostly in assembly by hand, or a mixture of C and hand-done assembly, so when you follow that code, it makes logical sense. You can look at it and say, “Ah, this is what the programmer is doing.” With M3, that “Ah” feeling is lacking most of the time 🙁
kimba28: That video isn’t mine, and it’s also not really a preview of what the final version will be like.
Sig.Bakke: Cool, thanks! I’m hoping that after the English version is done, we’ll let people translate the script into other languages, so if things work well, an Italian translation shouldn’t be too hard to make too 🙂
FinalGamer: Nah, I don’t feel like we’re nearing the end at all yet. Still so much to do, especially when you consider all the non-hacking work that’s left.
Moulinoski: Help from one of the Super Hackers would be awesome, but yeah, if it comes down to it, I see us trying to tackle them ourselves. I think that’s one reason I’ve been helping with the hacking — hoping that the experience from all this other stuff will equal enough experience to try to take on the harder stuff. I already have some general ideas for the main script problem, but the biggest problem with that is just the huge, ugly mess that the script code is. The battle text issue may require an entire rewrite from scratch though, and that’s going to need some MAJOR skills. I bet that might be the last thing to get done.
Nile the Vile: If it means anything, I’ll probably continue my MOTHER 1 remake hack after this project, and I’ll probably set up a blog similar to this one (a blue themed version of this one sounds cool) or maybe I’ll stick it on my own personal site here, rather than try to run 5000 separate blogs.
Coconut of Enlightenment: No, there’s still some relatively easy stuff left to do. I was just saying that we’re starting to get to the point where we’re running out of easy stuff.
j0hnnyga: What constitutes a spoiler varies greatly depending on the person. I don’t have any more inside info on the subject so I can’t tell you if it’ll spoil the ending, but most of the stuff in SSBB is taken from the final chapter of the game, and it’s stuff you wouldn’t expect during your first 20 or so hours playing the game, so already it’s kind of killed that surprise. But some people don’t care. I’m glad I played it without knowing any stuff though. (Well, 2chan did spoil a big part of Chapter 1 for me *shakes fist*)
Noone: It hasn’t been particularly difficult compared to anything else I’ve done. Trying to keep the unique Itoi-ness in the dialogue takes a little more time, since I want to try to keep even the little nuances the same (or similar), but it’s really not that much harder than other stuff. You can definitely tell he wrote, scrapped, rewrote, scrapped, rewrote each line one by one very carefully, so I wanna make sure I do his hard work justice. Even the Famitsu reviews were like, “Man, you can really tell he spent a lot of time on the writing, even down to the spacing and timing and punctuation” or something like that 😯
kalbtrombone: I really, really want to finish it this year. I don’t think I can keep doing the project any longer than that, it’s REALLY been taking its toll. Obviously, we can’t make any promises, but personally, I want it done ASAP, probably way more than anyone else here 😛 As for 9-letter names, I don’t know, I don’t think it’ll be possible. 8-letters is only a possibility because we lucked out in a few instances with the programming. 9 would require far much more work and could break some really big things.
WHOOOOO!
Wow, Mato’s reply was longer than the actual blog.
it does mean a lot to me and that m1 remake is going to be kick ass…personally i don’t care how long the m3 translation takes (and m1 remake) the longer the better in my opinion cause a rushed project means a crashed rom……
Due to the way the memory is laid out, 9-letter names probably won’t be a possibility. Currently we can go up to 7 without anything whatsoever breaking, and I’m working on some stuff that’ll hopefully allow for 8-letter names. Only a couple things have been glitching with 8-letter names because, like Mato said, we lucked out for once on the game’s original programming; as a result, it’s only taken a couple hacks to get 8-bit names going. But I still have to investigate and 1) make sure that 8-letter names are taken care of in every possible screen, and 2) make sure that the hacks I currently have set up don’t affect anything else. Which, right now, they do. 😛
Hey, if worst comes to worst, we might provide a “Ku” double-letter so you guys can still use Kumatora as the girl’s name. Or something like that.
Well, you guys know you have our unending support. We stand behind you all the way! As for the 9-letter thing, I wasn’t talking about Kumatora. I was referring to Hinawa. I wanted to name her Elizabeth. I was thinking that it shouldn’t cause grief because she’s not controllable. If not, I won’t complain. I’ll just call her Beth for short.
It’s my real mother’s name. I wanted to name it after her, just cause I love her so much. (Mama’s boy and proud of it)
I always feel like I’m helping by saying, “Great job, M3FT Team! Keep up the good work!”
So, Great job, M3FT Team! Keep up the good work!
Mato, I’m an HUGE Mother Italian fan, and I also have experience in Romhacking. I would love to translate it in Italian! (I also have incomplete Mother 1 and 2 Italian translations on my HD…) 😛
Later, when the translation is complete, I’ll try to send you an email from my real address (I don’t use this too often…). Gemini knows me well, but with another name.
For now… Keep up with the good work 😉
Mato translating the various enemy descriptions and other files is great progress in my eyes even if there is not much to show right now and that very tiny bit of hacking you did is progress too,also Jeffman is good that you have been working with the programming code and guys take your time working with the hard hacks to come don’t worry you guys keep up the amazing job and everything will turn out perfect.
Hey, guys, what are you gonna name the characters?
How far along is the patch?
Will you be able to finish before Brawl comes out?
And now that the thought’s in my head, I bet you already have staff to play the game, but when uninterrupted, I can finish the game in less than a week. Just getting that out there.
Oh! Tease you! I have no something. Just thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and dig up the past.
It’s a very good thing that all you have left is killer hard stuff. It means you guys are closer than ever to the finish line. You’ll feel fantastic once you cross it, but I bet I don’t have to tell you that.
By the way, Mato, do you have a spam filter? This is relevant. I made a present for the whole team once you’re done.
I have one question. Do you think it will be released by 09 😛
We do not have an estimated release date for the final patch.
http://mother3.fobby.net/faqs/#done
Hmm… Jackalope just gave me a thought… Because the game WON’T be out before Super Smash Bros. Brawl is released, will character names be based off any names used on trophies in the English release of Brawl? Say, for example, they end up naming Claus Kraus or Flint being named Frint or Omelettes being named Pizza?
If they make any crazy name changes/spelling mistakes, then no, we’ll use what the original game has. But I don’t think that’ll happen. I’d like to use the official names when possible, but only to a point.
keep up the great work guys
Awesome! don’t think I’ll change their names though.
LOL @ the ghost wanting to cook.
I just want to tell you both good luck. We’re all counting on you.
Obviously, they’ll use only the most correct names in brawl. You know, like Rukasu, Hurinto, Kurausu, Reoreo, … 🙂
The more I practice my kana, the more I see why they have so much trouble spelling and pronouncing English words. They have to go through such crazy contortions (voicing U gives V? chisai Ru for L?? UE to get a WE sound???) to get so many English sounds, it’s insane. But it makes me feel a little better about having all those kanji to learn 🙂
does anyone know the name of the chatroom almost like pvp version of Earthbound they have out there?
i think i saw a preview of it on youtube but i cant seem to find it again.
thanks 🙂
Ah HA , its called saturn valley online. Google that
Great work on this guys! I’m so phyced * I cant spell! for this! I’ve been using an english strategy guide but nothing will compare to the glory of FINALLY reading what they’re saying.I will (hopefully soon!) know why Kumatora is yelling at Butch. Rock on!!!!
Nice – I’ll be checking these issues off on the to-do list I’m keeping 😀
Hey Mato if you have nothing to say because not much has happeed or nothing that isnt spoilerish you can just do an update thats has random screenshots and a title “RANDOM PIC MADNESS” or something just so you can have something so we know you havent dropped even just say Hi im mato im not dead 🙂
Great job
In case you guys don’t know, Jeff(from Earthbound) is an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Brothers Brawl. You can see him a couple seconds into this video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BrqOSeXdAWs
Just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate the work you’re doing. I would totally donate, if you were into that.
R
keep rockin’ baby
I have one small request.
I was hopeing for a screenshot witch earthbound fans would instantley recodnise as a “earthbound” game in english parhaps a battle screen with the word SMAAAASH!! on it
something I can show people if I tell them about the project witch might jog some old memorys
I must say, if Nintendo keeps pushing back Brawl here, you guys just might get this out before it, hahaha!
This time, it is confirmed that Ness will be in SSBB, according to the latest videos released. But everyone knew that already, right? ^^;
Isn’t there already a “SMMMAAAASSSHHHHH!!” ? I always imagined that there would be….
— I dunno.. i haven’t played with the menu patch…
but wouldn’t it be kind of difficult to make one of those if there isn’t one already? hmmmmmmmm..
you guys should make it an ips patch
IPS patches only work on files 16 MB or smaller. The M3 ROM is 32 MB.
Than makes sense.. 😀
M3 is pretty much the only GBA rom that is 32 MB, isn’t it Tomato?
That Kingdom Hearts game was also 32 MB.
BRAWL COMES OUT TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!! RAWR!!!!!!!!!!
sdf: Better check again…
Hey Mato, after applying the patch, the ROM will still be 32MB right? I want to put it on a flash cart, and Mother3 should just fit.
oh man i might just ruin the keyboard when i read the next update!
honeymustard: It will still be 32 MB. GBA ROMs can’t get any bigger than that.
One thing to note about the rom’s size is that it does not have to stay at 32 megs. All nintendo gba and DS roms actually have buffer data or just a bunch of zeros after the main game data is done to make it a computer multiple of 2. 2, 4, 8, 16 ect. You can trim the rom to make it smaller then 32 megs but do this AFTER the patch is applied.
Steve: Brawl indeed comes out tomorrow – in Japan.
Moulinoski: Thanks, I knew that at some point… Not really following Brawl as closely as the rabid fans.
I just cannot wait to play it~~:)
Great job ur doing guyz!!!
Keep on the good work!
*gasp* 5 Days without an update!
Seriously though, it’s always a pleasure to drop by when I need a short break at work and read the comments/new posts, I love this project, keep up the good work.
Re: Super Smash Bros Brawl
I don’t have a Wii, I don’t exactly care, but I suppose those who are worried about spoilers should just not play SSBB until the Mother3 translation is done, or live with it… just don’t be pushy with our beloved hacking team.
Cheers!
Eddward: Uh… I can’t speak for the team, but I think if there are any issues with space it’s that things are already “tight” spatially.
*Clapping*