The List Gets Shorter
Some more progress on multiple fronts.
The biggest news is that Jeff did some kickass work on this task on the to-do list:
Figure out how to re-order some of the things used in what we call “menus1″, so that “Nut XX DP Sell?” can be changed to something like, “Sell this Nut for XX DP?” The game hard-codes this arrangement and it’s lame in English. This will be surprisingly difficult.
This was made easier because all our weeks’ working on sprite text taught us what a few key subroutines do. So what we first expected to be a nightmare wasn’t that bad actually. Jeff got right to work on it and kicked its butt, as you can see in these before and afters.
Before 
After
And here are a few others that needed reordering and fixing:
Before 
After 
Before 
After 
Before 
After 
Before 
After
Awesome. It’s now in a state where we can say that task is now 100% done, meaning we can cross it off the list. Hurray! Not too much major hacking left 😀 At some point, I’m going to add some quick custom control code stuff to the menu messages too, but we’ll consider that part of the “polish stuff up” task at the end there. It should be pretty easy to do those with the main menus (shockingly enough), probably just an hour or two of work.
Anyway, Jeff deserves two boxes of Captain Crunch cereal for his awesome work on that stuff.
Meanwhile, both he and I were also busy moving everything from our old system to byuu’s xkas system. It took a few days, but it’s now done. We carved out like 94 KB of space for our hack code, which will be way more than enough. Right now our new code only takes up 6 KB 😯 Anyway, we finally finished that, and it’s so so much easier to write hacks and test them now. All future GBA hacking/translations will undoubtedbly use this awesome tool.
While we were porting over the hacks, we both improved several of them and fixed more bugs. I also fixed a crashing bug with the main menus — messages could only be like 16 letters or something, so I fixed that and upped the limit to 200+. Also fixed other issues here and there. It was bug-stomping day yesterday. I showed these off in the mini updates last time, but here are some other pics for good measure.
Before 
After 
Battle descriptions don’t
show status icons
15 minutes of hacking later
That light at the end of the tunnel is getting pretty bright now 😯
sweet!
Looking better and better!
It’s great to see that hard work does pay off. Nice job on everything. I would wait as long as i took for this game to finish.
yay! i left 10 minutes ago to see the to do list and i come back and this is here. yaaaaay!!
Keep it up, man. We’re all in awe of all the progress you’ve made, and can’t wait to see you do even more.
I think I may have to grab some sunglasses, that tunnel’s light is way too bright.
Keep going guys, you only need to use the pray option two or three more times!
Wow, you guys…I’m getting so excited for the translation completion. It’s going to be a very fun summer! Keep up the great work!
– Master Belch
You guys are so awesome that Superman reads comics about you.
one thing that has nothing to do with this. but more about ur safety mato. if nintendo somehow gets reaaaaallly mad with u i think u should take that resume (thats how u spell that right because dont u have to put an accent on the e) that you showed us a while ago and take it out of here (unless they already know everything about you). but they probbably wont get mad unless u get donations so ur probbably ok. also i think that was the best way to put how to sell stuff. this translation is so close to the end of the tunnel u can get skin cancer now. be careful and get some sleep guys.
Zeeeeeeee liiiiiiiight!
http://i31.tinypic.com/2e57iw9.png
Wow, I’m so amazed at Jeffmans and Matos hard work. You guys are great!! By the way, are you gonna finish the menu hacking and move onto battle stuff hacking? Thanks Jeffman and Mato you guys are awesome to the possum.
Sorry, Jeffman, I can’t get you anything. They don’t sell Captain Crunch here in Mexico
I believe Jeffman deserves more than 2 boxes of Cap’n Crunch…more like 2 truckloads.
You guys are doing fantastic work.
He definitely deserves the Crunch Berry kind… :3
Mato:
I think my comment got lost in the sea of comments on the last post. Are you thinking of needing a mirrored host for the final patch? I can set one up for you. I’m not sure how much bandwidth you’re anticipating, of course, but if the code got shaved down that much, you might not even see that much of a bump in bandwidth, haha. 🙂
1 hour, 4 minutes, and 15 responses. I guess I’m not the only super-fanatic here! Haha
I’m still having trouble loading MOTHER/ EB Zero
Every time I try, it says ” ROM loaded!” but the screen turns gray and nothing happens. Help, plx?
Sweet! You crunchitized that hacking! So, are you guys going to nail what’s left of the Menu Hacking list and Battle Stuff Hacking list next, since they’re nearly complete, anyway, or is there something you want to get out of the way, first? Man, May is just awesome. So much Mother anticipation on my end. 🙂
(That reminds me. I need to get something for Mother’s Day, this week.)
Whoa, nice! I’m gonna have to try out xkas myself sometime.
Swwwwwwwwwwwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttttttttttttt.
Thanks!!! Youre the best!
[Words fail to express the pleasant feeling that I have right now, so all that I will add to this conversation is a little heart-thingie:]
<3
woooooooo!!!!! you can see the light!!
you are my heroes!!
Earthbound has been rated by the ESRB! In an ideal world, Nintendo would release mother 3 on the DS, and use all your guys’ amazing hack job in it! With proper credit where credit’s due of course.
Awesome. Just plain awesome.
Wow getting down to the wire! 😀
Is it mostly the main script that’s left?
Wow, things have come a long way, congrats to you guys! Can’t wait.
Is it too early to set up some patch release parties? For mine, I want everyone to have soul patches, patched jeans and sweaters and eye patches. We’ll start out speaking English and then drink until we can’t understand each other… a sort of reverse representation of the hard work done by Mato et al.
Yay!
Will, that is pretty much the most awesome thing I have ever heard of.
Why on earth would you reward Jeffman by giving him cereal that tears the roof of your mouth?
Looks damn fine, Jeffman and Mato. Great work!
Man guys, looking at this stuff, i think you might be done with this thing before the end of the year! (Not that anyone would dare put a deadline on your project. 😉 )
I’ve been watching the updates from the shadows! This is great news. There’s been a lot of progress, and things are taking less than expected… what can I say? Thank you so much, Jeff and Mato! Your work moves all of us ^^
WHOOOO!!!!! MORE PROGRESS!!!!!
Oh BTW, why is there an expected month set aside for testing? Do you intend to play through the entire thing on multiple platforms and the GBA flashcarts individually, or is that previous estimate rather inaccurate due to your recent increase in skill and work efficiency?
Small question: why does one shop message show the selling price, while another one doesn’t?
The Mother 3 Bugs became tame.
Seriously, my heart is jumping with anticipation. Now that we’re fairly certain Earthbound is coming to the Virtual Console, I’m absolutely ecstatic. You guys look like you might be pretty close to the end. I will just die when this is finally released. You probably understand how happy I am that this translation is being made at all, since you must be as into the game as I am.
Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. I truly cannot thank you enough.
I haven’t seen the to do list in a long time and now I see it and Iam like wow only 17 things left on the to do list and some of the things left are very close to being finish.Great job Mato and JeffMan you guys have been making great progress.
THE SIGHT OF THE BABY CHWARMED LUCAS’S HEART
Awesome! You guys really are putting a lot of effort in this, good to see it’s all going well.
I am verryy happy. 🙂 Way to go! You guys rock!
And lol at “Bag of Bi”. XD
Does this hack qualify as a SMAAAAAAAAASH! then? 🙂
Nice, congrats to the crew!
Doesnt everyone feel like the project has advanced so much simply by reading this post? ^^
For a second I was like, “oooo probably a month and were done 😉 ”
Anyways, Good luck , Cant wait for the final release!
PS: So Mato, were those just some random pics? Cause one seems to be
“Sell this _______ ?”and the other “Sell this _____ for 600 DP?”
Or are they 2 different situations?
Distribution from a torrent would be a great way to conserve bandwidth. I would also seed the heck out of it!
joeymartin64: Yeah, we were puzzled by that fact too at first. The normal selling text doesn’t print the price, because you see it right there on the screen already. But if you buy a piece of equipment and equip it right there on the spot, it’ll ask if you want to sell your old equipment for XXX amount. It does that because otherwise you wouldn’t know how much it would sell for, since you’re actually in the Buy menu.
Does that make any sense?
I suck at replying to stuff lately, so don’t be mad/sad/glad/rad if I miss yours.
Anyway, UnknownVariable, we should be fine in terms of bandwidth. We got a good deal on bandwidth and a nice dedicated server that we even just upgraded I hear.
You guys are seriously the greatest. Keep up the great work.
Mato was a schoolboy when he played his first EB game
“okaydeska” I think it was, from there he was never the same
Jeffman grabbed a controller, used to play it every night
Now They’re hacking Mother 3, and everything’s all right!
Doncha knooooooow? Doooooon’t yooouuuu knooooow that you are a shooooooting star?!
(srsly. thanks guys.)
The sight of the end of the tunnel warmed everybody’s heart. I can’t believe you guys did all this, and so quickly, too.
This is so great, I don’t even need a Mother’s Day gift, anymore!…
… Wait, it’s the mothers who get the gifts, isn’t it… …
Well, I think I’m going to get some Captain Crunch cereal in honor of Jeffman. And not even eat it.
If I go to the supermarket soon, anyway.
Anyway, again, this translation is looking so good. And now I’m really happy. I can’t wait to play Mother 3, the sequel of one of the best games ever.. In a language I’m actually able to understand. I haven’t been spoiled too much, and I only played the first chapter or two, so… It’s gonna be great. And thanks so much for those polishing up things. This is officially the most awesome fan translation, ever. I mean, comparing it to some others (v.0.35, 0.37, 0.40,— 0.89, never completed)…. And then there’s this possibly-better than official translation that gets released, and that’s that.
And it shouldn’t be too long, now? I hope Earthbound gets released on VC, first. I’ll play through that, then enjoy Mother 3. Also, after I buy EB on VC, I’ll order an actual copy of Mother 3.
Did I mention you guys were my heroes?
Probably not, considering this is my first comment.
But my first statement remains valid.
this is the best news for me all week. i might sound screwey but once this is done i dont how to thank =)
Hey, nice job Mato! This is my first comment but I have been watching this for about 4 months now. I can’t wait until the patch is released!
One more thing: what if Nintendo says they will be translating and shipping the game in North America? Will you dump the whole thing and make us wait for them to release it or keep on working on the translation? Thanks.
It’s on the FAQ or About page, but if such an announcement is made, we’ll halt immediately, like that very second.
There’s more info here:
http://mother3.fobby.net/about/
http://starmen.net/devotion/
Maybe I should add that question to the FAQ page too though, it seems to pop up a bit recently.
Yes! SO close…the anticipation is building
hooray! I love tunnels!
Makes perfect sense. Thanks.
Mato/Jeff are so awsome:
They don’t sleep, they wait.
Their poker faces are so good, they won the PWS of 1998 with a two of diamonds, four of clubs, six of spades, eight of hearts, a three from Uno, and a Monopoly get out of jail free card.
They killed two stones with one bird.
They CAN believe it’s not butter.
There is no “Ctrl” their key board, they are always in control.
(/Chuck Norris jokes)
Thank your both for your hard work!
Great job, both of you guys! I was scrolling through the To-Do list and saw a little caption that made me lol. Next to the crossed off sprite text Mato wrote (I rather give birth than to do this hack again). Oh you silly tomato! Whats next to do? Keep up the great work! Boing!
I plan on playing this during the summer. You’re doing great, keep going!
Tomato, I have a question regarding the battle status icons in the descriptions… In the “15 min. later” pic, it didn’t show the status icon… :/ Is that okay?
Mato, Jeffman, I can’t say it enough. You guys freaking rock. Looks like I might have to get that second Coffee Break written up sooner than I expected.
I used a PK Mail’n Print-out and a DS game case made a sweet Mother 3 case for the flash-cart I’m gonna get! hmmm… I should find a good one and put the order in soon…
Moulinoski: The original game doesn’t show the status icons in descriptions in battle. In fact, it looks like the battle programmer had to specifically parse the icons out. I’m guessing he saw that the menu guy used sprite text and was like ugh and just threw up his hands and said “I’ll just make it so the icons don’t display in battle”
—-
Anyway, just like 10 or 20 minutes and I already have this nearly done. The hard part is actually getting the correct item #, the rest really does everything itself.
Hey Mato, any chance of answering my testing question (just kidding, I know you’re busy)?
Oh BTW, why is there an expected month set aside for testing? Do you intend to play through the entire thing on multiple platforms and the GBA flashcarts individually, or is that previous estimate rather inaccurate due to your recent increase in skill and work efficiency?
Yes, there will be a lot of testing, and on different platforms. But we’ll also have done so much testing before the official testing phase that I don’t know how long it’ll take when we get to that stage.
Thank you for the reply.
Oh, on a side note, I just had an idea. I noticed all of the different ROM hacks for Earthbound/Mother 2, and I was wondering, when the translation patch is done, would it be possible for new hackers to modify the patch further to do similar ROM hacks like the old hat quest and stuff?
I LOVE YOU GUYS, YOU GUYS ARE SO FREAKIN KIND. THIS MEANS SO MUCH TO US GAMERS. YOU GUYS ARE DOING A GREAT GREAT GReaT JOB.
THIS IS REALLY AMAZING!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P:P
:):):):):):):):):):):)::):):)
::D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:
Getting the current item # was as easy as two load instructions 😯 I wish it was that easy for everything else so far. I’ll have to look into that later to see if there’s an easier way with battles and the main script. In the case of the main script, there might still be a bug or two, I can’t remember.
Anyways.
This was real easy to do too, in fact I used one of the game’s own routines to make it happen. It’s not even a routine ever used by shop menus too. Man, me and Jeff have come a long way. Gonna finish up this junk and then move on to the real hard stuff.
Psst… the possessive of a name ending in s is just an apostrophe, with no s. IE Lucas’s should be Lucas’.
This update is heart chwarming 🙂 . I’m glad the control codes are coming along so easily. You guys deserve a break.
Dan: Come on now, don’t bring up stuff like that, it just starts pointless arguments. There are actually different ways to do it, and no one will ever agree which is right and wrong. It’s just like that whole argument about commas. I will also point you to this.
@Dan
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/possessives.htm
I remember that rule from grade school, but after a quick google search it appears to work either way. Just from an aesthetics point of view the Lucas’s looks better than Lucas’.
Will the final patch have all of the item description text justified to the left as shown above?
I’m not sure which pic(s) you’re refering to, but item descriptions will look pretty much like that in the final version.
Keep on truckin’
Also, Mato, I believe Spitball is referring to the second to last set of B&A where you moved the second sentence to the next line (I think to avoid them running into each other?)
I was also wondering if that’s going to stay like that, or if you plan to have the rest of the text fill in the first line before going to the second.
Badass. Things are really starting to look good.
There’s something about “The Gloves are equipment” that makes my mind go “Huh…?”
Is that final or is that going to be changed to something like are a piece of equipment/is a piece of equpiment?
Or was there a space issue with the shop text here?
There’s also the fact you can name the characters whatever you want. Lucas could be called Bubba or Rabbit or anything in between. Similarly, you could name Boney “Hobbes” or something, that ends in S. You have to take that into account.
Speaking of Boney: in EarthBound, your dog wasn’t ever referred to by gender (unless my memory’s off), so you could name it pretty much anything. In Mother 3, you can equip Boney with hats, but you can also give him Kumatora’s ribbons and such. Is that because they’re trying to aim for neutrality again? Or are cross-dressing dogs just more acceptable than bow-wearing thieves, for instance? =P It’d probably be more difficult to do that for a party member, though…you kind of need pronouns then.
So now that we are almost at the end of the tunnel, it seems really bright. Are there hippies brushing their teeth over on that other side?
Good job Mato and Jeff, I’m happy to see that progress is going faster every few days.
Magus: We’re actually working on improving that right now.
neo: The text hadn’t been formatted for the Chick line, if that’s what you’re asking. There’s also the fact that a player’s name can be really long so you gotta anticipate that in advance too. Most text is static though, so it’ll be a lot of trial and error but in the end things will look good.
I don’t care where you put any punctuation. i just wanna play already!
Its crazy to think i’ve been reading this blog for over 6 months. Its like watching a mother (haha) getting ready to have a child.
3 more months?
I hope so!
Mato: Awesome. I didn’t think it’d be left like that unless there was a “changing it crashes the game” issue brought on by the menu programmer being…uh…the menu programmer.
Yay! I can almost feel the hack getting finished.
I just hope that Mitch wasn’t right about the light at the end of the tunnel 😉
dan is actually right, that is the generally accepted rule of English, and just because the earthbound guys had a typo doesn’t mean you should.
Wordnazis forever!
damn thing wont show my posts! >8U
Awesome can’t wait! Good luck, and thanks for working so hard!
I see your post Majora. =)
Alright, with some Jeffman data assistance, I was able to put this together in just a few minutes.
Also applied some custom CCs to other menu text. It all looks great now. Hopefully we’ll be able to call this part finished soon, just gotta add the custom CCs to the other lines now.
I also hope there aren’t any super long equipment names 😛
Majora: Why are you asking that here? Didn’t I already talk about not spoiling the game for people? Anyway, I don’t think anyone here would know.
Did you finish all your real life work?
Or at least did you catch up?
Real life work never ends. If I run out of it, uhh, then this project is in trouble 😛
Wow, this is looking absolutely amazing Mato! Keep up the great work! What do you think you’re going to tackle yet?
^^ tackle next, oops. Too excited I guess:)
but if you name Lucas, say, Jeff, then it would say Jeff’. And if you named Duster, say, James, it would say James’s.
[/argumentover]
I can’t wait for this! I hope it gets released by July. I doubt it, but you never know. The game might start…translating itself? COOL
You almost have another thing to completely cross off Mato!
As of now, what is the next most difficult component of this game that needs to be hacked?
I hope things continue at this pace.
Honestly, I’ve always preferred Ness’s and Lucas’s over Ness’ and Lucas’. It just looks stupid like that to me.
Anyway, back on topic: the progress so far is amazing. I mean the hack has gone from being a nasty crashy hack to being a majestic masterpiece of disassembly in like two months. Mato and Jeffman are officially my heroes.
I havnt posted in a while, but i have still been watching the progress! GO MATO JEFfMAN AND OTHER HACKERS OF THE COMMUNITY!!! Thank you guys SO MUCH. but dont stop, DONT stop.
and when your done, go watch night at the roxbury either that or grandma’s boy
i’m sure that after being through a hell of code you’ll need a laugh
Sick! I love you guys. xxx
one of my favorite hack/translation projects EVER
Have been watching this since the beginning, never posted before. But now I have to.
I AM SO FRIGGIN AMPED FOR THIS!
…Damn Mato. I didn’t expect you guys to go that far with the items.
That’s awesome. Congrats to you and Jeffman.
More progress! Yay!
BTW, I was reading this entry:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TomatoSurprise
You didn’t happen to translate Big O, did you? 🙂 I’m wondering about where it says:
The Big O uses actual tomatoes, though in a metaphorical manner; one of the final episodes ends on Roger Smith having come to a realization about his forgotten origins, declaring to himself “I’m one of the tomatoes”.
In Soviet Russia Mother 3 translates you!
Mudkipz: you gotta be kidding! although i DID see that coming for a short while…
Real Post: you see, it’s tiny(or big, depending on POV) breakthroughs like these that everyone doesn’t expect, but makes everyone feel that much more motivated and complete. thats a mouthful!
side note: How does the sight of a chick make it disappear from your inventory?! i posted how the menu patch translates it, and it literally suggests that lucas shoves it down his pants…what? *topples over*
this kicks major ass
Reanzet: You keep bringing it up, but did you never try using a Chick in EarthBound? It does the same thing. I’m not sure, it might even cure homesickness in EB.
Its so close i can smell it
true dat, but i didn’t bother using it in EB, i thought it was pointless. and it just goes poof? Interesting…but theres no homesickness in M3, so its pretty much useless unless you wait and then sell it, right?
(sorry for bringing it up again, but my quarrels are done)
addendum: odd chicks are odd
Yeah, I guess maybe you can do the chicken selling trick with it, but by the time you can get them regularly, I think it might not be worth the trouble. I’m not sure, I can’t remember.
i got a lot of them to the DP loophole, and was set for that chapter. It’s worth it, but only for that part. And only if u have some spare time. Other than that, chicks are only useful for their cute fuzziness. Maybe giving one to a villain will soothe him? :3
According to Strunk and White (the authorities on grammar and style, for those of you who have never published anything) it should be “Lucas’s” and not “Lucas'”. The only exception to this rule is when you are reffering to classic figures (Jesus’ tomb, Isis’ temple, Moses’ law, etc.).
Dan: not quite. Usually it’s only for heavy hitters with historical weight or prominence that we can toss in only the apostrophe, without the extra “s”. For example, Jesus’ sandals. For common, every-day people that haven’t changed the world (yet), we use the apostrophe+s. Some say it works either way, which is true for the most part, which makes worrying about it even less of an issue.
On a related note, if debates about punctuation get you going in even the smallest of ways, may I recommend Lynne Truss’s (see what I did there?) funny and informative “Eats, Shoots and Leaves.” I found a paperback in a Borders discount bin for like three bucks.
http://tinyurl.com/58fn5o [Link goes to Amazon.com]
I got a question about the currency in Mother 3. Its referred to as DP. What does DP stand for? Thanks!
It’s kind of a spoiler so I’d rather not talk about it. Just think of them as Disco Points.
Dang we are so close It rocks!
Actually, it works quite well to buy a whole bunch of eggs and go fight the secret/hidden critter. 😉 By the time you’re done getting yourself ungodly strength, you can afford everything you could ever want for the remainder of your journey! 😀 It’s a boring, lengthy trick though.
I wrote this post in a way that only those who know of said creatures would know what I was talking about, therefore leaving much to the imagination for those who are new to the game. If this isn’t okay though, you can remove it or maybe your filter will catch it. 🙂 At any rate, that’s what I did for my latest playthrough.
I mean You
Fixed a few more rare bugs in the main menu stuff. Stuff’s so much easier with xkas — all this progress you see suddenly is thanks to it 😀
Anyway, many of the fixes are internal, but one is more obvious — 9 letter favorite foods weren’t displaying right and it would display the fav. thing along with it. Which is weird, because I think the Japanese version allows 9 letters normally too, as you can see. Oh well, it’s fixed now at least 🙂
Before and after
Japanese version
Ive got to admit its getting better. its getting better, all the time
wow wow wow!!! that’s really all I can say, Mato. You and Jeffman have been doing an utterly fantastic job, and I’m really looking forward to the patch… thanks for being the EarthBound fans that finally took a stand.
Hahaha, you guys are so good at this, you should totally make my programming homework, it would take you 5 minutes tops, what do you say? :@
> I’m not sure, it might even cure homesickness in EB.
Yes, when used, chicks cure homesickness then vanish in EB. Alas, you can’t carry them around for too long, or they turn into chickens (which you can sell for more money). So you can actually make a (small) living by raising chickens if you so desire. Maybe in that broken-down house you can buy from the scam artist? I dunno 🙂
As for “disco points” … there aren’t any disco bandits in this game, are there?? 🙂
I never post on here anymore because I feel like the page is too polluted with comments. Good that it is, but still. 😀
screens lookin’ pretty though
Oh yes! I love crossing off things in the to do list, it brightens my soul!!!!!
Alright, done for the night. Fixed so many bugs here and there, polished/tested menu stuff a lot too while I was at it. That’s always a real good feeling. I gotta work like crazy on real life stuff the rest of the week though, so progress might slow down a bit. Not sure if any other small issues remain with the menus. To be honest, a few weeks ago, like when I put that big video up, I dreaded the menus because there were so so so many little bugs and issues everywhere. But we managed to fix most of them in one day 😯
Next big thing to work on is finishing off the item length stuff. Don’t even know where to start fixing this though, it’s such a weird problem 😐
Wow, excellent work guys! The hacking is nearing its completion; I cannot wait to sample the fruits of your labors on my psp when this is all finished.
Damn, you’re awesome. I didn’t expect you guys to go that fast with it…
I don’t have anything to say though, just: Whoah.
Well, I’ve been trolling the blog since the release of SSMBB (when I first found out about Mother 3, and this project). Just wanted to say great job on the progress. Mother 2/Earthbound was my very first RPG, and I have been waiting to play a sequel since… Well, a sequel I can read at least. 😉
http://g.photos.cx/20080506_01b-f1.GIF
Oh, so that’s how you did it…
“It’s on the FAQ or About page, but if such an announcement is made, we’ll halt immediately, like that very second.”
This is why I just can’t get excited about the completion of this project. Seeing how long it’s taken so far, and what’s left to do, leads me to believe we’d see it in July at the very earliest. Normally I’d be fine with that and all, but there’s a heavy feeling that the Mother DS compilation will be announced at E3 which is in July.
Which means Mato is gonna scrap this project.
Which means months and months more of waiting. (probably early 09 at the earliest.)
Would you be willing to release your source if this situation happened, Mato?
SCG, I don’t think he’d release the source if an official translation was announced, since the whole point is to keep people from “borrowing” it so they’ll buy the real deal. Also your estimates are way optimistic, I really don’t think this will be done in two months and we’d be lucky to see an official version before Christmas ’10
This hack is like a steamroller. It just keeps on getting done faster and faster… Each time Mato goes at something, he gets more and more done. As I’ve said before Mato, I’m very appreciative of your consistency. Someone needs to draw a comic of Mato in a steamroller going over nasty bugs and random brownie brown programmers… I’d do it except I suck at drawing.
woohoo!!! you guys are awesome!!! nearly at the end of that tunnel… lets hope Itoi doesnt steal the ROM and realeses it in the US…(kinda sounds stupid doesnt it…) keep up the good work and if Mother DS is realesed in ENG, will you cancel the project?
I’d like to remind people that the whole Mother DS Trilogy thing has only been a rumour from the start. Plus i very much doubt they’ll announce anything exciting at this years E3 convention anyway.
The main hacking will be done on 6/1/08, the 13 anniversary of US launch of EB. The final patch will release 8/27/08, 14 years after the EB’s release in Japan… That would rock hard, but the timing is off on the gap… plus that only leaves 4 weeks for main hacking. Hacking done in 4 weeks + real life = impossible… I need sleep.
every time somebody estimates the release date of this patch, i personally push it back another week later
speaking of steamroller, i think you’ve been smacking the hack with one, instead of a bat. Three cheers for quick, good progress(and xkas, too)! Hip-hip…
For some reason, I feel the main hacking could be over in about 2 months. Unfortunately there’s a lot of other things that will need a lot of work (editing, localization, script reviewing etc…) and it probably won’t be such a good idea anymore to publicly display the advancements in those parts on the blog (you can’t get more spoilery than showing parts of dialogues and how they’ve been re-worked, can you?)… The project won’t be finished for a few months as a lot of polish and spit-shine will be needed after all the hacking’s done.
However, I don’t believe Nintendo’s going to release a hypothetical Mother 1+2+3 compilation in North America, if they even release one, since that would mean a LOT of work for them to go back on all these poorly developed text systems in addition to translation/localization costs. Also, consider such a re-release would *have* to be DS software, since a GBA cart would not be able to hold all three Mother games knowing that Mother 3 itself already fills the maximum ROM size for a GBA game. Even a direct port like that needs some work as converting the code to the new hardware’s libraries will be necessary, even if the core ressources and logics are not modified.
In short:
Reprogramming + Porting + Translation + Editing + Localization + Packaging + Commercialization + Distribution = Too expensive for PREVIOUS-GENERATION TITLES = Japanese-only release IF any
Go Mato!
i have a question. in M3 what weapons does each character use? u know how like ness used a bat and paula used pans.
ps: i personally think this could take maybe at shortest 2 and a half months and at most 5 months. but i dont hack so i have no clue.
@i-wish-i-was-L-except-when-he-died: look it up elsewhere, as people can’t really answer that without giving spoilers(i think). Theres gotta be a video on youtube SOMEWHERE…sorry if im not too helpful
Dear Mato:
you know that I love collecting Disco Points. They make me get my groove on to L99. 8) <3
I may or may not have squealed giddily upon checking the to-do list.
The progress continues. Very encouraging.
We wish you well with your real life work Mato! Good luck as the hacking continues.
I suck at replying to stuff since I’m so busy. But here are many replies to stuff here.
——
i-wish-i-was-L-except-when-he-died: They already know everything about me and could even call me up and prank call me if they wanted. Or send a lawyer to my front door. And yes, a big reason for not taking donations is just as you say. It’s also not about money, plus money makes people craaaaazy.
Maroon500: Still need to fix the item length issue in menus, but after that I’m not sure what I’ll move to next. Too far ahead to decide right now.
ArashiSai: What emulator are you using? Did you unzip the ROM before applying the patch? Anyway, questions like that are best posted on starmen.net, not here.
Animus01: I’d feel better if I finished the battle hacking first, but there are those special boxes and stuff that need hacking, and I haven’t even started on them.
Anna: Main script hacking & battle hacking are the main things that remain.
Will: That does sound nifty 😀
Anonymous Mr.Saturn: Because after a while that ripping-up feeling becomes soothing. If I were a psychology student, I’d look into that phenomenon, it’s strange. Why DO people like cereals that tear your mouth up? Hmm.
Bean: You’ll need a time machine if you plan to play it this summer 😛
SAM-E-BOI: Of course it’ll be possible to make hacks out of the game. The problem is that things aren’t set up as nicely as EB, so hacking M3 in any substantial way would be several times more difficult, and EB hacking is already pretty hard for most people. For instance, there isn’t one big map like with EB, if you want to print a character’s name, there are like 4 or 5 different blocks with names and you have to choose the correct one in the correct situation or else you’ll get crazy results, etc. The programmers were pretty weird, even weirder than some of the EB guys.
Neurovore: The most difficult thing left to do is probably the main script stuff, or hacking the special battle stuff. Both will be getting their turn in the sun soon, though. Gotta build up to the really hard stuff or burn-out time will arrive.
Jigga Brown: I dunno about the first one, but grandma’s boy is such a kickass movie.
A Fan: No, I didn’t work on that. I was probably still studying in Japan when that came out in America too 😛
J: No, if they announced an official release, I wouldn’t release any of our code or tools. Doing that would undermine the whole point of stopping the project.
mitch: Heh, that’s an oldschool joke that some ROM hackers like to use when people get annoying by asking “when is XXX patch gonna be out????” I’d use it here too, except there’s little room for sarcasm/joking about that in a case like this 😛
Inzoum: Yeah, when it comes time to edit, updates will get fewer and less interesting I expect. People are already freaking out because of commas (or lack of) and apostrophes (or lack of). I’ll be working on detailed translation notes that’ll be released alongside the final patch though, like I’ve done with previous stuff I’ve worked on. Probably even more detailed than ever, since this IS this game.
i-wish-i-was-L-except-when-he-died: There are a number of characters, but the main four (Lucas, Duster, Kumatora, Boney) use Sticks/Bats, Shoes, Gloves, and nothing, respectively. There is a rare weapon Boney can equip though, I think.
YOU GUYS KILL ME!! This is the most exciting news ever. I’m beside myself. GLORY BE TO THE MOTHER 3 HACKERS!!
Rewards for JeffMan, con’t.
http://nutsjesmoar.googlepages.com/jefflytuff.png
round here, you miss a day and an hour, you miss a lot.
How do I give you moneys?!
you know nutsjesmoar, im not sure i get the relevance of the crunch berries. or the cabbit. ( half cat half rabbit for those who just dont know ) but i like it anyhow .
mat: save ’em for Wii points to gift Earthbound for the VC to everyone you know, are acquainted with, or just plain heard of at one time or another
In fact Mato in order to attempt to head off all these donation requests, why not do just that? Encourage people to gift multiple copies of Earthbound when it comes out on the VC?
Christ, people. Let’s all rush to post comments.
Mato, if they do officially translate and you stop the project what happens if the game gets butchered. You know becuase they have to go by legal issues so obivously alot will need changed. After its out and people support nintendo by getting copies and the community feels that the translation is not faithful enough would you continue the project like a year later just for the faithful crowd. All though I understand quiting now would be great cause u guys are putting mind breaking effort in but for the tough stuff your fininsing up. Later stuff takes time but its your area of expertise? just dropping the quesition was bound to come up soon
Hell Hound: The only positive thing that will happen is they will stop their current translation effort. Only time will tell if anyone picks it back up. If they do though, you will probably have to wait until M3 can’t generate money anymore.
If it happens, it happens. I’ll just do something along the same lines as this but for M3. The chances of any of that happening are pretty slim though, so I wouldn’t sweat it. I’d still greatly appreciate an official release. I mean, they changed plenty of stuff in EB and as far as I know, nobody blew an artery over that.
Anyway, it doesn’t really matter, since it’s all very unlikely. No need to dwell on the subject for too long.
Do you think Nintendo would come to you for the work you’ve done so far, if they decide to translate it? and if so would you oblige?
Mother3bound
Jefflytuff is the new evolved version of jefflypuff (JeffMan’s alter ego which we forced on him)
http://nutsjesmoar.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/jefflypuff1.png
He evolved by gaining experience defeating evil bugs and crappy programming and such.
And the two boxes of crunch berries are his reward, silly!
😛
But consider this possibility, Mato:
What if Nintendo announces an official localization, perhaps even at E3, and then renegs on its promise? What would you do then? Suppose that months after the announcement, Big N pulls the plug on their M3 project, would you take up the fan trans again, after having put away your hacking tools for so long? Would you even have the time and energy at that point? Wouldn’t it be easier to just continue this project, even if you just do it secretly, so you would have a complete copy just in case NOA fails us again?
Perhaps this hypothetical situation seems irrelevant, but I don’t think it would be surprising to the EarthBound community if Nintedo did just that. They’ve broken their word hundreds of times before.
Come on now, we can keep adding what ifs upon previous what ifs, but it doesn’t really accomplish anything. Whatever happens happens, and if something DOES happen, for better or worse, then we’ll just deal with it then. Until something happens, the project will continue as-is.
IF Nintendo does anything with M3(which they never will, dont even hold your breath, the July announcement is something Wii related or probably the next portable system) then it would be on VC, but GBA emulation would have to be in place first, which would take some time, they’re still cashing in on GBA sales..
I wish people would completely drop their hopes of a US release, i mean dream all day if you want, its never going to happen. Mother1+2 never came out, this wont either. Plus its being translated at this time, and you dont want Nitendo butchering it and changing it around like they did with EB do you? no trying to flame or start World war 3, just stating the obvious, its plain as day the way Nintendo has treated the franchise.
Mato, I wouldn’t blame you if you stopped posting comments (or maybe just a few mini-updates occasionally). Taking into account the growing masses of comments and the large amount of work, I’m not sure why we (the community) expect you to not only hack the game and provide us updates, but also chat with us. =P
I pretty much say the same thing with every update.. But I cant help myself.. THANKS, YOU GUYS ROCK AND DESERVE CAKE + BEER!
There has been no such thing as Nintendo promising to localize a game then cancelling it, except maybe one game in the history of the world. I have no idea why anyone would suggest this possibility?
Nutsjesmoar: Jefflypuff couldn’t evolve into a Jefflytuff without the use of an evolving stone, and usually it’s better to not use those, pokemon don’t learn new moves once they’ve been evolved by a stone.
Guys don’t worry about NOA saying anything about mother 3 at E3.It will happen in the future if Earthbound sells very well,mark that down.
best update ever…seems like the end is near ^^
and in this case, thats a good thing
Indeed
@Cubear: Actually, it varies. For example, Vaporeon.
MasterInsan0, I don’t think closing the blog comments would be very fun! There’s been some interesting discussion to come out of this, and Mato obviously doesn’t read EVERYTHING, which is fine with me, at least. 🙂
However, I do think it would be cool if there were one or two moderators who filtered up only the good posts/ones with good questions to Mato so he didn’t have to bother with everything, and kind of took more charge of the ridiculous side-arguments that get going. If I was doing it, for instance, around where PLEASE NOTE! currently is there’d be a short and to the point warning against going on about a current fad derailment (like Mother 3->Earthbound 2, the current Nintendo translation what ifs, etc.) with an “official” stance on the issue. Plus taking care of other chores like deleting/editing spoiler comments or approving things caught in the spam filter that shouldn’t have been that Mato really shouldn’t have to concern himself with.
I’d volunteer despite it being a lot of work (and I could work some magic with WordPress as well given the chance, seeing as I work with it professionally) but I doubt I’m trusted enough for that kind of thing. I’m sure there’s someone over at starmen that have proven themselves capable of such a thing that would love to help the translation along by doing a few boring chores 🙂
I know this is completely nonsense, but does anyone else think this would be a perfect opportunity for Nintendo to foster an open source community? They could dump the source for unreleased/untranslated titles on the GBA scene and say “Have fun, guys.” They could use some kind of restrictive license which would allow them to publish the work of contributers to the open-source community, so that if a finished game/translation turned out well, they could sell it, perhaps at reduced price since they’d need less to profit after not having to pay anyone to do the coding. Is this just me?
It’s been awhile since I’ve said anything (maybe three weeks or so?), so here goes…
Awesome job so far Mato, Jeffman, and anyone else that’s helping…
Ok, back to studying for my AP Calculus test… that is tomorrow…
Cubear:
Alright, alright, I’m pressing the “B” button to stop evolution.
There goes a perfectly good Moon Stone..
I have to admit, even I have a tough time reading every comment, and this is on my free time. My response to the “what-if’s” is simply “We’ll cross that bridge if/when we come to it.”
For now, let’s ride Jeff’s crunchberry-powered bat steamroller that auto-targets toothbrush-wielding hippies.*
*also targets Annoying Revelers, Cranky Ladies, and Mighty Bear Sevens upon selection on the control panel. Trout yogurt dispenser add-on comes free with purchase.
Wow… I’m only 13 so I was born the year Earthbound came out, but when I got SSBB I became really interested and curious about Earthbound and Mother 3… wow and now that this translation is nearing completion and I’m playing thru earthbound right now, I can’t say anything except “Wow, this is WAY more than I expected from this series, and as a huge RPG fan I found the battle system a little disorienting at first but adapted to it and found that the story is AMAZING and I absolutely love the game and can’t wait for Mother 3
Nutsjesmoar: I thought you couldn’t cancel stone evolutions…
I knew my dream signaled something! Way to go gang!
idk, it’s been like 5 years since I played any pokemon games 😛
gimme a break
keep on truckin’, M3 team!
nj Mato!
I didn’t think for a second that you would post another update. I came back 2 days later and just saw this. My reaction: 😮
Me and Prof. Andronuts are rooting for you up here in Winters. Everytime I visit he always gives me lots of bubble-gum 🙂
[This hack update fully revitalized me, like a good night’s sleep.]
God, you guys are doing such a great job. It’s unbelievable how much effort you have put into this project. Keep it up guys!
So long as the light isn’t an oncomming train, that’s great news.
While it’s nice that you two have found a way to hack the game to allow for more accuracy in terms of text and translation, like allowing more characters and more space for text, I kinda disapprove of adding custom controls and the like. The only thing I’d want out of this is Mother 3 in English, and nothing else. Do your hacks if you must, but I’d rather you not alter the controls or anything or do anything not relating to text.
Otherwise, it looks like we’re almost about to see Mother 3 in English, finally. ^_^
We’re not adding “custom controls”, we’ve added “custom control codes”. Which is what allows the English to sound like English and not “This Gloves is equipment.”
i was actually confronted by a rambling old party man yesterday!
Mato you ROCK!!!
i dont think we should go on about what if NOA did _______ because 1 of us will break murpheys law and we will all suffer not having mato and jeffs translation.
thanks for replying to my questions mato
i’m gonna start carrying 2 boxes of captain crunch on the off chance that i met Jeff
HOORAY My jefflytuff prayers have been answered, stopped, then proven that the stop was wrong.
Nice mini updates Mato and remember later how many hearts you’ve chwarmed.
@Aron: wow, so there IS someone here my age
Mato, I’m sorry you have to answer question like Kisai’s :/ Mostly because misconstrued things become rumors, etc. :/
Good luck w/ your RL work :3 And get back to it. Ignore my comment! >:S
I’m glad you whippersnappers are showing interest in the Mother series. It’s no coincidence that to this day my favorite RPG’s are from the SNES and early PS days.
Hey, I bet they enjoy the praise, but for comments such as “KICKBUTT PWN PWN LOVING IT EB FANZ!!” that you’re just going to say again next update, keep them towards the end; they’d need as much comfort and thanks as they could get then 😀
— Twyleiht
Twyleiht:
True, true…
but anyway, KICKBUTT PWN PWN LOVING IT EB FANZ!!
Mato totaly deserves it every time. 😛
I’m sure this has been answered elsewhere, but what exactly do “PK” and “PSI” mean/stand for? I always just assumed that “PSI” was a weird, short way of writing “psychic” or something.
And yes, there is importance to chicks: We play games too! XD
Krono: I think it stands for “Psychic” and then a “K” word that means “attack”. 😀
@Krono:
I think that “PK” stands for “Psychokinesis”, and “PSI” is an abbreviation for “Psychic”.
Zeruel: That’s what I was thinking. I think?
Quick question before I forget: Will that sprite-flashing thing be fixed? It says that when there’s an overflow of information, the sprites flash. In the preview vid up there now, at 2:24.
DON’T GO TOWARDS THE LIGHT. IT’S A TRAP!
Yours truly
Reggie of NOA
PS We cannot have M3 released it’ll.
I would LOL so hard if Reggie did that. XD
@Gaia beam Actually EarthBound’s up there, but its like 2nd best for me, like, The Kingdom Hearts series is my favorite…. its a button masher RPG thats why… hehehehe
@Zeruel
You’re right, PK does stand for Psychokinesis. As for PSI, I did a little research…according to what I found, I think it stands for “psionics”, which may or may not be a real word. It might also have something to do with a greek letter, “psi”, that was apparently associated with these things.
You guys are amazing!
Thanks so much for doing this, even though you guys have precious little spare time.
Keep up the good work!
PSI is a Greek letter, specifically the one at the start of psychic and other such Greek-derived words. It’s also one of the Greek letters used as a variable in the wave equation of quantum mechanics, but that’s beside the point 🙂
PK is an abbreviation for psychokinetic. In other words, the ability to move something using only your mind.
There’s not that much difference between the two, save that certain things like telepathy aren’t properly considered psychokinetic (what do you ‘move’ via telepathy?), so PSI could be considered more general. But my understanding is that the game uses the English letters PK in the ability names, so that’s probably what Mato will go with… unless I’m wrong 🙂
PSI comes from the greek prefix “psy-” meaning something to do with minds
since we’re on the topic of PK and all that, I think we should give Mato and Jeffman their own PK attacks (like PK Love and PK Rockin’). How about it?
awesome idea, Reanzet, I hive an idea….
Mato= PSI Hackin
but thats all I got… sum1 come up with Jeffman’s please
You guys deserve some magic cake ^_^ I can’t wait until this is finished!
Everybody knows smart people don’t need PSI 🙂
You guys are kicking some coding tail. Teddy Roosevelt style!
I GOT IT
MATO=PSI HACKIN
JEFFMAN=PK CODIN
i have a question(has absolutely nothing to do with M3). if Mario & Luigi fought Mato and Jeff over a 37% and 1/4 of a box of capn crunch who would win?
ps: i thought thats what pk and psi meant.
PSI Meth
Guy with obnoxiously long name that begins with i-wish:
Here’s how the battle would play out:
M+L: we want dat der Capn Crunch!
M+J: *using uber hax mind trick* no, you want some thing else…
M+L: We wants LOTSA SPAGETTI!!! *run away*
M+J: We won! *high five* *take large spoon-fulls of Capn Crunch and munch jubilantly*
Game!!!
All of this PK and PSI talk made me think of something. In this translation, will the abilities the characters learn be called PK (which may be in the japanese version) or PSI, like in American Earthbound?
I think PK stand for psychokinetic, and PSI stands for psychic.
Thanks for the update guys, as always, keep up the great work!
I don’t think we got anything to worry about with nintendo bringing M3 here, it’ll never happen. I’m sure there are a ton of GBA games they’ll want to bring to VC before M3, they’ll never risk packaging, marketing, ect. a GBA game anymore, and it’ll take much longer to do a port to DS then it’ll take Mato and Jeff to hack it.
Hey Mato, if the opportunity arose, would you do a tv interview about the translation project when its done?
Screw a TV interview, a movie should be made about it. It’d be three hours of Mato sitting in front of a computer hacking the rom, then at the very end he mumbles “…menu programmer…” then falls asleep at his keyboard. Roll credits.
Alright, after way too much time and too much coffee, I think I’ve finally found the first hook into where the item display problem starts. It looks like it might be two separate problems actually, I hope they lead back to just one problem though. It’s gonna take a while to follow it too, this game is INSANE with memory shuffling. Important variables switch addresses absolutely constantly, and often get attached to other variables and bit shifted around until they’re unrecognizable. If it weren’t for this menu programmer, I bet this project would be done by now. At least the battle guy was cool and didn’t jump through 80 hoops to do one thing 😐
Clearly, the menu guy was trying to encrypt the code so that only superhackers could decipher it 🙂
But I’m sure you’ll figure it out.
Mato say “too much coffee” to Wink to me to Hide that He Was Do Meth ! Sound Like Maybe the Menu programmer Do Way More Meth Tho.. Maybe Even Some Other Stuff ! Wowee!
First EarthBound gets rated by the ESRB, now this… Things really are looking up for MOTHER fans. Keep up the great works, guys.
yay! you figured out the problem! (hopeflly!) on percentage you’re……… better keep this to myself. e-mail me if you want to find out. nin_bookguy@hotmail.com
anyway, way to go and keep it up! :D!
[Hands Mato a memory shuffle eraser]
Just don’t use it near a store that sells memories or shuffles.
Starting to look like a 2008 Release eeey ^^
*Stands in the end of the tunnel cheering the Hackteam on*
I’ll bet the menu programmer is also a fan of detangling Christmas lights.
Not trying to be the optimistic guy who you want to hit with a baseball bat, but it looks like you guys are getting a lot of good experience at programming and hacking here. I’m sure you’re a lot better now than you were when you started (and whether that’s good or bad, I guess it’s up to you.) I’d like to think that must be a nice (albeit not originally desired) side effect of this stupid experience, just like in every other area of life.
just outta curiosity… whats the menu programmers name?
We’ll make sure to play loud music so that we can get through the tunnel safely past the ghosts!
Mato: [You and the entire team are doing a great job! Keep it up!] There’s a sign up ahead that says that.
Mato, I own three different flashcarts for the GBA. When you guys release the final patch, I’d be willing to test the patched roms on all three of my flashcarts and tell everyone how well they run.
The flashcarts I own are a supercard SD, an Elink 1Gbit and an EFA-Linker 512 Mbit simple card. So gimmie a hoot n’ holla’ if that’d be of any help to you.
The Menu Programmer’s name:
Noobie McGee O’Ishiara
(the above is not serious, please don’t hurt anybody named O’Ishihara)
Hey Mato what is the name of the person who was the menu programmer ?
maf: No give us moneys.
Bytron: No, I don’t think that would happen. If it did happen, then yes, of course I’d let them. But it’ll probably never happen. If luck was on our side, they’d ask me to re-translate it from scratch for them, but the likeliness of that is extremely low too. But they have my number.
CLOWN: Agreed. Every year people get excited there might be something EB-related at E3, as E3 gets closer and closer and then nothing happens.
Anna: I don’t want to complicate things, so no mods or anything. People’ve been pretty good about being cool here, which is hard to believe since the blog’s been around like 8 or 9 months and out of almost 10,000 comments, only a very few have been of the jerkish negative variety. The cool dude-to-jerk ratio is really good here 😀
Vague Rant: Nah, it’d never happen. It’s a Japanese company, and they’re even more hard-headed than NOA when it comes to business matters. All this stuff we’re doing to NOA — if we tried that with NOJ/NCL we’d probably be arrested for being a nuisance. So it’s even LESS likely they’d be like “here are a bunch of old games you guys have fun translating them”.
Krono: PK = Psychokinesis as has been mentioned. PSI could be a number of things, but Psionics seems the most likely. I think they changed it for EB because the Japanese version used both PK (PK Fire, PK Starstorm, etc.) and PSI (PSI Shield, etc.) in names and it seemed strange/inconsistent/confusing.
Twyleiht: Dunno, depends on what the problem is and if it’s fixable. We’ll get there when we get there.
Luce: It will use a mixture of PK and PSI, just as the original game does.
Itoi’s Love Child: I dunno, a TV interview sounds pretty lame and almost like a “hey look at me it’s my 2 minutes of fame” sort of thing. Print media is probably more decent, but I don’t wanna think about any of that right now. Kind of pointless to think about it if the project’s not even done or if something should happen before it’s done.
TheReaper08: this makes it sound like it was one Tomonori Hiraishi.
Hey everyone! I don’t know if someone else mentioned this before or not but a whole group of remixers across the web such as VGMIX, Overlooked Remix, OverClocked Remix and OneUp Studios banded together to create a remix project unlike any other.
BEHOLD BOUND TOGETHER!!! http://www.wushuplaya.com/boundtogether/
Over 3 hours of remixed tracks from EarthBound! I just downloaded it and it is unreal. You can definitely tell a lot of work went into this project. Check it out everyone! You will need a torrent program to download it. Hope you enjoy!!
Yo, you probably answers this a few times in the past but the sound clips in jap that need to be redone in english; how will that be done? Just someone from the translating team recording his voice and putting it in the game? ^^
Who will have the honour?
The clips have already been recorded actually. But there are multiple takes and I gotta go through them later and pick out the best ones and make sure they fit in the space allotted (among other technical mumbo jumboy things), have the proper volume in-game, etc. reid, Meeellla, and Plo did the voices. If by some chance you don’t know who they are, they’re the people in this video. reid = webmaster of starmen.net, Meeellla = his wife, Plo = reid’s new brother in law of doom.
Just one more word about the “what ifs” and then I’ll be done.
@Edrees: You don’t think Nintendo has ever promised a localization and then cancelled it, eh? What about EARTHBOUND ZERO?!!! Uh-huh, that’s right, the original MOTHER game was even mentioned in Nintendo Power with everything set in place for it to be released. Then, as the game neared completion…BANG–it was shot out of the air by NOA. And if you think Mother 1 was the exception and not the rule, please research other blogs of other hackers translating other games, and you’ll find a whole ocean of titles that came close to localization but never made it.
And don’t forget EarthBound 64. It didn’t even get the chance to be localized because it was cancelled even in Japan, but that didn’t stop Nintendo from dangling it in front of American Gamers eyes at E3 and in Nintendo Power magazine.
So when I suggested that Nintendo might announce a translation of M3 and then, months later, cancel the project, I find it humorous that some people say, “Oh, Nintendo has never done that before. That’s a pretty big ‘if’. I doubt something as unprecedented as that could happen.” Edrees, you’re obviously not a history major.
This criticism, however, does not apply to you, Mato, as you object to my “what if” simply because you believe Nintendo will never make such a promise in the first place, which, I admit, is the most likely scenario. I’m fairly sure if they did make such a promise, you would rank yourself among the skeptics.
Okay, I’m done.
THIS NON-SPRITE TEXT DISPLAY ROUTINE IS THE STUPIDEST THING EVER ARGH @)*&T$*&*****
*stabs non-sprite text display routine*
Keep at it Mato, I have faith in you!
It seems we again run into the issue of 42 letters max at a time. This whole thing is so complicated and messed up that there may be even more to it than that, but dang this programming to not heaven. I’m thinking the only way around it is to do a big rewrite of the text engine. This whole thing is so stupid it makes me want to freak out like Frank Grimes in that one Simpsons episode.
Of course it’d be a no-brainer to rewrite if it wasn’t for that the routine is in small chunks all over the place and near impossible to just redo, right? XD
jeez, I’ve drawn so many smilin’ spheres while waiting for this I’ve become an expert at shading circles o.0
OH, I DON’T NEED TO USE GLOVES
BECAUSE I’M THE MENU PROGRA–
*BZBZBZBZBZBBRBTTTZTZZZTT*
Mato,
A Frank Grimes-esque tirade would be awesome, as long as you don’t electrocute yourself at the end of it. We need you 🙂
for the small japanese sound clips: can’t Mato just post his best drafts on here or the forums and have a poll, or is that too much trouble?
*mobilizes mob to attack…(checks naughty list) Tomonori Hiraishi!!!*
did I forget to mention its Mato’s personal mob?
mitch: heh that made me laugh out loud. Much needed when it comes to this craptastic programming too.
My idea right now is to basically turn the menu text routine into something more like the battle text routine, where things at least make sense and don’t have stupid limitations (anymore). Every – single – thing this menu programmer has done has been insane, the way he handles strings, the way (actually WAYS) he displays text, the way many single lines of menu text have their own separate routines, the stupid tilemap crap, the really weird and lame way of messing with the VCount to position text when a simple, easy function would’ve made it work so much better, etc. etc. We’ll have rewritten a huge chunk of this menu stuff by the time we’re done. That’s not hacking, that’s programming stuff ourselves. I know I’m complaining a lot today, but damn. This guy never gives us a break.
EDIT: BTW I found a suitable name for the game now heheh
I’m just kidding, for those who don’t understand humor
Please call it Earthbound 64!!!
That image makes me sad on the inside
Dang it! Stupid computer won’t post right…
Sorry for double post, computer acting up again…
Anyway, I think Mato needs some Mr. Saturn coffee to relax and have a random narrator guy tell him how far he’s come.
Hey, just to let you know, i will do EXTENSIVE testing with GPSP0.9 on the PSP to see if everything works OK when the patch comes out, and i will post my results somewhere (probably here).
Actually, i was playing it this afternoon.
Keep it up Mato!
[offtopic] (i still like Boob Wizards II lol)
Boob Wizards 64 pleeze
Hi everybody!
(Hi Dr. Nick Menuprogrammer!)
Today, I’ll show everybody how to program menus with a blender! First, we insert freshest squeezed code monkey into here…
—–
Maybe we should lend him some of those goggles, instead?
A Mr. Saturn gives you a Peanut Cheese Bar, Mato
Haha, I actually got that Earthbound 64 joke without thinking too hard.
And my doctor said my head would explode…
earthbound 64 for the win!
mato imo you should change the credits a bit to reflect this
– Menu Programmer –
XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
^ this guy caused the translation to take about half a year longer ^
– Battle Programming –
etc etc
*sigh* WHY does this menu programmer hate us so much?!
-The Earthbound 64 pic was funny, but then my heart just kinda sank because it wasn’t the game’s actual title, and because of the irony. I still got the joke within a heartbeat
Now for my humor: In Soviet Russia, Mother 3 programs you!
(Why do I get the feeling someone’s already posted this?)
This is the most epic hack ever voted 1.
Seriously though, although reprogramming text will be a pain, to me, that’s super awesome. :O
but won’t it be worth it in the end? Mato, I’ll bet after this hack is done, you’ll look back on it and laugh. But for now, just keep charging at it! “You can do it!”
YOU GUYS ARE MY HEROS
many have tried but none have ever gotten this far……..
you can do it!!!!!!1!111one!!!! equals right parenthisis =)
@lolomgwtgdairyqueenbbq: *facepalms at the end of your statement*
Don’t hate me for this, but I almost have to feel sorry for the original menu programmer. Given how many issues are coming up here, it probably was quite a mess for him(her?) to go through themselves in the actual source. Maybe it was a new Brownie Brown employee? I probably wouldn’t be sticking up for the person except all this reminds me of how awful I code my stuff, and I don’t even really use actual programming.
I know petitions haven’t worked in the past, but maybe if everyone here signs we can get a petition up to have the Menu Programmer kicked in the shins.
Man this isn’t fair I figured it was time to post for the first time. This site is like crack I swear, long time EB fan from way back only found out a month ago there was a sequel and every day since I have been here like your my crack dealers… LOL Anyways former system tester / computer programmer so I feel your pains but appreciate your work muchly.
I cant wait, when I don’t see a new update I check back 10 times as much. LOL
Anyways Thanks guys
Jay
Just think though when this project is all done. We can sit around the fire, knash on some marshmallows and say “Remember the menu programmer? That guy sucked. lol and rofl.”. Those will be the good ole’ days.
That makes some sense, since today programming is done where large portions of the code are not known to most programmers, and instead each one just knows the portion they worked on. In most situations, this is for the best as it speeds everything up. The only thing the other programmers need to know is the input, output, and operators that the other sections of code use and as such don’t need to know the code. This does allow an inefficient programmer some leenway in “flying under the radar” without much complaint so much as the end product works.
Okay new image: New programmer, hired for his first major project. Barely passed his classes, and now has everything to lose and everything to prove. Struggling every day, a lot of basic coding is just too troublesome and he keeps having to hack together solutions due to glitches every time he goes the efficient route. Though he can’t seem to get things right, through unorthodox and downright wasteful methods, he does somehow get the job done. I introduce the Naruto of programming.
In other words, mitch should illustrate the menu programmer as a spikey haired kid with a headband displaying the Mother series insignia (the earth).