Lingering Bug Fixed

16 years ago by Mato

Very short update, but wanted to mention that I did indeed kill that bug I discovered yesterday. It was actually pretty simple, but it was again related to the fact that for some reason there are 9890710.3 different routines that all do the exact same thing. So annoying. Anywhere, here is before and after.


Meanwhile, I also started to run the scrubbed script through a grammar/spell checker just because there’s a chance there might be lines we’ll miss during testing. Out of the first 25% of the script, it only picked up 2 real typos, not bad.

Anyway, I’ll do a tiny bit more of that and also get started on fixing the sprite text morphing. This week doesn’t look like it will be too too busy, so I might find some time to make good progress. I’m hoping we can finish all the hacking this month.

Posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 12:40 am by Mato, filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments and pings are currently closed.

357 Responses to “Lingering Bug Fixed”

  1. mike k said 16 years ago:

    I seriously just went on and by chance there had been an update 0 minutes ago. Just ordered spore…and now I play the waiting game.

  2. asdf said 16 years ago:

    SECOND

  3. blankrubber said 16 years ago:

    Mato, you are unbelievable. Good work.

    Concerning the grammar/spell check problem, the spell check doesn’t seem to be an issue since most programs can take care of it, but, honestly, I think you need a human to work the grammar. I would be willing to give up some of my time, but I know you don’t want unofficial help with the project. You could send the text file off in pieces to specific people and have them check the grammar on pieces of the script, then send it back fixed. Just an idea for you. I never trust computers with grammar =P.

  4. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Draft 2 was also about finding typos/grammar, so there’s very little left. The test playthrough after was also about that. The long testing phase will also be about it. So don’t think we’re going not going to use humans (or that we haven’t yet). The automated thing is just a little extra insurance.

  5. Hello Kitty said 16 years ago:

    Very nice to see the project coming to completion. I would cry if Nintendo played a sick joke and decided to announce an English translation days before the patch is released.

  6. Mato said 16 years ago:

    I wouldn’t mind, to be honest. I think I’d only be upset if they decided to yell at us right before the patch was ready.

  7. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    You know, given how much people love to point out typos, you COULD upload the text somewhere and let people who don’t mind being spoiled peer through it all ๐Ÿ™‚

    Yeah, they’ll lack context and complain about irrelevant things, but…

    Just chop it into pieces & add line numbers to it with a program, so they can actually tell you which its should be it’s, or whatever ๐Ÿ™‚

  8. Drรผ said 16 years ago:

    Smelly Ghost

  9. Gnu1516 said 16 years ago:

    schweet! can’t wait.

    keep on keeping on man

  10. Mighty Bear Seven said 16 years ago:

    Good job, you guys are awesome!

  11. UW Ness said 16 years ago:

    Somebody wrote at the end of the last update, something about not posting spoilers, in response to a comment that said: ‘snape kills lucas.’

    Lol.

    And WHERE can I find me some of those keychains?????

  12. cale said 16 years ago:

    I still can’t believe I’ll be playing a brand new 8-bit mega man BEFORE an english Mother 3…that’s the most F’d up thing ever I say.

  13. ok said 16 years ago:

    i heard a rumour that shigeru miyamoto (creator of earthbound) is suing mato personally.. what a terrible thing

  14. soupy said 16 years ago:

    “shigeru miyamoto (creator of earthbound)”
    did I really just hear that
    you had better be trolling

  15. 8BitWalugi said 16 years ago:

    # ok said 0 minutes ago:

    i heard a rumour that shigeru miyamoto (creator of earthbound) is suing mato personally.. what a terrible thing

    Rofl. clearly your wrong because ’twas it shegesato itoi who made earthbound. i know your being sarcastic but still.

  16. Unsavory Maggot said 16 years ago:

    Wow, amazing what I can see, getting online when I should be sleeping for work. Awesome job, Tomato! ๐Ÿ˜€

  17. harry said 16 years ago:

    Ok, Miyamoto did NOT create earthbound. Shigesato Itoi did.

  18. Beck said 16 years ago:

    It may be finished this month? That’s good to hear.

  19. soupy said 16 years ago:

    3 hidden links
    I found them all I think :]

  20. Brian said 16 years ago:

    Glad to hear that progress is doing wonderfully! Btw, I love the new installment of the Earthbound Keychainz Adventures! Haha loved the end where you crossed out booze and put coffee. Sooooo Earthbound!

  21. Poser Man said 16 years ago:

    Beck, the hacking may be done by the end of the month, the patch wont be released until after testing still.

    Tomato, your my hero

  22. millhouse said 16 years ago:

    you should audition for the show HEROES. you have the incredible superpower of translating and hacking untranslateable/unhackable games! and the power to turn into a Tomato…

    really. get some rest. you’re hacking too fast. next thing you know, you’ll wake up out of your trance and have Mother 3 finished…

  23. ZPE said 16 years ago:

    Awesome stuff Mato!

  24. whoreman Jr said 16 years ago:

    playing with keychains when you could be RELEASING THE PATCH!!!

  25. BlueStarManDX said 16 years ago:

    Now those…..

    Are incredibly awesomely hidden secret links ๐Ÿ™‚

    Found 3, think that’s them all.

    Keep it up! Nintendo better not want to interfere yet… we’re almost there!

  26. kalbtrombone said 16 years ago:

    Let me reiterate what I have said earlier: Even if Nintendo makes an announcement of an official Mother 3 Translation,

    DO NOT DELETE YOUR WORK

    I wouldn’t put it past Nintendo to announce it and pull the plug on it a year later, just to kick us while we’re down.

  27. Acacia Sgt said 16 years ago:

    So the hacking is nearly done? Good, keep it up!

  28. triangle said 16 years ago:

    excellent work Mato,

    on a side note… so it was coca-cola that made EarthBound after all

  29. Elpaulo said 16 years ago:

    Oh My Gosh, Can’t wait to play in English with a 1GB EFA Linker on my DS

  30. Elpaulo said 16 years ago:

    Keep it up Mato

  31. Inzoum said 16 years ago:

    Somehow I imagined Block 0 would take a good month to get through… This is a bit of a “woah!” moment, keep it up!

  32. Aphrodine said 16 years ago:

    The updates have been crazy fast lately. o__o

    Good job, kiddo. We’re in the final stretch. <3

  33. Zeph101 said 16 years ago:

    This is a bit off-topic hear Mato but I was wondering if you would be translating the game manual and box as well?

  34. Vagn said 16 years ago:

    No don’t post the script I don’t have the willpower to not look at it ๐Ÿ™
    Good luck on the sprite text morphing, *Generic Praises* and such.

  35. Xlr0 said 16 years ago:

    I was with out electricity for a day yesterday cuz hurricane ike hit me and I come home to this.

  36. $p@c3-G! said 16 years ago:

    Oh my god!!! is almost finished. Keep up the good work, you guys ROCK!!!

  37. NintendoLover64 said 16 years ago:

    THIS IS AWSOME i can’t wait

    p.s. can you tell us how to download it when its ready ๐Ÿ™‚

  38. Mikku said 16 years ago:

    You are doing such a good job : D I’m so excited!! Mother 2 was my fave game growing up and still is, so being able to play mother 3 will be amazing.

  39. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    I love waking up to find a new update

  40. Rai said 16 years ago:

    I love coming back from a busy weekend to find two updates!

  41. Nesu said 16 years ago:

    cool mato but don’t delete the patch if nintendo anounces a real traslatio cause you can get money if you demand them for stealing your traslation you will be rich.

  42. Rrickyr said 16 years ago:

    i think wut if ninteno remakes a patch to come out after rite when matos patch is abotu to come. a real translatio would be to stealing. yes, rich!!!!! hahaha lol

  43. albatr0ss said 16 years ago:

    FOURTY-THIRD

  44. The Great Morgil said 16 years ago:

    Great job. Keep it up. Generic songs of praise. Etc.

    BTW, i just love the hidden link in this update ๐Ÿ™‚

  45. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Finished putting the script through a spell checker. In all, it turned up maybe 20 actual things out of many hundreds of pages, which is good in several ways. Anyway, it’s a nice feeling to have those gone for sure, and I’m sure we’ll find any strange grammar stuff during the testing, if any still remains.

  46. J said 16 years ago:

    I am bursting with anticipation!!

  47. Moose said 16 years ago:

    That was fast..

  48. Vagn said 16 years ago:

    There are always a couple awkward sentences in professional localizations so I wouldn’t sweat over finding the ones in your translation.

  49. Anthony said 16 years ago:

    YEAH
    It’s going really fast !!!
    Let’s go Mato, thw worst is behind !!!

  50. Zaratus said 16 years ago:

    So, without any control codes and such, how BIG is that script? Two hundred pages? Double that?

    Single-spaced or double-spaced? How big are the margins? What’s the word count? How many letters are there? How many instances of the letter ‘Z’ are there?

    Err, that last bit is just being silly, but I’m still curious as to how big the script actually is.

  51. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    I wonder how long after the patch until someone makes a joke modification of it that changes the description of Nut Bread to “Apply directly to the forehead!” ๐Ÿ™‚

  52. That Crazy Guy said 16 years ago:

    I must say I’m literally giddy with anticipation now. I’ve been checking the site almost everyday for about 7 months and it’s so close to completion that I can taste the nut bread. I’ve got all the prerequisites downloaded and ready to go so all I’m waiting for is the final patch.
    Mato, I simply can’t express the amount of gratitude I have for your ability to take on a project of this sheer magnitude. You Jeffman, and the others the have helped out on this project have given up so much simply so that we, the Japanese illiterate, can enjoy the wonders that are mother 3, knowing that the majority of the people who play your patch will know almost nothing of the grueling work that you put into the project. Many will complain about insignificant details and will fill message boards with posts about how they could have done twice the translation that you did. But the loyal patrons of this board know the truth. This is a work of love and dedication, and I for one will be eternally grateful for the work you guys put into this. I will search every nook and cranny in the game and will enjoy it to the fullest extent possible. So thank you, and know that I’ll never be able to shop in a produce section again without thinking about the dedication that one Tomato gave so that the world would be given the chance to play mother 3 in all it’s translated glory.

  53. mitch said 16 years ago:

    A Fan: http://i35.tinypic.com/14eawyr.png

    How long was that? ,’/

  54. Edrees said 16 years ago:

    Great!!! Awesome to see this progress!!

  55. EmpoleMew said 16 years ago:

    I almost cried with happiness. But then I remembered there’s a testing phase. ๐Ÿ˜› Then again, testing is necessary.

    Either way, I just want to see what Nintendo does. If they don’t do anything, I’m happy. If they decide to release it themselves and actually do it, I’d be happy, but less happy then I’d be with the patch.

  56. PizzaPasta said 16 years ago:

    Wow, I am going to be kind of sad when this is all done…

    I love this blog and I really love this project. I don’t think I have ever been so excited about a translation patch before.

    Keep up the great work guys!

  57. Faux said 16 years ago:

    All legal hullabaloo aside, I doubt Nintendo would ever try to pull anything. They are well aware that translating M3 is a ride through the Amazon Jungle in a wheel chair. If anything, I bet they respect you for pulling this off.

  58. Alato said 16 years ago:

    My birthday is December 1st. If this patch comes out that day, it will be one of the greatest birthday gifts ever.

    But if it comes out sooner, I may be happier.

  59. Reagle said 16 years ago:

    Thanks, Mato and team.

  60. N-Dawg said 16 years ago:

    Hey Mato do you plan on taking a vacation after this is done you know like a trip to the beach or some sort of r and r like that cuz i think u should

  61. KaioShin said 16 years ago:

    I had a very similiar problem to your sprite morphing in Dragon Quest Monsters too. The stupid game redraw the whole text every frame, and in rare cases were the screen was really full with text the vwf was too slow and it caused flickering text. I didn’t find a solution other than to optimize the vwf code to be as fast as technically possible, but it didn’t 100% solve the problem. It should be so rare now though that 9 out of 10 players will never see it.

    The only real solution would be to stop the game from redrawing the text every frame. But that might have so many side effects I don’t even want to try. I’m looking forward to the solution you’ll find, who knows, maybe it’ll give me an idea for a final bug fix ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Best of luck to you!

  62. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Yeah, I already optimized the code to get a huge speed boost a while back, but it still caused the problem. The current idea I have is to:

    When a change in text is detected:
    1. draw the letters to somewhere in memory temporarily, also write the new OAM data to a temp location
    2. DMA OAM data from the previous time
    3. pause to wait for the next frame
    4. quickly DMA the temporary letters to OBJ memory and update the OAM with the new data
    5. make a backup of the new current data for the next time around

    I’m not sure if it’ll work, but it seems to make the most sense. If nothing seems to work, I could maybe do the last-ditch effort of temporarily blanking out OBJ memory until the OAM data is correct. It’d mean blinky text every single time text changes though, might also mean constantly blinking text in other cases. Just gonna have to try everything and see.

  63. Master of Ramen said 16 years ago:

    Have you guys considered selling this patch to Nintendo?

  64. NovaMan XP said 16 years ago:

    Man, it’s so close. ^_^ I really can’t wait to finally play this in English. I’ll be playing it on my PSP. xD

  65. Jatopian said 16 years ago:

    Mato your hidden link is so awesome. Where can I find more EarthBound Keychain Adventures?

  66. Karuvitomsk said 16 years ago:

    @Master of Ramen: People have already asked this. They’re not going to, and it would be an impractical idea anyways.

  67. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Jatopian: That was actually the only one I made, and I made it like 4 or 5 years ago.

  68. Poe said 16 years ago:

    20 typos out of 100 pages? And still more grammar-checking to be done during testing?

    You’re already kicking the ass of an extremely popular, officially-translated RPG, so this, in itself, is its own little victory.

    “Do you want to continue?

    > Off course!”

  69. Zaxtur said 16 years ago:

    You’re a machine! Don’t lose your momentum.

  70. mitch said 16 years ago:

    Oh, wow. I just found the hidden video link.

    That’s me. ๐Ÿ˜€

  71. Lei said 16 years ago:

    Wow, you guys really know how to solve these bugs and glitches. It makes me really happy and excited to see how dedicated you fans are!! Two thumbs high up!

    Tomato, the Keychain Adventurez was pwnsome. Slightly innapropriate though XDDDDD
    Were those the Coca-Cola keychains passed out to promote Mother 1+2? Wow, cool. I’m kind of afraid about clicking the YouTube links, though. (What are they?)

  72. Acacia Sgt said 16 years ago:

    Wait, are there more links than the keychain one?

  73. blueflare said 16 years ago:

    Jee-BUS, Mato. You are awesome beyond belief, and you and the team will go down as internet heroes.

  74. ok said 16 years ago:

    keep up the good work mato. light, end, tunnel, etc.

  75. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Acacia Sgt: The obvious one was a decoy ๐Ÿ˜‰

  76. noco said 16 years ago:

    can i be a beta tester plzzzzzz
    ๐Ÿ˜‰

  77. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Of course, the latest patch is here. Or here, I forget.

  78. Smile said 16 years ago:

    Hahahaha mato.

  79. Jamian said 16 years ago:

    Super Earthbound!

    Yes!! Thank you so much for giving us the patch early.

    Do you still think text morphing will take 3+ weeks?

  80. pwnly said 16 years ago:

    finally Earthbound 2 will be released to the public soon. Thanks a bunch, Mato!

  81. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    You smell, eh?

    Nice one, Mato

  82. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    So, basically, you plan to double-buffer the letters? Makes sense.

    Often in graphics, people keep two copies of everything they draw, so that whenever an update is triggered, it only transfers data from whichever copy is finished, though they write to the scratchpad at any old time.

    [ For anyone who doesn’t understand what I just said: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_buffering ]

  83. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    @Mitch: Very nice ๐Ÿ™‚

  84. Mato said 16 years ago:

    No, not really. It’s different from double buffering.

  85. Pistachio? said 16 years ago:

    the update’s have been getting more frequent thanks to the godliness of “The Mato”. ๐Ÿ˜€

  86. Coconut of Enlightenment said 16 years ago:

    I’m guessing the wierd sprite text morphing doesn’t happen all the time. I’m just saying that because I’m hoping it’s not a very big problem, you know, just in case you try all these different things only to find out it’s impossible to fix. I’m sorry, it’s just that I hate it when new problems pop up. I think we all can agree when I say I want this thing done soon (but seriously, no pressure. This is your baby, after all, not mine). Still, I’ve got nothing to do in the meantime but sigh despondently.

    …*sigh*…

  87. SBaby said 16 years ago:

    You’ve probably tried this already, but in case you haven’t.

    I was working on a program awhile back with scrolling text very similar to the way text scrolls in Mother 3 (it was a Dragon Quest-style game). I had the same problem with the morphing. Finally, I added a .01 second delay to each page and that stopped most, if not all of the morphing.

    The only thing is, I don’t know if you’ve got enough space for that or not. It didn’t affect my total usage that much, but I don’t know exactly how much you’ve got left to work with compared to how much I had.

  88. mike k said 16 years ago:

    I think that arashi deserves to download the patch first. He is the most commited fan

  89. noco said 16 years ago:

    no ok is

  90. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Oh neat, today we passed the 4,000,000 pageviews mark, with 450,000 unique views since last August. Darn, if only I had a nickel everytime someone loaded a page ๐Ÿ˜›

  91. PSIPwnage said 16 years ago:

    Mato, your pretty much the godliest entity in the history of my life.

  92. Kak said 16 years ago:

    gratz on that menz..you deserve that ^_^

  93. Lei said 16 years ago:

    Sorry, a little off-topic, but is there a name for the font used in Earthbound/this fan translation? Just wondering, since I’ve seen it used somewhere else…

  94. Arsenis said 16 years ago:

    Throw an ad up.

  95. guy said 16 years ago:

    the “you smell” link was very inappropriate. grow up mato.

  96. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Err, how is it different from double buffering, really? I mean, you have two copies of the data and you only ever copy over the finished ones…

    Also, you only really have to swap pointers, don’t you? As described, you’re moving the 2nd copy of the letters from one location in RAM to another for seemingly no reason ๐Ÿ™‚

  97. Karma said 16 years ago:

    guy: “the โ€œyou smellโ€ link was very inappropriate. grow up mato.”

    @guy: Wah. Wah. Wah. Complaining about it is twice as immature. Take your own advice and grow up, yourself. AND learn to take a joke.

  98. |||lllIII|-|l_ said 16 years ago:

    I made some fan art just for you, Mato!
    http://i34.tinypic.com/34nrp.jpg

  99. Adam said 16 years ago:

    Once the hacking is done, how long do you think testing will take?

  100. Molor- said 16 years ago:

    @Karma: Stop sucking up. The “noco” guy might have been new and may not have knew that Mato doesn’t like people asking if they can be beta testers, Mato is in his right to do whatever he wants, this is his site and he is in charge of the project, but if someone here needs to grow up it’s not this “guy” guy.

    And by the way, the noco guy was obviously joking, bad grammar, lots of “z”s at the end of the post and a “;)” emoticon, so both you and Mato should take YOUR advice and learn to take a joke.

  101. JAYROCK said 16 years ago:

    Love you Mato. <3

  102. millhouse said 16 years ago:

    those two links to the “patch” were actually so obviously fake I just HAD to click them. nice one.

    Oh noes, I have been foiled again!

  103. Jungyin said 16 years ago:

    @Molor

    In my opinion being new to a site is no excuse for not reading up and informing yourself, especially if there is a FAQ or similar page available.

    Also, even if it was a joke, whether one “gets” such jokes over the internet depends on one’s state of mind when reading them.

  104. Mato said 16 years ago:

    rofl, I guess people don’t realize that noco ISN’T new here, or that there was a ๐Ÿ˜‰ in his post. Or that those are old old joke links.

  105. Germ said 16 years ago:

    Or that the world is round.

  106. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    I do remember that old ” You Smell” link. It was around May or June if I recall, and some one had asked for a beta, and Mato had said. “Sure. Here it is. PATCH” with “Patch” being the link, followed by someone saying a couple hours later, “Hey Mato… That I clicked on that link and it said “You Smell”…”

  107. aug said 16 years ago:

    Even if nintendo did announce a US version to come out in a year or two, i almost trust this translation more than what their’s would be

  108. Nutsjesmoar said 16 years ago:

    @|||lllIII|-|l_:
    Awesome art, d00d!!

  109. Habiib said 16 years ago:

    Mato,
    I was thinking of the old PK Hack for some reason today, and I remembered that there was a button or something that you press and it said, “Mr Saturn keeeell you.” So, if you ever get upset or downright filled with rage over this patch, just think of Mr Saturn vs Hitler. I know it works for me.

  110. Demolisho said 16 years ago:

    Nintendo called me up, they said they don’t care about actual games anymore, and if they do make a new mother game, it’ll have a smell sensor and you’ll have to actually fart or belch in it for attacks. There wont be a story, since the game will be a 5 minute long party game, but man will it have replay value of 2 minutes.

  111. Josh D said 16 years ago:

    Not to put any pressure on you guys, but my birthday IS October 13. Also, last year I got the Japanese cart of mother 3 as a gift, so consistency in the the gift theme this year would be nice…

    Just saying.

  112. jellytack said 16 years ago:

    heh… imagine getting mother 3 for your birthday? man that would be sweet ๐Ÿ™‚

  113. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Heh, whatever day the patch is released, it’s gonna be *someone’s* birthday ๐Ÿ˜› Unless it’s some really crazy day when nobody can be born, like Smarch 32nd.

  114. BlueStarManDX said 16 years ago:

    What about Dec.12…?

    LOL, just kidding. PK INSPIRATION!!!!!!!!!!!

    *gives mato junk food*

  115. Germ said 16 years ago:

    Having a birthday on March 8th, I must demand that you do not conceive any amount or size of trickeries to delay this amazing project to coincide with said date. Or else… I will be sad.

  116. 199X said 16 years ago:

    hehe I’m not even joking my actual birthday is tomorrow. September 17, 1990 baby I was going to post something earlier about it but I didn’t want people to yell at me for asking for it to be rushed. Woooo Constitution Day (September 17th)

  117. Mato said 16 years ago:

    I guess in your case X = 0 ๐Ÿ˜›

  118. Karuvitomsk said 16 years ago:

    Just a quick question: is the input for “your favorite thing” at least 15 characters long? I’d like to use “Boob Wizards II” if I could.

  119. Alfonso Alfredo said 16 years ago:

    This patch will be so awesome it will be even better than Jane Austen’s Mafia!

  120. The Game Master said 16 years ago:

    Man, you guys are AMAZING. You must work with people from the future or life forms more intelligent than us.

  121. Mato said 16 years ago:

    The fav. thing is 8 letters long I think. 8 or 9, I can’t remember.

  122. Magus said 16 years ago:

    So Boob Wiz will have to do Karu.

  123. |||lllIII|-|l_ said 16 years ago:

    ฮŸฮปฮฟฮบฮปฮทฯฯŽฮธฮทฮบฮตฮทฮฑฯ€ฮฟฯƒฯ„ฮฟฮปฮฎฯ„ฮฟฯ…ฮฒฮฏฮฝฯ„ฮตฯŒฯƒฮฑฯ‚ฯƒฯ„ฮฟ Russian Tree Frogs

    I support this patching of Mother 3.
    It was much better than that Mother 2ยฝ fan game.

  124. Germ said 16 years ago:

    I recently coerced my friend to begin playing EarthBound for the first time ever. He began, as we all did once upon a time, by naming his party, food, and faves. In addressing the latter, he chose to designate Boobs as his favorite thing(s).

    Upon realizing the power of Boobs Alpha, he knew immediately that this was ‘the best game ever’. He, too, is now looking forward to this translation as he moves through the prequel at lightning speed. You just can’t beat spreading EarthBound goodness.

  125. mitch said 16 years ago:

    i can’t believe people still talk about boob wizards. i feel like such a pimp.

  126. kevinchai said 16 years ago:

    You ARE a pimp

  127. noco said 16 years ago:

    Mato to the rescue ๐Ÿ˜€

  128. Dark Hamstelord said 16 years ago:

    @jellytack

    It would be AWESOME if MOTHER3 was released on my birthday.

    Not because it’s my birthday, but because my birthday is in 12 days ๐Ÿ˜›

  129. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    What if someone here was born on Feb 29…?

  130. CJC said 16 years ago:

    Hey Mato, did you guys ever figure out what you’ll do to send all of those “The Patch is done!” emails?

  131. aysyasyasyasy said 16 years ago:

    BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP YOUR WORK
    Your so far into the project
    backup like 5 cd’s!!!

  132. triangle said 16 years ago:

    yeahhh dont worry dude, he makes sure and backs up files ๐Ÿ™‚

  133. Mato said 16 years ago:

    backups are mentioned on the faq page

  134. Mato said 16 years ago:

    CJC: I’m not in charge of that, but I don’t think it’s been decided yet.

  135. Mc Giygas said 16 years ago:

    Wow man, so close! And I’m pretty sure mato keeps backups (why wouldn’t he, lol) >_>

  136. Poser Man said 16 years ago:

    Arashi they would age 4 times slower than everone else B)

  137. mitch said 16 years ago:

    i posted this last night but i guess it didn’t show up

    http://i36.tinypic.com/2qvcwns.png

  138. Quatchi said 16 years ago:

    haha uhh… guys…?
    I was born on february 29th… ๐Ÿ˜›

    But seriously.
    I’m not waiting until 2012 to play this game,
    and i’m sure mato isn’t planning on waiting that long to release it, either =)

  139. Mato said 16 years ago:

    I bet it’d be pretty polished by then though ๐Ÿ˜›

  140. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    you’re on a roll, Mato.

  141. EmpoleMew said 16 years ago:

    Maybe its just because I’d like to torture people with something like this, but I’d wait until either like 1:00 AM on Christmas morning (Because we’d all be asleep, right?) or 11:57 PM on New Year’s Eve. That way, we could download the patch and still have time to celebrate 2009. But that’s just me.

    Also, whether you’re a Pokemon fan or not, you MUST hear this song! (Hope the link shows up.)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTwH5LcEh-I&fmt=18

  142. EmpoleMew said 16 years ago:

    Yay, it did. ๐Ÿ™‚

  143. interestedguy said 16 years ago:

    it looks so hard, mato, how do u learn 2 speak/read asian???

  144. Super3dcow said 16 years ago:

    My birthday is October 2. Oh man that would be sweet if it was finished by then. Since it has not reached the testing phase yet, I suspect it wont be ๐Ÿ™

  145. Crass said 16 years ago:

    my birthday is october 28th, I think I’ve got a semi decent chance ;D

  146. eyfey said 16 years ago:

    Ohmigosh. My birthday is February 30. Mato- I command you to release the patch on that exact date D< Not before, not after.

    In all honesty- I could even wait years for this patch to come out. We love you for all your hard work Mato, Jeffman and the rest. This is a fact.

  147. PSI Supernova said 16 years ago:

    A few months ago I thought it might get released on my birthday (October 5) but I guess not. Ah well, it’ll be like a late present from everyone’s favorite hacker to the world. Whenever it’s released, it’ll be great. I’m almost going to explode from anticipation!

  148. collin said 16 years ago:

    my birthday is october 29th. shoot for it?

  149. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Nah, it’s just gonna be done when it’s done. Even I don’t know when that might be yet. We won’t know a precise date until just a few days beforehand.

  150. Triple10X said 16 years ago:

    I just took the week of November 10th-14th off for vacation – I am silently hoping the patch will be done by then. If not, no big deal, but I want to take Itoi’s advice and play the game at a leisurely pace.

  151. Chris said 16 years ago:

    On the topic of the emails, here is a bash script that will send everyone in a plaintext file (seperated by a new line) an email with the linux “mailx” command.

    Just name the email list as email_list.txt and the body of the email email_body.txt

    Store this in a script file (like m3mailer.sh ; but any name will do) and chmod it to execute (755 or similar). To run it, type “./m3mailer.sh”

    The script is below:

    ———————————————————-
    subject=”Mother 3 Fan Translation Complete”
    address=”email”
    cat email_list.txt | while read address; do
    mailx -s “$subject” “$address” < email_body.txt
    done
    ———————————————————-

  152. AJ said 16 years ago:

    hey my parents’ anniversary is october 29th

  153. Belmont said 16 years ago:

    Awesome work yet again Mato.

  154. Taco said 16 years ago:

    Oh Mato, you are such a sexy vegetable. Take me, take me now!

  155. gBev said 16 years ago:

    Mato, are you still shooting for November-December, or are you thinking maybe earlier?

  156. Incredibleman said 16 years ago:

    I can’t wait till the last post…
    It’s finished!
    I can just picture it.
    That will be a happy day for many a mother fan.

  157. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    Well, Without a doubt, this thing will be done before the year is over, so I’m ok

    Though a Christmas or Thanksgiving release would be awesome, I must admit

  158. jealous herbivore said 16 years ago:

    NO ME!!

  159. Zinco said 16 years ago:

    There’s no way Tomato wouldn’t back up his files a million times after what happened with Star Ocean.

  160. Monodi said 16 years ago:

    This is incredible, i cant believe there are just bare things to sweep now. My friends have been anxious to see this concluding, but I guess it won’t be released immediately after everything gets brushed right? I mean, I guess there will be a suspenseful moment awaiting if Nintendo will make a move or not in last minute or something?

  161. Jupiter-x said 16 years ago:

    Speaking of the emails, were you planning on sending them after it’s out? Or just after you figure out exactly when it’ll be out? Like, ON release day, or ANNOUNCING release day?

  162. Daemoncollector said 16 years ago:

    @Chris:
    The issue isn’t with how to actually send the mail..the issue is how to send it in such a way that you don’t end up looking like a spammer to automated filters. A massive dump of emails like that coming from the same server in such a short time will set off all kinds of red flags.

  163. madlobster said 16 years ago:

    I have a feeling it will be done before thanksgiving. No proof, but I recently had a dream about me with my GBA playing Mother 3 while waiting in a really long line at Best Buy buying whatever they have on sale the next day after thanksgiving. (also, in my dream there was a new DS Zelda game, but that’s not too applicable to this blog. It was online, and had these weird red enemies.)

  164. The Game Master said 16 years ago:

    I’d like to see some of M.D. Seegers musical masterpieces in this game, is there any music by him? ๐Ÿ˜›

    Man, looks like you guys will be done ahead of schedule.

  165. The Game Master said 16 years ago:

    I saw an update on tomato fobby net about EB0 on M3. It seems that M3 is wierdly programmed to prevent stuff like that and this translation from happening.

  166. interestedguy said 16 years ago:

    would somebody please explain where i can learn to speak/write asian? i want to help

  167. Sleepy, Staring said 16 years ago:

    interestedguy: I dunno. I’d like to learn Asian too. Then I could freely traverse the continent of Asia speaking the single dialect they have.

    Oh yeah, every time I check I get more and more excited. I have taken to humming random Mother 3 songs in periods of boredom (School, etc.)

  168. Murmur95 said 16 years ago:

    From what chris was sayig, you could make a virtual machine of a unix SMTP mail server using VMware or just place it on the host.

    This way you will be able to send out your own emails and as many as you want and i am sure no one filters would think you are spamming because there are sites that send millions of emails a day.

  169. odan said 16 years ago:

    from the sounds of things , its gonna be till the end of the month till the work is pretty much done. Another month of testing.
    So really i could see this thing being completely done for Novemeber. That of course is so long as nothing goes wrong, and of course is something goes right.

  170. Jamian said 16 years ago:

    Disgaea 4 will out before Mother 3 is done. Disgaea 3 was already done translating way before this anyway. ๐Ÿ˜€

  171. Jamian said 16 years ago:

    Also WHERE THE EFF IS THE KEYCHAIN ADVENTURE LINK?

  172. mike k said 16 years ago:

    @Zinco: What happened to star ocean?

  173. mike k said 16 years ago:

    HERES A GREAT EMAIL IDEA. SCREW EM. DONT SEND EM.

  174. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Just as I finished the final script revision for Star Ocean my hard drive died and I didn’t have any recent backups.

  175. Murmur95 said 16 years ago:

    ouch, talk about Murphy’s law

  176. Itoi's love child said 16 years ago:

    “Lingering bug fixed”, doesn’t that sound like it’d make a good enemy name? Lingering bug….

  177. Murmur95 said 16 years ago:

    We should make a game out of this…It will be a epic story of the young hero Mato taking on the evil code with his magical keyboard and friends.

  178. Poo said 16 years ago:

    Everyone, when the patch comes out, think of it as your early birthday present. Or just don’t download it until your birthday.

  179. TheMetroidMan said 16 years ago:

    Someone should make a YTMND from the scene in Wanted where Wesley smashes the keyboard across his best friends face. Although instead of Wesley you can post a Tomato over his face and make the best friend Block 0. That would very epic.

  180. Lei said 16 years ago:

    The Keychain Adventurez Link, since I don’t want to foil it for absolutely everyone else, is in one of the commas. That much I’ll say.

  181. noco said 16 years ago:

    @Murmur95:
    Matobound?

  182. flclrocks07 said 16 years ago:

    I went away for the weekend. Came back Sunday night found out there was no power. It just came back on. You guys are AMAZING!!!!!

  183. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    183rd!

  184. Squishyfishy said 16 years ago:

    I remember star oceans release quite fondly.

    Had been keeping tabs of that through dejap for years I think. the finished game was worth it.

    Doesn’t it feel like a kick in the balls though, that the remake’s being released in the states now?

  185. Mato said 16 years ago:

    No, why? Should it? I love the Star Ocean series and can’t wait until gets released here. Gonna buy a PSP just to play it even ๐Ÿ˜€

  186. Magus said 16 years ago:

    Yeah I think Star Ocean’ll be the reason I get a PSP too.

    I can’t get the SNES version to work on any emulator quite right. Sound screws up sometimes (I hear that was an actual bug bug in the game itself though so…crap)

  187. Chris said 16 years ago:

    Daemoncollector: If that’s the case, I’m sure breaking it up into say 20 lines per file or adding a pause will be trivial. It doesn’t send to multiple targets, it sends multiple emails. So there might be less chance of it getting caught in a spam filter.

    Murmur95: Not even that, most web servers come with shell access and mail already set up. You can ssh into that and run the script on the host directly. No installation of anything needed.

  188. SAM-E-BOI said 16 years ago:

    Awesome progress Mato. BTW, what type of game is Star Ocean? I saw the ads, but what is the combat system?

  189. Mato said 16 years ago:

    my old star ocean page

    The combat system is a weird sort of real time type of thing. Dunno what it’s like in the remake, probably better than the older game though.

    Anyway, this SO stuff is getting off topic, so it should be taken to the forums if people want to continue.

  190. MrPopo said 16 years ago:

    Oh wow, that old Star Ocean page (specifically, the zip of the two scans from NP) takes me back. I remember once seeing a multi-page NP article on Fire Emblem 4, which basically consisted of “Here’s this great series, and it’s got all this cool stuff, and it’s Japanese only, nya nya nya”.

    Now they just do stuff like “Wow, people love Mother 3. But you can’t have it, it’s Japanese only.” Which I guess is the same thing, just with less coverage in the magazine.

  191. EmpoleMew said 16 years ago:

    I want to show off Mother 3 in school before the Christmas break, because some kid thought it was fake. He also thought that Lucas from SSBB was a character I just made up, sent to Nintendo, and they made him. You should have seen me loling at him, it was hilarious.

  192. Shadiko said 16 years ago:

    The hidden link is somewhat intresting, I hate to say it, but do you have anymore? XD

  193. baxter said 16 years ago:

    Mato wrote: “Heh, whatever day the patch is released, itโ€™s gonna be *someoneโ€™s* birthday”

    I haven’t browsed these comments in months but I’m sure it’s been mentioned before (probably a lot), November 10th is a certain nameless someone’s 60th birthday ๐Ÿ˜‰

  194. The Game Master said 16 years ago:

    Hey empolemew, are you like, 8 or something? Not that that’s a bad thing, because a kid who’s 12-16 wouldn’t be so stupid. If you ARE in that age group, then you have absolute right to LOL at him while pointing a finger that has the mother 3 cartridge. No offense to the youngsters.

    *Sigh* too bad I’m the only one out of my current circle of friends who would have any interest in this. One of my friends even said that any game that can’t be played on XBox live sucks. And he doesn’t like Halo 3 either. Oh well. there loss.:P

    Mato, you shold put terms of usage to agree to that says it is a 24 hour trial period and you have to pay bacon.

  195. gBev said 16 years ago:

    @EmpoleMew: You can always wait until after Christmas break, what’s the difference? Or you could just show them a Japanese copy.

    Personally I’m looking forward to proving so many people wrong who think it’s a stupid game, whenever I get the chance to do that I’ll be a happy gamer ๐Ÿ˜€

  196. Derrick T. said 16 years ago:

    Was I banned or something? The only post i could even imagine being banend or blocked was when I said that Mato was sacrificing his social life for about 1.5 years for us. Can you even get banned?

  197. noco said 16 years ago:

    But what if there’s no more bacon ;_;

  198. Derrick T. said 16 years ago:

    Also, was the Duster Assist trophy in the brawl Database? Whatever happened to that rumor? Anyways, I also searched online a little bit and found a rumor that it isn’t Kid Icarus they are reviving…Could that mean…?0_o

  199. gBev said 16 years ago:

    @Derrick T.: I have no idea what you’re talking about and I don’t think anyone else does either. It sounds like you have info thats really old and really inaccurate. Donate some bacon to Mato and he’ll clear things up for you.

  200. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Derrick T: You probably got caught in the spam/moderation filter somehow. I think people tend to get caught in there because of the URLs they include as their homepage, that may be it. The fact you’re still able to post sometimes but not all is proof.

    —–

    Anyway, mini-update: Actually, there’s not much to say. So far, work’s been a little heavier than I expected this week, so very little’s been done. Tomorrow afternoon I should have a little more time though. But oh man I do not look forward to messing with the sprite text routine again. That thing is ugly with a capital everything.

  201. gBev said 16 years ago:

    “That thing is ugly with a capital everything.”
    EVuERgERYlTHyING

    But really great job Mato and try not to be rushed by all these people’s due dates because quality should come first.

  202. jellytack said 16 years ago:

    i wouldn’t worry about Mato being rushed by due dates… he seems too pro for that. although i’d just be SO heartbroken if it came out sooner ๐Ÿ™‚

  203. gBev said 16 years ago:

    Mato is too awesome to be affected by outsiders ๐Ÿ˜›

  204. Tration101 said 16 years ago:

    Thanks for all the hard work Mato… although i post very rarely, i check the updates regularly. If you posted a paypal link or something i’m sure people would gladly donate to the cause of getting this thing done. I know you aren’t doing it for money, i think plenty of people would like to donate something for all the hard work you’ve put into this. I would for sure.
    Keep Up the Good Work!

  205. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Thanks, though there’s a thing about donations at the bottom of the faq page.

    If you’d rather do none of those, then uhh, you can always donate to some charities and put it under Shigesato Itoi’s name or something if that’ll make you feel better ๐Ÿ˜›

  206. Reklusive said 16 years ago:

    Mato, your so awesome^__^

  207. gBev said 16 years ago:

    Doesn’t donating to Starmen.net count as donating towards this?

  208. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Not really, but you’re free to do that too if you want. Starmen.Net donations go to the server costs, prizes, etc.

  209. Vagn said 16 years ago:

    Mato has a donation link on his blog, I probably shouldn’t have said anything. You also can’t donate for translation patches.

  210. Casey Bat said 16 years ago:

    Mato you must play star ocean on the psp. i have the japanese version and its the greatest

  211. Casey Bat said 16 years ago:

    mato since SMRPG is on the VC do you think Earthbound stands a chance or is Reggie gonna be a douche?

  212. mike k said 16 years ago:

    What is jeff doing right now? He hardly ever posts on the site, but the last time he did an update, I thought it was really cool. Is he even still working on this?

  213. Austin said 16 years ago:

    of course jeff is still working on it

  214. JeffMan said 16 years ago:

    Jeff went to university and is facing a 30 hr/wk class schedule, but he’s still squeezing stuff in here and there. He might do another update if something else cool comes along.

  215. Zaxtur said 16 years ago:

    Is everyone being sarcastic or do they actually think which games come to the VC is Reggie’s decision? Reggie is a face and a voice for Nintendo, the decisions are not his to make.

  216. Zaxtur said 16 years ago:

    My bad, I guess he actually is President and Chief Operating Officer (Wikipedia), not just a face. My mistake. But still, I don’t think which VC games come out are entirely up to him.

  217. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Heh, I’ve been meaning for a while to do a big writeup on my site about how people are taking this Reggie-bashing stuff way too far. I think mostly it boils down to the fact that he’s the one who’s gone on the record whenever EB fans managed to ask Nintendo execs questions about the series. The fact he doesn’t seem to even know much about the games or even care is what gets people riled up. He doesn’t even seem to really know much about games in general, either, but oh well. He’s the exact same kind of casual gamer that Nintendo is going for now.

    That said, he doesn’t know anything and probably doesn’t make many decisions related to anything that might get EB games here. It’s just that after all these years, neglected EB fans finally have someone they can focus their anger on.

    Oh well, soon all the games will be in English in one form or another. I just hope we don’t have to go through all this crap again if a Mother 4 (or something like Mother 1+2) ever gets made. Do NOT want to do this again ๐Ÿ˜ฏ

  218. Benito said 16 years ago:

    Yet we all know you would at least try.

  219. Reaver490 said 16 years ago:

    Well said.

  220. C.T said 16 years ago:

    Oh silly Mato….

    Don’t lie, we KNOW you would do it again. Even if it was twice the work. And little food. And little money. And people with whips yelling at you to get it done.

    And we love you for it! ๐Ÿ™‚

  221. Jay6 said 16 years ago:

    Well, it is rather unfortunate that Mother fans have no one else to focus their anger on. Besides, Reggie’s just a scapegoat for now due to the fact we don’t know anyone else to blame at Nintendo of America… unless it’s Nintendo of Japan that is not letting us have the Mother series, which is kinda unlikely, but Europe didn’t get Earthbound. Reggie isn’t to blame for that.

  222. Dr. Meat said 16 years ago:

    Man I sure know I wouldn’t want the starmen.net laser beam of ancient hate pointed at me. I bet he can feel it burning into his forehead sometimes.

  223. interestedguy said 16 years ago:

    mato, I am hoping to learn to read/write/maybe speak asian to help in a project like this. do you have any good resources for learning asian stuff?

  224. Jay6 said 16 years ago:

    “Asian” isn’t a language…

  225. Arc said 16 years ago:

    I’m starting to get depressed. School work is completely defeating me this year, so I haven’t had time to play earthbound. And I was hoping on finishing it before I got the patch for M3. Which is starting to look less and less likely because of Mato’s supreme awesomeness in hacking ability causing the hacking to speed up.

  226. apteryx said 16 years ago:

    “That said, he doesnโ€™t know anything and probably doesnโ€™t make many decisions related to anything that might get EB games here.”

    But, EB Games IS here! They changed to Gamestop, but they’re still here.

    …I’m sorry, that was the worst joke to ever come forth from my mind. Almost as bad as the pile of dead babies in my closet.

    All joking aside, I too thought Reggie was the face for NOA, until a couple of months ago where I read he was the big cheese there. Guess he got a big promotion.

  227. Murmur95 said 16 years ago:

    Oh crap…my DS broke

  228. Rrickyr said 16 years ago:

    i read asian, is notking sence! i want to play but it is not asian for me :(((( Hopefully will, thank you mato!!!!!!!!!!!

  229. Trimalchio said 16 years ago:

    If a new game were to be made, it would probably be easier to hack, and this translation would get lots more people to help work on it. Whatever. A new EB game appears to be nonforthcoming.

    (I just wanted to use that word.)

  230. jellytack said 16 years ago:

    yo interestedguy… the language you’re looking for is japanese, and if you’re really “interested” in learning it, then i suggest you call some schools/colleges in your area and ask if they have courses available. just don’t ask them if they have any “asian speaking” courses, because you may well get hung up on.

  231. evansucks said 16 years ago:

    at ARC:
    Just play Earthbound when you have a chance. Game’s kinda get killed in the fun department when you shove them down your throat, responsibilities and exhaustion be damned and that would be a shame, especially with a game like EB. Like i said, just play when you have a chance. You’ll own giygas soon enoughs.

    sidenote: Maybe it was just me but, i had a MUCH harder time with the end of earthbound than i did with earthbound zero. Is that weird?

  232. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Trimalchio: I wouldn’t be so sure. We’re just lucky Mother 3 was on the GBA. Had it been for the GameCube or something, hacking it would’ve been muuuuuuuuch crazier and difficult, not to mention that it would be much harder for people to play the translation.

  233. Lei said 16 years ago:

    I heard off somewhere Earthbound Zero is a fair deal harder than Earthbound. So yes, maybe that is weird, I’m going to import Mother1+2 soon enough and find out…

  234. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    How is the morphing work going? Do you have to do much code tracing to fix it, or just a lot of redo on the evil sprite text code?

  235. odan said 16 years ago:

    Got a feeling Nintendo will remake Earthbound for the DS eventually. Seeing as back in the day Chrono Trigger wasn’t a huge seller either , but its always been known better then earthbound. Suprised they don’t do a pile of old SNES games for the DS , even if there just ports.
    would love to see games like super punch-out and Super Metriod , and Super .. lol everything was Super back then.
    Maybe as a joke i’ll hack Earthbound so its Super Earthbound.

  236. bob said 16 years ago:

    From looking at the to-do list i guess that there is about 7-10 weeks left until release. Mato, do you have any guess on how long it will take?

  237. Krebstar said 16 years ago:

    I’m wondering how different the teams were for Mother 3 versus EarthBound. Too lazy to look it up, but I recall reading somewhere that EarthBound had been programmed in a -very- organized manner, which had made it a simple task for people to rip music, etc. do whatever with the ROM.

  238. Alfonso Alfredo said 16 years ago:

    @jellytack: Yeah, I had a much easier time with Earthbound Zero too. It might be because I rushed through it and finished it in less then a week…

  239. Alfonso Alfredo said 16 years ago:

    Not to brag or anything.

  240. Mato said 16 years ago:

    A Fan: I already made a mini-update last night.

  241. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    what better way could there be to spend an afternoon then to read lots and lots of comments?

  242. Coldfusion said 16 years ago:

    MATO!! Keep up the awesome work, I am looking forward to the release of Mother 3 translation. I check this site multiple times a day now, an addiction I am afraid o_0 anyways, keep it up.

  243. The Game Master said 16 years ago:

    MOTHER 4… FOR WII. AND NINTENDO WILL THINK THEY ARE CLEVER AND MAKE IT AN SNES GAME ON A WII DISK, MAKING IT EASIER FOR MATO TO TRANSLATE. (I wish)

    Rushing through EB0 gets you nowhere, I don’t know how you made it through the grave yard to save Pippi without spending 2 hours on Mr.Bats before even having a chance against Gang zombies.

    @apteryx: If that was your WORST joke,then you must have made really good jokes even from a young age.

  244. EmpoleMew said 16 years ago:

    @The Game Master: I’m 13.

    @gBev: If I waited until after Christmas break, I’d have to wait until June, unless I risk losing my flash cart and GBA SP. And getting a Japanese cart isn’t an option with me. I under rule of “If its in a language you can’t understand, you’re not getting it. Especially if it has to be bought online.” Which is also why I don’t have Pokemon Platinum, but that’s irrelevant.

  245. Derrick T. said 16 years ago:

    There should be a Mother 3 Celebration when its translated…
    It could also be a contest dedicated to making fan music+fanart+poems+etc. ALL Mother 3 related!

  246. Murmur95 said 16 years ago:

    We should have a convention

  247. Daniel L. said 16 years ago:

    I have some weird feeling that tomato is going to pull a Frodo (lord of the rings) and say “NO IT’S MINEEEEEEEEEE” when he’s done. no offense, but whenever i wait for something, that’s what happens >.<

  248. gBev said 16 years ago:

    @Daniel L.: Reid would maul him and take his computer files that same day. We have backup, here!

    But really I doubt Mato would ever do anything like that after all the time we’ve been waiting.

  249. Captain Bozo said 16 years ago:

    Mato hates Mother 3 now. He worked on it to death.

  250. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    We should rename…. wherever it is Mato lives.. to Matoside. Or Edisotam.

  251. Henry SG said 16 years ago:

    Matopia

  252. gBev said 16 years ago:

    Mato’s new town has to have an awesome welcome sign:

    Welcome to th
    ๐Ÿ˜

  253. EmpoleMew said 16 years ago:

    @Derrick T: I second this notion.

  254. Zeldarocks said 16 years ago:

    7-10 weeks until it’s released!!!!? That’s like a baby in the first trimester!!!!

  255. kevinchai said 16 years ago:

    COME ON MATO
    FIGHT!!

  256. gBev said 16 years ago:

    @Zeldarocks: Where did you hear that?

  257. bob said 16 years ago:

    @Zeldarocks: I wasn’t saying that the 7-10 weeks thing was true. I was saying that looking at the to-do list it seems that way.

  258. Ausl0 said 16 years ago:

    @Zeldarocks:

    Yeah, seeing as it takes 9 months before a baby is “officially” born, one trimester would be 11-13 weeks…and this game is a baby, it’s Mato’s baby…and he will be the one delivering it too. LOL.

  259. Gigas beam said 16 years ago:

    @ Zelda Rocks:

    So, it would actually be like a fetus in the third trimester… That’s when viable fetus’ are “released” and then born into the world as babies. Just thought I’d point that out for no good reason.

  260. Andy said 16 years ago:

    Any chance of you guys making a parody script patch sometime after the normal patch is done?

    I mean, after all this, why not have some fun with the text? ๐Ÿ™‚

  261. Reaver490 said 16 years ago:

    Speaking of babies, I don’t think Mato could support Mother 3 as a child. ๐Ÿ˜› Its monstrous needs would be unnerving to say the least.

    *Mato used PSI Fire to warm the milk
    *Mother 3 made a block 0
    *Mato couldn’t stop crying

  262. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Yeah, you did a mini-update, but all it said was that the sprite routine is ugly ๐Ÿ™‚

    I wanted to know if it will require a lot of tracing, a lot of coding, or both. The only parts I’m sure about are that it will require lots of testing and lots of time.

    And concerning the email notification list, maybe someone should add a program so that people can take themselves *off* the list. I put my email in long before I thought I’d end up reading the site every day. I’ll probably have the patch downloaded long before I even check my email ๐Ÿ™‚

  263. Marche100 said 16 years ago:

    Why am I typing this? I dunno. Boredom? Oh well. Boing.

    Mato you’ve done it. You’ve made me wait so long I did it. I killed Reggie.

    Not really. I started playing Mother 3. I’m at chapter 7 thus far. (And so far its fairly easy.) Dont make me wait longer. Or else I will have to finish it. And then I wont have as much interest when I play the english patch. Well actually I will play the english patch to its fullest extent.

    This post has so far been pointless. So I’ll just say this. I like it when you update. It gives me hope. It gives me something to see and go “yay its coming along.”

    *Marche100 prayed for Mato and his hacking skillz*

  264. dr.mario said 16 years ago:

    “Yeah, seeing as it takes 9 months before a baby is โ€œofficiallyโ€ born, one trimester would be 11-13 weeksโ€ฆand this game is a baby, itโ€™s Matoโ€™s babyโ€ฆand he will be the one delivering it too. LOL.”

    Mato is father 3, not mother. this whole translation is the equivalent of him putting up with the woman’s ridiculous demands for lamaz classes, rocky road ice cream, and pickles.

  265. dr.mario said 16 years ago:

    i TOLD you i wanted the FUZZY kind!

  266. Anth said 16 years ago:

    How come my comments never post.

  267. The Game Master said 16 years ago:

    Well Empolemew you are as old as me.

    I think I’m going to go make MatoBound. I need graphics help.

  268. MidnightCeltic said 16 years ago:

    I may help, but I need to get back into spriting. I stopped for a while, and now I’m rusty, and everything I do looks like a garbled mess.

  269. RamblinEvilMushroom said 16 years ago:

    …..So will you be releasing Boob Wizards II along with M3?

    ๐Ÿ˜›

    I’m so pumped. You have no idea. ๐Ÿ˜€

  270. hasone said 16 years ago:

    RamblinEvilMushroom:

    Are you sure that none of us have any idea? As its dragged on and my life has gotten busier, I’ve gotten less pumped. But I started out pretty pumped. And some other people have probably gotten even more pumped! 80

  271. Carl said 16 years ago:

    I’d consider myself about three-quarters pumped. I, too, started out fully pumped, becoming somewhat less pumped as time went on. However, I expect to become increasingly pumped as the project nears completion.

  272. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    I look forward to updates more than the weekly Naruto chapter ๐Ÿ˜›

  273. Anth said 16 years ago:

    im at like a 64% pump rate

  274. mitch said 16 years ago:

    the proper unit for pumpedness is a Molyneux.

  275. MegaBlues said 16 years ago:

    Wow….nothing can explain the epic in this! And try to finish by June 10th o_o Best Birthday Ever XD

  276. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    Hey, Mitch, my friend googled “Lucas Brawl” and a picture I’m absolutely sure was yours turned up. Neat!

  277. Jimmy said 16 years ago:

    i heard a rumor that earthbound zero is coming on virtual console. is this true?

  278. Corncracker said 16 years ago:

    Nintendo hasn’t said anything, so I’m mostly positive that rumor is false until they say otherwise.

  279. The Game Master said 16 years ago:

    @MidnightCeltic: I could do spriting just fine, it’s just the graphics part like the Gas stasion I need help with. And backgrounds. And enemies. Unless they are edits of old ones.

    @Comcracker: Mato’s fan translation is going to make it to the VC, so why not EB0?:P

    @RamblinEvilMushroom: I misread and thought you wrote “I’m so plumped”. If you’re a baby that’s plumped, donate yourself to mato on a plate.

  280. The Game Master said 16 years ago:

    @Arashi: Was it a picture of lucas telling you he’s in brawl?

  281. EmpoleMew said 16 years ago:

    I actually heard that Earthbound was announced for the VC, not Earthbound Zero.

    Funny, every time I say Earthbound Zero, it makes it sound like a sequel, not a prequel. After all, there are sequels with “Zero” in the title.

  282. The Game Master said 16 years ago:

    Like Resident Evil 0. I know what it is though.

  283. Derrick T. said 16 years ago:

    Hey my post got deleted again ๐Ÿ™

  284. mitch said 16 years ago:

    @The Game Master & Arashi: Yep, that’s me! Cool! Thanks for the heads up.

  285. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    Yeah, I told him your drawings rock. ๐Ÿ˜‰

  286. N-Dawg said 16 years ago:

    @ jellytack

    no better yet he should order Rosetta Stone

  287. Corncracker said 16 years ago:

    Wait, Mato did a Fan Translation thats making it onto nintendos VC? WTF is it?

    And I was meaning that it’s bet not to listen to the rumors of the release, not because it wont’ happen, but more it hasn’t really been planned yet, and it’s best not to get yoru hopes up for it just yet. After all, there are countless more titles that are going to be taking priority over Mother. :p

    Besides, wasn’t the whole thing behind Mother that someone got a hold of a leaked Cartarige, so they had an actual translation already, not a fan translation?

    If thats the case, it wouldn’t be a fan translation, but an official one. :p

  288. Cosmin said 16 years ago:

    Great now I’m addicted to checking this site at least daily ๐Ÿ˜€

    We all love you for your hard work Mato! You’re the best.

  289. Vagn said 16 years ago:

    Nintendo will never ever release a fan translation on the VC. Not only would it be a legal nightmare, it would give a message that emulation and roms are OK. Obviously that would be bad for Nintendo.

  290. jellytack said 16 years ago:

    alrighty then… so i got this nifty ezflash 5in1 thingamagingy, and i’ve been playing me some mother 3 cuz I CAN’T WAIT NO LONGER ARRGGGGHHH!!!! … and now that i’ve got that out of my system, i have to say that even with the hassle of looking at a story translation every few seconds, this game really is incredible… i’m only at the beginning of chapter 2, and i’ve already been deeply moved by the story. it’s also a very wacky game, really earthboundish. i’m so psyched for this to be finished, thanks again guys! you’re my hero’s! ๐Ÿ™‚ ๐Ÿ™‚

    … oh by the way, have i made some posts i forgot about? it seems people are replying to me about things unrelated to my comments… or i’ve misunderstood somehow ๐Ÿ˜‰

  291. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Ooiudfg, what a crazy week that turned out to be. Finally have some time to work on M3 some more, but so tired and sleepy. I’ll try to get some stuff done this weekend, but I’m not expecting this last hack to be finished this weekend. If we’re lucky, I may finish it before the end of the month. We’ll see what happens.

  292. Triangle said 16 years ago:

    okay dude, rest up, and good luck ๐Ÿ™‚

  293. N-Dawg said 16 years ago:

    jellytack: u know that dork who thought Asian was a language

  294. N-Dawg said 16 years ago:

    hows the progress?

  295. Mato said 16 years ago:

    I’d post a mini-update if there was anything significant to report.

  296. N-Dawg said 16 years ago:

    ok thank you Mr. Mato

  297. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    The Matonator needs rest to think and hackify this game. No pressure towards him, or thou shall have you nose chopped off

  298. The Game Master said 16 years ago:

    END OF THE MONTH!?! MY BIRTHDAY’S ON THE 29TH! Maybe it will be a late birthday present! ๐Ÿ˜€

  299. N-Dawg said 16 years ago:

    yes mr arashi im sorry please forgive me mr mato sir

  300. fed said 16 years ago:

    Hey Mato, just a question. How long will the testing process take? I’m just wondering because I am greatly anticipating the release of Mother 3. Earthbound was the very first video game I played and I’ve always been a hardcore fan. I might just throw a party the day it gets released. Although, first I’ll play through it, then I’ll have the party. Maybe I’ll dress up like Lucas in that Block 0 glitch. You know, the one with the nut bread. ๐Ÿ™‚

  301. Vagn said 16 years ago:

    If you look at the to-do list. It clearly says it will take about a month.

  302. Poe said 16 years ago:

    fed: the to-do list says testing will take about a month.

  303. Murmur95 said 16 years ago:

    its going to take as long as it will take…just stop asking questions and let the guy do his work.

  304. Vagn said 16 years ago:

    TRIPLE FLAME! C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

  305. nintendope said 16 years ago:

    Kick some arse, man. ๐Ÿ™‚

  306. Derrick T. said 16 years ago:

    Ya gonna update tomorrow maybe?

  307. Alaster said 16 years ago:

    I say just let him update when he updates. There is no need to pressure him, especially when he’s doing this at no cost to us. He’s got a lot of pressure with real world stuff and his work. Take your time, Mato. We’ll still be here when it’s done.

  308. Cosmin said 16 years ago:

    I’m gonna have to agree with Alaster.
    All the birthday stuff seems to be getting out of hand. That’s great that you have a birthday coming up but there’s no need to try imposing imaginary deadlines on him.
    And as much as I love checking the site and seeing a new update, it really seems wrong to be bugging and bugging for updates all the time.

  309. Triangle said 16 years ago:

    indeed ๐Ÿ™‚

  310. EmpoleMew said 16 years ago:

    Although the purpose of this is to have Mother 3 in English, I have to ask, are both Katakana and Hiragana used in Mother 3? Even though I just played the game yesterday, I can’t remember. xD Embarrassing.

  311. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Yeah, both are used.

  312. Zinco said 16 years ago:

    Would it even be possible to have a Japanese game that wouldn’t use both katakana and hiragana? Remember from the very start that “Lucas” would have to be rendered in katakana because it’s a loanword. And it wouldn’t make sense to have the entire game in katakana because my understanding is that that would essentially be the equivalent to EVERYTHING BEING IN CAPITAL LETTERS ALL THE TIME. But I admit my understanding of Japanese writing could be faulty.

  313. Itoi's love child said 16 years ago:

    Hey Mato you could probably save the stock market if you decided to sell the patch. Make a business from your home and you could save the gov like a trillion dollars.

    But the big N would probably shut you down. They hate “hard core gamers”, by the way I hate that word, it sounds so…um… well… just google it kids, you’ll find out what I mean. So Big N just wants “casual gamer” games released instead of playing good games with depth and story.

    Oh well, good luck on the rest of the progress, hope it goes well with few speed bumps.

  314. SoreThumb said 16 years ago:

    You know, Tomato, I was playing FF4 a few days ago. And you know what happened? In the Credits Room, there’s a joke about getting “one KB of memory”. and then some guy says, “No, wait, I need that back.” and then you lose it.

    And then I actually ‘get’ it when I remember all the memory management issues here. 8)

  315. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    Is there a way to check how many times I’ve visited a single page? Need to make sure this isn’t consuming my life, though it probably already has

  316. ehime said 16 years ago:

    @ SoreThumb

    Yeah I remember that, I laughed pretty hard when I finally got it.

  317. Zinco said 16 years ago:

    This “kid” searched for “hard core gamers” on Google Image Search and now understands exactly why “The Big N” hates them.

  318. interestedguy said 16 years ago:

    I heard police raided Mato’s house and discovered the illegal Mother 3 and took him to japan for executions.. wow.. heavy stuff

  319. The Game Master said 16 years ago:

    What’s the use of a fan translation if it’s going to be released in the winter when it’s already cold? *Rimshot*

    @Intresedguy: When they disccovered the fact that it was mother 3 made the police get hyped.

  320. Reaver490 said 16 years ago:

    I just assumed the cops were possessed by an alien entity and then beat the crap out of Mako and let him go. No harm done.

  321. pwnly said 16 years ago:

    i think he goes by mato, not mako

  322. Triangle said 16 years ago:

    @ Arashi: yeah i know exactly what you mean dude,… i probably check this thing like 8 times a day at least (i just graduated and i dont have a job yet, so i kind of have an excuse., i guess?)

  323. MidnightCeltic said 16 years ago:

    @The game master: That I could probably do. I’m much better with GIMP for big stuff than Spriting. and the enemies are really just HUGE sprites.

  324. Derrick T. said 16 years ago:

    MidnightCeltic are you Celti5?

  325. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Did a tiny bit of hack work late last night, but nothing too much. Dunno when the next update’ll be, but it’ll probably just be a “we’re still here” thing.

  326. ness's dad said 16 years ago:

    im a firefighter for fdny, have a wife and a son, and i check this site everytime i walk past my computer.

  327. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Awesome.

    But does that mean your son is Ness? Are you fond of phones?

  328. kevinchai said 16 years ago:

    GO MATO!
    HACK THE GAME!
    WHOO-HOO!

  329. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Oh man, seeing the menu text in blue again takes me back to unhappy times. May this last hack be swift and not very painful.

    The idea I had before wasn’t technically really double-buffering, but actually I think I’ll give db-ing a try anyway. Gotta find enough room in RAM though, and we’re already using all of our existing work areas as it is. If only we had the source code.

  330. pwnly said 16 years ago:

    Good Luck!

  331. Benito said 16 years ago:

    If Nintendo had given you the source code from the start, how long do you think the entire translating process would have taken?

  332. XdragonSB said 16 years ago:

    Probably a month-6 months…

    Considering Final Fantasy VI was translated in… 3 months I believe?

  333. Derrick T. said 16 years ago:

    Nobody ever responded to answering why not apply for a youtube partnership with all of these translation videos? It’d make some extra $ for the site…

    By the way Tomato, are you @ work right now with the PS thing? Are you taking 2 minute breaks to respond to us?

  334. Anthony said 16 years ago:

    AND reproduce on your own the game ? Do all the code yourself ?
    Would it be faster ?

  335. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Not sure how possible this fix I have in mind will be. I need 13 KB of RAM, but that’s like praying and begging you win the lottery. Even just 2 or 3 KB of free memory is like a goldmine.

  336. Matt_S said 16 years ago:

    Mato! Mato! Fight, Fight, Fight!
    Hax that code with all your might!

  337. bob said 16 years ago:

    Mato, do you know how many people have signed up to get an email when the translation is done? Do you have a goal of how many downloads you want?

  338. Mato said 16 years ago:

    I checked a few days ago, we’re close to 30,000 email signups right now. I don’t have a goal for # of downloads (that would be weird), but it’ll still be neat to see what kind of response there is.

  339. NintendoLover64 said 16 years ago:

    this is so awsome i always wanted to play the game you rock

  340. fed306 said 16 years ago:

    It’s kinda weird how the sprite text morphing is so small of a glitch and something players will hardly ever notice yet it’s a lot of work to fix it. I’m not sayin mato shouldn’t fix it, but still…

  341. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    I know it’s probably evil to work with, but is there any way to move things around in memory (or else just write evil code that knows that your sprites are broken into a dozen pieces in different parts of memory)?

  342. Vagn said 16 years ago:

    Hey Mato have you ever considered compressing the script and then decompressing it on the fly to free up some space? I know it would slow things down, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if optimized right.

  343. Mato said 16 years ago:

    That would only save ROM space, not RAM.

  344. The Game Master said 16 years ago:

    Wait, who said Mato’s fan translation was coming to the VC? Anyway, I hope the translation patch fixes the slowing down throttle of the original game the same way the menu patch does.

    Ness’s dad isn’t Ness’ dad, because Ness’ dad knows that Ness’ dad is the correct way to say it and Ness’s dad isn’t.

    @Midnightceltic: So that means you can make the Gas station say “The mother 3 translation” instead of “The war against Giygas”?
    Awesome. Anyway, I got some good ideas for the game, such as updating this site to save, and having a big silver ball (the same as the one in this game’s title screen) called “Mother 3” crashing near a town while Mato was visiting, then rounding up a team of translators to translate the big silver ball. This hacks gonna be a toughie, luckily, I have PK Hack to make it easier.

  345. Derrick T. said 16 years ago:

    Can I mention this site in any videos I upload onto youtube?

  346. ness's dad said 16 years ago:

    actually my son’s name is james, HOWEVER! his middle name is ness. my wife wasnt down for going all the way. i can provide a birth certificate to prove it too.

  347. ness's dad said 16 years ago:

    and the reason its ness’s dad is because ness’ dad was taken on starmen.net a couple years ago when i wanted to join, so i just stuck with this for here.

  348. Reaver490 said 16 years ago:

    @pwnly

    Yeah, even gods make typing errors.

  349. The Game Master said 16 years ago:

    Hey Ness’s dad can you show the certificate?

  350. Derrick T. said 16 years ago:

    You should take a picture of it and put it in the fantography its a sure-winner!

  351. ness's dad said 16 years ago:

    i can, but i dont have a scanner. ill do it at a friends within the next couple of days.

  352. Zero to Hero said 16 years ago:

    Mato i dont know why you havent released a patch for the work you have now. I think it would speed up the testing process

  353. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Because it’s not ready.

  354. kevinchai said 16 years ago:

    No, that question gets asked ALL THE TIME, and I’m sure Mato is sick of it. Most people would just download the game then and never again and say, “This fan translation sucks!” Among other reasons that I can’t remember. Think of it this way: When you play it for the first time it will be PERFECT. And there will be no bugs to distract you from the awesomeness of Mother 3.

  355. kevinchai said 16 years ago:

    Man, Mato. Nice way to put it. I’m not very good with words.

  356. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Actually, you put it better, but I’m tired of the question so now I only give short answers to it ๐Ÿ˜›

  357. MegaBlues said 16 years ago:

    I don’t care if the Patch + Rom takes up a Billion GB’s! I’d still download it! But I’d need a MAJOR computer upgrade….