Site Update - Still Going (March 9th, 2008)

[Cless]

The ToP-exclusive part of the update as posted:

If you haven't followed the forum, I did indeed manage to finish the script formatting tool mentioned in the previous update. It does a lot of grunt work automagically, making nice script insertions a snap. As a result, new screenshots came, and if you didn't see them, they're in this forum thread. I warn you: The dialogue in the screens presented is nowhere NEAR final. They're mostly the initial translation with some quick edits applied. The script presented is in a form that hasn't gone through any real quality assurance. Much of the dialogue in those screenshots has actually been rewritten or retranslated since they were taken. I can't stress enough that this stuff isn't the final form of the script, or even close to it.

I heard from Lina`chan a month ago that she had done a bit of work on the remainder of the script translation. I haven't heard from her since or received anything yet so hopefully it won't be long until I hear from her again.

That said, we've actually begun a quality checking process on the main script. Hino Rei, a J->E translation professional who has worked for years in the North American manga industry, is proofreading the script to help us ensure balls-on translation accuracy. I've been pretty floored by his work so far. He's knocked out a bunch of problems, big and small. Many things which would likely be undetectable by an editor or a player.

Although gogs was originally intended to do the script profreading, he still has to do quality checking. Hino Rei's work should make that process far easier for him. Plus, it's even helping the project move slightly faster, since gogs is still hacking away on the menu text.

Habilain's still working on wrapping up the last few things on the assembly hacking front. He's in the midst of optimizing and bugfixing a glitchy hack. He's been busy with school projects, and hasn't had a lot of time. Judging from his last correspondence, he should be relatively free again soon.

I guess I'd say I'm now targeting a summer release for the complete Tales of Phantasia project. Sorry if that delay sounds disappointing, I want this project finished as much as you do, if not more so. Since this project is so old, I really feel totally obliged to have this thing look like it's had years of work put into it.

[LJkAze]

It okay Cless, take your time because we all are probably occupied as of late. Smash brawl just came out and TOS2 and TOV is coming along nicely and people will be occupied with those as well. I do hope to see the day TOP finish but we cant rush things can we. Maybe you can but hopefully its done by summer or even christmas , a christmas preset; and a start TOD2 next year ^_^, or maybe TODr before TOD2 so people can know the story that take place before it.

[LenaAndreia]

Keep on truckin' dude. I'll wait patiently until you're done to play ToP PSX in English. ^_____^

[Cless]

Just thought I'd drop word that Habilain just fixed a bad bug (VRAM corruption) and a slowdown issue that plagued real systems in the item menu. It was a pretty frustrating and annoying thing to fix, so it's good to have behind us! All that's really left on the ASM hacking front is the prologue battle subbing and a small enhancement to the main battle menu. Habilain says these shouldn't be too much trouble since he already knows what to do about them.

Translation proofreading is still going well. Heard from Lina indirectly that she hasn't done as much as she'd have liked so far, and isn't really sure when she'll have a significant amount done. It'll be nice if there's something by the time this proofreading is finished, but I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[Kevassa]

Just thought I'd drop word that Habilain just fixed a bad bug (VRAM corruption) and a slowdown issue that plagued real systems in the item menu. It was a pretty frustrating and annoying thing to fix, so it's good to have behind us! All that's really left on the ASM hacking front is the prologue battle subbing and a small enhancement to the main battle menu. Habilain says these shouldn't be too much trouble since he already knows what to do about them.

Translation proofreading is still going well. Heard from Lina indirectly that she hasn't done as much as she'd have liked so far, and isn't really sure when she'll have a significant amount done. It'll be nice if there's something by the time this proofreading is finished, but I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Isnt there anyone who can do Lina´s job?

[Cless]

Like I said, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[Cless]

Habilain says subtitles possible in prologue battle now. During the actual battle, at least. There's one line spoken before the battle is initiated, and that's a separate hack that he'll be looking into tomorrow.

Script proofreading (not including skits) is around 20% now.

[Kevassa]

Habilain says subtitles possible in prologue battle now. During the actual battle, at least. There's one line spoken before the battle is initiated, and that's a separate hack that he'll be looking into tomorrow.

Script proofreading (not including skits) is around 20% now.

Great advancement, to think the work you are doing is going to be left for all next generations to see!! X3
(specially since next gen people WONT be using the GBA crap ver)

[Cless]

I've begun preliminary work on a custom patch format for the release.  Assuming it all goes well the download size should be less than 3MB, for a 7-Zip file.

I was originally just going to distribute it as a PPF patch, but for some reason the internal test patches have started becoming 150MB (Compresses to 50MB) which is too big to host on the site. Previously They were around 80MB (compressed to 23MB) which would have been fine to me, and sometimes they would even be as small as 5MB (and compress to 3). So uh... seeing how unpredictable this is, I've decided to ditch PPF and go custom.

[pedrocasilva]

^ Wow, you go the extra mile in everything 

if the file gets too big we could do a torrent or something; not to say I don't appreciate the effort, but I wouldn't want for you guys to have that much work on something secondary, more than you already do.

[Cless]

The basic patching engine is finished, and appears to work fine! My test patched file is identical to the original hacked file. The biggest obstacle now is to figure out how to insert hacked files back into the ISO properly.

For what it's worth, this patch system can be easily ported to ToD2 and any other future projects as well.

[jajaswipo]

gg cless, gg

[Cless]

Well, the main patching engine is now perfect. I can generate a patch in one click and patch all the files in one click. But file insertion still remains. I have a work-around for internal test patches for the time being, though.

Also, I've added functionality that will prove very useful-- CRC32 verification. This means, if there's something wrong with your ToP PSX disc image, patching will automatically fail. Hope you've been good kids and still have original discs! Who knows if pirated images are corrupted or not.

Anyway, if you somehow have problems that other people don't have with the game after a successful verification, it's more than likely not our fault.

[Leiw]

Cless do you already know if the game has to be in standard .ISO to be sucessfully patched or can it be a custom like CloneCD (.ccd) , Nero (.nrg) Alcohol (.mds), etc?

What program do you suggest to make an image of the game?

[Rhapsody]

Who knows if pirated images are corrupted or not.

Well I'm pretty sure at least one is good, since I'm the one who made it. But I've still got the CD (in near-mint condition) here anyway, so I'm fine.

[Cless]

Cless do you already know if the game has to be in standard .ISO to be sucessfully patched or can it be a custom like CloneCD (.ccd) , Nero (.nrg) Alcohol (.mds), etc?

What program do you suggest to make an image of the game?

bin/cue. Use ISOBuster or CDRWIN. Not familiar with other apps that can make it but those two programs make images that pass the verification test.