Officially off hiatus

[Cless]

The hiatus has officially ended as of December 4th, 2011.


Both throughhim and I have projects that are nearing completion (Tales of Innocence and Tales of Phantasia, respectively), and both of us have decided it would be best to officially put Tales of Destiny Director's Cut on hiatus. At this critical moment for our other projects, we need to give them our undivided attention so as to ensure they are getting the treatment they need and deserve for the final releases.

I'm targeting sometime within the next couple months with Phantasia, and throughhim's targeting the end of summer with Innocence (but needs at least a few months off from ToD). I also kind of want to get the ToD2 menu patch out of the way since ToD2's menu translation was finished. We'll get back to ToD DC as soon as possible.

As the adage goes...

[CloudHiro]

aww. and I was looking forward to the menu patch way more than the phantasia and innocence patches. oh well. hope you finish them soon!

[Penance]

I was expecting this.
It's a better idea to work on projects individually anyway so your not rushing around all of them at once and then they end up looking like they've had little effort in.

[Carnivol]

Well, basically it's crunch hour for Tales of Phantasia, I guess...

Juggling projects at the end of one is a bad idea.

Some of the other people involved in the projects might be able to do tiny pokes at certain things behind closed doors, though. Nothing anyone will notice or should consider progress, but it's nice to know things aren't doing a complete stop, right? (Though... what do you know? Maybe some of us will just be thinking about ToDrDC while it's on a hiatus! Does Thinking = Progress? At least we know that Thinking = Not Forgotten!)

But since Cless is the central hub for most stuff on this end; Don't expect certain things to be touched/shown/done until Tales of Phantasia's out of the way.

[LJkAze]

No worries Cless; though finishing the TODr menu is a good thing but TOP is top priority first; and you don't want to keep us fan waiting again ^_^.

aww. and I was looking forward to the menu patch way more than the phantasia and innocence patches. oh well. hope you finish them soon!

I'm not, i'm looking more forward to TOP then the menu patch of TODr. Also it not not just a patch its a full release.

[pesmerga00]

Sad to hear as a Destiny fan but this is definently the best choice for the long run. Phantasia needs to be release first priority, were all dying to play it and then some!

[Cless]

Yeah, I know the announcement is probably disappointing for most people, but I think it's better than just letting things sit like they are, and leaving people to wonder if we're working on it or if it's "dead" (lolz). throughhim was working on it pretty much up to the minute I officially called this announcement. He told me he wanted time to heavily polish Innocence but can't really do it as effectively if he had to share his attention with ToD. So I brought up the hiatus idea and he liked it, and here it is.

I really need the time to polish ToP as best as I can humanly muster. Nine years of history really calls for it, no matter how small the audience is for it may be these days. I even blocked myself from a website that can easily distract me for hours to try keeping me focused on this work. I still absentmindedly select my bookmark for that site!

I think that after ToP is done, things might get a little more interesting around here for most people, since it won't be dragging me down anymore. I'm still not ruling out a little break after I'm done with it before I get back to the other projects, though!

[pedrocasilva]

Nine years of history really calls for it, no matter how small the audience is for it may be these days.

Who're you calling a bean!?

As for this announcement, makes sense and if anything I guess throughhim also needs time to prep up his main project before jumping into this full-time (I didn't realize he was going at this simultaneously). And don't worry, we'll be here in the end so you guys can take your time.

[Craymel]

You Mr. Bean! YOU!

[Penance]

So Cless, do you think you can manage for a summer release of Phantasia?
If it's questionable, you should have left that rough release date empty so people won't end up hunting you down with a cleaver if you don't release it on time.

[Cless]

I never promised anything. I only said I'm targeting within a couple of months. As I've already said, the only thing holding it back now is the meticulously edited text. I am almost done with my heavy edit of the main script. Only a few dungeons, story scenes, and side events remain, and I don't expect to ever need to spend this much time with the game's script again.

Nusakan's still working on the stuff I sent him a little bit ago, too. In fact I got a work-in-progress chunk from him several days ago based on my current pass and it looks really damn good so far.

[pesmerga00]

Who're you calling a bean!?

As for this announcement, makes sense and if anything I guess throughhim also needs time to prep up his main project before jumping into this full-time (I didn't realize he was going at this simultaneously). And don't worry, we'll be here in the end so you guys can take your time.

lmao @ Ed reference

Cless you should stop being so modest when saying small audience, so many peoples are waiting for your Phantasia patch man. Keep up the good work, were all cheering you and support your decisions as a community.

[Chuc]

Nine years.. wow. I remember when I first stumbled upon your little venture, Cless, and I was a wee little 13 year old kid.

[Cless]

Sometimes I almost flip out by just how much time has actually passed. Ever since I got out of school, the years just started flying by for some reason. I can't even believe we're already a third through 2009.

[Penance]

I'm curious Cless, what forced Phantasia into a 9 year project?
Also, seen as your getting more active around here and answering everyones questions, do you think there is a chance I could get a reply to my 3 month old PM any time soon?

[Cless]

Because when I started it, completing it would have been a virtual impossibility, and it remained that way for years. Almost nobody was hacking PlayStation games at the time. There were basically zero tools. Emulators were somewhat primitive (though I don't recall them being QUITE as primitive as PS2 emulators still currently are). Some gifted people and volunteers submitted useful information and tools (hell, including one of head authors of ePSXe/ZSNES) that made the progress in 2001 possible, which was pretty lucky in retrospect. It gradually got better.

The extensive run-around I got from translators didn't help anything either, but I didn't place huge priority on obtaining one until we got the main technical kinks out of the way (the justification was, we didn't want to waste a translator's time if we couldn't put the script back into the game in attractive form).

Skeud managed to do some variable-width font hacks way back in 2004/2005, but he didn't have the time to dedicate himself as a full-time ASM hacker. It was very nice work, but there was still much else left to do.

Habilain joined the team as an "in-training" ASM hacker in 2005; he wasn't particularly familiar with the hardware, but was willing to learn it. I was fine with that since I was pretty desperate for anyone at that point. He did produce a useful hack within the early months, but he was unable to steadily contribute to project until 2007 which was when things started to actually take off. Habilain is truly awesome. He's stuck around for all this time, always kept in touch, and has put up with all my insane requests on the game. He got around the major technical hurdle that was keeping me from actively seeking out a translator pretty quickly (but trying to get in touch with the then-current "signed" translator was not easy, and finally got correspondence back saying she couldn't do it. Cyllya donated what she did with a dump of the script I made and sent her back in 2004 or something, but it wasn't complete. Finding another to proofread and finish the rest was not easy).

And...the PM response will be there eventually.