PSIII Easy Edition & Aridia Testing

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PSIII Easy Edition & Aridia Testing

Postby hugues » Fri Dec 28, '07, 4:37 pm

So I've been working on this PSIII rom editor for a little while (http://huguesjohnson.com/aridia/) and it's getting near the final release. Currently it does things like:
-Edit character attributes
-Edit character inventory
-Edit enemy attributes, techniques
-Edit weapon/armor/item attributes, cost, technique
-Edit just about every string (text) in the game

The outstanding work that needs to be completed is around graphics editing - which might take a little while. Before I delve too deeply into that I'd like to make sure these basic features are working as expected. The testbed I've been using is a hack I'm calling "Phantasy Star III Easy Edition". So far it lives up to the name, in my testing I have Rhys hitting level 10 by the time he meets Lyle.

Unfortunately I don't have huge amounts of free time so I can't test everything in the game. For all I know, if you give the laser sword the gires technique maybe the game crashes. So I'm wondering if anyone is interested in trying the editor and/or testing the rom hack to see what they can break? I'm positive there's some broken stuff and I'd like to get it all unearthed and fixed.

Thanks in advance.
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Postby Atlinsmere » Fri Dec 28, '07, 8:17 pm

Looks awesome, I think I'll try this out and finally beat PSIII.
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Postby Thoul » Mon Dec 31, '07, 10:47 pm

I'd love to do some testing on it for you, but right now time is against me. Maybe I could give it a spin in a couple of weeks.
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Postby Tsunami » Mon Dec 31, '07, 11:17 pm

My .bin file worked with the older versions, but when I tried testing it with the newest version of Aridia, I kept getting errors! The only thing I could edit was the names of the item list. Was kinda weird.
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Postby hugues » Tue Jan 1, '08, 2:59 pm

Tsunami wrote:My .bin file worked with the older versions, but when I tried testing it with the newest version of Aridia, I kept getting errors! The only thing I could edit was the names of the item list. Was kinda weird.

That is odd.. what was the error message that came up?
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Postby hugues » Tue Jan 1, '08, 3:30 pm

Turns out I'm an idiot... try downloading it again. :cry:

I gotta write an ANT script to package the distribution so I don't forget to include a really-important file again :bang:
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Postby Tsunami » Tue Jan 1, '08, 8:21 pm

Hey, it works! I'm glad that the problem was fixed. :)

I really am impressed with all the work you're putting into this -- with what Aridia's able to edit so far, the possibilities are great as far as editing the game goes. If the graphics can be hacked, then that'd only open more doors as far as changing things goes.

I've been keeping my eye on this since it was first announced, and I'll be looking forward to any future updates. Keep up the awesome work!
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Postby Tsunami » Tue Jan 1, '08, 9:52 pm

Sorry for double-posting, but I did some tinkering with the LV Template and techniques. At first I thought that the two are related, but I think the rom was being random when I tested it.

Different numbers effect the LV Template in ways that one wouldn't think. For example, giving Rhys the value of 1 makes his required XP a whopping total of 39,492,400! And to think, the default setting is 8 which gives him the requires XP of 15.

As far as the technique testing went, I gave him Mieu's techniques for the heck of it. When checking his techniques in the menu, he had Foi (LV 201), Zan (201), and Shu (106). No other techs appear other than those, and you cannot alter his techs at the technique distribution shop. Then I tried giving Rhys Ryan/Lyle's techniques and had the same result as far as techs go.

In battle it's even weirder. It shows him only with Melee techs, and when I came across a helpless chirper, I blasted it for over 1,200 damage with Foi, despite the fact that Rhys has no TP. Gra did over 18000...wow. Zan was in the 700-800 range and Tsu did over 16,000.

I leveled Rhys and Shu appeared, but had the level of 0 (while Shu increased to 107). And, after many battles (I didn't keep track of how many, I had the speed of the emulator cranked up) I DID eventually run out of TP (yes, still at 0, never increased from my knowledge). A trip to the inn replenished the non-existant TP, though.

Very, very weird, but interesting findings.


EDIT: I did some testing on wariror Kara (she's definitely better if her LV Template is lowered) and gave her the same LV template as princess Kara, and it ended up editing her techniques in the menu (added deban) though in the battle it's fine as if there were no changes. So I guess that the LV template effects the Techniques to some degree after all?

Still, not sure on this. As I said, seems to only be a menu change...


Another EDIT: Well, seems that I've successfully screwed over the menus as far as displaying techniques goes. :D Seems that changing the techniques does this to more than one character. I think I'll start over, though. So I can see exactly what the deal is here.

On another note, I don't think that Lena can use techs (while Rhys can, oddly enough). Looking into that still... :?
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Postby SparkyIII » Wed Jan 2, '08, 5:24 am

lol, it reminds me of the item we created called '.l;[;p-\. XDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

The item was equiped as a two handed weapon, and caused the end of the genesis world. lol. As soon as it was used the screen turned white, and froze up. XDDDDDD :lol:
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Postby hugues » Wed Jan 2, '08, 11:28 pm

Tsunami wrote:I really am impressed with all the work you're putting into this -- with what Aridia's able to edit so far, the possibilities are great as far as editing the game goes. If the graphics can be hacked, then that'd only open more doors as far as changing things goes.

Thanks! I really appreciate it :mrgreen: It's actually easier than it looks, once I built the basic framework adding new features is a snap. For example, the enemy page only took ~2 hours total.

The graphics are the next thing on the to do list... well, the title screen and dialog borders at least. Haven't figured out where to find the sprites or enemies. I have to build a new UI for that so it'll take a little longer.
Tsunami wrote:As far as the technique testing went, I gave him Mieu's techniques for the heck of it. When checking his techniques in the menu, he had Foi (LV 201), Zan (201), and Shu (106). No other techs appear other than those, and you cannot alter his techs at the technique distribution shop. Then I tried giving Rhys Ryan/Lyle's techniques and had the same result as far as techs go.

In battle it's even weirder. It shows him only with Melee techs, and when I came across a helpless chirper, I blasted it for over 1,200 damage with Foi, despite the fact that Rhys has no TP. Gra did over 18000...wow. Zan was in the 700-800 range and Tsu did over 16,000.

I leveled Rhys and Shu appeared, but had the level of 0 (while Shu increased to 107). And, after many battles (I didn't keep track of how many, I had the speed of the emulator cranked up) I DID eventually run out of TP (yes, still at 0, never increased from my knowledge). A trip to the inn replenished the non-existant TP, though.

Another EDIT: Well, seems that I've successfully screwed over the menus as far as displaying techniques goes. :D Seems that changing the techniques does this to more than one character. I think I'll start over, though. So I can see exactly what the deal is here.

Thanks for poking around with the techniques - I was pretty sure they'd cause some odd results. I'm not sure what to do next on it.. take it out because it's unpredictable or leave it in with a warning. Maybe make those "use at your own risk" fields red or add some scary indicator. Most of the things you can edit are safe, but the techniques are a wild-card at the moment.

Tsunami wrote:Different numbers effect the LV Template in ways that one wouldn't think. For example, giving Rhys the value of 1 makes his required XP a whopping total of 39,492,400! And to think, the default setting is 8 which gives him the requires XP of 15.
<...>
I leveled Rhys and Shu appeared, but had the level of 0 (while Shu increased to 107). And, after many battles (I didn't keep track of how many, I had the speed of the emulator cranked up) I DID eventually run out of TP (yes, still at 0, never increased from my knowledge). A trip to the inn replenished the non-existant TP, though.

I think these are both math overflow errors.. when a leading bit is flipped it changes the sign (+/-) of the number. If you're using unsigned numbers then they jump from really small to really large. That's definitely what's happening with the LV template. I knew that assembler course in college would eventually pay off :)

The TP sounds like a similar thing but I need to check.

Tsunami wrote:lol, it reminds me of the item we created called '.l;[;p-\.

Yeah I filtered those items out in the UI even though they're still in the ROM. The "Snow" gem is the only one I left hanging around. I suspect it was originally going to open the passages to Terminus since there's nothing else in the game that opens them.
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