It's no secret that I haven't had much time or drive to work on this thing lately, and it's clear there is still some demand for a more "working" version of it.
Enker/Eikigou is a buddy of mine who has done a lot of research on the game (certainly more than myself lately) and has expressed interest in turning the pile of chaotic garbage that is my source code into something more usable.
He has posting privileges here and may or may not be using this blog.
I'll still be hanging around and maybe working on some of my other projects when I have time.
And that's that :3
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52 comments:
What a shame, but glad to hear from you! Looking forward to further updates or a new release :-)
MOP
It's a shame to see you exiting the project, but I'm very thankful you aren't just letting it die.
Eikigou,
If you're not aware, there is a thread going on at ROMHACKING regarding SOM, and there is a group of people digging things out of the ROM that might be useful to you.
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,20093.0.html
I'm feeling a little bit sad to hear this but good to hear you passed the project on.
Make some more livewallpaper then :)
That's the plan - to work on some smaller projects that I have a better chance of actually finishing.
I actually just put out the first release of the SNES livewallpaper set. Details on the other blog.
As for SoM data, I'll still be around to support research and algorithms and stuff, I just won't be working directly on it anymore.
Cool, can't wait for this to continue with updates. There's a lot of Mana fans out there counting on a project like this ! :D
If Eikigou posts else where, please let it known here!
Good to know that the project still lives :)
Like the last "anonymous" said : let us know where he will post if he's doing it someplace else !
Btw Enker, if you are reading this, thanks a lot for the dissassemblies at www.darkwoodinc.com/~enker/banks.php (I think the site is down now tho)
It helped me alot to make my secret of mana gameplay improvement hack.
I have downloaded the bank dissassembly files so since the site is down would you mind if I post em on datacrystal ? Some people might find it useful.
Also if you now have an updated version of these files and/or the banks that were missing I would really like to get my hands on them if you don't mind.
-zhaDe
thx for the great work so far :)
Anonymous on RHDN, and Guillaume, I might, might need some help in getting in on the swing of this. I'll poke around on that RHDN thread, and probably make a post on ff6hacking.com as JCE300GT suggested to me...like, back in April or some shit x_x
To say that I've been a burnt out, disorganized wreck would be an understatement. I'm not good at keeping things together or surging ahead on my own so well, and a lot of headway on the disassembly I made as I wrote programs just to make a lot of shit easier; picking apart the scripts, even boss scripts, was the easier part, sitting down and figuring out what some of the more esoteric things did...not so much.
But it might be easier if I find a group to work with. A lot of headway I made early on because the disassembly was done for the sake of someone else. ...ponder, ponder. ...crap, I'm not good at talking about things in this way x_x Just, hopefully, one way or another, we can make good use of this information.
Guillaume, I'll try and get the site back up and going, just need to poke at the guy who runs the server. S'otherwise been MUD experimentation, and for a deep, deep lack of motivation I just hadn't gotten around to asking him yet x_x
Also, I probably have better updated versions of those on Dropbox these days. ...I just...haven't uploaded them to that site yet x_x Mop theoretically still has access to those.
Hope someone picks this up again! Can't wait for a full working version :D
Enker has picked it up. Give him some time to work on it and hopefully we'll have a new version to work with soon. If MOP entrusted it to him, I'm sure he's more than capable. Patience you must have, my young padawan.
no one is "working on something".
This is one of the most wonderful blog, this is work is tremendous. Thanks
video editor
Yeah, isn't Enker a graphic designer? Not sure if he can do much on the editor now that Mop is gone.
if a project get a new owner, mostly means the end of the project.
i'm sure enker gets pain in the ass if hes reading mops code structure / code blocks. enker gets tired and bored of it. end results are: nothing will released in nearby future.
Patience... Enker is just as capable as Mop.
people could help here with hacking/memory hacking.
collecting data and working out unknown offsets/values/addresses.
if he would, he could ask around to get this done.
what i already do since last year but that is my coffee.
Hey ! Enker, I just saw your post on oct18, Thanatos Zero has made a skype group to gather people interested in SoM hacking in one place. I don't really think I would be able to help you much, Im only a kind of novice rom hacker so what makes you struggle probably wont be something that I can help with, tho I will gladly do if I can, but I don't know if you know Regers, but he seems to be the one with the most knowledge about SoM hacking around these days and he is in the skype group. For example he has made a viewer that shows the boss sprites and game script events properly, and other things too. He as messed with compression, map data and most of whats in the game really, and as of now, has been able to give me useful information about everything I could think asking him about.
Figure I might as well give some answers as I get incredibly slowly back into the swing of things.
To Anonymous on Dec. 21: not a graphic designer, just a two bit coder. I guess I've worked with some tilemapped stuff in my day, at least, and enough to parse some of the scripts in SoM, but otherwise nothing too fancy.
To CHEM0NE: burning out has been something of a pastime for me. I wouldn't be ashamed to ask for help on more than a few things. Some things I never figured out in my own disassembly...
To Nattak: Just slow and in a weird point in life. Don't be in school for too long @_@
To Guillaume: Well, I guess we already talked elsewhere, but I'll definitely check it out!
Freaking late Christmas present knowing you're still here, Enker! Thanks for taking the time to check in and at least let us know you're still alive. It's also great to see that you're humble and aren't above accepting some help. I hope that helps the process along and at least keeps the burn out from kicking in so often.
I should've made an announcement sooner x_x It was...maybe a bit intimidating to take the reins for this, still is a good bit actually. Help with bugtracking is good, and anyone who's mucking around with that damnable disassembly of mine, any feedback there would be good too. I need to muck around more on the ACMLM forums--forums I've been weak on in times past, but no time like the present to get more involved.
i say goodbye,
the situation is here more likely a disappointment.
forums which you talking about is totally dead and this blog will be too.
this tool has taken years already. we can see that already lack of interest for secret of mana editor project.
Enker, please don't be discouraged by CHEM0NE's post. I get what he's feeling. in my line of work, sometimes things just take a long time and people get frustrated and impatient, which used to kill my desire to finish a project, making it take longer. Eventually I learned that it's all about perspective (they see a project taking 'too long' and I see the importance of getting things right the first time) and started ignoring the impatient people.
Just do what you do and don't let impatient people bother you. Sure, it'd be nice to see some status updates here and there, but you should feel pressured to give us anything at all.
Gambatte, dude. Gamgatte.
Excuse the typo. ^^ がんばって。
Freakin' typos. You *shouldn't feel pressured to give us anything at all.
Don't let the door hit ya on the way out CHEM0NE, you will not be missed!
Yeah, I'm checking here all the time but, I guess I'm just used to the waiting game. There always seems to be large periods of inactivity with SoM editor; even when Mop was managing it. I really hope nintendo remakes Secret of Mana properly for the ds, the smart phone version is terrible. Would be good if they expanded the game too while they are at it ;)
I'm frustrated with my own slowness. But I'm seeing this through to the goddamn end, whether by my hand or one better.
To be honest, I still haven't made real progress on it; starting at the map viewer wasn't the best idea. If I should implement anything in it, I'll probably start with enemy AI as script parsing, as much as I'd like otherwise, has been my main bag and most of my attention's been focused on figuring out that scourge of Bank 1 in particular.
On the idea of delegation, though, I have gotten a small group together, said group being responsible for the oomph that's really gotten me picking at enemy AI again. Guillaume and Regrs have been a big, big help in that, despite not having much figured out with it themselves, what they DID have figured out provided important clues that've led to figuring out that there's a range code system a lot of AI commands use re: how far away you have to be for them to act a certain way. Regrs clued me into physical and magical targeting being separate goddamn things. And Guillaume helped me find out a bit about 7EE146,Y and 7EE147,Y, script variables where random values are stored.
I'm still...not entirely sure how to go about posting main updates on the blog when I've gone so slow with the editor itself. But I will say, I've been picking through this game for six and a half or so years now, I'm not about to give up now.
enker i'm glad to see you haven't given up. also think it's a wise move to delegate things out and work with other talent. good on ya!
it seemed the last thing mop was working out was sprite display and looked as if he was making pretty big strides there. as someone who is eager to get started on a hack, i feel like being able to edit sprite (and player characters/palates.) graphics, even if it's just the ability to import and export gfx/palates, would be a good place to start. that would give people something to do while other bigger things get worked out. the big deal for most hackers is obviously maps. that's the heart of any hack is changing the world itself, but seeing as that is where you started and ran into difficulty, it wouldn't be fair to ask for too much and just let you and your team work things out at a pace that doesn't drive you all completely mad.
keep it up! we appreciate your hard work!
i guess
sorry for the incomplete thought. hit enter and it sent.
i guess after six and a half years, you're probably our best hope of seeing something actually come to fruition. glad to see you staying committed.
Enker, can you please do a new release as soon as possible? Even if there are no (big) improvements done by you, there were some features Mop added since the last release I'd like to test.
Sprite viewer, huh? Alright, I'll see what we can do. I'm getting a good vibe from that direction.
...also, what the hell. Weird friggin' spammer.
Spammers? On my blog?
It's more likely than you think.
Well, look who came back to mop up the spam. ;)
I agree about the sprite editor. That would actually be pretty useful.
Welcome back Mop, hope you stick around for awhile. Looking forward to the development guys! I'm always checking here :D
Sooooo... is this still alive?
The lack of updates never was anything new, as motivation of Mop always seemed arbitrary (to be fair though, there are more important things in life other than working on a level editor for a retro game).
I just wished we would atleast get status updates by Mop/Enker in form of comments though... :/
I heard that there is a few of them working out the code properly before continuing anything, but who knows.
Creeping up on a year with no news. If this is dead, at least let us know that it's dead, and perhaps open it up to the community for development. I for one would be thrilled to contribute.
Happy anniversary, last update. Can we get some kind of word at all?
Any possibilty of this going open source? I would really love to dig into the source code for fun.
Coming back on this blog every couple of months.
Expecting an update or a word of any kind.
In the meantime, what kind of hack are u guys expecting to do?
This seems pretty much dead, can you guys atleast put the source code up? It's pretty obvious no one is working on it anymore, and i feel the community could do more at this point.
I agree; it's abundantly clear that we can't expect anything to happen here anymore.
Or maybe, things do happen in the background, but we are not getting told about them, which again would be a pretty shitty case of ''lack of transparency''.
Please make it open source via github; atleast this way, this editor will progress.
News: It is in the process of being put on github (or gitlab) by enker.
In the mean time, take a look at Mop's new SoM hacking project : https://www.twitch.tv/moppleton/v/97515314
Thanks Zhade! OMG is he making a new secret of mana game? that's so awesome!
Thanks for the update zhade, makes me feel less depressed. Still loving your SoM gameplay improvement hack
What's the status of getting this on GitHub? I moved my entire company's code base up in three days, this is kind of silly.
We appreciate the patience shown by most of you relative to this, but getting this messy ass thing pushed up to GitHub is no one's top priority right now, unfortunately. SoM research continues, but all of us have other things we're working on, we have lives, we have jobs, and there's a fairly major cleanup effort required before this thing would even be usable by anyone other than me. It's possible this thing shows up more as a set of new tools than in its original form--many of us have been working on new and similar, but smaller-scale tools in our spare time.
Impatient comments made by a vocal minority every few months have the opposite effect of pushing anyone to want to complete this task.
Thanks for the update Mop, we appreciate it. I've been keeping up with your videos on twitch. Keep it up :D
Thanks for the Update. Will you make a new webpage, now that dropbox shuts its public folder down?
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