Messages

26

General Discussion / Re: FFVIII/FF8 Mods?

« on: 2012-08-29 20:39:43 »

hrmmm...
am I the only one that actually liked the FF8 history?

the 'draw' thing is what makes it a bit weird, but other than that I love FF8 (yes, I've played other FF titles like 7, 9 10 and 10-2, but 8 is still my favourite).

it's sad that there aren't more mods for it, but FF8 is not that bad as default anyway.
(Aali's driver + Samuel's DLS + SeeD project already gives a good game experience, at least to me)

27

General Discussion / Re: Planning an open-source Final Fantasy based game, what are the legal concerns?

« on: 2012-08-20 23:25:31 »

This guy is using a lot of ff material. He has created a ff8 sequel in the game's engine. Is this considered "legal"?

Those are just videos. He could either do them via mods/hacking or using a video editor.
I haven't heard of single case of Youtube gameplay/mod videos being removed so far... (except when it has background music with copyright)

28

General Discussion / Re: Planning an open-source Final Fantasy based game, what are the legal concerns?

« on: 2012-08-20 23:22:56 »

OP could easily just remove all story similarities, names and references if he does get one too, so i doubt it would be that much of a problem

I think I'll go with that route - ie, using the same names and maybe some graphic similarities to start with (that will surely get the project a bit more attention ). If someone (from SE) complains, I'll change them or remove the source (I'll still have the game to myself anyway).

29

General Discussion / Re: Planning an open-source Final Fantasy based game, what are the legal concerns?

« on: 2012-08-20 21:47:43 »

If you were to use names, I wouldn't name a place Balamb, and then make it look exactly the same, just to be safe.

So yeah, you could make something inspired by FF8, but you can't have things exactly like it, unless you want to get ass-raped by square-enix, regardless of if they are in the right or not.

They don't care if it's open source and not being sold for a profit. That's their IP you are toying with, and they won't like it one bit if they find your stuff when you have a decent amount of work done.

that sucks... what if someone wants to a sequel to the history?

by the sound of it, I'll probably wait until FF8 is abandonware and most people don't care about it anymore.
Or I can get rich/billionaire, so I can buy licensing stuff or whatever from them I guess

Anyway, I'm still gonna do it privately.
When the time comes I'll worry more about this - it's a learning experience (I actually prefer coding over gaming...)

30

General Discussion / Re: Planning an open-source Final Fantasy based game, what are the legal concerns?

« on: 2012-08-20 20:59:54 »

Note that the game is to be 100% open-source. It's gonna appear some day in the wild (probably github), but will not be commercialized.

Is there anything wrong on saying:
"This is an in-development game, codenamed 'OpenFantasy', which is based on the ideas behind the good old Final Fantasy series for PSX." ?
(I haven't decided a real name for it, but I'm not too much concerned about it).

But really, how come I can get in trouble for using "Balamb" and "Trabia"? (serious question here).
It's just sounds awful, mainly because it's an open-source thing that has no intentions to be sold.
Maybe the "educational fair use" is in place?

One thing comes to my mind, just found a quick video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEVcbcQW3GU
^fair use?

31

Graphical / Re: Magochocobo Final Fantasy VIII characters textures

« on: 2012-08-20 18:33:27 »

haha! Kurse all SeeDs!

very nice, keep the great work!

32

General Discussion / Planning an open-source Final Fantasy based game, what are the legal concerns?

« on: 2012-08-20 18:29:26 »

Hey there everyone,
I'm planning on developing an open-source, Final-Fantasy based game in the long term (I know I would at least 1 year before having anything to show off).
I know Python, C and C++ and recently started learning some OpenGL. I know Qt4 pretty well, so that can do the launcher, settings, etc.

I'm creating this topic because I'm looking for advice. I know you guys are not lawyers, but I believe you should know some stuff better than me.

The history would be like an FFVIII clone, but with different characters, monsters and cities.
I choose FFVIII because of the Garden situation, where you have students that need to pass a set of trials, get into SeeD, and then they're dispatched to the whole world.
On a initial state the player could only start in Balamb Garden, but once things advance it will have the chance to start a new adventure in Galbadia or Trabia Gardens. (maybe even White Seed or in Esthar?)

Anyway, what kind of things should I be aware that are off-limits?
afaik, names of cities, magic, attacks, etc are not copyrightable, so they are fine to copy I guess? (plus damage calculations)
ideally, the FFVIII world map would be copied too, then added a few extras here and there.

I know I can't use textures from the real game, and I don't plan to.
But what about these projects?
(I'm looking mostly at the menu icons)

Thanks very much in advance!

33

Graphical / Re: Magochocobo Final Fantasy VIII characters textures

« on: 2012-08-03 13:28:13 »

This is awesome, great work!

Is this for both battle and field models?
Is it possible to do the same for monsters? (I'm assuming yes, since you have Fujin+Rajin)

thanks!

34

Releases / Re: Restore the debug room (FF8 PC)

« on: 2012-08-02 23:27:46 »

very nice!

but how does one access the debug room on PC using this? is the all-buttons-except-start combo still the way to do it?

I know some things in the debug room caused the PSX to hang/crash when the proper CD was not being used (ie, trying to go on an event for disc3 while still running on disc1).
I'm curious what happens on PC...

35

FF8 Tools / Re: [0.6b] Deling - a FF8 field editor

« on: 2012-06-04 22:36:24 »

btw, is the ff8 script stuff documented somewhere?

I'm actually wondering now if it would be possible to add new 2d scenes...
For example, modify one background a bit so a new path becomes available (probably need to modify 3d walk-path as well), then when the user walks over the new area trigger a change to some new scene.

36

FF8 Tools / Re: [0.6b] Deling - a FF8 field editor

« on: 2012-06-02 01:56:36 »

very nice tool, congrats!
(just tested here on a linux 64bit system, svn checkout).

I see some unused backgrounds... 

37

General Discussion / Re: Portable FF7 PC?

« on: 2012-03-30 22:17:40 »

I have this working for FF8 and it's quite simple (note that I use Linux here. on Windows you'll need something like DaemonTools).
For FF8, just extract the LOCAL_MACHINE\SquareSoft\Final F..\ data from registry and modify as needed.

I have my always ready ff8-install.reg:

Code: [Select]

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Square Soft, Inc\FINAL FANTASY VIII\1.00]
"AppPath"="H:\\Personal\\FF8\\Game"
"DataDrive"="f:"
"Graphics"=dword:00000000
"GraphicsGUID"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
"InstallOptions"=dword:000000ff
"MIDIGUID"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
"MidiOptions"=dword:00000000
"SoundGUID"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
"SoundOptions"=dword:00000000

The data drive must exist. (I use wine to create a virtual CD/DVD pointed to some folder).

38

Releases / Re: [REL/FF8] Project SeeD (FF8 GUI overhaul)

« on: 2012-02-16 18:03:02 »

# Disable Error Notifications   add these lines at the bottom
disable_popup = on                "Glitch .... something .. texture"

I didn't know about this one, it was not on the config file.

Now I don't see those yellow glitch messages anymore, thanks!

39

Aali's Custom FF7/FF8 Driver / Re: Aali's driver [v 0.7.11b] Help/Bugs/Suggestions

« on: 2012-02-10 19:47:59 »

Hi there,

is it possible to have the music plugin available for FF8 as well?

I'm already using the custom DLS file, but it would be just too awesome if we could use looped-ogg files (OCRemix and Dissidia have a few good FF8 music versions).

40

Releases / Re: [REL/FF8] Project SeeD (FF8 GUI overhaul)

« on: 2012-02-10 04:48:51 »

You're forgetting about the 'USC' user updates.
I'm not sure if they are still online, but I re-uploaded the updated package just in case:
http://www.mediafire.com/?caqqolqucj8rti9

I feels like this project is going a bit slow, so I want to help out.
I just started playing, so I'll take notes as soon as I see something that needs update.

One thing about the cards though - we need 3 different sets. One for menu, user-deck (blue) and enemy-deck (pink).
The 'USR' updates only provide the menu ones.

41

Gameplay / Re: FFVIII Hard Edition (Reloaded)

« on: 2011-08-11 09:33:13 »

Currently there is no download link due to a rule violation - is there a "legal" patch download in the works?

ah, sorry, I was waiting to get my mod implemented directly in another mod (another hard mod, but with different levels of difficulty)

I've made a patch already, but I plan to create a NSIS exe for ease the mod install.


If you're comfortable with the command-line, you can get this to work right now.
[English version only!]

Step 1 - Verify your battle.fs md5sum
should be 'e75cf0fc46074b7e7275be7e0753179d'

Step 2 - Backup your files
Just to be safe, save your Data/battle.fs somewhere as backup

Step 3 - Download the patch
http://www.mediafire.com/file/wc8umvftdhmmror/battle.fs.patch

Step 4 - Apply the patch
Use bspatch (download -> http://sites.inka.de/tesla/download/bsdiff4.3-win32.zip)
The command is:
bspatch.exe /path/to/battle.fs /path/to/battle.fs /path/to/my/patch

42

Releases / Re: [REL] Project SeeD (FF8 GUI overhaul)

« on: 2011-08-08 08:53:59 »

'.' signifies the current folder.  It might allow one to use the 'mods' folder as the root for installing mods.

Yes, this is what I do currently.

AFAIK, this is the only mod that uses this method (ie, separated images in mods/ folder for Aali's driver).

I'm using Linux though, not sure if that makes any difference...

43

Releases / Re: [REL] Project SeeD (FF8 GUI overhaul)

« on: 2011-08-06 15:32:46 »

Ok I did that and I don't see any difference, the fonts are still blocky and the menu imgs look the same.

Here is what the file looks like

# ff7_opengl-0.7.9b config file



## USER OPTIONS ##
## If you just want to play the game, these are the only options you'll want to change.

# set the window size (or fullscreen resolution) of FF8
# 0 means use original resolution (whatever ff7.exe provides)
# preserve_aspect adds black borders as needed to preserve a 4:3 aspect ratio
window_size_x = 1920
window_size_y = 1200
preserve_aspect = no
fullscreen = yes

# mod directory
# subdirectroy of mods/ where textures will be loaded from
# does not affect the old external textures feature, those should still go in textures/
mod_path = .

# check your driver settings if this option doesn't seem to work
enable_vsync = yes

# allow FF8 to use linear filtering for its textures
# some things look slightly better with this option on, but alot of textures just lose their detail
linear_filter = off

I note at least 1 thing - you're using an outdated version of the aali's driver

please try the latest 0.11b version and report back

44

Releases / Re: [REL] Project SeeD (FF8 GUI overhaul)

« on: 2011-08-06 15:22:23 »

OK here is what I've done I put the data folder in the mod folder, then in the config file I need to know exactly what to type after mod_path =

Thank you for helping I know it's probably something really simple i'm missing

Like I said, in the ff8 gl config, set mod_path as this:

Code: [Select]

mod_path = .(It's a single dot)

45

Releases / Re: [REL] Project SeeD (FF8 GUI overhaul)

« on: 2011-08-06 15:11:23 »

I can't get it to work what is the file path you use this is what I have in my config file "mod_path = /mods"

hmm...? I could not be clearer...

Mod extracted to /mods dir
mod_path set as "." (single dot)

46

Gameplay / Re: [REL] FFVIII Hard Edition (Reloaded)

« on: 2011-08-02 09:34:29 »

Someone has an idea on how to distribute a patch?

And no, he won't, even if he's an U.S.A. citizen, since this forums' rules simply don't allow this.

I though patches were safe...?

We're not distributing any entire/original files, just the tiny bits that were modified... 

47

Gameplay / Re: [REL] FFVIII Hard Edition (Reloaded)

« on: 2011-07-28 12:13:54 »

@Vgr: thanks! I've no idea how to properly do this
(my intention was using NSIS with the full files inside, but then someone could use 7zip and access them...)

Making it for different languages means the monster names will change to their defaults in English (unless your patch system is that really awesome??)

And how could we improve the monsters AI?
I've seen that some monsters are clever than others (hehe, "Go for the weak one!" rings a bell?), so maybe it's just a setting?

Anyway, many thanks for helping me here!

48

Graphical / Re: FFVIII Retexturing

« on: 2011-07-28 12:08:04 »

Nice work, though that Squall does look a little feminine.

hahaha, totally!

Still, very nice work 

49

Gameplay / Re: [REL] FFVIII Hard Edition (Reloaded)

« on: 2011-07-27 08:36:48 »

It's not allowed to distribute the whole files and all, so the first download must be taken down.

Oh, sorry, I'll do that right away
EDIT: hm, what is the best method for this? a binary patch?

On another hand, it's a very good idea.

Thanks
This makes playing FF8 again not so boring (for being far too easy...). It's not for everyone though... specially the full-startover from the beginning.

If you don't know the Card Mod, Degenerator and Meltdown+Aura tricks, you can just leave this alone... 

50

Gameplay / FFVIII Hard Edition (Reloaded)

« on: 2011-07-26 16:25:06 »

Hello everyone!

I'm proud to present my very first mod - Final Fantasy VIII Hard Edition (Reloaded, cause a previous attempt at this has already been made, but never completed).

Information
This mod is for PC only, but feel to try to make it work on PSX (don't ask me how to do it though).
The mod was done with FF8AC and Ifrit tools, by modifying the battle.* files that contained monster data.
Only the monster data were changed, everything else remains the same.

What does it do?
As you guessed, it will make FF8 harder. Battles are at least x3 times harder, with x4-5 for some specific bosses (Ultimecia!).
Not only the enemies HP will rise, but also all their other stats (Strength, Spirit, Speed, etc). Sadly, the enemies will remain stupid...

How hard is it?
Enough to give you a good challenge, but not too much to make it unplayable.
Playing the game from the beginning can be really challenging, but it's possible.

Is it safe to use?
Yes, only the battle.* files are modified, and you can even download the specific monster files (com00*.dat) to manually patch the game.
I'm currently on disc 2 (before Balamb->Ellone search->Fujin+Rajin->Pandemona), and everything seems fine so far.

Does it need Aali's driver?
Nope, you can use it with the default driver if you wish.
I recommend using the Aali + SeeD mods though, the game feels more "fresh".

Download:
Unfortunately, you can't distribute copyrighted files in their entirety - you have to instead distribute patches. You can provide a set of patch files for each individual file, or use a patch program like NSIS that can compare entire directories and create a self-installer. Nice work, all the same.- Bosola



Please let me know of any issues or question you may have.
Enjoy!