Messages

1

Announcements and site development / Re: An apology

« on: 2020-06-16 17:31:47 »

From an outside perspective I'm sure it seems like it's all of a sudden and out of nowhere.  Fact is he's been warned, moderated, muted multiple times, and has even been banned multiple times.  He was told to if he instigated one more time, that he would be banned.  He instigated, so he was banned.  This thread is an apology that we let it go this far.  He was given many more chances than other members would get, and that's not fair to everyone else.

@ Prince Lex, sorry he drove you away all those years ago, but glad to see your forum doing so well as well as your youtube channel.

Thank you, I appreciate that <3. For what it's worth, TLS did go through a phase not long after I joined (just as a member initially) where mods took a backseat and a startlingly similar thing happened - there was a huge divide in the community, stronger personalities were getting away with things they shouldn't have been getting away with and leaving others feeling victimised - It was a rift that took a long time (and a bunch of new staff with new attitudes) to mend.

I've been in your exact position before a few times, where warnings etc were dished out behind the scenes which led to temp or permabans and then some members of the community were often mollified and questioning the rules or fairness of the decision. I think it's easy to lose sight of that when you're a staff member because you can see the whole picture - all the reported posts and discussion threads with other staff members. One of the ways I've tried to address this over the years is by offering transparency as much as possible, and our current board software (Xenforo) has a really neat feature that allows warnings to be pinned to posts themselves. I think this gives members visibility over what's been violated, why the member is being warned and also sends a message to folk about the kind of inclusive board culture you're trying to create (assuming you're trying to create an inclusive board culture lol). I'm not saying it's a solution that could work here (I don't even know if SMF has a feature like that - or a plugin that would enable it) but it's something to think about. This thread is a great example of being transparent about a decision that's been made, and I think that's how you build trust in staff.

I think you folks all together (not just staff) need to decide what kind of community you want to create and then work towards it - it's a haven for mods and mod creation of course, that's what it's always been, but off-topic sections are where the meat really lies in terms of what people post about day to day. Use polls, votes, read opinions, hire more staff to help you sort through it all if need be. I remember once upon a time staff here were considering getting rid of "Completely Unrelated" and "General FF Discussion" altogether and just keeping the place the technical haven it used to be - code, mods, nothing else. But given that you've retained and built a community who get to know each other and chat in the off topic sections, I don't think that would work for you now.

Anyway I didn't want to come back to tell you how to run the place because there are definitely other schools of thought, and I'm by no means claiming to be perfect. Just hoping to lend some insight based on my own experiences, because eff knows I've made my own share of huge mistakes over the years! My inbox is always open if you're looking for help of any kind.

2

Announcements and site development / Re: An apology

« on: 2020-06-16 06:16:42 »

The only reason DLPB wasn't banned in 2009 was because we got tired of fighting his accounts and he quit trolling for a while.

Actually if I recall, he WAS banned and then unbanned by technicality because that other SMod was sick of having no support and ragequit, un-banning every previously banned member in the process. He simply wasn't re-banned after that.

The oldies here will probably recognise me, but anyone who is new won't. I worked on some of the Scottish dialect for his retranslation (and other projects long before that was a thing), but he and I were often at odds prior to his first being banned from Qhimm in 2009. I now work over at The Lifestream, and in an odd way I owe that to him because his general behaviour here is what drove me off this board (which was my internet home at the time) to that one, where he was already banned. I don't want to spend any time disparaging his character - I worked with him on the project well enough after our major disagreements. I can only say that I remember how alienated I felt when he was allowed to come back to this board which I think is saying a lot given it was a decade ago, so I think the community has made the right decision. I may no longer be a big part of this community, but you will have knowingly or unknowingly just made this place feel a lot safer for folk to post in.

3

Troubleshooting / Re: Multiple Installations Question

« on: 2015-07-05 19:59:51 »

No prob, thanks. I guess I'm just going to have to fire ahead and see what comes of it. Worst comes to the worst I can uninstall/reinstall whichever version.

4

Troubleshooting / Re: Multiple Installations Question

« on: 2015-07-05 18:44:30 »

Does the Steam version use the same registry entries then? Or are your copies two of the PC '98?

5

Troubleshooting / Multiple Installations Question

« on: 2015-07-05 17:30:28 »

Hi folks, long time no post - hows it going?

I apologise if this is in the wrong place, feel free to move it if that's the case. As the title suggests, I've got a question about whether or not I'll run into problems with multiple installations of VII. I own a physical copy of the PC '98 version as well as a Steam copy. The Steam copy is installed and I don't want to convert it to mod (I'd rather keep the achievement and cloud saving functionality).

Will I run into problems if I install the original version aswell? This would obviously be to make use of mods. Ideally a person who's done this before will be able to answer. I can't remember if this is something I've actually done before back when the Square Enix store initially released it in 2012. I guess if nobody has an answer I can just go ahead and try it out, but I'm worried it'll bork if they share registry values or something.

Cheers, hope you're all doing well

6

General Discussion / Re: Final Fantasy 7 for PS4 Announced

« on: 2014-12-10 02:22:30 »

I'm curious as to how this version is going to be tailored for the PS4 though. For example, will they change things like "PUSH [ASSIST]" back to the original Playstation buttons? Will the screen be stretched or will there be an option for aspect ratio? (or very unlikely, will it support true widescreen)?

They're probably not going to do much to it, but since the PS4 has similar architecture to that of a PC, I'm wondering why it's not out like... right now or in a couple of weeks. They must be making some optimisations.

7

Bootleg Questions / Re: [FF7] Tutorial for Bootleg - Tifa's Bootleg

« on: 2014-07-31 03:18:50 »

Thanks, that's nice of you both. It's running at about 4.3MB/s down in uTorrent so I shouldn't have too many problems getting it all downloaded. I'll make sure to seed it for a long time too.

I can't get the OP link to work, but it's more than likely something to do with using the chrome adblock with the adfly link. No worries

8

Bootleg Questions / Re: [FF7] Tutorial for Bootleg - Tifa's Bootleg

« on: 2014-07-31 02:44:14 »

Just a heads up EQ2Alyza, the torrent link in the OP (to all compatible mods) isn't working (although it's possible this is just for me). I have since managed to find your updated torrent on Kickass.to, which I had to access via proxy since I'm from the UK and my ISP doesn't allow the site *shakes fist*

Just wanted to let you know/ see if anyone else was having problems with the link. Also, your previous torrent seems to have more seeders than the more recent version of the collection, so maybe a heads up to those of you here who are seeding to stop and switch to the newer one, if that's the case.

9

General Discussion / Re: [FF7PC-98] Multiple mods - The Reunion (R01)

« on: 2014-07-28 18:25:47 »

Scottish dialect there looks fine and so does the rest of it; no additions required

10

Bootleg Questions / Re: Feature requests for the next Bootleg release

« on: 2014-07-19 06:22:17 »

Will a feature be implemented that warns the user of conflicting mods? It's been a long time since I used bootleg to install the game, but I don't recall if this was implemented in later releases. IIRC anything that messes with that file that holds the weapon/ attack animation data (I forget the name of it! Judge me not Qhimm forumers, it's been years since I modded) is incompatible with a number of things.

I shamefully don't have an install of VII on this computer right now, but if I happen to do an install I'll keep a look out for anything that might be useful.

And honestly, this is one of the most useful projects to modding newcomers that I can think of. Bootleg itself was a breath of fresh air at the time. I still remember having to manually mod everything including that High Res textures patch that only supported two very specific resolutions prior to Aali's driver being released :/

Anyway yes, flying visit. Hope you're all doing well, glad to see the place is still going strong and good to see the same faces modding etc . Keep at it folks.

11

Gameplay / Re: FF7 any leader proof of concept

« on: 2013-07-20 05:26:44 »

This is fantastic news Ultima, I still remember messing with the files over MSN trying to get this to work about 4 years ago 0_0. I'll be keeping an eye on this, it's something I'd like to use in the future. PM me on TLS if you need any help/ want me to test anything.

12

General Discussion / Re: First high resolution in-game screenshots of Final Fantasy X & X-2 HD

« on: 2013-04-24 03:39:35 »

Completely disagree.  We are talking about a game that is still very playable and decent as it is, and had Sony not been an ass with their backward compatibility for all consoles, this update would be completely redundant.  I don't think paying 20-40 dollars for updates to graphics is worthwhile (not this kind of update anyway).  Call me crazy but I believe what made FFX great was the actual game-play, not whether you can see fur on Lulu's coat.  This, to me, is just another sad symptom of SquareEnix and its modus operandi.. namely, to make money from nothing.  Nothing original coming out of that company in terms of Final Fantasy.   Just relying on fanbase to make profits. 


Evidentally, it is working.

The only acceptable time to pay this money for this "remake" (which it isn't) is if you are playing it for the first time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwDDswGsJ60

Edit: And trophies are a complete joke, and barrel scraping.

Listen, I am in no way a fan of the way Square Enix have been operating pretty much ever since they became Square-Enix, but I'm not going to jump on the hate bandwagon because they're releasing a HD remaster. And they're not trying to market it as a "remake", they've very clearly indicated that it's a remaster in every instance. The majority of companies with blockbuster PS2 titles have re-released their games in HD to massive success, so this is actually the best business decision they've made in years. This release means it's easily accessible to both new gamers and the people interested in the nostalgia trip through one of their favourite games, only it's enhanced with new features.

And it's the same price as other re-released HD remasters, so I'm not faulting them for that either. I'm actually surprised it's a normal price, considering their iOS ports are ridiculously overpriced. You might also want to elaborate on what's wrong with a company wanting to make a profit? To be honest, they've made some shitty business decisions in the past 10 years, the biggest of which was alienating their core fanbase by fucking up newer titles. This is a very sound one.

Some people are into the trophy collecting thing. It's not like SE are using it as a selling point, it's just an additional feature. How exactly is it "barrel scraping"? It's purely a feature that all new PS3 titles have, so of course they're going to add it in. Jesus.

Also, Prince Lex you must be running epsxe at the bare minimum because mine looks much better than that. (although the ps3 one still looks far better)

Firstly, if I was going to emulate Final Fantasy X on the PC, I'd use PCSX2 - which, unlike ePSXe - is actually a PS2 emulator. Secondly, the first screenshot is a shot of the game running full spec in PCSX2 at 1440x1080 resolution. That's what the game currently looks like emulated in HD. You must have manually updated all the textures in that scene by yourself if it somehow looks better than that. *shrugs*

13

General Discussion / Re: First high resolution in-game screenshots of Final Fantasy X & X-2 HD

« on: 2013-04-23 22:06:59 »

All controllable characters have been completely redone as well as most of the textures throughout the game. It's not simply a case of "upping the textures".

This is FFX running in HD in PCSX2:



Here's the same moment from the released screenshots of the remake:



Look at the detail on Lulu's fur and hair (the hair is less noticeable due to the small size of these images). More than that, look at the grass behind the stairs in the background.

In addition to this, they've removed the borders to allow true widescreen (not stretched as is the case with PCSX2). It's also going to be at normal speed in PAL territories for the first time (and non-letterboxed), and includes both games. It also appears they're either adding data to the FMV's or they originally made them in widescreen, because the trailer shows non-stretched clips of the opening FMV.

Calling $39.99 a ridiculous price for two remastered games is honestly stupid, it's cheap as hell. That's about £25 for what is going to be an excellent remaster of one of the best games on the PS2. I'd pay that for X alone, I just happen to be getting X-2 in the bargain. Oh also, trophies.

14

Troubleshooting / Re: Final Fantasy VII 2012 Rerelease.

« on: 2013-04-23 21:47:41 »

Don't the new battle interface and menu overhaul projects get rid of the black bars? You need the 1998 PC release though. Or convert the new release to the old one, if there's a way to do that. /hasn't been here for a while.

15

General Discussion / Re: Hidden Scenes in Final Fantasy VII

« on: 2013-04-08 23:40:29 »

None of this is new information, but some of it is quite obscure and very very missable. If you're looking for deleted scenes and coverage of some of the very missable ones, you should check out Shademp's unused text series on The Lifestream. It's a fascinating read if you're interested in what wasn't put in the game.

16

Completely Unrelated / Re: Britain and its Insane Immigration Policy

« on: 2013-03-08 18:58:22 »

Japan has other severe problems, as pointed out above.

Thank you for the detailed response, you've just proven that you can't see beyond colour which was no less than I expected, but a bit disappointing. This is something we're just going to disagree on I'm afraid, but I wasn't exactly expecting to agree with any of it anyway.

And your TB "facts" are nonsense. It's not undeniable at all. That one time Tuberculosis outbreak was caused by what I mentioned - the population no longer being immunised against it (another thing our government has to answer for). It was never fully eradicated from the country, it just wasn't an epidemic anymore. There is no way you can make an argument that immigration has caused a rise in TB. That isolated outbreak of TB, and any others, could be attributed to anyone bringing it here on a day long visit; and actually has fuck all to do with immigration. That's just media sensationalism as usual.

It might well have been that an immigrant to the country brought TB with them, but the only reason they managed to develop the disease is because the government have stopped immunising. Cases like this would have happened and will continue to do so if you removed all immigrants from the country until they start administering the vaccine again, it's very simple.

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Completely Unrelated / Re: Britain and its Insane Immigration Policy

« on: 2013-03-08 18:08:33 »

It would be a problem to our way of life if they ever managed to push through Sharia law, but I don't see  that happening. And I would never dream of saying it wasn't caused by immigration in the first place. The population boom from the Muslim influx in the 70's and the subsequent baby boom certainly added to it. But as far as I know, you're talking about immigration on the whole and I don't think you can generalise like that. I've now said this 3 times.

You also didn't answer any of my previous questions. I'm generally interested to know the answers? Also, could you give me a brief description of what you'd do to solve this problem?

Also see my previous third edit about TB. I had to keep adding to my post because you kept editing it >_>. I'm not trying to rile you up here Dan, I just don't agree with the way you're going about what you're saying. And that editing posts thing is really annoying, I thought you had stopped doing that.

18

Completely Unrelated / Re: Britain and its Insane Immigration Policy

« on: 2013-03-08 17:46:51 »

You said the rise in immigration has led to blah blah blah etc and then mentioned child grooming scandals as being the tip of the iceberg. If that's not implying that the racial minorities are responsible for crime then I don't know what is.

And if you're not saying they're responsible for a rise in crime, why is having them in "your" city such a problem?

EDIT: I actually completely agree with the Islam part. It's pretty scary where that's attempting to go. Also can you not post if you're not finished saying something? I don't mind waiting for a reply, it's just replying to a one liner then posting only to find out you've added a paragraph is inconvenient. You used to do this a lot if I recall.

EDIT2: Again, please stop editing your posts to kingdom come. Pretty please?

EDIT3: This is a bit ridiculous now. Diversity didn't bring TB back. Travel to and from countries where TB is endemic brought it back, along with the fact that the government no longer administers the BCG to schools. I should mention that my degree is in Microbiology/ Infection biology, so don't say untrue things about the spread of disease and try to relate it to race or any other kind of human being unless you're willing to sit and listen to the truth.

19

Completely Unrelated / Re: Britain and its Insane Immigration Policy

« on: 2013-03-08 17:37:34 »

No I don't "know it" Dan. You need to look at the whole thing objectively. London is the main hub of the UK. Like any capital city it's going to have a higher population of people that aren't from the UK for a multitude of reasons. I'm not denying that at all.

What you're doing is labelling all ethnic minorities as troublemakers and criminals. You're doing it wrong. The government might let them in, but the people in "ghettos" and other areas have to work twice as hard to get respect from people like you who automatically assume they're criminals. It just doesn't help the situation.

I grew up in Glasgow. I lived in London for a year back when I was working in a lab for my masters (London Institute). I don't like the place. But that's just a cultural difference between Scotland and London (not England as a whole) because the people in London are competitive, ignorant and jaded generally. Did you grow up in London? And if so, what was your experience of it like? Have you always held this view on immigration? Did your parents? These are the things I'm interested to know about right now. What specifically is it that caused you to have these viewpoints?

I could never vote for the BNP, but we'll abandon that discussion to avoid an argument. Suffice it to say they hate everything that isn't a straight white religious male.

20

Completely Unrelated / Re: Britain and its Insane Immigration Policy

« on: 2013-03-08 16:49:05 »

London has always been rife with crime. The rate of it isn't increasing. I live in Glasgow, which has been massively affected by immigration over the past 40 years. A huge Muslim influx from the 70's onwards and an increasing percentage of Polish, Romanian and all other manner of nationalities. This doesn't include the recent African and Middle Eastern Asylum seekers.

So yes, I live in an area that is one of the most affected areas in the whole country. I just think you're simplifying it far too much. The state of the country has nothing to do with immigration, it's to do with the state of the government. The simple fact is that we're not producing enough children so immigration is actually a necessary component. What you're failing to point out is that not all immigrants are poor and causing problems. Feel free to tar everyone with the same brush though, you do seem to like doing that. Note: that doesn't actually help anyone either.

I assume you vote BNP?

21

Completely Unrelated / Re: Britain and its Insane Immigration Policy

« on: 2013-03-08 15:55:05 »

Immigration has absolutely nothing to do with how shit this country is, it's the constant brow beating by the government, the cutting of funds in all public sectors, the widening of the class divide and the resultant apathy of all of its people. I don't think I know a single person that wants to live here anymore unless they're too old to emigrate themselves, and that viewpoint is nothing to do with where the person came from originally.

22

Gameplay / Re: Final Fantasy VII+

« on: 2013-01-14 01:43:21 »

While you would only need to edit the save to add cloud to the list of people allowed to be placed in the PHS to enable the player to have a party without cloud. there is a small problem with the way this works in stock FF7. the game only allows the player controllable model to be cloud, tifa or cid. this applys to both the field and world maps areas. the games does not crash just if you don't have cloud, tifa or cid in your party you see no model.

This is partially correct. I tested this a long time ago (check my post history or something if anyone is interested) and in scenes where a character has a path mapped, the last party member swapped into the party will be the controllable one. For example, in Cosmo Canyon you're able to control any character in the first screen of the town, but if it's someone like Yuffie they'll start off at the candle. When you try to go into another screen they'll be invisible.

Occasionally you can control the character even when they're invisible, and occasionally when they're visible they won't be able to trigger the transition between screens (meaning you can enter a town and become completely stuck. This happens with Aerith in Kalm.) It's a pretty messy area to be honest, it seems to work differently in almost every place.

Also note that having Cid or Tifa in the party doesn't mean the game will default to them being displayed on the screen (except on the world map, where even if none of the 3 leaders are present Cloud will appear). The exact mechanics aren't really clear. Battles work flawlessly without Cloud but this kind of thing will need some serious field editing to work. It'd be an excellent mod but a lot of tedium would be involved.

In short, don't untick Cloud's "unswappable" box in Black Chocobo unless you've backed up your save and can be bothered with experimentation.

23

General Discussion / Re: Which version do you prefer? New vs Old.

« on: 2012-08-19 21:23:59 »

For vanilla VII, obviously the new version is much much better. But also obviously, people here are going to want to play with mods, and if you want to do that, it's obvious which version to use. So this isn't really much of a discussion? XD

24

General Discussion / Re: Final Fantasy VII Rerelease thread

« on: 2012-08-15 17:01:45 »

Finally checked out a vid on this re release
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT_pcZH8y9c
How come the font is smooth like the TA's? Nothing like the psx's font?

That's the original PC version font. It was always smoother than the PS font.

25

General Discussion / Re: Final Fantasy VII Rerelease thread

« on: 2012-08-14 22:59:06 »

Can anyone help me?

Apparently when I purchased from the U.S. store, it assigned me the username etc that I entered(jeffdamann)

It WILL NOT let me log on with this account in game, so I clicked make an account in the launcher, it took me to the EU site.

I tried to enter my credentials and it says not found, yet if I try to take a new account Jeffdamann is taken(from the U.S. site) so I got pissed and made a vulgar user and it worked.

Why is it taking me to the EU site, and why isnt it letting me activate with my U.S. Jeffdamann username?

You have to sign in with your e-mail address and password, and don't try clicking on either the "Facebook" or "Square Enix North America" boxes. You also need to have clicked the e-mail validation link they sent to you when you registered.

EDIT: Actually, you might have to click on the "Square-Enix North America" box if you got the game from the US store.