[FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.99999)

[Sega Chief]

Wait, what? The highway game repeated itself three times? I've never heard of that happening before; is this with the latest flevel patch?

I'll fix that MP issue; I changed the chocobo levels recently so they could all use Chocobuckle, but I clean forgot the lower down ones might not have enough MP.

Edit: I might have figured it out; was there a new option to save the game by pressing switch when you were on the bike tutorial/party set-up screen? Looking at it, there's a way for the game to 'loop' if the save menu is used. I missed it in testing because I saved the game and then reloaded the save to check that it was working (which had the script perform it's loop then, rather than doing it after the minigame). I'll put up a set of patches tonight, after I've got some things sorted out.

[HeaN]

You should setup an Paypal Donation Account

Anyway there is another bug at the Materia Caves. Once you enter them you get your materia instant and then the fight begins.

I don't know if it should be like that.

[Sega Chief]

No, it should be that you examine the Materia itself as normal then the fight starts. I'd better have a look at it.

You should setup an Paypal Donation Account

Edit: I'll put a donation button thingie on the front page. If it goes awry or someone starts yelling at me then I can always take it back down again.

[HeaN]

Why should someone say something if you add an donation button?! LOL Youre bringing fun back to FFVII and I think you deserve donations for this
I'm just amazed how much work someone put into things like that That must be pain in the ass and ALOT of testing..


BTW if you need any help or got any coding related questions i can answer, just ask me.

[Covarr]

Donations are fine, as long as you're not actually charging for anything associated with Square Enix IPs.

[Rufus]

I don't know about that, I don't think people are not allowed to make money off mods, wasn't there recently an issue with steam paid mods for skyrim.

I mean the people that remade half life 1 I think weren't allowed to make any money off it, even though a lot of work was put into it.

but now recently it has been given the green light by valve and they can make money off it, but only because the license fees are payed to whoever payed for the half life 1 license, i think, this is all guess work.

but in this case it is a tough issue, another similar mod called deus ex revision is coming out soon, i don't know if they are allowed to accept donations, i would assume not though, but a lot of work has been done there, as in completely changing all the maps and paths of the game, it's practically an entirely new experience.

there was also an oblivion mod which was a whole different game, using the same engine and assets of oblivion, it was in german with english subs,  i didn't see a donate button but i would assume that would be illegal as they are re using oblivion tool set engine along with a lot of its assets (character model designs, trees, grass etc.), many people say its even better than oblivion, so i would assume people would want to donate.

[Covarr]

With donations, you are donating to the person; the mod is incidental. At least, that's the theory.

Honestly, modding is such a nebulous gray area that unless the company in question speaks out, the best you can do is what you hope won't make 'em mad. In theory, Square Enix could issue this site a cease and desist order for absolutely everything, because we don't really have their permission for any of it. They won't do that because of our staunch policies regarding pirated software, and because we do everything in our power not just to stay off their radar, but to actively encourage FF7 and FF8 sales, but if anyone here were to start charging for a mod, they would likely change their minds for the sake of protecting their IP.

As far as donations, many mods of popular games DO accept donations. Usually this is okay as long as they don't lock any content behind a donation. Sega shut down a Streets of Rage remake that asked for donations, but that's the only case I can think of where this has been a problem for anyone. And even then, that was a remake not a mod, and therefore more damaging to their potential sales.

[Rufus]

hmm seems in skyrim people can charge for mods, given that this is a donation that should make things even better.

 i guess it can be okay then, given the information provided above, I just thought that you weren't allowed to profit off a company's work.

example in the new threat case:
high profile big budget game gets made by square
a modder changes a lot of things and makes money from it.

now you see in that case some would think the modder would actually need to pay some of that money to square, as without squares big budget game, he couldn't mod the game which he made money from.

but on the flip side you are not causing any harm to square whether this mod is made or not, there is no loss of profit for them, which is why i wondered how the half life 1 remake was allowed to be given out free when the original was sold on steam.

[Sega Chief]

What is this I've come home to; I'll pitch in too.

First of all, the Skyrim scandal was caused by free mods being placed behind a 'paywall' and Steam/Bethesda taking the lion's share of the proceedings. While it's fair that both should get some of the fee from the transaction (Steam for hosting, Bethesda because it's their IP) a lot of people felt that the modder's contribution wasn't being weighted enough. There was also a lot of other issues complicating it, such as mods that depended upon other mods to function, and the ethical questions of taking content that was previously free to access and making people pay for it all of a sudden; I think people who had downloaded the mods when they were free actually had to pay to access them again too.

Same thing is revolving around the Half Life 1 'remake', Black Mesa. That's a fan project that's available for free (or an older build of it is) but now it's being featured on the Store page of Steam with a price-tag. The key thing to remember here is that these all used COMPULSORY payments; you needed to pay money to get them, with the added problem of them being free to access in the past.

Donations are different because they're not required to access the content being offered. If the mod was being sold, as in you couldn't get access to it without giving the modder money, then there would be a legal issue because someone is making money from a company's IP without their consent. That's why the majority of mods are distributed for free for anybody who wants them. You also need to remember that donations are not lucrative at all in most cases; you'd be lucky to see even $5 a month, even with a relatively well-known project. If you look at the endorsement system on Nexus (it's basically a 'like' system where mods can get a good reputation), you'll see that there's a big discrepancy between the number of downloads and the number of 'endorsements' (where people rate the mod they downloaded and played); assuming that the majority of people won't take the step of clicking a button to say they liked a mod (Nexus often posts reminders if you have mods that you've not endorsed yet), you've got to assume that they get even less actual donations.

As far as Square Enix goes, they're quick to protect their IP from anybody looking to make money from it (that live-action web series on kickstarter and the 3D-printed models being good examples) but they (hopefully) understand that mods help to drive sales for their games. I think they hosted some Thief modding competition a few months back, which is a positive sign, and while this might be incorrect I think they used Aali's graphics driver (or a modified version of it) for the Steam release. Short of it is, so long as you're not forcing people to pay for it then it tends to be fine. That being said, if any problems arise (or if people aren't comfortable with that donate button being there on the front page of this thread) then I'll remove it.

[Rufus]

yes the skyrim thing has no relation, I just misread the title of an article and didn't pay attention to the fact that there were payed mods on skyrim anyway, when i played oblivion there wasn't any paid mods so i assumed skyrim was the same.

well that is why i don't understand the HL1 remake, how can you remake 80% of a game and give it out for free, wont that harm sales of the original game, but it gets away with it due to the age of he title, game companies care less about a game the older it gets, so its more about damaging loss of sales.

but somehow it got the seal of approval and now money is rightfully being asked for the game, they are using that money for the extra levels at the end and for multiplayer, the free one will always be free.

in the case of the morrowind remake in skyrim engine, that's different because you need to own both copies of the game for it to work, so yeah i was expecting the HL1 remake to only work if you had HL1 original and say HL2, as that would be totally fair in my mind, to my surprise it was totally free and you just needed to download the SDK as well.


I am happy with a donate button, for my oculus rift i used flawlesswidescreen program to hack in a FoV of 120 to play games, that website has about 4 donate buttons and people do donate a lot of money to it, the kind of people that have those triple monitor setups, so in some ways this is similar to that, in that he is making money from making games run in triple monitors.

[Sega Chief]

Not sure what the exact situation is with the Black Mesa mod; I think it uses Half Life 2's engine, though.

\\NT Update//

Almost finished a set of patches to correct the following problems; they're based on my current files, so some new features might be sneaking in early.

Bug-fixes
-) Sorted out the eternal rain, and replaced sunset 'time of day' with 'overcast & raining' instead; also sorted a problem where the screen tint would be lost when opening the menu/finishing a battle and added handlers to temporarily stop raining when indoors.

-) Sorted out the potential loop that can occur when using the new save option during the Highway minigame.

-) Tackling a problem with Materia in the caves triggering their battles immediately rather than when being examined (pending)

-) Sorted out Aps' HP, and various AI glitches related to the now defunct difficulty modes up to the Mythril Mines (difficulty options were replaced with Original & Arrange modes; the changes made by Arrange are functioning to a limited extent within enemy AI, but consider this to be 'in development' for now).

Features
-) A new event plays in Kalm, where Yuffie will be recruited as a mandatory party member: https://youtu.be/gbMC4e8AkCc
The PHS event is no longer present; this instead plays out when leaving Midgar for the first time and forming your first party; for players 'caught in the gap', several locations including Mythril Mines will discreetly unlock the PHS command (it still needs the world map/save point to enable). Players who have already completed Kalm, or who have yet to clear the Highway minigame, before applying the patch will not be affected.

-) Weather is now toggled when resting at an Inn in certain towns. I've opted for a lighter blue hue + rain over the rather garish 'sunset' hue. This'll be used for toggling NPC scripts in towns at a later date.

-) Midgar, Kalm, and the Chocobo Ranch have been re-specced. This is part of an ongoing playthrough I'm doing to tighten the mod up again; it's went through a lot of changes, some subtle others major, since the original balancing run was done so it's high time to get it done.

-) Did some minor work on the game's dialogue and text boxes. Consider this to be in development too.

I'll have the patches ready in a couple of hours or so.

[atro city]

As far as Square Enix goes, they're quick to protect their IP from anybody looking to make money from it (that live-action web series on kickstarter and the 3D-printed models being good examples) but they (hopefully) understand that mods help to drive sales for their games. I think they hosted some Thief modding competition a few months back, which is a positive sign, and while this might be incorrect I think they used Aali's graphics driver (or a modified version of it) for the Steam release. Short of it is, so long as you're not forcing people to pay for it then it tends to be fine. That being said, if any problems arise (or if people aren't comfortable with that donate button being there on the front page of this thread) then I'll remove it.

I hate to be the dissenting voice here.  While ethically I very much support the idea of optional donations for modders, at the same time it would really suck if this got a C&D out of the blue because it's shaping up to be the best FF VII mod by a long shot. You can argue that accepting donations is within legal bounds, but at the end of the day Square-Enix has the nuclear option, they have used it in the past, and if they decide to use it again you're pretty much screwed. I don't think it's right, but it is what it is.

Realistically speaking, I don't think Square-Enix would shut down a FF VII mod. But if it were me, and I had put as much work into a mod as you have, I wouldn't risk it.

[Sega Chief]

I hate to be the dissenting voice here.  While ethically I very much support the idea of optional donations for modders, at the same time it would really suck if this got a C&D out of the blue because it's shaping up to be the best FF VII mod by a long shot. You can argue that accepting donations is within legal bounds, but at the end of the day Square-Enix has the nuclear option, they have used it in the past, and if they decide to use it again you're pretty much screwed. I don't think it's right, but it is what it is.

It should be okay; it's very rare for a mod to get any kind of legal action from a company unless it's distributing actual game files.

[Zara9]

hey sega chief

can you add the original ff7 boss battle music to the yuffie quest after the kalm flashback please

thanks

[Sega Chief]

Oh, don't worry. The music in the video isn't used in-game; that's just something I added in editing because I hadn't gotten the audio for the event 100% yet.

[Zara9]

hey sega chief

i see you taught the boss fight yuffi ruby weapon whrilsand move, very funny

and are you also gonna add in the 3 turks talking after yuffie joins the party

[Sega Chief]

It's called Warp Bomb in the files, my idea of a joke.

You mean that additional scene Cloudiar has with the Turks? No, that's something to do with OVA's story revision; my goal was to just produce a Yuffie recruitment event. Remember that they're two separate things; I coded mine completely from scratch.

[Rufus]

Wow, that Yuffie event was awesome, I think it's totally great and you solved that horrible issue or her escaping as well!

only 1 thing i would change is when yuffie stops in the room, she kinda stops twice right below a pipe and I can't see her, i would move her more to the right.

I couldn't really assess the difficulty of the boss fight, i hope it is challenging but you will really need a boss retry if you die at her as wont you have to go through quite a lot of dialogue if you watched the flashback cutscene, as the game is not expecting you to have a boss fight right after the flashback it may have not promted a save point soon enough.


What's OVA by Cloudiar?

[Sega Chief]

Yeah, that bugged me at the time; the pipe is kind of obstructing it a bit there. I forgot to change it though. Should be quick enough to fix though.

The fight is something I'm thinking about; a loss there would really suck. Fortunately, the scripts are segregated into different parts so it should be easy in this case to make a retry handler. I'll add it in before I generate these patches.

OVA is a mod by Cloudiar which introduces some intricate script changes and new events into the game throughout Midgar (and beyond). It also changes the game's script, but one thing to note is that Cloudiar is Spanish and there's no English translations of it that I'm aware of. It used to be hosted here, but not sure.

A bunch of these new events should be on his YT channel. A lot of these scripts were also used in the Nightmare 7 mod...but there was an argument about it between Cloudiar and Tenko which is why N7's actual flevel isn't hosted here. From what I saw in N7, the scripts are quite impressive though I don't know how much is Cloudiar, and how much is Tenko.

[Rufus]

oh okay, so the only way to play it is in spanish, well never mind then, also how do you know what's going on, do you know spanish, that would be an odd coincidence, or am i missing something here.

oh right so using nightmare 7 i will get some of this added stuff, i heard that was only disc 1 and never going to be updated for the rest of the game, oh well.

really looking forward to seeing the mandatory vincent recruit as well.

[Sega Chief]

I don't know Spanish; but you can sort of figure out what's happening in that scene and I think N7's custom scripts/dialogue end going out of Midgar.

As for a mandatory Vincent recruitment event, that might either not be necessary or it'll essentially be identical to the current one with the exception that you have to clear Shinra Mansion before heading for Mt. Nibel. It'll remain optional for the foreseeable future, though.

Edit: Patches are up; treat them as WIPs (or Betas) because I've still got a lot of work to do; they're only up to fix certain crucial errors.

[racompave]

Hi Sega Chief.

I've just installed the new patches, excellent mod so far, but it seems there's a bug on Cloud's flashback.

Sephiroth's ATB gauge just keep's recharging over and over again, you can't select commands or do anything (when you fight against the Dragon).

[Walter253]

Hey SegaChief!  About Yuffie;

What the point with Yuffie's Affection value (usually 30+ in original after recruiting) for the Date Event?
Maybe I'm missing it, but would be nice to let the player choose the scene and get ride off these affection values, don't know.

What did you change about her level's recruitment? Same as original (she got level/stats from the enemy)?

That's probably only me but I don't really like the 5vs1, she has no chance. Why not just make Nanaki mandatory for this fight?
(EDIT: another random idea : make that only Nanaki caught up Yuffie so it 'll turn into 1vs1 and then Cloud&Cie comes after the fight)

Also since she's mandatory, if you remove the extra character and then the other Mystery Ninja you can gain some place in your scene.bin .

[Rufus]

yeah that might  be a cool trick to the player, could be 1 on 1 with nanaki, then the gamer will think 'oh im about to die im totally screwed' then the others can turn up, im not sure if you can script the battle so that she never defeats nanaki at first, but appears to deal a lot of damage, but it would be a cool feeling none the less.

overall i thought it was really cool to see 5 ff7 party members in a battle scene, but i hope the battle is still a challenge.

Overall, I think it's great as is, and you can probably move onto others things in the mod.

[Sega Chief]

Hi Sega Chief.

I've just installed the new patches, excellent mod so far, but it seems there's a bug on Cloud's flashback.

Sephiroth's ATB gauge just keep's recharging over and over again, you can't select commands or do anything (when you fight against the Dragon).

I forgot to mention that; some kind of odd bug has turned up there very recently that's not proving easy to identify or fix. The flashback should progress even if you lose that battle, though. Hopefully I can work something out with it, I'm just a bit baffled with it at the moment. I had a bit of trouble with the kernel recently, some compression was corrupting a lot of the text. As a result, Mythril Clip was renamed to Red Clip due to it bugging out when it's called Mythril Clip for some reason (I think, space-wise, it's been pushed past its limits which might explain the bugged Sephiroth AI; I need to do a test and remove the other character AI I've added to see if that's the issue).

Hey SegaChief!  About Yuffie;

What the point with Yuffie's Affection value (usually 30+ in original after recruiting) for the Date Event?
Maybe I'm missing it, but would be nice to let the player choose the scene and get ride off these affection values, don't know.

What did you change about her level's recruitment? Same as original (she got level/stats from the enemy)?

That's probably only me but I don't really like the 5vs1, she has no chance. Why not just make Nanaki mandatory for this fight?
(EDIT: another random idea : make that only Nanaki caught up Yuffie so it 'll turn into 1vs1 and then Cloud&Cie comes after the fight)

Also since she's mandatory, if you remove the extra character and then the other Mystery Ninja you can gain some place in your scene.bin .

She basically just needs to have more than the others. However, each character starts out with a pre-determined value. Aeris starts with 50, Tifa with 30, Yuffie with 10, and Barret with a paltry 5. In the past I considered putting all these values at 0, would make getting the 'rare' dates a lot easier.

She joins at Lv.17, which is roughly around where players will be in most cases after leaving Midgar. She also gains the same bonuses to the affection value that she originally got when you selected the correct answers to recruit her in the default game. Her stats are different like every other NT character; she's got sky-high DEX and decent STR and MAG, but her defensive stats + HP/MP are quite bad; she's a glass cannon, basically.

As for the 5v1, it's not a guaranteed win; you still need to approach it with some kind of caution because of her high damage output. But you also need to be aggressive because she'll use Warp Bomb to eliminate a party member at the end of her AI cycle, and if this happens twice then you'll be in a bit of trouble. I had actually considered a 1v1 with Red instead (to distance it from Cloudiar's event a little) but I'm not a big fan of solo fights so I just went with the big ol' rush. There's not going to be another opportunity to have a battle with five characters in it (due to party composition starting to vary, etc) so gotta run with the ball when you've got it.

And yeah, this'll clear up a fair few spaces in the scene.bin. It's kind of a shame that nobody (to my knowledge) ever saw the secret Mystery Ninja battle against her and Mystery Sidekick but hey ho.

Edit: Annnnnd the AI for Sephiroth has mysteriously decided to start working again. And by that I mean it's decided to stop thinking that he actually has AI, which is the problem. I think the problem was the way I deleted it the last few times; might need to delete each line manually, rather than the whole group. Actually kind of disappointed now; I had this big plan to add a 'friendly' enemy Sephiroth with AI to replace him and then use the 'empty' character slot for something like, I dunno, a temporary Sweeper joining the party or something until you reach Nibelheim. I'll quickly update the scene patch, once I've checked this kernel over.