[Choppasmith]

For now I'll be working on inserting the Android dialog because its all right there and it's way easier but yes, even the way it is now allows for a more faithful translation with hardly any extra work on my end (or Markus's).

On Markus's blog you can download an archive of all the extracted PSX dialog, so it should be fairly easy to get started translating.

I'm not sure if this was the intent but Markus had set up each line like so:

Code: [Select]

"",ダミー{7f0b}{0000},0x0084
The second value is the Japanese text and the third is an offset that the translator doesn't need to worry about. The first quotation marks could encompass the translated text so someone could easily go into each file and start translating away. A translated line would look like this:

Code: [Select]

"Dummy{7f0b}{0000}",ダミー{7f0b}{0000},0x0084
(the values in {} are control characters, for example {0000} is the end of a dialog and {7f1f} is the hero name. I have no idea what {7f0b} is but its everywhere)

If anyone wants to do this work, like I said before, I am more than willing to set you up. You shouldn't need any technical knowledge.

This is great! My first thought was actually a mobile rip is likely to be structured the same making that an easy thing to convert. For the record, I love the modern localizations but going back to IV, I can see why people have a problem with it. Plus Alpha really went overboard in some places while I think Schloc, the people who have done the recent DQs including Heroes, Builders, XI, and I-III, found a happy middle ground. The phonetic spelling of a lot of the Irish/Scottish NPCs really ARE frustrating to read. I think having a 1:1 (or as close as possible) port with an optional  “easy reading” patch that tones down some of those phonetics would be ideal.

Btw Spookdy, first of all, welcome  . I see you made a Square Enix spell names patch for DQ1. You know I made a complete mobile port that converted everything to the modern SE terms right? ^^;;;
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4237/ Not saying I have a monopoly on that or anything, having a patch just for spell names works just as fine too. But aside from that I wanted to point out you had two of the spells wrong. It’s Sizz and Sizzle not Frizz and Frizzle.

[spookdy]

Btw Spookdy, first of all, welcome  . I see you made a Square Enix spell names patch for DQ1. You know I made a complete mobile port that converted everything to the modern SE terms right? ^^;;;
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4237/ Not saying I have a monopoly on that or anything, having a patch just for spell names works just as fine too. But aside from that I wanted to point out you had two of the spells wrong. It’s Sizz and Sizzle not Frizz and Frizzle.

Oh that's great (way better than mine LMAO)!! Yeah I'm super new to rom hacking and felt weird starting on such a big project without even trying a small one! I was torn on which to choose and for whatever reason I chose Frizz. I'll update it when I get the chance

[nejimakipiyo]

Since I didn't get a response to my PM, I'm wondering if someone here could help me understand a few things so that I can pick at this translation in my spare time.

I opened the first file after figuring out how to get the text to display in Japanese.
The first string is
"",うちの人ったら{7f02}疲れた　疲れた　ばっかり言って{7f02}ちっとも　話を聞いてくれないのよ。{7f0b}{0000},0x0038

What are the 7F02 and 7F0B bytes?
And 0000?
I don't want to risk messing anything up with my lack of familiarity about the text in this game.

I also have other, more general questions.

Is there a character limit we should be keeping in mind for dialogue boxes? And what about a character limit for lists (i.e. item, monster, magic)? Will it be necessary to implement some kind of icons to save on character limits such as in the Dragon Warrior GBC games?

Any tips and pointers would be helpful!

[markus-projects]

Hi nejimakipiyo,

I try to answer quickly.
The files I provided are CSV files which are Comma-Separated Values files. Each file represents a level in the game (it seems) and each row in the csv file represents a text that is said by a game character in a dialog. A row in the file has many values that are comma-separated. The values are: translated text, japanese text, pointer information where the dialog is located (technical information that can be ignored by the translator). The comma-separated values can be quoted with double-quotes " to make sure that, for example, "A sentence, with a comma." the text's comma is not interpreted as a separator comma. A translator may use a tool, for instance openoffice or libreoffice to open the csv file in a spreadsheet environment. This way it is easy to just enter the translated text in a spreadsheet cell instead of writing the text between the quotes ("here"). Then you can save it again as CSV. The app usually detects that it is UTF-8 encoded, so you do not have to worry about it.

I did not have the time to find and test all control characters (these 7F** bytes). What we currently know: The 7f02 makes a new line and a two character wide insertion '  '. The ＊「 characters seems to be used everytime a text block starts. A 0x7f0a shows a blinking cursor and waits for user input. A 0000 indicates the end of the text so that the dialog routine knows that it has to stop with the decoding. 0x7f1f inserts the hero's name which was entered at the beginning in the menu.

Character limit: yes, without using, for example {7f02}, the text would be drawn over the textbox border. The limit seems to be around 23 characters if the text is indented and 25 (23 + 2) if the text is not indented. I am not sure if every character is monospaced: it seems to be not monospaced when I look at my example screenshot. If this is the case then the character limit varys.

Character limit for lists (i.e. item, monster, magic): I did not look into that yet. "Implement some kind of icons": Currently unclear.

[OldSchoolGamer86]

Hey.

As i mentioned earlier i am thrilled about this happening especially being a big fan of psx jrpgs,  dragon quest,  and the whole project in general. I was also glad to read chicken knife agreed with me when it comes to fan translations and such. 

I know you are all quite a ways off from getting to this point but im going to be following this till its done for sure. When the time comes and you need testers i would love to be considered. 

I only ever once got to help out on a project and that was on Mysterious Song a PCE/TG Super CD game by Frozen Utopia.

If your all set no worries i just wanted to throw that out there. I use real hardware as i have a chipped psx and ps2 but regardless i am glad to see the progress being made! Keep up the good work!

And to Chicken Knife...i hope to get a sharo twin or AV famicom and a everdrive sometime so once i do ill definitally try your Dragon Quest NES translations.

Thanks and my hats off to all you guys working to make DQ4 psx playable. The add on the back of the DW7 manual has definitally taunted us all for many years now. Kudos to you all!

[spookdy]

Since I didn't get a response to my PM, I'm wondering if someone here could help me understand a few things so that I can pick at this translation in my spare time.

So sorry!! I'm not sure if I got a DM. I'll get in touch with you but Markus answered your questions as well as I could. Thanks for starting this!!

I know you are all quite a ways off from getting to this point but im going to be following this till its done for sure. When the time comes and you need testers i would love to be considered. 

If I manage to make more progress you'll be the first person I reach out to

I've been really busy recently and haven't had a chance to get back into this but just as an update I ran my auto-matching script and was able to find the (Android) English matches for around 70% of the lines of dialog in the game. I still need to make sure its formatted properly for the PS1 and write the code to reinsert it but its progress!!

[Chicken Knife]

@OldSchoolGamer86, thank you for your interest and enthusiasm. Stick around, and I'm sure that there will be plenty of opportunity for testing, especially with the contemporary script insert that markus & spookdy are working on. I tend to not rely too much on testers in the early stages of nejimakipiyo & I's work, since my process for improving text relies on constantly inserting changes over the course of 3-4 consecutive plays. I can't get the text to my satisfaction just looking at script files. I need to be playing the game so I can capture the essence of the characters and bring out their unique personalities, so I end up doing a ton of my own testing along the way. But that all said, there are minor text errors I'll never see sometimes. For instance, I've done 3 consecutive revisions of a script and someone will still find a "the the" somewhere. So that's the point where I ask a few committed followers for help.

@markus / spookdy, thank you for the explanations and support. nejimakipiyo & I have been talking a lot about what our approach to this should optimally be. Several months ago, I got extremely busy and nejimakipiyo started taking the lead a lot more on our work, but now nejimakipiyo is getting more tied down and my mental bandwith and available time have been improving. I'll probably be the one who ends up working with the files and managing insertions. I'm going to start looking over everything you've made available now. If the English script and the Japanese are side by side in the data files, that would certainly make nejimakipiyo's process of auditing the translation a great deal easier. I'm very interested in when you all get to the point of having the insertion tools set up. That will allow me to do my usual trial and error process where I'll get comfortable with all the various opcodes, restrictions and other formatting requirements.

I'd imagine that there will be some challenges when it comes to text that isn't presented in text boxes. For instance, the text that appears on screen as a prologue to each new chapter. Or, I'm sure there will be some differently formatted text appearing as part of the ending sequence. Then we have the text in menus, etc. I'd imagine that all that stuff is going to require a lot of additional work.

[spookdy]

@Chicken Knife

Thinking this over.. I might be able to make a simple GUI to make life easier for you two so you don't have to bother with CSVs and so you can have a easily accessible table of the "7f**" values.

I'm not entirely convinced insertion will work 100%. Just looking at encoded text block, there's a lot of data we don't understand yet. This will definitely be a long project...

As far as things like scene change text, menu text and so on, we don't even know where that's stored yet and I haven't looked into that at all yet. It's definitely not stored in the same way as the rest of the text. I was planning on writing some code to extract all the compressed assets in the resource file but haven't got around to it yet and probably wont for a while.

[Chicken Knife]

Thank you for the consideration. We are accustomed to using the abcde software which is a refinement of Cartographer & Atlas, so that makes us familiar with using command prompt instructions and such. But we certainly wouldn't object to your ingenuity & generosity should you create a GUI for the tools. Really though, we are open to learning how to utilize any kinds of tools as long as you all have the patience to hold our hand through the process.

[OldSchoolGamer86]

@Chicken Knife- Oh yes, i was not at all referring to anything anytime soon as the project just got started and i have followed other fan translations and am well aware it takes a TON of time, and effort as well as trial and error before anything gets to a point of being playable in any regard. I was just refereing to some point in the future when you guys feel your at a point where you could use someone to play it up to a certain point or whatnot trying all kinds of different things to find and report unknown bugs/glitches etc to help you guys out so once it is ready for a release its releases as bug/glitch free as possible. I personally prefer to have fan translations take longer but get a quality release rather than release early and have problems(known or unknown). And yes there are as you mentioned MANY parts to consider as event cutscenes as well as scrolling text and other things are also a hurdle to clear as well as the general ingame story, menu, item etc text.
But thanks for taking my request into consideration. There is no rush on my end i just want to help out if at all possible.

I am a 2D "Tales of" fanas well as love games with sprites and the "16-32 bit era is my personal favorite for games especially jrpgs. I was a fan and follwed Cless/Phantasian productions work. I feel when they released a translation it was well done all the way through. I personally dont really care for menu/item only  releases as that doesnt help much as enjoying a jrpg's story is why your playing the game. I was always dissapointed ToD2 only ever got a menu/item translation as its a good entry,as well as a shame Rebirth and ToD R still remain JP exclusive.
Also "The Mystic Dragoons" is currently a psx jrpg that was released with only the opening, menu, skills, items translated. Its better than nothing yes, but without the story i feel its hardly worth playing. More a tease or "what if" than anything else.

Lastly,  Is there a place on the site to make requests for potential translations to say, garner potential  interest or something to that effect? 

Keep up the good work guys!

[Chicken Knife]

@OldSchoolGamer86
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=3282.0
This is the general repository for hack ideas. I'm not sure if there is a specific one out there for translation requests. From my experience, the most well established fan translators tend to put out a disclaimer not to message them with requests. I guess they can get a little overwhelming.
nejimakipiyo & I are kind of new to the game, but we tend to focus on projects that we both have an incredible amount of passion for. That personal passion is really the only way to justify the sheer volume of work that goes into these things for us.

**EDIT

Actually, look what I found:

http://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Translations_Request_List