[trudatman]

http://twitter.com/trudatman/status/733834830907985920

I'm serious.  somebody please do this.

[Jorpho]

The text in the ROM is straight-up uncompressed ASCII.  Small changes are completely trivial for anyone to make, assuming there's no checksum.

The only tricky part might be adjusting the pointers if the length of any of the text changes, but it looks like each text field is just delimited by 0x04.

[trudatman]

care to work on it with me?

[Jorpho]

Naah, too much to do at the moment.  Besides, I doubt anyone is going to be quite as interested in this as you are.  But really, romhacking does not get any easier then this.  You could probably make the edits in Notepad if you really wanted to, though that could get tricky.

Just open up the ROM in any hex editor (I like XVI32).  Scroll down until you see the text appear in the right-hand side of the window.


Type over the text with whatever you want.  Ideally, your replacement text should be exactly the same length as the initial text.


If the new text is of a different length, then click on the left-hand side of the window in the cell immediately to the right of the one that is currently highlighted.  Type in "04".

[SunGodPortal]

You could probably make the edits in Notepad if you really wanted to, though that could get tricky.

Probably be better off doing drafts in notepad and then rewriting it all in the hex editor because what is seen as a simple "space" on the right side will not always be the same value on the hex side.  Some times it will be some sort of control code that looks like any other space on the right but isn't. Overlooking something like that would undoubtedly lead to bugs if someone were to simply cut and paste what they have already written into the hex editor. (hence the tricky part)

[Bahamut ZERO]

Probably be better off doing drafts in notepad and then rewriting it all in the hex editor because what is seen as a simple "space" on the right side will not always be the same value on the hex side.  Some times it will be some sort of control code that looks like any other space on the right but isn't. Overlooking something like that would undoubtedly lead to bugs if someone were to simply cut and paste what they have already written into the hex editor. (hence the tricky part)

Doing drafts in notepad first definitely helps makes things a bit easier. Whenever I play around with the text in Oregon Trail I usually write a rough draft in Notepad that I can slim down a bit if I find I don't have enough space to retype it in the hex editor (I use HxD for that).

[Jorpho]

what is seen as a simple "space" on the right side will not always be the same value on the hex side.

True, but in this case it would appear to be ASCII just like everything else (0x20).

I was thinking Notepad would be tricky just because it would be harder to tell whether you're overwriting the original text with something of exactly the same length.  But anyway, downloading and installing XVI32 is hardly a big deal.

[KingMike]

Also, wouldn't editing the ROM in Notepad likely corrupt the file?

[Jorpho]

Also, wouldn't editing the ROM in Notepad likely corrupt the file?

...Huh.  Yeah, looks like it changes the encoding of something or other.  My mistake.  I remember making cavalier changes once with the old MS-DOS Edit, but clearly Notepad cannot be expected to behave similarly.  Seems Notepad++ works, though.

[trudatman]

yeah, word.  it is an easy project and I get how to do it in hex, I was just hoping somebody wanted to join forces on it.  no worries, but I'm not likely to do it without a motivating influence.

[dACE]

Wait...wait...let's see if I get this right:

Since Nobody want to do this for you, you might consider doing it yourself - IF you get the proper motivation?

In short:  You want others to motivate you to make something you want for yourself.

Good luck with that.

/dACE

[trudatman]

some might fund such an endeavor to be fun.  you can go be negative elsewhere, like where somebody is talking grand plans but making no contingencies for obstacles, where somebody is making promises that will end unkept, where somebody is failing to be real.

[dACE]

It's not that I am negative - it's just that there is too many posts latly like: 'please - somebody do this' or 'you should really hack the music also'. Basically a lot of noobs, without any skills of their own asking - not for help but - for someone else to do the work for them.

You should have started this hack yourself and posted concrete questions. Maybe provided 'mocked' screenshots to show your vision with the hack. You must show COMITMENT before others will take the time to HELP you.

With that said - have you managed to do ANYTHING with this hack yourself?

/dACE

[John Enigma]

It's not that I am negative - it's just that there is too many posts latly like: 'please - somebody do this' or 'you should really hack the music also'. Basically a lot of noobs, without any skills of their own asking - not for help but - for someone else to do the work for them.

You should have started this hack yourself and posted concrete questions. Maybe provided 'mocked' screenshots to show your vision with the hack. You must show COMITMENT before others will take the time to HELP you.

With that said - have you managed to do ANYTHING with this hack yourself?

/dACE

Is that why you've been ignoring me and not answering my PM's? Because if that's the case, I understand.