The Legend of Dragoon Script Overhaul (and more) [LODModS Update]

[FlamePurge]

Have you thought about utilizing the unused item icons? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpQ3L_ovGKw Not sure if that's outside the realm of possibility or scope of the project.

[theflyingzamboni]

Have you thought about utilizing the unused item icons? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpQ3L_ovGKw Not sure if that's outside the realm of possibility or scope of the project.

I'm keeping this project focused on text, so anything outside of that is beyond its scope. That's cool though, I've never seen that before. Would be neat if someone made that hack. Probably won't be me though. I have my hands more than full with this project. Maybe I should have done something a wee bit shorter for my first ROMhack. 

[Chronosplit]

Have you thought about utilizing the unused item icons? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpQ3L_ovGKw Not sure if that's outside the realm of possibility or scope of the project.

Wut.  That's just mindblowing.

These are all complete.  Why in the world didn't dragoon use these?  If only just a few to distinguish between light and heavy armor and everyone's weapons.

[FlamePurge]

I'm keeping this project focused on text, so anything outside of that is beyond its scope. That's cool though, I've never seen that before. Would be neat if someone made that hack. Probably won't be me though. I have my hands more than full with this project. Maybe I should have done something a wee bit shorter for my first ROMhack. 

That's entirely fair! I was hoping maybe they were part of the text routine like in older games, but that probably isn't the case.

[theflyingzamboni]

Not part of this project, but I made a quick mod to give inactive party members full xp for battles, if anyone is interested. Just a bit of quality of life to reduce the pain of grinding a little, and keep everyone on par with Dart.

http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4072/

And a link to a tool I made that's necessary for the patching process:
http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1418/

[Spooniest]

Why does this make me want to play Ys? :|

[theflyingzamboni]

Alright, everyone! Progress at last! The beta for Disc 1 is finally done! Since I don't think I can upload a partial game here (correct me if I'm wrong), it can be downloaded here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/evm7g9b06e9rlmg/LOD_Disc1_Script_Overhaul_beta.zip/file

The beta is content-complete, minus the menus, which I hope to address later. Installation instructions are in the readme. If anyone has issues with the install, encounters bugs or typos, or has constructive criticism, please let me know.

[waterelemental87]

First of all: HOLY CRAP! THANK YOU  the original translation left us with ABYSMAL dialogue, like I would get embarrassed if anyone happened to read over my shoulder when I was playing. So this is way better. I'm going to try running it tonight on my EPSXE. Btw, I'm a far cry from wealthy but I'd like to $ incentivize you to continue this project. I hope you're still working on it!

[waterelemental87]

By the way... I'm not very PC savvy so I'm unclear how to intepret the readme installation instructions. Something about renaming a disc image file? But I couldn't find that. I'm playing it on an emulator EPSXE and using a rom. The rom I got came with a .bin and a .cue file, but neither is a disc image as far as I can tell. Your assitance (or anyone's assistamce) would be most welcome.

[DrewUniverse]

By the way... I'm not very PC savvy so I'm unclear how to intepret the readme installation instructions. Something about renaming a disc image file? But I couldn't find that. I'm playing it on an emulator EPSXE and using a rom. The rom I got came with a .bin and a .cue file, but neither is a disc image as far as I can tell. Your assitance (or anyone's assistamce) would be most welcome.

It can be confusing, I understand. Basically, Playstation roms can come in the form of an all-in-one "iso" file, or a "bin" file with a linked "cue" file. A little web search will tell you the difference. For the purpose of playing LoD, either will work for this mod. And in your case, rename the "bin" file - I went through this exact question and was the first to test it. Success!

If I recall correctly, TFZ has been working on an automatic patching process that does some of the steps for the user. My memory of that chat is vague, but perhaps it will come in a future update.

[theflyingzamboni]

By the way... I'm not very PC savvy so I'm unclear how to intepret the readme installation instructions. Something about renaming a disc image file? But I couldn't find that. I'm playing it on an emulator EPSXE and using a rom. The rom I got came with a .bin and a .cue file, but neither is a disc image as far as I can tell. Your assitance (or anyone's assistamce) would be most welcome.

Didn't have notifications turned on, so I didn't see this comment before. DrewUniverse is correct on both counts. Disc image means it's a snapshot of the data on the disc, which is what BIN/CUE and ISO files are. A "ROM" is similar, but refers to an image taken from something like a cartridge, though I realize it's often used as a general shorthand for game rips. I'm so used to the terminology that it didn't occur to me that others are not. I'll try to be more explicit in the instructions on the next release. But yes, if you haven't done it already, just rename the bin to the name given in the readme, follow the other instructions, run the patcher, and then rename it back to whatever it was originally called (or update the name in the CUE file).

Next update, the process will be slightly different. No file-renaming necessary, but it will still require some work to set up. I'm using a configuration file where people will just type in the path to their game, and the file names for the disc images (ISOs, BINs). Might be slightly easier to understand, I hope.

[theflyingzamboni]

Alright, major project updates!

First, I'm pleased to announce the debut of the Legend of Dragoon Modding System, or LODModS, a new, simple-to-use system for applying mods to LoD! Up until now, mods for the game have tended to each use similar but differing installation methods, forcing users to have to rename disc images and move files around to apply them all. Further, no thought was given to mod compatibility, nor was there any sort of documentation on the subject to help users figure out how to deal with mod conflicts.

LODModS is my solution to these and other issues, by designing mods to be installed by a single patcher (Frankensteined out of custom code and freely available utilities), and reducing their file footprint where possible. The patcher is easy to setup and use, only requiring the user to specify a handful of folder and file names in the config file before running the executable. Currently, only the patcher is available, but once the full toolset is in a more complete state, I'll release that too so that other modders can generate mods designed to work with the system.

Second, I have also released the v0.9 update to my Script Overhaul Disc 1 beta. In addition to a few small typo corrections, this update contains improvements to all of the item/spell/system/battle menu text, generally focused on readability and making item and spell descriptions a bit more explicit (and accurate). For instance, Dragoon spell descriptions now have the actual damage percentages. These changes are applied to all 4 discs. The installation method has have course been updated to use the LODModS patcher.

Third, while testing other mods for the game, I discovered that NoOneee's Encounter Rate Bugfix is actually itself bugged. Because of this, I went ahead and made my own fix for the original bug using a different algorithm. The encounter rate should now be roughly the same regardless of movement direction and speed, as originally intended. Additionally, I have included alternate versions to halve and double the rate.

Finally, to make full use of LODModS, I have updated all currently complete LoD mods to work with LODModS, including both my own work and mods by other authors (with permission), and bundled them into a single LODModS Mod Pack. In some cases, I have also extended or otherwise updated those mods (details in the readme files). The Mod Pack contains my Full XP and Encounter Rate Bugfix mods, NoOneee's Undub and Rose's Blood mods, and Zychronix's Half HP mod. Aside from my still-incomplete Script Overhaul mod, this is currently a one-stop-shop for all of LoD's mods.

Links are here, and also in the OP:
LODModS Patcher: http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1445/
Script Overhaul beta v0.92: http://www.mediafire.com/file/587n5o4ue5gkcs5/LODSO_Disc1_beta.zip/file
LODModS Mod Pack: http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4348/
Full XP: http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4072/ (mainly archival, also in Mod Pack)
tfz's Encounter Rate Bugfix: http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4347/ (mainly archival, also in Mod Pack)

[theflyingzamboni]

A couple of quick announcements:

LODModS patcher version 1.3 (http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1445/) is out now, with significant changes to the user interface (no more manually editing the config file!). Additionally, checksum validation has been disabled for xdelta, meaning that patches targeting the same areas of a file can be compatible, so long as they aren't targeting identical bytes. Everything mod available now is compatible.

Additionally, the directory structure of the patches folder has been changed, and all LODModS mods have been updated accordingly (Script Overhaul, Mod Pack, Full XP, Encounter Rate Fix). This means that older mod versions won't work with patcher v1.3, and vice versa, so everything will need to be redownloaded (all links in OP).

Second, I just released an Expanded Inventory mod that raises the consumable item cap from 32 to 64 (http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4360/). As with the other mods, it requires patcher v1.3 or greater. It has also been included in the most recent update of the LODModS Mod Pack (http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4348/), and is compatible with all other LODModS mods.

[theflyingzamboni]

Just realized yesterday that changes to chest text that were intended for the 0.9 release never made it in. Oops. It's just a simple quality of life change to tell the player what a chest contains even if their inventory is full when they try to open it. As of v0.92, these changes are now included, and all relevant download links have been updated.

[xflight]

Very much looking forward to this!

Tried playing again about a year ago and the dialogue was so bad, I couldn't keep playing.

Playing through disc 1 now. Much better so far. Thanks!

[theflyingzamboni]

Micro-update: The encounter rate bugfix (standalone and Mod Pack) has been updated to v1.2, and now includes a no-encounter patch version. (Note that no, half, and double encounters do not currently affect world map encounters.) Links in the OP.

Very much looking forward to this!

Tried playing again about a year ago and the dialogue was so bad, I couldn't keep playing.

Playing through disc 1 now. Much better so far. Thanks!

Glad to hear it!

[kikujade]

Awesome work, thank you!!!

Is there any chance you could also remove the mod chip protection so that it is playable on a real console? I'd hate to play it on an emulator.

The current anti-mod patches have a ton of trainers that I don't care for, add an ugly intro, and interfere with things like the PS-IO.

If you can't or don't want to, don't worry, still an awesome effort!

[theflyingzamboni]

Awesome work, thank you!!!

Is there any chance you could also remove the mod chip protection so that it is playable on a real console? I'd hate to play it on an emulator.

The current anti-mod patches have a ton of trainers that I don't care for, add an ugly intro, and interfere with things like the PS-IO.

If you can't or don't want to, don't worry, still an awesome effort!

I don't think that's the way it works (and I'm not sure what you mean by "anti-mod patches" and "trainers").

PSX discs were printed using a special burner that you just can't replicate with a regular PC disc burner. There is nothing that I could do to the disc image that would make a CD-R playable on a physical console when you burned it to disc, because it's how the data is burned to disc that prevents you from playing burned CDs. I found a good explanation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUwSOfQ1D3c

You can still play a burned disc if you want, but you'll need to either mod-chip your console or use the disc swap method (assuming you have a PSX, I have no idea what to do on a PS2 to play burned games).

[MechanicalPen]

kikujade means that Legend of Dragoon contains mod-chip detection software and refuses to boot to Playstations containing older 'non-stealth' mod-chips.

It's 2019 though and this problem was solved in hardware a long time ago.

[kikujade]

kikujade means that Legend of Dragoon contains mod-chip detection software and refuses to boot to Playstations containing older 'non-stealth' mod-chips.

It's 2019 though and this problem was solved in hardware a long time ago.

Thank you, and yes, that is exactly what I meant. I have playstations with and without modchips that have the PSIO modboard installed as well. I'll try the patch on one of those (hopefully my modchips are stealth) and it should work.

If not, then I won't be able to play it.

Has anyone tried the patch with accurate emulators like Xebra or Mednafen?

Oh and for the record, here is an example of a trainer patch, for those asking:
http://psx-scene.com/forums/attachments/f19/59267d1497488185-how-make-pal-ntsc-selector-trainer-ps2-bandicam-2017-06-14-21-55-42-086.png