Hacking Phantasy Star Portable 2 Infinity: Help Wanted

Weyu

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This is a project that was started in mid 2014 and it is relatively close to completion.
Unfortunately, the hacker disappeared at the beginning of this year, leaving only me as the localizer, typesetter and QC person.
I don't have the tech skills to continue this on my own, which is why I started a thread to call for help.

Edit: JamRules has returned since I made this post, but he might have less availability to work on this due to RL constraints.
I will leave this thread open. If you think you can help with any of the below (especially the softsubs for the movies and changing the textures/images to English), hit me up. :)

What is already done:
  • Translation:
    100% of the text has been translated, and 70%+ of it has been QCed by me. The last part hasn't been done yet because I didn't have a fully working patch.
  • Typesetting:
    As above, all of it has been done, although there are still some parts that need to be checked.
  • UI:
    Most of it has been changed to accommodate to English, but there are still a few windows and text order/alignment that need a fix.
  • Textures:
    Most have been replaced with English ones where possible.
What needs to be done:
  • Crash issue:
    While the text can be inserted with the current tool and is mostly working, the hacker said that the recompression was not 1:1 which led to freezes and/or memory leaks in the affected parts.
    What he had to say about it last:
    The compression code was taken from what Fuzziqer published and to be honest I didn't really understand it at all,
    it took me a while to get my head around it but I've since managed look into it and the game's asm and I know understand it much better now.

    I tested the decompression and that seems to work properly as far as I can tell (this is much easier to test because the game contains code but doesn't have the compression code because it wouldn't need to).
    So I was able to decompress an original file and use that to test the current compression code and compare the output to the original game's file. I've been trying to trace the differences between the original output and our output and then investigate what exactly is different and why, slowly I've been getting the code to output closer to the original. I'm making progress so I'm not stuck but it's taking me a while to determine the differences between the outputs and then make guesses as to what the causes are and actually find an something that seems right. The eventual aim would be for the code to produce a file that exactly matches the original (and repeat for more test files until they all match) which would hopefully mean the code is correct
    This is the main issue hindering the progress of this project.
  • UI:
    As said above, there are still a few things that need to be done with the UI to bring it to the level of a professional quality work.
  • Subtitles:
    Last I checked, PPSSPP doesn't work with soft subs. This game has 2 or 3 movies using them, something needs to be done to get English subtitles working with them.
  • Textures:
    Some are still in Japanese because there were no English equivalents (newly added content, see image 7 below). Ideally we will get an artist to create English versions of them, but that is at the bottom of the priority list.
So to bring this project to completion, I need an experienced romhacker/programmer to fix the buggy part with the recompression.
You should probably have experience with hacking and working on a program as complex as a PSP game.
The work will be continued based on the previous hacker's tools and progress, having come so far it'd be illogical to start over from scratch.
Normally I would ask for permission to use someone else's tools, but the person has been completely out of contact.

While I'm not looking for you turn this into a full-time job, you should be willing to invest a fair amount of time and effort into this (5+ hrs/week) so we can finish it in a reasonable time.
Quality and commitment are a must.

If you can't help but might know someone who can, feel free to contribute by dropping them a note.



Lastly, this thread is about discussion of the continuation of this project. Please be civil and try to keep idle chat about the previous hacker or delays at a minimum.




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Let's get PSP2i finished and working! PM me if you think you have what it takes.
 
Last edited by Weyu,

flame1234

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You should just post it. The decompression problem I mean. I would need:

1) your code (decompression, and if you have it, non-working compression)
2) address in the game where the decompression routine is, if you have it

It sound like most files work and a few files don't, so if you don't know which ones, I would need your unarchiving tool as well to easily access all files to figure it out.
 
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At this point we'll likely see Duke Nukem Forever's 2001 build come out before this translation does. Can't you guys just release what you have now and let other people fix it?
 

rro

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At this point we'll likely see Duke Nukem Forever's 2001 build come out before this translation does. Can't you guys just release what you have now and let other people fix it?

There's no need for that. If there really are people who can fix it, then all they need to do is applied here. After all, the project team is calling for help. So if there's anyone competent enough to help fix it, you can just applied to join the team instead of making a brand new team to complete the project and ask the previous team to share their progress.
 
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There's no need for that. If there really are people who can fix it, then all they need to do is applied here. After all, the project team is calling for help. So if there's anyone competent enough to help fix it, you can just applied to join the team instead of making a brand new team to complete the project and ask the previous team to share their progress.
Or, instead of doing that, which just takes more time, they could just release the files and I bet you the whole project would be fixed, or completed in a month at the most. The project is clearly stuck in development hell, it's best to release what's left and let people fix it up. You can spread a project a hell of a lot faster when you make the files open for anyone to contribute to than sitting around asking for help and expecting it to come. It'd be like inviting people to your island but only those who swim to it when you have a bridge you can open to let everyone in.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

This is a project that's been in development for 4 years that we're talking about here.
 

rro

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Or, instead of doing that, which just takes more time, they could just release the files and I bet you the whole project would be fixed, or completed in a month at the most. The project is clearly stuck in development hell, it's best to release what's left and let people fix it up. You can spread a project a hell of a lot faster when you make the files open for anyone to contribute to than sitting around asking for help and expecting it to come. It'd be like inviting people to your island but only those who swim to it when you have a bridge you can open to let everyone in.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

This is a project that's been in development for 4 years that we're talking about here.

And let other team take the credits for their hard work? After all, the team that actually make a patch release will be praised much more than the team that actually doing 90% of the work. Especially by people who doesn't know about the previous project.

Again, if there's really someone who have the skills to fix this, they could apply to join the team. Finding one person with required skills is much easier than finding an entire team to take over the project. Making files open for anyone doesn't means the project will be completed faster. I remember some translating cases that allowed public to help them. And they ended up getting bad quality translation, mostly made using google translate, and the team ended up having to do it all over instead. Besides, the problem is on a technical level, which requires good programming skills, so not anyone can help.

If you want to spread it faster, then you can help by simply copying the link to this thread, and post it on other hacking/programming sites. After all, even if they did share the tools here, only those that surf to this island can grab it, right? So what's the different?
 
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And let other team take the credits for their hard work? After all, the team that actually make a patch release will be praised much more than the team that actually doing 90% of the work. Especially by people who doesn't know about the previous project.

Again, if there's really someone who have the skills to fix this, they could apply to join the team. Finding one person with required skills is much easier than finding an entire team to take over the project. Making files open for anyone doesn't means the project will be completed faster. I remember some translating cases that allowed public to help them. And they ended up getting bad quality translation, mostly made using google translate, and the team ended up having to do it all over instead. Besides, the problem is on a technical level, which requires good programming skills, so not anyone can help.

If you want to spread it faster, then you can help by simply copying the link to this thread, and post it on other hacking/programming sites. After all, even if they did share the tools here, only those that surf to this island can grab it, right? So what's the different?
>and let people take credit for their hard work?
if you're translating a game for the credit you are literally translating video games for all of the wrong reasons. If we're going to go with this absurd argument, then the team that actually has the time to do the job, and thus does the job, should get the credit. Most translation patches made from other teams credit the old teams anyways, like Fate/HA's translation. He even explicitly stated in this case that he wanted the credit to go to the old team. Not that this is even a valid argument anyways since the first thing on people's minds isn't "oh man, the team that made this is so great, they deserve so much credit, such great people," it's "holy fuck the game is FINALLY translated."

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Also, you evidently have never heard of the phrase "open source," because you wouldn't be making the rest of your post if you have heard of it. Most of the time, when there is a clear want for the final product, open source gets done faster than closed source. This is also how you work out programming bugs, kinks, and get feedback quicker. Just holding everything in for internal testing on a team with very few people who barely have the time to even post updates on anything isn't getting shit done.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/can-any...-of-phantasy-star-portable-2-infinity.490922/

People have held opinions like mine for almost four years now. Look at this post, it's six months old. This project has been in perpetual development hell for almost six months. There is a clear want for this, there are clearly people with the skills to work on it, and instead of having the project files in the open, where people can jump in, download them, and work on them as much as they want and contribute with several others, they have to wait for a small team to quit twiddling their thumbs to tell a friend to tell us "guys, trust us, it's gonna come out soon!"

I'm seriously doubting how much work of this is even done at this point, because there's been shit to show for it besides screenshots and friends of friends vouching for the circle, and this has gone on for several years now. In short, no, fuck you, sitting around and waiting for a skeleton team to pull their thumbs out of their asses is absolutely not preferable to a project opened on github that lets people do whatever they want with it, provided credit is given and none is taken from the original devs. 4 years can turn into like 4 months tops.
 

rro

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If there's really people who have the skills to do it, then just apply to join the team. They already asking for help. The fact that there's still no progress shows that they still haven't found anyone competent enough to fix it. And because of that, they have to wait for Jam to return.

Well, no matter what you say or what you wish for, the team already stated that they will not release a partial patch, nor will they be willing to share their work. The team haven't given up on this project. So stop pestering them for it already and wait. I'm tired of seeing people who selfishly forcing their own agenda on the team. Stop asking the same thing that's already been rejected over and over again. If you can't wait, just gather a team yourself and do the translation project by yourself.

Once again, the project team OWES YOU NOTHING. Let them do it the way they want to.
 

Minox

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Please stop with the passive aggressive offtopic posts. This is not the topic to attempt to force these people to release their efforts before they feel comfortable doing so, they are simply asking for help with an issue they're having. They don't owe anyone anything and it's up to them when/if they want to release it.
 
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Please stop with the passive aggressive offtopic posts. This is not the topic to attempt to force these people to release their efforts before they feel comfortable doing so, they are simply asking for help with an issue they're having. They don't owe anyone anything and it's up to them when/if they want to release it.
I don't see anyone being passive aggressive here nor do I see what's off topic about giving suggestions, and a debate about it. No one has said they owe anyone anything at all, I don't know why people keep saying this. What I am saying however is that they clearly aren't accepting the help they say they need, so why should they stall the project any longer?
 
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DarthDub

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Please stop with the passive aggressive offtopic posts. This is not the topic to attempt to force these people to release their efforts before they feel comfortable doing so, they are simply asking for help with an issue they're having. They don't owe anyone anything and it's up to them when/if they want to release it.
You're not helping. I offered help to OP and delete my posts? What is wrong with you?
 

Minox

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You're not helping. I offered help to OP and delete my posts? What is wrong with you?
If you carefully look at this topic again you will notice that your posts about offering help are both intact despite your accusations. They were never deleted.
 
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If you carefully look at this topic again you will notice that your posts about offering help are both intact despite your accusations. They were never deleted.
I think what he's referring to are the posts where he stated during the debate that help was offered but he got no reply whatsoever.
 
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