Author Topic: Chrono Сross Modification  (Read 40341 times)

utunnels

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #75 on: July 29, 2016, 10:15:21 pm »
well I think arguing about whether silent protagonist is better/worse is like trying to persuade people who prefer cabbage to choose turnip.
 CC was designed like that was because this game is about choices YOU made affecting the future. If you add dialogues for Serge, you add your personal interpretation of how his personality should be. I mean, even if you make the same choice, there could be different reasons why you do that. And if Serge says different lines, the NPC's response might be different too.

For example, when Kid asks Serge to team up, in original CC, it is pretty much like this.

Yes
No

And you may wonder why Kid doesn't ask WHY if Serge chooses no. If Serge is a silent protagonist, then whatever he says automatically(or magically) complete the lines so they don't have to write extra lines for Kid.

For the player, it may look like this:

Yes (sounds good)
Yes (just choose the default plot, aka lazy)
Yes (why not? more team member=better)
No (I hate default choices)
No (I just want to screw up the plot)
No (I don't like this character)
No (it is new game+, just want to try something different)
No (just no)

For Serge, it may look like this:

Yes (It is too dangrous for her to be alone)
Yes (Better team up with someone who's strong in this strange world)
Yes (Wow, this one is hot.)
Yes (She looks familiar but I can't remember where did I meet her before)
Yes (Better say yes before she kicks me to the moon)
No (I can't endanger innocent people)
No (She looks suspicous)
No (I don't like scary type.)
No (I'd like to but I have important things to do....(lie))
No (I recall that strange dream, maybe it was a bad omen)
« Last Edit: July 29, 2016, 10:17:11 pm by utunnels »

Danetta

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #76 on: July 29, 2016, 11:13:16 pm »
utunnels, very good point, absolutely agreed.

Danetta

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #77 on: July 30, 2016, 04:31:15 pm »
I'm quite excited about a CC mod, but I'm not sure which direction it would go. Is there a clear goal and specific guidelines of what you'd like to create? Or are you just steadily exploring your options for now? Either is fine, but it does help me understand whether I should be expecting this anytime soon :)

While we already know everything we need to know about battle-system, about what works and what is not, what should be done and how to get it done, we still continue exploring in other areas (primarily cosmetics, for example, understanding of animation command format to get "Green Heal Numbers" when character/enemy healed with lifesteal).

Not everything that simple about "which direction it would go". More about it in next quoteblock.

Reading through these 5 pages, I've more or less seen suggestions for battle mechanics, different characters, hair schemes, etc.

These aren't bad. But shouldn't we focus on the stuff that matters the most - i.e. the things that people didn't like about the game in the first place? Sure, it may be difficult connecting the dots between Trigger and Cross (Crimson Echoes aimed to do that, and that was a monstrous project), but there are easier things that everyone complains about.

The character dialogue generator for one. Another is the sheer amount of characters, that people felt were superfluous or extra.

While I agree that plot has a lot of issues and a lot of characters are just blank dummies, I personally can say Chrono Cross already has very good story. I also can't say Chrono Cross should be more connected to Chrono Trigger. It's 2 different games, even when they are both Chrono games. I also do not agree with "story - stuff that matters the most".
Look, what Chrono Cross actually is, as game? It reel of film with battles in specific places. You need to win in each part to procceed to the next part. Therefore, Chrono Cross = Story + Battle-System. Can you do something wrong at Story part? No, you can't. You also can't lose at Story part. Yes, you can to not do something right - in this case you will stuck in place till you do something right (i.e. going to Cape Howl when Leena said to do so). See? Game almost absolutely linear, you can only choose in which order to talk with NPC's. Simplifying this, no player input required on Story side of the game. You read dialogs, then the battle begins, this is where another part starts, where player input matters the most. Well, it should matter the most, because you have tons of options on your path to victory, but in reality it doesn't matter at all:
  • Attack order (1/2/3 - you don't care about Chance to Hit, you win anyway
  • Grid Management
  • Elements management and order
  • Equipment management
  • Character Selection
  • Status effect - half of them not work at all, other half just useless
  • Elements itself - many of them are useless, partially because of previous point
  • Field color - no one care, you win anyway
  • Currency, crafting components, consumables, innate color, trading shops
I can continue this list infinite. See, half of the game (story) has problems, but another half (battle) is itself a biggest problem, everything about it is just wrong, everything is bugged (A LOT of them), not working correctly and etc.

Only some of these issues can be solved by fixing numbers, so the main point to rework almost everything about battle-system, No aspect of it should be useless anymore.

Why not kill two birds with one stone? I have no experience in modding, but injecting dialogue in specific places should be one of the easier things to do. How about we start by creating a deeper backstory for, I dunno, one of the 45 characters? In essence, you'd be making the game better than it ever was - by fixing some things people didn't like about it in the first place.
Well, scenario overhaul is not an easy task too. I not only need to "add dialog lines", but also new scenes for blank characters with all the stuff, small things like timing, positions, animations, etc, and also the scenario itself. You also have to be careful and not to break anything that is working already. But yes, everything is possible to do.


You can fine-tune the battle system, and add cool techs, sure. But will people remember it? Will it be the mod that goes down in history as the one that really completes the game? It'll be more of a "technical" mod, rather than refine the aspects that people truly care about - not the battles, but the story, what makes the game great, and what detracts from that.

It's also worthwhile to note that you can get a lot of outside support creating backstory (and character individuality present-game too, I guess) for characters than the technical aspect of adding techs and such.

Heck, I'd be happy to help flesh out some of the characters in game. In fact, any fanfic author would jump at this opportunity. Who wouldn't? It's bringing further development of their beloved characters to the actual game. It's not as hard as starting from a new slate, like a sequel, and it won't interfere with the current story either - there's a good ~40-ish characters that are essentially barebones with a blank slate, that can easily be expanded upon.

Complex battle improving is not about "add cool techs", but, anyway, I said, I agree that there are a lot of place of imrpovement on Story-side.

Just because I said something like "Battle-System is my focus for now", it doesn't mean I don't care about story. There is still a lot of work to do, there is still a lot of manpower needed. After so many years I don't think there will be a lot of mods released in the future, so we probably need to work all as one. We that small community I think we are capable to either create one good modification or nothing at all. No point to split our resources/people, you know. If you think there will be scenario writers of something like that - we definitely should look at their work and then every quality piece should be included in the game.

However, I think there are issues too. Players probably won't like extended stories around characters they already like. I mean, everyone will notice improved "Turnip" story and still be okay or even happy with that, but if you add/change something about already loved character (I don't know, maybe Kid/Harle for example) then there are obviously will be people who thinks negatively about it.


TLDR:
I think battle-system problems are bigger problems for now, but every other aspect of the game (Characters/Story/etc) should be improved aswell. If battle system would not that bad, I could jump to scenario improving immediately. Yet you can start to write (or dig through Alfador[/b/]'s material) something about characters which has little or no story.



From your other post:
Quote
We don't want to turn CC into Radical Dreamers - I do think adding bits of text at certain points consistently will add up in the long run, rather than a wall of inevitable text. If it's something that can only be viewed via a sidequest, a character explaining his position - even for a paragraph or two - is fine.
Absolutely agreed, some minor things here and there will quickly add up, you can even not notice it, but you will know about characters more than you did after some point. But yes, some scenes/sidequests stuff also good, if done correctly.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2016, 04:50:09 pm by Danetta »

kolt54321

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #78 on: July 31, 2016, 12:23:54 am »
well I think arguing about whether silent protagonist is better/worse is like trying to persuade people who prefer cabbage to choose turnip.
 CC was designed like that was because this game is about choices YOU made affecting the future. If you add dialogues for Serge, you add your personal interpretation of how his personality should be. I mean, even if you make the same choice, there could be different reasons why you do that. And if Serge says different lines, the NPC's response might be different too.

We can never make everyone happy. But I still feel that a simple yes/no is going to leave the player left with something to be desired. Will people have different reasons why they pick certain choices? You betcha.

But, that doesn't mean that we can't try to inject a personality that most people will agree with, and sympathize with as well. Let's face it, even though there's 13 endings, Chrono Cross was never a game centered around choices. Sure, you had them, and a large amount of the game was different if you did/didn't recruit Kid - but I think it's pretty obvious this isn't a Skyrim-type game where your choices are the point of the game. This isn't a sandbox; Cross has a story to tell, and while there are story branches, it keeps you on more or less the same story path.

The choices in CC to me felt like they were there for the sake of choices - not for any rhyme or reason. That's what you get when it's just Yes vs. No.

If it helps to put it this way, imagine we had to start from scratch, and wanted a non-silent protagonist. There's a formula usually followed that dictates the type of person people would want to have as the main character, and his personality follows that. If we're giving Serge lines, I just want to give him a nuanced version of that.


While I agree that plot has a lot of issues and a lot of characters are just blank dummies, I personally can say Chrono Cross already has very good story. I also can't say Chrono Cross should be more connected to Chrono Trigger. It's 2 different games, even when they are both Chrono games. I also do not agree with "story - stuff that matters the most".
Look, what Chrono Cross actually is, as game? It reel of film with battles in specific places. You need to win in each part to procceed to the next part. Therefore, Chrono Cross = Story + Battle-System. Can you do something wrong at Story part? No, you can't. You also can't lose at Story part. Yes, you can to not do something right - in this case you will stuck in place till you do something right (i.e. going to Cape Howl when Leena said to do so). See? Game almost absolutely linear, you can only choose in which order to talk with NPC's. Simplifying this, no player input required on Story side of the game. You read dialogs, then the battle begins, this is where another part starts, where player input matters the most. Well, it should matter the most, because you have tons of options on your path to victory, but in reality it doesn't matter at all:
  • Attack order (1/2/3 - you don't care about Chance to Hit, you win anyway
  • Grid Management
  • Elements management and order
  • Equipment management
  • Character Selection
  • Status effect - half of them not work at all, other half just useless
  • Elements itself - many of them are useless, partially because of previous point
  • Field color - no one care, you win anyway
  • Currency, crafting components, consumables, innate color, trading shops
I can continue this list infinite. See, half of the game (story) has problems, but another half (battle) is itself a biggest problem, everything about it is just wrong, everything is bugged (A LOT of them), not working correctly and etc.

Only some of these issues can be solved by fixing numbers, so the main point to rework almost everything about battle-system, No aspect of it should be useless anymore.


I think you're assuming player input is the most important part of the game. In theory, you're correct. But let me ask you, how many people play an RPG, and say 5 years later "I have fantastic memories of those battles..." - you don't. Like you said, the battles were there in between parts of the story. If it was all cutscenes, people would get bored in the first 5 minutes.

So I think we have to ask, were people unhappy with the battle system? Read reviews, check out critics - people called CC easy, but few had major issues with the battles - at least enough to detract from the story.

Is it perfect? Heck no, I discovered bugs and ways to consistently win that people don't even know about today. I think the battle system needs a lot of work to be great. But it wasn't the main focus for me playing the game.

You know what, let's look at the the game dubbed "the best RPG of all time", yeah? Chrono Trigger. The battles had no strategy, half the techs were useless, and even boss battles were boring.

Yet, it's "the best RPG of all time." Why? Why do people award the game with this title when the battles aren't even average, at best?

It's because when people play old-school RPG's, many of them want story. The battles aren't what they're going to remember - it's the story, atmosphere, and characters of the darn thing.

So should we try to fix battle loopholes and the sloppy work the devs did when making this game? Yes. But how important it is should depend on how much people complained about it, and not many did. Most just went through the easy battles as a little something to do while enjoying the rest of the game.

People will remember things about a game's story, characters, motivations. Rarely do I see a battle system make a game memorable - even in cases such as Etrian Odyssey. And I haven't seen enough people criticize the battle system to think that it plays a vital role in this game.

Just on this note, even if we do have all the problem you mentioned fixed, there's still the main problem that plagues every Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and pretty much every other RPG in existence - characters don't rely on each other unless it's for healing purposes, and instead of being a 3 person party, what we really have is 3 parties of 1 individual each trying to beat the enemy on their own. At best, we can make Chrono Cross's battle system as good as the regular RPGs' - which aren't very memorable either.

Ah, one more thing. I agree with you that the story is very good on its own (though the pacing could be better). And I absolutely believe it should be separate from Chrono Trigger - I don't get the people who claim it was supposed to be a direct sequel, when it wasn't. I'm perfectly fine with the way Chrono Cross is on its own.

But there's story and then there's story. It has a solid story, but I think it can be upped a tier if we really make the characters essential to that story, and have each one of them a reminder of certain parts of CC's world.

It goes from a good action movie to a heartfelt one. Ask any movie critic, there's a massive difference.

Well, scenario overhaul is not an easy task too. I not only need to "add dialog lines", but also new scenes for blank characters with all the stuff, small things like timing, positions, animations, etc, and also the scenario itself. You also have to be careful and not to break anything that is working already. But yes, everything is possible to do.

I was worried about the poses and scenario... It definitely isn't easy, I know. I'm just glad it's possible.

Complex battle improving is not about "add cool techs", but, anyway, I said, I agree that there are a lot of place of imrpovement on Story-side.

Just because I said something like "Battle-System is my focus for now", it doesn't mean I don't care about story. There is still a lot of work to do, there is still a lot of manpower needed. After so many years I don't think there will be a lot of mods released in the future, so we probably need to work all as one. We that small community I think we are capable to either create one good modification or nothing at all. No point to split our resources/people, you know. If you think there will be scenario writers of something like that - we definitely should look at their work and then every quality piece should be included in the game.

However, I think there are issues too. Players probably won't like extended stories around characters they already like. I mean, everyone will notice improved "Turnip" story and still be okay or even happy with that, but if you add/change something about already loved character (I don't know, maybe Kid/Harle for example) then there are obviously will be people who thinks negatively about it.


TLDR:
I think battle-system problems are bigger problems for now, but every other aspect of the game (Characters/Story/etc) should be improved aswell. If battle system would not that bad, I could jump to scenario improving immediately. Yet you can start to write (or dig through Alfador[/b/]'s material) something about characters which has little or no story.

From your other post:
Quote
We don't want to turn CC into Radical Dreamers - I do think adding bits of text at certain points consistently will add up in the long run, rather than a wall of inevitable text. If it's something that can only be viewed via a sidequest, a character explaining his position - even for a paragraph or two - is fine.
Absolutely agreed, some minor things here and there will quickly add up, you can even not notice it, but you will know about characters more than you did after some point. But yes, some scenes/sidequests stuff also good, if done correctly.

I wasn't trying to imply that you don't care about story. I just didn't see it mentioned in the thread so far, so I thought I'd bring it up. The "add cool techs" comment was a reference to some of the requests here, not to the work you were doing.

It's a small community, like you mentioned. And as time goes by, it just gets smaller. All the potential "scenario writers" and script editors will slowly move on because they think that if a script mod hasn't come out in 17 years, it probably isn't possible. And it would be a shame to lose them because of time delays. This game is old enough, and I think it's pretty apparent that if we need manpower, we'll need to provide an eye-catching incentive. Fixing up the battle system is fantastic, don't get me wrong, but if I'm anywhere near accurate to represent some of those who played this, it isn't the area where they would die for a CC remake.

Tell people that they can improve the story, in effect give life to the characters again, and we can get some 30 years olds to turn their heads and say "you know what? What the heck, let's give this a shot". People not in the Compendium community will come back and replay a mod only if they think its worth their time, and I'm just not sure how many will consider even a perfect battle system a reason to play this again.

Feel free to take your time. But the clock is ticking, if we could start this thing rolling, I'm pretty sure now is the time that would net us the most support and help in this endeavor. It doesn't require technical knowledge (on editing the script and lines, anyway), and that gives anyone a chance to help. On the other hand, battle refinement is something I couldn't help you with if I tried. Let me know what you think.

I know I said this before, but I really don't want us to lose to the test of time. Even if we wait only a year, more people will be gone and forget about CC by then. I don't want to change Kid, Harle, or any one of the other 3-4 developed characters - at least for a good while. There's plenty of blank characters, and they need improvement more than anything. Afterwards we can finetune the main ones cautiously if needed.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2016, 12:28:30 am by kolt54321 »

alfadorredux

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #79 on: July 31, 2016, 10:13:45 pm »
The battle system for Chrono Cross is a bit unusual; that may be one of the reasons why it isn't as well-balanced and -tuned as it could be. Well, that and the whole having-to-push-it-out-six-months-early thing. But the only combats I've ever found memorable in straight JRPGs are the ones that make me throw my controller at the wall and power off the console (the Megami Tensei family games are good at that). So improved combat would not, in and of itself, make me interested in playing a mod.

The thing is, not all of the characters are worth fleshing out, either. Those that have a main-plot-connected reason to be there (Sneff and Steena, for instance)—yeah, sure. But Turnip? He has no reason to be in the game (other than interesting impurities in what the dev team was drinking), and it's going to be really difficult to make me give a damn. There are a half-dozen others like him, too (although I admit a couple of them have a gameplay reason to be there: they're recruitable very early, when the set of PCs available is small).

As for avoiding the central characters—well, that's as likely to make people unhappy as changing them is. "You spent all that time on Korcha and yet you didn't add anything extra for $my_favourite_character?!" Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

That's my $0.02CAD worth, and I'm probably being overly negative. I usually am.

As for my pitching in, well, if you want me, I can try. I don't have as much time now as I did when I was working on Chrono Helix, but I can probably scrape together a bit of it here and there. In the end, you may decide you want nothing to do with me. ;)

One detail I vaguely remember from the days when I was more actively involved with making modding tools, which may be of use: I think the standard overworld animations for all the characters include nod and headshake sequences. utunnels may remember more (especially since he's been working with the animation files lately).

(I think I used up my day's supply of parentheses. Oops. Good thing I don't program in Lisp.)

utunnels

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #80 on: July 31, 2016, 10:41:59 pm »
One detail I vaguely remember from the days when I was more actively involved with making modding tools, which may be of use: I think the standard overworld animations for all the characters include nod and headshake sequences. utunnels may remember more (especially since he's been working with the animation files lately).
Actually I have a bad memory and I currently can't check because blender 2.4x(on which the original model importer was made) has a bad habit to crash on this windows 7 x64. It works perfectly on my home computer(which is stilling using 32bit os) though.
But in theory they should, for the reason you can change party members.

kolt54321

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #81 on: July 31, 2016, 11:22:32 pm »
But Turnip? He has no reason to be in the game (other than interesting impurities in what the dev team was drinking), and it's going to be really difficult to make me give a damn. There are a half-dozen others like him, too.

Well then, great - we get to have a blank slate to start with. The sky's the limit when it comes to backgrounds we can give characters like turnip, and I'm sure we can do something convincing. If there are interesting characters out there, we can make Turnip (and the other dozen) into one.

As for avoiding the central characters—well, that's as likely to make people unhappy as changing them is. "You spent all that time on Korcha and yet you didn't add anything extra for $my_favourite_character?!" Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Like I said before, we can work on the main characters as well. But I wouldn't overhaul them - we'd only to change minor things/flesh them out a tad more - people who liked the main characters already wouldn't see a difference in personality, and those who want a change will see a bit more nuanced behavior. Win/win.

As for my pitching in, well, if you want me, I can try. I don't have as much time now as I did when I was working on Chrono Helix, but I can probably scrape together a bit of it here and there. In the end, you may decide you want nothing to do with me. ;)

One detail I vaguely remember from the days when I was more actively involved with making modding tools, which may be of use: I think the standard overworld animations for all the characters include nod and headshake sequences. utunnels may remember more (especially since he's been working with the animation files lately).

(I think I used up my day's supply of parentheses. Oops. Good thing I don't program in Lisp.)


Sure! I mean, i don't know if the two main modders here are persuaded to starting this now, but if we do I'd love to have you on board.

I didn't think the overworld includes animations at all... you're talking about the main map, right? That's interesting.

I'd be more eager to know whether nods and animations can be manipulated thus far, and how much work would it take for how many changes. Manpower is a resource here we have to be mindful of as well.

alfadorredux

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #82 on: August 01, 2016, 08:13:18 am »
One detail I vaguely remember from the days when I was more actively involved with making modding tools, which may be of use: I think the standard overworld animations for all the characters include nod and headshake sequences. utunnels may remember more (especially since he's been working with the animation files lately).

I didn't think the overworld includes animations at all... you're talking about the main map, right? That's interesting.

I'd be more eager to know whether nods and animations can be manipulated thus far, and how much work would it take for how many changes. Manpower is a resource here we have to be mindful of as well.

The on-map and in-location models for PCs are one and the same, if I recall correctly—on the map, they're just shown from above and zoomed out. The ones used in combat, on the menu, and when a PC appears as an NPC are separate. (In general, the arrangement of the data on the Cross CDs is optimized for something other than logic—possibly loading speed.)

Each overworld model has a set of 5-6 standard animations held in a separate file on the CD (nod, headshake, run, walk, and idle would be my guess). It should be possible to call these, and the precanned special character overworld animations (things like Serge pushing the lizard rocks or Nikki in concert) using fieldscript without doing any additional work. It may be possible to transfer some animations between PCs, even, if the models have the same number of joints in a similar arrangement (Radius to Fargo might work, or Serge to Karsh). Not all of the special animations were ever identified (that is, we don't know which character they belong to, or where they're used in the game).

Animations from the same character as an NPC (stored with the NPC data in the room files, unless I miss my guess) could probably be copied into one of the blank special animations files (there are lots of them) and called against the PC version of the character. I don't think it's ever been tried, though.

Creating new animations from scratch is very, very difficult at this point, because Cross uses such a weird format and we don't have a full toolset for manipulating it. It would have to be done by manually writing the hex code for each joint rotation.

utunnels

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #83 on: August 01, 2016, 09:13:19 am »
One of the thing I don't understand is the wiki uses different file numbers for disc1 and disc2, making finding files more difficult. But maybe it is already too late to change all the pages.
In that case, one disc is a good solution.

alfadorredux

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #84 on: August 01, 2016, 09:19:51 am »
The numbers correspond to the valid entries in the file table. For whatever reason, that number differs slightly between the CDs. A one-disc setup might make things easier (including making a better base for future mods) if it's possible to make all the room files fit—I think those and the videos are the only places the two CDs have different data in the same space.

utunnels

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #85 on: August 01, 2016, 09:37:56 am »
Well, still using absolute file table entry numbers is easier to find things. We only need to add notes to which files are different between CDs.

Edit*
Besides, the Japanese version also doesn't match the English version in those numbers.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2016, 10:12:20 am by utunnels »

alfadorredux

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #86 on: August 01, 2016, 10:46:54 am »
The English version adds a font metrics file and a random junk file that aren't on the Japanese CDs, if I remember correctly. A more detailed check shows that the English CD2 adds 45(?) junk files ("It's CDMake Dummy!") that aren't on CD1, right at the end of the room data. Hence the mismatch.

utunnels

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #87 on: August 01, 2016, 11:16:32 am »
Yeah, but the absolute file table numbers match both versions.
For example, I was ripping the sky dragon isle battle field models, they are 2636 on all 4 CDs if we just use their file table index, but if we use THAT naming system, we got 4 different numbers.

I guess the file table index is also what the game executable uses to find files.

alfadorredux

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #88 on: August 01, 2016, 12:59:29 pm »
Well, technically that's what the file table is there for, no? ;)

I suspect there are the same number of entries in the file table on both CDs. The thing is, not all of them are valid—there are a bunch that don't ever point to a file. Those pointers aren't taken into account in the file numbering scheme used in the wiki. So file number = absolute entry - number of invalid entries up to that point.

Perhaps the invalid entries can be co-opted for expansion/single CD-ifying (along with the "CDMake Dummy!"s), but someone would have to try it and see if they dereference properly.

Vehek

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Re: Chrono Сross Modification
« Reply #89 on: August 01, 2016, 02:32:59 pm »
I still feel a bit disappointed that we didn't abandon the Yazoo numbering scheme for the absolute file numbers. The difference's why there's confusion in the wiki entry on element data. That "2669" was an absolute file number. The file table also uses the old room numbering system that ignores the removed debug rooms. Now, there's no way they could have known that those CDMakes were once rooms, but we need the right numbers for setting up warps or warping around using the debug mode. It can also create confusion when we reference room numbers.