Question about how PSO is programmed

[AUTO_]

Is everything that will ever be available to us already on the PSO game disc?

What I mean is; Everytime ST puts up a new quest, etc on the servers...is that material already in our game disc and ST just allows us to then access it?

A friend I was talking to was pretty certain this was how PSO is made, but it didn't seem much sense to me that all the game material is already there.

Anyone know? http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_confused.gif

[Soukosa]

Well some of the things like the items, room pieces, and such are on the disc. Other things, though, can be sent from the server to the cube, like quest scripts and maps.

[AUTO_]

So if ST had a spur-of-the-moment idea for a new quest and followed through with it...it could all be sent to the cube through the server?

[heyf00L]

The online only quest data is not on your disk. The enemies and items are on the disk, tho.

And yes, ST can create new quests. Although they don't. Like 90% of quests we have are all from DC. It's pretty lame how they didn't make but a few new ones.

[HUnewearl_Meira]

All right... Here's the gritty of it, based on my own observational skills...

Items, weapons, pretty much anything that can go into your inventory is on the disc. I would suppose that certain special quest items (like the Cakes, Chocolate, etc) may be generated by a quest, as a custom item (Not unlike how a ???? Saber can be anything).

Offline quests are the only quests that exist on the disc. However, the areas that make up any quest you play, online or off, are stored on the disc, in segments. Each room is a portion of the map, with the exception of the Forest, which never has any variations in layout (only the order in which barriers and doors get unlocked). A quest's script can place doors, barriers, NPCs, objects, and enemies anywhere in any room, and any room can be placed adjacent to any other room by the script.

Online quests must be downloaded into the GameCube's RAM to be executed. In the past, we have seen quests change from one server maintainance to another, so no, the online quests are not on your disc.

What can be downloaded-- Quest scripts, NPC proportions/specifications, music, "custom" item data (Chocolates, cakes, etc), map data.

What can't be downloaded-- motion capture information (animations), 3D meshes/textures (this includes new areas and characters for which there aren't already models for).

So yes, the Control Tower is entirely on your game disc, but inaccessible offline.

[EDIT] The XBox is a different story entirely, however. Because of the XBox's hard drive, anything can be added or removed from the game, as it seems to run from an executable on the hard drive, rather than the game disc.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HUnewearl_Meira on 2003-12-07 16:12 ]</font>

[Maverynthia]

I have a question onto the Xbox part...

Have they used the Xbox HD feature for any quests like a new model/weapon/enemy/room?
or are they keeping it "fair" to the GC users. (So they won't get jealous)

Also just out of curiosity-
How did the DC rank up there, was it better than the cube in terms of downloadable stuff? About the same? Worse?

[rena-ko]

On 2003-12-08 01:08, Maverynthia wrote:
I have a question onto the Xbox part...

Have they used the Xbox HD feature for any quests like a new model/weapon/enemy/room?
or are they keeping it "fair" to the GC users. (So they won't get jealous)

Also just out of curiosity-
How did the DC rank up there, was it better than the cube in terms of downloadable stuff? About the same? Worse?


fair. pso is not a game where you can add characters to that easily. its a balance issue on the one and a frenchise issue on the other hand.
also, there are more (jp) players on cube so forget about anything astonishing for xbox (leaving alone that interesting voicechat-guiding quest)

on DC they let one download offline quest. for any unknown reason (barubary claims that the servers and the console-side-dl-feature work) they simply not offering anything (not even the central dome fire swirl quest).
well, i have flatrate now so i dont really mind not being able to play tower offline... yet...

[VioletSkye]

The Quest files are rather small. It would have been nice to have been able to keep a downloaded quest or two on the memory card. Gallon's shop for one, would be nice to have access to.

Here is a list of the quest sizes: (these are the DAT files)
BATTLE STAGES:
Battle Stage 1 - 6KB
Battle Stage 2 - 6KB
Battle Stage 3 - 8KB
Battle Stage 4 - 11KB
Battle Stage 5 - 7 KB
Battle Stage 6 - 3 KB
Battle Stage 7 - 13 KB
Battle Stage 8 - 23 KB

CHALLENGE MODE
Stage 1 - 36KB
Stage 2 - 85KB
Stage 3 - 98KB
Stage 4 - 96 KB
Stage 5 - 80 KB
Stage 6 - 85 KB
Stage 7 - 102KB
Stage 8 - 109KB
Stage 9 - 115 KB

OFFLINE QUESTS
Quest 1 - 12KB
Quest 2 - 13KB
Quest 3 - 4 KB
Quest 4 - 13KB
Quest 5 - 22KB
Quest 6 - 15KB
Quest 7 - 25KB
Quest 8 - 24KB
Quest 9 - 26KB
Quest 10 - 65KB
Quest 11 - 31KB
Quest 12 - 34KB
Quest 13 - 53KB
Quest 14 - 33KB
Quest 15 - 89KB
Quest 16 - 63KB
Quest 17 - 31KB
Quest 18 - 18KB
Quest 19 - 35KB
Quest 20 - 20KB
Quest 21 - 40KB
Quest 22 - 48KB
Quest 23 - 27KB
Quest 24 - 50KB
Quest 25 - 48KB
Quest 58 (I have no idea what it is) - 37KB

I should point out that ther are binary files for each of those as well, but there are 5 .bin files for each of those and I'm too lazy to write them all out LOL http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: VioletSkye on 2003-12-08 12:17 ]</font>

[rena-ko]

woah! thanks! stuff like that was what i was looking for since ages ^-^ thank you very much.

[Soukosa]

In comparison to the quest file sizes, the system save is about 24 KB and the character save is about 88 KB. So they can easily save quests to the memory card.

[VioletSkye]

Yeah, they could have added another file "quests" to the memory card easily. http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_frown.gif

[trunkszero]

too bad ST is being lazy with the quests, now if they released a quest making tool that uses items from the disc that can be sent to ST and uploaded to the actual game servers to dl that would be awesome.

also i've read that its possible to create quests for pc pso

[HUnewearl_Meira]

That would be neat to make your own quests for PSO... Albeit, any quest I make, would probably be far more cinema than action... Heh, it would be neat to be able to do a tie-in to The Recollection Saga with a quest.

[Jkid]

[EDIT] The XBox is a different story entirely, however. Because of the XBox's hard drive, anything can be added or removed from the game, as it seems to run from an executable on the hard drive, rather than the game disc.

So,it is possible to remove the incomplete items that are sed as hacks...

The only problem is that ST isn't willing to resolve the cheating solution by looking at the source (in this case, deleated items) and removing the problem, without any customer demand, and as in customer demand, we didn't complain to ST for the Xox version to removie the items from the Xbox version.

It's impossible to remove the hacked items from the
GC version but it's possible to do so from the Xbox version.

[VioletSkye]

On 2003-12-08 17:08, Jkid wrote:
It's impossible to remove the hacked items from the
GC version but it's possible to do so from the Xbox version.


Its also possible to put them back in. So it doesn't really change anything.

[Jkid]

On 2003-12-08 17:21, VioletSkye wrote:


On 2003-12-08 17:08, Jkid wrote:
It's impossible to remove the hacked items from the
GC version but it's possible to do so from the Xbox version.


Its also possible to put them back in. So it doesn't really change anything.



They can make a system server-side so that it can record the last system data that the server patched on the hard drive data for PSO, and if that data is altered of have privious system data, the user's Xbox is permabaned for entering the PSO servers by both gamertag and by EPROM.

[VioletSkye]

On 2003-12-08 18:35, Jkid wrote:


On 2003-12-08 17:21, VioletSkye wrote:


On 2003-12-08 17:08, Jkid wrote:
It's impossible to remove the hacked items from the
GC version but it's possible to do so from the Xbox version.


Its also possible to put them back in. So it doesn't really change anything.



They can make a system server-side so that it can record the last system data that the server patched on the hard drive data for PSO, and if that data is altered of have privious system data, the user's Xbox is permabaned for entering the PSO servers by both gamertag and by EPROM.


They can't now. its too late for that, they would have had to do that from the beginning and programmed the game and servers to utilize it. Also, as expensive as it is to run the servers, I can assure you that no new system functions will be added to check for anything like that. They would need to setup an enormous database to keep track of everyone, everytime they logged in and I don't see that happening. If it was really that easy Blizzard would have done that along time ago to stop mods from being used online. Do you realize just how many files there are on the harddrive for PSO? There is no way they are going to be able to check that many files to see if they were altered. And do you realize how much storage space would be required to keep track of it all. Just ain't gonna happen. Also whats to stop someone from altering a file, getting what they want, then overwriting the new file with the unaltered one. Then all a person has to do is play offline, then save...bam, the file times all jive. Also what about those playing offline. A ban won't matter to them.


Hopefully the next PS game will utilize server side saves to reduce the cheating.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: VioletSkye on 2003-12-08 19:37 ]</font>

[trunkszero]

permantly banning anyone would be the dumbbest thing ST does, they make money off everyone on a monthly basis, cheaters and legits alike, so y permantly ban



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: trunkszero on 2003-12-08 19:58 ]</font>

[zimmk2vgc]

because they brake the terms and conditions

[A2K]

On the Xbox version, make use of the XBL Feedback system. I... can't really say for sure but I have heard it works, especially if someone receives multiple complaints within a short period of time.