Insane Difficulty: Content Only Patch Request - Insane Difficulty

After talking to Archael, he said i should come by here and see about getting a "content Only" patch for WOTL ported. His thoughts are it should be easy enough for you to do drBretto, and i'd love to try out the mod, i just dislike the new difficulty meter. (yes, i like to just ease through the game)

Thanks in Advance. (Tactics Advance that is ;P)

Yeah, it shouldn't be too hard.

Obviously it'll have to wait for 1.3.1.0, but it shouldn't take me more than like half an hour after that's done.

neat. any eta on 1.3.1? or is it just a "when it's done" thing?

Seraphin, on 08 February 2012 - 10:37 PM, said:

It's a very Blizzard-like "soon"

I have a laundry list of things left to finish up. A couple of abilities need animations, and a handful of other small things. Some nick-nacks and paddy-wacks, all that jazz. Once those are done, I need to work with Arch to import some sprites. But there are two large projects left AFTER all that is done that will require a day or two each with full concentration. I need to finish up the text edits (turns out I missed some stuff) which is a day by itself and I need to go through 512 "Battles" (these include story0line sequences and some empty slots) with a fine-tooth comb. I need to cross-check every single human unit for hard-coded items that I've replaced in order to import the new WOTL items, double check for inconsistencies between PSX and PSP versions that I changed (The way Arch did his dark knights and the way I did them are at odds with each other, for example) to prevent crashes, obvious sprite errors and to keep people from picking up brave suits on mandalia 1.

While I do that, I need to figure out the best ways to introduce each of the new items, re-do the entire poaching system, implement any ASM hacks RoR is able to get worked out (if any). After that's all done, I'll send a lolpatch beta test copy to a couple of people to help iron out the major bugs before actually releasing. While working full-time and having a social life. Sounds like a lot, but that's really just the last 15% of the work (if you include planning/figuring things out)

Two weeks at an absolute minimum, and that's if I get lucky enough to catch a cold or something. Four would probably be more realistic. But it's on the front burner, so it will be done as soon as humanly possible. Mainly because I just want to play the damn thing myself.

wow. alot on your plate it seems. so we're looking at ~a month? i can live with the wait time. i'd rather have things in good working order, rather than half-assed anyways, plus this gives me some time to finish up alundra 1 and 2, and some other projects of my own.

on a side note of animations, i'm sure it's been mentioned before, but i'll ask anyways: is there some "theoretical" way to fix/improve the slow animations in the game? (i.e. gafgarion's special skills (DK skills?) are really slow)

all in all, i assume we'll be seeing this new version before diablo III? :3

Seraphin, on 08 February 2012 - 11:02 PM, said:

~ a month is probably a good estimate. Problem is some things will go faster than I expected while some will take longer. And my free-time is pretty fluid as well, so it's pretty much impossible to predict. But yes, the point is to have something stable and as close to "complete" as anything can be before releasing. The first big update I did had so many bugs I had to keep coming in to fix that it really took away from the port. I have not done a full, pure, uninterrupted playthrough in forever and that's what I want to be able to do. I want it smooth and functional. Obviously with so much new stuff, there will probably some tweak patches that come out shortly afterwards, but I want this next one to be solid and "mine" enough to put my name on it (and maybe get the patch uploaded at like romhacks or whatever as well).

On your animation question, unfortunately the short answer is no, it can't be fixed. It's just something you have to live with for playing WOTL. Considering the wide-screen format, the increased army size, the new fights, additional jobs and equipment, etc, it's worth it. You get used to it pretty early on though.

And yeah, hopefully it comes out before Diablo 3 'cause that'll just delay it even longer

Heh

@ DrBretto

Please schedule something with me this or next weekend through Skype so we can get the sprite transitions out of the way

Archael, on 08 February 2012 - 11:15 PM, said:

Yeah, as soon as I know my schedule.

I'll happily be a tester for the new patch if you like.

If not, I can wait.

Also, don't push this at the expense of your personal life

unccary, on 10 February 2012 - 11:54 PM, said:

Oh, I definitely won't. My mod time is the time I might otherwise use to play.

I got a lot done last day off and if I'm not totally hung over tomorrow, I'll have all the little stuff done and it will all come down to the sprites and text edits. It's actually looking like a week or two and I'll have a test patch for you and kilen to work with. Thanks for volunteering.

I'LL VOLUNTEER TOO

you know, since a "WOTL Content Only" patch was my idea anyways ;D

Seraphin, on 11 February 2012 - 05:45 PM, said:

Thank you for offering, but I am going to decline

Content itself doesn't need any beta testing. Just the main patch. I think giving you the reins on a patch with ramza with super-powers will ruin the experience for you. The beta test isn't really meant for super-happy-fun-time anyway. I need people to breeze through story battles quickly just to make sure there aren't any crashes or majors bugs that I've missed. Honestly, I think Kilen and Unccary will be sufficient since they have been my unofficial beta testers since I started doing this.

But I do appreciate it. It's coming soon, I promise. I will release Content simultaneously.

heh, i tried. i cant say it would really ruin the experience for me though, i've beaten WOTL a few times, and teh original more times than i can count. my whole reson for wanting a content only patch was for the lulz anyways ;D

any news?

He's working on it

I was with him on skype before I released 1.3.0.6 helping him with some stuff regarding events

he's got a lot done

And still quite a bit to go.

Being that it's as close as it is, I will be working hard on it all week, but what's left to do is nearly impossible to know how long it will take.

Basically, most of it is done already. Now I just need to figure out where to introduce the alchemists, finish fleshing out the WOTL items and figure out where to intorduce those, as well as all of the items you used to have to poach to get, revamp 2-3 of the storyline battles, finish the text edits and do a little testing. And if I can figure out the one stumbling block, I will be able to fix the formation screen sprite errors (like bocotarius) that will make your formation screen look a lot more solid and less confusing, but if I can't get it to work, I'm not going to bother with that. Then some testing, then release (then 30 minutes later, release content).

In other words, I'm about 90% done. So... soon


Edit: I probably would be at like 95% but I had to recover from a pretty crazy night light night

well thats good to hear

I just got a promotion and I'm knee deep in bitches.

Slightly bad news for WOTL, but good for me I guess. It's gonna be about a week before I'll have the energy to work on this again, so that's going to push it out a bit.

at least your keeping us posted

Seraphin, on 25 February 2012 - 09:31 AM, said:

I appreciate the understanding. Just too much on my plate to concentrate on this stuff right now.