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Final Fantasy II and III?

Posted: 1st January 2010 20:45

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With the *multiple* (surprisingly) English releases of both these games, is it possible that CoN will cover them in the future? While they don't have the acclaim of say, FFIV and VI, they are main installments, and fit the old school style that CoN focuses on, and well, I think these two games don't quite get enough attention as it is.

Any plans for coverage in the future?

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Posted: 6th January 2010 15:57

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Sorry, I really thought that I'd had someone respond to this before. I guess that's not the case. My apologies on that.

First, let me hit you on a semantic point - there's only one release of FF3 in English. FF2, sure, there are definitely a few now, but that only makes you half right. wink.gif

Anyway, I don't have any disagreement with you in terms of the fact that CoN should cover them. I really don't feel like we can do them justice at the moment. This is particularly true of FF3, which due to its nature as a NDS game, becomes harder to collect and validate data and media. It's also difficult because the lack of attention that both games get mean that we haven't had anyone on staff or on a volunteer basis come forward to say "I have experience with this game and would like to contribute," and that includes both me and Tiddles (who tend to fill the role of project manager and lead developer for game content projects).

The staff we have right now are booked on projects and are making as much progress as possible, but that means none of us are really available to take on even more work right now. For something that is not already on our project backlog, we need people to step up and talk to us about what they can do, not wait for us to come to them.

For further information, you can hit these threads:
http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/forums/ipb/in...?showtopic=8780
http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/forums/ipb/in...?showtopic=6769

Or feel free to contact me directly through one of the methods on the staff page or chat. smile.gif



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Posted: 27th November 2010 02:09

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Well, if anybody's interested in helping me with writing something about IIIDS, or IIDoS, I'd be willing to help - IIDoS, I certainly can contribute screenshots.
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Posted: 27th November 2010 04:31

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Would be nice if we covered them, but FF2 is the black sheep that no one wants to play anyway, and CoN only covers official releases--of which FF3 has just one, and it's a DS game.

Typically, the best way to find data is to crack open a ROM of a game, and DS ROMs have barely existed for but a few years, much less been cracked open thoroughly. Much less than say, FFI for NES or FFIV for SNES.

Sadly, CoN doesn't cover fan-translations. Not sure what the reason is, but that's the case.

(Now if they did I'd TOTALLY want them to cover RPGe's translation of FFV, which I still think is the best.)

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Posted: 27th November 2010 07:46

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Well, as far as FFV is concerned, while the original SNES version hasn't come around into my radar, there's always FFV Advance.
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Posted: 27th November 2010 12:19

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Well, I've expressed my interest in helping with a FFIII section some time ago when it was brought up. I think it could be a great addition to the site, although there really isn't much rush.
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Posted: 7th December 2010 20:31

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Quote
but FF2 is the black sheep that no one wants to play anyway,


Still though, I think it deserves covarage...at some point.

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Posted: 8th December 2010 00:50

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Quote (Tryscal The Great @ 7th December 2010 15:31)
Quote
but FF2 is the black sheep that no one wants to play anyway,


Still though, I think it deserves covarage...at some point.

True, and if CoN covered it I might actually go play it.

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current games (2024-02-19):
Fairy Fencer F ADF
Pokémon Perfect Crystal

finished so far this year:
Gato Roboto
drowning, drowning
New Super Mario Bros.
TMNT 3: Radical Rescue

tabled: Lost Ruins
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Posted: 8th December 2010 04:48

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That too; I think it would inspire a lot of people to play it. Hell, I'd rev up my old file and play it again if it got some good old CoN respect.

This post has been edited by Tryscal The Great on 8th December 2010 04:48

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Posted: 8th December 2010 15:34

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Guys, I really do get your enthusiasm for broadening the coverage at CoN. I'm sure that several people who post in this thread have assumed that I simply dismiss all suggestions out of hand, but it's not the case at all. It really is exactly as I posted in my first post in this thread.
Quote (Awesome Guy)
The staff we have right now are booked on projects and are making as much progress as possible, but that means none of us are really available to take on even more work right now. For something that is not already on our project backlog, we need people to step up and talk to us about what they can do, not wait for us to come to them.

Now, someone or someones has come to me about wanting to help with FF2 or FF3, and that's wonderful. However, while getting that interaction makes me happy, it's a long way from that step to having something on the site. Do we have fanartists to contribute art for FF2 for Persona layouts? Do we have someone writing or contributing a walkthrough, or just the basic game data? Not to my knowledge, and that, to me, means that there's no point saying it's going on the site at this point, because there's a lot of things that all need to happen before we can get there.

It's fair to tell you guys that a couple weeks ago, I wrote up a development roadmap for this site. It starts from where we were a couple weeks ago, and runs all the way through the end of 2011. That roadmap has at least 64 items on it, as of right now. That doesn't include bugs that we haven't logged yet or any other bright ideas we come up with that need to be put into place right away once we think of them.

That's sixty-four things to be done in the next thirteen months, and it's only thirteen months because I think that's the minimum amount of time we need to do them. To be done by people who have jobs, multiple jobs, are looking for jobs, are in school, or have some combination of all of those things; to be done by people who don't get paid a dime (trust me, CoN is not a for-profit organization, as I have mentioned many times over the years). I'm sure a lot of people that want us to do more games are in the same situation, so surely they understand that we're no different from them, and their inability to start a Final Fantasy site of any quality is the same inability we often have in extending ours.

Anyway, back to the point: each of those 64 things has a higher priority than adding a new game to the site, because each one is either a bugfix to the existing site, or it's part of a project that improves the existing site in some way and has been on our plate for a while. It's a really hard sell to add more content when we already know that some of the existing content isn't as good as it should be. We'd rather have less content but higher quality if we can't have more content at higher quality, so that's where we're at.

So I can't tell you what to do to make it easier, really, because it feels like there's a mountain between us and putting a new game, any all-new game, on the site. The hardest things, though, are getting a well-written and thoroughly detailed walkthrough put together, and collecting all the sprites for characters and enemies. If you can help do either of those things without stealing from someone else, then I say go for it. I can't promise that we can throw our official weight behind it but we'll do everything we can to get it on the site, once we do have the whole, official package put together.

If you want us to be able to consider all new games, awesome. The thing you can do to help first is help us get the projects we're already working on done and dusted. One thing that immediately leaps to mind is that we need a full set of clean and transparent sprites from FF5 Advance to do the bestiary. If you can make a full set or sweet talk someone into giving us license to use their full set, get started.

Now, a couple directed responses:
Quote (GMH)
Sadly, CoN doesn't cover fan-translations. Not sure what the reason is, but that's the case.

Same reason we don't let you download MP3s or ROMs, really. We've seen what Squenix has done to some fan projects, and the less connection we have to them, the better off we are. Also, you have to wonder where we draw the line? Who determines what fantrans has enough notoriety to deserve coverage alongside official releases? Do we then need to also attempt to cover Japanese releases too? It's a can of worms that outweighs any potential perceived benefits to the site, at least for the foreseeable future.
Quote (Gigantuar)
Well, I've expressed my interest in helping with a FFIII section some time ago when it was brought up. I think it could be a great addition to the site, although there really isn't much rush.

Agreed that it would be a very interesting addition to the site, and perhaps we're slowly building to the critical mass to get it started, who knows?
Quote (Various People)
Inspiring People to Play

I guess that's part of the Catch-22. Nobody's inspired to play it to help build the content (including me), but we need the content to inspire people to play? Small wonder that we haven't made progress on this since we first started looking at FF2 in 2004 (yes, 2004 was when we first thought about adding it). I should point out that saying that it would inspire people to play is one thing, but in reality I doubt that it would really get that many people to pick up the game who have never played it before. Maybe it would push some people along who got stuck in the past, but I wouldn't expect people to suddenly just flip out and go FF2-crazy, that's a bridge too far.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to keep this thread going with your thoughts, but thoughts are a long way from making things happen - just keep that in mind. And if you're someone who has posted in this thread but not read this whole long post, then your opinion is no longer valid in my eyes. wink.gif

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