Fragments of a Memory

This is also on the Schtserv forum.

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Fragments of a Memory

Search for message
capsules left
in the Ruins.


Client: solider
Quest:
A message capsule thought
to be from the Pioneer 1
Military was discovered in
Ragol's underground Ruins.
We would like you to
search for more.
Reward: ??? Meseta

After a great deal of work, I'm pleased to say that this quest is finally done. You might wonder how hard it could be to make it be "done" when it was only in Japanese, but there was a lot that needed to be fixed. FoaM is now available for BB, GC, and for the first time, DC and PC. I believe this is another first for Schtserv quest development, a BB quest that has been made fully compatible with PSO Ver.2. Many changes were made to fix up the quest, so I'll list them by version:

BB changes:

• Script changes made to allow the quest to function properly. JPBB quests are strangely coded... It seems likely that on JPBB the server interacts with the quest to allow the actual quest to be coded less fully. Thus, when you try to play the quest on a server without the extra crap on JPBB, it doesn't work. It could also be a problem with our editor, but either way the problems are fixed.
  
• A little debug junk left in the quest by Sega has been removed so the quest is a bit smaller.
  
• Spawn points of players and positions of the warpers in Ruins fixed to be in the correct positions.
  
• The solider next to the main teleporter was moved to the side so the green gem player isn't hugging him when returning to Pioneer 2. >_>;
  
• If you've played the quest on either BB or GC, you might be aware of the "missing warps" problem in Ruins 1 that occured on one version of the quest. After analysing the quest, it turns out that Sega intended to have a warp roulette in Ruins 1. The three warps which you see send you to different locations in Ruins 1 every time you play the quest. After a great deal of work, this has been fixed. Ironically, it took me trying to create my own, simpler roulette to figure out how to make Sega's work. Though a lot of work went down the drain, Sega's is far better anyway so it was worth it. It was easiest to get the roulette functioning on DC/PC, but making it work on GC/BB was a major pain. I was about ready to give up and release a somewhat crippled version of Ruins 1 for GC/BB so the stupid quest could finally come out, but thanks to Lee the roulette has been fixed on GC/BB as well. It only took a lot of head bashing, hex editing, and FTPing, lulz.
  
• Enemies. While testing the quest at one point, Shadowfox mentioned that the quest had only Dimenians. I hadn't noticed, but it was true. Why exactly this is, I don't know. If the quest has only Dimenians on JPBB, I also don't know. Considering how apparently quickly the quest was made due to the little tweaks necessary and the fact that every enemy type is used extensively (except for Bringers, boo), it seemed like perhaps either 1) Sega didn't code the Dimenians properly or 2) JPBB would make them La or So types through server interaction with the quest (assuming Sega didn't actually want no La or So Dimenians to appear in the quest...). Since we had no idea what the quest would be like properly, it seemed like greater variety was a better option and likely to be correct. However in case Sega did want you to be fighting the same type of enemy all the time, the enemies are divided by area. You'll fight Dimenians in Ruins 1, La Dimenians in Ruins 2, and So Dimenians in Ruins 3. (This was also the easiest to do from a development standpoint...).
  

GC changes:

All the changes made to the BB version, plus

• Minor script changes to accomodate GC scripting differences.
  
• Meseta. For some reason, Sega changed the quest reward system on BB to give miniscule amounts of Meseta. Why they did this, I don't really know since they already admitted Meseta's uselessness by creating Photon Drops. Regardless, the rewards have been scaled by difficulty again on the original Meseta stat system. The quest has multiple rewards depending on what you do, so here's the value chart:
  
  

  Code:

  
Fail the quest via Ruins 2 timer or Ruins 3 ghosts:
Normal: 500
Hard: 1,000
Very Hard: 2,000
Ultimate: 4,000

Choose to quit after Ruins 1:
Normal: 1,000
Hard: 2,000
Very Hard: 4,000
Ultimate: 8,000

Choose to quit after Ruins 2:
Normal: 2,500
Hard: 5,000
Very Hard: 10,000
Ultimate: 20,000

Finish quest:
Normal: 8,000
Hard: 16,000
Very Hard: 32,000
Ultimate: 48,000


Ver.2 changes:

All the changes made to the BB and GC versions, plus

• Significant script changes to accomodate Ver.2's different script system. Thankfully, this quest does not have any elements significant to the quest's gameplay that are unsupported by Ver.2. All changes made are, I believe, merely aesthetic.
  
• The Pioneer 2 map was imported from a Dreamcast quest and modified to be mostly the same as the GC/BB Pioneer 2. (I didn't edit a few of the NPCs IIRC, like the Tekker lady.) Ver.2 doesn't like BB Pioneer 2, when you talk to the bank and shop NPCs the camera zooms to the wrong location, and if you talk to the Guild you RSOD. Using a Dreamcast Pioneer 2 fixes these problems.
  
• The scrolling timer messages in Ruins 2 have been removed. While it might be possible to create similar messages, I don't know how and it wasn't really worth figuring it out.
  
• The "AWOOGA" siren in Ruins 2 has been replaced with the "Uneasiness" Symbol Chat sound since the sound used on GC/BB doesn't exist. The delays were slightly adjusted to make the triple sound effect sound better.
  
• The fancy failure message box for the timer in Ruins 2 has been replaced with a normal message box.
  
• Oodles of script was added to make the quest behave properly when you fail in Ruins 2. Players who are already on Pioneer 2 will be sent to the Guild, while players who are in Ruins 2 appear by the main teleporter. The script might not have been needed, but it works so oh well.
  
• The client's behaviour was changed slightly. On GC/BB if you talk to him when you fail the quest or if you choose to quit early, you get immediately sent to the lobby. This doesn't work on Ver.2, so he will ask you to cancel the quest at the Guild Counter instead.
  
• Protection has been added to prevent players from quitting the quest and then continuing since they are not immediately sent to the lobby.
  
• Minor changes were made to the ghosts in Ruins 3 to make them work on Ver.2. Thankfully, they seem to behave exactly the same as they do on GC/BB.
  
• The method of generating the sparklies used for capsules was changed to make them work properly.
  *NOTE FOR DREAMCAST USERS*
  The new sparkly creation method has decreased the visual range of the capsules, i.e. you must be close to them before they appear. I don't think this is a bug; it's probably related to the Dreamcast's low clipping distance compared to PSO PC. It's possible that the visual range on PC is also low if high-end clipping is not selected, but I haven't tried. Regardless, just know that the capsules are there, you just have to get close to them before they appear.
  

I would also like to thank the following people who helped with making the quest possible:

• Fishy's friend ccovell for getting me a trial account on JPBB to log the quests. As promised, a shameless plug for his site SMS Power.
  
• Schthack for providing the proxy to log the quests and also for helping me debug the necessary opcodes in the quest back in January.
  
• Cranberry for collaborating with me in translation.
  
• Jodin for semi-coming out of retirement to look at Garon's Treachery with me in an effort to figure out how to make the ghosts work on Ver.2.
  
• The Dude for running tests on Cephei.
  
• Shadowfox for running a shitload of tests with me on her ship as well as mine.
  
• Lee for making the warp roulette fix on GC/BB possible and also for helping fix the bug with the Ver.2 capsules.
  

Enjoy. I'm not sure when the quest will be up on all ships, for now it's up on Cephei because The Dude was online and Crono wasn't. Once Crono shows up then the quest can get uploaded to BB ships, so somebody call his cellphone if you have his number or something. xD

P.S.

Currently, the quest is only up in English. Since we have the entire thing in Japanese, I will probably attempt to put the Japanese text back into the fixed versions so that we have both languages available. However, we do need more translation for the quest. If people are interested in translating it, I can arrange a system and make a new topic for it. The languages we need for a complete set are:

• Spanish
  
• French
  
• German
  
• Chinese Traditional
  
• Chinese Simplified
  
• Korean
  

<---- Mr. Test. He is da bomb!

I can't wait to play this, gonna do it tomorrow evening.

Thanks for all the hard work Ives.

Congratulations dude!
Is there any hope to make it compatible with v1? I am not talking about just this one, but also for the others. V1 lacks online quests too much

As I said before, Ver.1 is basically a beta only. We assume it is missing support for commands that Ver.2 has, so the odds of getting any quest that is Ver.2 exclusive ported back to Ver.1 is somewhere from slim to completely impossible. If it is possible, we don't know how to do it. Stop playing Ver.1 if you want more content.

It's unclear currently if Sega did not port Ver.2 quests to Ver.1 because doing so was impossible, or if they just wanted people to play Ver.2 instead so they deliberately withheld content.

I see Aleron. Thanks for the good explanation, as always
Gotta try this quest really soon!W00t

Edit:
Oh no, xD I am very glad with v1! I also ordered the JP ver. just as I did with v2 recently! V1 rocks dude we still are the very few who see it like it is.

Okay, so three of us were trying this quest. When we went to the warp on Pioneer 2 for the first time, two of us went to Ruins 1 and the other guy went to Ruins 3. We tried to get Ruins 3 guy into Ruins 1, but he couldn't make a telepipe. (I don't remember if it was because the game wouldn't let him or if he had no telepipe items on him) So, the guy that was with me left. I forgot if he found Ruins 1 capsule or what. (I had to brb at the time, so I don't know all that happened) Anyways, the two other guys wound up in Ruins 2. I couldn't. They told me to talk to the client and he'll say I can continue on to Ruins 2. I talked to the client and all he talked about was oil. I couldn't get to Ruins 2. They guys sent a pipe for me. I entered, but was instantly transported back to Pioneer 2 with a message saying that I had to find the previous capsule. The guys were able to get to Ruins 2 and 3 while all I had was 1. What happened? I don't remember if anyone was on PC or DC or what.

It sounds to me like the first guy was using the hack to let you access any area at any time and he went straight to Ruins 3.

As for Ruins 2, this is normal. You must acquire Capsule 1 located in Ruins 1 before you can enter Ruins 2.