Offline Quest Pack

It's finally here, because I decided to do some extra stuff. As usual, you can download it in the PC Downloads section of the site, or just click here.

The README:

Code:

Phantasy Star Online PC
Offline Quest Pack
v1.1
by: Aleron Ives
http://psopalace.funurl.com


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Intro:
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Welcome to the Offline Quest Pack for PSO PC. This pack has several purposes, the most important of which is to make NPC death in the offline quests no longer result in failure. When an NPC dies, it will re-appear at your location instead of causing you to fail the quest. Since most NPCs are supposed to be "helping" you clear the quests, it never made much sense for their deaths to cause you to fail. While this patch will be most useful to those who have the Enhancement Pack and play Ludicrous mode (since it is far too difficult for the underpowered NPCs), even those who play regular Ultimate mode may benefit. Trying to clear the offline quests as an android may prove difficult even in Ultimate mode, since NPCs require constant healing, and Star Atomizers only go so far. All of the NPCs have been altered, except Nol in "Journalistic Pursuit" and Cicil in "The Lost Bride". The NPCs in these quests specifically say that your mission is to protect them, so allowing them to die would have been contrary to the storyline. As such, all other quests with NPC partners have been modified.

I originally intended to only go this far, but then I remembered that Sega gave some of the offline quests a facelift in Episode I & II for the Gamecube. Many bugs were fixed, features were added, and special cutscenes were given to "Seek my Master" and "From the Depths". As a bonus, I decided to port these cutscenes, so Ver.2 can experience the extra content for the first time, and I fixed several bugs in multiple quests as well. Although I had to make a few changes, the cutscenes were thankfully mostly functional in their original form. I also upgraded Dr. Montague in "Dr. Osto's Research" and "Unsealed Door" to convert Ver.2 monster parts, thus making it possible to convert all monster parts offline like in Episode I & II. (However, offline monster part conversions will still have no percentages; the online quest "Today's Rate" must still be used to get the chance of up to 45% on converted weapons.) This project took many hours of work and testing, and at present the patch only changes the English offline quests. If there is an interest, I may apply the patch to other languages in the future, but we shall see. ;)

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What to do:
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When you unzipped the ZIP file, you should have gotten a main directory of "Offline_Quest_Pack" with 2 subfolders of "New" and "Orig", as well as this "README.txt" file. Both subfolders contain 11 quest files. To install this modification, go into the "New" folder, select all 11 files, and copy them. Then, navigate to where PSO is installed. Usually this is

C:\Program Files\SEGA\PhantasyStarOnline\

however it might be different for you. This folder contains files like pso.exe, autorun.exe, and online.exe. There should be a folder named "Media" here. Go into this folder, and then go into the subfolder "PSO", and then finally into the subfolder "QUEST". Once in the "QUEST" folder, paste all 11 files. Windows will ask if you want to overwrite the old files, so say "Yes". Windows will also warn you that the original files are Read-Only, so tell it to overwrite anyway on all 11 files. That's it!

If for some reason you want to restore the original offline quests, perform this same procedure, but instead copy the 11 quest files from the "Orig" folder.

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Version History:
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2011-07-08: v1.1

All: fix a bug that would require the quest to be cancelled if both the player and the NPC were felled simultaneously
From the Depths: fix a bug that would require the quest to be cancelled if the player died in the room where ASH joins

2011-01-22: v1.0.1

Dr. Osto's Research: fix a minor bug that could cause Sue to re-appear twice when killed

2011-01-21: v1.0

All: initial version

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Credits:
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This project would not have been possible without Schthack's quest editor, nor without Lee's efforts to extract and name so many of the opcodes. Thanks also go out to Cranberry for making videos of "Seek my Master" and "From the Depths", so that I could be sure I was porting the cutscenes correctly.

That's the end of this README; I hope it helped with the installation process. Don't forget to visit PSO Palace, the home of this pack and hopefully the place from which you downloaded it.

Blah.

I thought of a bug this morning, so I fixed it and updated the pack. If you by any chance downloaded it already, please grab the fix. Sorry.

As is shown on the main site, I updated this again to fix a minor but potentially annoying bug that I realized could happen while working on another quest recently. I also found another bug in one of the quests that Sega made in the original DC/PC version, but I forgot to adapt the fix they made in the GC version, so I added that, too.

...not that anybody cares. :'( Oh well. :P

Um... The update's not on the main site...

Also, out of curiosity, which Sega quest had the bug in it?

Yes it is? I didn't rename the ZIP file, but it is updated. I uploaded it this morning.

Many of the quests had bugs of varying severity which I fixed initially, but the one that I just did was in From the Depths.

We dreamcasters can not play these right?

This has so far probably been my least-popular patch, so I haven't done anything for the Dreamcast, no. It would be possible to release all of these as downloadable quests, although the NPC revival is a little rough on the GD-ROM drive, and some of the cutscenes that I ported from the Gamecube version might not work quite right, because it takes so long for the Dreamcast to load NPCs. You'd either have to sit there and wait for the NPCs to finish loading before pressing the A button, or I'd have to make the fadeout last like 10 seconds so the NPCs would have time to load.

Aleron Ives wrote:Yes it is? I didn't rename the ZIP file, but it is updated. I uploaded it this morning.

Many of the quests had bugs of varying severity which I fixed initially, but the one that I just did was in From the Depths.

Oh, I thought you meant you added a post the the news section of the main site. My fault there.

I did that, too.

Aleron Ives wrote:I did that, too.