47 replies to this topic

[Cyowolf1122]

Technically, resolution is not a good enough reason to stop anyone from using a higher resolution mod. The only thing is to not use the CS Wii sprites in it. That's it. There's nothing else besides the inability to use the Wii sprites.

And to be honest, I do believe we could do better than those. |D One's artistic ability is limited only by their imagination. And they did skip out on a great many things. Now, I'm not saying to modify the originals, but to make a custom variant of them.

[Number 00]

This is what this post is about. Anything having to do with hacking the WiiWare version of Cave Story, be it sprite sheets, code, transfering data to and from the Wii to the PC, whatever the case may be, it fall within the realm of piracy and will not be allowed here at this forum.

I completely agree that this forum is not the place for piracy discussion. However, I do believe there is merit in looking at the contents of CS Wii in a non-piratey kind of way that can be good for the community.

For example, this thread addresses several examples of small bugs that, in some cases, are better understood by examining the source files (and, if Nicalis does release a patch for CS Wii, this thread will be invaluable to their efforts).

Similarly, this post by Noxid reveals some Easter Eggs that wouldn't be discoverable simply playing the game on the Wii.

If I understand your statement correctly, these types of discussions are no longer allowed. Even if nothing illegal is occurring (if each person has individually transferred their PURCHASED copy of CS Wii to their PC), these discussions are still not allowed.

Again, I understand the want (and need) to halt piracy-enabling discussions here. However, I do not understand such a blanket ban on ANY type of CS Wii discussion outside of its normal playing on the Wii.

It is my hope that you reconsider your decision in light of the potential benefit to the community these discussions could have .

[Echidna-san]

Cave Story Wii took mods from this forum and added them as Boss Rush and Time Attack in their release.

The original AG translation is still there among all of their data files because of this, even though most of them would not be used, because they didn't even take the time to remove all of the pbm files, much less the completely unused redundant copies of maps with the other translation's scripts running, or fix any of the errors which existed in even the used map scripts.

Perhaps it is mean spirited of me, but you already completely erased the thread with my previous apology in it: I see no reason why we shouldn't take from them as well.

That said, there is nothing more I can do here but express my frustration. I am deeply sorry to Pixel for having become the object of this tug of war. At the least, you should know that I only dream of improving things beyond what is already there, regardless for what is legal or will be completely misused.

The excitement of discovering the method of dissecting and recompiling Cave Story Wii's data files lit a small spark in me, a light which merely said "I can improve this". I do not trust someone else to release a patch for it, official or otherwise; I only wanted to do my part, of what limited things I can, to let things be fixed and improved, and hopefully appreciated. Nothing more.

No pirating, no ill intentions, no harm meant, the least of which to Pixel. Again, I am sorry.

[SkyeWelse]

<DoubleThink> Whatever
<DoubleThink> CS Wii hacking is dumb anyway

I'm kind of hesitant to touch anything so would you prefer to take care of the errant threads yourself or...? (Welcome back by the way. Maybe they should release CS Wii every month >_>)

I'll most likely be monitoring this place for a little while. But I don't plan to stay around that long. I'm very busy and I don't have time to monitor this community, let alone other communities that I may wish to remain active in. So that's why this point needs to come across now so that it remains in effect, even if I'm not around to enforce it.

Anything that is going to hurt any type of profit for Pixel-san is unwelcome here.

And no, while Quest for Calatia is a mod of sorts, it is almost entirely developed with new graphical content by the designers themselves. I'd say at least 70 - 80% of it and it isn't a romhack in the least, but rather an entirely new Zelda game built from the ground up for PC. There is nothing illegal about what they are doing, unless I've missed something and they've released a ton of Zelda roms that I didn't know about...

SkyeWelse

[Fire1052]

Anything that is going to hurt any type of profit for Pixel-san is unwelcome here.

What are you talking about? Pixel isn't making any profit from Cave Story Wiiware.

[SkyeWelse]

If I understand your statement correctly, these types of discussions are no longer allowed. Even if nothing illegal is occurring (if each person has individually transferred their PURCHASED copy of CS Wii to their PC), these discussions are still not allowed.

Again, I understand the want (and need) to halt piracy-enabling discussions here. However, I do not understand such a blanket ban on ANY type of CS Wii discussion outside of its normal playing on the Wii.

It is my hope that you reconsider your decision in light of the potential benefit to the community these discussions could have .

Sorry, but that's the way it is going to have to be. There's nothing stopping you from figuring this stuff out for yourself and modding what you personally own. But there is a problem with discussing how one would go about doing that here at this forum. Even if that wasn't the intent to pirate the game, content from the WiiWare version is or was intended on being used for some other purpose than being played on the Wii, which falls in the realm of piracy. As the owner of this site, I cannot condone such actions, no matter how good or honorable those intentions are.

@Fire1052, and why would you think Pixel-san isn't getting anything from this game. There was a license agreement between Nicalis and Pixel. Of course there is a monetary transaction. Maybe he doesn't get royalties with each purchase, but supporting the official version in a sales capacity shows that Pixel is able to make a profit, which in turn makes him profitable and hire-able for future gaming projects.

-SkyeWelse

[VoidMage_Lowell]

What are you talking about? Pixel isn't making any profit from Cave Story Wiiware.

@Fire1052, and why would you think Pixel-san isn't getting anything from this game. There was a license agreement between Nicalis and Pixel. Of course there is a monetary transaction. Maybe he doesn't get royalties with each purchase, but supporting the official version in a sales capacity shows that Pixel is able to make a profit, which in turn makes him profitable and hire-able for future gaming projects.

Actually, from what I've read, there's a certain 'cap limit' Nintendo sets up with it's WiiWare developers.
They don't get paid if their games don't sell enough, but once they hit the 'cap', they get reimbursed for all the games sold, plus the any ones that will sell after, too.
It really does matter for each copy sold, at least until the cap's reached.

[Noxid]

You guys don't need to worry about my mod. It's my labour of love, and it'll take a hell of a lot more than Nicalis to get me to give up. And yes, I have backups... archived in three different types of media storage, going from version 0.0.1.2 to current. I've got 16 different .exe files from various stages of progress just in my working folder (although I really should clean that up...)

But, that's not the point. I think I would like to take this time to lay out the basic timeline of what's led up to the hack. It'll make me feel better at least.
Note: it's very long.

Spoiler

Well, it started out just like any other ASM hack for me - somebody suggested something, I didn't have it, and I wanted it. Trickybilly made a comment on my blog about flashing lights or something, and I thought it would be fun (I'd been toying with the idea myself) but I figured it'd probably look kinda lame since there was no transparancy and therefore no way to produce a reasonable looking light effect. I asked GIR what he thought about it and he told me that I should just hack in transparancy myself. I figured I'd always wanted transparancy anyway so it would probably be a worthwhile endeavour. According to the blog, this puts it at around Mar. 6 that I first started toying with the rendering engine. Of course, I got nowhere fast, so I got bored and set the idea aside.

Well, the very next week, I'd forgotten the power cord to my laptop, and wouldn't be able to get it until the next weekend. As luck would have it, I found a USB stick and managed to grab my mod before the batteries died. I didn't really want to work on any of the big stuff on my mod without all the rest of the backup info on my laptop (and I didn't want to do graphics work on a public computer so, I downloaded Olly and my compendium and took another look at the graphics rendering stuff. After a few hours of fooling around, I came up with what amounts to the very first image I posted in the "Wiiware on PC" thread. I was quite excited for what I had done, and it was all I could do to keep myself from looking like a fool in that computer lab. I spent pretty much every night of that week in the computer lab, as soon as I got off class until 2 or 3 AM when I could barely see the screen anymore. There were a lot of obstacles to overcome, but I was making good progress. Around midweek I got really hung up on a particular problem and that's when I enlisted the help of GIR. So, with his help, we managed to get it down to about 85% working-ness by midway-through the second week - probably around march 10, I'm not really sure. Anyway, after a short break we got around to finishing it up to about 95% completion. It was at this point GIR suggested that we forward our proposal to Tyrone and Nicalis, since the possiblity of what it might be used for (CSWII-CSPC) had arisen to our attention. Thus, it was March 14 that I sent my first message to Nicalis.

I believe the reasoning for asking them about it was, with the launch of the Wiiware title less than a week away, we didn't want to get in trouble with them for putting out what would turn out to be essentially the entire selling point of their port - the extra graphics capability. It was pretty obvious that it would only be a matter of time before the graphics and data from the wii version got ripped up and spread over the internet, with a group of resourceful fans such as the CS hackers. They'd been doing it all along to the PC version, and since nobody said "No"...

Well, anyway, it was almost half a week before I got a reply, and in the interim I made a mockup video showing Kanpachi in the core using tile sprites from some of the screenshots on Nicalis's blog. It was supposed to be a joke but I don't think anyone got it >_>

Tyrone basically told me that they needed time to discuss the matter, and to discuss it with Pixel himself. He said something to the effect that people stealing and using the new Wii graphics and stuff Pixel worked hard on might discourage him from doing future games. Anyway, we dropped work on the hack in anticipation of their response.

After a week and a half of silence, I got so bored that I started playing with the hack in my spare time, tinkering with it and refining some of the procedures. After reworking one particular instruction set, almost all of the minor bugs we'd encountered suddenly seemed to evaporate. At this point, the hack was pretty much 99% done - there were only a few minor glitches in the credits/ending sequence, and it wasn't anything so bad as to make it unviewable. So, on the 30th of March, I sent another email to Tyrone asking if there had been any progress on the discussions. He said they were still busy discussing, and hadn't had time to speak to Pixel yet. Okay, I figured. I'd give them some time. They were probably very busy what with the release of the Wiiware and all.

Well, it's now April 12, and I've still not heard back. I'm trying to imagine why it's taken so long to come up with what I thought would be a simple answer. I just wish that they would tell me SOMETHING, just give me a little bit to go by. All I want is to be able to use this in my mod, to make it special, show off how hard I've worked and how much it the mod means to me that I would go to such lengths. But, from the last email, weeks ago, they wouldn't even be able to tell me if that was okay.

If it comes down to it, I'd fight for my right to include this in my mod. It's gotten to the point for me where I'm getting fed up with not being told anything. CS PC Hacking has gone on for the better part of 3/4 years now, so there's a certain precedent set. If I want to do this for my mod, I don't think there is any legitmate reason that they can give to say absolutely, no way, you can't do that. I've been holding off, waiting, hoping, purely out of respect for Pixel as my biggest inspiration and/or hero. I mean, his awesome game is the reason I ever bothered to undertake something like this mod...

Ever since I got Tyrone's last email back I've been feeling nothing but resentment for this hack. I hate it, I wish I'd never started so I could be free of this stupid politics and nonsense. But it's done, and I'm not one to let my honest hard work be marginalized.

If you don't care then feel free to skip over this, but I had to get that off my chest. I just don't even know anymore.

I don't even know.

[Carrotlord]

Well, I'm glad you posted it.

I'm not entirely sure how to word this, but the effort that Noxid put into this hacking project clearly means a lot to him. I don't think anyone should deserve to feel grief for such a thing they worked upon.

I'm sorry if I said anything earlier that may have seriously aggravated the situation. Noxid, I wish you the best of luck in your journey.

I want to see King's Story grow and flourish, not fall victim to some bad timing with Cave Story Wii.

[andwhyisit]

The 2xRes mod is fine in my book as long as it doesn't contain copyrighted material from the WiiWare version. And I believe the early beginnings of that mod predated the initial announcement of the WiiWare release. You just chose a very incriminating thread to post in, that's all.