English NPC text on JP client possible!

[John Doe III]

Wow.....you guys are great ^_^. Are you going to put these in a batch after your all done?

[Faranim]

Wow this is awesome. Thanks for all the hard work!

[Jei]

i tried replace the Quest/Mission log files. FFXI crashed when I did so ; ; so don't try.

[StarvingArtist]

Still looking for:
-Tab Auto-Translation phrases
-Spell+Ability names in Main/Combat menus
-extra system and error messages "casting interrupted"
-menu bitmap textures

Weapon, Armor, Item, Object English data doesn't appear to be complete looking through POLUtils. This may be a lost cause other than obtaining the files from a NA version. The same may apply to Mission, Quest, Important items as well. What these have in common are having a separate section for their descriptions. They are currently the only ones that either give errors or crash FFXI.

Keep in mind there are more than 19,000 files in \ROM, with another 1000+ in \ROM2. I don't even have CoP installed either.

[Macht]

Seems intresting that the JP version would have both the EN files and the JP files on it. Makes me wonder if there is an option being overlooked that'll just convert all that to english for you instead of you goofing with the backend.

Of course that's probably just expecting FFXI to be similar to Lineage II (Korean version allowed you to see in either Korean or English).

[StarvingArtist]

I was wondering that too, like if there was some software flag to determine whether to show Jp/En content. I recall someone mentioning that Square wanted NA versions to be able to type in Japanese but some weird licensing issue with the PS2 ATOK prevented that. I also came accross this odd pieces of line in the POL error message file.

Want to log into virtual Windows mode?
Want to log into virtual PS2 mode?
Want to log into virtual JP mode?
Want to log into virtual US mode?

Hm... debugging purposes or a feature that was left out?

[Jei]

huh? typing japanese is against some kinda license??

[TheMidg]

If you could do this, it would be a dream come true. No more switching back and forth from EN and JP client :sweat:

[Faranim]

I believe the official reason was something along the lines of...

If they included the Japanese IME with the American Client, they would need to pay some fee ($5 or something) to the owner of the IME software for every single copy of FFXI Sold.

Obviously, they decided not to include the feature in the NA Client, because anyone who speaks Japanese would have the Japanese Client anyway.

The only problem is that there are many people like me whose primary language is English, but knows enough Japanese to put an IME to use.

[Jei]

IME is included with windows tho. As far as I know the real problem is the USA PS2 not supporting unicode so it can never recieve JP characters as an input.

[Jei]

I played around with POLUtility a bit trying to compare JP version (PC) with my US version (laptop.) To my surprised when I choose Image > Other > Fonts and Menus, both machines show a japanese menu.

The English menu probably is a seperate file. Tried to manually browsing all files one by one right now but the problem is, some of the files are soo huge it's taking forever for the utility to load it up, even worse it can't view what's inside those files either. no image, no viewable data etc.

[cyrii]

IME is included in windows but I believe the situation is that the JP POL has its own third party dictionary. Since SE doesn't own that dictionary, they pay royalties to the original auther for every copy of the JP FFXI sold. Since the majority of NA/EU players probably will not bother to use the JP typing, they took it out of the NA/EU releases.

[gix]

very interesting, i would like to see the quest/mission cs's translated.
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[Feenicks]

Hang on, the NA text isn't just included in the JP version, it's vice versa as well, isn't it?

I run FFXI in Japanese, but I'm only using JP Playonline - the FFXI data files are all directly copied from the NA version, which means the JP data has to be in the NA release as well. I have never installed any data from JP FFXI or FFXI expansion discs.

It's my opinion that the data files for FFXI are exactly the same for the NA and JP versions, it's only Playonline that's different, and that the game determines which language to use based on what version of Playonline is used to launch into FFXI.

[StarvingArtist]

Most likely the installation is identical across all platforms, it would make sense for uniformity. The POL version does seem to determine which language settings FFXI will use, however noone has figured out how to change it without using different ones. Things would be alot simpler if Jpn text input was enabled on NA versions, but noone has found a way to do so even if all the file installations are the same.

The JP POL method is currently the only way to be able to type in Japanese in FFXI but at the loss of English game text. Those that can use IME but don't completely know the language generally have 2 separate installations for legibility and communication. I can't stand having to log into the NA version to do missions/quests but unable to converse in Japanese with the PT members that are doing it with me. While I'm not so personally concerned about disk space, 6gb is still alot and could be put to better use. Also, updating 2 versions is time consuming, and I can't log into one while updating the other. I have also have had strange errors where I couldn't type at all until both versions were updated.

With this method of file renaming, less than 7mb is needed if you keep the backup files (maybe another 1-2mb with CoP). I am almost done completing batch files that will do all the changes. I just need to do more testing and fix up the files. Current progress, easier to list what isn't translated:

*Weapons, armors, items - however weapon/armor categories in the description are in English
*Mission log, quest log, Important Item - still crashes the game
*Main and Combat menu - Magic, Job Ability, etc but description in top menu is in English
*Combat log data - monster strength, attacks, misses, damage, etc
*Menu buttons and windows - still looking for an English version
*Tab menu and Auto-Translate
*emotes
*some system messages