Thank you so much for this update, @ultima espio! I was unaware of PCSX2EX. Gonna have to try that out.
I reckon the graphics plugin will help us extract some textures that not even daemon1's texture extraction tool could properly interpret.
A measly 128x64 pixel-sized image that does little-to-nothing in terms of making the text more readable.
Enlarged:
In-game screenshot with adjusted contrast:
NEXT 60km
WELLCOME TO
(C)ITY CENTER
(ED)GE TOWN
What's fascinating is that the top board is mirrored in the original texture, making it look even more like a set of greek letters than before. These fuzzy scribbles remain difficult to interpret with any confidence in accuracy.
Another positive aspect with the new texture dump feature is that, at least if you have paint.net, you can view- and export the .dds textures with transparency preserved.
I've wanted the flag icon with transparency preserved for so long and now that day is here!
Flag enlarged:
Cursor enlarged:
Fun fact: When you start an Extra Mission and the "Ready" & "Go!" text scrolls by, the above texture is loaded into memory even though it is never used. Certain matches in the online mode would presumably have had "Rounds" but this feature is not present in the single player content.
Adding to the list of Dirge of Cerberus textures I'd like to see the original high-quality versions of.
The office building in Kalm contains a number of portraits and landscape photos. They are quite low-res and fuzzy but I didn't realize they'd be THIS small. We're talking 14x14 pixels per portrait.
Zoomed in:
The imagination just runs wild with interpretations. Only having these low-res textures is such a tease. The wider landscape picture look like two houses, possibly three, on a rocky coast. The top left texture *could* be a person with fire over their face but I can't be certain.
Texture zoomed in 300%, the tags in the bottom right are used for each of the three rooms in the first floor of the Kalm office building.
Top tag: Leads to boiler room. The texture is mirrored in the final game. The humming from this room can be heard even before entering.
Before the mirroring I think it looks to say "Room1".
Middle tag: Leads to locker/changing room. There are exactly five lockers in this room, matching the total number of busts found in the office: Four colored photos and one black-and-white photo from what looks like a newspaper. So there are five people working in this office, I guess.
The tag looks the easiest out of all to read, but I can't discern what meaning it's supposed to have even when rewritten in katakana or hiragana form.
Bottom tag: Leads to break room that includes a table, comfy chair and sofa, a shop and several of the portraits and landscape/scenery pictures.
"Place de la Kalm"
The dirt over the sign almost look graffiti that is supposed to be spelling something.
I tried to find a stock photo of the moon that matched up PERFECTLY with this texture from Dirge. I could only find partial matches though. Admittedly I only spent 10-15 minutes searching.
I wonder. When they make HD ports, do they have access to higher quality textures, or do they have to recreate them? I wonder if these textures are sitting in some dusty hard-drive in the SE offices...
I have now transcribed and auto-translated 100% of the Dirge of Cerberus Beta Version manual. The beta version is a disc that was released to beta testers of the Dirge of Cerberus online mode and each copy came with a complete game case and a Beta Version manual (and a separate, dedicated PlayOnline manual as well). No digital distribution back in the summer- and early autumn of 2005!
Here is a download link to a zip file that includes the Excel document and the accompanying pages. Please download it for posterity.
As per usual, I performed all transcription manually and I do not use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software. Auto-translations were made through a mix of Google Translate and DeepL (browser version). The formal style of the majority of the manual's Japanese text is well-suited to automated translation and so the reader can expect decently coherent English text from it. For the sake of completion I also transcribed the game case and the text printed on the game disc.
While most of the work was performed in solitude, key aid and feedback was supplied by @X-SOLDIER, @Strangelove, @The Twilight Mexican and @murfy which helped improve the quality of the document. The transcriptions would not have been possible without the beautiful high-quality scans provided by @Tenshin26100 back in December 2018. Thank you to everyone who made this document possible!
The biggest risk of errors lay in some of the hiragana for the PlayOnline menu screenshots, as my biggest weakness is that I am yet to actually look up words written in hiragana. The fact also remains that I am human and that despite diligently double-checking each transcribed row it is still possible some embarrassing mistakes have made their way into the final document. When errors are corrected I will update the download link in this post to lead to the improved version.
*deep breath out*
The number of people who will find any actual use of this document can be counted on one hand. The manual contains virtually no lore and focuses mostly on account registration and gameplay. Its greatest value is as a snapshot- and deeper look into a unique part of FFVII Compilation history.
All this said, I am still deeply pleased. The contents of the manual (and game case) are now available for easy quotation, readers of English and auto-translation into other languages. A dream has been fulfilled and I feel happy and relieved.
Comments about the beta version package and the journey transcribing it: Part 1
- The bottom right of the back of the game case contains a typo.
"DIESIGN"
I've so far looked at three copies of the Beta Version game case and all contain this error. No signs of a reprint with this corrected.
- The health & general guidelines page (what is essentially page zero) appears the same between Japanese PS2 manuals. It mentions the PocketStation as a potential peripheral which initially surprised me until I remembered that the PS2 is (to varying degrees) backwards compatible with the PS1. Been unable to find any PS2-exclusive game that definitely employs the PocketStation. It really feels weird though to see the PocketStation mentioned in PS2 manuals from 2005 and 2006.
- Far as I can remember, I have never before read a Software License Agreement in full...until the Dirge β manual. My Cerberus adventures really takes me to all kinds of places. Thankfully dry text can come with its own form of humor.
第1条 定義
1.「当社」とは、株式会社スクウェア・エニックスを言うものとします。
Article 1: Definitions
1. The term "the Company" shall mean Square Enix Co.
The repeated references to "the Company" makes me feel like I'm reading a Software License Agreement written by the Shinra Company.
4. After the termination of This Agreement, the tester shall be responsible for promptly destroying this Software and this Manual.
Imagine if even a single tester went through the trouble of DESTROYING the disc and the manual once the beta test period was over. Square's mistake was to not build in a self-destruct mechanism.
1. Testers may not perform any of the following acts.
(1) Reproduction or use of the Software beyond the scope of the license granted in Article 2.
(2) Actions such as modification, combination, reverse engineering, and analysis of this software.
(3) Any act of transferring, selling, lending, or sublicensing the Software for free, or any other act of allowing others to use the Software.
Well... Good thing I'm not a tester, so these conditions do not apply to me.
There was at least one time when "mana3", a group that vigorously played the online mode and reported on it for the masses, exchanged Beta Version discs with each other in secret. I do not know what the purpose was, but they "technically" broke Article 5, Section 1, Sub-section 3. The way they "smuggled" the discs was by switching the game case to that of a PS2 Tennis game instead.
If the tester discovers that another party has infringed or is likely to infringe on the copyright or any other intellectual property rights related to the Software, this Manual, etc.,
the tester shall cooperate with the Company by notifying the Company of such infringement so that the Company can eliminate such infringement.
The Company expects your compliance. The Company is the One True Will. Obey the Company. All hail Shinra Incorporated Square Enix.
These Terms and Conditions shall be effective as of August 1, 2005.
As late as the 23rd of August it was announced that beta testing would begin on the 1st of September. Postponements would continue still and only on September 22 did the game servers open up for the applicants. The testing period ended on October 31, after only 5 1/2 weeks of available beta service. For a significant portion of applicants the time for playtesting was even shorter though, since beta kits were sent out in batches.
2nd batch: Shipped on/around September 27
3rd batch: Shipped on/around October 4
4th batch: Shipped on/around October 11
5th/final batch: Shipped on/around October 18
Why ship in batches and severely diminish the number of players and conceivable playtime? Did the developers want to control the influx of new players and measure how the servers reacted to a steady increase in the player base? Was there a logistical obstacle with manufacturing enough beta kits in time? I'd wager towards the latter. It's a good thing at least they decided to print and ship the beta disc as a CD instead of as a DVD. That must have significantly lowered the cost.
Fortunately it did not cost anything to apply for- and to play Dirge of Cerberus during the beta phase. The only requirement was that you had an active PlayOnline membership. Going back to content from the manual...
「ダージュ オブ ケルベロス -ファイナルファンタジーVII-」βテストに参加するためには、スク
ウェア・エニックスのオンラインサービス「プレイオンライン」への会員登録が必要です。すで
にプレイオンライン会員になっている方は、新規登録の必要がありません。「ダージュ オブ ケ
ルベロス -ファイナルファンタジーVII-」βテストは無料ですが、プレイオンライン会員登録に
は将来有料サービスを利用する時のために、支払方法の登録が必須となります。
In order to participate in the "Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII-" beta test, you need to register as a member of Square Enix's online service "PlayOnline". If you are already a PlayOnline member, you do not need to register. The "Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII-" beta test is free of charge, but PlayOnline members will be required to register a payment method in order to use the paid service in the future.
This adds a layer to help explain why Japanese blogs about the beta period are so abundant compared to the "retail" period in 2006: Not only is it a privilege to report on something so unique as a beta testing phase but also it's FOR FREE!
The screens in the "Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII-" Player Manual are still in beta testing and may differ from the actual game screens.
※ 本解説書に記載されている内容は2005年9月現在のものです。
*The information contained in this manual is current as of September 2005.
The beta kit (manual + disc) can be considered as reflecting the stage of development from July-September 2005, possibly even earlier. When the CD content is extracted, the time stamp of the Dirge content is 2005-07-11 (July 11). This makes even more sense when the main game text is extracted and you see how much it differs even from player blogs about the beta phase.
As such, both the disc and the manual contain precious data that reveal the status of the online game even pre-beta. Though there is also plenty of material in the beta manual that match up with the content reported by beta players during September 22 - October 31 in 2005.
Comments about the beta version package and the journey transcribing it: Part 3
- Transcribing the low-resolution PlayOnline menu screenshots on pages 4-5 was made considerably easier thanks to the high-quality video uploaded by krHACKen where they pass the checks in the PlayOnline viewer in order to initiate a fake installation of DCFFVII β.
The differences between krHACKen's video and the beta manual screenshots are few and tiny. The manual doesn't show the Chocobo cursor and it's presumably a cursor that only shows up if you are using a mouse. Since I do not own the PlayOnline Manual, I can't check it for details like these.
The other difference is in how the full game title is written.
beta manual screenshot
ダージュ オブ ケルベロスβ ‐ＦＦⅦ‐
krHACKen video / beta kit final game disc
ダージュ オブ ケルベロス ‐FFVII‐β
The manual distinctly uses more Japanese table symbols (Shift-JIS), like Ⅶ and ＦＦ. The final version, as derived from the beta kit CD, favors a more international standard by writing with ASCII letters: "–FFVII–" instead of "‐ＦＦⅦ‐"
- Pages 6-7 is where the aforementioned hiragana errors are the most likely to have occurred due to the low resolution of the screenshots and the lack of a high-quality video to show these menus.
As I point out in the document proper, the "Play" menu was changed at some point.
Beta Manual:
Screenshot from August 2005, taken from unspecified source and posted on FFVII Excavation:
プレイガイド [Play Guide] was renamed to 初めての方へ [Beginner's Guide].
The option 回線測定ツール [(On)line measurement tool] was changed to ネットワーク環境 [Network environment]. I hope this option could confirm not only your general internet connection but also tell if the Dirge of Cerberus servers were online.
Just take a moment though to consider the hoops required to get a session of Dirge of Cerberus Multiplayer started. First you boot up your Playstation 2 BB Unit, which takes way longer to start than a normal PS2 if you are using the "Broadband Navigator" menu. Then you launch the PlayOnline viewer from the Broadband Navigator so you can login to PlayOnline. The process of loading the PlayOnline Viewer is also lengthy, at least if you access it from the Dirge of Cerberus menu. Then you have to navigate to a specific DoC Multiplayer menu to finally click on Play and get started... That is, get started with selecting your character and server, of course.
I am not entirely sure about how much you would *need* the Dirge of Cerberus "game start" menu to access the online mode or if you could always go through the PlayOnline viewer alone to reach the online game, without booting up Dirge. Regardless, we are talking minutes of loading times before you can even get your game started no matter if you're talking about Final Fantasy XI, Front Mission Online or Dirge of Cerberus.
- The beta manual has registration codes printed on the back for access to PlayOnline, Dirge of Cerberus Beta game and the DoC Beta site. Each copy of the manual contains a unique combination of numbers and letters for these codes, so in this sense any copy of the beta version manual that you own is one of a kind. Because the DoC Beta site was locked to beta testers, there are no pages of it saved in the Wayback Machine. Thankfully the retail/public era of 2006 did not lock away the corresponding PlayOnline site which is why we have captures from that point in time.
● "DIRGE of CERBERUS -FINAL FANTASY VII- Beta Version" exclusively for analog controller (DUALSHOCK 2)
"PlayOnline Viewer" exclusively for analog controller (DUALSHOCK 2) and analog controller (DUALSHOCK)
The mention that a PS1 controller is compatible with the PlayOnline Viewer prompted my curiosity. To what extent do PS1 controllers work with Dirge of Cerberus?
I have two PS1 controllers:
- The original "PlayStation Control Pad" (SCPH-1080) that lacks the analog sticks.
- PS1 DUALSHOCK controller (SCPH-1200), complete with analog sticks and vibration function.
SCPH-1080
SCPH-1200
There exists an intermediate PS1 "Dual Analog" controller (SCPH-1180) that has analog sticks but no vibration function, thus not falling under the "DUALSHOCK" umbrella, but alas I do not own that version.
Right off the bat I found that the PS2 start-up menu (the menu before any game has loaded) will respond perfectly to both PS1 controllers. Navigating the menus and making selections is no problem. Keep in mind I only did tests on my Japanese PS2 (SCPH-50000). Information online says that compatibility with PS1 controllers on PS2 games will depend on the game.
Dirge of Cerberus Beta Version [SLPM-68016]
Both the SCPH-1080 and SCPH-1200 function. There is no opportunity to test the analog sticks since booting the disc only gives you access to dead-end menus. Given my results with the first retail version of Dirge I believe both controllers would have worked during the actual beta phase.
Dirge of Cerberus, Original Japanese release [SLPM-66271]
Both the SCPH-1080 and SCPH-1200 function. Even though the game is virtually unplayable with the original PlayStation Control Pad, because of the lack of analog sticks, nothing is preventing you from using all the other buttons.
Dirge of Cerberus, International [SLPM-66629]
The game will not accept any inputs from the SCPH-1080! The SCPH-1200 still worked fine and can be a great alternative for if your PS2 DUALSHOCK is falling apart.
Ergo we have another version difference on our hands. At some point after JORG [SLPM-66271] the support for non-DUALSHOCK PS1 controllers was removed from the game. In order to test the North American [SLUS-21419] and European [SLES-54185] versions I would have to either fix my modded PS2 or boot up OPL and that's more work than I am willing to do at the moment. Some other time I will confirm when this change in controller support occurred.
*2021-03-20 edit: Booted up Open PS2 Loader (OPL) and confirmed that neither the North American- nor European versions of Dirge of Cerberus support the SCPH-1080 controller. Support for it was present in Beta and in the original Japanese retail release but was afterwards removed. All versions accept the PS1 DUALSHOCK (SCPH-1200).*
**The OPL menus support both SCPH-1080 and SCPH-1200, same as the normal PS2 start-up menu does.**
The existence of support for PS1 DUALSHOCK in seemingly all versions does render the Japanese game cases incomplete though. All of them only specify support for the PS2 DUALSHOCK when it comes to Dirge of Cerberus.
The North American game case lists what are essentially control features but without specifying the console or the controller type.
Digital Control - Analog Control - Vibration Function
The PAL game case does basically the same thing in its listing, except the specification "analog sticks only" make me believe it will not support the SCPH-1080 controller due to its lack of said sticks.
● Analog Control Compatible: analog sticks only ● Vibration Function Compatible
I was contacted yesterday by a Twitter user called Damián. After he reverse engineered the encryption/decryption algorithm that applies to save data in the entire FFXIII trilogy, he found that it's the same algorithm that's used in Dirge of Cerberus! In other words it's the same programming scheme that's found in my save editor McDirge. The only real difference is the starting key values.
These games share the same main programmer (except for in FFXIII: Lightning Returns where he only receives a Special Thanks), Yoshiki Kashitani, so that could potentially explain the similarity in the code.
Damián said:
I found your McDirge code when I googled for "0xA1652347". That constant is truly unique to FF, and your code was the ONLY result on Google!
Page 42 of this very research thread is indeed the only result I get too if I search for that constant! The value 0xA1652347 ("0x" denotes that it's a hexadecimal value and in decimal it would be written as 2707759943) plays an important role in the algorithm.
I am now at once honored, proud and embarrassed to learn that he decided to paste the encryption/decryption algorithm portion of my McDirge (version 0.3) code over his own. This is the first time I've had somebody use my code for their own project. I would never have imagined that my code could possibly pass the scrutiny of other programmers.
Damián said:
I've updated my XIII decrypter using the source from McDirge, as it looks much more readable than what I had. The key-generation function is still from my reversing, so it looks messy but it works great for all XIII, XIII-2 & 3
You can find the complete code for his FF13 program over at github. His code also includes the actual algorithm that generates the full block of keys, while my McDirge code only uses the already-generated keys. I dare say it's likely that the key generator used for the FFXIII series is the same as the one used for Dirge of Cerberus but I have not yet looked at the assembly code to confirm this.
The recently released Dirge of Cerberus localization prototype , which is three weeks older than the final North American build, is so far yielding only minor differences with the retail release. However, investigating the prototype did help me notice something that I should have discovered years ago.
Recall those multiplayer-exclusive maps that I have so long lamented for not being present in the retail versions? Maps like Temple, City, Snowy Mountain, etc. Well, I was wrong. The maps can still be accessed with cheats so long as you are playing the North American or European versions.
IT'S ALL HERE! Menu maps included.
Old Administrative Building
Temple
Fort
Snowy Mountain
City
In order of DoC versions I typically research, the order usually goes like this from top-to-bottom, first to last:
- JP International
- Japanese Original
- North American
- European
I do try to check all versions whenever I find something neat. Yet despite cheats found years ago to help me unlock hidden menu maps, and the crucial Tempsave Teleportation I discovered 3 years ago, I somehow forgot to check the NA and PAL versions for this content. The maps above can not be accessed in the Japanese versions and in the case of International were probably deleted.
Summary of which zones/maps these new discoveries concern.
zone number - Japanese name in zonelist.txt file - Translation
200 オンラインテストマップ Online Test Map 202 マルチ・ロビー Multi - Lobby 207 マルチ・サバイバル Multi - Survival *(named 大演習場 [Proving Grounds] for the actual Version Update)* 221 マルチ・旧管理棟 Multi - Old Administrative Building 222 マルチ・神殿 Multi - Temple 223 マルチ・砦 Multi - Fort 224 マルチ・雪山 Multi - Snowy Mountain 225 マルチ・市街地 Multi - City 237 マルチ・屋根 Multi - Roof 239 マルチ・ヴィン専用列車墓場 Multi - Train Graveyard for Vin
Online Test Map [zone 200] JP versions: Empty. NA & PAL: Tempsave Teleporting here leads you to the Multiplayer version of the Kalm Church. When roaming the area you see precisely the same stuff you'd see if you had teleported to zone 208, the zone "actually" dedicated to the online Kalm Church. You'll even find the online-exclusive memory capsule here.
However, there are 10 unique menu maps here based on both used and unused configurations of the DG Lobby.
Perhaps most interestingly, zones 200 and 202 show a very different design template for the DoC menu map.
The area is reminiscent of the Briefing Room and also in some ways the Character Creation room. Quite a dark and moody design compared to the final game.
Many of the menu maps here have an unfinished look to them. Some appear to show an unused shortcut between the larger sectors by going to the smaller circle in the center. Follow the download link at the bottom of this post to see more examples of this apparent shortcut that would have been quite useful in the final version of the online mode.
It's hard to say whether the example above is "all there is" for that particular menu map. The reason I say that is because when I messed with the pointers for the first menu map in Ch10-3, it caused the map to look like this:
The picture got rotated 180 degrees, an extra grid showed itself and the geography was displayed as though it was a snapshot from a crudely colored-in collision topography.
So perhaps if the pointers for Online Test Map [zone 200] were corrected, the seemingly "incomplete" menu maps would be updated to their complete form.
EDIT: Between NA and PAL, the 10 menu maps are identical. Normally PAL and INT have removed the letters W, E and S that indicate those cardinal directions, but for test maps like these such changes were obviously not made.
For a complete appreciation of how these zone-200 files differ from the final/real lobby, download these maps from zone 217.
- zone 217, "Visual Lobby 2", menu maps zip file (3.76 MB)
The maps named with "JORG" in their title actually show what the menu maps looked like during beta testing, though the graphics here are from the disc of the retail JORG (Japanese Original) release. The files without "JORG" in their title represent how the maps were drawn during the 2006 era of the online mode.
I have now bought and received the "Chinese" version of Dirge of Cerberus: SCAJ-20169.
Only just now noticed the 69 in there. Nice.
Learned about this edition through redump.org, where it was noted to have the exact same size as the original Japanese release, SLPM-66271. I still had to confirm though if the contents were also exactly the same.
Can now confirm: SLPM-66271 and SCAJ-20169 are identical down to the very last byte. The only difference is the packaging.
Left: SLPM-66271
Right: SCAJ-20169
The reason I call this the "Chinese" version is because the game manual is in Chinese (and English). In all honesty though I do not know the history of when this version was printed and distributed, nor if there is anything in general about games starting with the serial "SCAJ" that I'm supposed to know about.
Was SCAJ-20169 released at the same time as SLPM-66271 or much later? How many Asian regions was it released in? Is the lack of PlayOnline references on the box and in the manual due to the PlayOnline servers not being accessible outside of Japan or because this version was printed after the removal of the online mode was announced? Know these things, I do not. PSX Data Center lists it as the "Asia" version, followed by the Chinese flag.
The manual is a very thin 8-10 pages long, with four pages per language devoted to game instruction. The manual doesn't even bother printing out the number of any of the pages. The four pages of English actually makes this perhaps the only official game manual to describe, in English, the way the game difficulties functioned in the original JP release.
All textual references to PlayOnline have been removed in the SCAJ-20169 packaging. The game case, the manual and indeed the label printed on the disc make no reference to the online functionality. The exception is the screenshot used in the manual that clearly shows the options "Multiplayer" and "PlayOnline" in the start-up menu.
Of course since SCAJ-20169 is identical to SLPM-66271 you'll still see the PlayOnline option when you boot up the game. Nothing will prevent you from using this menu option to install the PlayOnline Viewer if you have a PS2 with an HDD installed.
In conclusion we have it confirmed that there are still effectively four retail versions of Dirge of Cerberus as far as disc content is concerned.
- Original Japanese release [SLPM-66271] and Chinese/Asian release [SCAJ-20169]
- North American [SLUS-21419]
- PAL regions (Europe & Australia) [SLES-54185]
- Japanese International version [SLPM-66629]
Beyond retail releases we then have...
- Beta Version [SLPM-68016] for beta testers of the online mode.
- North American prototype, three weeks older than the final build [SLUS-21419]
Here's hoping more demos/prototypes show up one day.
Unlike the other hidden zones on our list, this one actually has a ton of content in the original Japanese version. Tempsave Teleporting reveals that out of the four DG sectors, only Area/Sector 1 has loaded. As a typical consequence of Tempsave Teleportation, the triggers for loading additional areas are shut down.
Observe that there are two instances of Sector 1 loaded. There's the upper sector, on height with the fake Shinra HQ, then there's a copy of the sector way beneath. Though not visible here, the "basement copy" has its animations turned off and is missing many textures. This weird occurrence of hidden basement copies of lobby sectors occur even in the final game, when you visit the DG lobby via two of the Extra Missions. When you're playing the game normally you will of course never notice this. Why the developers decided to have the area load this way is beyond me.
The real treasures of zone202 in JORG though are the menu maps and location names. There are ten menu maps and five location names.
Location names as viewed in the menu maps:
ディープグラウンド第１階層
ディープグラウンド第２階層
ディープグラウンド第３階層
ディープグラウンド第４階層
ブリーフィングルーム
Translation:
Deepground Level 1
Deepground Level 2
Deepground Level 3
Deepground Level 4
Briefing Room
The final online game referred to each sector as "ディープグラウンド・エリア*" [Deepground Area *] (where * is 1, 2, 3 or 4) and was officially translated as "Deepground - Sector *".
All ten maps use the old pre-beta design with the smaller compass, the dark green tone and the more machine-like textures. Moving around in the area doesn't change which menu map is being displayed so I had to (just like with zone200) use cheats to force the game to display every map. Problem though was that zone202 moves around crucial memory addresses that normally stay in the same places no matter which part of the game you visit! zone202 was really unique in this regard and it took a decent amount of work to find the new memory addresses.
Each sector normally has two small basements but in this early draft...
There are a whopping four basements per sector! Counting all sectors that's a total of sixteen basements. The pre-beta content we saw in zone200 only showed two sectors per basement, so pretty definitely what we see above is from an even earlier stage in development.
There is only documentation of a single basement ever opening up to players of the online mode: One of the basements in Area/Sector 4 that held the Black Widow NPC "Black-J". By the looks of it, even when the choice was made to limit the number of sector basements almost all of them ended up superfluous in the end.
The location name "Briefing Room" is used for this pre-beta map we found in zone200, so that clears it up as being an earlier version of the Briefing Room.
We also get to compare the "Character Creation/Selection" room and its pre-beta counterpart. Just like in the final game, the location name "Briefing Room" is used for this one as well, but I remain strong in my theory that this is the room where your player character is created and selected. Technically then this would also be the "Server Selection Room".
Final menu map, never seen by the players:
Pre-beta menu map found in JORG version of zone202:
To help appreciate how the DG Lobby changed during development I have very roughly stitched together the various sector maps to create a whole.
DG Lobby as seen in zone202 menu maps in the original JP version.
I would perhaps call this the "Pre-Pre-Beta" version.
Then comes the DG Lobby as we saw it in the menu maps of zone200, this data only available in NA and PAL versions. The "Pre-Beta" lobby if you will.
Then we have the lobby as it appeared during the actual beta tester phase. This more or less finalized the look of the DG lobby, with only minor changes happening for the 2006/retail era version of the online mode. Notice how the map below adds the detail of hinting at the basements as well as the giant ring wall (and mako reactors) that surrounds the entire lobby. I get the increasing feeling that, originally, the DG Lobby wasn't meant to be a hologram of Midgar with Shinra HQ in the middle and the mako reactors surrounding the lobby.
After observing these variations of the lobby I now feel more confident in my theory that the original lobby had one central elevator connecting all four sectors. Each pre-beta sector map on its own look like they lead to a smaller, central platform in the middle.
Observe also the original location names: Deepground Level 1, Level 2 etc. This is way more reminiscent of "floor" numberings. This could help explain why Level 1 (east sector) and Level 4 (north sector) are MISSING the connecting pathway that is clearly there in beta- and retail era. This could be because the height difference between Level 1 and Level 4 was so great that a connecting platform just was too troublesome to make. Instead you would have to take the central elevator to reach Level 4...or walk all the way through Levels 2 and 3.
Edited to add: An elevator would of course have been a nightmare in multiplayer mode, with other players hogging the elevator and some stopping at a different floor than the one you were aiming for. The only way to give an elevator hope of working well in a multiplayer environment is to have it as a loading zone where people essentially teleport in and out of floors.
Edited to add even more: Of course it might never have been an elevator at all, just a central, stationary platform connected by pathways. Visualizing it requires that the pathways leading to the center will have different steepness.
It still would have been convenient if the final product, where all the sectors were distributed on the same elevation, had included a connecting pathway through the middle. Maybe they wanted the fake Shinra HQ hologram to look distant and mysterious? Maybe they didn't want the players walking casually underneath Shinra HQ? Whatever the reason, it's silly that the shortcut wasn't made available.
Multi - Lobby [zone 202] (As seen in NA [SLUS-21419] and PAL [SLES-54185])
The battle version of the DG Lobby was added with the July 18 version update in 2006, along with Snowy Mountain and Valley.
This map became the stage for the special mission battle against Chaos via the September 7 version update, three weeks before the online mode ended.
From a graphical standpoint this is definitely the laziest battle map due to how it simply re-uses the normal DG Lobby. To my joy it turned out that this area has a unique menu map, of a sort similar to what I stitched together in my previous post.
Moving down towards the basements don't trigger any additional menu maps so this is the only map for the area. All the special pre-beta maps that were found in zone202 in the original JP version are now gone.
I wonder if Capture the Flag matches were ever available in the combat version of DG Lobby. Each sector on its own is too small for standard flag matches, yet the connecting pathways between sectors would introduce a near-impossible bottleneck for anyone trying to move a flag to their home sector.
From this point on the hidden zones display some common traits. None retain their original location names but default to the location name "Kalm" in the map menu. The only change that occurs between menu maps between NA and PAL is that the cardinal direction letters W, S and E were removed for PAL and onwards.
One detail sets zone202 apart in the North American prototype however, as it displays the 2D map erroneously.
Most likely this is just due to a faulty pointer not assembling the graphics correctly. The prototype is filled with these tiny differences under the hood, including the detail that a particular series of files are decrypted by default when in all other versions they are encrypted by default. Perhaps these tiny build errors is why the prototype is much more prone to causing emulator crashes. Usually though nothing manifests in clear gameplay differences like the faulty menu graphics above.
Another common difference between NA and PAL is that the latter has more battle/mission data for the multiplayer than the former. zone202 follows this pattern. If you Tempsave Teleport here in PAL you will find tons of EM barriers, cargo crates, drum cans and in RAM you'll find unique references to Chaos Vincent (string "p007"). All the components are in place here for not just the "King of Chaos" special battle mission that was available from September 7 to September 29, but other matches/battles as well. Hopefully in the future we can use this data to restore the old online battle against Chaos.
Tempsave Teleport here in NA and you will find no EM barriers, no data references to Chaos and there will be fewer crates- and cans than in PAL.
It's interesting to see how, even after the announcement of the death of the online mode, the European localization build got updated with new multiplayer data.
Timeline:
- May 31/June 1, build date of North American prototype
- June 21, build date of North American retail version
- September 4, build date of European retail version.
- September 7, special battle against Chaos Vincent added.
Clearly the prototype build got some zone assets early, since it includes all the hidden maps that we are now covering even though their official release were weeks and months in the future.
- May 31, NA prototype build
- June 26 version update adds Fort, City and Temple to the multiplayer.
- July 18 version update adds Snowy Mountain, Valley and DG (lobby) to the multiplayer.
- August 17 version update adds Old Administrative Building and Proving Grounds
This shows that the environments weren't cobbled together at the last minute, they were actually finished some decent amount of time before the official online mode upgrades happened.
The "Proving Grounds" is a huge map that includes eight terrains that have been introduced so far:
“Valley”, “Battlefield Ruins”, “Huge Facility”, “Roof”, “Major Fault”, “Desert”, “Plateau” and “Ruins”.
Make full use of your knowledge and experience as a soldier that you have cultivated on the battlefield and take on the challenge of this vast map.
Combining eight maps into one? Square Enix, have you gone absolutely insane? The Valley map on its own is ridiculously large and took me 9 1/2 minutes to explore in full when I was running at super speed!
The Wayback Machine never saved the detailed version update post that would have appeared on August 17 on the official website, nor were any identifying screenshots saved. With no DoC online mode blogger talking about the Proving Grounds, I had settled on the assumption that this humongous patch-work map never actually saw the light of day.
They actually really did it. The mad lads actually did it.
Huge Facility rendered to the northeast, the remaining 7 areas and the connecting corridors are not rendered.
There are a total of 24 glowing spires, 3 spires per area. Out of the three spires, one always glows magenta, one always glows green and the third one always glows light yellow.
Each spire is erected on top of these "Shinra stations" (the cylinder of light covers the Shinra logo on the floor) and each area is identified by the unique Final Fantasy creature pasted across its spires. These spires and the FF creature sprites are unique to the Proving Grounds map.
Huge Facility - Cait Sith
Roof - Moogle
Ruins - Bomb
Plateau - Tonberry
Desert - Cactuar
Major Fault - Malboro
Valley - Magic Pot
Battlefield Ruins - Chocobo
Collage of these FF creature graphics as they appear on the spires:
This discovery solves a long-standing mystery. Blogger daijinn, whose blog about the DCFFVII online mode has mostly been lost to time, once uploaded this unique screenshot.
I had resigned myself to never learning what the deal was with this unique circle of Bomb paintings on the floor. Imagine my absolute double-shock then at not only learning that PROVING GROUNDS IS REAL but learning that it contained these Bomb graphics all along!
If you are able to load enough of the corridors that connect each area, you will find they are populated by circles containing these creature textures.
The lower left purple circle shows four Cait Siths on the floor, signifying that you are on the precipice of the Huge Facility.
If you follow the corridor through a different path you can find yourself in the upper right, reaching a blue circle with four Moogles, showing that you are about to enter the Roof map.
This means that the mysterious screenshot from daijinn's blog shows the player in the Proving Grounds, in a corridor right next to the area "Ruins". For reference, Ruins is where the Extra Mission "Trick Arc" takes place.
More content in my next post. I'm no longer uploading images to imgur because it's become too much of a hazzle, so instead I'm working with the TLS restriction of 5 images maximum per post.
The way they "smuggled" the discs was by switching the game case to that of a PS2 Tennis game instead.
