Octoling Hype Thread (prev. Assets in SplatNet)

[Flareth]

Um... what am I supposed to be looking at? They don't look any diffeent from last time.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

Nikki is back with Octoling stuff.
And again, updates have been made, it seems. : 3

https://twitter.com/NWPlayer123

Maybe it's because I play online using the tag of "Blythe-LPS" (LPS stands for Littlest Pet Shop, and Blythe is the protagonist of the currently ongoing series), but I was more intrigued that one of the screenshots had the opposing team containing both "Zoe" and "Pepper," the names of two main characters from that show.

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

Um... what am I supposed to be looking at? They don't look any diffeent from last time.

Really? Look again.

Here a video from an older update:

(You only need to see the results of either the second or third match. Since the first hides what you need to see.)

Now look at the new pics on her Twitter again.
Do you see the difference now?

 

[redacteddd]

Since @Paragon-Yoshi 's being a tease, basically, the eyes don't revert to inkling eyes on the results screen

 

[Joseph Staleknight]

Yeah, and they don't look like a mess on the equip screen either. Definite progress is being made, and all they have to do is figure out how to make certain headgear not clip through their bouffants. (And make male Octolings...)

 

[BlackZero]

I think it would be great to have them as playable, but I don't think that's what the devs have in mind. If they are bringing them into online play, it's more likely that they will be used as AI enemies against a co-op Inkling team (kinda like L4D). If the devs intended to make them playable, they would have finished minor things like a male model and proper headgear rigging before release.

I think Octohax is a great fan project though and hope it gets the same support as Project M. I'm always one to encourage modding to enrich the game and extend its life.

 

[G1ng3rGar1]

I think it would be great to have them as playable, but I don't think that's what the devs have in mind. If they are bringing them into online play, it's more likely that they will be used as AI enemies against a co-op Inkling team (kinda like L4D). If the devs intended to make them playable, they would have finished minor things like a male model and proper headgear rigging before release.

I think Octohax is a great fan project though and hope it gets the same support as Project M. I'm always one to encourage modding to enrich the game and extend its life.

*stares through eye slits* This is possible. But, nobody said that they were releasing this week. They can always fix them or just limit them to certain headgear(the latter would be really lame, Nintendo). And maybe they have a male model that they're working on, but just didn't put it in the game because hackers. I'm still speculating, but it's possible :)

 

[BlackZero]

*stares through eye slits* This is possible. But, nobody said that they were releasing this week. They can always fix them or just limit them to certain headgear(the latter would be really lame, Nintendo). And maybe they have a male model that they're working on, but just didn't put it in the game because hackers. I'm still speculating, but it's possible :)

Problem is, this is all stuff that would have taken little time and effort once the Inkling models were finished. From a game development perspective, the female Octolings are literally a female Inkling model and skeleton with a modified head. This is why Octohackers can simply swap models: all the animations, skeletons, etc. are the same minus the dangling female hair. If they planned to have male Octolings, they would have simply copied the male Inkling bodies and made similar changes. All of this would have been easy to do during development and wouldn't require them to push it back to a later patch or DLC due to time constraints. Same thing with the headgear rigging: they'd just copy what they had already done for the Inklings and make a few minor adjustments. If they planned to implement it, all of this would have been done while they were building the models and skeletons with minimal delays to the project if any.

I'd be interested to see what actual changes these hackers make to the game data. A lazy dev would likely set a Player ID value over 2 (the highest value for Inklings) to be AI controlled, since they made only male and female Inklings playable and didn't intend for people to mess with the game data. Simply setting that value to 3 would probably crash the game since the game data is telling the computer that the player is both human controlled and computer controlled at the same time. Can't say for sure though, as I don't know how the devs set that up.

 

[G1ng3rGar1]

Problem is, this is all stuff that would have taken little time and effort once the Inkling models were finished. From a game development perspective, the female Octolings are literally a female Inkling model and skeleton with a modified head. This is why Octohackers can simply swap models: all the animations, skeletons, etc. are the same minus the dangling female hair. If they planned to have male Octolings, they would have simply copied the male Inkling bodies and made similar changes. All of this would have been easy to do during development and wouldn't require them to push it back to a later patch or DLC due to time constraints. Same thing with the headgear rigging: they'd just copy what they had already done for the Inklings and make a few minor adjustments. If they planned to implement it, all of this would have been done while they were building the models and skeletons with minimal delays to the project if any.

Wasn't there an argument about the headgear clipping? And going by your theory, they would have to fix the clipping anyway for the computers. And maybe there won't be Octoling males(besides DJ Octavio). I am just putting things out there. And maybe the DLC was a planned thing. (Haven't seen any Splatoon interviews sorry)If that's the case, I wouldn't have Octolings out right away. This doesn't really explain the unfinishedness of Octolings in the first place besides them being a last thought before the game was released.

 

[ThatBerkawitzSquid]

Problem is, this is all stuff that would have taken little time and effort once the Inkling models were finished. From a game development perspective, the female Octolings are literally a female Inkling model and skeleton with a modified head. This is why Octohackers can simply swap models: all the animations, skeletons, etc. are the same minus the dangling female hair. If they planned to have male Octolings, they would have simply copied the male Inkling bodies and made similar changes. All of this would have been easy to do during development and wouldn't require them to push it back to a later patch or DLC due to time constraints. Same thing with the headgear rigging: they'd just copy what they had already done for the Inklings and make a few minor adjustments. If they planned to implement it, all of this would have been done while they were building the models and skeletons with minimal delays to the project if any.

From both of your most recent posts here, you seem to be under the impression that playable Octolings had to have been planned before the release of Splatoon. I would have to disagree with you there, though. I don't think the Octos were intended to be playable back then. Nintendo reps have stated how much of a surprise Splatoon's success was to them, even calling it "the surprise hit of the year" in the recent Direct. And I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but remember when we were only supposed to get content until September or so? My point is that Nintendo's plans for Splatoon have clearly changed since launch, likely due to its immense success. So it seems to me like playable Octolings weren't even a thought in the devs' minds until a while after the game launched and they realized how much fan demand there was for them.

BUT THAT'S JUST A THEORY, A GAME THEO-- shot

 

[G1ng3rGar1]

From both of your most recent posts here, you seem to be under the impression that playable Octolings had to have been planned before the release of Splatoon. I would have to disagree with you there, though. I don't think the Octos were intended to be playable back then. Nintendo reps have stated how much of a surprise Splatoon's success was to them, even calling it "the surprise hit of the year" in the recent Direct. And I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but remember when we were only supposed to get content until September or so? My point is that Nintendo's plans for Splatoon have clearly changed since launch, likely due to its immense success. So it seems to me like playable Octolings weren't even a thought in the devs' minds until a while after the game launched and they realized how much fan demand there was for them.

BUT THAT'S JUST A THEORY, A GAME THEO-- shot

Thank you. (I really like your profile pic, where did you get it?) I don't think Nintendo was expecting too much from Splatoon, and then once they saw how well it did, they said, "Let's see what else we can do with this?" Which will hopefully result in Octolings. or at least A SPLATFEST (sorry)

 

[ThatBerkawitzSquid]

Thank you. (I really like your profile pic, where did you get it?) I don't think Nintendo was expecting too much from Splatoon, and then once they saw how well it did, they said, "Let's see what else we can do with this?" Which will hopefully result in Octolings. or at least A SPLATFEST (sorry)

Hey thanks! I actually got it from this tweet:
It's basically the 11/12 Direct summarized in one image :)

 

[BlackZero]

they would have to fix the clipping anyway for the computers.

Not if they didn't intend for Octolings to wear player gear. Their in-game outfits don't conflict with their models at all.

From both of your most recent posts here, you seem to be under the impression that playable Octolings had to have been planned before the release of Splatoon. I would have to disagree with you there, though. I don't think the Octos were intended to be playable back then.

That would imply that no one at Nintendo thought about a very obvious and natural split for making two teams in online matches (Inkling teams vs Octoling teams) in a game that was intended to be an online shooter. I can't prove that wasn't the case, but it sounds very implausible. Future content tends to be planned out in advance, and I can only think of one game where they did a reactionary addition (ME3).

But even if I give you the benefit of the doubt and say that this was a reaction to fan reception, it shouldn't have taken them nearly this long to implement it considering Octolings are, development-wise, copies of Inklings. People say its WIP, but this would take very little effort to implement: there would be practically no WIP phase. They would only have to decide what the male Octoling hair looks like, put it on a Male Inkling body, change the gear rigging, create palette-swaps, and give playable Octos a PRID of less than 2 (or give AI a PRID value of greater than 4).

So, that means they are either 1) taking a really long time to make minor changes to the game, 2) are holding off on doing this later for unexplained reasons, 3) don't plan to implement it for this game, but may look at doing it for the next one, 4) will make it a paid DLC they will release later on, or 5) waiting to release the content alongside Octoling Amiibos, which means we'll be waiting until those are ready to go.

Any of these are plausible. I'd expect the game data to reflect an upcoming release if they were laying the groundwork for this feature, though. Something as simple as fixing the headgear rigging for female Octolings, for example: something they'd have to do anyway that they could release in a patch before the actual content was added. So far, I'm not aware of anything like that.

Have the Octohackers released any thing showing they've done anything other than model swap? Somehow, I get the feeling that using the console to spawn an Octoling in Inkopolis will result in either a dead AI NPC or a CTD. If they actually spawn an Octoling in Inkopolis and not simply model swap Inklings, it would make playable Octolings a lot more likely.

As I said, I'd love to have them added. I just don't want to get too excited over rumors of an official release when it's just some guy model swapping and there's nothing in the game data to suggest official content is coming.

 

[ThatBerkawitzSquid]

o_O That's a doozy...

That would imply that no one at Nintendo thought about a very obvious and natural split for making two teams in online matches (Inkling teams vs Octoling teams) in a game that was intended to be an online shooter.

That's a fair point, but I think the devs never thought about that because (1) they only intended the Octolings to be enemies in the Single Player mode; (2) the multiplayer is tied into the story as being games that the Inklings play for fun (or competitively, in the case of Ranked Battles), and purposefully pitting Octoling teams against Inkling teams wouldn't really fit this, as the multiplayer would be given a more hostile mood about it (Why must we fight? Can't we just have play for fun? That sort of thing); and (3) the devs wanted you to be able to customize basically everything about your character except Ink Color, since that changes in every match. Forcing you to play as a certain species wouldn't make sense considering this, and since male Octolings aren't a thing as far as we know (aside from Octavio in that one scroll), you would even be forced to play as a female at times, which I would have no problem with, but it doesn't fit the customization mentality that I described before.

So, that means they are either 1) taking a really long time to make minor changes to the game, 2) are holding off on doing this later for unexplained reasons, 3) don't plan to implement it for this game, but may look at doing it for the next one, 4) will make it a paid DLC they will release later on, or 5) waiting to release the content alongside Octoling Amiibos, which means we'll be waiting until those are ready to go.

Almost any of these seem reasonable to me, except #3. Some have already discussed in this thread that while sometimes data for future games can be found in their prequels (such as Mega Latios/Latias being in Pokemon X and Y, but not introduced until ORAS), it makes no sense for that data to be frequently updated. If there was just static, unchanging data for playable Octolings, that would be one thing, but that data being updated in nearly every single update for the game is entirely different.

I just don't want to get too excited over rumors of an official release when it's just some guy model swapping and there's nothing in the game data to suggest official content is coming.

Nothing in the game data to suggest official content is coming? The aforementioned frequently updated Octoling model says otherwise...

I'm tired now...

EDIT: Fixed some typos. So many typos... lol

 

[redacteddd]

Have the Octohackers released any thing showing they've done anything other than model swap? Somehow, I get the feeling that using the console to spawn an Octoling in Inkopolis will result in either a dead AI NPC or a CTD. If they actually spawn an Octoling in Inkopolis and not simply model swap Inklings, it would make playable Octolings a lot more likely.

As I said, I'd love to have them added. I just don't want to get too excited over rumors of an official release when it's just some guy model swapping and there's nothing in the game data to suggest official content is coming.

While i'm not as hype about Octolings, mainly because they remind me of Shadow the Hedgehog's relationship to Sonic, I would like to point out that you are grossly misinformed on how this whole Octoling thing works. The player model for the octoling is in the game's data as a third gender and model variable. NWPlayer has stated she doesn't know how to rig other characters like the Squid sisters or judd to the scripts.

 

[G1ng3rGar1]

I was thinking that hackers can't play as something not meant to be playable but then I thought of Master Hand in Melee/Action Replay and decided not to put that in. Has Nikki said anything new?

 

[BlackZero]

While i'm not as hype about Octolings, mainly because they remind me of Shadow the Hedgehog's relationship to Sonic, I would like to point out that you are grossly misinformed on how this whole Octoling thing works. The player model for the octoling is in the game's data as a third gender and model variable. NWPlayer has stated she doesn't know how to rig other characters like the Squid sisters or judd to the scripts.

Which is why I'm asking about it. I don't have the luxury of time to go through her whole twitter and I haven't found any articles explaining it beyond "ZOMG PLAYABLE OCTOLINGS." I've looked to see if there was any information on what the PRID values actual are, but haven't had any luck. I'm honestly interested, as I love learning how games work. Can you explain what exactly she's done?

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

@BlackZero Octolings are probably held back. Just like weapons are.
Nearly all the weapons in the game'S data are perfectly playable.
And if Nintendo wanted to, they could release them all right now.
But instead they decided to release them slowly, one after another, over a long time period.


Also, your statements disagree with the evidence, that is presented.
The biggest contradiction there being: The "Losing animations" that have been added for Octolings, in one update.
If they were mere AI-enemies, there wouldn't be any sense in adding these.
SInce you NEVER see losing animations for your opponents.
You only see losing-animations if YOU YOURSELF LOSE!
The animations of your opponents are never shown to you.


And besides, the AI in this game isn't even that good to begin with.
I mean come on, watch how Octoling behave in Single Player.
The only thing that makes them a little more challenging, is the fact that they outnumber you.
But in an evenly matched mode, they would be a complete joke, with that terrible AI.

 

[G1ng3rGar1]

Which is why I'm asking about it. I don't have the luxury of time to go through her whole twitter and I haven't found any articles explaining it beyond "ZOMG PLAYABLE OCTOLINGS." I've looked to see if there was any information on what the PRID values actual are, but haven't had any luck. I'm honestly interested, as I love learning how games work. Can you explain what exactly she's done?

She has a youtube-NWPlayer123. Um….I want to know how games work too but I don't know too much about it. I give it to whoever else can explain it better :)

 

[BlackZero]

The biggest contradiction there being: The "Losing animations" that have been added for Octolings, in one update.
If they were mere AI-enemies, there wouldn't be any sense in adding these.
SInce you NEVER see losing animations for your opponents.
You only see losing-animations if YOU YOURSELF LOSE!
The animations of your opponents are never shown to you.

Not exactly. Bear in mind that game developers are busy people and will always cut corners on things the player won't see when they can. As I said before, Octolings are copies of female Inkling models and animation skeletons with different hair. This means that the devs also copied all the animations female Inklings have. Octolings run, jump, shoot, swim, etc. just like Inklings. Octolings probably have win/lose animations in their data table, but we don't ever see those in story mode because the trigger for those animations (winning or losing an online multiplayer match) are never activated in story mode. You will also notice Inklings lack those same animations in story mode. That's because the conditions that the game code sets for triggering those animations are never met in single player.

They have all the same animations as Inklings because, from a game development perspective, they are Inklings with a different head. The devs just copied the animations/values/game assets from the Inkling data table into the Octoling data table and set it where Octolings could only use their unique shooters. That takes far less time than inputting each animation individually, or copying the full data table and individually deleting all the animations they don't need. It is also a lot easier on a person's eyes and mental health.

She has a youtube-NWPlayer123. Um….I want to know how games work too but I don't know too much about it. I give it to whoever else can explain it better :)

Thanks! I'll check her vids out when I have time.

Here's where I'm coming from. I welcome any corrections if I'm off base.

So far, all I've found is that she claims she changed her player ID value, meaning she set the game to load an Octoling as her player character. That would only alter her character on her console, not how it displayed to others in multiplayer. This does explain why it completely effs someone's game if they play with someone hacking as an Octoling though. If the game recognizes her character as an Octoling (because of how they modified their character's data table), it spawns in Inkopolis. Problem is, it spawns as an NPC. I suspect the game crashes when an Octling NPC appears in Inkopolis because, without a modified data table, Octolings are still flagged as hostile AI. Hostile AI's are programmed to do 2 things: attack the player and ink turf. You can't do either of those things in Inkopolis, so the game runs into a conflict as the modded data and vanilla data contradict each other (another reason why I question whether or not playable Octolings are in the works. If Nintendo was planning to implement this, you'd think they'd modify the game code to allow for an Octoling in Inkopolis before its release so the update didn't royally screw people's save files).

Anyway, I'm curious if these players are doing a model swap (setting the game's data table to load Octoling assets instead of Inkling ones when they appear on screen) to make the characters look like Octolings. As far as the game is concerned, they are still Inklings because the Player ID is set to default but they've set the game to use Octoling Models. This is what I think they are actually doing, hence why they can load Octolings in Inkopolis without crashing. If they've actually set the game to load them as Octolings, I wonder how they resolved the conflict with Inkopolis, which doesn't allow weapons and probably isn't marked as "inkable" turf in the game files since the devs never expected people to have splat weapons there.

Really, I just want to know how they customized the game. However they did it, it took a lot of work and she deserves a lot of credit for working all of this out. As I said, I hope people support her efforts.

As for what all this means for playable Octolings, I don't think her work is a reflection of Nintendo's intent to release Octolings as playable characters, nor does it really lend any credibility to it. It's just a fan of the game customizing it to suit her tastes.