Disgaea 3 Getting Trophies In Exchange For Save Data

@CrashMD: Really cheap now I bet.

@N●Gage Croal: Yeah, but people watch reality shows and label it their "guilty pleasure" therefore absolving them of any wrong decision making...at least in their eyes. DLC, I guess, could be a guilty pleasure...but when it affects a game this much...yeah, it moves from the land of guilty pleasure to "Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!"

bought this and deliberately held back on playing it waiting for the trophy patch in case this happened. Glad i did it, not glad about how long it took for the patch to get outside of japan :/

I for one will enjoy this patch~ Adding Trophies always seems to make the game feel Phresh again. I will be pulling this one out of the vault for some trophy lovin and 100,000,000,000 attacks!

@Lezard: Unfortunately, more often than not, DLC is NOT done right, and people still support it. Numbers mean nothing. A lot of people watch reality shows, and that is the single worst category of television show, ever.

Almost 300 hours goes in vain >_>

Rapu1

@anduin1: So you're calling how many people stupid, now? DLC, when done right, can serve to enhance a game without feeling like you're being cheated. Burnout Paradise offered a metric ton of DLC for free before they started charging for the more recent updates. The Fallout 3 expansions are not insignificant, either. While the DLC for Disgaea 3 is not nearly as robust as what either of the above games offer, they're option, inexpensive items that are not necessary and yet do appeal to certain people. Why that qualifies those people (including me, apparently) as idiots is up to you to explain.

@Witzbold: hmm it must've been none of them cause I still have my save files

anduin1

@Lezard: DLC is a virus that the stupid gamer supports

anduin1

I don't care haven't touch it at all

zero_kirby

@Foxstar is in love with Kotaku's two Brians.: So offering (rather inexpensive) DLC that's completely optional to the experience is "milking" now? I swear, that has to be the most overused verb on video game forums. There was a day when it referred specifically to the extraction of unprocessed dairy product from the teats of female bovines. But yeah, the fact that the patch will render all prior save data useless is a pain. I'm lucky I hadn't played too far into Disgaea 3 before setting it aside. At least I know I won't lose too much progress after I download the patch.

Once again, the conservative, sandwich-heavy portfolio pays off for the hungry investor. I'm glad I waited to pick up Disgaea. Now I can go pick up a used copy for cheap and get down to business!

@Curse_Lily: Yeah, It's been nothing but grief from NISA for D3. First, they said they released the Aramis DLC (which was only released one or two weeks ago) back in April, and then we aren't going to get True Baal (!), any costume swaps, or the two PS3 mascots. At least if one wanted to get into the Top 100 with a certain score, they can. The boards are empty since they stupidly released the DLC months after the release of the game. Just is senseless, is all.

That's way friggin' lame. Luckily for me I only have around thirteen hours invested in the game. A dismissible amount compared to other's saves.

Rinaldus

I still really wish they would would port this game to the Xbox 360. I loved the first one and ended up mostly avoiding the second one because I was afraid to loose another 100+ hours of my life to it.

Gee, I can't imagine erasing 200hrs of leveling in exchange for a platinum trohy ! Painful !

jellyfish

@WhatTheFrag: It's all starting all over again, except this time it's the consoles. It might be unheard of console-wise but I've seen this with a lot of PC games.

-MasterDex-

NIS gets the thumbs down. As if the milking for content wasn't enough?

@Thorax: I must be in the absolute minority, but I used Goozex (an online game trading site) to get a bunch of PS3 games at once, this being one of them, almost a half year ago. And to this day, I have STILL not put the disk into my Playstation. Sooo... for people like me, it's no trouble at all ;D

Ichidou

Sony should just drop their wannabe achievements and quit while they're behind.

@RockyRan: Once upon a time it was a rare and mythical thing to hear of a patch that DIDN'T render your old saves incompatible. Welcome to gaming history!

Bastard11

I thought this game wasn't even being sold anymore, at least not as in walking into any store and online site and get it. I might be wrong about that, but if that's the case then it wouldn't make sense at all to make a patch with that kind of restriction when it is most likely that the big majority of people who will be able to play it already did. I'm behind when it come to the Disgaea series, so I will not be negatively affected for the patch but I wonder if I will be able to get a copy if and when I need it.

Masterpain22

I've only had my PS3 for a month, and I don't have this game yet, so it's good news for me. Was definitely going to pick it up either way, but this gives further incentive.

Danved

im glad i stopped playing early because of the miserable dialouge now theres a reason to play again

MauriceBabbas

@Saint Anima: Me too. I loved the earlier Disgaeas and I keep meaning to pick this up. Glad I procrastinated!

bangbangblah

@RockyRan: As a programmer it's obvious why it broke the save file, because they changed the save format to accommodate trophies. The number of games doing this are few not because it's easy to break save files (it's trivial), but because it's a super duper dumb move. Clearly this was an executive decision. And yes, it's perfectly possible to add trophies without breaking the save file. It just takes more effort and planning. The easiest route is definitely to break the save file, and it's a question that most devs answer no to.

royaljester

Excellent news about the trophy patch, not so excellent news about the game save. Thankfully, this is one of many ps3 games in my backlog to play. Guess working too much paid off for once

Frosted Ninja

These trophies will have to surmount to awesome if I am going to wipe the insane hours.

@ngamesnick: Add BR html tags to your post, that works.

I don't see a reason why they couldn't just update the old saves to the newer format. It can't be that hard. Or maybe their programmers are just lazy.

Is this only for the American version? Also, as a European who bought the American version(had no Euro release date at the time of the American launch), is it possible for me to buy the dlc for Disgaea3 in the US psn store?

I guess the only good news that can come from me buying this game in October last year and it still being in the wrap today is that I'll have trophies when I finally open it. Excellent.

I can't be the only one who finds the irony in the fact that the reason Mao declares he hates his father and wants to become the Hero to defeat him is because his dad wrecked his Disgaea 2 save state, nullifying all of that racking he had done. HE WAS ALMOST AT BAAL!!! Coincidentally, I'm sorta at Baal too... I got side tracked with racking and what have you... I'd lose 257 hours AFTER I had to lose 108 hours because my save state glitched and I couldn't unlock the Beastmaster class. Needless to say... I'm not sure I have it in me to start Disgaea 3 for a third time, even if I know how to "do it right" now.

@ArmyofJuan: That's a shame. I finished it and I'm probably not gonna play it too much more, so I don't care if they add trophies.

njd09

@Curse_Lily: RSX access?

This _could_ mean "Converted Save Data will be unusable on older versions of Disgaea 3" Which would make perfect sense.

thats VERY upsetting. luckily for me (i guess you could say) i haven't had the mony to pick this one up yet, so when i finally do i dont have anything to worry about.

@Curse_Lily: Ironically, this somewhat resembles Mao's situation in the beginning of the game.

This is a great example of Playstation 3's half-assedness. Before everybody jumps all over me, I own both consoles and love games on each. However, PS3 always manages to short-change you somehow... whether it's with Home, with crappy Konami IDs, or with its restrictive dashboard. Now there's a patch that grants a superficial reward in exchange for hundreds of hours of work. It wasn't enough to just grant the trophies to future save files, they had to render all of them obsolete. You know, Fable II implemented some new achievements with its recent DLC, and that crap popped RIGHT UP when I opened my save file. My STILL FUNCTIONAL save file. PS3 just sometimes plain doesn't get it. Before I get irrelevant comments, I fully acknowledge that 360 has its share of issues. This one just strikes me as a trademark PS3 blunder... the error is not of incompetence, but of obliviousness.

@Curse_Lily: Oh God, the LoC tickets...I was thinking that this wouldn't be so bad, but now I'm not so sure.

Sigh, way to completely misunderstand it, Fahey. It means OLD SAVES (that is to say, ones not converted) will no longer work. You can still convert them and they work fine.

Sugoi

This is retarded. I have like 500+ hours in the game I am not gonna be installing this update if it's gonna render my time and characters useless.

I have not picked up the game yet and this is just another reason to do so.

@RockyRan: As I said in a post that hasn't shown up yet ( :P ), I think that it did end up changing how the game file saves. There might be extra variables to be saved, which the game tries to read in loading the file. Probably it was something like this: Each save file now has trophy data added onto it, and the game reads for the trophy data as well as what the old save file had. With a lack of trophy data to read, it would be reading random bits of who knows what, and could crash or corrupt the game. For an example of reading variables that don't exist, if you program: Make an array, and access/write to variables in it which don't exist. It'll just start writing to/reading the sector where it -should- be, regardless of whatever else is there. It can end fine, in some cases, can cause completely unexpected results in others (Changing variables that are completely unrelated, et cetera), and crash the entire program in extreme cases. NIS probably didn't want to risk overwriting other save data, possibly corrupting it, and just did it this way instead. I know that other companies have managed to impliment new things such as this with no problem, but they might have planned ahead. Or, I could be entirely wrong. That's a definate possibility! :D Edit: Does the new comment system disallow formating and breaks? There -should- be breaks in that giant wall o' text.

I never played Disgaea before, but if I read that my favorite game had an update what had "WARNING: Updating this game will make you start over", I'd freakin' ragequit. Probably sell back the game too. And I NEVER sell back games!

@Curse_Lily: Then how about you and I raise an army and go rampaging?

@LarryFabulous: They already announced this -- it'll be a retail DLC bundle Disc.

Maybe now I'll finally pick up the game...that and I want all those downloadable extra stuffs!! Thing is, can't they just bundle together all the extras and sell them in one big, discounted package? Prease?

LarryFabulous

That's an amazingly retarded way to get trophies into the game. Seriously, why would anyone even bother?

I'm shocked at the lack of foresight here, from NIS of all companies. They're usually so good at customer service, and trophies are completely welcome, but I really can't see this going over well at all. Especially since they've sold most of the copies they're ever going to, until the game hits Greatest Hits. Surely there's a converter available for the data? Monsters did it, Eden did it, this sure as hell can do it to. Till then, I still love you, NIS, but I'm boycotting this patch until you guys get your shit straight. This is unfortunate, as I was also planning on getting Cross Edge, but now I'll be waiting until that gets trophy-patched so I don't get screwed again.

@dgonchild: Yet another prime example of the stupidity/selfishness of one subgroup ruining the fun for the rest of us.

Sir-Lucius has no pictchar!

Luckily for me I've been holding out on buying this game. God knows why. But at least I have a perfect incentive to pick this up now =D

damatman

It doesn't matter what colour type they put the warning in the press release - this kind of thing should be publicised as part of the patch download also. Not everyone who plays this game is going to keep up with gaming news, especially since this particular game's already out and all.

@Witzbold: There are always the lucky people like me who haven't rolled around into their yearly Disgaea mode yet, or who haven't bought the game, I guess.

Revenge_of_Nekojin

I was gunna buy this earlier. VERY glad I didn't. The trophies were bad enough when they were a pointless/lame knock off of achievements, but now they fuck with game saves? Nice.

@Derek Rumpler: A lot of times with PC games this occurs. One of the more famous examples is the fallout series. That was quite the damned if you do, damned if you dont situation. On consoles dont think so, mainly because there never really was a system like trophies before.

I can understand not making this retroactive but to have to restart a game I put hundreds of hours into, finished DLC, collected all rank 40 items, LoC, unlocked all characters... I guess it just means I am completely done with the game now and it can be shelved permanently.

Obsolete_Model

@RockyRan: Because then people would exchange files via various possible sources and get free trophies.

dgonchild

@Witzbold: weren't there a few games like that, I'm not entirely sure but Sacrifice and IWD had it as well I think. I remember installing a few patches for some PC games and being messed up with save files. Thought we were over with that period of time though.

Bah, who needs 'em I say. I'm just going to quietly wait for Disgaea 3 on the PSP (You know it's bound to happen, they may have to water down the graphics and things, but D2 has the Magichange systme and all, so I'm going to set my heart on it). Which makes me all the happier that we DON'T have trophies on the PSP, because any games that went back and required "Trophy Support" but would render my older saves useless would just piss me off. I don't currently have a PS3 (all my money goes to the gigantic waves of PSP games that keep coming out x.x;;) but if I had already had one, and then had to forfeit my savedata on Disgaea 3 for a stupid achievement system, I'd say the hell with it.

NIS you've become Mao's dad now and those who've finished the game or converted Rasberyl to Prinnies or have 400+hrs of play have now become Maos. I'm glad that, though I finished the main story once, I kinda waited to play it properly till the trophy patch came out when it was announced like in February was it?

Well, I'm kinda glad that, although I picked this up when it first came out, I never sat down to play it yet.

Revenge_of_Nekojin

@RockyRan: I have. This is pretty common in PC games.

Why do these companies HAVE to make save files useless? Why not keep them, but mark them as "This save file cannot have trophies" or something?

I mean, really, this isn't a save state, it's just a file which says how much you've done, what you have, and how long you've been playing. Why is it so difficult to import that old version of the data and leave it alone?

@RockyRan: You must not have played Fallout on the PC then. Forgot which one the patch fucks all old save files.

Luckily i didnt start playing this yet... I bought this and killzone and i felt like playing this soon

@ShadowOdin isn't american: I.i..i *sob* i try that before but..but*sob* (ToT)

I think I'm gonna download the patch and play again. Can't hurt to play the game one more time.. it is a fun game afterall

Sakaban

@Witzbold: This is Nippon Ichi we're talkin' about. I guess they believe half the fun is starting from scratch. :P

@Curse_Lily: *pats* There there, sweety, relax and just remove the internet-connection whenever you play and the big bad trophy-monster won't come.

I don't understand. Why didn't they just make it impossible for any trophies to be earned while playing on an old save file? Unless the patch changes coding that sees the save files as unreadable, but in all my years of gaming I have never seen a patch do that.

RockyRan

Im about 15 hours in. Ill start over.

@Black Stig Lives!: I wasn't too far into Disgaea, but I wouldn't want to start over for a trophy. It seems rather silly.

Caylis

@(Zombie) Goldwings: It happen to me when i updated from patch 2.0 to 2.10 by mistake and frustration is not the word i would use for it >_<

I guess it's a good thing I only played it for a few hours. I won't mind restarting. Still, that really sucks. Why not set up the patch to convert the old save file to whatever new format they're using? Also: why change it in the first place? I always assumed trophy data was stored separately from save files.

Handy that I haven't actually started that game. But I can safely assume I'm in the minority of owners. A save file is a precious thing, a product of time and effort. Sure to a developer they might know the raw data involved in it and see nothing but the bits of code and memory. But our memories are different, knowing the blood and tears poured into every level up and every carefully lain out scheme. If all that it's adding are Trophies, the arbitrary measure of gamer wang, then you can be damn sure most people would take their saves with their achievements and keep them to themselves thank you very much.

Psudonym

isn't there a way to add trophies and make the save files work still?

@GreatNocturn357:I'm not one of those people who like big numbers but I've never found the games to be that hard. the stories are funny as heck and the main plot is fairly easy, granted some grinding may be needed but it's still easy. Once you beat it and try to get the post game stuff then it can get hard.

Chaoticevl

@ShadowOdin isn't american: OH! IS MORE THAN ANNOYING I WILL LOSE MY 427 HOURS OF PLAY TIME AND NOW I HAVE TO GET THOSE DAMN TICKETS FOR LoC ALL OVER AGAIN AS WELL ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ

@wazzzup16: Haha jesus. Is another one "Have your family forget you're alive?"

@Veritas7Ax: I've never been a tactical RPG fan either but the general ease and humor of the disgaea series has made me pretty much buy anything with NIS' name attached. I would recommend at least trying it. be aware though if you play 3 first its predecessors will feel incredibly dated.

Chaoticevl

@Saint Anima: This game is on my growing list of games to get once I finally purchase my PS3 this coming Christmas. Works out for me d^.^b

@Veritas7Ax: From what I've seen and what people have told me, you have to be utterly insane to play this game the way it was intended. Not in a bad way, just SUPER dedicated.

luckily...my save file is only around 50 hours so far...

But I have no idea what throphies really do...

Just wondering if this will come to the PAL versionDLC for PAL would be nicer than Useless trophies ;__;

Sol Badguy

I think this is one of the reasons why i started Valkyria Chronicles, played a couple of chapters and then stopped because im assuming that maybe this game will have some sort of trophy support in the near future. And it takes me forever to run through an RPG, if i even bother to finish it, let alone play through it twice

A list of all the trophies available: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/100/1002075p1.html

@Archaotic: Like 30 of the 50 are about the item world D: and lol one of em is play for 10 hours straight.

wazzzup16

@Komrade Kayce - Hero of Soviet Kotaku: I couldn't agree more. NISA dropped the ball here. Japan got the patch with saves intact, and if it was a SCEA regulation preventing it, they should've mentioned that in the press release to deflect some of the blame.

A lot of people have been holding out on patching the game (myself included) due to the various nerfs and are now forced to update before the trophy patch if they ever want to access to all the DLC without having to restart.

It's a mixed blessing for trophy hunters as well and honestly, they're in for a looooooong ride. No thanks.

@Komrade Kayce - Hero of Soviet Kotaku: You took the words right out of my mouth. I haven't played this entry yet, but I'd imagine that anyone who has already leveled up their main characters to 9999 and resurrected them the max amount of times (assuming those rules still apply in the third entry) is going to be SUPER PISSED. On the other hand... I've never known anyone who has actually gotten that far... Still, it's a game about progress!

I get how annoying it could be, doesnt make sense to me that it needs to erase older save files. Has there been another PS3 game with such a problem?

@Derek Rumpler: This is pure conjecture and not based on any amount of actual programming knowledge, but I think something in the way the game is originally programmed as something to do with retroactive trophies/achievements. I had what I like to refer to as The Great Achievement Catastrophe a few years ago...basically about 2000 gamerpoints got erased cause I'm an idiot at had my gamertag on someone else's console. Anyways, I loaded up my save in Assassin's Creed and immediately unlocked all my old achievements. Mass Effect on the other hand, did not fare too well...loaded up a save, and didn't unlock anything. Basically had to play that game another four times to get everything back, which I guess I didn't mind. As far as PS3 goes, I know Bad Company had retroactive trophies, but that's the only game I know about. Still not sure why this is the case.

@Komrade Kayce - Hero of Soviet Kotaku: Well, now the game has more replayability...

Alternate

@Witzbold: Eh, I think I'll only lose about 10 - 12 hours so I'm fine with it. My power gaming friends are losing their minds though.

AdeptVoice

The irony here is that the whole game's premise begins with the protagonist trying to destroy his devil father because... His father accidentally destroyed his sons, literally, zillions of hours in game saves. ... I really hope that NIS gets their own bad, bad joke.

The Forgetful Brain

@Veritas7Ax: And a very hardcore one at that. I love it, but SPRGs are my favorite.

Hey_Blinkon

I'm assuming they put in the trophy support as an incentive for new people to come buy the game, rather than as a bonus to the old players. I don't think that they -wanted- to erase all old files, but it was probably the only way that trophy support could be added. Warning: Extreme conjecture: Probably something in the way the trophies are updated changed the save system drastically enough that the old files would be unreadable, as they're missing data chunks, or something simmilar.

It's great trophies are implemented, but anyone else who has invested a lot of time might not want this. Crap I can imagine the frustration if you update the patch without knowing all of this.

Hmm, was planning on buying this game sooner or later, thankfully I haven't started a game on it yet. Sucks for the players with all those hours poured in.

@Witzbold: I haven't picked it up yet myself (not sure why, I love Disgaea), and this is nice for me, but it does seem like a huge kick in the nuts to their fanbase.

This is like the LAST sort of game in the world that needs its save data removed. Seriously. Anyone who has played the game knows what I'm talking about. You can easily dump a few hundred hours into one save game and still not be finished. Like losing your Pokemon save, almost.

I am glad I haven't gotten that far into the game. But from what I remember I never had a choice when loading a game that has an update to skip it. But I never really looked for that feature so maybe I just missed it. Gonna be annoying for those who wish to keep their saves, though

You should get rewarded with some sort of idiot trophy for deleting 100 hours worth of game play. Why would anyone want to play all over again just for trophies? Maybe if it came out earlier but at this time it's almost an afterthought, especially when you have to delete your save files.

@Derek Rumpler: I think it's so people can't cheat to get the trophies - saves might be transferrable, so someone could just download a save and bam, instant trophies. Need for Speed Undercover gave retroactive trophies, but the save is flagged "Copying Prohibited", so people can't cheat. But you also can't back up your save.

Ecks

I'm glad I hadn't actually started playing the game yet. Only just finished Disgaea 2 recently.

Ah goody,im glad I never started the game yet.I was about to when I bought it but then a few days later that Japanese patch arrived and I decided to hold off for a few weeks till it arrived....Had actually forgot that I had the game untill the Western version of the patch was announced

I really wonder what causes old save data to be unuseable. Thats a pretty dumb patch if you ask me.

Guess its time for me to get this game now

@GreatNocturn357:First of all, the games are pretty hilarious. Second of all the games are made for people who love big numbers. I'm one of those people. I own all entries in the series except for this one, and that's only because I don't own a PS3. Also, prinnies.

@Witzbold: Yeah, you have to wonder what they were smoking when they thought that one up. Are there technical reasons for this, though? What could they possibly add to the game that would kill old saves? Has any other game done it?

@Witzbold: Well, it's good news for people who haven't gotten the game yet, lol.

I never played Disgaea 3... or any of them, actually. My friend really praised D3 though. Maybe it's worth checking out. It's a tactical RPG, right? Those haven't always been my favorite.

Wonder if this patch will ever arrive to Europe..

Yas

The only things going through my mind are; "I do NOT want to struggle past House of Ordeals 3 again and the Puppy-paw stick had BETTER have Cat Burglar."

NixNax

Cool, Trophies. Stopped playing a while ago too; wouldn't mind going through the game just for bragging rights...

It's a good thing that I held off until now to play then. =D

Elusive_Tomcat

@Witzbold: People want trophies, people ask for trophies, so when devs deliver trophies, people are happy. Almost every trophy patch has required people to start over to earn them. People can still play their original save and not earn trophies.

Ecks

I guess I'm glad I only got two or three chapters in. Most of these trophies are just absurd though; I doubt I'd be able to get almost any of 'em.

@Witzbold: Especially if you ruins your 100+ hours save game in the process.

500 Hours -- pass.

I wonder why they keep doing this? Sadism? I've always hated the series. Hard as hell with no reward or any real fun. Just made for otaku. Very, very bland otaku.

GreatNocturn357

That's lame.

Jakaricat1

Thankfully I'm not one to make a big fuss about trophies or achievements in general but I can imagine quite a few people being quite miffed about their save being 'bricked' by downloading an assumed 'harmless' update.

You know this is one of the few times where I wonder why the devs even bothered with trophy support at this stage with the game. Since its been out so long you figure lots of people are quite far into the game. Now then telling such folks if you want trophies we kill your saves just does not seem good for business.

Yes! I've been looking for a reason to start over since i lost my 40 or so hours of gameplay when my ps3 broke!

wazzzup16

Awesome, I bought this game a while ago and was hoping that it would have trophies and luckily, I was thinking of starting again since I haven't been doing so well on it recently.

DaveStrife

LOL no wonder why i wait so long before i get games. Just for the price and maybe the game will sooner or later get trophies.

I don't have this game, but people that have just bough this, must be pissed.

Maybe i should get this game.

@Revenge_of_Nekojin: Same here I only played up to chapter 2. Well at least I didn't put up too much time into this game and I sort of forgot the advance gameplay so relearning them wouldn't be too bad. Overall I hate trophies but I can't stop staring at my gamer level and want it to get it higher. I rather have Valkryia Chronicles to have the trophy patch instead even if it made the previous gamesave invalid but neverless I enjoyed that game and I wished more JSRPG would follow that kind of gamestyle for one it'll keep me awake.

Neko_Tech

Jesus, my Disgaea saves normally get into the couple of hundreds. Will be getting this next week if I can find it in the UK

noppiN

@Witzbold: Well if you were like me and afraid this would happen and were somewhat interested in getting the trophies for the game, you stopped playing when you heard Japan was getting the trophies. I've put a decent amount of time into it still, but made sure I didn't put more than that into it just in case. I'm glad I did, but it really sucks for those who have hundreds of hours into the game.

@Ken Edwards: Ditto. Prices are down just yet in my area but the patch might tip the scale over. I'm glad to have waited as long as I did to start playing this fun looking game

Brythefry

Is this game worth playing? The reviews I read were bad and compare it to PS2 games.. but if i do get it, seems like now that trophies are in is a good time to stat.

This is a bad, bad idea. I would hesitate over deleting my Metal Gear Solid 4 save file and that's an action game. Now, Disgaea 3 is a game where you spent countless hours grinding. No thank you, and I have a feelin many people will say the same.

@Pombar: Actually, it is. You get a warning screen when you update.

I just got the game like 3 days ago... awesome news.