Phantasy Star Online GC
Episode III Lobby Patch
Patch by: Aleron Ives
http://psopalace.funurl.com

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Introduction:
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Welcome to the Episode III Lobby Patch for PSO GC. The purpose of this patch is to let you enjoy the aesthetics of the Episode III Card Lobby without having to actually play Episode III. This patch replaces Lobby 12 with Card Lobby 1 and Lobby 13 with Card Lobby 2.

Note that this patch requires you to rebuild your ISO, so it is incompatible with Devolution for use on the Nintendo Wii. Until Nintendont has BBA or modem emulation to allow PSO to go online, this patch is sadly only compatible with Dolphin (and GC, if you have the necessary homebrew).

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Installation:
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After downloading and unzipping the PSO_GC_Episode_III_Lobby_Patch.zip archive, you should have this README.txt file, as well as two folders named Scene and SET. The Scene folder contains eight files:

map_lobby_green_be00.GVM
map_lobby_green_be00.tam
map_lobby_green_be00c.rel
map_lobby_green_be00n.rel
map_lobby_yellow_be00.GVM
map_lobby_yellow_be00.tam
map_lobby_yellow_be00c.rel
map_lobby_yellow_be00n.rel

and the SET folder contains two files:

map_lobby_green_be00o.dat
map_lobby_yellow_be00o.dat

Some of these files are larger than the original ones inside your ISO, so in order to apply this patch, you must extract your entire ISO, copy these files in place of the original ones, and then build a new ISO. In order to do this, you will need to use GCRebuilder. If you don't have GCRebuilder, you can find it in the GC downloads section of the main site. If you want a tutorial with pictures, you can find one in the GC guides section of the main site; otherwise, follow these steps:

1) Open GCRebuilder, select the "Image" option at the top, then select "Open". GCRebuilder will ask you to select an image to open. Navigate to the location of your PSO ISO file, select it, then click the "Open" button.

2) You will now see information about your PSO disc on the left side of the main GCRebuilder window, as well as a list of all the files on the disc on the right side of the main GCRebuilder window. At the top of the file list, you will see a small icon of a disc and the word "root". Right click on the word "root", and a small popup with the options "Import..." and "Export..." will appear. Click the "Export..." option, and then GCRebuilder will ask you to select the folder where you want to extract the ISO. For simplicity, I suggest exporting the ISO to C:\. Click the "OK" button to start exporting your ISO, then wait until the export is complete. A small window will open telling you when the export operation is done. You will now have a new folder named "root" in C:\.

Before you begin the next step, select the "Image" option at the top of the GCRebuilder window again, and then select "Close" to stop working with your PSO ISO image. We're done with GCRebuilder for the moment, but don't close it yet.

3) Copy the eight files from the "Scene" folder in the "PSO_GC_Episode_III_Lobby_Patch" folder, then navigate to C:\root. You'll find a "Scene" folder here, too, so enter that folder, then paste the eight files you copied. Windows will notify you that this folder already contains files with the same names as the ones you're pasting, so select "Yes" to overwrite the existing files with the new ones.

Once you've pasted these eight files, go back to the "PSO_GC_Episode_III_Lobby_Patch" folder, then copy the two files from the SET folder. Navigate to C:\root again, enter the "SET" folder here, then paste the two files you copied. Windows will again notify you that this folder already contains files with the same names as the ones you're pasting, so select "Yes" again to overwrite the existing files with the new ones. The patch is now installed, so the final step is to build a new ISO of PSO with the modified files.

Before you begin the final step, you may want to apply other patches to your game. If you want to patch "PsoV3.dol", for instance, you've already extracted it with all of the other files in the ISO, so you can simply patch "PsoV3.dol" inside C:\root before you proceed with the next step.

4) You should still have GCRebuilder open at this point, but you've already used the Image -> Close option to stop working with the original ISO. Click on "Options" at the top of the GCRebuilder window, and a small pulldown menu will appear. Make sure that the options "Modify system files" and "Do not use 'game.toc'" are DISABLED (no checkbox should be present). Now you should select the "Root" option at the top of the GCRebuilder window, and then select "Open". GCRebuilder will ask you to select the root folder you want to use. Click the + sign next to "Local Disk (C:) to expand the menu, then select the folder "root" that you created in step 2. When the "root" folder is highlighted, click the "OK" button to open this folder.

You will now see information about your PSO disc on the left side of the main GCRebuilder window, as well as a list of all the files on the disc on the right side of the main GCRebuilder window, just as you did at the beginning of step 2. Select the "Root" option at the top of the GCRebuilder window again, and  now select "Save" from the pulldown menu. A new window will open asking where you want to save your new ISO. For simplicty, I again suggest saving your ISO in C:\. In the file name field, I suggest putting "pso.iso", without the quotes. The "Save as type" should say "GameCube ISO (*.iso)". Click the "Save" button to confirm the file you want to create.

Lastly, select "Root" at the top of the GCRebuilder window one more time, and then select "Rebuild" to build your new ISO, then wait until the rebuilding process is complete. A small window will open telling you when the rebuild operation is done.

That's it! You can now close GCRebuilder and use your new PSO ISO file to play with Dolphin.

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Credits:
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Thanks go to Lee and Schthack for originally creating a port of the Episode III Lobby to PSOBB back in 2009. Following Lee's template for how to make the Card Lobby compatible with BB made porting the lobby to Episode I & II much easier.

That's the end of this README; I hope everyone enjoys the Episode III Card Lobby. Don't forget to visit PSO Palace, the home of this patch.

http://psopalace.funurl.com