#dqb2 finale

[sapphire-draw]

Builder Malroth fankid except its a tiny Godroth running around <3

Like father like son

Builder showing the egg around!

Do not eat the baby.

Malroth nest ^^

Builder does not understand how monsters work.

She is so confused as to how egg came into existence.

She tries ;u;

[parryperi]

Goodness, I finally got Gillian to mention this again after ages. OTL now i can actually pull it up whenever I do my silly doodles referencing it.

[dqb2-secrets-and-trivia]

DQB2 Malhalla Trivia:

Spoilers for: Final boss fight!

You can kill Hargon at Malroth's first boss fight. There's an invisible wall around the arena, but the fire sword's long range attack reaches him despite it.

He has a lot of health, so you have to hit him for around 20 minutes or more nonstop to drain all of his HP.

He will dissapear during the rest of the fight, but once the fight is over he and Malroth get replaced with NPC versions of themselves. Which means killing him has no effect.

This is the only way for the player to ever kill Hargon.

Here's a video showcase.

Source: @octo-l95

[sapphire-code]

Welcome everyone to our [schedule undefined] DQB2 modding news!

On today's program we've got something quite peculiar! Keep watching to learn about the newest discovery!

We uh...

We found a Malroth clone in the game.

In postgame files the character 886 has most of Malroth's (1) traits, except he has 10 less HP, has no clothes even if Malroth does, and likes his rooms to be a little bit smaller for some reason.

Information on this is still being researched, but we have not managed to see the elusive Malroth clone in-game yet.

There's. There's just another Malroth in the game. What the heck.

That concludes this [schedule undefined]'s DQB2 modding news! Please stay tuned for more DQB2 discoveries in the future!

My personal theory is that this may be the big Malroth from the Malhalla cutscene, but maybe he's from the IoA final cutscene since he has the hammer

[sapphire-rb]

DQB2: The Minimap's Unused 3rd Dimension. (Minimap deep dive)

I want to talk a little about the minimap and how some of its features got scrapped mid-development.

My apologies, I suck at explaining stuff, but just bear with me. ok?

Let's learn about minimaps in DQB2!

So, this is a minimap. It's made of tiles.

All tiles have what I'll call an ID and a Type.

A tile's ID basically tells us what tile it is. For example:

ID 0 is deep water, ID 1 is normal water, ID 14 is grass, etc...

There are a lot of tile IDs, most of them covering all types of coastline water.

A tile's Type tells us what is on top of the tile. Here's an example:

There are exactly 11 tile types. Only 4 are used:

You may ask, "but what about the mountain tiles, those do exist in the final game! They are not unused!"

True, but the game handles mountains in a different way. The above method makes it possible to have mountains in all tiles, which is not true for how the game works in the final release.

You can see in prerelease images how all tiles could have mountains.

Image1-> Shows mountains on grass, Image2-> Shows mountains on sand.

I'll explain now how mountains are handled in the final release, before coming back to the other unused types.

Each tile, apart from having their ID and Type, has 2 other values that can be set to either 0 or 1:

The visibility value, which tells us if the tile has been explored or if its hidden from view.

And a height value, that seems to tell us if the tile is an at elevation?

For example, Lets look at a tiny Cerulean Steppe map and see how the values look:

It's a lot at once, I know.

The most important part here is the height value. There are tiles that look identical but have different height values

Look at the bottom right corner.

These 2 tiles would look identical to the player, but secretly one has height value of 1 and the other one has a value of 0.

What does this value do? It does 1 very specific thing.

It is hard-coded to turn these 5 tiles into these 5 mountain variants:

That's it. That's the only thing the height value does. It handles the 5 mountain tiles that are used and exist in the final game.

So, what is going on with the "tile type" system then? Why does most of it go unused?

Why would the programmers code in such a complex system with 11 different type options, only to scrap most of them and only use 4?

The type system seemed to handle all of the mountain placements just fine. Note that the minimap height value only tells the game what tile should go there. The types 7 through 10 acomplish the exact same thing.

The thing is, it seems that originally the type system was going to handle a lot more minimap and tile variance than what we got, but got replaced by a quick, hard-coded fix with the extra height value smacked in alongside the visibility value.

Now, I've been hiding something from you, back when I showed you the prerelease images, because I saved the best for last.

Let us look to our friend, the only unused icon still in the game, the tower.

This is the only "type" graphic that covers the tile beneath it entirely. This could imply it was a very early, placeholder item that would be replaced with a transparent one later.

What could this tower be? Perhaps a minimedal puzzle icon? An early version of the door icon, intended for buildings?

Well, the prerelease images tell us all.

Look at this photograph.

This is a curious image, isn't it?

Usually prerelease images like this one are trying to showcase something. Locations, story, characters... but this image only shows us some building work, no scenary, no nothing.

If you look closely though, you can see the tower in the minimap.

It's a little pixelated, but it's there alright. Right on top of the big tower building. So I suppose it is an old room tile?

But- wait.. what is that?

It's a little bit small, I don't blame you if you missed it the first time. I sure did. And I was the one that found the location of the image too- and it flew right past me...

It's a house.

A house? But isn't the tower the "room" icon?

Do you know what this image is trying to show us?

Tall buildings (like a tower) would showcase in the minimap with the "tower" tile. Small buildings (like a house) would showcase in the minimap with the "house" tile.

Do you think... I'm reaching, perhaps?

Then, let me explain further.

It's not just that those 2 incospicuous buildings are "tall" and "small" respectively.

The tower seems to be copy pasted. All floors are the exact same. No nuance, no variation. It's looks like the devs built that tower to be so tall for the sake of it being tall. Like the whole point of it is that it had to be tall. For what?

The house has the lowest height possible, at just 2 blocks tall. No windows, no nothing. It's just a rectangle with a barebones roof to show that yes, this is a house. Who in their right minds builds a 2 height room with a roof in this game? That's just asking the camera to break, honestly. Its almost like they wanted to make a squished, low house. For what?

And those builds aren't that pretty or use interesting blocks or anything. They're just... there.

Did I convince you? Well... what this all means is that...

There used to be a mechanic in the game where the tile shown in the minimap would depend on its height.

Artificial (building) or natural (terrain), it did not matter. All tile heights would be represented.

An unused 3rd dimension. The minimap's Z coordinate.

Isn't that cool? The type system was meant to give height variations to all the tiles.

But wait. There's more! One last prerelease image...

This one is showcasing a pretty waterfall and the cool terrain generation. But we don't care about that, let us look at the 120p minimap.

What do we have here? Well, the mountains look interesting, do they not?

It is quite curious that there are 2 of the mountain icons we can see in the final release of the game here. One that looks like a little mound, and another that looks like a robust, tall mountain...

Say, isn't it interesting? In the final game the mountain types are locked to each tile. But here, its almost like the game differenciates between "small elevation" and "big elevation".

Yes. It's not just "high" and "low". When I said "height variations" I meant it.

The mountains were not just "mountains". There would be different mountains for different heights, the same way there are different buildings for different building heights.

So at least for natural terrain, we have minimum 3 height levels confirmed.

Here's a little breakdown of the other parts of this minimap...

It would even account for height in the water tiles, giving them rocky water variants if the terrain rose past the water level!

Maybe thats what the missing 4th and 5th types would have? A house and rocks for water?

Or maybe there used to be more types, but the number got reduced mid-development? 11 is a weird number, especially in programing.

This height system seems to have been scrapped in between April 22 and August 2.

Look at this photograph, from August 2

This is just Al's cabin again. You can see the house as the building icon and the rocky water being still there. But the mountains look like the final release's mountains.

Rip 3rd dimension. March 30-April 22. We barely knew you, but it was nice to meet you, even if just briefly.

Thanks for coming on this minimap journey with me!

Some extra stuff:

The whole rocky water... wouldn't it be cool if that were still in the game? Look at IoA (the area left to the temple):

(Not quite the spot...)

All of that area is just... water.

It'd be really cool to have rocks around there y'know?

Hello there, unused tile.

This tile is ID 5. I've run out of steam so here's a picture of it, alongside ID 21, that was probably meant for all the technology blocks used in the ARK and such.

The building tiles are the last IDs in the list (before all the water begins) so mayhaps it was here when they realised buildings would be bigger than 1 tile, added the brick tiles, and realised big buildings broke the "tower" "house" rule so they scrapped it. (They also appear in the august images but not in the april ones.)

Here are tiles from 21 to 25.

Haha funny ilogical water tiles

The type system takes priority over the mountain system. You can see that in Moonbrooke's map. The trees take priority over the mountains.

All of this info I recompiled for the minimap exporter tool. Give it a try if you want! Next release will include support for all of the unused icons (even if not accesible without hacking)

[keepchangingandneverstop]

Journal Done! Finally!

Not fully satisfied with cover, but I'm proud that it turned out as well as it did! It was fun (and surprisingly easy) to make book cloth and having hardbound covers is pretty sweet. I think it'll go better next time, now that I know what I'm doing.

Inside the front cover we have some marbled-pattern scrapbook pages for end paper and a page for blank sticky notes.

The end paper was one of the things I was looking forward to the most, because it seemed like it'd be a cool place for decoration and stickers.

And I was right! I'll eventually get more on here, but I didn't want to rush the process. I love how this looks though.

The DQB2 stickers are from @vidramon's store. Excellent as always! Thank you, Vi!

After that, we have the usual several pages of colored card stock for grouping sticky notes onto and the 60 pages of pen & ink sketchbook paper.

Then we hit the actual planner pages! Like usual, they're tiered with navigation dates in the lower and upper margins. Every page has a piece of art and prompts for art, self care/de-stressing, and personal growth.

A new thing I trying in this planner is that all the planner pages are removable and re-insertable (kind of like an arc binder)

The reason is to be able to put the current day in the sketchbook section. That way I can have expanded space for journaling and I'll have a dated system for sketches and notes. I'm aiming for a journal/commonplace book type of deal, but with a planner that actually allows me to plan.

The back of the planner pages has a page for journaling

I was going through some of my old planner formats and came across the "Today I Am" mood tracker which I like better than the RPG Status type mood tracker that I've been using lately. So that's back in.

Also a BGM space to write whatever I'm listening to that day. I think it's cool to look back on that.

After the daily planner, we've got monthly calendars with fields for goals, things I'm looking forward to, and upcoming things with unclear dates.

Anyway! It's done. I'm glad. I swear for my own sanity that I won't wait until last minute next time. Yay.

[sparkykitsune]

DQB2ber 2023 - Week 1: Crystals

Anessa and Warwick venturing around Moonbrooke in a field of magic crystals (this is set before the events of DQB2). Probably going to try and upload a DQB2ber 2023 prompt every Sunday (until Halloween and I’ll post the finale on the 31st).

Hope my spark for PMDQ has returned. I do want to replay DQB2 again (for the 3rd time) but I feel like I play way too much of it (like 140 hours within a month). I've also got DQM: TDP to play this December so my return PMDQ sounds promising. I need to escape the curse of Pokemon Furryverse somehow but nooooo, I wanna draw more Attipen fanart.

[questersrest]

i FINISHED the story in dqb2. okay. holy fuck the final chapter was unexpected and yet it was the best one. built a spaceship to escape the apocalypse with a bunch of monsters. then faced down the master of destruction weakened by his own humanity then separated his human form and had to take down the pure embodiment of destruction himself.

and like the false world just like dq10v2 and how that was breaking and malroth came to destroy that too in the breaking world questline from v5 as well that’s cool i guess version 5 released after dqb2 so that must’ve been a callback. malroth is like destined to destroy false worlds. not that it’s ever worked out.

[elikha]

Hi hi!! I’m Elikha and welcome to my art blog! <3

Thought I’d finally make an intro thingy to my blog so HERE:

I have an Instagram where I sometimes post silly stories and the same posts as here: @/elikha.xi

I’m an artist and cosplayer who very much loves things such as:

- Dragon Quest [DQXI, DQB2, etc]

- Nintendo in general —> Splatoon, Zelda, etc

- Genshin Impact

I draw art both traditionally and digitally though traditional is my go-to!

With my cosplays I’ve done some Genshin [Sucrose and Xingqiu] and am currently working on making a few of my own DQXI cosplays! Eleven and Jade are done and Veronica is my next cosplan (please look forward to her I’m super excited)! Serena is my dream cosplay but I want her to be as perfect as possible so I’m working up towards her, Veronica seeming like the next logical step! I am very inexperienced in the realm of sewing and the like so I’m having fun learning!

Thanks for reading all that! I hope y’all enjoy my silly little dqxi brain rotted (and occasionally other stuff) posts! ^^

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Great promo image for DQB2. Malroth about to lay the smackdown on the big scary demon. Finished the main story. Was it incredibly basic? Yes, but it got me. Moonbrooke drives a wedge between you and your buddy. Darkness consumes him. You rescue your bro with the sickest high five in recorded history. Cue philosophical ramblings about how building shit in an illusion world is totally rad. I agreed wholeheartedly and commemorated the occasion by building a bordello on my home island.

Still have a lot of post-game left, not to mention free reign to build shit. I believe I have also finally figured out how to get in-game photos off the PS4 and onto here so I can show stuff off. Game is excellent and more than worthy of the Dragon Quest franchise.

[theoryfan205]

I never said it was prestigious, just when I was younger that's what it seemed like and it was intimidating, as a kid everything scared me, it seemed like an intimidating process and when I finally got the courage to put my email in so I could post my dqb2 fics there I never got a response, made it seem like it was a lucky draw and I got unlucky, and repeating the process every few weeks just to get a chance seemed really annoying so I never tried again, not everyone gets in just like that I guess

Azula always lies. 

saw this post by @heavenly-dusk and kinda went insane thinking abt it so i drew it, i hope you don’t mind! 

[avixthecat]

'oh im finally going to play dqb2 again!'

ohoho no you're not youre playing acnh again and buying posters of people you fool

[parryperi]

Well my adventures in remaking Project Diva stages in DQB2 did NOT end. Here's Kokoro's.

Definitely much easier on me lol.

Also finally changed my ID on there to be my name instead of my old oc name.

[dqb2-secrets-and-trivia]

DQB2 Cerulean Steppe Trivia

The castle being half-finished was an idea added late in development. In this interview the developers state that they had built the entire castle, only to scrap it.

Based on this, and the fact that the art made by amelicart was commisioned early in development, there is a high chance that the castle seen in the Cerulean Steppe drawing is the original, scrapped castle design.

It matches with the final game blueprint quite well too.

[asexual-levia-tan]

ill do a full reaction all at once maybe um but the thing is. this whole chapter i've been staring at the backgrounds thinking about what items i could use in their place if i were to build the HoL in dqb2

i think its fun the side-dateables finally got their own little romantic moments

[sapphire-rb]

Im going to fucking explode i think i can edit the models i think i can edit the models!!!

Do you know how long its been since people were trying to get this game modded like finally we can!! We can!!!

Ohgodsohgodsohgods im running up the walls ohgodsohgods

Dqb2 modded can be real!!! We can do it!!! Pleaaaseee let it happen!!! ;u; ;u: ;u; !!!!

I can make a text editor, and I can make a model texture exporter- oh gods its happening it really is happening

Figuring out the holy grail of DQB2 modding