[CRITICSM] Past and present of ROM hacking

[Martin Yiu]

Past and present of ROM hacking

Hello! I'm here to say something about ROM hacking. IT's a bit of criticsm and a bit of glorification. You need to look at the thread from various points of view. It's just my opinion, but generally, this thread will give some critics and talk about "modern trends" of ROM hacking.

Once upon a time, world of ROM hacking was better...
There were many hack with great potential, almost none are finished. The greatest hackers retired, and it's not that long time. I came here a year ago. In that time, ROM hacking was something done by "elite". Everything was precise, maps were almost flawless, and it didn't matter we had less knowledge about scrpts, everything was stunning. But that was a year ago... Now, there are only a few hacks of such quality.

What about today?
Today, the ROM hacking section of PokéCommunity is filled with newbies posting some simple map hacks, with grammar errors and spelling mistakes in the hack's text, almost no scripts and bad thread presentation. The good hacks are shaded by the bad hacks. Why? The newbies brought attention of other newbies, and got support. And many betas. That is the most important factor, when newbie chooses a hack to play. The beta might be buggy, full of errors (maps, scripting, etc.) but HEY, ITZ DA BETA AND AI CAN PLEY IT! This is the most honored thing among the newbies. And also, Shiny Gold's glory is so bright that they ignore all other hacks. I have nothing against Carlos, it's not his fault, But the newbies should think more.

My wish...
I wish all newbie ROM hackers think before they post such low-quality hacks. They should practice more, improve mapping and ask someone more experienced to rate, comment and try to learn from others' mistakes. Then, the elite era might come back.

Now, I am afraid to post my project, so I am delaying it because I think it wouldn't get much support. And I am also thinking about ending with ROM hacking. I'm disgusted, and so is one my friend (not naming for respecting privacy). I am sad to see the situation over here, and I hope that all of you, newbie hackers, will think more and get some experience. I consider people as dragonhacker (sorry to mention) as newbies, even if they hack for more than just a month. I consider anyone newbie if he/she wonpt get any experience from his/her hacks and/or fails.

I am sorry if I insulted someone, but this is my point of view. Please don't flame me for it. Feel free to discuss this here, with me, or with anyone other.

[zel]

Hmmm... Well, let's see what my point of view is...

In fact, I don't personally think we had better hacks in the past, it was quite the same actually, but it's just that people really didn't wanted to try hacking (and probably my hack's gotten more people interested into it, as Brown and Quartz were what got me interested when I started), I don't see having more hacker-wannabes around as a bad thing. Life's that way, you have to live with all kind of good and bad stuff, the good will manage to survive and the bad, if they cannot manage to improve, then, will not...

I think people shows support if they can see that you are really serious about your work, doesn't matter your skills, actually, but that's only my opinion.

It's true that I'd prefer if they'd wait to have a good ammount of stuff in their games by the time they post it too (that's something I did myself, by the way), because with just a few screenshots you cannot judge a game too well, unless you already know about the hacker's skills. That'd be something really important, specially if you attempt another GSC remake.

Well, that's all I can comment, even though I may have more stuff to add to it inside of me and I'm reserving my opinion. Depending on how this thread works I may say something more, or not.

[Martin Yiu]

Hmmm... Well, let's see what my point of view is...

In fact, I don't personally think we had better hacks in the past, it was quite the same actually, but it's just that people really didn't wanted to try hacking (and probably my hack's gotten more people interested into it, as Brown and Quartz were what got me interested when I started), I don't see having more hacker-wannabes around as a bad thing. Life's that way, you have to live with all kind of good and bad stuff, the good will manage to survive and the bad, if they cannot manage to improve, then, will not...

I think people shows support if they can see that you are really serious about your work, doesn't matter your skills, actually, but that's only my opinion.

It's true that I'd prefer if they'd wait to have a good ammount of stuff in their games by the time they post it too (that's something I did myself, by the way), because with just a few screenshots you cannot judge a game too well, unless you already know about the hacker's skills. That'd be something really important, specially if you attempt another GSC remake.

Well, that's all I can comment, even though I may have more stuff to add to it inside of me and I'm reserving my opinion. Depending on how this thread works I may say something more, or not.


Thank you for expressing your opinion, Carlos. Your words made me think if I said it right... I didn't mean that past hacks were better than present ones, but I meant that the hack makers were more serious, put more effort and their work was memorable. If you compare it to present hakcer-wannabes (using your word), you see a BIG difference. That low percentage of serious hackers is still decreasing, and due to this, less and less really good hacks or at least hacks worth a play appear. Maybe, if the projects of the hacker-wannabes were improved, then you can see the ideal world. But nothing is ideal. You are bright example, along with others, of a serious hacker. Maybe because you do everything slowly and think about each step - THE POINT - and newbies don't. They don't put almost any effort into the maps, and that's the most important thing - where would the player walk, exist? - which should improve. Marz started a mapping tutorial, but I don't think that many newbies take his advice. So, I hope they will start, at least after reading this thread, thinking about each step in the hack making.

[Deokishisu]

Martin Yiu, I agree with EVERYTHING in your first post. You've said what I didn't have the courage to say myself, and a lot nicer than I would've put it too. Newbie's seem to be attracted to each other until they make a support group and.. POP! A hack full of errors (especially grammar and spelling) comes out of the mix. This is just a general observation. Also, 3rd generation hacks seem to have COMPLETELY destroyed hacks of the older generations. If a hack comes out and it's not third gen, most newbies go, "I like it, but GBC graphics suck... So I won't play it. 1/10" Meanwhile, those are the real hackers because there aren't as many tools to work with and they have to do everything manually. I'm a 3rd gen man myself but these older ROM-based games need more credit than our 3rd gen hacks deserve, if it's good of course.

Martin Yiu, you've made a friend in me today!

[Blazichu]

Most of the RBY and GSC games are better than most RSE and FRLG games these days, if anything hex is becoming dead basically most people want to use pointless tools "look my tool can edit the grass colour :o". Being a GSC hacker I noticed many flaws in my hack even and I am changing that, some examples would be getting the Pokemon from the professor...how boring, but getting it from the wild from a ranger farm (inserted new scripts) is heaps better than the old way. Most people should either learn how to script or to use hex via pointers etc. Editing maps to look different also isn't difficult, AdvanceMap, GoldMap and PokeMap make it very easy. The hack that got me started was Pokemon Violet by Cartmic/Zure because it was very different. If anything people need to start thinking of their own ideas, take some time and you will think up of some great events to include in your hacks ;)

[Martin Yiu]

Yup. Look at Bronze/Prism or Brown. Those have features which even GBA games don't have. I don't have enough courage to hack GBC, but I try to do it nas best as possible on the platform I make the hack. And most of the newbies don't. Just BETAS, BETAS, BETAS! If your hack doesn't have any, they give it 0/10 and your hack is on the best way to be forgotten. Same for hacks in other languages. They won't play unless they understand. It's good to look at least at the game mechanics the hack maker has made and so on! But no, IMMA NEW SO I RUL!... Oh, this thread wasn't supposed to create the flame war, so we mighht stop be bad and start to be constructive. Maybe we shall make a decision to make ONE BIG TUTORIAL for them and then we make at least standard hack makers from all those newbies.

[Twinx]

Martin, you make a lot of sense to me...
After seeing so many hacks around the forum, I got the impression that hacking is easy (since so many people were doing it).
So I gave hacking a try myself, after changing pallets, tiles, overworld sprites, mapping the first town, all that was left on my goal list before starting a thread was to script the first town.
So being a newbie, I went to the tutorial section, and after struggling for long hours trying to figure out scripting, I came to realize that it's far too complicated for my taste, and even though I had spent countless hours changing tiles and mapping and
creating warps and stuff...
So I gave hacking a break and decided to focus on college for now.
And even though I discussed my hack with some people around PC, I never created a thread because I already knew it wasn't on top of priorities right now.

Now, looking back at all the hacks around the community, most of 'em are poorly mapped with dull plots. And the "hackers" are begging for scripters.
How do you consider yourself a hacker when you haven't mastered scripting yet?
As Zel says, Scripting comes before tiles and pallets and whatever.

What the community lacks, in my opinion, is better scripters. Therefore the need for better newbie tutorials. Their are many scattered answers for confusing issues spread around some threads, maybe someone should collect them?

I don't know if I'm making any sense.... anyway, this is my point of view :)

[Time]

It is sad to accept the fact of life.
I am a newbie myself(but I'm surprised I am not hurt. :) oh well...)

I just joined PC this year, so I have no knowledge about the hacks in the past few years... But as zel/Carlos stated, it really depends on the hacker of how determined they are.

But all newbies are influenced to post their hacks too early just to be famed and so they could be proud.., or maybe just to join the competition...

I suggest, to all who plan to post their hacks here in PC, that they should have done the basic plot of thier plan hack(but make sure it should be original or contains originality), and scripting. Those two are the important things a hack should have. Others like mapping and etc. are the flavorings to make the hack more delici.., I mean more attractive to look at, but useless if there's no plot and new scripts... It's like in English class.., the independent (plot and scripts) and the dependent(mapping, tile editing, OW, etc...) clauses...

We share the same knowledge of scripting.., so we should try and acquire those knowledge to have a hack that's destined to be completed.

Just like zel, I have a lot of things in my mind that I will write down later.., depending on the nexts few/more posts...

Good day and please forgive us if we have offended anyone who views this thread.

I greet you all a good day.

[Smarties-chan]

I fully agree. However, I wouldn't say most hacks a couple of years back were good either. They were mostly sloppily mapped Ruby/Sapphire hacks with changed starters and maps. Few even had edited trainer battles. There were a couple of dedicated hackers, that I agree with, but few hacks showed that they would have had any real effort put into them. Unfortunately, I've started a couple of hacks like that as well, but luckily I've only posted one of them and that was back when I was a complete n00b. After that, I just kept hacking for myself, never posting anything because unlike most hackers, I actually know how to criticize my own work. (and other people's works as well)

It doesn't matter how bad a hack is, there will always be a hoard of n00bs saying it's awesome and calling the critics mean. A simple palette hack will have most people gawking these days and if you can make a simple givepokémon script, they'll think of you as a god. I've seen too many topics like this.

And I agree on the Shiny Gold part as well, it is awesome and it deserves to be praised, but the way most people act about it is just ridiculous. Shiny Gold is freakin' amazing, but there are perhaps not better, but at least as good hacks as Shiny Gold out there, why don't they get the praise they deserve? I'm not saying any names, but a couple of bad hacks get ridiculous amounts of "zomg this are gude when u realize betazs!!???" while many good ones are simply ignored. I find this very alarming, as it discourages those whose hacks actually have potential.

[zel]

Oh, time to comment on the 2nd vs 3rd Generation battle? Hmmm... Well, I cannot say much about it (and probably all of the hackers' opinions will be biased, since each of us has picked one generation and will want to defend it no matter what), but, I'll try to be in the place of the non-hackers (because I think any of the hackers around respect both generations' hacks), I think they don't go thinking "Oh, this is an old gen hack, so I won't play it", they'll probably (and unconsciously) are saying "Oh, this is an old gen game, so I won't play it", they are the kind of people who just play the latest console's games and just forget about the older consoles. I don't blame them, technology generate such kind of opinions, and, think about it: "If you had an Atari game, and a PS3 (or whatever is trendy now), would you pick the Atari?"

I'm more interested in a game that presents something that can entertain me, doesn't matter how old it is. Adding graphics is an extra help, if you cannot make your game more interesting. There's a good thing about it, the existing GSC hacks are really interesting, well, in my opinion :P

Once again, life's rules... It's like in a (flock?) of lions, the younger becomes the leader if he manages to defeat the old lion. Something like that.
And that's as far as I will go about it.

[Teh Baro]

Everybody wants to be an internet idol.

This pretty much summarizes the problem with rom hacking.


PS: Here's a nice quote I found quoted on a friend's site.
Now as I was saying, this hack is terrible. Like, really bad. This could be explained by this being the creator's very first hack, and I agree, sort of. My first hack was terrible too, except you could see in it and I never released it
— The Trasher on a super mario hack named Super DARRK World

[Martin Yiu]

Heh, that's right. When I come back to my statement about the old hacks, I meant serious hacks, because when I started hacking, it was like 3 to 8, 3 being the "n00by" hacks and 8 the serious ones. Now it's like 18 to 9 when 18 being "n00byy" and 9 the serious ones. Note: This is only for demonstration of average number. Not to be taken as correct nor accurate. So, maybe this is how it looks now. The "n00by" hacks were always present, but not in that high number as currently.

[- HackMew -]

Yeah, Martin Yiu! You're right! I absolutely agree on what you said. Let me throw in my two cents now ;)

Old Style Hacking
Whatever you could think about GB/GBC hacks they're always the beginning of Pokémon ROM hacking.
I do respect them since a good hack is always a good hack, no matter which is the ROM base.
And I think the other hackers should do the same.

Screenshoots
That's true. Screenshoots are sure important. But how much?
Probably you will never be able to judge a hack just by looking them, except under particular circumstances.
The only way is to actually play the hack. No way out.
Screenshoots, anyway, could be even more important than the beta release itself to encourage people playing the hack.

Beta Releasing
Some hackers, when they finally decide to make their hacks know, aren't ready to a beta yet.
There's nothing wrong with it: each hacker has his/her own skills, free time and so on.
Without betas, though, it's most likely people won't care a lot those hacks.
Even worser, they could bug the hacker to release something as quickly as possible.
Time passes and the hack, along with the hacker who is making it, could be totally forgotten in the meanwhile.

Other Languages
I am kinda disappointed about this problem. Most of the people don't even try a hack if it's not in English.
This behaviour isn't good for the ROM hacker who made the hack since it's a total blindness to his/her efforts.
"It's not in English therefore I won't play it"-like sentences are the proof of what I just said.
Why not give the hack a try? Is that prejudice or simply laziness?

Newbies
That's OK, everyone's a newbie at some point. And I have nothing against them.
But you should agree with me there are different ways of being a newbie.
One of the things I dislike most about them is the absence of a trial/error approach, most of the times.
Tutorials are really, really useful but they don't explain everything, obviously.
Asking someone for help is a good practice if you do that intelligently.
I mean, you can't always ask mainly for two reasons:
1. You won't be sure to get an appropriate answer or an answer at all.
2. You won't learn a lot by doing that.
Trying to be as autodidact as possible should be newbies' goal.
So, when they have really no clue what to do they could ask someone more experienced, of course.

Bad Quality Hacks
Nowadays we are surrounded by low-quality hacks.
I think newbies, once they learn few basic things, they immediately get excited and they look forward to post their hacks.
They focus basically on graphics without caring a lot about the core of ROM hacking: scripting.
Let's face the truth: without scripting, most of the hacks are just a mix of glitched maps, soe edited texts. Eventually some tiles and/or sprites.
Learning how to script is a must, whether you like it or not.

Good Quality Hacks
Good quality is... good! XD
All newbies feel attracted by them but depending on people's choices, some promising hacks could be shaded by other well-known ones.
Some ROM hackers could be discouraged at this point and decide to take a break or maybe to give up.
Everyone is worth a chance in the ROM hacking world. :)

Hackers
In my opinion, real hackers are those people who have at least a basic knowledge about everything and who are specialized in some skills.
Some of them could decide to work alone (even if working totally alone is an utopia), others might prefer to found a hacking team.
They aren't as impatient as newbies. They think twice before doing something and how. The fully undestand what's the most important thing and the least important one.
They have a lot of experience behind them and that's their power.

Hacking Tools
Programs are crucial. Probably you didn't think about that but what would happen if you had to edit maps manually by using a hex editor?
The answer is pretty simple: you would get crazy mid-way. That's why having the support of a programming language is useful for a hacker.
If you have a particular need you can create a specially designed tool that suits your desires. Or at least to understand someone else's source code.
As for myself I do my best to release and updated the most useful programs in order to save as much time as possible.
ROM hacking is a time consuming activity, there's no need to waste time unnecessarily.
Programmers are often left in the shadows, though. What catch the audience are the hacks, not the tools.
That's a pity since hacks are made using tools, of course. Perhaps we can't do nothing but I'm still optimist.

[Deokishisu]

Other Languages
I am kinda disappointed about this problem. Most of the people don't even try a hack if it's not in English.
This behaviour isn't good for the ROM hacker who made the hack since it's a total blindness to his/her efforts.
"It's not in English therefore I won't play it"-like sentences are the proof of what I just said.
Why not give the hack a try? Is that prejudice or simply laziness?

I agree with what you said -HackMew-, but I do have something to say about this quote. The offcial language of this forum is English right? Alot of the newbies speak only English. See the connection? It's not prejudice that they won't try the hack, it's not laziness either. Even I want to simply understand what's being said and what's going on. If the hack's of a different language it's difficult to do that. I'll try Spanish hacks because I can speak enough to know what's going on, same with French. But alot of people don't care to learn another language so they're turned off to the idea of playing a game that's in another language. To me, playing something in a language I've never heard spoken and don't know the meaning of one word in that language is a waste of my time. I'd miss whatever jokes the hacker put in, and I wouldn't be able to appreciate the time s/he took for the text. I appreciate the hacker for trying to make a successful hack, but if you want to make your hack big on a forum, do it on a forum that shares the same language as your hack first.

[- HackMew -]

Well, Deokishisu, that question was meant to be ironic.
I perfectly know that English language is needed (especially here on PC) but I'm convinced everyone should try hacks based on foreign languages anyway. I don't think it's really a waste of time, indeed.
Except for the main plot and therefore the texts mostly, the rest of the game has just an "universal language" anybody can understand. Maps, tiles, overworld and scripts are just a few examples.
I hope I've clarified what I meant :)

[zel]

Well, I prefer playing games in a language I can fully understand. But I have a valid reason: If I'm gonna play something, then I must fully understand what's going on. Because if I don't know what's going on, then I may start getting confused, and getting confused takes the enjoyment of any game (and as I said before, I want to enjoy the game fully)
Probably people won't agree with me on this, but, well, that's what I think about it.

(By the way, that doesn't mean that I'm 100% reluctant to play a game in another language... But the game must REALLY be awesome and interesting in its "looks" in that case to motivate me to play it even in a foreign language. I still remember playing all the Captain Tsubasa and DBZ games, and a game called Bahamut Lagoon, even though all of them were in Japanese and I didn't understand a thing... ;))

[Martin Yiu]

Andrea, your opinion impressed me. And same for all of you. I didn't expect this lively discussion. Well, my opinion is that everyone should get a chance to try but when the newbies miss out, it's very hard to get back respect for them, mainly because their sometimes rude behaviour. Therefore they should be more careful of what they are doing. I am not speaking of newbies generally, but about the type of newbies which are usually called "n00bs". They can become normal members which show respect to others, but they should think before they speak/post and they should watch others at first.

[spenceroone3]

Yeah, well... I"m a newbie to hacking, I started PinkMew after 2 months of training, and I think I'm going to go back to training for a while...

Also, some hackers here are in Dutch and Spanish, so it may be difficult to understand for English people. Though I did notice people of non-English origin do seem to make better looking hacks and you have no idea what the hell they're saying ingame.

Shiny Gold attracts lots of newbies;) And Shiny Gold is an example of a good hack. One of the keys is scripting, I know it is hard. When you are firstly a n00b, you just want to edit the text, cos you're probably too lazy... But eventually you get better. I wanted to learn how to script, and that is how I learnt. ;)

[Coolboyman]

It's time for my point of view on this.

Yes, even though theres always been bad hacks, even some of the "Bad" hacks had some good ideas in them, and if executed better, could turn into a better hack.

Nowdays, I'm seeing too much of the same thing over and over again. With ROM hacking, you want to be as original as you can, and realize that if you try hard enough, you could put what you want into the game. You just have to try.

I'm barely seeing anyone try these days, most of these are "G/S" remakes by some newbies who are desperate to become the next Zel, and you all know who you are, with the only excuse is "OMG THERES GONNA BE NEW TRAINERS AND TWO HYBRIDS AND A NEW TREE IN CHERRYGROVE CITY. It's okay to be motivated by someone, but making the same damn thing is not original.

Others are just kids making hacks that are barely 1% done and posting incomplete screen shots, and saying this and that will be in their hack by people who have no idea what the hell they're doing. The thing is, when they promise something, they usually have no idea how to input it into the game. It's easy to say "Hey I'm going to add a day/night system to Fire Red", but very difficult to actually DO it. And when these "features" are not in the beta, they get all pissed off and say "ITS JUST A BETA". In beta's, you are supposed to give a very small sample of what the final product could be like. "I'll do it later" is just a lazy excuse and it'll probably never get done. The thing with talking about features, anyone can say it, but to really prove you are actually doing something, is to SHOWpeople. Also Newbies who get pissed off when you help them and they keep doing a crappy job when in their view they're doing a great job, are downright pathetic. IF you are new, you should expect to screw up and not be a "pro" the moment you touch Advance map.

I never talked about any of my projects unless they were at least 10% done, because I've worked on other projects (even a Pokemon hack idea I had involving time travel and Rijon), that never made it that far. Usually if it's at at least 10%, it's most likely going to get done. Just because you're working on a hack for one hour doesn't mean you need to post about it.

Now I can understand "practice hacks" because I've done several myself, but thinking the first thing you do is going to get you popular is NOT good at all. If the only reason you're making a hack is to make yourself more popular and trying to become "The next best ROM hacker", I want you to delete all your hacking tools and your "Great" hack and never attempt to hack again. I never had that intention in Brown, that it would make me popular and viewed as a great pokemon hacker, I just thought that some people might find it cool and fun and it would eventually fade away, but it didn't. This is why I make hacks: for people to have fun playing them, and enjoying them, not to become more popular. Recently another G/S re-maker who has no idea what the **** he's doing is trying to become the "Next Zel", and I'm all sure you know who he is. I'm pretty damn sure the only reason he's making this hack is to become viewed as a great pokemon hacker, and I think that's downright pathetic.

As for different language hacks, people should really give them a try, although I agree with Zel that sometimes the person doesn't know whats going on, still people should try it out, and maybe the poster should attempt to translate it. For Prism I could of done it in another language (since English isn't my first language), but I decided to do it in English because most Pokemon hackers speak English (from what I know). When Prism's done I'm going to get translators to translate it into other languages for other people to enjoy.

==This might make you mad==
Another thing that really bugs me is Pokecommunity is WAY too accepting of crappy hacks. Seriously, I've seen crappy hacks with 2 pages worth of "looks great, this is going to be cool etc.", and it shocks me that I'm the only one who thinks this hack is bad! I can understand beginner hacks, but jesus christ, if you keep saying that making a crappy hack (in their view is a great hack) is GOOD, then they won't even bother to improve! Seriously, this pisses me off more than anything on this site, and I'm simply tired of it.

If you think a hack sucks, I want you to give constructive criticism, and let them know your views on making a good Pokemon hack. Don't be afraid if the author gets pissed off, because if they can't handle good criticism, then they shouldn't be posting their work in the first place. Don't just say "this is good bla bla". If your hacks sucks and I want to comment about it, I'll say it sucks and give a damn good reason why and ideas on how to improve.
===

Pokemon Brown was popular because it was the first of it's kind - a game featuring a whole new region, and basically a whole new game. It's a simple premise, but back then most hacks were just simple crap like "turning all the houses into caves" or "new starters with a different hero sprite". It's kind of shocking, but from what I believe Pokemon Brown was the first "Brand new region/game" hack there was. However, I decided to go in a different direction and make my OWN world with my OWN ideas, where I had basically no influences to go by. And it became popular. Why? Because I tried doing something different. I took a chance, and it worked. I'm not saying using the "new world" style in a hack is bad, because it's very vague and you can literally do anything you want to your world, and I encourage all hackers to do it.

Also, newbies are ****faced if they don't have a program to help them edit even the simplest things. Pokemon Red has very few and simple tools, such as a starter changer, so I modified program of Gold map named "Red Map", which was made by me just so I could edit all the maps in the game. The stuff I couldn't put into red map or a program I learned how the game's memory structure and worked from there. So most of the stuff you're seeing in Brown except for maps was flat out done with hex, and it wasn't easy at all.

Now I'm trying to do a much better job with Prism with trying out SEVERAL new things that has never been in a Pokemon game before, not to brag, but the stuff in beta was only a small fraction of the new features, and all I have to go by is my Hex Editor, a few documents (especially the script document), Gold map (which I helped make), and my imagination.

So if you want to make a good hack and be popular by that, do something DIFFERENT and try to think of stuff you could put in a pokemon game. Don't just stop at "Oh it can't be done" (because I said that in 2006 with the clothes changing, and wow it got in!), try to figure out a way to execute it, do experiments (which could even give you a new idea), and just keep trying. Hell, I thought of two new ideas for Prism three hours ago by just brainstorming. They might get in, they might not, but I'll try to get them in, and if they do, then it'll be awesome.

Also Pokecommunity isn't the worst Pokemon hacking site. I went to a ****ty Italian Pokemon hacking site and posted Prism, and all they said "why isn't this a GBA hack?", and didn't even attempt to play it. **** them

[Time]

I confess that the first time I try to hack, the only thing was on my mind was to be 'the greatest hacker' there is.., but as time flies, I kinda forgot that goal (but now I remembered, but.., nah...) and set my site to have fun while hacking. Fun I mean, I will have fun with headaches, problems, tiredness, parents scolding me... Eheheh.., but yeah, it's all true, but it's very satisfying though, once you've solve your problems by yourself or if someone helped ya out. ^^

Now my goal is just to make a hack! And that's it. Just wasting my time to hack. But hey, hacking makes me happy. It's kinda my life now.

I confess that I can only post positive posts to those hacks mentioned.., but you may wonder why.., well, I have two reasons... 1st is to boost the hacker's spirit to go on and continue the work for him/her to become great! 2nd.., uh.., I rather keep it to myself, thank you very much! ;)

But I just can't understand why there are hacks that has a great goal, but couldn't pull it through. They should have struggled to learn like I did.

I have to admit, my hack is not that good or great or special or whatever that describes it positively... But I strive to learn (especially scripting, which was my nightmare when I first started hacking. Eheheh... Now, my nightmare is hex! But I'll try and understand hex maybe next week for I have no classes for whole 2 weeks! WHEEEEEEEEE!!!) from the basic.

And yeah, pkmncommunity is a great site for us all. I remembered when it was down for 5 days, my life was not the same... It was like, my life was incomplete.

Oh well... I'm out of words. Let me end my post.

Each one of us has a special talent in hacking. He is a good scripter, while he's a great spriter, and she's an awesome mapper, and they're great hex editors!

This means that we all are different from eash other, and so need one another to help, correct, team up, and etc.

And.., I'm out of words. ~THE END~

[deepbluemew]

Good morning all,

I was a romhacker many many years ago, since October 21st 2000.

There were some good things, some bad things over the years.

Romhacking Pokemon Red was the fun times back in the days, still is if there is a nice number of interest. My first romhack - Pokemon Legends was a mere hack with mostly map changes, gfx changes and the list goes on - they were popular back in the days, hardly anyone know how to script events.

Most of the fun things that many considered back in the early day was translation of Pokemon Green and Pokemon Blue and Pokemon TCG2...however translation is not big these days now - because we know most of the games we wanted have a high chance of being translated by the offical companies of the games. Thats why hardly anyone can pay much attention to romhacks plus not many newbies deals with romhacking at that time, they were mostly mature and kept dumb questions to a mininal.

Another big thing, that when Gold and Silver comes around, it was similar to what most of the hackers did in Pokemon red until Mikasa and a wide number of German hackers introduced many useful things allows us to do more things. Before then, we only used a Hex editor, TileLayerPro, and a Map editor - usually created by PhilipRueben or Jigglypuff. Most of the hex editing back in the days was mainly wild pokemon, text editing and some not so complex stuff. Some people chose to mess around with programs than on hacks to give other hackers useful stuff...That person, was a complete idiot and lacks common sense...Ahhh...the days.

Scripting was not really popular until 2004 when someone finallly worked out how it work in the Advanced generation and the like - which caused alot of the old hacks of its kinds became crappy hacks and most of the time these days people wanted hacks with new scripts and mostly in 3rd generation rather than 1st and 2nd generation of games.

As for me, I only liked to romhack the first two generation, they were fun back in the days...

[[][-Name sponsored by Apple-][]]

I'm currently a trainee ROM hacker,and Ive never played a ROM hack in my life.

As long as i see it in advance map I'm fine.

thats what i did with quartz, shiny gold, and others.

i like to know about what scripts are in games but its not something i care about,
thats probably why I'm not a good ROMHacker
i like changing the looks of games not the scripts (mainly cos its hard and i cant be bother to learn)
i will learn how to script
I could've posted so many crap hacks Ive made, but learned that if its not good and something i would want to see don't post it, i don't wanna see a hack from some little kid that cant make a error free map, that wont even check it again.
When i map i will check maps over 3 times in some cases 4 thats a goal i set myself when i map
I don't make a map like the crap hackers do and go "omg i cant see an errors" and theres like 12 errors in one part.
Check your god dam map's you noobie hackers
it might mean you wont get flamed.
Spell check
Check your spellings please we don't wanna see a hack like "he PLAYER Hew r Jou TOW da"

meh

thats just what i think

[johnlycett]

Well really we where once n00bs. But the one thing that annoys me about the newbies that they expect a beta, and just map and not willing to learn more aspects to rom-hacking.

Also the other n00bs don't care About scripts all they care is there are new tiles and maps which dissapoints me because scripts are the main point of a hack.

E.g quartz all it had was new maps and sprites
It semmed to impress newbies didn't it?

But really i should have learn't more before starting my rom hack.

[Coolboyman]

Well really we where once n00bs. But the one thing that annoys me about the newbies that they expect a beta, and just map and not willing to learn more aspects to rom-hacking.

Also the other n00bs don't care About scripts all they care is there are new tiles and maps which dissapoints me because scripts are the main point of a hack.

E.g quartz all it had was new maps and sprites
It semmed to impress newbies didn't it?

But really i should have learn't more before starting my rom hack.

Well most ROM hacks are actually "Map Mods", where the main maps looks almost exactly like the ones in the original games. I've said this a million times: "CLEAR OUT THE ORIGINAL MAP BEFORE MAKING YOUR OWN OR ELSE IT'LL LOOK LIKE THE ORIGINAL!" Millions of hacks don't do that, and this advice (and my number 1 rule) I feel should be basic logic, but so many people don't do it I find it ridiculous.

[johnlycett]

Yeah because you can tell its only just been edited lightly and you can see bits and peices of the map that was there orginaly (yep i always clear my map before i start :))

The main point on a hack is to make it look like a brand new game no little bit where you can tell its a hack.

[Time]

well, I could map everything to the map I picture in my mind, but I don't want to destroy the scripts in a certain map. It happened to me before when I really changed Rustboro City to half of what I desire, and the script won't work anymore.

That's one factor I try to evade. Oh well...

[Alistair]

Okay, well, here is my little rant.

Pokemon Hacks and Hacking Overall
The value of hacks have overall decreased. With the amount of easy to use hacking tools comes an ever expanding hacking pool and good hacks, with many of them being newbs and noobs. I say newbs and noobs because they are two completely different types of hackers. there are some people who are trying the best he/she can, while taking his/her peer's thoughts into consideration. These are the newbs, mainly because they try and are "new." Then there are people who do it just for self gratification. These are (usually) the noobs, and the hacks are usually bad, mainly because the creator just does not care about his/her hack. The noobs usually out weigh the newbs, and encourage newbs to be just like them, noobs (this is mainly done when noobs compliment newbs, rather than give construcive criticism). Basically, as I said before, hacking has overall declined.

Graphics
Overall, this area has somewhat improved. It is nice to see that people are changing the palettes of hacks, along with the overworlds and tiles. It is very nice seeing fake Pokemon, line in Battle Fire and Marble. What is not nice, though, is when people use the same ROM base or sprites over and over. For example, when Treecko originally released the Kyledove ROM Base, that is all people would use. Every hack had the same excellent graphics, and they quickly did not become so excellent, they became ordinary. Now, that is happening with Xiros' DP trees. This is something that the negatives greatly drag down the postives, but not far enough for it to become a bad thing. Conclusion: try some palettes and sprites no one else is using.

Mapping
This has always been an issue. Even with the release of a mapping tutorial, people manage to skip over it and create some bad maps. A lot of people just barely edit the already existing maps, and completely destroy them. A lot of maps in hacks are way too square, have very little tile variety, have very many obvious errors, and overall, do not look good. People should practice mapping for extended periods of time before editing the maps in a ROM.

Scripts
This is an area that has vastly improved. Before, people had to use hex, and/or script using unstable scripting tools. Many hackers could not be bothered with this daunting task, so every hack was bascially the same with different maps. Now, there are stable and easy to use tools, along with the fact that there are many premade scripts. There is still the fact that some people do not bother trying to make his/her scripts more efficient, but at least they are altering the gameplay even more.

Storyline
With the introduction of Noob Hacks, this area has decreased. There are many hacks that have the storyline remain the same, and there are even some that dull it down more than it was before. Sure, there are some great storylines like Orange's and Shiny Gold's, but there are about 3 hacks for each of the said above that have a really dull, boring, and not-even-a-complete-thought-injected storyline. This area needs vastly improved.

Media
This is a serious issue. Many good hacks are overshadowed by the popular hacks (I am not saying they are bad) and bad hacks that noobs promote. This is mainly due to the fact that noobs like to release demos left, right, up, and down. Most of these hacks barely go to the first gym (if they even do). A lot of the noobs want to play and have no patience, so they pay attention to the hacks that release a demo once every week or so, rather than the hacks that deserve it. This promotes the noob issue, too. Instead of quality, they would rather choose playing right off the bat. A lot of people need to realize that hacks take time. Before, when there was about 2 new hacks a month, this was not an issue at all.

Tools
This area has vastly improved, with one downside (that being that it attracts noobs). Even the most daunting task is done with incredible ease, now that the Advance generation of games practically all the data to them in a tool or another.

Consistancy
Another thing that has declined is the amount of time put into one hack. I can understand when the ROM becomes corrupted beyond repair and when people need to put other priorities first such as school, but many hacks are getting canceled because of a lack of interest, a lack of attention, or lack of knowledge of hacking along with the lack of desire to learn. People need to stick with their hacks (But they do not need to make it their life). People are also beginning to make many hacks at once, which leads to overlap, and overload. This also leads to people quitting from hacking. This needs to be fixed desperately.

Music
This has been improved, but marginally. This is due to the fact that the MID2AGB program is so elusive, to the fact that composing music (not remixing music that was previously composed by someone else) is very difficult and would require amounts of time that very few people would want to invest on a hack. This is not an area that really needs much improvement, though.

In conlcusion, the quality of hacks has marginally gotten better, when you average in newb and noob hacks.

[Hiidoran]

I completely agree with Martin Yiu's first statement. When I saw this I thought to myself, "Finally someone is speaking up!" Most of us don't want to offend fellow hackers (or lack thereof) by stating that their hacks are just... horrible! Many think that by slightly changing the maps they've created some-sort of wonder. But when trees don't have tops, fences have no curves, and path's do not blend together, you've got a grade "A" piece of... well you know. Scripting is by far the most import part of hacking anything. Without it, you have nothing but a simple alteration which makes people, like me, bleed from the eyes. Now I am not trying to anger all new hackers, or anyone for that matter, I'm simply stating a fact. It takes dedication to make a hack, if you're not serious about an idea, don't do it. I think I've made at least 100 hack attempts and if you will notice I have posted none of them. There is a reason behind my madness; they were not to my standard. When I first started hacking, I could not get scripting (wow, that was a long time ago), but because I was dedicated, I learned to hex-edit quite well. I now understand that it's incredibly difficult to make great scripts completely in hex, but I did learn things. And in the end that's what this is about. These new hackers need practice, and it's good that more hackers are joining the circuit. But, practice is not pretty. I've heard many wise hackers and even a few staff members tell new hackers to simply "play-around" with hacking until they get a feel for it; then, and only then, should they attempt to make a project. I understand that people are at different skill levels, and many people will never (more than likely including myself) be able to make hacks half as well as hackers like Zel, Serg!o, and Teh Baro.

Also, it really ticks me off when people refuse to play hacks just because they are in a different language. The words aren't the only important thing in a game! How's the game play? Is it fun? Does it look good? Is it different?. These are what I look for. In my experience the vast majority of great hacks, was in a different language, or was made by people whose first language was not English. Sure, the grammar might have been off at certain points and some things might have been misspelled, but the game play was solid and better than most of these new hacks already in English. There have been many times I have helped translate games from one language to another; it gives me a lot of joy! I like the feeling of making what was once confusing and un-comprehendible to most and making perfect sense out of it. Why don't some of the rest of you "English is the supreme language hackers" try that?

As the rest of the posters here have said, I hope I didn't offend anyone. I am not targeting anyone in particular. But like I said, practices is good, but let’s not flaunt every hack where we made a slight map hack, or edited the starter Pokémon in Ruby. Peace Out!

-Hiidoran

[SSJ4 Furatman]

It's time for my point of view on this.

Yes, even though theres always been bad hacks, even some of the "Bad" hacks had some good ideas in them, and if executed better, could turn into a better hack.

Nowdays, I'm seeing too much of the same thing over and over again. With ROM hacking, you want to be as original as you can, and realize that if you try hard enough, you could put what you want into the game. You just have to try.

I'm barely seeing anyone try these days, most of these are "G/S" remakes by some newbies who are desperate to become the next Zel, and you all know who you are, with the only excuse is "OMG THERES GONNA BE NEW TRAINERS AND TWO HYBRIDS AND A NEW TREE IN CHERRYGROVE CITY. It's okay to be motivated by someone, but making the same damn thing is not original.

Others are just kids making hacks that are barely 1% done and posting incomplete screen shots, and saying this and that will be in their hack by people who have no idea what the hell they're doing. The thing is, when they promise something, they usually have no idea how to input it into the game. It's easy to say "Hey I'm going to add a day/night system to Fire Red", but very difficult to actually DO it. And when these "features" are not in the beta, they get all pissed off and say "ITS JUST A BETA". In beta's, you are supposed to give a very small sample of what the final product could be like. "I'll do it later" is just a lazy excuse and it'll probably never get done. The thing with talking about features, anyone can say it, but to really prove you are actually doing something, is to SHOWpeople. Also Newbies who get pissed off when you help them and they keep doing a crappy job when in their view they're doing a great job, are downright pathetic. IF you are new, you should expect to screw up and not be a "pro" the moment you touch Advance map.

I never talked about any of my projects unless they were at least 10% done, because I've worked on other projects (even a Pokemon hack idea I had involving time travel and Rijon), that never made it that far. Usually if it's at at least 10%, it's most likely going to get done. Just because you're working on a hack for one hour doesn't mean you need to post about it.

Now I can understand "practice hacks" because I've done several myself, but thinking the first thing you do is going to get you popular is NOT good at all. If the only reason you're making a hack is to make yourself more popular and trying to become "The next best ROM hacker", I want you to delete all your hacking tools and your "Great" hack and never attempt to hack again. I never had that intention in Brown, that it would make me popular and viewed as a great pokemon hacker, I just thought that some people might find it cool and fun and it would eventually fade away, but it didn't. This is why I make hacks: for people to have fun playing them, and enjoying them, not to become more popular. Recently another G/S re-maker who has no idea what the **** he's doing is trying to become the "Next Zel", and I'm all sure you know who he is. I'm pretty damn sure the only reason he's making this hack is to become viewed as a great pokemon hacker, and I think that's downright pathetic.

As for different language hacks, people should really give them a try, although I agree with Zel that sometimes the person doesn't know whats going on, still people should try it out, and maybe the poster should attempt to translate it. For Prism I could of done it in another language (since English isn't my first language), but I decided to do it in English because most Pokemon hackers speak English (from what I know). When Prism's done I'm going to get translators to translate it into other languages for other people to enjoy.

==This might make you mad==
Another thing that really bugs me is Pokecommunity is WAY too accepting of crappy hacks. Seriously, I've seen crappy hacks with 2 pages worth of "looks great, this is going to be cool etc.", and it shocks me that I'm the only one who thinks this hack is bad! I can understand beginner hacks, but jesus christ, if you keep saying that making a crappy hack (in their view is a great hack) is GOOD, then they won't even bother to improve! Seriously, this pisses me off more than anything on this site, and I'm simply tired of it.

If you think a hack sucks, I want you to give constructive criticism, and let them know your views on making a good Pokemon hack. Don't be afraid if the author gets pissed off, because if they can't handle good criticism, then they shouldn't be posting their work in the first place. Don't just say "this is good bla bla". If your hacks sucks and I want to comment about it, I'll say it sucks and give a damn good reason why and ideas on how to improve.
===

Pokemon Brown was popular because it was the first of it's kind - a game featuring a whole new region, and basically a whole new game. It's a simple premise, but back then most hacks were just simple crap like "turning all the houses into caves" or "new starters with a different hero sprite". It's kind of shocking, but from what I believe Pokemon Brown was the first "Brand new region/game" hack there was. However, I decided to go in a different direction and make my OWN world with my OWN ideas, where I had basically no influences to go by. And it became popular. Why? Because I tried doing something different. I took a chance, and it worked. I'm not saying using the "new world" style in a hack is bad, because it's very vague and you can literally do anything you want to your world, and I encourage all hackers to do it.

Also, newbies are ****faced if they don't have a program to help them edit even the simplest things. Pokemon Red has very few and simple tools, such as a starter changer, so I modified program of Gold map named "Red Map", which was made by me just so I could edit all the maps in the game. The stuff I couldn't put into red map or a program I learned how the game's memory structure and worked from there. So most of the stuff you're seeing in Brown except for maps was flat out done with hex, and it wasn't easy at all.

Now I'm trying to do a much better job with Prism with trying out SEVERAL new things that has never been in a Pokemon game before, not to brag, but the stuff in beta was only a small fraction of the new features, and all I have to go by is my Hex Editor, a few documents (especially the script document), Gold map (which I helped make), and my imagination.

So if you want to make a good hack and be popular by that, do something DIFFERENT and try to think of stuff you could put in a pokemon game. Don't just stop at "Oh it can't be done" (because I said that in 2006 with the clothes changing, and wow it got in!), try to figure out a way to execute it, do experiments (which could even give you a new idea), and just keep trying. Hell, I thought of two new ideas for Prism three hours ago by just brainstorming. They might get in, they might not, but I'll try to get them in, and if they do, then it'll be awesome.

Also Pokecommunity isn't the worst Pokemon hacking site. I went to a ****ty Italian Pokemon hacking site and posted Prism, and all they said "why isn't this a GBA hack?", and didn't even attempt to play it. **** them

You're right, I'm probably one of the hackers you hate, I'm cool with that but Unlike most people's remakes I'm not trying to copy zel, I'm trying to completely change parts of the Johto and like adding in Hoenn (Even though most people think it's a **** Region I thought it was the coolest one, although some of the Pokemon could have used more work), Team Galactic and ways to get the Legendaries you had to have a damn ticket for to get. Well if I ever finish this remake, which I probably won't (Cause I have never finished a hack, usually cause somewhere along the way Hundreds of Glitches appear.) Well If I finish the Remake or if I don't I'm going to start a new hack with All new maps, map connections, sprites, text etc. To tell you the truth I'm not good at scripting or Hex Editing, but over this weekend I'm going to read up on some tutorials and get better at it, Really the thing I'm best at hacking is Music and Sprites.

CBM, others posting here, If you get pissed at me I'm cool with it I'm not going to go all Emo on everybody, as long as people tell me what I need to change or work on, I try to Improve on it, Hell it might take awhile but I'll take a shot at ASM hacking too. I seriously hate being called a n00b (Noob) but if you consider me a noob your entitled to that opinion. Just saying what I think about this.

Also, I hate how every person who joins here after sometime in September last year (2006) the only hack they care about is "Shiny Gold" no offense to you zel.

There are other hacks, people like Twilight Illusion, Prism, Colbat Blue/Plasma Red etc.

[Coolboyman]

You're right, I'm probably one of the hackers you hate

I don't hate anybody, but I do hate the hacks they make and their decisions. I even don't hate the people who cry when I make a negative comment on their hack.

Hating someone because they make a hack is stupid, but its alright to hate the hacks they made.

[Green Charizard]

It's right in saying hacking standard has decreased. After skimming through the topic that seems to be everyones opinion. I've been a member here for quite a few years, not an active poster, but I've read through the majority of hacks that have passed through here. My first hacks were dreadful, it was my 5th or 6th that I posted here a few years ago. And that was bad. But what you've got to remember is they're new, they don't know how to do everything. The only way they are going to learn is by hacking more and more. But by making a dreadful hack they'll learn other skills and they'll get better. When we all started were all horrific hackers, some worse than others through computer skills. I think they should post them, it'll encourage them to do better and try other things.

But there is MORE of these bad hacks than before, you're right. But the hacking phenomenon has spread and more people are trying it AND PC has grown MASSIVE so you are bound to get more hacks of lesser quality until they all learn.

BUT they could at least flick through some other hacks on a similar level as theres and read comments so they know what to improve on before it is posted. Mapping is the biggest issue here and a lot of it is lazy mapping.

[SSJ4 Furatman]

Yeah, your right When I tried something Original people hated it cause it didn't follow the traditional Pokemon Game graphics. it was the Pokemon South Park one, yeah I know the sprites/graphics sucked balls, but mainly people hated it cause it was too random or had too much swearing, oh well, I'll try again with both ways, the South Park and the Regular Pokemon Styles.
Also I couldn't script at all then it was a poorly edited kanto game, now I'm going to re-attempt it with a new region.

Oh, CBM thanks for clearing that up, Before I misunderstood what you said about what you hated "the hack or the hacker". Hey, your one of the reasons I even got into hacking.

[94dan]

Umm...

Well, I'm kinda busy, so I'll make this quick.

I know I can't hex edit, so I'm not going to bother to make a hack. It'd be crap. I'd probably try to fix each little thing as I went along, screwing myself up one way or another. I don't want to be part of the problem.

Also, I... Just can't read Spanish. I dunno, I guess dialog is important to me.

And, I'm sorry I can't read all of this topic, but walls of text get me discouraged. I mean, I eventually read them, but they're just discouraging. I at least read the first few posts, and agree with you wholeheartedly. That's why I'm not going to hack a game.

[♠εx]

Here some from me, though i've been a bit stupid aswell.

Hack Quality
----------------------------
Not many people bother adding a few completely new features into there game, everyone promises new trainer battles but not many actually happen. Alot of people are too worked up with how the thread will look like and not many care about how the game will look like. The point of hacking is too add something completely new to Pokemon. But some people get too many ideas from other hacks. A few reasons there are remakes are because other people have gotten theres to look good and everyone else thinks if they make a remake that theres will be as good as ShinyGold or Crystal Shards. The owners of these hacks put alot of time and effot into them, thats why people like them.

Graphics
----------------------------
I see some people adding new graphics but not many, people just can't be bothered. Alot of tiles are someone elses or they're just from other games changed a little. I like how people are adding some new palettes, but only one or two. Such as the ground and trees. If you make them too different the buildings and other tiles will stand out too much. You need to change all the palettes or most. Some people are only block editting there tiles, not actually changing them. A few hacks that look completely unique are Harmony Version, ShinyGold and GreenForest (even though it's a RomBase, it's been converted and changed..) If you like the current palettes, cant you just add new tiles with them? It will look nice and original.

Scripting
----------------------------
Alot of people cant be bothered with scripting anymore, even if there are premades for people. Some ROM's having different scripting ways, you might need to change them a little. I'm currently learning to script myself, and beleive me, one you read a few tutorials it comes right off the top of your head. The movements and all the hex numbers aren't that hard to memorise. If they are, write them down. It's not that big of a deal. Without alot of new scripts, the game will basically be the same.

Mapping
----------------------------
As many people have said before, [u]completely erase your map before remapping.[u] It's not that hard to make a decent map, Marz has made an easy to learn tutorial telling you about all these features a map should have. They should never be square, use one of the tree tiles and model your map and then use the rest to save time. If you need to adjust it you can do that easily. A map should have some features in it, especially routes, they should have some hard to get around trees or a maze of some sort. The grass should be messed up!

General Statement
----------------------------
I've been accused of this myself, keep to a hack! Don't give up on it. Though sometimes it is not the hackers fault always. When they finally decide to keep on a hack, something bad happens. Which is unlucky.

Thats all I have to say.

[Martin Yiu]

Umm...

Well, I'm kinda busy, so I'll make this quick.

I know I can't hex edit, so I'm not going to bother to make a hack. It'd be crap. I'd probably try to fix each little thing as I went along, screwing myself up one way or another. I don't want to be part of the problem.

Also, I... Just can't read Spanish. I dunno, I guess dialog is important to me.

And, I'm sorry I can't read all of this topic, but walls of text get me discouraged. I mean, I eventually read them, but they're just discouraging. I at least read the first few posts, and agree with you wholeheartedly. That's why I'm not going to hack a game.

You took it very personally. That's bad. It's not all about hex editing. YOu just need to script for start, you will learn other things later. Don't be discouraged. Try! But only when your hack gets to higher quality than all newbie hacks you see, we strongly ENCOURAGE you to post.

[94dan]

Well, I can't script, either.

The only thing I ever did that I impressed myself with was an RPG Maker game. I mapped it so well... For a typical RPG, of course. Then it was deleted when my old computer decided to erase itself.

I never did finish it... There's no way I'm paying $60 for that.

Besides, nobody likes RPG Maker games.

[~Areku-San]

Well, I have seen some of the views made here ...
And since the vast majority is right, and I would like to give my point of view about it.

The first HACKROM I played, it was the Pokemon QUARTZ, and I seemed incredible the amount of things that could be done in the ROM POKEMON RUBY of GBA.

That's what inspired me to the almost two years I have in the ROMHACKING, especially those dialogues as only she had.

And it's true, many people just make a HACKROM by becoming popular even admit that I was a person so long ago.

It is a war, NEWBIES VS PRO's
Which ever think that end, and I think that if we make a NEWBIE ceases to be, not trying to destroy it, on the contrary, to show that a mistake ^ ^

[Blazichu]

Most of the time newer people are becoming too lazy to learn basic stuff. It took me a year and a bit to learn the more difficult stuff, but it was worth it.

@Lex_14: How to newbies become pros?...it is called "practice".

The main point of this thread is people are just jumping in and thinking hacking anything is cool, when it is not! Most of the better hacks show that people have learnt what to do via tutorials etc. People just need to take the time to learn how to do complex stuff and make something completely original in there hack, it isn't hard you just need to think!

[zel]

I'll just quote a pair of things :)

Besides, nobody likes RPG Maker games.

In fact, it wouldn't hurt if you understand a bit how RPG Maker works, as it uses a lot of terms that will surely help in the transition from RPG Maker to hacks (this is from someone who had some experience with RPGM before hacking ;))

It is a war, NEWBIES VS PRO's

I don't like the term "war", it always makes me think you people are going too far with it and forget about the enjoyment of hacking. As Green Charizard said, all of us sucked when we started, and probably we didn't post anything till we really feel confident about our work. Now that seems to be a missing characteristic on the new hackers, and that's when we must give them pointers about the lot of documents on the Documents/Tutorial section, along with sincere comments about problems with their work.
(In reality, it'd be best if they could manage to judge their work better before posting it, but it depends on people's personalities, so we can't do much there)

The main point of this thread is people are just jumping in and thinking hacking anything is cool, when it is not!

Ehhhmmm... Well, hacking anything IS cool, Blazichu (if not, why are we all hacking?). But that doesn't mean it'll be easy, you'll have to probably be many hours with the try/error method, and that's when the hacker's patience is put on test (I just disagree with the word you picked, mind you ;))

[/*.Ooka.*/]

The only problem I have about all of the hacker with hardly any experience is when they post their hacks, all they did was use A-Text and someone says something different, or they used advancemap and now their is a house where there wasn't before. I like seeing aspiring hackers, but not when so many post new hacks that all the good hack threads die......

[Quilava's Master]

The words posted in this thread really spoke to me and as one of the newbie hackers i say I'm am in no way insulted. some people would be but why? If you're not good constructive critism is what you need so that you know what to do right nxt time.

Now on to the hacks. I wasnt here a long time so I really don't know about the classics. The 2 hacks that got me here was Shiny Gold & Naranja. Shiny Gold is the light for most newbies, but it should'nt be the only hack you play. Within my time here i've played:
Legend of the Dragons (TheX4)
Crystal Shards
Quartz
Naranja
Chaos Black
Shiny Gold
Blue Sea
SO before actually hacking for my self i tried other peoples so that my hack would not be mediocre. Mapping out a new map doesnt make it a hack. especially if the storyline is the same (essetially). I think that we should try harder to make decent hacks with an interesting plot and good sidequest. Me personally hated to script and only did it once.after that i became hooked and it became my favorite part of the game a good script itself can mae or breake the story of a hack. Some people don't try to script at all and spends all there free time in the scripts request discussion thread.I even go there on occasion but only for simple 'yes' 'no' answers, and scripts that have to do with movement (still terribly difficult ^_^) so yea i think that a newbie hacker should release a hack until its decent. My hack has been done since September 12th but im still trying to make it better.

[spenceroone3]

To me, the only hackers out there that are actually good are the ones who try to script. Usually these people are the type who post in Script Discussion a lot like Thethethethe, Destinjagold, and Cooley. Other hackers who used to post frequently but now don't because they don't need to know much else are people like Semele, Zel and Irish Witch. Then there is the newbie scripters (Yes, they're still newbies, but they can do WAY better then those stupid I-Rely-On-My-A-Texters.), who ask for help cos they're scripts aren't working. That is part of my opionun (Sorry I can't spell that word :( )

[Blazichu]

Ehhhmmm... Well, hacking anything IS cool, Blazichu (if not, why are we all hacking?). But that doesn't mean it'll be easy, you'll have to probably be many hours with the try/error method, and that's when the hacker's patience is put on test (I just disagree with the word you picked, mind you ;))

I should have used the word easy instead of cool...my mistake(I have been very tired lately) xD

Because most people today think that hardly any changed maps or events makes a hack good...but it doesn't <_<

Most of the experienced hackers like CBM, Cartmic etc. show us that it takes time to learn. After learning what to do, a task can become very simple and events also become easy. Mapping appears to be a major problem today, people need to completely clear their maps and start them from scratch. AdvanceMap does have a Flight landing event so the Pokemon Centre can be put anywhere easily. Maps aren't hard to make they just take time ;)

@spenceroone3: No offense, but scripting that way(using a tool)is an easy way to hex it. So basically it is simple coding or lazy hex editing(no offense to anyone). I just hope someday people go back to using hex as it has alot of cool features and pointers aren't too difficult to learn, just a simple byte reversal for the Advance Gen. :P

[zel]

Well, then, what would become of the tool makers? (anywhere you look at the world of hacking has someone putting effort, so they also deserve a praise and our respect), and anyway, with an hex editor you could still script via hex, though I guess everyone's hacks would take a hell lot of time and we'd hardly have any completed hack around (with the exception of CBMan's... XP), since most everyone would get bored :(

Tools make everything easier, isn't that what tools are for? (I don't want to go back to the Stone Age :P)

[spenceroone3]

Well, then, what would become of the tool makers? (anywhere you look at the world of hacking has someone putting effort, so they also deserve a praise and our respect), and anyway, with an hex editor you could still script via hex, though I guess everyone's hacks would take a hell lot of time and we'd hardly have any completed hack around (with the exception of CBMan's... XP), since most everyone would get bored :(

Tools make everything easier, isn't that what tools are for? (I don't want to go back to the Stone Age :P)

It isn't called the Stone Age!!! It is called The-Long-Piece-Of-Film-With-Various-Holes-Inside-And-that-is-how-you-Command-your-Computer Age!!
Yeah and I agree about the tools part. However, that doesn't stop me from hex editing. I've almost finished my first ever tool... Superscripter, a program that generates script for u to use..

[SSJ4 Furatman]

Guys what CBM means by clearing out the map before making the new one something like this:
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x43/FurankiPkmnMaster/mapclear.png

After it's like that, start re-mapping.

[Deokishisu]

I put the image in a Spoiler because it's a bit big.
Guys what CBM means by clearing out the map before making the new one something like this:
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x43/FurankiPkmnMaster/mapclear.png

After it's like that, start re-mapping.

Personally, I clear out a map by just overwriting everything with grass tiles. That saves alot of time in the long run, and it's easier to see the grid with grass tile versus with black tiles like Cartman's example. Well, because the grid's black and so is the tile...

Anyway, to me, mapping is simple. You can't just go out and map willy-nilly, atleast not at first. You should have a basic outline of your map in your head. I even go as far as fleshing it out on paper before actually mapping it. (Which is an easy step. Just draw squares and label them as "Pokemon Center," "Gym," "House," "Tree.") Then I go to the actual mapping. The thing is, you should map like there's no restirctions. Just because the previous map only had three houses doesn't mean your map can't have six. The D/P maps are also great references because they're so big, but don't seem empty. GBA maps are smaller, but it's pretty easy to make them look empty. Pay attention to where you're placing things, because the placement of houses and houses with no doors is essential to making towns and city's look like they're inhabited. Have an big gaping empty spot? Put an empty house or a few trees in the area. Some empty space of grass could become a mini garden or park with a few trees and some flowers. Even city-goers need a break from the concrete now and then with some vegetation right?

That's all the advice I have right now, I have a ton of homework I need to get to, so I've probably spent enough time here already. See ya!

[Johnny]

Yep , Much easier with grass tiles ^^', Instead of black saves some time, actually alot of time. See this Is the thing, the Newbie generation make little changes to the maps, like changing houses, fences and little things like that instead of changing the the map into a brand new one. The whole point of hacking is to make a rom into your own game so that people want to play it, there more likely to the play the game if it's been changed alot (they can't tell it's a hack) Like connections,palletes,tiles. I see people starting to early aswell without out knowing all that much, I mean guys if we are going to hack why not do it the best as we can?

I'm also seeing that scripting hasn't been a big part in hacks any more, script is the main aspect toward this interest If you could change just just maps it would be so boring wouldn't it? So script help us have a much better story Script basically do alot of the job.(Apart from maps)

Asm used to be a big thing and alot of people where capable of it, now this skill could provide alot this is what could get people to love your hacks, see I'm trying to learn as much as I can before I resume on my hack because I'm capable of so much more.

[Klingon]

I guess you might be right, you're entitled to your own opinion. But people can hack what they want. Just because it doesn't meet your hacks standards doesn't mean you should flame him; I suppose you're only giving him advice, but it's his hack.

Okay; how an earth can you people call a ‘hack’ that only edits maps? It is not a hack; just a basic edit of the game (if that).

You look at Pokemon Prism; and find it so different to the Pokemon Gold game; you’re stunned. I fail to see on how you people get this reaction when you only edit the maps (if that).

Remakes are a waste of time (apart from one); we have this hack called Shiny Gold been made; why do we need another 5 gold remakes? Pfft; in that I understand your point of view, Coolboyman.

Since when do graphics take priority over gameplay; Some of you people make me sick (the people who make the remakes). I will support the hacks who have the potential; the gold hacks; Prism and PR to name a few.

I would expect advanced hackers to be looking up to the gold hackers.

[Johnny]

I guess you might be right, you're entitled to your own opinion. But people can hack what they want. Just because it doesn't meet your hacks standards doesn't mean you should flame him; I suppose you're only giving him advice, but it's his hack.

Okay; how an earth can you people call a ‘hack’ that only edits maps? It is not a hack; just a basic edit of the game (if that).

You look at Pokemon Prism; and find it so different to the Pokemon Gold game; you’re stunned. I fail to see on how you people get this reaction when you only edit the maps (if that).

Remakes are a waste of time (apart from one); we have this hack called Shiny Gold been made; why do we need another 5 gold remakes? Pfft; in that I understand your point of view, Coolboyman.

Since when do graphics take priority over gameplay; Some of you people make me sick (the people who make the remakes). I will support the hacks who have the potential; the gold hacks; Prism and PR to name a few.

I would expect advanced hackers to be looking up to the gold hackers.

Yeah I know we can't change what people think a good standard is but the whole point of this thread to change all of that.Yeah i'm not flamming i'm being nice. If i see a hack that isn't good (done to early) I'll tell them ways they can improve.

GSC remakes yes they are a waist of time (I dont even call them hacks)
But shiny gold is the only one to make it that far:).
So your right we don't need anymore.

GBC hacks are the best hacks there (my opinion) the graphics don't matter it's about the gameplay and also they have alot of knowledge and can do so much. So i congratulate them *clap*

Yeah I look up to a gold hacker not telling xD

[Klingon]

It is a joke to see hackers not changing the maps. They need to be helped and to know on how to change the maps; atleast.

[pkmnmaster69]

Well there are some noobs who keep posting to every rom topic just to get their posts up which is annoyin me cause it makes others hacks look bad and there were tons of g/s/c remakers and they quited easily in the past and they hadly got something like 5% or something like that people who do that are considered as zel wonabies.There are some idouts who post "could you make this advance genararion" in the prism thread and the other GBC threads well in the future i will probably see people say "could u hack DP instead" well most newbies are into FR hacks and some of them come out newbish.Most newbies are too attracted to shiny gold too much and they think its the only good hack well there are others.

[Klingon]

Coolboyman has done what others have not. Okay; I played the demo. It was awesome; graphics are fine; nothing in hacks are perfect; even Shiny Gold.

[ShadowTails]

I personally would like to see more effort... I'd hate to say it but Zel cuts corners in scripting, I'm sorry but in real life you can't walk straight through a solid object, in which that new trainer he put in, that "stalker" dude walks straight through you most of the time, that's just lazy... that and the scripting is done so it looks way unprofessional... I'm sorry but that really bothers me when a character moves around and it looks... meh I mean in that part where your mother is talking to you... compare it to the original game, it doesn't look nearly as professional. Another thing I've seen is people make the characters move with the text box on screen, I can only think of maybe 1 or 2 times that's ever happened in a Pokemon game, but it was usually just the character spinning around, looking left to right.

Bottom line is, if you aren't willing to script out a scene properly and try releasing it to the public, people aren't going to be as impressed with your game or hack, I know I'm not. Say Gamefreak made a new Pokemon game and did the scripting like in the rom hacks you find on this site... I'm sure the game would receive a lot of criticism, even in the GBC days they never walked THROUGH people unless it was like a glitch or something...

I've seen one or two hackers actually give a damn about scripting, Coolboyman is definitely one of them (his demo for his latest hack was awesome.), and Jeremy is also one (from what I've seen in the videos he showed me.) I can't think of many more off the top of my head, but seriously... the only other thing I'd like to see is more variety I'm sure it was mentioned before, but the GBA hacks most people try to pull off look... bluntly put: Bad, because the person doesn't do anything but edit every single thing off the original game and it doesn't look nearly as good as it should.

Oh and people who "translate" hacks, how about you actually SPEAK the language, not run it through an online translator, I seriously am about to kill the person who translated Naranja because of all the minor things they left in, misspellings, incorrect translations of words... ect. (seeing how I am only in Spanish 3, I bet I could better translate the game, but as I am not much of a rom hacker and just do the occasional thing, not to mention that I only work on GBC Pokemon Hacks for the most part.)

[Coolboyman]

Well when I script, I try to introduce NEW things to the game, and execute it in a way that Gamefreak would as well (if they put it in such a game). You'll see what I mean with my polished scripts (From beta 1) and the new scripts from Beta 2. And yeah I don't like sloppy scripts, and I consider some of my scripts from Beta 1 sloppy actually. And don't get me started with brown.

And what program did I use to make my scripts for Gold? HEX ONLY. There are NO programs for scripting for Gold, and if there wasn't any scripting programs for the advance games, 95% of the hacks with "scripts" in them wouldn't have scripts in them because the author wouldn't bother how to find out to do it him/herself. Only programs I use is Goldmap (which I helped make) and a German programs GSMusic (which only assigns 1 channel, so it's up to me to link up the channels).

I'm tired of newbs asking me "WAT PROGRMS DED U EUSE?". I wish people would figure out things for THEMSELVES first, like I did.

As for translating, yeah. Don't use an online translator. Words in English can have several meanings, and when it's translated by a program, that meaning in Japanese and other languages might be something else. Such as translating "This is a great game!" in Japanese, it comes out as "This game is big!" I know only very basic Japanese (can only say simple phrases), but if I do translate, I'm going to get someone who knows a hell of a lot more than me so my games don't sound like crap when read by someone from Japan.

[bitter_doom]

well im starting another hack, and I'll admit it im a newbie at hacking and im learning so many new things at times, now however i have no idea how to script, i had hex-editor but i had no idea how to use so yeah... back to the point. i think well known hacks get enough people playing them. why not try a new 1? you never know, they might be fun but thats my two cents anyways im out.cya!

[ShadowTails]

Well, I mean sure I'm a bit lazy myself. I commented to Zel on how that looked saying it could be improved because it just doesn't look right and he said something to the effect of "ShadowTails thinks my scripting is bad." which I didn't say as I think I replied to him saying that it was good, it just doesn't look right when a character flat out walks through the main character. I mean, I know we're not professionals here, and I know no hack is perfect, or any game as Coolboyman said, which is also true. I just think that cutting corners having a character walk through a solid object, such as a human looks tacky...

[thethethethe]

I think that when people start the hack there scripts aren't as good as they should be but they get better as they go. Most of Zel's mistakes (that I've noticed) are early in SG. With my hack, I decided quite a while ago that as soon as I release my first beta of LoD I was going to restart and rescript everything and fix all my mistakes. I agree with CBM's on scripting in hex. People don't even want to palette edit in hex or even change a few bytes for something to work right.
Imagine if there were no tools... Since only a few hackers are willing to learn how to use a hex editor, do you know how many hackers would quit?
When people ask something in the Simple Questions thread and say, "Don't say that I have to use a hex editor," for me, that is one of the most annoying things to hear. I hate that.

[ShadowTails]

I like to use a Hex Editor, and that's my main utility, I just use utilities if it involves compression or map editing. If it can be done with a hex editor, I'm all for it and jump to the challenge, but if it isn't and requires decompression and such... I think I'll just wait for someone to figure it out since I'm not too good at finding stuff in roms...

I think hackers should go back and tweak older scripts, or just do them again like thethethethe said and does.

[trdrsc]

Hm, I only came to this forum because I recently got interested in Hacking after playing 3 very bad hacks, one on ruby, one on emerald and one on Fire Red, they were called Dragon something I think, and I actually thought they were real games or something because I saw them on a rom site, I haven't been very up to date with pokemon since Ruby and Sapphire came out so for all I knew they could of been, but it was the little things in those games that bugged me, they had some decent features, like a bridge so you could get the badges in whatever order you liked pretty much, but then they had some really sloppy features, like you couldn't catch pokemon without your game freezing, and you could buy masterballs and rare candy's for one dollar, which took the fun out of the game, it kindof reminded me of the missingno or something lol, but also there would be stuff like random black squares, a person who randomly walked on water and houses that actually overlapped your character, also they tried to add new pokemon or something like that, but during their animations in emerald, they would flash back to what their original pokemon was I guess, also they tried to make them funny and kindof failed. Also there would be "Invisible walls everywhere" and Wally for some reason is invisible when you meet him.. It was kindof confusing.
I'll give them credit for a not bad idea, a funny alternative to Emerald, but they got sloppy, after you got to a certain point less and less stuff was edited, but there'd still be glitches and things would happen out of order, the person probably get sloppy after littleroot, and gave up on the seconed half.
I am starting to get interested in Hacking and want to do things right, the fire red modification seems like it was fine but I never even went to viridian city. I think to make a good hack you either need to change everything (like new region, new everything) or make soubtle changes like just the trainers pokemon, and style of houses or something, in any case good hacks are consistant, they're you don't go from pallet town to an underwater city to Pewter, and most importantly take time and fix mistakes,
Although I'm a noob thats my take on this

[Book Caterpie]

I'm not an experienced hacker myself, I do tweak my ROMs a little bit for my own pleasure and fun.:P I do have a big interest in playing hacked ROMs, the one thing that does get annoying though is all the unoriginal ideas that keep popping up. I've seen so many pokehacks that are trying to remake the G/S/C and it's so annoying, I've seen two really good remakes; Pokemon Shiny Gold, it's based on the original Gold version, but the hacker also changed it up a lot. There's another pokehack based on Silver version, but it also includes Sinnoh and the Sinnoh region Pokemon. I also don't like the hacks that keep using the official four regions (other than the two games mentioned above) Be original, make up your lands, gym leaders, ect! Those crappy hackers can throw their games out there all they want to get fame or whatever, but only the great games and hackers will prevail. :rambo:

[Martin™]

I'm not an experienced hacker myself, I do tweak my ROMs a little bit for my own pleasure and fun.:P I do have a big interest in playing hacked ROMs, the one thing that does get annoying though is all the unoriginal ideas that keep popping up. I've seen so many pokehacks that are trying to remake the G/S/C and it's so annoying, I've seen two really good remakes; Pokemon Shiny Gold, it's based on the original Gold version, but the hacker also changed it up a lot. There's another pokehack based on Silver version, but it also includes Sinnoh and the Sinnoh region Pokemon. I also don't like the hacks that keep using the official four regions (other than the two games mentioned above) Be original, make up your lands, gym leaders, ect! Those crappy hackers can throw their games out there all they want to get fame or whatever, but only the great games and hackers will prevail. :rambo:

Dear Book Caterpie,

I am one who is trying to help creator to make the "ANOTHER SO ANNOYING Gold remake" called Pokémon OroSole. Under my account I had before my fresh start, I started this thread. I hoped that you (and all others) won't nsult anyone's work, but I have made a mistake. Nice to see that all of you have opinion about lowering quality of today's newbie hacks, but expressing opinions way it might insult will sooner or late create a flame war. I don't want people yelling at others something like "YOU STUPID NEWBIE WITH CRAPPY HACKS" or something similar. Please, all of you, stop being rude (not every post is rude, but some might insult) or insult in any way. This thread will lose its point if you keep doing as not wished. I hope this post didn't insult anyone.

~Martin

[Book Caterpie]

Dear Book Caterpie,

I am one who is trying to help creator to make the "ANOTHER SO ANNOYING Gold remake" called Pokémon OroSole. Under my account I had before my fresh start, I started this thread. I hoped that you (and all others) won't nsult anyone's work, but I have made a mistake. Nice to see that all of you have opinion about lowering quality of today's newbie hacks, but expressing opinions way it might insult will sooner or late create a flame war. I don't want people yelling at others something like "YOU STUPID NEWBIE WITH CRAPPY HACKS" or something similar. Please, all of you, stop being rude (not every post is rude, but some might insult) or insult in any way. This thread will lose its point if you keep doing as not wished. I hope this post didn't insult anyone.

~Martin
I wasn't trying to insult anybody and would never post anybody's personal work on here just to flame them or start a flame war. I'm a very nice person and I feel that you insulted me by accusing me of being rude and trying to start a flame war. I knew I was going to get crap on my post anyways, so truthfully it's my fault for posting.

[Martin™]

Oh sorry if I said something wrong... let's try to let this go and forget all bad things we said about each other. Everyone has his/her right on opinion and so do you and me :)

[Johnny]

Yeah Martin, you see all this thread will do is make the newbies not feel that there welcome. When every one deserves a fair shot at everything. Guess what? Everyone was once a newbie, so good work Martin ^^. We can't do anything about hack standards but we can help out instead of abusing.

[Martin™]

The best thing I can do now is help the newbies. And so I am preparing a guide for them. This thread lost its point somewhere, so I think we can ask Christos to close it.

[Who Cares bout me?]

I wouldn't. People will still want to post their opinions from time to time.

I'm actually already a member, just made a new account, a new identity. Not saying who I used to be though.

Now I have two opinions.

1. I hate hacks that the spelling hasn't looked like they have tried - that makes it very crappy.

2. I wish people wouldn't quit. Jobs can't be done if you quit! :D

So there you have it.

[lightor]

I thought of posting a hack but then I thought the better of it to not do it. I"ll try to do some at home and school (during lunch times of course), and make beta 1. I wanted to give that to my friend at his birthday party ( mind you, We're only 12 years old!) and see if he likes it. I wanted to let some other people who doesn't play it to see if they are the good. If it is, I will post a thread.

My teams and my parents think that we are doing something really clever cos we are doing some thing a uni person might do out of bordom. LOL My gay teacher ( and I really mean gay) thinks it is illegal.

[flygonbreloom]

I thought of posting a hack but then I thought the better of it to not do it. I"ll try to do some at home and school (during lunch times of course), and make beta 1. I wanted to give that to my friend at his birthday party ( mind you, We're only 12 years old!) and see if he likes it. I wanted to let some other people who doesn't play it to see if they are the good. If it is, I will post a thread.

My teams and my parents think that we are doing something really clever cos we are doing some thing a uni person might do out of bordom. LOL My gay teacher ( and I really mean gay) thinks it is illegal.
Technically it is, but lets be honest. No one really cares that we are hacking the ROMs, as long as they be distributed as IPS patches.

And if you want a much more extreme example, you should see the Sonic hacking community.

[Cartmic]

Technically it is, but lets be honest. No one really cares that we are hacking the ROMs, as long as they be distributed as IPS patches.

And if you want a much more extreme example, you should see the Sonic hacking community.

Its more a gray area than illegal.

You can legally distribute IPS patches, as long as it doesn't contain copyrighted material, e.g. tiles ripped from red and put i gold, etc.

[Fffff]

How many Advanced-Generation Pokemon rom hacks have actually managed to reach completion since the Advanced games came out? That is to say, complete hacks (along the lines of Quartz) as opposed to minor changes like Chaos Black.

It seems overall that the community doesn't finish many of the hacks started; I can't think of any Advanced Generation hacks that have been completed other then Quartz really offhand.

[Blazichu]

How many Advanced-Generation Pokemon rom hacks have actually managed to reach completion since the Advanced games came out? That is to say, complete hacks (along the lines of Quartz) as opposed to minor changes like Chaos Black.

It seems overall that the community doesn't finish many of the hacks started; I can't think of any Advanced Generation hacks that have been completed other then Quartz really offhand.

Your answer would be none other than Quartz. There only two hacks that I know that are complete and that is Brown(Red) and Quartz(Ruby).

[zel]

Well, finishing a hack is certainly not an easy task, let me tell you...

A rom hacker that keeps in mind that finishing his/her project will take between 1, 2 or maybe even more years, and doesn't turn crazy about it, remains calm, and sticks to his/her project no matter what will be able to finish his/her hack. But I guess for that, Baro or CBM's word would be needed here, I guess :P

The problem is that the upcoming hackers do not stop to think what they are about to face, they just start without a clear goal in their minds and hearts, and so, they fail when they start getting bored about their current hacks. Giving them support seems to be something that improves the chances of them keeping up, so give them honest and not spamish possitive comments, and I guess if the hacker is serious about his/her work, we'll see more finished hacks in the next years.

And, finally, seems like maturity seems to increase the chances as well, I'm not sure about that, though... :laugh:

[PoketronHacker]

Ye But All You Dudes Criticising The Noobs At Least There Trying I Mean Giving Ups Worse Than Trying So Stop The Criticising

[zel]

Wrong. If you can't take the negative critics, as long as they are done on a respectful way, then that wont say much about you as a rom hacker (meh, even as a person!), and the other users will lose the interest in what you do.

You'll win more if you listen to the critics, and, in the end, if you don't want to listen to them, just ignore them, and be concentrated on what you are doing, as long as you have a clear goal in your mind.

[Ro-ohs]

I agree with what you said -HackMew-, but I do have something to say about this quote. The offcial language of this forum is English right? Alot of the newbies speak only English. See the connection? It's not prejudice that they won't try the hack, it's not laziness either. Even I want to simply understand what's being said and what's going on. If the hack's of a different language it's difficult to do that. I'll try Spanish hacks because I can speak enough to know what's going on, same with French. But alot of people don't care to learn another language so they're turned off to the idea of playing a game that's in another language. To me, playing something in a language I've never heard spoken and don't know the meaning of one word in that language is a waste of my time. I'd miss whatever jokes the hacker put in, and I wouldn't be able to appreciate the time s/he took for the text. I appreciate the hacker for trying to make a successful hack, but if you want to make your hack big on a forum, do it on a forum that shares the same language as your hack first.


Plus, when I tried to play Pokemon Naranja back when the Beta was not in English, I couldn't get beyond the first island.

People not playing the hacks because they're not in English can be because we don't understand it.

[al21]

You've re-opened my eyes I had forgotten how fun those games were, because my cartridges deteriorated over time. I could no longer play them, So every time I saw one of those I thought. "I don't like the graphics." I'm going to download some new roms and start playing those hacks.

Al21

wuz

[~X~]