The Lone Hacker?

This goes to all those hackers out there. Did you ever start or make a hack only by yourself? That's how it is right now with me and my hack. T-T
I personally can't find anyone who wants to work on it...so I just decided to do it myself. *humph!*

Anyone else do this?
Spin me a yarn of your hardships.

So‐called "hacking teams" are overrated. Being able to make a hack requires an interest in and a dedication to the subject. It is no accident that the projects that stand above all others (e.g. Prism, ShinyGold, RijonAdventures) are powered by exclusively one or two people.

I am currently working on my hack alone, however I am unlikely to be able to do it all (as I can't sprite in the slightest). Maps, Story, Script, are all mine though :).

With the acception of beta testing (which is just one other person) I work on my hack entirely alone. Honestly, I can't see a hack being worked on by multiple people. I'd guess that things would get really hectic and not everyone would know what's going on. This can lead to the hack coming out really sloppy in most cases. In my opinion, it's better to work on your own hack alone since you can put more focus and implement all of your ideas into the hack rather then dealing with other people's ideas. I also think hacks that were published by a lone author tend to come out better. See rijonAdventures, for instance.

I want to make a hack, but I wouldn't like working with other people... and since I know there's no way that I would be able to stick with it for very long, I just decided to not do one. I definitely wouldn't work with people I don't know in real life. It would just be too difficult to coordinate.

Well, as others have already mentioned, the hacks that are particularly successful tend to come from a single developer. Although I'd say Legend of Fenju is a great hack that came from a team. There are a few exceptions but the vast majority of the time, the more popular hacks (if that's what you're aiming for) are made by a single hacker. It just gives you so much more control over the hack and nothing gets lost in translation, so to speak. If somebody else has to do a job for you, then the result will never be what you wanted it to be, no matter how good they are or how detailed the instructions you give them are.
On top of that, you get a much greater sense of accomplishment when you can step back from your work and say "I made that" and have it be completely true.

I attempted to make a brand new hack recently, but it ended up failing due to scripting. I cannot script, and cannot get my head around the tutorials. I tried doing what is apparently the simplest script, a signpost. Hell, that wasn't even a new one, it was just an editted one, and it bugged out in such an inexplicable way that I've had no responce on the script help thread for how to fix it. Thus causing me to give that hack up. Instead, I have resorted to making a sort of expansion of Fire-Red instead. I can change a bunch of things, without going near a single script, its not what I wanted, but it will have to do I suppose.

Hacking teams are overrated. Learn everything and you can do everything exactly as you want it.

The "jack of all trades, master of none" thing does sorta apply here though.

Personally, I hate having a team.
You have to rely on the person with the patch, and you can't change something straight away, or re-map\script it without the team approving.

SwiftSign said:

I am currently working on my hack alone, however I am unlikely to be able to do it all (as I can't sprite in the slightest). Maps, Story, Script, are all mine though :).

Click to expand...

Same here, I'm working on a hack all by myself, and the only thing I'm not doing myself is spriting, because I kinda suck at that. Inserting sprites / tiles, mapping, scripting, etc. is all done by me. Also, I think it's better to do something by yourself if you can do it. That means you never have to wait for anyone to finish what they were doing, before you can continue yourself. colcolstyles is right, too, because if someone else does something, it will most likely never be what you expected it to be. If you do everything by yourself, you KNOW what you want it to be like, so you CAN make it the way you want. Other people tend to make it just a little bit different than you want it to, thus making you want to change it so that it becomes like you wanted it to be from the beginning, which means the other person's done their job for naught.

IIMarckus said:

So‐called "hacking teams" are overrated. Being able to make a hack requires an interest in and a dedication to the subject. It is no accident that the projects that stand above all others (e.g. Prism, ShinyGold, RijonAdventures) are powered by exclusively one or two people.

Click to expand...

Ninja Caterpie said:

Hacking teams are overrated. Learn everything and you can do everything exactly as you want it.

The "jack of all trades, master of none" thing does sorta apply here though.

Click to expand...

Well, I don't actually hate teams but I'm more happy being able to learn and do it all by myself.
I see threads for teams only for a single hack, which could be done by around 3 people.
IMO, I would say you learn and experience more if you work for yourself. (And yes, I'm working on a hack by myself)

ЩѻƦḽᶑʂḽдƴƹƦ™ said:

There is a reason that games like Diablo, WOW, and pretty much any game ever developed and mass marketed, was not made by a single person, because it takes a lot of work.
[/CENTER]

Click to expand...

Let me remind you I said "hacking teams".

This is generalised into "Pokemon hacking teams" because this is mostly a Pokemon hacking board. Compare Brown and whatever that one of Rom Reavers with a beta is. Brown is much better. Compare Moonshine and Fenju...actually, that's being obnoxiously self-praising, but yeah...it's just that without a team, you work faster on a hack, as relying on people isn't necessarily fast. And the results are either the same or better.

Ninja Caterpie said:

Let me remind you I said "hacking teams".

This is generalised into "Pokemon hacking teams" because this is mostly a Pokemon hacking board. Compare Brown and whatever that one of Rom Reavers with a beta is. Brown is much better. Compare Moonshine and Fenju...actually, that's being obnoxiously self-praising, but yeah...it's just that without a team, you work faster on a hack, as relying on people isn't necessarily fast. And the results are either the same or better.

Click to expand...

I'd like to add on to my last post.

If you're just beginning as a hacker, join a team. Quite honestly, you're going to be terrible. I was, everyone was. I remember the first team I was on. It was terrible. But I just had so much fun doing it. We never really made anything worthy of posting but the whole experience was truly amazing. So I'd recommend that you find your niche, and join a team with that skill. You most likely won't make anything and most, if not all, of the people on the team will quit eventually and leave the forums. But, I must say that I've never had more fun while hacking. These days, I have to worry about quality and all that crap but back when I was naïve, that didn't matter at all.

BUT, if you're actually trying to make something of worth, then I recommend hacking alone for the reason(s) in my last post.

Aside from my spriter and beta testers, I work alone.

Hmm, iGuess.

iGuess, I sort of have a team.. However, I try do everything by myself. When I need something done, I prefer to do it myself, because I wanna learn. Sometimes, I ask friends, if they would do something for me, like one map, a script.. But thats when Im busy with something else.

I agree hacking teams are overated, but, only lazy people use teams. Fact.
On the other hand, you might not be good at something, then again, you could.. Learn it?

So im half and half, in-between the line.

The other game development things, making pure awesome games from scratch, they require tonnes of effort in every single department, and its rigged-hard to be able to do it all at once by yourself. Plus, I doubt they wait for each other to do everything, then do the next thing.

Hacking requires not-as-much knowledge on each subject to make a good one, and thus one person can learn it all and make a good hack at the same time.

In my experience creating a hack with a team just isn't a good idea. People on this forum just aren't mature enough to work together in a team. While its true that real world things get in the way of hacking if you say you're going to do something you can't use having real world commitments as an excuse for not doing it.

I don't agree with what Ninja Caterpie said about being a "jack of all trades, master of none". Most of the people that are really good at mapping for example are also some of the best scripters. There are situations where you have to rely on others (spriting for example) but I wouldn't consider that being part of the team. Its more like... a commission.

ЩѻƦḽᶑʂḽдƴƹƦ™ said:

There is a reason that games like Diablo, WOW, and pretty much any game ever developed and mass marketed, was not made by a single person, because it takes a lot of work.​

Click to expand...

These games are also made by people who are being paid. I think that explains the success more than anything else.

It is true that hacking teams can be successful. Teams started at Pokécommunity, however, generally are not.

Thrace said:

In my experience creating a hack with a team just isn't a good idea. People on this forum just aren't mature enough to work together in a team. While its true that real world things get in the way of hacking if you say you're going to do something you can't use having real world commitments as an excuse for not doing it.

I don't agree with what Ninja Caterpie said about being a "jack of all trades, master of none". Most of the people that are really good at mapping for example are also some of the best scripters. There are situations where you have to rely on others (spriting for example) but I wouldn't consider that being part of the team. Its more like... a commission.

Click to expand...

You are so right that I think I'll quote you again just for the emphasis.

Thrace said:

In my experience creating a hack with a team just isn't a good idea. People on this forum just aren't mature enough to work together in a team. While its true that real world things get in the way of hacking if you say you're going to do something you can't use having real world commitments as an excuse for not doing it.

I don't agree with what Ninja Caterpie said about being a "jack of all trades, master of none". Most of the people that are really good at mapping for example are also some of the best scripters. There are situations where you have to rely on others (spriting for example) but I wouldn't consider that being part of the team. Its more like... a commission.

Click to expand...