Community Hack [Discussion]

[Darthatron]

I don't feel like there should be some prerequisites to join the group. Simply if you submit something for the hack and it's not good, it won't be used. That's why we need a person, or group of people, who are in charge of final decisions about what is included.

Seeing as this is a community hack, it should be left to the mods or some person/people as voted by our peers.

I personally don't feel like it deserves it's own sub-section. A thread, or maybe even two (one for ideas and one for actual submissions), would more than suffice.

[DrFuji]

NOTE: I've just added a poll to the thread so everybody is free to indicate if they want to get involved or not. If there aren't enough interested voters then this Community Hack idea isn't going to go anywhere because it won't have demonstrated a strong enough initial backing.

Originally Posted by Darthatron

I think you can't answer one question without at least considering the other.

Do we want to remake an official game?
Do we want a completely original story?
Do we want to use an official region?
Do we want to create a new region?
Do we want to add fakemon?
Do we want to have cameos from the series?
Do we want to have a custom pokedex?
Do we want to only use the national dex?
Which game do we want to hack?

But we can't answer any of those if we don't at least have something resembling a community team/ group of leaders who can collaborate and decisively make rulings on these questions. In my mind right now there are three stages to making a hack with such a large and open team prior to doing any actual hacking work:

• Gather people who want to participate or are at least thinking about it
• Assign the leadership positions based on volunteers
• Collectively make decisions on what you've written and other starting ideas

This is just how I've been thinking about everything. While its pretty different to how a normal team forms since the leader has everything sorted out, in this case the members are ones who will be making/ contributing to a lot of decisions rather than the leader laying out their desires. In my mind it wouldn't be right to make these calls before we even have a team since they are in effect the most basic and important decisions to make during the project.

Of course I'm not saying that my idea is perfect or that people agree with it, but its how I personally believe it should begin :D

Originally Posted by Darthatron

I don't feel like there should be some prerequisites to join the group. Simply if you submit something for the hack and it's not good, it won't be used. That's why we need a person, or group of people, who are in charge of final decisions about what is included.

Seeing as this is a community hack, it should be left to the mods or some person/people as voted by our peers.

I agree wholeheartedly with this though :P

People interested in scripting or mapping etc could sign up, be given a job and if it isn't satisfactory then it isn't used - As simple as that. I'm still heavily in favour as using this as a chance to connect newer members with veterans so cutting off new people entirely would kinda destroy that hope as well.

Originally Posted by karatekid552

Last night I had an idea for getting this out there more. You know how there are all of the subcategories of Emulation, such as Rom Hacking, tutorials, etc? Would it be possible to adf a community hack section? We could then link to it like the tutorials are linked to at the top of Rom Hacking.

Just thought I'd throw that out there, I don't know if anyone would go for changing the layout of PC just for one project.

Any new forums/ sub-forums have to submitted to the higher staff so gira and I wouldn't have any control over this. Unless this somehow becomes a colossal forum-wide thing with dozens upon dozens of members begging to join and a guarantee that something would come out at the end of it all I doubt they would do this considering how many forums we already have (but I might be miscalculating their views and intentions entirely :P)

[tajaros]

Yeah, I think so if we were to organize things there should be an exclusive forum or something.

But there will be a sign-up thread for the public and they can go there and sign-up once they're accepted they can go to the forum... :/ Something like the other forum done in their community hack.

And all of the things in the community hack will be kept private or secret or something like that. ;)

The leader should be someone very experienced in hacking and one that could lead the hack to glory! \m/

[machomuu]

Originally Posted by Darthatron

I don't feel like there should be some prerequisites to join the group. Simply if you submit something for the hack and it's not good, it won't be used. That's why we need a person, or group of people, who are in charge of final decisions about what is included.

Seeing as this is a community hack, it should be left to the mods or some person/people as voted by our peers.

I personally don't feel like it deserves it's own sub-section. A thread, or maybe even two (one for ideas and one for actual submissions), would more than suffice.

Well, I'm not saying it needs a new section, just that a good number of people will either ignore or not see this thread due to its location. For instance, except for a few people at the beginning, it's been the exact same people posting. Then again, maybe they'll vote and not post, and that's fine, too.

And I agree about the submissions, which is why I think we should put a few people together to form a Submissions Committee.

[FBI agent]

5 votes in 4 hours :D
Not sure if people aren't seeing this or don't care to vote. The good thing is so far no one says no. By the way, what are you looking for the cut off to get started be? 20 people?

[Noossab Blue]

I think before this really gets off the ground there is going to have to be some behind the scenes work done. The best way I can think to organize it (and I think similar things have already been suggested, forgive me for not reading every single post) is:

1. One overarching leader, call it a president. They honestly don't need as many extreme hacking skills as they need organizational and leadership skills, to keep everyone on track, put out fires, make final decisions, etc, They would need a base knowledge of every facet of hacking, so that they can understand what everyone else is doing, but...

2. A small core team, call it a board, would be experts in their assigned fields (like mapping, scripting, spriting, storyline, asm, etc), and also have a bit of organizational and leadership skills. The leader would organize the board, but defer to them because they are the experts. The board would also be in charge of making decisions like what game? what features should we implement? And then divvying those tasks out to the appropriate groups.

3. Those board members would in turn have teams, call it a committee, where anyone who is interested can participate, assuming they have at least minimal skills. The committee leader would be in charge of assembling their team (have an application, test, or whatever), assigning responsibilities, overseeing production, and making final decisions, which they would then bring to the board to make sure everything fits with the overall hack.

__________

The way I see it, someone needs to take charge as the president, and gather a board around them to make some decisions before this gets public, like what I mentioned above. What game is being hacked (I would personally choose firered, only because I feel it is the most accessible for everyone of different skill levels)? What features should we implement (phy/spe split? Headbutting trees? fakemon? if so how many? should we use a hacked engine? new tile set? which one?)? And I'm sure more...

Once the basics are figured out, the board needs to decide an order of operations. Should storyline be the first thing created? Should they be working in conjunction with the mappers, or give the mappers the story after they're finished? Are fakemon needed for the story? Get the spriters on it. It's very possible that certain committees will have nothing to do for a long while. All the timing should be controlled by the leader/president, letting committees know when and what to get working on based what others are doing. There would probably need to be some documents accessible to everyone, like currently used space, flags being used, etc.

...anyway. Just some thoughts. I honestly think it's an awesome idea, but would basically have to be approached like an actual game is created. And most importantly, the people involved would need to be selfless about the process, not get caught up in whose ideas are used more, etc.

[hinkage]

If everyone wants a leader, then in that case I nominate myself

[FBI agent]

Originally Posted by tajaros

Yeah, I think so if we were to organize things there should be an exclusive forum or something.

But there will be a sign-up thread for the public and they can go there and sign-up once they're accepted they can go to the forum... :/ Something like the other forum done in their community hack.

And all of the things in the community hack will be kept private or secret or something like that.

The leader should be someone very experienced in hacking and one that could lead the hack to glory! \m/

I don't like the "Sign up to see what we're doing" ideology. Anyone on the forum should be able to see what's going on and how far we are. I'd expect we'd get more people as production continues that way. Moreover, we don't really need a whole new forum section for this, maybe just a couple of threads

Originally Posted by Noossab Blue

I think before this really gets off the ground there is going to have to be some behind the scenes work done. The best way I can think to organize it (and I think similar things have already been suggested, forgive me for not reading every single post) is:

1. One overarching leader, call it a president. They honestly don't need as many extreme hacking skills as they need organizational and leadership skills, to keep everyone on track, put out fires, make final decisions, etc, They would need a base knowledge of every facet of hacking, so that they can understand what everyone else is doing, but...

2. A small core team, call it a board, would be experts in their assigned fields (like mapping, scripting, spriting, storyline, asm, etc), and also have a bit of organizational and leadership skills. The leader would organize the board, but defer to them because they are the experts. The board would also be in charge of making decisions like what game? what features should we implement? And then divvying those tasks out to the appropriate groups.

3. Those board members would in turn have teams, call it a committee, where anyone who is interested can participate, assuming they have at least minimal skills. The committee leader would be in charge of assembling their team (have an application, test, or whatever), assigning responsibilities, overseeing production, and making final decisions, which they would then bring to the board to make sure everything fits with the overall hack.

__________

I do agree with this, but take out from #3 a minimal skill requirement. Everyone can participate with no guarantee that what they make will be used if it's not in par with certain standards. That way people can keep trying to add/help but won't be restricted in what they are allowed to do.

The way I see it, someone needs to take charge as the president, and gather a board around them to make some decisions before this gets public, like what I mentioned above. What game is being hacked (I would personally choose firered, only because I feel it is the most accessible for everyone of different skill levels)? What features should we implement (phy/spe split? Headbutting trees? fakemon? if so how many? should we use a hacked engine? new tile set? which one?)? And I'm sure more...

Once the basics are figured out, the board needs to decide an order of operations. Should storyline be the first thing created? Should they be working in conjunction with the mappers, or give the mappers the story after they're finished? Are fakemon needed for the story? Get the spriters on it. It's very possible that certain committees will have nothing to do for a long while. All the timing should be controlled by the leader/president, letting committees know when and what to get working on based what others are doing. There would probably need to be some documents accessible to everyone, like currently used space, flags being used, etc.

...anyway. Just some thoughts. I honestly think it's an awesome idea, but would basically have to be approached like an actual game is created. And most importantly, the people involved would need to be selfless about the process, not get caught up in whose ideas are used more, etc.

The leader(s) electing thing should come after this pole (I think 1 week for the pole is sufficient). After that we can start to discuss some of the more actual hacking issues. I think it's safe to say that we will be using Fire Red, since it's the most popular

Originally Posted by hinkage

If everyone wants a leader, then in that case I nominate myself

You are the first one.
I nominate myself and all who nominate themselves (thus I've effectively gotten myself 2 votes).

Spoiler:

I jk, I'm not a good leader, lol.

[Manipulation]

If you're looking for a leader I'd like to nomination Darthatron.

[tajaros]

Originally Posted by Manipulation

If you're looking for a leader I'd like to nomination Darthatron.

I vote for Darthatron as well. I think he can lead the community hack pretty well.

[Bela]

I like the idea of a community hack. I say Darthatron should be in charge of it as well. =]

I do agree that some sort of vision should be tempered early on before we really do much else; what do you guys think? There seems to be a lot of political talk, would you guys want to make something with that as a theme? =P

[Jim Boob]

I love the idea and think a council is the way to do it, take the 10ish the most distinguished people and have them make a majority vote on major aspects such as story line.

[machomuu]

Originally Posted by Jim Boob

I love the idea and think a council is the way to do it, take the 10ish the most distinguished people and have them make a majority vote on major aspects such as story line.

10? I dunno, that may be too many. Personally, I'd go with around 5, as it's important that we have as few people up top as possible.

Oh, and if he were considering it, I'd also vote Darthatron.

[FBI agent]

I think Dr.Fuji alluded to 20 people being the minimum amount of people needed before we actually consider making this hack (2 more people :D).

For next steps after this poll, I suggest people volunteer themselves to be group leader and we nominate from a list (maybe with a poll again?). After that we can decide on certain section leaders (scripting, mapping, story, general graphics). And finally after that we can decide that we're hacking Fire red and work on whatever needs to be done

Note:
For section leaders, I think that they need to be knowledgeable in their area of expertise. This is the only part in determining the team (and leader ofcourse) where hacker skill should be considered. Maybe we apply for said positions and leader can decide who makes the cut?

[Darthatron]

Thanks for the kind words, guys, but I barely have enough time to work on the handful of little projects I already work on. I highly doubt I can find the time to lead the development of a full hack.

Though, I suppose, if nobody else is willing to do it who you all feel is capable of the task, then I can take the leadership role.

[tajaros]

Originally Posted by FBI agent

I think Dr.Fuji alluded to 20 people being the minimum amount of people needed before we actually consider making this hack (2 more people :D).

For next steps after this poll, I suggest people volunteer themselves to be group leader and we nominate from a list (maybe with a poll again?). After that we can decide on certain section leaders (scripting, mapping, story, general graphics). And finally after that we can decide that we're hacking Fire red and work on whatever needs to be done :)

Note:
For section leaders, I think that they need to be knowledgeable in their area of expertise. This is the only part in determining the team (and leader ofcourse) where hacker skill should be considered. Maybe we apply for said positions and leader can decide who makes the cut?

No, you can only vote once!

Yes, yes I like the idea you apply for the position you want ;)

But first we need that leader.

[machomuu]

Originally Posted by Darthatron

Thanks for the kind words, guys, but I barely have enough time to work on the handful of little projects I already work on. I highly doubt I can find the time to lead the development of a full hack.

Though, I suppose, if nobody else is willing to do it who you all feel is capable of the task, then I can take the leadership role.

Hm...I don't think you should do it out of obligation. If you truly don't have the time, then you don't need to do it; I'm sure someone else might raise their voice.

[NarutoActor]

The only thing I don't like about this "summit your work, if we like it, we will use it, if not - oh well" Is that when I work on a map, lets say, I put my heart and soul into it. I put hours into the smallest detail and if my work would be not used, I would be very upset. Think about it, would you want to work hard on something that may or may not even be used?

[Darthatron]

Originally Posted by NarutoActor

The only thing I don't like about this "summit your work, if we like it, we will use it, if not - oh well" Is that when I work on a map, lets say, I put my heart and soul into it. I put hours into the smallest detail and if my work would be not used, I would be very upset. Think about it, would you want to work hard on something that may or may not even be used?

I was thinking more of "this is what's wrong with it" rather than "this is worthless". If the mapper is happy to make changes, I don't see why it couldn't be worked out.

Honestly, if someone has the opinion that their work is fantastic and can't take the constructive criticism and make changes accordingly, then they shouldn't be submitting anything for the hack.

In the real world if something isn't right from the person who holds the powers point of view, then it won't be used and you won't get paid.

There needs to be some standard, otherwise it would be all over the place.

[Jim Boob]

Originally Posted by NarutoActor

The only thing I don't like about this "summit your work, if we like it, we will use it, if not - oh well" Is that when I work on a map, lets say, I put my heart and soul into it. I put hours into the smallest detail and if my work would be not used, I would be very upset. Think about it, would you want to work hard on something that may or may not even be used?

If your the sort of person that puts that much effort into a map it's hard to imagine you creating a peice of work that would not be used, and on the off chance it isn't as long as reasons and constructive criticism are provided it would not be to disappointing. As long as people's work is not simply rejected.

[FBI agent]

Originally Posted by Darthatron

I was thinking more of "this is what's wrong with it" rather than "this is worthless". If the mapper is happy to make changes, I don't see why it couldn't be worked out.

Honestly, if someone has the opinion that their work is fantastic and can't take the constructive criticism and make changes accordingly, then they shouldn't be submitting anything for the hack.

In the real world if something isn't right from the person who holds the powers point of view, then it won't be used and you won't get paid.

There needs to be some standard, otherwise it would be all over the place.

Lead us please, oh wise and experienced one.

We almost got 20 people looking at working on this, no one has said no either. Lookin' good in my opinion.

Also, when we do get this going, will we be communicating through a thread? That can get a little spammy. Maybe a chatting program? We can post the chat logs on here or something.

[miksy91]

A suggestion here

There is only a small amount of people with the required knowledge interesting in to participate in the prioject. Also it's more than likely that some of them quit during the process. And newbies would be totally useless to have in the project if they were to do more than draw maps, graphics or similar.

Then again, how about making one team member being a private tutor for ones interested in helping out? If a newbie would like to help out with the process, s/he would be qualified by "taking lessons" from this private tutor of the team. This tutor wouldn't even have to do a whole lot; pointing out interesting articles, showing examples and that way make the newbie learn enough to be able to actually help out.

I mean, if I was the project leader, I sure wouldn't want anyone doing any type of rom hacking and I don't consider spriting "hacking", it has never had to do anything about it without being able to trust that they do their job well, without re-writing some of the in-game code (or modifications made by other team members) leading into glitches.

Besides, what's the point of letting a person without the desire to learn participate in the project? One not even a least bit interested to learn shouldn't be creating rom hacks in the first place.

[SchokoInc]

Well i don't know if there is any "free space" left in the team but i would really like to participate :) I'm not that specialized in mapping though :( but i really like being creative with pokémon/attacks so if pokémon/attacks from other generations or even custom (I'm not that good at spriting sadly) i would really like to help :) Also I really like animating custom or gen VI/V attacks and would also do this :)

[hinkage]

Originally Posted by miksy91

A suggestion here

There is only a small amount of people with the required knowledge interesting in to participate in the prioject. Also it's more than likely that some of them quit during the process. And newbies would be totally useless to have in the project if they were to do more than draw maps, graphics or similar.

Then again, how about making one team member being a private tutor for ones interested in helping out? If a newbie would like to help out with the process, s/he would be qualified by "taking lessons" from this private tutor of the team. This tutor wouldn't even have to do a whole lot; pointing out interesting articles, showing examples and that way make the newbie learn enough to be able to actually help out.

I mean, if I was the project leader, I sure wouldn't want anyone doing any type of rom hacking and I don't consider spriting "hacking", it has never had to do anything about it without being able to trust that they do their job well, without re-writing some of the in-game code (or modifications made by other team members) leading into glitches.

Besides, what's the point of letting a person without the desire to learn participate in the project? One not even a least bit interested to learn shouldn't be creating rom hacks in the first place.

No, no tutoring. If people want to learn they can do it on their own time. Having to teach someone how to program/map/whatever will only take up more time, be more disorganized, and isn't really fair to everyone else because statistically speaking, the beginner's quality will not be as good.

--------

Also, here's what we have to do before even starting, imo:
1. Agree on one solid leader (DARTHATRON PLS ;-;)
2. Choose categorical leaders -- someone like Chaos Rush would be great for graphics, or Gira for music, for example. Maybe we don't even need this. A better idea may even be that there's one leader/coordinator, and everyone else works in pairs for a certain category, sharing the burden.
3. Get some sort of chat so people can communicate more easily. Skype would be best, but there's also AIM or Xat (an internet chat, you don't have to download anything. It can be made private).

But you know, if people like Darthatron/Chaos/Gira don't want to/can't do it, I'm not sure the quality of the hack will be that great. If people are serious about this, then we definitely want all good people, or else the bad will drag everyone else down. Harsh, yeah, but true.

[masterquestmq]

Originally Posted by Darthatron

This.

But if we do decide on a Dictatorship, I shotgun the role of Dictator.

I suggest we allow anyone to suggest ideas, some sort of council who decides on which ideas should (if actually viable) be voted on, and then allow the masses to vote "yay" or "nay".

That said, I still don't like the idea of a community hack. Though, I suppose, if there is enough support I would work on it.

Man I actually wanted the dictator post.... sigh...

Anyways... the fact that the idea is out there is soo absurd that it might just work
In the words of Albert Einstein 'If at first an idea does not sound absurd then there is no hope to it'

that being said if you ever need an extra scripter I'd be happy to offer my services....