Well, I'm sure alot of people would like to hear my story on how I started to get the interest in ROM Hacking, correct?
Well, it all started back in December 2007, when I first discovered a Pokémon FireRed ROM Hack called
"Pokémon Shiny Gold", it was a ROM hack made by a ROM Hacker named Carlos (Zel's real name)... as we all knew him under the username "Zel" (or Zel 2.0 as of now). He however... faded away into history in April 2009 for some reasons which we do not know. I got into using AdvanceMap by January 2008, which was when I started fooling around with Pokémon Shiny Gold back then, I was always about fooling around with it for months. I never even posted until April 1st, then one day sometime in April, I met my first ever friend online, his username was "chimchar9", as I knew him later on as his name was Kyle.
It's amazing how quickly things changed, isn't it? I started thinking about creating a hack called Pokémon Dimentions of Time. I started a bit on it, nowadays... I'm thinking about making the hack even more better... so it makes it feel as if it's a totally different game. And 2008 was also the time when I got interested in hacking Pokémon Diamond/Pearl, as I noticed that Pokémon Platinum was also on it's way to being released in Japan. I was also discovering on Pokémon Platinum how the maps had some graphical improvements. I was hoping for the first ever map editor for the 4th generation... however it was never made, as even today it hasn't been made yet. As I did make some discoveries of the 4th generation's mapping engine, like for instance... the normal maps are all placed on one whole world map adjusted to the squares of the Town Map, but first maps wern't however displayed on the Town map. But then it wasn't long before I started coming on The PokéCommunity forums less often than I normally did. Ever since the discovery of The PokéCosmo Community forums, I got too attached to it, which then later I got onto a chat site called xat (which I'm still on even today).
Then it was 2009, I still didn't come on PC very much. I still was attached to the chat site called xat, and during that year, I didn't do hardly any ROM Hacking in that year. As the English Pokémon Platinum came out in the US and worldwide (including the country I live in, Australia). Then it wasn't long before Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver got announced. Finally! There was official Gold/Silver remakes as speculated for the Nintendo DS, except they wern't called "DawnGold" or "DuskSilver" as what people were thinking they would be. Once HeartGold/SoulSilver were released in Japan, I started having a look around using the Walk Through Walls code. I found out that the unknown maps in HeartGold/SoulSilver wern't called "Mystery Zone", they were called "-----------" instead. But the maps were made just like the previous installments, they used the same "maps everywhere based on the Map Card (Town Map)" style. Since I was too addicted to the xat chats, I didn't do much in the way of ROM Hacking. So therefore... it came to 2010... and that's when I started gradually getting back into ROM Hacking. I was more interested in hacking the 4th generation more than the 3rd, more of the fact that it had 3D graphics. Because... doesn't it get boring when having to hack the 3rd generation and lower all the time? Well it does for me (even though I hadn't made a hack yet). xD
Then two 5th generation games were announced for the Nintendo DS, as I thought at that time that it might be for the 3DS, but as soon as I read about that it was for the DS, then I realized. So then Pokémon Black/White was announced for the Nintendo DS, I then realized later that it had DSi enhanced capibilities (using the DSi camera). I was also quite interested in the 3D battle scene graphics. As then HeartGold and SoulSilver were released in the US, then all other countries later on, then as I was thinking that Pokémon Black/White was going to be using the same engine as the 4th generation, 'twas only when Black/White got released... I realized the mapping engine was different from the 4th, as I realized that the maps on Pokémon Black/White used a mixture of 3rd and 4th generation mapping engines, the 3rd generation side was the "unable to go outside the boundries of a map" thing, which was of course blocked off by an invisible wall. As for the 4th generation side of the 5th generation mapping engine was the 3D graphics, no map connection codes, and the fixed map size of 25x25 blocks. Now as the 5th generation comes by... the 5th generation mapping engine introduces what I call the "map groupings", because unlike the 4th generation... the maps are not placed on one whole big map. Because the map groupings contain all the textures and objects for the map grouping unlike the 4th generation has all the different maps with the textures and objects, and unlike the 4th generation... they have their objects and textures assigned to it, but in the 4th generation, you can go into a map with different objects and textures and they won't appear because the textures and objects don't change automatically. Nether would the 5th generation if it was possible, but the map groupings would indeed sepparate the problems of it happening. So yeah, you can't go outside the boundries of a map grouping in the 5th generation.
Nowadays... I'm actually looking into getting Visual Studio so that I can try to attempt to create an editor that will the map layout, along with of course an editor for editing models for the 5th generation. Since I've realized now that someone is already creating a map editor for the 4th generation, I've decided to work on conquering the 5th generation. And that way... we will catch up to Nintendo! Aww yeah! :D
And that's my story on how I discovered and my evolution as a ROM Hacker, as I'm now someone who's looking forward into conquering the 5th generation. ;)