[Other] How do people become great hackers?

[ThrowtheHammer]

First post!. Anyway, I really want to know how great hackers who make these wonderful tools (advancedmap, free space finder, etc) get to that level of skill. How do they get the knowledge and skill needed to modify the game engine, make programs that can interact with a ROM, asm hack, and so on.

The reason I ask is because I want to get to that level of skill. I'm hoping that by asking someone could point me in the right direction with documentation or really anything.

 

[Danny0317]

First post!. Anyway, I really want to know how great hackers who make these wonderful tools (advancedmap, free space finder, etc) get to that level of skill. How do they get the knowledge and skill needed to modify the game engine, make programs that can interact with a ROM, asm hack, and so on.

The reason I ask is because I want to get to that level of skill. I'm hoping that by asking someone could point me in the right direction with documentation or really anything.

One word: experience.
I in no way claim to be a "great hacker" but in my opinion, the only true way of learning is through experience.

 

[DJTiki]

If you are looking for awesome things, to help modify the engine, I'd look to the gbatek. Google it and be amazed. Also like Dark said, it's all experience and sheer motivation.

Unless you are GoGoJJTech, in that case, you are perfect.

 

[Chronosplit]

Being great is possible, though I'm definitely not. Here's how you can do it:

1. Experience. Read and do what's said in the tutorials. Attempt to apply these ideas to other things. Learn how things work and break your ROM many times. Laugh at the crazy stuff you can do or accidentally did.

2. Learn how to use a hex editor and possibly some ASM. Learn where the freespace is manually and how pointers work. Tools (though in this hacking scene they are AMAZING compared to to others) can't do everything unfortunately, and some of the big things like the BW2 repel system and adding new moves outright require it.

3. Remember that you're going to be doing a lot of monotonous and tedious work over and over if you're planning on a big project. To be blunt hacking isn't what they make it look like on television. It pays off, but there's a reason why so many projects are left incomplete. I'm not trying to scare you out of it or anything, just know what you're in for if you go beyond the rather nice tools we have.

 

[PhantomFrost]

Honestly, read a tutorial, try and do it. re-read a tutorial, try and do it. read that tutorial again and friggin try and do it. Finally accomplish something. Move on to another basic tutorial and try and do it. Eventually, you figure it out after rereading the same thing a thousand times and trial and error. Not gonna lie ive quit a hundred times before I finally got what I wanted. it takes tenacity and problem solving.