Chit-Chat: ROM Hacking Daily Chit Chat

[Mana1]

Using Mind Reader like that would be cool, seems like a better alternative than weird devices that let you talk to Pokemon.

I'm planning on using Thief as a field move at some point, although it'll need an OW/specific tile.

 

[Spherical Ice]

What do you guys think are some cool field moves to have? Try to think of ones which don't require interaction with an overworld to work (i.e Rock Smash).

Using Thunder when it's just raining could make it start to thunder, as well as other weather moves doing their thang (like how you did the Sunny Day one).

 

[Blah]

EDIT: I forgot to quote Christos
@Christos: Sounds pretty cool actually :o

Using Thunder when it's just raining could make it start to thunder, as well as other weather moves doing their thang (like how you did the Sunny Day one).

Yeah, I actually already did this. I also put in a little "dance" animation for rain dance :3

I've managed to modify the thing to work off of scripts, so you no longer need to write your own routine for each field move, you can write scripts :D
I'll release it in 1 months time, in return, gief me ideas :X

Currently I'm working on:
- Earthquake (destroys all rocksmash rocks on the map)
- Substitute (summons a substitute rock infront of you, you can use this to "dodge" trainer battles)

 

[Percy]

Currently I'm working on:
- (Earthquake (destroys all rocksmash rocks on the map)

That's quite interesting to see. I can't wait for the video. (If you're gonna post one)

 

[Sefuree]

EDIT: I forgot to quote Christos
@Christos: Sounds pretty cool actually :o



Yeah, I actually already did this. I also put in a little "dance" animation for rain dance :3

I've managed to modify the thing to work off of scripts, so you no longer need to write your own routine for each field move, you can write scripts :D
I'll release it in 1 months time, in return, gief me ideas :X

Currently I'm working on:
- Earthquake (destroys all rocksmash rocks on the map)
- Substitute (summons a substitute rock infront of you, you can use this to "dodge" trainer battles)

That's sounds really awesome! Can't wait!

Are you implementing this into your team hack?

 

[Blah]

That's quite interesting to see. I can't wait for the video. (If you're gonna post one)

Maybe I will. I'm still trying to figure out a way of playing the "crumble" animation on all of them (I'm not sure if it's possible atm, probably is though).

That's sounds really awesome! Can't wait!

Are you implementing this into your team hack?

Yeah, we're out to win this thing :P

 

[Sefuree]

Maybe I will. I'm still trying to figure out a way of playing the "crumble" animation on all of them (I'm not sure if it's possible atm, probably is though).



Yeah, we're out to win this thing :P

Can't wait to see it in action!

 

[Blah]

I finished most of the Field moves I wanted to do. I'm thinking of doing something that would mimic repel's effects, but I'm not sure what move to use. Here's a vid of some of the ones I got done so far.



Also, does anyone actually read my ASM tutorials or am I just wasting my time? :o
I've added 2 more beginner ones in hopes of having more people actually be able to do the harder ones. Currently I'm deciding what to do for the tutorial past "intermediate" level. Any ideas?

 

[Jcomas]

need help please!

I'm a newbie to playing the rom hacks and I figured I'd start off playing the rom that won the award for 2014, Pokemon Glazed. I liked it a lot it was fun, I thought the world was great. But on the other hand, I felt like it was too easy and I got bored in parts. I'm ready for my next game but I wanted to ask all you experienced players for help, I'm looking for the hardest hacks (I like a challenge) meets the hacks with the best stories. I read a lot of forums and I have it down to pokemon ruby destiny Reign of Legends and Dark Rising.

Please tell me which hack has the better story, difficulty, and of course which in your opinion is better? - Oh and I'm aware there is DR 2 and that ruby destiny has 3 or 4 games...do they all have good stories and are challenging? Should I just start with dark rising 2 or the last installments of ruby destiny or is it way more fun to start from the beginning because the story matches up?

Sorry about the hurricane of questions I just want to make sure I play the best game I can!! All input and opinions are welcome and valued thanks in advance. P.S. If there are other hacks you think I should play instead let me know! (Light Platinum, Liquid Crystal, Flora Sky, Ashgrey, etc I see get lots of recognition but like I said I'm looking for difficulty and a GREAT story). Thanks for helping a newbb!!!

 

[chrunch]

I'm a newbie to playing the rom hacks and I figured I'd start off playing the rom that won the award for 2014, Pokemon Glazed. I liked it a lot it was fun, I thought the world was great. But on the other hand, I felt like it was too easy and I got bored in parts. I'm ready for my next game but I wanted to ask all you experienced players for help, I'm looking for the hardest hacks (I like a challenge) meets the hacks with the best stories. I read a lot of forums and I have it down to pokemon ruby destiny Reign of Legends and Dark Rising.

Please tell me which hack has the better story, difficulty, and of course which in your opinion is better? - Oh and I'm aware there is DR 2 and that ruby destiny has 3 or 4 games...do they all have good stories and are challenging? Should I just start with dark rising 2 or the last installments of ruby destiny or is it way more fun to start from the beginning because the story matches up?

Sorry about the hurricane of questions I just want to make sure I play the best game I can!! All input and opinions are welcome and valued thanks in advance. P.S. If there are other hacks you think I should play instead let me know! (Light Platinum, Liquid Crystal, Flora Sky, Ashgrey, etc I see get lots of recognition but like I said I'm looking for difficulty and a GREAT story). Thanks for helping a newbb!!!

If you're just choosing out of those 2 I'd go for the ruby destiny series, personally I don't like DR at all. Just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's fun, there are much better ways of increasing difficulty than just bumping up trainer levels. Anyone can do that in their hack, it just makes it tedious.

 

[Gamecube]

I've played many hacks on this forum (and that's why I finally decided to take up hacking myself) and as far as I can tell, the ruby destiny series are more fun, more bug-free and more pretty in design than the dark rising games. If I were you, I would nevertheless play both of the games, because every creator puts a lot of effort and time into their hack and should therefore be honored! :-)

 

[Deokishisu]

I wish this thread had some basic rules to regulate the conversation instead of being the go-to place to ask what the "best" hacks are, or what things are. It seems that everytime a decent topic is proposed, within two posts some noob with seven total posts asks what's the best ROM to hack with or what hack he or she should play first and derails what could've been a constructive and thought-provoking discussion. I mean, it's not like we constantly have threads being posted that ask and answer every question a noobie could possibly ask if they were to just look around instead of posting in the first thread they see. And even if we didn't, did no one look up and see the Beginner's Lounge? Y'know, the forum that common sense would dictate is the most appropriate place for a beginner to go for help?

Is it too much to ask to have a relevant and intelligent conversation in the daily chit-chat thread? Maybe something about game design or theory that pertains to Pokemon that we could ponder over? Anything from level balance to learnsets to how quickly the hacker hands out badges? Plot pacing, game mechanics, anything! Either way, it doesn't really matter. I could propose a topic, but someone will inevitably ask what a flag is within three posts and that will become the new conversation piece.

 

[destinedjagold]

I wish this thread had some basic rules to regulate the conversation instead of being the go-to place to ask what the "best" hacks are, or what things are.
...
Did no one look up and see the Beginner's Lounge? Y'know, the forum that common sense would dictate is the most appropriate place for a beginner to go for help?

If "common sense" made them ignore that section, I doubt they'll bother reading the first post of this thread. They'll simply go straight down to the message box and type their question/inquiry and post. Fin~ :3

 

[Blah]

Since we're on the topic of noobs, what do you think about the current noob entrance scene? Do you think PC has enough accessible tools/resources for people to learn? What do you think are the cause of these low level questions?

Recently, (actually for a while now) I get messages via PM and sometimes VM of someone asking me to do things for their hacks. Most of the time these things are trivial like scripts, but sometimes it's other things. I'm normally fine with someone asking me general questions, and then perhaps seeking help as to how to do things which aren't covered in tutorials. The things that I don't like are stuff like, "Hey can you do X for my hack please?". I once declined someone, and they went and took offence to it, calling me unhelpful/poor attitude ect.

At any rate, I think that just a quick Google search or even a search on PC of the area of the issue would solve the problem. Literally all they have to do is type in "XSE Scripting tutorial" or "Advance map Tutorial" or "How make a titlescreen in FireRed". While this seems very trivial to you and I, I'm feeling like most people don't realize this. Surely Googling something is easier than making a thread right?

I think part of this is because the tutorials/resources section isn't archived in a readable manner. There's like 30 unrelated threads per page, and the only way to find anything is to use the search (which obviously noobs are having trouble using as it is). I think this will be solved if the section was archived by subject or perhaps have a regularly updated thread with links to every tutorial in there sorted by subject.
Something like:

Scripting tutorials
- list all tools related
- list all maybe tuts in spoilers

Mapping tutorials
- list all tools related
- list all maybe tuts in spoilers

Graphical editing
- list all tools related
- list all maybe tuts in spoilers

ASM
- list all tools related
- list all maybe tuts in spoilers

Obviously, it would need more sections as we keep realizing that there's a lot of content out there. But something like this would make "browsing" that section much easier. Anyways, what's your opinion? (sorry for noobs for calling you guys noobs, work hard to get out of my noobdar I suppose :P ).

 

[Deokishisu]

Since we're on the topic of noobs, what do you think about the current noob entrance scene? Do you think PC has enough accessible tools/resources for people to learn? What do you think are the cause of these low level questions?

Recently, (actually for a while now) I get messages via PM and sometimes VM of someone asking me to do things for their hacks. Most of the time these things are trivial like scripts, but sometimes it's other things. I'm normally fine with someone asking me general questions, and then perhaps seeking help as to how to do things which aren't covered in tutorials. The things that I don't like are stuff like, "Hey can you do X for my hack please?". I once declined someone, and they went and took offence to it, calling me unhelpful/poor attitude ect.

At any rate, I think that just a quick Google search or even a search on PC of the area of the issue would solve the problem. Literally all they have to do is type in "XSE Scripting tutorial" or "Advance map Tutorial" or "How make a titlescreen in FireRed". While this seems very trivial to you and I, I'm feeling like most people don't realize this. Surely Googling something is easier than making a thread right?

I think part of this is because the tutorials/resources section isn't archived in a readable manner. There's like 30 unrelated threads per page, and the only way to find anything is to use the search (which obviously noobs are having trouble using as it is). I think this will be solved if the section was archived by subject or perhaps have a regularly updated thread with links to every tutorial in there sorted by subject.
...

A "READ THIS FIRST" Thread that's stickied in every ROMHacking section that links to basic tutorials and explains terminology would go a long way, in my opinion. Scripting isn't hard if you just read diegoisawesome's tutorial and take a look at scripts that are already in the ROM. The problem is that people give up way too soon instead of getting their hands dirty with things that challenge them.

I remember my noob days, and the scene was MUCH less inviting than it is now. That was nearly 9 years ago. I've gotten exponentially better in the years I've been hacking on-and-off. But I taught myself with the resources we had available at the time (heck, I learned 2 other early scripting languages [ScriptED and PokeScript] before XSE happened. I'm THAT OLD). Really, scripting and mapping is all you need to make an entirely original hack. If you can learn how to do those two things, you'll be golden. With your tutorials, I plan to learn ASM in the near future. I don't expect to be particularly good at it, but I'll keep trying until I can piece some Frankenstein-monster-esque code together myself that does what I want. It doesn't really matter if you can do something well, as long as your "solution" (read:workaround) looks okay to the players. Also, while I personally think that the irc is incredibly convenient for helping people, that help is done away from prying eyes and never makes it back to PC. That reality doesn't help the average hacker. If something is discovered in the irc, or someone is helped there, that information NEEDS to make it back to the public forums. Who knows how much valuable help, how many helpful discoveries, have gone unarchived?

The things I remember REALLY having trouble grasping when I first started out were the concepts of certain things. The concepts behind the offsets used in scripting, the concepts behind pointers, the concepts of aligned offsets, that sort of thing. It seems that THAT is one of the few things that we don't have tutorials explaining.

Hell, I think I might write up a "READ THIS FIRST" Thread that links to the major tutorials and explains terminology sometime today. I'd prefer not to, because I don't want to be bombarded with questions, but it's better than wading through the barrage of simple questions that are asked without searching first. At least people will be able to direct everyone to one master thread.

 

[miksy91]

The things I remember REALLY having trouble grasping when I first started out were the concepts of certain things. The concepts behind the offsets used in scripting, the concepts behind pointers, the concepts of aligned offsets, that sort of thing. It seems that THAT is one of the few things that we don't have tutorials explaining.

Rom hacking scene should totally be more centered around the part that "makes it rom hacking". Anyone can learn how to play around with an editor and replace some numbers in boxes the editor shows and click save button. I used to be one of these guys too but since I wanted to hack GSC, we didn't have adequate tools for even basic scripting without understanding some hardware specifics (like pointers consisting of 2 bytes (in Gameboy) and them being used to pointing to small pieces of rom (= banks) instead of total rom area used by the game, and such).

Since the situation is different for hacking FrLg or RSE, hardly anyone that comes to the scene learns these things. That's also the main reason they're not described clearly either.

I had a feeling I was replying to something with the following part but not sure what it was...
One thing that comes to "stuff that happens in the background" (like, what really happens when the map is being loaded? Or, what happens when you push "left arrow" button to take a step?), it's not all even about understanding "asm". There are indeed lots of asm routines that are run in the background that create all the functionality (like player moving around in the map, its moving graphics being shown while moving etc.) but apart from all that, only some rom hackers have for example heard about "interrupts", and how to possibly use them in implementing some new functionalities.
I personally happened to create a pretty simple routine for Gold/Silver that replaces the graphic tiles of a person with 00's, making the person transparent. This allows "moving the camera" by making the camera follow that character, and moving it around (and so its sprite cannot be seen). When testing this with VBA, the functionality worked just fine in the game but by playing the game with other Gameboy emulators, it did not. This is because VBA tries to emulate a Gameboy system, but in terms of interrupt handling when writing graphics to the screen to be displayed, it doesn't work the way a normal Gameboy does. So there was a bug (which I really didn't know how to fix apart from a simple idea, but got the solution from a wiser guy).

But yeah - there is really SO MUCH you can do except apart from just scripts of the original game. The more complicated stuff you want to achieve, the more obstacles will be there in the way but that's what rom hacking is about either way; facing new challenges and overcoming them.

 

[Deokishisu]

Rom hacking scene should totally be more centered around the part that "makes it rom hacking". Anyone can learn how to play around with an editor and replace some numbers in boxes the editor shows and click save button.

...

Since the situation is different for hacking FrLg or RSE, hardly anyone that comes to the scene learns these things. That's also the main reason they're not described clearly either.

I agree with you to an extent. I would argue (for GBA hacks) that the beginner has no need to know how things work. They just need to know how to use a few tools and they're fine. I doubt the average hacker needs to have a firm grasp on the behind-the-scenes workings either. But if a hacker wants to make something groundbreaking, or at the very least have a feature that is out of the base ROM's scope, they'll need to learn it. I'd argue that if you have a grasp on the concept of these things and how to use them, you're leaps and bounds ahead of the average hacker today. It seems to me that there are shelves that hackers sit on, and it's hard to move from one shelf to the next. I think that the concept of those things and the know-how to use them is the barrier between the average hacker shelf and the good hacker shelf.

In other news, I've written that READ THIS FIRST thread I had mentioned. I'm excited to hear some feedback. Here is the link. Tear it apart guys! Your criticism sustains... me...

 

[AceRoku]

When I first started making maps and stuff, there have been no tools listed, I was like "wtf are they talking about" then I found some other tutorials with tools listed on them. It's just a matter of research and enthusiasm.

 

[elcaptino]

anyone up for a chat i got a nice story to discuss

 

[daniilS]

anyone up for a chat i got a nice story to discuss

Click the chat link in my sig