Chit-Chat: ROM Hacking Daily Chit Chat

[Quinhas]

Because obviously, delaying and replacing are the same exact things.

Also just as another small point, if we had a discussion about all of this before I don't think people would be as mad or disgusted as they are now. But screw that right? "Might as well explain to the community about the situation after people complain about it"

Now, let's go over what you mean by fresh releases. The funniest thing about this is that there have been so many hacks that have been released in 2016 that are clearly eligible (Korosu, Giratina Strikes Back, Rocket Edition, Stunning Steel, and if we're gonna be really recent, Sweet 2th, there are more but I already feel disgusting doing the work of digging through hacks for you), but I guess they all just are not "fresh" enough.

Sure it's likely Adventure Red would be nominated because of the huge fan base it has, but for Eclipse I could see it easily not be nominated because there haven't been any satisfying updates in 2016. Hacks that would be eligible in 2016 could even replace Adventure Red and Eclipse as nominations, but I guess we won't really know.

Or, if we're going to do this a scummy way, let's just wait for Rose to come out and do the HOTY then, because obvious winner is obvious.

Eclipse I undstand ur argument but adventures red as release something new this here with new and improved tiles absolutely amazing it was a demo of beta 12.

 

[Blah]

No dude. No one is trying to take away from a single hack or anything. The people who have wrote here have been writing about the format in which the competition is held in. While some of us have been more agitated than others, I assure you no one is out to get adventure red.

 

[Quinhas]

I'm sorry for the agitation but that other gay was well out of line the way he spoke.

 

[Deokishisu]

I feel kind of sorry for you.
Freedom of speech do you know what it means?

Wen the president of a team or even a country is voted to win it is not voted by four or five persons neither is voted just by reach or poor people or just by the ones that study more than others

Every one that have played most of the hacks in here should be able to vote in totally agree with the staff only this way we find a fair winner

Freedom of speech does not enter into the equation. Even so, some speech is clearly more valuable than others. In the previous process, everyone had a chance to vote to nominate the hacks, and the people who were actually qualified to judge had the final say. Do you think that all awards should be done by popular vote? That we should allow such awards to be manipulated by people who are less than neutral?

Why are you more than anybody else here? We all equal and maybe the people of dissing are more qualified than u and have higher IQ than you, or at least that your showing with your comments

IQ doesn't enter into the equation. It's about experience and neutrality, which the judges are specifically chosen to provide. I'm not saying that I'm better than anyone else here, but I know my stuff, and know that I could be neutral when judging the quality of a hack. Do you truly believe that the only measure of quality is how big your fanbase is? Because that is what this contest is measuring. I'm not dissing anyone, it just so happened that your post was the perfect illustration of what I was trying to convey. If you'd like to argue that it was not, I'm all ears.

It was clear that everyone was allow to vote for any hack they wanted as long as they were in the correct category, the moaning here is the pain ofor the hack it choose to vote for and the argument is childish it seams to me that some people are some how scared they hacks are not good enough sow they feel the need to complain and cry about others decision it's attitudes like that that made good hackers leave this community.

Last year it was a joke the way hacks were elected the way things are this year it's impossible to have corruption it's fair and square and that's what some people can't stand...

No one cares what hacks are eligible to vote, as long as it's had a release sometime this past year. Literally no one is "moaning" about that. No one is "scared" that their hacks aren't good enough to get in. This contest clearly isn't measuring how good a hack is. That is the problem. I don't have a hack out to the public (as you seem to be directing this line of thought toward me), though I am far enough along that I could release a beta and be eligible to run. But I want my hack to be good, so I am waiting until I'm mostly done and have polished it. You won't be seeing 12 betas from me. Name me a good hacker that has left the community as a direct or an indirect result of how HotY has been structured. Don't just name, give a direct post that indicated their disapproval and ensure that that disapproval was actually valid. You won't be able to.

How was the way the hacks were elected a "joke", in your opinion, anyway? You assert that their elections were invalid, yet don't explain your reasoning. I would like to hear it. And you are flat out, objectively wrong about it being impossible to have corruption with the current hack awards. In the post that I originally quoted you in, I laid out several ways that the votes could easily be tampered with. There are more than just those.

Eclipse I undstand ur argument but adventures red as release something new this here with new and improved tiles absolutely amazing it was a demo of beta 12.

New and improved tiles. Hooray. There's more to hacks than their graphical appeal.

I'm sorry for the agitation but that other gay was well out of line the way he spoke.

(Emphasis added by me, because I thought this typo was hilarious. At least, I hope it was a typo.)
You're only half right, my friend! I would bring up a "freedom of speech" defense to justify my apparently "out of line" speech, but I'd hate to throw your weak arguments back at you.

After we made the decision to not run HotY we decided we needed to run something for you guys, and this is what we came up with. It's pretty much an opposite setup to the regimented HotY and is purely for fun, the awards aren't really meant to show what is the best of the best in the same way HotY. Is this a popularity contest? Yes. This is exactly what we have aimed for this year. Yes, HotY is a tradition here but I don't feel we should run what likely be a 2015 repeat in 2016 purely because of tradition. I want to wait until hacks have grow and we can run a full-fledged fresh HotY.

I hope I made sense and I hope we can reach a happy medium.

I appreciate the communication, although doing so after-the-fact was still the wrong move by the mod team in my opinion. If you want these "for-fun" awards to remain that way, or have any sense of integrity, the mods need to put immediate restrictions on who can vote. Here are my suggestions:

1. No account with a join date younger than November 1st, 2016 should be eligible to vote. This will prevent brigading from people who are not part of our community and existing members making new accounts just to vote. Perhaps a minimum post count should be instated as well, but that's just a thought that may not be entirely necessary.

2. People can not vote for the same hack in more than x categories, x being a reasonable limit that is set at the mod team's discretion. We need to encourage people to play more than one or two hacks before they cast their votes, and I believe forcing them to spread their consideration across their favorites is the best way to do that. This will also make people really think before casting their votes in certain categories (hopefully making their individual votes more meaningful), and makes brigading more difficult to coordinate. It is also more fair to hacks that don't have massive (perhaps undeservedly so) fanbases.

3. The hack in question needs to have had a release from this year (or from the date of the last HotY). This is pretty self explanatory.

4. I think judges should be appointed anyway for this contest, but they should do a write up on the final winners on each category, explaining their opinions on what the community has chosen. They should have no bearing on the final contest (as this is purely a popularity contest, by the mod team's own admission), but should be there to offer a veteran perspective on the winners.

5. Rename the damn contest. It should be more clear that this is not as serious as, nor a replacement for, HotY. If this is just for funsies, then the awards should not appear to carry the weight that the first post is implying that they do.

We're replacing this year's Hack of the Year competition to have the community pick its own best and favourite hacks at the PokéCommunity Hack Awards!

It should not say that it's replacing HotY, and should not mention "best", as this is not what the contest is measuring. "Fan favorites" or "most popular" are better descriptors.

Next time, please communicate more clearly before things like this are rushed out. You could've had the feedback and fixed the glaring problems with brigading and vote manipulation before the contest opened, and not during it. You guys are a great team, but as Spherical said, you're human and you can miss stuff. Opening up these decisions to the broader community is the way to cover your blind spots, so to speak. You know that I'll speak up, at least!

EDIT: Also, some of these categories should require some explanation accompanying their votes. Specifically best event and best custom NPC. Again, the "best" in all of these categories is problematic because the contest isn't measuring the best of anything, but those two categories should definitely require some explanation with the votes. Like, I could say: "Best Event: Gaia for the Bug Catching Contest." "Best Custom NPC: Hackname for the NPC that dances with you in City". Something like that.

 

[Crizzle]

1. No account with a join date younger than November 1st, 2016 should be eligible to vote. This will prevent brigading from people who are not part of our community and existing members making new accounts just to vote. Perhaps a minimum post count should be instated as well, but that's just a thought that may not be entirely necessary.

4. I think judges should be appointed anyway for this contest, but they should do a write up on the final winners on each category, explaining their opinions on what the community has chosen. They should have no bearing on the final contest (as this is purely a popularity contest, by the mod team's own admission), but should be there to offer a veteran perspective on the winners.

These 2 ideas are pretty good ideas. 1 is just common sense to deter cheating. And 4 would be interesting, as it would be fun to see what veteran judges would say about the winners. Sometimes there's some sort of divide between popular opinion and the opinions of more seasoned experts.

I personally have no problem with the awards. It's not as serious as Hack of the Year and that's a good thing. Hopefully some more hacks emerge and we can get Hoty in 2017.

 

[chrunch]

Name me a good hacker that has left the community as a direct or an indirect result of how HotY has been structured. Don't just name, give a direct post that indicated their disapproval and ensure that that disapproval was actually valid. You won't be able to.

This has actually happened in the past. I don't know about leaving the community because of it, but one of the nominees accused the judges of being biased and asked for their hack to be removed from the competition. Don't remember who exactly, but if you really wanted me to I could dig up one of the old HotY discussions threads about it. There have been complaints about the format for a long time.

 

[Logan]

Here are my suggestions:

1. No account with a join date younger than November 1st, 2016 should be eligible to vote. This will prevent brigading from people who are not part of our community and existing members making new accounts just to vote. Perhaps a minimum post count should be instated as well, but that's just a thought that may not be entirely necessary.

Obviously I need to liaise with the others but I am more than happy and in agreement to put this in place.

2. People can not vote for the same hack in more than x categories, x being a reasonable limit that is set at the mod team's discretion. We need to encourage people to play more than one or two hacks before they cast their votes, and I believe forcing them to spread their consideration across their favorites is the best way to do that. This will also make people really think before casting their votes in certain categories (hopefully making their individual votes more meaningful), and makes brigading more difficult to coordinate. It is also more fair to hacks that don't have massive (perhaps undeservedly so) fanbases.[/size]

Ditto on this too, how does a number of, say, 5 sound to you?

3. The hack in question needs to have had a release from this year (or from the date of the last HotY). This is pretty self explanatory.

Disagree here. If we do that then we may as well just run HotY, which is what we are trying to delay/avoid doing. The aim is to allow any hack from any time to be eligible as it's purely a popularity contest, the hope is that people will vote for their favourites regardless of release dates. For what it's worth, as a previous HotY winner and pre-2010 hack, I don't particularly like the idea of putting new vs. old for a variety of reasons (advancements, fresh in the mind etc.) but that's what we've decided to go for, as a team, this year.

4. I think judges should be appointed anyway for this contest, but they should do a write up on the final winners on each category, explaining their opinions on what the community has chosen. They should have no bearing on the final contest (as this is purely a popularity contest, by the mod team's own admission), but should be there to offer a veteran perspective on the winners.

I think we can definitely look at this, even if it is just the four of us who do it.

5. Rename the damn contest. It should be more clear that this is not as serious as, nor a replacement for, HotY. If this is just for funsies, then the awards should not appear to carry the weight that the first post is implying that they do.It should not say that it's replacing HotY, and should not mention "best", as this is not what the contest is measuring. "Fan favorites" or "most popular" are better descriptors.

I wanted to call it the #choiceawards lmao, any suggestions? That goes out to anyway by the way, keep suggesting stuff as it only makes everything better!

Next time, please communicate more clearly before things like this are rushed out. You could've had the feedback and fixed the glaring problems with brigading and vote manipulation before the contest opened, and not during it. You guys are a great team, but as Spherical said, you're human and you can miss stuff. Opening up these decisions to the broader community is the way to cover your blind spots, so to speak. You know that I'll speak up, at least!

Agreed. I prefer being much more proactive than reactive and it pains me to be doing this. I don't want to use it as an excuse but, as Spherical Ice said, we have some hugely exciting things coming up that I can't wait for you guys to see and I am guilty of prioritising that.

EDIT: Also, some of these categories should require some explanation accompanying their votes. Specifically best event and best custom NPC. Again, the "best" in all of these categories is problematic because the contest isn't measuring the best of anything, but those two categories should definitely require some explanation with the votes. Like, I could say: "Best Event: Gaia for the Bug Catching Contest." "Best Custom NPC: Hackname for the NPC that dances with you in City". Something like that.

Agreed.

EDIT: Christos has edited the OP to remove the wording of 'replacing' hopefully this eliminates the confusion there. Also, Deokishisu, please read this post in my accent if it makes you feel any better :)

 

[Tcoppy]

I feel like my comment got hidden in the rubble so I'm going to ask my question again:

Is this going to be an annual thing?

Again, my fear is that, regarding about keeping HOTY fresh, what if after this, the HOTY nominations would be the same as last year until one of the hacks that have appeared constantly win? It's been like this for years, I'd argue right after Sienna won that's when this problem of "freshness" became relevant, hell, I can argue it became more relevant before Sienna won, in 2009 at the earliest.

I would argue that maybe fixing and slightly restricting the nomination round in general would help with the "freshness" of HOTY more than this.

Edit: Now that I have more time I can also discuss how this award idea could be better:

Ditto on this too, how does a number of, say, 5 sound to you?

I'd agree with at least five being a good amount.

I wanted to call it the #choiceawards lmao, any suggestions?

Maybe "The General Community Favorite Hacks and Hack choices (for awards such as the favorite npc and such)"? haha idk
I think the PokeCommunity Hack Awards is a great name, I just really think the way it was treated before any communication happened was bad, as the wording in the post sounded like (I'd argue it still does, "skipping" seems a bit off as well but that might just be me) it was a serious replacement.

 

[Logan]

I feel like my comment got hidden in the rubble so I'm going to ask my question again:

Is this going to be an annual thing?

Again, my fear is that, regarding about keeping HOTY fresh, what if after this, the HOTY nominations would be the same as last year until one of the hacks that have appeared constantly win? It's been like this for years, I'd argue right after Sienna won that's when this problem of "freshness" became relevant, hell, I can argue it became more relevant before Sienna won, in 2009 at the earliest.

I would argue that maybe fixing and slightly restricting the nomination round in general would help with the "freshness" of HOTY more than this.

Nope, this is a one-off thing hence the inclusion of previous HotY winners.

 

[colonelsalt]

I do think it's really too bad that HOTY is being skipped this year, mainly because its looming on the horizon at the end of the year is a nice extra motivator for developers to get new updates out before it begins (well, speaking for myself, anyway).

As FBI mentioned, it's certainly no secret that interest in ROM hacking is dwindling, and the idea that next year will turn out more fruitful in terms of releases seems... optimistic. Maybe I'm just a sucker for tradition.

Certainly an overall "favourite hacks" awards is a great idea by itself. Perhaps a YouTube feature of some of PC history's most influential hacks is in order to expose new members to some of the site's classics?

 

[Mr.Mako]

At the risk of starting a fire I'm going to go ahead and post a concept I've been considering as I'm curious as to what people think of the idea.

Spoiler:

I'm heavily considering doing a Bad Hack of the Week series where I take one bad hack and pick out its errors and attempt to give suggestions on how to fix the errors or failing that just sarcastically roasting the hack.

Please be civil and don't accuse me of being elitist.

 

[MonopolyRubix]

At the risk of starting a fire I'm going to go ahead and post a concept I've been considering as I'm curious as to what people think of the idea.

Spoiler:

I'm heavily considering doing a Bad Hack of the Week series where I take one bad hack and pick out its errors and attempt to give suggestions on how to fix the errors or failing that just sarcastically roasting the hack.

Please be civil and don't accuse me of being elitist.

Sounds a little rude. Constructive criticism is nice but I think there's a better venue for it.

I think all this would do is hurt people's motivation, and motivation is the only reason people make hacks in the first place. I wouldn't expect that to be good for the (Poke)community.

That said I lurk so what do I know.

 

[DizzyEgg]

At the risk of starting a fire I'm going to go ahead and post a concept I've been considering as I'm curious as to what people think of the idea.

Spoiler:

I'm heavily considering doing a Bad Hack of the Week series where I take one bad hack and pick out its errors and attempt to give suggestions on how to fix the errors or failing that just sarcastically roasting the hack.

Please be civil and don't accuse me of being elitist.

If executed correctly, nice shltstorms could happen, hehe. You may even preface every video by saying how much of an elitist you are, just to rustle noobs jimmies.

 

[longlostsoldier]

I think the idea of having both is best. A Judged Quality Hack of the Year, and Popular Hack of the Year. Then people who prefer judges with experience can have that, and people who feel the wisdom of crowds is best, can both be satisfied. It will be interesting to see where there is overlap.

I definitely agree that in order for crowd voting to work, it has to be restricted to people who didn't sign up on the same day of the contest just to vote.

Erm, if you do a Bad Hack of the Week, maybe call it 'HackFixes' or 'Hack Critiques' instead, if you're suggesting how errors in hacks can be fixed or what the most egregious flaws are. Then if you feel like branching out you won't have to restrict yourself to bad hacks (Then you can tick off everyone! jk). Some of the really bad ones never even post any patches.
On the other hand you could just do what DizzyEgg suggested...

But seriously, I think this would hurt people's motivation to know someone thinks their hack is bad. I know I stopped a hack for that reason 2 years ago. I just couldn't convince myself afterward that it was any good. It was amusing, but after the critique I just couldn't help but think about all the flaws it had - they became huge and glaring instead of mild inconveniences for a silly game. I lost all motivation and I still don't plan to continue it.

 

[Mr.Mako]

Sounds a little rude. Constructive criticism is nice but I think there's a better venue for it.

I think all this would do is hurt people's motivation, and motivation is the only reason people make hacks in the first place. I wouldn't expect that to be good for the (Poke)community.

That said I lurk so what do I know.

I figure I should mention that this is all in an attempt to help raise the quality of the hacks here as more of a don't do this try this instead. I will obviously giv constructive criticism on some points but when something is terrible for some reason or another I'll point it out.

If executed correctly, nice shltstorms could happen, hehe. You may even preface every video by saying how much of an elitist you are, just to rustle noobs jimmies.

Yes because someone that doesn't even know how to hack anymore can be an elitist.

Personally wanna hear some Mod opinions on this however.

 

[Crizzle]

At the risk of starting a fire I'm going to go ahead and post a concept I've been considering as I'm curious as to what people think of the idea.

Spoiler:

I'm heavily considering doing a Bad Hack of the Week series where I take one bad hack and pick out its errors and attempt to give suggestions on how to fix the errors or failing that just sarcastically roasting the hack.

Please be civil and don't accuse me of being elitist.

Only if you do at least one of my hacks at some point.
Otherwise, it's a fun idea, though it's not the best way to make friends.

 

[Logan]

I figure I should mention that this is all in an attempt to help raise the quality of the hacks here as more of a don't do this try this instead. I will obviously giv constructive criticism on some points but when something is terrible for some reason or another I'll point it out.

If you're doing it in this way then I've no real problem with it. Would prefer if you avoided calling it 'bad hack of the x or whatever' though; would sit much better with me if you had a 'constructive criticism' series.

 

[GoGoJJTech]

I figure I should mention that this is all in an attempt to help raise the quality of the hacks here as more of a don't do this try this instead. I will obviously giv constructive criticism on some points but when something is terrible for some reason or another I'll point it out.


Yes because someone that doesn't even know how to hack anymore can be an elitist.

Personally wanna hear some Mod opinions on this however.

Sure pointing out flaws in a hack is constructive, but it's called "bad hack of the week" which just basically makes the creator say to themselves "why should I continue going if it's bad" or whatever. Obviously that's not a great mentality for a creator to have, but most hack creators are 14 and under so it's not really nice. Plus most of them would probably not listen to your opinion since you're not really in any position to critique others publicly on a show. If you were a hack creator, sure you'd have followers and proof that you actually mean something, but to someone who doesn't know you, you'd just appear to be a hater who's crushing their hack or whatever.
And I'm in no position to criticize your idea, so.. do whatever you want. Just expect some backlash if this idea is put forth.

 

[Mr.Mako]

If you're doing it in this way then I've no real problem with it. Would prefer if you avoided calling it 'bad hack of the x or whatever' though; would sit much better with me if you had a 'constructive criticism' series.

It's really only called Bad Hack of the Week because I can't think of another title that could really draw people in to watch and see what often gets done wrong and how it could be fixed plus it could inspire some people to try it themselves.

Sure pointing out flaws in a hack is constructive, but it's called "bad hack of the week" which just basically makes the creator say to themselves "why should I continue going if it's bad" or whatever. Obviously that's not a great mentality for a creator to have, but most hack creators are 14 and under so it's not really nice. Plus most of them would probably not listen to your opinion since you're not really in any position to critique others publicly on a show. If you were a hack creator, sure you'd have followers and proof that you actually mean something, but to someone who doesn't know you, you'd just appear to be a hater who's crushing their hack or whatever.
And I'm in no position to criticize your idea, so.. do whatever you want. Just expect some backlash if this idea is put forth.

Oh joy GoGo-sama blessed me with a comment (sarcasm). Seriously though this is not an attempt to demean a hack unless I pick Dark Rising or some other equally imfamous hack to do a video on in which case the disclaimer would be a little different than for the average "bad" hack. I'm curious as to how I have no real qualifications to critique a hack because I don't hack anymore. Do people that review games that don't work on video games have no qualifications to critique those games? Anyway as I've said the point isn't to needlessly bash hacks I could do that just by popping into threads, but to point out problems in hacks and offer possible solutions. I will be as neutral as I possibly can, but at the end of the day anything that comes out of a video is up to the viewer to either accept and run with or ignore and mock.



Again this posting in here is purely for feedback nothing else.

 

[GoGoJJTech]

It's really only called Bad Hack of the Week because I can't think of another title that could really draw people in to watch and see what often gets done wrong and how it could be fixed plus it could inspire some people to try it themselves.



Oh joy GoGo-sama blessed me with a comment (sarcasm). Seriously though this is not an attempt to demean a hack unless I pick Dark Rising or some other equally imfamous hack to do a video on in which case the disclaimer would be a little different than for the average "bad" hack. I'm curious as to how I have no real qualifications to critique a hack because I don't hack anymore. Do people that review games that don't work on video games have no qualifications to critique those games? Anyway as I've said the point isn't to needlessly bash hacks I could do that just by popping into threads, but to point out problems in hacks and offer possible solutions. I will be as neutral as I possibly can, but at the end of the day anything that comes out of a video is up to the viewer to either accept and run with or ignore and mock.



Again this posting in here is purely for feedback nothing else.

Game reviewers usually have experience in the game industry, otherwise literally any kid in the world would get a game review job. They have something to them that tells other people "hey, this person is reviewing because they have something to say and their background tells me they at least know what they're talking about." Anyone can review something like a sonic game but what sonic fan would just go on youtube and watch a small youtube channel review their favorite game or whatever, they basically are just like "whatever"

I personally would rather have someone more experienced review a game I made or would like to look into, but that's probably just me. I'm probably the only one who actually wants someone in the field to tell me about it instead of the equivalence of the comment section of an amazon.com product. Sure, some people in the amazon.com comment section of a product have really good things to say or negative things to say, but I'd rather read or look at a professional review from someone or some company who is known for it.

Would you rather read an oculus rift review or go to a youtube video with 48 views saying "oh it didn't work or something don't buy it plus the graphics weren't even good enough for my taste"?

As I said, it's an okay idea, as long as the negative aspect is removed and as long as you prove to us that your opinion and criticisms are worth listening to.