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Rom Hacking Newsletter Issue 6 - Saturday, 4 October 2008 Introduction Opening wordsAnother week and another issue of RHN. This issue we have an interview of Darthatron by thethethethe, a hack review by Kaizer-X, some pretty darn useful tips and tricks and of course the HOTW mini-review. The debate idea received excellent feedback but unfortunately I won't be able to organise it for a while yet. Unless someone else wants to get it running I can't see it happening until December at the earliest. I seem to be running out of things to say here. Well anyway hope you enjoy issue number (already more issues than Hiroshi and Martin's put together D:) 6. Article by dshayabusa Hacking News Staying current with the rom hacking sceneMap Reviewing As of the week following next (hopefully) there will be a Map review by Neti who is very well known for mapping himself. Only the outstanding map of that week will recieve the review. For more info PM Neti. Details and guidelines will be in the next issue as well as the first review. Hack Rating System RHN will now follow a standardised rating system similar to that of IGN, ratings and their meanings are described below. Spoiler:
HOTW Winner Spotlight on the Hack of the Week Pokémon Snowstorm [Link]Hack Author: Lucario 9 Reviewed By: dshayabusa What's this? A hack with ice tiles? No way, since when? Ok so I'm exaggerating a bit but honestly there are just way too many of these right now. Overused tiles aside this hack is pretty decent. The story is pretty intriguing so far, the idea of being raised by a Pokemon albeit "farfetch'd" (lawl) certainly captures ones imagination. The rest of the story seems to meld into the archetypical Pokemon story. I'm sure that it will develop later on. It certainly has the potential. Mapping is really nothing new, all maps that have those tiles have almost the exact same type of mapping, I'm guilty of it myself. Thats not to say the mapping is bad but people will start to get bored of it. Also what is up with screenshots of the player jumping down from a hill? I've seen that in about 4 hacks now. Hopefully Lucario 9 decides to implement different tiles later on (though with a name like Snowstorm that seems doubtful). If you can get over the tiles this hack certainly has potential in its storyline. Article by dshayabusa Hack Review Hacks in review![]() Pokémon Police [Link]Hack Author: G.K.S Reviewed By: Kaizer-X Reviewer's Rating: 3.0/10 Oh Yea!! Another hack with the main character being a member of the most famous crime-fighting group; the Police. Unlike Pokémon Flame of Rage, this hack has gone one step further by having the main objective of fighting Team Rocket base leaders all around the region and then in the end fight with the leader of Team Rocket, Giovanni instead of the traditional Gym Leaders. The Storyline is interesting starting with an event of a break-in and then resulted in you joining the Police Force to fight Team Rocket. The hack is also very creative I with the setting of two rivals who both joined the Police and Team Rocket respectively. The scripts are quite good, not really that amazing but it is decent enough and G.K.S has also done well in text-editing some of the events including the one you fought your rival. But some of the scripts are left hanging in the air as it is uncompleted and cause the story to be confusing. But in spite of all this, there is are some major drawbacks in the hack, especially in terms of mapping. The maps are too wide and empty. This has made the hack dull and a little boring. There are also a lot of errors in the warping. One minute you are going into the mart the next minute you have gone to a totally different map entirely. This is very annoying as it spoils the storyline and confuses the player as they don’t know what their next task is. Personally I think this hack has room for improvement and for now I wouldn’t recommend you to play it unless you really want to. Article by Kaizer-X Tips and Tricks A cool new trick that you may not have known aboutFinally we've got a Tips and Tricks segment for the mappers here. Most of these can be found in AdvanceMaps readme. CTRL + Right-Click Drag This is used to select multiple tiles when mapping. Simply hover over the first of the tiles you want to select, whilst holding down the CTRL button and the Right Mouse Button drag your mouse over the tiles you want. This can be done in your map and your tileset. A small window will appear showing you what you have selected if you are in Map View. It will also select the current movement permissions for the tiles. This cannot be used in Movement Permissions but you can use it in the Block Editor. Middle Mouse Button Click Can be used in Map View and Movement Permissions. Clicking the middle button over a specific tile will fill tiles that are identical around it with the selected tile. This is similar to the paint bucket in Paint. Therefore leaving any gaps between tiles can cause unwanted filling. Unlike Paint however there is no undo function on A-Map so you should be careful especially with large maps. Tip donated by AdvanceMap's ReadMe Interview An in-depth chat with... Spoiler:
Interview by thethethethe Closing Notes Some house keepingIf you like RHN and get a decent rating or other award why not post it in your hacks thread? Not only would people appreciate your hack more but you'd be helping promote RHN. I might not be able to do the next two issues so if I can't I'll leave someone else to post it for me. Sorry about the Tips and Tricks, I know I could have done it alot better. So yeah, thats it. Hope you enjoyed reading Issue 6. Closing by dshayabusa CSS design and graphics by dshayabusa. Ask for permission if you want to use them! |
Dun-dun-duuuhn!
The new editon, eh? Pretty nice. I guess the tips and tricks could have been better, yeah, but it was pretty good overall. It was sort of duller than the previous ones, but who's perfect? Spoiler:
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http://img34.picoodle.com/img/img34/3/10/5/f_untitledm_f1534cf.png
:D Nice work as usual. but why there's no rating ( 0.1 to 10.0) for Pokémon Snowstorm? |
Didn't he say before? It can't get a rating without a game to play.
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Nice job. This was great! It seemed a bit shorter than last weeks, but opposite to Dark Lakitu's comment, I think this weeks issue was well-written, and entartaining. It's sad you have to add the excerpts from the Advance Map Read-Me to this issue before some hackers see it at all >.< I liked this weeks interview a lot better than last week's, and as エロカメ pointed out, the recommendation is different than the award :P All in all, this was another great issue, keep it up. BOL!
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I've subscribed to this thread great job! love it thanks.
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I loved this issue, even though it was shorter. When those Map Reviews come in, it will be a good length again. ^^
I agree with TB Pro, this weeks interview was awesome. Who knew that Darthatron was that freak'n cool!? =D Keep up the awesome work, can't wait for next week. :) |
That was a very interesting interview to read. ;]
I really liked this issue, and I'm sure the next will be just as great. ;D Good Luck~ |
The new newsletter was great dshayabusa, i just felt that it was a bit short.
Now i can know what hacks to look at and what hacks to avoid. the interview was interesting, and a bit long for an interview. I wish you and your team the best of luck dshayabusa. |
Well, I thought it was great and I liked the "Tips and Tricks" section! Just because it's been stated somewhere else, doesn't mean it can't get stated again! This would be one of those situations (I'm speaking to all you readers out there) where if you didn't like the tips, then send some in yourself!! =] If you feel it was a bit short, send in an idea for an article!!
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Hello db.
I like what you've done with the newsletter. It was something I had been trying to revive for a long time on this site, and you've done exactly what I envisioned. I commend you. Keep up the good work. And remember to keep it up with new innovative ideas, even silly things like a section for "common mistakes" or a "begginer's corner", maybe even articles on the hacking community itself, not just the hacks. - EarthsVisitor, Rocket's Revenge and City of Evil, HotY 2007 3rd Place. (Don't ask why I did that, it just sounds cool. xD That's right. PRIDE.) |
my days of absence from the community...
Oh well... The newsletter is really great, and I really love the interview. For the time being, I think thethethethe's a great interviewer. The tips and tricks was a bit er, known in my case, as well as others, but oh well... :\ oh, and I should agree about the overused ROM-base, the snowy tiles for a FireRed ROM... :\ As always, continue the great work. :D |
I had a thought (amazing :P)
Maybe you can interview Lucario9 because he has won HOTW 3 times just an idea |
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I'm not trying to put him down, but I mean, he's won it three times in 10 weeks and not one of those hacks has had a release of any form. To me that just seems like we'll never see too much from him, and he'll remain in between hacks. But that's just what I think of it. |
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Very nice only a bit short.. But it doesnt care.. But the tips where a little vague in my opinion.. well BOL!
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Rom Hacking Newsletter Issue 7 - Sunday, 12 October 2008 Introduction Opening wordsI've got school tomorrow and since HOTW hasn't finished yet I'm going to post this without a HOTW review. I can't do it on the hack that looks like its going to win either since its neck in neck. There was something quite important I wanted to write here but I can't remember what it is, I'll edit this later when I remember. This week we've got an interview with HackMew which I'm sure many of you will be interested in reading, a very interesting article on some user's attitudes towards hacks, a review of Mystic Dreams and also part 1 in a two part Tips and Tricks segment. Happy reading! Article by dshayabusa Hacking News Staying current with the rom hacking sceneUpdate on Map Reviewing I haven't had news from Neti yet so I think that he's still on holiday. Wind~ has started a Map of the Week thread so that will tie in perfectly with this. Map of the Week Wind~ has started a new topic for people to vote on the top Map each week in the Map Rating Thread. RHN will start a new segment on this. Be sure to check it out and cast your vote here. Hack Rating System RHN will now follow a standardised rating system similar to that of IGN, ratings and their meanings are described below. Spoiler:
Hack Review Hacks in review![]() Pokémon Mystic Dreams [Link]Hack Author: Seth-kun Reviewed By: thethethethe Reviewer's Rating: 0.4/10 Looking at its download size, and taking into account that this was its third release. I wasn't expecting too much from this hack. Almost as soon as I started playing, my assumptions were justified. The mapping is mediocre and the scripting was horrible. Close to every in-game script I saw was just an edited copy of another script that he had used. A simple Poké Mart script was attempted and failed horribly and didn’t work at all. Also a note to hackers out there, if you're going to re-use talking events from the original game at least text edit them so that that the player can't recognise the text. One other problem I had with the scripting is one that I notice in lots of hacks throughout the Pokémon Hacking Community. How hard is it to add colour to the text. ‘textcolor 0x[X]’ is all that is needed. Only like 13 characters, nothing too extreme. I don’t understand why there are so many hacks without coloured text. Okay, maybe I'm already fairly riled up now and I just feel like pointing out problems I have with the game, but Seth-kun what's the point of having a storyline, when you don't follow it? If you read his plot line from within the thread, and then play through the hack. You'll find no similarities, other than the fact that you receive a Pokémon. The storyline sounds fairly interesting and speaks of clashes between Celebi and Darkrai. My problem is that when there is still no mention of storyline events at the third release. There has to be some kind of problem. If this is Demo 3, I'm glad I didn't see Demo 1. Article by thethethethe Rom Hacking = Popularity? The Rom Hacking scene in perspectiveNo, Rom Hacking = Originality I've noticed a large increase of Rom Hacks appearing in the showcase, with little next to nothing done, (I am guilty of this myself, but now it has become a problem) People have begun to slap on a thread title and a few maps with not much done at all, with progress extremely slow as well. To me this has become alarming, because it's now not about people having fun and trying to make Pokemon that extra bit better, they want to grab some attention and five thousand replies, which looks like it will never happen. I few years ago, Rom Hacking was at it's beginning stages and people were more interested in changing the Rom, making it fun, then getting a single reply, it was more of a self pride thing. But things have flipped around the other way. There is something I must put out into the public, it's called originality. Which seems to really be lacking in some threads. An amazingly long complex story is not originality, a one or two line story which immediately grabs everyones attention is. New graphics doesn't mean originality, it means your hack is different, not original. Every hack is starting to become the same thing over and over, an evil team is trying to catch some legendary that will send you back in time or something like that. Or someone trying to save a professor or person of some sought. There are not very many open minded hacks out there anymore. A story takes a long time to develop, you might even start with a three word story and take a month to develop it into a three line story. It all takes time and imagination. I don't wish to offend anyone, but there are a large number of hacks I would easily regard as useless, and maybe a few that are quite interesting. I, and many other people probably have this same feeling, hacks are starting to become uninteresting. I don't really have any interest in downloading a beta and actually patching it, it now seems effortless. I hope that this changes soon in the future, or rom hacking will have a downspiral effect. Another small point I want to get to is Rom Bases, and repeated tile use. I have noticed a large increase of people using rombases, I now have the automatic impression the hack is low quality. My rating on any hack with a rombase is now 0, unless I can notice a quite substantial change. I would write more, but it seems like an anger speech, and thats the last thing I want this to be. Thats all I have to say, peace out. Article by Visual Tips and Tricks A cool new trick that you may not have known aboutTitlescreens! The first thing the player sees when they first play a hack. Not vitally important but always a nice touch non-the-less. This week for T&T I'm going to show you how to recreate the Pokemon Genesis titlescreen. Its going to come in two parts since this is almost a tutorial. Keep in mind that is not, I will not explain everything, anything I know is in an existing titlescreen tutorial I will ommit. Preparations Spoiler:
Gathering and Sorting Spoiler:
I'll continue this in next weeks issue. Tip donated by dshayabusa Interview An in-depth chat with... Spoiler:
Interview by dshayabusa Closing Notes Some house keepingWith my luck, zel will have posted the HOTW winner when I log out. I might edit this issue and put it in but don't hold me to it. Keep your ideas coming in! We love hearing all your comments too. Remember this newsletter is for the community and its only because of your support that we keep doing this. Closing by dshayabusa CSS design and graphics by dshayabusa. Ask for permission if you want to use them! |
im baack from my vacation, i think in the next issue there will be the map review ssection :)
good work on the two you did while i was away and the last one was a really long interview^^ but the sad truth is true, more ppl start requesting stuff they could learn and do on their own instead of trying stuffuntil it works... if theres only one error they go ask someone folks you need to put a lot of afford and time into learning hacking |
Excellent! I really liked this release. The interview was really entertaining! HackMew is one of the best people here in the hacking scene, a perfect candidate for a interview like this.
Also I agree with the whole bad quality hackers thing. That should change... I really like your newsletter dshayabusa, I hope we get a new issue soon :D |
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well, the new newsletter is great. thethethethe and Hackmew, by their speech, are very true these days... Visual's thought about ROM bases as well... anyways, I enjoyed, and felt a bit frustrated about the newsletter, for it really shows the current situation... :\ oh well, as always, do keep up the great work~ |
I feel bad for Seth AND me. :[
I work for Mistic Dreams, and the mapping part..is my fault. I'm not good at caves, and I didn't want to edit the first town too much... Anyways, the overall news letter was good, though I didn't read everything! xD I might come back to it later, since I have just woken up. |
I completely understand the problems, thethethethe. But, whoever said the events have to happen as soon as the game starts? I mean, since when was that rule around?
On another note, I'd be glad to add color to the scripts, but it was rather rushed. I know nobody likes to see their hack get a poor review, but that, honestly, was just harsh. And, actually, I'm working on the graphics of the game right now. As in, the titlescreen, tiles...etc. And, so what if I reused old, useless scripts? They're there for the taking, gosh. Oh, and by the way, that storyline in the thread is the BACKGROUND STORY!! Background story - Story that will happen sometime in the hack, but not right away. Events will lead up to the events in the background story. What actually happens - All the events, including the ones Before and After the Background story. There's a difference! I also noticed that you only pointed out the bad things of my hack. And, let's see... if my hack got a 2.8, then there must be some good things about it, no? I'd like you to kindly tell me exactly What those good things are. |
Hmm...This was a good issue. Hmm...I can't say I agree totally with the review this week, but who am I so say anything ;) Visual's article is exactly right, and that is sad. I remember when there was five or six hacks in the showcase. They were all good/average hacks as well. Now, there is ten to fifteen hacks, and the majority of them are rubbish. Not all of them, some have some potential. The tips and tricks section was nice, I can't wait for the second part ;) This weeks interview was one of the best so far. A nice, long interview with a great hacker. I completely agree with everything Hackmew had to say, the community is going downhill, in a hurry. If there was only a way to get the community out of this hole it's in at the current time. I noticed a few places, where, Hackmew's name wasn't in green :P Nothing major, just thought I'd point it out for you ;) This was another great issue, keep it up! BOL!
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Your quote was too long joined with this post, but I might as well try and justify what I said here.
Well by 'release 3', your words not mine, I'd be expecting some inkling of some nature of the storyline. My old hack, Legend of Dragons had probably only a little bit more gameplay wise done than yours but it at least mentioned Rayquaza, which was something that was to be apart of the main plot line later in the game. I couldn't care about the graphics honestly. Mapping is so easily changed so I don't mention very much about it. The titlescreen, tiles didn't get mentioned because I assumed they would be changed at some stage. So I don't understand why you mention those graphics. Whether the story in your thread is a Background Story, as you call it, is redundant. There's nothing in your third preview to the game to say 'Look at Me'. Nothing to draw me in to watch the hack and play me next time. No idea on what's happening next. But instead there was a mention of an elder being in a house. In that house was the class from Viridian City. What's the point in that? All you had to do was maybe add in the first elder's script, and maybe include some mention of the GS ball. I don't want to be half way through a hack, and then the main plot (or even a sub plot) begins. And, if you're whole hack is just talking scripts with nothing important except for a starter Pokemon, WHY RELEASE ANYTHING? Being rushed is no excuse. You decide when you release your hack. Not other people on forums. If you don't think it'll be ready by a time you mentioned, post in the thread saying it won't be ready be then. People won't care as long as they get the preview at some stage. All this hack reminded me of, was my first hack that no-one bar one or two people ever saw. I felt this release felt a bit pre-mature and should have been released later. You want to hear the good things? Or the mediocre things that lifted it? Honestly, only judging from that gameplay, there wasn't anything that was really all that great. Just things that were okay. But here's the good things I can say about this hack so far. -It was better than the couple of hacks I played just before I played through this one -There's a large amount of room for improvement. There's only a tiny bit done, and there's so much more to add to it. I can only rate what I see. I can't see what's happening on your computer with it. I only rated this on demo 3. I honestly, don't want to put you down and make you quit the hack because I gave you a bad review. Maybe it's just the way I am, and if someone tells me I'm crap at something I normally try to improve and get better. Maybe I'm just hoping everyone's like me, but I hope you keep working on this, just to prove that this was just a poor rating on my behalf and prove it was worth more. |
Haha, I was reading the interview, did you get a bit bored there dshayabusa? With HackMew going on about all the new features, which I cant wait to see :D!
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