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What do you [players] really want a hack to be?
Before I say anything, I'm really new here and I don't know where to put this thread. Please correct me if I did something against your will and I am sorry if there is another thread that is like this.
Title speaks for the whole thread. After reading replies in the thread "What annoys you about hacks?", I wanted to satisfy players in playing hacks made by our hackers. I wanted to make a "guide" for our future hackers so that they will know what should not and should add in their hacks. I wanted to make this a community where players help hackers and hackers supply what the players suggest. Thanks for reading! Sorry for grammatical and spelling errors because I am just a 13 year old kid. |
Before a guide can be made we need some decent hackers, which currently are non-existent. Everyone who was a "good"`hacker has long since left.
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I like fakemon, puzzles, side-quests, good tiles, good mapping, cut-scenes, and all of the little things that just make a hack great. Basically, creativity. |
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What I want in a hack, above all else, is originality. Even if it's bad but original at least we know you tried. So don't do a copy and paste of a Nintendo storyline or a rip-off of someone else's story. And don't pull any crap like this and say it is original: You start off in GRASS Town and you must defeat the eight gyms of the JARNIX (Made up on the spot name, excuse me if it's a horrible name) region. Meanwhile, you must stop the evil Team FIRE. That's just plain laziness when and fraud when you say that is your new and "original" story. Another thing (mainly for the hacker as opposed to the hack itself) don't be cocky about your hack. Far too often I see things like this: Features: New Amazing Story Beutiful Tiles and Maps Exciting New Characters It's stuff like this that makes you sound like an overconfident jerk. And for the love of all that is good, if someone gives you advice, USE IT. |
I like to try and include all sorts of things Game Freak has forgotten. My best suggestion is this:
In the classic pokemon games, your player doesn't have much of a family. Usually just a mom. And she really never does anything. I think players should have a big family, and maybe at the start it's like a family party or something like that. Or at least something family-ish. |
I, myself, am not a good hacker but if anyone would like to hack, I wish that the story would have some twists like your father is the criminal and he hated you from your childhood because he thinks that you are a wimp or something. So, you only hangout with your uncle but then your father will "kidnap" your uncle because your uncle is a hindrance in your father's plans. And here you will start your adventure tryig to find your uncle. If anyone offers you advice, please try and look at it!
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A great storyline, unusual events.
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Ya, totally. Even in the Hoenn region all you had was a mom and a dad, no extended family and they did ABSOLUTELY nothing. At least in Johto your mom held your money for you or something special like that. I want some creativity. maybe a little break from the 8 gyms then elite four and champion stuff. Maybe like an exciting side plot. Amaya |
Fun. That's all I ask for; fun and playability. I'm not going to be playing much past the Elite Four and Champion or whatever, so just make me want to keep playing up til then; if you can make me complete the main story of the game, I'd count it personally as a success.
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Anyway in a hack I want to see a new game that sticks to the official formula with canon-styled fakemon and tiles. I want it to seem as if it were a totally new game made by Game Freak with the only limitations being those of the GBA. I want something that I can enjoy and spend my time doing. I want something that is clear that effort has been put into it. I want a lot. |
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Anyways on-topic a good hack would have to add more reality into it. There are 649 (or something like that) Pokemon species which, logically,not one of a kind. There are well over thousands of Trainers around. What are the chances that you're the FIRST to run into a legendary...also what are the odds that you'll be the ONLY one to use a legendary pokemon on your team. A sense of realism is definitely a must in hacks. |
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I would actually prefer a hack where legendaries are disregaurded completly. It always seems nowadays every evil team is out for some legendary. It just gets boring where every evil team's sole source of power is a Pokemon that they don't even get. In my opinion either let the evil team get the Pokemon, to actually make them a challenge to defeat and an actual threat to the region. Or just to make it so the evil team's goal isn't to get the legendary Pokemon. I mean it is possible to take over the world without a giant bird that's on fire. |
I agree with the two previous posts that legendaries should be impossible to catch or non-existent. But i like a game that has a completely original idea and an unordinary plot.
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I'm a BIG story person, but if not that, I do enjoy when a game has all of the pokemon in it (I've been making a collection of those for my friends and I, but I'm far from "good")
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A good storyline. Funny things. And I think good sharp graphics are important. But it must give a kind of warmth. I miss that in the real Fire Red/Leaf Green and real Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald but some of the rom hacks have it and I like that. And another thing, I think there are enough remakes of gold/silver and red/blue, I like it if it is in a new region. And I like if there a new pokemons BUT it must be nice made pokemons and not dumb pokemons.
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In a hack, I'd like to see the hacker has put effort in his/her hack.
Also, good mapping is a must (=the reason I hate the 3rd gen, the mapping just feels unnatural) |
i dont agree taking out gyms, i always loved the gyms, even in hacks, but anyway
No, or at least barely any, fakemon- i always hated them, some look like complete s**t and some others are really good, but i just never had a feel for em. Good Graphics- Who wants crap graphics in a game anyway? GOOD PLOT AND SCRIPTS!- I can't STAND hacks that dont even focus on a story, honstly whats the point of making a game with no story? I can roll with the whole evil person thing, but make them actually run past the 8th gym, or make the gym leaders do something, or maybe even a rival that actually helps you in a story, you dont need to pack a game full of legondarys to make it a good hack.... |
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a game that goes with the manga or anime not some random stuff that does not go with it. and something other than you not having a say when you talk to someone. like if you talk to a guard and he says you cannot pass i just want to say "il wait" and it skips passed a few in game days while whatever was happening finnaly ends. and more than 1 region with new area's and an edited map instead of hopping from lets say pallet town to the indigo plateau to mt moon and then to cinibar just to end up in lavender town in a few minutes.
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I want a hack to be playable. I want it to have a good sense of grammar and a not so vague storyline. I want everything to be playable. I couldn't care less about the graphics as long as it meets my conditions.
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I like hacks with more realism and maturity. Cussing isn't absolutly needed but you can't expect a dramatic moment with someone saying "Dang it all to heck"
I like hacks with a great story. Like the Ruby Destiny series. Unique maps are also important to not bore players, but opinions differ. And don't exaggerate on the features. "New Maps, New Region, New scripts, New Characters" is just stating the obvious. |
I want a hack to be where instead of being a pokemon trainer you could be anything.
Like a gym leader, breeder even a pokemart person. |
Don't follow what other people want, because it'll just make what you do less enjoyable.
Going by what other people want isn't worth it, plus overrated. You'll just end up with an uninspired POS. Just be creative, even if it's a remake or mod. It's definitely possible in any situation. The PC mentality on what makes a "good" hack is inconsistent, so just go with what you want. Everyone looks for different things, so why try to fit one person's mold? Quote:
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Well...no matter how much realism or maturity you add, no matter how great your story is(unlike ruby destiny which had a terrible story and was a terrible hack), no matter how much minor swearing you add, it's not going to make pokemon more fun. That's the whole point of hacking, to make pokemon more fun. Let's take a closer look...what's the problem with pokemon in general? It lacks fun, it lacks good gameplay. The two most broad components that go into a game are gameplay and storyline. To fix pokemon, you must make the gameplay better. Sure a good storyline adds to a game(as long as it's good) but rewriting the storyline of a game with bad gameplay doesn't help anything. To prove this, look at storyline and gameplay. Can a game exist with gameplay only? Yes, example is tetris. Can a game exist with a storyline only? No, if you have storyline and no gameplay that would be a movie. Well then...how do you fix gameplay? It's basically impossible to fix everything in a rom hack do to it's limiting nature, but you can improve some things at the very least. For example, fix imbalances in pokemon stats? In conclusion: To fix pokemon, you need to make it fun. To make it fun, you need to fix gameplay. Like I said the most that could honestly be done in a hack is improve a few of the flaws of Pokemon... And it's not about the fame when you do a rom hack, it's about fixing the game. Hopefully it all makes sense... [Players] want a hack to make pokemon more fun, and improve it's flaws. |
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Now sure if you have a good story but bad gameplay it isn't a good game. But what if we did it your way and had no story but good gameplay? It would be a game comprised of a neverending series of battles. Sure you can fix stat inbalences and make the metagame absoultly perfect, but what then? The game would get real boring, real fast. The fact of the matter is that this is a ROM hack and that you don't have absoute freedom. So in order to make a good, original game you can't focus on improving one feature, instead you must make improvements to all features, and add all you can with the limited creative leeway you have. In the end, in a Pokemon game, what is a good story without good gameplay, in the same respect, what is good gameplay without a story to carry it. You may want to argue that a story is completly unescessary when gameplay is good, which, to an extent, is true. But such things only apply in certiain scenerios. Let's look at you example, Tetris. Tetris is a puzzle game, and puzzles don't have stories. Another example, Pac-Man only exists to get high scores, thus, a story is unneded. However in Pokemon, a story is needed to keep the gameplay fresh, otherwise it is pointless leveling up. TL;DR: Improving gameplay is important, but in an RPG such as Pokemon, a story is needed to drive the gameplay foward. PS: Fixing stat imbalances really wont improve the game an awful amount. It would be really hard to notice that Farfecht'd can take a few more hits than normal. If you ask me, making the gameplay more fun is a matter of making it playable and challenging. I want to be able to have fun leveling Pokemon up, meaning that it isn't slow-paced, but also not too fast. Also, I want a challenge. But people take that the wrong way. They think challenge = give trainers Pokemon that are ten levels higher than your own, it doesn't. Part of it is having trainers have higher leveled Pokemon than yourself, but only slightly so. Mostly it means giving them good Pokemon with diverse types and challeging movesets. |
Oh, I think you misunderstood me. I didn't say put no story. In fact, I said a good story can add to the game nicely. The truth is, the gameplay must be good enough to be fun on it's own, without a story. Then a good storyline complements it(important that I say this, because I do enjoy a good storyline if gameplay is good). Still a game should not need storyline to drive it forward. The thing is though, if you did have no storyline exploration and battling would still be fun, because if the gameplay is good, it should be fun even if you battle a lot. The problem that your thinking how boring battles are because current battling is boring. If battling was fun, it shouldn't be boring to battle those numerous times.
Sorry again, I wasn't clear... I only meant that fixing stat imbalances is one of many, many, different ways to improve the game. It is one aspect of improving battling :) It was just a suggestion, really, there are so many things to fix that I couldn't name them all. Also, to achieve a fun game(in general, not just hacking) the player needs to have freedom to go where he/she wants. Not just be forced to follow one path. The point of gaming is not to win, it is to have fun. Literally, if battling was really fun then battling all the trainers with no storyline should be fun. From there, adding a storyline adds to that. It is absolutely true that romhacking is very limited. You have very little freedom to do everything you need to make a great game. That's why focus has to be on improving all possible aspects. I completely agree. Finally, I do agree that making trainers pokemon 10 levels higher does not make it fun. It makes it hard, but not in a challenging way. You're not trying to figure out a strategy to beat the pokemon, the player would just sit there for hours grinding to the right level. To make battling very fun it must be recreated in a way that takes mainly skill from the trainer and not pokemon level and the strongest BP move to win(completely unpractical to attempt this in a hack). |
Indeed. As I said, half of an RPG is story, the other is gameplay. Both must correlate and stand firm.
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I don't think that it is necessary to make a "guide" for what players want hacks to be. In my opinion, If hackers just tried to make everyone happy then the games would lose their originality. Come up with your own ideas as surprise everyone, don't follow rules on what or what not to do. If you don't like a hack because of certain details, then big deal! Play another or just appreciate them for what they are, not what they could be.
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It's not a guide :P The topic was "what do players really want a hack to be?" I answered that simply, they want pokemon to be made more fun by fixing the gameplay. I made no specifics at all as to what or what can't be changee to make gameplay more fun, that's the hackers job. That's what would differentiate hacks. : D
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Ahh ok. Once again, I agree that specifics are up to the hacker/game developer. It's not like taking out the legendary pokemon makes the game more fun...
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Yeah I don't get why everyone ran with the whole no legendaries thing. What I was saying is that it's not unlikely to battle a trainer with a legenedary pokemon. It adds realism and difficulty to the hack.
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Second, your comment about Ruby Destiny seemed unnecessary. Third, I didn't say gameplay wasn't important, I said a good story is very important in my opinion. |
It's not a matter of opinion. I'm not going to argue this. But if story is that important then watch a movie.
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In general, if I see these things in a videogame, it becomes one of my favourites:
1)A good and involving story. Players should feel like the charachter they control and should start to feel the twists of the plot only once the story writer wants. 2)Good music. You can't completely perceive the ambience a situation creates, but music helps. 3)Playability. Controls have to be comfortable and the difficulty has to be hard and human. I like there are frustrating moments which can be overcame with logic or few minutes of application, but I hate when you need only luck or you must do a reasoning that only the creator of the game can do. |
I want to see a hack break away from Nintendo as much as possible. Since most hackers stick to GameFreak/Nintendo's dogma as much as possible, we really don't get any original hacks. We have the same old "legendary/evil team" crap rehashed with new Pokemon and worse grammar. If I was given control over the Pokemon world, I would completely revamp it instead of following these unwritten rules that limit the creativity of all hackers.
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Story is entirely opinionated, imo. You like the story or you don't. You could even take it to the point that you like having certain story styles (i.e. Nintendo-style!) as opposed to other kinds. And there are significant differences between story-heavy movies and story-heavy hacks. See, I've always been of the mind that playing a first-person game brings you closer to the characters/people/whatever that your avatar is interacting with. If something happens to one of the ones that you've grown attached to, then you'll have more of an emotional reaction than if you were just watching a movie and the hero's girlfriend got kidnapped. Honestly, everything about ROM Hacking is an opinion. You like it or you don't. As far as the original question, I'd have to agree with .com. It's more important for you to like what you're doing than for everyone else to like it. |
Errr....No, that is not what I said. Try reading all the posts, not just the last one. Knew I shouldn't have said anything, oh well, not my problem.
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One would assume it's your problem because you said it. :x Anyway, I see your point that gaming should be fun within the actual gameplay itself. Yeah, Pokemon is fun to just go run around and battle random stuff and train your Pokemon and the whole idea of the gameplay is solid. However, I don't see what flaws (if any at all!) could/should be fixed to improve the gameplay. In my opinion, hacking is not to improve the gameplay so much, although you could try to change it to something more of your liking. I think that the gameplay of Pokemon is already so well done that basically all you should need to be changing in a hack is the storyline. Plus, I think the definition of "fun" in gameplay really changes based on who you are. You can't fix the game to meet the needs of so many people - some prefer open world environments, some prefer a closed route that they have to follow. You just can't satisfy everyone at once. |
I want alot of epic and exting events. something new and challening
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Vrai I already said I'm not going to argue this. I can tell you some place else maybe, seems you really misunderstood what I said earlier.
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Give me a game that you, the hacker, made because you love what you do. I'll appreciate the game more if you can prove to me that you're passionate about your work.
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I'd like to see a great storyline, they make me want to continue playing and making me guess ''what's going to happen next?'' or ''will he make it?'' etc, etc. I was thinking maybe some guy in a dojo sets out to train his skills in fighting, with a pokemon, competing in tournaments but with a lot of twists... something like that... :P
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Besides, I am interested in how people really express themselves through their work rather than following the mold already set. |
personally i wish i had more time to learn how to hack roms because i have some good ideas (i think). i generaly agree with "Neo Duality" by breaking out of the typical mold. its essentially a new game. there a no limits the
one idea was a pokegod edition. i remember red/blue and all the stupid rumor/codes on the internet to get charcoal, rainer, venustoise, ect. even though they weren't real i still tried about every one with my gameshark. the pokegods could just be legendaries with a better background story. maybe add in a bit of a the supernatural theme like god has picked you to save the world from some super-evil but you must first catch all the pokegods my other idea is based on a cyberpunk/hacker theme. i always thought hacking was fun in itself so why not incorporate that into the gameplay. maybe have the computers be a linux termial and you have to hack team rocket to get back some stolen pokemon. i know that one would be a bit difficult to add in but it would be entertaining. |
I like it to be fun, well structured and nice to look at :D
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It's their hack, they can do what they want with it. Unless you can do better, you shouldn't criticize a hacker's work imo. They've put the time in to learn the skills and make a game that they like, and in reality, they don't have to share it with us at all. You don't have to play a hack that you don't like, so wait for one that you do like.
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