Pokémon hack: community project.

Well, I had this idea, wich can be fun to do and might give good results.
What's my idea?
The Pokemon Community Hacking Project.

Basically, I intend to do a grupal hack, but instead of being a hacking team, where different people work on different things and such, It would be an open project in wich anyone in the community would, in turns, work directly on the rom adding whatever they want.

I would start, and then, a list would be made with the members who want to participate. Then, each person on the list would have the rom for, say, one week, and add whatever they want to the rom. When they finish, they will pass the rom to another memeber, and so on. When the list finishes, we would start again from the first one in the list (being me). Anyone can join the project at anytime, and anyone can leave. The only rules are that nobody can exceed the time limit with the rom, and nobody can remove things done by another member, but they can be improved.

So, if there are enough people interested (and if the mods approve this), we should start soon.

Remember people: together, we are unstoppable!

Say someone breaks the ROM.

Say someone maliciously modifies graphics, text, or other data to be of low quality.

Say someone puts in a really good ASM hack with great features but that makes common tools completely unusable.

What safeguards would you have in place to prevent this?

IIMarckus said:

Say someone breaks the ROM.

Say someone maliciously modifies graphics, text, or other data to be of low quality.

Say someone puts in a really good ASM hack with great features but that makes common tools completely unusable.

What safeguards would you have in place to prevent this?

Click to expand...

That's why BACK-UP FILES are made.
Somebody bnroke the rom? That can happen to everybody.
No problem! We just take the back-up rom, and we resume hacking normally.

If somebody maliciously modifies something, then we would just resume work in the back-up rom, and that person wouldn't be allowed to keep participating in the project. Simple, isn't it?

Now, if the changes are crappy just because the hacker is bad, then we just improve it, or, in extreme cases, remove it
However, if you know your work is very bad, then please avoid participating.

And about making a great ASM hack, I don't see how that would be a problem. It would just improve the overall quality of the hack!
More cool stuff could still be added by other members, even if they don't know ASM. Besides, it isn't like if most usuaries here know ASM.

Alright. The problem is that, despite that it sounds as something good, it also sounds as something utopian. Considering each of us has their own thoughts about what we consider a good hack, it'd be almost impossible that everyone would coincide over the many aspects that involve a hack. I can guess that the final result, if there were one, would be a very crappy game in the end. And everyone would start arguing or feeling bad about it.

Sorry, but it's just a pretty dream...

Well, it seems like a good idea, but like Zel said, it would be crappy. And there would be a few problems that weren't mentioned.

1. What if the person doesn't return it? (Actually, that's not much of a problem, just keep a double backup from then, and continue after)

2. How would we keep track of every script used? Like what happens if one person sets a flag but then they forgot what it was or deleted the script? How would we know?

3. We'd need to keep a copy of every single script used somewhere.

I'm not too sure about it, but it would work if everyone on a team were equal and had good ideas. But we'd have to have 1 main trustworthy person.

Good in theory, but I agree with everyone else. If we all sat down and agreed on 1 vision yeah it could be done however some peoples ideas wont get realized and thus they wont be interested a solution to that would be make another board hack that involves those ideas however you would get more people that don't get there vision realized so you would just continue hacking forever because people will always come up with ideas and some wont get their's in the game it sucks but it is a fact of life you cant please everyone

There would be no debate.
See those fanfic pages in wich somebody starts a story, then another person continues it a bit more, and so on? That't how it woulod work.

A more plausible idea would be if everyone pitched in ideas for what would be in the hack and then a team(Or maybe even just one person) works on it. And if it was just one person to work on it, then everyone could pitch in graphics and scripts, etc.
Even then, this would be difficult to fully agree on all the ideas, etc.

GodSaurus said:

There would be no debate.
See those fanfic pages in wich somebody starts a story, then another person continues it a bit more, and so on? That't how it woulod work.

Click to expand...

Hacking isn't a lot like Roleplay...
Well I guess one way of doing it is assigning for each hacker a certain city/area that he is supposed to map/script... And I guess he would be free to add any of his ideas, however he must follow the flow of events that were put by the one before him.
It's a risky thing to do, especially since this hack could get in hands of noobs...

A hacking team would be much easier and more reliable... I would let this idea go if I were you.

Will............ I like your idea

BUT I don't know anything about hacks <__>

GodSaurus said:

And about making a great ASM hack, I don't see how that would be a problem. It would just improve the overall quality of the hack!
More cool stuff could still be added by other members, even if they don't know ASM. Besides, it isn't like if most usuaries here know ASM.

Click to expand...

Well, you see, certain ASM hacks would make it so you could not use tools. For example, I could implement a system in G/S/C where we can make opposing trainers have shiny Pokemon. But to do that, I would likely (in the interest of space) replace some of the coding for other trainer modes, meaning that any trainer editor made for this game would not work properly. The only way to get around this would be to either code an editor compatible only with the hack, or to make everyone implement their changes in pure hex (which, though not that hard, is something that most people here don't care to learn).

Or, say, if someone were to reorder the WRAM to make more efficient use of space. This would probably break most scripting tools and be difficult to keep track of. Really, it's this sort of thing that makes most good hacks come from a "lone wolf" hacker, because it's really simpler in the end to make all the changes yourself than to work with others who don't understand what you're doing.

I don't think it would work unless only the best hackers worked on it.
Cause unless the person knows how to script, then it would just be edited text and maps. And most noobie hackers (like me) would want to do it. This kind of thing draws them in.

itman1234 said:

I don't think it would work unless only the best hackers worked on it.
Cause unless the person knows how to script, then it would just be edited text and maps. And most noobie hackers (like me) would want to do it. This kind of thing draws them in.

Click to expand...

It dosen't matter what you can do!
If you only can map, then map!
If you can only change graphics, then do it!
If you like scripting then script!
Everyone can apport something different, and it dosen't matter how small it may seem, it helps.

But I see my idea failed.
Everyone is posting problems with the idea, and maybe they're right.
So, I think the project is officially dead.

HOWEVER, if anyone's still interested in this, please PM me, and we'll make it work out.

it would be an interesting idea, but it wouldnt work unless you spend an amazing ammount of time organizing it. Like laying out everything you wanted done, and then letting everybody do it in their own style. The problem is that there wouldnt be any continuity in the project. It would work you just have to have an outline of the entier game, and assign each person a part.