Play Discussions: Multiplayer and Rom-hacks?

AlexiconPrime · Jan 9, 2022

This is sorta the second time I'm asking this but also the first time.

What is up with rom-hacks and multiplayer? Why does this seem to not be something anyone cares about at all? I just don't get it. Let me back up and clarify.

So me and my roommate both love pokemon but our favorite thing to do is co-op battle tower double battles. We used to team up and plan great three-man teams to cleave through the tower. It was tons of fun, and I have many fond memories. Fast forward to sword and shield and... co-op has been cut. Online is full of people mad about it, but oh well it is what it is. At least raids have co-op.

The new Pearl and Diamond remakes come out, we pick them up, and I only find out later via google that there's no co-op in the end game and no plans to bring it in a later update. So this just seems to be Nintendo's feelings going forward, people don't care about co-op battles. Once again I find some angry comments on the internet but it's kinda quiet. Well. Shit, whatever. We eventually settled on a 'rivals' thing, where we battled after each gym to test each others teams.

We are both still hungry for new pokemon experiences though so we thought... hey! Rom hacks! Plus I watched a streamer play a few, and he had a blast, it could be fun. Plus these are made by *fans* so clearly all those features that fans demand must be in them right? Well... no. I check high and low (and even post on the forums here) and find none of them have co-op battles or plans to add them. Well... that's valid I guess, since it's probably hard to code that in...

But the thing is none of the roms I looked at. Unbound, Gaia, Xenoverse, none of them have even mention of multiplayer. Not in the FAQ, not in the main sales pitch, none of it. No mention of trading (I know Unbound and Gaia are firered hacks but Red had trading and battles!), battles, or any of it. It's not a sales pitch or something they have to mention in the FAQ as 'sorry we don't have this thing'. Most of these roms even mention basic pokemon features like catching and battling so it's not like its a 'well obviously we have it so we don't mention it' thing.

So do people really just not care about multiplayer at all? Trading, battling, co-op, any of it? Is it really so unimportant?

If my main concern is having fun with my roommate, which rom would be best for me? For battles, trading, or please god co-op?

Any of the people who have worked on romhacks... is it just not a priority or a concern? Not something that even occurs? I'd love some insight into this.

Prof_Oatfield · Jan 10, 2022

I think that I got the gist of your question, but, just to be sure: what kind of co-op do you have in mind (ideally)?
Something like two linked emulators battling against the same NPC in a double battle?

I only have experience in hacking Crystal, and I have never touched the link-related code, but, at a glance, I imagine it would not be easy to do. There is a lot of room to introduce bugs. Perhaps with Fire Red (or variants of it) it might be easier.

mgriffin · Jan 10, 2022

I'd love to see more multiplayer co-op ROM hacks, but they're hard to make. In three ways:
- at a conceptual design level "what would multiplayer/co-op Pokémon look like?"
- at a map/script design level "how do I make these scripts work regardless of where the two players are/what they're doing?"
- at a programming level "how do I adapt the engine to support multiplayer without desyncs/crashes?"
I think if you wanted to make an interesting multiplayer Pokémon game then it would have to be designed from the very start to be multiplayer. And imo some of the most fun things, co-op puzzles and the like, would basically require that the game was only multiplayer.

If it's not co-op, but more like two players sharing the same world (e.g. somebody controls Red and somebody controls Blue) then I think that's more tractable from a game design perspective, but you have most of the same issues when it comes to programming.

If you're a competent programmer with some network experience we could chat about actually programming such a thing.
If you're more of a design person we could chat about the game design challenges, but there's a 0% chance that I'd build a multiplayer ROM base on my own for free.

Prof_Oatfield · Jan 10, 2022

mgriffin said:
If you're a competent programmer with some network experience we could chat about actually programming such a thing.
If you're more of a design person we could chat about the game design challenges, but there's a 0% chance that I'd build a multiplayer ROM base on my own for free.

We are talking strictly about ROM hacks, and not fan games also, right?

I am a competent programmer and I think I would enjoy this kind of challenge, but I do not have experience with GBC/GBA network as of yet. Though I would be willing to learn, but only if there is someone else involved. This is way too much for a single person!

mgriffin · Jan 10, 2022

Prof_Oatfield said:
We are talking strictly about ROM hacks, and not fan games also, right?

I am a competent programmer and I think I would enjoy this kind of challenge, but I do not have experience with GBC/GBA network as of yet. Though I would be willing to learn, but only if there is someone else involved. This is way too much for a single person!

Yeah, these days all my ROM hacking is done with the pokeemerald decomp. I don't know too much about the hardware, but I expect that it's probably achievable to rework the scripting and link cable aspects of the code to support an interesting multiplayer experience :)

I'll PM you my Discord info, and we can chat :)

ThomasWinwood · Jan 11, 2022

AlexiconPrime said:
What is up with rom-hacks and multiplayer? Why does this seem to not be something anyone cares about at all? [...] But the thing is none of the roms I looked at. Unbound, Gaia, Xenoverse, none of them have even mention of multiplayer. Not in the FAQ, not in the main sales pitch, none of it. [...] So do people really just not care about multiplayer at all? Trading, battling, co-op, any of it? Is it really so unimportant?

Pokemon's multiplayer aspects are very barebones and emulators only just support it (e.g. mGBA can only connect two or more local windows together - no internet connectivity without janky Parsec setups) so people take the path of least resistance and assume that players will be flying solo.

AlexiconPrime said:
Plus these [ROM hacks] are made by *fans* so clearly all those features that fans demand must be in them right?

Have you seen what other people think of the fans who complain about the lack of "all those features"? It's not complimentary. The phrase I saw was "gluttons who would not be satisfied with all the riches on earth".

Mario60866 · Jan 29, 2022

For multiplayer on my rom hack, I want to include all types of battles, trading, and teaming up for the Battle Tower and for raid battles. There would be DS wireless features to make this work. Transferring from other games would be a thing too; there would likely be some type of mini game in the room hack that allows for you to transfer Pokemon in chosen groups or individually, or perhaps a feature to export entire save files from core series games to dump all their stuff into the room hack save file.

pokemountain · Jun 6, 2022

I actually saw someone doing a coop nuzlocke challenge using a rom hack that added multiplayer to emerald. It looks like they could fight every battle as a link battle on the same side, although as I watched through it there were some crashes. https://youtu.be/c3Fg4lEDvbc

Memepig · Jan 16, 2023

AlexiconPrime said:
This is sorta the second time I'm asking this but also the first time.

What is up with rom-hacks and multiplayer? Why does this seem to not be something anyone cares about at all? I just don't get it. Let me back up and clarify.

So me and my roommate both love pokemon but our favorite thing to do is co-op battle tower double battles. We used to team up and plan great three-man teams to cleave through the tower. It was tons of fun, and I have many fond memories. Fast forward to sword and shield and... co-op has been cut. Online is full of people mad about it, but oh well it is what it is. At least raids have co-op.

The new Pearl and Diamond remakes come out, we pick them up, and I only find out later via google that there's no co-op in the end game and no plans to bring it in a later update. So this just seems to be Nintendo's feelings going forward, people don't care about co-op battles. Once again I find some angry comments on the internet but it's kinda quiet. Well. Shit, whatever. We eventually settled on a 'rivals' thing, where we battled after each gym to test each others teams.

We are both still hungry for new pokemon experiences though so we thought... hey! Rom hacks! Plus I watched a streamer play a few, and he had a blast, it could be fun. Plus these are made by *fans* so clearly all those features that fans demand must be in them right? Well... no. I check high and low (and even post on the forums here) and find none of them have co-op battles or plans to add them. Well... that's valid I guess, since it's probably hard to code that in...

But the thing is none of the roms I looked at. Unbound, Gaia, Xenoverse, none of them have even mention of multiplayer. Not in the FAQ, not in the main sales pitch, none of it. No mention of trading (I know Unbound and Gaia are firered hacks but Red had trading and battles!), battles, or any of it. It's not a sales pitch or something they have to mention in the FAQ as 'sorry we don't have this thing'. Most of these roms even mention basic pokemon features like catching and battling so it's not like its a 'well obviously we have it so we don't mention it' thing.

So do people really just not care about multiplayer at all? Trading, battling, co-op, any of it? Is it really so unimportant?

If my main concern is having fun with my roommate, which rom would be best for me? For battles, trading, or please god co-op?

Any of the people who have worked on romhacks... is it just not a priority or a concern? Not something that even occurs? I'd love some insight into this.

There's Pokemon Quetzal.

Play Discussions: Multiplayer and Rom-hacks?

More options

AlexiconPrime

Prof_Oatfield

Prof. Oatfield

mgriffin

Prof_Oatfield

Prof. Oatfield

mgriffin

ThomasWinwood

Mario60866

Banned

pokemountain

Memepig