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Greenlit: ROM Hacking News #1

Christos

Christos

    • 6,353
    Posts
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    • Seen Apr 16, 2020
    The first ROM Hackers Weekly (name pending) article that could be posted early April. After comments and suggestions in this thread, this article would include recent events in the ROM Hacking section.

    Potential content:
    • What's New: New hacks, tools, and threads in general from the past month. Could also mention new events such as the Gym Design contest.
    • Hack of the Month: A small section on the past month's Hack of the Month winner, and smaller parts on the current Hack of the Month's three contestants.
    • Pick of the Week: A spotlight on a Progressing Hack that's had significant progress but without a big enough release to have complete reviews by members and an article on it (this would a different article part of RHW) and isn't the previous HotM winner or current HotM contestant. For this article, I'm currently looking at either Mirage of Tales, which has recently released prologues for its three main characters, or Zelda: A Sacred Paradox. If I remember correctly, both have won Hack of the Month months ago, but have had significant progress since. I am open to suggestions though.
    • Tips and Tricks: This could be a small section on a tip that would help ROM hackers.
    Any suggestions are welcome, and if anyone's willing to write any part of this, please post here!
     
    The Tips and Tricks section could feature small changes such as the thousands in this thread: https://www.pokecommunity.com/threads/205158

    Maybe quote the pertinent information and then screenshot the changes in effect. Might be cool! Especially if we feature things are asked about a lot in the Beginner's Lounge and new developments, etc.
     
    Spherical Ice said:
    The Tips and Tricks section could feature small changes such as the thousands in this thread: https://www.pokecommunity.com/threads/205158

    Maybe quote the pertinent information and then screenshot the changes in effect. Might be cool! Especially if we feature things are asked about a lot in the Beginner's Lounge and new developments, etc.
    Click to expand...

    That thread has a lot of nice stuff we could include. I'll have a look and see which ones are usually asked about or would be useful to read about.

    Spoiler:

    Notifying people who have offered to help with ROM hacking articles! We'd love to know your comments and suggestions on this.
     
    ROM Hacking Weekly isn't the best idea tbh, don't think it should be given a timeframe as that is usually what causes the death of things. Just go look back at previous ROM Hacking endeavours like such for proof of this. I still think taking inspiration from Thrace'a RHN is the thing to do. Maybe do something podcasty, it was brief but I feel the ROM Hacking podcast I previously ran was fun, interesting and a good idea.
     
    hashtag said:
    ROM Hacking Weekly isn't the best idea tbh, don't think it should be given a timeframe as that is usually what causes the death of things. Just go look back at previous ROM Hacking endeavours like such for proof of this. I still think taking inspiration from Thrace'a RHN is the thing to do. Maybe do something podcasty, it was brief but I feel the ROM Hacking podcast I previously ran was fun, interesting and a good idea.
    Click to expand...

    The idea for now is bi-weekly articles, one at the start of the month with recent events/hacks, and another one that could be hack reviews by different members or an interview. The name or timeframe haven't been decided for sure yet, but I'd like to try this. Having two ROM hacking related articles a month isn't too much I think. This is similar to Thrace's ROM Hacking Newsletter, except it's separated in two smaller articles, one for news and tips and tricks and another for hack reviews (and possibly interviews). The ROM Hacking Newsletter would be a nice name for the first article.
     
    I like the general idea you've got here, Pick of the Week and Hack of the Month seem like they could work for a while (assuming quality hacks continue to be released) so I don't imagine you'll have much difficult at least keeping up with that during the year.

    The section I really like the most is Tip of the Week. On top of those small changes from the R&D thread, I would also like to see some small tutorials or how-to's there as well. For example, something that I've always wanted to see but doesn't seem big enough to warrant a thread would be "how to map using FireRed's trees" as a number of people don't utilize the tiles with shadows alongside the shadowless tree tiles correctly.
     
    I like the points brought up here. I think it's worth reaching out to each related community from people who play ROM hacks, ROM hackers or a more casual Pokemon gaming community. So the How-to section, pick of the week, and tips and tricks section are all fitting. I'd like to see an introduction article (maybe just for the first issue) to explain what ROM hacking is and what people like us try to do. Maybe we can attract readers who aren't directly involved in the RH community that way. I'd be nice to see some new faces :)

    As Hashtag suggested, a podcast could be a cool idea. If you put timestamps, then people can tune into the sections they care about and skip any pointless ranting.

    I'd be interested in helping with writing how-to/tips sections, if you gave me topics.
     
    Okay so, i'll write out my opinions on each of the things listed here and try to list some ideas of my own~

    Christos said:
    What's New: New hacks, tools, and threads in general from the past month. Could also mention new events such as the Gym Design contest.
    Click to expand...

    I like the idea of this especially because there are a ton of new tools and new hacks in the progress of being made. I don't quite post on every thread in Rom Hacking but there are definitely a lot of good threads getting posted daily that deserve some recognition, I think using Daily to an advantage of pointing out all of the new threads, tools, and hacks would bolster some of the creators confidence which would probably revive some of the confidence in Rom Hacking and possibly even allow some creativity to rise up.

    Seeing as I do notice that Rom Hacking may not be quite as popular as it was when I joined originally, we have gotten a lot of nice new hacks and tools and what not, but I think using Daily in this situation would really work out well!

    Christos said:
    Hack of the Month: A small section on the past month's Hack of the Month winner, and smaller parts on the current Hack of the Month's three contestants.
    Click to expand...

    We don't exactly get a lot of coverage on Hack of the Month after it's concluded for the month, typically the winner of that months poll says some nice things, is grateful for the award, and continues on with their work. Perhaps with this section of Daily we could possibly have a brief interview with that month's winner, ask a standard set of questions or even mix it up and do it on the spot.

    This whole scenario would allow us to get some really good writing material and have some sick material to use in this section, and we could even go further and interview the three contestants for the next hack of the month and see what their overall goals are that aren't expressed in their game's main thread. If someone has worked hard enough to make themselves a candidate for a hack of the month then they deserve a chance to explain their goals and plans for the future for their game, right?

    Christos said:
    Pick of the Week: A spotlight on a Progressing Hack that's had significant progress but without a big enough release to have complete reviews by members and an article on it (this would a different article part of RHW) and isn't the previous HotM winner or current HotM contestant. For this article, I'm currently looking at either Mirage of Tales, which has recently released prologues for its three main characters, or Zelda: A Sacred Paradox. If I remember correctly, both have won Hack of the Month months ago, but have had significant progress since. I am open to suggestions though.
    Click to expand...

    This would definitely be a good idea but I do think that following what I said previously, we could interview the contestants for the Pick of the Week as well, this would allow them to explain their hopes and goals and will possibly bolster their spirit in working on their Rom Hack - A lot of people after-all do get discouraged when working on Rom Hacks, be it as a hobby or as a real passion. (*Cough* Ckret2 *Cough*)

    Another good potential option is the idea that Pick of the Week could be a stepping stone to be included in a Hack of the Month two months after-the-fact if they've made enough significant progress (While of course the members of the Daily team wouldn't actually control Hack of the Month, or any of it's subsidiaries, a good potential recommendation from members of the Daily team would definitely be a way to include some decent commentary on the possible candidates.)

    Christos said:
    Tips and Tricks: This could be a small section on a tip that would help ROM hackers.
    Click to expand...

    This is definitely a great idea, i'm definitely not the most experienced with the creating side of rom hacking, but I definitely can see how this would help anyone reading the article, I remember watching Foullumps Rom Hacking Tutorials on YouTube and learning a lot because of it, if the writers of the article of the week were to do something similar by providing tips from advanced and older rom hackers, then we could potentially have a really good article format for this section.


    I definitely love all of these ideas and I definitely would be glad to write some of these, I hope some of the feedback i've provided has been useful, if there is anything you want me to do some research on and provide a rough draft for, I'd definitely do so, let me know!
     
    I think it's important to realise that ROM Hacking is becoming popular on sites like reddit where the viewer is more casual. We should try and tap into that demographic as much as we can. I feel PC's ROM Hacking community is in a pivotal state right now where we will either tap into that and remain the biggest and best Pokemon hacking site or lose the initiative and fade away.
     
    Last edited:
    hashtag said:
    I think it's important to realise that ROM Hacking is becoming popular on sites like reddit where the viewer is more casual. We should try and tap into that demographic as much as we can. I feel PC's ROM Hacking community is in a pivotal state right now where we will either tap into that and remain the biggest and best Pokemon hacking site or lose the initiative and fade away.
    Click to expand...

    I can see your point and I do agree that Rom Hacking is in a odd state of popularity on sites like reddit, but personally I don't think Daily is meant to change Rom Hacking, but keep the regular user up to date on Rom Hacking within our community. That said, it can be changed with some awesome suggestions, but I don't personally think that starts with Daily...
     
    Darkness said:
    I can see your point and I do agree that Rom Hacking is in a odd state of popularity on sites like reddit, but personally I don't think Daily is meant to change Rom Hacking, but keep the regular user up to date on Rom Hacking within our community. That said, it can be changed with some awesome suggestions, but I don't personally think that starts with Daily...
    Click to expand...
    I think you're slightly wrong there. We should look to promote and inspire on any medium possible; Daily has the potential to be a fantastic asset to both PC and its ROM Hacking community. If ROM Hacking on daily is just here to tow the waters then what is the point?
     
    This particular article is to promote recent hacks and other contributions (tools, tutorials, resources) and advertise other events such as Hack of the Month in the community. There are definitely other ways to promote and showcase ROM hacking content on Daily, and anyone's welcome to post a proposal thread.
     
    hashtag said:
    ROM Hacking Weekly isn't the best idea tbh, don't think it should be given a timeframe as that is usually what causes the death of things. Just go look back at previous ROM Hacking endeavours like such for proof of this. I still think taking inspiration from Thrace'a RHN is the thing to do. Maybe do something podcasty, it was brief but I feel the ROM Hacking podcast I previously ran was fun, interesting and a good idea.
    Click to expand...
    Yeah, in general I would like to avoid articles referring to a time or frequency of output.
    This is similar to Thrace's ROM Hacking Newsletter, except it's separated in two smaller articles, one for news and tips and tricks and another for hack reviews (and possibly interviews). The ROM Hacking Newsletter would be a nice name for the first article.
    Click to expand...
    ROM Hacking Newsletter sounds good to me.
    Christos said:
    The idea for now is bi-weekly articles, one at the start of the month with recent events/hacks, and another one that could be hack reviews by different members or an interview. The name or timeframe haven't been decided for sure yet, but I'd like to try this. Having two ROM hacking related articles a month isn't too much I think.
    Click to expand...
    What do you think should be in the first article of those two, and any plans on specifics (@ everyone)? Also, where could this from the OP fit in - one of the two alternative articles, or all of them: "Tips and Tricks: This could be a small section on a tip that would help ROM hackers."?
    Christos said:
    This particular article is to promote recent hacks and other contributions (tools, tutorials, resources) and advertise other events such as Hack of the Month in the community. There are definitely other ways to promote and showcase ROM hacking content on Daily, and anyone's welcome to post a proposal thread.
    Click to expand...
    Indeed. I'm certainly keen for Daily to work with other sections including ROM Hacks to present other articles to help them out (and by proxy give Daily more stuff worth reading as well). Definitely encourage sharing ideas if you have them!
    Darkness said:
    This whole scenario would allow us to get some really good writing material and have some sick material to use in this section, and we could even go further and interview the three contestants for the next hack of the month and see what their overall goals are that aren't expressed in their game's main thread. If someone has worked hard enough to make themselves a candidate for a hack of the month then they deserve a chance to explain their goals and plans for the future for their game, right?
    Click to expand...
    While it might be challenging to keep up with this (but then idk, maybe it just needs a bit of organsiation work), it would be neat imo to have interviews with the hack creator. Good thing would be to have some questions to explain how they make their hack or any advice they have as well imo.
     
    A discussion thread for a ROM Hacking podcast has been made here! Podcasts could definitely be featured as a Daily article in the future, but for now a thread for it is more fit there.

    The point if it being (bi-)weekly would be to have frequent articles with less content. If we go with ROM Hacking Newsletter, we should aim for one article a month. Pick of the Week will be removed, and instead, there can be a different article series, Hacks Spotlight, for example, which will be either member reviews of an already released hack, or a feature of a promising/active hack which doesn't necessarily have a release, along with an interview with its creator. Or any combination of these.

    Since a monthly Newsletter should be somewhat lengthy, I'm thinking the first issue could have these sections:
    • What's New
    • Hack of the Month - in addition to the current participants and previous winner, there could be an interview with the winning hack's creator
    • Tips and Tricks

    This looks too focused on Hack of the Month which I don't like. Other hack features/reviews or interviews with ROM hackers could work well in it, and I'd actually prefer it having these even if it could make the article too long, but they would also be good as their own articles. Thoughts?
     
    Rom hacking is a specific section of pokemon fangames. So I think that Pokemon Essentials games should also be featured on this. We should call it Pokemon fangames. And devote one section of the newsletter to pokemon essential games as well as romhacks. I've been in the fan game community for some time now. I think I could help with that part of it. But at this point there is no section for that. I have been in the rom hack community. And right now I am working on a rom hack. (Not released to the public yet ) I have been viewing the threads. But as I said I think even Pokemon Essentials games deserve a section.
     
    hashtag said:
    https://www.pokecommunity.com/threads/365154
    Click to expand...
    Christos said:
    A discussion thread for a ROM Hacking podcast has been made here! Podcasts could definitely be featured as a Daily article in the future, but for now a thread for it is more fit there.
    Click to expand...
    That definitely sounds good. Once things get rolling with that, we can start planning articles to go with them (I imagine a series, short intro with each podcast and also saying who is within each podcast).
    The point if it being (bi-)weekly would be to have frequent articles with less content. If we go with ROM Hacking Newsletter, we should aim for one article a month. Pick of the Week will be removed, and instead, there can be a different article series, Hacks Spotlight, for example, which will be either member reviews of an already released hack, or a feature of a promising/active hack which doesn't necessarily have a release, along with an interview with its creator. Or any combination of these.

    Since a monthly Newsletter should be somewhat lengthy, I'm thinking the first issue could have these sections:
    • What's New
    • Hack of the Month - in addition to the current participants and previous winner, there could be an interview with the winning hack's creator
    • Tips and Tricks

    This looks too focused on Hack of the Month which I don't like. Other hack features/reviews or interviews with ROM hackers could work well in it, and I'd actually prefer it having these even if it could make the article too long, but they would also be good as their own articles. Thoughts?
    Click to expand...
    Could it be called a newsletter and remain bi-weekly...? I do prefer more articles over less, (but not too strongly attached to it - that said, especially right now more articles more often is ideal). Or we could think up another name, as long as it doesn't have week/biweekly/etc in its name.
    Slyarch said:
    Rom hacking is a specific section of pokemon fangames. So I think that Pokemon Essentials games should also be featured on this. We should call it Pokemon fangames. And devote one section of the newsletter to pokemon essential games as well as romhacks. I've been in the fan game community for some time now. I think I could help with that part of it. But at this point there is no section for that. I have been in the rom hack community. And right now I am working on a rom hack. (Not released to the public yet ) I have been viewing the threads. But as I said I think even Pokemon Essentials games deserve a section.
    Click to expand...
    While I would like to feature Pokemon Essential games (so basically made-from-scratch Pokemon games?) in Daily articles too, I think we could make a distinction between the two and have separate articles for them. (I imagine there are good reasons for said distinction given the forums are set-up as they are, but willing to see more input on this point). For instance here, the rom hacking tips may well be specific to rom hacks, and not all members of one section are necessarily in the other, which may go for the potential writers of articles as well.
     
    Slyarch said:
    Rom hacking is a specific section of pokemon fangames. So I think that Pokemon Essentials games should also be featured on this. We should call it Pokemon fangames. And devote one section of the newsletter to pokemon essential games as well as romhacks. I've been in the fan game community for some time now. I think I could help with that part of it. But at this point there is no section for that. I have been in the rom hack community. And right now I am working on a rom hack. (Not released to the public yet ) I have been viewing the threads. But as I said I think even Pokemon Essentials games deserve a section.
    Click to expand...

    ROM Hacking has a bigger community in the forums. I agree that fan games should be featured in articles too, but not in this article series.

    bobandbill said:
    Could it be called a newsletter and remain bi-weekly...? I do prefer more articles over less, (but not too strongly attached to it - that said, especially right now more articles more often is ideal). Or we could think up another name, as long as it doesn't have week/biweekly/etc in its name.
    Click to expand...

    We can go with the name Newsletter, and we could make them less frequent by not including hack reviews in the series. That could be named Hacks Spotlight, though that's used for YouTube.

    We can always write about Hack of the Month winners and participants, but since that was the main topic of the previous ROM Hacking related article, I'd like to avoid it this time. So here's my proposal for the first article:

    • What's New: New hacks/resources/tools, a small section on Hack of the Month's winner, and links to the current events at the time: Design a Gym and Hack of the Month April
    • Pick of the Week: A paragraph on thoughts/comments on Pokémon Mirage of Tales, which has had all three of its prologue patches released recently. We could also include a short interview with avaramoon if people think it's a good idea and she agrees.
    • Tips and Tricks: This'll be one or two relatively short ROM hacking tips. I'd aim for one of the two to be an interesting read for non-ROM hackers too, if that's even possible.

    In the following issue, which could be 2-4 weeks after this, we could do an interview with the HotM winner. What does everyone think about allowing people to ask for their content to be promoted on Daily? (hacks, tutorials, tools etc.) These could be mentioned in the What's New section of an article but perhaps we could have a separate section called Community Feature or something.
     
    Christos said:
    We can go with the name Newsletter, and we could make them less frequent by not including hack reviews in the series. That could be named Hacks Spotlight, though that's used for YouTube.
    Click to expand...
    Don't mind sharing a name with youtube videos (granted, said videos could also be turned into articles as well).
    We can always write about Hack of the Month winners and participants, but since that was the main topic of the previous ROM Hacking related article, I'd like to avoid it this time. So here's my proposal for the first article:

    • What's New: New hacks/resources/tools, a small section on Hack of the Month's winner, and links to the current events at the time: Design a Gym and Hack of the Month April
    • Pick of the Week: A paragraph on thoughts/comments on Pokémon Mirage of Tales, which has had all three of its prologue patches released recently. We could also include a short interview with avaramoon if people think it's a good idea and she agrees.
    • Tips and Tricks: This'll be one or two relatively short ROM hacking tips. I'd aim for one of the two to be an interesting read for non-ROM hackers too, if that's even possible.
    Click to expand...
    That sounds fine to me. I guess then it'd make sense to have this around the start of April given the HotM April bit?

    I think you should start working on the details of what will go the first article then. =)
    In the following issue, which could be 2-4 weeks after this, we could do an interview with the HotM winner. What does everyone think about allowing people to ask for their content to be promoted on Daily? (hacks, tutorials, tools etc.) These could be mentioned in the What's New section of an article but perhaps we could have a separate section called Community Feature or something.
    Click to expand...
    Think that'll be good - announcement or the like within the ROM Hack section/s can be done, maybe bulletin board alternatively/additionally.
     
    Christos said:
    We can go with the name Newsletter, and we could make them less frequent by not including hack reviews in the series. That could be named Hacks Spotlight, though that's used for YouTube.
    Click to expand...
    Don't mind sharing a name with youtube videos (granted, said videos could also be turned into articles as well).
    We can always write about Hack of the Month winners and participants, but since that was the main topic of the previous ROM Hacking related article, I'd like to avoid it this time. So here's my proposal for the first article:

    • What's New: New hacks/resources/tools, a small section on Hack of the Month's winner, and links to the current events at the time: Design a Gym and Hack of the Month April
    • Pick of the Week: A paragraph on thoughts/comments on Pokémon Mirage of Tales, which has had all three of its prologue patches released recently. We could also include a short interview with avaramoon if people think it's a good idea and she agrees.
    • Tips and Tricks: This'll be one or two relatively short ROM hacking tips. I'd aim for one of the two to be an interesting read for non-ROM hackers too, if that's even possible.
    Click to expand...
    That sounds fine to me. I guess then it'd make sense to have this around the start of April given the HotM April bit?

    I think you should start working on the details of what will go the first article then. =)
    In the following issue, which could be 2-4 weeks after this, we could do an interview with the HotM winner. What does everyone think about allowing people to ask for their content to be promoted on Daily? (hacks, tutorials, tools etc.) These could be mentioned in the What's New section of an article but perhaps we could have a separate section called Community Feature or something.
    Click to expand...
    Think that'll be good - announcement or the like within the ROM Hack section/s can be done, maybe bulletin board alternatively/additionally.
     
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