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Could the D&P source code leak finally be the key to more advanced gen 4 hacks?

epictyphlosion

    • 3
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    • Seen Jun 8, 2021
    I'm surprised nobody has been talking about this lately. I refrained from making this thread myself since I thought nobody was allowed to talk about it, but since there was a PC Daily article regarding the leaks I'll assume it's okay.

    If you've seen or played any hacks of Diamond, Pearl, or Platinum, you'll know that they don't change much. For instance, Renegade Platinum only amps up the difficulty, along with balancing all the Pokemon in the game, among a few other things (not saying Renegade Platinum is bad). But as far as more advanced features go, such as gen 5+ Pokemon being added, gen 6 typing, mega evos, etc., they're nowhere to be found. I'm not an expert on programming or anything, but from what I've gathered, the gen 4 games are very hard to modify in general, meaning not a lot can be changed outside of difficulty and Pokemon stats.

    But now that the source code has been leaked for D&P, this means anyone with a decent knowledge of assembly can not only figure out how the games work, but how they can be modified without breaking them. After all, most modern gen 3 hacks which have said features rely on modifying the decompiled source code of whatever game the hack is for. Not only that, but this could help people decompile Platinum, and even HG/SS as well.

    Do these leaks mean we might be seeing some gen 4 hacks on par with Unbound soon, or are they pretty much useless as far as ROM hacking goes?
     
    Whoever makes the software will have to do some epic privacy acrobatics to make sure they don't get tracked. Tbh I feel like they'd be a lot safer if they start with not putting the word Pokemon in the title straight away lmao.
     
    From what I understand the source isn't terribly useful as is (it's like 15 years old, it's tools aren't designed for use on modern computers). However, pret is decompiling DP and eventually Pt and HGSS, much like the gen 1-3 games so in time much easier gen 4 hacking will be a reality
     
    Regarding the changes of gen 4 hacks, check out Mikelan98's Light Platinum remake, it has pokémon up to gen 7 and it uses hgss as a base so they follow you, and he is taking full advantage of Trifindo's tools, PDSMS, which allows for a crazy level of map editing with a simplicity never seen before. Regarding the source code, using it as is is pretty much, as rwbonesy said, a sentece to a takedown notice, but it can be used to understand more easily how a lot of things within the game actually work, so yes, it will be very helpful towards binary hacking. The best time will be when the decompilation of the game is completed, but that will still take some years (probably).
     
    While it's true that using the source code is in theory a C&D sentence, the point is kinda moot - as has been indicated above, the source code is likely not even usable with modern toolsets.

    What can be done, and that is not affected by C&D, is to use the source code as a "whiteboard" or "whiteroom" research point- say, "hey the source exposes functions for TaskFoo and PrintBar, can we do something similar in our own engine?".

    Given that things like the structure of Pokémon party data inside the savefile, or the sizing and order of the sprites stored in the ROM, expose an API implementation detail, they can not be C&D or trademark-warned over either - or rather, they can try but they gain next to nothing over it except that ten more projects fork out using the same previous datasets (the infamous "Streisand Effect" applied to the "Google v Oracle" case). But it still requires someone brave and open enough to handle the first potential C&D.

    In general, I'd say having the source is somewhat helpful, if you are into working the inner parts of the engine to change API critical stuff (say, modify the engine to allow triple battles, or make a rotatable overworld). For anything else, it's a convenience and maybe it speeds up the development for a few years, but it's not so determinant that it will greatly change the lansdcape before similar leaks for Gen5 (which also runs in the DS) take over.
     
    I really don't see how using source code would be any more illegal than romhacking as normal.
    And as long as you don't say you used the leaked source code, any lawyers would have no way of knowing.
     
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