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Suggestions for additions to Getting Started thread

itari said:
Advanced Map 1.95 is bugged a bunch. I'd recommend using 1.92 instead.
Also, you might want to include some sprite editors, either Hacked unLZ.GBA or NSE 2.X.
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I've heard this circling for a while, never really noticed any problems myself (I mean, they've both glitched on me :P). I'll add an additional link for 1.92.

Good shout on sprite editors, I'll put a link to NSE up as it's a bit more beginner-friendly IMO.
 
So this is what you were talking about. It looks good Magic! Might I recommend including NUPS as another patching tool for all the roms that are larger than 16 MB?
 
What about DS style tiles?
 
Did you notice the stickied post here I wrote a while back? It's a link list for easy access.

In my mind, if someone isn't going to read the rules or see a QQ thread why would they read this incredibly lengthy document?

Not a fan of the 'noob' comment, and a few others that might come across as patronising. You basically accuse new members of being inherently lazy near the beginning as well.
 
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Magic said:
Did you notice the stickied post here I wrote a while back? It's a link list for easy access.

In my mind, if someone isn't going to read the rules or see a QQ thread why would they read this incredibly lengthy document?

Not a fan of the 'noob' comment, and a few others that might come across as patronising. You basically accuse new members of being inherently lazy near the beginning as well.
Click to expand...

I'm on mobile, so forgive me if this response is poorly written. Traveling until Monday.

I did notice and read through your post, but I didn't think it was particularly thorough. This, while lengthy, walks the new hacker through exactly what ROMHacking is, lets them know that everything is at their fingertips if they actually search for it, and holds their hand through learning the most important tools for hacking. I am aware of its length, and am going to proofread it again when I have the time to hopefully cut some of that down while still keeping it clear.

I used noob all of twice in the document, I believe. Once as a metaphor for naming a player in a Pokémon game, and again while saying "hold on there little noob". I phrased it that way because I realized saying "little guy" like I originally wanted wasn't inclusive, and I wanted to keep everything gender neutral. For the rest of the document, the readers are referred to as "new hacker". And really, what else would you have me call them? As for being patronizing outside of that, well, this is aimed at someone who Googled ROMHacking and landed here with no prior knowledge. However, I agree that patronizing the reader is not the best course of action, I'll try to tone it down when I proofread. I would appreciate someone pointing out where exactly I come across as patronizing, so that every instance of it can be cleared up.

Well, in the current hacking environment, what do YOU think is the biggest obstacle to learning? It's certainly not a lack of tools, tutorials, and available help. New hackers run into problems because they either want other people to do their work for them (i.e. laziness), or they won't search for the solution to their problem themselves (could be many reasons, but again, laziness is a big factor). I'm not going to sugarcoat things for people. Hacking is a hobby that has a learning curve. Sometimes, it's hard. I phrased it so that I didn't flat out call the new hacker lazy, but instead let them know that that sort of laziness will be an issue if they want to learn. I also gave them an insight into our community's culture of, "search before you ask." And really, if this is too much information at once, and new hackers just can't be bothered to read a document that spells everything out for them despite its bulk, what exactly would you call them?
 
Magic said:
Did you notice the stickied post here I wrote a while back? It's a link list for easy access.

In my mind, if someone isn't going to read the rules or see a QQ thread why would they read this incredibly lengthy document?

Not a fan of the 'noob' comment, and a few others that might come across as patronising. You basically accuse new members of being inherently lazy near the beginning as well.
Click to expand...

I agree that it's a little on the lengthy side. Maybe if you had basic descriptions for everything and then the more indepth descriptions in spoilers? Cutting to the point is a good way to do that.

What the rival paragraph could be said:
Most questions you've asked before are likely to have already been asked and addressed. To access these old answers, it's encouraged you use Google's search engine in the following way:

Code: 
site: pokecommunity.com [I]keywords[/I]
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what to think of the term "noob" though. I don't think it's a harmful term nor do I think that anyone should take offense to it. Its one of those words poorly mannered children call you in a game. Outside of that context, it can genuinely mean novice. Most of these new people often create threads with titles like "Noob here", "Help a noob member" or the less obvious "I'm new here, help". Deokishisu uses it in a joking manner too, so I don't think it's particularly bad.

As for the lazyness part, I do think that it's more of the fact they don't know about most of the resources available here, or how to search the quick questions thread. Even I don't know how to search the quick questions thread and not get a billion irrelevant results. When I narrow my question down I get nothing, but then I have to wait 5 minutes before using the search feature again to make my search a little more vaguer. Its not really laziness, its more of not knowing how to find things or things being hard to find in general.

Some of our new members are awesome, they know what they're doing in general, and are well informed. My advice would just be to browse around the forums, and just read anything that interests you.

In summary Deokishisu, try and see if you can cut back on the texts at certain parts.
 
ROM - noun - another term for "game". Often used as "a Firered ROM"; or "an Emerald ROM"
Click to expand...

I'm not sure why you're trying to spread this misconception. ROM stands for Read Only Memory, and in the case of the Gameboy Advance, this means the contents of the game stored on a GBA cartridge. When we have a ROM for the GBA on our computer, it is the contents of this cartridge dumped into a single file, which an emulator then interprets.

For a "FireRed ROM" it means the data contained for the FireRed game stored on its respective ROM cartridge (so, yes, a game, but a bit more complex).

Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROM_image and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROM_cartridge
 
You did a lot of work writing all this and there is a lot of useful stuff for beginners to know here. So thumbs up for that!

You should add information about hacking in general too though.
And like Hopeless Masquerade stated here, 'ROM' is simply abbreviation of Read-Only Memory. And there is actually a reason for calling it like that. Because the game runs by having a processor executing instructions in the background which are fetched from ROM. Because ROM is Read-Only, it can be read but not written to. If it could be written to, the ROM file could be "hacked" when the game is run but that is not possible.
 
I'm a noob, and I liked the thread. I don't know whether a lengthy description helped or made it harder to understand, I don't know if being called a noob or lazy will put people off. Odds are, I will never know. But I do know this thread helped me, regardless of what caused it to help me.

Thanks Deokishisu, and your name's really hard to spell.
 
I tried to download Advance Map but my anti-virus blocks it and says there is malware, help!
 
thanks i have been trying to get into this stuff for a while because i have a really good story but dont know who to ask for help this provided me with a easy way out to look at all the stuff i needed hope ill make people happy some day .
 
Fun Size said:
So this is what you were talking about. It looks good Magic! Might I recommend including NUPS as another patching tool for all the roms that are larger than 16 MB?
Click to expand...
Percy said:
Can you add FSF?
Click to expand...

Added both of these tools to the mix a while back :)

KittiOcelotti said:
What about DS style tiles?
Click to expand...

Hmm, I'd like to avoid links that are quite that specific, but I have added a link to the resources thread in the 'useful links' section.


Edit// and linked to Deokishisu's thread.
 
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