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The Lone Hacker?

Hacking teams are not overrated. People's brain are. If you want to start a team, I bet here you won't find much people willing to help. Exceptions to the rule are always welcome. I did not started alone yet I was left behind doing all the work by myself for most of the time. I didn't have much luck with teams yet I was able to find a few hackers that truly helped me and still are.

I suppose you're a newbie (correct me if I'm wrong) and I can tell you that working alone isn't that bad, especially at the beginning. This way you can learn the basics and improve your skills in general. Keep in mind that no one really works alone (e.g. beta testers) and besides you can't be good at everything, whether you realize it or not.

Personally, I like teams because you can share ideas and redistribute the work on the most appropriate hackers. Still, most people think at hacking teams simply as a time/work booster. Hacking in team doesn't mean necessarily the hack progress will go faster, it could even go slower. It all depends on the people you are working with.

Interest, perseverance, dedication, patience, desire to learn. All of these are always a must while hacking, even if you're alone.
 
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Although a full on hack generally works better with one person, hacking in a team is really fun because you can muck around making ideas and focus on one thing to do. =P
 
I am working on my hack (Pokemon Ash's BIG day) by my self i can not do some things like change the world map and change the title screen but no one wants to help me "hint hint" but i prefer to do the rest on my own because it is to hard to get more people to do it because if one person is working on it no one els can work on it
 
Nosman said:
I am working on my hack (Pokemon Ash's BIG day) by my self i can not do some things like change the world map and change the title screen but no one wants to help me "hint hint" but i prefer to do the rest on my own because it is to hard to get more people to do it because if one person is working on it no one els can work on it
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Those are things you can probably do by yourself; you just haven't learned yet. No one wants to help you because they either a) have a hack of their own b) are put off by your lack of grammar or c) simply don't want to work in a team/are too busy. If one person is working on it, surprisingly, other people can work on it too. If a mapper is mapping, he/she can simply save the maps, and send them to whoever is managing the project. A scripter can save the scripts. About the only people who actually need to use the patch by themselves are the people who are inserting things into it, and then they'll simply make another patch for everyone else to work on.
 
I started out working alone on my hack, and while I still do most things by myself, I'm now getting some help from others as well. (As the OP of this thread well knows--hello, spriter. :P)

The way I see hacking teams is that, sure, you can do everything yourself. I am (in my opinion, at least) a good scripter, I can make passably good maps that don't have tile errors and that use tree shading correctly, and I can make sprites that don't look like crap. But even though I am capable of doing everything myself, it takes a heck of a lot more time to make all scripts AND all sprites AND all maps than it does to make almost all scripts, a few maps, and a few sprites. Disturbed and The warden have done, respectively, a cave map and a couple of Johto maps, and Zanny77 has done some item sprites. Although I could do all of those parts myself if I desperately wanted to do ToxicPurple by myself, they're all very talented as well. The quality of work in ToxicPurple certainly hasn't suffered from their involvement and has probably been improved quite a bit.

If big hacking teams are overrated, so is doing it entirely alone.
 
I prefer to work on my hack by myself
BUT I also prefer ask others questions and for help instead of figuring it out myself
(not meaing i'm lazy i mean that I would rather ask someone how to example import a custom sprite then guess for hours :) )
 
colcolstyles said:
I'd like to add on to my last post.

If you're just beginning as a hacker, join a team. Quite honestly, you're going to be terrible. I was, everyone was. I remember the first team I was on. It was terrible. But I just had so much fun doing it. We never really made anything worthy of posting but the whole experience was truly amazing. So I'd recommend that you find your niche, and join a team with that skill. You most likely won't make anything and most, if not all, of the people on the team will quit eventually and leave the forums. But, I must say that I've never had more fun while hacking. These days, I have to worry about quality and all that crap but back when I was naïve, that didn't matter at all.

BUT, if you're actually trying to make something of worth, then I recommend hacking alone for the reason(s) in my last post.
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Yes but some things just can't be taught. I am a newbie here and I am trying to form a team at the moment to make a hack . Problem is , I'm good at code and all that so I'm learning scripting . But i can't acquire a good sense of aesthetics ( not easily at least ) , that is required for spriting or mapping . Few can do stuff completely alone . Heck , half the lone wolf hackers are too bored to test out their own beta

ckret2 said:
If big hacking teams are overrated, so is doing it entirely alone.
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Aye aye , amen to that . That must be the most correct statement on this thread
 
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I'm working on my own at the moment. Doin' it solo is real tough, but I get all the credit ;p
 
DaiTyrant said:
that is required for spriting or mapping . Few can do stuff completely alone . Heck , half the lone wolf hackers are too bored to test out their own beta
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Generally, most people cannot sprite very well at all, so it is still basically considered "on your own" if you only have a spriter helping you out. Also, no one tests their own beta. It's pointless, because they know exactly what they have to do to get through with it. A beta tester is generally someone that's not even on the team (if there was one) because they should have absolutely no idea where everything is in-game. That way, they'll go exploring every nook and cranny for bugs, something that the actual hackers generally wouldn't do.
 
Its good not to have a team, because teams tend to make deadlines(which are a pain) and they fall apart often(people either get kicked or quit).

It is good to work by yourself to learn all the basics. You can move to pitching your ideas, get people interested, and then get the ball rolling from there.

Don't let it fool you, making a full hack is hard work even for a team.
 
Here are statistics I thought up, I hope most of you in time agree with them:

Working alone fail rate: 70%
Working in a full fledged team (About 5 people) fail rate: 95%
Working in a duo fail rate: 75%
Working mainly by yourself with minor help fail rate (e.g. spriting, some scripting/mapping): 65%
Working with more than 10 people: 99% fail rate (only one I know can manage)

My suggestion is work alone, duo, or mainly by yourself with minimal help...

Now, to a hacks superiority:

Alone: 45%
Team (5 People): 30%
Duo: 70%
Minor Assistance: 70%
Lotsa People: 20%

That's what I think... but... it can go anyway.
 
Yea, I'm working on a hack alone. It's gonna take forever, but I honestly like it better this way. I've been working for a couple of months, and all I've been doing so far is creating Fakemon, which - in my opinion - has made me a pretty decent spriter. I'm not the world's greatest scripter, though, but practice makes perfect, right?
 
Zanny77 said:
This goes to all those hackers out there. Did you ever start or make a hack only by yourself? That's how it is right now with me and my hack. T-T
I personally can't find anyone who wants to work on it...so I just decided to do it myself. *humph!*

Anyone else do this?
Spin me a yarn of your hardships.
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My first released hack was about 5 years ago. It was one of Crystal called Crystal All. It's only a gameplay hack, but I spent months just tweaking and changing the gymleaders, wild pokemon encounters, etc.
Now they've got all kinds of neat editors out there..and I'm messing with FireRed.
The hardest part was on my eyes. I'm a little older than most of you, so i could only work on this after work and on weekends. It took about six months of freetime to make the hack. My only wish is that I'd hacked the graphics...
 
Right now I just started hacking and Im working on my project on my own, and honestly I wouldnt mind atleast one or two people helping with the hack Im still new to everything and I know very little on mapping and scripting, Im a spriter I sit there and change the sprites on my rom instead of everything else lol though Im doing a little at a time after Im done spriting everything Ill probably work and learn how to do mapping and hten scripting.
 
So far i've known, i've started hacking alone (hacking cintrine) and then got a team but i still did it myself :S
Twilight Emerald has no one but myself too T-T
 
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