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| Techokami Posts: 261/303 |
I'm Techokami, been in the hacking community for about 4 or so years. Recently I released a demo of my SMW hack, Super Mario's island Hopping Adventure, on SMW Central. I'm also working on a little graphics hack for some Game Boy PacMan games 
I've also made some findings on SMW sprite mappings, and hope to eventually make an editor. Q1: What draws you to the ROM hacking community? A1: I like to mess with things, change them around, see what hapens with you push things to limits. Q2: Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? A2: If you looked around, you'd see that playing hacks is already dumbed down a bit since the late 90's. However, for making hacks of ROMs, it should NOT be made so stupidly easy that anybody can do it. If you open the doors for the non-technological, you'll have a community of idiots that turns off the people who have knoledge and want to use it. For a perfect example of this, look at the Pokemon Hacking forum and SMW Hacking forum here. Q3: What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? A3: Hacking the ROMs lets you do something with the original restrictions of yesteryear. it's fun, because it challenges you to make levels, graphics, and such while having to be in the same mindset of the original developers. However, making your own code from scratch gives you more freedom, but you can't get accuracy. Q4: Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? A4: Absolutely not; game modders are a key group in a game's user base. Take DOOM, for example; the gamers were allowed to make their own player skins and levels. Then, when the source was released under the GPL, the gamers made even more detailed modifications, creating completely new games, and breathing life into an old DOS classic. Q5: What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? A5: Simply put, if we don't start nuking the stupid people soon, it'll collapse from idiocy and 9-year-olds that hate math. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| acillatem98 Posts: 209/387 |
I go by acillatem98, 15 years old (16 by July 7th), I don't have my own site. Well, I haven't done much for the community, I've just hung around since 2002. I am working on a few things, mainly my Legend of Zelda hack.
1.What draws you to the ROM hacking community? Well, what first started it all... My Mom downloaded an emulator, SMYGB, and Pokemon ROMs. I played them and continued getting more involved with it. By 2002 I searched for some older games: the NES. I found ACMLM's board and then found out about ROM hacking. What really draws me to it, is the art of it. I've played games since I was very little, I loved the creativity of it and wanted to create my own. I've had a pretty good imagination and think of ideas of anything whether it's monsters or level designs. It's just a great way to express your thoughts and it's a lot of fun. 2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? I think it's already pretty user friendly but there could always just be a bit more. 3.What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? Lazy people can create their own hacks without code. Those who know code are known a lot better than those others. The whole knowing to code makes their hacks/games a lot better. 4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? Never. If there was a limit, this would just make everything plain and boring and it would all end up repeating in the future leaving nothing but stupid pointless hacks and copies of those. 5.What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? It will expand and as technology increases and more people gain skill, there will be more amazing hacks than what we already have. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Sukasa Posts: 822/2068 |
Sukasa, without my own site yet, and I've released a couple of patches for SMW hackers to use... I'm working on something really big on the moment though (Look up blockTool Omega). I'm lso working on the COTMK series, which got some good previews. they're on gold though; Discorvery Computers dumbasses screwe up my drives, and I need to save up $200 to try and get the data back.
1.What draws you to the ROM hacking community? It's fun, a nice hobby, because I like to be able to create new worlds, because it's always been a dream to be able to make my own mario games, and because overall, I like the communitry here. 2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? No. Those people who can't figure out how to use an IPS program and know to use a fresh ROM shouldn'tplay/hack ROMS until they learn. 3.What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? Advantage: you don't have to code nearly as much, just the occasional little ASM hack or whatever, you can see the results of your work aslmost instantly, as opposed to haveing to complete a huge amount of a new ROM before your handiwork can be veiwed. Disadvantage: You don't know how the internal engine works, or how to be able to slice-n-dice it to meet your requirements, whereas with a new ROM you simply open up notepad or whatever, and have at it. 4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? No. Limiting people kills ambition, greatness. Hacks wouldn't have new ideas, new features if there were limits set. Besides, who would actually take heed of them? 5.What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? I think that as computers get more powerful, people will more and more start to hack 3-D games instead of 2-D games, and new 2-D hacks will slowly start to disappear. Now for several years, though. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Leno_jr Posts: 10/96 |
Originally posted by Splunt Lenophis, age 24
What initially drew me was FFHackster and the possibility of changing Final Fantasy 1. After making two hacks (one would later be broken) of it, I later expanded it to Final Fantasy 6. That turned out to be a challenge hack of stupid proportions. Maybe not as hard as JCE's hardtype, but still damn hard. That took place between 2000 and 2003. Then, in late 2004, I finally decided it was time to delve into hex editing (dodges pies) and started working on Jade. After two years of that, I'm once again trying my hand at Final Fantasy 6. This project is going to rebalance what was a very easy game, depending on who you talk to.
With code written from scratch, unless you live under sand, you know what it does. Using preexisting code greatly helps in speeding up development, which might explain why there are so many more hacks vs homebrews. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| noha420 Posts: 6/78 |
I am newer at this, and am very eager to learn, and do more. My game of choice to work with is Zelda3 for SNES.
1.What draws you to the ROM hacking community? Large companies make these great games, but often don't like to re-use the same engine for sequels. Rom hacking allows the fans to do that themselves. You can enjoy your old favorites again for the first time. When game fans gain more advanced hacking skills, they can even create new features to the game, and make a masterpice that competes with the original (a shining example if this is Mario Adventure by DahrkDaiz). I't also very fun! 2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? Totally! Creating game editors that have user friendly interfaces will give anyone a chance to change their favorite game, and it will also inspire people to get into asm hacking that will make their game stand from the rest. Also, no matter how user friendly it is, it's still not easy. Completing a good hack takes real time and effort, and people will always want to do more. People worry about sites being flooded with tons of bad/boring hacks, but once that becomes a problem, sites hosting will seperate them all by game, type, and user rating. 3.What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? With rom hacking you already have a game engine to work with, otherwise it could take lots of time, or a team of people to complete. Maybe one day there will be a more simple program like "Game Maker" or something which will put your custom game into NES or SNES format. That would of coure be very hard to create, and probably be up to Nintendo to create. Maybe one day! 4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? Never! They will only get more advanced. I could see 8 or 16 bit games being ported to newer systems to add more features, like what Nintendo did with Zelda 4 Swords. Also, people look down upon game hackers using others' code with their own hacks, but that's what hacking is all about. But if that is done, the original modders do deserve to be credited. 5.What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? You can tell that Nintendo, and others are seeing how turned on people are by this, which is why they are developing fun simpler games, and all that Gameboy Advance stuff too. Maybe one day they will be creating game-specific editors for people to use, or even distribute a disc with a collection of the best fan made games out there, that would be very cool of them. Already the new Megaman game for the psp will have a level editor included, and there will be more to come! --------------------------------------- Good luck on your paper! | ||||||||||||||||||||
| FloBo Posts: 3/22 |
FloBo, german romhacker since somewhere before 2004...
1.What draws you to the ROM hacking community? well,....romhacking?! no, seriously, i'm still working on my german translation of lufia1 and even though i hardly have any time left for it, it's still one of my favourite leisure activities. what draws me to the community is that there are plenty of people knowing much more about roms and romhacking than i do, so when i don't know any further with my hack, i ask them^^ Unfortunately there're at least twice as many noobs doing crappy hacks and calling them a hacker still... quite annoying, but yeah... thats the way it is... Another thing I like is working hard on such a hack and finally get rewarded by the praise of the community 
2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? Don't know... user-friendly == rom crap creations, so better not user-friendly and quality hacks with a lot of effort put into em^^ 3.What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? Doing little stuff just on top of a already good game is quite easy and enjoyable... that's the advantage of romhacking. Making own games from scratch is not that easy, but gives you total freedom... whereas just ripping sprites and putting em into your own game doesn't make the game good as well... there are at least as many crap mario fake-games written from scratch as there are crap SMW-hacks thanks to lunar magic... 4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? No. Just go and create. That's the fun part about rom hacking. There are hardly any rules. Just do it for fun and share your work with others
5.What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? I dont know for sure... i've seen many people leaving the scene and there are some new coming.... some more and some less talented... anyway, as i'd really love to learn 65816, I'd hope to see some REALLY good tutorials for this... There's one very good at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Super_NES_Programming, but that is still only a beginning and more than incomplete... Hey!!! Just go ahead and evolute this wiki!!! I think there'd be many people using it with pleasure | ||||||||||||||||||||
| C:/xkas bio.asm Posts: 838/1209 |
Originally posted by DahrkDaiz offtopic, but if you take a look at the general project screenshot(or more precisely here) you will find out that I did it  | ||||||||||||||||||||
| DahrkDaiz Posts: 211/403 |
1.What draws you to the ROM hacking community?
This and this (I'm responsible for Mario Adventure btw) Seriously, the huge amount of praise one receives for doing a good project is what drives me to rom hack. I saw the attention others got from it and I thought man if I could do a good job I could get that same attention. It's a bit egotistical but it's what motivates me to continue hacking. 2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? Define user friendly. Rom hacking is a skill and some people can have that skill, others cannot. You can make Microsoft Word check your grammar, your spelling, even translate your internet acronyms if you want, but should Microsoft include more features in it to make you a better writer? 3.What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? ROM Hacking allows you to build upon an existing "skeleton" so to speak. It's like remixing music into a dance track. You put your own take on things and hope your version is slightly more appealing to a certain crowd to the other. There are limits, but being able to do something within those limits is part of the skill and whats very awe inspiring. 4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? Only limit is what the original machine could do. There has been a lot of dicussion on what hackers should limit themselves to to make the lesser hackers feel better about themselves. We're hacking for those who want fresh ideas and life in their old favorite games, not to make others feel better about their lack of skill. I know this is an elitist view, but really it isn't. You hack for your audience, not fellow hackers. 5.What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? More and more hackers are learning ASM and to push the limits even higher. I believe with newer games coming out on current and next gen consoles, we'll try to introduce ideas of those games into old games (like the New Super Mario Bros., let's see who puts Koopa Mario in SMW/SMB3 first )
For those saying it's going down hill. Do realize, you will always have a turn around rate that fluxuates. People find the hobby, people leave the hobby. Everyone has been thinking that ROM Hacking is going down hill ever since I've been around and really it seems to only be getting better in my opinion. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Pac Posts: 300/804 |
Huh, I didn't see this thread last month. _¬ Not too late then, I guess?
I'm Peter, AKA Pac-Man. I'm 19. I've made three SMW hacks already, and I have another 3 in progress. My hacks prove to be quite popular with the board, as showing/releasing my work always gets a great responce. I'm affiliated with SMW Central, I'm a Hacks moderator there. 1.What draws you to the ROM hacking community? The ability to make the games I've always wanted to. And also, I'm in college in the hope that I may get a job in the computer games development industry. My dream would be to work for Nintendo.
2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? Well it's becoming easier and easier all the time with new programs etc. I'm more or less happy with the way things are now. It defeats the purpose if most of the work is already done for you. _¬ 3.What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? No comment. 
4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? No, asolutely not. I say they should go as far as they can.
5.What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? It's going downhill if you ask me. We're coming into the age where the stupid people are discovering this board, and annoying the smart people so much that they run away from the board. 
Good luck with the project.  300 posts!  | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Splunt Posts: 2/2 |
You guys are great! Thanks for interesting variety of responses. I plan to wait a bit to see if this thread draws any more answers, and then I hope to post another set of questions.
Thanks again for being so helpful and accessible! | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Mega-Dog Posts: 38/72 |
Originally posted by Splunt Name: Mega-Dog Hacks: Metroid M, Tekanoid, Metroid M2 (Totaly Iced for a long time) Editors: ArkEdit, BubbleEd, AstyaEd, GNGWin, FatCamp, BatDance, Age: 29 WebSite: http://www.dogsoft.net 1. I have no real draw, it just became a hobbie after making my only hack. 2. I do not agree with this, literly the person who makes the hack has the decision to make it friendly or unfriendly. 3. The advatages IMO is when you do them from scratch you can make it however you like. 4. There is always limits with the original game code, but I don't know ASM so I really don't know how far it can go. 5. I see there being a future, I hear about a Mario 64 editor in the works and such. I see in maybe 2-3 years stuff like a Halo editor and other goodies. As time passes we think of more ideas. I will be providing a future for NES editing since I plan on having several more NES editors and also my old DOS ones recoded into windows. Glyphodon |
Posts: 182/536 My username is Glyph Phoenix. The only game I hack is Super Mario World for the Super Nintendo. I have made a couple of lackluster hacks in the past. I'm not fond of Super Mario World, but it has an editor called Lunar Magic which is very likely the most powerful and user-friendly ROM hacking tool in existance.
| I continue to hack SMW because I am familiar with it and through hex editing I can do more with the game than a good deal of other hackers and I can certainly do more with SMW than I can with other games. I don't think I'd enjoy picking a different game and having a good deal of my knowledge base unusable. 1.What draws you to the ROM hacking community? Lots of the regular members know games so well. I don't know a community of people so knowledgeable about the inner workings of games, and if I did I doubt the community would be as active as this one. 2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? Yes, definately. While good utilities exist now, that is no reason not to improve them. While the backlash from inept users annoys me as much as the next forumer, I believe that user friendliness trickles up and the simpler it is for the inexperienced members, the more that expert members can do. In addition, once new users are introduced to hacking through a simple device and become experienced enough, they tend to give back to the community in the form of utilities and usable patches. It is important to note that the great majority of new users never reach that point. 3.What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? The advantage is that an existing, often quite good game already exists when you start hacking. The big disadvantage is that if you want to change even the smallest things, you have to do some considerable work finding and documenting a feature first. Building a fangame from the ground up would be quite a task, and never quite the same as the original ROM and Emulator. However, modifying an existing fangame with your own source code is much, much easier than with a ROM. 4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? That debate is a bit of a mess. There's the matter of 'limits' often limiting the average user greatly, even too much, but not the experienced hacker at all, there's the matter of games people would otherwise buy being downloaded and played for free, and there's the matter of old games that don't generate sales that give people fun through hacking that they could never give during their original run. Games could all cost money and not be copyable but that would lead to theft and overpricing and industries that release games entirely for profit and disregard gameplay. Games could all be free and copyable but then honest creators couldn't make money and not be financially motivated or even financially stable enough to continue to make them. I think the financial slight on creators through free games means little compared to the industrial consumption of creativity and overall design we have now, but trying to rationalize this mess and suggest proper limits is certainly more than a 16 year old should be trying to do in a 5th of a forum post. 5.What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? It's hard to say. On one hand, taking into account the natural progression of utilities and of hacks, one would think the community would keep advancing. On the other hand, tracing this board back I see very little progression at all. In fact, the best Super Mario World hacks by far are now finished and on hiatus, respectively, and they both haven't had releases in quite a long time. interdpth |
Posts: 118/362 Nick is interdpth, real name Matthew Sartain. 15 soon to be 16. My handle is usually affiliated with Pokemon as I have a certain degree with that trying to get that off of pokemon and on to Metroid..
| 1.What draws you to the ROM hacking community? Not really sure it just interests me. 2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? Not really sure what you mean tools wise or ROM wise if by tools, just get used to a program and it becomes user friendly 3.What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? Homebrew tends to be worse because it's usually people in the company > then people in the homebrew 4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? Depends 5.What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? Can't wait for the Revolution hacking cpubasic13 |
Posts: 392/1193 My name is William, cpubasic13 on any board or site on the Internet that I find interesting. Age 17. I usually stick in the Super Mario World hacking section, although I have managed to try other games from time to time. I am not affiliated with any websites at all.
| 1.What draws you to the ROM hacking community? There are many edits that are interesting to play. The fact that other users can make these edits and share them with the community makes me stay. While some may be bad, it is still funny to play them. 2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? I think that maybe they should stay as they are. Lunar Magic is the most user friendly of them all and results in many... well, bad ROM hacks. While there are some good ones out there, many users treat this as just another editing tool and don't look at the technical aspects of the editing. I like the fact that some things are complex and that you should know what is going on when you change one object in a level. Others don't care, as long as they can make a harder version of the game which turns out dull. 3.What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? ROM hacking is easier to do things with. The problem is that it is limited in its coding. 4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? If you can do it, do it. If it deteriorates from the quality of the hack, then of course that it shouldn't be added. However, limiting things is just stupid to begin with... 5.What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? It will obviously lose some of the more experienced ROM hackers, but then there will be others to replace them later on. I think that it will be a lot bigger, though, especially after everything has been deciphered for a certain game. ShadowTails |
Posts: 36/80 I'm ShadowTails(ST for short) I'm 14, I consider myself above average, I haven't really found a hack I wanna stick with, I usually try out many games and see which one gets my hacking intrests the most, this all started because of my obbsession of video games and pixelating sprites and pixel art.
| 1.What draws you to the ROM hacking community? Creativity, I like being able to show mine off, I like also seeing if anyone can inspire me and make me wonder how some people can make awsome hacks and some people can make hacks that wouldn't look good even on the atari... 2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? Playing roms as said is user friendly, easiest thing for anyone to do... but I basically think people should get out of the pallet hacking, countless sonic games just have hacked pallets with hardly any changes, for example... I mean thats a good place to start, but is that something to show off? 3.What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? Countless people have said it... the original feel of the games can't be copied too accuratley... 4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? There are limits to what people can do depending on the system, but usually limits make freaking awsome hacks ^___^ 5.What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? With most the n00bs popping up and asking stupid questions and not knowing what hex is... I'd say about 80% of what I know about rom hacking came from me, the small 20% comes from guides and people who I can ask actual smart non duh your stupid questions... I want to learn more =P I just want to see more creativity and more roms that are being hacked, isn't just seeing mostly Super Mario Bros. and Zelda (very good games) only hacked getting kind of old? with hardly any changes to them where is the fun? once I learn ASM I wanna get into creative hacking and pull people from the normal. As a final note to the future rom hackers and so forth.... CHECK THE FREAKING README FILE... Kirk Bradford Myers |
Posts: 87/89 Kirk Bradford Myers
| -------------------------------------------- Name: Kirk Bradford Myers Age: 33 ROMHacking Accomplishments: Currently working on a hack of Metroid entitled "Metroid Begins". Also working on an improvement to DahrkDiaz's "Pac-Man III" in my spare time. Work is commencing slowly... Websites: For now, only one...One With The Computer, for my progressive instrumental rock music project. The site needs some work at this time... -------------------------------------------- 1.What draws you to the ROM hacking community? The fact that there are so many people so technically inclined that they would dig into a video game just to see how it works and change it is a really cool thing, and like all communities, it's good to have fellowship with those who share your interests in any regard. I have always been somewhat the perfectionist, playing video games and wishing I could change the games to suit my personal playing tastes, and ROMhacking is a venture that gives me the creative outlet to do that as well as to learn something new. I am an adventurer and a tinkerer at heart.
2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? One must take the overall intentions of the programmers of the original games into consideration in order to answer that question. I don't think the main purpose when anyone made ROMs was to give people license to tinker with and to reverse-engineer them to see what made them tick, in fact quite the opposite. Of course, these same people probably never thought that we would one day have the tools at our fingertips to twist and morph their games into ones of our own image and likeness, either! People and corporations are very protective of their intellectual property and trade secrets. ROM code, I believe, falls under both of these banners. But in a way, I think that it's a good thing that ROMs are so damn hard to modify sometimes, because it adds to the learning experience and gives one a greater sense of accomplishment when they manage to make one of these things do something it was not originally intended to do. And half the fun, they say, is in the journey to get to where your going. If you could just reach your destiny immediately, go the instant gratification route...where's the fun and sense of accomplishment in that?
3.What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? It takes a lot of time and work to take someone's original idea and turn it into a working game that very few people may end up caring about, probably more work that it's worth sometimes. People don't want to spend hundreds of hours mastering a programming language just to program a crude version of "Space Invaders" as their thesis, when bigger and better ideas are already running through their head. ROMhacking offers a happy medium to this. Someone has already created a game engine, done all the hard work for you, and it's possible to turn it into a completely new game just by tweaking a few parameters. The learning curve is much less and the experience could possibly lead to greater and better things...who's to say that today's ROMhacker isnt' tomorrow's 6502 porgrammer? Not to mention that familiarity with an already established standard will interest people enough to care about the work you've put into a hack and make them want to give it a spin around the block. All of it is a learning experience, really, and ROMhacking let's people indulge themselves in that while getting the instant gratification that is sometimes needed to give one the motivation to continue doing what they do.
4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? This issue has come up with many different areas of media, such as file-sharing, movies, music, etc. This is the way I see things: If you, the consumer, paid money to buy media, either a book, CD, movie, video game, etc. then you as the consumer of that product should have the freedom of fair use and the right to do anything that you wish to do with your copy of that product. If I purchased a cartridge of Metroid with my own money, I should have the right to use it for a frisbee or a friggin' drink coaster if that is my wish! No one would bat an eyelash if I sold that cartridge to my friend, but if I offer the ROM for free on KaZaA the shit's going to hit the fan? Really, that's stupid. The philosophy that it's okay to sell something, whether it's your intellectual property or not, but it's a crime to give it away for free is stupid, and is the exact reason that prostitution being illegal is asinine. Bottom line, if the government can't tax it, if there's no profit in it for them, it jerks their little weenies the worng way. However, while the above examples could legitimately be considered a copyright violation and an issue of morality, modifying a game you own to suit your own tastes, I believe, is not. You know what they say...if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But if it IS broke... Reverse-engineering a video game for the fun of it should not be illegal so long as no copyrighted material changes hands...
5.What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? It's really hard to say at this point. Fads come and go, as fads do, but it's hard to tell right now if this particular activity qualifies as a fad because the interest it's cult-following has generated has not dissipated over the course of the last eight-or-so-years...a pretty long run of time for a "fad" by anyone's standards! Of course, how long did Seattle-grunge rock last, right? Twenty-five years ago, someone said that video games themselves were just a "fad" and would die out pretty quickly. HA!! My belief is that, as long as there is something new to discover hidden within the code of some obscure video game somewhere, someone with an explorer's heart and a severe case of obsessive-complulsive bipolar attention-deficit disorder is going to be out there trying to find it! As I said before, it's the thrill of the discovery and the challenge of the chase involved in getting there that keeps people coming back for more, and probably will for generations to come. And with that, the ROMhacking community as a whole will continue to grow and to help each other weed out these little secrets. One of the smartest and most profitable things anyone has ever done in the history of video games, I believe, is when Warren Robinett hid his name in a secret room in the Atari 2600 game "Adventure", thus introducing the concept of the "Easter Egg" and ensuring the replay value and marketability of future games to come, and of the community that would dig these games apart to the bare bones to find and take advantage of these secrets. Without a doubt, the ROMhacking community is going nowhere anytime soon. blackhole89 |
Posts: 106/427 I'm blackhole89, 16 years old, the 89 in my nickname has nothing to do with my birthyear (though that would be '89 too). I started ROM hacking about 2002 or 2003 and got into the assembly aspects of it right away because it seemed the more attractive part to me. I think I made myself a name for starting more or less spectacular projects and delaying their release ad infinitum because I lack time to complete them or just am unable to reach the point at which I'd call it at a releasable state. (Most unreleased tools of mine, in fact, work more or less well.)
| 1.What draws you to the ROM hacking community? My technical interest, elitism and the fact it is one of the few somewhat intellectual ones. Also, the people are nice. 2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? Yes/No. Yes for fundamental, linear work like editing levels. No for tools that make actual indepth hacking a one-click process. 3.What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? You don't have to mess with the basic, often resultless first steps of making a new game run. There's more of an intellectual challenge to find your way into others' code which was often even written to be hard to understand. 4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? No. 5.What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? It will eventually decrease in size and melt down to a small "hard core" of insiders and people to whom it really means something, rather than just following a trend or showing off. But it probably won't entirely perish within my lifetime. Hyperganon |
Posts: 46/57 I'm HyperGanon. I'm 20 years old, and started ROM hacking around 1999-2000. I have given up ROM hacking years ago, but am still drawn to the crowd.
| 1. What draws me most, is that there are people here who love the games that we all grew up with, and are not appreciated that much by modern gamers. 2. I think it should be a little easier to play ROM hacks. Yes. 3. The advantage to hacking a ROM is that all the hard stuff is already done. You won't have to learn programming to make your own Super Mario. Just modify one of the SMB games. 4. I think there should be some limits. The games that are hacked still belong to the companies that made them, and because of this, ROM hacks should never be sold. I think that ROM hacking should remain a hobby at most. I also believe that one shouldn't destroy their own NES/SNES carts to play a hack on their consoles. It is a game owners choice, of course, but I still believe against it. If too many people break their carts, then there will be a vast decrease in that game's quantity. 5. I think that the ROM hacking scene may actually dissapper. With the future release of Nintendo's Wii, many NES, SNES and N64 games will become available to gamers. With this, Nintendo will probably claim that ROM downloaders and hackers are infringing on their property and usurping profits. It's not definite, but it may be that this could do away with ROM hacking. Sliver X |
Posts: 19/62 1.What draws you to the ROM hacking community?
| The community? I'm not sure. I hacked ROMs for years before I ever actually talked to anyone in "the scene". ROM hacking itself is a half realized childhood dream of making my "own" video games (I can't code much of anything from scratch in any language). 2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? Playing is braindead simple, and always has been due to the IPS format. As far as hacking goes, yes, I think some aspects of hacking could be more user friendly. While it's true that the great editors tend to result in a huge flood of worthless drivel (See 99% of any of the Super Mario World hacks), the few people who are actually doing something interesting have the capabilities to do things they may not ordinarily have been able to do, as well as severely lowering a lot of aggravation from things that would require a huge amount of manual work to accomplish. 3.What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? Pros? First, the program is already there, so usually any code modifications are only tweaks. There's a vast difference between hacking ASM and creating it from scratch. Secondly, there's just the whole "Wow, I'm hacking an old console game I played as a kid" factor to it all. And if you have a copier or something, you can play the games on the actual system. As for the cons, you're severely limited by the original programming in most cases, are dealing with ancient hardware that also imposes limitations, etc. 4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? Whatever floats people's boats; I just don't get how a lot of ROM hackers expect everyone to like the steaming piles of shite that constitute the vast majority of ROM hacks (NES in particular, though SMW hacks give them a run for the money). You can tell that most ROM hackers are either lazy, immature, apathetic, talentless, or some mixture of the above. The good ones out there more than make up for the noise, though. 5.What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? It'll shift more towards SNES and N64/PSX, though the Genesis scene is growing lately. The main problem with PSX/N64 hacking is just the sheer difference in how games are rendered; to make any progress, you have to understand 3D programming, which is a whole different ballgame than the 2D 8bit and 16bit systems. The Kins |
Posts: 205/352 I'm some random 19-year old jerk. I did some kinda cruddy SMW hack last year. Nothing big or exciting, you'd be better off annoying Gideon Zhi or something for exciting and controversial answers (and maybe nag him to finish that Kunio game translation he was doing a long time ago while you're at it?)
| 1. What draws you to the ROM hacking community? Simply put, the ability to alter, remake and pay tribute to my favorite games of long ago. 2. Do you think playing/modifying hacked ROMs should be more user friendly? Playing Hacks: You mean it isn't already? Patching is disgustingly easy nowadays, and emulators aren't paticularly troublesome to find. A $15 dollar connector to hook up a playstaton controller to the PC and it's pretty sweet. Making hacks, really, depends on the game. SMW for instance gives you a LOT of legroom, but other games are very tricky to alter. 3. What are the advantages/disadvantages of ROM hacking vs. ripped sprites with code written from scratch? One actually gets released, and the other dies out due to lack of interest/team drama. 4. Do you think there are limits to what people should be allowed to do with their games? Nope. Go ahead! If I don't like your hack, I'll just make fun of it and play something else. 5. What do you think about the future of the ROM hacking community? The Gamecube's still going to be nigh-impossible to emulate. That said, I imagine the community will extend it's arms more into Playstation games, although this would probably require a new patch format and nine billion people bitching about filesize. This is a long thread. Click here to view it. | | |
