Originally posted by DJ Bouche

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I'm just going to ignore the drama

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and get straight to the point that I've always seen ROM-less editing as a major advantage and a great feature. In fact for my private hacks I usually use something such as a ROM-less editor which uses an external format that gets converted to the internal ROM format upon insert. For me, it's ideal to design your part of the game totally outside of the ROM, and compile everything into the ROM when it's ready to go, which makes allocating space a one time thing and as optimised as possible..."ideal", as in not always possible, but I try to aim for that.

Believe it or not, in the professional world of game design, you don't have ROMs to do this shit (since it all compiles in one go later), and they rely on external resources for things such as level editors.

Take this into consideration: A team of ROM hackers are putting up a ROM hacking project for F-Zero X. One person is working on graphics, one person is working on music, another on level editing. It would be convenient for the map designer (especially if he has minimal knowledge of ROM hacking, for example, but may have awesome F-Zero X Map ideas, or previous experience with non-emulation-related mapping), to have a level editor that just works, without the need for ROM and crap. In this case the designer can just save levels on their HD with virtually no limitation, and the ability to trade the files to the project manager, for example.

Another simple example is if you are forced to go somewhere and need to work on a ROM hack. You don't have the particular ROM or a ROM you are working on, but that doesn't leave you unable to design maps for it. Then perhaps an ROM-less level editor would be the solution.

Not only is the idea of ROM-less Editing "not unreasonable", but it is FAR from unreasonable. It makes the program more professional in design IMO.

[not the best examples, but eh I tried ]

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Originally posted by BGNG

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The forum seems to have some coding problems. The title of this thread should be the following:

"Hack" - What's in a Name?

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Originally posted by Jigglysaint

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You know, it's possible provided the game has data formats that are not heavily dependant on reading rom information. With an F-zero editor, all you need is the data. You could say it's like a graphical representation hex editor that edits a specific area. This is good for some games, but for most others, it is quite impractable. But yeah, bytes can have graphical represenation that's general, not rom specific(most people feel an editor should read graphics from the rom, as that allows for graphics changing).

Did anybody here forget the Ms Pacman editor that DahrkDaiz did? It was on-line, and when you were done, you could download an .ips patch. It worked well, and was a pretty novel idea that could allow people to make hacks without downloading the rom first. As for why anybody would, well, what if you can't run an emulator, for reasons like parantial pressure, legality issues, or plain just don't want to? Certainly it's not standard, but it's novel, and it's worth it if somebody can get it to work right.

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Originally posted by Disch

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Originally posted by NetSplit

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Everyone seems a bit too quick to attack others without even considering if it's deserved or not.

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Welcome to Acmlm's Board.

Reactions are typically either:

1) Completely useless filler. "I agree" "I haven't tried this yet", etc.

2) Nice to the point of being hollow. (Unobjective compliments and asskissing when they're obviously not warranted)

3) Filled with extremely overdue rage and flames.

4) A copy of the prior post, in reworded forms. This is especially noted when the prior post was a flame -- then suddenly the thread turns into a flame war.

Very few people on these boards actually have brains capable of independent thought (maybe not very few overall -- but percentage-wise). Which is why I find myself coming here far less these days.

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Originally posted by Zem

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Suckas. I never get sick. Okay, maybe once every few months for like, a day.

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Originally posted by Dracoon

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That was a brilliant post OP, you should get a medal of some sort... maybe like a purple heart... but cooler... Like... Green, yeah, it has to be green, because green > purple... Now... who needs a heart? Feelings and junk are for pussies... A skull... yeah, skulls are awesome. I award you with the Green Skull!

*salutes*

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