Chit-Chat: ROM Hacking Daily Chit Chat

[Deokishisu]

Why should I bother with ASM when it takes so much time to learn and I can do 90% of what I want to do without it? Not all of us take hacking so seriously, it's just a hobby to me and I don't want spend all my time on a small part when I could be using it more efficiently. Very very few hacks and hackers would exist if programming knowledge was a requirement, having a lower barrier of entry is something that has no downsides.

While I do agree that you don't need specific ASM knowledge to make a great hack, it certainly doesn't hurt. An ambitious hacker who comes up with new features they want to include will almost certainly find it easier to directly implement them with ASM instead of roundabout workarounds and smoke and mirrors. And this is coming from the king of workarounds. The hacker of two to three years ago probably hadn't heard of ASM, but the bar has been raised now, and everyone wants a piece of the new features floating around. Whether it's expanded Pokemon, or the latest from the move and abilities thread, ASM has never been so easy to dip your toes into while at the same time so necessary for what is today considered a bare minimum product.

 

[Blah]

All you really have to do is give people an accessible, close medium where they can learn about/get into coding.

That's why so many people hack, because it's accessible as hell, and while I agree with the sentiment I'd say that the reason people don't learn or strive to learn is because despite being a pretty good resource on most things, it's not as easy, purely from a navigational standpoint, to get into programming as it is to get into scripting. If there were documentation or, hell, even simply links to places where people can learn, like those that we provide for the various basic facets of scripting, more people would get into the nit and gritty of it all.

I don't know about that. There does exist ASM tutorials out there for people to learn, as well as an ASM Help thread. I myself get PMs on an extremely regular basis regarding ASM help and such. So I wouldn't really call it inaccessible. That said, I can do more, if more is required. How exactly can I help to make it feel more accessible or make it more accessible?

Why should I bother with ASM when it takes so much time to learn and I can do 90% of what I want to do without it? Not all of us take hacking so seriously, it's just a hobby to me and I don't want spend all my time on a small part when I could be using it more efficiently. Very very few hacks and hackers would exist if programming knowledge was a requirement, having a lower barrier of entry is something that has no downsides.

That's not true. Hacks without ASM features are pretty garbage, for the most part. Even your average script has some ASM snipplet or working to fetch particular data or something - atleast in my case and top quality hacks like Pokemon Gaia. I mean, if you want to make a hack without ASM, that's all you, but I think you've harbored a deep misunderstanding implanted at an early stage. That is, you think that programming is something that is hard to do. It's totally not a hard and time consuming task. I think you've come to this conclusion perhaps on attempted an old tutorial like HackMew's "Gettin' started". The tutorials from that era, I feel aren't of good quallity, so I don't blame you. However, it's definitely a skill every, if not most hackers should have -- not to mention it's very fullfilling.

I think its very hypocritical that you think ASM is not necessary to learn, yet you've inserted ASM others have made into your hack. Also, you've greatly underestimated the skills of research and general knowledge learning about the ROM provides. It's not a waste of time, as these skills are translated to other things you do in life.

I don't mean to be rude, but mate, you don't know enough to even fix the bugs in your own Hack. Evidenced by our conversations https://www.pokecommunity.com/converse.php?u=177245&u2=365518&page=2

This is something that could be learned given a small commitment. If you don't have time to learn, then so be it, but please don't discourage others by saying things like, "Oh you can make 90% of a hack without ASM" -- if you are atleast append the ":^)" face so we know you're just joking.

While I do agree that you don't need specific ASM knowledge to make a great hack, it certainly doesn't hurt. An ambitious hacker who comes up with new features they want to include will almost certainly find it easier to directly implement them with ASM instead of roundabout workarounds and smoke and mirrors. And this is coming from the king of workarounds. The hacker of two to three years ago probably hadn't heard of ASM, but the bar has been raised now, and everyone wants a piece of the new features floating around. Whether it's expanded Pokemon, or the latest from the move and abilities thread, ASM has never been so easy to dip your toes into while at the same time so necessary for what is today considered a bare minimum product.

It's starting to be less and less about ASM, and more and more about C. The Spanish hacking community, most of the bigger hackers are starting to use C, and they're making really cool hacks. We're like miles behind them. While it's not a race or anything, I think the difference between the communities is attitude.

We're at a point where our documentation on the FireRed/EM ROMs is in ASM. Because of that fact, inorder to advance into a C stage, we need people to first understand ASM. Eventually, maybe some years down the line, someone will have converted FR's ASM into a C source and we'll have removed the need for the ASM knowledge. Right now, you need it, and even when working with C, you often need to check if your C code had compiled into the appropriate ASM equivalent. I want to help make more people who can understand and write their own code. It makes for a great motivator for projects when people are actively contributing to the community :)

People also think that ASM is some scary monster under your bed, rather, it's actually a treasure chest. Regardless, I want to make learning this stuff easier, more understandable, and embedded as a common skill (similar to how scripting is). I just don't know how to expose the community in that way. The biggest problem is view count of material. R&D section is rarely frequented, and tutorial titles seem to tilt people off the earth :/

 

[DizzyEgg]

[...]
I've tried mentoring people with the ASM workshop I used to run, but I found that my students didn't like to run their own ASM routines. I mean, come on...you expect me to help you with your routine, but you haven't even bothered to try and compile it?. I got annoyed for this reason and stopped. But now I'm back again and am wondering how I can spread the knowledge and create more quality ROM hackers. Who knows? Maybe the next great hacker to advance the scene is you! How can I help?

I think this was the step in the right direction. There was a clear task of what had to be done, some hint and lots of tutorials to help you out. The best thing was that it forced a person to do research on their own, look around there and there and finally write a piece of code. The problem was when instead of testing their work, they just posted it in the thread. I'm of the opinion that you should only post the result after you've done testing, after you've corrected all bugs, so someone more skilled than you can show how to do something more effectively, fix a small problem, etc.

There's also a matter of the level of assignments. When I began my ASM journey, I couldn't grasp the difference between loading a value and loading a value from that value(basically pointers). That's why I think there should be more tasks than just one, with varying difficulity, so anyone could participate. That way, people could help each other out and answer could be given by more than just one person.

Last thing. Not everyone wants to learn ASM or 'real' hacking as opposed to changing pokemon base stats in a tool. We can't force anyone into doing something they simply don't want to.

 

[Blah]

Last thing. Not everyone wants to learn ASM or 'real' hacking as opposed to changing pokemon base stats in a tool. We can't force anyone into doing something they simply don't want to.

Of course, I don't expect to force ASM and other concepts down the throats of the unwilling. I think a lot of people have tried to ASM hack/read an ASM tutorial in the past and have found themselves unable to progress. I want to make it easier for those trying to get into it.

 

[Mana1]

For me, it's mainly a time issue. ASM is a lot more fiddly and time consuming, which I just can't afford to do at this point in my life where I'm an """"adult"""". I was getting the hang of it, or at least it wasn't breaking as much, before I took a break and now I've forgotten everything.

But yeah even the tools/programs I used to assemble the code were temperamental and it just put me off everything. Your workshops were great, but even those did advance very quickly.

Most hackers here are starting at a place of 0 ASM knowledge, as you said, so we need some kind of more accessible route to starting ASM. Idk.

 

[Kimonas]

In my opinion what has happened to the community is a spinnoff version of a more general trend happening these last years. I'm talking about the huge amount of information there is in conjunction with the fact that you can instantly access it. This comes with both positives and negatives.

For the positive part, anyone who is truly interested in learning will find its way and achieve what he wants. But for the negative part, people feel overwhelmed by that huge amount of information there is out there. And especially in the beginning, oh boy, everything's like a jungle. You want to learn something and you realize you need to know something else, you try to learn that else but you find out you need to know that other. And things go on. And in the end of the day you end up feeling depressed, since you ended up not doing what you initially wanted, dumb because you couldn't learn how to do it and enraged as you wasted your time. So why getting into all that trouble if I can so easily ask for someone else to give me what I want, since I can't do it and he can? I mean isn't this the reason it's called a 'community'? There's nothing wrong with what I'm doing.

We want to see fast results, but also hate to be proven wrong. "Why the heck didn't my routine work? I did everything correctly, what kind of trash is this assembly.". "Hey, I did all of the steps in the tutorial, how did my rom get screwed up? Stupid tutorials...". So I end up not learning assembly, or the deeper methodology and knowledge the tutorial strived to convey.

We see things other people do and we think that we are also able to do them, right now of course. "Hey this Blessed guy made Mega Evolutions with ASM. Great! Let me check a tutorial on assembly and then try and read how he did it. And again I end up depressed and angry as neither I understood how he did it and neither could I find use for the knowledge I got from that stupid tutorial.

To come to a conclusion,imo the biggest steps to be done, in order to eliminate this as much as we can, start from within ourselves. And specifically those three things that I always forget and alway try to remember. 1) YOU CAN LEARN EVERYTHING. Yes, from the simplest things like what a pointer to the most advanced ones, like megas. The only thing that you need is persistence and determination. 2) SLOW DOWN. Take things one step at the time, play around with what you already know, make sure of what you know. 3) DONT FORGET TO HAVE FUN. Yes, all of us are here because we love pokemon and remember the days we were younger and playing that Fire Red or that Diamond, thats the biggest thing we all have in common here. So make sure that if you do something, do it because you really want it.

My biggest failure as a member of this community is creating that detrimental thread...and it's still around despite the fact that me, it's main contributor, has completely stopped. I wish someone would just one day delete that garbage thread.

Personally I think that this thread, alongside with you ASM Workshop are the best places where someone who is interested could really learn ASM from. I find them extremely helpful as for me this is the next step after learning the basics. They are simple nice things, which help getting generally more comfortable with assembly. And I want to say a big THANK YOU for both of these little treasure nests.

As for your question what could you do. I think that the biggest gap (at least with assembly) is that most people(myself included) don't know what to do or how to use the knowledge the obtained from the basic tutorials. As I said before, those two threads I think can help minimize that gap as there is even commentary on the routines. So imo something like a Step 2, a more like gentle exposure to asm after the tutorials would be pretty nice :)

 

[azurile13]

stuff

One thing that I'll say is that I don't think that ASM thread is as bad as you're making it out to be. Sure, it can promote laziness, but I can also say that when I was first attempting to write my own routines, it was an excellent resource for finding hook locations and understanding basic areas of the ROM / RAM when I was having a more difficult time navigating through knizz's idb/ didn't know where to set useful breakpoints. In addition, seeing all of the amazing things that could be done with just a few lines encouraged me to try out ASM. If that thread hadn't been there, I'm not sure that I would have found it useful to even start. You see all of the posts of people saying "oh can I have dis routine," but there are also people reading and learning.

I'm not sure how to promote learning. I think that what everyone needs is their own "project" to start off with. I made my first steps into ASM when I was doing Hidden Abilities. When I look back, I realize that Touched provided the hardest part - that is every single place I needed to hook. But even so, like you said, he didn't just write it for me. He walked me through my first few subroutines, explained hooking, and made sure I actually knew what I was doing in each step. But the point is that by having a specific goal in mind, I was encouraged to learn some basic ASM. It was difficult at first, but actually doing something that had not yet been documented meant that I was forced to do "research" (however small) which has made doing other research a lot easier. The biggest ASM barrier, I think, is that there is so much focus on writing routines, but what is really need is a better understanding of how to read it. Or maybe everyone should just talk to Touched :P

I do have one question. Any recommendations on where to start learning C? :)

 

[machomuu]

I do have one question. Any recommendations on where to start learning C? :)

Picking up a book or taking a class are certainly some of the more conventional ways to go about this. Codeacademy's a pretty friendly and free mean to kick yourself right into it. It won't teach you everything, but there are the basics.

And of course, if you're keen on self-teaching, download the source of programs coded in C and poke around. Some'll be documented, others won't, but if you have a general understanding of the syntax (which, since you've probably scripted, you should), you can start to get a feel for what commands do what and how programs are structured.

 

[Blah]

For me, it's mainly a time issue. ASM is a lot more fiddly and time consuming, which I just can't afford to do at this point in my life where I'm an """"adult"""". I was getting the hang of it, or at least it wasn't breaking as much, before I took a break and now I've forgotten everything.

But yeah even the tools/programs I used to assemble the code were temperamental and it just put me off everything. Your workshops were great, but even those did advance very quickly.

Most hackers here are starting at a place of 0 ASM knowledge, as you said, so we need some kind of more accessible route to starting ASM. Idk.

I think the overlying issue is that all of these guys who have zero ASM knowledge, also have 0 knowledge of how things are in general. Basic concepts like pointers become essential when working with ASM, while not being overly important outside of it. I'm considering starting up something which would progress much slower, while simultaneously not taking up everyone's precious time.

So why getting into all that trouble if I can so easily ask for someone else to give me what I want, since I can't do it and he can? I mean isn't this the reason it's called a 'community'? There's nothing wrong with what I'm doing.

That's one sided leeching to be fair. What happens when that person who knows how to do these things leaves? Are hacks just not going to have these features?

Personally I think that this thread, alongside with you ASM Workshop are the best places where someone who is interested could really learn ASM from. I find them extremely helpful as for me this is the next step after learning the basics. They are simple nice things, which help getting generally more comfortable with assembly. And I want to say a big THANK YOU for both of these little treasure nests.

As for your question what could you do. I think that the biggest gap (at least with assembly) is that most people(myself included) don't know what to do or how to use the knowledge the obtained from the basic tutorials. As I said before, those two threads I think can help minimize that gap as there is even commentary on the routines. So imo something like a Step 2, a more like gentle exposure to asm after the tutorials would be pretty nice :)

I didn't really consider that people were actually using the ASM resource thread as a learning resource. That thread is full of routines I made when I just got into the ASM business. The routines there, aren't exactly ideal to learn from, but if it's helped even one person, I'll take back what I've said about it :)

For a step two, have you tried to look at my intermediate tutorials? Like things dealing with using the debugger? I'll make one with using IDA in the future, I think that'd be much anticipated. Unfortunately, we're not allowed to distribute it due to a PC wide rule. But ppl can PM me and we can have a private conversation on a completely unrelated matter :^)

I do have one question. Any recommendations on where to start learning C? :)

When I started, it was with follow me. I decided to help Touched with it, and he made it clear he wanted to do the project in C. Despite not knowing the language, I tagged along an just winged it tbh. Whenever I had a question, I'd consult him or google!

As for entering C dev for Pokemon gen 3, I think It depends on how fluent you are with ASM imo. I just dove right into it, almost all the concepts are transferred over. There are some higher level things like structs and casting, but generally those can be learned on the fly.

You can't forget that FireRed's source is only in ASM, so your researching and reverse engineering would be all the same. The only thing that will change, is that your source code won't be in ASM. This allows for faster refactoring, while not needing to keep track of low level things like registers and the stack. When working with graphics or larger projects, that becomes essential, especially considering readability.

azurile13, you must consider that C for FireRed is at best a very low level. The programming language C is very vast, and there's a lot of tricks and things you can learn about it. That said, for our purposes, it's all very simple. If you know ASM, I recommend you just jump in to it. First find someone you can learn the ropes from by attempting to contribute to any C projects currently occurring. There's only one active one that I know about :^)

 

[azurile13]

Picking up a book or taking a class are certainly some of the more conventional ways to go about this. Codeacademy's a pretty friendly and free mean to kick yourself right into it. It won't teach you everything, but there are the basics.

And of course, if you're keen on self-teaching, download the source of programs coded in C and poke around. Some'll be documented, others won't, but if you have a general understanding of the syntax (which, since you've probably scripted, you should), you can start to get a feel for what commands do what and how programs are structured.

Thank you :) I'll have a look for sure!

When I started, it was with follow me. I decided to help Touched with it, and he made it clear he wanted to do the project in C. Despite not knowing the language, I tagged along an just winged it tbh. Whenever I had a question, I'd consult him or google!

As for entering C dev for Pokemon gen 3, I think It depends on how fluent you are with ASM imo. I just dove right into it, almost all the concepts are transferred over. There are some higher level things like structs and casting, but generally those can be learned on the fly.

You can't forget that FireRed's source is only in ASM, so your researching and reverse engineering would be all the same. The only thing that will change, is that your source code won't be in ASM. This allows for faster refactoring, while not needing to keep track of low level things like registers and the stack. When working with graphics or larger projects, that becomes essential, especially considering readability.

azurile13, you must consider that C for FireRed is at best a very low level. The programming language C is very vast, and there's a lot of tricks and things you can learn about it. That said, for our purposes, it's all very simple. If you know ASM, I recommend you just jump in to it. First find someone you can learn the ropes from by attempting to contribute to any C projects currently occurring. There's only one active one that I know about :^)

Hmmm. I had seen that project, but I also recall the creator saying "If you know ASM, but don't know C, you can still help out, but you'll be in a lot of pain." That read to me as a suggestion to learn a bit of C first. I didn't want to "help" in a way that was just wasting your time with explaining stuff all the time. But I've gotten more comfortable with ASM, so I would be happy to contribute to the battle engine :D I simply didn't expect it to be feasible.

 

[Blah]

Thank you :) I'll have a look for sure!Hmmm. I had seen that project, but I also recall the creator saying "If you know ASM, but don't know C, you can still help out, but you'll be in a lot of pain." That read to me as a suggestion to learn a bit of C first. I didn't want to "help" in a way that was just wasting your time with explaining stuff all the time. But I've gotten more comfortable with ASM, so I would be happy to contribute to the battle engine :D I simply didn't expect it to be feasible.

You'll be in a lot of pain because there is lots to learn :)

You can reach me on the normal IRC or VM/PM if you want more info about stuff.

 

[chrunch]

That's not true. Hacks without ASM features are pretty garbage, for the most part.

Well that's pretty objective isn't it? I feel like Gaia would still be a good hack if you cut out all the non-public ASM. I'd much rather play a hack with a fantastic story or well designed maps than one that's shoved as many custom features as possible in just to say "Look! My hack is better because it has custom ASM!" I'd put the bad hack problem down to most people here just having no experience in game design.

I don't mean to be rude, but mate, you don't know enough to even fix the bugs in your own Hack. Evidenced by our conversations https://www.pokecommunity.com/converse.php?u=177245&u2=365518&page=2

Why are you dragging up a conversation from over a year ago now? For your information I did fix that bug, without your help or any special custom ASM. Am I not allowed to ever ask for any help with something I'n having trouble with? Apparently in your eyes not knowing how to fix a single bug makes you totally incompetent until the end of time. Let me just go dig up some of your posts from a few years ago, then. Then I can claim you're clueless and use it to discount all your points!

 

[Blah]

Well that's pretty objective isn't it? I feel like Gaia would still be a good hack if you cut out all the non-public ASM. I'd much rather play a hack with a fantastic story or well designed maps than one that's shoved as many custom features as possible in just to say "Look! My hack is better because it has custom ASM!" I'd put the bad hack problem down to most people here just having no experience in game design.

Why are you dragging up a conversation from over a year ago now? For your information I did fix that bug, without your help or any special custom ASM. Am I not allowed to ever ask for any help with something I'n having trouble with? Apparently in your eyes not knowing how to fix a single bug makes you totally incompetent until the end of time. Let me just go dig up some of your posts from a few years ago, then. Then I can claim you're clueless and use it to discount all your points!

Gaia has plenty on non-public ASM routines? You can't exactly make custom events without ASM, nor can you exploit most of the features in the ROM. You're stuck to the 0xE2 script commands otherwise, some which you'd have no use for. Anyaways, I think it's quite clear how much ASM enhances gameplay. Take a look at https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=289561
Imagine this hack without it's ASM features. People who know their way around a ROM, also are able to make these really cool things. I'm trying to say a hack with ASM features are way better than it's counterpart. Assuming that the hack without ASM has a better design stage seems to be the flaw in your argument. I don't think it's debatable that Gaia is better thanks to it's ASM and customized features, because it really isn't.

Also, for your bug, it wasn't a bug created from an ASM routine failing, so why would it have required an ASM solution? I mean you can try and drag my posts from a few years ago, but I don't think you'll really find anything. I've always been contributing, or trying to figure things out myself with few exceptions.

What I'm saying about you is, you claim ASM is pointless to learn, yet you struggled with basic issues in your hack - you lacked the skillset to fix them and in present day you don't see the point in learning how. I'm not disregarding you as some clueless insect, I'm saying you don't know what you're talking about when you said ASM isn't important. If you don't want to learn, or have no interest, that's all you. I'm not going to shove things down your throat, and flame you over it. I was attempting to rally members who had a slight interest in it. If you're content with the level you are, then by all means carry on doing what you're doing, but please don't spread these ideas that ASM is not a worthwhile skill to learn.


edit: edited out potentially offensive words

 

[chrunch]

Gaia has plenty on non-public ASM routines? You can't exactly make custom events without ASM, nor can you exploit most of the features in the ROM. You're stuck to the 0xE2 script commands otherwise, some which you'd have no use for. Anyaways, I think it's quite clear how much ASM enhances gameplay. Take a look at https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=289561
I'm trying to say a hack with ASM features are way better than it's counterpart.

Sorry, but Dark Rising wouldn't be a good hack with ASM features, Gaia wouldn't be bad without them. It will add polish and improve your hack if you use it right, but it's only a complimentary feature. The base hack itself is far more important, and what I'm saying is that I'd much rather spend the time it takes to learn ASM working on the hack itself - especially with the vast amount of public ASM resources out there.

I acknowledge that a hack is probably gonna turn out better with ASM but it depends whether its worthwhile with your commitment level (which is not very high for most of the community including me). Ranting that everyone should be using ASM and C is a waste of time because it won't happen.

I also doubt ASM would be very useful to learn outside of ROM hacking. High level programming languages are what the majority of people in the real world work with and this community will be dead in 3-5 years anyways.

 

[illumine]

Gaia has plenty on non-public ASM routines? You can't exactly make custom events without ASM, nor can you exploit most of the features in the ROM. You're stuck to the 0xE2 script commands otherwise, some which you'd have no use for. Anyaways, I think it's quite clear how much ASM enhances gameplay. Take a look at https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=289561
Imagine this hack without it's ASM features. People who know their way around a ROM, also are able to make these really cool things. I'm trying to say a hack with ASM features are way better than it's counterpart. Assuming that the hack without ASM has a better design stage seems to be the flaw in your argument. I don't think it's debatable that Gaia is better thanks to it's ASM and customized features, because it really isn't.

It seems a bit strange that, after they try to discuss why they would like a hack regardless of ASM routines, your response is that they should download, patch and play to some amount a ROM rather than responding to their point. With no reason to do so other than it has ASM. ASM features are just technical asides to a game which is essentially the same, though, and realistically, since we're discussing ROM Hacks, most such alterations don't even result in anything significantly better than the original - and generally don't deal with the things that people liked about the originals. This should surely be some point of reference for a ROM Hack.

If you had the rival from G/S, and they just went around talking about ROM Hacking and ROM Hacking technique in lieu of the game, then this would not only alter the game (quite notably) more than most ASM additions, but plausibly distract from the point of the game and why you might play it - unless it were satirical, of course.

What I'm saying about you is, you claim ASM is pointless to learn, yet you struggled with basic issues in your hack - you lacked the skillset to fix them and in present day you don't see the point in learning how.

If it's a basic issue, then they don't need ASM to fix it, presumably. In which case they can just do that and get back to designing the game. Most hacks are broken more fundamentally.

I was attempting to rally members who had a slight interest in it. If you're content with the level you are, then by all means carry on doing what you're doing, but please don't spread these ideas that ASM is not a worthwhile skill to learn.

A rallying-cry, other than this somehow making the post a weird parody of Whismur, would require an ethos. ASM is just things. Unless you were trying to rally posters to disapprove of chrunch, which I suppose could have some appeal to the Lutherans.

 

[Deokishisu]

Sorry, but Dark Rising wouldn't be a good hack with ASM features, Gaia wouldn't be bad without them. It will add polish and improve your hack if you use it right, but it's only a complimentary feature. The base hack itself is far more important, and what I'm saying is that I'd much rather spend the time it takes to learn ASM working on the hack itself - especially with the vast amount of public ASM resources out there.

I suppose it's about quality. A hacker who takes the time to learn some basic ASM and uses that knowledge in their hack will (generally, but obviously not always) be the kind of hacker that would try to create a higher quality product regardless of their skill level. I think that that's the generalization being made here. Of course the story and mapping and (especially) planning stages take a lot of time and effort to get right, and better polish on those will probably result in a bigger overall improvement than plopping in an ASM routine that you don't understand. I come from a time in the community where that was the only thing someone could do to improve their hack, because no one could use ASM, so I am biased toward people not being idiots when in their hack's early stages rather than letting ASM pull a bad hack up to meh territory. If you're one of the hackers who can pull a quality product out of 2008-2009-era knowledge, then go for it. ASM is like steroids. Nowadays, the best hacks that do what you're proposing will only be base hitters, with the occasional homeruns (which, in my opinion, we haven't seen that kind of quality in the hacking community yet). Using all of that as well as ASM knowledge will probably result in many more homerun moments and possibly a grand slam (which we also haven't seen). If you think you can hit a homerun without ASM steroids, go for it. Those of us who do go for the ASM knowledge will just hit homeruns more easily and more often than you.

I acknowledge that a hack is probably gonna turn out better with ASM but it depends whether its worthwhile with your commitment level (which is not very high for most of the community including me). Ranting that everyone should be using ASM and C is a waste of time because it won't happen.

We've gotten to the point where ASM is the new scripting. We had no scripting tutorials when I was starting out and it was shrouded in mystery. Now, diegoisawesome's tutorial makes scripting an exercise in "I want this to happen; I'm going to go into the thread and fill in the blanks until the script is finished." Once we have tutorials on that level, and once the basic principles become common knowledge, I believe that ASM will take as much effort as scripting does today. The simplest routines will take someone maybe 20-30 minutes to do. Meanwhile, like the most tedious and complicated scripts, the more complex ones may take several hours.

What I'm trying to say is that it will only get more accessible as time goes on. The "worthwhile to learn vs. commitment level" will eventually not be as big of an issue. Most of the community's commitment level isn't high enough to do their own work, let alone learn basic concepts like mapping, scripting, and rudimentary game design. For the middle-of-the-road hackers, like you and I, the overall community doesn't really matter. It's just our peers and those above us that do.

I also doubt ASM would be very useful to learn outside of ROM hacking. High level programming languages are what the majority of people in the real world work with and this community will be dead in 3-5 years anyways.

ASM is a stepping stone to other programming languages, and learning the concepts behind it is a good headstart should someone want to learn another programming language. Latin is also a dead language, but if you know it, than learning and understanding the other Romance languages is substantially easier. Not only that, ASM in our community is a stepping stone to higher languages in our community. Like FBI said, we're breaking into using C in hacks.

I also thought that the community would be dead in 3-5 years. In 2008. We're still trudging along, and ROMHacking is actually more popular than ever. Have you been to the quagmire that is the subreddit for Pokemon ROMHacks? Have you seen the interest in non-English speaking communities? Even if you do prophesize doom for this community, I don't really see a reason to stop now.

 

[Deokishisu]

It seems a bit strange that, after they try to discuss why they would like a hack regardless of ASM routines, your response is that they should download, patch and play to some amount a ROM rather than responding to their point. With no reason to do so other than it has ASM. ASM features are just technical asides to a game which is essentially the same, though, and realistically, since we're discussing ROM Hacks, most such alterations don't even result in anything significantly better than the original - and generally don't deal with the things that people liked about the originals. This should surely be some point of reference for a ROM Hack.

If you had the rival from G/S, and they just went around talking about ROM Hacking and ROM Hacking technique in lieu of the game, then this would not only alter the game (quite notably) more than most ASM additions, but plausibly distract from the point of the game and why you might play it - unless it were satirical, of course.

No one is saying that a hack will only be good with ASM knowledge; that's absurd. Of course the average middle-of-the-road hacker is probably going to see a better and more immediate improvement in quality if they worked on their story or maps or practiced good game design. A majority of ROMHackers need lessons in those subjects more than they need ASM right now.

What FBI is saying is that the community is stagnant, the skill level gap between the top 1-3 hackers and mid-tier hackers (like myself and chrunch) is massive, and, before he leaves the community, he wants to make sure to pass on his knowledge to make things easier for the next generation of hackers. The 3rd gen disassembly, for example, is the single most important thing to the long-term health of Gen 3 ROMHacks, yet virtually no one has the skill to contribute to it. That's a problem. Would you know how to debug a routine if I asked you to? I know that I'd have quite some difficulty doing it myself. That's basic knowledge that is essential to efforts like the disassembly; and if knowledgeable people leave the community without passing on that knowledge then it is a major loss to the community. I'd hate to have to watch the post-FBI post-Touched post-MrDS post-Gogo (you get the picture) community struggling to rediscover everything that today's greats tried to leave us instead of taking the opportunity to preserve that knowledge now, while it's still readily available.

A rallying-cry, other than this somehow making the post a weird parody of Whismur, would require an ethos. ASM is just things. Unless you were trying to rally posters to disapprove of chrunch, which I suppose could have some appeal to the Lutherans.

A call to people who want to learn ASM while an ASM guru is still around hardly requires an ethos. Your strawman arguments are quite transparent. No one is shitting on chrunch for having an opinion. This is the chit-chat thread, we're allowed to debate and disagree amiably.

 

[illumine]

No one is saying that a hack will only be good with ASM knowledge; that's absurd. Of course the average middle-of-the-road hacker is probably going to see a better and more immediate improvement in quality if they worked on their story or maps or practiced good game design. A majority of ROMHackers need lessons in those subjects more than they need ASM right now.

There is no need to speak for someone else and say things that were not at issue, I was replying to their response to something and you are reacting to a perceived sense of offence. Spending this long trying to correct them and then assuming that they agree seems to make your attempts at showing respect to them seem like forced compensation.

What FBI is saying is that the community is stagnant, the skill level gap between the top 1-3 hackers and mid-tier hackers (like myself and chrunch) is massive, and, before he leaves the community, he wants to make sure to pass on his knowledge to make things easier for the next generation of hackers.

That was not being disputed. It was seemingly not found important enough to discuss.

Would you know how to debug a routine if I asked you to? I know that I'd have quite some difficulty doing it myself.

You could surely say, 'Not many people know how to do a debug routine in the context of a ROM - and also this makes their hacks way worse,' this manner of phrasing such things is strange. But, see, if you claimed to understand debug routines, and were going out of your way to say that the other person did not, then this would be personal and slightly malign, if you had to bring it up. Which then inevitably happens in lieu of allegiance.

I'd hate to have to watch the post-FBI post-Touched post-MrDS post-Gogo (you get the picture)

Although that is not a question, I shall treat it as such, and as such state that this is mostly a fairly obscure picture. But, I mean, if you wanted to just praise these people, and possibly offer a touching eulogy, then alright, but this might not be clearly related to anything in a different context.

I suppose people might still be mystified about how to write ROM Hacks after Samuel Beckett.

A call to people who want to learn ASM while an ASM guru is still around hardly requires an ethos. Your strawman arguments are quite transparent. No one is ****ting on chrunch for having an opinion. This is the chit-chat thread, we're allowed to debate and disagree amiably.

Yes, by bringing up their previous hacks. That's not personal at all. Please.

That's not a rallying cry. It was called such to arouse feelings in the context of an argument against somebody. As such, it is implicitly directed. But that aside was seemingly the only part of my post that you were responding to.

And people here seem to use words like 'sexuality,' 'strawman,' etc., quite frequently for their own sake, you have to wonder what orients them towards such.

 

[chrunch]

I suppose it's about quality. A hacker who takes the time to learn some basic ASM and uses that knowledge in their hack will (generally, but obviously not always) be the kind of hacker that would try to create a higher quality product regardless of their skill level. I think that that's the generalization being made here. Of course the story and mapping and (especially) planning stages take a lot of time and effort to get right, and better polish on those will probably result in a bigger overall improvement than plopping in an ASM routine that you don't understand. I come from a time in the community where that was the only thing someone could do to improve their hack, because no one could use ASM, so I am biased toward people not being idiots when in their hack's early stages rather than letting ASM pull a bad hack up to meh territory. If you're one of the hackers who can pull a quality product out of 2008-2009-era knowledge, then go for it. ASM is like steroids. Nowadays, the best hacks that do what you're proposing will only be base hitters, with the occasional homeruns (which, in my opinion, we haven't seen that kind of quality in the hacking community yet). Using all of that as well as ASM knowledge will probably result in many more homerun moments and possibly a grand slam (which we also haven't seen). If you think you can hit a homerun without ASM steroids, go for it. Those of us who do go for the ASM knowledge will just hit homeruns more easily and more often than you.

Fair enough, I agree with what you said. Anyone who wants to learn ASM I don't want to discourage. I just disagree with FBI's elitist viewpoint that you need ASM and programming knowledge to have a good hack. This community wouldn't exist if more people thought that way.

We've gotten to the point where ASM is the new scripting. We had no scripting tutorials when I was starting out and it was shrouded in mystery. Now, diegoisawesome's tutorial makes scripting an exercise in "I want this to happen; I'm going to go into the thread and fill in the blanks until the script is finished." Once we have tutorials on that level, and once the basic principles become common knowledge, I believe that ASM will take as much effort as scripting does today. The simplest routines will take someone maybe 20-30 minutes to do. Meanwhile, like the most tedious and complicated scripts, the more complex ones may take several hours.

I don't think ASM will ever be the new scripting. It's far more complicated, even someone proficient in it should be able to see why that is.

I also thought that the community would be dead in 3-5 years. In 2008. We're still trudging along, and ROMHacking is actually more popular than ever. Have you been to the quagmire that is the subreddit for Pokemon ROMHacks? Have you seen the interest in non-English speaking communities? Even if you do prophesize doom for this community, I don't really see a reason to stop now.

Well maybe its just nostalgia speaking but I remember the community being much more active and fun back in 2010 and before. Remember Hack of the Week? Map of the Month? The scrapbox? The forums feel dead compared to that time. There were more people involved, somehow more interesting hacks despite the limited knowledge back then. It's just gone downhill since then in my eyes. There are lots of people interested in playing hacks for sure but the actual hacking community itself isn't the same.

 

[DizzyEgg]

Well maybe its just nostalgia speaking but I remember the community being much more active and fun back in 2010 and before. Remember Hack of the Week? Map of the Month? The scrapbox? The forums feel dead compared to that time. There were more people involved, somehow more interesting hacks despite the limited knowledge back then. It's just gone downhill since then in my eyes. There are lots of people interested in playing hacks for sure but the actual hacking community itself isn't the same.

You sure about that? I was only a lurker back then, but the things I remember are elitism of advanced hackers, unwillingness to share their work and help others. I'm also not sure if hacks made back then were better than current ones. I may be biased, because I don't care that much of a story or graphics compared to mechanics, especially battle mechanics. Lots of hacks were also done poorly, with lots of bugs in it.