What annoys you about hacks?

[Beechlgz]

In agreement with a lot of what you just said, evilottojr, in reference to tools and minor hacks. It's not really fair to judge a hack (or a hacker/editor) based purely on how much has been changed and what tools were used. If the result is something that is overall enjoyable or challenging and plays well, with as few bugs and glitches as possible, that should be all that matters. Any gripe beyond that is just personal taste, not something to scrutinize the game or the hacker/editor over.

I'm not incredibly fussy about hacks myself though. The only things I hate are obvious bugs and glitches that should have been easily caught out during testing, or really choppy arrangement and/or misuse of tiles.

As for personal taste, I don't like swearing. That's just me, it doesn't matter that I'm 22 (I used to swear a lot as a teenager and I'm not proud of it). So if I find a hack with a little swearing here and there, used in moderation and used effectively, I deal. However, when nearly every fourth or fifth word is a swear I tend to lose interest, unless it's something specific to a single character (ever met one of those poeple who just seems to swear constantly for no apparent reason? If they're conveying that kind of character, I can understand).

Poor spelling and grammar puts me off too, but I can look past it if it's not too bad, like an amateur translation for example is bearable. Lack of effort, however, just puts me right off, and I'm sure it puts most folks off a hack.

I don't mind fakemon if they're in a style that suits my tastes and they don't necessarily need to be in the exact style of the original pokemon for me to enjoy discovering them in the game. That said, I haven't found such a hack yet. Again, that's just a personal taste thing, not a criticism.

 

[<(-.-)>]

ungorinallity, bad sprites, and bad tiles

 

[Retneprac Yelyah]

The unoriginality in hacks does me in the most. It almost always feels like a rehash of the original plot; never a new adventure. I am not even going to mention scripting, mapping, and etc. errors because it should be an expectation to have these errors fixed before the hack has a presentable release. Quite frankly, I am sick of the same formula, the same plot devices, and the lack of unoriginality in the the way the game unfolds. Picking a starter from a professor is completely overdone. Fighting an evil organization is completely overdone. I could on with this, but it isn't really necessary.

 

[cazzler]

Well the things that annoy me is:

- Bad storyline, I just can't keep playing if the story is going nowhere or it's just plain bad.

- Using real characters, I can only accept this if there is a reasonable explanation for them.

That's all I guess.

 

[treelove2]

What annoys me most is that some hackers act like they made games better than the realone' people not knowing how to make a Pikachu ear, and lack of games that are a bit like Mystery Dungeon, even a bit. That probably makes you know what my first real hack will be like.

 

[mkc90]

That they start making a hack n never finish them thats lame

 

[dwhess16]

Not having an evolution guide, for when they change certain pokemon that evolve.

 

[Corvus of the Black Night]

My biggest jiff is when people put so much effort into the maps and nothing else.

I also hate it when people say that "your hack is bad" because your maps are bad. It ignores all the other concepts that person put into that hack, like scripting or music editing. I get this one a lot and its very frustrating.

Another big thing that annoys me is how people will criticize people for putting in "fakemons" or trying new concepts with Pokemon's basic engine. I mean, come on, give people credit for originality and thinking outside the box.

 

[Gigafrost]

Corvidae and evilottojr are spot on. I also agree with them. I mean lets face it... We're getting these ROMS for FREE out of the goodness of the hackers heart. The least we can do is apply some constructive criticism.. Not an all out bashing on their skills.

That being said, I will reiterate on what has been said already. The things I hate MOST in hacks are (in order of most to least annoying):

1. ADULT CONTENT (Swearing, Pokemon shaped like sex organs, etc): It's an E-RATED GAME AND IT'S NOT FUNNY. It is simply tasteless and takes from the plot. While I do understand that those people may lack in the "spice things up" category when it comes to video game humor. Do us all a favor and keep the content clean. We have loads of substitute words that can be used in the English language that will keep the funniness/seriousness of the moment. USE THEM.

2. BAD SPRITING/LAZY LOOKING + UGLY SPRITES: Unless you're doing a hack of the original Pokemon red blue or yellow, this is just a waste of your time doing it. The point of the game is to catch Pokemon that you actually would WANT to catch, not ones that are so ugly that you just walk away disappointed. This includes using the severed off body parts of original Pokemon sprites for your "new fakomon" Frankenstein sprite projects. and if it has to be done, at LEAST do so in a way that is not so obvious (can't tell you how many times I saw a fakomon and asked my self not "Who's that Pokemon!?" but "Which Pokemon is it made of?!"). Then again it could just be me being picky. I don't know why it bugs me so much. Maybe because I'm all against sprite deviations.

3. BAD GRAMMAR: Has to be one of my biggest annoyances. Being on a chat site is one thing, but incorporating that into a game is just lazyness. If you don't primarily speak a certain language (say English) then it's understandable. But we can tell if you either can't translate well and if you just can't spell. Spell check is your friend guys. Nuff said here.

4. OVERELABORATE/OVERCOLORED POKEMON: Pokemon is unique in that it usually sticks to 3 MAIN COLORS (4 at most). The designs are minimal on the Pokemon (some exception to the legendaries), giving you a just of what they look like. Your Pokemon doesn't have to be a walking rainbow or a garbled mess. It's just confusing (and painful) to look at for extended periods of time. In fact it doesn't look like Pokemon at all anymore. Just cluttered and ugly. This also applies to people who don't put enough detail and leave their fakomon looking like big blobs of mess. Not a good idea.

5. INCORRECT BATTLE SPRITE POSITIONING: Can't tell you how much this bugs me, to see a fakomon facing BACKWARDS or SIDEWAYS in a match against another fakomon. What's the deal!? If you look at the original pokemon sprites, ALL of them with the exception of Magneton (though his body is actually positioned correctly) face DOWNWARDS AND TO THE LEFT. This is important! As this position makes it look like the pokemon are facing each other (It's a battle for pete's sake!) People who position the fakomon the following ways are subconsiously making their pokemon look like the following (From battler's point of view):

Body or Body + Head facing to the top left / eyes focused on their own health bar - Out of it, in a trance, dull-witted.

Body + Head turned backwards - Vulnerable to attack, defenseless, weak, ready to run away, dopey or arrogant.

Head turned to bottom right - Awkward, proof that hacker forgot to flip the sprite the other way.

6. BAD MUSIC - Ear rapes + Games that take long to finish = BIG NO NO!

7. REFERENCES TO THE REAL WORLD - Could just be me, but this would make no sense since we already know that it isn't real. Bad move on a story writer's part. Unless you have a really good reason for doing so.

8. TINY POKEMON THAT ARE WAY TOO OVERPOWERED - I have this problem with the official Pokemon games. I call these guys the POWER MIDGETS GROUP. I guess I just hate the fact that something the size of my house cat has unspeakable power enough to rule, alter, and change entire galaxies. Celebi, Victini, Jirachi, Manaphy, etc. fall into this. It's stupid. Unrealistic. Makes no sense. And we all know that they're there just as fillers to the game. They're useless! Cept Mew, he's my dawg -fist bumps-. For me, there has to be one heck of a strong plot to have a reason to give them such unnecessary power. Especially if they aren't even legendary.

I think that's all of my rant for now. muhaha.

 

[Ho-oh 112]

1. When people make a hack and just leave it out there untouched for the rest of eternity.

2. The first route not forcing you to go through long grass.

3. Trainers with high level pokemon when you have just started the game

4. "Maze Routes" no one likes huge maps made into mazes, really it pointless unless it's optional and you can get rewards from it.

5. The word "Noob" used to describe trainers.

6. The Elite 4 (Please That's getting boring make something new for a change!)

7. Bad scripting

8. Grammer Mistakes

9. Extremely complicated text that's not found in a dictonary

10. Stupid name for the games (like pokemon A and Pokemon Onion completly stupid.)

11. When the intro scene is way tooo long... (Not the title but the part where you choose your name and blah blah blah.)

Yup that pretty much covers it.

 

[masterquestmq]

its really suprising that many people don't like the 8 badge storyline, I mena isn't this element an important factor in a hack alongside having actual Pokemon?

Personally for me in hacks badges acts as a 'side quest' while the trainer is trying to solve the main plot of the game.

as for things that bother me, not much you cna tell if someone has put effort or not in a hack the only thing that would reallly bother me would be fakemon

sorry not a fan.

I know alot of people are and i respect their opinion everyone is entitle to one rite?

 

[The Noob Hacker]

Well I haven't been here in awhile. But there's something that I would like to address that I have utterly despised for quite some time now. Something having to do with ROM hacking. Specifically, two groups I like to call the "purists" and the "elitists".

So I shall start my mini-rant by giving examples of each. Including general ideas (from my point of view, of course.) and exaggerated flaming that one of each group might do, plus more, oh joy!

I'll start with my basic rundown of the "purists". The purists are those people who run around saying what Pokemon "is" and how Pokemon "should be" or "should work". Basically, these people are normally very big Nintendo fans, and fans of Pokemon. In most cases, they believe that Game Freak has set a perfect/good example of Pokemon and they want it to remain the same, as it has for years. So these people might not like it when we pesky ROM hackers go about screwing with their game.

Now that's fine and dandy. If you like Pokemon as it is and don't want it to change, more power to you. Some of these purists go on to criticize ROM hacks for being "too different". This, also doesn't bother me. In most cases, its understandable. There are indeed some hacks that go too far. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for pushing the boundaries and going above and beyond what Nintendo have laid out, but in some cases it really is extreme.

No, what gets me mad is when these certain individuals go around saying a hacker CAN'T do something. That just makes me mad. What right does anyone have to say someone can't make a game because it doesn't meet their standards? Even if someone makes a Pokemon hack that goes against what I like, I still wouldn't call them out for not appealing to my wants exclusively. By all means, if you want to make the dirtiest, most adult rated, poorly grammar-ed, nonsensical hack out there, so be it. You wont have my support but I simply won't play it.

But back to the purists, I hate it when they say things such as the following: Pokemon is E rated, so you, the hacker, can't have any profanity whatsoever (Note: I am not a fan of any profanity, but what are in my opinions minor, such as occasional swearing, I don't mind. But even if the hacker goes all out on the profane, you have no right to say its wrong.) Pokemon is E rated, so you can't have death! (Pretty much anything rating-wise I say, do whatever you want. Although I don't mind character death, even in "kids" games. Notice I put kids in quotes, because it is a liberty of the hacker to make his or her game for any age group they please.) Pokemon is about being a trainer and getting badges, anything more or less in unacceptable! (Must I explain my ever-living hatred for reusing the Nintendo storyline once more? If you have read most any of my opinions on ROM hacks, you would see this appear many times over.)

Now then, onto the group I call the "elitists". I refer to them as such because these are the people that say that the only "proper" way to hack is to Hex and decimal edit and all of that finely-cut slices of protein. Look, if someone doesn't want to devote all their time to learn to do things the "right" way, that's their choice, and you've no right to judge them for how they decide to go about ROM hacking. You'll notice my rant about these guys is way shorter than the previous one. But that is because there is simply less to talk about. But out of the two groups, I have no respect for these elitists types.

In fact, most of the things I dislike about ROM hacking stem from the community. Not that I hate the community, I just hate more aspects about it than that of anything else. But I'll save you the time, and myself the effort, of having to go through another rant. Most of it is just trivial stuff, such as why I dislike HOTM and HOTY, plus a few more things about the general community. So I will probably keep these ideas of mine secret, unless if there is some insane individual that really wants to read my rants that badly. Which I would highly doubt exist, as my rants are nothing more than meaningless piles of text that merely take up space on the infinite expanse of the Internet. And if the Internet is not infinite, I'm going to be really sad when the Internet runs out of space, but it would be pretty funny.

 

[JustKidingYa]

Unoringinality I HATE IT SO MUCH. This is the hack chart you fill out to make a classic "pc hack"
Prof.[insert tree name here]
9 or 10 plant/color themed town names
8(or 16) easily traced names(for gym leaders)
a cool sounding name for a evil team
What a hack should be...
Prof.[insert proper name here]
14 to 22 somewhat oringinal town names
8(or 16) somewhat proper(but still type themed) names(for gym leaders)
a new take on the evil team( I mean even nintendo dumped the evil team idea)
A good story line

 

[tweekemasta]

#1: No new pokemon. If you make a hack, make new fakemon! Thats the reason i play hacks! No cheesy ones too.

#2: Repeating the SAME STORY OVER AND OVER AND OVER again, with different graphics.


#3: Sucky story. See #2


#4: Never finishing the game and having me anticipate the release, only to find it an abandoned attempt. >_<


#5: incruct gammer seez wat i men N00BZ! W00t! ih med a gam an don now ow to shpel!:P i cn mak funneh feces doh!XD :D :) :( :S 8)\
Horrid, isint it?


#6: Glitches on EVERY map, that makes it so i cannot complete the game, especialy when its at the very end! :(


#7: People posting "download the final version now!" and the game is only half done.

 

[UltraXTheMagmaDrapion]

Firstly, Fakemon. Fakemon are great, I easily get sick of the original Nintendo Pokemon, but Fakemon have to be good. Good designs, good spriting. Quartz Fakemon were actually good spriting, but not good designs. Topaz has okay designs but horrible spriting. But the spriting in Ruby Destiny is excellent, and the designs are just as good, even though there aren't very many Fakemon in it.

Secondly, Betas. I absolutely hate them. They are a good idea, like a demo, but I hate not being able to fully play through, like being cut off at a certain point. A good idea for them that I will implement in my Betas is to round it off as if it were the end of the story, like making an extra little conclusion for each Beta as if it were the end of the real game.

Thirdly, Tiles and Grammar. Many people have problems with these things. I too dislike bad grammar. But the thing with Tiles is that many times people don't realise that a tile may look out of place at the time, but truthfully it's meant to be there, and with a different point of view, it might seem in place afterwards. But, again they may not always be that way, obviously.

Lastly, Story. Story absolutely sucks if it is just a re-texted version of an original game. Topaz was an okay game, but horrible considering EVERYTHING was just the same scripts from Ruby with different text and sprites. New Story is probably one of the most important things for making an awesome hack. Another reason Ruby Destiny is awesome. Almost nothing is left of the original ROM bases. It's entirely new. Hacks are best like that.

 

[Skippy Electrochomp]

There are a couple of pet peeves I have with hacks...
- Grammar/Bad Spelling. I don't think the Professor is going to go "o hai thar i are a profesr and i giv u pokemanz" anytime soon. You can change up what he says, but keep the grammar, as well as spelling, intact. The only time failing at grammar would be worth it is if you made a Pokemon Internet edition and only the kids and preschoolers talked like that.

- Swear-based games. It's not funny to watch someone break the world record for programming the most swears in a video game. It's just plain immature. Seeing professor go "Sup, <snip>es? I'm Professor <snip>ing Oak, <snip>! You have a <snip>ping problem with that?" is not funny. Seeing him genuinely messing up in the game, however, is a different story...

All my pet peeves so far. Maybe I should play some more hacks/watch more on Youtube, generate more pet peeves, and come back.

 

[PokeH@cker]

crashy sprites and english translations that are not in english

 

[Deokishisu]

Houses without windows. Have any of you ever driven down the street and found a residential house without windows?

 

[Disturbed]

A couple of things -
It's been said dozens of times. Hacks that aren't unique drive me insane. I thought about that for a long time. I can honestly only name one or two unique hacks that I've played (and I've played a lot of hacks). Nothing in these recent hacks have anything that make my eyes pop out, or make my jaw drop. Nothing creative at all really. Just recycled ideas from other hackers. Sure, it's not always a bad thing...but there are unlimited possibilities when it comes to hacking. Take advantage of that fact! I guess it's completely fine to lean towards Gamefreak's style -but if you're going to use an idea, make it your own.
The second thing is playstyle. As a hacker, you need to think long and hard about this question: "Would I be willing to pour potentially 30+ hours into experiencing the world I made, and would I enjoy every minute of it?" Sadly, if you answered yes, chances are you're lying to yourself. If it needs to be something extraordinary to catch your interest, then make your hack extraordinary. 90% of these hacks are rushed because they want to make sure this community gets their hands on the hack as early as possible to either A) Keep the thread alive, or B) You want people to see your progress. It's rarely ever C) Your beta is genuinely finished and there is nothing else you can do to improve on what you've accomplished so far. Now, if the world we lived in was perfect, people would spend twice as long on each beta, polishing things up. There are so many simple errors, so many careless mistakes, and so much evidence of sheer laziness in these hacks that if the hacker had spent a month or so longer before releasing, I guarantee they'd be 10x better.

Yay ranting!

 

[xCalierz]

I find that I absolutely hate having to walk through a large amount of grass, just because you're not seeing anything new in the actual terrain.
It's repetitive and boring.