Nah you are not alone. Got it really early as well. Sure, there are free options now but I've got my money's worth considering how long I've used it for. My second one's A9LH-ed up though. Well, got the best of both worlds
@4gionz Exactly. What really annoys me is how some people feel the need to circlejerk. And this goes both ways. I swear it will kill them to be objective. Rarely does anyone recognise GW's role in the scene's development. But one mention of bricking and all the SJWs come flying in, with barely any of them attributing any blame whatsoever on the clones. Hope these same people will have my back when I perform a laparotomy in my neighbourhood after watching my doctors do them. I mean, it's not my fault since I didn't know it would be dangerous. It's not my patients' fault either for wanting to save on hefty fees. Clearly my doctor is to blame. On the other hand, we have some people who make other GW users look bad by going full retard and spouting nonsense. It's one thing to state that GW does what you need it to do. It's a different story when you try to shit on other options to make your point. Even in this thread, there was someone who did just that and it made me facepalm so hard. And the goddamned meme-ing culture doesn't help one bit. Like I have said a while back, while I don't expect people to post a 500000 word thesis, I'd rather us not become yet another 4chan/reddit/Twitch chat/ Youtube comment section.
500k words? Nah... But I will contribute something about the current state of the 3DS modding community.
I think that a lot this has to do with a generational gap in the makeup of the GBATemp 3ds modding community. When I say "generational," I'm referring to when they entered the community and not their actual age. As I see it, there are pretty much three generations in the 3DS scene.
The first generation is the MSET generation. These are the members who can vividly remember the day when we saw the words "WE HACKED IT!" Those who are of this generation are likely to be GW Users or one of the unfortunate souls who bought a clone card only to get bricked or lose support. When 6.x save encryption came about, they learned that maintaining a modded 3DS meant that certain complications would arise (and workaround steps to be completed) when it came to preventing save data loss when GW support of SysNAND >4.X finally came around. Content with what has been working for them for years, most of them only come out of hiding sporadically to check out the latest GW news before leaving the boards for another few months. Since it's been a few months since the last GW update, we're starting to see some of these members pop back up again looking for answers. This is what's led to a growing contention between the members of this generation who remain regularly active in the community and the third generation of 3DS modders. I'll go more into this later.
The second generation of 3DS modders are the *hax/Sky3DS generation. The reason I included Sky3DS in this category is because of how instrumental it was in the proliferation of Ninjhax/OoTHax, as both hacks were initially limited in potential user base to however many units of those games remain in the world. Users of this generation are the first ones to have free CFWs with little to no cost. The only cost that those users paid was for the exploitable games, a cost that was later mitigated by BrowserHax/MenuHax. To this generation, the use of a flashcart was seen as more of a luxury than a necessity. Sky3DS may have failed as a legitimate flashcart contender by not adjusting their price to match the times, but has become a useful modding tool for those who come into contact with unmodified consoles of various regions.
Last, but not least, are the A9LH generation of 3DS modders. They are the most recent generation to the 3DS scene and have become a bit of a nuisance in the process. The extent of knowledge about other hacks that most of these modders have is the brief amount of time spent using the *hax family as part of Plailect's OTP Guide. To them, flashcarts like the GW and Sky3DS are seen as archaic and obsolete. Whenever a GW User pops out of hiding for their sporadic check of the 3DS scene, the A9LH generation tends to simply engage in copypasta of the OTP Guide link and doesn't take the GW User's specific setup into consideration because of a lack of knowledge regarding that period of 3DS modding history. This, combined with a rampant superiority complex, has fostered a situation where these interactions can invite complications to the A9LH installation.
A big issue that this lack of knowledge can cause, which many people tend to overlook, is save data loss when coming from a 4.x SysNAND setup. Because of the way GW EmuNAND works, 3DS games use the save encryption of the SysNAND regardless of what FW the EmuNAND has. When a GW User with this particular setup decides to take the plunge into using newer hacks, they will have to go through an arduous task of decrypting and encrypting each GW save on a game-by-game basis in order to maintain save data integrity.
I know this is going to sound like hippie nonsense, but it's simply my humble opinion. If we're going to see the 3DS scene continue to thrive in the endgame stages of the 3DS lifecycle, then we need to see a behavioral shift in the way the different generations interact with each other.
A9LH users need to recognize that A9LH doesn't invalidate every other hack that came before it. Without those prior hacks, we would have never been able to get to A9LH in the first place. If you're going to suggest a user change from one hack to A9LH, make sure that you have a working knowledge of the hack they are currently using. Without it, you may end up doing the user more harm than good.
Users from the other two generations need not feel pressured into having to update to A9LH, if they don't want to. The old hacks still work just fine. That said, those who do want to upgade should do their own research and not simply blindly follow the advice of someone who doesn't know about your particular setup. This is especially true the further removed your generation of hack is from the current generation. There are usually more chances for complications going from one mod to another than going from stock to modded. Be well-informed and only install the mods you feel comfortable using.