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Hey all!
As some of you may know, the homebrew scene around the Wii U has been growing a lot lately. Development has been picking up and the release of several exploits is finally starting to reap the rewards. Wii U owners now have a one-stop homebrew shop, game dumping and loading, extensive modding tools, unique games and emulators, stable exploits on all firmwares and several game-changing works in progress.
With this new progress has come a need for better sectioning and organisation in the forum itself. This need has been around for a while, but the recent influx of development has highlighted it further. For this reason, I've decided to formalise it and make a thread about it here, along with some suggestions as to how such a change could be implemented.
The current setup (one "umbrella" section, entitled "Hacking & Homebrew", covering everything on the scene) isn't working. The forum is dominated by discussion around backup loading (and compatibility), game modification and other related questions (which firmware version is best for the backup loader etc). While it's great to have these tools and the community surrounding them, I feel that the section has become far more focused on the "Hacking" than the "Homebrew". Even then, exploits and the like (very much "Hacking" in my opinion) are also hard to find. For example, at the time of writing, there's 2 homebrew threads on the first page of the Hacking and Homebrew section. This number is unusually large - normally there's no homebrew on the first page at all. As a reference, there's 4 threads related to backup dumping and loading (unusually small) and a staggering 15 threads related to game modification. In addition, all of these threads were bumped in the last 10 hours - the community is very active. Despite this, the two homebrew threads were bumped by developers - not users. In general, these threads get very little attention from actual users.
This is why a dedicated homebrew section is needed - threads relating to homebrew are buried within hours and often never get the attention they deserve. This sentiment is echoed by their developers. I've put together a few examples below.
@brienj is the developer of homebrew such as U-Paint and Ast-U-Roids and has assisted in several other projects by creating HBL ports and creating GX2 code (GX2 is the Wii U's graphics engine and very few know how to use it). He's been very vocal about the ongoing need for new sections.
@vgmoose made a fully-fledged game for the "limited" browserhax environment. He's also recently dropped a bombshell with the Hombrew App Store - an app similar to the Homebrew Browser on the Wii that's set to revolutionise how people interact with the homebrew scene.
@CreeperMario is responsible for porting a huge number of apps to HBL, allowing them to be ran under the more expansive and modern kernel environment as well as allowing them to be accessed with the Homebrew App Store.
I don't think I need to add my own posts. As you can see, there's a definitive need for the Wii U subforums to be reorganised if the homebrew scene is going to succeed. It's at the point where a separate forum website has been created just for homebrew developers to band together and collaborate, something they should be able to do on GBATemp but the current system simply doesn't allow for.
So, how could this be resolved? I've created a few mockups of what I feel would be helpful. I'm open to other suggestions as well, this is simply what I think.
Taking inspiration from the 3DS and Wii sections, this setup splits the Hacking & Homebrew section into three - "Emulation and Homebrew", "ROM Hacking, Translations and Utilities" and "Backup Loaders and Dumpers". This covers the three major types of Wii U discussion. The Emulation and Homebrew section would be for exactly that - emulation and homebrew. This section would contain the Cemu thread ("Emulation"), homebrew releases and support questions, development ideas and discussions of all things homebrew. Since it's likely to be the quietest (due to the smaller number of developers) the "Homebrew" in the title also covers threads that may not fall into the other sections.
The next section is "ROM Hacking, Translations and Utilities". This section would cover the various game modifications and related tools, cheat codes and translation projects currently in action. As mentioned before, this is a hugely active portion of the Wii U community so having a dedicated section would be helpful for this.
The third section is "Backup Loaders and Dumpers". This would cover backup loading, game dumping and support questions relating to this topic. It would also cover more abstract questions on this topic (usually relating to SD cards).
I feel that this is the best option for the system, accommodating for the major discussion topics while still allowing for threads that do not follow these standards. However, if three sections is too many, I also came up with a smaller option with only two sections.
This setup basically merges the "ROM Hacking, Translations and Utilities" and "Backup Loaders and Dumpers" sections from above. While having the benefit of fewer sections, it lacks an "umbrella" section to catch unusual threads and will likely generate complaints similar to the ones above from the modding community over time. It might be useful to use "Emulation and Homebrew" for the first section to solve the umbrella problem.
Well, there you have it! There's a major issue in the way the Wii U community is organised, and I feel I've presented some good alternatives. I'm open to suggestions around the specifics of the sections and I'd be willing to help with any tasks that arise from such a reorganisation (I'm aware lots of threads may need moving). I hope you consider this situation properly and thank you for taking the time to read this.
As some of you may know, the homebrew scene around the Wii U has been growing a lot lately. Development has been picking up and the release of several exploits is finally starting to reap the rewards. Wii U owners now have a one-stop homebrew shop, game dumping and loading, extensive modding tools, unique games and emulators, stable exploits on all firmwares and several game-changing works in progress.
With this new progress has come a need for better sectioning and organisation in the forum itself. This need has been around for a while, but the recent influx of development has highlighted it further. For this reason, I've decided to formalise it and make a thread about it here, along with some suggestions as to how such a change could be implemented.
The current setup (one "umbrella" section, entitled "Hacking & Homebrew", covering everything on the scene) isn't working. The forum is dominated by discussion around backup loading (and compatibility), game modification and other related questions (which firmware version is best for the backup loader etc). While it's great to have these tools and the community surrounding them, I feel that the section has become far more focused on the "Hacking" than the "Homebrew". Even then, exploits and the like (very much "Hacking" in my opinion) are also hard to find. For example, at the time of writing, there's 2 homebrew threads on the first page of the Hacking and Homebrew section. This number is unusually large - normally there's no homebrew on the first page at all. As a reference, there's 4 threads related to backup dumping and loading (unusually small) and a staggering 15 threads related to game modification. In addition, all of these threads were bumped in the last 10 hours - the community is very active. Despite this, the two homebrew threads were bumped by developers - not users. In general, these threads get very little attention from actual users.
This is why a dedicated homebrew section is needed - threads relating to homebrew are buried within hours and often never get the attention they deserve. This sentiment is echoed by their developers. I've put together a few examples below.
@brienj is the developer of homebrew such as U-Paint and Ast-U-Roids and has assisted in several other projects by creating HBL ports and creating GX2 code (GX2 is the Wii U's graphics engine and very few know how to use it). He's been very vocal about the ongoing need for new sections.
@vgmoose made a fully-fledged game for the "limited" browserhax environment. He's also recently dropped a bombshell with the Hombrew App Store - an app similar to the Homebrew Browser on the Wii that's set to revolutionise how people interact with the homebrew scene.
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. People believe that there's no homebrew and it's hard to make, so there's no reason for a separate section. With that attitude, the homebrew stays hidden and "hard to make", because there's no section focusing on it.
@CreeperMario is responsible for porting a huge number of apps to HBL, allowing them to be ran under the more expansive and modern kernel environment as well as allowing them to be accessed with the Homebrew App Store.
I don't think I need to add my own posts. As you can see, there's a definitive need for the Wii U subforums to be reorganised if the homebrew scene is going to succeed. It's at the point where a separate forum website has been created just for homebrew developers to band together and collaborate, something they should be able to do on GBATemp but the current system simply doesn't allow for.
So, how could this be resolved? I've created a few mockups of what I feel would be helpful. I'm open to other suggestions as well, this is simply what I think.
Taking inspiration from the 3DS and Wii sections, this setup splits the Hacking & Homebrew section into three - "Emulation and Homebrew", "ROM Hacking, Translations and Utilities" and "Backup Loaders and Dumpers". This covers the three major types of Wii U discussion. The Emulation and Homebrew section would be for exactly that - emulation and homebrew. This section would contain the Cemu thread ("Emulation"), homebrew releases and support questions, development ideas and discussions of all things homebrew. Since it's likely to be the quietest (due to the smaller number of developers) the "Homebrew" in the title also covers threads that may not fall into the other sections.
The next section is "ROM Hacking, Translations and Utilities". This section would cover the various game modifications and related tools, cheat codes and translation projects currently in action. As mentioned before, this is a hugely active portion of the Wii U community so having a dedicated section would be helpful for this.
The third section is "Backup Loaders and Dumpers". This would cover backup loading, game dumping and support questions relating to this topic. It would also cover more abstract questions on this topic (usually relating to SD cards).
I feel that this is the best option for the system, accommodating for the major discussion topics while still allowing for threads that do not follow these standards. However, if three sections is too many, I also came up with a smaller option with only two sections.
This setup basically merges the "ROM Hacking, Translations and Utilities" and "Backup Loaders and Dumpers" sections from above. While having the benefit of fewer sections, it lacks an "umbrella" section to catch unusual threads and will likely generate complaints similar to the ones above from the modding community over time. It might be useful to use "Emulation and Homebrew" for the first section to solve the umbrella problem.
Well, there you have it! There's a major issue in the way the Wii U community is organised, and I feel I've presented some good alternatives. I'm open to suggestions around the specifics of the sections and I'd be willing to help with any tasks that arise from such a reorganisation (I'm aware lots of threads may need moving). I hope you consider this situation properly and thank you for taking the time to read this.
Last edited by QuarkTheAwesome,
like a 250 dollar kit back when DDR4 was Intel only