# Pokemon rom hacking sub forum



## FAST6191 (Mar 16, 2011)

Such a thing has been kicking around in my head for a while now so I thought I would post-

Short version- I am suggesting pokemon hacking get a section to itself.

Long version/reasoning and suggestions on how to best create such a thing

We have a great DS rom hacking section (arguably one of the main ones in English language discussion of DS rom hacking) which has spawned many hacking projects, attracted many hackers and taught several more, acted as a hub for a lot of hacking projects (even if the bulk of the work has been conducted away from here most projects will come and make a thread on it as and when or otherwise maintain one here) as well as a place to find some great discussion on various things and it has been this way for several years now but pokemon frequently (release times especially but even in "peace time") overwhelms it which is not brilliant for anybody concerned with nothing getting the attention it deserves as a result.

Similarly pokemon hacking is somewhat apart from most other aspects of DS rom hacking in that it usually revolves around GUI driven tools and existing formats (or indeed something of an entirely reversed engineered rom/codebase) where other hacks if they have tools tend to have generic tools (usually command line or with simple GUI wrappers) for formats and certain techniques or ones released internally to project members or as a source dump or something similar at the end stage of a project.

It should also provide a better place to stick a bunch of good threads for pokemon where they might be out of place in the would be main rom hacking section (many pokemon questions and threads). If needs be I will tap out a few things that might be useful or generate a few lists of links and upload a bunch of tools and the like to filetrip (many tools and pieces of info are scattered across cheap hosts with less than brilliant lifetime/uptime as a result), toolkits might be left for another day though.

Under no circumstances should this be considered a slight on pokemon hacking- it is an entirely valid aspect of rom hacking (the game has a fairly nice engine, once you get past all the checks and annoyances (which others will usually have done and provided workarounds for) it has some nice formats to play with and there are lots of tools and knowledge floating around to boot- such things make it the reason that the series has as many hacks and tweaks as it does) just that it is both different enough and popular enough to hopefully sustain a section of its own. The line of logic used is the same as the one used when we decided to split homebrew off from what was NDS Game Development, ROM Hacking and Translations, some of the cheat stuff or to split 360 scene releases off from the 360 section.

There will probably need to be debate as to how harsh things might have to be with regards to what goes where- the need for some high end ASM hacks or hacks to a format like SDAT (an ultra common audio format across DS roms) might well be better suited to the main rom hacking section where the pokemon section might focus more on tools and other such things or perhaps for a more rom hacking related example the reason we have translation indexes, translation requests and a few other choice sticky threads (I do however argue pokemon is more diverse than can be sorted in one thread). Pokemon hackers have over the years been some of the first to embrace aspects of SDAT hacking after proof of concept stuff, fix up tools like narctool, build a few compression related tools, clean up some of the first disassemblers, pull apart many SDK formats and tweaks to them so the lines are a bit blurred in some regards.

Whether it comes another section or a sub forum (nesting forums like this might not be the best) might also need some discussion but that can probably be left to the admins. If some ideas on how to kick it off and what sort of things will be needed that is probably best to conduct in a thread like this.

The elephant in the room so to speak is the existence of dedicated pokemon hacking sites, I however argue there is no sense in pushing people away and for all the differences there are still enough similarities and transferable skills to have people float between the two as desired.

Discussion-


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## Tonitonichopchop (Mar 16, 2011)

Part of me likes the idea (Since pokemon rom hacking has been popular for years), but the other part of me doesn't feel right giving pokemon its own section. I mean, I can see the practicality in having a separate section for it, but wouldn't that entail other games to also have their own sections? For example, you could argue Mario should also have his own section for hacking since Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and New Super Mario Bros. (And probably more) have hacking tools for making custom levels, music, and graphics. 

Not that I'm opposed to the idea, but it kind of opens up a can of worms for what constitutes being a section or not.


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## FAST6191 (Mar 16, 2011)

I was approaching it less from a "this has tools and as such"* which I can see being a tricky issue and more from a "this floods the section unnecessarily which is bad for everybody".

*the only games that really are in the running if we restrict it to the GBA and DS are NSMB, fire emblem, mario kart, advance wars ( http://www.warsworldnews.com/ in case you missed some of the good work there), the world ends with you (although that has died down a lot), maybe final fantasy and phoenix wright but they have never even came close to overwhelming the section for a day (the occasional AP patch threads or destined to fail translations aside) let alone the week at a time pokemon has been known to do.


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## machomuu (Mar 16, 2011)

Wait, do you mean just for DS Pokemon hacks?  Because I, myself, am a third generation Pokemon hacker (my preferred operation of hacking is scripting), and I love hacks such as those made by Destinejagold, as well as ShinyGold, Rijon Adventures (which is scripting *gold*) and many others.  I just think the emphasis should be for the GBA as well.

Also, have we even fully hacked the DS games yet?  It's a huge discussion over at PC (Pokecommunity) and it has been since the DS games were first released.


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## FAST6191 (Mar 16, 2011)

Well we rarely exclude things in the DS when it comes to hacking up until major projects (if someone posts in the DS hacking section with a quick GBA question few will note the "wrong" section beyond maybe an opening line and then usually attempt to help then) and I see no sense in excluding GBA stuff from a the potential pokemon hacking section either (I do however vote to steer clear of multiple sub sections at this point). It might be good to make it customary to label your hack according to system or even "version" or game but that can be left until later.

"Fully hacked"- granted compared to the likes of the GBA or maybe GBC stuff in many regards it is nowhere close (looking at the likes of the GBA ASM hacks) but compared to just about every other franchise on the DS with the possible exception of some of the final fantasy games which is about the only thing that competes on the tool front (font, script, sound, some game logic/save editors, some graphics stuff if it was not already basic 3d although as mentioned the "franchise as a whole" does not see anywhere near the volume of hacking work) it is very well documented.

Give or take issues with distributing (discussion is fine) injected code from other works (think standard undubs or script transplants) we do love all hacks here at GBAtemp but if say someone wanders in and asks for script help for most games we are at least going to have to explain tables or maybe shiftJIS if we are lucky and pointers as well as issues with text systems where for a pokemon game you could just as easily point at http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=94499&hl= (afraid I am not too current on the pokemon tools at this point in time) and maybe give some tips on line width if it was not already included.

You touch on it yourself as well- many pokemon hacks are fairly high concept and ignoring the different skills can have say one person take a fair bit of time and crank out something almost at total conversion level where if you spent the same amount of time aiming to achieve a similar thing on just about every other DS game you might just get a rough spec of the game and a few rudimentary tools (for an example see the likes of the inazuma eleven project and ask yourself how quickly could a similar pokemon hack be constructed given the tools that exist).
I reckon a dedicated pokemon section could provide a bit more of a nurturing environment for such activities and I hope this does not come off badly but along similar lines if one of us cracks a tough compression scheme and file wrapper that uses it that is great and sharing such work is certainly not to be discouraged but the big draw is certainly when someone can take their pokemon game, apply a patch and effectively be playing another game or section thereof (I recall a GBA era hack (although it went unfinished/only as an example as far as I know) that came with a save and turned pokemon from the grind and story game to something resembling a tactical battle/maze/puzzle game- think the likes of a big gym or the league but magnified and without the option to grind beforehand).

It is certainly not my intention to reduce the amount of pokemon stuff or create a rift just to allow people to hopefully get what they want more easily (I am sure we have all clicked on less than brilliantly titled posts....) and stop things from getting stifled by different levels of maturity in tools and knowledge (doing the whole harsh truths bit- most rom hackers are not great fiction writers, level designers or artists and vice versa). Depending on how it goes I might even see if we can not get an RSS feed of the last few threads/posts in either section to keep them tied together at some level.


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## chyyran (Mar 16, 2011)

No. Just... No. Why does Pokemon deserve it's own hacking Section? What makes it better than all of the other games?


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## FAST6191 (Mar 16, 2011)

@ ron975 I had wanted to avoid ragging on pokemon and while I certainly have no great love of the series (or more accurately what path it took (or stood around at the starting point of) as the games rolled on) and agree some of the people playing pokemon hacker do a serious disservice to many across the field and beyond that is very much besides the point.

It is not that games deserve their own section because of any great quality but that what goes on in the pokemon hacking world these days is a bit removed from the rest of hacking (I am loathe to throw around terms "? game creator/maker" but the volume and reach of the tools and RE work that went on means they go to the same parties) and popular to the point of drowning out some of the other nice stuff coming down the pipeline for other games (have a look in the last few pages of the hacking section and tell me you do not have to wade through things to get non pokemon related stuff- this despite several great projects and hacks being released or approaching something worth seeing during pokemon hype) but not enough for it not to get lost in the noise itself.

It is at this point things usually start getting spun off into their own sections (as it did with the other home consoles, phones and related devices, "books, TV and movies", homebrew news, gaming news, user submitted news, NDS - Emulation and Homebrew (it started out in the hacking section), the E3 sections of years past and if it does not work out or the hype dissipates (something it shows no signs of doing or at least not dropping to levels where it can not sustain a small section) it can always be folded back into another section.


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## Vulpes Abnocto (Mar 16, 2011)

What about a sub-section entirely dedicated to pokemon? 
Something akin to the EoF: pretty much a place to dump them all. 
Twice a year it would be the most used section of the forum.
While I agree that this series doesn't overwhelmingly *deserve* it's own section, they do keep bringing in thousands of newcomers and all of their problems.


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## Qtis (Mar 16, 2011)

+1 to the idea.

I think it would be a good idea although the games aren't that different from one another. The reason for supporting this is so that the hacking section doesn't get cluttered with tons of threads every 6 months when a new game is released 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			






-Qtis


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## Rydian (Mar 17, 2011)

I agree with a pokemon ROM hacking forum (not sure on a pokemon forum in general).

While it might not be seen that often on here, I have visited other forums and noticed some of our same members (who are sometimes more active there), and I've used just a few of the tools and checked out some of the info they have (bulbapedia contains much of the info on how the engines work while the forums usually contain the tools and tutorials) and am amazed.  People are passionate about that game to the point that hacking it often goes much, much farther than it does other games, and it's much more prevalent.

I mean shit, just look at this.
http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Catch_rate
You can easily see the level to which people take apart these games.

As Fast touched on, hackers for the pokemon games have much to contribute to the DS hacking scene in general.  I'm not that big of a pokemon fan (haven't even beaten any of the DS games yet), but I can certainly agree with Fast's purpose.  This wouldn't be to "contain" hacking threads, but rather to segregate _and encourage_ them.  If there's a dedicated forum for it people are more likely to post in it, and pretty soon you'll have users who begin to organize and categorize the info, helping new users even further.



			
				ron975 said:
			
		

> No. Just... No. Why does Pokemon deserve it's own hacking Section? What makes it better than all of the other games?


If you're not going to read the first post before you reply, don't reply.
And before you say anything, I can tell you didn't actually do it because _you're asking for reasons that are in the first post_.


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## MelodieOctavia (Mar 17, 2011)

As much as I hate the idea, it does make sense. With all of the hacks and cheats dedicated purely to the Pokemon games, well, it's hard to not justify it's own subforum.

Another idea could be to slap all of the Pokemon hacks in one megathread similar to the Translations thread. (All hacks separated into individual games, completed/abandoned/in progress)


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## GreatZimkogway (Mar 17, 2011)

TwinRetro said:
			
		

> As much as I hate the idea, it does make sense. With all of the hacks and cheats dedicated purely to the Pokemon games, well, it's hard to not justify it's own subforum.
> 
> Another idea could be to slap all of the Pokemon hacks in one megathread similar to the Translations thread. (All hacks separated into individual games, completed/abandoned/in progress)



Think there's just a little bit too much for something like that, though.  

I'm for a subforum.  But I think it's a bit unfair to give it JUST DS Pokemon games.  Make it all of em.  There's a lot of stuff for all systems.


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## Deleted-236924 (Mar 18, 2011)

It would be a great place to advertise my (small) G/S rom hack.


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## duduck (Mar 18, 2011)

Honestly, GBAtemp just needs a Pokémon forum with sub-forums for ROMHacks and Troubleshooting.


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## Zorua (Mar 18, 2011)

We can just have a pokemon hacking sticky. A sub-forum is just asking for too much.


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## Narayan (Mar 18, 2011)

Zorua said:
			
		

> We can just have a pokemon hacking sticky. A sub-forum is just asking for too much.


there are too many threads about pokemon, separating them from a normal nds forum would make searches easier because all other non-pokemon related threads are weeded out. and stickying pokemon threads in a forum where it's about general games is unfair for other games. and nds sub-forums already have stickies, adding pokemon-only guides in there would just make that sub-forum crowded.


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## Vigilante (Mar 18, 2011)

+1 disagree
and don't we have the NDS - ROM Hacking and Translations  section,its fine already as many people can post hacks for pokemon.


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## KazoWAR (Mar 18, 2011)

Vigilante said:
			
		

> +1 disagree
> and don't we have the NDS - ROM Hacking and Translations  section,its fine already as many people can post hacks for pokemon.



I think you are missing the point. At the moment that is where people are discussing, asking questions, and posting their tools for hacking the Pokemon games. It is just that the forum for general NDS hacking is overcrowded with threads on Pokemon alone. Right now over half of the threads on the first page in the NDS hacking forum is Pokemon only. The idea of making a sub-forum for Pokemon in the NDS hacking forum is to get all the Pokemon threads out of the general hacking forum.


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## duduck (Mar 19, 2011)

Honestly, Pokémon infests every NDS forum. It should have its own forum and its own sub-forums for romhacking and troubleshooting. It's pretty tiresome having to go through at least 3 pages to find something not pokemon related. If all threads were 'new' or 'original', this wouldn't be a problem (because there wouldn't be thousands of them), but as is, it's become a situation.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 10, 2011)

Ignoring Super Pokemon Scramble we are now about as far from any pokemon release as it is possible to be yet I believe it remains something worth some consideration (several great projects and threads still drowned out somewhat by pokemon so I thought I might bring the issue back up).

My thoughts remain largely unchanged aside from perhaps having any would be section focused more on tools (I was concerned about keeping tool usage discussion and low level work separate and looking at some of the threads some stuff there is quite low level and involved).


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## FAST6191 (Mar 16, 2011)

Such a thing has been kicking around in my head for a while now so I thought I would post-

Short version- I am suggesting pokemon hacking get a section to itself.

Long version/reasoning and suggestions on how to best create such a thing

We have a great DS rom hacking section (arguably one of the main ones in English language discussion of DS rom hacking) which has spawned many hacking projects, attracted many hackers and taught several more, acted as a hub for a lot of hacking projects (even if the bulk of the work has been conducted away from here most projects will come and make a thread on it as and when or otherwise maintain one here) as well as a place to find some great discussion on various things and it has been this way for several years now but pokemon frequently (release times especially but even in "peace time") overwhelms it which is not brilliant for anybody concerned with nothing getting the attention it deserves as a result.

Similarly pokemon hacking is somewhat apart from most other aspects of DS rom hacking in that it usually revolves around GUI driven tools and existing formats (or indeed something of an entirely reversed engineered rom/codebase) where other hacks if they have tools tend to have generic tools (usually command line or with simple GUI wrappers) for formats and certain techniques or ones released internally to project members or as a source dump or something similar at the end stage of a project.

It should also provide a better place to stick a bunch of good threads for pokemon where they might be out of place in the would be main rom hacking section (many pokemon questions and threads). If needs be I will tap out a few things that might be useful or generate a few lists of links and upload a bunch of tools and the like to filetrip (many tools and pieces of info are scattered across cheap hosts with less than brilliant lifetime/uptime as a result), toolkits might be left for another day though.

Under no circumstances should this be considered a slight on pokemon hacking- it is an entirely valid aspect of rom hacking (the game has a fairly nice engine, once you get past all the checks and annoyances (which others will usually have done and provided workarounds for) it has some nice formats to play with and there are lots of tools and knowledge floating around to boot- such things make it the reason that the series has as many hacks and tweaks as it does) just that it is both different enough and popular enough to hopefully sustain a section of its own. The line of logic used is the same as the one used when we decided to split homebrew off from what was NDS Game Development, ROM Hacking and Translations, some of the cheat stuff or to split 360 scene releases off from the 360 section.

There will probably need to be debate as to how harsh things might have to be with regards to what goes where- the need for some high end ASM hacks or hacks to a format like SDAT (an ultra common audio format across DS roms) might well be better suited to the main rom hacking section where the pokemon section might focus more on tools and other such things or perhaps for a more rom hacking related example the reason we have translation indexes, translation requests and a few other choice sticky threads (I do however argue pokemon is more diverse than can be sorted in one thread). Pokemon hackers have over the years been some of the first to embrace aspects of SDAT hacking after proof of concept stuff, fix up tools like narctool, build a few compression related tools, clean up some of the first disassemblers, pull apart many SDK formats and tweaks to them so the lines are a bit blurred in some regards.

Whether it comes another section or a sub forum (nesting forums like this might not be the best) might also need some discussion but that can probably be left to the admins. If some ideas on how to kick it off and what sort of things will be needed that is probably best to conduct in a thread like this.

The elephant in the room so to speak is the existence of dedicated pokemon hacking sites, I however argue there is no sense in pushing people away and for all the differences there are still enough similarities and transferable skills to have people float between the two as desired.

Discussion-


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## Deleted_171835 (Jul 10, 2011)

I agree with a Pokemon hacking sub-section. It would help remove the large amounts of threads regarding Pokemon in the general NDS - ROM Hacking and Translations section. 
I'm sure it would be active enough to justify the addition of it.


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## Nathanaël (Jul 10, 2011)

Nathanaël likes this.


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## Ikki (Jul 10, 2011)

I don't like the idea of a Pokémon hacking section, at all. Not that I don't like hacking the games, but there's Whack a Hack for that.

But I do dig the idea of a Pokémon section. It's certainly a way too repeated topic which I'm sure annoys more people than just me to see when browsing for interesting threads. I think to keep it in another section would be nice.


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## Waflix (Jul 13, 2011)

I don't think Pokémon ROM hacking has evolved away from conventional ROM hacking, it's just very simple and a lot of people do this. This makes a lot of ROM hacks (about 75% of them is crap).
I also don't think we should add a subforum. This would cause a lot, and I mean really a lot of members that only post once or twice with a new account, and then never come back again. For things like Pokémon hacking I think you should go to the PokéCommunity.


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## heartgold (Jul 13, 2011)

Waflix said:
			
		

> I don't think Pokémon ROM hacking has evolved away from conventional ROM hacking, it's just very simple and a lot of people do this. This makes a lot of ROM hacks (about 75% of them is crap).
> I also don't think we should add a subforum. This would cause a lot, and I mean really a lot of members that only post once or twice with a new account, and then never come back again. For things like Pokémon hacking I think you should go to the PokéCommunity.



You are directing our temp members to another site? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





Anyway I like the idea, I felt pokemon always needed its own subforum.


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## Vulpes Abnocto (Jul 13, 2011)

heartgold said:
			
		

> Waflix said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Hang around until the next pokemonsoon and you'll see just how often we (I) direct people to pokemon-centric sites and forums.


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## The Pi (Jul 13, 2011)

Mmm, I don't like the idea of a pokemon section, (it would be a second EOF, so no point)

But since the hacks of pokemon do range between the DS and GBA (and less so the GB(C) ones too) it does sorta deserve it's own section.

And also, when "Pokemon Grey" (or whatever) comes out that will keep the normal Rom hacking a little tidier.

There's a few negatives to the idea but are over shadowed by the postives so...

Agree +1


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## machomuu (Jul 13, 2011)

The Pi said:
			
		

> But since the hacks of pokemon do range between the DS and GBA (and less so the GB(C) ones too) it does sorta deserve it's own section.


I couldn't agree more.


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## 1234turtles (Jul 13, 2011)

how about just making a gui tool rom hacking section.
most of the pokemon games will fall under this plus any other games with gui tools.


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## Phoenix Goddess (Jul 13, 2011)

1234turtles said:
			
		

> how about just making a gui tool rom hacking section.
> most of the pokemon games will fall under this plus any other games with gui tools.



I think it would be a bit empty since there aren't very many tools out there. Not enough for its own section, anyway.


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## boktor666 (Jul 13, 2011)

To put this simple, i dunno what to think of a seperate section. If you look at the total of 4th and 5th gen rom hacking on pokemon, it's still in the most early stages. Diamond was one of the release games, and there is still no real uber hack tool wich lets you change maps, due to 3d models. Same goes for B/W, we can alter some things, but it's still in the most early phases of hacking. 

I can imagine that people want the subsection, but wouldn't that be unfair to other hacked projects? If you give some ROM hacks their own sections, then this forum would explode with pointless sub-forums. A lot of hacks theresaid, are bad and pointless, there's simply not enough good stuff on this forum to put it in there. If you're looking for real good hacking pages, just find the specialists on other sites. Pokecommunity is a good one. 

It would be nice if there were a sticky, that would make up for the lack of a subsection.


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## loco365 (Jul 13, 2011)

boktor666 said:
			
		

> To put this simple, i dunno what to think of a seperate section. If you look at the total of 4th and 5th gen rom hacking on pokemon, it's still in the most early stages. Diamond was one of the release games, and there is still no real uber hack tool wich lets you change maps, due to 3d models. Same goes for B/W, we can alter some things, but it's still in the most early phases of hacking.
> 
> I can imagine that people want the subsection, but wouldn't that be unfair to other hacked projects? If you give some ROM hacks their own sections, then this forum would explode with pointless sub-forums. A lot of hacks theresaid, are bad and pointless, there's simply not enough good stuff on this forum to put it in there. If you're looking for real good hacking pages, just find the specialists on other sites. Pokecommunity is a good one.
> 
> It would be nice if there were a sticky, that would make up for the lack of a subsection.


You're kidding right? I'm making a hack of Diamond currently, and I hope to bring it here. And, if we get a Pokemon hacking section, it's be the first true 4th Gen Hack.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 13, 2011)

*Start*

At lot of thoughts are floating around my head on this matter right now and trying to form something coherent from it let alone something that can justify this call is proving to be a challenge. First though I have not really floated around the other sections of the site looking for pokemon stuff so whether it is full section for pokemon related activity and not just pokemon hacking is called for is not something I can speak on at this point.

First though Re: Pointing people elsewhere. This is the internet where I understand the actual model is more people will tend to only stop coming when you start having nothing of worth (which I truly hope will not be any time soon for GBAtemp)- think all the webcomics, news sites, comedy sites, video sites/channels, information sites, forums and other such things you added to you daily/weekly/once in a while rounds and why any might have dropped off. I probably want to work a phrase along the lines of "build it and they will come" in this post somewhere as well.

*Some waffle/background*

The following feels horrible to type out and is not the sort of thing I like doing, thinking about or reading especially in public as it just seems very distasteful* although that I consider it as such probably speaks volumes about my general outlook on life and why I do things the way I do.

*if you are familiar with the general lack of respect afforded to those playing advertising, sales, HR/management, finance/accounting/bean counting, search engine optimisation...... by those that get their hands dirty (literally or figuratively) or if you prefer "do stuff" it is a related concept. That is not to say any of those are universally unnecessary, not requiring serious skill to pull off, pointless (what few abilities I might have in any of those areas I value alongside any of my "main" skills) or even in need of being toned down but well you can see where it is heading (short version my actions are very much not those of someone who wishes to play businessman and have a have a habit of causing great alarm to those that would- it seems "because it is cool" and "why not" are not justifications that work all that well).

Several years back as I was getting into rom hacking for whatever reason I made a concious decision to locate my GBA and DS hacking work at GBAtemp and to see if I could to try and pull more people to GBAtemp for the same purposes (that is to say help grow a rom hacking community here) as opposed to another site (be it my own or another one) and it looks like I was not the only one to have the same idea. Today it seems GBAtemp is one of the foremost "general purpose" English language DS rom hacking sites going although I will leave it to those wishing to parse site logs and such to try to figure out why- I tried to gather whatever information, hacks and tools I found in my travels, help people with other hacks, generate information, generate the odd hacks (mainly as proof of concept) and generally try to do what is necessary to pull people in but I was certainly not alone in this (see the thanks list of many early hacking projects and cross reference names to here) although I have been a bit lax in recent months. It also has to be noted at the same time rom hacking in general became a lot more accessible (never underestimate the impact of filesystems, the use of formats and standards, the rise of high level languages- compare some of the DOS based programs (as in actually DOS based not just command line) and the new tools/techniques that became viable (some of the search techniques we use today were pretty much still theoretical at start of the GBA era) vs all the stuff with say nes mappers, snes hirom/lorom and more), GBAtemp became a lot bigger in general, it was not like the GBA hacking section before the DS did not have a few people able to do damage in that world and console hacking became a lot bigger.
Enough gushing though so onto why I found myself making the thread earlier on- I feel we have something good going on in DS rom hacking and pokemon which in some ways is a bit removed from the rest of rom hacking as it presently stands risks doing that good thing a disservice not to mention doing itself a disservice. I certainly do not want pokemon gone (I refer back to the idea of having an RSS feed for the last few posts between the two sections to keep them tied together at some level) and would love to see it continue to improve not to mention pokemon hacking does a lot to cross pollinate things (tools, information, hackers (new and old) and such jump between the different sides all the time) and I am well aware of pokemon hacking for various reasons not being held in high regard (an issue I have chosen to dance around thus far in this thread) among many rom hackers (and pokemon not being well liked by those that run these sorts of sites) but believe me when I say I will be back here should it happen for any other game (if the amount of tools and information on mario kart DS keep increasing as they are I will be back making the same thread for that too). Likewise rom hacking sections of sites far smaller than this are split along various lines and that seems to work well for them. As for posting twice and not returning granted a high sign up to contributing member conversion rate is always desirable but 1) so? and 2) that seems to be case whether we do this or not across this forum and beyond.

*What I see*
*-* threads that could be answered by pointing people at premade tools ( http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=94499&hl= - old I know but hopefully some 2008 vintage stuff can help demonstrate points- 3 years on and am taken aback if I should see something like that for a rom) or knowledge ( http://www.pipian.com/ierukana/hacking/ds_evos.html ) as opposed to teaching them how to use a hex editor, about compression, about pointers, about packing formats, maybe some hardware knowledge and so forth.

*- *that in and of itself is nothing major but there are lots of these threads (do a forum search and a search using the search button for a quick overview).

*-* although there are lots of these threads there are still several notable threads on other subjects- other projects, questions on things that need technically involved answers.

*- *we have a search engine yes but rom hacking as with many fields that fix, figure out or create things is quite often about background knowledge and having to wade through pokemon hacking threads 
does not help which is my main concern. I consider having other threads drowned out to be more unfair than any perceived slight against them by not warranting their own section.

*- *following on from above it is a "problem" (I would prefer to use a phrase along the lines of "simple fact of life") for all rom hacking that projects will not be finished or find themselves among the celebrated examples of the field but with pokemon pulling focus it sends the signal- noise ratio further in the wrong way for everybody.

*-* flipping to the benefit to pokemon hacking side of things with tools being a focus the people to help with tools, the people to improve the state of pokemon hacking (see the background knowledge part) and the people to pull apart a new rom from scratch are not reliably one and the same.

If people a sticky or two could better serve then I can go that, likewise if a sort of "pokemon tutorials" thread. If they have suggestions for what might need to go into anything that comes from this you are encouraged to add it. Or on the flip side do I or someone just need to stop finding small new things to add/fiddle with so as to finish up some documents on (or split up some of the existing stuff on) general hacking theory, SDK formats hacking and some game specific stuff making sure they all have bunch of pictures and nice examples, make a big thing of it on the portal and then watch things settle (or not before returning here)?

*The one line summary*
I suppose then I should end by posing the question of what would it take for a pokemon hacking section to be a justifiable move on the part of the site?

It has not escaped my notice I have effectively restated/rephrased my earlier posts on the subject. It was not my great wish to do that but it appears to have happened.


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## luluxiu (Jul 25, 2011)

A similar EOF: a considerable number of local dumping of all. Twice a year, this will be the most commonly used part of the forum. Although I agree that this series is not * worth * of its own overwhelming part, they continue to introduce thousands of new people and all their questions...


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## jjjewel (Aug 23, 2011)

With the amount of Pokeman hacking currently, I think the game deserves its own sub-forum. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Anyway, that's up to the Mods and the staff.

By the way, is there a Pokemon hacking contest or something like that lately? Or is Pokemon hacking has just become popular all of a sudden? I know the game's popular and we usually have a few hacking threads per month in general for Pokemon. But I think we've been having a few new Pokemon threads per day for these past few weeks.

Not that I have problem with them, but if the Mods consider a new sub-forum for Pokemon hack, I'll support that idea.


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