ROMhacking.net shuts down after nearly 20 years

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The game modification site ROMhacking.net, home to nearly 20 years worth of ROM hacks and community projects, has decided to close its doors as of August 1st, 2024. This sudden change comes after an increase in bot activity, content takedowns, and hostility with those involved with the site's operations and ownership.

The website's database, including all ROM hacks and other content uploaded to the site, has been preserved on archive.org. In addition, the site will remain up in a read-only state.

:arrow: Source
 
Last edited by CeeDee,

Kwyjor

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Last edited by Kwyjor,

ILuvGames

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Seems like one has to be very, very careful with exactly who to trust when it comes to running a site like that, or everything will just blow up spectacularly.

Seems in the case of RHDN, someone was too careful.
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-indu...lled-group-but-others-tell-a-different-story/
That's a shame for all involved on both sides. I was going to romhacking.net for over 20 years. The thought of not knowing about translation groups like Dejap from them or indeed any translation groups for roms makes me sad. I would never had got to play or even known about games like Star Ocean, Dragon Warrior/Quest or Tales of Phantasia on the SNES otherwise.
 

4d1xlaan

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discord is especially awful because you can’t search the content from google, so you have join a bunch of useless group just to get one file
and the fact they will blanket ban everyone just for being in a server, if the server gets banned for illegal activity, even if it's just the owners and moderators doing illegal shit in a closed channel nobody else knows about
 

Marc_LFD

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PC emulation of PS2 had got quite good but you do need a beefy boy for the fancy stuff.

One of these days I should convert my hacked PS2 to have an external HD, burning DVDs is so 2000s.
Burning CDs/DVDs does feel outdated and unnecessary given there's HDDs, SSDs, and SD Cards.

Last time I burned a disc? Many years ago.
 

OilFreak

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Romhacking.net has been updated with a new news post, linking to a romhacks.org project. This pretty much comfirms that romhacks.org had nothing to do with the controversy.
I still don't see romhacking.org as a true successor though.
 

Ziko

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I just checked out the Archive.org upload. It's a zero effort shitpost. Finding specific hacks for specific games is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Also, since much of the ROMhacking archive is crammed into a single page, you must wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. And if you wait long enough, maybe you can get the entire indecipherable shitpost to load.

Check it out for yourselves:

https://ia601400.us.archive.org/vie...ems/romhacking.net-20240801/rhdn_20240801.zip

The proper format for archived ROMhacks should look similar to this:
  • Secret of Mana (USA) (SoM Plus v1.02-Tomm) (CRC32 D0176B24).zip
  • Super Mario Kart (USA) (Horizons v1.3-gridatttack) (CRC32 CD80DB86).zip
  • Super Punch-Out!! (USA) (Stage Select v1.0-bankbank) (CRC32 E2F92F84).zip
ROM title + ROMhack title + version number + author + ROM CRC32. Screenshots\NFO files should be included within the zip.

Nobody knew about the decision to kill ROMhacking.net except Nightcrawler's inner circle. A huge middle finger to the ROMhacking community. Not only to the end users, but to the contributors who've poured hundreds to thousands of hours into their projects.

I'm surprised Romhacking lasted as long as it did with Nightcrawler in charge. Old heads may remember back when he was charging people for his the Ys: Ark of Napishtim PC translation, then refused to finish it after someone leaked it. Everyone who paid got stiffed. Which was funny coming from the guy who once ran a PC-Engine piracy group named RIGG. A pirate screaming about someone pirating his stuff.

I outright decided not to visit that archive and the site itself is not a great place what with the constant takedowns and lawsuits going around that could kill it. I don't want to waste what time I have on waiting for this to load. Hell, the Pico-8 archive is faster and more organized that this mess was.
 
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Subzero100

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The game modification site ROMhacking.net, home to nearly 20 years worth of ROM hacks and community projects, has decided to close its doors as of August 1st, 2024. This sudden change comes after an increase in bot activity, content takedowns, and hostility with those involved with the site's operations and ownership.

The website's database, including all ROM hacks and other content uploaded to the site, has been preserved on archive.org. In addition, the site will remain up in a read-only state.

:arrow: Source
So what's the point of the site even existing?
 

JuanMena

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Not gonna read all posts, but yesterday downloaded just fine from RomHacking.net.
Precisely, Rondo of Blood english translation patch.
¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯
 

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