Messages

81

Gaming Discussion / Re: Assassin's Creed 4: PETA labels whale harpooning 'disgraceful'

« on: March 07, 2013, 09:44:15 am »

You can thank DankPanties, Kaioshin, and Lenophis for getting this locked for the rest of you. Disgraceful is the word of the day here for this topic. There will most assuredly be consequences.

The rest of you are guilty of not reporting such posts and allowing it to get this far.

This topic is a shining example of what not to do on RHDN.

82

Front Page News / Re: ROM Hacks: Chrono Trigger - Envy Hack

« on: March 07, 2013, 09:18:52 am »

So, no one here has actually tried the patch to see what the content actually is before bandwagon ridicule, hijacking, and/or potential trolling of his otherwise nice news topic? I'm disappointed. This kind of treatment is disrespectful toward the submitter and discourages anyone thinking about writing any news for this site.

This is unacceptable. Please refrain from further comment unless it is about this hack or news article.

Perhaps the submitter can elaborate on some of the things mentioned in the article.

83

Site Talk / Re: Linked pages between RHDN and Data Crystal

« on: March 07, 2013, 08:55:56 am »

The DataCrystal game page should obviously reflect the primary title here on RHDN.

Sub pages we link to are:
:ROM map
:RAM map
:TBL
:Notes
:Tutorials

Those sub pages should not change in name. However, content can be freely edited. You're free to make other new pages that aren't specifically linked from RHDN too.

That page is probably confusing because you're unaware that Datacrystal used to be a separate independent entity for some years before it merged with RHDN. So, much of that content that seems out of place now was put in place some years ago when it was not part of RHDN.

I would agree the intention now would be to serve as a game-specific documentation hub covering those sub categories listed above, tools and information as Kiyoshi mentioned, and anything else relevant you can think of. It's really not very structured for better or for worse.

Datacrystal is a big of dangling end since the core staff here does not run it and the guy who does has rarely visited in recent times. So, it's kind of been in limbo lately. It's on the agenda to try and get some staff for the place and get it more up to date.

84

Site Talk / Re: Hebereke/Ufouria

« on: March 06, 2013, 03:57:54 pm »

Let me put it to you this way:

"640K should be enough for anybody!" -Bill Gates (Even though he technically denies it today)

I think we made the same mistake.

85

Site Talk / Re: Hebereke/Ufouria

« on: March 06, 2013, 02:56:19 pm »

Maybe this is just me being a little weird, but given that the whole point of the translations section is that we're looking for games translated OUT OF a particular language, and given how heavily the lean is towards Japanese->English (and occasionally other languages), would it make sense to have a different game title priority for the Translations subsection menu while retaining the current standard for the Rom Hacks and Games lists? Or perhaps allowing the user to select a title priority from a dropdown?

I agree. When looking to see if a game has a translation, you will (and can only in many cases) look up the 'out of language' title. The vast majority of translations here should indeed have the Japanese title as primary if they are up to policy (some may not be as there was no policy until 2010). This specific entry already has an official English release and thus is primary title. 'Re-translated' games like this will seem slightly 'weird'.

If you swapped priority for translations, it would just mean the vast majority would now not be Japanese and 're-translated' ones would be. That's entirely ignoring the fact that many games have several alternate titles listed and disagreeable fan translated titles for the same game. I have no interest in user selectable names. At one point we considered having a title field for translations, but ultimately the title is the game's name whether it be official or fan translated. No sense making another loose title field that is not bound to the game entry.

It might make sense to better display the alternate titles by listing all in the title bar.

Ufouria: The Saga (a.k.a. Hebereke)
Nintendo Entertainment System

Ufouria: The Saga (NES)
a.k.a. Hebereke

Although translations for a game like this might cause problems:
http://www.romhacking.net/games/698/

86

Site Talk / Re: Homebrew Section?

« on: March 06, 2013, 09:02:56 am »

I will probably go ahead with adding the homebrew section. It's probably quite a way off though.

Game music archives are out of scope for this site. Other sites already do a great job archiving such music.

87

Personal Projects / Re: Dark Moon Densetsu : NES English Translation

« on: March 06, 2013, 08:59:32 am »

If you'd actually been around for the so-called wars, you'd know that it wasn't so much a war as it was a bit of a rumpus.

If you'd actually been involved in them, you might come up with a different word.

88

Site Talk / Re: Older News?

« on: March 06, 2013, 08:47:07 am »

Search the page for 'News Archive'.

It might make sense to put another News Archive link at the bottom of the news. I imagine that may have been the first place you looked for it? That's probably the most intuitive place. I've added one.

 

89

General Discussion / Re: Am I the only person on the planet that isn't on facebook?

« on: March 06, 2013, 08:03:31 am »

Aren't you a heterosexual right-wing white Christian man? It's a very different experience when you're anyone else.

Very True. As a white person, one of the most eye opening and enlightening experiences I ever had was going to Tanzania in Africa and becoming the minority. In addition, I was thrown farther on the other side of the hate fence for being American and 'rich'. It was assumed everything I owned was excess, should be given away, and I did not even need the shoes on my feet or shirt on my back. I was a target several times and nearly got mugged by a three guy setup.

I know what it can be like and I am thankful I don't have to live like that at home. I now have a deeper perspective for minority groups that I don't think you can get any way other than through experience. You have to know what it's like to need to constantly watch over your shoulder, having people staring at you everywhere, and having to recognize more dangers. It's one thing to read about it and to see it. It's another thing to have it happen to you.

90

General Discussion / Re: Am I the only person on the planet that isn't on facebook?

« on: March 05, 2013, 03:56:57 pm »

NC - It's easier for the most to find people by name there, much unlike most IM services where you need to know the specific handle they chose for said service.

Nothing stops you from using or providing your real name (you can still do this even with a handle) on IM services. You can search by name and other info there too if given. Nothing unique.

Additional to that, since you can see other people's friends, I can find other people I used to know that by namewould be harder to find (too generic, they don't have their name properly written, whatevs). I have met again with people I had long lost contact due to RL circumstances and most of the time, it's really fun.

I'll give you that, but I think it's a weak advantage to be able to stalk other people's friends.

Messaging is far more conevnient because you can get them offline, you can easily bring more people into convos, etc.

You could send offline messages on several instant messaging services too. You could have multi-way chats too.

I suppose you couldn't have a public conversation with ALL the people in your list at the same time, but personally, I have no desire to ever do that. That kind of thing is why facebook has reputation of an ugly time wasting drama pit.

91

General Discussion / Re: Am I the only person on the planet that isn't on facebook?

« on: March 05, 2013, 02:14:15 pm »

For a long time I was anti-social network. I stayed away from the things because I thought they were stupid. I mean, I already talked to the friends that I wanted to keep close on a regular basis -- either in person or on AIM. So why bother? I avoided it for years.

Then I went to Japan for the first time. I made a ton of new friends, both American and Japanese. And everyone used Facebook to keep in touch when we were there and when we got home. So I've been on it regularly since 2009.

This is what I never understood. Most people I know also use Facebook to message people and keep in touch. But, how is facebook in any way better than AIM or other instant messenger? I'll never understand why they are dying out and are replaced by things like facebook, or even stupider twitter.

I brought this up not long ago on my board and discussed my opinion if anyone is interested:
http://transcorp.romhacking.net/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1353350422

92

Gaming Discussion / Re: Gaming Progress Thread

« on: March 05, 2013, 01:21:59 pm »

removal of the English song vocals,

Indeed. The whole point of playing Rhapsody in my opinion is for a quirky, charming musical adventure. It's one of the only games of it's kind. Taking out the songs is gutting it from the inside out. Please ignore the DS turd pile and play the PS1 version guys.

7 out of 10 times ports and remakes just make things worse...

93

General Discussion / Re: Am I the only person on the planet that isn't on facebook?

« on: March 05, 2013, 08:30:47 am »

I'm not on facebook either for many of the reasons listed here. I brought this up on my board awhile back with some interesting opinions on the matter. I also tied it into instant messaging. A number of people here said they use facebook for quick messaging to people. I don't see how facebook is any way better than any actual instant messengers for the job.

http://transcorp.romhacking.net/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1353350422

94

Site Talk / Re: Invalid File Extention in URL

« on: March 03, 2013, 10:33:49 am »

Yes, KingMike is right. That's an old grandfathered entry.

I just did a database query to check all for this issue. That seems to be the only entry on the site that is mal-formed like that. It needs to be corrected to go through. You should not come across this in any other entry that I can see.

95

Site Talk / Re: Hebereke/Ufouria

« on: March 03, 2013, 10:28:07 am »

RHDN Policy on this matter. Searching for Hebereke will work appropriately in Translations and Games sections.

Our policy matches or is in-line with the rest of the world on this game including GameFAQs, Mobygames, and Wikipedia. Search for Hebereke on all and you will see the same.

96

ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Best compression method to use in a Snes game

« on: March 02, 2013, 01:07:00 pm »

Dictionary with LZSS is usually the best bet here with the best overall performance, resource usage, ease of implementation, and ratios. Alternatively, you can look at seeing if Huffman is a good fit for your game and script.

These are just generic methodologies. The actual ratio you end up with depends upon your implementation details such as buffer sizes, tables, or other variables. Then, there's your source data and compressor quality. You could have a great and complicated algorithm, but without a quality compressor to take full advantage, your results will still come out poor.

97

Site Talk / Re: Ummm

« on: March 01, 2013, 10:34:34 am »

One other thought on the matter. One reason there's been an increase in bot news reports is simply because people have been added a large number of items to the database. So it's BECAUSE of increased activity adding hacks that that they appear.

Also, many recent submitted hacks were Japanese created and information is scarce to write glowing news or reviews of them. I did see several people added some user reviews on some of them recently which helps out.

While there a number of ways to interpret recent events, I don't see how increased participation can be a bad thing. I'm not concerned.

98

Site Talk / Re: Project - Addressing IPS headered/headerless (and other patching issues)

« on: March 01, 2013, 09:17:31 am »

rather than a blank space, why not have a drop down menu? Then you can put Headered (SNES) Unheadered (SNES), there. You need the (SNES) so people know what options are for what system. Then perhaps a empty box below it for additional info, like the CRC or whatever that thing is called.

What? There *IS* already a drop down for that. I added TWO fields. See the 'Patching Information' field under 'File Information'.

It is in exactly the manner you prescribe, except the fields aren't literally next to each other.

Kiyoshi Aman:
I agree on the tool. However, before the tool, you need a rule-set of what to do for each platform so you know what the tool should do! There's been discussion over including iNES headers, if a patch archive contains header and non-header versions, and other such things. Perhaps you're the man to head this job up.

99

ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Screenshots

« on: March 01, 2013, 08:47:38 am »

The comic-book feel was why I originally used it, but the boldface doesn't really look good with the thin window borders, and the letters rub up against each other uncomfortably.

I agree with this assessment. The original font is problematic for those reasons. I definitely wouldn't keep that. The new font is fine. I also prefer readability to style. If you could somehow get good readability and keep the comic book style, great, but readability should always be first and foremost in my opinion.

100

Site Talk / Re: Project - Addressing IPS headered/headerless (and other patching issues)

« on: February 28, 2013, 02:29:35 pm »

Some available time for this came up again, so I implemented the 'Patching Information' field as previously outlined as well as a 'ROM / ISO Information' text field to get this started. It is for hacks and translation and it's required for all new submissions.

Intended usage of the 'ROM / ISO Information' field is to include ROM database filenames, ISO identification (SLUS ids, common filenames) and hashes (Any and all one wishes to provide). I imagine something like the ROM Information section at the bottom of this page.

More info:
http://www.romhacking.net/?page=help&action=GetHelpItem&item=ROM%20/%20ISO%20Information

This is all information that SHOULD  be in the description anyway, but majority omit. At least by making this field separate and required for new submissions, we can do some arm twisting to hopefully get some of this information!

I think this goes a long way to addressing the cause. It may discourage many casual patch creators from submitting though. A number of them have no idea what a hash or ROM database, or SLUS id is... Trust me, I field their questions and lousy submissions often!

Lastly, expect a few bugs. I did this very quickly and didn't do more than a few simple tests. 

No individual hash fields
No individual or uniformed hash fields were added because it seems like there are still unresolved platform specific items based on our discussions. It seems if we ever want to do that, we would need a rulse-set listing what the hash would encompass for each platform. In addition, whatever is decided seems too hard for the end user without a utility that can compute said hashes with aforementioned rule-set. So, it looks like no discrete hashes until there is a rule-set and a program to do so. I'm not too interested in shepherding that anytime soon. Feel free if interested.