Pending submission: 'Final Fantasy VI/III (U) Save Anywhere Patch'

[bboydocument]

Hey guys

Sorry, i'm new to this site and I made a submission some time ago for FFVI.

It still says pending, so I just wanted to check what the guidelines are for pending submissions? I apologize if i've left out some important details. And, i'm sorry I just didn't see a need to attach many screenshots because the hack is self explanatory.

Hope it is of help to someone out there. Thanks

[KaioShin]

A staff member raised the question if the hack is worthwhile if it's basically just a hardwired par cheat, so it's in discussion. But there was no error on your end, don't worry. I'll try to get this wrapped up.

By the way: In the future please use the contact staff link at the sidebar for such questions, there is no guarantee a staff member will see this topic on the board or if he does that he will want to reply to it in public.

[creeperton]

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[Dwedit]

Does this screw up the puzzles in Locke's scenario if you're able to save in town?

[KaioShin]

One staff member can't speak for the entire community, so shouldn't you err on the side of caution?

Eh no, but RHDN can decide for itself which patches it hosts and which it won't. Besides who says that no one else on staff agreed, I only said that one brought it up. As you can see by Dwedit's response there is concern this might also screw up the game since it's a very broad change that can affect the game in all kinds of ways that might lead to bugs. If you want cheats then go and use cheats, this is a romhacking site and not GameFaqs. That's the last I will say on the matter, if anyone has more information on this glitching up or not, feel free to post it. Otherwise the thread creator will just have to wait and see what the response will be.

[Dwedit]

Actually, all this means is that we need a much better way to handle small patches, like cheat codes or other similar things.  Something like a searchable threaded message board with attachments, you just describe your mini hack (maybe it's even just a single game-genie code), post the patch as a hex code or small patch file, etc.  So ROM hackers who want to incorporate these tiny patches or cheat codes can just use the information directly.

[FinS]

I have personally had my submission rejected because it was a cheat device and, upon reflection, I agree with the decision. There are websites dedicated to cheating and there's no reason RHDN should try to compete with them. I also think it would be a lot more useful to submit lists of cheat codes, to the appropriate place, instead of locking in the user to a specific set.

I'm glad that the submissions are screened so dutifully and feel confident that I won't get any malware from them. I have had detections before but I put them in a sandbox and didn't notice anything strange coming from them so they must have been false flags.

I remember seeing a PAR<->Game Genie code converter somewhere.

emuWorks

[Kiyoshi Aman]

We already have a number of minor hacks for Final Fantasy VI, guys. I mean, come freakin' on.

Why is this one such a matter of concern, again? I haven't seen it, so I don't know if it was based off of PAR or Game Genie codes—nor can I until someone posts it in this thread.

[bboydocument]

A staff member raised the question if the hack is worthwhile if it's basically just a hardwired par cheat, so it's in discussion. But there was no error on your end, don't worry. I'll try to get this wrapped up.

By the way: In the future please use the contact staff link at the sidebar for such questions, there is no guarantee a staff member will see this topic on the board or if he does that he will want to reply to it in public.

Thanks for your reply KaioShin, much appreciated. Firstly, I was about to use the contact staff link but I thought it was used for 'site issues' only. Just trying to adhere to the rules here..

To everyone else:
Look, there's been some dispute about the worthiness of this patch and that's fine with me. After all, it is just a PAR hard hack, but some people might find it useful which is why I thought this site was an appropriate place to post it.
What some (not accusing anyone here) people don't understand is: this isn't just a code that you can simply use a PAR->GG converter to hard hack. The PAR changes RAM values, it required me to trace instructions to find the relevant ROM addresses. There is no game genie equivalent hard hack. I'm not saying that it was rocket science, and i'm not an expert, i'm just saying that I wouldn't attempt to submit a hack that anyone could simply hard hack a GG code into the ROM themselves, otherwise this site would be flooded with these small patches. My point is, I wouldn't want to waste anyone's time.

Here's why I decided to contribute: I spent a few days looking all over the net for a save anywhere hack for this game. I even checked this site. I gave up and just did it myself.

I received the rejection email today and thank Nightcrawler for his candid response and his consideration in my submission.

But I won't be resubmitting the patch now that it's received a critical response and controversy, that wasn't my intention I just wanted to help.
I didn't post screenshots, because as I said above - the patch is self explanatory. Honestly, it's just too trivial. If you want to see what the 'save' text looks like when it's highlighted then visit the world map and press X.
Anyway, how would the screenshot sway your decision to accept submission? It would be quite easy for someone to take two different screenshots (in different locations: one on the world map, one in a dungeon), how would you know that the hack works from the screenshot?

If anyone wants to do this themselves, here's the method:

Code Select Expand

Hex edit and search for:
ad 01 02 10 04 a9 20 80 02 a9 24 85 29 a0 fd 37
(should be on line/rom offset: 33200)
Replace "ad 01 02" with "a9 80 ea"

Next, search for (refer to line rom offset: 32ea0):
ad 01 02 10 10 20 b2 0e 64 26 a9 13 85 27 85 9e
Replace "ad 01 02" with "a9 80 ea"

Thanks guys, sorry for the trouble.

[KaioShin]

I urge you to reconsider and submit it again with a proper screenshot. There was no controversy, the hack was just being looked at, we do that all the time. The screenshot thing is just for consistency and policy. It may seem a bit silly, yes we even require a screenshot for music hacks, but that's just the way it is. People browisng through the hacks just want something to look at. It's just a matter of making exceptions for one hack and then 5 others insist they don't need screenshots either and so on. It's just enforcing site policy and not intended to be harrassment.

[Darkdata]

I would like to note, KaioShin, that sometimes even the Bureaucratic process needs to go above and beyond the set rules in order to make things easier. The Administration could of stepped in and added a screenshot.

Also, "Just a hardwired par-code cheat" indeed. I'm sure there are no "fix" patches on this site that could fall in that category, and the was accusation made without poking the file itself.

In any case, it's not nice to see a great resource get so wrapped up in process that it becomes a hassle to support/submit.

[KaioShin]

and the was accusation made without poking the file itself.

There was no "accusation", the submission said itself that this was just a small par code conversion. Anyway, how large or how much effort went into this patch was never the issue. We considered if this was a cheat or an actual change to the game, and we just discussed it a bit nothing more, in the end we decided to accept it. I don't understand how people can make such an issue over us taking a closer look on something instead of just pressing accept or reject like bots. We take the time to do this to make sure that high quality content is on the site.

Last but not least we do add screenshots ourselves from time to time, but consider that not everyone has the complete SNES and NES romsets on their PCs for the occasion that someome submits a hack for possibly obscure game xyz and forgot to include screenshots. If we'd do all the screenshots ourselves then stuff would sit in the queue for weeks instead of days and people would complain again too, though probably even more.

[bboydocument]

Hi KaioShin, thanks for your response. I'll be resubmitting the patch according to your guidelines.

Thanks guys but yeah there's no need for any animosity in this thread, I completely understand and respect the process. It must be rigorous if a high quality standard is to be maintained. I'm just glad that the patch was considered as more than another cheat patch.

[Gideon Zhi]

Last but not least we do add screenshots ourselves from time to time, but consider that not everyone has the complete SNES and NES romsets on their PCs for the occasion that someome submits a hack for possibly obscure game xyz and forgot to include screenshots. If we'd do all the screenshots ourselves then stuff would sit in the queue for weeks instead of days and people would complain again too, though probably even more.

This was the unfortunate case with the Whirlpool, way back when. The site would get a submission and staff - myself included - just didn't always have the time to put together a proper review with good screenshots.

[FinS]

The opinions here, I don't believe are meant to be hostile. People just generally have strong opinions, especially on this site. Welcome to RHDN.

Technically any patch can be turned into cheat codes and vis a vie. Just translate each altered byte into a par code, insert par codes into a cheat file, load file into emulator. Emulators may not be able to handle extremely large alterations though, I'm not sure what the limit is. There should probably be a distinction made between a patch of cheat codes and an asm hack. That line can sometimes be thin though.

[creeperton]

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[Nightcrawler]

Does this screw up the puzzles in Locke's scenario if you're able to save in town?

I'm curious what the answer to this is myself.

If there are broken parts, it is highly recommended to note such places in the readme where you shouldn't save so users are aware. There's so very little information offered.

[Gideon Zhi]

It might also be interesting to see whether this has the side effect of enabling tent and cabin use anywhere, and not just on save points.

[bboydocument]

If there are broken parts, it is highly recommended to note such places in the readme where you shouldn't save so users are aware. There's so very little information offered.

I admit I haven't tested this in the puzzles in Locke's scenario, and I don't have a save ram handy at this point in the game.
If someone has a sram file handy and is willing to test it out, (or I can check this myself), it would be appreciated.

I'm sorry for the lack of information in the readme, I just haven't had any issues to report. If you want, I can resubmit this once i've done thorough testing and i'll include a more comprehensive readme. This will cause a delay as i'm busy with work at the moment, but when I get free time i'll do it.

[KaioShin]

If you find any issues just submit an edit to the patch entry.