[mz]

Suggesting it would [...]

You're still suggesting the same thing: the handful of people who have bothered to learn how to hack should have an obligation to do something for the lazy ones who come here only to request stuff.

You also seem to assume there's a different tool for each one of these requests, when all of them require basically the same: learn how to reverse engineer and how to edit a ROM.

Here's a better idea for this thread: let's use it only for hack ideas.

Maybe the first post could be edited to point people in the right direction; that is, here: http://www.romhacking.net/start/ (And also make them read the "Hack and Translation requests DO NOT go here" post that's kind of hard to see right now.)

[FAST6191]

Suggesting it would be better in the long run to train up future romhackers or point them in the right direction, and also it would be simple to just create a new rule as "no requests allowed"

Show me two weeks of people merely doing properly titled threads in the right forum section and I will second that.

[KingMike]

Whether or not you want to consider it a "dumpster" does not change that people would still make request threads.
We still get translation request threads despite the rule (though many are from new users, for which the mods would remove and politely direct them to the request thread). Or maybe just merge the post into the request thread.

And it probably does happen that sometimes reasonable simple requests might get done if they were something someone else agreed was a good idea. (the key thing being that the person did of their own volition)

[mz]

And it probably does happen that sometimes reasonable simple requests might get done if they were something someone else agreed was a good idea. (the key thing being that the person did of their own volition)

Idea: if someone likes it, they can do it on their own volition.
Request: asking for something.

In other words, we're saying the same. We just need to let other people know that ideas may be welcome but requests are annoying. Letting them know they can turn their ideas into reality by reading some documents would be cool too.

Also, this pinned topic [1] says that translations should be directed to the wiki, or the user will be warned and the request deleted. It seems you don't follow that rule anymore, so maybe you should delete it to avoid confusion.

[1] http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=6734

[RealGaea]

How about a simple hack of the PS2 version of UMK3, the bonus disc that came with Armageddon.

Mileena, Ermac and Classic Sub-Zero unlocked from the start.

[Thanatos-Zero]

How about a better reward for Ocarina of Time's Golden Skulltula quest?
Instead of getting 200 Rupees per visit, you get Infinite Magic ala MM's Cheato Romani Milk.

[linkerang]

I'd really like an hack of Final Fantasy 9 for PS1 (you know, the one with Zidane, Steiner, Vivi, Kuja, etc) where you could fight all 4 of the Guardians of Terra in Disc 3 (or whatever that point is in the PC version) and not just 1 of them (the Earth Guardian, with Zidane and Quina). And yes, I know you must face them later anyway, but I think it'd be cool to face all of them there, in their original form, one after the other, in a boss rush with all the couples of characters. I think they were cut from the final game, but all the models and stuff should be there. Btw, I want to specify, I'm NOT necessarily asking this for free. If you want to discuss this privately, just contact me, or answer this message here.

[Zero Dozer]

How about a simple hack of the PS2 version of UMK3, the bonus disc that came with Armageddon.

Mileena, Ermac and Classic Sub-Zero unlocked from the start.

I double your request with one asking to stop the goddamn stage looping of the Arcades before the MK3 ones start to appear.

[Magister]

I wish I knew how to hack roms.  Something I probably will never be able to do.  But I wish I did just so I could modify one game.  And that game is Quiz & Dragons.  I bought this board years ago.  I love the concept of the game.  I just hate the trivia questions that they choose to use.  I was hoping they were going to be 2nd Edition D&D questions since that's the Edition that was out at the time the game was made.  To my disappointment, the questions were typical trivia questions.  I have to wonder if it is possible to hack the roms and change the questions in the game.  Has this been tried by anyone?

[NES Boy]

I'm familiar with Quiz & Dragons thanks to this hilarious writeup by SydLexia.com. However, I have no experience with Arcade game hacking, so I can't help you there. The article I linked to is still fun to read, however.

Apparently in Capconia, a bloodthirsty dragon isn't all that scary. But if you take that same dragon and teach it who the original lead singer of Van Halen was, the townsfolk will flee in terror.

[mz]

I have to wonder if it is possible to hack the roms and change the questions in the game.

Everything is possible (within the technical limits of the hardware); some things are easier to do than others.

Has this been tried by anyone?

Very unlikely, since the most popular arcade emulators don't allow you to run hacked ROMs (AFAIK), leading to not many people bothering with hacking these games.

[linkerang]

Anyone remembers that game for PS1, Guardian's Crusade (AKA Knight & Baby)? The one with the azure knight and the little pinky dragon? That game was amazing (at least at my eyes lol);well, at the North Temple you had to face a Blue Monster, while 2 other characters named Darkbeat & Ibkee (some sort of Yellow dinosaur-monster) faced his Red Monster twin off-screen. Anyone here thinks it could be possible to hack/mod the game to recreate (in an automatic fight fashion, so not controlled by the player? The game is full of those kind of fights) the Darkbeat & Ibkee VS Red Monster fight? Maybe recoloring the Blue Monster model?

[Jazz]

With so much discussion, has any of these hack ideas come to life or are they lost in too many concepts put forward?

[FAST6191]

I wish I knew how to hack roms.  Something I probably will never be able to do.  But I wish I did just so I could modify one game.  And that game is Quiz & Dragons.  I bought this board years ago.  I love the concept of the game.  I just hate the trivia questions that they choose to use.  I was hoping they were going to be 2nd Edition D&D questions since that's the Edition that was out at the time the game was made.  To my disappointment, the questions were typical trivia questions.  I have to wonder if it is possible to hack the roms and change the questions in the game.  Has this been tried by anyone?

Two main approaches.

One. Classic text adventure/vtech toy style where you have to type the exact answer, or hope the spellong erreur handler of the time could manage things. If it is a simple matching algorithm then OK, if it is not then it starts going outside of beginner hacks.
Two. Multi guess test. If you are willing to have the same amount of questions and the same answer key (if this question is answer b then whatever the new one is will still be answer b sort of thing) then this could be as simple as basic text hacking.
Start wanting to add lots of questions or change answer keys and it gets far more tedious (though still usually within the realm of possibility as you are still doing exactly what the original game did).

Basic text hacking. http://www.romhacking.net/start/ is there for a reason. Still it mostly amounts to did you ever make a secret code as a kid like a=1 b=2 c=3... because computers do mostly the same thing except with hexadecimal (0-9 then A-F to cover the 16 states of 4 binary numbers, though they will use two hex digits to give 256 characters which is more than enough for English). Said encoding scheme varies from game to game where most normal computers will use http://www.asciitable.com/ (or unicode these days).
Computers also don't know how long text is most of the time as checking is tedious but having a number (think contents page of a book) not exactly how long it is saves effort for the program, even if it frustrates hackers (it is not like people change the game after it is shipped -- Read Only Memory and all that). The methods by which they note such things vary but still are basic enough. Alternatively for something like this you might even have fixed length sections, in which case don't go over the limit.
About the only other things to get in the way are compression, and graphics as text. Graphics as text is unlikely here (it tending to be reserved for small puzzle games or fancy graphics effects) and compression I have no idea about for arcade games of the time.

I have not played with arcade emulation in a while so no idea about them hashing ROMs first and only working with what they know (though from what I have seen from that world I can well believe it), however you can probably persuade a build somewhere to ignore that in some way or load it anyway.

I am mainly saying this because it sounds like one of those "teach a man to fish" moments. Where I might be tempted to just do something like a word replacement for someone (say to match the Japanese term, or a film it was based on or something) as it would be a one shot thing then here you would probably still get bored of the new ones after a while as you and your friends memorised the answer keys -- or at least that is what happened for every trivia game I have ever played.

[PresidentLeever]

With so much discussion, has any of these hack ideas come to life or are they lost in too many concepts put forward?

I don't recall having seen any projects based on this thread so far and I've been here for years.

[mamertos]

Zelda 2 (NES): enemies randomly drop heart pieces or whatever to fill your health a little, since in the game they only drop magic power.

[darkmoon2321]

With so much discussion, has any of these hack ideas come to life or are they lost in too many concepts put forward?

I got the idea to decensor/translate Wizardry V for the SNES from somebody's post on here. The project really only took me a few days and it was a game I already enjoyed. I only remember one other idea from this thread that got picked up since. But that's only like two ideas in over a year and a half. I thought about trying a couple more but haven't since I just don't have the time.

[julayla]

I think a couple of ideas got done, but not all of them. And unfortunately, I doubt all of them are gonna be move forward beyond the "idea" stage since there's so many taking over. I mean for example: I had ideas placed in earlier, though sadly, they keep getting overtaken by other ideas with the thread page going longer and longer.

[FAST6191]

I think a couple of ideas got done, but not all of them. And unfortunately, I doubt all of them are gonna be move forward beyond the "idea" stage since there's so many taking over. I mean for example: I had ideas placed in earlier, though sadly, they keep getting overtaken by other ideas with the thread page going longer and longer.

If it was a source of good ideas* there would be an effort to collate them, do a quick dive into the relevant games and otherwise start work on them.
In that case there would be no worries about things being drowned out.

It is more that ideas themselves are worthless. Indeed most seeing those that want to hide/guard their ideas know to wander off as there is nothing there.

*that might be harsh. There are plenty of ideas here, probably a very safe majority, that I would not have to question the efforts put in if they were done.

...

There is a line of thought amount police that do car/vehicle related stuff. Follow someone for about 20 minutes and you will have completely justifiable cause to pull them over. Something similar applies with ideas (anybody can play anything and think how to improve it), in the case of hackers it is probably even more pronounced -- you will likely know the maths which underpins games, most people doing hacking have been playing games for decades, in the case of this site have seen games evolve as well, have read a thousand reviews of games, have experienced any number of thought pieces on game design (in my case my shelves feature a number of books on the subject**, my bookmarks even more, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iNSQIyNpVGHeak6isbP6AHdHD50gs8MNXF1GCf08efg/pub?embedded=true being a personal favourite) and having the attention to detail*** which makes them capable hackers means even more things will be spotted that others might overlook.

** https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/characteristics-games probably ranks among my favourite books in general actually.

*** it is said reviewers of things eventually have a hard time as they begin to notice patterns, flaws and more by default. Hence the common slide into the more and more esoteric stuff. I have seen it many times with those in technical/repair fields as well. While I can say I have noticed it for me I have been meaning to ask it to a wider audience of hackers, might even do that after this.

[Magister]

Two main approaches.

One. Classic text adventure/vtech toy style where you have to type the exact answer, or hope the spellong erreur handler of the time could manage things. If it is a simple matching algorithm then OK, if it is not then it starts going outside of beginner hacks.
Two. Multi guess test. If you are willing to have the same amount of questions and the same answer key (if this question is answer b then whatever the new one is will still be answer b sort of thing) then this could be as simple as basic text hacking.
Start wanting to add lots of questions or change answer keys and it gets far more tedious (though still usually within the realm of possibility as you are still doing exactly what the original game did).

Basic text hacking. http://www.romhacking.net/start/ is there for a reason. Still it mostly amounts to did you ever make a secret code as a kid like a=1 b=2 c=3... because computers do mostly the same thing except with hexadecimal (0-9 then A-F to cover the 16 states of 4 binary numbers, though they will use two hex digits to give 256 characters which is more than enough for English). Said encoding scheme varies from game to game where most normal computers will use http://www.asciitable.com/ (or unicode these days).
Computers also don't know how long text is most of the time as checking is tedious but having a number (think contents page of a book) not exactly how long it is saves effort for the program, even if it frustrates hackers (it is not like people change the game after it is shipped -- Read Only Memory and all that). The methods by which they note such things vary but still are basic enough. Alternatively for something like this you might even have fixed length sections, in which case don't go over the limit.
About the only other things to get in the way are compression, and graphics as text. Graphics as text is unlikely here (it tending to be reserved for small puzzle games or fancy graphics effects) and compression I have no idea about for arcade games of the time.

I have not played with arcade emulation in a while so no idea about them hashing ROMs first and only working with what they know (though from what I have seen from that world I can well believe it), however you can probably persuade a build somewhere to ignore that in some way or load it anyway.

I am mainly saying this because it sounds like one of those "teach a man to fish" moments. Where I might be tempted to just do something like a word replacement for someone (say to match the Japanese term, or a film it was based on or something) as it would be a one shot thing then here you would probably still get bored of the new ones after a while as you and your friends memorised the answer keys -- or at least that is what happened for every trivia game I have ever played.

I don't believe I would ever get bored of the game if it had D&D related questions.  I love the game itself, just not the questions.  There are just so many outdated or off the wall questions in the game that just make it frustrating to play.  Add to the fact there are many questions in the game that have the wrong answer as the correct one and it makes for just a headache. 

I would be happy just having the questions from the Capcom Classics Collection for the Xbox and PS1 ported to the game.  I'm told all the questions were changed to be Capcom related.  Just not sure how difficult that would be even if I knew how to transfer them from one game to the other.