OK everybody, take a deep breath, its's going to be OK

badhacks.net is a comedy site, take everything on it with a grain of salt.  Perhaps even a whole shaker full of salt.

My article is not meant to be 100% accurate, it is meant to get laughs.  Do you really think there are analog ROM-hacks?  It was called "The History Of ROM-hacking according to Jomb", the according to Jomb part is of utmost importance here.  It is meant to be one warped opinion, with just enough backing it up to be funny or to be offensive if you take it that way.

Nightcrawler - I'm sorry if you are offended, because you've actually been really cool.  I'd say you are one of the few out there who really does have an open mind.  If I'm off about the year ROMhacking.net opened it can only be by a matter of months because I went by the thread you posted in ACMLM's board.  If you actually opened in 2005 instead of late 2004 is it really a federal issue?  I can recall a couple hacks that I know of being rejected here.  I've had one rejected which was very complete.  But its no big deal, I can see how there is pressure to reject some of these hacks, although many of them play well with the larger community of game-players, they tend to be looked down upon by the ROM-hacking community.  Also, look in the links section of badhacks.net, we link to you and have positive things to say there

Silver X - Yes, anyone can hack using NESticle, which was exactly the charm.  ANYONE could make a ROM-hack, not just elitists.  I'm not disparaging you or your creations, your view is valid to.  Go shout it to the whole world.  But I'm allowed to also have my view and express it.  I will also say that I have never played either of your hacks, only read about them.  Obviously I did'nt do actual scientific research to come up with my 96% figure, it was a joke.  Your sense of humor may vary from mine.  That is life.  The hacks of the sort I make are INTENDED as humor (sometimes other statements to), so to be featured on a popular comedy website is in-fact, an honor.  To get fan-mail from people saying they never laughed so hard is also an honor.  If your intent was to make something serious and then it was laughed at you would have a point.  You may not like my music, which is your right.  You would even be in the majority on that one.  But there is a subset of people who love it, people with an ear for atonal music.  I have actually made money selling my music, when is the last time you made money selling yours? 

-edit- Nightcrawler, you are very correct about when your site opened   I was looking at the wrong thing and going by faulty memory.  So I'll see about moving it forward in my timeline.  Though technical accuracy was never the point. 

Mario's fro and erect penis are minor horrors compared to things like Ernie And The Muppets Take It All Off

No, that part is true, read the letter here:

http://www.i-mockery.com/romhacks/sesamestreet/desist.gif

Maybe it's not for you Onyxyte.  But one thing to consider is that we've been around just as long as you have (not speaking of badhacks.net, but comedy hacks in general), and its highly unlikely that comedy hacks will cease to exist in the future so long as hacks are being made at all.  Though it may not be apparent from within this scene, some very successful hacks (in terms of popularity, based on how widespread knowledge of a hack is in the general public beyond ROM-hackers), are comedy hacks.  Though many comedy hacks are slapped together quickly and shoddily (which can actually give them a certain charm in some cases), there are others which are quite elaborate and have a tremendous amount of work put into them.  (such as Super Nazi Penis Cartel Freedom Fighters 3, and a few others)  The hack I am currently working on has 9 months of work in it right now, and I'm guessing myself at about 30% done.  It will be a miracle if I'm done a year from now. 

1. 1997 was not the dawn of the ROMhacking scene, not by a long shot.

2. People were editing text in ROMs via hex editors prior to 1997 as well.

I know these two things for fact because *I* was one of them. Pencil and paper for my table and a trusty hex editor. And I can tell you I certainly was not the first to do this. Quite a few hacks already existed before I knew that ROMhacking existed. History prior to Nesticle is just omitted completely from this article and all people that came before trampled with the authoritative statement that "1997 This is where it all started people. The dawn of the ROM-hacking scene." And really, it was the people involved in the console emulation scene that paved the way, and I mean that LITERALLY. They were, in fact, actually DOING some of the first ROM hacks. You need to respect all the people who made it possible for you to do what you do and came before you. You can get some good names and some starting points just be looking at some of the older ROMhacking documents we have here. You wouldn't write an article about human history, history of comedy etc. , and start in 19xx marking that as the definitive beginning, would you?

3. "The 1st was Super KKK Bros. " This was the first inappropriate hack ever? I don't think. Where are you pulling this information from?

4. "Due to pressure from the crybabies it decides to only host hacks of “merit“, and looks down on hacks which are deemed “spoof”." That's certainly an arguable statement that I believe I disagree with, however I don't know exactly who or what you're referring to.

5. " It is mainly focused on the translation “scene”, but also aspires to host ROM-hacks of all kinds." This is about as far away from what ROMhacking.net aspired to be as you can get. I don't remember that ever being printed or portrayed on this site. We focused on the translation 'scene'? If ROMhacking.net isn't about a unified ROMhacking community, what is? You had better go read the 'About' page again for some factual information on this site's creation.

http://www.romhacking.net/about/

You're attitude and incorrect assumption is exactly why hacks and hack news were slow to build here.


THOSE are the types of things that I didn't like reading. It's more than just getting a date wrong. You wrote an article about the history our community with apparently no effort going into it and information was just plain wrong about a community I have been involved with, and had been passionate about since the mid 90's, and just stamp out the real history entirely, and disrespecting everyone prior to 1997. Then, I have the added bonus of reading somewhat defamatory information against my labor of love ROMhacking.net, which is a staple of what it's all about, giving back to the community that has made it possible to do this.

I guess it's just a big joke to you though and you really don't care... Perhaps the 'crybabies' and 'nerds whining about how they want to suck Mario’s cock but aren’t actually gay' here just have a little respect...


P.S. This topic is really a personal advertisement and is probably against the rules anyway. I let it go because it it was ROMhacking related to those wondering. And of course, I won't lie,  I had the admittedly selfish need to respond to this.

Once again, the title of the article is The History Of ROM-hacking, ACCORDING TO JOMB.  I would think that anyone reading it would immediately recognize it as comedy when analog ROM-hacks were talked about, if not simply by the site hosting it.  Heaven's help anyone who looks through the hacks that badhacks.net is hosting, and actually thinks they are being offered the whole picture.  I'm sure people were making hacks prior to 1997, especially text hacks, but I've been looking for quite awhile and have never found any before then which I would consider offensive or particularly comedic.  If such a hack exists I'd love to see it, and will add it in.  The edge to my article is that its a pseudo-factual article being writ from the perspective of someone who only cares about the comedy/controversial hacks, you know, the sort the site hosting it is catering to.  If I had to spell that out explicitly anymore than I already did it would diffuse most of the humor. 

Nightcrawler -

I have'nt been coming to these forums in many months due to other commitments to my time.  But there at least was a definite bias against hacks which get catagorized as spoof.  I've read on many occasions where people have said they should'nt even be hosted here.  The forums dont go back far enough so i cant show you, but there was a time when people insisted you take my hacks off the site.  To your credit Nightcrawler, you stood up to them.  A year or so ago I submitted The Lone Rapist here and it was rejected.  Though many people will automatically dislike such a hack based on its content, it is a very thorough hack, a completely rewritten script in a long RPG game is no small amount of work, plus the graphic alterations and the changes to the music.  I just assumed it was rejected based on it being highly controversial, because there is no other basis which would apply.  At the time of the controversy surrounding my hacks (particularly Little Remo) being on this site, it was said that there would be voting in the future about what goes up or not.  That is all fine, but should'nt it be the authors decision about what is complete?  Would that not automatically preclude anything controversial from making the cut?  I also know that Dimi had a hack rejected.  I've heard of others being rejected second-hand, but will admit the source is not as reliable.  This is what I was refering to in my article, though once again my article is full of exaggerations and half-truths because it is a comedy and not a strict biography of events. 

I know ROMhacking.net is also for hacks, but you cant deny it was based in the translation scene.  Did'nt it rise up from the ashes of The Whirlpool? 

Where you are mistaken, I believe, is when you thought I wrote a history of your community, when in-fact I wrote the pseudo-history of a parallel community which only actually exists on the fringe of this community or outside of it all-together.  You personally may aspire to have a unified ROMhacking community, and I believe you are very sincere about that, but you are in the minority as far as the types of hacks on badhacks.net go.  I get alot of feedback on my hacks, mostly the feedback from other hackers is negative, even vicious personal attacks sometimes.  But the feedback from non-hackers is usually very positive.  This site is primarily frequented by hackers, so you are actually going against the tide of public opinion in this community.  That is actually why I have a great deal of respect for you, Nightcrawler, and am saddened that you took offense at what was intended to be a light-hearted comedy article. 

And you are somewhat correct, to me this is a joke of sorts.  ROMhacking has always been about laughs to me.  Thats what i primarily value in a ROM-hack.  Translations I actually take seriously though. 

Disch -

If badhacks.net becomes successful and there are people who actually take it seriously, are they really the sort of person who's opinion you would value?  They'd have to be wearing blinders to the whole FAQ and Links section of the site, in addition to somehow missing the theme in all the hacks on the site. 

I said NESticle started it all because it was the one which allowed easy editing of tiles and that opened it up to the masses.  I said Super KKK was the 1st super-offensive hack because it can be dated and by all accounts I've ever been privy to there is nothing like that that came earlier (and I have looked, I really enjoy comedy hacks). 

That merely implies that Jomb is the author.  It does not imply the history is fabricated.  Pointing to 3 relatively meaningless words in the title hardly changes the contents of the article itself.


Possibly.  It depends entirely on the person.  There's a difference between someone with nothing to contribute and someone with lots to contribute who has been deceived and/or fed false information.  As has been stated, your article doesn't give any clear indication that it's not attempting to give a factual account of the events -- in fact it does the exact opposite, and portrays itself as a factual, historical article.


Nothing in any of those areas indicate the article is false.

Apparently the only person this is obvious to is you.  Even Nightcrawler (who is no dummy) seemed to have thought the article was to be taken seriously.  And had you not stepped in and said otherwise, I would've thought the same.

As has been mentioned already, Jomb's history of ROM hacking begins with an account of the fictional concept of Analogue Hacking, i.e., painting additions to the game's graphics directly on to a television screen. Following this opening gambit, who in their right mind would take the article as a serious & scholarly work?

Onyxyte: you're not sure what it means? In the FAQ I present the following Q (not technically a question, I know) and A:

Q. I made a hack. Put it on your site.
A. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. [...]

On the news page I have written the following:

"The puerile and unskilled will not be looked down upon or excluded here."

You seem to be implying that the latter contradicts the former. It's entirely possible for a hack to be unsuitable for hosting at badhacks.net without it being puerile and unskilled. If someone sent me a straight translation hack I'd decline to host it and I'd point them in the direction of romhacking.net. Would that constitute "looking down upon" a "puerile and unskilled" hack? Clearly not.