69 replies to this topic

[Fire Blazer]

Wooh, an update! W00t!

The images you uploaded are JPEGs (or they were converted to JPEGs from BMPs, which photobucket does) which is fail. And the chibis, uh, are they intended to be like that? They could use some fixes. Do let someone know if you need help with that, or if you think they are fine, then keep them...

I guess since there aren't any new screenshots I'll have to watch the video, huh?

[Blood Falcon]

[Fire Blazer]

Oh, so that's a joke aspect, then?

Still, I'd like to hear it from Markyjoe himself

[Oblivion Knight]

lol The Pirate chibi is hilarious.

Felover you consider this speed fast?

[Fire Blazer]

Considering how fast his hack is going, I can totally see why he calls it fast...

Yeah the pirate chibi could be an emoticon XD

[Falaflame]

Blazer, when an official patch of this is released, I urge you to post it on your site. x[

This is amazing.

[Fire Blazer]

IIRC I already got permission to do that (or maybe I'm fooling myself XD) but I plan on it... *waits for a patch* haha

[Mercurius]

Hm, what do you consider as a 'terrible' mod? (At least, based on ones that are actually finished.)

Cause like in my FE6 mod I'm changing all the cruddy units into decent ones (and nerfing the Sword of Seals due to its broken-ness) as well as replacing characters I wasn't really interested in in the original game.

The difficulty of FE6 probably still makes the game even after editing challenging, though. >_>

"No worries, no stress, and best of all, no RNG..."

Mine is more like:
"Less worries(about dying), less stress, and best of all, higher uses for weapons..." (The RNG is left the same)

[Fire Blazer]

^His idea of crappy hacks are hacks that are meant to be good but are just reskin hacks--same general plot/storyline/gameplay just with edited characters, weapons, some edited text, and a little other stuff.

At least, that's what I remember him posting about, on some forum. XP

[Mercurius]

Eh, the point of my hack is just to make FE6 more interesting for me. If I wanted to make a good hack, i'd have worked on FE7, instead.

[Fire Blazer]

lol, well then that's different, because you didn't intend to do a lot with your hack to start with. We should stop hijacking his topic though huh?

[markyjoe1990]

God damnit. Despite the fact that I have this bookmarked, I'm never informed of new posts.

Warning: Potentially Offensive Opinions Here (Click Here To Hide/Show Text)

Alright. If you wanna know what I consider bad in Fire Emblem hacks, here's my EXTREMELY elaborate list, and take note, I have VERY high standards for FE ROM hacks, so you'll be surprised to know that I think supposedly good hacks like Gorilla Gadek SG aren't as great as everyone makes them out to be.

My list focuses mainly on gameplay rather than story or graphics. Unlike most Fire Emblem hack players, who seem easily pleased by hacks like MageKnight404's FE7 hack, which does little else besides mere graphical and story changes, I want something that actually has substance to it's gameplay.

In parenthesis are hacks that have these traits

List:
- Throne'd Bosses with Elixirs: Oh boy. I get to fight the same boss for another 10 ****ing turns, all because he decided he wanted all of his health back. (Real War Chronicles)
- Short bows with 1 ~ 2 range: This is so god damn cliche. If you want to make archers USEFUL, exploit her strengths. Add more ballistas (And make them easier to access), flying units, or just increase the class base stats and/or character growths. Seriously. (EVERY ****ING ROM HACK)
- Generic enemies with ridiculous stats that make progression tedious as all ****. (Requiem of War, GhebFE)
- Prepromoted enemy units in early chapters (Older releases of Curse of The Emblem)
- MEME ABUSE (GhebFE)
- Luck based difficulty (GhebFE)
- Enemys that spawn RIGHT NEXT TO YOU before enemy phase starts (FE8 Girls)
- Tons of generic enemies with vulneraries (Requiem of War)
- Units that are useless or supercompetent (GhebFE)
And most of all
- Overrated "Pretty Graphic" ROM hacks that barely if at all change map or event data. Typically what I like to call Reskin Hacks. (MageKnight404's FE7 Hack, GhebFE and MANY ****ING OTHERS)
- Blender hacks. Though, I dislike them to a lesser extent than Reskin hacks. (Gorilla Gadek SG, and ESPECIALLY Link's War)

When making a rom hack, the following are what I believe should be prioritized upon:
- Custom Maps
- Custom Event Data
- Character Balance
- Difficulty Curve

As long as you have all of these, I will at the very least consider playing your hack.

Honestly, it boggles my mind that people consider most of the hacks I listed to be GOOD. The Fire Emblem Hacking community has hilariously low standards. Most of these hacks are either too difficult to the point of unplayability, hardly change anything about the game, or are just plain poorly designed.

[Fire Blazer]

Spoiler'd for your own good (Click Here To Hide/Show Text)

People have low standards because they don't have hacks to play that are totally (or mainly) custom and don't have the same issues that you just mentioned.

I have to lol at the short bow thing. It IS totally used too much--I myself have done it. Then again, I don't think having a 1-2 range for archers is that useful, unless the bow is an epic bow. A short bow, however, is pretty weak. If it weren't overused and if it WERE used right, it would be better, I think. Excuse me if anything I just said didn't make much sense.

And nothing against MageKnight, but I do agree that his hack is overrated and gets more attention than it deserves for a reskin hack. The graphics are awesome, but otherwise it's like playing FE7 with Nightmare edits.

I guess in order to up the 'quality standard' of good FE hacks, we have to go ahead and complete some. ATM that means finishing our respective hacks, TU and Fire Mumblem, eh?

[markyjoe1990]

This is all very true. I have nothing else to say... Except that Episode 4 is nearly finished.

[Zeldaicflame]

I find your expectations of custom events to be a bit high.

Sure, its great, but it takes heaps of effort.
I severely doubt anyone could jump straight into custom events.


For me, there is enough that can be done without events. Such as adding more units to a chapter, custom maps, and a special class for lords. Hack, you need a good story, or a least interesting text to read. Inserting custom CG's can change the background of conversations to give a new feel and conversations can be fully customized in FEditor's text editor.

To wrap up in an analogy: Custom events can add spice to your kebab, but without differently cooked and prepared meat and salad, not much will change.

...
Fail Analogy
...

On topic: I am looking forward to this hack continuing on.

[markyjoe1990]

I STRONGLY disagree with most of the things you said:

- You can't really change the story to a game if you can't change the events. The closest a hack has ever done when it comes to making the story different would be GhebFE, and even then, the same events occur in that hack.
- The only things that can be done without event hacking are visuals, unit editing and, to a very limited extent, map design. Without tile change editing, you can't reposition chests, villages, doors, snags, or walls. This means that any level with those will look very similar, if not, almost exactly the same as the map it was originally changed from. Without event editing, you also have no control over cut scenes. perfect example being in MageKnight404's FE7 hack at the very beginning, where you see lyn, but then Linoan tells you it's just a picture of her.
- Changing background CGs hardly makes a difference. Sometimes CGs are used more than once in a game, so if you changed a castle background into a volcano, every occurrence of that background will be a volcano, and make some conversations look awkward.
- Text can be changed, but as said before, you still have little control over cutscenes. A dragon will still come spouting out of the portal Nergal creates in FE7 unless you change the graphics, but even then, the scene will still essentially be the same.
- Your analogy specifically bothers me. Event data? Being called the mere SPICE of a kebab? Event data is basically the bones of a chapter! The very structure! Without it, you can't control cutscenes, you still have to recruit characters in the same fashion they are recruited in the original unhacked FEs, you can't control reinforcement data, nor ballista data, nor area event data, nor much of ANYTHING. Event editing is probably the most important part of chapter design!

The only point of yours that I agree with is the difficulty of event editing. When I first heard about it, I immediately tried doing it, but kept screwing up. However, with enough determination I got the hang of it. Also, there's plenty of abundant tutorials on event editing, so much of the difficulty of picking it up has been eliminated since then.

[Zeldaicflame]

Ok then. That's your opinion, I've already stated mine so I have nothing more to say.

[Fire Blazer]

^Nicely done, Zf. I almost wish there was a 'rep button' because that was a VERY rare mature response to something. XD

[markyjoe1990]

[Mage Girl]