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That secretexits.zip is for a completely different game, just ignore it.
But in case you need help with the exits, just ask. I have found all but one (Ruined Ruins).
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I absolutely love the parallel world. It's very non-linear and there is a lot to explore. The new version is looking even better as a lot of the most frustrating points are going to be changed. This is definitely one of the best hacks I've played in a good while.
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I can't answer your questions but I will ask you one. If you are 14 years old, you were 2 when SM was released. You sure you've been playing it since the day it came out?
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Well I guess I just have more patience than the average joe then.
EDIT: I'm through the first dungeon now, and I must say it was indeed a bitter disappointment. The Armos knight fight (or whatever they're called) was ridiculously tedious and, as someone earlier said, it's just too simple to have the keys right next to each other. Hopefully this was just a short first test and the real dungeons are a lot more complex.
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Xkeeper wrote:
And, for your information: Exploring dungeons is fun until the Nth time you have to backtrack to the start with no sword, and when a game over makes you start the entire game over.
I don't fully understand what you're saying here. Are you saying that finding the sword was difficult? IMO the part without the sword was very short and accomplished what it was meant to accomplish. Sneaking past the guards and using pots to kill them was pretty fun since you had to be so careful. I didn't die once before the sword and only died once or twice in the guardhouse. I don't see what all the fuss is about. Yes, there was some backtracking, but no more than in your usual Zelda game. I find this game to be very much fun.
EDIT: Although the bad spelling bothers me too.
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You might want to check the Metroid 2002 topic if you haven't already. I can't be sure that you'll find any answers there though, since I stopped reading after page 5.
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Okay I just reached the church and I have to say I don't understand what the people at Acmlm's board are griping about. The guardhouse isn't really that difficult if you take it slowly and carefully. There was some backtracking, yes, but it's not like the game made you repeat some annoying parts over and over again. It's just walking. People should learn some patience. I also can't understand how anyone can miss the boomerang. Don't people explore the dungeons at all? Is it just about getting to the end?
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Fabian wrote:
"Creating new forums which would be very low in traffic when the current forums aren't remotely close to overloaded is something I very much disagree with, and exactly what Bisqwit tries to avoid, apparently (smart thinking Bisqwit!)."
But why? I think it's a lot clearer when things are properly categorized. One could of course say that it's clearer to have NES hacks in the NES section but this is a matter of opinion. Personally I think that all hacks could easily fit into the same subforum as long as the console that the hack is for is clearly stated in the thread name. And I don't think Bisqwit said he is trying to avoid having low-traffic subforums, he just said that he doesn't want the main forum page to be cluttered with subforums (and this you don't care about). They are still two different things.
BoltR wrote:
Have you read the subtitle for the "Games" grouping of forums? "Work-in-progress threads, discussions about games, TAS movies, and other playing topics"
Actually I had not. I thought I had. Well this changes things a bit. Don't I feel stupid now (insert blushing smily).
As for the hack forum getting cluttered with crappy hacks, I don't really think this would happen. True, some hacks of questionable quality might be posted but I don't think anyone's going to start a thread for a hack that's not at least completely changed and somewhat well done (although it must be noted that the stupidity of some people has surprised me before). I would also like to see threads of hacks that are still in the making (but still of course playable, hype doesn't do anyone any good).
It seems I'm in the minority here, though, so I'll just let it go. In the end this is just a matter of opinion, so there's not much use arguing. Bisqwit will do as he sees fit and I will be happy with that. I don't think the current system is bad, I just think that it could be better.
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asteron wrote:
But do you really think there are enough good hacks out there to warrant creating another forum?
That's a very good question. I do think there are many that are worth playing but are not very popular at the moment, especially older ones. Honestly I can't give you a definite answer, but I can tell you that the forum would have more action than for example the already mentioned Awards or Tool-assisted Lab.
asteron wrote:
How about a compromise, there is a master list of games under consideration in every forum, why not create a new topic for a master list of hacks?
This is a nice idea. If it turns out that many good hacks get listed, where would you discuss them?
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asteron wrote:
Its not like this board has non-TAS discussion forums for SNES or NES games.
This I already adressed.
Let me give you an example of how the hack forum would realte to TASing. Someone posted information about the Mario Adventure SMB3 hack on the board -> I got interested in it -> I played through it -> I got it accepted at the site -> I TASed it -> it got published. This is what I'd like to see more of.
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Fabian wrote:
A lot of what you're saying makes it sound like you'd be better off at the actual hackedgamesdiscussion.org (I'm assuming there are sites for discussing/making/etc hacks though I'm not sure).
I enjoy THIS community and would like to share my enthusiasm for new hacks with the people of THIS board. If we should talk only about TASing, why are there topics like "Do you like beer?" and "World Jr. hockey" here? Why not just go to Something Awful instead? There are many sites dedicated to only to hacking, but I'm not really interested in the technical side, just the gameplay.
The reason why I would like to see a whole new forum for hacks is that people would be encouraged to start topics about hacks they like so that the rest of us can play them too. It's not easy to find good hacks when there are so many bad ones. As for the forum main page getting cluttered, I don't see it. I don't know if it's just my screen resolution or what but it looks to me like the page isn't even full, there are two "free slots" for subforums on the page so to speak. The change wouldn't bring a new scrollbar or anything like that. And if you don't like subforums with little traffic, why aren't you campaining for removing Awards or Tool-assisted laboratory?
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anubis wrote:
I'm confused... Upthorn, you're saying there is no place to discuss hacks, but there is. If the hack runs in an SNES emulator, then you can talk about it in the SNES forum which makes perfect sense to me. Someone coming to the site looking for discussion about Super Demo World would know exactly where to look. More forums != good.
The NES/SNES/etc subforums are meant to contain discussion about TASes and TASing. If I would just like to share a hack with everyone, should I really put it there? That's what I did with the Zelda hack but I wasn't really happy about it.
asteron wrote:
I don't really see a hack as something entirely different from a published game from a TAS point of view.
As I already replied to this, what if you want to talk about a hack from a non-TAS point of view? And no, I don't think that there should be a place to discuss actual published games from a non-TAS point of view because they are familiar to everyone. Hacks, on the other hand have, have a lot to offer in terms of discussion: the quality of the hack (this includes level design, difficulty, etc.) and, well, the game itself. The hack topics are different from the normal game topics as you can clearly see. The most important thing is that most people don't know about many good hacks and it would be a crime to not make people aware of them.
Fabian wrote:
"It's not like the console forums are so super-busy that having the extra 5 hack topics in them stifles traffic to the non-hacked game thread or make the forums so cluttered they're unreadable, etc."?
No, I don't think they are cluttered. However this isn't really what I'm talking about, I'd like a subforum for general discussion of different hacks, not just for TASing. Besides, some of the hack topics just don't belong in the TASing forums because there is simply no talk about TASing in the threads, they are just about sharing the game with everyone else.
I'm sorry if I didn't make my point very clear at first, but I really did mean that we should just have one subforum for everything related to hacks. I see no problem with TASing-related hack topics and just general talk about hacks being in the same forum. As you said, there aren't really that many topics regarding hacks. I myself am very interested in new hacks and it's sad how many go unnoticed. I really don't think one forum would clutter the main forum page. Can you tell me why you are against it? Just because you don't think there is a need for it?
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This IS a TAS site, but there's still talk about many more things than that. As I said, there is a forum for "other games" too, so why not hacks? Bisqwit obviously doesn't want hacks to be confused with real games. I do think that there would a lot more talk about hacks if they had their own subforum.
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I just think that the NES/SNES/etc forums shouldn't be cluttered with hacks that won't be accepted at the site. I'd still like to able to talk about them somewhere.
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What about from non-TAS perspective? Right now there is no place to just discuss hacks. There is one forum for "other games" so why not one for hacks? There people could share their favorite hacks with everyone and people might find new stuff to play that they haven't known about before. Maybe the rarely used "other games" forum could be renamed to "Other games and hack discussion".
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Does anyone else find 1.5 heavy? I find that starting the emu is slower, there is some lag in changing the save state slot, alt+tabbing takes a good while and sometimes even crashes the emu, it's impossible to for example watch videos with the emu in the background because the emu messes up the sound by getting stuck (you know, like a broken record). The earlier versions of zsnes never gave me this much problems. I must add, though, that my computer has been up a while, but I've had it going ong longer many times and zsnes has worked just fine.
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Yeah, the author has pretty much admitted that the beginning is kind of a mess and I think I read (it's a long thread) that he has promised to improve it in the future. Everyone's saying that it improves towards the end though, which is the reason I posted this.
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Blublu wrote:
Also, what is it with making these hacks ungodly-difficult?
The tool used for making ALttP hacks is not a very good one and changing a minor detail in room A can lead to shit hitting the fan in rooms B, C and D. Also the editor tends to destroy your progress completely sometimes when saving.
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Well I did read the entire thread and the impression that they were complaining about nothing just because they got a little frustarted by one single part of the game got stronger every page. As I said, I haven't really tried it yet but the way some people are complaining in the thread is extremely annoying.
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Not all people here follow hacking sites so I wanted everyone to know that there is finally a complete ALttP hack out there. Check it out.
At Acmlm's board (Screenshots here).
At romhacking.net.
EDIT: Maybe I should've linked to the homepage of the hack, too.
The people at Acmlm's board are bashing the hack for having many bugs but they don't seem that severe to me. They are also complaining about the annoyingly difficult and long-winded introductory dungeon that you apparently have to do mostly swordless, but to me the hack sounds pretty sweet. Some of the whinebags also complain about backtracking and illogical item placement but I guess they have never played a Zelda game before.
I haven't tried it out properly yet myself, but from what I've read it has an extremely inventive and beautiful overworld. This has got to be a treat for any Zelda fan, even if it is a bit difficult.
