Please Show some Respect for ROM Translations

[darkwraith007]

Just had to post this with all the fluff that gets pushed above the download link lately.

'Please join our community we are so friendly!'
'We even have translated ROMs!'
'We are so nice!'

Please don't make me gag any harder or I'll vomit all over you.

The sad fact is that the majority of these pre-patched translated ROMs are the reason that those translation groups whose wishes you gleefully ignore will not want anything to do with you.
They are unpaid. All they ask is that their wishes be respected. ROMs come in patch form so host the patch rather than the pre-patched ROM. This avoids legal issues for them AND shows respect for how they want their work distributed.

By hosting prepatched ROMs you disrespect those who are the very reason that English translations for most Japanese RPGs even exist!

You want to make this place a decent home for people? Cut the crap and offer the unaltered patch archives rather than the ROMs. You already have patching utilities so there's not much more to it than that. In fact people don't even NEED to patch the ROM for SNES games. Both SNES9X and ZSNES will auto-patch the game if the ROM and IPS patch both have the same file name.

Yes, you are evil; now if you continue to throw fluff at me then I will feed you to my rabid bunnies.

[Warrior]

Most users are lazy and just want their "free" gaemz, uploaders generally don't care about EULA's or any sort of good faith agreement which is sad.

But then again any "emulation" site generally does not care since they host content they don't own the rights to so............you are kinda preaching to a brick wall.

I have a set of morals regarding sharing and hate anything thats patched then thrown around everywhere if the 1:1 dump is not included but sadly most people just don't care.

There is really nothing you can do, if a patch is made upload whores will exploit it and try to make a profit at the translators expense.

[deadlegion]

Most people that request translated stuff want it pre-patched. Either they can't wrap their head around the patching process or they're simply lazy.
Anyway, most of the pre-patched games I've shared here I found elsewhere already patched (there might be 1 or 2 I patched myself by grabbing the scene release from the main site).

[Zaladane]

I kinda agree. I don't upload much let alone translations but I do have a couple bouncing around and offer patched and clean when necessary if not the patch itself which usually will be linked to later or upon request via a PM if someone wants to do it themselves. And if I can will offer a nod to any such team for modifications.

[deadlegion]

There's a lot of work involved in the main site and there isn't a bunch of people taking care of that.
Even here in the forums there is plenty to do and nobody gets paid for any time they put in.

If you feel that strongly about something then do something about it. Actions speak louder than words.
Any share threads here in the forums will appear on a main site search.


It's easy to register an account and come in here to complain about whatever

[Colamisu]

Yeah, two cents: pretty sure MasJ would take down anything if the original creator made a complaint to him on it.

Also, it may just be me, but I think most of the forum core community doesn't use the main site nowadays, except maybe once in a blue moon. So yeah, they probably don't know much of what you're talking about.

At least we don't have the click-through advertising, pop-ups and pop-unders, and other annoyances in the download process anymore. Now it's a simple captcha. Why, I remember back in my day when we hosted PS1 games as a series of 14 45MB .part files and you were limited to one file download at any given time! (Which may still be the case? I'm not sure as I haven't had a connection slow enough where I could get to another download to start it before the first finished in years. )

[Cookie Monster]

'Please join our community we are so friendly!'
'We even have translated ROMs!'
'We are so nice!'

We are.
We do.
And we are.

Truth.

Yeah, two cents: pretty sure MasJ would take down anything if the original creator made a complaint to him on it.

And truth. We've done it in the past.


Your way to ask for things is self defeating, darkwraith007. Try to use a "please" and "thank you" next time

[Ragnar]

You want to make this place a decent home for people? Cut the crap and offer the unaltered patch archives rather than the ROMs.

I'm not a fan of doing that. Given the chance to post a game that's been translated, I'll post the raw game, and link to the translators website (or Romhacking at least). The translator deserves his fair share of traffic pushed at him. The only reason to start rehosting the patch files is if they start dropping off the internet.

[MasJ]

The sad fact is that the majority of these pre-patched translated ROMs are the reason that those translation groups whose wishes you gleefully ignore will not want anything to do with you.

Which particular files are you taking issue with? We do have a section with patches and we also have some files which are pre-patched that might have been requested by users over the years. Which ones are troubling you?

[b2p1mp]

whats the best way to patch a rom? last i tried it wouldnt load in any emulator...

[Warrior]

whats the best way to patch a rom? last i tried it wouldnt load in any emulator...

Each translation/hack has their own requirements, you need to see what type of rom/disc image dump it needs.

The hash of the dump is important too since the author may of made it for a specific version, a good example of this is http://www.epforums.org/showthread.php?t=94889

That is very fickle, it needs a certain release such as v1.0 , it gave me a hard time which is strange.

also if the image is split like a mixed cd redump it needs to be recombined back to a single bin, that can be done via isobuster.

A semi complicated patch was made for Final Fantasy type-0, you needed to remake the iso from both UMDs and replace files.

[b2p1mp]

Each translation/hack has there own requirements, you need to see what type of rom/disc image dump it needs.

The hash of the dump is important too since the author may of made it for a specific version, a good example of this is http://www.epforums.org/showthread.php?t=94889

That is very fickle, it needs a certain release such as v1.0 , it gave me a hard time which is strange.

also if the image is split like a mixed cd redump it needs to be recombined back to a single bin, that can be done via isobuster.

A semi complicated patch was made for Final Fantasy type-0, you needed to remake the iso from both UMDs and replace files.

haha yes i used UMDGEN and many huge patch file to patch ff-type 0 at one point. I have only tried a few snes games with lunar ips patcher but it didn't work. I was going to attempt to patch Echo Night 2 Ps1 game at some point and i would like to know best way for nes, snes, genesis mainly. I may have succeeded in patching Sin and Punishment N64 game once... i cannot remember the method I used though.

[darkwraith007]

NES, SNES, Genesis/MegaDrive.
Other platforms are not my primary concern since the lion's share of translations tend to happen on these platforms.

It isn't about 'sending traffic to the translator's website'. That's not ever the intention. If you were part of the romhacking community instead of a leech (running ads for profit at that) then you'd already understand that.
Considering the massive amounts of time and effort it takes to make GOOD rom hacks let alone the untold 100+ hours to dissect assembly language, reverse-engineer the compression, code your tools, and have a script dumper-reinsertion tool available AND have people who won't leak your pre-alpha builds to the internet out of spite to test it out.

These projects have often taken up to a decade or longer and then people just swoop by and prepatch it and redistribute it. The fuck....!?

The ONLY things that the translators EVER ask are simple:
-Redistribute the file archive as-is for free and not charging for the download
-Don't redistribute the prepatched ROM file

Considering the service they offer the community, it is an outright spit in the face of these translators.
Do you know who uses 'prepatched' ROMs out of convenience? The bastards selling repro carts on ebay for $200+ and such as 'rare' cartridges. That's who.

I don't know of any people who are tech-saavy enough to be able to use ROMs and emulators but unable to wrap their heads around renaming the IPS patch file to match the name of the ROM for 'soft' patching. I don't see that category of person existing. I just don't. Emulators are 'simple' but you still have to configure their inputs so they work with your controller/keyboard. Those interfaces for doing so are often unintuitive and outright arcane in certain emulators. So if people are able to actually PLAY the games that means they're either using the painful default controls or they figured out how to dig into the menus and configure the binds their way. And if they can do that then they can patch a ROM file or rename it to match the ROM itself.

In the rare circumstance that NES/SNES/Genesis/MegaDrive ROM-patches come in non-IPS format, there are usually easy ways to patch them up without too much hassle using a Google search. Hell the 'Ninja' Patcher can do a variety of older and newer formats all in one.

What really irks me about this though, this website already has the patches available; all you'd have to do is link to your existing patch archives and disable the prepatched ROM download links. That's it!
But of course, telling me to roll up my sleeves and do work to fix your website that you make all the ad revenue/money from is totally fair. Ok

If a person making a patch fails to include a ReadMe or info for their patch then that means nobody will play it.
If they have arcane super-specific requirements then that means nobody will play it.
And it is not your job or anyone else's job to bypass that if the creator didn't grant permission to redistribute the prepatched ROM.
You want to redistribute the prepatched ROM? Make a good faith effort to get in touch with the creators of the patch and ASK them. Oh right, that would require effort

Finally, please tell me of any translation patches for NES, SNES, or Genesis/MegaDrive that have requirements that would be difficult to understand, hmm? I'd love to hear it. I'm already aware of this one that requires a hard-to-find obscure utility specifically designed to edit ONE game that auto-expands the ROM before opening the editor. In all my 10+ years in the romhacking community I have yet to deal with anything from those 3 platforms that was as difficult to figure out.

[Warrior]

NES, SNES, Genesis/MegaDrive.
Other platforms are not my primary concern .

I don't see why not, profiteering pirates do not discriminate.

If it looks hot they will swoop in and attempt to make a killing at someone else's expense.

I used to get annoyed at the fact translators put that IF YOU BOUGHT THIS YOU GOT SCAMMED warning at the beginning but now its welcomed and I hope any idiot who paid for that cart/disc felt as stupid as possible after seeing that splash screen.

If you want to try getting a profiteering pirate any flak head over to nicoblog, he loves to prepatch PSP isos and slap them with adfly/linkbucks to get some easy cash.

[Ragnar]

It isn't about 'sending traffic to the translator's website'. That's not ever the intention. If you were part of the romhacking community instead of a leech (running ads for profit at that) then you'd already understand that.

Really, never ever? Then why do they have forums, and seem pleased when people wander in and thank them for their work. Why do they bother blogging about their work if contact with the unwashed masses isn't desired?