ROMhacking.net Becomes News Only - Files uploaded to Internet Archive

General Off-Topic
#1

Message: https://www.romhacking.net/news/3074/

Message Part 2: https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=39514.0

Data: https://archive.org/details/romhacking.net-20240801

I am in shock right now. One of my favorite resources and sites is basically shutting down, in the sense how it operates. They will no longer accept new Romhacks and mods and the site will operate as a news platform. The site founder and operator put the entire database and files to Archiveorg for download in one batch.

Reading the message, there were shenanigans going on. It saddens me that there are toxic people affecting the life of others and their projects. I canā€™t thank him and the entire community enough for the platform and resources they built and provided for free. I wish him the best. I am also sad on a personal level, because this is a site I visit almost daily (or few days apart) just to see whats new.

So what does that mean for the future? Probably other Romhacking sites will grow based on this and alternative communities based on the uploaded data will emerge.

6 Likes
#2

yeah, sounds like a bad situation.

I knew there were several groups who felt like RHDN as we knew it was holding things back, as far as scalability, discoverability and web design, not to mention keeping IPS relevant as a patch format long past its sell-by date.

None of those legit-but-minor complaints warrants any weird cloak-and-dagger plotting, though, and I hope we at least learn which would-be replacements come from those subversive elements so we can avoid them moving forward. I donā€™t want to perpetuate a cycle of doxxing and harassment (i.e., with some big name-and-shame campaign), but I sure donā€™t want to support something born of it, either, even if sort of indirectly.

That was real decent of Nightcrawler to upload the database to the archive rather than just torching it. Cheers to them for carrying the burden for so long and being such an important and valuable resource for everyone.

As I mentioned on your podcast, if thereā€™s one thing Iā€™ve learned in my time with open source software, itā€™s that ā€œthe communityā€ that does all of the work is almost always just one dedicated individual.

2 Likes
#3

But there is an alternative with neo rom hacking. I am glad people continue the work with the support from the original rom hacking staff. https://neoromhacking.net/

1 Like
#4

Itā€™s on my radar too, after the recommendation by Nightcrawler himself in Part 2 of the message 2 weeks later (I should add this link to the original posting too): https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=39514.0

I saw the promising ā€˜NeoRHDNā€™ project by NinCollin on the forum. They have the right idea with an upstanding approach. I look forward to seeing how it develops as a possible option.

3 Likes
#5

Little update notice on this front. Unfortunately NeoRomhacking.net stopped working as it is (meaning no Romhack patch archive anymore) and lot of people from that community migrated to another ā€œnewā€ community: Romhack.ing

Fun fact: I created the NeoRomhacking logo. :slight_smile:

Edit: Forgot to mention something important here. The ā€œoriginalā€ Romhacking.net (the one from the first post closing its doors) is actually operational again. They accept new Romhack entries, but download links hosted on other platforms only.

So here summary:

  1. (community a) Romhacking.net the major site closes its doors and do not accept new entries.
  2. (community b) NeoRomhacking.net appears as an alternative, but they donā€™t operate and is still in development.
  3. (community a) Romhacking.net the original site is back and accept new entries, but downloads are hosted on other platforms.
  4. (community c) Romhack.ing a new site appears and accepts new entries too.
  5. (community b) NeoRomhacking.net the alternative finally closes its doors too.
3 Likes
#6

Thereā€™s also this: https://romhackplaza.org/

However, Iā€™d rather go directly to whoever is hosting the patch for a specific game.

2 Likes
#7

Thank you for information.

This is my hacks for smw and lunar pool games if anyone is interested

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/5540/

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/5554/

2 Likes
#8

Thereā€™s also this https://romhacking.ru/

1 Like