An observation

[Kaslghnoon]

Before getting into the fun of editing two dimensional Prince of Persia games (thanks to the community, of course) I had been dedicating a portion of my free time into editing a Japanese role-playing type soccer game called Captain Tsubasa. As I started finding codes for those games, not many others were around who did that, so for them any mod (or hacks as we call them) would be greatly appreciated given that they would be considered fresh at the time since they were introducing something new. That was back in the early 2000's but now I witness that in order for a hack to be taken seriously by that community, the hack would have to be beyond impressive, if not it will get lost among the hundreds of those other novice ones.

In PoP Total pack I am observing that most of the mods are created between 2004 - 2007, this is what I am wondering: Is what I described above a reality in this forum? Are we basically bored with the traditional PoP games and mods? (by we I mean anyone who was once active here and was giving back to the forum either by developing tools, creating mods, or both)

I have been planning on making a SNES Prince of Persia mod for several years now, way before the release of David's SNES Level editor, but as you can imagine it is extremely difficult to do it using a hex editor, I've also lacking knowledge of certain offsets that David knows. Following the success of Prince of Persia Remix 3, I am now determined on making a SNES mod. But my question remains:

If someone like me makes a mod of the SNES version, how good does it have to be for you to play it? What type of mod would you by now consider boring? Is the emptiness of this forum caused by your loss of interest in PoP altogether?

[Andrew]

What type of mod would you by now consider boring?

I would say that this depends from person to person. Someone might get bored because a mod is too easy, but someone else might get bored because a mod is so difficult that he simply gives up. Making a mod or even a level involves walking a fine line between making it too easy vs. making it too tough. Naturally I'm not talking about the super experts (who'll find most everything easy), and the super noobs (for whom everything will seem difficult). I'm talking about level design that will attract and maintain a normal average player's attention, and possibly even provide some repeated gameplay value (which is especially difficult if the game doesn't have any true pseudo-random AI). That is why so many games fail, because the level design is not good enough.

Is the emptiness of this forum caused by your loss of interest in PoP altogether?

Well lack of time nowadays is something that is a factor, at least in my case. A few years back I was in a completely different situation and had plenty of free time on my hands. Another thing is also the sudden loss of a lot of previously stored corpus of knowledge about the game. PoPUW had been in existence for enough time and had enough really knowledgeable members posting often that new members had lots of technical and non-technical topics to discuss. Recreating all that from scratch is obviously not easy, so that's surely one problem people are facing now.

[Kaslghnoon]

Well lack of time nowadays is something that is a factor, at least in my case.

Completely understandable... If this is the case with most registered members in this forum then I wouldn't stress the inactivity, but once the majority enters the "seen it all, done it all" mentality like I've witnessed in other areas, it would be difficult to reverse the trend.

I'm talking about level design that will attract and maintain a normal average player's attention

The amount of time spent on making a map of a level completely reflects on the quality. My rom hacking experience has taught me many things to avoid with any game, some of which rushed projects, extreme complexity, the abuse of illogical solves and corrupted physics, trying too hard to please, obvious level bias, exessive humor attempts, and complete abandonment of the original concept to name a few. It wouldn't surprise me that you and over 60% of this forum could tell if a levelset, level, or even a single room in a Prince of Persia game is designed in a hurry.


I appreciate your response and I hope to get a viewpoint from other members as well onto where you all are as far as tolerance goes for the 2D PoP games and mods at the moment.

[Andrew]

I forgot to address this in my response yesterday, but honestly, if someone like you is truly interested in extending the game in new directions, then you should go ahead and do it, irrespective of what others think. I mean, I still like to try my hand at designing levels for good ol' DOS DooM, even though most no one cares for it any more (many nowadays may not even know it was a DOS game originally). If it's something you do for your own enjoyment and as a sort of intellectual challenge to yourself, then who really gives a damn what others think? If you happen to release it and people like it, that should be a bonus. Setting out with the thought that one will only develop a levelset to please others is not only bound to restrict one's creativity, but also, at least in my case, would put too much pressure and lead to even worse results than would normally be the case. So if you truly enjoy and love playing PoP, do it for yourself, and enjoy the fruits of your labour!

[Kaslghnoon]

Very well said. If it weren't to being new to this forum, I would have much more confidence with just doing things and releasing on my own terms. I guess you could say that I am aiming for politeness here because I don't want to just use the forum to release a mod, get the temporary ego boost, and never be seen again (no offense to anyone who may have done this)

Are you (Andrew) going by a different name in PoP1 Total pack or have you decided not to release any of your mods? I don't recall having played any of your DOS PoP1 mods.

[Eagle-Head Priest 97]

I'm pretty sure he WAS Andrew when Total Pack was made, but I'm not sure. He knows though.

Well, for mods right now, I just have to be able to get through them. I wouldn't mind if it was really easy, as that would help me, due to the fact that I've just co-made a SNES Prince of Persia mod, and relied on save states then. I need to get used to regular DOS Prince of Persia again. Of course, if you do make a harder mod, I'll save it until I'm experienced again like I once was, and then enjoy it.

[Andrew]

Nope, always been Andrew and still am! 8)

I must confess that while I did try my hand at a few PoP levelsets, somehow I was never satisfied enough with my own work to complete them, leave alone release them publicly. Or maybe I was just plain lazy! My personal contribution to the PoP community has basically been my PoP 1/2 Collection (link in sig below, but to the penultimate version), which grew out of an initial desire to get the cracks/patches for PoP 1 v1.4 and PoP 2 v1.1, as I was tired of looking at the codes every time. Unfortunately, there were no cracks/patches available for these versions, and while some at PoPUW (where I went next after failing to get a response here) said they knew how to do it, they wouldn't share the info. with me 'cos they supposedly didn't want to do anything as 'illegal' as cracking an old, possibly abandonware game that I moreover own on CD. Of course, no one had any problems whatsoever distributing any of the other versions of PoP with cracks/patches, including PoP 3D and the Trilogy. Anyway... So this led me to be come obsessed with learning ASM etc. to do it myself, which in turn meant I needed to often compare with the cracks/patches for the older versions. That in turn made me obsess over collecting every version ever released of PoP 1/2. I literally downloaded and compared hundreds of copies from all sorts of sources in order to assemble together the most comprehensive collection possible, and when that was done and I had also created brand new cracks/patches for each version and got the missing PoP 1 manual scanned, I released the whole thing and heaved a massive sigh of relief!

In any case, along the way I met many fine folks over at PoPUW and learnt a lot in terms of gameplay, tricks and so on, and also got exposed to some amazing levelsets made by them. All in all it was a challenging yet fun pursuit, which brings me back to the point that even if you create that one amazing mod and disappear, your work itself will ensure you're never forgotten, and will surely provide hours of entertainment for people around the world. What more can you ask for really?

[Kaslghnoon]

I've just co-made a SNES Prince of Persia mod, and relied on save states then.

Saving states helped me until I got to the the first room of Remix 3's level 7, I had to hack my savestate to get to the left side of room 1, pass the gate! (True story, I even have the hex offsets of that savestate). Then I go watch the tutorials just to see you literally spent seconds in the room and boom you're across, and gate is open, my jaw dropped!

[Kaslghnoon]

I wasn't being condescending in any way, at the moment I'm trying to figure out which of the early-mid 2000's PoP veterans are still into it. I've got to hand it to you, creating cracks and patches from scratch sounds more tedious than editing the .dat files, hats off to you sir. You learned ASM in the process so instant payoff right there, congrats. I see that rapidshare removed your file so a re-upload from your end would be greatly appreciated.

even if you create that one amazing mod and disappear, your work itself will ensure you're never forgotten

All hail the KingOfPersia and the mighty TacoSalad <-- (with with a genuine straight face and no sarcasm, I repeat: no sarcasm)
Point taken

[Eagle-Head Priest 97]

I had to hack my savestate to get to the left side of room 1, pass the gate! (True story, I even have the hex offsets of that savestate). Then I go watch the tutorials just to see you literally spent seconds in the room and boom you're across, and gate is open, my jaw dropped!

Yeah, i did make the beginning of that level kind of tricky.

[David]

I also was stuck on level 7 with the gate (with the open and close buttons), I had to view the video walkthrough!

I have been planning on making a SNES Prince of Persia mod for several years now, way before the release of David's SNES Level editor, but as you can imagine it is extremely difficult to do it using a hex editor, I've also lacking knowledge of certain offsets that David knows.

It's also hard because the levels are compressed in the SNES version.

[Andrew]

I wasn't being condescending in any way, at the moment I'm trying to figure out which of the early-mid 2000's PoP veterans are still into it. I've got to hand it to you, creating cracks and patches from scratch sounds more tedious than editing the .dat files, hats off to you sir. You learned ASM in the process so instant payoff right there, congrats. I see that rapidshare removed your file so a re-upload from your end would be greatly appreciated.

No offence taken at all! Re. the deleted file, seems someone has systematically reported it as illegal on all the sites I'd uploaded it to. Oh well, give me a few days and I'll dig out the DVD I'd archived it to, and upload it somewhere again.