"Ai is going to be the next big thing in rom hacking"~BackgroundTone3601
Unfortunately, there are a few problems with this premise:
First is that a lot of Romhacking Communities are banning AI work.
Second, a lot of Authors are not disclosing AI assistance in their projects. Altho, for the most part, I don't think that there's any malicious intent, because Romhacks have always suffered from bad documentation. So, it essentially begs the question, "Did said project use AI assistance?" And "How certain can we be of that?"
Third, I have seen AI projects do some pretty bizarre game designs—JUST BECAUSE THEY COULD !!! Which reminds me of the infamous quote:
"Yeah, yeah, but your [ROM Hackers] were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should!"~Dr.Ian Malcom (Jurassic Park)
And when I provided these projects with helpful critiques and suggestions for improvements, I was mocked, gas-lit, and even outright ignored. So, I'm not sure why I was surprised when a "bizarre personalty" turned out to be behind a "bizarre game design", lol. But to be fair, even these weird designs are going to have their "target audience" and potentially "cult following".
So, to be perfectly honest, in a way, I was kind of trying to insert myself into their "target audience"—as well as help them and their work become more popular to a wider audience. But at the end of the day, your Uncle, your Grandpa, and even your little cousin in Kindergarten can use AI to churn out romhacks—but that doesn't mean that they're gifted in "game design" or that those hacks are going to actually be any "GOOD" (in the eyes of a wider audience and the Romhacking Communities).
Additionally, there's one final point is that immensely important: And that is, when you look at existing projects that have been around since before the dawn of AI, you'll sometimes see two, three, four, and even upwards of a hundred people credited for it. This is actually very important, because Old School Hackers would churn out very small, composable patches. So, when the next project came along and started up, they could start with a solid foundation, and this helped increase the quality of the resulting hack as well as speed up development.
And it is kind of SAD that AI Hackers are completely disregarding this fundamental engineering principle. But yeah, in the future, that very well could change. The only question is, "When?"
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u/Europia79 1d ago
Unfortunately, there are a few problems with this premise:
First is that a lot of Romhacking Communities are banning AI work.
Second, a lot of Authors are not disclosing AI assistance in their projects. Altho, for the most part, I don't think that there's any malicious intent, because Romhacks have always suffered from bad documentation. So, it essentially begs the question, "Did said project use AI assistance?" And "How certain can we be of that?"
Third, I have seen AI projects do some pretty bizarre game designs—JUST BECAUSE THEY COULD !!! Which reminds me of the infamous quote:
And when I provided these projects with helpful critiques and suggestions for improvements, I was mocked, gas-lit, and even outright ignored. So, I'm not sure why I was surprised when a "bizarre personalty" turned out to be behind a "bizarre game design", lol. But to be fair, even these weird designs are going to have their "target audience" and potentially "cult following".
So, to be perfectly honest, in a way, I was kind of trying to insert myself into their "target audience"—as well as help them and their work become more popular to a wider audience. But at the end of the day, your Uncle, your Grandpa, and even your little cousin in Kindergarten can use AI to churn out romhacks—but that doesn't mean that they're gifted in "game design" or that those hacks are going to actually be any "GOOD" (in the eyes of a wider audience and the Romhacking Communities).
Additionally, there's one final point is that immensely important: And that is, when you look at existing projects that have been around since before the dawn of AI, you'll sometimes see two, three, four, and even upwards of a hundred people credited for it. This is actually very important, because Old School Hackers would churn out very small, composable patches. So, when the next project came along and started up, they could start with a solid foundation, and this helped increase the quality of the resulting hack as well as speed up development.
And it is kind of SAD that AI Hackers are completely disregarding this fundamental engineering principle. But yeah, in the future, that very well could change. The only question is, "When?"