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What misconceptions about romhacking have you had?

Thought I'd ask this for the return of experience of the userbase.
When I say misconception, it is as in a belief you held but you were wrong and found out the right answer later.

I begin:
- I thought I could only use the 2ndary entrance using the same number as the level number (ie. entrance 26 for level 26) and therefore didn't understand proper reset door placement.
On my first day on SMWC I thought "ROM Map" meant "list of hacks". #tb{''}


 
One of the levels of Cool or Cruel used the Happy Birthday To Me port, and at the time I thought it was the creator's birthday based on the name and that nobody sent him any wishes :P
It's a learning curve, I suppose.
Windowless ride, feeling alive
Are you alive or just breathing?
I used to think FuSoYa was his real name. Additionally, I misread his website as "FuSoYa Niche", thinking that was his full name.
Way back in the day, I once thought Lunar Magic was a program inside SMW because of the 3-Up Moon icon it uses. I tried countless times to collect all the moons spread through the game, thinking this would unlock Lunar Magic to edit the game 😝
I'll add some that haunt me still nowadays:

- can't use layer 3 outside of built-in bg
- cat use Effectool for gradients and parallaxes
- can't use brown block snakes
- can't find creative uses to layer 2 and scrolling sprites

and as was saying Andy in Parks and Recs... At this point I'm too afraid to ask #smrpg{gasp}

Code
Why do you PRINT SMWC THREADS?!?!?!? anyway
----------------------------
oh god i had a lot

- superfx chip is specifically for 3d games
- patches are written in raw machine code not ASM (??????????)
- RAM is not executable (yeah right)
- APU is part of the CPU and uses the same clock (i found out later that was only true on the NES)
- after the above point, APU has no processor.
- NMI doesn't occur on VBlank, it just happens randomly ~60 times per second
- Lunar Magic somhow joins objects and every level is secretly just normal tiles, not objects
- ExGFX is fake
- MML doesn't have a name
- "Main Game Loop" means code that gets executed every frame
- mode 7 allows non-affine transformations (before i knew HDMA existed)
- windows can be circular (before i knew HDMA existed)
- layers don't exist; BG1, BG2, BG3, and BG4 are all just one background layer with z-order. SPR1 SPR2 SPR3 and SPR4 likewise but for sprites.
- after the above point, all BG layers use the whole palette
- sprites can be resized, and have affine and non-affine transformations without mode 7 or HDMA
- sprite tile limit isn't a thing
- infinite sprite slots
I am a professional doofus.
My art
My website (not smw related!!!)
My main/other... website..... (not smw....)
I thought all icons in the menu bar were just drag and drop

and then map16 opened...

what is this I wanted to put a ? block in my hack????
Have I had misconceptions? I'm not really sure. Most everything related to hacking is kind of arcane to me, and even after doing it for so long, the actual workings of it are, and always will be, invisible to the likes of my dumb brain. I think the closest example I can come up with is that I was very reluctant to edit the world map.

Editing levels is pretty easy and intuitive in Lunar Magic to a total dummy, and I had previous experience with similar editing (I made a full Super Mario Bros. romhack back in 2001), but it takes a little more to understand editing the overworld and having it function. In fact, the first time I made a serious attempt, I completed a full edit of the map only to have done something wrong (I never learned what it was) that thoroughly wrecked the rom. This wasn't a big deal, it was just time lost. In any case, I tried again and didn't kill the rom, and I found that it is really enjoyable to do, even more than doing levels sometimes. Being able to construct directly from 8x8 tiles allows for a lot more freedom. And so, I have spent quite a few entire months doing nothing but constructing maps and submaps, and then doing over again, and again, and again, and again... and so, the aspect of SMW hacking of which I was so leery, for so long, turned out to be one of the aspects I liked most.
GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame
I still remember my n00b phase in 2006. I had plenty of misconceptions then.
* Blatant level edits are acceptable as hacks. (That got set straight REAL quick.)
* Overworld editing is hard and tedious. (It can be at first, but it isn't once you get the hang of it. Later versions of LM have made it even easier.)
* Anyone can put any SNES song into SMW. (This was before AddMusic. DJ Bousche made it seem easy.)

When I came back in late 2010, I thought all the new tools, like SpriteTool, AddMusic, and Xkas, would be hard to use. They ended up being surprisingly user-friendly. Their modern successors are even easier to use.

I also believed that switching Super Mario Bros. 5 Reborn from Romi's AddMusic to the up-and-coming HuFlungDu's would involve a tedious porting process, so I almost burned myself out trying to rush its completion. It turned out I didn't need to port. I just needed to adjust and reinsert all my songs.
Quintesson Judge: Silence, or you will be held in contempt of this court!
Hot Rod: I have nothing but contempt for this court!
- Transformers the Movie (1986)
- "There would be a lot of tedious coding involved if I wanted to do more than move the normal levels around"
- "ASM would be the hardest thing i've ever done" (def a bit difficult that what im used to but it doesnt seem so bad, idk tho im just now starting out)
- this one im embarrassed i held on to for so long, "advanced background junk is only possible with mode 7". Even tho I knew HDMA existed I thought it could only do parallax and colors.
That kaizo was a difficulty rather than a style

little did I know I would go crazy for it later, as it allows for so much fun and creativity.