don't click here

A Whole Decade of Sonic Hacking (and then some)

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by saxman, Dec 5, 2009.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. saxman

    saxman

    Oldbie Tech Member
    Disclaimer: this is from my eyes. I attempted to talk about other things that didn't necessarily involve me, but honestly my memories are fading with time. Feel free to add in details I miss, but I stress positivity -- yeah flame wars and distress happened, but those events weren't the cornerstones that made this community, so try to focus on the stuff that really matters. The point here is to recap all the meaningful stuff that happened the late 1990's to the end of this decade. This goes beyond the wiki, combining elements of not only SSRG, but other sites too. This is a tale of how everyone came together and made many things possible that some people only dreamed about at one time.

    Nyar did this, but his write-up is VERY outdated now, and lacks some details in a few areas. So this is an attempt to start a new one.




    In the fall of 1998, Andy Wolan SSRG was created and housed the popular Secrets of Sonic the Hedgehog (SoStH) site. At that time, SoStH was simply the most popular Sonic secrets site around. Around that same time, TomSonic posted the Pro Action Replay code used to access Hidden Palace Zone in Sonic 2. In addition, he took it a step further and figured out how to apply the code to savestates for KGen and Genecyst.

    At my dad's business, I tried this stuff out on the office computer since I didn't have a computer at home at that time. I got curious and started changing bytes in the savestates and immediately found the act and life count bytes. I decided to take it one level up and randomly change stuff in the ROM. I wrote my findings on a sheet of printer paper and sent it to my buddy A.J. Freda by traditional mail. I then created the Sonic 2 Hacking Guide, a small little text file that contained my findings. Once I got my own computer for Christmas that year, I transferred my files over to that and sent them to Simon Wai. He posted them on his site.

    Andy Wolan had asked Simon Wai if he'd like to move his site over to SSRG. At the same time, he asked me if I'd also like to be hosted. I agreed, and in January of 1999, both me and Simon Wai joined SSRG. I converted the Sonic 2 Hacking Guide into a proper HTML website. Over the next several months, I dedicated much of my time finding and documenting a variety of things like object layout, level tile layout (in savestates only, at least at that time), and art. Eventually, a mysterious Sonic 1 "beta" came to light, only to find out that it was created by Cyan Helkaraxe who had been privately hacking the Sonic 1 ROM ever since the Sonic 2 beta ROM came to light.

    I created a brand new level called Coastal Valley which was a hack of Emerald Hill with an entirely new design. I had to do it all by hand, so during this time, I wanted to see someone make a level editor that made use of my notes. Stealth sent me an e-mail saying he was interested in making this editor. A little while later, he sent me SonEd (with a lower-case "d") v0.001. It had nothing but object layout against a blue background. Objects were represented by rings. Later, v0.003 was sent to me which displayed part of Emerald Hill Zone. SonEd progressed with each version introducing new features.

    In September of that year, I become the maintainer (along-side Andy Wolan) of SSRG and tried to bring as much traffic to the site as possible (though Andy was probably more successful in this regard.) We witnessed new sites join SSRG such as The Underground Zone, Area 51, Sonic Fan-Games HQ, and many others. With the success of the Sonic 2 Hacking Guide, I proceeded to create the Sonic 3K Hacking Guide and Sonic 1 Hacking Guide (which was later combined with Cyan's Sonic 1 hacking information to become the Sonic 1 Hacking Documents.)

    It wasn't until the end of 1999 and early 2000 that the community really started to see a strong and growing interest in hacking. It mushroomed, and many hacks began to appear.

    On January 1, 2001, the Sonic Hacking Community (SHaC) website was launched. The idea was to be a sister site to SSRG, but it grew into an all out site that in a few respects, actually indirectly competed with SSRG. I moved my Sonic hacking sites over to SHaC to try and grow the site and keep my work in one central location.

    ~~~~ (DETAILS! HELP! I forget some of what happened during 2000 and 2001!) ~~~~

    2002 saw many impressive discoveries, primarily in the Sonic 2 beta ROM. Nemesis was new to the scene, and he had discovered some hidden/unused art, as well as used tile mappings. Esrael showed up with additional discoveries of the same kind, and he also made scrapped enemies functional again. I had created the RXL patching format, and with David Declerck's help, a patcher was created to apply RXL patches to ROM hacks. RXL patches, while they did have a short life, proved to be used quite frequently by various hackers in the community. I also pushed for machine code hacking, an area I felt would push hacking further than it had ever gone.

    In January of 2003, SSRG closed. That however did not stop the community from progressing. In December, I released Sonic QX, the first ever music editor for a Sonic game. It was really the last major thing I did for the community. Sonic QX was a popular utility, but it would be nothing compared to the innovations in music modifications that were to come later.

    ~~~~ (Again, getting flaky on details) ~~~~

    Nemesis released a disassembly of the Sonic 2 code in 2004, and this took hacking to a whole new level. Machine code was a thing of the past. Assembly modifications allowed for more flexibility and opened the door to more sophisticated hacks.




    Okay, I am missing several years of history here. The last couple years I wasn't really around as often, so I don't remember a lot of what happened. Plus, this write-up makes it sounds like the world revolves around me. Surely many of you had contributions or witnessed other contributions I didn't put in here, so help me out please!
     
  2. FollOw

    FollOw

    The sun sets forever over Black Water Park Oldbie
    461
    64
    28
    didnt you end up making your own message board called The Freedom shack? I still have an email in my account from when I signed up.
     
  3. Travelsonic

    Travelsonic

    Member
    827
    20
    18
    Holy shit, I remember the Freedom Shack.

    I also remember the Sonic Hacking Community - and my attempts to couple hacking with my newfound (at the time) desire to learn Visual Basic leading to some stupid sounding (at this point in time anyways) posts in the forum they had set up.

    Where would Cyan Helkaraxe, his Sonic 1 beta hoax, and his other contributions (maze-o-matic, text cracker, debug-o-matic, etc) fit in to the chronology?
     
  4. Vangar

    Vangar

    Member
    3,654
    62
    28
    I was a member of the sonic foundation.org ... does anyone remember this?
     
  5. Blanche Hodapp

    Blanche Hodapp

    *urp* Eternal Queen
    Happy... anniversayr?
     
  6. Tweaker

    Tweaker

    Banned
    12,387
    2
    0
    Speaking of The Freedom SHaCk...
    Have you always used the same alias or something? I always get the impression from your posts that you've been around longer than 2005 under a different alias, but I never knew what.

    Very interesting topic, by the way. :)
     
  7. Ritchie Ramone

    Ritchie Ramone

    Member
    35
    0
    6
    Oh yeah, I used to go there a lot back in the day (2001-2002). Just out of curiosity, can anyone enlighten me as to why that place closed down?
     
  8. Vangar

    Vangar

    Member
    3,654
    62
    28
    Well I just looked it up, and its still 'there' but nothing like what it was back in 2001-2002. I remember it having funny jokes on there etc. I have no idea why it closed down either.
     
  9. Phos

    Phos

    Going for the high score on whatever that little b Member
    3,318
    0
    0
    It just gradually died, I guess.
     
  10. Neo Majin

    Neo Majin

    Member
    261
    0
    0
    New England / Virginia
    Very little thanks to poor computer access
    Haha, this thread really brings back memories!

    But I can't really add much, I'm sad to say- my memories are even shakier than that, and I haven't really been around recently.
     
  11. Vendettagainst

    Vendettagainst

    Apparently shooting kills things Member
    God, I can remember 2003 here haha. Back when Simon was still the owner. That was so long ago!
     
  12. Xilla

    Xilla

    I fail to understand....I begin to see! Member
    832
    177
    43
    The site went down for 6 months in 2002 and went back online New Years Day 2003. Ran for a few more months as usual but Kedzie's work commitments got in the way and he no longer updated the site. It lay that way for another 2 years, during which the registration system failed and no-one was able to sign up for the message board. Kedzie returned, pulled the plug on the site and it became a URL for the message board. The registration was fixed but very little people joined and it just fizzled out. A few of the veteran members still post there now and again though.

    To be honest though alot of the vets had already left by the 2002 downtime, for various reasons (influx of SA2 newbies, "corrupt" mod team, e-drama etc)
     
  13. Ritchie Ramone

    Ritchie Ramone

    Member
    35
    0
    6
    I vaguely remember something about it going down for a while, and eventually going back online, but I don't remember much more from that time. Thanks for the info.
     
  14. Skaarg

    Skaarg

    Member
    3,683
    0
    16
    BtCE for SHaC President! =P

    I haven't been here for a long time, but back before I ever joined a Sonic forum I used to be obsessed with reading information on SSRG. Needless to say back then I didn't understand a damn thing though lol. I will say I am still glad though I found SWS2B nearly a year after SSRG's closing.

    Saxman your summary is very interesting I hope others are able to have more details, particularly the 2003 and before since I didn't actually join the Sonic community till then.
     
  15. Travelsonic

    Travelsonic

    Member
    827
    20
    18
    Hell, I don't even rememeber (though after enough digging through the internet archives I'll find my answer(s)). I went under many aliases back then, between SHAC, the SFGHQ and variety of other places I visited (including the non-Sonic places I frequented... ah, the memories regarding the flamewars between Pokemon and Digimon fans that overtook the internet around the 2000-2001/2002 period).

    I frequented the SSRG and the old SFGHQ (and SOSTH, SWS2B, and those other awesome sites as a lurker around the '00 - '02 period before posting in the SFGHQ and SHAC forums... hacking and fangaming being two new things to me at that time. I also remember the whole SEGASonic.net ordeal between the owners and SEGA.... when *exactly* did that happen again?
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.