Patch Request (low hearts beeping to be less annoying)

You know how when you are low on hearts how the beeping sound just drives you crazy and I mean CRAZY!!!!

I am requesting a patch be made so that when you are low on hearts it makes the beeping sound for like 3-5 times and then it stops for like a few minutes and then beeps again for like 3-5 times again and then just repeats this cycle.

I'm saying this because we ALL know how damn annoying that beeping sound is and it just drives me nuts and frustrates me more than anything when I'm low on health and yet I can't seem to refill my hearts.

Or if SePH can help me a little with learning ASM I'll attempt to code this myself.

Actually this should be a standard feature in all up and coming Zelda 3 hacks. That non-stop beeping needs to stop! Seriously!!!

Actually Spane already decoded this. No asm needed, just hex editing. It is one byte, which controls this. You can just choose some other sound (which is nicer) or turn it off completely. However the beep interval will remain the same.

Spane wrote:
Go to address 6DCA1 (no header) and you will see the byte 2B. Change it to 00 and you will have no annoying life beeping sound, or replace it with other bytes and you will have other sounds. Try some values out.

In the next week I'm going to have school and so i can not work on my hack or on finding hex adresses, but after this week I will continue my work. So If you want some effects I can try to find the hex adresses :-)
You only have to write what you want :-)

Spane wrote:In the next week I'm going to have school and so i can not work on my hack or on finding hex adresses, but after this week I will continue my work. So If you want some effects I can try to find the hex adresses :-)
You only have to write what you want :-)

Actually if you could briefly teach me how to find hex addresses I would really appreciate that.

All of my "hacking" work with Zelda 3 is simply designing stuff with Hyrule Magic and working strictly vanilla.

Its about time I really learn how to hack this game and learn the programming behind it.

So that would be super cool if we could do that.

Erockbrox wrote:

All of my "hacking" work with Zelda 3 is simply designing stuff with Hyrule Magic and working strictly vanilla.
Its about time I really learn how to hack this game and learn the programming behind it.

 Because of the nature of Z3 hacking and because of the current programs available, this is actually mandatory. Learning the actual code in hex is necessary to fix all the bugs or to simply change, what HM can not (and that's quite a lot).
 
You might want to check Vital hex addresses, or Vital dungeon hex data (all under documents), which I wrote a while back, to come in touch with hex (this is not really actual programming though).

@Erockbrox: ^^Pretty much what PuzzleDdue said. Also.. SePH and teaching ASM in the same sentence don't really match together! I can comprehend some of it, applying them is somewhat easy, but I'm nowhere near ready to make patches myself already! For my hack, I'd rather play my part and create what I'm good at and leave those big asm questions to the few zelda 3 asm geniuses that are left, before they retire

I did compile a lot of learning documents in case there's still an interest in hacking this game enough for the next decade at least! (ASM, hex and various from all the internet and most content of Zeldix is in it already... there's just too many data gatherers around here!) . It will get fully released later on but for now there's the -alpha-version available (altough no custom fonts in it since it's still an msword *.doc document). But yeah, as for the removal of the low heart sound bips I agree it should be mandatory! In fact I already removed that sound in my hack the moment Spane discovered it! It goes well with "the no-magic left" message removal found by MathOnNapkins!

I also have a request to make something else less annoying.

Remember those floor tiles which keep popping up from the ground in dungeon room and takes like 2 minutes to stop. Yeah, that crap got really annoying in a few hacks that I've played.

My suggestion would be to reduce the number of tiles down to only like 1 tile or maybe 4 tiles and that's it.

I would love to reprogram this, but I would need some help getting started.

I believe that I would have to look at the disassembly of that sprite and then change the code.

Yes, this is typical Asm of the sprite. You might want to take a look at Math On Napkins' source code, where he examined all the sprites and made the disassembly. However, this is considered as advanced editing. Asm is really not my thing, yet. PS I find these tiles also a little to long to beat.

I'm suggesting that there should be a general thread so that users here could just post general stuff.

This is just my opinion, but I think that there shouldn't be any new Zelda 3 hacks starting. It's very very easy to start a new Zelda 3 hack, but it is very very very very hard to finish one!

I would say that until all of the uncompleted hacks are finished there shouldn't be anyone wanting to start a new hack at least on this board. If someone wants to work on a Zelda 3 hack they should just help finish one that is currently being worked on. What do you think?

I would rather see a few good completed hacks rather than 10 uncompleted abandoned hacks.

Also I see no threads about Black Magic. What gives?

MathOnNapkins source code is good place to start looking, but then again good luck finding what you want to change specifically because many of the sprites are using different names then in Hyrule Magic (was working on some chart a while back that told you his names in black magic+source code versus those in Hyrule Magic but lost it )

I was looking at changing the speed of the gibdos, but with not much sucess. You can read MathOnNapkins and Euclid lessons in the compendium guide to get started, although as mentioned by PuzzleDude this is advanced stuff! Good luck though, here's MathOnNapkins source code!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u1e3yvifa015uda/Banks_10_04_2012.7z


I don't mind adding a general topic, I originally started this board with my hack in mind but seeing as it evolved though time, I don't mind adding new topics!

It's true that team work is the key to finishing an hack of such scale however you can't really force people from starting new hacks since that's there choices of life in the end! Also romhacking is a hobby that often comes and go, so people can often change their minds regarding their hacks (I'm no exception ). But yeah with teamwork you often abandon your own hack and we are left with many abandon hacks. But I also believe that my Parallel Universes hack, PuzzleDude's new Gates of Time and Spane's Prophet of Chaos will all probably get released within the next three years... and as for Quest for Calatia, that all depends on GameMakr24 ambitions! I can't tell about Aeranima's Renascence of Evil status since he started his own gaming company but he last said he was still working on it (although it may not be a romhack afterall).

Had added black magic threads a while back but none posted in them, besides there is an official board here for black magic (you're more likely to get an answer by MathOnNapkins on black magic development here)  http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/board,27.0.html

Also the fact that hacks made in Hyrule Magic are incompatible with Black Magic.. makes most of our hacks in the works entirely dependent on Hyrule Magic. So we could say that a new hack made in Black Magic will take more time to create, then us currently completing our hacks in HM using hex fixes.

Also I just read this off of the other Zelda 3 hacking message board.

http://hh-zelda-hacking.bigforumpro.com/t87-a-few-questions-before-i-start-my-project

-Can I create my own items? Like adding 3 more levels to the sword, or creating something like the Gust Jar from The Minish Cap?

PuzzleDude: In a theory. No Z3 hack has a brand new item. There was an idea to equip Link with the Morning star weapon, used by some guards. But the Gust Jar is probably to complex. I was actually thinking of implementing a Ladder, to climb from bg2 to bg1, but the problem is, that you need to "erase" one item first. So basically you need to choose an already existing item, inspect its code and change it completely. Again advanced asm.

So I have an idea!

Eventually later on we will want to have custom items right? If we have have to erase an item to have an new item then what item would we erase? Well what item just repeats itself 4 times. The Bottles! Why do we need 4 of the same thing?

So I would say this. If we one day wanted to add new items we could erase 3 of the 4 bottles and modify a single bottle to have a counter on it. Like if you had a blue bottle and then have a little number 4 next to it which means that you can use that bottle 4 times with blue magic. Then the 3 other bottles could be used as special custom items.

So what about green magic or red magic or fairies? I would just get rid of the ability to put green magic and red magic in a bottle and only have blue magic. Blue magic does what both green and red do anyway so why need it? And then just modify bees and fairies so that you can't put them in a bottle. A blue magic bottle is way better than a fairy anyways. And then now you can get rid of the bug catching net and make that into another custom item.

So there is 4 custom items that you could have and the game would pretty much be the same without loosing anything really.

It doesn't really work like that. Bottle counts as one. And it is somehow hardcoded to stop at four. I actually wanted to make 5 bottles, since we all know of that one empty space in Parallel Worlds inventory. Also the medallions are somehow connected. The best choice would be the Net or the Book of Mudora.
 
However, to pull something like this of, would require the knowledge of the likes of Euclid and Math On Napkins. The problem is that no hack has such a thing done, so we could inspect the process. So a brand new item is like I've said before: doable in a theory.
 
--------------------------
Pragmatic solutions for making a "new" item (no special new asm involved)
 
An easy way to change the compass and map was found, by changing one single byte and a gfx/palettes of the item. I already changed these two items in Gates of Time hack with big chest key and a white key for locked blocks (like in GB Zelda). All thanks to XaserLe, who found the addresses.
 
We could for instance start with Cane of Somaria, erase the block making code and redo the gfx of the ridding platform. We can then make a "ladder item" to make a ladder across the small pits, when the item is used. Of course SePH found a nice way to implement the Deku Seed instead of the cane.
 
One other new item in Gates of Time will be the "Green Ruby", replaces the Book with the new code by Math On Napkins, to recharge the green energy while equipped.

Yeah, I made all of my conclusions without knowing how bottles were actually coded in the game.

I was going to say, but you beat me to it. The Net is probably one of the best items to replace. Putting bees into bottles isn't really that mandatory and putting faeries into bottles while it is a classic Zelda occurrence isn't that necessary after all. 

And the Book could also probably be replaced too with out much regret since it is only used sparingly.

And as much as I like the sound of Green Magic auto filling and the "Green Ruby" these functions are more than likely just going to be abused and break the game. I'm sorry to say.

Let me tell you this!

I played Zelda 3 with a special challenge that I put upon myself. Beat the game with as little health and with as little items as possible.

I played the whole game and beat the whole game without any bottles and without the magic bat 1/2 magic or better named 2 times magic.

So if I can beat the whole game dungeons and all even Trinex like this then auto fill Green Magic is over played.

I think, that the reason why Green Magic is cool and fun is because you get a limited amount of it. Because you don't get that much it becomes special!

You can put whatever you want in your game, but I think less is more in this case. By the way I SPAMMED the turbo button while playing Parallel Worlds to get INFINITE amounts of Green Magic and I can tell you from experience that it just made the game wacky. I would always have to hide in a corner and spam the turbo button and so the overall experience and likeability of the game took a hit from that. Oh, and its so tempting to spam the turbo button that players simply can't help themselves.

I would just suggest putting more Big Green Magic jars in a dungeon so that the player has enough.

This "Ruby" was only meant to get at the end, much like the silver arrows, since the last dungeon is supposed to be bigger and with no refills, so it will not have much effect on most of the game.
 
It was also meant for Part2 only, while abandoning the green and blue potions; while Part1 will have everything normal as in Alttp.

^okay, well maybe it wouldn't break the whole game then.

But seriously, all you have to do is add a few Green Magic Jars in a dungeon and that fixes the problem altogether.

Or are you one of those people who would PANIC if you ran out of Green Magic in a huge dungeon! LOLOLOL!!