answered Receiving 10ANNIV Pokemon in NON-ENG/US cartridges

[jojo12100]

Hi,

I'm searching a way to receive the 10ANNIV events in another cartridges than US/ENG,

there's a language check in the ROM that I don't find,

thinking about the Colosseum region check for E-reader or most probable the PalPark language check,

I also tried to dissassemble the ROM but I still not find it for the moment.

 

Any idea?

Edited February 27, 2017 by jojo12100

[King Impoleon]

here You can see the language selection screen on the distribution device. (Eon Ticket)

you must add this section before you can choose any Pokemon

or do you want to modify for each language a single distro r*m?

[theSLAYER]

The 10anniv one we have in public doesn't seem to have language selection screen as shown,
so I think OP was hoping that someone will make it

[jojo12100]

@theSLAYER and @King Impoleon can it be that or is it irrelevant?

[suloku]

This is probably the best bet about how they were recognizing game carts in GBA games: http://forums.glitchcity.info/index.php?topic=7114.msg198750#msg198750
If they used something similar, it should be possible to change. I hope it doesn't have any checksum or something.

For both the 10ANNIV rom and Colosseum bonus disk (JAP), a program is sent to the client GBA, which is most likely the one that checks the console's inserted cartridge, so using VBA it should be easier to find what to change if dumping the "rom" that gets sent over to the GBA.

I wonder what would happen if the rom can be made compatible with non-english games for languages like french, which have different pokémon names.

[jojo12100]

If we compare the Berry glitch rom (region free) with the 10ANNIVROM (language lock) we will be able to do unlock the 10ANNIV Rom as said by @theSLAYER

 

Here the first differences

B0(D) DC becomes 3A

D0(8) B8 becomes E8

E0(4) B0 becomes E0

120(0) 17 becomes 23

130(0) 13 becomes 1F

130(C)10 becomes 1C

140(8) 0D becomes 19

150(0) 01 becomes 08

150(1) 0C becomes 00

150(4) 0A becomes 16

150(C) 02 becomes 10

150(D) 0C becomes 00

160(0) 07 becomes 13

160(8) 01 becomes 20

160(9) 0B becomes 00

160(C) 04 becomes 10

170(4) 02 becomes 40

170(5) 0B becomes 00

170(8) 01 becomes 0D

180(1) 0A becomes 0C

180(4) B2 becomes 0A

180(6) C3 becomes 00

180(7) E1 becomes 1A

...

Edited March 10, 2017 by jojo12100

[jojo12100]

The 150(C) and 150(D) are part of the Region-lock youhou !!!!!!!!

Now I have to find the other part

Edited March 10, 2017 by jojo12100

[jojo12100]

I think the other part can be a checksum

I keep hope to find something relevant.

If you want to help me you're welcome.

Edited March 10, 2017 by jojo12100

[Deoxyz]

Remember what I said about distribution romhacks' potential of opening Pandora's box. Of course people with access to these roms can do whatever the hell they want, but if we're giving to much public hacking information on these, some could make roms that appear to be legitimate roms we don't yet have, sell it to us, and it possibly being unable for us to differentiate from the real thing.

I provided the other languages' 10th Anniversary .pk3s to help deter the need to do this. I still can't guarantee when or if I can get the actual roms.

Even in good intentions, some things can backfire, but can be better prevented if such things are kept discussed in private. Of course, I'd feel responsible for making the roms public in the first place, but the good outweighed the bad with that decision . So all I can do at this point is warn about how much distro hacking information is said in public.

In this case, if all you're doing is removing the language lock, I guess that's fine, since the pokemon's OT will still be "10ANNIV". But the French 10th Anniversary pokemon also have the OT "10ANNIV", so idk. And cracking this just makes it one step easier for scammers.

Again, I did provide the other language .pk3s so we wouldn't really need to do this. Just another warning though, I have no real right to tell people not to do something.

[ThisIsDaAccount]

4 hours ago, Deoxyz said:

Remember what I said about distribution romhacks' potential of opening Pandora's box. Of course people with access to these roms can do whatever the hell they want, but if we're giving to much public hacking information on these, some could make roms that appear to be legitimate roms we don't yet have, sell it to us, and it possibly being unable for us to differentiate from the real thing.

I provided the other languages' 10th Anniversary .pk3s to help deter the need to do this. I still can't guarantee when or if I can get the actual roms.

Even in good intentions, some things can backfire, but can be better prevented if such things are kept discussed in private. Of course, I'd feel responsible for making the roms public in the first place, but the good outweighed the bad with that decision . So all I can do at this point is warn about how much distro hacking information is said in public.

In this case, if all you're doing is removing the language lock, I guess that's fine, since the pokemon's OT will still be "10ANNIV". But the French 10th Anniversary pokemon also have the OT "10ANNIV", so idk. And cracking this just makes it one step easier for scammers.

Again, I did provide the other language .pk3s so we wouldn't really need to do this. Just another warning though, I have no real right to tell people not to do something.

I understand your concern, but I don't think edited distro roms would be a very large problem. There are not many people around who would go on ebay and search for a gen 3 distro cart without at least some knowledge of save editing and roms. The large bulk of people who play gen 3 these days also do so with emulators, which would lend itself to this. Even for people who do play legitimately, most people who are interested enough in pokemon/gen iii to know about distro carts, let alone buy one, have searched pokemon enough to know what can be done and be aware of the free option. 

In other words, to be successfully tricked by a fake distro, someone would have to:

1) Be seriously interested in gen iii
2) Be unaware about roms/emulation
3) Have the necessary hardware to actually use one (which is pretty rare these days for people who fulfill both of the conditions before this)
4) Actually have and be willing to invest the prohibitive large sum of money needed to buy the fake 

Because of that, I seriously doubt people would get tricked by bootleg distros. 

Also, I'm not even sure that those bootlegs would even pop up on sites like ebay. We've had custom DS distros for years and I've yet to hear of a bootleg DS distro, even though bootleg DS games have been a problem. Maybe they might pop up on Aliexpress (I honestly doubt even this, but it's possible) but the people who go on Aliexpress tend not to be those who would fall for the fake distros. If I were a bootlegger, I'd much rather sell bootleg games in bulk than try to get lucky with one distro hack. 

Even then, it is totally possible to actually put in a failsafe for people to not fall for the fakes. You could make a closed-source editor with a start screen similar to Pokemon CrystalDust's, which bootleggers would not really be willing to brave. 

But this last point aside, I honestly feel like actually putting forward anything found would be a major service to the community. At least for me, making custom distributions is one of my favorite aspects of Gen IV. I have lots of fun memories of handing them out to friends and classmates, and it honestly lends itself to a really good time. Sure, you could just trade them the .pk3, but part of a mystery gift is the actual experience of giving out the gift, which is lost with a simple trade. 

All of this said, I still understand the concern, and I obviously have no influence over what any dev does. I would like to ask, however, that if the modifications aren't made available there should at least be a 10 ANIV Celebi distributor, because Celebi is the only Pokemon for which an English language version can't be obtained like Nintendo intended (which is kind of funny, considering Celebi is the only Pokemon missing from the Mystry Mew saves' Pokedexes). I think that's something we would all like to see.

[Deoxyz]

All I'm saying that it's possible a rom could be modified to the point where it appears to be a legitimate dump of something we don't yet have. People may be tempted to sell fake roms if they know they can sell roms to those of us collecting them. No one likes spending a ton of money in the first place, much less on something actually worthless. I think romhacks would be most likely used in cases like this, not actually writing them to devcarts and selling them on eBay. Regardless, this isn't like DS distro carts, since GBA distros are just standard GBA dev/protocarts, while DS distros are manufactured like any other game. DS bootlegs are easy to spot. At the same time, tools to rewrite GBA devcarts are pretty rare to obtain, though not impossible if you're determined enough. But if they're selling the rom, that removes them from the trouble of rewriting a cart.

And like I said, I know no one will fall for obvious fakes that are made for fun like you're doing, but that's what I mean by Pandora's box. Even in good intentions, you're possibly unknowingly opening a door to a lot of problems. I don't mind anyone making obvious hacks if they don't share how it was done. By obvious hacks I mean a distro rom that doesn't exist, or something like custom text in-game that marks it as such if you're imitating a real unreleased distro rom.

My hope is that it would be obvious by examining the code if a distro rom was fake, but to do that you would probably already have purchased it and likely wouldn't be able to get a refund. Or perhaps the hack removes any way for us to determine its modified, which is a bigger fear from a preservation and/or collector standpoint.

Like I said, I think so far this isn't a real issue, but I just felt I needed to bring it up again, because I do have serious concerns of how our well intended researching could possibly help those with ill intentions. All I'm asking is to please be careful how much actual distro romhacking information is available to the public. The more legitimate roms we can obtain, the less we have to worry about romhacks.

Also, as I said months ago, if people want to distribute stuff like 10 ANIV Celebi, you can create a custom program using official generation methods, something like the wondercard injector. That wouldn't do anything to benefit a scammer. Or like I just said, just make the romhack an obvious romhack with custom text, but keep the way it was made in private.

[Sabresite]

Deoxyz is right.  Bond made a comment to me after analyzing the 10 ANNIV cart that it looked like they started to use standard functions to generate event pokemon.
When we applied the same generation method to known legit specimens, they all fit.  So you could theoretically insert pokemon X and create a distribution ROM for that pokemon.

I am in favor of making sure these cartridges are not public.  There are tidbits about 10 ANIV that you would only know if you analyzed the ROM itself.

[jojo12100]

On 12/03/2017 at 2:17 AM, Sabresite said:

Deoxyz is right.  Bond made a comment to me after analyzing the 10 ANNIV cart that it looked like they started to use standard functions to generate event pokemon.
When we applied the same generation method to known legit specimens, they all fit.  So you could theoretically insert pokemon X and create a distribution ROM for that pokemon.

I am in favor of making sure these cartridges are not public.  There are tidbits about 10 ANIV that you would only know if you analyzed the ROM itself.

Hope you'll create this distrib ROM.

 

I've found this today, which confirms @suloku theory. In case of it can be usefull, mostly for other event distrib (Jirachi, Celebi ...).

 

Source: TCRF

Edited March 21, 2017 by jojo12100

[Sabresite]

The time frame between colosseum and FRLG is roughly 2 months, while Emerald came out 9 months after FRLG, so it makes sense that support would be lacking.