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| is SMW Hacking dying? |
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Forum Index - SMW Hacking - SMW Hack Discussion - is SMW Hacking dying? |
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| Posted on 2012-08-10 05:51:19 PM |
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| Posted on 2012-08-10 05:59:50 PM |
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Originally posted by FellowrootI myself am 100% confident that I could revolutionize the SMW hacking community.
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| Posted on 2012-08-10 06:51:36 PM |
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The only thing new in haching would be hacking the number of levels. But who'd need more than 512? Me? You?
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| Posted on 2012-08-10 07:09:46 PM |
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Originally posted by maroI think the reason why SMW hacking is dying is because everything that needs to be done has been done, so there's less hype, as Gloomy Star said.
All the most (revolutionary) important tools and patches you could ever think of have been made over the years such as: ObjectTool, BlockTool, Addmusic, FastRom, LevelASM, SpriteTool, SNES dissasemblers, SNES development kits and so much more.
Actually this shouldn't be the reason why hacking SMW would be declining. The fact that all of these great tools exist actually allows people to make the best possible hacks ever made. It reminds me of this famous quote "its like standing on the shoulders of giants".
The only real limit of Super Mario World hacking are the limitations of the hardware/software and your own imagination.
And yes, I'd like to emphasize the last part, YOUR OWN IMAGINATION!
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| Last edited on 2012-08-10 07:42:19 PM by Fellowroot. |
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| Posted on 2012-08-10 07:15:42 PM |
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I don't see why SMW hacking wouldn't be on a gradual decline in popularity in comparison to past years. I mean there are more and more hacking resources available for other games being released and improved upon nearly every day considering how technology is right now and how programmers/hackers can be very dedicated. New things spark people's interests. Anyway if SMW Hacking is on a decline in popularity how is that such a bad thing? As long as there is at least some community and crowd to it hacks will continue to be made and float around the internet as they have been for the past decade or so since LM's release. Everything has to die at some point. But as so much as being completely dead...not for a long time. I'd say SMW hacking has a bit more time until it is there.
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| Posted on 2012-08-10 07:48:48 PM |
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Wasn't this asked like a few months ago? No offensive but geez how many threads are going to be made asking about this? I mean yeah it's maybe dying or something but this is bound to happen eventually. I don't think it's really a community problem but rather the fact that it's been around for a long while. (Wouldn't say we've seen everything because somebody can always come out and pull something surprising.) True SMW hacking is dying or might be dying but..it isn't dead yet. Let's just enjoy the good long while we have left...
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| Posted on 2012-08-10 09:28:30 PM |
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Originally posted by Users CounterUsers: 20,580 (1,504 active)
"Active" means having logged on within the last month, afaik.
I guess you could argue that Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap) applies with our userbase: Of those 1500 active members, there are probably only a couple hundred that plan to really stick around. In that case, I guess SMW Hacking is dying out in a way, partly because of something I've noticed before: Most people who grew up with SMW or SMA2 are growing older. The kids that played SMW on SNES are now finishing up higher education and starting families, while the kids that played Mario on GBA are going on to college and will be caught up in about a decade. You could argue that plenty of kids might have bought SMW over Virtual Console, but I don't think it's nearly enough, especially considering SMW on Wii is HELL to play without a classic controller.
I think much of the spike in activity over 2007-2010 can be attributed to Let's Players, TSRPR, and YouTube hacks like Kaizo/Automatic Mario. Who knows, perhaps once TSRP2R or another groundbreaking hack is released out of nowhere, there will be a wave of inspiration throughout SMWC. After all, ASMWCP2, A Severed Freedom, and TSRPR2 are right around the corner. Our future is still unwritten.
---
One thing's for certain : Someone has to archive this site and all the work of its users; we've got something like the Library of Alexandria that would be a real shame to lose to history.
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| Last edited on 2012-08-10 10:45:56 PM by Suns. |
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| Posted on 2012-08-11 02:45:37 AM |
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Originally posted by EvilGuy0613Wasn't this asked like a few months ago?
It was asked on Acmlm's Board in 2005 too - seven years ago.
When it dies, it dies, but people constantly bringing it up isn't going to change anything. If I had to guess based on what I've seen, it probably still has at least a few years left of being a "big" thing .. until it eventually becomes a thing that a very small niche of people do. Of course, that's a truly random estimate, and I'm not going to pretend I can predict the future like some of the people in this thread have already done.
All in all though, it's pretty much what Suns said - Sturgeon's Law. Take a look at the level contests hosted on the site. The number of submissions has been increasing since 2007 (one of the recent contests has 125ish entries, whereas the ones in 2007-2009 had about 30-50). However, much of what we see actually RELEASED is garbage because the truly skilled people don't have the motivation to finish full projects. They'll start out with something fantastic and perhaps release a great demo, but then that project is never heard from again. I've said it before and I'll say it again - a big part of it is an issue of motivation and people not releasing stuff as opposed to less and less people actually hacking. I can say without a doubt there are just as many people hacking SMW (if not more) compared to 2000 (when it first started) through 2007-2008ish. The problem is, we slide a lot of these hackers aside because their projects are .. well, garbage.
I don't know. People can believe what they want, though until this site closes and until people all over the place suddenly cease hacking SMW entirely, then it's not an issue worth dwelling upon. Really.
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| Last edited on 2012-08-11 02:48:39 AM by S.N.N.. |
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| Posted on 2012-08-11 04:14:18 AM |
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Originally posted by S.N.N.
All in all though, it's pretty much what Suns said - Sturgeon's Law. Take a look at the level contests hosted on the site. The number of submissions has been increasing since 2007 (one of the recent contests has 125ish entries, whereas the ones in 2007-2009 had about 30-50).
Numbers of Official Level Design Contests. This counts every entry that was officially entered, so it doesn't exclude any entrants that were eventually disqualified or had their author(s) withdraw them.
Vanilla 2008: 51 entries
Vanilla 2009: 64 entries
Vanilla 2010: 124 entries, though I suspect this number is high mainly because of "The Raocow Factor".
Vanilla 2011: 86 entries
Vanilla 2012: 98 entries
Chocolate 2009: 35 entries
Chocolate 2010: 41 entries, same as Vanilla '10.
Winter 2010: 50 entries (basically a Chocolate contest with a Winter/Holiday theme)
24hosmw I: 89 entries (9th Door)
24hosmw II: 58 entries (Title Screen Manipulation)
24hosmw III: (???) ?? entries
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| Posted on 2012-08-11 11:10:16 AM |
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Looks like my numbers were off, but the point still stands: recent years have more entries than earlier years, meaning it's not a case of fewer people hacking.
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| Posted on 2012-08-11 11:50:48 AM |
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I personally agree the current standards are far too high to some extent, I know quite a few people who said they quit forever because the hack submission rules here were too harsh. Honestly, I think this site needs to be a bit more like Mario Fan Games Galaxy or something, reject purely for major issues and let the users figure out the rest. Let people read the reviews to figure out whether a hack is good, and that's it.
There's also definitely a bit of a hostile attitude towards newcomers, and honestly I'd say it's a problem on every 'hacking' site I've ever seen. It seems they draw a lot of stubborn and somewhat elitist users who need to take a step back and realise that treating 'idiots' like trash doesn't help their cause. I can guarantee if there were harsher rules for people treating newbies poorly and a lot more encouragement for less experienced users that the activity here would kind of soar drastically.
oh, and while activity looks good, I'll be honest and say for a big board its kind of average at best. Compare the amount of posts and members here to those on other sites with well over 20 000 users and 500 000 posts and the other sites win by a landslide. Site could do with some modernisation too, I'll like to see something like smw central with a modern, web 2.0 style layout and features more seen in the 21st century.
Still, it's not all/mainly to do with management or anything, most of the activity of the 'scene' was probably started by all the LPs and coverage elsewhere, and when people like ProtonJon and AzureBlade and whoever stopped playing hacks, I'd suspect a significant amount less people came across smw central altogether. And hey, a lot of 'hackers' were pretty much high school kids and university students, so real life/work/family concerns started getting in the way after they left three years or so on.
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| Posted on 2012-08-11 12:35:43 PM |
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yeah, maybe it's just our generation. i started playing smw...i can't remember, when the SNES came out. maybe just our generation enjoys smw "that much" and younger generations never heard from it and makes other, newer fangames or something like that.
we have some activity but i see always the same members posting and discussing, i'm not hardcore active around here but i know most of the guys posting in the hack discussions/questions/other topics.
i didn't knew that this theme was asked that much, i just noticed that it's a bit empty here compared to my times here back in 2010 without an account.
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| Posted on 2012-08-11 04:19:02 PM |
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The first hack I played was the original Second Reality Project. As I pulled it out of that dusty zip file owned by my father, I could feel the epicness surrounding me.
And then I found out it was vanilla.
The reason TSRP is still looked upon with fond memories is nostalgia (though TSRPR has replaced it). The hack was just new levels. It probably didn't take him so long to do it. The design was good, but that's just about it.
I can't say the same for the Essence Star. I can't really say the same for Keytastrophe. But as standards grow higher, the "best" hacks take longer to make. SMWCP2 has been around since I found SMWiki a year ago. So many hacks want to be flashy that they forget to be fun to play. Just look at SMW 2012 (No offense RZ). It has lots of nice features and bosses, but its not fun to play. If you want to combine flashyness with good design, you have to take even longer.
If you look at my hack MvTE in the WiP forums, it's just a bunch of new levels with fancy patches by Alcaro and HuFlungDu. It's only going to take me until December at most. But I know deep down it will go under the radar, even though the few reviews it has have been positive. Most people can't stand to not be the next big thing.
This also goes hand in hand with people's crappy hacks being rejected.
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| Posted on 2012-08-11 04:54:17 PM |
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All I have to say is that Super Mario hacking is in no way going to die out anytime soon if not at all. I'm sure many years from now people will still be doing it.
Remember when Super Mario World was actually released in the 90's? Who knew that people would still be playing it now. You would think that when the N-64 was released that people would stop playing the old school SMW on the SNES, but no.
Thanks to the internet, computers and roms, old school video games are still popular even though they are around 20 years old.
Who knows, maybe someone will be playing your hack on their new iphone 10 years from now.
Certain hobbies and interests have their ups and down. One year it might be really popular an then not so much the next year. From what I see, you guys have an excellent site full of almost anything any new up and coming SMW hacker could ever dream of having. It would be like being a kid in a candy store for them!
So really, the only time SMW hacking is going to die is when a site like this shuts down and resources are no longer available to anyone who is interested.
So if you don't want SMW hacking to die you must and I repeat you MUST keep this site alive and never shut it down.
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| Last edited on 2012-08-11 05:00:07 PM by Fellowroot. |
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| Posted on 2012-08-11 10:31:07 PM |
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as long as they are people interested in playing hacks, smb1,2 3 for nes and smw , smw2, and mario kart for snes will always have hacks, and new ones will be made. maybe not as many as they are now, but they will always be hacks.
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| Posted on 2012-08-12 01:21:11 PM |
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I have a theory that explains why the community has "slowed" down. Basically, this SMW hacking scene started back in 2005 (perhaps earlier?) and when it was established we had our "First Generation" users. These users were most likely people still in school with any given amount of free time on their hands. At the time there were very few tools to learn which meant the first generation had more time to become proficient in LM, BlockTool, etc. Eventually these users became masters of manipulating SMW and released their respective great works. I'm assuming that to become efficient at this skill it takes 4 - 5 years. Now, most of these users after 4 years are out of school and into the real world where life and work leave very little time to invest into a hobby. THAT, and the fact that it's easy to get burned out over SMW hacking really takes it's toll on the first generation of whom not many remain.
Now we have the second generation and they have MUCH more to learn than us first generation users. It's very intimidating and it simply takes longer to master all the new tools. I'm thinking that we're in a transition period and we have yet to see the epic works of the second generation.
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| Posted on 2012-08-12 08:22:51 PM |
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I don't feel SMW hacking is something that's rapidly fading away. Is it something that's starting to die out? Perhaps, but I really don't pay attention to that. I still see an assload of projects in the Works In Progress subforum and many hacks being submitted to the site, so it's definitely something enough people are still interested in.
For me, the "golden era" of SMW hacking was around 2008-2009, when a lot of the big name hacks were released or in-progress:
-Keytastrophe
-Buried Treasure
-TSRPR
-Pokey's Adventure
-Legend of Zelda: Seeds of Time
-Tale of Elementia
-Pokey's Adventure
-Super Mario TKO
-A Yoshi: Seven Fruits of Gold
-More I'm probably forgetting
I personally feel we're past that era now, but different people have different tastes and may very well feel differently. There's still a few promising works out there, like TSRPR2, TSRP3, and A Severed Freedom.
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| Posted on 2012-08-12 08:58:38 PM |
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I think Kaizo hacking seems to be dying. There is not nearly as much activity in the Kaizo forum as when we had that big thread. I remember in 2010 when there would be several pages added daily. Now there may be one or two posts in the entire forum daily. I have a theory that it may be due to design standards of Kaizo hacks rising, and newcomers are heavily criticized over crap levels, possibly discouraging them. Sometimes I would post frivolous updates and topics more to pick up activity rather than anything else. I hope I didn't raise the bar too impossibly high by making my own super creative levels, sucking a lot of the creativity out of the air. I guess another reason could be that a lot of things have been done already and so it's hard to be original.
I seem to be one of the very few active Kaizo hackers, and probably one of the only ones out there that still regularly uploads videos of said Kaizo levels. Nowadays you see more pit than (decent) Kaizo.
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| Posted on 2012-08-12 09:30:39 PM |
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Calm down, we're just in a low point. I'm sure once SMWCP2 and A2MT get released there will be a new rise of inspiration. I still work on my hack from time to time and LP hacks pretty often. Even if it does "die" people out there will still discover Lunar Magic and tinker with it just out of curiosity. There is always future video makers and players alike to still play the hacks just like the classic games of 20 some odd years ago.
If anything we should be putting more focus into other games for a little bit (Mega Man X still seems to have NO hacks! da fuck?) even SMB3 could use some more attention. There is plenty of games out there that need to be remodeled and kaizo'd too and then we can come back with a fresh look at SMW with some great new ideas.
Bottom line: don't discourage the new guys! Lower the standards a bit and allow them to grow. Don't insult but construct and help them mold their hacks into new classics!
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| Posted on 2012-08-16 03:13:48 PM |
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Most people simply come and go.. I've been gone for nearly a whole year, but I'm getting back into it somewhat. I've got a hidden project up my sleeve I've been working on for 3 months non-stop.
But I will admit, the place has somewhat died down since the last time I've been here.. Lots of new faces aswell!
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| Last edited on 2012-08-16 03:14:56 PM by Birdo. |
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