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Influx of low quality hacks.

It's more of a saturation problem than anything, really. These "alright" hacks are made so much more painfully mediocre by all coming out at around the same time.

Context plays a big role with any audience's perception of a medium. Saturation is something that defines this context in spades. Just the "Super [whatever] World" titling trend raises alarms, because it has strong implications that each of these hacks have extremely similar intents. It doesn't help that a lot of them are actually super unfocussed, directly borrowing ideas from the same sources, and lot of them feel like they exist for the sake of existing. That would just be some "alright" hacks if this were a year or two ago, but right now this is really just... meh.

The division occurs here because a lot of these hacks are from people who are new to ROMhacking as a medium, and are meant to be shown to people who don't know much about ROMhacks. What's impressive to them, basically means nothing to people who have been here for a while. I suspect only few of these author will stick around afterwards.

Since SMW ROMhacks on here are absolutely not divided into any sort of categorizing factors, though, we'll run into a problem where searching for older hacks will get especially infuriating.

I think smwc is due for category pages for different hacks - and hacks fitting into those categories could be filtered off the main SMW Hacks page with just a checkbox. For now, I suggest "Kaizo" and "Streamer" to be the categories to start off with. *Only* those two, though, because the difference in intended audience is obvious enough to ease into the idea. A word of caution, however: Don't over-extend this. Not every hack need to be nor should be categorized; most of them should still only be accessible from the main page. If a category system is done poorly, it'll just become a mess.
Originally posted by Linkdeadx2
Mario maker has died down on twitch and everyone is moving into romhacks now

Agreed. It's funny, considering Mario Maker sucked all the energy out of SMW ROM Hacks for a while.

I didn't come in because of this, (in fact, I considered SMW ROM Hacking instead of Mario Maker before getting it) so I like to think I'm not biased towards these hacks in that way, because I totally am in a ton of other ways. #w{:<}

I'd like to welcome these hacks, as at least four of the hacks in the image shown earlier were the creators' first hacks, and they could go on to work on great ones later. Bear in mind, generic doesn't mean bad, and if they all get accepted, it must mean they don't have bad design. After all, the main idea of a generic hack is usually a hack with little to no ASM and little ExGFX, so these hacks have to stand on good design.

I haven't tried any of these (I don't play that many hacks, making them is my favorite part), but I believe they could be good hacks. A generic hack can be a fun hack as long as you design it correctly. My hack has little in terms of ASM, but I tried my best to make every single level unique, and I also try to vary the graphics about every two levels. (It makes it easy to differentiate and remember each level!)

So, I think we should welcome these hacks and the users behind (most of) them. As stated before, hacks aren't accepted for being really good hacks, they're accepted for not being really broken.
Originally posted by DoubleDenial
Originally posted by Linkdeadx2
Mario maker has died down on twitch and everyone is moving into romhacks now

Agreed. It's funny, considering Mario Maker sucked all the energy out of SMW ROM Hacks for a while.

Really?! By the fact, I mean, that fad has been popular for years and now, since the death of Miiverse and the rise of the Nintendo Switch, everyone called it quits on making levels in SMM and started working on Mario fan-games and ROM hacks instead. D:

Also, about the LQ ROM hacks: I don't think why these stuff isn't too salty as it gets. PJSalt
Remember Super Mario World + Land? Fortunately, it wasn't too generic like any other SMW hacks—it was inspired by some cookies-and-cream ROM hacks and some old-age SMW hacks. Am I right?
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some of the fucking "best" hacks of 2008-2012 are fucking garbage by today's standards. now i don't follow the hacks that come in regularly, but your high quality hacks are some good shit these days.
What is a cookies and cream hack?
Originally posted by zacmario
What is a cookies and cream hack?

It's in the same vain as Choconilla, Strawberry, and all those other "Vanilla and Chocolate" terms.
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Originally posted by Daizo Dee Von
Originally posted by zacmario
What is a cookies and cream hack?

It's in the same vain as Choconilla, Strawberry, and all those other "Vanilla and Chocolate" terms.

so in other words, it means nothing
Very very very shortly, this drab, workaday world and everything in it will be changed forever! Follow us into the golden country, into the empire of the senseless!
Originally posted by 1337doom
Originally posted by Daizo Dee Von
Originally posted by zacmario
What is a cookies and cream hack?

It's in the same vain as Choconilla, Strawberry, and all those other "Vanilla and Chocolate" terms.

so in other words, it means nothing

Yeah at this point it's starting to sound more like ice cream orders than anything.
strawberry hack? wtf, even more confused.
Originally posted by Mandew
I think smwc is due for category pages for different hacks - and hacks fitting into those categories could be filtered off the main SMW Hacks page with just a checkbox. For now, I suggest "Kaizo" and "Streamer" to be the categories to start off with. *Only* those two, though, because the difference in intended audience is obvious enough to ease into the idea. A word of caution, however: Don't over-extend this. Not every hack need to be nor should be categorized; most of them should still only be accessible from the main page. If a category system is done poorly, it'll just become a mess.



There should be a category for hacks that are specifically original IP. Some of the best hacks on this site, in my entirely unbiased opinion, are those which take fullest advantage of the tools and wisdom of this community, and turn a game everyone knows inside and out, into something unique and original.

It can really be frustrating to pour your heart and soul into your hack, only to see it float away amidst a sea of WIP threads where a person has spent two hours in Lunar Magic editing level 105 and 106 and has therefore, technically, created a hack.
GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame
Originally posted by Ten
There should be a category for hacks that are specifically original IP. Some of the best hacks on this site, in my entirely unbiased opinion, are those which take fullest advantage of the tools and wisdom of this community, and turn a game everyone knows inside and out, into something unique and original

How many of those hacks that truly change up the game into something different can you name, though? Off the top of my head, I might know two or three hacks that really go above and beyond to change the original game into something entirely different.
You can sorta kinda search for original IPs using the "custom character" tag, but you also get regular hacks with custom characters that way so it's not too reliable.

That would be an interesting option, though it'd probably be implemented as a hack tag rather than its own category.
It'd be interesting to see "original" as a tag which would basically mean a hack that contains little to no aspects of the original Super Mario World, as in characters, story, setting, etc.
Yeah, I agree.
they almost always play exactly the same while pretending not to though
Very very very shortly, this drab, workaday world and everything in it will be changed forever! Follow us into the golden country, into the empire of the senseless!
Originally posted by Gregor
Originally posted by Ten
There should be a category for hacks that are specifically original IP. Some of the best hacks on this site, in my entirely unbiased opinion, are those which take fullest advantage of the tools and wisdom of this community, and turn a game everyone knows inside and out, into something unique and original

How many of those hacks that truly change up the game into something different can you name, though? Off the top of my head, I might know two or three hacks that really go above and beyond to change the original game into something entirely different.


Even if you introduce changes that are mostly cosmetic, across a full hack, that's a large amount of work. Given that the majority of hackers do not choose this path, or the far more difficult one of rebuilding SMW from the ground up into a completely different kind of game altogether, I feel both deserve to share a category.
GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame
Dont we use "non-mario" for basically what the people call for an "original" tag option? Adding in the term, "original" as tag is redundant and very few hacks would meet this requirement if its meant to be something that plays nothing like SMW or general Mario platformers in terms of controls, and only uses SMW as engine.

Basically, "original" as tag option is bad because its overly reductionist and the fact that "non-mario" covers it better and is about as applicable towards hacks that be the next Sicari for instance because the gameplay remains as you would expect to be playing a Mario platformer game (Mario is the definition of a basic platformer btw).
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my god, it continues!
i just lurk sometimes
I'm starting to feel like this thread is becoming a place to bash new hacks, which is not a very inviting atmosphere for newer hackers. Not closing the thread (yet), but let's not make this toxic. Experience comes with time and work, it doesn't just happen. A lot of the veterans are no longer working on hacks, so the new need time to develop themselves. Calling something low-quality, and showing a screenshot with the names non-the-less would certainly demotivate those who worked on said hacks.
Originally posted by Skewer
I'm starting to feel like this thread is becoming a place to bash new hacks, which is not a very inviting atmosphere for newer hackers. Not closing the thread (yet), but let's not make this toxic. Experience comes with time and work, it doesn't just happen. A lot of the veterans are no longer working on hacks, so the new need time to develop themselves. Calling something low-quality, and showing a screenshot with the names non-the-less would certainly demotivate those who worked on said hacks.

What's being called low-quality IS the names.
Very very very shortly, this drab, workaday world and everything in it will be changed forever! Follow us into the golden country, into the empire of the senseless!