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VLDCX - New Leaders, the Overworld, & World X.

It's like somebody would have wrote "All levels which use 1F0 sucks because overused tile" It can be interpreted by many different ways.
Layout made by MaxodeX
2021 TRENO vibe check thread
the sheer lack of logic in that statement makes it obvious that it's a maymay though
My oldness is shining through.

I guess it depends on the sense of humor. To me, the statement seemed like something a person could genuinely believe.
Originally posted by Locke_Lock
Originally posted by GbreezeSunset
Come back to me after you have sat down and played all 180 entries all the way through. You are taking an extremely overly simplistic view of the situation. "Different level design techniques" is especially amusing because most people do not have "level design techniques". I don't want to crush your optimism, because by all means, there are entries to VLDCX that will blow you awa with sheer creativity and insanely ingenuous level design. Those levels are few and far between.

You shouldn't be talking about what this contest offers having not played any of the entries either.

Don't listen to Pat though because he is just memeing and hasn't seen all the levels either, and apparently it's a meme now to hate on vldcx so yea.

I'll be playing them once the hack is released.

Everyone has different techniques, whether you agree with them or not is a different issue entirely. It's not like I'm expecting masterpieces. In fact, I'm sure there will probably be levels that feel like my level design abilities. It's not a bad thing though. it shows they are trying to learn the tools & basic design principles. That in itself will make certain levels charming to me. Plus, you say there is stuff that will blow me away. How can I not be optimistic?

I feel my opinion is important because I'm an outsider when it comes to SMW. And pretty much everyone can agree that it's good to have opinions from all sides, even if they aren't the most informed.

Also, I didn't realize Pat was joking. I wasted valuable time for nothing. *sighs #w{:s}


Well if you aren't exactly expecting great levels, maybe you won't be dissapointed. I mean, by all means, vldcx won't be 'terrible'. But some people are expecting this one to be different for some reason. It's not better by much. Some designers improved drastically lol. Lazy, frozenquills, and ft029's levels are absolutely incredible, but I'm also a guy who loves really hard vip styled garbage lol.

If you are thinking that every level is gonna suck, that's not the issue. I don't think people really understood what happened with vldcx. Because of multiple facors, such as raocow and other player's LP's, the popularity of vldc9 and especially its overworld, the popularity of smwc after mario maker and a recent surge in hacking interest, and other things, a lot of new designers tried making a level for vldcx. The "usuals" here at smwc always make a level, so notable and frequent hackers here didn't contribute to the rise in the number of entries, and in case you didn't realize, 180 is super unusual for this contest. What we got was around the same number of really solid entried as last year, with admittedly an increase in quality, and a huge increase in the number of so-so entries. Really, the problem is that great designers rarely materialize out of thin air. Yes, they do come around every so often, but most of the time, new users make.. well.. average levels. Now normally an average level is fine, especially when there were only 50 or so in vldc9. Now there is at least 100 entirely average and boring levels. Sounds like a lot of fun to play through right? So regardless of the 30 super awesome levels and 50 hilariously bad ones, the 100 boring levels make judging and playing through the entire contest an absolute chore. I hope you can see now where the "vldcx sucks" meme originated.

e: and I completely agree with you about a beginner's level to be charming. Now play it 100 times... not so charming anymore
it probably doesn't suck it's just never going to be finished LOL
Originally posted by GbreezeSunset
Well if you aren't exactly expecting great levels, maybe you won't be dissapointed. I mean, by all means, vldcx won't be 'terrible'. But some people are expecting this one to be different for some reason. It's not better by much. Some designers improved drastically lol. Lazy, frozenquills, and ft029's levels are absolutely incredible, but I'm also a guy who loves really hard vip styled garbage lol.

If you are thinking that every level is gonna suck, that's not the issue. I don't think people really understood what happened with vldcx. Because of multiple facors, such as raocow and other player's LP's, the popularity of vldc9 and especially its overworld, the popularity of smwc after mario maker and a recent surge in hacking interest, and other things, a lot of new designers tried making a level for vldcx. The "usuals" here at smwc always make a level, so notable and frequent hackers here didn't contribute to the rise in the number of entries, and in case you didn't realize, 180 is super unusual for this contest. What we got was around the same number of really solid entried as last year, with admittedly an increase in quality, and a huge increase in the number of so-so entries. Really, the problem is that great designers rarely materialize out of thin air. Yes, they do come around every so often, but most of the time, new users make.. well.. average levels. Now normally an average level is fine, especially when there were only 50 or so in vldc9. Now there is at least 100 entirely average and boring levels. Sounds like a lot of fun to play through right? So regardless of the 30 super awesome levels and 50 hilariously bad ones, the 100 boring levels make judging and playing through the entire contest an absolute chore. I hope you can see now where the "vldcx sucks" meme originated.

e: and I completely agree with you about a beginner's level to be charming. Now play it 100 times... not so charming anymore

I expect some great levels, and doing my research I know the VLDC collabs have a thing called the Best World. So I would hope that is where I would to get my fix of those.

My expectations are mixed, but I'd say I'm cautiously optimistic about this VLDC. I'll admit 180 levels sounds like a lot, but from what I've gathered, in the the past VLDCs you could roam freely on the map and play whichever levels you felt like. So realistically the player doesn't have to play any levels they deem not enjoyable.

There's more activity this year, personally I find that acceptable. Mainly because it expands the size of potential SMW hackers who could eventually contribute amazing things. I get that some of them will only make a level for this contest then disappear, which sucks. But getting some new SMW hackers on-board makes it worth it. It's good for the growth of this community.

I do however understand how horrendous it would be to judge. I imagine that was the case with every VLDC ever. The VLDC sounds like the sort of hack you would play in chunks rather than consistently, so I don't think the boring/beginners level will ever get unbearable.

Anyway, thanks for the insight!
Why is it that every time ThePat545 posts in a VLDC thread, the post starts a site-wide debate on a controversial issue that has nothing to do with the original post, led by a prominent member of the community and some random other user, which always ends with both sides uniting against ThePat545 for his original post?
*everything stops*
Yeah, that's me. You're probably wondering how I got into this situation...
*cut to next post*
Because he never puts a lot of thought into his posts and makes jokes that are both not welcome and hard to see through because they could very well be his actual "thoughts".
Your layout has been removed.
Defensive "it was just a joke" or "it wasn't serious" responses to criticism tends to get people riled up too.

When do we have the result? It's 6 months already.
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My hacks:
Bowser's Castle (finished)
Bowser's Castle 2 (finished)
Super Mario World - Mushroom Revolution (Work in progress)
Layout by Koopster
Originally posted by PMH
When do we have the result? It's 6 months already.

please be patient. the vldcx is very tall and merciless and the judges have to balance their lives around judging this monster. results will happen when they're done.

you're not going to get it for another 2 months, likely.
VLDCX is a mammoth contest and the sheer number of entries kills judging motivation really quickly. It was a mistake to handle judging the way we did, but I really hope the judged can pull through eventually!
Your layout has been removed.
Six months... I never imagined it would take so much time even in my worst case scenarios I have thought during preparations. But I hope it will be done soon.
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Fun fact: when Vitor was deciding who would judge, he asked all of us whether we could do 200 entries in 6 weeks.
Lets assume each level on average is... 4 minutes, on the high end of the allotted time for each level. There's 178 levels, 178 * 4 is 712 minutes. 712 is roughly 11 hours. Now lets take into consideration secret exits, you'd need to replay a level to judge them properly. Lets say 60% of all entries had a secret exit. So 106 entries will take 8 minutes. Now our new total time for playing is (106*8)+72*4 = 1136. 1136/60 is 18 hours to play all entries to their completion at the minimum. If we were to judge via the judging videos we've seen that would clock the play time of each level in it's entirety at 11 minutes. 11*178=1958/60 = 33~ hours. Now for the time it takes to judge each entry, there is an established point spread so it shouldn't take too long. Lets estimate it takes... 10~ minutes to judge an entry right after playing. 10*178 = 1780/60 = 30~ hours to judge.

The final estimated total for judging and playing each entry is 63 hours total or 3 (2.6) days. Now assuming you have a 9-5 work day, a working person has maaybe 5-6 hours each night to play under the assumption they do nothing else, not even work. Based on this, it would take 12~ days for the average working person to get through all entries. Is this reasonable to expect from judges who receive no pay for judging?

Yes and no. It is a fairly large amount of time to commit admittedly so it's hard to expect. However, it is reasonable to expect as those who signed up for the position would know of how many entries the final total ran up to, they should absolutely understand the time commitment required. Should the way vldc are judged change? Absolutely. Having 6 judges go over 178 entries is absurd, the number of entries will not decrease substantially in the coming years either. I will say, that a 6 month time frame despite all the changes has been really hard to wait for. It's like hearing a song in your head but never getting the "satisfying" conclusion of the song over with. That's the experience just waiting, I can't imagine the pain of judging and ranking all this.

Originally posted by Galactaknight
Lets assume each level on average is... 4 minutes


haha

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Originally posted by Noivern
Originally posted by Galactaknight
Lets assume each level on average is... 4 minutes


haha

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

4 minutes is the actual level length on average, what the creators expect people to play. Now that would be assuming you can do it in a one and done fashion. Down further I'm using 11~ as the actual playtime for all further estimates.

I think it's closer to like, one exit takes 15-30 minutes on average. There's, what, 80% secret exits in the hack? e: and Dragon Coins and 3UP Moons are everywhere as well.
Add ~10-20 minutes per level for thinking, replaying (lolyoshi basically played everything on stream twice so more for him) and writing down the scores + commentary.
This does not take into account the plethora of levels that takes more than an hour alone.

Add to this the fact that it's unpaid and 100% rewardless (in terms of personal gain while doing it, definitely) and the general dullness of the majority of entries, this becomes incredibly demotivating and as humans we will simply start to dread/avoid doing it. Add to this that people have hobbies and would like to actually spend time having fun than doing what's basically amounts to a second job after the novelty wears off (meaning your freetime estimate isn't very realistic) and you get much closer to what happened than what Vitor mathed out.
I would've liked if people got done sooner, but we can very clearly see from reality that this is what we should've expected. When 3 people drop out and the first person to get done took 6 months, it's not really a matter of "well in theory that should've went better", it's "theory was wrong".
Your layout has been removed.
I'd like to point out that our two backup judges, Sinc-X and Rameau's Nephew, are doing a hell of a job catching up.