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

Originally posted by KDeee
If its your level, then whos stopping you?

Good point. Thanks!
Layout by Erik557
Hi.
jesus, you guys are really going ham on vitor

let me just say i am glad this failed to come to fruition. in my opinion, vldc is primarily a contest. a contest consisting of individually judged entries. shoving everything into a "collaborative" hack is and always was a dumb idea; second-rate by nature. it undermines the contest and creates a bigger pile of work, which eats up other contests and events left-and-right like we saw with this one. it creates unrealistic expectations. one contest held a certain year doesnt necessarily need to be "better" than contests held in years prior, with better levels and etc, because its a contest, and thats not the point of a contest.

but by introducing the "collab hack" aspect, you have effectively created a game series. the thing with those is, each title (ideally) improves upon the last. you do cool stuff in the first, and people expect to see the same, more, and BETTER in the sequel. obviously this puts pressure on the vldc collab committee/code of the dragon/whoever/whatever is working on the "collab" part of the contest. enter vitor. if i know vitor, and i kinda-sorta-not-really-but-still-sorta do know him, then he just wanted to meet people's expectations. people's unrealistic expectations of what this "collab" should be: a bigger, better version of the prior ones. the X tacked onto the title really did not help with that.

you can blame vitor all you want, because he's not here to defend himself. but in the end, it is YOUR fault. you reading this. you expected way too much out of a frickin vanilla level design contest.

also, i kept saying "collab" because yeah, only a few people ever worked on the "collaborative" aspect.

i had more things to say but i forgot them all while fixing my typos due to phoneposting so rip
I mean, it was Vitor who set the expectations we had for the collab because he was the one who introduced us to the dual rom mechanic and compromised himself to make it happen. We literally didn't even know that mechanic existed before he mentioned it, so if anyone else was the host we wouldn't ever dream of fitting everything into a single rom, which would eventually lead us to where we stand now: a best of collab.

I don't think it's much fair to like, crucify him for all this though, because he ran into irl problems when he first dropped off, and later we let him try and make it happen again knowing that he could drop off again at any moment, but it wouldn't matter. Why? Because the collab wouldn't start without the results, and judging was and still is going on. Basically, we had nothing to lose by giving him a second chance.
I agree with Gloomier, it's indeed sad that the VLDCX we thought was going to be made is probably never going to exist, and it's indeed true that a lot of ideas and expectations were thrown by Vitor, but it still isn't fair to just put all the blame on him. In fact, nobody needs to be "blamed". A lot of inconveniences happened, a lot more people participated in the contest than expected, and in the end this isn't anybody's job, it's completely voluntary work. I'm sure that the last thing that anyone, including Vitor, would want to say in this situation is "the project was too ambitious to be completed", even if it's indeed what needed to be said in the end.

I'm looking forward to whatever is able to be made in the end, even if it's just the results and no collab, I'll still be happy with that. If it doesn't become too much of a problem to make the "best of" collab, then that would be awesome, but otherwise it's not that big of a deal.
Originally posted by idol
the full 180+ level collab you were promised will not be happening.
LOL

idk how complex it would be but if somebody wants to just code a simple level select screen/menu the community could compile 2 or 3 separate roms together and release it. obviously it could also be a long straight line of individual yellow/red dots, but that would be a lot slower (although im sure there's a hex edit you could do to make mario move between them instantaneously. It wouldn't be pretty, but the point of the collab is to play the levels, not ogle the overworld.)


e: even better just release a .zip once judging is finalized with all the entries in order. Going down the list of patches is essentially the same as a level select screen anyways.
e2:
Originally posted by Gloomy
judging was and still is going on.

Incredible.
ask me if i give a f*ck...
Originally posted by ThePat545
2) Ackchyually Vitor's entirely to blame for everything that isn't the judging

[Gigantic post about maths and how Vitor isn't to blame for the judging]

So... you arrived at the same conclusion, that Vitor isn't to blame for the judging, which is what everyone said and what your headline said as well.
It felt like the headline was written as mockingly as it is cause you were trying to debunk it, but you didn't? Was that intended?

Also, as we said a bunch of times, there is absolutely no blame that can be placed on any of the judges. They dedicated a FUCKTON of time, 358 hours according to your calculations -- which are bound to be hella inaccurate but there's a number there. That is approximately 200 times as much time as anyone else has dedicated to the VLDCX meta management by every single one of them, and they have pulled through.
That's an incredibly large time commitment to do something that stops being fun after the first 50 mediocre boring levels by inexperienced level designers, which is where the burnout comes from that all the judges experienced.
That's why your calculations are bad, by the way. They don't get anything out of judging this beast comprised for the most part of average, way too long levels so motivation dwindles and leaves them with less and less will to do it.

It's more than obvious to everyone on the management side that this isn't a reasonable thing to ask of people by now, which is why any future contests that are anywhere close to this scale will follow a new judging process.
I could pretend like this is Vitor's fault cause nobody else was allowed any say in ANYTHING regarding VLDCX, so he made the decision to just use the standard "all judges play all these levels" approach, but I doubt anyone could've foreseen the effects this would have on judges.

But what I can pin on Vitor once again, is the way he mistreated the judges from the get-go. He literally told one judge that they're only a judge because SNN told Vitor to get a sixth judge and that Vitor expects nothing from said judge, after already going through a strange interview with every single judge where he basically asked if they'll be able to judge all ~180 levels in 2 months.
He then went on to implement about every single negative reinforcement mechanism you can imagine, from making an "efficiency" formula that always displayed how "efficient" the judges were being according to his made-up condition of 15 levels per week right next to the judge sheet, and putting in a formula that calculates the current estimate for each judge to be done at the pace they're going, that turns red if it's not up to snuff with Vitor's overblown expectations.
We've had TONS of complaints about how Vitor handled the judging process and treated the judges from the judges themselves, so if there's a factor we can actually put our thumbs on for what contributed to this mass-burnout, Vitor's leading is that. Considering the people affected literally said so and all.

So uh yeah tl;dr the judges are to blame less than you are. At least they finished what they set out to do and dedicated 350 hours minimum of their lives to this, all while being made to feel like they're not allowed to take breaks or do something else because then their time will turn red and Vitor will complain to them in DMs.


(Not to mention Vitor did not bother to get any replacement judges on board, that is idol's doing.)



Originally posted by Hobz
idk how complex it would be but if somebody wants to just code a simple level select screen/menu the community could compile 2 or 3 separate roms together and release it. obviously it could also be a long straight line of individual yellow/red dots, but that would be a lot slower (although im sure there's a hex edit you could do to make mario move between them instantaneously. It wouldn't be pretty, but the point of the collab is to play the levels, not ogle the overworld.)

Community is totally free to compile anything themselves, as with every VLDC.

Originally posted by Hobz
e: even better just release a .zip once judging is finalized with all the entries in order. Going down the list of patches is essentially the same as a level select screen anyways.

Anyone can do this, and it has likely already happened. If nothing else the judge zips can be posted I guess, but I think they literally already were a few times? It's not like the entries are hidden.
Your layout has been removed.
i mean in order of their final ranking
who tf wants to play the levels in submission order #fim{?_?}


e: it could include a .txt file (or a .html link) with all the judge comments and scores as well, so before you play a level you can ctrl+f the author and read up on it if you want to.
I'm down for keeping this shit as simple as possible
ask me if i give a f*ck...
o yeah that can probably be arranged.
Your layout has been removed.
Originally posted by Gloomy
I mean, it was Vitor who set the expectations we had for the collab

wrong. the expectations were set way back when for the sequel to vldc7, aka vldc8. what you have in vldcx is just the logical continuation from 8 -> 9 -> 10
to an extent I agree, vldcx was doomed to fail from the start because seemingly everything imaginable was put into vldc9. That's why i was always in favour of the level select//random level modes; there was nothing left to innovate regarding the overworld (that i can perceive at least), so it would've been better to sidestep it altogether.

But, nobody was actually thinking all 180 levels would be compiled into a single rom until the idea was proposed. if vitor had never said "it's okay i'll make it work", i assumed we would've planned accordingly with the limitations we had. But I dont blame him for that because I'm assuming he didn't plan on bailing when he brought the idea up.
ask me if i give a f*ck...
If 180 entries aren't enough, does this mean would we start from stratch?
I think you missed the last two pages of this thread Roberto. Please go back and actually read the posts.
Sorry Skewer, but don't get me wrong.
It was almost 10 months of judging.
As far i learned, only four judges had finished:

Originally posted by natnew
So, here's what I got:

Lolyoshi - Done
Noivern - Done
Koopster - Done
Sinc-X - Past 100
Rameau's Nephew - Past 100


Originally posted by Deputy BS
Yep, I've finally finished judging!


But do you think that 4 judges are enough?
How many judges (i mean, the number of judges) have in the previous VLDCs?

Renember what idol says:

Originally posted by idol
let vldcx results come out and move on and figure out how to handle our next vldc, whenever we have it (which, if you may not have caught onto by now, is not likely to be held next january).


About the next VLDC, would you rather limit the number of the levels/entries instead of an exaggerate the number?
Also, idol, if you're reading this, who will reveal the VLDCX results? Wasn't it you?

Originally posted by idol
I anticipate results won't take terribly long now (hopefully), and then we can go full grind putting this boy together. Thanks for the patience y'all.


That's all.
5 judges have finished and the 6th is very close, close enough for us to give them a bit of extra time to finish up after the deadline 2 days ago being up. It's done soon.

Originally posted by Hobz
But, nobody was actually thinking all 180 levels would be compiled into a single rom until the idea was proposed. if vitor had never said "it's okay i'll make it work", i assumed we would've planned accordingly with the limitations we had. But I dont blame him for that because I'm assuming he didn't plan on bailing when he brought the idea up.

180 levels isn't the issue really, the recent changes to limits in LM (ten times as much map16 etc.) were made for this and Jack's patch from VLDC could've expanded the number of levels accessible on the overworld, but he let everyone claim a huge amount of resources and sublevels in general.
Also, he didn't bring any idea up, I don't think you've quite understood just how not at all he communicated.

Originally posted by Ladida
wrong. the expectations were set way back when for the sequel to vldc7, aka vldc8. what you have in vldcx is just the logical continuation from 8 -> 9 -> 10

That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the very specific expectations of the dual ROM system and Vitor as a leader who will code all the necessary ASM and make it work as his main priority.
But that fell through, so the entire way the collab had been set up fell with it and left us with no real way to recover, especially not without wasting a ton of time and effort on something we were promised would be handled by him.

The expectation that 10 > 9 is of course a thing, and it's a thing Vitor was really striving towards (he always talked about how X will be the biggest and best VLDC collab ever), but it's not what's actually the issue. If everything had gone well it would've been an "easy" goal to achieve.
Easy in the sense that we were planning a collaborative overworld setup as opposed to the competitive one last time, meaning there was a lot more time and a lot more people that could work on it and give feedback and improve upon it, instead of many split teams under a strict time limit.
And I mean, other than that there's not much that's left to making VLDC as a collab better, since it's not like we can change the contents of the levels to magically be objectively better than 9 (and I don't think 9 is objectively better than 8 in that regard already).
Your layout has been removed.
Originally posted by leod
5 judges have finished and the 6th is very close, close enough for us to give them a bit of extra time to finish up after the deadline 2 days ago being up.

Who's the 5th finished judge and the 6th very close?

If the VLDCX judging completed, would we start compose remixes?
@Roberto: The collab/ compilation won't happen. Too much time between closed submissions and judging has passed and the necessary codes lest.
This also means, neither remixes nor an overworld is a thing.
Originally posted by MarioFanGamer
@Roberto: The collab/ compilation won't happen. Too much time between closed submissions and judging has passed and the necessary codes lest.
This also means, neither remixes nor an overworld is a thing.


Renember the JackTheSpades' patch and the newest LunarMagic 2.52?
Leod have two points.

Originally posted by leod
180 levels isn't the issue really, the recent changes to limits in LM (ten times as much map16 etc.) were made for this and Jack's patch from VLDC could've expanded the number of levels accessible on the overworld, but he let everyone claim a huge amount of resources and sublevels in general.

Originally posted by leod
Easy in the sense that we were planning a collaborative overworld setup as opposed to the competitive one last time, meaning there was a lot more time and a lot more people that could work on it and give feedback and improve upon it, instead of many split teams under a strict time limit.
And I mean, other than that there's not much that's left to making VLDC as a collab better, since it's not like we can change the contents of the levels to magically be objectively better than 9 (and I don't think 9 is objectively better than 8 in that regard already).


Idol was planning to give up. Do you agree with him? Or just continue with VLDCX?

Originally posted by idol
we're sorry about that. we are open to the idea of doing a simpler best-of collab for vldcx, where it's instead just a collection of the top, say, 40-70 levels or something. we'd need people to help with this process, though, and it probably wouldn't be done until mid-next year.

or we can just do nothing. let vldcx results come out and move on and figure out how to handle our next vldc, whenever we have it (which, if you may not have caught onto by now, is not likely to be held next january).
Originally posted by leod
Also, he didn't bring any idea up
wh
the only reason we know about the double rom thing is because he brought it up lol
His communication was crummy but you cant pretend he didn't outline all of his ambitions and ideas he was planning on accomplishing in that thread he made...he just, you know, never really explained how

fakedit where tf did that thread where he shared all of his ideas go? i just glossed over the subforum and i dont see it lol did i dream the whole thing
ask me if i give a f*ck...
Originally posted by Hobz
fakedit where tf did that thread where he shared all of his ideas go? i just glossed over the subforum and i dont see it lol did i dream the whole thing


https://www.smwcentral.net/?p=viewthread&t=87858
I like how Pat emphasized Brazilian work hours when I'm the only Brazilian judge lol

My free time didn't have much to do with my pace, I just tried to always have about as many entries judged as Noivern and lolyoshi and tried to catch up when I ended up falling behind. I didn't want to be the last to finish while not particularly having a time compromise myself. I really appreciate Noivern for being interested in judging again, cause that's been proven to not be for me; two thirds of the way through, I had zero interest in judging anything anymore. I spent weeks not playing a single level. So yes, much as it would be easier to just blame whoever thought I was capable of judging 180 less than stellar levels in a timely manner, I take part of the blame for believing and making others believe I was capable of it. No pats in the back.

I was super hyped about the judging, the collab and everything at first, but - no. We relied on the one person insane enough to successively top previous compilations we had, and he's now gone. Most of the levels are bad anyway; what do you guys think you are losing?

Also 4 judges finished and not 5
It's easily the best thing I've done
So why the empty numb?