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2019, SMW Central, and you!

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Hey everyone! It's the dawn (or rather dusk in my time zone) of a new year. I wanted to take this opportunity to cover a few tidbits here, so bare with me.

First of all, the first C3 of 2019 is approaching us rather quickly. We hope to see you all there to experience all the fun new projects, releases, art threads, and more! C3 is only the start to the year we have planned ahead - for 2019, we aim to have an increased focus on smaller site contests and events. There's been many requests for various different contests we can run, and you can expect a multitude of those to make a reemergence this year. As always, if you guys have any additional recommendations for contests and events of which we can run, just shoot us a post over here!

We will be hosting our first Level Design Contest of the year later this month. Following the years of VLDC growing, we are going to run a more subdued vanilla-esque contest utilizing Lunar Magic 3.00. The date for this contest will be announced following the end of C3, but we're excited to start the year off with some pure level designing utilizing incredible new content (really, god bless Lunar Magic 3.00). The ever-elusive BLDC has been moved back further in the year - as we felt it would be better for us to run a simpler "vanilla" contest to utilize the new functions of Lunar Magic rather than a more chocolate-oriented contest. But soon... soon shall be the day BLDC rises.

To finish off, I'd like to bring up that Kieran Menor and I are helming the development of a user survey of which to gauge your (yes, all of you guys!) feedback on the state of the site. We're aware of the discontent various users (and ex-users) of the site have been feeling in regards to site policy, section guidelines, advancing SMW Hacking tech and so on. We want to get your input on what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong. SMW Central has always been at its' core a site for users of all backgrounds to come together for the express purpose of hacking Super Mario World, and we wish to continue to foster this environment to the best of our abilities. We'll be releasing this survey following C3, and until then if you guys have any input on what you'd like to see on this survey (please be as honest as hell!) hit us up at our staff feedback page.

And, if I can take this moment to be candid (and to be out of character as HR Girl), being able to be site manager for this site has been the most fruitful online experience I've been able to have. This community is really wonderful and being able to be a part of this all is has been an honor. I'm gonna keep this thread open if there's any public feedback on things, or just general chit-chat responses. Here's to 2019, y'all.
Happy new year.

I'm not exactly sure what I could contribute to the survey, seeing as I'm not very active and I'm admittedly out of the loop on a lot of things, but I can safely say I'm not discontent with the way the site has been managed so far. Then again, I'm kind of here and there, so I'm not sure how much my word would be worth. But I figured I'd just throw it out there.

Here's to 2019 being a kind year to all of us.

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STELLA!
Let us hope we should be safe from harm and then bring peace and prosperity this 2019. Can't wait for the VLDC, though!
The Hacking of PuyoPuyo. Come join the fun, friends. 『いけいけ団長、頑張れ頑張れ団長!』
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“Even if you personally are so dissatisfied with life that you want the world to end, surely the cruel reality is that it will continue on, unchanging. All the better for someone perfectly content, like me.”
Aya Shameimaru, Touhou Suzunaan ~ Forbidden Scrollery
I'm excited for what the new year will bring to this site. The wave of smaller contests sounds great, and I'm looking forward to seeing how VLDC brings the community together and sparks activity in hacking again.

The site-wide survey is a great idea, and I'm definitely appreciative of how well the staff have been managing the site and working to improve the user experience. So thanks for that and keep it up!
Glad that we're getting some discussion about the future of our site and SMW hacking. I think we are in an essential moment for dialogue and discussion for reviewing the current site principles and which direction to go for the next years. Personally SMW hacking is in need for a urge change in some key-aspects that will determine its survival or not for the future, seeing that we're still using some extremely old practices and models, from the 2005-2009 days that today they are not effective as it used to be.

SMW hacking itself is (or at least was) stagnated for a while. It's notable that some chunk of the userbase is unhappy and unmotivated with some of the recent problems that occurred in many dimensions and the lack of innovation and new features from both administrative and ASM departments. This is one of main the reasons that motivated me for researching about the larger levels possibility which later turned into Lunar Magic 3.00.

The LM 3.00 warmup contest is a very interesting idea and also a thing I was also planning on my Discord server to incentive people to play more with the taller levels possibilities. It's both simple but at the same time encourages motivation to people looking for creative solutions now with the variable level size configuration and the much better sprite spawning system that certainly will allow using more sprites on both standard and SA-1 ROMs.

Overall very promising but not enough. We need to start rethinking some of our old models and start designing on how SMW Central can help the community to keep engaged and motivated not just at SMW hacking but all other ROM hacking areas that the site specializes into. This is the most vital part. Because most important than anything else, SMW Central needs to fulfill its basic role that is being "your primary SMW hacking resource" and "honor one of our favourite games". Otherwise, the site and its community will eventually perish.

Ambience and freedom is also fundamental. Is the site providing the ideal ambience for all people? Is the site promoting inclusive polities that promotes a developing ambience for both newcomers interested in learning and veterans interested in advancing SMW hacking? Are all staff members involved worried about possible waves that can affect a specific portion of the userbase? And is the site promoting tools, resources and conditions that promotes the proper freedom for people having choices in SMW hacking, gaming plus community engaging? And are the community leaders listening for possible changes and demands which includes both convergent and divergent opinions?

Dialogue and open-minded leaders is the key for any community survival.
GitHub - Twitter - YouTube - SnesLab Discord
I don't really know what to say. I wish we'd get better at making new developments as a community, certainly, though it's hard when our main tool is pretty much a black box, and the more people get involved with something, the more likely it is for projects to stagnate waiting for input. The whole Lunar Magic 3.00 thing is annoying; the new features are cool, but it's frustrating that GIEPY still isn't compatible with it (the sprite inserter situation is a whole nother issue), and last I knew, the item memory never got fixed either. Really, we are way too slow at getting new tools and improvements to them out. Also, SMWCP2 should have been done years ago (how many people flaked on it?). And this might be just me, but I feel like the section standards might have gotten a bit strict? I can only really speak for the music section, since that's what I'm most familiar with, but I haven't submitted much to it in a while, and I'm kind of afraid to.

I don't have much of an opinion on the contests or other events. I suck at all of them anyway. I would like to see more chocolate level design contests (maybe some with themes, like the Halloween one), but I imagine those will come in time.

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.
I'd like to see a Halloween Level Design Contest this year since we haven't had one after 2014. I have no idea why it couldn't be hosted in 2018 since this year wasn't abundant to the contests. That's why not as much crowd as before was still engaged in this site. Some small level design contests would be good for those who haven't taken part in any contest at all and would give them a chance of partaking with them.
I have a Discord server as well! (by joining, you agree to the rules)
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Basically, I believe in peace and bashing two bricks together.

Gotta say I'm extremely stoked about these smaller site contests and events you speak about. I've been feeling for a while we're in dire need of a bigger number of smaller and lighter events, both to attend and manage.

I'm also excited to this new "VLDC" - I've been pondering and I hope you guys have in mind something among the lines of ditching those crazy tile mixing rules so we can focus more on designing levels with the new Lunar Magic.
That said, I've personally grown a little tired of "vanilla" limitations so I feel like I'm looking forward to the non-vanilla contests way more.


As for the way the site is being run I really can't tell much due to my recent inactivity, but I can say that community-wise everything seems so much more peaceful now than it was a year ago. That aside though, it seems there's still a lot to be taken care of in the events department (although it looks promising from your post, I'm not sure if you really have someone proper to take care of it all yet) and especially projects.

There's been zero news from VLDCX, KLDC and SMWCP2 for a long time.
There hasn't been a single nudge of activity in the VLDCX compilation forum - which I still have access to - since September. I also haven't heard anything about the KLDC compilation that was promised, and I wonder if actually making that is even worth it in the first place.
And at this point I don't think there's a single boner left for SMWCP2 anyways.
What to do about these boys?

Another dead elephant in the room is the Facebook page which has no updates for a year now it seems. You should just kill it off just like Instagram honestly. We may have lots of followers that latched on over the years but it's clearly of no use to our self-promotion.
What's going on over YouTube, also?

If I can think of more things to say I'll post them later
It's easily the best thing I've done
So why the empty numb?
Definitely looking forward to some smaller contests and this upcoming vanilla contest. I feel like the VLDC collabs got really out of hand after VLDC8 because they took so long to put together with all the submissions. I remember way back in the day when I participated in VLDC7 (and barely escaped the worst world) it only took about 7 months for the levels to be submitted, scored, and put into a collab hack that was released during that summer C3. That's not really possible now because the contest has become so popular, so hopefully this new contest will be scaled back a bit and will encourage people to not just make mediocre levels for the sake of being part of a collab.

Also to be frank the site has become infinitely better than the way it has been for a couple of years now. The forums/discord are much less of a warzone and the overall atmosphere is much more relaxed. I think this is due to the fact that the people who made it that way have either been banned, outed from the community or they got their shit together
(ya boi)
, so hopefully it stays this way for as long as possible.

Definitely looking forward to this year!
Originally posted by Decoy Blimp
Also to be frank the site has become infinitely better than the way it has been for a couple of years now...

Maybe socially. I don't really care about that aspect, sadly, so I'll have to disagree with you.

Resource wise, quite questionable. Pixi took too long to get to the point it could be said it was stable - to the point people gave up on using it altogether.

I wouldn't say amk is good the way it is right now. Apparently the whole SFX shenanigan is only an issue for me, but there are more issues like stutterings when changing songs that use the same samples (this causes stuttering in Bowser in the vanilla game). People know this and the tool is basically rotting, in terms of development.

Giepy's still not compatible with LM3.0 and I don't think telinc1 is at fault here. I think someone more available than him (he's currently too busy with site stuff), should've been allocated to take care of this issue as people are complaining about it.

I would love some of that 'infinitely better than before' spread out to the other areas of the site related to the main tools we use and other aspects related to hacking this game. I know hijacks doc is incoming, some other docs are also incoming. A lot of knowledge is spread out through the site forums too.

I provided some feedbacks on what I believe would help with this in the survey.
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Originally posted by Tattletale
Originally posted by Decoy Blimp
Also to be frank the site has become infinitely better than the way it has been for a couple of years now...

Maybe socially.

I think that's precisely what he was talking about
It's easily the best thing I've done
So why the empty numb?
Originally posted by Koopster
I also haven't heard anything about the KLDC compilation that was promised, and I wonder if actually making that is even worth it in the first place.

I guess coming up with the idea of a compilation wasn't really worth it at this point. I was thinking about ditching it entirely.
I sent the base ROM to Sixcorby and then to worldpeace afterwards, but I didn't hear any news from the latter anymore after I contacted him looking for progress. It's filled with minor and major bugs ever since, and I only fixed so few of them.

I also contacted some people to make the map with all the specs, but they gave up sometime later. There was one interested person recently, but I haven't contacted them yet.
So I don't know what to do. I don't want to leave you guys in the dark, but I don't want to release an incomplete compilation either.



That said:
I'm hyped for what sorts of contests this year will have. This site really is in need of more of the ones that kept people engaged. I'm also interested to know what will result from that vanilla-esque contest, especially since there are so many possibilities with the new Lunar Magic. And hopefully it won't be on the same scope as VLDCX. I'm pretty confident that our contests and events will be easy to run.
But I'm also wondering about the whereabouts of SMWCP2 since it's been almost a decade and I don't know what you guys will make of it at this point.

I also agree that our community has been infinitely better and peaceful than it was years ago. Our staff members have been doing a good job so far and the coding department is also more frequent.
Windowless ride, feeling alive
Are you alive or just breathing?
Since you request us to be honest, then I'll be honest: I think it's needed to reformule and discuss again how the staff is developing silently the Culture and Censorship topic. Yes, I know this is a fragile topic, and the last time it was discussed it was nothing but a chaos. That said, and assuming the discussion could be properly made (not like the previous attempt), I think we need to speak about it again, as a whole mature and open-minded community, because I think this is a thing that was left "unfinished" from the past year and a lot of people are making a blind eye about it.

Also, I think the staff's response to Lunar Magic 3.00 was kinda... unexpectedly passive-aggressive, by saying the least. At least that's the impression the "we wasn't informed about this" phrase gives to me (this includes the LM3.00's announcement in discord, which by casuality a friend shared it in another discord server where I'm in). It seemed like the staff would have received this in the worst way possible.

But not everything is bad, luckily. We got a lot of new features in the site (thanks once again Mr. Telinc), each one of them very valuable. We're also in the middle of two remoderations (Patches and Music), which, even when some people may not like the way they're done and which it involves, it's a grateful updgrade to the resources in the site.

(I know not every staff member in the site thinks equal to each other and may be some disagrements among you, so excuse me if by saying "Staff" I put in the same sack as the rest, where you know you don't fit. Maybe a more correct word would be "Site Leaders", but it couldn't be that accurate as it sounds, please understand)
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2021 TRENO vibe check thread
Originally posted by Shiny Ninetales
I think it's needed to reformule and discuss again how the staff is developing silently the Culture and Censorship topic.

Bleh... I seriously think you guys need to stop making such a big deal out of staff not allowing you to use certain slurs publicly. But sure, I would give you my reasons if you wanted a debate.

Quote
Also, I think the staff's response to Lunar Magic 3.00 was kinda... unexpectedly passive-aggressive, by saying the least. At least that's the impression the "we wasn't informed about this" phrase gives to me (this includes the LM3.00's announcement in discord, which by casuality a friend shared it in another discord server where I'm in). It seemed like the staff would have received this in the worst way possible.

I actually felt this a bit too. At first I kind of agreed with the reaction, but it's such a small deal to just not update if things aren't stable for you and things are being made compatible so steadily that looking at that fantastic update in any way but positively honestly feels unwarranted now.
It's easily the best thing I've done
So why the empty numb?
new site design when
Originally posted by Shiny Ninetails
I think it's needed to reformule and discuss again how the staff is developing silently the Culture and Censorship topic.


This is only an issue for people who don't understand why saying the N word is bad and people who clearly don't understand what jokes are and aren't appropriate. If you want to use slurs and make offensive jokes, go to 4chan or incels.me. This isn't the place for that type of talk.
Originally posted by Decoy Blimp
This is only an issue for people who don't understand why saying the N word is bad and people who clearly don't understand what jokes are and aren't appropriate.

I don't wanna discuss whether that's the actual direction this community wants to go or not, but following that mindset, shouldn't suicide jokes and anything of the sorts be also banned / frowned upon? They are a pretty serious matter too and you see them around quite a lot.
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Originally posted by Tattletale
shouldn't suicide jokes and anything of the sorts be also banned / frowned upon? They are a pretty serious matter too.


Yes. Are they not already?
Originally posted by Decoy Blimp
Yes. Are they not already?

Doesn't feel like that at all. I think I have never seen anyone getting banned for that and in fact I have seen staff members making jokes like that. I have made jokes like that too (I wouldn't if the community clearly stated it doesn't want this kind of thing in).

So I would say no.
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