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A few announcements regarding our production of compilation hacks:

Hey everyone, I wanted to take this moment to talk about the compilation hacks we produce for contests. The production of VLDC7, 8 and 9 were amazing - each one exceeding the last in scope. We attempted to go even further than 9 with VLDCX, but circumstances led to the projects hiatus.

The amount of people who have both the time and ability to insert various .mwls, map16s, exgfx, music, secondary exits and so on - and remap them to make sure there are no conflicts are few and far between. With how we've done things in the past, it's just not efficient for us to continue these same methods of compiling resources for a hack.

So for the bad news out of the way first: unfortunately, VLDCX and KLDC 2017 will no longer be supported projects by the staff team. With VLDC11, BLDC, and KLDC 2019 happening since, these compilations have just fallen too far in the past for us to reasonably justify applying the resources to create it without it impacting another avenue of the site. This doesn't mean these projects won't ever exist - Blind Devil helped revive SMWCP2 as a personal effort and then we helped him get the team, and if others are interested in continuing these projects we can help with what we can. Or, these projects could be reasonably completed if circumstances can change.

And that's the thing - the circumstances can change. I'd like to announce the SMW Level Inserter Tool Project. Helmed by randomdude999, this tool will be able to both insert and remap .mwls, map16 files, ExGFX, Music, Custom Sprites, and everything contest entries tend to have. We're looking for your guys help to make this tool a reality! You can view the current repo here, and if you're adept in C++ and interested to help, please contact randomdude999 via PM or Discord for access to contribute to this.

We also have an internal project led by Maarfy tentatively titled Project Chomps. It's a giant patch that applies all of the necessary ASM for our contest collabs (placement, whether a level acts as an overworld or submap for moles and hammers, if it has a secret exit, etc etc), plus it'll include Thomas's VLDCX Menu for use in future collabs.

We're not happy to have missed out on VLDCX and KLDC, along with having no plans for a VLDC11 collab - but the time it takes to manually manage it just isn't realistic. So I hope with the development of this tool, compiling a baserom can happen in just a few clicks - and the rest of the time can be spent on the overworld and bugtesting.

Thanks for understanding, and I or any other staff will be happy to answer any questions about this.
This is good news to me, it always bothered me to see the VLDCX compilation on hiatus. Tthe making of a compilation hack is way too much work, a program that takes care of it sounds like a great idea. I hope you'll get the help you need!
I want to help you but I don't have the skill at programming
I don't have any knowledge at C++ too

But the project seems very promising! I hope it will become a reality!
I'm Flandre Scarlet!.
Thank you for info, I find it very useful. Yeah, it's seriously useful.

I can now understand what was the problem with development of VLDCX and KLDC2017, even despite each having not as many levels as all the official compilations hosted before (AFAIK, VLDCX compilation was supposed to have 60 best levels). Level insertion is a pain already, but it's still nothing compared to the scope of the rest and lack of devs. I knew VLDCX and KLDC have been in development hell for long, but I didn't expect they'd get released not so soon.

Although I don't have C++ or ASM skills as of now, I wish I could help with either of the ways to make compilation hack development faster. I hope both will eventually see the light of day because they sound so promising.

I wish good luck!
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.

I was just thinking about how nothing came of either of these projects. Glad to hear something is finally being done! #smrpg{<3}
I think it's good to provide closure to KLDC 2019 and VLDCX, because I feel like the community has been asking for it for years. I will say that, while I'm not quite invested in VLDCX, I can understand how monumental the task was to assemble it as a collab.

As such, thank you for providing the closure everyone needed.

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STELLA!
I'm not sure I understand the implications yet. If there's a tool being developed that can help make compilation hacks, doesn't that mean there's still a chance for VLDCX? If so, what exactly has changed about its status?


 
The VLDCX compilation isn't something that the staff team is officially going to support. If another user wants to work on it themselves, they're free to do so (like what happened with SMWCP2).
Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg
I'm not sure I understand the implications yet. If there's a tool being developed that can help make compilation hacks, doesn't that mean there's still a chance for VLDCX? If so, what exactly has changed about its status?

It means that we are no longer working on the project or creating the illusion that it's still being worked on until the tool is finished. Even if we finish the tool, VLDCX won't be an immediate priority for us to assemble with it. We'll put our attention into the most recent projects first, such as VLDC11, BLDC, or KLDC2019. But others could take up the helm for doing the rest of VLDCX or KLDC2016 using it. It's just a matter of "staff" support, though we'll obviously still be around to support true efforts to assemble those projects like we've done with SMWCP2's revival, support, subforums, etc. While SMWCP2 technically has a lot of staff contributing to it, the majority of decisions and advancements in it right now are being handled by regular users given powers to do so. The same could happen with VLDCX and KLDC2016.
Glad to see something is being done about those babies
Windowless ride, feeling alive
Are you alive or just breathing?
all i wanted was a vldcx comp with a level selector menu instead of an overworld (and possibly a random challenge mode ala mario maker), but now i get neither :(

sad day for mario fans, but looking forward to the future.
ask me if i give a f*ck...
Once these tools are completed, I wonder if VLDC 10 and 11 can go back and have themselves compiled.