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What does "vanilla" mean to you?

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Well, with the whole recent fiasco that was the initial setup for the vanilla contest this year, I got to thinking about something:

The term "vanilla" is, as noted by many recently, completely ambiguous. This was made even more apparent by people trying to push the limits of the rules of the vanilla contest. So now I'm wondering, what does vanilla mean to you?

Personally, I think that vanilla means that you only use the original resources of the game, and you don't recolor or anything. I think that rotations, copy & paste, and the like are fine, but I'm sure there are others who would disagree with me.

So yeah, I'm just curious as to how most of the community views the term.
Vanilla "to me" is changing the level design, and palettes. Nothing else applies. Only land, and slopes which are specific to it's own level.
For me a hack is vanila when it contains a few or no external resourses (i.e.: blocks, sprites, music, GFX ect...).

If tools other than lunar magic are used in your hack, it's still vanilla as long as you're not adding external resources, tools like tweaker, hex editors and xkas fall in this category (unless you are doing major ASM edits). If you're adding external resourses and it is for tecnical fixes or you just add a few, then again your hack will still be vannilla, I don't think you can say a hack is not vannilla just because it contains two custom blocks and one custom ennemy.

So, when does the vanilla/not vanilla line is passed? In my opinion, a hack stops being vanilla when you add a lot of custom resources and not so many original resources, if half of your levels or more contain ExGFX, custom music, c. blocks or c. sprites then it's not vanilla anymore.
I say vanilla is better defined as a feeling rather than a strict technical term. It it feels like the original SMW, I personally don't care at all if you changed some byte in the ROM to make all koopas have three hitpoints or whatever. Of course, that makes saying "this hack is vanilla!!" that much harder, since it's just a feeling that can vary from person to person.
I should get a new layout.

Probably won't, though.
I'd think vanilla means you use nothing but SMW's default GFX, and combine with them. :U
To me, "vanilla" just means using Lunar Magic to combine the GFX than use it in a level.
I change my layout every 4-5 months
Originally posted by Wikipedia
Mods can significantly outshine and/or continue the success of the original game, even when it is becoming dated. In those cases, players might have to clarify that they are referring to the unmodified game when talking about playing a game. In some cases the term vanilla is used make this distinction, "vanilla Battlefield 1942", for example, refers to the original, unmodified game.

Having been into some game modding before ever joining this site, that. Honestly, calling any hack "vanilla" is quite silly.
Just using Lunar Magic, nothing more.
vanilla means a bland flavor of ice cream. in hacks it means the person who made it is pretentious :>

but i guess if i really had to say what i think vanilla is, i'd say a hack that:
-does not install super exgfx bypass asm
-does not install exanimation asm
-does not install custom palette asm
-does not install fade fix asm
-does not instal fastrom asm
-does not install vram expand asm
-does not install LZ3 compression asm
-does not install overworld asm
-does not install screen exit asm
-does not install layer 2 asm
-does not install message box/layer 3 asm
-does not install time limit bypass asm
edit:
also does not install any patches with xkas, use any form of hex editor and use any program but lunar magic to edit.

To me, "vanilla" doesn't mean anything at all. It's the only way I've found to not get confused by everyone's wildly varying definitions of it.
<blm> zsnes users are the flatearthers of emulation
My definition is a bit more complicated than just simply 'anything that can be done only within Lunar Magic' type hacks. You could even call it 'abstract' but it covers the following points and probably more:
-No custom music or sound effects
-No custom graphics
-Tileset and sprite index mixing is okay
-Custom roller coaster platform (like Roy and Larry's castles) paths are okay
-Some patches are okay:
Time-up fix
Fade Fix
No More Sprite Tile Limits
Probably more, as long as they don't mess with the game engine too much.
Legacy custom music
A site with a non-useless dislike button
SMW hacking channel

one word revolving vanilla:

diseditgraphicsandnothingelse.
GvS @smwcentral.net ~ u:11380
To me it just means using everything that the original SMW had. Not inserting custom stuff. I don't think vanilla is only using Lunar Magic, as LM can modify some stuff.
Hard to draw the line, really, but for me, there are only two points where the dividing line gets blurry. Those are Custom Palettes and Map 16 editing and usage. A few ASM hacks also come to mind, but things like the "No Sprite Tile Limits" patch really is too essential for anyone to care.
Vanilla 1: Original game
Vanilla 2: Global palette change, change music, Change GFX used
Vanilla 3: Changing level tiles and sprites
Vanilla 4: Use BG2 and BG3
Vanilla 5: Combinding original GFX sets

Yea, something like this.
Vanilla to me means only using SMW's(and Lunar Magic's) resources, like its graphics. Usage of YY-CHR is fine, as long as you don't draw anything. The key to making interesting stuff is using what you've got cleverly, and the "challenge" of doing such cool things is important to me. ^^

It is a very ambiguous term, so sure it'll vary a bit from person to person.
aran - Graces of Heaven
For me, Vanilla means only using the original resources from SMW. Everything before custom music, exgfx and all those other things. Only the original GFX and changed palettes.

It would be acceptable if the gfx gets used to make some corner fixes or other things that levels don't have any cutoff.
To me, vanilla is a very loose term. It can be anything from using only what comes with SMW, to things like tileset combining. Then there's slightly messing with the graphics, engine, etc., which I (and probably a few other people) like to call 'strawberry'.
WELP NEW LAYOUT COMING WHENEVER
Originally posted by Kipernal
I say vanilla is better defined as a feeling rather than a strict technical term. It it feels like the original SMW, I personally don't care at all if you changed some byte in the ROM to make all koopas have three hitpoints or whatever. Of course, that makes saying "this hack is vanilla!!" that much harder, since it's just a feeling that can vary from person to person.


^ This ^

But if I have to define it, I really agree most with the definition of vanilla according to the (new) rules of this year's vanilla contest.
I quite don't like the whole 'recoloring' thing. Technically speaking, you could draw an entirely new tileset by recoloring - changing the palette and 'recoloring' over the transparent tiles. That's just a concept that's way too easy to exploit.

In my eyes, vanilla refers to graphics and gameplay. Custom music is left entirely out of the ruling to me because I feel that everyone has heard the four or five songs that make up SMW's OST. Original resources are still used creatively, without having to suffer through the same five songs throughout the hack.

And then there's tileset mixing. As I said, only graphics and gameplay matter to be - I'll get it out of the way first that I find bug-fixing hex edits and patches to be fine - so that if you take the Cave tileset and put it on a grassland, that's perfectly okay, because it's using SMW's original graphics even more creatively. As an addendum, I also find using ExGFX of normally-inaccessible GFX files perfectly acceptable; for example, the Castle Destruction backgrounds or the Bowser Fight FG, for the simple reason that it's the original game's graphics.

That said, there's still a lot of room to stretch it - but if it was all strict and uniform, where would the fun be in the challenge?
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