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Posted on 03-17-15, 10:57 am
Roy Koopa
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Basically, this is what happens when someone tries to start a thread, revive a thread, or enthuse in conversation around here.



The only threads that survive more than a week before slowing to a glacial pace are the spammy ones which will last for months and spawn many clone threads, like that Ask thread plague a while back.

Just curious, but why are is everyone so... bashful around here? It's like most of the community just ignores any new activity.
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Posted on 03-17-15, 12:31 pm (rev. 1 by  Arisotura on 03-17-15, 12:33 pm)
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It's just that there isn't much interest in NSMB hacking anymore. At this point, everything that could be done with the current tools and knowledge has been done. It'd need new blood to get more activity.

Level editing has been done since 2007 or so. Graphics editing has been done. Text editing has been done. 3D model/texture editing/importing has been done. Music hacking has been done. The main directions to go now would be a) ASM hacking and b) multiplayer hacking. The former is a pain due to the overlays thing and the lack of a disassembler suited to handle that. The latter is a pain due to the lack of wifi support in DS emulators.

Another direction, though, would be improving the toolsets available for the above domains. Most of them are still a pain in the ass to do, and model hacking still requires illegally using Nintendo's tools.

Or we could look at why SMW hacking is still going in 2015 even though they have already done everything you can do to that game.


The spammy threads are just a common thing. The ask thread plague struck Kuribo64 and RVLution too.
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Posted on 03-17-15, 01:47 pm (rev. 1 by  RiksKing on 03-17-15, 05:13 pm)
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So  MarioFanatic64 has basically posted the thing that has been on my mind for quite some time right now, but I guess I was just too afraid to come out and say anything about it. Now that the post is out I might as well join in the discussion.(Thanks MF64 for the post^^) Feel free to agree and disagree because these points will most likely be very controversial. AAAAND I will probably make connections to AAO again which I probably shouldn't be doing, and I know we aren't the same board and shouldn't trying to be, but there will be some things here that I like about the forum and would IMO be good if we implied them here as well.

So first, the bashfulness, (if that's even a word) and since my return here on NSMBHD end 2014, I've always found the community to get more... let's say negative. It basically got to such a point I decided to repost the Tutorial on how to give critiques from the AAO forum. And while I think it indeed helped people giving more positive minded critiques, on the rest of the board it didn't help so much.
People might have been put off by some of the critiques on this forum, hence why we rarely see new posts about new hacks. I personally think that people have too high standards about newcomers, and by this I don't mean that we should complement them on everything they do, but it isn't fair to compare them to the higher standard hacks from for example  MarioFanatic64  ray  Freeze  Arceus &  BrokenAce255.

Things said below might be slightly offtopic, but could be a motivation for people to post new hacks again.
A thing on the AAO forum which is an idea I think I've posted here before, but nobody saw it. The idea is like a Hall of Fame, where the best hacks get "featured". Since I don't really know about how good a hack must be to qualify as good, I won't post it's requirements here, but I think you get the idea.

Another thing that is offputting is how loooong it takes to make a full hack. And I'm going to compare this to AAO again which is slightly different in this regard but oh well. To make a full custom Phoenix Wright game takes some serious dedication and time and I'm pretty sure there isn't even one fully completed yet. But there are still the things there which are stand-alone trials. This has been seen in the MKDS Hacking scene too, where people release tracks on their own and not in a full hack. What I'm getting at here is that the single levels thread is kind of underused. It takes a lot less time to create 1 level or even only one world than a full hack, so why not post and release them?

(While I'm on topic of getting some more activity, I might as well say this even though it's not really on topic)
Another thing that I think could increase more levels is to bring the competitions back, and I certainly wouldn't mind hosting them. Some people may find that making a level with restrictions limits the creativity they can have, but I certainly see so otherwise. This comes down to the Paradox of Choice (Having less choice is preferable to having more choice) and it allows people to work with the restrictions and make something that another person won't come up with. It requires a bit more thought which I like. Also, this goes back to my previous point but even when it's only one level, the level can still be very enjoyable as a whole. I still see myself sometimes playing Piranhaplant's level in the Hammer Bros. Desert contest just because it's so good. Again, I wouldn't mind hosting, probably won't enter though.

About the spammy threads, I don't really know. I've always wanted to revive this thread, but since it's also a "postcount++" game, because it's a game where the players need to type out all the dialogue which can go into 50 pages really quickly, I doubt it will get a lot of attention.

None of these ideas will directly solve NSMBHD's problems in one clean sweep. Heck, it might not even solve any of it. Most of the points above are a idea to get more Hacks, more levels, more content, more activity. I'd like to see what you think about these ideas and why you agree or disagree.
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Posted on 03-17-15, 02:00 pm (rev. 7 by Thierry on 03-18-16, 01:53 am)
この記号は… 解読できないよ…


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Posted by MarioFanatic64
Just curious, but why are is everyone so... bashful around here? It's like most of the community just ignores any new activity.


Before viewing your post, I though Wesley and I were the only ones who actually noticed.


Also, it doesn't concern only NSMBHD. But yeah, this board seems more affected than some other boards.
It's probably because we ignore it out of laziness.


And  Arisotura is right, we did pratically anything but world map hacking and some ASM stuff. And music hacking usually is a pain for beginners.

That's also why Wesley and I usually needs to make sorta-custom mechanics [like, with activators and others] and stuff to make our hacks more original. I might learn ASM hacking, but it will probably take while.


But even a simple hack with interesting graphics and/or even only good levels can be pretty great,  BrokenAce255 proved that for us.


I am currently developing hacks, but due to how long it is, the boring stuff to do that takes most of my time [guess what I'm talking about], my currently limited PC time and my laziness these days, the development is going slow. But I've got a solid hack [pretty much buggy tough] with good ideas on the way.
I just have to get free time and enough movtivation to continue.


And thanks to Wesley, our team has progressed a lot in model hacking. But we still can't make the bones match with the animations of the models.

Edit: Well, he is now too busy to hack NSMB.
Posted on 03-17-15, 03:02 pm
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Several newcomers are seemingly scared as of late:
_maybe because since all the new discoveries in NSMB hacking, they feel the standard quality for a presentable hack suddenly skyrocketed;
_maybe because of the steep learning curve when it comes to more advanced modifications,
_maybe because of the snarkiness / bluntness (that would be me) / elitism / mocking / marginalizing coming from older users

Maybe the lack of interest correlates with a lack of motivation too, just look at the CR whose progression is pretty much stale now.

Also, an observation but when Corrupt-a-wish! and Ask threads were still a thing, Featherland actually had -for quite a while- a higher post ratio than the NSMB hacking sub-forum (let alone the ROM hacking sub-forum). That alone should tell someone who is not a complete moron that something was or went wrong (but that flaw was eventually corrected).

Everyone can still pretend to block their vision, but at the end of day (let's not be afraid of words) the first trimester of 2015 has been horrible for NSMBHD.
But there are still 9 months waiting in the wings, it's up to the users to decide how they will unfold.
Posted on 03-17-15, 05:43 pm (rev. 1 by Wesley on 03-17-15, 05:44 pm)
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Posted by StapleButter

Level editing has been done since 2007 or so. Graphics editing has been done. Text editing has been done. 3D model/texture editing/importing has been done. Music hacking has been done. The main directions to go now would be a) ASM hacking and b) multiplayer hacking. The former is a pain due to the overlays thing and the lack of a disassembler suited to handle that. The latter is a pain due to the lack of wifi support in DS emulators.

Another direction, though, would be improving the toolsets available for the above domains. Most of them are still a pain in the ass to do, and model hacking still requires illegally using Nintendo's tools.


It is just about the way of how complicated you have to go to get people interested in your mod.
Making a M VS L hack is a way to get started but it opens a long open road for you which makes stuff even more complicated due the limitations to which you get used to while the time passes. You need a lot of patience and motivation to trial and error, the same thing is about model hacking.
Brand new world map models are possible with the right kind of tricky exporting techniques which involves multiply programs to get it probably showing up ingame. Which indeed is a pain in the ass to do, but when you succeed on it you feel accomplished that makes you set up the lath higher on the flagpole which is at least for me the motivation to keep going.
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Posted on 03-17-15, 06:44 pm
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I'm not an asshole to newbies unless they show blatant idiocy or their levels are utter crap.


Since the single levels thread was mentioned, maybe a level/content depot could be an interesting idea. Like RVLution's, but not filled with crap.
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Posted on 03-17-15, 07:13 pm
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An important thing for me as a "newbie" was also the uploader. It was easy to find things there without looking through one million threads. And I'm still missing the uploader.
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Posted on 03-17-15, 07:45 pm
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I wish Dirbaio was more active, bleh. I'd hate to see this board fall into oblivion.
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Posted on 03-17-15, 08:28 pm (rev. 1 by  BrokenAce255 on 03-17-15, 08:31 pm)
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Posted by StapleButter
At this point, everything that could be done with the current tools and knowledge has been done.


Although I agree with most of what StapleButter pointed out, that one sentence couldn't be more wrong. Yes, we've had all the technical work with the game done and dusted, but there's so much creative work that hasn't been done in NSMB. Compared to SMW's 1500+ hacks, NSMB only has 11. It's an untapped gold mine. There are so many levels, worlds, themes, gimmicks and such that have yet to be done.

I think there are two real reasons why we don't see a lot of newcomers to NSMBHD. The first is that most kids nowadays would rather just use some mainstream game like Minecraft to vent their creativity rather than take the precious time to use the NSMBe program. The second is the fact that most people who want to hack a modern Mario game will go straight to NSMBWii because it's newer than the NSMB DS. I personally chose to hack NSMB DS purely based on the fact that Wii games are a right pain to test and share.
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Posted on 03-17-15, 08:54 pm
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Posted by StapleButter
At this point, everything that could be done with the current tools and knowledge has been done.

Posted by BrokenAce255
Although I agree with most of what StapleButter pointed out, that one sentence couldn't be more wrong. Yes, we've had all the technical work with the game done

There is still stuff to do on the technical (if by that you mean documentation, tutorials, tools and custom code) side of things.
Posted on 03-17-15, 09:40 pm (rev. 2 by  Arceus on 03-17-15, 09:44 pm)
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Posted by BrokenAce255
I think there are two real reasons why we don't see a lot of newcomers to NSMBHD. The first is that most kids nowadays would rather just use some mainstream game like Minecraft to vent their creativity rather than take the precious time to use the NSMBe program.


That isn't even the real point. Seriously which child plays Minecraft because of the creativity? The minor part I guess.
Most children play COD, Battlefield or Minecraft because of the Multiplayer because of the hunting, killing and ranking. They play the games because they can get successful very fast with a good rank or a good KD and feel good then.
And you don't have to do much for it. To be successful in NSMB Hacking or generally in making a hack you have to do a lot on your own and it can be very hard.
In my case I'm doing both, making hacks and playing Minecraft because of the Multiplayer.

But in general I would say that most of the children today don't have the time or patience to make a hack.
And another big part is the lack of popularity of this site.

A few years ago I found the editor somewhere on the internet, it was an old version but for me it was enough. But at this time I didn't even knew that this site here existed. I was making a hack for my little sister but had no idea where to publish it on the internet.
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Posted on 03-17-15, 09:47 pm
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Yeah, NSMBWii has many advantages over NSMBDS. It's newer, more flexible (no fucking sprite banks or other shit getting in the way), and well, the Wii is more powerful, too.

The only downside of NSMBW is that the Wii isn't a handheld device, but eh, NSMB2 would fill that niche nicely as it's got the same engine and mostly the same possibilities.

I think NSMB2 is one thing to look upon. The issue is how difficult it is to play hacked levels currently, though.
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Posted on 03-17-15, 09:49 pm


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There's other downsides to Wii; the multiplayer and camera control. It's a rather serious problem to take into consideration when making a Wii hack: very easy to make a non-MP-friendly level, and there's literally nothing that controls camera.

NSMB2 fixes one of the issues, but...yeah, that's not happening unless an emulator/3DS-riivolution-equivalent is perfected/made.
Posted on 03-18-15, 03:52 am
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Posted by BrokenAce255
[…]But there's so much creative work that hasn't been done in NSMB. Compared to SMW's 1500+ hacks, NSMB only has 11. It's an untapped gold mine. There are so many levels, worlds, themes, gimmicks and such that have yet to be done.


Well, you see, we may have the creativity to create such a hack, but the time, and effort you will waste doing it will be a burden. Besides, not many people here have the time to create a full hack, like me. I could probably do a world before I realize it is going to take too much time.

Sure, NSMBHD has a small handful of completed hacks, but what about the projects that were never completed? Are those not valuable to us? I'm pretty sure that if we were to combine all incomplete hacks into one big one, it'd probably make another or two full hacks. Albeit, they of course will be a jumbled mess of levels.

Perhaps, we are looking at a different perspective at NSMB hacking. What if, say, we were to question someone without knowing what NSMB hacking was. Their opinion might be useful for future reference. Sometimes, listening to the crowd brings greater interest than just presenting something, and hoping for the crowd to like it.

Perhaps there might a hack, simple, or complex, that may bring back interest in NSMB hacking. We just have to see, and wait patiently, I guess. I'm pretty sure if I were to say the contrary, noone would do it.
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Posted on 03-18-15, 06:38 am
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Posted by StapleButter
I think NSMB2 is one thing to look upon. The issue is how difficult it is to play hacked levels currently, though.

As mentioned previously, the only current solution, is to distribute Files in the ROMFS separately, because the 3DS has no 1 ROM Format for everyone.
One needs a Production 3DS ROM, one needs a Testing CIA ROM, one needs a Developer CIA ROM, one needs a Whatever-it-is 3DSX/3DZ File, etc.
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Posted on 03-18-15, 03:45 pm
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Same shit for 3DS homebrew, it's a mess and homebrew has to be distributed in a billion different formats. Heh. Hopefully oncoming CFW projects will make that shit more uniform.

(btw, 3dsx is the homebrew format for the Ninjhax homebrew loader; 3dz is a regular .3ds with someshit added or removed, don't remember)



The depot idea is something that should be looked into, really.

Right now, we're encouraging people to produce full hacks, and it's either "give us one world worth of hack and be approved in the paradise" or "put your levels on the single levels pile and watch them go forgotten".

We need to encourage single levels more. And then maybe good people will find eachother and form teams to put their levels together in hack projects.

Kinda like how RVLution worked before it became what it is now. There were hack projects going on. Although now most of those teams let the projects rot because running some postcount++ derpboard is far more important, apparently.
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Posted on 03-18-15, 05:34 pm
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Posted by StapleButter
We need to encourage single levels more.


Well, I have some levels I have made that I have kept for nearly a year now. I dunno if I should publish them here or not. Besides, they are not very polished so, I might polish the levels if there is enough interest.
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Posted on 03-18-15, 05:42 pm
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I guess I'd publish levels I've made to a file depot, if there were quality assurance mods, or a 'crap' section.
Posted on 03-18-15, 05:44 pm
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If we make a depot, it would be moderated, unlike that of RVLution.

And it would be more than merely being an uploader/pile of files.
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