This is a response to the aftermath of the rest of that evening's events.
Hello.
You might be wondering why there is a swearing contest in the background. Whether you've found your way here through the recent affiliates, Super Mario 127 or the forums themselves, PixelLoaf doesn't come across like much of a heartwarming place right now. Fear not - it's only like this about a third of the time. We've never been closed to new blood, even though our actions certainly tell a different story.
This message addresses issues common to most of the old guard, but I'm writing this on my own accord. Several of the points raised earlier do not sit well and/or are one aspect of a larger context. To clarify those grievances, here's another perspective of the last, well, decade: my own, as someone who's experienced being part of both ends of a clique's business, here and elsewhere, and far more often than just once. In summary, I already stood where some of you are now.
Let's start with a quick insight of the forum breakdown - good old General Error.
Over the years, besides the administrators, we've had but two staff with any degree of web knowledge who contributed with significant backstage updates and maintenance: Suyo and Doram. By the time Runouw had first retreated behind the curtain, only Suyo was high-ranking staff.
And he just up and left. Not out of gradually having to pay attention to a different aspect of his life, as Runouw elaborated above. Suyo quit overnight and that was that. We've heard even less from him than what we've heard from the administrator(s). Leaving no one in his place with full admin control panel permissions, and the community not only at the mercy of site crashes, but unable to manage new promotions, demotions, event subforums, anything at all. It wasn't until Doram stepped up and put forth the technical legwork that we saw a semblance of order again, and even then he still did not have enough permissions to finish the repairs.
Actually, Doram's still waiting on those permissions.
Communication breakdown. The one point all of the old guard's skepticism stems from. The fact that Doram, on his own, put at least as much effort into maintenance as the administrators did. That the two of them together would have made a far greater positive impact than either was able to on their own. That the old staff was forced to use Discord as a forum move-in and fix when it was just an upgrade from well established IRC channels, for the server was founded long before the one-day hiccups became permanent shutdowns.
Not to mention all the people who have performed staff roles along the journey that are now having their shares of commitment and legwork overlooked simply out of not having been the first to do so. To name a few: Yuri, SK, Karyete, Mega and Zunar of the current server staff; MP3, Doram, Nan, FF and yours truly from the General Error years; Ven, Raz, OJ, Nin and more people of the S1 entourage, as well as older members who held their roles even further back.
Next, there is the newcomer level maker question.
Yes, one day I was also a little Jimmy who stumbled into the forums by pure chance. Fifteen, with no prior knowledge of level-making besides Worms Armageddon maps on Paint, and three years late to the forums' creation. Unaware of the game's limitations, ignorant to many of its features and knowhows.
Yes, I did meet my fair share of know-it-alls. But they turned out not to be all there was to this place. On the Level Portal, there were also kind folks, such as MP3 and MoD, that encouraged me to continue having fun and improving regardless of the harsh critics. Fact is, even with most of the SM63 designing scene coming to a halt, many of the good folk still stop by and spend some time here every now and then. Meanwhile, all the critics are long gone.
In time, I realized that indeed, much of the critics' drive comes from their involvement in the big contests. Where level series, collaborations and entries that demanded tens, if not hundreds of hours of work were the norm. Pushing the game's platform and mechanics to and past its limits, using glitches and music as resources was commonplace.
Now, having reread through Level Portal 101 (a compilation of information put together on my time as a level moderator), it's clear that I didn't help bridge that massive gap as much as I should have. Didn't reach out enough. Didn't make two essential points perfectly clear.
First, it didn't take a hundred hours to make an eligible level in the effort category - all it took was more than one minute.
Second, the graphics tutorials were guidelines and not rules. All these resource threads and pages scattered through not only the forums, but also two Wikis' worth of documentation, are nothing but a compilation of the old guard's collective experience. Truly, the threads are overwhelming at first glance. But by writing them, the veterans set an example by not withholding any information. Putting it all on the table helped new invested makers stand next to older members on equal terms, by highlighting something the two have in common: their passion of creating levels.
The threads did not work as a means of streamlining levels, and neither were they intended to have that effect. Else we wouldn't be able to tell each veteran's level apart. Not only we can, some of them even left a lasting impression. SK's Neon City, MP3's Tearing Paper, MoD's Destinations, Charcoal's Nightcloud Alpine, Nan's Urban Climb, FL's The Escape of Fiery Wastes, FF's Lost Dimension, Jumbo's Machine Massacre Facility, Karyete's Purpura Hall, illusion's X, CedarBranch, Peter's Marshmallow Meadow, Forgotten's Necropolis Tomb. Those and even more people have had very few points deducted to the dreaded cutoff, and they all found their individual approaches and ideas on their works.
But you know what? You still don't need to follow the entire handbook and max out all the dimensions to create levels that are good, or even levels that win. Doram's Impossible Treasures, Ven's Starlight Lament, Yuri's Dear Diary and GreenSlayder's The Rainbow Shine Sprite are prime examples of unconventional winners.
Regardless, a polling system was established after the judging panels and formats were brought to question one too many times. Perhaps this measure was taken too late, but it has shortened the hosting red tape and excessive workload that traditional judgings caused. Polls have gone as far as to yield results unconventional to a scene overtaken by an exclusive philosophy.
Following up, there's unintended use.
It wasn't until some six months after having first joined that I managed to blend in a little better in the community - all thanks to signature banners and a couple short stories. My beginnings on image editing and arts were not much prettier than the 101 levels, but I met no resistance there.
That unintended use of the forums evened out some of the experience gap and played a major role on my staying at the time. Add to that the media subforums, anime, off-topic games, serious discussion and a good measure of role-playing, and you will see many more people that were helped and drawn in this way. Hell, those activities continued to bring more people even after the server rebrand. Ask around. There's Alex, Lukas, Fall, Mel, Pawn and Retry, to name a few.
Finally, it's time to address the elephant in the room.
Super Mario 127 is still in its earliest stages of development, and yet Maker already made available several public test builds in his server. Despite a small object palette and no enemies to speak of, it enjoys support of not only some Level Palace users but some PixelLoaf veterans as well. Active, involved and interested, even if a little. Creating their own content, finding and reporting bugs, testing and balancing game mechanics, influencing the development, being brought into the loop and lifting some weight off of the dev team's shoulders, however small it may be. The game will never be sold, but already it has some little feats under its belt.
Last Legacy, as it was handled by their dev team, is the antithesis of all this.
To this day it is the most complex, ambitious and professional project among all our circles, with perhaps Novae being a close second. All of which was to be accomplished without outside help. Perhaps exactly because of that, it never got to where 127 is today.
On one side stood a cornucopia of stubborn level designers, at the time hell-bent on pushing to the limits a platform and level designer that was designed to have no limits. On the other, a lone dev team that worked themselves into an early burnout. Between them, a community left in the dark again, not a single custom level made, not a single copy sold, and much of the interest on future releases all but dead.
As much as some of us would still like to see that project being resumed after all this time, we aren't about to make the dev team return to it. But with all that's happened, we're all very wary about future announcements, given there's a very real chance that updates will just dry out again. And with SM63 nearly worked to oblivion and getting all its ad revenue out of nostalgia, and Null Space RC3 too weak to support its own designing capabilities, 127 is the one shot that's left at gathering a real amount of newcomer interest in the short term.
With all that said:
Undoing the server rebrand is out of consideration. However, as I took my time explaining here, cutting off ties completely helps no one. To what extent you want to stay connected is for all of you to decide.
With that in mind, if the LL dev team seriously means to rebuild player interest, or even just set up a new server that actually has any street credit whatsoever, here's a few tips from the history books: Be an official server, but don't act like one - a scope of activities, however narrow, makes the place all the more approachable and less of a VIP room with security at the door. Polls ward off know-it-all reviewing. Public builds pay off. Staff does know how to be reliable and resourceful - give them a call once every few months. And maybe call the normies too, so all the spokespeople won't just call it a day with fragments of the story. That already goes a long way.
With love,
the Dark Lord of the Noobs
Posted: May 2nd, 2020, 7:50 pm