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SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

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SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Super Mario Bros. X
39
66%
Lunar Magic
20
34%
 
Total votes: 59

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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by MrDeePay »

More to do with (admittedly) low QA.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Doctor Shemp »

DeePay, I get the feeling that you only glance through posts before replying to them. I mentioned using ASM to cover bad design and then you quote that and say that people use nice tilesets to cover bad design. It's true but it's not as on the point that making it a direct reply to a quote would imply it is. I also never said that Suboptimal was the only bad SMBX level or even the only bad ASMBXT level. I explicitly said that most SMBX levels were bad along with most SMW levels. I just said that Suboptimal is the only released SMBX level (that I'm aware of) to use a gimmick in a painful way - repeatedly killing the player in ways that aren't the fault - while loads of SMW levels do it.

Yes, obviously this is all the fault of the authors. Guess what though? This is amateur level design. Most authors will be people making levels on a whim who don't know what they're doing and have no inclination to learn. Let's be honest, if you're really, really good at making levels anyway, what are you wasting your time on amateur level design for anyway? Do it professionally.

I am saying that the nature of SMW hacking and ROM playing exacerbates bad design.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Eila »

I like using SMBX, though for the most part the editor is pretty horrendous.

I don't have the longest attention span. If I feel creative and want to make a level, that usually involves a few graphics. Right now I have my first 5 levels with new graphics to make a little story kind of thing.

And I just like that for SMBX I can dump a new graphic in and it works right away if I don't make a mistake. I mean I understand some people like using Lunar Magic to do neat things, but for me being able to jump in and instantly see that my stuff works without a convoluted way of actually doing it like when I used LM is much more satisfying for me. It lets me be somewhat creative on a whim.

Though of course I am not saying the SMBX doesn't have glaring errors. Just for me personally it does what I want. In future if I want to make more complicated things then I might use LM. For now SMBX does what I need mostly well.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by SAJewers »

MrDeePay wrote:More to do with (admittedly) low QA.
If you're talking about ASMBXT, then you mean No QA at all. IIRC, the only requirement for a level being accepted was that it worked, and that if you had dragon coins, you had to have 5, which was what raocow wanted. I guess he got what he wanted, in a sense.
Willhart wrote:
MrDeePay wrote:
And, yes, I know, USS Suboptimal exists, but that's the exception that proves the rule: everyone remembers it because it's so unique in that regard. If I ask you to name a SMBX level that's painful to play, you'd say Suboptimal, but if I asked you to name a SMW level that's painful to play, where would you begin?
Lunar Magic is more user-friendly and has been around (much) longer than SMBX. Those two factors alone will allow for a much larger sample pool to pull from.

Also, USS Suboptimal wasn't the only level in ASMBXT that sucked.
I think that some of the poor level quality was mostly due to the short beta testing and most levels being our first ones on SMBX. There were still some really neat story, gameplay and graphics related ideas used in that game.
I'd argue there was more to the shitty level quality than that:

- Zero QA
- Too many people really didn't know what they were doing. ASMT worked because there were guys like YCZ who knew what they were doing, and could help make levels better. ASMBXT didn't really have anyone like that. I remember playing USS Suboptimal, and had a bad experience playing it. Because I didn't really know what I was doing at the time, I assumed my bad experience playing it wasn't because the level was bad, but rather because I was bad at platforming.
- The strong belief that no one should modify someone elses level unless it's to fix a bug, and the level author isn't around.
- Too many people did this:
raocow wrote:Anyone out there that is not getting any reviews - just do like me and assume it's probably perfect!
- Hard deadlines. There were a lot of levels that were submitted at the last minute without anyone really reviewing them. Then there was the testing deadline. For some reason, I seem to recall testing only taking 3 weeks, and very few people testing all the levels.
-Too many other things that I can't recall right now

Basically, the problems with ASMBXT was that there weren't enough YCZ/MDP/SNN-type people who could give the level design the right direction, and the design philosophy (i'm almost certainly using the wrong wording here) of "raocow will play our SMBX levels. Let's make a bunch, package it together, and send it to him to play" without really thinking of anything else.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by MrDeePay »

Doctor Shemp wrote:DeePay, I get the feeling that you only glance through posts before replying to them. I mentioned using ASM to cover bad design and then you quote that and say that people use nice tilesets to cover bad design. It's true but it's not as on the point that making it a direct reply to a quote would imply it is.
I was covering both grounds because it looked like you were treating two examples to the same case (people using style to cover substance) differently. Oops.
I also never said that Suboptimal was the only bad SMBX level or even the only bad ASMBXT level. I explicitly said that most SMBX levels were bad along with most SMW levels.
You use it far too much as your go-to example when discussing bad SMBX levels that someone unfamiliar with the tool or ASMBXT can get the impression that it's the only bad level in it. Mix it up a little.
I just said that Suboptimal is the only released SMBX level (that I'm aware of) to use a gimmick in a painful way - repeatedly killing the player in ways that aren't the fault - while loads of SMW levels do it.
Which is no different from any Mario-based custom level that does the same thing even with "vanilla" resources.
Yes, obviously this is all the fault of the authors. Guess what though? This is amateur level design. Most authors will be people making levels on a whim who don't know what they're doing and have no inclination to learn.
And in my opinion those types of people have no place trying to submit something to a collab. I'm talking about those people that make crap and show no will to improve, not just any newbie that may make crap.
Let's be honest, if you're really, really good at making levels anyway, what are you wasting your time on amateur level design for anyway? Do it professionally.
Because some people like to do things as a hobby and not turn it into a 9-5 job, though I've seen some people (and am friends with two people, whoop de doo) use their hobbies to get extra money despite having "real" jobs.
I am saying that the nature of SMW hacking and ROM playing exacerbates bad design.
Not really.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by LovelyPenguin »

I find Lunar Magic a lot more intuitive, but that might just be because I have more experience with it. That said, I'm not too thrilled with SMBX's interface. Though not having to get 100 peripheral programs to make advanced stuff is a plus for SMBX.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Shinoda »

I like SMBX better. I still haven't figured out Lunar Magic to be honest. Played with it a little bit but it feels very limited on it's own while SMBX on it's own feels more open. You can make non-vanilla levels with SMBX much more easily than SMW. I haven't messed too much with all the side programs for SMW romhacking and LunaDLL for SMBX so I'm not gonna comment on those.

Also SMBX levels are really awesome to look at.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Alice »

Shinoda wrote:You can make non-vanilla levels with SMBX much more easily than SMW.
What exactly do you mean by non-vanilla in this context? Because SMBX is pretty crappy at non-vanilla stuff other than custom graphics and music.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Shinoda »

Alice wrote:
Shinoda wrote:You can make non-vanilla levels with SMBX much more easily than SMW.
What exactly do you mean by non-vanilla in this context? Because SMBX is pretty crappy at non-vanilla stuff other than custom graphics and music.
I meant exactly that.. graphics and music. and i was talking about the editors themselves and not the other side programs you would need to use... with smW you need external stuff to insert graphics and music while sMBX it's just a folder under worlds you put gifs in. much less complicated
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by darkychao »

Shinoda wrote:You can make non-vanilla levels with SMBX much more easily than SMW.
Shinoda wrote:I haven't messed too much with all the side programs for SMW romhacking and LunaDLL for SMBX so I'm not gonna comment on those.
How would you know the ease of making non-vanilla stuff if you haven't even used SMBX's only non-vanilla tool that much?
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Shinoda »

darkychao wrote: How would you know the ease of making non-vanilla stuff if you haven't even used SMBX's only non-vanilla tool that much?
Like I said, I meant music and graphics only. SMW needs external software as SMBX doesnt.

And I did try them out, just not a lot.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by CM30 »

You don't need an external tool for custom graphics or map16.

Music yes, but hey ho, AddMusic K is extremely easy to use.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by MrDeePay »

Learning how to properly use Addmusic properly takes a few minutes tops.
Learning how to properly use custom graphics (including all of the Map16 shenanigans) takes a few more minutes, tops.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by glitch4 »

My level design sucks.

My custom tilesets are worse (that's the only ones I get problem because sometimes they've bad quality). :(
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by CM30 »

GLDude wrote:My level design sucks.

My custom tilesets are worse (that's the only ones I get problem because sometimes they've bad quality). :(
That's gonna be a problem regardless of what editor you use.

Maybe you're just not cut out for anything more advanced than WarioWare DIY microgames or something...
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by 10204307 »

GLDude wrote:My level design sucks.

My custom tilesets are worse (that's the only ones I get problem because sometimes they've bad quality). :(
Nobody's good at level design right off the bat. It took me years to become anywhere near okay at level design.

If you're looking to get good at it, however, it's probably better to use Lunar Magic rather than SMBX. SMBX just has a really clunky interface that's often times completely obtuse to use. Even though SMBX itself is rather newbie-friendly, since you don't need to worry much about external tools, it's just so hard to efficiently make anything happen at a speed that isn't 'slow as hell'.

And, not gonna lie, the physics in SMW are way better than the ones in SMBX.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by docopoper »

If you want to get good at game design (which helps all aspects of making game related stuff) just watch Extra Credits. It's pretty much the most engaging show ever. :P

It doesn't really matter which editor you use in that regard though.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by ano0maly »

Oh how times have changed
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Zha Hong Lang »

Man, this is definitely one time capsule of a topic. Too bad half the people talking are inactive or banned. :P
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by SAJewers »

Yeah, SMBX definitely got a bit more advanced, white it seems (at least to me) that SMW hacking's skill foor was lowered.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by thehelmetguy1 »

SMBX I guess because Lua
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by YelseyKing »

Logic of long-time SMW hackers:

Then: "Lunar Magic, because it's a more powerful tool that you can do a lot more with, and requires actual skill to use!"

Now: "Lunar Magic, because being a less powerful and more restrictive tool, you really have to use your imagination and skill to produce something good with it!"
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Zha Hong Lang »

YelseyKing wrote: 7 years ago Logic of long-time SMW hackers:

Then: "Lunar Magic, because it's a more powerful tool that you can do a lot more with, and requires actual skill to use!"

Now: "Lunar Magic, because being a less powerful and more restrictive tool, you really have to use your imagination and skill to produce something good with it!"
"We like high entrance barriers!" :P
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by YelseyKing »

Jayoshi wrote: 7 years ago
YelseyKing wrote: 7 years ago Logic of long-time SMW hackers:

Then: "Lunar Magic, because it's a more powerful tool that you can do a lot more with, and requires actual skill to use!"

Now: "Lunar Magic, because being a less powerful and more restrictive tool, you really have to use your imagination and skill to produce something good with it!"
"We like high entrance barriers!" :P

Yeah, it reminds me of the Morrowind fans who hate Oblivion or especially Skyrim because they're friendlier for newcomers. As though something being harder to get into makes it inherently superior. Gotta have pride in something, I guess.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by SAJewers »

YelseyKing wrote: 7 years ago Logic of long-time SMW hackers:

Then: "Lunar Magic, because it's a more powerful tool that you can do a lot more with, and requires actual skill to use!"

Now: "Lunar Magic, because being a less powerful and more restrictive tool, you really have to use your imagination and skill to produce something good with it!"
Actually, I think the answer for Now would be more: "Lunar Magic, because the Editor is still more elegant compared to PGE, and the SMBX screen is still too large."

Actually, looking back at the thread, the only bit of comparative criticism compared that's different is that SMBX couldn't do as advanced custom stuff as SMW Hacking and ASM, and that SMW Hacking tools were too hard to use/daunting; most of the other criticisms are still there

Anyway, my thoughts, 2 years later:

Things SMBX Does Better:
- More stuff out of the box (like custom layers)
- You can use any music you want
- LUA is easier to learn than 65816 Assembly
- Easier to make collabs/combine levels into an episode

Things SMW Hacking does better:
- Screen size (I much prefer SMW's smaller screensize)
- Camera
- SMWC's Asset database is miles better than SMBX's forums
- Almost everything in Lunar Magic is a sizeable, whereas most SMBX objects are tile-by-tile
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