'Sup. Wanna Run MaGL 3 (SMW)?

[Sniggerb0bble]

This poll is invalid since Waluigi isn't an option.

[GlitchedGhost]

I nominate a jar of mayonnaise

[Ometeotl]

Do you want the host to be Jewish, from Canada, or a Radiologist? I wanted a Jewish Radiologist from Canada.

So are we just going to ignore how ludicrously offensive this is?

[Ivy]

i'd like the host to be of good Christian faith.

[Jesuiscontent]

Do you want the host to be Jewish, from Canada, or a Radiologist? I wanted a Jewish Radiologist from Canada.

So are we just going to ignore how ludicrously offensive this is?

It isn't. If you disagree feel free to hit my PM box but don't shit up the thread with this

[lolyoshi]

Is having a rom that will compile all the entries be necessary? I don't really want to limit what resources I want to use, unless there is a "gimmick" that will encourage using certain things (I actually hope not, as it discouraged many people to finish their entries, like in MaGL 2). The naming gimmick might not work out so well either in SMW as you can't do monkey cheese memes unlike SMBX (with use of custom graphics, music and message boxes being limited) and that I think it's pretty stupid of a gimmick.

[Ryrir]

Yeah, I also think that expecting a full rom with all the levels is... too much to ask, in a way? It's much easier for vanilla contests, but if you add ASM (and you don't know what other people are doing with their levels), everything becomes incompatible with each other and it's just a huge mess.

I feel like it's much easier to find a person willing to run this contest if the "only" things they had to do was run a signup-thread and judge levels.

[TaviTurnip]

One of the previous posts actually makes me want to ask, am I one of few people who thought MaGL 2's gimmick was cool? I know that being forced to use some things you might not like is not great, but I loved the idea of just being given a box of stuff >_> It's the same kinda reason I liked MAFAB. Would MaGL 3 be using something similar to that but more friendly/less frustrating, or?

[Rixithechao]

I nominate the concept of nomination.

[sedron]

One of the previous posts actually makes me want to ask, am I one of few people who thought MaGL 2's gimmick was cool? I know that being forced to use some things you might not like is not great, but I loved the idea of just being given a box of stuff >_> It's the same kinda reason I liked MAFAB. Would MaGL 3 be using something similar to that but more friendly/less frustrating, or?

I imagine the person running the contest will decide how it works. We might end up voting on people partly based on what ideas they have for the contest, as well, as we did for MaglX2.

Regarding the Magl2 boxes, I think they were a LOT more restricting than the MAFAB cards. A bit of restriction is great, but too much is, well, too much. I'd say we probably want to avoid forcing contestants to make use of specific assets. Whatever random elements they are required to incorporate for a good score, like names or Magic cards, should leave room for interpretation.

[lolyoshi]

One of the previous posts actually makes me want to ask, am I one of few people who thought MaGL 2's gimmick was cool? I know that being forced to use some things you might not like is not great, but I loved the idea of just being given a box of stuff >_> It's the same kinda reason I liked MAFAB. Would MaGL 3 be using something similar to that but more friendly/less frustrating, or?

What I don't like about it is that it has a chance of canceling ideas for a level you thought about, if you get stuff that wouldn't work with what you wanted. I get that it is supposed to inspire people if they don't have any idea what they want to make, but I feel like that should be something they figure out themselves, instead of encouraging them with a selection of stuff. There's a chance for you to get bad stuff and if you do, good luck making something fun out of it.

What I would propose if we were to do the box idea again, it would be that it is not a requirement for a 100% score, but simply as a bonus. For designers who already have a level they want to do in mind, they have a fair chance to win near perfection. For designers who have no idea what they want to do, they're encouraged to use the stuff they were given, even if they don't do extremely good, the bonus will help them increase their score.

It's possible that it's not a fair idea overall, but it's what I can think of for the boxes.

[Argumentable]

I thought another SMW contest would've been cool but if you guys wanna run it go for it (I'm not interested in doing it this soon)

[Zygl]

Is having a rom that will compile all the entries be necessary? I don't really want to limit what resources I want to use, unless there is a "gimmick" that will encourage using certain things (I actually hope not, as it discouraged many people to finish their entries, like in MaGL 2).

Naturally it'd depend on who's running it but I doubt anybody would limit the usable resources for the sake of putting everything in one rom unless they're outright banning ASM, as long as ASM's a legal thing in the contest you're basically not fitting it in there without a buttload of finagling no matter what you do.

What I don't like about it is that it has a chance of canceling ideas for a level you thought about, if you get stuff that wouldn't work with what you wanted.

That's kinda the point, I believe. If I'm not mistaken gimmicks started being incorporated into the contests specifically to encourage peeps to actually make levels for them rather than just submit whatever thing they had sitting around from their personal projects or whatever. The idea isn't to put your existing idea into the contest, it's to get an idea from the contest.
Of course I am not the one who started putting them in the contests to begin with so I dunno for sure, you'd have to ask Argu why they actually did it.

I thought another SMW contest would've been cool but if you guys wanna run it go for it (I'm not interested in doing it this soon)

They can run the contest whenever they want this upcoming year. But with SMW hacking being as fiddly as it is, I want to give them as much time as they need to do whatever they want to do for the contest.

If you're voted show-runner the contest happens whenever next year you want it to happen. Unless you mean you don't wanna do it in 2016 at all?

[SAJewers]

One of the previous posts actually makes me want to ask, am I one of few people who thought MaGL 2's gimmick was cool? I know that being forced to use some things you might not like is not great, but I loved the idea of just being given a box of stuff >_> It's the same kinda reason I liked MAFAB. Would MaGL 3 be using something similar to that but more friendly/less frustrating, or?

I honestly liked MAGL2's "Box of Stuff" over MAGLX's Naming Gimmick. The issue with MAGL2 most people had was the contents of the boxes themselves, which can be rectified.

[TaviTurnip]

The issue with MAGL2 most people had was the contents of the boxes themselves, which can be rectified.

This was something I wanted to say about it too. If I'm not misremembering, some people had box contents like "shitty tileset from thing X" and that's kind of not a good-sounding thing :P I think having decent contents makes a big difference.

That's kinda the point, I believe. If I'm not mistaken gimmicks started being incorporated into the contests specifically to encourage peeps to actually make levels for them rather than just submit whatever thing they had sitting around from their personal projects or whatever. The idea isn't to put your existing idea into the contest, it's to get an idea from the contest.

This was the other thing I wanted to say. I would definitely not be going into a contest with a preconceived idea, like even contests of skill (sport, art) are about doing what the contest wants you to, not what you want to do :P Art contests aren't "draw the best thing you can" for example, it's "draw the best of this thing we're having everyone else draw too", like a specific character or scene. Things like MaGL X aren't even extremely restrictive about it with the name gimmick, for the most part I think if you wanted to make a specific type of level, you're wanting to make a certain setting (forest, ice, lava, sky, whatever) and these sorts of gimmicks like names or box contents won't stop you from doing what you want. The forced inclusion of Birdo/France/Peach/whatever your name is won't ruin your MaGL X level, and the forced inclusion of double jumping or turbo tiles won't make your SMW level any worse; you don't have to make these central features, just inclusions.

God I ramble too much ;D

[Argumentable]

Yeah, MaGL2 was the box gimmick. It was dumb, and maybe didn't go over as well as we'd have liked, but I'm glad we did it! I was impressed by a lot of it, and if you'll remember one of the top 10s didn't even use their box items.

I like the idea of a gimmick for the contest, but having it vary that wildly from person to person may have been a mistake. I also don't think it should be TOO samey because then you'll have 50 levels that are essentially the same thing. If the box route were to happen again, I think I'd probably just grab like 10 or 15 things and force people to use some of them (their choice), or maybe something else. It doesn't have to be boxes though. There's tons of dumb ideas like:

-Only use one enemy type
-Only X amount of time to build your level (like the SMWC 24 hour contest)
-That's it!

Nah there's probably more but I can't think of 'em right now

I'm kind of pumped for it, if nobody would mind waiting for a couple months I'd do it. I'm echoing the thought that the planning phase came A LITTLE SOON

[S.N.N.]

I may have expressed a great interest in running this in a PM.

Maybe.

(looks like it might come down to a vote now since Argumentable also wants to as well. Or we could co-run. OR W/E)

[Sebby19]

How about, if they get a box, hey don't have to use anything inside, but they can't use anything outside the box that isn't vanilla.

[Nimono]

Yeah, MaGL2 was the box gimmick. It was dumb, and maybe didn't go over as well as we'd have liked, but I'm glad we did it! I was impressed by a lot of it, and if you'll remember one of the top 10s didn't even use their box items.

I like the idea of a gimmick for the contest, but having it vary that wildly from person to person may have been a mistake. I also don't think it should be TOO samey because then you'll have 50 levels that are essentially the same thing. If the box route were to happen again, I think I'd probably just grab like 10 or 15 things and force people to use some of them (their choice), or maybe something else. It doesn't have to be boxes though. There's tons of dumb ideas like:

-Only use one enemy type
-Only X amount of time to build your level (like the SMWC 24 hour contest)
-That's it!

Nah there's probably more but I can't think of 'em right now

I'm kind of pumped for it, if nobody would mind waiting for a couple months I'd do it. I'm echoing the thought that the planning phase came A LITTLE SOON

The box thing reminds me of a contest held on SMWC two years ago. You were given a selection of mystery packs with custom sprites and blocks inside, and you had to make a level utilizing all of them, but you could also use anything else from SMW (or the customs sections!) you wanted. I think the contest could work with something like this, provided we gave a varied enough selection, and all the possible boxes are the same for each person, even if, say, 10 people pick #7.

Also, just for the record, I find that a contest is far more exciting when you're given limitations that you must follow, like this. Really makes you think about how to utilize what you're given- who knows? You might find some really exciting new use for them!

[Sebby19]

I believe the box thing was inspired from that.

[Money]

one of the problems i have with contest ideas that involve requiring custom assets to be used is that it discourages entries from people who aren't familiar with the ins and outs of smw hacking. this might be fine for smwcentral which is specifically a romhacking community, but im not sure it'd be so good for the talkhaus.

[pholtos]

one of the problems i have with contest ideas that involve requiring custom assets to be used is that it discourages entries from people who aren't familiar with the ins and outs of smw hacking. this might be fine for smwcentral which is specifically a romhacking community, but im not sure it'd be so good for the talkhaus.

This is why I never got anywhere with the box idea last time.

[ano0maly]

Yeah, MaGL2 was the box gimmick. It was dumb, and maybe didn't go over as well as we'd have liked, but I'm glad we did it! I was impressed by a lot of it, and if you'll remember one of the top 10s didn't even use their box items.

The problem with MAGL 2 was two points that are kind of contrary to each other: "here's a box" and "it's your fault for using it".

In detail:

• The boxes undercutting and hindering the very idea of "make a good level". Not only the random boxes were quite unbalanced, the restrictive nature of some of the boxes clashed with MAGL 1's "just go have fun with whatever" concept. This created confusion because the contest was gimmick-centric by nature but wasn't being up front enough about it, so some were wondering why better levels got ranked lower than box-adhering ones. One person called the contest "a travesty to its name".
• People that shot down criticisms of the boxes with the "you didn't have to use the box if you didn't want to" excuse. The posts saying such things were making it sound like choosing to not participate in the gimmick was of no consequence. Or perhaps they were incorrectly assuming that the contest was running on two parallel tracks - one without and one with the box, with a separate scoring system or special winners set aside for those that participated in the gimmick.

This is why in contests since, I spoke strongly about not encouraging entreats to ignore the gimmick, because I despised those posts and didn't want anyone to say something like that again. And I didn't want contestants to feel justified when they didn't care about the contest theme and guidelines.

Anyway. One idea I've had was giving the judges/host the discretionary ability to penalize or disqualify levels if they're found to be posted on the Internet prior to the contest. This wouldn't stop people from submitting levels they previously made and didn't post, but at least those would have been kept to themselves, and not blatantly published for something else and then recycled.

[Zygl]

The boxes undercutting and hindering the very idea of "make a good level". Not only the random boxes were quite unbalanced, the restrictive nature of some of the boxes clashed with MAGL 1's "just go have fun with whatever" concept. This created confusion because the contest was gimmick-centric by nature but wasn't being up front enough about it, so some were wondering why better levels got ranked lower than box-adhering ones. One person called the contest "a travesty to its name".

Ano I don't know where you keep having this idea in your head that they "weren't up-front enough about it" but you very clearly haven't looked at the OP of the discussion thread in your digging for random individual posts from the LP.

Now, last year was just a normal "make any sort of level you want" contest. This time we're spicing it up. Mystery boxes!!!
[...]
The way you incorporate the resources in your box will affect your score. You don't have to use anything in your box at all, but then you will get a 0 under the category.
[...]
Judging
The judges are me and Argumentable. Here's how we will judge:

• Fun: 20
• Difficulty: 5
• Focus: 5
• Incorporation of Boxes: 10
• Atmosphere: 10
• Functionality: 10

[/spoiler]
And nobody was "wondering" why Box Had Ugly Tiles beat out better levels, it was very clear. If you'd look at the actual context of that post you're referencing there you'd notice dude's gripe was with Sept being saddled with a bad gimmick - which he wasn't, he just used literally the worst possible usage of Pokeys - and with his level beating out much, much better levels - which is a legitimate gripe, but one with the scoring system, not the gimmick. You'll note MaGL X1 and 2 had dozens of instances of better levels losing out to ones that followed the gimmick, but none as extreme as Box Had Ugly Tiles because the gimmick was only 10% of the score (15% in X2) while having your level be fun was 50%, whereas in 2 it was a 16%-32% balance.

People that shot down criticisms of the boxes with the "you didn't have to use the box if you didn't want to" excuse. The posts saying such things were making it sound like choosing to not participate in the gimmick was of no consequence. Or perhaps they were incorrectly assuming that the contest was running on two parallel tracks - one without and one with the box, with a separate scoring system or special winners set aside for those that participated in the gimmick.

Okay I know you've been told this several times before but I'll reiterate: One dumb butt with literally no involvement in the running of the contest encouraging people to ignore the gimmick is not a fault of the contest. It was very, very clearly stated in the post detailing the rules that you could not just ignore the gimmick without penalty, one person suggesting people ignore it entirely rather than, you know, not include freaking Pokey-riding as a central mechanic of your level means literally nothing in the context of discussing how to run the next contest.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the boxes were well-executed, being required to use a particular 3 elements in your level for full marks is rather restrictive and can fairly easily make for 'how the heck do I use these together even' and as I recall a fair number of the boxes had buggy elements in them, but damn near everything you're saying was wrong with MaGL 2 is not even adjacent to the actual problem.

Anyway. One idea I've had was giving the judges/host the discretionary ability to penalize or disqualify levels if they're found to be posted on the Internet prior to the contest. This wouldn't stop people from submitting levels they previously made and didn't post, but at least those would have been kept to themselves, and not blatantly published for something else and then recycled.

Vehement disagreement with everything you think was wrong with MaGL 2 aside, I do totally support this, this pre-made level issue got rather ridiculous and disgusting this year.