Site Discussion Thread

[Zha Hong Lang]

I'm a bit tired tonight and can't address your whole wall of text, but

anything else like off topic or bad threads also usually have a public post from a staff member and a lock.

I was referring to when a post is locked, not a topic lol

Since there wasn't any other reason I can imagine to discuss topics being locked I assume that's why you're mentioning it

[aero]

I know what you said, I'm talking about the general cases when staff already give out enough information which includes topic locking.

[Thehelmetguy1]

"Notifications [-1]"
bbcode works perfectly as always
The only thing that I have to do is to mark a notification as read when I have one single notification.
Like, how is it even possible to have negative notifications?

[Radiance]

Like, how is it even possible to have negative notifications?

Inspect element. -1 notifications doesn't appear in mine, though.

[ElectriKong]

phpBB works perfectly as always

FTFY

[aero]

Regarding the stickied guides: does anyone read them? Enjl has his big Motivation thread, Aristocrat has his level design thread, and Nien wrote about Link's abilities. A lot of time and effort went into writing them, and despite being stickied they had an initial wave of "this is so useful" posts followed by an abrupt death. Other stickies in the H&S forum do not get as many replies, but their view counts are above the General guides by a mile. Since they're going for new and experienced users, they're pretty much dead in the water compared to other info threads like the Cheat Codes, Custom NPC Codes, Hidden NPC Tab thread in H&S. This also goes for Linik's level criticism lesson with even less engagement. On top of that threads like Level Design Tips have a lot of views and replies, but the useful information is spread really thin by the forum game like structure of the thread so views and replies don't correlate well to meaningful engagement.

With that all said, I think the problem with the guides is that they're not left open ended for the community to build on it. The OP covers a lot of ground and then the threads hangs on it, while the Level Design Tips thread is left too open ended is a directionless forum game that doesn't cover any ground and doesn't hang. What if instead of having guides stickied around the forum, a subforum in the H&S forum would contain them all as regular threads where anyone can make their own and the ones that are the most useful work their way to the top? I believe this will work better than leaving things to just general help threads, Q&A, and trying to answer an endless amount of questions with a couple stickies. This seems like a much better way to get people participating, and a better way to organize these kinds of things too.

Thoughts?

[Danny]

My thoughts are ones I've reinforced over the years (since the original forums) about guides in any text form. They are extremely helpful and well thought out and definitely appreciative, but I think no matter how they're presented, people will either read them once or never read them at all. One of the things I've taken notice to in being part of different fangame communities, or at least communities where there's some aspect of designing, is that newcomers or the general populace are less interested in reading full on guides and are more interested in jumping right into the action and interpreting things for themselves.
While the guides do enforce some useful and good to know information, one of the major issues is that they simply aren't interactive, and that can fail to grab the attention or interest of younger audiences or people that prefer hands-on experiences, which in a situation like this, you will attract a lot of. If guides were taken to a more interactive level, like a video tutorial or an interactive newcomer's guide or something of the sort implemented in 2.0, I'm sure the information conveyed within them would reach a larger audience and would prove much more helpful than stickies on a forum.

[ElectriKong]

So when will the Month of October thread come out?

[Zha Hong Lang]

October thread is good stuff

[Snessy the duck]

Shouldn't the SMBX worlds and gfx pages be updated with the stuff from September and October?

[Quill]

Shouldn't the SMBX worlds and gfx pages be updated with the stuff from September and October?

Will be updated later today!

[Zha Hong Lang]

Could the level reviewer application thread be changed from a global announcement into a sticky on the level forum?

[arcade999]

I don't know you, but for me, betterified; return of daddy brain didn't deserve to be on the october page, since it is an april fool joke episode with dumb and crappy level, like ya know, joke level stuff. Not saying I hate the episode or anything, but just, there are so much greater episodes that deserves to be showed on this page.

[Waddle]

I don't know you, but for me, betterified; return of daddy brain didn't deserve to be on the october page, since it is an april fool joke episode with dumb and crappy level, like ya know, joke level stuff. Not saying I hate the episode or anything, but just, there are so much greater episodes that deserves to be showed on this page.

Featured episodes aren't meant specifically to be the "best" episodes, they're simply episodes which innovate or have some special trait that sets them apart; I understand this may sound biased coming from the creator of the episode but that's essentially why episodes are featured. Having said that, nothing that really fits that category has been released recently and we also try to not pick episodes from the same people all the time.

[Cedur]

Besides, it was "coincidentally" posted on april 1st but it already had a prequel, and you shouldn't regard it as crappy level design, because it's meant to be a parody, and it's a good one. I myself once said that I personally also wished for something less bizarre to be featured, but it's nevertheless an okay choice especially considering the "special trait" criterion.

[arcade999]

The world page still shows featured 2014 episodes, wich are truly outdated, and it is just looking wierd and cringy. At least, by the same occasion, show featured episodes from all the years, otherwise, I don't really see the point.

Besides, it was "coincidentally" posted on april 1st but it already had a prequel, and you shouldn't regard it as crappy level design, because it's meant to be a parody, and it's a good one. I myself once said that I personally also wished for something less bizarre to be featured, but it's nevertheless an okay choice especially considering the "special trait" criterion.

I actually said that crappy level desing was joke level stuff. Except that, I can see what you are trying to mean.

[FireyPaperMario]

Can't we have a level & project forums just for the 38A users?

[Snessy the duck]

Can't we have a level & project forums just for the 38A users?

I think a rule where someone must state what version their level/project/episode is using would be a better idea.

[Zha Hong Lang]

People already state when they're using 38A, but if a rule for that doesn't exist yet it could be useful for future users.

In the meantime, i'd like this statement I made earlier addressed:

Could the level reviewer application thread be changed from a global announcement into a sticky on the level forum?

[Snessy the duck]

Also, it's kinda weird how none of the level reviewers have made a review yet afaik.