Rant on the state of the community

Everything useful or interesting I may discover will certainly be posted here.
I'm always ready to help people at hacking old Sonic games, the best way I can.
I have nothing to hide, and for my part, my project is not to be the best Sonic hacker ever.

Someone (P.C.) made a mistake in the past, but really, that's only a single person and now, he's gone. Every single Sonic hacker has a different project. But there is one thing we all want to do: make something fun to play, something entertaining, to keep the 'spirit' of Sonic alive! All hacks are the proof of an amazing work made by his author and this Community, and all hacks are the best, and we have to be proud of our work so far!

I don't think I'm optimistic, I think we all have to change a bit our mind to put trust in this Community. This Community has to live, live in peace and the respect of each other.

That's all coming up to my mind reading this topic. I hope you understand me...

 

I have downloaded your disassembly before the summer. I haven't even bothered to look at it though. I don't like IDA.

 

Amen to that!

Back to the main point. I think what Quickman was trying to say when he said that people don't share their work, is that they spend hours finding something out, and then when somebody asks about it they get pointed in the general direction of where to look for it on the internet, if you understand my meaning. Instead of simply explaining what they have discovered, they tell people all the information is available on the internet. If the person who asked the question wants to find documentation on it, he or she then has to spend more hours searching the internet trying to find it themselves, when it would be much easier for the person who made the discovery to send links and/or any files containing documentation to the person that asked for it.

In a community such as this, it is important for people to be able to depend on each other to a certain extent, but not be entirely dependent on other people. That is to say, if nobody could depend on anybody else, each member would have to find out everything all by his- or herself, and nobody would help each other and there would be no communication. On the other end of the scale, a community cannot be composed of people who depend entirely on other people. In other words, if people COULDN'T find anything out for themselves, because they were so lazy or unable to do so or whatever reason, although people would be willing to contribute and share their knowledge, nobody would have anything to share.

It is essential that people within a community such as this work together to get a perfect balance of dependency and independency, to allow people to work for themselves and each other, and therefore create a wider knowledge base that everyone can share.

People need to stop arguing and appreciate and respect everyone for who they are and whatever they have to offer.

 

That is probably the first time I have ever agreed with you.

FireFly has a very good point. I'm not even sure what I can say now since it's all been said, so would it be a good enough time for this topic to be locked? Or is there anything that hasn't been worked out yet?

 

What has happened around here? When I first joined up through now, everyone seemed to get along with everyone else, to a certain degree anyways.

Now everyone is at everyone else's throat. This is not the same Sonic site I joined in November of 2003. This is not how I ever saw it being.

Out of every Sonic secrets site I've ever run into, this place was my favorite because of the friendly nature. If you came in as a newbie, you wouldn't get flamed for your lack of knowledge. The members here would inform you and direct you to some informative sites that maybe you hadn't found beforehand.

Admittedly, this community has come to a standstill, but a lot of people are back in school now, so naturally, this kind of thing is going to happen. However, this is no reason to attack one another for any reason whatsoever.

The sudden change in attitudes I have seen in this post alone is appalling. Is this or is this not the same S2B it's always been? Are you or are you not the same people that I've come to respect, Tech Member or not?

I don't know what has happened, but regardless of anything, just don't let this community die.

 

I joined in March 2004, and I have also noticed this.
This may sound stupid, but, since April, I had the feeling this hacking contest was not good for our Community. In fact, everyone wanted to win a trophy (seeing the number of hacks entered). This may be the reason for some people to not reveal some informations to others participants...

EDIT: No, it's really stupid. Who cares about this contest now? :lol:

 

ComPro, I so agree with you there. I agree with you more so than FireFly.

I remember the day I was accepted as a member. I checked these forums as school, and I saw the words "0 new messages", which is different to what is said when pending approval. I got a buzz, I felt liked, and it was great.

A few weeks into that, I loved and still do love this place. I have participated in some realy cool discussions here and I've made a few good friends here (despite being paranoid that most of you hate me). That's how it was about half a month ago. Now, it's a bit tense. I have noticed also that people have changed quite a bit.

It's not. It's not changed that mutch, but it's still not as groovy as it used to be.

I would like to think that I haven't changed, but I know that some people would beg to differ.

If that is the case, then this community is starting to turn to shit. If what you think is true, then people have turned a hobby into something which is pissing themselfes off and other people.

 

Then I hope this is not true. I like so much this place, I don't want to leave because this is turning into shit. Really, this topic start to waste my time and change my point of view (into bad) about this Community. I'd better to not read it anymore and making something else more interesting and more useful for it...

 

I think the major problem is that we (the community) are running out of things to do. If you think about it, many hacks have been started but are put on hold for various reasons so there aren't too many hacks in progress right now. The information well has more or less dried up and because of this everyone is getting edgy. If you try to pinpoint any one thing you won't be able to but you will notice that since everything started slowing down (not due to school mind you) the people have been getting less friendly and a bit more... not sure what word might fit here... critical is the best one I can think of. Since we know many of the details of (let's face it) everything Sonic related the standards of acceptable knowledge and hacking skills is visibly higher than it was when I joined a few years back. It is this higher standard that is the problem. If something comes up that is not up to the higher standard, it is basically either ignored or more commonly bashed/flamed. I think that if we all just lowered that standard back down and accepted the stuff that isn't up to par with today's information, thing would go back to the way they were when I joined, at least partly anyway.

 

Even high standard hacks get ignored. It is something else that's wrong here.

What are people's dreams? What do you want to see? You have to ask yourselves these questions right now.

I have spent over one week making a hacking tool that can basically edit any sprites in all the Sonic games. If you're not going to use it, then I will use the tool myself. I haven't lost my interests in the old Sonic games. This is a beginning for something greater and more fun than anything else yet brought up by this community.

I see Magus, Hivebrain, JoseTheBest, and Rika as the pepole still working their butts for us. To make this a better place for all of us. So join us and kick ass now!

 

What higher standard hacks get ignored? They may not be mentioned at all times but they're definately noticed. Another problem is that noobs show up (not a bad thing, especially not now since we seem to be getting alot of knowledgable noobs recently to which the following statement does not apply) and expect to become a great hacker instantly. I don't know. Maybe that's just me. Like I said it doesn't seem like that now but it sure did a couple months ago. I just think people are getting tired of Sonic. Not everyone. Like you said, you and others are still working hard on figuring out the little bits of information we don't know. But I think people are getting tired of Sonic and instead of admitting it, they are taking out their tiredness, in small bits, on other members. Since it is not just any one person doing this, everyone seems to get sketchy at times. I may be totally wrong here but it seems like the whole quality of not just this place, but the entire internet has gone down seriously. Like I said though... I might be totally wrong. Just think of this, when was the last time you saw a fan page? I mean a real fan page. Very basic design, nothing original, looks like the creator just threw the site together in ten minutes. Everything has to look highly professional now, and in the attempt to look professional, people are becoming more irritable. But maybe that's just me...

 

Thank you LOst. Yeah, let's kick ass !

I don't know who you're talking about, but I can tell you I did not ask for this title. I was given this title right after I posted about KENS (and it was my very first post on this board). Anyway, it does not change anything for me, I just keep working on my stuff, for the sake of the Community, not for my own glory.

 

My opinion on why this community is slowing down are three things:

1. People are getting older and start to look at other aspects of life.
2. Restrictions on certain topics, which can cause controversy, and hurt others.
3. And relying too much on facts and not taking/accepting into account people's interests, thoughts, and beliefs.

And to me, I like the 90s more than these 4 years that passed. [<- no significance to the topic]

 

Imagine this! All people sounded like this back in 2001. It was really great to work and find stuff together.

We just need to regroup. Tell what part of Sonic that is making you interested in develop and analyse it more. And go for it for the love of god!