Are things slower around here?

[Vipershark]

There are plenty of legitimate uses ranging from a learning tool to a sprite style reference to the actual purpose of the site which is... an archive of sprites.

Just because you aren't interested in seeing a rehash of a rehash of a rehash of baby's first Mario clone doesn't mean the site doesn't have uses.

[StarSock64]

You essentially listed everything anyone would use the sprites deposited on this site for. What exactly is it you desire people to do with these assets? To me this sort of attitude is practically saying "Whelp, might as well just shut the site down".

I use the site regularly as a reference for my own custom work. The forum itself used to get along just fine being a place to get C&C and learn how to improve. It's not like that's completely stopped, either, given that there is still activity in the S&PA section. There appears to be more activity there than the games development fangame threads. You can't force an interest in fangames where there is none, but you can improve and encourage the already-present interest in learning how to make custom works.

[-¼-]

Not only here that things are slowed down. I've seen 3 long-lived communities suddenly 'die' from the inactivity from December 12nd to January 25th. Many forums lives are in peril my friends, but don't worry; this one will last.

[Koopaul]

Still the site is primarily for making things like this:



There's no denying why this site was founded and what it's purpose is.

Certainly you don't need mountains upon mountains of worthless rips just for references. Who would use this as a reference?

Who would use that for anything?

[Kosheh]

There are plenty of legitimate uses ranging from a learning tool to a sprite style reference to the actual purpose of the site which is... an archive of sprites.

Just because you aren't interested in seeing a rehash of a rehash of a rehash of baby's first Mario clone doesn't mean the site doesn't have uses.

In regards to things that use assets from the site:

I'm not opposed to the idea of showcasing, but I don't know if something like that would really increase activity. I'm personally not interested in things like sprite comics, fan videos with sprites, or fangames at all, and I haven't seen other people express that much interest when those types of projects are posted either.

Original works are a different story, and I'd like to see those put somewhere nice...

this is
you guys

i love you but
this... okay that's it


Think about the clientele of this site for a second. Think about the majority of past users on this site and the userbase on the site now.

Here's what our clientele consists [and consisted] of:

- People looking for sprite sheets.

- People looking for pixelart requests.

- Novice spriters posting their work looking for C+C.

- Novice and intermediate pixelartists alike, spriting in a consistent style (for a project of some sort)

- People advertising their cool fangame/their cool sprite sets in a topic.

- Experienced spriters showing off their work a lil seeking C+C.

- Experienced spriters who provide C+C (but were previously the latter)

- Neoriceisgood

The majority of that clientele is people looking for assistance - aspiring spriters, aspiring game creators - newcomers to spriting, basing their work off of an existing style; and some who want to show off, while actively seeking comments and criticism. And that's cool - that, in my opinion, is what TSR is all about. It's a stepping stone on improving.

I should also bring up that not everyone was like you, Angie and doesn't quite have the same views on art when they joined.
Sorry to make you a pinnacle, my friend - but just to put things into perspective.

This pretty much says "I have an art background" prior to joining...that you're serious about art, and at that point you were possibly pursuing art in the future. And currently, as you stated - you use the site's sprite archives as a reference point for your other work. And that's cool. It's evident that you've got an art background, and I'm not holding that against you
This art doesn't say "I rolled out of bed one day, figured I'd make some digital art" with zero prior art background.

The unfortunate truth, however, is that the majority of new users here all start somewhere.

(sorry guys, but...sorry)

And our best...move onto places like Pixeljoint or to their own endeavors, creating portfolios with the aspirations to work on popular games (and some actually have, which is awesome!)

http://www.pixeljoint.com/p/20426.htm - you might remember this guy! he worked for nicalis for a bit! now he just kinda makes indie games [one featured on kotaku] and im not sure what else he does but apparently he does a lot of talking at places
http://www.pixeljoint.com/p/6223.htm
http://hunter.digitalhaven-ent.net/ - hey - I know this guy too! He's actually done some recent work for WayForward and did some work on Dungeons of Dredmor!
Also two other users who we've unfortunately lost in a major site fallout - Grooveman and Zeemort - last i've heard from them they entered and indie game compo, with future aspirations of doing what they love - writing for games and creating wonderful, unique art, respectively.
And then there's Neorice.

But that's where the problem lies. TSR has somewhat of a "disposable" userbase in that regard. The target age we've got using the site consists mainly of 1# year old users; and once they hit 18~19 they've pretty much made their decision on what they're going to do from then - whether spriting/art in general is actually worth enough for them to pursue a career in it, or to move on with life. It's at this point that they realize posting on an internet forum where everyone gives you a buttpat for making good art, and they move on. What we need is to either draw in that teenage demographic looking to improve, and/or keep our userbase in their post-teen years to provide good role models and aspirations for the former. Oh, and to stop providing buttpats.

With all that said, I from time-to-time kind of wonder and self-reflect on why I still post here.
I think the reason for that is that all my old friends are here and haven't quite left yet. In addition to that, I want to show that a generally carefree attitude isn't a bad thing, so long as you know your place in society - I try to remain a staple of the community that shows that you don't have to be an uptight person who consistently keeps their ducks in a row :]
Talking in game design perspective, from time-to-time I like to come up with really neat, creative ideas though I don't think there's much of a future for people who just sit around and think all day about creative mechanics for videogames, lol. It seems like nowadays, rather than thinking about how good your ideas would be it's better to just actually just make the damn idea yourself and showcase it in practice.


well, all that and i hate posting on facebook, facebook sucks lol




so, okay - to be fair here, Angie maybe taking the buttpat approach was the wrong direction (as it seems that's what most of the newest users lately are looking for and users as of late that don't receive buttpats lately break out into crying fits, exhibit a [though to be fair it could've been handled better, though this is a topic for another time]), but we've got to draw in new users while keeping the realistic expectation that most of them will age out.

However, another truth of modern times is that most aspiring game designers with ideas and aspirations don't start out in a place like this in 2014.

They start here.

So how do we keep up in 2014?

[StarSock64]

Um, maybe I'm just tired (3 hr sleep!), but I don't really know what part of your post conflicted with anything I said, or even had to do with anything I said in the first place, even though I keep seeing my name come up. Like, I literally don't get what you're saying. What did anything I say have to do with buttpats? Can someone elaborate?

[Kosheh]

Um, maybe I'm just tired (3 hr sleep!), but I don't really know what part of your post conflicted with anything I said, or even had to do with anything I said in the first place, even though I keep seeing my name come up. Like, I literally don't get what you're saying. What did anything I say have to do with buttpats? Can someone elaborate?

hey that's funny i was also running on very little sleep and don't see why you're coming up either. oh wait yes i do.

your name came up a few times in the beginning because i used you as an example.
later on, when i use your name and "buttpat" in the same sentence, if you read the rest of the topic you'd recall that I mentioned something along the lines of making a new creativity forum using "less original" aspects.
that's more or less giving new members unneeded buttpats and pink flowers when they're obviously doing something wrong - don't you agree? THAT'S what I'm referring to.
we should be encouraging creativity as much as possible and give the opportunity to present original works, shouldn't we?

i spent a part of that post backpedaling. it's an awful thing and you shouldn't do it (i did)

the general gist though is that within your post you present a pretty good reason to use sprites (wasn't really criticizing you or anything to begin with; basically "i use sprites on the site as references to make more original work") - and together with vipershark you guys make the point of "we need more original content" - while i agree, the incoming userbase doesn't really have all that much...spark. i'm sorry, but it's true.
most don't have a background in art, and are trying out spriting for the first time. i'm referring to the pixelarting populace. sprite rippers are a different story and aren't really the focus here.
a lot of people joining are learning art and pixelart techniques etc. from the ground up.

to reiterate my point: as a result, TSR's community atmosphere in general appears to be conducive to novice spriters. a multitude of the people who come here looking to learn to sprite etc. are just starting out and have little experience in spriting let alone art.

if we're gonna establish ourselves as "a showcase of original works and pixelart" that's kind of shooting a bit high, given the incoming userbase is...more or less, just starting out with little or no prior art/programming experience.

basically: we're the stepping stone before people move onto other higher-standard communities like pixeljoint, or graphic arts-related careers. let's cater to that group and try to help get inspired minds get moving

[StarSock64]

so, okay - to be fair here, Angie, maybe taking the buttpat approach was the wrong direction...

Is this sentence supposed to be like this? That extra comma kind of changes the meaning entirely, and I'm not sure which you meant, so that's why I'm kind of confused. If it's not supposed to be there and is saying that I was taking a buttpat approach, I never actually advocated (fan) showcasing. It wasn't my idea, I just said I wouldn't hate it if it happened.

I would like to see originals being showcased, but not to encourage newbies to try to showcase or to establish that as the forum's purpose. I would like to see a select few works from veteran members being showcased in order to show newbies what they can accomplish and inspire them to work harder. That kind of inspiration used to be accomplished when good members posted stuff a lot, but they don't anymore, so a showcase of old stuff could serve a similar purpose.

Anyway, content aimed at beginners sounds good to me, and that's kind of what I had in mind in the first place.

[Vipershark]

I just read the last four posts, and...
I think... we're all... actually agreeing with each other?

It seems like Kosheh sort of missed the point of what we were saying entirely and yet somehow ended up repeating sort of the same thing in different words.

What we need is to either draw in that teenage demographic looking to improve, and/or keep our userbase in their post-teen years to provide good role models and aspirations for the former.

I've made it pretty clear that we need to do the former (we need a fresh (young) userbase in order to revitalize the site, and we need resources to draw them in, teach them the correct methods in a coherent fashion, and give them what they need to improve) and make that our main goal for now, but I don't see why we can't do the latter as well.

Why does the fact that we help to teach and nurture beginning/middling spriters mean that we can't also cater to experienced ones as well?
Why does our demographic have to be locked to either/or instead of just "spriters"?

Anyway, as far as the original content thing goes, none of us are saying that people can't post .... well, stuff like this

As you said, people have to start out somewhere, and this is how people start. That's a given. But we're talking in terms of showcasing user art representative of the site, and obviously that type of thing isn't what you'd really want to put in a showcase.
Edits and (unoriginal) sprite comics and videos certainly have their place and I'm not saying they should be disallowed, but they shouldn't be something that we rep as a site unless it's somehow REALLY good (which, let's be real, 99.99% of them are complete turds)
Instead we should showcase things that we can say "See how good this is? You could be like this one day too"

[StarSock64]

Still the site is primarily for making things like this:

(video)

I forgot to reply to this!

That may be what the site is for, but that doesn't mean it has to be what the forum is for, and I don't think it's what anybody wants the forum to be for. As I said before, fanworks tend to be ignored by the userbase, so there's no use in trying to spark interest that just isn't there.

[Kosheh]

I just read the last four posts, and...
I think... we're all... actually agreeing with each other?

It seems like Kosheh sort of missed the point of what we were saying entirely

yeah psh most of these posts are boring, i just audibly announced "Fuck People" and threw a bunch of words into the topic

thats how u post on the internet dog. frick all the haters.

and yet somehow ended up repeating sort of the same thing in different words.

sounds about right

Anyway, as far as the original content thing goes, none of us are saying that people can't post .... well, stuff like this

As you said, people have to start out somewhere, and this is how people start. That's a given. But we're talking in terms of showcasing user art representative of the site, and obviously that type of thing isn't what you'd really want to put in a showcase.
Edits and (unoriginal) sprite comics and videos certainly have their place and I'm not saying they should be disallowed, but they shouldn't be something that we rep as a site unless it's somehow REALLY good (which, let's be real, 99.99% of them are complete turds)
Instead we should showcase things that we can say "See how good this is? You could be like this one day too"

hey look we're saying the same thing, again
you're literally saying what should be showcased in the idea (which i brought up prior, with a cool picture [long live Luchador Office])

it's kind of common sense that we'd showcase only our nicest stuff, don't you think? not just joe schmoe's megaman edits or this Ha Ha So Funny (Not) Sonic Hedgehog Comic

the idea of a showcase is to show off your best stuff (doy)

Why does the fact that we help to teach and nurture beginning/middling spriters mean that we can't also cater to experienced ones as well?
Why does our demographic have to be locked to either/or instead of just "spriters"?

Uh...that's the thing. There's relatively few of them, because once the marjority of them realize that they're getting too many "wow g8 sprite!!"s and not enough criticisms, the next logical step is to join a more experienced community consisting of more experienced spriters (like pixeljoint) and ultimately getting the desired C+C you're looking for.

like, i guess we could try to cater to the experienced ones - but with what? at the very least, could we add a PixelJoint profile link in the Social Sites forum Mod as the start of an attempt to bridge the gap? :/

[Vipershark]

hey BUD don't take that tone with me let's speak rationally here

So if we've been saying the same thing this whole time, uh
Why are we even arguing right now?

The only thing in the post that we disagreed on was the part about experienced spriters (which we can discuss in a second) but like
I liked your luchador office thing and I was totally behind that. Are we actually disagreeing here, or

[Kosheh]

hey BUD don't take that tone with me let's speak rationally here

So if we've been saying the same thing this whole time, uh
Why are we even arguing right now?

The only thing in the post that we disagreed on was the part about experienced spriters (which we can discuss in a second) but like
I liked your luchador office thing and I was totally behind that. Are we actually disagreeing here, or

we're...

vipershark, we've been agreeing the whole time. why the shrek are we arguing in the first place?

god dammit
cmere buddy gimme a hug sorry i took that tone with my favorite bud...




(btw, luchador office was merely a joke example but i like how you're referring to the entire showcasing idea as "luchador office")

now what's this about "experienced spriters" that we dont agree on

[Koopaul]

The problem you don't see is that trying to make this place a Pixeljoint directly conflicts with the actual VGResource. Is this not the forums for the VGResource? A resource of materials for making fangames and videos. It seems entirely batty to share the name VGResource but then say, that is not who we are on the forums.

Not to mention there are people here like me who do not care about pixelart. We care about sprites and what we can do with them. Why is that so wrong? How did this place stray so far from that wonderful truth?

[Vipershark]

The problem you don't see is that trying to make this place a Pixeljoint directly conflicts with the actual VGResource. Is this not the forums for the VGResource? A resource of materials for making fangames and videos. It seems entirely batty to share the name VGResource but then say, that is not who we are on the forums.

Not to mention there are people here like me who do not care about pixelart. We care about sprites and what we can do with them. Why is that so wrong? How did this place stray so far from that wonderful truth?

Posts like this make me wonder if anybody is actually reading the thread.

Kosheh and I (and even Starsock) BOTH said that we don't want to get rid of that sort of thing at all.
Nobody is talking about getting rid of your precious sprite comics or mario clones because those things are perfectly acceptable in their own areas.

HOWEVER, those things have obviously died down a lot in recent years, as you can see by the fact that there is a grand total of nobody on the site making them.

That being said, how do propose we get people that want to do that onto the site without changing anything? How do we get people interested in "sprites and what we can do with them" if we don't introduce new features that cater to that?

Clearly the way things currently are isn't working.

(And on another note, tSR doesn't exist "for fangames", it exists purely as an archive of sprites (and the expanded VGR exists as an archive of other assets as well). What you do with them is obviously up to you and of course they're commonly used for such things but come on, dude. That's reaching and you know it.)

edit- not to mention, how can you say you don't care about pixel art when you personally ran both banjo kazooie and pokemon sprite projects