I've noticed a few people on the forums asking stuff like this:
While I can't speak for Peardian over at TMR, I can speak for myself.
1. We just haven't gotten around to it yet.
This happens sometimes. If it's been two days, give it some time. I'm usually checking the site through the day, so this isn't often a problem.
2. There's no icon.
This is, far and away, the number one reason your sheet isn't on the site. Did you submit something back in September and still haven't gotten that happy little PM that lets you know that we liked it? Here's why. Icons are a pain. We all know that, and now that you need transparency in a lot of them it makes it a little trickier to do them. Most of us have a way to fix icons and add transparency, but sometimes we don't or sometimes there just isn't time. So they'll just sit on the server. Here's a selection of my favorite icons in the queue that need to be replaced right now:
So most of these are perfectly good sheets that I can't accept yet. Why?
SOM Girl- While incomplete, is something. We currently have nearly nothing for SOM's playable characters. Unfortunately, the multiple frames and terrible green background just don't look good. Check out any other RPG on the site. You have a single frame of the character and maybe a mugshot. We don't need this whole dance.
Enemies/Consumables- Same rules. Give me one enemy, or a couple enemies. I don't want a screenshot of the sheet enclosed.
Female Baphomet- Old-style icon inserted into a new-style icon. Great job, guy. This submitter has also done every other enemy in the game and all the icons are like this.
smw tiles beta- The spelling can be fixed. No big. The problem here is the skewing of the sprites so they look stretched and the bright blue background.
The Gym- This looks like a screenshot from MS Paint. Essentially, this is the same problem as SOM Girl.
Everything- Just because you have everything doesn't mean you need to cram everything into your icon.
Warrior Sprite (movement)- There's no icon. Almost all of the sheets submitted without icons look like this. Obviously we can't accept them.
Also, some of the above sheets are named "SoM Girl" or "Warrior Sprite (Movement)." Someone who doesn't know these games as well as the ripper might not know if these are the correct names. Because of that, we may be hesitant to accept something labeled with a generic name like these.
3. The sheet is fine, but the section icon isn't.
When you do everything right, sometimes the sheet isn't accepted. Why? Easy. We can be picky. I really don't like seeing the game icon with the title of the game in it.
I know the titles of these games. They're in that big red box at the top. I don't need the titles in the image. That tells me nothing about the game. Show me an action shot. If the game is Super Mario Bros, I don't want to see a screenshot of the words Super Mario Bros. I know that. I want Mario jumping on a Goomba. I want him hitting a coin block. I want him leaping from one platform to another. There is plenty of iconic imagery in every game. Pick one! Think of the site as a museum. We want the title, and an example of the work.
And, same as above, distorted images are ugly and I won't use them. Give me a clean screenshot. Cropping is fine, as long as it still looks good. You're an artist. Use a sense of balance and color and get me a pretty screenshot.
4. Your submission is a zip file.
This is a big reason why accepting takes so long. With zips, there are sometimes hundreds of files to go through. That means hundreds of images, hundreds of sound files, hundreds of files to open in a model viewing software. That takes a long time and it's why we prefer sheets on TSR. Sheets are more appealing, more fun to look at, and more accessible. If you have to submit in a zip, there is a waiting process. I don't want to accept a zip file and then find out someone replaced the images with some hardcore porn. We have to be meticulous.
5. You're new.
It may sound rude or elitist, but we are more wary of new submitters. With our veteran submitters, we know we can trust them. With newbies, we may have to (in the case of a sprite sheet) do a reverse image search, check through other spriting sites, look on Deviant Art, etc to make sure you haven't swiped an existing sheet and put your name on it, or maybe you've innocently seen a gap in the site and knew a place what had a sheet we could use. Either way, we can't take sheets, etc that weren't personally created and submitted by you, the submitter. We have to do our due diligence and make sure the sheet isn't pilfered, and this can take time.
6. My sheet WAS accepted, but it's not showing up on the site!
Try pressing the Control (Ctrl) button plus F5. This refreshes the cache and will make your updated sheet load correctly.
7. There are gaps in our knowledge.
The fact is, time is moving forward constantly, and the staff is getting older. Some of us have been involved with TSR for 20+ years and we're rapidly approaching our 40s. That means that for a series like Sonic or Mario or Megaman or Final Fantasy or whatever, we know about those games and what a rip from it is supposed to look like. But as new series are released and development becomes more accessible for more people, and indie games and niche titles become the norm, we become less familiar with the subjects being submitted.
For example, a few years ago, Baldi's Basics released and we had dozens of submissions in the queue and nobody knew the game well enough to make the call to accept submissions or not. Are these badly drawn static sprites SUPPOSED to look that bad? Is there only one frame per character? Or did the ripper do a bad job and submit a corrupted file?
tldr, for newer games, we might not know what we're looking at right away. Anything you can put in the notes to help us make these assessments faster are appreciated.
8. A combination of any of the above.
As of today, the bulk of the 600+ sheets we have in the queue are zip files of obscure PC games with no icons. That means we have to go in blind to a game we're not familiar with, search through all the images and see if they're clear, assume that this is a complete file, and then make section and sheet icons for every submission. It's a huge headache, and it's drawn out further when the staff has no idea what they're about to get into.
So those are the big roadblocks. And I can hear you all now "Well Ton, you work on the site. Why don't YOU fix those?" Simply put, I just don't have the time or energy to. This is a volunteer position that most of us perform because we love games, you guys, and want to help curate the site. We do it in addition to full-time jobs, school, and tending to our families. When we're unfamiliar with the game and don't know what we're looking for, this complicates things even further. This is a collaborative process. We want your sheets to be up on the site as badly as you do. But when it comes down to it, YOU know the game much better than we do. YOU ripped this stuff. It'll much easier for YOU to get a screenshot that embodies the game than for us to sift through Google image search for blurry jpegs.
So follow these rules and I guarantee you'll see faster results. Thanks a lot, guys.
Updated 8/8/17
Updated 6/4/18 with Reason #5
Updated 8/22/19 with Reason #6
Updated 4/29/24 with Reason #7
(03-10-2015, 02:22 PM)SuperFlomm Wrote: Yes, my Sims submissions are quick. Others can take much longer. I still have one from november and 13 on The Sounds Resource.
Maybe somebody from the staff should explain how they go through the submissions. It would be interesting to know.
While I can't speak for Peardian over at TMR, I can speak for myself.
1. We just haven't gotten around to it yet.
This happens sometimes. If it's been two days, give it some time. I'm usually checking the site through the day, so this isn't often a problem.
2. There's no icon.
This is, far and away, the number one reason your sheet isn't on the site. Did you submit something back in September and still haven't gotten that happy little PM that lets you know that we liked it? Here's why. Icons are a pain. We all know that, and now that you need transparency in a lot of them it makes it a little trickier to do them. Most of us have a way to fix icons and add transparency, but sometimes we don't or sometimes there just isn't time. So they'll just sit on the server. Here's a selection of my favorite icons in the queue that need to be replaced right now:
So most of these are perfectly good sheets that I can't accept yet. Why?
SOM Girl- While incomplete, is something. We currently have nearly nothing for SOM's playable characters. Unfortunately, the multiple frames and terrible green background just don't look good. Check out any other RPG on the site. You have a single frame of the character and maybe a mugshot. We don't need this whole dance.
Enemies/Consumables- Same rules. Give me one enemy, or a couple enemies. I don't want a screenshot of the sheet enclosed.
Female Baphomet- Old-style icon inserted into a new-style icon. Great job, guy. This submitter has also done every other enemy in the game and all the icons are like this.
smw tiles beta- The spelling can be fixed. No big. The problem here is the skewing of the sprites so they look stretched and the bright blue background.
The Gym- This looks like a screenshot from MS Paint. Essentially, this is the same problem as SOM Girl.
Everything- Just because you have everything doesn't mean you need to cram everything into your icon.
Warrior Sprite (movement)- There's no icon. Almost all of the sheets submitted without icons look like this. Obviously we can't accept them.
Also, some of the above sheets are named "SoM Girl" or "Warrior Sprite (Movement)." Someone who doesn't know these games as well as the ripper might not know if these are the correct names. Because of that, we may be hesitant to accept something labeled with a generic name like these.
3. The sheet is fine, but the section icon isn't.
When you do everything right, sometimes the sheet isn't accepted. Why? Easy. We can be picky. I really don't like seeing the game icon with the title of the game in it.
I know the titles of these games. They're in that big red box at the top. I don't need the titles in the image. That tells me nothing about the game. Show me an action shot. If the game is Super Mario Bros, I don't want to see a screenshot of the words Super Mario Bros. I know that. I want Mario jumping on a Goomba. I want him hitting a coin block. I want him leaping from one platform to another. There is plenty of iconic imagery in every game. Pick one! Think of the site as a museum. We want the title, and an example of the work.
And, same as above, distorted images are ugly and I won't use them. Give me a clean screenshot. Cropping is fine, as long as it still looks good. You're an artist. Use a sense of balance and color and get me a pretty screenshot.
4. Your submission is a zip file.
This is a big reason why accepting takes so long. With zips, there are sometimes hundreds of files to go through. That means hundreds of images, hundreds of sound files, hundreds of files to open in a model viewing software. That takes a long time and it's why we prefer sheets on TSR. Sheets are more appealing, more fun to look at, and more accessible. If you have to submit in a zip, there is a waiting process. I don't want to accept a zip file and then find out someone replaced the images with some hardcore porn. We have to be meticulous.
5. You're new.
It may sound rude or elitist, but we are more wary of new submitters. With our veteran submitters, we know we can trust them. With newbies, we may have to (in the case of a sprite sheet) do a reverse image search, check through other spriting sites, look on Deviant Art, etc to make sure you haven't swiped an existing sheet and put your name on it, or maybe you've innocently seen a gap in the site and knew a place what had a sheet we could use. Either way, we can't take sheets, etc that weren't personally created and submitted by you, the submitter. We have to do our due diligence and make sure the sheet isn't pilfered, and this can take time.
6. My sheet WAS accepted, but it's not showing up on the site!
Try pressing the Control (Ctrl) button plus F5. This refreshes the cache and will make your updated sheet load correctly.
7. There are gaps in our knowledge.
The fact is, time is moving forward constantly, and the staff is getting older. Some of us have been involved with TSR for 20+ years and we're rapidly approaching our 40s. That means that for a series like Sonic or Mario or Megaman or Final Fantasy or whatever, we know about those games and what a rip from it is supposed to look like. But as new series are released and development becomes more accessible for more people, and indie games and niche titles become the norm, we become less familiar with the subjects being submitted.
For example, a few years ago, Baldi's Basics released and we had dozens of submissions in the queue and nobody knew the game well enough to make the call to accept submissions or not. Are these badly drawn static sprites SUPPOSED to look that bad? Is there only one frame per character? Or did the ripper do a bad job and submit a corrupted file?
tldr, for newer games, we might not know what we're looking at right away. Anything you can put in the notes to help us make these assessments faster are appreciated.
8. A combination of any of the above.
As of today, the bulk of the 600+ sheets we have in the queue are zip files of obscure PC games with no icons. That means we have to go in blind to a game we're not familiar with, search through all the images and see if they're clear, assume that this is a complete file, and then make section and sheet icons for every submission. It's a huge headache, and it's drawn out further when the staff has no idea what they're about to get into.
So those are the big roadblocks. And I can hear you all now "Well Ton, you work on the site. Why don't YOU fix those?" Simply put, I just don't have the time or energy to. This is a volunteer position that most of us perform because we love games, you guys, and want to help curate the site. We do it in addition to full-time jobs, school, and tending to our families. When we're unfamiliar with the game and don't know what we're looking for, this complicates things even further. This is a collaborative process. We want your sheets to be up on the site as badly as you do. But when it comes down to it, YOU know the game much better than we do. YOU ripped this stuff. It'll much easier for YOU to get a screenshot that embodies the game than for us to sift through Google image search for blurry jpegs.
So follow these rules and I guarantee you'll see faster results. Thanks a lot, guys.
Updated 8/8/17
Updated 6/4/18 with Reason #5
Updated 8/22/19 with Reason #6
Updated 4/29/24 with Reason #7
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