Sonic Hacking Contest 2016 - THE RESULTS

Discussion in 'Discussion and Q&A Archive' started by Spanner, Nov 14, 2016.

  1. SuperEgg

    SuperEgg I'm a guy that knows that you know that I know Member

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    Sure. Next time make entries that don't meld together in my brain. So many entries were either bad, or just unmemorable. And yes, there were a few that I discouraged, because they were literally a fucking waste of my time. Blue Knuckles, really? You want me to give a positive review? Fuck off you cuckass bitch. I was having to do contest week during the middle of school, which I have to drive 120 miles a day, 60 one way, 5 days a week; while things in my house were broken that needed to be fixed, like replacing a fucking toilet, had 3 tests, and had to put together a joke hack in 11 hours that was arguably better than half the shit submitted this year, had a date, ect. I'm a busy man. I keep my shit short and simple. I don't have the time in my day to sit around and make fully detailed evaluations. Hell, in any real life contest that is judged, you probably won't get Clownacy levels of reviewing; I'd know, I've actually been in a few. Be lucky I even fucking wrote anything.

    Also, I only had one responses? Wow. Man, those 5 or more entries that I said I wanted to see again next year, guess that didn't happen. Definitely didn't write that. Or my praise for SADX: Mirror Mode, or my enjoyment of SADX: Character Select Mod; most definitely said they were shit hoped they'd never come back. Or how about my praise for Pocket Winter or Ralikmus Radical Hack Pack? Nope, told them to never hack again. Or when I show little interest and said it wasn't bad or good? Or how about when I went into detail as to what I liked about Plan B, Scorched Quest, Sonic 2 ReMastered? Defintely didn't write those though. Hmm, odd, could've sworn I did.

    Except I did, I said those things. Stop being a cunt and generalizing all my responses because I called your garbage ass hack a fucking piece of shit...I think. Did I?

    *checks*

    I did.

    What would you like to go into detail about? If the levels and music don't interest me, why would I bother making any notes of it? The only important part was your use of that buttfuck ugly sprite. There wasn't anything to comment about. Everybody goes into detail, I keep it straight forward if I feel there isn't much to say.

    You know, I've fucking hated you for the longest time, and I'm glad you attempted to call me out, because I enjoy shutting you up, you miserable stain. Don't like how I judge, go eat a barrel of fucking dicks. I gave every hack an evaluation based on the amount of work put into it. In your case, not enough.

    Oh, remember that barrel of dicks? Go choke while you're at it.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2016
  2. amphobius

    amphobius spreader of the pink text Member

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    I believe we need to have a talk about happy hardcore at some point, Ayla. :p

    This thread is becoming a mess in more than one ways, although that's kind of predictable after all these years. Some judges feel one way about a situation, others feel completely differently. Opinions are fun things -- we all have them and at some point we're all going to diverge at different points. That's what makes us uniquely different. I think some of the reaction to the evaluation forms is valid, some of it frankly is unfair. Some of us think we didn't have enough time, some of us had plenty of time. I barely managed to get any evaluation forms done other than like one good one (I have reasons for this that I'd prefer not to go into detail about, frankly) whilst Donnie spent hours ripping his hair apart trying to get one for each entry.

    I feel that the contest this year went great. Apart from downtime (and personally I believe bringing politics into an event that it doesn't belong is a frankly awful idea, but I'm only one part of the equation) I felt it was the best contest week we've had, well, ever. We feel it's a shame that the quality of entries didn't look well of the contest, but that's what hindsight is for, and why we want to introduce vetting next year so that isn't an issue ever again.

    This post, too, is a mess and a half, mainly because there's so many tangents going on and it's hard to write a catch all without going into detail and spending longer than I have to (I'm already late for an appointment as I'm writing this), so I'm just going to call this here. Y'all know where to holler me if you need something clarified.
     
  3. LordXernom

    LordXernom Well-Known Member Member

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    I'm actually happy about public evaluation and judges response to my entry, even if they're critizing something. Donnie just wrote opinions about entries from his entries. You're not satisfacted, try read Ayla detailed review about your entry. SuperEgg is too mean? Not all people must be nice as fuck, especially if hack feels meh in most aspect, so try read opinions of other judges. Why we have more judges? It's because you can have better variety between feedback of people, who are way longer or advanced than most of us. If you don't like review of judge X, read review of judge Y or judge Z and think about your work how to improve. To summarize I think we have too many dramas in Sonic Hacking community.
     
  4. pixelcat

    pixelcat The Holy Cat Jr. Member

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    Okay, now I know why people don't hack Sonic 2 SMS. It's because of some people's opinions.

    But eh, case closed I guess? I'll learn a lesson and will respect criticism next time!
     
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  5. Clownacy

    Clownacy Retired Staff lolololo Member

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    (Written before the above post's edit)

    As a native English-speaker, I can assure you he didn't say there weren't any changes.

    He mentions three new levels, and describes the level design as harmless - that is to say, he didn't find them bad, which is more than can be said about a number of other hacks.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2016
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  6. Donnie Paradox

    Donnie Paradox SSF1991 Member

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    If people really were this annoyed at my evaulations, then be glad you didn't see my remarks from last year as they weren't really that much longer. More positive, but not much longer. I've always been a "straight to the point" guy. I'm like that in my articles, and I'm like that with my entry evaluations. That doesn't mean I don't care. It just means I don't want to waste your time by writing a wall of text.
     
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  7. StephenUK

    StephenUK Working on a Quackshot disassembly Member

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    After speaking to LazloPsylus about it on discord last night, the problem seems to keep coming back to a lack of time or manpower to actually carry out all the tasks required to make it flow smoothly and stress free. Before I continue with this, I just want to ask if any of the other judges feel that this is a true statement, and if not, please state the reasons why you find the contest stressful and extremely hard work. The reason I ask is that maybe as a community, we can find a way in which we can help take the stress out of it again and make it more fun for all involved, as that's how it should be anyway.
     
  8. pixelcat

    pixelcat The Holy Cat Jr. Member

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    S H I T ! ! !

    Jesus, i'm really sorry for what happened right now. Please excuse me if I offended anyone...

    Seems like making a shitthrowing out of nowhere is my thing.
    Gotta learn English so it won't happen again, i promise!
     
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  9. Misinko

    Misinko Oh SHIT it's the Biolizard! Member

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    Thank you for the explanation. It makes your evaluations make a lot more sense. You'd be surprised how much clearer things get with just a smidge of insight. I understand being a "get-to-the-point" kind've dude, and I don't fault you for that mindset. I will say, however, that I doubt a good amount of feedback would be wasteful of anyone's time (save for the people who entered this year without caring about the product they put out). Folks want to hear what the judges have to say, and take into account their feedback. That's not me dogging on your style or anything, but trying to provide a little bit of insight.
     
  10. LordXernom

    LordXernom Well-Known Member Member

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    Also Donnie is the only judge, who mentioned that I edited cutscenes in my hack - so saying that Donnie is not analyzing entries deeply is very unfair, because how do you feel if you must review 52 entries to make people hungry of feedback happy and the only thing you're receiving for your job is scream of butthurted kids wanted better shit. It's so sad for me.
     
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  11. Ayla

    Ayla Sonic Hacking Contest Founder & Commentator Member

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    Agreed. It's my favourite genre by a long shot and I know quite a bit about it. I like all of it -- from its humble beginning in the mid-90s to now. I also like Freeform hardcore and some Gabber.

    As for the rest of your post, I agree completely. Everything you said, yes. That is exactly it.

    A true statement? No. I don't think it is a true statement. Again, I hate to do this to my friends. All the judges are really close friends of mine and I don't want to ruin that friendship, but I can't in good conscience ignore what I feel I perceived. With that in mind, I think they will be happy with what I'm going to say in the end.

    I work from home. For the contest week, I took the entire week off. After updating entries were closed, I played and evaluated 5 hacks a day. Life did come up and I didn't always hit this goal. Regardless, if I had, I would have been done in one and a half weeks. With delays, I was still done before results were released. This was combined with doing a broadcast with Spanner in the morning every day of the contest week minus one day where I had prior engagements. I also compiled and released the download pack that would be used by everyone. There were a couple mistakes in it, but I fixed them and all was well. It should be noted that these downloads contained the hack, the description provided on the website, any documentation included by the hacker(s) responsible, and any media and videos. With the videos, I had to rip each one from youtube.

    I did all of this in time. Honestly, so did Spanner for the most part who, as lead organiser, has the most involved and stressful job of all. I'm sure others did as well. If you have a job and didn't take off (like several judges did), I don't think there was enough time. That being said, out of the people that were judging in the contest, I know for a fact that there were a few people (not naming names -- don't want any more people thinking I'm "throwing them under a bus" lol) that had no job. This leaves only two assumptions:

    1) They were not making full use of their time properly

    or

    2) They were spending all that time engaged in something other than the contest. Something that could not have been work (unless, of course, they were searching for a job for eight hours a day during contest week)

    I suspect the election actually hurt some people's ability to get things done and left them concerned / depressed. I also know that Lazlo (I know I said I wasn't going to name names, but PLEASE read on. I'm defending you!!) has 101 other projects that he's always working on -- including website management for a website that was literally exploding code all over itself.

    So I don't think it is a true statement. The lack of time was caused by underestimating the commitment it would take to act as a judge / committee member in this year's contest. It's the first year we had the committee. Of course there are going to be rough parts we'll need to patch up for next year!

    The point is, next year, if you're going to judge / be a committee member, make sure you have contest week completely off, and make sure that you don't have many engagements for final hack update day onward. We had a month to rate 50+ hacks and evaluate them. Next year we'll probably have half that number of hacks and still a month for evaluation unless it's decided we need to extend it longer.

    TL;DR - No, that statement is not correct. There were several people, myself included, that had enough time. The problem was a basic underestimation of the time that needed to be allocated to the contest.
     
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  12. Donnie Paradox

    Donnie Paradox SSF1991 Member

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    I have been very insightful, actually. Especially with my IRL stuff. I think it's also been pretty clear just how much I do care about the contest. I just feel people haven't been paying attention.

    I do give some tidbits, like saying the level design is harmless (which is exactly what it sounds like, it's not that bad) or that the graphics are pretty. It just depends on the entry and what I can ultimately say about it.
     
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  13. Spanner

    Spanner The Tool Member

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    Okay, let’s have a talk. I’ve been reading all these posts and honestly, I think we all need to stop the arguing amongst everyone because it really doesn’t help things whatsoever. Some people may think that I should have done this post earlier but honestly, people get busy you know? I was always going to give my true thoughts on things so here’s some stuff I want to address and after that I think we should you know, stop arguing about this endlessly.

    People who are complaining about what judges like Shannon thought about the music, if music is their core skill, then honestly they have the right to address things the way they think about it. Shannon isn’t an elitist, and like many of us just believe that the current half-assed approach many are taking with music isn’t the right way to do things whatsoever. All trophies are allocated on a majority vote winning decision, and eight out of nine decided to award a Null Vote to the D.A. Garden Trophy. So it wasn’t just Shannon who thought that the music in this contest wasn’t deserving of anything, and Shannon wasn’t the one who made the call on not awarding the music to nobody – it was a group decision.

    I’m getting tired of the attacks that people are making on Donnie over his evaluation. Considering that Donnie has quite a lot of shit he has to deal with right now (which I will not be going into detail for obvious reasons), you’re all quite lucky he even made them! The judges have their right to their own opinion and may be different from not only what YOU think, but other judges too. The judges don’t consist of a group of parrots who share a hive mind of opinions, but rather different opinions of varying scales. That has to be respected completely. If you disagree with the judging process then clearly you shouldn’t submit your hack for judging, and next year we will be making a radical change which will allow entries to be submitted for the Contest Week but not to be judged. After all, the Hacking Contest is realistically the only time of the year where people get together and get involved with this sort of stuff, compared to what was happening years and years ago, hacking overall has just declined in general, but that doesn’t mean that everything has to be bad, because it’s the complete opposite in some aspects to be honest.

    The evaluations in general, have been something that people have been asking for a few years, so this is what we gave you this year. Yes, things could be a lot better, and next year all judges will have to evaluate all the entries, which will no doubt be a decreased load due to the quality control criteria that we will be implementing. If you do not have the time to evaluate, if you do not have the time to use all available time we give to do judging and other related tasks, then you can’t be a judge. The organisation of this year has been improved mostly due to the fact that we have a small group of judges outside of the general judging bubble to help make important decisions, otherwise shit would never get done. We have given ourselves far more time than previously to get judging and other issues done, unfortunately certain things with the Contest Week ruined some aspects of this, such as the failing website which will be replaced for next year. If you think the judges aren’t resting from this contest already, they’re not, because we still have to finish off planning for 2017.

    We have asked for your own evaluation of the contest and how to improve things and we got around 105 responses – all genuine by the way. We will be using those responses to help with the planning of the 2017 Contest, which will be far better than this year. We all admit that 2016 was just a mess, but next year, we will NOT be repeating this whatsoever. After all, we’re trying to get more and more people interested in this sort of stuff; the last thing people want to see are atrocious entries that just scare people off from this stuff.

    Judges have in this thread expressed their opinions on things and they have every single right to do so, even if you don’t agree with what it said. A problem with society nowadays is the “snowflake mentality” – somehow if you don’t like what is said you generally just get offended over it. Well that shit needs to stop, period. I’m not saying that to everyone, but to a lot of people, just admit that shit didn’t go down well this year and work on something better for next year’s contest. This has to be a group effort, not just from the judges, but from the general public as well, which is why we did the evaluations, to figure out the positives and negatives over this contest so we can improve it.

    At this point I think we’ve done this discussion to death and so we need to cool off once again. We are going to be planning the 2017 Contest and we expect that to be out by December. Until then, please hold on.
     
  14. Ayla

    Ayla Sonic Hacking Contest Founder & Commentator Member

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    Did you think it was over? Almost. Just want to make one final statement since I've been singled out.

    I'm quoting this portion of the above post for clarity purposes.

    Guess who the one judge was that didn't Null Vote? You've seen all the posts so far, so this doesn't require guessing. It was me. Let me explain something, just so I can defend my decision here and so we can set a few things straight that (I've been told) were misinterpreted.

    The judges this year all sat in a Discord channel in constant communication. We would discuss the hacks. Which ones we liked, which ones we didn't, etc. This communication allows, over a period of time, for people that are charismatic or persuasive to sway the vote. I saw that Shannon and Lazlo especially felt very strongly about the hacks all having lackluster music. When they presented their points, the other judges agreed that a null vote was appropriate. I felt that making a decision based on someone else's opinion wouldn't be fair or appropriate, so I stuck to my decision.

    Now, with that said, let me explain why Shannon and Lazlo wanted to vote this way and why all the judges as a whole went for it as I think, after listening to their explanation during some drama-filled moments yesterday, it makes sense. I'm not sure I 100% agree with the method, but they certainly had the good of the contest in mind. Let me explain... Shannon and Lazlo (and I'm sure many others within the community and judges alike) felt that, by Null voting all the poorly arranged tunes in hacks and all the ports in hacks, it would inspire you all to learn how to create professional sounding music rather than being lazy. They want to see you achieve greatness and to actually try rather than taking the easy way out. They feel, like the hacks in general demonstrated, that the community is stagnating. They feel that you just weren't trying to make good music -- you were just being lazy. I agree that the hacking scene in general is stagnating. I think it's because people don't have good enough resources or don't know where to start (hint, you shouldn't start with SonLVL. You need to learn assembly first). This is why I made the thread saying I'd tutor people! =) I want to see everyone learn how to make amazing hacks. I suppose time will tell whether the stagnation is caused by laziness and no motivation to make anything good, lack of resources / not knowing where to start, or just that people are bored of hacking the old 2D Sonic games / don't care. It might even be a combination of those reasons... or maybe it's something else entirely. The point is that we're trying several different ideas to try to motivate everyone and seeing which one sticks. So please take it easy on them. They're my precious friends and they mean well!!

    Either way, next year will have higher quality or else and now you know the reason why some people vote the way they do. It's really not anyone's business seeing that we're judges and we're all entitled to our opinions. That includes Donnie. Stop attacking him. It's stupid and people have been really unfair to him. As Spanner has said, "You asked for our opinions and you got them." We've also asked for YOUR opinions via the contest evaluation form. We have big things in store! Let's all move on.
     
  15. Ashuro

    Ashuro Anti-Cosmic Metal Of Death Member

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    Hi, everyone.

    After reading this piece of well good critics:
    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L6kiI0xB_8HBThELwPW1u2gwtITTPkWwQX0IbEYxqYw/edit

    I really want to continue my project, maybe with, maybe without Ashuro The Badger... But for sure i will be back for next year's contest. I'm very glad that my hack please many peoples. Many guys said that my hack is the best of this year's contest, Ayla even say that my hack is the most potential hack of this contest, and it's enough for me! :)

    Okay, my hack isn't perfect, the switch monitor and underwater loops... Some problems i will fix soon! But i don't think i will post a new version of Sonic & Ashuro for the next year, as i want to make new things. Especially with the musics. I am capable to make MIDIs, my problem is with the SMPS conversion. I don't know how to make a good smps song without make a channel erased by rings sounds for example. You can notice it with the Bass channel from my Starlight Carnival song in "Night Coaster act 1".
    Because of this, i download some smps archives on the internet, and some archives aren't safe. For my Green Hill Zone act 3, i've taking the Sunset Hill music by Cinossu from Sonic Megamix, and i'm really sorry about it.
    In real life, i'm a Metal drummer, and a well good composer. I CAN make my own songs, but i need to know how to work with SMPS.

    Then!
    As i said before, rom hacking is my 2nd great hobby (after Metal music and motorbike). I will be present here on SSRG but less than before.
    The Basic Q&A thread is over for me now, for sure, i think i'm now capable of basic things by myself. Since 2 month i really started to learn technical things and it's well good until now. Ayla currently helping me for some things (Ayla sorry, i will be present this week-end on Discord!!).

    I took all this critics, it will help me to doing my best!

    Thank you all so much, my first contest was a great experience, and i really want to be present next year. Thank you all. (Sorry for my bad english (but now i think everyone know about it (i'm a f*cking "surrender monkey" french :D :D lol).
     
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  16. OrdosAlpha

    OrdosAlpha RIGHT! Naebody move! Root Admin

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    I was thinking about chucking myself into the possible judge's enclosure for next years content. But, having second thoughts now. Because if the tame as hell reviews and criticism from this year caused offence. My critque and reviews will end up causing deaths. My opinions will inflict so much offence that suicide will be the only viable option for those stupid enough to be offended by it.

    After all, I'm hard to fucking please, and if I don't like something, then I don't fucking like it. I don't beat around the bush, either. I'll just say a mod/hack's a gaping mound of festering shit in the strongest way possible. Remember, I never lavished Megamix, the mod/hack the majority rip off and imitate, with praise. I viewed it with absolute disdain and now see it as the root cause for the amount of absolute shite being released year in, year out. We've been reduced to sifting through mounds and mounds of shit just to find that diamond in the rough. Fuck, that's why I buggered off to the shadows, got sick and fucking tired of seeing the same recycled shit being put out by morons. The judges should be commended for having to play all this fucking trash, not vilified for saying what had to be said about a submission. You submit shit, it gets treated as shit. That's how it should be. Don't like that, then fuck off and take you piece of shit project with you. Praise, like trust and respect, is something that has to be earned, not a fucking birthright.
     
  17. Spanner

    Spanner The Tool Member

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    I think that all judges are entitled to speak their own mind of what they see, and award trophies to what they deserve, whether others like it or not.

    There may be a few vacancies for judges being created for next year, we'll see if anyone steps up to the challenge, if asked to take part in that side of the contest. Considering what we intend to do for next year, with the quality control criteria being created and everyone expected to put on their A game, perhaps having judges who will be completely brutal with entries will be absolutely needed.

    Let's just say this - 2016 was a wake-up call for everyone. It's time to smell the coffee and get ready for the next contest.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2016
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  18. Ayla

    Ayla Sonic Hacking Contest Founder & Commentator Member

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    Hey everyone!! Just letting everyone know that I have officially given away prizes to everyone that won the HPZ, WZ, and DHZ trophies!!

    This is all well and good, but if your hack won just a normal trophy, you ALSO get the chance to pick a prize!! Once again, here's the prize spreadsheet:

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1haMgSLbxgN6sERqlFBXU82WuV6UqjjoETn_OfhqS1fw/edit?usp=sharing

    Just pick a prize from that list and tell me via PM, IRC, or Discord! Thanks again for the awesome and can't wait to see you all next year!!
     
  19. Thatgamerguy2234

    Thatgamerguy2234 Newcomer In Limbo

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    Honestly,I blame EVERYONE or this year's shitfest. The hackers because they didn't try this year, AND the judges because they ALLOWED the shit hacks to be on the contest. YOU allowed Blue potato the mcdonalds to be there, YOU allowed Unlimited trees by Unlimited trees to be on there. What a disapointment.
     
  20. AURORA☆FIELDS

    AURORA☆FIELDS so uh yes Exiled

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    Hey, I didn't make the shit hacks, so go piss up a tree, thanks.