It is understandable why the double standards explored in this topic are upsetting and discouraging.
Whether or not one works on and creates ROM hacking projects for themselves first, which is personally how I've always felt it should be, because ROM hacking grants us the opportunity to bring new life to our favourite childhood games and create even more great memories, it's still discouraging to put in all our time and effort - usually multiple years worth - to create a new experience, only for someone who likely wouldn't even know how to make a ROM hack to come along and only focus on what they didn't like about it, and make it seem like we didn't put any time and effort into it at all, to make the game that "they wanted".
True, you can't please everyone, but I do personally feel that people could generally be less judgmental.
Newbies are generally treated like they don't belong anymore, which probably discourages most from even posting at all after registering new accounts which will likely never even be used. Although, it goes both ways, because generally, new people hope for the simplest and swiftest solution, won't bother to attempt to do enough research on their own first, and will either ask for too much, not know how to make a "smart" post to elicit a positive and progressive response from more experienced users, and/or will not be as appreciative as they should be once they receive any potentially helpful information. It can be difficult to understand many of the processes involved, but effort is necessary and required in order to make any sort of progress. Most of us who have actually been around long enough to complete some projects are of a breed and mindset where we have the passion to bring our own visions to life that we are driven by what we believe we can achieve through dedication over time. Anymore, people seem to only show up because it's something to distract them for an afternoon until their attention redirects them to someone else, which means they will never put in the time themselves to become familiar with our passion, to fully understand and appreciate what we go through, and realize for themselves that their opinions are perhaps a bit too harsh or misguided in some situations (read, some).
It seemed like there were more newer users who made attempts to create ROM hacks years ago, at least, specifically at Board 2 in 2009, when it seemed like a pack of people interested in hacking SMB3 were considerably active. Even though they were new, and mistakes were made left and right, generally the positive was the main focus in being able to hopefully progress to more completed states for those projects. Anymore, if people see fewer actual releases, and from those releases, "reviews" that focus more on personal tastes in directing projects seemingly beyond the intended vision of the actual author(s), likely what seems to already be happening compared to years ago when it seemed like all the more familiar names in the ROM hacking community were still around, as opposed to now, will continue to happen even more so with fewer new people bothering to even try because it'll seem like an impossible task to please the continuously growing expectations of the vast, diverse opinions of the overall public.
However, for those truly passionate about their craft, they shouldn't be compromised by any potential negativity that comes their way, and while there will generally always be someone who will seemingly, absolutely refuse to be pleased no matter what, there should generally always be the folks out there who recognize and appreciate one's hard work and efforts, and those are the people who deserve to enjoy the fruits of our labour, in addition to first and foremost, ourselves.
Topic: Puzzledude's seminar on romhacking (Read 12808 times)