MAGI'S PROFILE

author=LockeZ
Magi, what would you describe as what you saw #shmup's ideals as?

I didn't want to make any big posts because it's not my style, but I've never really explained myself or said anything about shmup, so I guess I'll go renege on what I said above and say some things.

Shmup has been existing as #meridiandance for some time now and is now a small subsidiary of Ghost in a Bottle and Sons Corporation. (http://ghostinabottle.com/) Officially on paper, our ideals are whatever they mandate.

Outside of corporate bedchambers, we're all game makers with our own distinct art aesthetics and design philosophies just like everybody else! Our projects are things we're working earnestly on and most of us have picked up more essential skills such as scripting languages, pixel art, sound design, and new development software in the years since we left.

Ideals-wise, we believe actual perfection is impossible, which is why it's good to pursue it forever so you never stop improving. Nobody wants to plateau early so it's good to criticize everything: Your community, the 'industry', your friends, and yourself! The more critical you can be, the better that person's product will end up. I think that is partly the reason why people have called the atmosphere "toxic" or "cutthroat", but it's not like we're living in a virtual snake pit of Machiavellianism. Except for maybe Ghost, but true to his name, none of us currently knows where he is.

Some people, particularly Ciel were very constructive in his criticisms and suggestions for RMN and he had lot of great design philosophies he wanted to share. I think that the presentation was a bit too heady for some people here though. Users who don't really think art and critical thought is a big serious thing for indie games would just see these huge blocks of text and just kind of go "/spit So what?"

The writing was scribbled on the wall in red crayon, possibly by Ankylo before his own similar meltdown. The 'shrimp crew' was just stubborn to leave at that point, and the more resistance we perceived from the other end, the less some of us began to care. That's when the shitposting, the fakeposting, the troll baiting, and the general irreverence hit full throttle for me at least. I like to think that the deeply malevolent "Chaos Dragons" incident was my cul-de-sac buildup to a final statement before I jumped out of the fifth story window of RMN's submissions queue building. (I've seen things you people wouldn't believe, etc) I never got that far, but it was probably better for me that shortly following I was forced to leave instead of being asked.

Corfasius
It was all in their delivery, really. Even if they had a point, their noses in the air made the message all too clear that they saw us as filthy, ignorant commoners who needed their guidance regardless of how it came across, when the least we wanted was democracy.

RMN was never a democracy even before all of those events. WIP quite publically stated it before in threads and used it as a point of leverage to resist repeat calls to make certain changes to the main site. Believe it or not this was a pain to us as well. Looking briefly at the main page, it looks like a lot of the problems with project exposure have been solved since then, but this departure from WIP's refusal to budge seems to have really cluttered up the site badly!

Even though I said a lot of us were quite critical of what we saw as regression and stagnation, content quality and inexperience was never a problem. People aren't 'filthy peasants' just because they aren't experienced with making games. It's good to have a safe and productive place to make mistakes and improve, but when people begin to react with hostility to criticism and go as far to behave like anti-intellectuals, it's hard to continue taking those people seriously! I agree it would have just been better to pack up and leave if that felt like such a problem, but some people in shmup thought we could change the community we had been with since the beginning. We didn't really succeed in changing anything and there aren't any physical scars left here, but it looks like by the existence of this thread there might be some psychological ones!

In any case, RMN isn't our community now and at least for me it won't be again. There aren't any shrimp specters looming over the website cursing its continued existence, and nobody here is actively trolling threads to mock. Well, maybe TFT is, but you can't expect anything less of the "Worst Moderator" award recipient... It's just his culture, please try to understand

As for myself, I'm really over the things that have happened. Time is quick to make a fool out of people. If anybody here doesn't feel the same way and wants to berate us or just engage covert mole operations, you can find all of RMN's one-shot villains on espernet's IRC network. You can probably figure out the channel.

I guess that's it!

I could make something beatiful too if I had 15000 dollars and all I had to do was make a couple of mockups.

Well, the mockups were before the Kickstarter, but there's more than a devil in those details! Though my recollection is hazy, I know what Ghost has been up this last year more than most people here. With that said, I can assure others that it's dangerous to ask to see the list of expenditures..

author=Happy
As soon as something beautiful dies all the creeps are sure to crawl out of their holes.

I am so sorry! I'll head back upstairs then.

Ocean, your avatar is so cute ^^

Well, Vacant Sky isn't a bad game. But neither is Sonic and the Chaos Dragons.

author=Fallen-Griever
Bullet-hell shouldn't be featured anywhere outside the 1990's. As you are probably aware...

If there is a bullet hell, i hope you are sent to it for that remark

author=Fallen-Griever
How to make bad games: Game Design

I agree, please purge the game design forum. It is a festering pile of unmoderated garbage.