We will continue this for several more hours.
So in regarding this project, my focus has always been the community. That being said, I’ve allowed certain elements to be included in the spirit of creative liberty. I’m not a fan of running the project with an iron fist. I mean, there’s been at one point where the whole project was alluded to be a dictatorship. It’s also obvious that my attempts to direct the project and prompts where I felt it was best to go was met with criticism, frustration, and even anger.
Throughout the course of the project, I’ve seen many reasons why people submit content. Some of these are to…
include personal wants/what they want
- people submit based on what’s good for the project
- people submit for lols or memes
- people submit just to submit - sometimes the submission doesn’t have much thought put into it but they want to participate
- people submit based on what they want the project to become or to influence the direction it takes
The reason I chose my leadership team was because I felt they understood the direction the project was heading and wanted to see this project become something to be proud of. Needless to say, they went above and beyond this and, without them, I would have stopped this thread back in March.
I would be lying if I agreed with all submissions or even felt “what the hell is this crap?” but regardless of my thoughts, I always honor the voting process and will accept submissions as long as they follow along with the prompt - even if it’s submitting Keese for the Zelda prompt (which thankfully didn’t happen). That being said, I do have a vision for the game and that’s to create a marginally realistic sequel to Ultinate that includes both popular, iconic, and unique elements that would make the community happy. If I could go back in time, I probably would have reduced our roster size or even limited certain submissions (i.e. I don’t see Reimu has base game material).
Sometimes, submissions REALLY go against the vision I have for this game which probably lands on the last bulleted point I made. Sometimes that does frustrate me as I felt that perhaps the project is being wrestled by opposing forces. It’s hard to balance out what I feel comepletes the project and what I feel people want to see be included. I don’t mean to pick on anyone but regarding some of
Wario Wario Wario
‘s submissions during the project histoy, I have felt that these submissions was an attempt to turn the project into a smorgasbord of obscure, campy, scrimblo, or un-Smash-like content. It due amounts that’s fine but I can understand why some might get irked by it. Again, I would be lying if I didn’t go “siiiiigh, again?”
Conversely, some members in the thread have responded negatively when certain characters lost or even became angry. Barista was one such instance where I thought that we were opposing eachother rather than working together. I recall
PeridotGX
reacting negatively to a newcomer win that actually made me worried about the cohesiveness of the group.
This also goes to
Capybara Gaming
where I have felt that while I agree with a lot your points, half the fun of this project is to submit content that maybe might never be considered. The joy in making these off-kilter submissions might seem strange but the fun that’s comes writing it might be worth the disappointment kf it not winning. Perhaps even gaining a few votes is a victory in of itself. Based on what I have seen, your submissions which have been few relies mostly within mainline speculation circles. While this is fine, that kind of mindset might rub people the wrong way because they want to try a different approach.
Heck, me and
Adrianette Bromide
had a throw down not so long ago that made me almost stop the project entirely. I blame it on my own mental health at the time and the fact I was absolutely tired from the day (and had been drinking). Then there was
Tankman from Newgrounds
who, in attempt to calm people down despite it not being an actual fight, kind of made the situation worse. Finally, I don’t think I need to mention our Twitter episode since we know what all went down during then.
Having arguments, discussion, and debates about our direction for the project is extremely important. Without it, we don’t really interact much and we don’t know what we eachother is thinking. I want debate. I want discussion. I even want arguments because that shows this project is growing, evolving, and is healthy. This is especially true as we move towards DLC since we are nearing the end.
Probably the better route earlier on was to ask people what their vision of this project is….
We are almost done with this project. Adding this sort of content is far to late in development.