r/OutOfTheLoop: The New Cratening

[Fren256]

Hello fellow redditors, I'm out of the loop on a certain matter and I require your help. I wanna know what's the deal with PR #75785. Why is it so controversial? Why do you hate (or love) it? And why does the author feel they have been gaslit by their detractors? Only big chungus 100 wholesome keanu reeves answers please.

[RedBaronFlyer]

goddamnit, I was in the middle of making my own thread. I was going to call it "The Crate Awakening" or "The Crate Depression" Oh well. Here's the bingo card I made for it. A bit too late since most of it got filled out at this point.



My biggest issue is that it doesn't remotely fit with the rest of TG's stuff. It looks more like it belongs on goonstation. Some resprite PRs, as of late, have been kind of questionable. For instance, the new medkit sprite looks out of place compared to everything else. Also, a controversial PR that is merged really quickly, combined with the PR author being a bit of an asshole about feedback, never goes well.

Also, I have almost ever seen the "let's just try it out for a few weeks, then revert it if people still don't like it :^)" actually result in a controversial PR being reverted.

The closest thing that comes to mind is when the mining PR got changed to allow for full-price instant shipping, but having a discount for shuttle orders, after I think oranges, of all people, got annoyed with JohnFulpWillard (the original mining PR author) being obtuse and reflective. This is incorrect.

[Kendrickorium]

the new medkits arent great looking.

neither do the crates

i'm not coming at this from a "new is bad" perspective, i'm coming at this from a "this spriter is fucking bad" perspective

well pixelated hi res images to.. giant fuzzy blobs?

[RedBaronFlyer]

the new medkits arent great looking.

neither do the crates

i'm not coming at this from a "new is bad" perspective, i'm coming at this from a "this spriter is fucking bad" perspective

well pixelated hi res images to.. giant fuzzy blobs?

I saw a defense get busted out recently that I hadn't seen seen before, along the lines of "we don't even have an artstyle!" but we kind of do. Sure, it doesn't have a seventy-page design document like Team Fortress 2 did, but there is the idea of things actually looking like they belong around one another. The medkit, for instance, looks like if you ported an item from a completely different game on the same game engine. Sure, it looks nice, but it doesn't fit with the rest of the items, and people will instantly notice that.

If we're going to do such drastic visual change then just smash our collective balls with a sledgehammer in one huge shitty PR that is developed over the course of months instead of this slow lingchi of out-of-place resprites that only look good with the other out of place resprites done by the same PR author.

Also, for the love of God, stop accepting resprites simply because they're new. The cleaner grenade has been resprited, like, three times in the last six months. It's gotten worse every single resprite.

It feels like readability for the newly resprited items isn't even considered. The old medkit had a nice visual difference between the white background and the blue borders with a blue medical cross. Now it is an extremely visually noisy box.

[Armhulen]

The main reasoning behind it is the wallening but maybe it should be on a temporary back burner until wallening drops because that could be soon or that could be a fair while longer

[Archie700]

The worst part is that the medkit cases had already been resprited like a year before and medibots (which literally use the medkit case as a body) have not be resprited at all to fit the medkits.

[Kendrickorium]

i get that theres been a shift in artstyle over the years ive been here, but some of it looks good, and some of it.. doesnt

i just don't understand why so many resprites are from very nice looking clearly defined objects to.. blobs? i dont know how to describe sprite art

like the medkits, on one i can KIND of make out a flame but the others? the dull colors on the edges are the only way i can tell the difference between the burn kit and brute kit, and i have to stare at them for a few seconds

[BeeSting12]

Yeah I've seen some 3/4 sprites go well and some of them are bad. Not a fan of the fire alarm and this, there's been a couple others recently which have been downgrades. The advantage of the more simplistic sprites is that it's very easy to glance at it and tell what the object is supposed to be. A lot of these more complex sprites are something I've had to stare at for a while or mouse over to figure them out, ie. the fire alarms. These crates are obviously crates, but distinguishing between the type is harder now. I'm not a spriting expert, and these are obviously better than what I can do, but I'm still not a fan. Think what MTandi said on the PR sums it off - crates were already 3/4 and there are much worse sprites so why redo crates when they already look good? Not absolutely malding about this one like some people are, I just think its a step backwards.

[SkeletalElite]

These sprites are too wide and flat. I don't see a crate containg goods when I look at them, I see the intelligence briefcase from tf2

[Boot]

I don't like how they didn't do all the crates because they "weren't feeling motivated" like maybe don't shove a half assed pr down the pipeline then.

[oranges]

Also, I have almost ever seen the "let's just try it out for a few weeks, then revert it if people still don't like it :^)" actually result in a controversial PR being reverted. The closest thing that comes to mind is when the mining PR got changed to allow for full-price instant shipping, but having a discount for shuttle orders, after I think oranges, of all people, got annoyed with JohnFulpWillard (the original mining PR author) being obtuse and reflective.

huh?

[Vekter]

/tg/ Community Be Normal About Sprite Changes Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

alternatively "Not Be Cunts To Contributors Challenges".

[Fikou]

goddamnit, I was in the middle of making my own thread. I was going to call it "The Crate Awakening" or "The Crate Depression" Oh well. Here's the bingo card I made for it. A bit too late since most of it got filled out at this point.

My biggest issue is that it doesn't remotely fit with the rest of TG's stuff. It looks more like it belongs on goonstation. Some resprite PRs, as of late, have been kind of questionable. For instance, the new medkit sprite looks out of place compared to everything else. Also, a controversial PR that is merged really quickly, combined with the PR author being a bit of an asshole about feedback, never goes well.

Also, I have almost ever seen the "let's just try it out for a few weeks, then revert it if people still don't like it :^)" actually result in a controversial PR being reverted. The closest thing that comes to mind is when the mining PR got changed to allow for full-price instant shipping, but having a discount for shuttle orders, after I think oranges, of all people, got annoyed with JohnFulpWillard (the original mining PR author) being obtuse and reflective.

youre really stupid

[BeeSting12]

/tg/ Community Be Normal About Sprite Changes Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

alternatively "Not Be Cunts To Contributors Challenges".

I honestly don't see much cuntiness toward the author in the PR until near the end. If anything the author started the cuntiness with the line about Russians while responding to someone giving valid feedback.

[Fren256]

youre really stupid

That wasn't very keanu chungus of you

[RedBaronFlyer]

Also, I have almost ever seen the "let's just try it out for a few weeks, then revert it if people still don't like it :^)" actually result in a controversial PR being reverted. The closest thing that comes to mind is when the mining PR got changed to allow for full-price instant shipping, but having a discount for shuttle orders, after I think oranges, of all people, got annoyed with JohnFulpWillard (the original mining PR author) being obtuse and reflective. am stupid and misremembering this part.

huh?

I must've misremembered that part, then. My bad.

/tg/ Community Be Normal About Sprite Changes Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

alternatively "Not Be Cunts To Contributors Challenges".

I tend to feel bad for the contributors when people are dicks to them, even if I vehemently disagree with their decisions. However, in this case, I'm a bit less sympathetic after some of the stuff they said in heated arguments. This is once again a critical lesson in /TG/station argument culture. Never get into a /TG/ argument. You get slathered in "cope, seethe, mald" until one side gives up and the other side proclaims victory. This goes from randoms screaming at each other in after-round salt flinging to the highest echelons of /TG/ discussion. Everyone comes out looking like a fool. I should know, I engaged in a few too many arguments.

You could argue that the stress of feedback caused them to act that way, and yes, I 100% agree that people were being dicks to them. I still feel like this is an unreasonable response from them. Then again, I've never contributed anything, nor have had to deal with such extreme pushback. So I'm admittedly just armchair-ing as I have no experience in that regard.

I had a section here about a post they made, but I felt like it was unnecessarily harsh, so I removed it.

youre really stupid

thank

[oranges]

never argue, just simply say I have already won as I have the power to effect change and you do not and then close the thread

[Boot]

That why you feel the need to cry until you're allowed in here yeah fruit?

[BrolyButterfingers]

I didn't know anything about it other than that some people didn't like the crates so I made a burn chamber for crates on Manuel and got told to stop because apparently the artist is upset and it's a HIGH TENSION THING right now

Went and looked into it, holy fucking shit did that artist managed to evaporate literally every bit of sympathy I initially had for them by the time they were done posting lmao

[oranges]

That why you feel the need to cry until you're allowed in here yeah fruit?

That why you feew the nyeed to cwy untiw you'we awwowed in hewe yeah fwuit?

[oranges]

I didn't know anything about it other than that some people didn't like the crates so I made a burn chamber for crates on Manuel

[saprasam]

they don’t fit & look horrendously glossy & look plastic like

[RedBaronFlyer]

That why you feel the need to cry until you're allowed in here yeah fruit?

That why you feew the nyeed to cwy untiw you'we awwowed in hewe yeah fwuit?

Thawt why uwu feew the nyeed tuwu cwy untiw uwu'we awwowed in hewe yeah fwuit?

Thawt why uwwuw feew the nyeed tuwwuw cwy uwntiw uwwuw'we awwowed in hewe yeah fwuwit? UwU

[BrolyButterfingers]

I didn't know anything about it other than that some people didn't like the crates so I made a burn chamber for crates on Manuel

Yeah I did it for station-bounced radios back when they got changed and it was well-received as a fun excuse to build a plasma chamber in a public area, so I figured I'd do the gimmick again but for the crates.

Didn't expect such a fuckin' clown fiesta lmao.

[oranges]

That why you feel the need to cry until you're allowed in here yeah fruit?

That why you feew the nyeed to cwy untiw you'we awwowed in hewe yeah fwuit?

Thawt why uwu feew the nyeed tuwu cwy untiw uwu'we awwowed in hewe yeah fwuit?

Thawt why uwwuw feew the nyeed tuwwuw cwy uwntiw uwwuw'we awwowed in hewe yeah fwuwit? UwU

you absolutely cannot uwuify my uwuifying

[dirk_mcblade]

I'm pretty sure Russians understand the concept of blue I'm not even sure what he meant by saying that

[dirk_mcblade]

Also breaking the mulebot alignment is borderline criminal. Is this the guy who did the revolver?

[Super Aggro Crag]

/tg/ Community Be Normal About Sprite Changes Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

alternatively "Not Be Cunts To Contributors Challenges".

Ah the classic BUT I CONTRIBUTED THAT MEANS YOU HAVE TO LIKE IT defense hacks use every time without fail. Fuck off, you aren't entitled to praise because you did free labor no one asked you to do and ended up fuckin something up.

[CMDR_Gungnir]

/tg/ Community Be Normal About Sprite Changes Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

alternatively "Not Be Cunts To Contributors Challenges".

Nah I think it's kinda alright for people to be up in arms about this one. The PR wasn't ready (The crates are BIGGER than mulebots so it looks really weird) and got speedmerged by a Spritetainer who is a close friend of the PR-maker. There's some really sketchy vibes in this one.

You're right not to be cunts about it, but I think people should also very much be able to express their concern here. Delicate balance.

[dirk_mcblade]

/tg/ Community Be Normal About Sprite Changes Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

alternatively "Not Be Cunts To Contributors Challenges".

Ah the classic BUT I CONTRIBUTED THAT MEANS YOU HAVE TO LIKE IT defense hacks use every time without fail. Fuck off, you aren't entitled to praise because you did free labor no one asked you to do and ended up fuckin something up.

Crag's right

[kinnebian]

My biggest issue is that it doesn't remotely fit with the rest of TG's stuff. It looks more like it belongs on goonstation. Some resprite PRs, as of late, have been kind of questionable. For instance, the new medkit sprite looks out of place compared to everything else. Also, a controversial PR that is merged really quickly, combined with the PR author being a bit of an asshole about feedback, never goes well.

it fits a design doc the design doc just happens to be the wallening:
what arm said sums up that better

The main reasoning behind it is the wallening but maybe it should be on a temporary back burner until wallening drops because that could be soon or that could be a fair while longer

there were people being a dick on the pr and in sprite club but yeah the creator was being an ass, read what mso put in sprite club actually:
https://stackoverflow.blog/2019/07/18/b ... -overflow/

[kinnebian]

i get that theres been a shift in artstyle over the years ive been here, but some of it looks good, and some of it.. doesnt

i just don't understand why so many resprites are from very nice looking clearly defined objects to.. blobs? i dont know how to describe sprite art

like the medkits, on one i can KIND of make out a flame but the others? the dull colors on the edges are the only way i can tell the difference between the burn kit and brute kit, and i have to stare at them for a few seconds

if its blurry and fuzzy change your options to pixel perfect or something

[TheFinalPotato]

what if we drove our one active (not counting wallem cause we nabbed him right as this happen) spritetainer into an extended leave because he dared to merge a pr after it started to devolve into calling each other nazis and personal attacks.
clearly /tg/station is corrupt to its very core, this is acceptable behavior and sane posting.

quality of the sprites has nothing to do with this. it's not "Oh but I put in work" crag. don't be a raging dickwad to people, and don't create an environment that drives the people who make this game away. that's the point here. not that line you're riding. get off autopilot.

spriting's especially bad for this because it's very opinionated, and it's difficult to disagree objectively. that's why we have spritetainers in the first place, to establish some consistent artstyle.
you might not like each change, likely won't.
it's better if you do of course, and it's better if the two groups can talk and be happy, or at least accept it, but you only get that if the discussion is not caustic as hell.

to some extent it's a repeating cycle, we train devs to be aggressive as a defense mechanism, players respond, and it magnifies.
end up self selecting for people who can ignore how others feel, and obviously those people are gonna be kinda crummy at explaining changes/handling criticism, especially to the people screaming at them.

it's a shame none who's further along that filter was around to take the heat/deal with the people spamming shit in the sprite channel. assholes.

[Timonk]

Holy shit i need to fill out the bingo card, give me 4 hours.

[CMDR_Gungnir]

what if we drove our one active (not counting wallem cause we nabbed him right as this happen) spritetainer into an extended leave because he dared to merge a pr after it started to devolve into calling each other nazis and personal attacks.

The problem is that said spritetainer and the person making that PR are known to be close friends. I actively like that spritetainer and even I had to do a doubletake when I saw it. It's a very, very sketchy situation. It's not just "A spritetainer merged a PR after it devolved into personal attacks" (which the PR-creator was far from innocent in, too. And they're someone known for being rather aggressive and hostile and contrarian), it's "A spritetainer speedmerged a PR that really needed more work because someone they're known to be good friends with was getting flak when they were being kinda a dick to people."

As I said to Vekter, it doesn't mean people should be openly hostile about it, but I don't think shutting down all complaint and criticism of the situation is the right thing to do, either. You can acknowledge that it's a problem while still being calm and rational about it, instead of just sweeping everything under the rug, nothing to see here!

[Tegun]

Considering the pinned message in #sprite-club, probably not a smart move to start voicing opinions on forums instead. Same thing on different platform. As an avid election enthusiast I suggest we start voting maintainers and spritetainers much like we vote headmins so players feel heard without the need for a tsunami of opinions (they will do it anyways but we get more popularity contests).

[Super Aggro Crag]

Is there anything more cucked than being a contributor? You're performing unpaid labor in the hopes that OTHER people will have fun with the game enough to send money to MSO so he can buy weed.


I like how you admit, that yes, you deliberately train and select contributors that are toxic shitheads and then are fuckin mindboggled that people dont fucking like you guys. Fucking greeners.

[Vekter]

/tg/ Community Be Normal About Sprite Changes Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)

alternatively "Not Be Cunts To Contributors Challenges".

I honestly don't see much cuntiness toward the author in the PR until near the end. If anything the author started the cuntiness with the line about Russians while responding to someone giving valid feedback.

Someone literally compared the PR author to a Nazi but okay

Nah I think it's kinda alright for people to be up in arms about this one. The PR wasn't ready (The crates are BIGGER than mulebots so it looks really weird) and got speedmerged by a Spritetainer who is a close friend of the PR-maker. There's some really sketchy vibes in this one.

You're right not to be cunts about it, but I think people should also very much be able to express their concern here. Delicate balance.

I've known Imaginos for ages, this wasn't some nepotism thing. Him and Viro had already worked out how they wanted the sprites to look before the PR was even posted.

Ah the classic BUT I CONTRIBUTED THAT MEANS YOU HAVE TO LIKE IT defense hacks use every time without fail. Fuck off, you aren't entitled to praise because you did free labor no one asked you to do and ended up fuckin something up.

If you're talking about my comment on the crate revert PR, the guy who made it has never contributed anything to the project as a whole. He created a fork of /tg/ specifically for having the crates reverted then made the PR. It's not a matter of "You've never contributed so your opinion doesn't matter", it's a matter of "You went through a significant amount of effort for a bad faith revert of someone else's hard work".

Otherwise I have no clue what you're on about, I haven't said that peoples' opinions don't matter if they aren't contributors. Everyone's opinion matters to a degree, but if the sprite maintainers have already approved the PR by the time it's made, that's fairly late to actually be expressing an opinion. There's a Discord where the spriters are working on Wallening stuff, that's probably the best place to try and have a hand in it, though given this bullshit it's probably locked down for a while. That being said, the sprites could have been literally perfect, the greatest work anyone's ever done for this project, and someone would still find something to complain about.

As an aside, I'm not defending Viro being a cunt to anyone about the matter, but you try have 20-30 people sperging about something you worked hard on and be sunshine and rainbows about it.

[CMDR_Gungnir]

Nah I think it's kinda alright for people to be up in arms about this one. The PR wasn't ready (The crates are BIGGER than mulebots so it looks really weird) and got speedmerged by a Spritetainer who is a close friend of the PR-maker. There's some really sketchy vibes in this one.

You're right not to be cunts about it, but I think people should also very much be able to express their concern here. Delicate balance.

I've known Imaginos for ages, this wasn't some nepotism thing. Him and Viro had already worked out how they wanted the sprites to look before the PR was even posted.

I've also known him for quite a while. I don't think it is, because I've seen the writing on the wall that he's been very burnt out with TG Sprite stuff for a while. To the point that even talking to him about sprites and TG got the cold shoulder, and then I changed topic and we were immediately back to sunshine and rainbows.

But the thing is that it LOOKS like it to people, and if people see what LOOKS like nepotism, and their concerns about it are immediately squashed down, that makes it look worse. The old "All you do by removing a man's tongue is prove that you fear what he has to say" kinda deal. Let people talk about it. Let people have their concerns. Address it.

Also for like, Polite Criticism sake, we can say that Imaginos and Viro already knew how they wanted the sprites to look before the PR was posted, but someone posting the Mulebot situation showed that the PR still needed work. It shouldn't have been pushed to live in that situation. And I think that really warrants talking about.

As an aside, I'm not defending Viro being a cunt to anyone about the matter, but you try have 20-30 people sperging about something you worked hard on and be sunshine and rainbows about it.

To be fair, that's kinda just How Viro Is. I've never had a conversation with them that was pleasant, and the few I have was them taking a swing at me about something completely unrelated to them.

[Armhulen]

what if we drove our one active (not counting wallem cause we nabbed him right as this happen) spritetainer into an extended leave because he dared to merge a pr after it started to devolve into calling each other nazis and personal attacks.
clearly /tg/station is corrupt to its very core, this is acceptable behavior and sane posting.

quality of the sprites has nothing to do with this. it's not "Oh but I put in work" crag. don't be a raging dickwad to people, and don't create an environment that drives the people who make this game away. that's the point here. not that line you're riding. get off autopilot.

spriting's especially bad for this because it's very opinionated, and it's difficult to disagree objectively. that's why we have spritetainers in the first place, to establish some consistent artstyle.
you might not like each change, likely won't.
it's better if you do of course, and it's better if the two groups can talk and be happy, or at least accept it, but you only get that if the discussion is not caustic as hell.

to some extent it's a repeating cycle, we train devs to be aggressive as a defense mechanism, players respond, and it magnifies.
end up self selecting for people who can ignore how others feel, and obviously those people are gonna be kinda crummy at explaining changes/handling criticism, especially to the people screaming at them.

it's a shame none who's further along that filter was around to take the heat/deal with the people spamming shit in the sprite channel. assholes.

I hate this escalation of hostile spriter and hostile feedback, it's a self loop of increasing hostility and obviously the only people getting burned from it aren't even the ones who are contributing to the slowly growing ball of hatred.
I would still stand by some kind of compromise that leaves everyone a little grumpy but at least doesn't end up with outright shitflinging. The funny thing about MSO's post is that it's right, and yet there was actual hostile comments going around unlike MSO's scenario. But yes. People obviously overwhelmingly do not like the sprites as they are right now, so they should change. Again, if it's for wallening, there won't be problems with readding the sprite when wallening is actually live, but that's not a set date.

Holy shit i need to fill out the bingo card, give me 4 hours.

based bingochad

[Kendrickorium]

i like the new fire alarms

[Armhulen]

And I recognize that code and sprite changes are a little different. Classic thing to bring up is sleeper and cloning removals, things players were comfortable with going away but in the end lended to a better experience. In this case, improper considerations were given to the MULE, the creator inflated the issue dramatically, and it's far more taste-based than anything involving design philosophy. New and old crates will work on wallening. WALLENING IS NOT LIVE. I would almost go to the step of revert, but I think things can be improved with changes to the style to make everyone happier with something

[Unsane]

I wish everything else have the same vibe and style with how the new crates styled

[Timonk]

[Timonk]

not quite a bingo yet, but has te potential to, depending on how you look at it

[Armhulen]

I wish everything else have the same vibe and style with how the new crates styled

well thats the fuckin idea! Ignore the visual bug with the black void on this picture and you get an idea of where we're going


HONESTLY this is only happening because the crates came first. If the crate resprite was pr'd to the wallening branch (WHICH EXISTS) there wouldn't be an issue.

[Armhulen]

Ok one more beautiful little wallening post

[Kendrickorium]

And I recognize that code and sprite changes are a little different. Classic thing to bring up is sleeper and cloning removals, things players were comfortable with going away but in the end lended to a better experience. In this case, improper considerations were given to the MULE, the creator inflated the issue dramatically, and it's far more taste-based than anything involving design philosophy. New and old crates will work on wallening. WALLENING IS NOT LIVE. I would almost go to the step of revert, but I think things can be improved with changes to the style to make everyone happier with something

oh my god, thank you for explaining how i felt

also what is the wallening

is it anything like the rumbling because it sounds equally terrifying

[Kendrickorium]

Ok one more beautiful little wallening post

oh, that's pretty

[Armhulen]

Look at the posts above you. We're going into the MODERN ERA with a megaproject involving tons of coders and spriters working together. It's going to be yuger than yuge. It's going to make us look like we're a 30 dollar game on steam god dammit