Does quality matter in a game engine like Mugen?

[ExShadow]

I remember reading somewhere about a person saying that quality doesn't matter in Mugen.  Well my response to that statement is that it's a load of bull, however that's not why I'm asking this.  I'd like to know what everyone's thoughts are on this matter?

Does quality matter when creating something in Mugen?

Does quality matter even if you have personal preference in creating your own content to share with others around the community?

[Warrior]

It really depends on who your intended audience is. If you're doing it for the sake of learning or just doing it, then I don't think it matters.

It does matter, however, if you know you audience holds things to a certain standard, or you want it to be a part of a project.

Personally, if I played again, I would only download characters that have consistent, great sprites and aren't simple recolours.

[mAdLaX]

It really depends on who your intended audience is. If you're doing it for the sake of learning or just doing it, then I don't think it matters.

I second the motion, I'm not aiming to be good in creating something but I'm trying my best to learn.

[O Ilusionista]

It could be a tricky question, but let me be honest: the answer is YES. It ALWAYTS MATTER.

Does quality matter even if you have personal preference in creating your own content to share with others around the community?

That is the hard part.

Quality ALWAYS matter, even if you have personal preference. Some people use "personal preference" as a excuse to make bad content. There is an abyss of difference between Personal Preference and Bad content.

I remember a lot of cases where people made a bad comics char, with tons of bugs, bad animation, bad sprites and even missing required sprites/animations. The excuse was "but nobody made this char yet" or "at least he is trying". I read this sentence in a lot of places, even here.

If you make a bad try but listen to the reason, that is okay. But if you made a bad try and ignores what other people says, its a bad idea.

Let me give you some exemples (PP means personal preference, BC means bad content):
- A GOD OMEGA SHIN DEVIL OMFG Ryu lvl 9000 - PP if the creator wants to this way, BC if its a fault.
- A GOD OMEGA SHIN DEVIL OMFG Ryu lvl 9000 with missing animations, misaligned sprites - BC

- A Dhalsin which use ice powers instead of fire powers - PP (people are free to cry about it)
- A Dhalsin where you can'tr beat him thanks to missing CLSN - BC

[verz36]

i think what really matter is to have fun in making the characters.. not everybody its going to make a really good character sprites and code wise, but the creator at least should try to do some homework first and see all it takes to make a character. this way the character its not missing things. there is a vast audience out there, some people just want to see x character made in mugen so that they can play with it and dont care how bad it is and there is others that would not bother downloading it. so no matter how bad the character is, chances are somebody will download just to say they have it.. then there are guys out there that are picky and wont download something unless its a well made character.. so i think, the quality dont matter if you just want to create something for yourself, but if you want that to be accepted by the majority of mugen fans, then yes it will matter..

[+Genesis+]

I believe quality does matter. Honestly it should be self explanatory so i won't give the reason as to why.

Does quality matter even if you have personal preference in creating your own content to share with others around the community?

I think even then there is a level of quality that should be present. You can make a joke char or a character really over the top, but you can still make it an creation of quality (i cant think of a way to say this without saying quality over and over). I guess the best example of this is Rare Akuma.

I do agree that some things are subjective but if a character or stage or whatever you make has quality, then there would only be minor issues. Everything else has pretty much been said.

[Chimoru]

I can excuse a lot of poor quality things, but things I can't forgive which are genuinely lazy are palette swaps and sprite swaps.  Especially if you don't even bother to align your sprites in your animations.  I'm forever redoing that in people's "releases".  There's no reason why sprites in animations should not be aligned properly or have the CLSN from the last character it was sprite swapped from.

I know that I only pretty much do edits or other people's stuff, but at least I'm trying to do the harder stuff like spriting and coding. Stuff to improve on the functionality of the character and not just the appearance.

Beautiful sprites can only take you so far
Wonderful coding can only be taken so far without proper sprites
It has to be a marriage of the two, I think.

That's probably why I haven't released much, personally.  I'm still trying to get things to be the proper quality for release.

"Have I really done everything I can to improve this?"
"Is this something I need to get help with?"

These are questions I ask myself.  I thought my Fire was ready, but then after release, I saw just how unready she was.  I don't want to make that mistake again.  I don't want my name to be associated with bad quality, so I keep trying to challenge myself and improve.

[Arkady]

i think what really matter is to have fun in making the characters.. not everybody its going to make a really good character sprites and code wise, but the creator at least should try to do some homework first and see all it takes to make a character. this way the character its not missing things. there is a vast audience out there, some people just want to see x character made in mugen so that they can play with it and dont care how bad it is and there is others that would not bother downloading it. so no matter how bad the character is, chances are somebody will download just to say they have it.. then there are guys out there that are picky and wont download something unless its a well made character.. so i think, the quality dont matter if you just want to create something for yourself, but if you want that to be accepted by the majority of mugen fans, then yes it will matter..

 
I agree on this, and also would add that there are a vast difference in experience on creation here and in mugen sites all over, its not all just a simple matter of reading/watching tutorials, it really getting there in the code or sprites, so one creator can say that they know they are bad at whatever missing or incorrect, and then there is those who really just don't care, or don't want to listen to critics who they maybe due to having past encounters with regardless of being wrong, right don't matter,
as long as everyone can appreciate they work put in to get something so far, it's fine with me, I think personally I don't mind a "bad release" as long as I see the potential to a future in updates or willingness to take help, (whether my own or whoever else)
I can say easily I've helped at least 10 new creators the past two years, all of them at different skill levels, and even though I have a fairly big workload my self, I'll make the time, if I see the potential and interest in that creator, to help me help them, or learn to be better than the "spriteswaps & bad edits" my fellow chimoru stated above, I know a handful of creators that go out of there way to do the same thing and we all know its for the benefit of future creations that we all give that time to help other more younger creators, whether they are just spriters or can do the whole lot

[volzzilla]

quality should only matter to 2 people....

first, to the people making whatever. as long as they are having fun, trying their best, comfortable with what they are putting out there for other people, and other things along those lines, then it is up to them.

the 2nd person is kind of out of the box way of phrasing whatever, but i mean they are the actual individual downloading. different people have different tastes when it comes to downloading. as long as they are having fun with whatever they download, then let them have fun with it.

the main problem with quality in mugen is people trying to enforce their beliefs of what is quality and what is not onto other people. its one thing to say what you don't like about something. everyone has their right to speak their opinion. but its quite another story to harp on and on and on, all in an effort of spreading hate about a mugen creation and/or its creator, which is something that happens entirely too often.

[O Ilusionista]

the main problem with quality in mugen is people trying to enforce their beliefs of what is quality and what is not onto other people.

Sorry, but in most cases, is EXACTLY the opposite. Some people does crap characters and want to be praised by using excuses like "its a beta", "its my first char", "At least I did it", etc and can't handle a decent feeback like a man and start crying.

[volzzilla]

dont agree with the assertion about "wanting to be praised".

do they want to be appreciated for putting in time? sure, not many wouldnt due to sprite editing and coding for mugen can be hard and time consuming. but very few want "praise", which is a difference.

and for the few people like that, there are at least 100 people saying, "that character came from XXX? that character sucks then" or something like that. that is the main thing i'm implying about trying to enforce their beliefs in quality on other people because the bulk of that figurative 100 i speak of are saying it loud and often, with the people leading the charge in that kind of hatred being really obnoxious about it.

[Superjoker]

when doesn't quality matter? a great char is like a great meal, you don't like RAW food do ya? HUH?! well do ya? hence why the best things take good time, so that you are satisfied and then come again, and again.

The main problem in MUGEN is: when people ignore the MUGEN code of honor and STEAL or BORROW or TAKE other people's "fun", add a new pal and take some credit for it.

QUALITY > QUANTITY

IMHO

[DEMONKAI]

Quality does matter. its what you like. whats your taste. if youre the creator and for example its obvious your character crashes the game everytime and you dont want to fix it even though you see it then yeah thats a problem. Its the users choice at the end of the day if they want to continuing giving the creator a chance to see if they will fix the issues in the character. Everybody wants a cool character or stage they would like to keep and not delete. too many other mugen chars to be crying about whats wrong in one.....its pointless

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And lets be real here its sh*t load of authors at every site good and bad releasing characters either 25% f*cked up or 90% f*cked up. Its about what crowd is gonna go at whom easy on the problem. I feel if youre on character "success" 3 you should not be still releasing material still screwed up in "basic" coding ares as before as a noob would be doing. Id like to think that BUT thats almost impossible for a perfect release thread with NO BUGS to report. some creators get bashed over it while "popular" ones just get "easy" feedback. No one wants to be that guy to say something harsh at some site to the "Great creator  " because hes put out so many cool characters .....

Prime example. A recent terry bogard character was released.....the projectiles wasnt connecting up close at all and totally missing straight through. I LIKED the character so i wanted to help and showed him a pic and told the creator what was going on. He said well i made it like the source game where it misses up close. JUST because its source doesnt mean its right. CAPCOM had that same issue with older SF2 and they stopped that because it was a bad bug to keep in future games. I tried that crap with my own terry eons before and got eaten alive with flames and FIXED IT. So when this whole quality in mugen stuff comes up i roll my eyes to it now. its no secret the MOB at certain sites attack who they feel like attacking and NOT supporting. FACT....

I gave the man great feedback and he didnt take it. i didnt get mad. for what? i just moved on with my life. do i hate the character NO. Is it quality?? hell no. projectiles that miss up close like that isnt quality to me. its bad gameplay. mugen should be used to create in your vision YES but to also RE create what was in your favorite fighting game MINUS all the flaws it had that we once hated but grew to deal with and took advantage of since there were no fast online patches back then.....

But anyway create for mugen if you enjoy it. if youre serious then at least TRY to learn to get better at it if youre going to release stuff to the public. whether its sprite work or coding. Not all opinions are meant to be listened to either. ITS YOUR IDEAS. But any tip that helps you FIX a major problem should be considered and listened to though. You cant please everyone either.