To be or not to be?

[Freddy]

So, everything under the sun is in tune and in Midnight Mansion the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

Well. Administrators. That is like being the Pope. You don't WANT that. You are being asked for. And once you are, you try to make the best of it.

Although I have my personal favourites about mansions - I still don't like Falcon Manor btw - I will NEVER be NOT neutral about launching any mansions. Of any one. So there is certainly nothing to worry about.

Reminder!
We can not deny that there are mansions WITH and WITHOUT changed

stuff

and that we have customers that like both or only one kind of mansions. I respect all designers AND all players. And I respect them all for a very simple reason. I just like the Midnight Manion game. Including its temparary bugs, including its possibilities to change graphics etc. and including giving me (and Toybox among others) the chance to expose stunning novelties. Each has his/her own interests. MM-life is oh so simple.

So, everything under the sun is in tune and in Midnight Mansion the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

[brell]

My two ikr (Icelandic kronas) on this: We are all different people, that, while we all love MM, still have different aspect on the game (is that the right expression here?). Being players or designers (or both), some of us only want the good old custom mansions while others would prefer experimenting and then there are those who like to do both. (And btw, there is a lot of experimental stuff that can be done without changing graphics, music etc). I'm sure all of us have some favourite mansions that they play more often than others. No harm in that. And there is no harm in experimenting either. So my conclusion is: It is the designer's right to do what they want in their mansions. And it is the player's right to play them .... or not!

And one other point: I appreciate any comments on my mansions that help me becoming a better mansion builder. But I reserve the right of not taking any notice from critics that say something like

your mansion(s) suck(s) because there is too much/little of this or that

.

[Freddy]

Well put, brell.

[Wingy]

So tell me Freddy... whats to be or not to be?

And you said that Young Wingy saw the point first... well about that... I'm not that young, I'm a teenager and I'm 5 ft. 4 and I can lift over 50 Kgs! : Just wanted to let you know... I'm not that good at making long posts... my question is simple.

[Freddy]

Today I realized that there were only 13 minutes between my 2nd post and joeb's. Because of the length of joeb's story, I am pretty sure that he missed mine. And if he would have seen that extra report, I think he wouldn't have been bothering at all about the administrators. Since there is no link at all between this current issue and a probably changed qualification of the organisators of these boards.

When going back to my 1st post now, I think it was a very clear and correct report, in which I nowhere said or suggested that I am against the existence of

changed

mansions or prejudiced about them in a certain way. I play them all, btw.

The variety of the replies by forummembers proved that what I knew out of PMs and emails was right and so, the issue definitely deserved a place on the boards to talk about. Adding or replacing administrators to avoid issues like these? Sorry, sounds like censorship.

To answer teenager Wingy's question ... there is no answer yet about my

green

suggestion. As usual we will listen carefully to everybody and then decide what we best do. Or in this case: not do. And that decision will be like a mansion. It is possible that some people will not like it. In a matter of fact, even this topic is like a mansion. When you don't like it, stay away. There are enough other topics.

[Freddy]

ryos wrote: ... In fact, I feel strongly enough about it that I wrote a utility to take care of the switching for me, every time I play. I've been waiting to share it until I can find the time to design an appropriate icon, but if people want it now ..., then I'll post it now. ...

Now that everybody knows that this thread is not a poll about pro or contra the use of custom art ... back to business.

I am certainly interested in your tool, but I am just wondering if it wouldn't be better to wait untill MM 1.0.8 is released, because I think that your utility will need some changes. Meanwhile, maybe you can explain a little bit more about how it works?

[joeb]

I have an opinion. There are many others like it but this one is mine:

I feel that custom graphics are currently the black sheep of the administrators. You can post as many long flowery anecdotal responses as you wish but that is my and quite frankly other's opinions.

I am blessed with 2 children. My older is going to law school. Considering I never thought, based on her high school performance she would go anywhere. At her birthday party yesterday I apologized for being so wrong in front of the family and told her how proud I was. Her favorite pastime of late is debating politics with me. She plans on being a death penalty lawyer.
I spend so much time talking about Matt there is nothing else I can communicate about him other than being a brilliant little boy he has an ADHD dark side which often is difficult to deal with.
I work for a major US bank as a senior systems engineer and deal with anywhere from 50 to 200 emails a day designing, developing and supporting complex ETL operations. Occasionally I have to travel to Minneapolis for the job, or Atlanta, or Des Moines, or San Francisco, or.......
I have a Dodge SRT-4 which I race on weekends and I bowl in 2 leagues. I have a small consulting business which I use to pay for my racing habit. I'm also a 4th degree Black Belt and teach Iai, Issyn Rhyu karate and am in the World Karate Hall of Fame for Kendo. I volunteered over 400 hours last year for Habitat for Humanity, Battered Womens Shelters and for fun I'm the Asst. Chairman for Fiesta Bowl Parade Marshals.

In my spare time I play ONE GAME. Midnight Mansion, period. I also find time to put mansions together and like everything else I do I put my best efforts into it.

SO,

I will continue to build and play mansions. I will continue to answer questions when I can and ask them when I need an answer. When I'm done with a mansion I will send it to the board. If the mansion gets posted that's great. If it doesn't and anybody wants it they can request it directly from me at jbanko@cox.net. But I WILL NOT continue what I consider pointless conversations because I do have a life outside of Midnight Mansion and I am wasting time responding to this kind of silliness. It makes no sense to go back and pull items out of context just to prove some silly little point. The fact of the responses themselves is proof enough of the opinions.

Joe B

[brell]

I am sorry if you take it that we are against custom graphics, Joe. This thread was created for discussion about pros and cons of normal vs. custom graphics and the opinion of the players and designers. In my small post above I cannot find any evidence that I am against custom graphics in any way. This thread is in no way intended as a debate against custom graphice designers, which have put much effort into their work, often with stunning results.

Now we all know that some players just love these custom graphic/music mansions, while others find it difficult to cope with (some of) the changes. Like there was someone complaining about the mask of Jack in Wingy's Star Craft episodes, because his or her old eyes had troubles following the new Jack around the screen. It is also, for some of the older people, a question of enough contrast between different tiles and sprites vs. tiles.

So as I said before: Designers, design at your free will but don't expect everyone to like all your mansions. Players, play at your free will but don't expect every mansion to fit your MM needs.

[ryos]

Freddy wrote: [quote author=ryos link=1172409781/0#3 date=1172427029]... In fact, I feel strongly enough about it that I wrote a utility to take care of the switching for me, every time I play. I've been waiting to share it until I can find the time to design an appropriate icon, but if people want it now ..., then I'll post it now. ...

Now that everybody knows that this thread is not a poll about pro or contra the use of custom art ... back to business.

I am certainly interested in your tool, but I am just wondering if it wouldn't be better to wait untill MM 1.0.8 is released, because I think that your utility will need some changes. Meanwhile, maybe you can explain a little bit more about how it works?
I doubt I'll need to change a thing, unless Vern decides to rename the Custom Mansions and Game Data folders. The tool (let's call it by its name, that will be easier: Decorum) just looks in Game Data and all of its subfolders for files whose names match those of the customized versions, kept in a folder inside the program's bundle. It then moves those MM default files into a holding directory, also inside the bundle, and puts the customized variants in their place.

It also installs the mansion file, and launches Midnight Mansion. This all happens when you press a button. Push a different button, and the whole process is reversed.

It basically just takes the

manual

out of

manual file swapping.

[Freddy]

Under extremely difficult circumstances I did release Dominator asap. You know me long enough to be sure that I really couldn't do a final walkthrough at that time, although I wanted to.

And I am beta-testing aquaMat's Discotheque of Doom that has custom graphics as well!

Black sheep? Where is your point, Joe?