I would compare the Zelda "scene" to...

[Flotonic]

This post isn't made to hurt anyone's pride, reputation, etc. Names aren't at all listed. When I say, "the Zelda 'scene,'" I'm not singling any one "community" out. This is something that applies to all of them and something that everyone should take into consideration. Thank you.

 

I would compare the Zelda "scene" to a group of teenage girls, talking about and spreading lies about one another. Friends are played as rivals. There is absolutely no respect. Things are done that are completely uncalled for and unnneccessary. Pointless fighting takes place. People are hurt, and their mental stability tampered with.

 

Knowledge is death. The closest the land of Zelda hacking/modding has ever been to an actual community was when no one had the required knowledge to edit rom and only ram. As some learned more about editing OoT, others were left behind. Many with the knowledge decided to not share it with those blow them. Blood started to boil. Everything was just in the position that it needed to be in order for drama to form, and so it was. People revoked against one another. This evil took a place that was much like a community and killed it.

 

Drama still exists in "communities" that came afterwards, and always will. It's something that is lying dormant when you think you've shaken it off, but come on. It's the Internet. There is no reason to cut down the way a person is seen on a forum (spreading rumors, lies, etc.). There is no reason to go around hacking sites. There is no reason to be spreading a person's personal information. There is no reason to be disrespectful to a person's work, what they believe, and so on. What are the advantages? A lot of people will say, "well lol i want 2 b teh most fered 1 in teh comunity." Why would you care about harrassing others in the real world, let alone the Internet? Your defense- "It's the Internet. They shouldn't make such a big deal about it." However, you're the one making a big deal about it by attacking an individual in any manner in the first place. You're the one with the issue.

 

With all of that said, I have a question to ask. Is it THAT difficult to try to get along with those within an online community? This is the Internet, of course. There isn't a reason to be attacking someone. If someone attacks you, just report that to the administrator and have them take care of it instead of dragging it out and making a huge deal out of it. No one wants to see it. It's pointless.

 

Who agrees? Who would like to add anything?

[Pinkie Pie]

Soo...why the sudden dramatic speech?

[SanguinettiMods]

Soo...why the sudden dramatic speech?

 

This may or may not be true, but I think it's because Flotonic has had enough of people hating on him, just because of things people have said, or opinions that turned into facts in other people's minds and that people should learn to appreciate other work, even if it's not exactly their favorite.

[Secant]

This pretty much answers the questions posed in my open letter. Openness of information and a simple realization of the fruitlessness of arguing with a bunch of text would solve a lot of the problems festering in this community. That's basically the bread and butter of the whole situation.

[DeathBasket]

I agree. I dislike the Zelda hacking "community" (not its members) for various reasons and your post covers most of them. I mainly stick around to see how certain projects develop (xdaniel's stuff, URA project, etc.) and to sometimes help people out but I have much better things to spend my time on.

[Arcaith]

It's a culture that's been passed down from the 'old days'. There are a lot of strong egos that want to be the top dog, and the natural urge is to fight to eliminate the competition. It's petty, pointless and ultimately achieves nothing. In fact, it causes progress to slow in many cases. Granted, the 'arms race' it provokes can cause great leaps forward, but it does so at the cost of alienating a lot of promising individuals. It's also just plainly nauseating to watch.

 

And with the splits in communities, and even points where mutual annihilation occurs, there are big patches of nothing for months until someone starts scraping the area clean and starts building again. The ideal situation is that everyone leaves their baggage at the door, but for most people that feels too authoritarian and collapses too, or simply doesn't attract any community around it. I've tried forming a community like this before. Cen even tried forming a community that functioned on the basis of all discoveries being the intellectual property of the community as a whole. Neither worked that well.

 

If we can forget old emnities, chalk EVERYTHING up to experience and admit that we all handled things badly, perhaps we can move forward.

 

Discussion doesn't really help, because everyone needs to realise this on their own.

[xdaniel]

While I admittedly do have some slight resentments against Flotonic (see ex. certain posts and spam at Z64), I believe he's right about this. There's way too much in terms of hate and egos around these parts of the internet - and I'm trying to avoid the term "community" here, because that implies a kind of solidarity that just doesn't exist here. The problem is, however, that this is more or less ingrained in our culture thanks to the olden days, as Arcaith mentioned. From things like "cooliscool vs Cen" to the current rivalries, no one wants to (or no one is able to) step back, look at the situation and think about it for a moment. This really doesn't get us anywhere. If anything, it makes the list of "communities" that opened up, thrived for a bit, and then died for whatever reasons, longer and longer. ZSO/ZC, Z64Station, Outlawer, past incarnations of still existing forums (Z64, this very GCN), etc. - and those are just the ones I was involved with at some point.

 

I'm pretty much just restating what others have said before, am I not? Thing is, there isn't much else to say, this is the whole problem; but in turn, we just can't seem to get over them. We haven't in the years prior, and we probably won't in the coming years. Feel free to prove this cynical old hacker wrong, tho, I'd be all for it.

[Zeth Ryder]

While I admittedly do have some slight resentments against Flotonic (see ex. certain posts and spam at Z64), I believe he's right about this. There's way too much in terms of hate and egos around these parts of the internet - and I'm trying to avoid the term "community" here, because that implies a kind of solidarity that just doesn't exist here. The problem is, however, that this is more or less ingrained in our culture thanks to the olden days, as Arcaith mentioned. From things like "cooliscool vs Cen" to the current rivalries, no one wants to (or no one is able to) step back, look at the situation and think about it for a moment. This really doesn't get us anywhere. If anything, it makes the list of "communities" that opened up, thrived for a bit, and then died for whatever reasons, longer and longer. ZSO/ZC, Z64Station, Outlawer, past incarnations of still existing forums (Z64, this very GCN), etc. - and those are just the ones I was involved with at some point.

 

I'm pretty much just restating what others have said before, am I not? Thing is, there isn't much else to say, this is the whole problem; but in turn, we just can't seem to get over them. We haven't in the years prior, and we probably won't in the coming years. Feel free to prove this cynical old hacker wrong, tho, I'd be all for it.

 

I couldn't agree with you more Xdan, basically took the words out of my mouth. Which leads me to what I have to say about this, honestly the true enemy of this whole scene is.. "Internet fame" the most pointless and useless thing ever. Its that strive to get praise from strangers over the internet that's lead this scene to the shitter and caused so much drama, causing people to develop big egos and turn friends into rivals, even noobs trying to start out. This destroyed the scene's potential. I can admit my mistakes I've done and that I could of handled things better as well, which is why I took a different approach to things when I came back to this scene and it has worked out so far. I really believe everyone needs to re-evaluate themselves and see what they could of done better back then and how they can apply it to the now and the upcoming future. Overall point, the drama needs to stop and people need to stop being at each other's throats, stupid modding wars, who's better then who shit, over inflated ego over pointless internet fame, it all needs to stop.

 

[warning=Here comes the admin warning]I will keep this thread unlocked and will be monitoring it to see how things go, I have no problem putting my foot up someone's ass and removing this thread if this shit gets out of control. I DO NOT want drama on my site! I hope this is made -VERY- clear to everyone.[/warning]

[Shadow Fire]

[warning=Here comes the admin warning]I will keep this thread unlocked and will be monitoring it to see how things go, I have no problem putting my foot up someone's ass and removing this thread if this shit gets out of control. I DO NOT want drama on my site! I hope this is made -VERY- clear to everyone.[/warning]

 

...OUR site. =P

 

But yes, I agree with this.

[Zurg]

Let's keep in mind that unless you are posing as someone else, the internet is reality. The internet is real life and it affects people as the world would. Because the internet is in fact the largest connection for the world, why would it not be considered real life. Do you (whoever is reading this) ever find yourself fighting with people on the web, getting off your computer and all the emotion goes away? Hell no, emotions stay with you. This charade of the internet not being real life needs to stop.

 

On that note I can say I have been in the Zelda "scene" for quite some time now and I notice a large amount of excessive immaturity. People flame because they don't think it hurts others. It does, I know. Say, you work your ass off on a project or mod and you find it being posted on another site. Chances are, your going to be mad. Say your the one re-posting the work, you want fame (at least as much your going to get in this category.) This is just one of many situations. Another could quite possibly be that you make a mod that you are proud of, no body else likes it so you get hated on. Example number three; you post a mod that you think is "the best thing ever." It isn't, you know that, but you frankly tell people that is the best thing they will ever see. They are going to disagree, hate on you, make fun of you, etc. The popular term is "12 year old." When I say 12 year old I don't necessarily refer to someone actually being 12 because someone that is 12 can (on rare occasion) be mature. But 12 year old to me is slang for a person that is immature and stupidity driven. If you want peace, your not going to get it with a bunch of immature people running around like maniacs.

[spinout]

The "Zelda Community" as a whole is like somebody constantly trying to continuously be best and commit suicide at the same time.

 

That being said, everything seems alright at the moment, there aren't forums which are aligned against eachother. GCN, glitchkill, and Z64 are all at peace and many people, including admins from all of these forums, cross post at the other forums. There will always be people who want fame. There are always "arms races" as Arcaith cleverly put it. However, if people learn to not be secretive and take a more open stance about things, the drama will be cut down much more. I have seen far too much "I have something, not gonna share more than a screenshot " create drama. I personally publicize all my work which I judge as useful.

 

On the contrary, one must learn to criticize and to be criticized. Misinterpreted criticism leads to far too much drama.

 

Because the internet is in fact the largest connection for the world, why would it not be considered real life. Do you (whoever is reading this) ever find yourself fighting with people on the web, getting off your computer and all the emotion goes away? Hell no, emotions stay with you. This charade of the internet not being real life needs to stop.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you. I've gone through quite a bit of 'e-drama' but when I get up from the computer, get that call, go to bed, whatever, it's off my mind. Even the night my site was hacked, I deleted everything and went off to dinner without a worry in the world.

[Jason777]

"Fall Out Boy- This Ain't a Scene its a Godd*mn Arms Race"

 

Other than that line I posted above, I don't feel I can say much more than I agree with everything even though I've only been around for a 1 and 1/2 years.

[Zurg]

Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you. I've gone through quite a bit of 'e-drama' but when I get up from the computer, get that call, go to bed, whatever, it's off my mind. Even the night my site was hacked, I deleted everything and went off to dinner without a worry in the world.

 

Feel lucky, to me that seems like nothing more than just a power.

[Gump]

Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you. I've gone through quite a bit of 'e-drama' but when I get up from the computer, get that call, go to bed, whatever, it's off my mind. Even the night my site was hacked, I deleted everything and went off to dinner without a worry in the world.

 

I agree with you, it really doesnt affect me in real life either.