Super Mario Destiny art pulled, but toxicity too much here

[Broccolirampage]

Tonight I was accused and flamed, by persons who reacted and did not listen whatsoever, of "stealing" artwork from a friend.

For the record, the artwork in question was not "gifted" to me etc. etc. it was literally CREATED BY US TOGETHER as part of our mutual early work on the game. Following my partner's health decline, the work needed to be fully fleshed out and it was decided to develop a series of AI-generated versions of their drawing.

The persons who have accused me of theft went on to flame me for disrespecting the memory of my friend, which is absolutely unwarranted and incredibly inappropriate. These persons remain in the community, forum, and discord. Their childish toxicity and condescension will not doubt continue and will serve to vehemently drive off persons who they do not agree with, do not like, and feel a need to act superior to.

At the end of the day, it will not matter to me, except for the fact that I will no longer in good conscience be able to talk up, recommend and have respect for the community that allows this behavior. With apologies to everyone that has helped me with this project over the years, I will no longer refer to the SMBX community or project, I will remove my game's thanks to the community for assistance, and I will refer to SMBX only so much as is necessary for the support of a game I will still make available for those who might wish to.

Many, MANY years ago (2014?) I first found this engine, and the community around it, and excited created a simple level that was a hodgepodge of styles and pieces from the legacy games. It was raw, but I was proud of it and showed it off. The self-important, self-absorbed community went out of its way to rip it to pieces, labeling me a hack and saying things like "kill it with fire" following my first couple of screenshots. I had thought that was an aberration and the community was better than that. SInce then I have shrugged off ongoing childishness, nastiness and a sense of superiority towards newer/greener users and the growing sense that a core group possessed an air of smugness towards folks who were not part of their circle.

The toxicity of this community has allowed rampant and aboherrent assumptions from people over the role of AI, regardless of when it is used legitimately and in tandem with the creator of said artwork, that their need to feel right/justified/morally on high ground has blown right past the importance of acting like civil, decent human beings, who if in real life do not like or have an interest in a particular creation, game, music etc etc, generally know enough to keep their opinions to themselves. Not here, not when it is fair game to call out MY DEDICATION to carrying out the vision and creation of a departed friend they know NOTHING ABOUT.

How f'ing dare you.

My only regret is knowing that the project I have come to respect that is SMBX, will suffer thanks the toxicity of this community. But I suppose like all things, the spirit of innovation will live on even if nastiness of the community is determined to ruin it.

As for the episode...I did not make it for any of you. I made it for me, I made it for her as a project to enjoy in our final months together, and the rest of you don't deserve it.

[Wohlstand]

Hello!

I didn't yet read everything (red completely). I already want to say that people who offended you at SMBX community, are not fair. They can give advices, can suggest what to do right, etc. But nobody can offend, insult, mock, etc. On WohlSoft community (i.e. this) this is strictly prohibited. Rude speech at other people is a serious violation that leads warning and possible ban. I can really confirm that people before you already complained the main SMBX community as a "toxic" and "unfriendly". I joined the main SMBX community by myself in 2014, but during a time, different people took the rulership, and they installed their new rules and atmosphere. Actually, times between 2014-2016 was the best time in my own think. And ye, I never liked X2 project by myself since its foundation primarily because it seriously contrasts with my goals of making the full-featured engine (fully self-sufficient built from the source code engine, without hacking, without dependencies on x86_32 architecture and Windows or Wine environment). Even more, once I founded TheXTech, Hoeloe (the leader of X2 project at that time) seriously attacked me for that, because I "making more fragmentation". However, after times pass, I realised that this fragmentation is necessary in order to keep different philosophies and their people independently, otherwise entire project eventually will be just doomed.

Speaking about borrowed stuff like graphics, designs, etc., that's supposed to be credited explicitly. That's totally fine to build levels and episodes using variety of existing stuff, but it's not fine to claim that you totally made that stuff by yourself, that's a plagiarism. Instead, you need to explicitly document that while levels/episodes and some graphics really made by yourself, other stuff is borrowed from such packs/projects and authored by these people.

The AI topic is made serious controversy, and that's truth. It's fine to make experiments for fun and for making random concepts, but I would never suggest to use that as a serious instrument, I would never trust AI to do all the work instead of me. Speaking about art, music, etc. for artists and composers, the painting art and the music is a method to express their feeling, desires, dreams, worries, and just a "language to speak", and nobody granted to force them use such bots. And actually, AI-produced stuff is same as a thing produced by a machine on the factory and values extremely cheap compared to the work made by human manually with a soul, and that's obviously much more valuable.

The SMBX community is extremely agressive on AI topic, and that's a fact. Instead of pointing unknowledge people on the right path and instead of explain to these people clearly and objectively why they should not use any AI-generated stuff, they just simply insults. Just a typical "bydło". It's from Polish - "a cattle", in Russian slang means people typically uneducated, passive-agressive to anything that is not liked by them or conflicts with their taste/views/etc., they always speak rude, use a lot of swearwords, even while just talking without any fights, etc.

I am fully understand your worries, but actually, trust me, these jerks who offended you are seriosuly not desereve your effort, but please, don't hurt people who are innocent, it's much more of them than these agressive folks.

Here on WohlSoft community such agressive performances are serious violations.

Don't forget, that WohlSoft is a home of two major projects related to SMBX - The Moondust Project, and TheXTech engine. The last one is a serious competitor to the SMBX2 project that homed at the mainstream SMBX community, even it is not so much superiour in the creativity aspects, but it's serious superiour in technical quality aspects.

EDIT: Just appending that the WohlSoft community for a long time is no longer truely related to the mainstream SMBX community, even there are several shared members appears at both.

[Superbloxen]

Reading through the whole debacle, I feel annoyance toward the community's clamoring "holier than thou" reaction to even the mention of AI in your project, especially considering that you mentioned doing the exact same thing months ago, only to be met with a much tamer response..

They reacted with similar vehemence towards a member who simply had an AI server tag a few months back and flooded the chat in almost the exact same way. At the very least, all members involved were given a warning from staff for their conduct towards you, but they otherwise all turned against you.


That aside, I am willing to support your project, even if you aren't in that server anymore. I recommend joining the Moondust Zone discord to share the things you've been working on without incident.

[Broccolirampage]

Reading through the whole debacle, I feel annoyance toward the community's clamoring "holier than thou" reaction to even the mention of AI in your project, especially considering that you mentioned doing the exact same thing months ago, only to be met with a much tamer response..

They reacted with similar vehemence towards a member who simply had an AI server tag a few months back and flooded the chat in almost the exact same way. At the very least, all members involved were given a warning from staff for their conduct towards you, but they otherwise all turned against you.


That aside, I am willing to support your project, even if you aren't in that server anymore. I recommend joining the Moondust Zone discord to share the things you've been working on without incident.

Thank you for sharing that.

I have spent the past day, having initially pulled my game/episode from all sources. I chose to do so not because the words of those folks meant anything to me. I pulled it because I am unwilling to have something I take great pride in, initially enjoyed by players and then spoiled for them should it offend not just the vocal minority but the larger population of Mario game enthusiasts. So I've placed it on ice until I decide the true risk to the game's enjoyability.

The presumptions and knee jerk reaction of those few was that "I stole it". S. was there with me from day 1, we worked on this thing together. But when she passed away, we still had only the sketches. I did not create an AI model from those sketches. As I explained, I used my existing photo editing skills to build a mock up of a reimagined character, actually compsed and created her features myself (including the character's mushroom hat, which was roundly mocked as "clearly AI" when the irony is I drew, shaded and colored that myself), THEN I ran my redesign through AI (after going to additional effort to find an AI art generator regarded as more ethical than most), took THAT CHARACTER MOCK UP AND MODIFIED IT IN PHOTOSHOP, and then ran it through TWO MORE SEPARATE EDITORS to get the final product.

For five years, I tried mightily to encourage people to join the effort and collaborate with their own art to finish the game. Crickets. I am a somewhat older fella with a family, great financial constraints and responsibilities, and I cannot in conscience commit money to commissioning artwork when every penny must go to our family. I cannot draw. I mean, it's unbelievably bad, like Picasso had a stroke. Just can't do it, despite at one time being a digital art major (back when such programs were extraordinarily rare!) a character drawing out of thin air simply eludes me.

At the end of the day, I teed up a softball that a few angry, self-important persons wanted to take a whack at. They did not listen, they went FAR, FAR BEYOND a reasonable dismissal or disapproval of my work, which is fine and their right to opinion, and accused me of DISRESPECTING THE MEMORY of a friend who was, in truth, not simply a friend but someone I loved very, very much. The steel wing I carry around my neck carries her with me each and every day, and I would stake my reputation and my soul on knowing how she would feel about the end result that brought her character idea to life.

The Discord mods jumped to instant conclusion, the horribly disrespectful persons who flamed me will be emboldened to judge, ostrify and alienate others. I have seen other instances of strange, clicky behavior on the chat over the years (including very inappropriate behavior towards me in my very first posts, years ago, that had me initially avoid the site for a couple years) and I no longer want anything to do with such behavior.

I should not have responded with such childish name calling, for sure, as I know full well that many if not most users are close to my own childrens' age and I am a generation removed from so many of them....but tbh at that point I was already done with that Discord forever and always. I don't care that I got banned, that place was dead to me the moment they started in about me robbing my dead friend, but I wish I'd gone out with more dignity and speaking up respectably for others who are flamed in such a manner.

I continue to take into strong account the reasonable, meaningful feedback I get from others on the level of AI that is in the game, through a variety of sources. Super Mario Destiny will not reappear until I am satisfied that the vast majority of players will not be upset by it. If they are, I do not know a sensible way the game can proceed as the artwork I have had to complete is central to the game's functionality.

I am going to do just that, but not until I have ascertained the genuine, objective response to my choice of materials. I hope that I can find a new, respectful home on Moonzone if that day ever comes.

[Broccolirampage]

For this who care.

I've pulled SMD to remove the controversial art. Not because of the horrible words of the few mentioned, but because I polled other casual online games who shared with me their issues with the AI software itself (and did not accuse me of artwork theft and of shitting on the memory of a lost friend).

The game will be reposted without the revised character art, using a placeholder until such time (if ever) I find a kind soul willing to do the necessary character portraits for it.

I wish this could've been avoided by people simply voicing their concerns without feeling the need to grab pitchforks and torches. Instead of being part of the forums and Discord, being around to share ideas, help others and champion SMBX which I still think is wonderful, I will be mostly silent on the program and the toxic community that has taken root. To those good ppl that are part of this corner of the Internet, I wish you best of luck and thank you for everything.