Restoring the former glory of Pixelation!

[Crow]

If we're making a community built hack for Pokemon R/B, then I'd be fine with any of the old pixel gurus here making the decision on what would go into the game and what wouldn't.

Rather, let the community decide~

[AzKai]

I didn't get to read everyone's replies so sorry if some of this is repeated information.

I'm actually new here! I just started pixel art two years ago and about a year in, someone told me there were two websites to go and get critique at so I could get better. First, they told me about Pixel Joint--and I quote: "You can try pixeljoint.com. They have a lot of people and activity over there but take everything they say with a grain of salt. A lot of them are elitists and they don't take kindly to newbies posting stuff." The second (and again I quote): "And than there's Way of the Pixel. It's not as active but the people there are really nice so as long as you can get someone to reply I'm sure you'll get lots of helpful critique!"

So, that is how I was introduced to each site 

I do agree with what someone brought up earlier: I didn't remember this site as much because the site itself is so bland looking. (The skin, I mean.) PJ is already very intimidating because of my introduction to it, but their black skin with a front page full of pixel art a lot better than mine was even more intimidating! It made me remember it, for better or worse.

It could be because I'm a web developer by trade, but, I do think I'd have remembered this site a lot more had it not been a default forums template.

Another thing that might be helpful is a forum area to introduce yourself. I just found this site again last night and I felt weird just posting out of no where... but there was no where to introduce myself! I did notice that a lot of people actually do say "I've been lurking and decided to post..." Maybe we can get some more of those lurkers out if we made them introduce themselves!

Those are a few ideas. By the way--hello! My name is Kai! Thanks for having me

[Arne]

It's not really practical to do a PKMN hack as much of the relevant graphical data is compressed and require rare expertise. Putting new gfx into the game will potentially overwrite old data since compressed data is variable in length. This require that the injector knows how to manipulate pointers and is intimate with the memory map structure of the game.

Also, such a hack wouldn't really accomplish anything which hasn't already been accomplished by others or the sequels/remakes themselves. The NPC and map tile data is simple and not terrible interesting to edit, and then there's the larger still illustrations which hinge primarily on illustration/drawing skill and much less on pixel optimization skill.

It would probably be more interesting to do something like a platformer (e.g. "Pixelation Worlds") where each participant gets to make his own world (i.e. graphical bank) and these worlds are connected Metroidvania or Contra style (sort of like how the... patchwork collabs here worked).  I feel it would give more useful practice as the author has to deal with atmospheric backgrounds, enemy and character animation sets, explosion effects and other generic stuff. There wouldn't need to be any theme, as it would probably be more fun if it was a mishmach of styles/self-imposed restrictions.

I'm not ready to code such a thing though, and I fear people would start requesting features that I can't implement. This could be avoided by keeping the contributions at a strict image level (even the map data and local physics and character dimensions). Maybe doable if kept simple, as a fun thing. Could also be used as a testing ground for people's own projects (testing tiling, run anims and such)

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

Another thing that might be helpful is a forum area to introduce yourself. I just found this site again last night and I felt weird just posting out of no where... but there was no where to introduce myself! I did notice that a lot of people actually do say "I've been lurking and decided to post..." Maybe we can get some more of those lurkers out if we made them introduce themselves!

I guess you missed this thread http://www.wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=6976.0

[Seiseki]

Another thing that might be helpful is a forum area to introduce yourself. I just found this site again last night and I felt weird just posting out of no where... but there was no where to introduce myself! I did notice that a lot of people actually do say "I've been lurking and decided to post..." Maybe we can get some more of those lurkers out if we made them introduce themselves!

I guess you missed this thread http://www.wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=6976.0

I did too, for like the first year I was here..
Would probably be better if it was here in the general board?

[Dusty]

I'm pretty sure "junkboy's demake dump" (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=10694.msg113560#msg113560) had drawn significant amount of visitors here.

That had more to do with Notch tweeting(or did he blog it?) that he hired junkboy, and linking to that thread. He basically Colbert bumped it with his millions of followers.

[tyrannotorus]

The biggest thing with Pixelation slowness is that the mods are growing up and all have to deal with life..... We add new people to the moderation team every once in a while hoping that the new blood will push the place ...

^This definitely. We're all old now! Need new blood to get involved. Young bloooood....

As well, I agree (with almost everyone) that the forum needs a Pixel-themed skin. Is this even a skin we're using? When I came back, I thought this was a temporary skin implemented after another board crash. We used to have different pixeled "Pixelation" headers to the forum - Bruce Lee being the most famously remembered.

That could be the first collaboration to spice things up - accepting submissions for a rotating set of Pixelation headers for the forum.

[Mathias]

I'd love to see a Pix revival. Whatever creates momentum and I can help - let me know and perhaps I can lend a helping hand.

[Ambivorous]

I'll be honest, I never bother with introduction threads any more, but hi, I'm Ambivorous.

I didn't know this was a thing until I read in adcrusher's X-Ninja thread that some kind of revival was going on.
To get the obligatory things out of the way: I can program some and did web design for a few years - a lot of which was personalising forum software (mostly phpBB), so creating themes and adding little programs that automate collab creations would be right down my alley. That said, I'm sure there are others who could do better and are all ready part of your dev team.

Now to help with ideas.
When I first came here three years ago you guys had a pretty, pixel theme and those pictures at the top with links to impressive works and collabs really dragged me in. Then I got to looking at the most impressive works on these forums (from feature chest, etc.) and it inspired me greatly do get my pixel on. Then I started viewing other threads of works I found very appealing and finally I created an account and posted a work of my own.
And theeeennnn I didn't get a response for 5 or 6 days so I got kind of over it, sadly. Then I didn't really come around for 2 years.

So, assuming I am your average Joe visitor, I'd say more competitions, a pixelly theme and continued assistance in that pixel art forum should be enough (all things all ready mentioned, I'm just confirming they worked/would have worked on past-me).

That said, I'll start helping out on more topics to do my part.
Though to be honest, I am still very much learning myself, so I feel quite insecure about my suggestions sometimes.

[yaomon17]

What I think would really help is to get word of the activities out on places with larger communities. Say something like this guy:
http://johanvinet.tumblr.com/ does.