Which design of level is worse?

ThirdStar248

Hey guys, while I was wondering in this site, I'm thinking if plagiarism of a level design of any creator (like Crist, MarioVariable, José, etc.) is worse than having a poor and horrible level design, even if the poor design is original.


Let me see your thoughts about it.

囿里有条小咸鱼

My thought is: better to make your own, even if it's a wreck, much more than being a copy-cat
I dunno if what you so called "level design" refers to any one factor of it, like terrain, elements, musics, backgrounds and themes, or the sum of them, but one thing here is clear: For the community there stands a rule that if someone does have resorted to plagiarization from other's works, which can be clearly figured out, the post will be removed and the author will be given a STRICT WARNING, and if again, he/she will be given the sentence of 3-day-or-more ban. If it cannot be distinguished directly, or the argument and discuss exists heavily on whether it should be copycat behavior or not, the fangame, in principle, should NOT be given the remark as "Excellent". (The RULES 23-3)
What i mentioned has pointed out what I wanna mean: Copying other's designs in a thief-like way is seriously a stigma, and we encourage each developer to develop his/her own, and it's allowed to use something for references (you know what "references" here means -- you can do something alike, with respect to them, and a credit if necessary or required to do so, but not that catastrophically and cruelly) in a way you admire and respect him/her/them.
That's my own thought on it

安德鲁斯123

这个的大意是说“抄袭别人的关卡是否比原创的糟糕设计更糟糕”。
我认为使用别人的新品种不算抄袭，但是需要做出点新意。呃，好像跑题了……
不管怎么样，未经作者许可的抄袭是绝对可耻的，自己做的关卡再糟糕至少是你自己做的，而且糟糕的设计经过更改也可能变为自己的好的设计。但是如果直接抄袭那绝对是一件是非可耻的事。SMBX里就有人把一堆人的关卡缝到自己的地图里，最后都快被喷死了。

以下为机翻：
The main idea of this is to say, "Is plagiarism from someone else's level worse than original poor design''.
I don't think using someone else's new variety is plagiarism, but it requires making some new ideas. Uh, it seems to be off topic...
Anyway, plagiarism without the author's permission is absolutely shameful. No matter how bad the level you create, at least you do it yourself, and even a bad design can change into your own good design. But if you directly plagiarize, it is definitely a shameful thing. Someone in SMBX sewed a bunch of people's levels into their own map, and in the end, they were almost sprayed to death.

dasasdhba

it is hard to say what design is good, but there are some common bad designs in my opinions in mf fanmade. First is the "lucky" design. I admit that RNG is usually necessary in games expecially in STG, but I can always find no time or just have no way to respond some designs in some mf fanmade, which is alwasy annoyed. Second is waiting for the losing game animation for too long in some fast pace designs. It doesn't matter if the level is hard, but if I have to wait for more than 10 seconds every time I lost, I'll just lose my patience soon. Third is some new enemies or gimmicks which is hard to understand. New gimmick is cool, but a good design will lead the player to learn the new gimmick well. Sometimes, even if I have passed the level, I still can't understand how the new gimmick works. The last one is some difficult and long designs. I think difficult level shouldn't be too long for each checkpoints, or the practice would just cost a plenty of time, which will make the player lose interest soon. You can't just ask a new Celeste player to get the golden berry at start, right?
I think there are still many designs that are worth to mention here, but justifying whether a design is good or not is only subjective. About plagiarism, if it is about the custom enemy or gimmick, in general I never think the custom gimmick that looks the same has completely the same behavior in different mf fanmade. There is just no standard for it. So if just copying others' gimmick, I'll think the authors are lacking for their own ideas. But if copying almost everything, then the author will just lose my respect easily.

1168438795

With regard to plagiarism, I hold the view that its defintion is determined by the social group of the audience. The reason we ** plagiarism is that it will embody that someone lacks moral criteria and the ability of creation by himself or herself and that the justified right of the original authors will be undermined and the ones to copy other's works will gain extra benefits no matter concrete or abstract that should have not belonged to them. In contrast to the situation fully facing to public, plagiarism may be less strict here. I think that only copying a several new enemies or tiles WILL NOT CONSTITUTE plagiarism. (Especially the ones from original Super Mario Bros. Series) For artwork and music, maybe we cannot find a mature original artwork creator here, so actually everyone is using graphic and music from others to create the works facing ONLY THE PLAYER HERE. For elements related to gameplay, once we use the same enemy to create different design/gameplay/etc., the level will give players different experience. In other words, plagiarism for MF fanmade works, in my opinion, is a global concept based on the organic combination amid the elements. (not all elements) Actually if a level satisfies this definition, we can easily find that it was copied from another level and if we know the origin level we will naturally ** it.

By the way, I will not make comparisons between the behaviors mentioned in this topic. Because they are the behaviors of different dimensions.

八雲桐

I agree with your point of view, after all, both the original game and the multiplayer game have the author's own thoughts and ideas inside, and we make multiplayer games to spread our happiness and ideas. However, if some people plagiarize and sew levels for some other reasons, it is really a bad behavior, and even a deviation from our original intention.
(Some of what I said may not be appropriate, please forgive me.)

中文翻译：
我同意你的观点，毕竟不管是原游戏还是同人游戏，都有作者自己的思想与想法在里面，而我们做同人游戏也是为了传播自己的快乐与想法，但如果有些人为了一些其他因素而抄袭缝合关卡的话，那真的是一种很糟糕的行为，甚至可以说是偏离了我们的初衷。
（我说的一些话可能不贴切，还请原谅。）

LooPeR231

When it comes to level design there is a strict line between Inspiration and Copying. What is determined by the creator themselves is where to draw that line, which ultimately begs the question: Where should we draw that line exactly?
I think that you should most definitely, like anyone else in this community, experiment with what your brain can come up with to build upon your own style of designing levels. But that process can't be done efectively only by relying on yourself. Trying to come up with something of your own without material to аnаlyze can cost you months if not years of excessive experimenting and playing around with what's possible. (Live example speaking to you right now. I've spend more than three years of actively building different kinds of levels, until it all just became an automated process.)
Of course, there is its own limit to how much can you be inspired from something or someone, to the point where it just stops being inspiration and now starts to look like you're trying to leech off someone's success or idea. There is nothing wrong if your level or your style in general is based on someone else's as long as you make it different enough to distinguish itself separately.
My personal problem and absolute hatred towards this topic, is how some people like to copyright stuff they don't even own themselves be it graphics or music. Tell me, how many times were you or anyone else reading this were called out for re-using music for a level someone else did it before you? Tell me, is it fair? No, it isn't! Why would you be held guilty of "plagiarism" when the music used wasn't composed of any party involved at all? This also begs the question about the graphics too! Why should you be criticized of outsourcing a game asset for use in your own MF game? There is no reason to be!  This leads me to believe that people treat in-game assets, like they shape their own personal building style... No, it's not! What shapes your own style is not only RELIED on what assets you use your own designing style is heavily relied on how you decide to use the assets provided to you!
All in all, the most important thing is a quest to find your own self and how you percieve things when trying to create something. Human beings are meant to persevere. If you believe you can do it, there is no stopping you, no matter if you decide to go the hard way (coming up with your own style by relying only on yourself) or take some shortcuts (finding inspiration), there is no one to blame you if you seek for motivation to be better or if you seek for a detail you need, to finally understand what you want to do if and only if you bring in enough ideas of your own

LooPeR231

I am also against pushing for the idea of "even if it's bad, it's at least your own". Because it just looks like to me, that we're trying to lower our standards for levels, this means I can make a garbled mess, but still able to get clout from it, just because its original. I don't believe that's how things should work, but to each to their own and I respect that