Hi Freddy -

You "took most of the words right out of my mouth" to coin a phrase. I love Jack, not crazy about JAC type changes. I didn't 'grow up' with all the space games so don't have an afinity for them. I am also very worried that all the changes will lead to 1st person shooter type games - what I definitely do NOT want to play and don't want my grandson playing either. I would guess that was some of JoeB's original motivation for games to play with his son. There are a lot of younger players who have different ideas - their creativity is boggling!!! I do think there is room for both - I just hope that the new doesn't overwhelm the old and result in a schism between the creators of the new and old. I can remember the early custom mansions after the origiinal 8 - what an amazing surprise just when we thought MM couldn't get any better! Now look what has happened.

I have another concern. There seems to be a fair amount of contention among some MM fans. My guess, from reading their letters, is some old grudges and pet peeves. This is a game with a huge diversity in fans - age, geography, skills - so some differences are to be expected. I am just sensing a lot of it lately. I think these new mansions are not always bringing out the best in everyone.  I may be way off the mark and just sensitive because I don't want MM to change and lose its "innocence" for lack of a better word!

BTW - I made a duplicate copy of my MM folder and then left the space sprites set up in one of the copies. So far that works although I have not explored it a great deal. I play the StarCraft episodes with the original MM sprites - works just fine for me and I like the way it looks. It doesn't seem to interfere with the difficulty of the games.

So there - my quick thoughts.

Thanks for the post. I guess it will illicit some "interesting"??!! responsed.

Wow. MM fans are certainly a diverse bunch! 

Forgive me if what I have to say sounds offensive, because I don't mean it to be, but I feel like there's only one way to say it and that's the offensive way. Here goes.

What are you all worried about? In all the years of fan mods to video games, I have never heard of people actually complaining that a mod (short for modification) modified the base game. Midnight Mansion is not some temple whose purity must be defended. It's a game that people play and enjoy customizing.

Now that's off my chest (), I can address your conclusions with civility.

1) I agree this is too painful as it stands now. 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 and are willing to put up with a space-themed (*gasp* ) icon (because it's an adaptation of a utility I wrote for a space-themed game), then I'll post it now.

2) I really consider "total conversions" like Dominator as new games. We were all new to MM once, and had to familiarize ourselves with the mechanics. I see no problem with doing the same for a new game that happens to use the MM game engine. If you can let go of the notion that a game engine was built for just one game, a lot of possibilities open up to you as a player and designer.

A) Guilty as charged.

B) I disagree. If you've ever opened Dominator with the default graphics (which I did once just for kicks), you'll see that the replaced sprites don't map one-to-one to the ones that would be used if the graphics weren't customized. This is asking people, who have already put a huge amount of time into original artwork, to also double their effort on mansion building, since they would have to re-place each and every tile.

C) I have no opinion (really!). Do as you will.

As a final note, the administrators are always talking about not attempting to limit the creativity of designers, but that (unless my reading comprehension sucks ) is exactly what seems to be going on here. Not every mansion is for everyone; for example, House of Wonders is both way over my head skill-wise and not my cup of tea design-wise, but do you hear me complaining about its existence? I recognize that it's just not for me, and don't seek to limit the enjoyment others may glean from it.

Wingy - I didn't mean Ted was a 'shooter' at all. My point was that there are a lot of games available if one wants a shooter game. One of the huge plusses for me is that MM is not one and suitable for little kids and us big kids.

I'm still unsure if there is a downside to making a duplicate copy of MM and installing the custom graphics for a particular game in that copy. At this point I have Dominator in a duplicate so I can switch back and forth between that and the original MM sprites. I had StarCraft in the duplicate but found I can play that series with the original sprites if I'm too lazy to switch - although the SC graphics certainly contribute to the fun!

Sherry

I pretty much completely agree with Ryos, and I'll add this. The Midnight Mansion game isn't going in one direction or another. There's what, four or five custom graphics mansions out of a hundred? We have twice as many active designers as we did a few months ago, and they're all making different kinds of mansions. We should consider ourselves blessed.

Wingy and Joe might be making more traditional mansions if the option wasn't there to add new graphics, but then again, they might lose interest. They're just going where the muse takes them, and every player has the choice to play their mansions or not. If they get too far out in left field, maybe people will lose their enthusiasm for the new mansions, and they'll have to get back to basics - and then so be it. I really don't see a problem.

Since I seem to be the person who is pointed to and quoted a lot when it comes to custom mansions I guess I need to offer my point of view here. Before I do I will qualify my comments with this. My goal is not to annoy anyone but to offer what may be what I consider contrary, but nonetheless valid positions to several earlier posters. One of them being that I would like to see MM turn into a 1st person shooter. I am and have ALWAYS been a fan of strategy games and quite honestly am bored by sitting there just shooting at things appearing on the screen and Matt wanted to do a space theme. Personally I'd like to on my own do an adventure thru several castles in several different countries almost like a James Bond movie. That said......

I know my first analogy here will probably be not taken well and it might be said that it doesn't fit but it most certainly does. "Get a horse" When motorized vehicles first appeared there was a huge outcry against them and a lot of sentiment that they wouldn't last and could never replace the horse. I think everybody can agree on what happened, horseback riding has become a hobby and a sport but not the mainstream for transportation. What is the lesson? You can't stop progress nor should you try cause it's just not going to happen. Has Vern stopped development of MM? No. And what are the latest changes going to be for? Enhanced functionality for custom graphics, as well as a lot of other features.

I mentioned in one of my posts that I might do a "standard" mansion just to get rid of the tag of "rebel". Psychotronic hit me square between the eyes with a valid truth. Do I enjoy making standard mansions? Not nearly as much as the custom ones because then it becomes much easier to "theme". I want to do a space theme, fine I do a set of graphics specifically for that. I wanted to do an adventure through the pyramids and the desert. Could I have done that with the standard graphics? Maybe, but the modified graphics REALLY got the look and feel I wanted. Dominator would have been nigh on impossible to get to look like a space adventure without the control panels, droids and other space specific objects. And for TOTOMB I needed jungles and mountains.

As far as making more traditional mansions if the option was there, Psychotronic hit the nail right on the head again. I think we would have lost interest. I never liked pigeonholes and when it comes to breaking out of them, yes I AM a rebel. Besides the fun of playing BOTH kinds of mansions and YES we do play both, just got done with This Old Mansion. The ability to play and design both types AND yes we plan on doing a couple of more traditional ones,  is a wonderful option.

But now we come the issue that bothers me the most about this situation. Right now 2 of the board administrators have communicated to me that they both like playing and designing standard mansions and their idea of MM was little Jack jumping over spiders. AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! I'd like to say that again; because your enjoyment of MM comes from that type of game you're not  a bad person and if you enjoy hoping on the horse then do it. That's your choice, but at the same time don't frown on me because I like to drive a Ferrari, or a Hummer or a motorcycle, or a speedboat, etc., etc., etc.  Don't make it difficult to get what I like to do out to others like me. And if there are others out there who get the same enjoyment then why put us (or yourselves) in a pigeonhole. You do custom mansions, that's YOUR board, we do STANDARD, this is our board. What's wrong with having everything in one place and just stating a type? Custom - Traditional. Again quoting from, actually paraphrasing the wisdom of Psychotronic here. If the people don't like your mansions then they won't play them and maybe you should rethink what you're building.

Matt and I will continue to build mansions of both types and although for many of you, IT'S JUST A GAME. I'm sorry but for us it's a learning tool. Matt has learned simple physics, logic, sound, music, computer OS basics, graphics.... Why shouldn't we share that? I made a big mistake when I left the board the first time because I felt that the customizations I was doing weren't important to anybody. Email proved I was wrong I have no intention of making the same mistake again. There ARE other people out there interested and there ARE others like Wingy who have some much they'd like to do but don't understand how to get there. I can (and have offered on several occasions) to help him because he's interested in doing what I've been able to.

Enough already. The best thing that could happen IMNSHO is to find some who IS interested in customization and allow them to be the Custom administrator. Then there would be no issues in who likes what type of mansion.

Joe B