Jesus, that Gerkinman is such a faggot, Game parodys always have and always will take way more creativity and time to create then anything remotely original!

you arent the first person to rant about this. nor will you be the last.

i've been ranting about this shit since 2004. you cant change this place.
you just cant.

D: This place should be called Mario grounds

and well, yeah, I entirely agree with your complain, but well, it would be hard for this place to exist without imbeciles thinking that a Mario vs. Sonic sprite flash would totally rank in the top 50 and become famous (the saddest part of this is...that they aren't exactly wrong)

Well :( non-sprites artists! let's not give up!

wow.....
you sound really republican.....
go vote for mc cain instead of writing this.....

There is in fact a rule you broke in your review. Reviews are supposed to offer criticism of the artist's work. Saying something is stolen is against the rules.

From the FAQ:
"If you believe an entry is stolen, do not comment about it in your review. If you are wrong, you may convince other users that the entry is stolen and you may cause a legitimate entry to receive an unfairly low score, or have the whistle blown on it. Use the whistle option, if available, to flag the entry as stolen when you believe that is the case. If there is no whistle option available (the entry is no longer under judgment) contact Wade with as many details as you can about the stolen Flash and where you think it was stolen from."

The word stolen in a review is an almost instant flag.

"We need to organise some kind of online protest, like a bunch of original artists all spamming the same principles and ideas on the same day or something."

It's been done.
It was called F-Day
And Wade Day

1. faggotfaggot - offensive term for an openly homosexual man
fag, fagot, nance, poof, poove, pouf, queer, fairy, pansy, queen
derogation, disparagement, depreciation - a communication that belittles somebody or something
gay man, shirtlifter - a homosexual man
2. faggotfaggot - a bundle of sticks and branches bound together
fagot
sheaf, bundle - a package of several things tied together for carrying or storing
Verb 1. faggot - ornament or join (fabric) by faggot stitch; "He fagotted the blouse for his wife"
fagot
broider, embroider - decorate with needlework
2. faggot - fasten together rods of iron in order to heat or weld them
fagot
metallurgy - the science and technology of metals
tie down, tie up, truss, bind - secure with or as if with ropes; "tie down the prisoners"; "tie up the old newspapers and bring them to the recycling shed"
3. faggot - bind or tie up in or as if in a faggot; "faggot up the sticks"
faggot up, fagot
tie down, tie up, truss, bind - secure with or as if with ropes; "tie down the prisoners"; "tie up the old newspapers and bring them to the recycling shed"

in all honesty, there's little you can do to change things.
i just left a long review for some sprite cartoon and already another reviewer is telling the authors to disregard mine because "we live in the 21st century and everything is ripped off"

people here will never learn.
all you can do is rage against the system. but the system wont change. because the system makes money.

go fig

You'll just have to deal with it, there will always be Mario and Sonic movies in Newgrounds... whether it is in sprite form or not.

"Whether it be its own page, or the front page properly divided between original content and the parody work thats needed to keep traffic coming to the site, original content needs more exposure."

I was thinking something similar along the same line. Maybe we should do a front page which divides both original content and parody work equally. As for judging for the prize maybe we can do a separate judging between "best original movie" and "best parody movie." If Newgrounds want to promote original content they'll have to give extra cash to the people who made original flash movies in order to motivate them. Of course, this means more expense for Newgrounds though.

By the way, I got no clue what's an F-day is :(

It is sad, I never seen it this way. But I think its true, you only can score prices if you do a very well known something, like Mario or Awesome. But if people delete negative reviews, that is so sad.

I like to give an example myself, I'm not a Flash Artist, but Audio, I'm still learning alot, but already joining collabs. But the reviews I get, positive or negative, I don't delete, I learn from them :)

The audio portal has problems itself, and I think we can't do much, only one thing: Don't try to change the Portals, change yourself, be original, don't focus on the prices. Look at Cornandbeans(http://cornandbeans.newgrounds.com/) one of the greatest audio artists on this site, and never won a price. But he is always original... Maybe we can learn from this people

Yeah with the review system, I don't think anyone even looks at flagged reviews. Though with yours, you didn't actually like, say anything helpful at all in it.

It's kind of like the KK, you just have to ignore it and hope it goes away.

If they did throw it back at you, just tell 'em to fuck off :)

I say go ahead and use sprites.
I'm not looking at flashes to see good art, boring story.

You're allowed to use sprites on Newgrounds, and that's why your review was deleted.
You have to say more than "stolen", say why you didn't like the flash

The review was surely removed because its a pointless review? If you expect a review to stay in which you are trying to out something as stolen - prove it, provide examples. Obvious stuff like senselessly calling people faggots and stuff will get your reviews removed too - although i realise you didn't do that, a lot of people do.

Still, having said all the above i reviewed a stolen movie once, provided all the details on where it was stolen to and directed anyone reading the review towards proof and it was still removed. What the fuck?

yo xenon, how comes pointless reviews like this aren't removed?

"DUDE THAT WAS TOTALY AWESOME MAKE A 7"
by: sythraxx
date: March 9, 2008
MECHA SONIC KILLED THE XEM RENGERS THAT WAS AWESOE

or

"mecha sonic comes and OWNS evry body"
by: hank667
date: March 8, 2008
i give this a ten exactly!

Please explain how these are more helpful than gerkinman's.

Yeah I know it sucks that sprites are dominating. I know I can't really rant on the matter because both my earlier works are VG parodies, but I am working on original content. I personally think that whether you win or lose its how you play the game. I personally think that as long as you get an awesome score that its really cool. so what if your score isn't higher than 4, you end up making a lot of people really happy. As for the review, I dunno throw in a few sentences of criticism before you rant. Then they can't complain! anyway that is my two cents.

85% of newgrounds say they hate sprites but over half of the people use sprites and the other half would give a mario flash a 5 before they'd bother to watch an original movie.

Speaking of which cue a compilation of mario shorts hitting newgrounds in 3....2....1..

Good grief. Another flashist crying over good sprite animations getting awards they deserve. I know I can't set you straight, but I can try. First of all, you take some random generic youtuber's quote and act like it is completely true. Then you give a review that bashes the flash and is completely abusive. Obviously, you do not know what a review is and therefore it got removed because it wasn't a real review. Reviews are supposed to be concentrated on the quality of a flash, whether it be sprites or not. Smash Kingdom Melee IS a quality flash. It runs smoothly, has funny jokes, and makes good use of sprites. Only good sprite animations are making it to the front page these days, yet you act like anything with sprites gets lots of awards. SKM deserved it's daily first due to it's near perfection. If you want "original" flashes to be "noticed", they have to be GOOD. That is why GOOD original flashes DO make it to the frontpage. If you could take control of Newgrounds, we'd be seeing KK crap all over the frontpage. Why? Because you're a foolish flashist who doesn't know the difference between a good animation and a bad animation. Heck, you probably write trashy "reviews" for Super Mario Bros Z because you fail to notice it's near flawless animation. Good thing you flashists are a minority on Newgrounds. Once your kind dies off, Newgrounds can finally prosper. You people are the problem, not the answer.

Seriously, Gerkinman, not all flash movies are bad. Sure, most of them have terrible jokes and animation, but their is still those that shine, like Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom. Sure, it had some really stupid jokes in it at some points, but other than the occasional bad reference and senseless dance, it was well animated and well written (despite the lack of dialogue).

Also, yes, many people do not get noticed because of originality over sprites, but you ranting about it couldn't do much. try taking advantage of some features the site has to offer. If you find a good game/movie in the portal, start spreading the word with some PMs and recommendations and reviews. If more people took advantage of these tools, better movies would get better attention, because people would take the time to help them.

Eh, SPRITE movies I meant in the beginning, sorry. I'm a little tired.

one day it'll change.

And as for rewiewing - I've left many a bad review for sprite movies; one has stayed to this day and "there is general debate over whether this review is helpful or not - but it's mostly ABUSIVE"

Maybe you could show someone in a movie how eay it is to make...but I don't know if you'd want to waste anymore time on the subject.

I'm glad you agree with me. Trash flashes like KK are the problem, like you said. Though I never knew you were blind. How the heck do you read these and type anyway? Just amazing. What's also amazing is that you think that SKM is a horrible flash. Thank god you are a minority. I also agree with you that you and adam phillips could never amount to the prowess Alvin Earthworm has as an animator. And I also agree with you that I can't wait for flashists (if you didn't guess yet, I'm talking about sprite "racists") like yourself to die off. Then we can live in a peaceful enjoyable place called Newgrounds.

tom, if faced with the choice, would gladly abolish all sprite cartoons than have his site stripped of all it's talented artists ^

Well you may be right there in a sense. Art theft shouldn't be encouraged, but still, everyone knows that those sprites have been taken from some existing animation or game and the general public just likes it when they see or play something they can relate to like a parody on a game they played or a movie they saw. There's not much you can do about it.

The only real problem there would be that people that invest a lot of time into something original get moved back to the bottom and don't get the amount of views they deserve. That's kind of the negative effect of all the prizes being handed out nowadays. There's just a new goal to win something instead of making a cool/original game or animation. That simply leads to people trying to find the easiest road to victory.

Still this is hardly the thing that requires the most attention on the net if we consider the subject of flash art theft. All those game collection sites that earn money by publishing flashgames and movies made by others without the authors permission, sometimes even with the adds basically stripped out and replaced by their own adds are quite a serious problem if you ask me. They earn money by truely abusing the work of others (see www.spele.nl for example).

And another problem arises. When would you know if something is actually original? There are a lot of games and animations that are based on something else or a remake of something else that only a very selective few have seen or played. Atleast the sprite movies are obvious.

People always complain about this and the site hasnt gone and transformed into this or anything.. it was always this way really. You have to figure that the bulk of the traffic that goes through newgrounds are the 13-24 yr old niche.. most of THAT niche arent developers or animators.. they are just kids/people on the internet that are just wandering the web looking for a good time... much like youtube, miniclip etc... Video games and pop culture play a large role in this niche's lives and so its natural that theres a strong gravitation to it.

I think if anything is changing on the site its the fact that artists are losing sight of who they are creating content for.. they are letting the audience/their reviews dictate their creative impulses.. which is disappointing. I think that i get more out of reviews when they come from other artists.. and most of the time those reviews are actually quite positive .. most creative folks appreciate it when somoene's taken a chance or is trying something thats out of the beaten path.

Ok so you may find it hard / impossible to compete with the Super Smash Bros parody's you have to elbow your way past but that shouldnt get you down if you are getting positive feedback from your peers in the industry and if you are happy to be speaking your mind creatively.

I think artists need to stop losing sleep over this issue. We'll always be a minority wether we like it or not we just gotta keep plugging away regardless... we are creative people with alot to say... take that voice and put it in your work rather than in long posts putting pressure on tom to change how the site works.

God forbid people steal stuff oti.
And if being talentless was a crime you'd be in ass-pound prison for your crimes against humanity.

I can count the number of good sprite animators on one hand. (Alvin-earthworm, Psycosis91, araskin500, and pthouse. And most of them are only recently getting good or considering moving to normal animation.)

Look at the frontpage archive. This month there is currently ONE sprite movie and ONE "awesome" movie. People may like sprites and awesome, but other flashes get plenty of attention too. So I have to respectfully disagree with your opinion that sprite movies are hogging the spotlight.

Now, I have to agree totally with your opinion of the review system. As for what to do about the problems you see, you could always just blam as many flash as possible at the portal before they become popular.

''because sprite movies are never well written or well animated.''

I disagree, sprite movies made from orginal sprites can often be well animated for the type of animation it is, becuse of the creativity behind it. Take yesterday's 'Two slices of pie'. It used the Ice climbers but it used sprites made by the authour, and I found it quite creative, despite basing it on a videogame.

But you are somewhat very correct, it's just that not ALL of them are bad, but the majority of sprite animations are lame. Most are about Sonic or Mario, both use the same sound effects over again, both use stolen artwork, and both use the same storylines over and over.

Rather than telling people to stop using sprites, we should be getting them to make there own.

Sometimes though I do think it would be just so easy to win $500 just making a Mario and Sonic sprite anime, with just a slightly decent story.

I both agree with you and are against you.....
The fact that everything whith even the slightest relation to Mario is intantly overrated is veeery annoying. But just because of that i dont like sprites and Mario. And I personaly think that both Bowser Kindom and Smash Kingdom is great. But the sad fact lasts, as fast as something whith sprites and/or mario/sonic/ X vodeogame character appears, it instantly gets high score... Even though it often sucks. But still in this amount of bad massproduced sprites it exist things of brilliance. If you for example have seen Super Mario Bros Z you gets my point. There you have an example of skilled spriting.

I agree whith the overrating thing, and i would happily see that the crap gets a lower score. But still dont oversee that some spriting actually is really good and is worth its score.

I hate "sprite animators" because they go to such stupid lengths to get that Low-Res look in their movies, then they go and ROTATE the sprites like crazy, enlarging and stretching them, totally ruining the Low-Res effect.
What a bunch of idiots.

That's not totally true.
making a good sprite movies is not as easy as you may think, and there are some really talented flash artists who make excellent sprite movies, and deserve a high score.

Wether you may not like it, AlvinEarthworm's work is one example of this.

To your rant the answer is, no duh.
The only thing that's hard to do is get noticed. It seems the people who suck the most admin cock and are general assholes are the ones with any publicity. Ansel, I'm looking at you. NG's content is to much based on favoritism and the admins are directly to blame in some instances.

Off topic but does anyone else find that some of there account features not working properly?

I agree with you

Sprite movies are far too overrated and the review system is a complete hack.

But then again, most of Newgrounds users never tried to make a flash animation ever, and there for can easily be tricked into being shown the amount of "skill" that goes into a sprite cartoon.

With that being said, Sprite movies do show the animator how to use easing in their tweens and how to get to grip with movie clips, but then again you could do the same thing with ordinary flash cartoons.

Now I'm gonna admit that I am entertained by SOME spritemovies. BUT quite a lot of them have big belted scores that they don't deserve.

If you ask me... a sprite cartoon shouldn't have a score over 4.00

Onto the newgrounds review system. It's just abused

I'm constantly seeing reviews on the lines of "ZOMG I LOV DIS CATO0N" and then the forget to give it a star rating so it ends up "0/10". and some of these reviews actually get marked helpful.

And quite a lot of bad reviews on a "good" movie does get marked as abusive just because they're expressing their own opinion.

Though I agree with most of this. You're going to have to face it

There are a lot of idiots on Newgrounds and they're here to stay

I'm gonna be honest. I used to sprite.
Not because I thought they were awesome, or to get a good score. No, I wanted to learn how to animate. Then, I realised what abonimations and suck-offs they were. I deleted them from Newgrounds and My Documents, with a strange joy in my heart. I never ever felt bad about them again.

During this time, I was welcomed to the Art Forum. I improved my drawing, joined a collab or 2, and now, it's getting better every minute. I'm making my own fbf-flash now, and the feeling of working on it is so intense, for I do not know whether I'm gonna pass judgement or not. This Flash takes so long, instead of a sprite-movie which is finished immiedietly. I am sorry this day, that I've never done it earlier.

I never thought sprites weren't too bad. I was a fool. All right, I only wanted to improve my animating, but little did I know, how many people I hurt by that one sprite movie which takes part of an army. An army against drawing animators. Lots of drawing animators suffer. I think only a revolution can stop them. I am part of you now, and I will help destroying sprites whatever it takes.

-Spriters Anonymous meeting over-

Let's get some hot Coacoa!

with zekey on this one, hell I'll pretty much say what I always say on this one. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. Case in point most of the internet or in this case the amount of times the automated voting system on here has been assraped >.>

Well i would like to agree with you on this topic but your forgetting something, the Newgrounds Motto:

EVERYTHING By EVERYONE

and that includes spriters, terrible animators, harassers, jackasses who have no idea what quality actually means.

Sadly its true, sprites are basically stolen from games, but there is nothing anyone can do. Think about it, Tom Fulp himself sometimes uses sprites himself and no one seems to mind. My Marketing teacher once told us that in order to succeed in business yo have to be original, I personally believe that he's lucky that he never was on Newgrounds.

Oh, and as I recall, Every Brackenwood movie is in the top 50. If you replaced all those with sprite movies that are as (exagerrated,) horribly written, and and crappily animated as you say, I'd believe you.

And TomFulp once used sprites. You got a problem with Tom Fulp? cuz I'd like to know.

AND SO DID YOU!!!!!!!

People are just paying tribute to their favorite games and jokes. I don't see a problem with that.
I'll watch any flash and vote it accordingly. Although I tend to vote higher on hand-drawn since more effort is made.
It's sad that some movies are left in the dust of a sprite movie, though. Sprite movies tend to be more popular, I don't see why, though. It's probably because they're alot easier to make. But at a certain point, some sprite movies can take alot of effort.

Don't rate a movie a 1 unless it really deserves it, though. It's about as annoying as everyone voting as if there's only a 0 and a 10. I don't think you're one to do that often, though.

That's just my thoughts.

I agree whole heartedly. Newgrounds is an art community (or at least should be), and should not promote unorigionality. True artists (I use that loosly) are losing influence over public whimsy. Sadly, there is not much hope unless the people of NG broaden their horizons and look beyond what is in front of them. That is actually why artists who go unnoticed would join flash groups insulting of the NG population, partly for attention, partly for revenge, and partly to raise the intellegence open-mindedness of others. Sadly, NG may continue to lower its standards in terms of user awareness, but there is not much we can do.

Also I probably sound like an elitist, but there is exceptions to this. NG is meant to showcase EVERY THING BY EVERYONE, meaning anything you make will be shown on NG (as long as it meets portal standards). I feel that what it takes to be SEEN on NG is just not efficient enough in current standards.

"It takes talent to blend make the sonic universe and the mario universe fight whith dragonball z sound effects blairing in the background?"

If you want to make it look good, yes.

Sprite movies have it's place, and that place is far away from drawn movies.

Now I'm a sprites 'animator' myself, I do not draw due to my lack of talent to draw, instead I make sprite movies, yet I agree with pretty much all of the points you have made. I know some people were pissed when some of my movies were 'noticed', and they have every right to be, sprite movies in no way can ever step up and be classified with movies that the author puts so much time and effort in to draw everything in it. I feel it's not the people who make the sprite movies that deserve the blame, but rather the audience. From the moment you click submit it's up to the audience to decide where the movie, sprited or not, 'should' be in the scoring system. Maybe they are the people that should be blamed for the few sprite movies having overrated scores.

I relize I'm speaking only for myself here but when I animate sprite movies I try and make them as much as my own piece of work as I possibly can. I know, however, for some people it will always boil down to 'stolen', but in my movies I do experiment with different angle shots, in depth stores, and anything I feel I need to add to, not become better than drawn movies, but manage to put in the same or a comparable amount of effort to that of a drawn movie.

There are some sprite movies out there, however, that are well written and well animated. They are just hidden under all the shit people rush to make due to the premise that it will make then popular.

And why the hell was Super Mario Bros. Z chosen to be this diety among sprite movies? It just proves all of the points you're making against them. :<

"SMBZ was chosen because its what spriters really want out of there cartoons, as much unoriginality as possible."

That's true for the most part, speaking about myself again but I try and keep my movies as original as possible despite the art being stolen. with "Thwomps: The Movie" I tried to make a 20 minute movie that can keep an audience entertained via the story, and I achieved that somewhat when it got number 1 of all time for a week or so. With "Spittin' Narcissism" my aim was to make a movie that resembled a rap video, and with "Awesome Guy Adventures" my aim was to make a movie that could effectivly tell a story without any dialouge. I may sound narcissist when I say this, however, I try to keep my movies 'original', but it's the majority of sprite animators that don't.

"Its also called NEWgrounds, but its allways the same old crap that gets hand picked and exhibited. Kinda like Sameoldshitgrounds."

Well Egoraptor calls his flash movies "AWESOME" but it always ends up being a bunch of cheap Family Guy jokes with badly drawn animation.

As well as some are hand picked they usually are the ones who are constantly voted 5 by NG viewers who have nothing better to do after which they are placed on Front Page by the NG staff who maybe just maybe view the flash movie before being posted as "Front Page Material"

So basically we could call Newgrounds as "FuckFartsgrounds"

yeah, im not really one to say this since i dont do flash, but the overrated sprites thing gets old... maybe they should set up something like a double rating system, with one part of it for the general visitors, and the other part for experienced people who have contributed to the site, sort of like deciding who posts on the front page. of course, im sure the newgrounds staff already has enough site work on their hands as it is. =P

I used to do sprites a coupe years back, and yes it takes less effort, but sometimes many people aren't as talented in drawing...sprites helped me get good at flash because I learned the easy basics through them. Also, it's like a crutch for people who are maybe only good at making a good script but not as swell as an animator. Why don't you call stick figures talentless hacks? Aren't they just the same thing over and over? I agree that many sprite movies today aren't really great, but I have to admit that some of the ones back in the old days were really good.

Probably said before now but that review was probably deleted for being too short and not providing 'constructive criticism'.

Now if you're review had finished with "try creating something original next time" it might've been protected.

in shorts to wear pants to...ur animation made less common sence than the suck one. srry

If you're honestly confused as to why your review got deleted, you need to take a break from your self-righteous crusade for a while.

There's a difference between being constructive and being a jerk.

"I'm not really a fan of this movie, because I think that sprite movies in general are using art that isn't the author's. I would have liked to see content that is fully original, because I feel like there were a lot of jokes taken from other productions, too."

Same message, probably wouldn't get deleted. Why? Because I wasn't being a jerk. If you truly have a problem with making your reviews not passive aggressive then you should not write reviews if your ego is going to get in the way. Like I said, there's a difference between being constructive and being a jerk. If you truly cared about the advancement of these artists you could put your ego aside and help them instead of being a jackass.

You asked why it was deleted and I told you.

I don't think hypocrisy is an issue you should be arguing considering you refer to yourself as an asshole twice in your profile and yet you get judgmental when someone treats you like one. Namely, the people who flagged your review.

You were a jerk in your review. That's it. There are some things that are just human nature. Nobody likes an asshole. Newgrounds is not the judicial system, it's a bunch of people.

Sprites aren't necessarily "stolen" unless you don't give credit to the original author or designer of the sprite or character. Yes, it does not belong to me, but using sprites is an easy way of bringing quality entertainment to those who enjoy the feel of video games in movies, especially when you are unable to do things like drawings. We don't all have a drawing tablet, and most of us can't draw with a computer mouse. Sprites are an art form, not a STOLEN art form. If it gives people entertainment, why not? I'm sure the video game companies are aware of this sort of thing happening all the time, but they're not sueing anyone. It's probably just more advertisement to them anyway, and sprites are only bad if you say "I made these" and then get paid for it. Which I don't. I'm a sprite animator, and your position on disliking sprite movies is irrational. Let's all hate realism paintings that have houses in them, because we've seen houses in paintings before. They must be stolen I guess.