Your thoughts on "Rare" & "Private" chars

[Demitri]

Well i figured this section needs more....discussions so i thought this would be a nice subject, especially since everyone seems to have different thoughts & feelings on the subject. I'm sure at some point in everyone's mugen career,they've come across a char that kinda looked interesting that they wanted,only to find out it is "private" or "rare" or "WIP" that will never be released to the general public. Whatever the case may be, im sure if not everyone,the vast majority has been in a situation where you just wonder "why?" its just a char etc etc There are some really good and unique chars that fall in this category and then there are the.....not so special or good ones. But people still clamor for them. I mean look at all the Orochi's............. I guess for me,it keep mugen a little interesting,but in some cases its just stupid. I hate it,yet i'm always catching myself wanting these chars. I've also watched people over the years give praise to horrible "private" creations and i wonder why? I understand the user has many things you want from them but obviously sucking up isnt going to get you far(not usually anyway),and in my eyes,it encourages more bad creations,or just adds to the person's ego. It never ends well. What do you guys think?

[Ex✭Cᴀʜᴍ]

Hmmmmm

The only private stuff that have caught y attetion is V-nix lifebars and Screenpacks :/

Other than that....

Maybe chars that could have good FX to use like those Orochis..

[~❤Flanya Scarlet❤]

Wellll I Kinda Want Some cheaipes but..........Authors Wanna Keep it to Themselves Dont get me wrong here Its Great that they wanna keep it but.........Why cant they share it for once.............Also Some SUER CHEAPIES are .UHA FILE v.v yes I want them AND you need a pass Im thinking WTF IDK ANY PASS soooo thats why But other than that Thats My Story on them........

[Sweetfire13]

Rare characters are usually the really shit ones that died out and no one cared or bothered to put back up on a different file sharing website. Of course things like when infoseek crashed and everything mugen related on there was erased from the internet will happen, but it's not hard to find or ask where to find those characters that were lost. Private characters are pretty pointless imo, there's no real reason to have them other than to show off your e-peen.

[Demitri]

I agree with all of you lol

Exc the FX part is usually the biggest thing,some have new effects with lots of color so people will go crazy for it,but like Sweetfire said,many are just crap. and use way too many(Orochi's are the biggest culprits though others i have seen can kinda be put in the same category )

AnimeFreak you made me remember something i forgot about that i think is extremely stupid, encrypted characters(and while on the subject,games as well)

To me it's one thing to wanna show off a beta of a fullgame or something of the like that isnt ready for public release,but encrypting a character or a fullgame just seems like a waste in my eyes.

I remember some time back i was browsing and found a guys folder filled with characters,some i never saw before. EACH char was encrypted. Found the guys youtube, he hadnt signed in for 7 months(so 9 months as of now) and most likely will not sign back again,not for mugen anyway.

Pointless,i cant even imagine the process to decrypt them just for himself.

Private characters are pretty pointless imo, there's no real reason to have them other than to show off your e-peen.

Most Majority of the time,that's all it is. Lol.

[~❤Flanya Scarlet❤]

wellll You Gotta Admit Its their person BUT seriously v.v PASSWORDS WHY cant we just Simply DL THEM wo the use of it.....

[Magical Klara]

It's not necessarily a fault on the author's part, but rare chars are just irritating since you can't get them without extensive searching or emailing other people for them. That's why sites like this one are so valuable.

Private chars are hunky dory if you make them for one person or a small group of people, but if you announce them to the world it incurs envy and compromises your own credibility.

Well, that's how I feel about it, anyway.

[Neo_Fire_Sonic]

i think its really stupid to keep chars private. I mean really. These authors don't realize, that all mugen characters are is .bmp pictures, .wave files,and numbers and letters. is it that hard just to upload some of that to the internet for people to share?

[The Magic Toaster]

I dont like Private characters unless theres a good reason behind it. Like lets say.... Its a Private WIP or a Personal gift from a friend. As for Rares i dont really give a shit if its Rare or not...Mainly because most of the time there all disappointing or the person in possession has some ludicrous request in exchange to gain said item.

[Kazagami]

I mean really. These authors don't realize, that all mugen characters are is

.bmp pictures, .wave files,and numbers and letters.

There's some effort at coding them anyways.

[~❤Flanya Scarlet❤]

i think its really stupid to keep chars private.

is it that hard just to upload some of that to the internet for people to share?

BOTH OF THESE THAAAAANKYOU NEO I Agree

[Jsalinger7]

In my Opinion: I feel as for "Rare" Characters a majority of the time they're merely just eyecandy on a select screen with no function in gameplay. Some of them are genuinely 'Rare' though! They earn that status through the exclusivity of that character because the websites that hosted it went down (COUGH COUGH Megaupload COUGH). As for exclusive/private content, I think its the author's decision because we are not owed it. However when they show it on a public setting, like say a YouTube video, but don't offer it to the public; That's just kind of a (excuse my language), A dick thing to do. It's the real-life equivlient of a man waving a 100$ bill directly infront of your face. But thats just my 5 cents.

[Super Nicholas]

I don't really think people should keep characters private just to make people jealous. Though, people have their reasons for keeping them private. They might be protecting them from unauthorized edits, or are maybe waiting for the right time to release them.

 

As for rare characters, it annoys me that some characters are hard to find. I had such a hard time finding Colonel Sanders and Angry German Kid (before I joined MUGEN Free For All) and I can't seem to find the original Omega Tom Hanks. (I only found a "special edition" version that replaces his movie posters with pictures of other characters.) I also can't find Omega Tiger Woods 2008.

 

Also, these three characters are VERY rare and I can't find them: Fire Dragon, Ice Dragon, and Lightning Dragon.

 

I'm pretty sure a lot of characters became rare when MegaUpload was shut down, for example, Petey Piranha. They can also become rare if the person who posted them closes their account or removes them, for example, the NES Stages from Zelda II and Metroid. I'm pretty sure eSnips is a primary reason for rare characters, too, because nobody likes to use it. (It requires you to download a downloader and I hear it downloads a lot of viruses.)

[Mav3r1ck]

I really hate private things, because I don't have them, or I can't get them in the future. At least the possibility of the purchase is, but it is very small. As rare characters I can just ask them on a forum or search it anywhere else and rare stuff can be great and dissapointing. In my mind I don't care they are terrible or wonderful I just collect them.

[~❤Flanya Scarlet❤]

Yeah Same Here NOW though Authors Are being nice Im Asking them to Trade with me In Order to Get them And Its Working out Quite Nicely.

[Darklight]

you know what i hate the most is when people make at least what seems to be 50 different kinds of mugen videos with the same character you been drooling over and yet you cant get it now i get that they are probably not finish with making him or adding whatever too it. but making more and more videos with him or her or it in the video is just being a dick its pretty much saying hahaha you cant get it and not only is that not fair but it pisses people off to always see it there and yet you cant get it or in my case have the file for that character or stage and yet your so close yet so far because they had to be a bigger dick by putting a password on it if you didnt want someone to have the damn thing why upload it in the first place you could lock it up on some other site and make it untraceable to the public

[Werewood]

MUGEN rarity, in my MUGEN sense, is something that has not been made by those official FTG manufactorers.  Anyone who can draw good pixels and code well can make anything they or other people want (yes, mothers are women).

 

Private MUGEN stuff is against my new MUGEN motto:  "Sharing is Caring".

[tehdevil]

In my thought, Rare means very less people have the character like in 10 people, only 2 people have that character. For private, it could say that the Mugen creator have quit Mugen and continue to make Mugen character for his own and share with his close friend like Warusaki3, I believe he still make CvS characters but he did not release to public, just share with some of his close friends because there is one time in 2004 or 2005, he quit Mugen as he is pissed off about someone hosting his character(s) without his permission. At that point he continue to make some characters like Hayato, Lilith, Violent Ken, Haohmaru, Todo, Yuri and Guile and put it in his private site. Later there is someone leaking his private creations and said that he is back but actually he is not, he get angry but leave the matter and continue to make more CvS and Jojo characters. In 2011, he quit again because he said a member host his characters without permission. So I believe he still make some characters like Blanka, Dhalsim, Claw, Chang the missing few CvS characters and shared it to his close friends. I can say that the reason is because he doesn't want people to play his outdated creations like when he already fixed the character's bug, people download his creation on other site which the bug is not yet fixed and people still report the bug to him which he have already fixed that might annoy him, which is pretty logical to me. Just like Hero's creations, no one have his latest update characters like his Violent Ken which of course there are bug still exist that Hero have already fixed in his latest creation.

[GohanSSM2]

Anyway, my two bucks worth I guess.

 

Rare, pretty much unavoidable at times.  The lack of good servers and the cost of hosting and such contribute greatly to this.  But as demonstrated back in the old TESTP forum days...  Way too many people and way too much bandwidth needed to have an all inclusive one stop site.  A bunch of stuff is probably best left out anyway.  Many times a person just loses interest or loses time and doesn't continue.  Someone else comes along and does a better job anyway so the other person leaves which is what I call the 'dump releases'.  MUGEN is loaded with these.  People move on to other things.  Many DBZ people left MUGEN because of the Quake III Bid for Power stuff.  Many others stayed.  You never know.

 

As far as private...  Some got worried about possible lawsuits from the original game companies.  Some may have been actually involved with the original game companies and were worried about getting caught.  MANY, MANY different stories and it depends on the person involved.  Most of the time, the person involved was tired of people taking their ideas and taking credit as well (Vissual Kreations vs. RRRRRR comes to mind as the first).  Some got tired of getting hassled for updates and such.  Some got tired of critics that never did anything themselves but whined about everyone else.  Some got tired of people trying to force their standards on everyone else.  The reasons behind private releases are as varied as the ones doing private releases.  Best to ignore these.  Reason being is because they aren't worth pursuing honestly.  Some for greed (I want stuff in return).  Some for notoriety (my Tien Shinhan was originally just available in a 'private' full game compilation that I never really denied to anyone.  I had to keep it private because I could never get permission from people that weren't around anymore and all that, so I kept it 'private').  Some got tired of 'the competition' turning in their site for 'violations of terms and service' and all that too.  Which, yeah, way too much politics in MUGEN over the years and pretty sickening when you think about it, but what ya gonna do? 

 

Get smart.  If they are really 'that good' then why hide it?  Because you get tired of copying and credit stealing and all that is why.  So notice how 'hidden' Tien is now.  And how many characters now make copies of themselves and all that like Tien did back when.  I guess they still can't figure out the postition switch coding in Ginyu and that yet.  And all that nonsense I got after Android 16's Rocket Punch and the 'birth of helper projectiles' and all that back in 2000 (Hyper Buu's Candy Munch, MK Fatality coding, etc., you do get tired of nonsense after a while and 'opinions from so-called experts who have never really DONE anything creative themselves' aka politics - What has Dr. Stephen Hawking ever actually done himself anyway besides sit in a wheelchair and say how smart he thinks he is, but if he is really so smart then... - this kinda stuff).  But if ya hide it, why?  That's the whole idea behind 'open sourced' to begin with and was what the original MUGEN community was about.  Getting together, working together, and sharing ideas.  Some got the wrong idea I guess, so best to let them go.  Everyone is different.  It's better that way.

 

Password protected usually means that the person doesn't want someone else knowing that they ripped off someone else's stuff.  99% of the time anyway.

[MugenDude]

I really don't like private characters because if I actually saw the character and I wanted to test it out, then how would I get it in order to test it out?

[NotAGoodName]

Mugen is deliberately designed in such a way that characters are easily shared and easily modified.  Doing things like releasing encrypted full games or demonstrating characters that you're never going to release is not only silly, it requires a mindset that isn't compatible with Mugen.

 

Yeah sure, there's a gray area.  For instance, all those fancy lifebars that require intense professional editing of the character.  No thanks.  It's also pointless to waste webspace with tiny edits of other people's characters.  But if you've got a 100% source accurate KOF '94 Heidern and you're not releasing it for whatever imaginary reason, get over it.

 

Furthermore, much like all the pitiful attempts made by YouTube to block downloading, if something happens on your computer, it can be captured.  If I want it, I'll grab it.  No matter of encryption or copy protection will stop anyone with enough diligence.  Those moleboxed fullgames are a waste of time.  If anyone spends money for the software to produce a moleboxed game, they wasted their money too.  Run a moleboxed mugen and guess what?  It takes up exactly as much RAM as the entire folder.  Takes some effort to protect the files.  Takes some effort to get them back.  Be smart, don't bother, and call it even.

 

In short, make good, well thought, educated decisions.  Don't be private mugen character guy.

[Mr. KOtik]

Theres not really much to say on rare characters. Dead links are just an inevitability, especially when it comes to free file hosting websites. Any creation that is not well circulated has a possibility of becoming rare; ranging from something over 10 years old to something just a few months old.

 

I've got nothing to say about privates.

[dashdogfizz]

i think its really stupid to keep chars private. I mean really. These authors don't realize, that all mugen characters are is .bmp pictures, .wave files,and numbers and letters. is it that hard just to upload some of that to the internet for people to share?

True

[TMC55]

For me going private is dumb, elecbyte created mugen to be free and open source in the first place and someone going private or quitting mugen because certain things happened that they didn't want to happen is stupid, in my opinion you should've gave said character to someone you trust and let them finish the character and let him or her share it for the public to enjoy, but all it takes is for someone to do a small mistake and the creator gets butthurt and decides to go private or quit, but then have the nerve to post "leaked images or videos" to rub it in someone's face and that is pretty childish honestly. If you was going to take mugen that seriously you should've never started creating in the first place.

[A person]

Honestly, private characters shouldn't even be a thing. I learned a while back that keeping things to yourself isn't really the way to go, especially with sprites on a screen. When you go ripping sprites, you shouldn't just keep them to yourself, because if you do, someone else is going to beat you to the punch and upload them to a websites, thus gaining popularity you could've had. The same goes for characters; if you make a character and make it private, someone else could be inspired to make the same character and upload it to a website, thus gaining the popularity you could've had. If you didn't want popularity, why would you upload screenshots and videos of the character to shove it in people's faces? It's just not necessary at all. As far as rare characters go, yeah, you can't really trust cloud services or hosting services. They may stay up for an indefinite amount of time, or they may go down the very next day, so it's understandable that rare characters are a thing, especially with occurrences such as the Ecole Faker and the fake SEGA takedowns. But if you intentionally make it rare, then that's just plain silly. What value is there to making a character rare? It's just going to cause outrage if you do, and if it gets into the right(or wrong) hands, then it'll be as common as it would've been if you hadn't have made it rare. As far as WIPs go, creators should maybe have "alpha" builds or "beta" builds available so that their fellow MUGEN players can test the characters themselves and give feedback to them instead of just having a designated crew for that task. There is no harm in letting the entire community see your work, and you should be open to criticism from everyone around you as long as it's actually constructive. You shouldn't just keep it to yourself until it's finished, though I would understand if it's meant to be a surprise or something or you just don't like putting incomplete work out there, but don't go linking screenshots of it and never finish it. At least give people a taste of what they could've had if you lose interest in the character instead of just scrapping it all together. At least then it would be preserved for maybe another creator to finish for you.