Project M is no more

[Knife]

dondon does this answer your questions

(other people should obviously read it as well)

it's not 100% confirmed but like, it looks pretty plausible

edit: mods took it down for a reason, so removing the link I guess? the tl;dr is that a PMDT member essentially confirmed that

- they were contacted by a Trustworthy Figure (only 2 PMDT members knew who)

- saying that Nintendo had active plans to sue them for bajillions of dollars if they released any more content,

- and how that would work (15k per line of code changed)

- they contacted a lawyer and he confirmed that they could be hit with that

- they purged wiiztek early because he leaks fucking everything

Knew it. I am now 90% sure what I said earlier is true. Maybe it wasn't a formal C&D order, but they uncovered information that Nintendo was planning to sue, whether it was explicitly expressed by Nintendo or not (assuming your source is/was credible).

The December update looks to have something Brawl related (Brawl Remake?) as implied by the Brawl FD music at the end of the Cloud reveal. Perhaps it could also be related to that, since PM works off of Brawl engine?

Ignoring character balance, I think Smash 4 would be a lot cooler if they didn't patch out DACUS and item toss cancelling. Also, rage is kinda dumb.

[euklyd]

I'm not even a big fan of Melee, by any stretch of the word, but part the reason Melee has a deeper meta game other than its older, is that PM (and Smash 4 as much as I love it), change on a patchly basis which utterly changes quite a few things, so people are too busy adjusting to changes and are unable to refine what they have actually learned.

Melee, has a huge learning curve even compared to PM, there are an incredible amount of Advanced Techniques, one of which was just discovered this year. Sakurai was in a different mindset when he made Melee, than when he made Brawl and beyond and even PM's team couldn't fully replicate Melee in PM like they had originally planned, and not to mention some of their bizarre mechanics changes on characters (Looking at you PM Ganondorf). PM can't replicate everything done in Melee because people are still discovering things in Melee. Not to mention they tried to make everyone like Melee Fox, to varying results.

I'm personally someone who prefers Smash 4 overall though. Which makes some people want me to burn in hell.

more fundamentally, SSBM and SSBB have different engines, and PM still uses the Brawl engine, while many of the Melee ATs rely on, obviously, quirks of the Melee engine.

Knew it. I am now 90% sure what I said earlier is true. Maybe it wasn't a formal C&D order, but they uncovered information that Nintendo was planning to sue, whether it was explicitly expressed by Nintendo or not (assuming your source is/was credible).

The December update looks to have something Brawl related (Brawl Remake?) as implied by the Brawl FD music at the end of the Cloud reveal. Perhaps it could also be related to that, since PM works off of Brawl engine?

Ignoring character balance, I think Smash 4 would be a lot cooler if they didn't patch out DACUS and item toss cancelling. Also, rage is kinda dumb.

Yeah, you called it pretty well imo.

re: bold - Brawl HD confirmed!

[The DanMan]

dondon does this answer your questions

(other people should obviously read it as well)

it's not 100% confirmed but like, it looks pretty plausible

edit: mods took it down for a reason, so removing the link I guess? the tl;dr is that a PMDT member essentially confirmed that

- they were contacted by a Trustworthy Figure (only 2 PMDT members knew who)

- saying that Nintendo had active plans to sue them for bajillions of dollars if they released any more content,

- and how that would work (15k per line of code changed)

- they contacted a lawyer and he confirmed that they could be hit with that

- they purged wiiztek early because he leaks fucking everything

Considering Nintendo had said they're okay with derivative works and had ignored Project M for years, this seems really odd. Why would it happen now?

And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Project M technically not a hack? It runs off of an exploit and is built on top off Brawl; it doesn't alter any pre-existing code.

[Junkhead]

this automatically makes people take you less seriously jsyk

It's obvious I was exaggerating, and rightfully so. 2-5, not a huge difference.

PM's biggest issue is that if anyone developed any character, they instantly nerfed them, Melee has deeper mechanics than PM was ever able to have partly due to this.

But that's a problem on the creator's part, isn't it? Now that they stopped updating it...

Also you tend to see 10 characters, not 2, maybe you haven't heard that there is a very high profile Yoshi in Melee nowadays, along with a few Samus's etc.

Actually do your research in the future.

Just because there are a very few select people being able to get *somewhere* with obscure characters doesn't mean they're anywhere near common. The Top 3 are everywhere and characters like Peach, Jiggaly & C.Falcon aren't even thaaat common. Don't acuse of "not doing my research". It's not like it would've made a difference when you're making a blanket statement like that for someone who's supposedly done their research.

Will's always been a prominent DK player in both Brawl and Smash 4, does that mean suddenly DK is viable?

soul you do know that there is a song called "meta knight da bess" for a reason, right? ICs did not beat him. he was a heavier jigglypuff with marth's sword and happened to have amazing frame data and transcendant hitboxes on almost every move he had. ICs were actually worse since watching them play is like shoving icicles in your eyes.

MK is a very good character, I don't question that. But people killed the meta with their whining, just like they almost did when Dee Dee Kong reingned Smash 4. MK isn't broken or unstoppable, just a character that doesn't have extremely noticeable weaknesses.

Umm... MK was definitely not an overstatement. Ice Climbers were worse, at least MK had 10 different ways to kill you. The competitive meta would have been 100x better if both these characters were banned early on. Ice Climber meta wasn't developed for a while so that got overlooked, but by 2010 when everyone wanted to ban MK (and rightfully so) it was too late. 80% of top players either mained him or pocketed him and strongly opposed his ban by boycotting MK banned events. TOs eventually had to cave in because top players stopped going to events.

Had Diddy not been nerfed, he would have headed in the same direction. The balance in Smash 4 is just fine right now and while Sheik is running amok, her strength and popularity levels are nowhere near Brawl MK. So MK definitely was not an exaggeration, he was simply broken compared to the rest of the cast. But I guess this has nothing to do with Project M.

I still blame people being dumbasses and whining instead of actually bothering to learn their matchups.

I've always found ICs a crapton more menacing for the fact they can kill you of off one Grab. It's way easier to Grab someone (granted it's not MK D-Air camping) considering Shields takes up a ton of your best options, otherwise you have to be PERFECT with your spacing (Marth & Ike, who supposedly had an even MU). They also have a great option in simply U-Air'ing (17%).

Relevant:

lulz Edited December 3, 2015 by Soul o:

[Knife]

People whine for good reason. That reason is that MK is broken. This is pretty much fact at this point. Ask any Brawl player, even ones that mained MK, "Is MK broken?" and they will almost always say yes. A character that has the options of 10 characters in one combined cannot simply be resolved by learning the matchup. I remember when Snake was #2 for the first year and he eventually dropped down to #6 or #7 spot where he is right now because a lot of people learned the matchup. That never happened with MK.

Camp? Metaknight da Bess

Rushdown? Metaknight da Bess

Gimp? Metaknight da Bess

Kill? Metaknight da Bess

Recover? Metaknight da Bess

Live long? Metaknight not da Bess at this, but he won't get hit

Disjoint for frame data? Metaknight da Bess

Ice Climber are worse I agree, but at least there was a certain tech requirement you had to meet in order to wobble. They also appeared late in the meta and did not have the influence MK had.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Knife

[euklyd]

Considering Nintendo had said they're okay with derivative works and had ignored Project M for years, this seems really odd. Why would it happen now?

And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Project M technically not a hack? It runs off of an exploit and is built on top off Brawl; it doesn't alter any pre-existing code.

I don't know what you mean by "it doesn't alter any pre-existing code" since a literal reading of that is completely wrong, but

a) Japanese IP law is different.

b) It definitely uses IP in ways that Nintendo wasn't given license to (likely stuff as simple as changing Sonic's colors)

c) IP law is ridiculously lopsided in favor of the claimant anyways.

d) Even if it's not a rock-solid open-and-shut case, the PMDT can't afford the massive legal fees.

Also, there's speculation that it was due to either Squeenix insisting on it as a show of force, because they're super vigilant about protecting their own IP (since Cloud was just added to SSB4), or that it's because one of the ballot characters is a char that the PMDT had in the works.

This would explain why it'd happen now despite nothing happening previously.

EDIT: HOLY SHIT

(they use the full gif but gyazo can't get everything)

Edited December 3, 2015 by Euklyd

[The DanMan]

I don't know what you mean by "it doesn't alter any pre-existing code" since a literal reading of that is completely wrong, but

a) Japanese IP law is different.

b) It definitely uses IP in ways that Nintendo wasn't given license to (likely stuff as simple as changing Sonic's colors)

c) IP law is ridiculously lopsided in favor of the claimant anyways.

d) Even if it's not a rock-solid open-and-shut case, the PMDT can't afford the massive legal fees.

Also, there's speculation that it was due to either Squeenix insisting on it as a show of force, because they're super vigilant about protecting their own IP (since Cloud was just added to SSB4), or that it's because one of the ballot characters is a char that the PMDT had in the works.

This would explain why it'd happen now despite nothing happening previously.

EDIT: HOLY SHIT

(they use the full gif but gyazo can't get everything)

I was under the impression that Project M did not change or remove anything from the game; it used the stage creator exploit to add onto what was already there, and left everything on disc as-is. It seems I misunderstood the situation; people seemed really stingy about the topic, saying "Project M isn't a hack".

Everything else (such as legal fees) makes sense. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody from SE saw one of those Ike-to-Cloud alt costumes or some crap like that and potentially caused all of this (which the Sonic tweet suggests, if "rain = clouds" is the correct interpretation).

[Junkhead]

People whine for good reason. That reason is that MK is broken. This is pretty much fact at this point. Ask any Brawl player, even ones that mained MK, "Is MK broken?" and they will almost always say yes. A character that has the options of 10 characters in one combined cannot simply be resolved by learning the matchup. I remember when Snake was #2 for the first year and he eventually dropped down to #6 or #7 spot where he is right now because a lot of people learned the matchup. That never happened with MK.

Camp? Metaknight da Bess

Rushdown? Metaknight da Bess

Gimp? Metaknight da Bess

Kill? Metaknight da Bess

Recover? Metaknight da Bess

Live long? Metaknight not da Bess at this, but he won't get hit

Disjoint for frame data? Metaknight da Bess

Yet, a lot of these things that supposedly make him "broken" or even as far as to say as "untouchable" never ever really go down in practice. They're just empty bluffs. MK wasn't even that good at killing, when it came to raw killing potential. His fastest moves like D-Smash (killed at 140% with good DI) & Up-B (130%, grounded), the aerial Up-B was easy to intercept if you were a smart player. The only part where I'd say he was excellent was at recovering. MK didn't even live that long at all, he was among the lightest characters in the game right after gaw. Yes, he had the ability to maximize his survibility with momentum cancelling & DI, but he'd still die to a Snake U-Tilt at a little less than 100.

[euklyd]

I was under the impression that Project M did not change or remove anything from the game; it used the stage creator exploit to add onto what was already there, and left everything on disc as-is. It seems I misunderstood the situation; people seemed really stingy about the topic, saying "Project M isn't a hack".

Everything else (such as legal fees) makes sense. I wouldn't be surprised if somebody from SE saw one of those Ike-to-Cloud alt costumes or some crap like that and potentially caused all of this (which the Sonic tweet suggests, if "rain = clouds" is the correct interpretation).

Project M is a hack, but it does make extensive use of file replacement to add things that simply weren't in the original game. The stage creator exploit is simply how they gain control over the system and insert their own code / files. The beauty of the exploit is that it can accomplish what it does without needing to modify the disc itself; that doesn't mean it's any less extensive a mod.

For example, the models and PSAs and stuff they use for Roy and whatnot simply did not exist in Brawl's code; it's not as simple as moving vertices or changing physics stuff.

(There's a similar - although not identical - distinction with how 20XXTE can't do the file replacement that full 20XX can, if you're familiar with that.)

edit2: Soul, read this re: Meta Knight https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/3evftq/who_was_considered_op_in_games_at_the_start/ctj9z8w

Edited December 3, 2015 by Euklyd

[Knife]

Yet, a lot of these things that supposedly make him "broken" or even as far as to say as "untouchable" never ever really go down in practice. They're just empty bluffs. MK wasn't even that good at killing, when it came to raw killing potential. His fastest moves like D-Smash (killed at 140% with good DI) & Up-B (130%, grounded), the aerial Up-B was easy to intercept if you were a smart player. The only part where I'd say he was excellent was at recovering. MK didn't even live that long at all, he was among the lightest characters in the game right after gaw. Yes, he had the ability to maximize his survibility with momentum cancelling & DI, but he'd still die to a Snake U-Tilt at a little less than 100.

He has a much easier time killing, and that's what matters, not raw kill power. I feel like you are theorycrafting a lot of this and have never seen in person how dominant MK was. Characters become dominant for a reason, its not just hype that he was extremely good. Look at the bigger picture not just the character. Regionals and Nationals were usually 50% or more MKs in top 8. Every Region PR had 50% or more MKs on there. Why did this happen even though MK was everyone's most practiced matchup and theoretically everyone should know how to beat MK? MK slayers were extremely rare. This never happened in Melee even with Fox and Falco.

It was never about him being unbeatable. Any character can be beatable because they are controlled by human players. It's just that there was no reason to play anyone else besides MK, a character that a mediocre player can beat top players of other characters with. A lot of characters never went fully explored in Brawl and probably never will. But I guess this argument is pointless, competitive Brawl is dead.

EDIT: Euklyd, were you talking about this?

http://imgur.com/k90QYbD

Edited December 3, 2015 by Knife

[Czar_Yoshi]

re: bold - Brawl HD confirmed!

Expanding GCN support to Brawl? Maybe. But who would play Brawl when there's SSB4 anyway?

Probably someone who wants a working Vault.

[The DanMan]

Snake, IC, and Ivysaur/Squirtle fans, now that PM's no longer readily available.

[euklyd]

EDIT: Euklyd, were you talking about this?

yes

I took the link down because of reasons but yes

I actually have both the thing saved and a pastebin

Snake, IC, and Ivysaur/Squirtle fans, now that PM's no longer readily available.

PM is just as readily available as it used to be. The download link has changed, that's all.

[Junkhead]

He has a much easier time killing, and that's what matters, not raw kill power. I feel like you are theorycrafting a lot of this and have never seen in person how dominant MK was. Characters become dominant for a reason, its not just hype that he was extremely good. Look at the bigger picture not just the character. Regionals and Nationals were usually 50% or more MKs in top 8. Every Region PR had 50% or more MKs on there. Why did this happen even though MK was everyone's most practiced matchup and theoretically everyone should know how to beat MK? MK slayers were extremely rare. This never happened in Melee even with Fox and Falco.

It was never about him being unbeatable. Any character can be beatable because they are controlled by human players. It's just that there was no reason to play anyone else besides MK, a character that a mediocre player can beat top players of other characters with. A lot of characters never went fully explored in Brawl and probably never will. But I guess this argument is pointless, competitive Brawl is dead.

okay, I get that. In Brawl, if you could kill at 150 with a "reliable" move, you were awesome. Some will think it's an exaggeration, but it's actually not that far from the truth... except for Snake's U-Tilt.

Regarding MK, I speak a lot from experience, actually. This is coming from a Bowser/Yoshi main, even (used Bowser for that MU, mostly, though). Bowser, a supposed -3 MU. I faced plenty of MKs, and non truly impressed me or felt like "real MKs". If I can manage this with Bowser, a top player shouldn't be allowing themselves get beaten by someone's cruddy pocket MK. The best MK player I've seen in person was Seibrik, a top player from the FL region. He's not as good as ZeRo, Nairo & Tyrant (to name a few MK tops), but he was still a top-level player.

I don't think our point is m00t just because the game is "dead" (whatever that means, we can still play it...I do, for example). And I get what you're saying that the top results were filled with over 50% MKs, but I don't really feel like taking back what I said and hold strong to that belief. There were even players like Vex (DDD main) towards the end of the scene who were managing some pretty impressive stuff to the likes of MK, ICs & Dee Dee Kong (he was actually quite proficient in this MU) but with the scene dying, we were never given much of that chance.

Here, let me share something with you:

This is from one of the better MKs I faced, he's a Top 5 from Venezuela.

[euklyd]

so basically you're saying that because you, a mediocre low-tier main (no offense), can beat mediocre meta knights, those top players that did lose (and this is an actual thing that happened) should have been able to just deal

ok

[Junkhead]

How the hell is that a "no offense"? You can't possibly call me that without being a fucking hypocrite yourself. You're a terrible player from what I've seen. You're no better than the million fucking casuals that came out of nowhere as soon as Smash 4 came out. Suddenly, every dumbass out there an thinks they're an expert on meta just because they watch ZeRo on Youtube.

Next time you call a better player than you "mediocre" from very little to base yourself on, make sure you look at yourself and that you're not a Top tier sell-out that feels greatful they make it out of pools at a friendly tourney at their friend's house.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Soul o:

[Knife]

Loool alright respect. No point in insulting each other's skill levels.

I do think the meta could have been pushed more too, but I think we're making different points here. You are saying MK is totally beatable which I agree with. However, the thing in question is is not whether he's beatable or not but rather how he affects the metagame/community as a whole and in my opinion pretty negatively. Do you remember when we had to ban certain stages from competitive play mostly because of MK being much better than other characters on them ala Brinstar, Rainbow Cruise, Norfair, etc? (Ice Climber loved these stages geting banned btw)? Do you remember the ledge grab limit and scrooging rules that came in place because of MK? I mean other characters could also plank and scrooge but no one was better than it than MK. On top of MK being >50% of top 8 of almost any tourney placing/PR. I'm not sure how it is in your scene. No other character honestly could do that. He was a problem and I would've have liked to see him go from competitive play a long time ago along with Ice Climbers.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Knife

[Comet]

his skill level has nothing to do with yours

This is from one of the better MKs I faced

sounds good

from Venezuela.

oh

you could've at least put up a link of masha (japanese player, unquestionably the best bowser) beating better meta knights. funny thing about masha is that he or she never beat somebody like nairo, m2k, rain, kakera, whomever kakera's brother is because i don't remember his name, anti, etc...

knife also has an excellent point. you should also know there's a problem when double meta knight is banned in teams and meta knight is scattered across the top results in every major tournament.

on topic, i hate nintendo now

Edited December 4, 2015 by Comet

[Augestein]

Honestly, I wasn't a huge fan of Project M, but they did a lot of work on it. That said, it really sounds like they are tired of working on it. 6 years is a long time. I'd be tired of it too.

Oh, and while I'm at it, why, OH WHY did they wait until so late to potentially send a C&D? It's like they WANT to have a legion of people unhappy with them.

I mean, at least when Square Enix sent a C&D for Dragon Quest VII being unofficially translated, it was because... They were working on actually releasing it. SE has gotten better about their C&Ds. Nintendo only continues to make itself get worse and worse PR with people.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Augestein

[euklyd]

How the hell is that a "no offense"? You can't possibly call me that without being a fucking hypocrite yourself. You're a terrible player from what I've seen. You're no better than the million fucking casuals that came out of nowhere as soon as Smash 4 came out. Suddenly, every dumbass out there an thinks they're an expert on meta just because they watch ZeRo on Youtube.

Next time you call a better player than you "mediocre" from very little to base yourself on, make sure you look at yourself and that you're not a Top tier sell-out that feels greatful they make it out of pools at a friendly tourney at their friend's house.

you've literally never played me but ok

for the purposes I was speaking for, literally everyone on this site except maybe PKL and Inui are, to my knowledge, mediocre Smash players at best - probably even Knife, who does go to tournaments and does okay (sorry Knife)

some of us are abysmal. I myself am probably somewhere in between.

unless you're placing highly at your regional tournaments, you're not a Top Player™ and it's useless to compare yourself with them for things like that

if you are in fact placing highly at your regional tournaments then I'll take it back and apologize.

e: like you're clearly not bad at the game, and definitely miles better than me at brawl (I can't really speak for SSB4), but even in the video you embedded it's obvious that you simply didn't have answers to a lot of the bullshit that meta knight was pulling. vs marth it was very back and forth, but vs meta knight it was you being chased all over the place and not being able to do much, and then an overeager meta knight dying to stray tilts or w/e

edit: gg me I forgot what this thread is about

if we want to talk about it further we should probably take it to PMs, or I can make a thread or something

tbh I wonder why any of these parties didn't expect it to fucking blow up. literally topped facebook trends and /r/all

Edited December 4, 2015 by Euklyd

[Ragnell]

for the purposes I was speaking for, literally everyone on this site except maybe PKL and Inui are, to my knowledge, mediocre Smash players at best - probably even Knife, who does go to tournaments and does okay (sorry Knife)

Speak for yourself, man. I beat ZeRo in a tournament...

...Okay, it wasn't in a tournament, it was in friendlies. And I didn't beat him, but at least I took a stock... Okay, I didn't take a stock, but I did actually hit him... Okay, I didn't hit him, but I did play him once. Well, not so much him, but I did play someone. In friendlies. And that person's percentage was Zero at the end of the game. So it's basically the same thing.

On topic, I really hope Nintendo was not actually planning on suing the PM guys into bankrupcy. I get that they need to protect their IP's and whatever, but skipping right past the C&D to destroy the lives of some of your most dedicated fans is a total slap to the face.

[euklyd]

On topic, I really hope Nintendo was not actually planning on suing the PM guys into bankrupcy. I get that they need to protect their IP's and whatever, but skipping right past the C&D to destroy the lives of some of your most dedicated fans is a total slap to the face.

yeah it's

really not very endearing to me

luckily konami is picking up the slack and reminding us what a REAL literally-hitler game company looks like

[DeadGame]

On topic, I really hope Nintendo was not actually planning on suing the PM guys into bankrupcy. I get that they need to protect their IP's and whatever, but skipping right past the C&D to destroy the lives of some of your most dedicated fans is a total slap to the face.

Nintendo would've shut down the project years ago if they had wanted to.

Also, may I ask what reason Nintendo would've had to sue the modders over money? They never encouraged piracy and didn't put up unfair competition or anything, Nintendo didn't lose a ton of money because of the mod.

[Jotaro Kujo]

So, this is a thing. From what I can gather (sorry, I wasn't vested in PM at all until the news that it got killed so I'm slow to figure this stuff out) someone was going to make Evolution, a brawl mod but someone released the ninja-lawyers and the project is over for good. The post also comes with a very strongly worded caution to people who are modding, even for personal stuff that won't be released-to stop modding until this all blows over or possibly for good. Whatever's going on is pretty steep.

Some people are blaming Konami, others are blaming Nintendo, the guy who issued the apology said it was "close enough" to Nintendo. Nobody really knows what's going on except for the people directly involved. There is also this, but honestly this still doesn't answer every question and makes more questions, so take it with a grain of salt. It may be true, it may not. We may never know. TL;DR: A "reliable source" told people that Nintendo was looking closely at them and was going to circumvent the C&D and go straight to a lawsuit. The team thought the source was too reliable and disbanded to not face the steep penalties.

Sorry if I got any of the information wrong! Really, I'm just a messenger. Personally I didn't care about PM but I know a lot of people loved it, so sorry all of this is happening to your game. I would urge everyone who is currently modding Brawl to stop though, just to cover your tracks for a while.

Personally I don't think it was Nintendo just cause it would be a mess for them if they did it, but who knows? Certainly not me. I hope you guys can find some better use for this information than me.

[euklyd]

clearly the evolution was a PMDT insider stooge who was plotting to kill all of modding from the beginning

he was probably one of GimR's alts, too

seriously now:

the main new stuff here is evolution also shutting down because of the same stuff as PMDT, despite being founded on the premise that PMDT fucked up by shutting down and they'd make their own PM with blackjack and hookers

so basically this is legitimately huge.