Lord Glenn

What do you call Astra, Adept, etc. that were done for FE8 then, Cam? (You know, the buggy ones that either Xeld or NL did that didn't work in the Arena.)

I'm sorry, but you really don't have a say in the matter. It's like with sprites, once you put them on the Internet, they're fair game for C/C. If you didn't want people critiquing your hack and pointing things out that honestly should be fixed if you want a quality product, then you shouldn't have released a patch in the first place.

I'm going to guess that you've gotten permission from BwdYeti to use that shield? You might consider moving the head to the right a pixel. I feel like it seems a bit off-center right now. If it looks worse shifted, then you can ignore this.

I honestly didn't see a problem with the rules. I mean, how hard is it to use a single pixel of every color in the palette on an icon? --------------- Anyway... I voted for Feaw. It looks the best to me, and it definitely fits the criteria. Maklo's looks like a relatively generic axe icon and for something that has large axe heads like that, it honestly needs a wider handle (see: most axe icons). Joe and Acey had interesting concepts, I suppose, but they're not my cup of tea. iava's icon is simple, yet nice, but compared to most of the rest of the field of competition, it kind of falters. Cam, my biggest issues with your icon are the design and the shading. Axes just aren't made the way your icon is. As it is, you would have to hold the axe right in front of you with your elbows out to the side because of how low the axe blades go. For the shading, the axe edges just seem... soft or dull. As for Tygr's, the concept is interesting, but the proportions of the icon are just a turn off. A sword (or anything, for that matter) with that large of a span at the top of it needs something sturdy to act as a base and to balance it. Going from something that wide to something that's Rapier thin just looks... wrong. EDIT - Since I called Cam out on it, Maklo's icon has the same problem with the length of the axes dropping down near the bottom of the handle; however, the actual design of the axe blades does make more sense.

Just a note: Those "darker trees" are actually thicket tiles (or so I've been told by other mappers). If you want only forests in those spots, you'll have to use the (lame) lighter tree tiles everywhere.

Astra hit most of the good key points on the head. Personally, I'm a huge proponent of hacks that are proficient in almost every area: Original story and characters - New continent, new lore, no crossovers, etc. While I'll occasionally support projects that don't meet this, I'm more likely to support ones that do. For instance, Elibean Nights loses points here since it's adding on to what FE7 already has brought to the table. But, it does everything else quite superbly. New and consistent graphics - Portraits, icons, templates, maps, world map, etc. Being a spriter, graphics make up most of what I do. A hack that keeps a consistent design in all of its sprite work and actively seeks to change each facet that the base game had will undoubtedly trump anything that has stock graphics in it. Gameplay changes - Events, new objectives, new items, etc. This is the broadest category, I feel. Anything that makes the hack stand out and be unique is a plus. Unique names, something that shows a large amount of planning behind it, etc. Seeing something that's been done in twenty other hacks (even ones that have died/failed) only makes it more likely that I'll look at yours and pass on by since it'll only be old news. BALANCE - This is an all-encompassing category. If I'm playing a hack, it should challenging and not make me curse the hacker for being a dumbass and throwing level 20 promoted enemies with capped stats at me in every level (exaggerated). An ideal hack has a difficulty around FE6 or FE9 (Normal and Hard, in both cases); it can't be a cakewalk, but it also shouldn't make me want to quit immediately. Also, I expect there to be some semblance of statistical balance in character stats, growths, and item stats. There was something else I wanted to touch on, but I can't remember what it was after typing all of this out. Needless to say, while I expect many things from what I would deem a hack that I like, I don't necessarily expect everyone to hit all of them. And, I certainly don't expect someone to hit all of them on the first go around. Like regular software development, hacks are an iterative process. You make a version, release it, get feedback, fix stuff, add new stuff, and repeat the process. As long as someone is willing to put the effort in and continue to improve what they're offering, then they can eventually produce something that meets what I feel a truly great hack should be.

An LG enters the fray!

You also have to look at the fandom we're talking about here. You can count on two hands the number of people active in the English FE fandom that can read ARM7 assembly language, let alone write blocks of code in it (or, at least the ones that have come out and said they can). What you've said is true, yes, but when there aren't any parties (relatively speaking) that could look through and fix things, there is really no point in doing it. You're going to end up at the same point regardless of whether you release it or not. Releasing it also leads to people getting the urge to download and use it, and for something that isn't working, you may end up with a deluge of "halp this dun work" comments, which *no one* wants to sift through. Besides, this is moot anyway, since said source and notes have been released by Nintenlord after the April Fools' farewell of FE4A. I don't have much else to add to this. I'm not a hacker, and if I were, I'd be working with FE7 most likely. Nice that this exists, and if someone does come along and find a way to convert it for FE8(U), then perhaps that will finally give an increased reason for people to use it as a base. But, I don't personally have a use for this. :/

I'm sorry, but privacy doesn't say a damn thing about stability. Neither does making something open source. You can have perfectly working programs/whatever that you don't release and you can find extremely shitty things that have been released as open source (and, given what I've seen on the 'net and software that I've personally worked with, it's a pretty common thing). As such, using the privacy of the code to determine its stability doesn't make any sense. And, you didn't even completely answer his question, either. Psychology, the full answer is that it is most likely neither, since it's hosted on a .jp domain. Granted, someone could have grabbed, modified, and moved either of those (similar to the process that Celice mentioned above for using it in the U versions of the ROMs) to make them work on the JP version and then hosted it. I mean, it's not like they aren't aware of some of our more prevalent hacks and projects. But, given the extra amount of stuff in there, I'd wager that they've done most of the stuff on their own.

For clarification, the way I had intended it was for each person to make either a Sword, Lance, Axe, Bow, Staff, or Tome (GBA!Anima, Light, or Dark) that was new and their own creation that would be a part of a set of Legendary Weapons. For instance, I might make a Legendary Lance-type weapon that would, in essence, be a part of its own unique set of Legendary weapons (sets being FE4's Holy Weapons, etc.). However, you only have to make the one icon. Now, thinking about it, I suppose that one could also do a reimagining of an existing Legendary weapon using an artwork reference (for those that have them) or even an alternate or new Legendary weapon that would be "added" to an existing set. I'm going to leave this judgment up to Cam's interpretation, however. I think that this makes more sense now...?

Personally, I plan on remaining skeptical with this rumor. While I have no doubt that Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are all working on crafting their next systems, both Microsoft and Sony have said that their new machines are still several years out from retail. I sincerely doubt that Nintendo, who has also repeatedly said the same thing, will suddenly show up with the hardware at E3. This is especially considering that they've just finished launching the 3DS and are still working out kinks with it. Now, they might slip a *mention* of what they're working on, similar to what they did with the Wii back in 2004. That is an action I could believe, as mentioning it at E3 2011 would project it for release around Holiday 2013, following the previous pattern for the Wii. Plus, there are several other factors at hand. Most news sites these days have been extremely lax at stating rumors as bonified news, so while Game Informer and IGN supposedly have sources stating this information, this could be something still far down the pipe. And, it's Nintendo we're talking about here. They're generally pretty damn good about preventing leaks of big news stories, so something of this caliber getting leaked two months in advance of E3 is a little hard to swallow. Not to mention, Nintendo still has a ton of stuff in the pipeline for the Wii, DS, and 3DS. I would think that they'd be a bit overworked coming up with hardware AND software for another new system on top of what else they have at the moment. That being said, I have a couple of thoughts/comments: - At this point, I really don't much care either way about the news. I still have several games that I need to buy and play on the Wii and there are several more that Nintendo of America needs to get off of their ass for and localize (The Last Story, Xenoblade, and so forth). (This also isn't counting similar cases on the DS *coughfe12cough*...) - Even if this news *is* true, I still can't see a new release of a console (unless it's purely an update of some kind (a la GBA SP or GB Micro), but the information from the "sources" seems to say otherwise) when Nintendo still has a ton of stuff up in the air. At least not for a couple of years down the road (2013), that is. - This isn't saying that I don't want Nintendo to come out with the supposed "Wii 2/Wii HD/whatever". If they want to try to pull the "hardcore gamer" back in, I'm fine with that, considering that you can easily count the number of titles on the Wii that are worth buying. And, of course, there's also the vast number of titles that regions other than Japan have gotten screwed out of. Basically, I'm a starved gamer, even though I don't have time to play my backlog of games as it is. However, part of me doesn't foresee a "soccer mom" type of person shelling out for something that just makes things look prettier. Kinect, despite most people's reservations, was a large hit with that crowd, but largely because of it's tech. Move, on the other hand, was not as successful. If I were to equate this potential successor to something, it'd be Move, at least from the preliminary details. If that does become the case, Nintendo is going to be back in their Gamecube-era slump again, because the casual market is going to scoff at their offerings.

I got started in the series with Dragon Warrior I & II on the Game Boy Color. Needless to say, II is probably still my favorite, to this day. I guess having all of the spells and such change names at some point after II didn't help me get interested in the later entries. Though, I do still enjoy VIII (well, aside from the ridiculous amount of money you need to grind) and IX (well, barring the inherent multiplayer nature of the game).

I experienced this relatively recently (DIII Basketball Playoffs on back-to-back nights tends to kill your voice when cheering in the stands) myself. From the experience, I'd say that resting your voice as much as possible is probably the best means of recovery. However, like when appendages are broken or injured, you'll want to user your voice a little here and there each day to "rehab" it (for lack of better terminology) as it gets better. I would say that this, coupled with lots of water and/or tea with warm honey (a general remedy for sore throats, I do believe), should help. Granted, your voice will probably take a good week or so to stabilize and return to normal, so it's not like it'll be back to the way it was overnight. EDIT - By now, I hope that things are already better and this advice only speeds that recovery up.

The folds in the hood are very thin and linear. For the most part, cloth is a very loose and flexible material, so the folds should, at the very least, be less straight. Compare this guy's hood to Novala's; Novala's hood has wider folds with the darkest shade on the inside of the middle shade. In the event that you only have two shades (which, from a 1x zoom not viewed from my laptop, it appears as though is the case), I would add in a third shade and replace one of the colors on the spiral patterns with one of the other blue shades. Personally, I also feel that, currently, the blue shades contrast too much, given where it appears the light source is coming from. Adding in the third shade may rectify this issue, however.

Well, I guess I picked a great "challenge" for this week, seeing as there were a ton of entries and we don't already have a clear-cut winner in the voting. I went with hithere's icon as I feel that it fits the regular GBA tome design quite nicely and does seem potentially representative of a B-rank tome. I do have to give a slight partial mention to Ghostclown's icon, just for the subject matter and noble attempt to make a tome with it. I feel that if you were to tweak the shading and colors used for the phoenix and make the rest of the icon a bit more... noticable, you'd have a pretty damn snazzy tome. Granted, it probably wouldn't fit the criteria of this round, but it'd still be snazzy.

For the tome, just use the regular tome size that FE6/7/8/11/12 use. Either just fill over an existing tome's design with white pixels or recreate the book outline pixel for pixel on your new canvas. To have zoomed in images, you'll need to zoom in to the desired level, press Alt+PrtScr (Print Screen) to copy the active window to the clipboard, open a new window, paste, and then crop to the enlarged icon. No critique on the actual icons as of yet since I'm not at my laptop and don't have access to any programs to zoom in and look at them.

(40, 56, 32) is correct for the black-ish outline color. (Though, you have your Blue and Green tags flipped in your post.)

Guys, until a solution can be found by the staff to include a dropdown or something to let you select the badge of your choosing, if you want diversity of badges, this is the only way to do it. Otherwise, everybody would have to have the same badge.

From what I remember of IPB, the only way you'd be able to have a group icon and the pips would be to create a custom field and have the group icon located in said field. I don't recall adding that custom field to be *easy*, however. This is, of course, assuming that IPB hasn't improved their board software in a meaningful way since the last time I used it. As for the total post counts, it's because it's a silly number that becomes a way to measure one's e-penis. Message boards should stress the quality of posts, not the ability to churn posts out in a fast amount of time. Yes, pips/group icons still facilitate this slightly (general range of post count), but less so than having a full post count displayed.

I guess I'll start this off then: Intended to be a B-rank Wind/Ice tome. Despite picking the challenge, I'm not really feeling the mojo this week (or at least right now). Plus, I likely won't have time to do an icon later, so I figured I'd knock this out now.

Adding to what's been mentioned, I might suggest that you take a read through the following two tutorials: Custom Weapon Icon Tutorial v1.0 Custom Weapon Icon Tutorial v2.0 They should cover most of what the others have mentioned, as well as a few remaining points. Also, in the GBAFE style, the darkest shade generally goes down the strip/center of the blade on a sword, if it's a doubled-edged blade (so, something like your real-world longsword, for instance; something like a real-world falchion would only be single-edged, since you can only use one side of the blade to cut with). If you want the blade to look golden in color, I would personally use white on the "upper" part of the blade (the lighter side), yellow on the "lower" part of the blade (the darker side) and the reddish-grey color (2nd row, 3rd column) as the color down the center of the blade.

I'm not quite sure. I suppose that it probably falls on the fact that I've always just had more of a disposition for mathematics and the sciences, even in grade school. And, I suppose that scoring well on the AP Calculus AB exam helped me decide that I should stick with it in college... (I had intended to major in CS regardless.)

Hm... This one's a tough call. I like the design on Astra's, but it just feels more S-Rank or Legendary to me (in fact, it reminds me slightly of the Supernova/Hypernova Sword from DQIX...). Zan's looks nice, is shiny, and is basically tantamount to FE9's Silver Blade, however, the shading, especially on the blade, is in stark contrast with FE's regular shading mechanics. It makes the sword seem like it's from a different GBA game, not FE. (Granted, as I mentioned recently, I'm certainly not the master of FE shading, but it is something that weighs in on how the icon looks...) That being said, I'm going to have to vote for Feaw's icon. While it isn't exactly what I would expect an A-Rank sword to look like, it fits what I would think of better than the rest of the icons.

In the Shaman sheet, the spot indicated to start the Critical frames could use a couple of transitional frames, I feel. (Yuria)'s one arm is halfway raised with the other at her side in one frame, and in the next, they're both raised high in the air. Even with a low display time on the frames, it'll still stand out in animation. Other than that, I feel as though the animation could use some more... movement. (Yuria) is basically standing still the entire time, aside from dodging. Yes, I'm aware that mages didn't exactly move around in FE4/5, but this is running on a different engine and even the basic Mage animation is more dynamic there. Add in something to make (Yuria) less static, and I think you'll be on your way to something.

I'm double majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics. Only a couple of weeks left though until those majors are turned into degrees (only B.A.s though, since I'm at a liberal arts college). The big issue here being that nobody is hiring or people that are hiring want a ridiculous amount of professional experience (anywhere from 3-10 years) from their candidates... *sigh*