Remember when passing the portal was the ultimate test of the flash artist's competency? Remember when spam passed the portal effortlessly, it was the biggest injustice in an animator's eyes? I have just looked back at some e-mails from more than four years ago, and I just counted: I submitted about eight things to the portal before my first flash passed, spanning many (not very successful or good) attempts over about eight months to get a flash through.
(if this is TLDR, head down to the bottom, indicated with a 'READ THIS')
It was the most exciting thrill of my young life, and I remember reading about ecstatic celebration from other flash artists when they got something past. Yes. Just getting something past the portal was a grand achievement, even if it passed with exactly 1.60. Passing the portal was something good.
I'd submitted quite a few times, but never really got that close. But as my skills progressed (learning such things as tweening :o), I suffered blam heartache. Twice.
The first heartache was for a collection of about four short animations (none of which were very good) that was worked on for about a couple of weeks (not intensively of course, but working an hour on a flash felt like A LONG AMOUNT OF TIME in year 8). I knew that maybe one of my animations wasn't good enough to pass, but perhaps three or four, all put together in one? I knew people enjoyed my flash animations: technically they were horrible but amongst the badly-tweened motion and the poorly drawn graphics there was something amusing. It fell short of the mark with 1.54. I was in complete, and utter disbelief.
One month later, I had another crack. This time it was around christmas. After submitting a flash which consisted of some 3/10 quality cartoon character, which ended with a screamer (or just loud 1930's music) did not please the viewers enough, falling agonisingly short with 1.58/5.00. This was the hardest I'd worked on a flash and this was the most well-drawn one.
After several months of discouragement and a lack of touching flash animation at all, I took another stab. I am a crap drawer and I am still a crap drawer and I've only recently gone back to learn how to animate properly, but this:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
309345
...took me much longer an amount of time than it really shows (like, about two days, WHOAOMFG). With a completely nonsensical, illogical narrative and riding on the popularity of the background music and a closing joke (it's quite a familiar type of joke), I prayed that this was the one that would let me pass.
I sat on the computer, pressing the refresh button every 10 seconds, looking at the voting progress with the exact score (yes, you could do that back in the day *old man chortle* and it was more terrifying than helpful). It started with 2.8 after 6 votes. After refreshing the submissions page nervously for all of my previous submissions, I'd have to say I never, ever had a score that high. I was ecstatic! But then, I got a couple of blams. I was down in 1.3, 1.4 territory. My heart raced.
This was also the day that there was a shopping trip with my family, so I went out, completely nervous for every waking moment as I was out. I came back hours later and sprinted onto the computer. I pressed the refresh button and... ...I passed! A gigantic wave of ecstacy (liek, not the pills guyz olol) went through my body and I kept on smiling! Me?! Passing the portal?! It was some crap score like 1.9, or maybe even 1.8, but I passed!
The haunting memories of my portal heartbreak emerged every new flash I put through, and it took a LOOOONG time for me to be sure that my flash passed before I submitted it.
(READ FROM HERE GUYZ)
Now why am I telling you this? Getting past the portal was a challenge, and it really did separate the willing from the lazy. People worked hard, getting rejected again and again to get their flash through, improving their skills as much as possible. The lazy would give up and just keep on watching flash.
Now, I've returned to this site recently and I started B/P'ing for the first time in two years, and I voted with many two's and 0's using my old standards of voting that were about 95 percent accurate.
Upon returning, I have been in complete shock at the absolute crap that has been let through:
-A lyrics video for a Sonic song that was made in a TRIAL version of a non-flash software. This person has done about five more of these vids, and they have all passed. Before the redesign/new ranks, this would've gotten below 1.
-Several 20 second-length fbf animations that look like someone's doodle for about 30 minutes. It probably would've gotten below 1.
-A ten second stick fight. It surely would've gotten below 0.6.
If I want the B/P points, I'd have to blam maybe a 4th of the stuff that is submitted. I remember when the number of blams in a day was much bigger than the number of passes. (Or I'm pretty sure at least)
And to top this off, this kind of crap is invading the top 5. A thirty second sprite animation that back in the old days, might've very well been blammed got fifth place. Animationless cripe with 'amusing' audio scoops up a daily 4th. I'm not saying this happens all of the time, but it's like ratings for flash animation have been megaboosted. You can even see it with the top submissions. A 4.2+ was uber super-rare back in da day, but now some tweened sprites in essentially, a completely uninspired flash will be placed in the top 50.
I think what used to happen is the stat-whores and the long-timeys with an appreciation for animation and its goodies actually had a stranglehold on what makes it through the portal. N00bs with 1-ish voting power would vote 5 for 'OMG IT'S (insert character here)' and 0 because 'omg this song sux0rs' but then realise that their voting patterns didn't get them b/p protect points, and might've learned to vote more on the merit of the qualities of the animation and not just on the inclusion of some badly drawn character/popular thing. And then as their voting power increases, they vote more responsibly and all is good. Now it's like some inclusionist frenzy with only the truly horrible stuff getting blammed.
I mean, more stuff passing isn't necessarily a bad thing, there's a lot more reviewers and a lot more people telling you they like your flash if they like it, but it's just that getting a flash past the portal doesn't have the same value as before. Also, some people's voting habits are a bit bonkers.
Any comments, disagreements, flames, etc. go down here, please post yer thoughts. If you bothered to read what I wrote, please say because it's probably an achievement.
i-am-hell
I read everything :D I know what you mean, back in the days i submitted 2 crappy stick animations when I was 12 and they got blammed with a 1.4 each I think. Some time after I submitted some rpg like finalfantasy-esque animation (no sprites however, all drawn with tweens and a bit fbf) and I got blammed (1.58 I was like WTF) I didn't submit anything until last year when I was 15, it was a game and got right trough with more than 3/5, took me 2 months at least to complete. But nowadays crap just flies in the portal. Maybe people may feel a little nostalgic when they see a crap mario animation, and think back of the old NG days when everyone submitted stuff like "mario versus sonic the dragonball Z version 0.01 beta test" and just vote 5.
When I see a crap animation on NG, the thing that suprises me is, it's loaded with comments praising it's greatness, even when it's not funny... I don't get it, it's horrible why would you vote 5... or even a 2? NG ain't what it used to be :(
Hoogiman
Passing the portal used to be a challenge. I remember a big defense to flames used by flash authors would be: Flash by (username): -none-. Having passed flash actually meant a big ass thing. Now I've seen some guy who doesn't even understand how an animation works load up some software and pass the portal in less than 10 minutes.
I don't think people feel nostalgic, it's a lot of n00bs who have been here for a short while and gain a pretty big voting power with irresponsible voting habits. And then suddenly they start gaining lots of protect points because the bad voters have more power. And then they never stop.
Also, maybe having the flash and the voting panel right next to each other might make people vote quicker, or vote 5 quicker if there's (insert character here), but that's probably hardly a reason.