Sandwichface's videos have kinda bothered me for a while, but I kinda just wanted to fully articulate why in this thread, even though nobody asked, sorry. I know this is contributing to the drama and whatever, but maybe somebody will find something i say here at least interesting. Maybe. This is long.
This is kinda just for me, so I've said my peace, but it is also addressed to the people in this thread who are fans of his videos.
I think the thing that has annoyed me the most about some (not all) of his videos is that they primarily exist to mobilize his impressionable audience to distrust STJR, Kart Krew by extension, and the direction of their projects as a whole. They act to delegitimize the work that these teams have put into the maintenance and growth of their respective games in the mind of his audience, id assume for some vague goal of building public outcry against the dev team.
I think this is relatively apparent from this thread, as well the community post about the "big controversy" being the change in moderation following misbehavior (might be an understatement, sorry) from the old guard, (even the "free rob" in one of the spambot appeal requests, that might be a reach though) but it seems like the primary motivating factor is his distaste for the transfer of ownership/power to the current staff of STJR (from mystic/rob/prime to current staff). I think the constant use of "Nu-STJR" also all but confirms this. What even is Old-STJR or the 'real' STJR anyway? Mystic and co? SSNTails and Sonikku? The game is older than most of its audience!
A large portion of the games current audience, I would say largely people that have only been around for 2.2, some even post-moderation changes (myself included, probably a limitation on my perspective regarding this topic), have little to no reason to care about this. Furthermore, as it stands, it seems that most of the audience is content with the game's current state, or at the very least don't want to go back to 2.1 or something like that. Because of this, it feels like many of his videos serve as a way to construct and elevate discourse around parts of the game that are purely speculation. Each time he posts a video, the same (imo tired) discussions surrounding x feature being at risk, or some malpractice from STJR in their handling of the game and its associated systems arises, which promptly fades, but since there is not, and cannot be any actual resolution, considering version changes are quite a ways down the line, probably leaves a lasting and increasing distaste in the minds of people simultaneously eager for new game content but also now afraid that it'll be a change to the status quo. I think theres various examples of this.
First off, the thok debate, which he has repeatedly discussed in two of his most popular videos. It is true that the devs have expressed past intent to remove the thok. They've shown off a potential replacement in the dev channel on the OS, and its been widely circulated. However, with 2.3 still likely pretty far down the line, and no hands on experience from anyone about the move outside of the dev team, its very difficult to judge how the move will feel to play, how it works with the level design and otherwise, so his videos necessarily have to speculate on what will be lost - i.e. create a fear of change in the audience, not necessarily limited to the thok alone, but also the level design and otherwise, show that (nu!)STJR is uncommunicative and unresponsive to the playerbase, and in general, further a disconnect between the playerbase and the devs.
Another example is the reusability system videos. One, Sandwichface is not an addon creator. He has practically no stake in any argument made here for one, which I think paints him as disengenous, although I'm fine if people disagree with me on this. But the other thing is, although I would need judges to confirm this, that very very few addons actually break reusability rules. I personally think it's hard to do so in a way that doesnt seem like blatant plagiarism even to the author, especially with the revised rules on ports. Even much of the content hosted on the workshop would be perfectly valid here, as long as permission is asked properly, which imo is not a particularly difficult courtesy to ask of people. On his most recent reusability video, I can assure of you that very little of his audience had any idea of the GPL laws even existing, much less that SRB2 could be in violation of them. To me this is a blatant example of a weird discourse being generated (and parroted, especially in this case) from the video. I'm not here to say that his reasoning is invalid, but rhetorically, the video doesn't care about the arguments being made, only the ends that it leads to. I don't even think these ends are even in favor of the removal of the system either, as he is not an addon creator (plus, more cynically, if the system is removed, he loses an issue to make content around). I think these videos just serve to paint the addon submission process as incredibly unforgiving for no particular reason, which of course, naturally gets attributed to the incompetence of STJR themselves in handling submissions to the board.
I think the most interesting video he has is the video on springs, because as far as I know, this video barely generated any response, and even the comments say how much of a non-issue they are in their current state, unlike others which are overwhelmingly "why would nu-stjr do this?". The one time he talks about a vanilla feature in its current state, the audience, who largely has few glaring issues with the game, or at least with springs in particular, doesn't really have strong opinions on it. Frankly, I'm not sure, had he continued to make more videos on the game, if he would ever touch on a topic similar to this again, I just don't know if thats the brand of engagement he was going for.
Once again, I'm not here to refute all his arguments or whatever. I'll risk all my credibility here by saying this, but I don't care about the contents of his videos, his arguments, and claims that much. I know how I feel about SRB2, I don't need somebody to tell me what problems I should care about. What I do care about, are the effects that every single one of his videos has on the surrounding community, and that is to me, a general sowing of distrust in the dev team and fear towards the future of the game, which frankly I think is part of the reason the culture of this game can feel like it is becoming toxic to some. And I think this is primarily accomplished by mobilising you to care about issues that will likely never affect you, or be afraid of things that you'd probably come to like if you gave it a chance.
Fear of change is a completely normal thing. This game is a large part of many peoples childhoods, and the prospect of taking away the things that you think make SRB2, SRB2 can be scary. But remember that for many people, I would say especially in sandwichfaces audience, and even including myself, the dev team has likely played SRB2 more, longer, and more consistently than you probably (ever will?) have. Many developers have been mainstays of the community for 15+ years! 2.3 might not be what you wanted, but you also don't know that you won't like it either. Give it time, and give it a chance. And if its really just not your cup of tea, 2.2. and its addons will always still be there.
But if you really, truly feel that the game is going in an unfavorable direction and don't just want to just stick with 2.2 forever, do something about it! Instead of making videos lambasting STJR, a community of hobbyist game developers who work on things in their free time while balancing their jobs and personal lives, find ways to contribute on your own! Learn sprite art, try out (ultimate) Zone Builder, learn Lua, learn C or C++, learn to model, theres so many ways you can contribute to this game to make it something that you like! Who knows, maybe even you can be part of the Nu-Nu-STJR. Everyone starts from somewhere, theres nothing inherent about them that makes them a "coder" or "level designer", theyre people that have spent lots of time developing skills that they can apply not only to this game but to other parts of their lives, which you can do too, and have the passion towards the game and its future that motivates them to use these skills to create something new and fun.
If you were a fan of Sandwichfaces videos, thats perfectly fine. I do not like the guy (I can and have elaborated on why in this thread, as have many others), or his videos (especially the ones where he focuses in on addon creators for 20 minutes with a clickbaity title disaparaging their work), but if you found them enjoyable, thats good for you. However, I would ask you all to be a little more critical of what the purpose of a video is. Have you ever asked yourself what Sandwichface's ideal SRB2 would be? Do you have a concrete answer? If you do, is it significantly different from the game in its current, 2.2 state? Do you think that this is healthy for the game as a whole, to stay exactly the same over time? What if the game was still in 2.1? His videos, from what I can tell never propose anything new, at least regarding the vanilla game as a whole, they just attack its foundations or its maintainers, all in favor of upholding the status quo while simultaneously creating distrust in STJR. Criticism of a game is perfectly fine! But if the takeway from this criticism is that there is a problem with the people making it, not a personal disagreement with the direction they decided to take, (something that you can amend, given the game is open source, has multiple avenues for feedback, or able to be increasingly modified freely with addons), the criticism you may be hearing might not actually be criticism, it might be manipulating you towards some other end.
Most people here are here because they love SRB2. I never really got that impression from Sandwichface.
