Hero worship can be one hell of a drug.
A lot of my formative years were involved in this community, playing the game ever since 1.09.4a, and Ive met tons of people i've considered friends, a handful are folks I still talk to today and think very highly of. Some of them are devs on SRB2/Kart now! One of em made something I even played as a kid and now I know him for reasons that aren't even about SRB2 (sup Miguel). Even tho I stepped away from this community finishing highschool, I wouldn’t be who I was if not for this game and ESPECIALLY for the people who took SSNTails’ fun doom mod and turned it into something I now regularly show people at my work.
Back in 1.09.4, Mystic was also,
undeniably one of those people.
If any of you knew me around 2008 (i apologize lmao) you either knew me as a dumb little kid or yourself were also a dumb little kid. You probably also remember Mystic Realm being the hottest shit to exist. It almost felt like the REAL game back then since it had way more zones than vanilla and it had an original soundtrack to boot. Honestly MR being such a complete product was probably what blew my mind so much as a kid, realizing the potential SRB2 could have. Nowadays thats pretty laughable especially when compared to 2.2 Vanilla’s stages, ESPECIALLY the art direction, but i dunno ‘08 was a different time I guess.
A lot of SRB2 and in particular the creativity, even and especially in wild as fuck mods and SOC abuse for pre-LUA character abilities was fantastic to see and a major reason I’d check my summers looking at the Editing forum more than releases, just to see what people were doing. Heck I’d want to even learn how to mod the game on my own, tryna download CodeBlocks to compile SRB2 and do my own edits (that didn’t last long). This community was a hub for crazy and creative artwork in and about the game, and I’ll never forget moments like doing character sprite art on my moms broken down Lenovo laptop trying to make some cool fan character artwork. And while Mystic Realm was a benchmark back then of how awesome levels in this game could be, I’ll never forget one mod in particular that made me want to get into character abilities and the like: SRB2JTE
��
Yeah.
Its easy to look at and think fondly of those times, especially because a lot of their work back then was undeniably impressive. But while I never had a negative interaction with Mystic specifically—just a few run-ins with his friends calling me a fanboy—I did interact with JTE.
This decade has taught me a lot about people I used to respect lol, let’s just say that.
This topic has been overwhelmingly in favor of Mystic’s removal being a good thing. Only thing I’ve heard about the dude was bad stuff from my friends involved in the development in this game, and when I think back to 2.0 being such a buzzkill with nerfing custom characters into the ground, and Mystic being someone who stuck out to me as a voice of why that was a GOOD thing... Well when it comes to management issues that feels like writing on the wall, gotta say. I won’t be able to speak to personal experience with the dude and I won’t pretend to. Everything everyone has said here about their experiences working under, and interacting with, someone who’s had a net negative effect on people’s lives, is completely valid and should be respected.
Looking at what some ppl have said, though—luckily, that’s the minority—I think there’s some perspective being lost here.
And I can get why. THAT I can speak to.
It’s incredibly easy to look to someone you don’t have personal beef with, who's done stuff you admire and has helped shape who you are now, in part or in whole, and think of them as someone “great.” Maybe “misunderstood” if they get a lot of flack. You often want to feel like you’re being “balanced” by weighing in the good and the bad—sure, a lot of people take issue with them, but they’re good at what they do! Maybe they know what’s best but they’re just... really rough about it!
That’s an EASY way to think.
It’s also pretty selfish.
If a pattern emerges and there’s a common thread, that thread’s usually what you gotta acknowledge is the real issue, not the people speaking out. YOU may not have experienced what they’re saying, but overwhelmingly, people who aren’t you specifically HAVE had that experience, MORE than once, and more than just a handful of people have it. And gotta say seeing people here who’ve impacted the way I view art have their creativity crushed by Mystic is just incredibly painful to see. I’d hope that’d be a wakeup call—looks like it has, so far.
Sometimes it’s time to just listen to people, and recognize that even if someone did a lot of good, a lot of what shapes you into who you are today, even, they’re not immune from being a piece of shit.
I have personal experience with one person from here that 100% confirms that.
Hopefully other people wouldn’t need something that extreme to empathize with working with a shitty boss.
I wouldn’t be working where I am now without the creative outlet of SRB2. Something we should all realize though is that this game has been and always will be a COMMUNITY effort. The “official” version is simply people on their A-Game making work they want to. Even during 1.09.4 there were side projects that kicked Final Demo’s
ass, and those eventually found some of their DNA in the base game we love today. That happened then, it’ll continue to happen in the future. This game’s simply too sick for that not to happen. Its been 15 years since I first played this game? It’s better than it’s ever been, and thats because of the people who grew up loving it.
And we should really recognize, it’s not individuals, it’s PEOPLE, that make SRB2 great. Whoever it is just cycles in and out. Right now we got amazing new talent on this game, one day they’ll pass the torch onto a new crowd who grew up on THEIR work. And I can’t wait to see that.
There’ll always be people like Mystic, people who have a cult of personality around em, behind projects. Something we could all be better about is trying to remove the myth from the man. Realize that just because someone’s on a development team doesn’t mean they’re any more knowledgeable than you.
Long live SRB2 and everyone who loves it
...also:
All these once perma-banned users coming back all at once. You love to see it.
YOOOOOOOOO haven't seen your name in about a DECADE holy CRAP — Edit: oh im just an idiot you’re more active than I am by a lot LMAO. How havent I seen you till now??? whatever everyone’s here to talk about Mystic it’s a party fuckit