2005 was probably the best year Newgrounds has ever had. Just two years ago, the portal was granted some awesome animated shorts in quick succession and some great series were born as others sang their swan songs. That was two years ago. Now, in 2007, the average scores are higher than they were then, and the staying power for the best of all time is significantly more brief than it once was. But are the cartoons getting that much better? Or have the standards of Newgrounds slipped?
For as long as I can remember, 4.25 was one of the highest scores any cartoon could ever have as a staying score. The #1 of all time usually had that score, followed by around fifteen 4.24-scores. Now, it seems like every week births a new video that reaches and stays in the 4.30+ range for at least a week. The problem is that these cartoons are worse than those its score trumps from the 4.25s of two years ago. That's not even considering the time gap. Side-by-side, some of these older cartoons excelled in every aspect and yet at the time of their release, these new ones hold a much higher score. These movies aren't getting better, the expectations are just lower.
Cartoons I released in 2005 to 4.02+/- scores now have scores in the 4.10+/- range. Nothing changed in the cartoon, but the scores just went up. They apparently get better with time. That, or people just give fives and zeros now, without considering any of the in-between.
As of right now, the top 20 all time best flash submissions are at most .03 shy of 4.30 or above. Of those 20, a whole TWO were released before 2007 (TANKMEN and The YuYu, both 2006). For an all-time chart, it hardly seems fair. People rarely revisit those other cartoons and rate them as they do everything they do now.
I can figure two reasons for this odd phenomenon of extra high scores today. A: People believe everything acceptable means a 5, or B: The ones hitting the buttons are easily entertained and everything is the best thing they've ever seen. Those actually flow along the same lines, so I won't rule out either.
I just really wish everybody would vote consistently. Consider its score versus the score other great flash had. The AWESOME cartoons are funny, but is it really .15 better than Prowlies or Fallen Angel?
It's not that movies are getting better, it's that the absence of those megaton movies and games gets filled with technically passable creations. Be as critical as you were, and force your artists to make those legendary bombshells again. Let everyone remember what deserves these 4.30 scores.
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The way Newgrounds has become
Posted by KupaMan - November 28th, 2007
Comments
I agree. I haven't registered before this summer, but have been around longer.
I remember that a flash that hit the all time score board also stayed there.
Nowadays more and more flash hit the board, and can disappear just as fast.
This is also unfair to old classics that have low chances of staying on the board.
So..... true...... so...... sad......
You are so right sir.
so right...
Haha, I was waiting for that. You just want Egoraptor off the Top 50, eh Jared :D
I think those cartoons are hilarious, but not contestants for Top 50 of all time.
all i can say is some strange new things have definetly happened on this website but i just hope my stuff gets good scores (or not whatever)
Everyone has a diffrent opinion on what's a good flash.
I don't care if the graphics are bad, unless it's something like Super Mario Bros Z where you want visual stuffs.
One of my favorites are Badly Drawn Dog. Check it out, but you hate bad art so you won't like it
I think it's a combination of standards slipping and people going easier on submissions. Back in 2002, it used to be difficult for even a mediocre flash to pass judgment (of course it required less votes to be blammed). Nowdays, pure shite is passed simply because it has multiple authors (or I like to think massive brain hemorrhage). I do think it's a shame that awesome flash from years past fades in to obscurity due to the differences of voting habits...maybe a "Top 50 archive" of some sort could be a solution.
I agree. I think that there is a lack of serious artists submitting content to the Portal, and a lot of little, odd crap films are flooding. I think that the Awesome films are funny, but they're weird little shorts that were intended as funny filler for MTV, and none of the are as fresh as Metal Gear Awesome was when it first came out. I think that even Egoraptor knows the joke is getting kind of old, which is why #6 will be his last. There needs to be more artists creating content that is either original, or dedicated to quality. More and more people seem to think that Newgrounds is a place where they can submit some crap that they made in a weekend with their friends when they were high. Even now (11/28/07), the front page has some crap making fun of Egoraptor, "Assassin's Weed" Awsome Comp # 5, and some awful Super Hero Collab. And it's like this all the time. What happened to the good old days, when people were working hard to make good series and the only thing people complained about on Newgrounds was Foamy and the Clock Crew. Get it together people, start voting and reviewing again, Newgrounds will never change unless you do.
Yeah, I remember coming here for years in high school and seeing the same top 50. I wouldn't say that the current top 50 is undeserving though. What's the point of having the list if it can never be breached? The true legends will never really fall off of it, and the ones passing through get their 15 minutes of fame.
Te standard has gone down. there's the answer.
People in today's world are stupid and laugh seeing just violence. Back in the day though, I remember funny things actually being funny. A lot of the stuff I've seen for a while is just pointless. It's not even stupid and random anymore, which used to bethe standard for comedy. That's all I gotta say. You made a great point.
I do vote a lot of fives, but it's because when I'm in the portal, I vote five on a submission that i liked a lot so that it won't get blammed. When the movies passed and are not at risk, I will then vote fairly. I just want the movies to not get blammed.
Well, voting on the Under Judgment Flash is a little different, because 0 and 1 are blams, while 3-5 are saves, so it's best to make your save weigh more, I would imagine.
Stop complaining and just accept it. Your bitching won't change a damn thing. Every year we comlpain about some new issue, but nothing truely changes.
Honestly NewGrounds is hardly any different than it ever was, your just seeing it with new eyes because your older and probably smarter.
Older? Maybe. Smarter? Probably not.
I know how you feel, every damn day all i'm seeing in the portal is dressup games, mouse games, etc. Just the same CRAP with a new look and for some reason they're getting scores above 2.
You raise a fine point. I have to admit that I often vote 5 or 0 to save time. Hey we're all human here; wait no I'm not...
Agreed. Of course, I don't want to see the scoring system altered because some people are being really lousy in their voting patterns. Yes, my recent movie may have had a 4.37 at one time (now at 4.24), but so did the first part which was released back in 2006.
Should the second part get a lower score (even though it's three times as good) because a lot of other stuff is really crappy and still getting high scores?
You'll always have overrated content. No matter what the average score was, something was overrated.
I agree with you on 2005 being the best year of NG ever, but I must also point out several things.
Go watch 'All Your Pie' by Legendary Frog. It has like a 4.19 even now. Were that submitted these days by an average user, I'm betting it would get around 3.45.
In fact, most of the high scoring animations of back then are worse than the high scoring animations now.
It's just, there's so much overrated crap out there, it's hogging space that should be reserved for the good ones of this year and previous years.
Ultimately, though, good animators are still getting noticed. Sure there may be one or two along the way who are underrated and unseen, but nobody can really show me three or four really talented animators who aren't getting their work seen.
I think the kind of stand guys like f0d, Zekey and Rtil take against the overrated crap of the portal is the best approach to the situation.
Perhaps if more people responded negatively to the poorly tweened line-drawn video game parodies, sprite movies, hentai crap, and other garbage that clutters NG, we'd see a lot less of it making the spotlight.
Currently, the fanboys are louder though.
My issue isn't that good stuff is being undermined, but that bad stuff is overrated, and then to compensate, good stuff is getting a higher score than it deserves, just to beat the score of the overrated thing that it is better than.
I think you've made a bunch of good observations here, and I agree with your point of view. The scores really seemed to boom after the redesign, and I feel that the elation of the NG users has never really worn off. I don't know man. I guess as the buttons around here become more flashy, people just can't resist pressing 5.
the Awesomes are REALLY funny, Prowlies are MAGNIFICENT in art and design. But you do got to understand something: we all like to laugh. thats all there is to it. Why do you think stupid but funny movies (like wedding crashers or others) make millions while other serious but beautifully made movies (Pans laberinth or other) stay in SECONDs or even in the shadows? Its because america is so easily entertained with the laughing.
Here in NG you get the power to decide what do you like best, and unfortunely LAUGH = 5's. There are hardly any of us left that really interest on SKILLS ON FLASH.
i can't see why the bottom end of animations would get any better - they're clearly not serious animators, and will probably never try anything like it again. however, the top quality stuff seems to get better and better. i know he's stupidly popular but i do think adam philips is a whole new level for NG, at least in terms of animation quality..
but then i guess the top quality animators and programmers on NG can't be getting TOO much better, or they'd be doing commercial stuff..
Cyberdevil
The submissions certainly havn't gotten any better. There's a lot of blamworthy material that makes it into the portal too. Everything goes in cycles though, so sometime in the future the portal will rise once again.