What has changed in the last year?

While not everything can be shared, a lot of it can be. Staff meets every 2 weeks and issues that change the documents then must go to Code Reviewers and Developers (this was a change by Meleu to give the contributors of this project a vote for earth shattering changes).

The biggest thing here is these changes are already in the books so please don't come here to argue

BUT
if you have an idea about RA send a personal message (PM) to https://retroachievements.org/User/RAdmin .
Everything serious ever sent ends up at least being discussed (ViperZang likely holds the record for this)

For rules that change the Dev CoC, they went thru 3 discussions and 3 votes (Staff+Code Reviewer+Developer)

System and Tools Support

-RATools 1.8.0 released in February 2021
-MSX was added
-Jaguar was added despite some issues
-Intellivision was added despite some issues 

User Rules

-"Do not allow other users to access your account to earn achievements for you or access developer only features"

Developer Rule Changes and Clarifications

-It was decided that veteran devs won't have extra rights like 8 claims anymore
-"Upon reserving a set, wait at least 24 hours before promoting it to core. This allows time for reservation review and to clear up any possible reservation disputes. If you believe a set is ready for core within 24 hours, an early promotion may be subject to approval."

-Sudoku/Picross achievement caps were implemented
"1 point for easy, 2-3 points for medium, 4-5 points for hard"
Exceptions to this will be handled by Code Reviewers or Admins. One notable exception is Picross 3D, it is being left alone.

-These are the current standards for core on can a set be made
Same system, same set = NO (Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal wouldn't pass todays dev standards)
diff system, same set = fine (see Wilhitewarrior, Classic NES Series)
Same system, different sets (see Pokemon Red and Blue vs Pocket Monsters Midori)
Merge = a viable fourth option when games are the same (Pokemon Red and Blue, SNK Vs Capcom Card Fighters)

-Randomizers are still not allowed for sets with one exception, the Mario 64 Randomizer being self contained could be approved for a set with a not lazy proposal (see Dengs awesome proposal in the forum). Other self contained randomizers like Factory Adventure would fit here as well. Out of date broken randomizers like Majora's Mask would not fit.

-Sets can now only be considered complete with basic progression, achievement badges, achievement names/descriptions, and a game icon

-If a Revision is approved by a different developer then the original developer must cease editing tickets/logic to hinder the revision author

-Revisions now cost a developer one of their 4 claims or a Jr Devs only claim

-Unfinished sets that were previously promoted to core are now being demoted. Sets lacking basic progression from start to end cannot be uploaded.

-Subsets were approved and will be rolling out with a bigger announcement from Televandalist as the program enters its initial attempts

-Bonus Set rules changed, it used to just say "contact Salsa"
Any new Bonus Set must be claimed thru a revision vote with a plan required, 
and In cases where a developer wants to release a bonus set alongside a core set it only counts as a single claim. 
This double claim only applies at the sets first release and both sets must be released together. 
JR Devs must get permission from code reviewer to take advantage of a double claim

Ticket Rules

-For claims only unregistered tickets count. If someone has open tickets but waits for reporter responds they are still fine to claim a new project

-Developers have 1 month to fix their tickets before it becomes open season. Anyone that does change logic must do a logic backup or punishment will be handed out

-New option added for closing tickets "Unable to reproduce"

Manual Unlocks

-This verbage was approved a year ago but had not hit the docs yet
;INTENDED for players who have proof of earning but the achievement did not sync with the site due to network issues or because the achievement had a bug
;NOT INTENDED and will not be awarded to players who did the achievement condition before the set was made or which got the achievements in another unsupported platform (e.g. real console without achievement support)

-Users now need to provide full information + a filled out informative ticket for an unlock

Site Features

-Users can now reset their progress directly in the games/achievement's page
-Set Requests were revamped to give players more requests
-RANEWS  https://news.retroachievements.org/ 
-RAPodcast by Shootzyy, BendyHuman, Draco655 and KingS1zzle  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIGdJGxrzmNYMaAGPsk2sIA 

New Roles

-Artist role has been rebooted to be a program run like Code Reviewers, KingS1zzle heads this committee up
-Playtesters are currently in beta, this role is for people wanting to test JR sets or full dev sets that the dev has requested playtest for. Contact Keltron if interested

Icon Gauntlet

-Devs can change their own set icon at will UNLESS other devs were involved or an Icon Gauntlet replaced the icon. At that point the dev must do an Icon Gauntlet of their own
-Icon Gauntlet is a channel only for sets which either exist or will exist in the near future. This means Dreamcast icons are not correct use of the channel.
-Icon Gauntlet now uses LeoBot to handle polls

Event News

-Retro Olympics was approved and is being hosted by voiceofautumn and Searo, its currently in the 3rd week
-Leapfrog was approved with HolyShinx as host, it is currently down to 10 players
-Snowpin was approved to run Challenge League 3, it is currently open to anyone wanting to play
-The Great Jackolantern event was approved as the spring dev clean up event, it starts April 2nd
-BendyHumans Peak Streak event was approved, it is always open to join
-BendyHumans Master Quest event was approved, it is currently on hiatus
-SporyTikes Communiplay event was approved, it is currently on hiatus until next month
-Best of RA 2020 Awards were approved, and the results are here  https://news.retroachievements.org/issues/2021-02/raawards.html 
-The Unwanted event was approved, it is currently open to participate to all

Site Cleanup

-Televandalist started the Site Cleanup channels which users have been donating time to help fix the sites Hubs or Hash logs
-The Rescore Project was continued by Televandalist and StingX2, together they rescored over 50% of the site to change the sets from the 2019 standard. As of this writing only 11 rescores are left!
-The ~Event~ tag was removed (March 2021)
-Devember occured in December and was a major success, KingS1zzle made the badge

Discord Changes

-Semi Weekly Topic returned
-Show Your Mastery Channel was added
-Semi Weekly Topic Role was added
-Unwanted role was added for The Unwanted
-Peaker role was added for Peak Streak
-Rabot now has a !tkt command to help users look directly at tickets

in Site Features, maybe we could also mention "users can now reset their progress directly in the game's/achievement's page"

- Same system, different sets should be mentioned as another viable third option (see Pokemon Red and Blue vs Pocket Monsters Midori)

- Mario 64 isn't the only self-contained randomizer out there, like i think theres a fire emblem one thats self-contained. Maybe it'd be worth mentioning that they could be approved as long as it's self-contained and the plan isn't lazy, instead of just saying "they aren't allowed besides this one game".

other than that mostly positive changes :thumbsup: i had no idea the 0 ticket rule for claiming games was even changed, that's nice to know.

I'm really excited for that playtester thing, pretty good changes overall

Coming thru 12 months of meetings notes was :|

But I Added both suggestions

but left out the randos. the Majoras Mask one is pretty bad as is the FE. Both are outdated now. If anymore popup that are like that I can just edit that in.

I'll bring up from experience that there's a couple Pokemon rom hacks with built in randomizers. Specifically Factory Adventure, and the hack it's derived from, Roaming Red.

updated