The State of the Forum

[Angra Mainyu]

So yeah...

There haven't been any new members in months, and we're going weeks between posts. I'm wondering if this forum really has any particular need to exist. Seems like despite being filled with cruft, LSF is still "good enough" for the general EVN community. And if anyone wants particular attention for their project, they can set up and run their own site/forum.

I'll keep the place open for a while longer. But unless someone can come up with a convincing reason to keep the place running, I suspect the end is nigh.

[Jake]

[Angra Mainyu]

[Auro-Cyanide]

I agree that it's going to be a time thing if it happens. The other thing of course is content. You need things for people to talk about to be active. It would probably take a while for projects to pick up because a) sheer quantity tends to come from excited people posting without much thought. If you have a small community, and people stick to their projects, you are looking at quite a limited amount of projects and b) being the serious people we are, we spend an awful lot of our time working ;P I might chuck something up for BCM one day (the progress on it seriously slowed down since I went overseas on holidays, it will only pick up again once Nanoreno is done) but I think something like Red Snow or the other short one we have planned might be more applicable for this type of thing. But yes, maybe when I have time... I just have to find some.

Which leaves us with other kinds of content that relates to VNs. I have been toying with one idea, but I don't know if anyone would be very interested in it or not, but I thought maybe it might be a nice way to promote constructive discussion. So anyway, might as well throw it out there. I'm a huge fan of Extra Creditz and I love watching the episodes. I was wondering if anyone would be interested in having discussions based on episodes and how we think the topic discussed relates to VNs. They don't often mention VNs, but a lot of the things they talk about can be applied to us as well. So if anyone is interested, I wouldn't mind doing something every week/certain amount of days. I mean, there isn't many of us here, but I would like to talk about it.

I think LSF has gotten better with useful feedback, but I can honestly say I have been a little busy to notice too much. People seem a little more inclined to speak honestly about certain things, which is good.

As for Jake's question, yes, we have a WiP on LSF. We weren't going to because we tend to spam our threads as it is (and it has been more fast paced than I thought it would be), but Py'Tom opened a specific section for it, so we chucked it in. It is fun being a part of a community after all. Feedback is welcome, but isn't really something we can take on board too much. Generally with Nanoreno, once it's done, it's done. Posting is more about showing progress. Camille is going to be leaving the code open for people to look at to see how things done and I think she is going to be doing something about the process we went through, which might be interesting enough to post here maybe?

[DaFool]

I was initially hesitant to join the Teacup until I needed to reach somebody, and I think the same may apply here. Having a game engine the forum revolves around is absolutely crucial to the forum's health. If not, your game must be very popular.

In all honesty, there's nothing to talk about... well at least until the next big controversy comes along, whatever that will be. Projects are so massive and teams are big enough that cross-checking each other's contributions already fulfill the need for constructive criticism, so there is no need to get others involved unless it's beta-testing time. Besides, things like GUI and presentation style evolve and change by iteration right up until the release day. If one wants to improve, they only need to download the next high profile tile, or just go to the website of a specialist.

The quality level of the projects I'm involved with are such that a jack-of-trades like myself can't meet the skill required anymore, so we're employing specialists to get the job done. I'm not one of the better writers, nor better artists, nor better musicians, nor even Ren'Py users anymore. So I'm usually just a mere scripter and wallet for the most part. So I'm only functioning to see my magnum opus and that of certain other people I can't let down to the end, but it's reached a point where I'm thinking why not just look for professionals who will make the game you want and send money to their Kickstarter, since it's more efficient in the long run. The amount of time I spent on Ren'Py projects doesn't make me any more employable -- it's actually more beneficial to just specialize in art or music even if you're not really into the genre... you'll still do much better than the amateurs. Several old-timers have mentioned not doing original led productions anymore, only contributions going forward -- and that applies to me as well. But I'll probably sing a different tune if I lost my day job and have the opposite situation of having plenty of time but no money.

[PyTom]

I've been spending a bit more time on LSF administration over the past couple of months, in preparation for spending a substantial amount of money on a new webserver for it.

A big change was to realize that it's basically impossible to have developer-to-developer discussion about a work in progress. It seems that in a forum like LSF - with a large number of players on it - project-specific threads tend to be a mix of news announcements, backseat game design, and fan appreciation. After years trying to resist this, I've given in and embraced it.

I think a big improvement has been the reorganization of the creator section to not be themed around particular games. That seems to have raised the level of discussion a bit, as it tends to make the participants in a discussion more equal, rather than having one person announcing things and the others responding to them or intruding. I also think it helps to have a creator section that is less interesting to end users.

We've also taken a slightly more active approach to administration, dealing with problematic users and topics.

A forum like this one might be a place where it's possible to have creator-to-creator discussion of WiPs, if only because right now there are a large number of creators here, and no end users. If you keep it that way, it could become a valuable resource - but it will be hard to keep it up once the games developed on this forum become popular. (I wasn't willing to patrol registrations in the way you'd have to to keep this a developer-only community.)

[mikey]

For me, any forum now is not going to be an instrument for working anymore - previously LSF was a general outlet for pretty much all of my thoughts, and later Teacup became a more focused instrument to coordinate and work on projects. But I think at this point I have said what I wanted to say, and as I am in the process of closing everything down - the philosophical aspects of creating via the blog project, and the physical aspects by finishing AF as such, there isn't a lot more I feel I need to talk to people about and there isn't much benefit to anyone if I participate in a community in the traditional sense (by giving opinions and sharing things). I guess you can always form an opinion on new things that happen, but I think that my opinions are relatively easily predictable from all my previous work.

The other thing is, I don't really want to waste people's time. I know I'm not going to say anything fundamentally different to what I have already said and what will soon be captured in the blog posts anyway - I guess you could make the case that I should actively offer my opinions to people who haven't yet heard them, but that's not really a sustainable approach and kind of feels wrong as a motivation. Additionally, people who I know / like are working on their projects - talking about things that beginner creators like to talk about is not necessary as they are pretty much all people who have created games for some time. Of course one could say we could talk about advanced problems or philosophical approaches, but those take more time and I know that everyone needs their time to first and foremost complete their own projects. Perhaps once people have retired from active creating we can have such discussions without at least me feeling I am stealing time away from others. It kind of puts the saying "those who can't do, teach" into a new light, because it's not that I couldn't talk about things related to creating, but I know the depth of the discussion would take so much time I wouldn't have time to create.

That said, I don't like any forum going away. I think people need places where they can "talk" in a different atmosphere, and when the big forum (lsf) is too "noisy", I think the smaller forums can accomodate smaller groups of people who are at a stage when they prefer a more quiet place. I don't think it can be avoided that frequenting one forum sort of means you have certain values that another forum doesn't, but it would be nice just to be able to be present whenever you feel most comfortable at the given moment, i.e. where your friends / collaborators hang out, without it being tied to a particular community. When promoting, you can use the largest forum and so on, depending on your need.

[Angra Mainyu]

[Jake]

[Auro-Cyanide]