So, If any of you read through the comments on my previous blog entry, you may have noticed that I’ve thrown caution to the wind and spawned a new forum, for the sake of creating a community for the more serious, more advanced EVN creators out there.
As far as technical details go, we’ve got the resources to support a forum of substantial size. In fact, I used to run the old Pseudome forums, which were the unofficial host to the Rising Stars of Manga competitions. Consequently, I am also well familiarized with administrative tasks, like policing rules, working with a team of Mods and the like.
As for this forum itself: don’t think of it as a done deal. Think of it as a prototype. Something that’s in a pre-embryonic state. It exists simply because I made it. The real question that I want to ask is: should it exist?
Are there enough EVN creators out there who want to see this happen? Are there enough people out there who would use such a resource?
That being the main issue, I do want to address something that has come up on multiple occasions surrounding this idea. Something that I suspect will come up again, many more times. And that is the perception of such a forum. As I’ve stated already, I want it to exist as a technical resource for the learned. But as some have pointed out, people may perceive it as an “exclusive” club. Something that could be an insular, haughty group. I’ve been trying to think of a good analogy as to why this should not be the case, and I think I have one…
Consider a high school freshman who enjoys mathematics (weird, I know, but just bear with the analogy). Let’s say the curricula at the school dictates that freshmen take Algebra for their mathematics class. On the first day of school, said freshman walks into the senior Calculus class and sits down. Would it be improper for the teacher of the Calculus class to ask the freshman to leave? Or would it be improper for the teacher to accept the student (who really, really likes math) and teach him Calculus? Keeping in mind that the freshman doesn’t have the prerequisite knowledge, and it will mean that the teacher will need to take away resources from the other students in order to bring him up to speed.
I’ll add a poll for voting purposes. Although, I have my suspicion about the accuracy of these sorts of polls. I’d prefer discussion on the matter versus a poll—whether that discussion happens here on the blog, or at the pre-embryonic forum itself.
I’m not taking my clothes off for any analogy! >:/
It took me a few seconds…Bare instead of bear. Corrected.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. :3
Good luck!
I always feel sort of left out since I’m an intermediate developer. It is hard to find a place for amateurs to learn.
To go with your analogy, I’m a sophomore who has taken some of the pre-requisites. The only classes available to me are the freshman ones or the senior ones. I am wanting to sit in the class and learn what I can without disturbing the class too much.
Would there be room for intermediates? Maybe as ones that can read, but can only post in certain areas until they can prove themselves?
Susan
You bring up a thought that has crossed my mind before. In particular, I am aware of a number of people on LSF who have been around for ages but, by their own admission, their work remains amateur-ish or mediocre at best.
I think the important aspect to take away from the formation of this forum is not to “reward” any particular end product. Rather, I’d like people to pursue the betterment of their skills. That being said, even people who reach a plateau in their skill set and can’t break past it still have something valuable to contribute to the community: experience.
Just because an individual can’t draw as nicely or write as eloquently as someone else, doesn’t mean that they still don’t have something helpful to contribute.
As this has already been asked of me a few times, I’ll say it here plainly: no one needs to ask my permission to join. Just ask yourself if you want to advance your craft, if you want to try to accomplish something with your work. If the answer is yes, then you have your answer as to whether or not you should join.
You’ll actually eject people from your forum? “Insular” and “haughty” certainly comes to mind, yes. In regards to your analogy, this issue at hand isn’t mathematics, it’s art. There aren’t prerequisites to something so incredibly subjective. Colleges are accredited institutions that must demonstrate that you know a certain subject and must be uniform in their requirements in order to maintain the worth of a degree. (And teachers routinely do waive those requirements for students who are apt and willing.) What I’m seeing here is the assumption that the people who run this forum and evaluate its members actually have the “accreditation” to do so. Why shouldn’t I consider this haughty? Frankly, elitism in the industry isn’t what it needs. Just my opinion, though.
No analogy is perfect. But, allow me to quote my previous comment:
“Just because an individual can’t draw as nicely or write as eloquently as someone else, doesn’t mean that they still don’t have something helpful to contribute.”
I have no intention of ejecting users from the forum just because their skill levels don’t match some subjective threshold. The criteria by which people need to evaluate themselves—before joining—is whether or not they want to turn a critical eye towards themselves and their skills. Do they want to improve? Do they want to carry through from start-to-finish and make a completed game?
Just after WWII, Japan adopted a philosophy to improve their economic and technological condition. Loosely translated, the phrase that embodied that spirit equated to “Catch up and beat the west”.
That’s the sort of philosophy I want to pursue, and the spirit I want to engender with this forum—To catch up and beat the east. The Japanese have set the gold standard for Visual Novels. I don’t see any reason why the English-speaking world can’t catch and surpass what they produce. But accomplishing that goal certainly won’t come at the hands of the half-hearted and dabblers. It’s going to take serious commitment, which is a sentiment I would hope the forum-goers at this new site would share.
I’m hoping that the forum won’t be all elitist or anything like that. I want it to be friendly and open to anyone who wants to learn and challenge what has been done already. If the opposite proves true, I won’t stay around. That’s not the kind of place I want to be apart of. I don’t consider myself advanced by a long shot, that’s kind of laughable. But I do want to learn and I want to try things no one else has before, and most definitely step away from the whole ‘emulate japan’ thing.
The main reason I was interested in the idea was because of a series of threads and comments on LSF that made me feel like spreading your wings was frowned upon. I know you are familar with people actually getting upset that your thread actually got comments, god forbid, as if it was undeserving. Plus the odd resentment against people who are trying to make their games look good. Sure, it doesn’t matter to much in the grand scheme of things, but it can make you feel a bit unwelcome.
I have no idea where all of this is going to go. I really like being apart of a community and so I don’t really want to let it go because of weird issues if I don’t have to. I’m hoping that if we get a good combination of people on this new forum, it will help it be much more open than say, teacup. Either that or I’m going to hope the mandates help things on LSF. I’m giving everything the benefit of the doubt right now because I would like to see it work because I like interacting with the people who have similar interests. If everything fails, I’ll end up going to my own forum most likely. And then I would miss everybody ;_;
I’d say that for the moment a few of the doubts expressed are premature: from what Errantheart (Voight?) said in his post and his responses it seems to me the intentions are good – I don’t think they necessarily want to emulate Japan in the way they’ll create games (aside from the obvious influences) but more in the approach they took in the past to strive to outdo their model, rather than just reach them. My hope would be that the community they’ll create can become something like Conceptart.org where no matter how inexperienced you are, you’ll still get some help and people won’t frown at your work just because you’re a newbie.
That said, I wonder how that will be done, since in my opinion you need at least a few people who dedicate themselves to providing an example and give useful help (ideally people who at least know the medium well enough, if not even people who excel at it and are willing to share their knowledge and advice). Time will tell, good luck.