List (or filter) of visual novels by quality?(DIWIC?)

[VNQuality]

Is there a way to filter out the current list of VN on the engine RenPy? I would like to see a list of at least just beautiful novels without a bad art. Not so comfortable to see a handful of short stories with such bad drawings, but about the script i, actually, can't say anything. It would be nice to see at least a few successful title in the header or something like that ...
(Did i write it correctly?)

[Caveat Lector]

I don't think so. Your best bet might be to go to VNDB and try to sort by original language, but even then that's probably going to be a bit difficult to work around. However, I might be willing to give you some recommendations. What are your favourite genres? Is there a specific genre you're looking for?

[VNQuality]

However, I might be willing to give you some recommendations. What are your favourite genres? Is there a specific genre you're looking for?

My favorite genre - it is Sci ADV, I think, but in this case, this example does not work :)
Now I'm looking for at least some list of the most significant examples of good work at least on the graphics.
Today I was searching for tag "Commercial" and was a little shocked: O

[rakada]

I think winter wolves games are pretty good

[Caveat Lector]

If you're looking for something with high-quality artwork and backgrounds, I'd highly recommend Cinders. It has both gorgeous artwork and excellent story and character development.

[papillon]

There's no objective rating of art, it's impossible to filter by whether art is good or not. Even famous historical artists are often considered horrible by some people. You'll have to judge for yourself, and your choices won't necessarily be everyone else's either.

You could sort by rating on VNDB to get some general idea of popular consensus but of course that's rating of the whole work, not just the visual component.

[VNQuality]

There's no objective rating of art, it's impossible to filter by whether art is good or not. Even famous historical artists are often considered horrible by some people. You'll have to judge for yourself, and your choices won't necessarily be everyone else's either.

No, I'm not talking about subjective differences in style, but just about the terrible graphics. I will not put examples here simply because it is not polite, lol.
There is a certain understanding of the quality and there is something that does not exceed the first threshold.

[Applegate]

Such a thing would have to be generated manually. You could, for example, make a sub-forum and move all VNs that meet a certain quality threshold there, but I doubt the administration would want to segregate EVNs in such a way.

Your best bet really is to see if someone has created a list of Visual Novels which are above a certain quality threshold visually, and even then you're not guaranteed that some works won't look bad.

[mugenjohncel]

This will Open a whole Can of Worms...

Please don't do this... not only it is "disgusting" in general it actually demotivates people who are still what can be considered as "budding" future OELVN devs... and will inadvertently lead to elitism and circle jerking. Something most people here want to avoid.

Take me for example:

In the Ren'py Main site, there is a section in there where select Ren'py made OELVN's are randomly rotated and highlighted for everyone to see. Sure there is a good reason why they are there. They contain Ren'py milestones but still... as a creator I still get envious and somewhat depressed when I see theirs is placed there being highlighted for everyone to see while my works are not and are buried in obscurity. I am quite sure it I'm not the only one here that feels the same way. Now think about it, if someone like me, a veteran of several years still feels this way occasionally, what about the other guy who just posted his first OELVN?... probably overwhelmed...

OK, so some people will say, improve your quality... easier said than done... Remember, for every Superstar like JUSTIN BEIEBER or MICHAEL JACKSON there are probably 100 obscure others who are not talented yet wanted really bad to just DO IT!... Right now, Lemmasoft is still (barely) a place in the internets where people who wanted to get thier first taste of OELVN deving a foothold, it may not be much but it's still a place to start. Lemmasoft was a great place right now because the bar is set low enough to encourage people who otherwise might not even try. Lemmasoft is a place where Dreams are still possible...

User Rating system?... Sure but don't do it here on Lemmasoft because I can tell you know with 90% certainty that Katawa Shoujo will always get a 5 star because it's readily accesible, free and a good media mileage because of it's association with 4chan even though there are far more superior OELVN's in existence even before it came out (though they are confined to the commercial scene)... With all the above considered... will you think a Lemmasoft with a user rating system will be good in the long run?...

I say NO... because Visual's in a Visual Novel is the first one most people initially notices and pay attention to. If you put a user rating in place, most OELVN's that will be on the top are most likely to be VN's that have very good visuals even though some of them will have horse-shit writing similar to what I can produce. Another factor to consider is hype... some VN's are made by groups who understandably have more coverage, some maybe famous either because of being associated to other famous websites, individuals or events. Unfortunately the majority of the people who produced or are trying to produce content are mostly 1 person nobodies... not even a blip on the radar nor have any thing that can be used to hype their work. What about the other VN's who are unfortunate enough not to be able to get a decent artist for it... you know, some of them have very superb writing... one good example is Rita, Please Respond... The VN is quite frankly Horse-Shit graphically but the pacing and the story was short yet very solid... And then we go now to another thing... user bias... see how much I praise Rita, Please Respond OELVN?... I think it's a good OELVN, other may agree... other might not while some will simply vomit on the spot...

Sure, a user rating system is good but simply not meant for Lemmasoft. Here, it will be nothing but a popularity contest where the winner is decided by which work can gather more hype and whose fans are more vocal... remember, not everyone clicks on the vote/rate it buttons...

So please, stick to VNDB for Ratings and similar things... at least the place is neutral. Here, a similar system will lead to a lot of trampled feelings, hurt egos and massive butthurt... the very thing Lemmasoft doesn't need...

Love
UNCLE MUGEN "MUGENJOHNCEL"

"POOF" (Disappears)

[Omniknight]

[rant]
Unfortunately, I am forced to disagree with you.

First of all, I feel that the point VNQuality was trying to make is to create a listing so people can enjoy visual novels worth their time. I'm sure that we all downloaded a 500MB VN one time or another and... "it turned out to be horseshit." For people who have slow internet connections/don't have much time, this is very frustrating. There's always the option of investing ridiculous amounts of time to find a good free OELVN, but like I said before, this doesn't apply to "people who have slow internet connections/don't have much time."

Second, your point is very well taken Uncle Mugen. Creating a rating system might indeed cause unnecessary competition, jealousy, envy, discrimination etc etc etc with along with a whole list of side effects, but then, something like that is inevitable. Just because we don't have an "official rating system" doesn't necessarily mean we treat all studios and devs here on an equal basis. For example, most users would incline toward Love in Space (Samu-kun) then some unknown developer with 17 posts. Yes, one might very well argue that officially bringing it out would exacerbate the problem, which leads to my third contention:

Third, competition encourages development. According to this thread:

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... inished+VN

There are 700+ unfinished VN's by amateur hobbyists. Serious developers like Sake-Bento, Samu-kun, or Akemicchi deserve distinction from these noobs. Eventually people who are just starting out (like me) will look up to this Hall of Fame and say, "wow, I want to be like that one day..." and motivate themselves.

......if you're going to become discouraged by people better than you when you made 17 posts, I'm sorry, WAKE UP. With that kind of motivation/attitude/devotion, it's highly unlikely you'll complete the VN you're working on anyway...

[/rant]

[Obscura]

This would actually be a good job for a VN reviewer or aspiring (?) VN reviewer. Creatings lists of VNs noted for different things (good art, writing, best mystery, horror, etc.).

Or you could simply ask users here to list the top 5 VNs or so that they've found to be the best looking in terms of art.

[Omnificent]

Well Omniknight, attitude is also important in determining who is worth your time in associating with and who is not. People who have terrible attitudes are less likely to take other peoples' advice and work hard to improve the quality of their work. Also, there are a lot of people who have works that, while not the most polished things on earth art-wise, have shown great promise from a storytelling or interface perspective. If art is your sole judge of the quality of a visual novel, which is 70% about the words and the quality of the storytelling, then frankly this is not the genre for you. Go watch Xenosaga or later Final Fantasy games.

I think that it's more than a little sanctimonious of you to be lecturing the community on what is and is not a n00b when you yourself have one WiP with no demo and have not exactly made the best first or second impression on said community. That's an attitude that frankly irks me even when it comes from people who have "made it," so to speak. I have seen far too many Internet communities fall and decline because of that kind of elitist and arbitrary measure of "achievement" and I'm sick and tired of it.

I've tried to talk to you and tell you what I've learned, Omniknight. You just won't listen. If that's the way you want to play things, feel free. Just don't expect anyone to greet you with open arms if that's your attitude.

[KomiTsuku]

OBJECTION!

I find it interesting that we reference the veteran developers in this. Mostly because have you looked at some of the old art? The original Ripples is a great example. It wasn't that good. Not a lot in the old days was outstanding, but these were the days when there were so few EVNs that you could release one and you had an audience no matter what. Nowadays, we don't have an environment like that. It's a lot harder to garnish attention for people to play your game; the standards have also jumped up considerably because of the veterans who survived with the support of the community. If we continue to only praise the outstanding ones and ignore our rookies, it is going to end up killing the community in the long run. I'm not saying that we need to pander and coddle them, but there's nothing that kills motivation faster than being ignored repeatedly.

[mugenjohncel]

First of all, I feel that the point VNQuality was trying to make is to create a listing so people can enjoy visual novels worth their time.

And that's what VNDB is for... an unbiased place that organizes Visual Novels in a way that will give them equal footing and exposure.

Third, competition encourages development. According to this thread:

Maybe a few years ago I would have agreed but I've seen the devastating effects of this sort of mentality. You will force people to increase quality more rapidly which is good at first but once you get to a point where the rate of of quality is rising way faster than most people can catch up, you will end up with a lot of casualties, people who was once an optimistic dreamer whose only simple wish was to make an OELVN will simply quit leaving a few standing strong. Sure the quality of the output will be Astronomically better but after that what happens? You have raised the bar way so high that only a handful will be able to even get started and those that managed to get the few first baby steps in the wonderful world of OELVN making will get burned really fast and will most likely be added to a growing list of people we have lost through the years. Not to mention the very same scenarios will lead to elitism and a lot of hurt butts... Two things that are not very good in the long run. You will end up with maybe 1 or 2 high quality works and maybe several other good ones but not much incentive for a total beginner to even consider joining the scene since... again, the bar was too high and the possibility of getting burned is petrifying.

What I'm trying to say here in general is... Lemmasoft is one of those last places in the internet where arrogant elitism and circle-jerking hasn't taken a hold... a place where people of mixed skills and talents can still talk, cooperate and hang out with each other as somewhat equals. Besides, wouldn't it be better to give a total beginner a fighting chance than burn him to crisp immediately and scare him/her away?...

Besides, we are all beginners at some point...

"POOF" (Disappears)

[Omniknight]

Well Omniknight, attitude is also important in determining who is worth your time in associating with and who is not. People who have terrible attitudes are less likely to take other peoples' advice and work hard to improve the quality of their work. Also, there are a lot of people who have works that, while not the most polished things on earth art-wise, have shown great promise from a storytelling or interface perspective. If art is your sole judge of the quality of a visual novel, which is 70% about the words and the quality of the storytelling, then frankly this is not the genre for you. Go watch Xenosaga or later Final Fantasy games.

I think that it's more than a little sanctimonious of you to be lecturing the community on what is and is not a n00b when you yourself have one WiP with no demo and have not exactly made the best first or second impression on said community. That's an attitude that frankly irks me even when it comes from people who have "made it," so to speak. I have seen far too many Internet communities fall and decline because of that kind of elitist and arbitrary measure of "achievement" and I'm sick and tired of it.

I've tried to talk to you and tell you what I've learned, Omniknight. You just won't listen. If that's the way you want to play things, feel free. Just don't expect anyone to greet you with open arms if that's your attitude.

My divine and sacred mentor!

Seems as if we had a little misunderstanding.
All I wanted to say is: "competition encourages advancement." In a society where everyone receives equal treatment regardless of their effort, there isn't much incentive to release something actually good. If we voted on a monthly basis as to the best VN and the top 3 places received special distinction, 700 incomplete VN's won't happen anymore.

And...yes...I didn't exactly make a good first impression...but I'm working on it...and I said...in my prev post...that I was a noob...unfortunately...