Creator's Corner - Forum Mandates

[PyTom]

I'm asking that the forum come up a mandate for each forum in the LSF, as described in this thread:

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 13&t=13071

I've taken the liberty of renaming some things - this is now the Creator Discussion section of the Creators' Corner, rather than the Game Maker's Corner of the Lem'Ai Ren'Ai Development Center. That's just trying to make it more obvious what we're about.

I've also split out the Ren'Py stuff into its own section - but if people don't mind, I'll discuss the mandate for the Ren'Py section here. Some of the mandates are short - because I think the section has an obvious focus - while others are much longer.

Where I use "creator", I mean "creator of visual novels and story-based games".

Creator's Corner

A place to discuss things that aren't specific to one creator or game.

That's pretty much what the Game Maker's Corner always has been. So we're not changing much here. Perhaps we should qualify that it's a place to ask for help if no more specific forum is available.

Recruitment

For searching for team members or advertising your interest in joining a team.

That's the charter now, and I think it's working well - no need to change it. We may want to clarify that it isn't a place for long-term promotion of a game.

Works in Progress Feedback

The mandate for this forum is up in the air. My general feeling is that we should crack down a little on what gets posted here - to get a thread in "Works in Progress", a game must be a "Work", and there must be "Progress".

For our purposes, a "work" must have a story. So it's not enough to have a setting and a list of characters - to start a WIP thread, you should be able to explain what will happen to those characters. Maybe not in a huge amount of detail, but you should be able to convince the moderators that your story is going somewhere.

You should also demonstrate progress. That means you should have been working on the game for at least a week, and have something to show for that work. Game-quality sprites, a significant amount of writing, a demo that goes somewhere - something like that.

To make it possible to manage the new WIP, and so we don't bite new creators, I'm suggesting we create the "Work In Progress Questionnaire". This would be something that each new WIP creator should fill in - so that the admins and community can learn about the work. If the creator can't full it in, either their game isn't mature enough to be discussed, or the game is too secret to be discussed in public.

There will also be an "Ideas" sticky thread. If a WIP doesn't quite make the cut - but it's not totally and completely devoid of potential - it will be merged into the ideas thread. The creator will be welcome to submit again when the game is ready.

For now, I've cooled to the idea of splitting WiP, either on completeness (demo or not) or on content. I want to see what happens when we stick to actual Works in Progress, rather than ideas.

Skill Development -> Asset Creation

This forum is devoted to improving the skills (art, writing, music, and others) required to create game assets.

I want to bring this forum back to what it should be - a place where people can discuss how to create game assets. We've gone too far towards "look at my art", and I think it's taking attention from the original purpose of the thread. That doesn't mean we can't have the sorts of fun that live in SD now - but let's try to keep them on-topic, with things like sprites rather than sketches.

I also ask that people try for more generic threads. Instead of "queue up and I'll sketch you", we could have a thread where multiple people post, and multiple artists draw - the idea is that it's more of a community thing, and less of an individual thing.

Respectful critique should always be allowed. The goal here should be to keep improving - otherwise, why are you taking the forum's attention? Tutorials on creating game assets are on-topic here. (And are massively appreciated.)

Ren'Py Questions and Announcements

Discuss how to use the Ren'Py engine to create visual novels and story-based games. New releases are announced in this section.

The generic section for asking questions about the current version of Ren'Py.

Development of Ren'Py

In this forum we discuss the future of Ren'Py, both bug fixes and longer-term development. Pre-releases are announced and discussed here.

For talk about where Ren'Py is going in the future.


So those are all of the forums in the Creator's Corner and Ren'Py sections. I'd like to know what the community thinks of these mandates. They're open for discussion, and I'm sure they will be improved with people's feedback. Just remember the goal here - how can we give game-making more of the community's attention?

[sake-bento]

Some copy pasta from another thread:

The WiP forum is filling up pretty quickly, and some of those threads are little more than an idea and some character descriptions. While that doesn't guarantee the project will never be finished, many of these threads open with, "I know, I know. Another project!" What we're getting is a bunch of threads about ideas that are shortly abandoned after the creator comes up with a cooler idea (something I am very much guilty of). If someone's super cool idea is going to become a reality anyway, then asking the creator to wait until he or she has made actual progress isn't a very large barrier to entry, and it allows us to give meaningful feedback beyond, "Sounds interesting. Can't wait!"

There are several game making communities that require a number of screen caps before allowing a game to be listed as "in progress." I assume we'll have a similar set of requirements, as suggested by members of the community. In the past, we've been more lenient about this because often times the thread was a recruitment thread asking for team members. Since we've opened up the Recruitment section, the WiP forum no longer serves this need.

So the question, essentially, is "How much progress do you need to see before you can give meaningful feedback on a project?"

[Sapphi]

To make it possible to manage the new WIP, and so we don't bite new creators, I'm suggesting we create the "Work In Progress Questionnaire". This would be something that each new WIP creator should fill in - so that the admins and community can learn about the work. If the creator can't full it in, either their game isn't mature enough to be discussed, or the game is too secret to be discussed in public.

This is an awesome idea!
I think it would help people like me, who sometimes aren't quite sure what they should or shouldn't say about their project. I would love to be part of the process of creating this new questionnaire.

Now, are we going to retroactively apply it to recent WIP threads?

[PyTom]

Now, are we going to retroactively apply it to recent WIP threads?

One step at a time - let's decide first on what we want the eventual end state to be, and then decide on how we want to get there.

[Camille]

Recruitment

For searching for team members or advertising your interest in joining a team.

That's the charter now, and I think it's working well - no need to change it. We may want to clarify that it isn't a place for long-term promotion of a game.

I think it might also be nice to split up the recruitment forum into Art, Writing, and Sound? That way it makes it a little easier for people to find what they're looking for. Or at least promote better tagging of posts. (like putting [Artist] or [GUI designer] or [Composer] into the post titles) Same might also go for the Skill Development forum…

You should also demonstrate progress. That means you should have been working on the game for at least a week, and have something to show for that work. Game-quality sprites, a significant amount of writing, a demo that goes somewhere - something like that.

To make it possible to manage the new WIP, and so we don't bite new creators, I'm suggesting we create the "Work In Progress Questionnaire". This would be something that each new WIP creator should fill in - so that the admins and community can learn about the work. If the creator can't full it in, either their game isn't mature enough to be discussed, or the game is too secret to be discussed in public.

I like the idea of the questionnaire a lot. Personally, I think a creator should be able to show 3-4 screenshots of their game and quote a Lint report showing that they have at least 100 words written, otherwise it's still an idea and not an actual project. Not sure what the Novelty creators will do in this case, but considering LSF is the Ren'Py home base, I'm honestly not all that concerned about them...

There will also be an "Ideas" sticky thread. If a WIP doesn't quite make the cut - but it's not totally and completely devoid of potential - it will be merged into the ideas thread. The creator will be welcome to submit again when the game is ready.

Yeah, as long as there's a place for people to discuss their not-so-complete ideas, I think that should be fine. People, it's okay if you don't have enough content to justify a WIP thread yet… Just don't post in the WIP thread until both you and your project are ready for it.

Ren'Py Questions and Announcements

Discuss how to use the Ren'Py engine to create visual novels and story-based games. New releases are announced in this section.

The generic section for asking questions about the current version of Ren'Py.

Maybe make this "Ren'Py Discussion"? That way people can post tutorials and other helpful posts as well as ask questions.

[PyTom]

From the other thread.

I think maybe somewhere beyond the outlining and basic character sketch stage would be good? That period is pretty easy and your motivation is high. If you can get passed that and start on the real work you will have a better chance of knowing what you are getting yourself into.

I kind of think that it needs to be further than that - to the point where you're showing usable art. The point here is to make people work harder to get our attention - since attention is a finite resource, we want as much of it as possible to go to people who have put in enough time to deserve it.

Apart from that, I like the sound of everything. Also I think we should encourage OPEN DEVELOPMENT (yes, here she goes again ). I think it should be very much encouraged for people to talk about process and actually show their development (whether with or without spoilers) to promote discussion, learning, feedback and interest. I really, really do think it would be a good thing for the community to share this kind of information.

Is there some way we can enforce this? Lock a thread if it goes for more than a couple of weeks without an update from the developer? I don't like that, but it's an option. Maybe if we aim for more of a creator culture, it will come naturally.

From Founder Emeritus Lemma over IM:

(10:56:26 PM) Lemma: I think it's time for this:
(10:56:34 PM) Lemma: someone floated something similar, but it's needed
(10:56:48 PM) Lemma: it may be good to have a newbie forum and an expert forum
(10:57:00 PM) Lemma: for the game making stuff

[Pugfarts]

All of these things sound just fine. Particularly the WIP board adjustments. Amateur game design is naturally flaky, so anything to combat the dandruff of abandoned ideas is a step forward.

EDIT

Is there some way we can enforce this? Lock a thread if it goes for more than a couple of weeks without an update from the developer? I don't like that, but it's an option. Maybe if we aim for more of a creator culture, it will come naturally.

NO. I have a lot of nice projects that I drop for months at a time and pick up again with renewed energy. The natural tide of the forum should push an inactive (but good) thread out of the way anyway.
Perhaps if there was a way to make the thread locked to anyone except the OP if he hasn't updated in a month or so, it could work, as that would prevent unnecessary necro-ing of a -possibly- dead thread. Dunno how possible that is though.

[Fawn]

Sounds good so far. But, I'm confused as to how the ideas thread would work, would it be an entire thread or a mini-sub-forum?

It may be a little off topic, but I have a suggestion for lowering the clutter of posts in the skill development/asset creation and Recruitment forums:

When new members post for the first few times, have an FAQ/"Tips" page pop up. Of course not everyone will read it, but, people who do will possibly get their answers without having to post an unnecessary question.

For the skill development/asset creation there could be a link to a larger FAQ page. I've wanted to make up an FAQ page for awhile since there's so many questions that get asked over and over again, such as "Do I need a tablet?" and even "How do I draw things?". The answers to the FAQs can have helpful links for people to educate themselves, such as past forum topics, tutorials, ect.

As for the Recruitment FAQ page, it would have a simple list of how/what to post. The biggest problem seems to be with people being too vague with their descriptions and/or not giving any samples of their work for people to judge, so it would be nice to have the page pop up before they post telling them how to get the best results. (I think this would work beneficial in general for all the other forums too, but, that may be a lot of work).

[Rewritten Ennui]

Creator's Corner

A place to discuss things that aren't specific to one creator or game.

Maybe we can rephrase this to be "A place to discuss tips and strategies to the creation of games that aren't project specific." The way it is now is too ambiguous and may lead some newbies to ask for code help in this section instead of the Ren'Py Questions and Announcements board.

So it's not enough to have a setting and a list of characters - to start a WIP thread, you should be able to explain what will happen to those characters. Maybe not in a huge amount of detail, but you should be able to convince the moderators that your story is going somewhere.

There's a fine line between detail and spoilers when telling people about what's going to happen in your game. I don't know how to solve this problem though...

To make it possible to manage the new WIP, and so we don't bite new creators, I'm suggesting we create the "Work In Progress Questionnaire". This would be something that each new WIP creator should fill in - so that the admins and community can learn about the work. If the creator can't full it in, either their game isn't mature enough to be discussed, or the game is too secret to be discussed in public.

Will a group of people check over this questionnaire, or will a thread be created if the questionnaire is finished? Still, I think this is a good idea to filter out the pipe dreams.

For now, I've cooled to the idea of splitting WiP, either on completeness (demo or not) or on content. I want to see what happens when we stick to actual Works in Progress, rather than ideas.

Some people may get through the loophole by posting up a very short demo. I think that there should be a minimum (2,000 words and basic sprites?) to be considered a demo.

Skill Development -> Asset Creation

This forum is devoted to improving the skills (art, writing, music, and others) required to create game assets.

I vote for individual sub-forums for each of those categories. As it is now, the Skill Development forum is littered with art topics that push down other threads. Splitting up each category will make it cleaner and stickies with a general FAQ+links could be posted without worry for too much clutter.

Ren'Py Questions and Announcements

Discuss how to use the Ren'Py engine to create visual novels and story-based games. New releases are announced in this section.

Like the Creator's Corner mandate, this is a little ambiguous. Reword it to be "Discuss how to program commands in the Ren'Py engine to create novels and story-based games. New releases are announced in this section." or something like that.

Development of Ren'Py

In this forum we discuss the future of Ren'Py, both bug fixes and longer-term development. Pre-releases are announced and discussed here.

Another thing to reword a little >_> "Discuss the future of the Ren'Py engine, bug fixes, and longer-term development. Pre-releases are announced and discussed here."

Other than that, these changes sound good. We need to be clear with what each section is about so as to not confuse anyone.

[sake-bento]

Is there some way we can enforce this? Lock a thread if it goes for more than a couple of weeks without an update from the developer? I don't like that, but it's an option. Maybe if we aim for more of a creator culture, it will come naturally.

NO. I have a lot of nice projects that I drop for months at a time and pick up again with renewed energy. The natural tide of the forum should push an inactive (but good) thread out of the way anyway.
Perhaps if there was a way to make the thread locked to anyone except the OP if he hasn't updated in a month or so, it could work, as that would prevent unnecessary necro-ing of a -possibly- dead thread. Dunno how possible that is though.

Another vote here for leaving threads unlocked. As we haven't had a significant amount of trouble with necro posts (short of spambots), I don't think this is necessary at the moment.

[Auro-Cyanide]

From the other thread.

I think maybe somewhere beyond the outlining and basic character sketch stage would be good? That period is pretty easy and your motivation is high. If you can get passed that and start on the real work you will have a better chance of knowing what you are getting yourself into.

I kind of think that it needs to be further than that - to the point where you're showing usable art. The point here is to make people work harder to get our attention - since attention is a finite resource, we want as much of it as possible to go to people who have put in enough time to deserve it.

Possibly, and you can probably create numbers to quantify it (I was trying to be, ah, softish?). The thing is, if you don't have enough to post, so what? You just have to go work on your game like you should be. It gives you a goal. This would be hard for someone like me (who is an artist and not a programmer) to reach that point, but it isn't a bad thing. You need to have a grasp of what goes into game making before you create a WiP in my opinion. Outlines and sketches do not give you a taste of that.

Apart from that, I like the sound of everything. Also I think we should encourage OPEN DEVELOPMENT (yes, here she goes again ). I think it should be very much encouraged for people to talk about process and actually show their development (whether with or without spoilers) to promote discussion, learning, feedback and interest. I really, really do think it would be a good thing for the community to share this kind of information.

Is there some way we can enforce this? Lock a thread if it goes for more than a couple of weeks without an update from the developer? I don't like that, but it's an option. Maybe if we aim for more of a creator culture, it will come naturally.

I don't think it's something to be enforced, just something to be encouraged. Sometimes stuff will happen which would mean someone can't work on their project, so kicking them out seems harsh. But I highly support encouraging the culture. I try to post screenshots of my processes and describe what and why I do certain things, as well as asking questions because I think it's good to share those things. Plus, it gives people insight and gives them something to be interested in.

From Founder Emeritus Lemma over IM:

(10:56:26 PM) Lemma: I think it's time for this:
(10:56:34 PM) Lemma: someone floated something similar, but it's needed
(10:56:48 PM) Lemma: it may be good to have a newbie forum and an expert forum
(10:57:00 PM) Lemma: for the game making stuff

Ah yes. Many of these mandates have been addressing the concerns I have been having, so I'm curious to see what happens and what needs to change. Everything is kind of snowballing at the moment, so only time will tell what we will end up with XD

[Rewritten Ennui]

Is there some way we can enforce this? Lock a thread if it goes for more than a couple of weeks without an update from the developer? I don't like that, but it's an option. Maybe if we aim for more of a creator culture, it will come naturally.

NO. I have a lot of nice projects that I drop for months at a time and pick up again with renewed energy. The natural tide of the forum should push an inactive (but good) thread out of the way anyway.
Perhaps if there was a way to make the thread locked to anyone except the OP if he hasn't updated in a month or so, it could work, as that would prevent unnecessary necro-ing of a -possibly- dead thread. Dunno how possible that is though.

Another vote here for leaving threads unlocked. As we haven't had a significant amount of trouble with necro posts (short of spambots), I don't think this is necessary at the moment.

Actually, I've noticed a couple of inactive projects that were revived thanks to a curious poster who asked a question like "When is this coming out?" or "Great work owo b Can't wait for it to be done!" I even saw an instance of when a completed game had its WIP thread bumped up because of a new user commenting on how she and a friend enjoyed it. Not sure what we could do about inactive projects, as a creator may come back to it after a hiatus, but I say that completed games have their WIP threads locked. No one should have too many qualms with this, I think.

[Pugfarts]

Gawd you people are thinking of some strict guidelines for WIP threads. If we enacted any of these now I'd have to move mine to IDEAS. That's embarrassing.
I thought by questionnaire Tom meant 'fun worksheet that shows you actually have a work in progress' not 'draconian guidelines to make you feel dumb for not having enough words in your game because you're spending so much time getting the DSE to bend to your will'


I think questions like 'what part of your game are you working on right now? When do you expect to finish that part?' are nice.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Gawd you people are thinking of some strict guidelines for WIP threads. If we enacted any of these now I'd have to move mine to IDEAS. That's embarrassing.
I thought by questionnaire Tom meant 'fun worksheet that shows you actually have a work in progress' not 'draconian guidelines to make you feel dumb for not having enough words in your game because you're spending so much time getting the DSE to bend to your will'


I think questions like 'what part of your game are you working on right now? When do you expect to finish that part?' are nice.

You have a demo, an outline and working sprites ^_^' I don't think you have anything to worry about. You have tried and succeed to make things work and so you have an idea of what's going on. Having an outline and sketches only means you are not at the stage yet to know how thing are going to work. And like I said, having to wait a bit and actually produce work is hardly a bad thing in most cases. Flexibility is something I can support for the rules, but standards for everyone equally is needed too.

[Pugfarts]

You have a demo, an outline and working sprites ^_^' I don't think you have anything to worry about. You have tried and succeed to make things work and so you have an idea of what's going on. Having an outline and sketches only means you are not at the stage yet to know how thing are going to work. And like I said, having to wait a bit and actually produce work is hardly a bad thing in most cases. Flexibility is something I can support for the rules, but standards for everyone equally is needed too.

Yah, I'm all for stricter standards. I just wanted to sound important and debate with everyone else.

Being able to produce a few example screens (even using dummy art) is a good standard because it shows that not only is the person working on the game, but they have some semblance of understanding regarding using renpy or whatever other program they need to learn.