Expanding the Community (was: Unique Opportunity)

[Auro-Cyanide]

I agree that the amount of artists will rise with the popularity of VN's (and seems to have already recently) and the quality will also go up. Given that there will also be a lot more writers, but I suppose the increased competition will also cause for greater quality VNs, which should be a good thing. I look forward to it anyway.

Group work is always going to be difficult to some extent, given personalities, skill levels etc. I don't think it is a simple case of an artist learning to write or a writer learning to draw though. Not only would that be extremely difficult, it also doesn't solve the time consuming issue of one person trying to do two jobs. Though it could and has been done.

It's probably people's egos mostly. It is really hard to both be engaged with a story but still be willing to give up ideas. It has to be done for the greater good of the story I suppose, and would be pretty healthy as long as there is give and take on all sides. But I would still find it hard to give up things. I presume it is the same for many other people.

As for the number of artists willing to work for free... I don't think it will change a great deal. It will go up somewhat, but the number of decent artist is going to remain low compared to the rest of the community. The main reasons would be the lower chance of being able to work on their own stuff in comparison to comics, the share amount of work and the length of the commitment. Basically they are too hard and too long. The main thing would be to try and keep motivated since it is so long. Groups that can encourage and socialise with each other is most beneficial in these cases. It is nice being able to show stuff to people and for them to understand it.

I think I will have to consider writers a bit more now. I have tended to glaze over a lot of stories simply because I have read so many bad plots that people want to find artists for. I may pay a bit more attention now. I would love to find a story I could give my heart to and become a part of in the future, simply because I love to tell stories.

[Jo'ogn]

I had triggered a somewhat similar discussion a while ago here on LSF from the "co-working or helping in production without payment" POV. They main argument against 'helping others out' generally boilt down to: "If it's not mine, I am not interested to help/work on it! Unless I'd be paid."

I consider this POV just outright 'unprofessional'. An unwillingness, or even inability to co-operate with others to create sth together is, put plainly, asocial. It's less a matter of "if it's not mine I am not interested", but "do I have the discipline to co-work on a project and do it till the end". Granted, if I do not 'resonate' with another artist at all it can't be helped. And if I don't like a project I not going to volunteer to begin with! Still ppl often volunteer and then let projects down. Why?

Especially aspiring teenage artists will sooner or later realise, that (very likely) ~nothing~ is going change if they are getting paid for their work, because they might still not like the project. Others will mess with their concepts/work, tell them what to do/change and that they'll be fired if they can't.

Remember that, in the end, you are creating something together and, whoever provides the story, you both put a lot of effort into creating the final product. The key is cooperative action and interest in the project as a team.

Quite! It seems in the money driven (capitalisic) societies humans are taught to compete rather then to co-operate. Which is sort of counter-productive as most things in this world can only be created through co-operation anyway. For me as an artists it's more a like an 'artistic honour', than being a 'commercial prostitute'.

[IceD]

This is an interesting topic, indeed.

Both Deji and Kinou gave some preety good points, but I think we're still forgetting one thing - VN's are a nieche in the western world. This is the true problem and it means that only a small group of people knows about them to a correct, certain point and even less will be potential developers and even less more will be willing to contribute or work on them. This is something not easy to pass by, there's only one solution - hard work from the community; The best way to fight with that is to approximate visual novels as a certain medium to a wider audience, but this of course brings even more problems. We have to have that in mind, by going further we will face the ground of cultural difference which piles up the bad things even more.

Kinou - the problem doesn't solely lie in art style or rather art "technique" which would be a more proper meaning towards the subject you're trying to bring up. It lies in the ways a VN shows itself on many levels and that means not only art, but also writing, story concept and idea, worldbuilding, interesting and deeply developed characters (by interesting I mean both their looks and minds), music and voice overs (sound in general), as well as the process of game developement itself, contribution of creators both to the scene and their personal ground (frequent site updates, community involvement, fan encouragement and so on) and those are only a few of things. You're not an artist, you're not a writer or musican - forget about it. You have to think of yourself as an creator. Don't make limits to yourself. That's were the problems start - most of devs or rather "contributors" as I call them (people usually mistake those words, a developer is something more than a person that just "does" stuff for something or someone) think they'll just "drop the needed stuff and won't bother anymore about anything". That's not a solution. I've already seen and meet tons of people that work like that. My sister also works like that. This is bad, it's really BAD. It's even more evil when it goes along with money - "They pay me, I do the stuff and finito". NO. People have to be involved in the work, in the project.

You know why most projects die even before they reached a pre-alpha stage? Because of three things - Lack of skills (overestimation), lack of motivation and simply lack of involvement. They work on it, but in truth aren't really interested in what they do, to put it bluntly - they aren't treating what they do seriously. Even if it is only a hobby you do in a spare time, you have to treat it seriously, because it's the only way to go. You have to be involved, the project has to have this something, that makes you "itching" to do it, to spend every minute of your dear life on it. You just see the scene, have an idea and want to write/draw/create it so badly, you can't sleep because it makes you think if you won't make it NOW, it won't be ever the same. That's the spirit, and I don't think many people have such attitude. They are rather bored, and just tag along to the team, because they have the skills (although, by going like that they precisely show they aren't able to use them in a correct manner, simply wasting them), they have a lot of free time (which is a myth - no one has "free" time nowadays, they are just bored with their lifes) or because their friends asked them/told them to do that and they agreed to" help".

To sum up - People won't be good contributors, if something they work on won't be interesting enough for them, and that is the most common and simple problem. We are getting to the crux of the matter - why won't they be interested in working on it as they should be, or aren't getting simply mad to work on it? BECAUSE YOUR PROJECT IS BORING. THE SAME (PROPABLY) GOES WITH YOUR DEV TEAM. With our work, it is something that has been told and shown thousands of times in the same way, and by that I'm talking about visual novels. Honestly it was, in far more better way than ours. I'll be harsh from here on - STOP MAKING DAMN DATING SIMS! Visual novel is a type of japanese work/art medium, not a dating simulator. It is used to tell a GREAT story via the pc with use of art, text, sounds and music, along with gaming elements for more fun or it should... Every story has a romance in it, every. Even those that aren't focusing on this subject have it. Always, when there's a man and a woman there will be a love conflict beetwen these characters, even if it means there will be just curious glances or unresolved sexual tention (for example: a story about young rebel soldiers would propably be like that - pure war, pure action, no lovey dovey stuff but still, feelings and emotions will be all around them). But it doesn't mean if you're making a visual novel out of it, it instantly has to become a romance and end with them going together to bed. This is the mistake most of us does, and we (mean westerners) don't like such kind of stuff, when it comes together known as a visual novel. If you're making pure romance stories, then it's ok, but don't FORCE pure dating sim/romance elements on every story. Don't make pseudo-eroge from every each one of them.

What I'm trying to tell, is that our western developers are trying to mimic japanese developers to much, and don't take the expectations of western audience into account. They're trying to port visual novel media "as they are" in Japan, which won't work because our market varies from their to much. We have to treat visual novels more as books. Everything lies in great story. GREAT STORY. This means you can still write about anything, but you have to write it simply good, or amuse people with your work - create a fictional world full of life, interesting characters and conflicts beetwen them. People simply love a thing that they can immerse themselves in with no end. A good story is a story where you even don't know how much time did you spend reading, or even more - when everything came to an end. You won't create that by simply writing "a story" with "some characters" placed particulary nowhere, or "everywhere". People like to know the world the work is based on fiction, to the extent it's different from our own - it gives them a good feeling beetwen whats real and what's not, and also, gives more pleasure from reading because we have a place we can escape to, if we need to. I know that only few are able to make that. I'm not afraid to tell that very, very few us of here would be able to pull such feat from the beggining to an end with finished game. it's more like large part of the community (including many newbies) likes to dream alot (the "pleasured" WIP threads ), but doesn't have "what it takes" to pull out something more than just a vague idea. I'm not perfect either - I'm undecided, lack many skills or aren't that good in them and lack the strength to go on, but I still develop my ideas and I am trying to achieve something, those few are only able to. I have pasion towards my dreams and I'll make them come true. Sadly, I'm a perfectionist, that's why it will take time. But mind, that there's always time. Ideas are everywhere; they aren't "cool", they aren't "great" either. If you think that your idea is something that suprasses everything around - the ultimate rule of cool, you're propably just an egoist, or even more - a big dork. If you think, your work is as great as NGE or GITS, you're wrong. You won't create anything purely fresh either, there's a vague propability of that. Most of things, concepts and tropes were already used to such extent they became plain boring. So it's hard to amuse people nowadays, but it's still possible. How? Learn how to reuse things and retell them, along with your originality; pour yourself into them and your work. There's no workaround for that. Well there is, but we don't want to create plain and borings things, right? The problem is, we do it, here and everywhere else, all the time.

Of course, there's also a team. God bless perfect devs with a soul of renaissance, but not everyone is perfect. That's why we use to team up, but it's really hard to make a good team, involved with what it does. I think that 4LS are a good example of how it can be done properly - they're not perfect, they aren't that good either but were able to come to the point only few reach, and they've done it, all together. And they have both pleasure and fun of it, and it's great to see that. I wish more people would have that passion and were able to create such dev teams. Kinou - your team is also in similiar way and I admire that, keep up the good work with that

In terms of "what could be done", for our community to develop everything would be simple if we just could get some "fresh blood" into our veins. A good fresh blood. Sinto is one of such people. I never thought I would see such a great artist with large contribution, especially from DA. Look at his work - isn't it cool, isn't it original, isn't it beautiful? Cause I don't see a problem in it, not being anime-style in terms of art. This means it can be done that way, and it's not impossible to achieve either. The best for us now would be propably just to work harder - give all what it takes, and try to encourage more people into visual novel medium, which might be alot more harder to achieve. But we have to try, if we want to expand.

So, one more time - stop thinking like a japanese dev. Think yourself. Think about what types of thing interest people around you, and the english speaking, western community around you. Try to bring up more interesting stories, not just ranting or mixed up rip-offs of everything you saw, wathed and played. Use your imagination. You can give a try and go back to your early years of childhood - maybe there's a hidden gem somewhere? You have something you're passionate, about right? If it's something, you're certain of and what makes you comfortable to write/create about, what not making it the core of your story? Please, try to do so.

[Jo'ogn]

in truth [they] aren't really interested in what they do, to put it bluntly - they aren't treating what they do seriously. Even if it is only a hobby you do in a spare time, you have to treat it seriously

I believe especially because it ~is~ a hobby for me, I can put more passion (which is what shines through between your lines \^_^/ ) into my creations, because as it's not commercial I can make it more the way 'I want it to be' and less 'how it should be' to be 'commercially successful enough'. Which in turn is the reason productions keep copying each others ideas, in hope they might make more 'money' out of it. But 'money' is not the main motivation of an passionate artist. It's the passion for the creation itself... And if there is no passion, there is likely no motivation, nor involvement, nor creativity, nor innovation...

And if passion can be fused with a (generous) budget into a successfully selling creation, one has managed to break the 'dreary spell of boring working life'! =D

[jack_norton]

I think Deji's art is quite good...Is true that she does mostly "cute" stuff, but I'd say that's not necessarily bad
When I posted the Flower Shop screens on indiegamer, I got tons of PM immediately asking her email because they wanted to hire her (then of course I don't know how many actually contacted her).

[kinougames]

You can always go CLAMP and kill everybody in a nasty way in the end <3

But that's equally cheating!

The likes of sinto or the art goddesses of kinougames haven't engaged the medium yet.

Awww, you're so sweet. ^^;

Come share some of that music and story editing skill!

The writer situation tends to be a little hypocritical at times. I don't think it is intentional at all, just the way it works out. Many writers have big story ideas that they need artists to realise visually (you only have to look at dA's project forum), but there are not many writers who would be willing to give up their time to fulfil an artists idea for a story.

In the same vein, how much paid work do you see for writers? On average? I don't see any at all. And yet there are always a million paid offers for artists, even if they are bad offers. But people expect writers to work for free, and will pay much, much less for the same time and care of a writer than of an artist.

Kinou - the problem doesn't solely lie in art style or rather art "technique" which would be a more proper meaning towards the subject you're trying to bring up.

I meant style, and in no way was I implying that this was the only problem. A lot of my motivation for doing a VN on a pro level with dark themes is because lemma had none when I got here.

Even if it is only a hobby you do in a spare time, you have to treat it seriously, because it's the only way to go. You have to be involved, the project has to have this something, that makes you "itching" to do it, to spend every minute of your dear life on it.

People who want to do hobbies in the way they want them are free to. I'm not going to be tell someone "they're doing their hobby wrong". Hobbyists in general are there for themselves. Not for you, not for me. If they want to half make a game, by all means, and nothing should stop them.

But it doesn't mean if you're making a visual novel out of it, it instantly has to become a romance and end with them going together to bed. This is the mistake most of us does, and we (mean westerners) don't like such kind of stuff, when it comes together known as a visual novel. If you're making pure romance stories, then it's ok, but don't FORCE pure dating sim/romance elements on every story. Don't make pseudo-eroge from every each one of them.

I'm extremely unsure of where you got the idea that every game "we" (and please do not speak for me, because I happen to like my smut in a good plot, and so do the other westerners I work with) don't like romance/ero. Maybe in your part of town, but in that case, speak only for the people you know. I know a LOT of Poles since one of our artists is a Pole, and their whole group loves eroge/romance.

[Jake]

There is also a chance the artists may just dismiss the genre as weeaboo japanese high school dating sims (that may or may not contain porn) and don't want to get involved in making such a thing.

For the record - I didn't expand upon it because it seemed rather off-topic for the original thread this one was spawned from, but this is one side of what I was thinking. The other is that, as hard as it might be to remember now we're already on this forum, a lot of people just don't know what a VN is, specifically, or that there are engines available to make the creation of a VN easy.

They've quite possibly seen or heard references to them and maybe they read choose-your-own-adventure books or played Phoenix Wright or Cing games on their DS, but most people won't think "oh, I can draw therefore I can make a videogame where drawings are a significant part of the action", they'll think "oh, I can draw but making videogames means I need to be able to program and programming is haaaarrrrd".

There's every chance that a lot of excellent artists are completely unaware of VNs - and they might well have seen articles on Re:Alistair and just dismissed it because the art isn't up to their personal standards or because they've seen a million and one manga-inspired pictures and don't like them, or seen reviews of Jisei or Flower Shop and ignored them for the same reasons.

I don't think you can really force people outside of the VN fandom to be interested in the EVN scene. Remember Dan Kim using the Blade Engine to make a short VN? How come I never heard what happened after that?

Just to clarify: Dan Kim definitely was interested in VNs before he started work on using the Blade Engine. He introduced a lot of people on his forum to the medium when the translation of Narcissu came out, and he's explained in the past that he called it 'Kanami' as a reference to Kana. I think the reason you haven't seen any more of that particular VN is because he's not very good at sticking to projects he doesn't believe in, and he's more comfortable with comics than prose writing... and everyone underestimates the work required to make a VN before they actually start it. (And as it goes, he did release a first-chapter demo a long while ago. I think you're right that the project has been unofficially dropped, though.)

On the other hand, I vaguely remember having a conversation with him a while ago about why he chose Blade and not Ren'Py; it seems to me that Ren'Py is a lot easier to work in. I could be wrong, because it was a long time ago, but I have the notion that he basically said something like "Blade is good enough for me, and anyway, I wasn't impressed by most of the Ren'Py games I saw". Which would fit with the worry I outline above; Blade had a pretty good demo when they first launched.

I think Deji's art is quite good...Is true that she does mostly "cute" stuff, but I'd say that's not necessarily bad :)

It's certainly best for an artist to work in a style that they actually like! I think the reason Deji's stuff gets brought up in this kind of conversation isn't because it's bad - it definitely isn't - but because she has a large following on this forum who exalt her beyond reason. She's not a primadonna (if you'll excuse the Italian abuse) if you actually talk to her, but the reception she gets half the time on Lemmasoft could give you that impression!

In the same vein, how much paid work do you see for writers?

As has been said before on this forum, possibly also by you - everyone thinks they can write, most people think they can't draw. Creative writing is taught in schools and art isn't always. Looking at a piece of art takes a few seconds to form an initial impression, and looking at a piece of writing can take hours; therefore, it's easier to get other people to look at your art than your writing and thus easier to find comments that will bring you back down to earth and convince you that art is hard. A large portion of the population don't read books so much as they watch crappy mass-produced TV where scriptwriting is given only lip service.

All this adds up to a situation where - incorrectly - it's assumed that art is harder than writing and good artists are rarer than good writers... where in fact, the reverse is probably true. And it's led to the situation where people are more accustomed and capable of judging art than writing, and often will be able to notice problems with pictures but couldn't tell the difference between good and mediocre writing to save their lives, because they're so accustomed to the latter.

I'm extremely unsure of where you got the idea that every game "we" (and please do not speak for me, because I happen to like my smut in a good plot, and so do the other westerners I work with) don't like romance/ero. Maybe in your part of town, but in that case, speak only for the people you know. I know a LOT of Poles since one of our artists is a Pole, and their whole group loves eroge/romance.

Hm. I'm pretty sure that all he's trying to say is that western culture often dismisses romance as "kid's stuff" or "girl's stuff", and if it's dealt with (for example) on prime-time TV it's often couched in comedy (c.f. Friends, Coupling) or Other Drama (c.f. most drama series) to make it more acceptable to people - the set of straight-up romance-driven TV programmes basically just consist of soaps, which are looked down upon for many other reasons (many of which are perfectly good). There are lots of romance books, but they are marketed to a very specific audience and - well, books are something you enjoy in private, on the whole, and don't always talk to your colleagues at work about around the water cooler.

He's not saying "stop making romance VNs at all", he's saying "stop assuming the default mode of a VN is romance and it's not complete without a set of romantic-interests to chase after". This is something that puts a lot of people off VNs. In fact, I'd say it's the second biggest negative stereotype I've encountered; right after "oh, they're all Japanese porn, right?" comes "oh, aren't they all just romance simulators for people too sad to get a real [girl/boy]friend?".

People who are on this forum right now are never going to be in the set of people he's talking about, because we're here. We've either learned to put up with it or actually like it. But if we want to expand the community significantly, I think he's right that shaking off the stereotype that all VNs are porn or romance would help.

[IceD]

I believe especially because it ~is~ a hobby for me, I can put more passion (which is what shines through between your lines \^_^/ ) into my creations, because as it's not commercial I can make it more the way 'I want it to be' and less 'how it should be' to be 'commercially successful enough'. ... And if passion can be fused with a (generous) budget into a successfully selling creation, one has managed to break the 'dreary spell of boring working life'! =D

Yes, that's it! Now, if we could only somehow manage to deal with our own lives and make games as a hobby, being also money-independent, that would be pure Arcadia To bad, it's almost an impossible dream to achieve, mainly because: more work = less or almost none free time to spare

I think Deji's art is quite good...Is true that she does mostly "cute" stuff, but I'd say that's not necessarily bad

I also agree on that, which doesn't mean she isn't able to do other great things - http://twitpic.com/2yn0cw is a perfect sample of that and I hope to see more of it in future works I'd say I'm also somehow looking for a possibility to work with her in the future

People who want to do hobbies in the way they want them are free to. I'm not going to be tell someone "they're doing their hobby wrong". Hobbyists in general are there for themselves. Not for you, not for me. If they want to half make a game, by all means, and nothing should stop them.

Of course! But there comes the time, when one has to decide if he wants to make his dreams come true. You won't achieve that by just "playing" around and some people treat it like that. Serious stuff needs serious work - you can't achieve anything only fooling around, you have to make that decision - "Is it just a time filler for me, or do I really want to make that game?". If your hobby is game making/developement and you treat your hobby as a time filler, you'll propably never finish anything. That's what I was talking about, and it comes from my own experience. I don't know, maybe I'm too serious, but that's just how things are. That doesn't mean I'm personally saying that they shouldn't be doing something as their hobby - everyone has the right to do, what he wants and you're right here.

I'm extremely unsure of where you got the idea that every game "we" (and please do not speak for me, because I happen to like my smut in a good plot, and so do the other westerners I work with) don't like romance/ero. Maybe in your part of town, but in that case, speak only for the people you know. I know a LOT of Poles since one of our artists is a Pole, and their whole group loves eroge/romance.

Propably I expressed myself wrong here. I'M NOT AGAINST PORN IN GAMES. What I say, that in general western world is against how it is depicted in most of japanese visual novels - that's one of the hugest barriers. Many people here try to mimic original japanese visual novels too much, and by that anyone that mimicks them heavily makes a mistake. It won't work that way, trust me. There won't be much of interest and the only response to count on will be from hardcore vn gamers and anime/manga fans. What I was talking is, you're not creating a game were erotic content is one of the most important parts of it, right? If so, then it's allright. If not, I highly encourage to take another route. There can be porn, erotic content and romance (more likely, because there's still almost nothing being made here, that would resemble a real eroge), but what we need here is less romance centered tales and more story driven visual novels. I've spent enough time doing research on that field, both in my country and in english speaking audience in general to hold my opinion hard, and while people like/love romance (again, I'm not against it (more over, like it very much myself), just don't make it the main reason why the game exists), most of them don't care and wider audience would like more great storytelling other than usual romancing. That's all. You don't have to agree with that and all in all, there are many ways to go

[kinougames]

As has been said before on this forum, possibly also by you - everyone thinks they can write, most people think they can't draw. Creative writing is taught in schools and art isn't always. Looking at a piece of art takes a few seconds to form an initial impression, and looking at a piece of writing can take hours; therefore, it's easier to get other people to look at your art than your writing and thus easier to find comments that will bring you back down to earth and convince you that art is hard. A large portion of the population don't read books so much as they watch crappy mass-produced TV where scriptwriting is given only lip service.

All this adds up to a situation where - incorrectly - it's assumed that art is harder than writing and good artists are rarer than good writers... where in fact, the reverse is probably true. And it's led to the situation where people are more accustomed and capable of judging art than writing, and often will be able to notice problems with pictures but couldn't tell the difference between good and mediocre writing to save their lives, because they're so accustomed to the latter.

I did make the comments on how people think they can write more often than people think they can draw. That was sort of my point, even, in that, while it is possible that "writers seems to always want artists for free", artists won't even bother to look for writers and if they do, won't offer them but crap in payment and assume the same thing that people will assume about artists...that they should be glad to have their name slapped on something in the credits.

Basically, the groups mistreat each other, but to date, I've found more work doing art than writing; exponential amounts more.

Propably I expressed myself wrong here. I'M NOT AGAINST PORN IN GAMES. What I say, that in general western world is against how it is depicted in most of japanese visual novels - that's one of the hugest barriers. Many people here try to mimic original japanese visual novels too much, and by that anyone that mimicks them heavily makes a mistake. It won't work that way, trust me. There won't be much of interest and the only response to count on will be from hardcore vn gamers and anime/manga fans. What I was talking is, you're not creating a game were erotic content is one of the most important parts of it, right? If so, then it's allright.

In this case...the hentai forums here are usually extremely dead, so I'm also not sure of where you're getting the idea that porn games OELVNs are that common and overrunning...

[Jake]

There can be porn, erotic content and romance (more likely, because there's still almost nothing being made here, that would resemble a real eroge), but what we need here is less romance centered tales and more story driven visual novels.

(emphasis mine)

I'm also not sure of where you're getting the idea that porn games OELVNs are that common and overrunning...

And I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that he's suggesting that at all.

Unless you're equating 'romance' with 'porn'?

[Deji]

You know, it would be nice that, instead of the typical "writer looking for artist" and "artist for hire!" threads, we could see "Artist looking for writer" and "Writer for hire!" instead.
I'm under the impression that it'd lure some artists into making more VNs, even if just to know the media and get involved and participate in bigger/better projects. Artists usually have lots of ideas and/or concepts just floating in their heads or on the pages of their sketchbooks, but they just don't know how to make them work or are afraid they don't have enough skills to make a complete work out of them themselves and they either never see the light of day or take forever for the artist to gather either the skills or the self-confidence to do something with them.

Edit: I remember I was pleasantly surprised sometime ago that Mikan posted a thread looking for writers for her story. Reading her blog, t seems that didn't work for her, though D:

At some point, after I lost two writers, I had drafted a post where I asked for a writer to make a collaborative short story with me, because I wasn't willing to commit to a huge-epic-size-neverending-term project that I was not emotionally involved with (that slot is already taken, I don't want any other long term project >>; ) and I wanted to actually get a VN done.
Luckily for me, Ayu showed up just before I posted it, and we teamed up C:
I'm still trying to learn how to write decently, though xD I have too many random ideas and I wouldn't like to always depend on others to be able to make something out of them.

[LordShiranai]

Aww, poor programmers. I feel a bit sorry for them actually, they seem to get a bit forgotten and nothing would really happen without them.

I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek. In reality, a programmer, like anyone else is generally not going to work for free in a project that doesn't interest them or solve a problem for them. They are just as choosy about what they work on in their "free time" as anyone else in that respect.

There is a lot of valuable, insightful information in this thread. I think this is a very good discussion because it does point out one key thing is that for a project with multiple people involved to work out, people do need a motivation to put aside their egos. Sometimes that motivation is that everyone is excited about the project they are working on. This is the ideal scenario, especially for creative works. Other times the motivation is, sadly, that they're getting paid.

Another key point is that the project needs to be interesting for everyone involved. You aren't going to produce your best work if you don't like what you're working on.

[Auro-Cyanide]

You know, it would be nice that, instead of the typical "writer looking for artist" and "artist for hire!" threads, we could see "Artist looking for writer" and "Writer for hire!" instead.
I'm under the impression that it'd lure some artists into making more VNs, even if just to know the media and get involved and participate in bigger/better projects. Artists usually have lots of ideas and/or concepts just floating in their heads or on the pages of their sketchbooks, but they just don't know how to make them work or are afraid they don't have enough skills to make a complete work out of them themselves and they either never see the light of day or take forever for the artist to gather either the skills or the self-confidence to do something with them.

Edit: I remember I was pleasantly surprised sometime ago that Mikan posted a thread looking for writers for her story. Reading her blog, t seems that didn't work for her, though D:

At some point, after I lost two writers, I had drafted a post where I asked for a writer to make a collaborative short story with me, because I wasn't willing to commit to a huge-epic-size-neverending-term project that I was not emotionally involved with (that slot is already taken, I don't want any other long term project >>; ) and I wanted to actually get a VN done.
Luckily for me, Ayu showed up just before I posted it, and we teamed up C:
I'm still trying to learn how to write decently, though xD I have too many random ideas and I wouldn't like to always depend on others to be able to make something out of them.

YES!! This is it. This is how I feel about it (said in a much more concise way then I was doing -_-) I would like to look for writers one day. I have story ideas but there are massive plot wholes not to mention much to be improved on. They are just random concepts at the moment and I doubt my writing abilities at the current moment to do something about it.

I appreciate writers and know their skills are just as hard to get as art skills. It is true that it is easier to get attention with art, humans are essentially visual creatures and visual language is apart of our instincts. Writing will forever be artificial in comparison because of it's abstract nature. So many writers get over looked or taken for granted, as well as a great many people thinking just anyone can write well. Still, I was once of the naive opinion that people would still be able to recognise good writing. Then Twilight became popular and that ideal was crushed forever. When I mentioned the hypercritical circumstances of writers looking for artists, I was making it as a statement if both parties work for free. I can imagine it is indeed very difficult to get work as a writer due to the difficulty in gauging skill and the 'everyone's a writer' syndrome.

And I will forever respect programmers cause I just don't get it. I've looked at it multiple times and it just confuses me T^T I will stick to my little art corner and let the people who know what they are doing deal with the gibberish (coding).

The limited fan base of VNs is a major problem. I didn't even know this forum existed until recently, and I was even quite aware of VN's as a visual medium, as well as being interested in Japanese media culture. Maybe the VN fanbase needs to be more active outside of it's areas? Like on dA for example, where a great deal of artists hang out, or even similar subcultures like comics, especially web and flash comics.

[Deji]

I have no idea how many people watch my deviantART account lately (I've been so inactive lately >>; ), but I just posted a journal there plugging the forum.
Maybe some people will come here and see something interesting and want to participate in projects?
I also encouraged artists to look for writers here, maybe some writer can find an interesting idea from a newcomer they'd like to write?

Even if just a wave of in-development artists come around, some fresh blood wanting to do things is always good, I think.

Maybe other artists/developers could also plug the community on their dA accounts or any other community/gallery account they have?

[Auro-Cyanide]

Good Idea. I will do so as well (though I don't have nearly the reach you have, but I can't say stuff and not do anything after all~)

I am weeks away from completing uni and I dearly hope I will have some free time to work on VNs (especially the one I am on now). I would like to become more involved with the community. It is such a nice place and the medium is soooo interesting.