Sorry for the slightly 24+ hour break, I had a lot of unexpected personal things to attend to.
I'd like to start by prefacing this with the fact that unless I've said something directly, don't attribute it to me. E.g. I've said repeatedly I enjoy the creation of and playing of needle games, so when Katz says "we, personally, hate repetition", it's untrue: my point is not that repetition is bad, but that innovation is exciting and shouldn't be discouraged. I even specifically said that I don't view one as inherently better or worse than the other. It would be appreciated if a). people stopped talking for me and b). my opinion and argument was no longer conflated with someone entirely separate's.
More or less Kyir the problem is you keep trying to invalidate my argument without actually discussing the topic itself. You've repeatedly accused me of personal attacks, when the only thing I've said resembling one was the jump refresher comment. Which, yes was underhanded and non-conducive to discussion - I hope you realise I meant it more lightly than you appear to have taken it. It's time to stop playing the personal attack card like it invalidates anything I've said. As for the whole "demand" situation, you again are trying to strawman my argument. The word I used repeatedly, and purposefully, was "encourage", which nowhere in the English language will you find is anywhere near the word "demand". Yes they are both verbs used when talking about trying to instigate change, you are correct, but one is forceful, which you were not, and the other is about cultivation. So maybe we should stop playing that card as well.
As for the over-reaction to my comment about a culture of suppressing originality, lets get a few things straight: I do not mean exclusively this forum, I mean both forums (the Kayin one I have spent more time on) and the community I have met personally through social media, and I do not mean to imply it is something that the majority of people do, merely that there is or has been a trend of it (dating back as far as I can remember 6 years or so ago) in the past from small groups of people within the community (again community meaning both forums and all skype groups I have been a part of, which I know isn't everyone as there are Korean/Japanese communities but I'm not a part of them; though I could make a case for them as well after the whole IWKTG assets incident). Maybe you've conflated my comments about the majority of people here enjoying traditionalism most and there being a persuasion out of originality, so perhaps I should have worded it more lightly to show that these groups of people are not the same in my mind. It's honestly something that has broken down over time and it's not a massive problem anymore but it is something I still see around. It's not a new problem, it's an old annoyance. Also, I never once said you don't have access to the inside of the community, Kyir.
It should be noted that this argument is bigger than your comment Kyir, though it was prompted by things you said. It wasn't your original statement that spurred on the discussion it was your second one where you defended your original statement and argued Katz' statement (which I don't 100% agree with either) by saying that largely innovation isn't really what most people want, they just want a solid traditional game over "ten million new gimmicks". My problem with this statement, is what I've repeatedly said: it doesn't matter what the people want as people should be free to create the games they want to create, they do not have to cater to the public opinion. Obviously this is a grey area as I do not believe in censorship of criticism, but I do think we have a personal responsibility when taking on the role of a critic to understand which of our points are helpful and constructive, and which are dangerous/useless. The point I'm making is that encouraging,
not demanding, someone to change their artistic direction is as useless as asking Needle game creators to not use spikes, or Avoidance creators not to use vocaloid music. I don't think saying something like "this section is much to hard, in order for it to be more enjoyable it should be nerfed" is trying to change artistic direction, because it's a change within the boundaries of the game, but when you are saying you wish a game had an entirely different focus/structure completely, that is asking an entire project to be different. Granted you hoped the next project would be more traditional and not the current one, but the problem still stands that were dissuading Yoburg away from innovation which on principle I disagree with because, as you have noted, traditionalism is far more popular than experimentation and therefore innovation should be cultivated and not dissuaded. I was not trying to imply that your words were so damaging that now Yoburg will never make another fun fangame, or anything like that either.
Wow this got heated :o
To add some more opinion on that, I don't really think the reason you put out as to why people make games... or stuff in general is really universal, some people might really make it just for themselves, but then criticism isn't even that accepted by them because they're not making it for people to like, others make entirely for the purpose of making something popular and I think most people are a midway meeting between those 2.
Also this community really doesn't try to sugarcoat criticism at all, but in general I think the criticism about experimental gimmicks is the application of or the idea itself, but not the fact that the maker experimented, even if you say the game is absolute garbage and the gimmicks are terrible, that doesn't necessarily mean you're discouraging the experimentation itself, and I don't think that happens much here, although we are picky about the physics in the fangames when they're different, usually.
Certainly we don't know the precise amalgamation of reasons as to why people make games as there are going to be a lot of extraneous factors involved, but assuming the creator doesn't have a gun to their head it's likely that first and foremost they are creating a game because that is how they want to spend their time. I don't think it's a scale like that and I don't think people work in a binary fashion of either creating for themselves or the community. I can tell you now I create my games 100% for myself and my own enjoyment but I still accept all criticism I receive and usually change a lot depending on what people have said. This has nothing to do with trying to appease the community or those who have criticised my games, it's to do with the fact that I appreciate my role as a creator procures a certain amount of bias between me and my product and that I don't always know what's best. If someone says something I disagree with I won't change it, but most of the time criticism acts as a second opinion on game creating decisions and someone saying for example something like "I wish this projectile was a different colour as it's hard to make out against the background" is valuable to me and may be something I hadn't noticed on my own, so making the change is still me carrying out my own desires first and foremost.
Yeah, my comment was somewhat misinterpreted. I've lurked on this place for a long time, but since I've been active here and watching twitch streams I've not really seen much bashing experimentation for the sake of it. Luckily it's been dying out slowly for a few years and is/was most prevalent in other facets of the community, but I still have a knee-jerk reaction to it when I see it. I'm not sure where I gave the impression that I think any criticism of an experimental fangame is simply because it's experimental or that thinking outside the box when creating a game grants you immunity to criticism of things that are actually problems with the game because I can assure you I really don't feel that way.
I hope they make a more traditional game because they clearly know what they're doing when it comes to code and I enjoy seeing people play these games.
Im 100% sure you wouldn't have said so if you actually saw my code.
Eh, as long as it runs it runs has always been my motto haha.
Topic: On Originality In Fangames (Read 4744 times)