summary of negativity in my recent AARs

[Buster's Uncle]

b, that's at least two other people besides me who've volunteered that they agree all the quitting is problematic.  Now, I'm not trying to re-visit that argument, but since it's come up again, I point that out.  I accept that you do what you chose, and I've made my peace with it.

As you were, men.

[bvanevery]

-Just throwing that out there, 'cause I really would like to see some action in the public forum and build a writers' community...

Yeah... the problem is that for serious writing, needing an audience isn't just "nice to have" for me anymore.  It's mandatory.  The last free writing anyone got, was my fanfic about what would happen if Bilbo had died in Smaug's cave.  I don't expect anyone to "bow down" to me, but I've been told by several people that it's a good piece of writing.  Hmm, now I can't even find it on Reddit anymore.  That's weird, I wonder if they actually delete old posts in /r/WritingPrompts?  In which case, I'm beyond having no audience, it was totally drowned by other prompts even when I wrote it.  Took a look at all the accompanying spam, and it was like trying to sell literature in a flea market!  It impressed upon me the difficulties of gaining a real audience, let alone monetizing it.  I have several writer friends who are excellent but still haven't pulled it off.

[Green1]

I am always tongue in cheek

Carry on.

Maybe one day we both can write our BoatMurdered (perhaps the best AAR on the internet).

Of course, you know, we still need to tie the modders down, stick them in a room full of energy drinks, and not let them out till they have something awesome. I hear they complain less if you beat them. Maybe have BU as the camp overseer. Won't happen for a game this old and those that can (like the kid that adjusted the UI for his out of college resume who probably had a former Firaxis mentor with some source code) won't because :EA:.

(I used to know someone that was a QA manager at EA Baton Rouge. Yes, they ARE evil currently. But that is another tale.)

[Buster's Uncle]

Getting people on the innerwebs you've never met to do things is more an art than a craft, and always needs a combination of shameless persistence and a deft hand at nudging.  If someone had a grand overall vision for a major modding project, I would be inclined to do some contacting around and try to organize something.  It's tilting at windmills, but I'm here for the people interaction, which -- a project is on-topic activity --- and sometimes, the ogre gets slain.

[bvanevery]

b, that's at least two other people besides me who've volunteered that they agree all the quitting is problematic. 

My view on that: it bothers someone.  It bothers 3 of you, for instance.  One can presume there are other people on the internet who are bothered by it.  However the internet is a large place, with a lot of diversity of opinion on what's good or bad.  It is not generally speaking the metric of an author to make sure that everyone is satisfied, in all the ways they wish to be satisfied.  Audiences do sort themselves out.  Traffic arguments are an experiment, measured by page hits, not an a priori certainty.  3 people may think it's the end of the world, 7 people may like it just fine, or vice versa.

Authors and game designers also take "objections" from audiences with grains of salt.  Audiences are often not articulate about what exactly their problem with a work is.  They know something is bugging them, but they don't usually do a good job of separating out what the problem really is.  For instance in the present instance, it took some time to sort out that negativity is the bigger problem, as opposed to quitting.  Those concerns are interrelated, but they're also separable.

Let's say I wrote an AAR that was all filled with happy sauce.  Just ponies farting rainbows everywhere, Chairman Yang's genejacks dancing mad happy about how much they were contributing to the Recycling Tanks.  Totally worthy of a Placator merit badge, soma to spare.  And I didn't finish it, in the same 99.9% sense that I've not finished a lot of my games.  Knocked the king over, "mate in 2 moves".  If I had totally pumped sunshine up your skirt the whole time, how difficult do you imagine it would be to swallow my AAR?

Let's say I did the opposite.  Pissed and moaned about what a lousy game SMAC is, the whole !@#$@# time.  How boring it is to push the units around, oh I'm being griefed by a market crash again, etc. yadda yadda.  But by gum it was a long writeup and I hit the "I WIN" buttons like a good little Completionist. 

Which do you want on your HOME page?  I hope the point is abundantly clear.  Negativity is a far bigger problem than quitting.  I think we already agreed on this some time ago, and that was the basis for us moving on.  Negativity is something that, past a certain point, I do take seriously.  That's why this thread exists.

[Green1]

-Just throwing that out there, 'cause I really would like to see some action in the public forum and build a writers' community...

Yeah... the problem is that for serious writing, needing an audience isn't just "nice to have" for me anymore.  It's mandatory.  The last free writing anyone got, was my fanfic about what would happen if Bilbo had died in Smaug's cave.  I don't expect anyone to "bow down" to me, but I've been told by several people that it's a good piece of writing.  Hmm, now I can't even find it on Reddit anymore.  That's weird, I wonder if they actually delete old posts in /r/WritingPrompts?  In which case, I'm beyond having no audience, it was totally drowned by other prompts even when I wrote it.  Took a look at all the accompanying spam, and it was like trying to sell literature in a flea market!  It impressed upon me the difficulties of gaining a real audience, let alone monetizing it.  I have several writer friends who are excellent but still haven't pulled it off.

It's hard, man.

I have made a total of maybe 150 USD to 180 USD off writing. Some from ghost writing a deal for a role playing game. Another from a project.

See, the problem is multi fold.

- People nowadays read less. Yes, this does affect forums. There are less forums covering pretty much any topic you can think of. Many companies are shutting down forums for their product on their own website.
- LOTS of people want to do writing.  Don't blame them. Did you know the Huffington post does not pay writers?
- A lot of the writers, particularly the gaming world, all know each other. They were in the same voice chat in the right guilds. They went to the same conventions. They think alike and are the same types of people.
- If you want tons of readers, you need a more mainstream stuff. And it's time dependent.

AC is too, too niche for that, if that is your goal. If not... continue forward.

[bvanevery]

Getting people on the innerwebs you've never met to do things is more an art than a craft,

I have a fair number of war stories to tell about Open Source projects.  The bottom line is anything I ever wanted done right, I had to do it myself.  I've never had work partners that survived political umbrages, and they've cost me serious career detriment, to the tune of 1.5 man years out of my life.  More if one counts my failed relationship with the CMake developers, although strategically, that's more the problem of being a "build systems guy" in the 1st place.

I'm still jousting at "the perfect game programmer's language, for someone who preferred ASM but wants better".  Nobody's done it right.  Jonathan Blow articulated many of the problems, and started working on something, but he hasn't shipped.  No other public game industry persona has even tried.

[Buster's Uncle]

b, that's at least two other people besides me who've volunteered that they agree all the quitting is problematic. 

My view on that: it bothers someone.  It bothers 3 of you, for instance.  One can presume there are other people on the internet who are bothered by it.  However the internet is a large place, with a lot of diversity of opinion on what's good or bad.  It is not generally speaking the metric of an author to make sure that everyone is satisfied, in all the ways they wish to be satisfied.  Audiences do sort themselves out.  Traffic arguments are an experiment, measured by page hits, not an a priori certainty.  3 people may think it's the end of the world, 7 people may like it just fine, or vice versa.

Authors and game designers also take "objections" from audiences with grains of salt.  Audiences are often not articulate about what exactly their problem with a work is.  They know something is bugging them, but they don't usually do a good job of separating out what the problem really is.  For instance in the present instance, it took some time to sort out that negativity is the bigger problem, as opposed to quitting.  Those concerns are interrelated, but they're also separable.

Let's say I wrote an AAR that was all filled with happy sauce.  Just ponies farting rainbows everywhere, Chairman Yang's genejacks dancing mad happy about how much they were contributing to the Recycling Tanks.  Totally worthy of a Placator merit badge, soma to spare.  And I didn't finish it, in the same 99.9% sense that I've not finished a lot of my games.  Knocked the king over, "mate in 2 moves".  If I had totally pumped sunshine up your skirt the whole time, how difficult do you imagine it would be to swallow my AAR?

Let's say I did the opposite.  Pissed and moaned about what a lousy game SMAC is, the whole !@#$@# time.  How boring it is to push the units around, oh I'm being griefed by a market crash again, etc. yadda yadda.  But by gum it was a long writeup and I hit the "I WIN" buttons like a good little Completionist. 

Which do you want on your HOME page?  I hope the point is abundantly clear.  Negativity is a far bigger problem than quitting.  I think we already agreed on this some time ago, and that was the basis for us moving on.  Negativity is something that, past a certain point, I do take seriously.  That's why this thread exists.

Have you got debate training?  To say simply that I believe the opposition has failed to make its case and sit back down is considered a valid  -if risky and therefore showy and pick your shots very carefully- tactic.  I do not invoke that in this case -though there's the temptation- because I've moved on; our conversations have other topics we can profitably pursue.  -BUT, wow, this IS going to come up again if anyone takes an interest enough to do some serious reading in here and bothers to express an opinion, high-confidence projection.

But it won't be me bringing it, up, I'm sure.  I done said I accept that you're determined to be stubborn on the point.  Just sayin' and not interested in pursuing further.

[ninja'd] I've actually been a professional writer, of sorts, and made considerably more money writing - but that was at a very bad newspaper, and not for all that long, and nothing to be all that proud of...

[bvanevery]

Did you know the Huffington post does not pay writers?

No I didn't.  That's dire.

- A lot of the writers, particularly the gaming world, all know each other. They were in the same voice chat in the right guilds. They went to the same conventions. They think alike and are the same types of people.

To date I've thought writing in the game industry is a low prestige, irritating way to go, because it's the Production Manager, programmers, and game designer, in roughly that order, who determine what you're stuck with.  You have to be ok with writing around the other dictates of the project, for the most part.  Someone hands you a turd, you have to try to figure out how to make it not smell so bad.  Screenwriters have that problem too but game industry people have it way worse.  There's just not enough prestige and money to showcase one's craft.

Since I have many of the other skills needed to produce a complete game, I thought it better to work on my own stuff and not deal with other people's drama.  I can do the programming, I can do the art.  I'm sure I can even hum a few bars at the business side of things, even if it's not my cup of tea.  I can put a bit of a marketing and promotion hat on.  The problem of course is there's only me and I have to try to get all of those things done.  But I've got 1 life to live and this is the problem I put in front of myself, to spend my time trying to do.  Not giving up any time soon.

- If you want tons of readers, you need a more mainstream stuff. And it's time dependent.

AC is too, too niche for that, if that is your goal. If not... continue forward.

I do wonder about the healthiness of working on the 4X TBS genre at all.  Definitely people have noted the thanklessness of it.  People historically have noted the thanklessness of Grognards in wargaming as well.  On the other hand, the fact that nobody did better than SMAC, or even matched it frankly, smells like a market opportunity for the right individual.  If you're the wrong individual or team though, you get killed in 4X TBS.  The recent study on that would seem to be StarDrive 2.  Apparently they got some critical success, but they subsequently folded up shop for some reason?  I haven't finished postmorteming them.  They had an active developer in the Reddit /r/4Xgaming subreddit for some time.  Some people would complain at him, and I wonder at the time expenditure of allowing people to do that.

[Buster's Uncle]

EA is a problem for any SMAC2, alas, apparently an insurmountable one.  -And I daresay if the rights could be untangled, Firaxis has to work through 2K and --- my experience with THOSE guys does not take my hand and wander sweetly over to the optimism tree.

[Green1]

EA is a problem for any SMAC2, alas, apparently an insurmountable one.  -And I daresay if the rights could be untangled, Firaxis has to work through 2K and --- my experience with THOSE guys does not take my hand and wander sweetly over to the optimism tree.

Nope. Me either. Anyone attempting anything more serious than amateur modding is going to be hit with love letters from a copy write lawyer real quick.

People historically have noted the thanklessness of Grognards in wargaming as well

The wargamers may be thankless. But, at least they are not outright abusive and they have intelligence (sometimes).

There's lots of folks into MOBAs. MOBA communities are so toxic and juvenile, even the developers don't read the forums. People that have some sort of in-game epeen make some change. But, its all videos. But, if you don't have a good voice, personality, decent set up, or are on the list of the great world esports players (over the hill by age 23)... you are crap. Of course, they have TONS more people looking for ways to pwn noobs so even crap outlets get views.

That said, when wargamers do rage, they go off in anal-retentive nerd rage glory. But at least they do not wish for you to take your laptop cord and strangle yourself because you did not beat the Deity challenge fifty times on Civ fanatics.

I do wonder about the healthiness of working on the 4X TBS genre at all.  Definitely people have noted the thanklessness of it.  People historically have noted the thanklessness of Grognards in wargaming as well.  On the other hand, the fact that nobody did better than SMAC, or even matched it frankly, smells like a market opportunity for the right individual.  If you're the wrong individual or team though, you get killed in 4X TBS.  The recent study on that would seem to be Star Drive 2.  Apparently they got some critical success, but they subsequently folded up shop for some reason.  I haven't finished postmorteming them.  They had an active developer in the Reddit /r/4Xgaming for some time.  Some people would complain at him, and I wonder at the time expenditure of allowing people to do that.

You see, a great majority of AAR readers (that are lurkers) never play the game. They want stories.

Dwarf Fortress is a great example. 1980 called and wanted it's interface back, yes. Then again, many of the games of the 1980s had better interface. Most people don't have the time nor inclination to sit through a play session. BUT - they love the stories.

Can't ignore that. Why turn down the views?

[bvanevery]

That said, when wargamers do rage, they go off in anal-retentive nerd rage glory.

I never really forgave the guy at The Wargamer who reamed TOAW back in the day, for the imperfect combat system where 1000 trucks would beat a tank and so forth.  The reviewer was testing and abusing the model to a degree that never actually occurred in a real game.  A modern day equivalent would be going to The Far Lands in Minecraft and pitching a [complaint or disagreeable woman] that it doesn't work, rather than just regarding the bugs as interesting, possibly beautiful curiosities.  The thanklessness is because wargaming disproportionately draws hardcore Simulationists.  God Help You if your simulation is found to be inadequate in some way!  And it's not like these people fork over enough money to pay for the level of engineering their oh-so-high standards would require.  You want a bridge, that you can drive over without drowning? Pay me to build a bridge.

You see, a great majority of AAR readers (that are lurkers) never play the game. They want stories.

What good are they though, as part of a community?  Let's say your website is not monetized and you're not getting paid for views on an AAR.   Do they contribute to a community in any way, or do they just free ride?  Apple computer would probably say these are not good customers, not worth having.  I guess they could have value if they told someone about your site who does contribute something, but again, what are the causal relationships?  I've been a heavy participant in any forum I've ever been to.  As you can tell, I definitely have a participant bias.  What's the case to be made for lurkers?

Also, I have to say, the idea of reading lots of stories about games you've never played, sounds absolutely baffling to me.  I could understand not playing "much".  Or maybe someone played once upon a time, but doesn't have the time anymore.  But really, just here for the stories, don't even know how the game is played?  That's weird.

Dwarf Fortress is a great example. 1980 called and wanted it's interface back, yes. Then again, many of the games of the 1980s had better interface. Most people don't have the time nor inclination to sit through a play session. BUT - they love the stories.

I've read very few of those.  DF itself has a pretty involved simulation, potentially giving an AAR writer a lot of scope to write about.  "You will be amazed by this thing that happened!"  I will take a look at DF again and see if its narrative arts have risen to any particularly interesting height.  But make no mistake: SMAC is not DF.  There isn't as much to write about.

Can't ignore that. Why turn down the views?

What does one get from views?  Money?  Career status?  Business partners?

[Buster's Uncle]

Lurkers are where little newbs come from -thus, future comments- and I decided to do ads and make some overhead back -invisible to registered, logged-in members- years ago and am still waiting for tech support to step up...

[bvanevery]

I don't think that's the same kind of lurker as previously described.  What you're describing, is someone who's checking out the game and the site, to see if it fits them.  Things like a Beginner's AAR would be important to them, maybe, if not too long winded.  Better would be a bunch of specific isolated tactical guides, like "10 stupid supply crawler tricks" or some such.

The kind of lurker who sits around forever, reading stories about a game they've never even played... of what value is such a person in a community?  Do they share their interest with other people?  Or is it very self-absorbed, a way of having fun with duh internets that doesn't cost them anything?

A customer who bought a game and played it, and then lurks on the developer's website, is valuable because they might buy another title from that developer in the future.  It's also a little more sane from a mental health standpoint, as at least they tried the game.

The irony of all of this is I have considered writing something like a "SMAC screensaver" simulation.  The game's too long, people don't want to play it, but the simulation could be interesting... why not let a huge simulation run and have people stare at the fishbowl?  Compare Progress Quest.

[Green1]

What does one get from views?  Money?  Career status?  Business partners?

Nope. None of those things.

Practice. And space in your head to occupy yourself.


Listen, man. I have been where you have been except I did not have a car. Some of those AARs I wrote while in that situation. I will tell you the whole time in that tent in New Orleans there was a certain relief as to not have to enrich landlords. If I got a crap job where some boss was being a jerk, I could walk away. WTF are you going to do to me? Make me homeless? There is something... revolutionary and empowering in that. I had visions of being some kind of Aaaron Clarey minus the mysogony.

But that is a situation. Situations change.

How did I get out of it?

Well, I took an inventory of myself after a beer or four. The job offers I was getting in New Orleans were not enough to pay the ever gentrifying rent there and were from employers that had reputations of going through employees faster than an incontinent nursing home patient on diuretics goes through diapers. That, and I realized that the employers in my field did NOT want people like myself. I was in the wrong field and it was tinkling me off and them.

I scraped up money from temp gigs, and moved to a city that had more jobs and more affordable rent for the gigs I was getting. Got hired at a plant, made money, got another job, saved money, met a great girl, and now am dabbling in craft fairs.

This too passes. People that have not been through this will never understand.