unforum

[Alzheimers]

[Phaedra]

[vpisteve]

Wow, quite a lot of shooting from the hip, there, Tex.

[Phaedra]

Two, brief things:

1)

[Dorkmaster]

Ok, I'm gonna (once more) stick my nose where it doesn't belong and respond here.

First off, and I say this only to be honest, so please continue reading with an open mind here: I agree with Steve. Not because I write for ARGN, but that is WHY I chose to write for ARGN. With these comments, then, YMMV.

(Also, as a disclaimer, I am directing most of this towards Alzheimers, a person I respect greatly, but that I feel isn't getting the point in this one instance. I love ya dude, so please know this isn't a personal attack.)

I don't believe we should be saying "This is good" and "This is crap" (because my "crap" may be your "good", and that is generally understood). However, it appears that the main point of contention, if you do truly believe with many of vpisteve's main points, as you have stated, is the true meaning of "Your Mileage May Vary".

Personally, I feel "Your Mileage May Vary" could be in place in front of EVERY SINGLE ARG. The statement is not condemning, nor is it praising. It is not a statement of quality. It is simply a statement saying:

"As a Grassroots game, there is no guarantee that there are experienced people behind it's production. There is no guarantee that there is an endgame planned at this time. There is no guarantee that the game will end up to truly be an ARG, and not some lesser form of interactive fiction."

In general, it's saying nothing about whether you'll "like it" or not. It's just saying "This one has no guarantees, since it's not driven by a marketing department and has no official deadlines to meet, nor is it going to be evaluated by some company to determine the value of ARG as advertising in the future." The point is, while broad and blanketing, Grassroots ARGs, while wonderful and necessary, do not always come through as the best representation of what an ARG is and can be. Sometimes they do, and do so brilliantly. But it IS a hit and miss process. Does that devalue grassroots efforts in general, NO WAY. But if I were to reccomend an ARG to a newbie, 9/10 times, I'm going to reccomend the commercial ARG, as I know there's expectation behind it that will motivate towards greatness that is not necessarily there for a grassroots effort.

Are all corporate ARGs good? No. Are all corporate ARGs sustaining and quality throughout? No. However, the Good/Bad ratio for corporate ARGs is definitely highly improved over the grassroots stuff. You really can't deny that. It's a fact. The only real fallouts from corporate ARGs have been Push, NV (which died because the TV show did as well, not because the game was not well done), and Majestic (cuz after 9/11, they were terrified of being on the wrong side of public opinion, which WAS a horrible mistake, IMO.)

There have been many grassroots efforts that have failed, however. (Which in and of itself is NOT a bad thing, as those things help fledgling PMs grow, and that is necessary!) But again, because some (not all), have failed to really apply themselves, or just got eyes too big for their projects time-frame, there is a lot of fall-through, that looks VERY bad for the new player.

You have to realize, as Steve stated, that while there may be many players who will play a bad game, and feel determined to play a good one, there are also many who will have a bitter taste in their mouth and never play again, due to this one experience. We're a channel-surfing, can't-wait-for-the-web-page-to-load, fast-food, drive-by culture. You don't get a second chance often. Therefore, as the main readership (again, not all) of ARGN is people who have not played a game, have not seen the community and have not experienced the thrill and joy of ARGing, it's our duty to make sure we're presenting ARG's best foot forward, and we often have to do that with very little info on these games. So we go by track record.

4orty-2wo so far is two for three (although the MSN search crapola (IMO) wasn't very ARG-y anyway), so in our opinion, they've got the stuff to make good games, and we expect that to continue. We know that Adrian and Dan Hon are experienced PMs with a lot of knowledge of gameplay and innovation, and we would therefore expect good things from them in Perplex City. ARGN's coverage demonstrated that. We're also reccomending (as "Hot") Rookery Tower, Seen James?, and Zoe's World. They are "starred" as YMMV, but it's still considered "What's Hot". Trust me, people go to these games as a result of that. We're not harming the playership of these games at all. And even the choice of words "what's Hot" is used to show that we're not saying "these games are good!" We're just saying "these games are what's being played the most and seems to have a lot of potential at the moment."

We're actually trying desparately to NOT be judgemental. However, there needs to be a line drawn somewhere that essentially is the equivalent of "I'm all for every kid playing an instrument in the orchestra, but there is no point in telling the kid trying to play the tuba with his nose that he's doing it right, and reccomending the other people check out that show for that kid's performance." It's misleading. We can't be doing that. We are trying to help ARGs breakthrough to the mainstream (and it is starting rapidly), and the only way to do that, is to encourage growth, not stagnancy. We must encourage innovation and good game creation.

It appears that the difference in viewpoints here is that you feel that by encouraging one, we're necessarily punishing the other. We're not. We're JUST encouraging the one, and ignoring the other. If they get into ARGs, they'll see the other games in the forums, and they can judge for themselves. But first we've got to get them in the door. That's the intention. It may not be perfect, and it may not be all things to all people, but in general, I think it's a good concept, and one that should be continued.

[yanka]

[Phaedra]

Maybe I should just let the experts handle this, but then again, since Alzheimers seems to feel the experts may have some hidden ulterior motives, maybe not.

[Phaedra]

[rose-not logged in]

ARGN

[imbri]

Lots of good points by all and I do agree with many of them, however...


About the community:

[Dorkmaster]

Not to thread-jack, but to slightly thread-jack...

Question: Do I seem less on-topic since I tend to frown upon personal use of the "quote" tool? I've noticed more often than not, the quote tool is used extensively (Phaedra, Alzheimers and Imbri are all quite adept at this form of post-writing) and I find it useful in keeping track of their reponses. But I tend not to, as I know that when I rant, I rant hard, and would typically be so verbose as to make my posting a full "normal thread page" in length, thus potentially discouraging reading it when scouring the thread. So my essential question is twofold:

1) Do I write too much? (Am I rambly? (Is "rambly" a word?))

2) Would my style of post-writing benefit from more use of the "quote" feature, or am I followable enough as-is?

Thanks! Back to the all out-brawl!

Edit: Just noticed I'm 5 posts above the 1k mark. You people gotta tell me these things! Oh well. It (the 1000th post) was probably some remark about how cool some dorky thing I love is (to me alone)

[Phaedra]

[jamesi]