unforum

[Rusty]

[Recruitment]Some sort of post apacolyptic scifi thingy..ARG

[jamesi]

Re: [Recruitment]Some sort of post apacolyptic scifi thingy.

[GuyP]

Re: [Recruitment]Some sort of post apacolyptic scifi thingy.

[Rusty]

Yeah, GuyP, I will.

WEll, Jamesi, The solo project (which was just practice), EarthKannotObselete, that I was working on, imploded. That's what I mean.

[Ehsan]

Rusty...

I predict that you will not get a single person to join you on this plan to create "some sort of ARG thingy". I predict that if you do get anyone, they will be less informed than you currently are on how things should be done. I predict that if you do create it then it will lack any depth and quality. I predict that the future effort will implode. I also originally predicted that EKO will implode, but you already knew that.

I ask you to try and understand what I am telling you here without feeling personally attacked. This is criticisim but I promise that I am trying to be constructive, so take it as you may, and remember that this is my personal opinion.



Your initial disregard for forum rules is disturbing. You posted in your own game thread even after reading about the rules in the same thread. Your actions did not show any remorse or respect for these rules.

Your EKO project did not show any signs of effort or logical thought. It did not offer any coherent strucuture pertaining to games of any kind, or fulfilling gameplay story wise or interaction wise.

Your concept of Practice PM is disrespectful to any potential players who open the door wide open when visiting any new ARG. While more seasoned players can figure the tell-tale signs immediately, newer players will jump and enjoy whatever you give them before being dissapointed with a very ill-timed implosion.

Your post asking for recruitment above shows no indication that you know what you are talking about, as it is full of spelling mistakes, incoherent sentences, and a hazy plan which doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Most importantly, you fail to show proper motivation for doing this, which I believe had to be indicated since I--as a potential recruit--have no idea who you are.

Your signature states that you are currently playing Earth Kannot Obselete. You cannot be playing your own game. I hope you understand why I find this to be very disturbing behavior. You attempted to advertise your own game by pretending to play it. That is called lying, and you are considered a shill.

You have registered here less than a week ago, although you indicate that you have played ILB. There is no rule against new people creating their own games, but this leads me to believe that you have not yet grasped the sense of community that grabs these forums. Perhaps you have an older nick, I don't know, but you need to have a sense of what goes on around here before you could go about influencing things.

Your implosion post in the EKO thread shows signs of immaturaty. You pulled the plug on whatever it is you were trying to do without showing any indication of remose, without offering a single word of apology, and instead chose to blame Dionysus who did a wonderful job of pointing out the facts. You concluded by saying that this was just practice, possibly offending all the lab rats you were practicing with in the process.

Your attempts at humour were not funny. We desperately find humour and laugh at anything aspiring GAIMers throw at us for all the wrong reason, but don't think that what you did was okay because it wasn't serious. I took it very seriously.

Again, you broke the rules. You were a shill for your own game, which was not very good, and you have not yet shown that you understand what's going on around here.


My advice to you right now is to learn from what happened. Don't post any long replies trying to justify anything. If you're going ahead with your effort make sure you understand everything that went wrong here and fix it.

If you need to talk pop into chat anytime and send me a message, and I'd be happy to point you in the right direction.

Nobody will hold anything against you, but please show some maturity and respect for others around here, which I will be eagerly waiting for. Again, if you need help, just ask.

[imbri]

Ehsan said it all, pretty much, but I'm gonna hop on the bandwagon with a couple of the points that I really think bear repeating. Mainly because, Rusty, you are not alone. You just assigned a term to it all - "the practice PM"

I cannot express how frustrating that is to hear.

If Orbital Colony proved anything, it proved that there is no such thing as a "training ARG" or, in your terminology, "practice PMing." They gathered however many PMs on their team and, by taking the effort and their work seriously, learned one of the most valuable things... there is no practice in this field, there is only do (and they did a damn fine job from the little bits that I saw). Furthermore, unless you have a Meta site clearly explaining to the players that it is a practice something and not a serious effort, then you just betrayed the trust and loyalties of your friends and other players. And taking an implosion so lightly is just idiotic and disrespectful of your players who trusted you to see it through.

We get people that come into unfiction wanting to get a great ARG experience. The regulars and people that have been around the block once or twice before know what a good game is, but even they can sometimes get sucked it. The ones that really get hurt are those that are casual lurkers or new players come in and try to get in on a game that is just starting.

You were lucky, your first game was I Love Bees. A solid game by the masters of ARG. How would you like it if your first game was created by a PM that was just "practicing" and not telling you this? How would you like it if your first game might end soon or it just might implode, the PM doesn't really know? Would you stick around to see what else was out there? Honestly.

For the life of me, I do not understand how potential PMs can ignore the advice of nearly every PM out there. I think that we have all given the same bits of advice. So, for those of you out there that need it big and in your face.

1. Do NOT go at it alone!

2. Take the time you think it will take to do it and multiply it.

3. It's all about the players - check your ego at the door.


There are many more bits of advice and wisdom. But if you can't even accept those three, don't even begin to think about being a PM. PMing a game is a hell of a lot of work. It's not something that you can just play at doing. When will people actually get this?

(for those that feel that they need 'practice' - get in with an established team and do 'behind the scenes' work)

[imbri]

Ack. And while I mentioned what this sort of attitude and production does to players, I completely missed what it does to the other grassroots games.

Think about it, implosions and careless games hurt every grassroots game that comes after them. Players don't trust that they'll finish, so why should they even start playing one? New players are scared away and never come back.

As someone that loves the potential of the grassroots arena and cut her teeth in it, so to speak, it infuriates me to see people willingly and knowingly hurt it. There are some amazingly talented people out there wanting to create a game for nothing but the pure enjoyment of exciting people's imaginations and bringing a bit of joy to their players lives. They put hours upon hours and, frequently, dollars upon dollars to do this. And then a couple immature and reckless people come along and piss in the pool.

Who wants to swim in a bunch of piss? Seriously.

[jamesi]

[White_Knight]

I'm going to try to give you a little advice, just my 1/50th of a dollar. This is ment to be constructive and is to all potential PMs not just to rusty.

As a member of the OC group, I agree whole heartedly with imbri there is no such thing as "Practice PMing". Theres only leaping in head first with a bunch other inexperianced people, with a rope around your dangly bits praying that its not a foot too short (pardon my vulgarness). We were lucky enough to have informed people that this was the case and most gave us a light time.

The only thing that set OC apart from "real" "full" games was the amount of experiance we had when we began and our initial intent. But this we found was a hectic idea and one of the reasons that it took 2 years to create. We on the OC team just "got lucky" in many respects. We thank our fan base and fellow PMs, everyday that we look back on it and can't belive we made it through.

Now I'm not saying that people shouldn't go ahead and try what we tried but I highly recommend getting an experianced mentor on board, they help immensly. Infact I know of a few teams that - since the OC PM chat - have contacted members of the OC team asking for just that.

Many things in your message signal to me that your probably not ready to "lead" or "head" (both of those words being inacurate words to express what I mean) a team.

The fact that you say "I don't have the time to be online ALL day" signals to me that your probably not ready to be a primary member of a PM team. Running an ARG takes time, lots of it. It took 2 years to do OC and during that time, I for one spent serious amounts of time on OC and it was only luck that had the periods of peak activity co-incided with my university holidays. I still do not think alot of the community members relise how much time is involved. PM's say it over and over, untill you realy run a game you have no idea how much dedication (and caffine) it will take. How hard it realy is.

Ok now thats over...The positve and helpful bits.

Good for you for wanting to get behind the curtain its the most rewarding things. But I'd say the same thing about scaling Everest. Rewarding once its done. I regard anyone who would do it as brave. Terrifying when your doing it. And most importantly you have to be prepared, have a team you trust and not something to be done alone.

But once your done you'll look back on it and go "Wow, I can't belive we did that"

Get on a team first as a helper, alot say they're dedicated, but we had people join our OC team then leave. I dont think anyone reliable will join your team till you prove your self reliabe too. Reliable PM's get teams alot easier and inverably better teams (I'll tell ya now that any PM that knows who dave is would jump at a chance to work with him).

Make sure that if you start a game:

That it advances or protects the community and genre that has been built so far, alot of people have worked long and hard to make it what it is today.
That your are 100% dedicated to making it the best game possible.
That your team are dedicated to the cause, as much as you are.
That you remember your creating this game for the players not you.

[Rusty]

Oohgh.....everyone's probably hating me right now.

Alrighty Roosky. I take everyone's critisism with thought. I have read through each and everyone's individual post, and my final thought it...

YOU ALL HATE ME!

no, just kidding.

I guess that I'm acting a bit...stupid. I should've not rushed into it, but done more ARG's than I have for a couple of months.

I'll finish this post later, but I have to go. Or Mods can close this, and I'll PM you all.

[James Blond]

[addlepated]

(pssst... this is an ideal time for an actual apology... just a friendly tip. )

[imbri]

[Rusty]

Apology

[Ehsan]

Don't worry Rusty, nobody hates you. I've seriously seen worse offenders, and now that you stepped up to what happened I'm sure this issue can be forgiven and forgotten.

Thanks.