I think a lot of the confusion comes from different cultures bleeding in from other parts of the internet.
The CoG forum is a lot more ‘professionel’ aligned than other places where I see people sharing their works in progress online (fanfiction sites, itch.io, other indie game development forums, tumblr). Such places are a lot less beta testing, and just sharing to get hype and develop a fanbase.
As the community here grows wider, and more of the people who arrives comes from these other communities, there are bound to be misunderstandings and shifts in culture.
I might be wrong here, but I am getting the impression that there are two forms of WIP’s here:
1: Where the author intends to be published, and is working on taking the step to become a professional, and learning how to be that as they go. (what the WIP forum was intended for I think?).
2: Where the author has written something cool in choicescript to try it out, and just wants to share it and have a bit of fun. (and then might get surprised at feedback aimed for 1)
As the community expands and people with different expectations bump up against each other, it’s important for authors to be specific about their own expectations and needs. (Basically what @malinryden said above!)
This is a really good way of looking at it. Someone looking for pure encouragement will likely be dispirited or distressed if they are faced with what feels like overwhelming feedback, no matter how constructively it’s framed. In that scenario it’s the author’s job to make it clear to players what type of feedback they’re looking for at that stage of the project. Otherwise it leads to communication issues from all angles.
When you make PUBLIC a wip. You make PUBLIC a wip. Nobody encourages to make your game public. You can make private betas and even take your base core of your game in the interest thread. However, if you make a PUBLIC wip expressing your goals and your objective aiming to release a game… You have to assume people won’t be fake praising you and behave like they were your moral support instead of the testers there to help the game reach a publish state in the best quality possible.
If you don’t want publish; there are other ways to put your game out there I even have a writing workshop for it where people gives friendly feedback far more encouraging because is not for publication. Other forums and jams.
Here there is a thread for writing support and a discord group.
This is an amazing forum with a very friendly set of rules that have allowed many people from all the world to release their stories freely. So, I won’t allow people to treat this forum, a home for me like it were a toxic place where authors are harassed, because that is not the truth.
Are you working on a game in ChoiceScript and looking to get it published by Hosted Games when it’s complete? Post about it in this category!
Yeah, it says so clearly in the Works in progress category, but it might be a good idea to start more of a “share your choicescript game here” or something for people who are just interested in learning.
I think that a lot of this information relies on a level of knowledge about the community and the way that it functions that someone new to the forums just might not have. I certainly wasn’t aware of these things when I published my first demo, nor did I really have an audience that I could ask for feedback without doing so publically (which was a pretty scary prospect at the time!).
Perhaps information about this sort of activity could be included in some kind of joining email for new members or in a more prominent place on the forums (i.e. a “different ways to get different types of feedback 101)?
I am always here and ready to explain rules and where to go to people. So people can be free to pm me. I make jams and writing workshops to help new people and I am sure I can figure out a way to people express what kind of feedback want or even make a tag in Dashingdon.
I am sure the community as a whole can think better ways without dramas. I will work hard to help everyone. Maybe even doing a guide myself.
I like the idea of a Hobby Project sort of thing. I think specifying it as not for publishing might not necessarily be accurate - the project I just put up is one that I just want to have fun with, learn the process, and not worry about perfection on. I’d still like to put some polish on it and publish when I’m finished, but I have several day jobs and I’m not doing it to become a professional writer, you know?
EDIT: And projects could and should be able to move between cathegories. A Hobby project can become something you want to publish, and you might lose steam and decide that your project won’t go anywhere.
I have a question: Is the author of the WIP or Project required to state in their opening post that this is a WIP or the forum should have a tag of some sort when they open the new topic in regards to it for easy sorting?
It’s hard to ask the author themselves if their post is vague on what they are planning for their WIP.
Oops!
