For what it’s worth, the below link is probably the place for general Wayhaven discussion: The Wayhaven Chronicles General Discussion (SPOILER FREE FOR BOOK THREE!)
Or this one:
Mod confirmed that the author asked for it, shame, discussion there was going well.
Guess our takes were too spicy, @EvilChani 
In all seriousness tho. Even while commenting in this one thread, my intent isn’t to hurt anyone’s feelings. That being said, if you put your work in the wild, then you should be prepared for negative feedback. Expecting only mindless praise is childish and pretentious, especially since the feedback was from readers who are clearly into your story and wish it could use all of its potential, but okay I guess.
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It’s really frustrating how I’ve basically been beaten down from feeling okay giving any criticism, something I’m only wanting to give on things because I actually like the story but like certain things bother me. I fully understand not wanting people to badmouth your characters or story or something but it sucks to functionally get run off from a thread because I dared to express a negative opinion on something. Not gonna say which story or anything (though obviously if you sift through a couple years of my comments you’d find it), but there was this one I really largely enjoyed, though it frustrated me some, but one of the ROs was hugely objectifying and just felt really gross. Wasn’t even asking for them to be toned down, as uncomfortable as they made me (with explicit lines in the story describing how they’re all but eyefucking you and staring at your ass the first time you meet), just wanted at least an option or two to push back against their behavior or to express discomfort. But then all the fans of the story dogpiled me, strawmanned my attempts of explaining myself and my experience, passive-aggressively gaslit me about it, and then the author came in to basically say “don’t like it don’t read it” in several paragraphs (I’m intentionally being reductionist because it was all very frustrating) despite me very specifically saying I enjoyed the story. Now every time I see the thread (I’m not willing to hide it since, to reiterate, I do mostly like the story) it’s a bit triggering.
I don’t like that much of the forum has that sort of environment. Yeah, it preemptively protects against people being assholes for the sake of it, but it turns into such an echo chamber where criticism or negativity on any level is deemed bad and turns authors into an untouchable protected class. I fully recognize all the effort put into writing these stories and we have no right to ask anything of them because they’re allowing us the privilege of reading their story and blah blah blah, but I’ve had too many bad experiences at this point so it’s just frustrating.
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Well, I mean we are paying them for it. It’s not like they’re giving it to us out of the goodness of their hearts. I mean, I’m old school. I was a BtVS fan back when Joss Whedon lurked on the discussion boards under another name so he could argue with fans, and argue he did. It was fun. And the thing is, he seemed to listen to people’s feedback–he didn’t change everything to suit fans, but he considered it and adjusted where he thought necessary. Then Marti Noxious took over the show and it went to hell… but I digress.
Authors have the right to tell us to eat a bag of dicks if we don’t like something (basically what the Andromeda 6 group did when I bitched about Damon and Alisa being shoved down our throats as the perfect couple if you play another route), but if I spend my time playing it, I still have a right to voice my opinion on it. And if I spend my money on it, then even more so.
I’ve said this before elsewhere–if I don’t care about something, I don’t bother with it at all. Case in point: SoH. If I see a discussion about it, I’ll throw in that I hate it and hated Jun, but I don’t bother with much more than that because, even though I feel like I got screwed out of my money and time, I couldn’t give less of a damn about it. If it succeeds, more power to the author. But anyone who asks me about it, I tell them to stay the hell away from it and why.
So if I complain about something in these games, it’s because I’m invested in them. It may be the characters or the overall story, but giving critical feedback is about helping to achieve the full potential of it, not about being an asshole. And there are games where I see so much potential, if the authors would just freaking consider what someone has to say. Instead, they just ignore us and hide because all they want to hear nothing but mindless praise and won’t even lower themselves to open a discussion with their fans. That is just irksome, so all you can do is point out the flaws and how you’d change it along with the things you like about it.
Really, it’s the same way with ROs I hate. There are things that could be done to make them interesting to me, or at least be entertaining enough to play their routes… but they aren’t done, so I just hate them.
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So, just to say that if an author wants their WIP thread closed, that is something the mods will do unless there’s some unusual reason not to. There are other threads to discuss Wayhaven positively or negatively, one of which I linked to above - I don’t believe this is a reflection of any wider forum policy.
I think the above posts in this thread are a useful recent discussion about feedback/criticism and such.
As ever, if someone feels they have given critical feedback respectfully and that they’ve been piled on about it, please flag it and the mods will look into it.
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Sorry for the off topic, I swear I’ll stop after this skdnsk, but never be afraid to voice your thoughts (if you’re not being an asshat for the sake of trolling, of course.)
If you talk like a civilized person and idiots decide to dogpile you, then fuck them! Oh and I know that authors shouldn’t mingle with fan spaces, but also a) maybe remind people to be at the very least polite b) then don’t ask moderators to lock threads. Cause that’s also mingling.
Overall I follow the same line of thought I do for traditional novels: reviews are not for authors, they’re for the readers. People should be allowed to discuss whatever, politely yadda yadda, without authors throwing a fit/attempting to silence criticism. Constructive criticism at that.
Now pardon me, I have to stop talking before someone comes for my lovely backside because I said I don’t like the same things as they do.
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Well, here’s me - coming to say something you won’t like. This forum isn’t a place where you review games for other customers to see - that’s Steam, Google Play and Amazon, not Wayhaven Discussion Thread. I think Sera was in the right to close it. I never posted there but I lurked from time to time because to me it looked as if it went a little crazy.
It became a very negative place, sometimes filled with very unkind and presumptive things said about the author that were never challenged. I suppose everyone who enjoyed the game had long since stopped posting. I was surprised nothing was done about it earlier. It’s very easy for negativity to multiply if left unchecked.
I get that it’s fun to tear into something. I do it too. I do it privately though, I complain, we have a laugh and then we move on. And I definitely don’t justify it later as ‘just honest constructive criticism’.
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(to be clear: I’m not talking about the Wayhaven thread in this post, I don’t have anything else to say about that other than what I’ve said above 
)
It is a tricky thing to navigate because this is a space where authors and players do mingle a lot in ways that other fandoms don’t, and authors and players will be the same people sometimes. It’s a situation where lines between fans and authors are blurred.
Sometimes it can play out like this:
-players think they’re giving constructive or “brutal”/“tough love” feedback to an author that they expect the author will implement
-an author thinks those same players are chatting among themselves in a way that isn’t intended for them to take into account, and that “reviews are for other players, not authors”
Both perspectives are reasonable and true in that case, but the people involved will have different opinions and responses to it.
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We’ll have to agree to disagree. People have been using the forum to discuss the games even after publicsto, talking about the story itself while also providing their general opinions like one would on a steam review etc.
As for the wayhaven situation, good to know discussion is only welcomed when I’m keysmashing in capslock. Plus it’s funny when an author who supposedly is mostly active elsewhere suddenly asks to shut down a thread the moment people start to speak up.
If pointing out the obvious means I’m an asshole, then I guess I’m an asshole.
Thinking that expressing negative opinions equals to making authors feel threatened is baffling to me, I’m sorry.
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A WiP thread is different from a discussion thread.
A WiP thread is a requirement to publish the game, and once it is published, what happens to it is at the author’s control.
To my knowledge, the general discussion thread for Wayhaven is still open.
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That is the purpose of discussion forums–to discuss. But apparently, we were on the wrong thread for that. We’ll see if the same thing happens if we get discussion going again on the appropriate thread.
I think it’s good to have some actual discussion for newbies who show up and want to buy the game. Any halfway honest criticism on the Steam reviews is buried under ten to fifteen “I can’t wait to be blueballed by Ava again” reviews. Helpful, that is not.
Committing to a seven-game series without understanding both the positives and negatives of the released content is a lot to ask someone. And if I were stumbling upon the series at this point, I’d want to see people’s criticisms with it before I ended up dropping a lot of money and time into it only to be disappointed because all I heard from fans is, “Best literature ever!!! Rheeee!!!”
It’s not hard to do the math…
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Yes, I didn’t specify because it was obvious, but I know the difference. The wayhaven wip thread became the main focus because people kept chatting there rather than the spoiler free discussion one.
Also okay, let’s say the thread was closed because we were chatting in the wrong place. Why did the author request the lockdown and not an admin, notifying the users the convo should be moved to the discussion section like it happens sometimes?
I’m sorry but I’m not buying it.
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Authors are in charge of their own WIP threads, and can ask for them to be locked and unlocked as needed. It’s not unusual for an author to ask for a thread to be locked after a game is published, or when they put development on hold.
In this case it does seem likely that Sera asked for it to be locked because she was bummed at the feedback for the game, but it’s within forum rules and norms for her to be able to do so.
As others have said, there are still non-WIP Wayhaven threads where people are free to share feedback.
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I do wish, however, that when a WIP thread is closed, that there is a place for full discussion of currently released content. Iirc, the Wayhaven general thread is currently spoiler free for book 3.
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At the very least, maybe remove the “spoiler free for book 3” part from the title. Having to hide spoilers when the game has been out for going on five months is a bit ridiculous.
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The Wayhaven thread was full of almost nothing but criticism for several months (going back to before Book 3 was even released, iirc). Closing it down at this stage is not what I would call “shutting down a thread the moment people start to speak up”. Posters there were clearly given free enough reign to voice their complaints, hence the numerous posts there doing just that.
If anything, that thread became an echo chamber of negativity, with some of the things being said there seeming like they’d be better-suited to private venting sessions with friends instead of being public forum posts — which is why I don’t understand the idea of only positive discussion being welcomed there, because that doesn’t seem to align with the reality of the kinds of posts that were allowed on that thread for months on end.
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Personally I’ve only seen people complain only after publication day was way back, while before it there was only gushing.
Echo chamber of negativity doesn’t quite sit right with me, since people were still pointing out the good while talking about the bad, but we’ll never agree on that point so I guess it’s fine.
Also I get what’s been said, but the whole “keep it in private unless it’s positive” is [not fun], because I see this happen a lot with novels.
Isn’t it censorship to tell the audience “hey maybe don’t talk if it’s not positive”?
This situation has consolidated my belief that wayhaven is perhaps [not fun] in terms of community (but alas, my library is tiny) because [spicy] fans will come for you even for the smallest thing. “Oh you said you think the writing is [not fun]? Too bad you’re wrong :(”
I’m sorry that I’m not a [fan] and I’m sorry that I don’t buy into the wholesome narrative, which is so popular nowadays in fandom spaces for whatever reason, which tells people to never say something even mildly negative.
I don’t condone dogpiling, I don’t condone being [mean] for fun, I don’t condone any sort of [mean] behavior.
However, I won’t stand for censorship. Just like I won’t let anyone say I’m being mean when I haven’t pointed a [water gun] at anyone.
Come [pinch] me when wayhaven stops being published because I said an installment was [not fun]. Oh, the tragedy. 
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This is probably from uh… the Sin of Sires Nebula nomination thread. People were discussing the game and a lot of discussion was negative since a lot of people had issues with the game. Jason came in and shut down the discussion saying the thread wasn’t the place for discussions regarding quality, and “This is a thread to congratulate Natalia on the award”. Ending in “I will be deleting any further comments that cross this line, and I’m strongly considering deleting the prior ones as well.”
People were getting a bit out of hand, but it also brought back old arguments regarding moderation problems and the Relics 3 author deciding to no longer work with Hosted Games.
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I want to clarify—if that is at all what is being talked about—but the purpose of this thread was to discuss the conduct, rules, and preferences of feedback—not the etiquette of discussion on the forum.
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