Yeah, I’ll shoot Rose a message and ask if we can ditch the spoiler free thing. Hiding spoilers grates on my nerves the day something releases (I’m a spoiler whore, so sue me), so having to do that for a five month old game makes me hurt!
In case Rose refuses, is it allowed for forum members to start unofficial threads for games/series? Or would that be immediately shut down, since the author isn’t involved?
I would say the best way to give feedback is to point out what one felt was wrong, why they felt like it didn’t work and what could possibly be done to fix the issue.
It is also pertinent to remember that your point may have already been brought up and has been discussed.
Going over the same issues and having the same arguments again and again may not be productive.
Also there is the chance that the author may not feel like your criticism is warranted or that they are fine with the aspect of the story that you have issues with.
At the end of the day these are stories that these people want to tell and if that story is not to your liking then perhaps it’s time to leave. The world is not going to end if the author doesn’t write the story you want and if the story suffers because of that than its the authors cake to eat it themselves. How you feel what ifs are better you can just show that supporting them and don’t support the ones you don’t like.
Forum members are allowed to start threads about games, it’s just that they tend to get merged into others so they don’t take over the most-recent-activity thread area or there aren’t lots of duplicate discussions (especially for series, where there are threads for each game and if they’re popular the number of posts can explode fast). A Wayhaven discussion thread would likely get merged into the existing one for that reason. You may need to hold your nose and do the spoiler-hiding thing for a bit. (Edit: or there is the original announcement and discussion thread also)
I agree with this, and would add that sometimes characters who are intended to be universally appealing are the ones who fall flat because it’s impossible for a character to be lovable to everyone, or to have no flaws. I am interested when someone doesn’t like a character I’m writing because it means I can get a sense of whether the player has a personality clash with the character, or whether I need to recalibrate first impressions or tweak their scenes to align with my intentions better.
Isn’t this part of the reason why HG threads exist? I know that gets lost sometimes when WIP development and testing threads become more fandom interaction threads in some cases, but the reason why COG requires a beta test on the forum is to help iron out issues. In reality if you want to publish through HG you can’t say “only positive posts allowed or I’ll get upset” as in the end that’s counter productive. It is hard for authors, but you kind of do need to be able to separate your writing from your self worth and take constructive crit in the spirit it is usually intended.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t censor their feedback into something more palatable and it needs to be constructive so the author knows where the problem may be, but if someone has a criticism, as long as it’s constructive and not overly hash, it probably needs to be allowed. The author can then accept or reject the feedback and that should be the end of the story rather than arguments or pile ons happening (unless it’s game breaking.)
yeah yeah 
In other news I need a new computer because the keyboard has been playing up for a few months and many keys are not working on first press depending on how the computer is feeling. It’s becoming very frustrating (and not just for me it seems).
Edit @AletheiaKnights yes, but it’s an old laptop I’ve had for many years whose battery is not great and it is overheating in hot weather so I think it’s probably better to replace it by this point by the time I get everything replaced/repaired.
Can’t you just replace the keyboard?
This may sound a little harsh, but I think the “you dont like it at least give a possible solution” should only apply to WIPs, when the author is providing a free view on their work.
If someone buys your game, hates it, and leaves a 1 star review and leaves, thats ok. It would be nice if they made a in-depth, constructive comment, it really would, but they dont need to.
If you take someones money in exchange for a product you made, and they think your product sucks, they dont owe you a solution for the problem you wrote.
