Expectations that try to force a standard or even a minimum should be tailored to the individual project/game in question.
An indie developer team of one should not be expected to have the same features and systems a larger team would.
On the same level, a person with more experience and developed skills would be expected to offer more than a novice developer, especially for a first game.
If the new developer exceeds the minimums, that should be celebrated. If the publisher (HC) actually releases a game, that means the minimums have been met.
Expectations are not something so easily defined, especially in writing and game making defined by writing.
Edit:
No, you read correctly the second time.
If a person is upset that game “a” has ten scenes and game “b” has four scenes … providing that feedback is valid … it is then up to the author to decide if that feedback is useful to them or not.
The problem occurs when the reader then demands that everyone gives ten scenes in every story game they read.
Wayhaven comparisons are infamous in this community for doing just this, and that is why most Wayhaven comparisons are invalid feedback.
…I originally read the question being as “if this book has one RO with ten scenes, and my chosen RO has only four in the same book, aren’t I allowed to be annoyed?” and was wondering what’s wrong with being annoyed about that (because I think it would be a valid complaint, that’s a huge difference… assuming the scene length is equal), but now that I re-read it, the question was about different amount of scenes with ROs in different books. I think? Or did I miss something again?
It is saying that If X book has X length and X romances all writers have to have the same amount of them and It is reasonable demand that.
Basically killing any chance of publishing to anyone with different ideas from Forum mainstream group. Basically negating people like me any chance. Be cause we don’t have 30 romance scenes because Go figure we dont write romance because universe don’t turn around only romance games
Of couse big word count doesnt mean quality, for example, Im not a fan of the Infinity Series, I find it ungodly boring, but Im a big fan of Fallen Hero, book 2 is massive, and its really really fucking good.
Thinking about this from my perspective as a paying costumer, Fallen Hero: Retribution costs me R$ 38,49 for 1,4 million words, and I know for a fact that the game is amazing and worth the money.
Vampires Kiss, that I havent played, would cost me R$ 20,49 right now, maybe its just as good as FH:R, its still not worth the same, since at half the price, it delivers much less than half the content, assuming the content is good (Maybe it is, I dont know).
This is not an argument to increase game prices for the love of god please no.
I dont really agree with the indie studio/big studio comparison, most games from CoG, HG or HC arent made by big teams, hell, from the little I know about CoG game development, wouldnt CoG titles have more people involved in their production than HG games with millions of words?
I will leave the thread right now because people is triggering badly my anxiety and anger.
As basically Is saying most writers here shouldnt write at all and we don’t deserve have a place in the market because we dont deliver The entire word account of Lord of the rings plus hobbit. for 4 or 5 dollars.
The unfairness and entitlement of that statement is so big that I would love that games were paid by word account… That would make people be more understanding of the working it require writing and how same people that pays for 23k paper book almost 20 dollars dont want to pay 3 dollars for a 100k game book with repay value.
And that is not the issue that angers me is the damn entitlement. You don’t have to buy anything. So don’t go demanding far more beyond any logic request in any industry.
We should also go all indies demanding The scope of witcher 3 and 100 hours content for less than 10/dollars.
What if in a 150,000 word game (excluding script or code) you were able to experience 60,000 words each play through, and in the 1 million word game, you experience 150,000 words?
Assuming you finish an entire play through, and also assuming you only play once, wouldn’t the game giving you a larger percentage of it be worth more value?
Even allowing for replays, you would need to replay the million word game four times to get the same raw percentage of game.
From everything I have ever seen, most people do not play a game multiple times, let alone four times.
Maybe, but maybe not. Fallen Hero has a large crowd-sourced base of people helping with editing and more … what value do you place on an experienced editor vs an inexperienced editor?
What about the CoG 1 million word project under development now? Should this be held to the same expectations of Tin Star? Maybe even higher expectations, because of CoG’s back end people being involved?
I would posit that this project should have its own expectations. Expectations that are derived from the author’s prior titles in the series and by the author setting them himself.
I dont think so, expectations should be set by price tags, I doesnt really matters how experienced an author is, what hes/shes done before, how many people worked on the project, if you sell me a product I expect it to be worth its price.
Of course that what my moneys is worth is entirely up to me, but truly, if you want the money I worked for, you should be willing to read the criticism I provide.
That came out more agressive than necessary, sorry.
Thats a really good point, the small game would require me two playthroughs to see all content I paid for, the big one would require me around 6, but the big one is still providing me more content per playthrough than the small one, and assuming they are priced the same way HG/CoG are currently priced, and they are of equally good quality, the big one is more worth my money.
Apologies for going silent, I was a little down so I have run off to Sri Lanka with nothing but my phone, charger, passport and clothes on my back to play with elephants. (Surprisingly affordable, I got here for <$200 from the UK, although I appreciate not everyone is in the position to have a major depressive flunk and jump on the first plane to go eat curry under a picture of Scarlett Johansson and pet elephants.)
But I am, and elephants are fun.
I think some distance has given me a little perspective. Mainly that all of the things that got me down - people not liking length, people not liking it being in one label over another, and in particular people advocating for piracy and stealing the game - are all things I cannot control. The game is done. So I move on.
I don’t know if my public sharing of the past week or so has been helpful or unhelpful. If it had been helpful, and given a little Inside Baseball, I’m glad. It seems to have stirred some (mostly) healthy discussion, regardless.
I made a bet with some peeps how far around the world I could get in a week for a budget of £500. Sri Lanka (via Budapest, Saudi Arabia and Oman) was £166! I could get to Jakarta but that might be excessive…
Given how grey it is here, I would definitely enjoy getting out and about. Enjoy!
Edit: I would suggest that if people would like to carry on the consumer/price-related aspects of wordcount discussion this thread is perhaps better suited, as it seems more of a publisher-decisions/customer-satisfaction topic than Writer Support.
As I said, comparing indie game development and AAA game development to small IFs and big IFs is not a good comparison. Expecting a 10 person studio to provide the output of a 1200 people studio is indeed absurd, but comparing a game written (primarly) by one/two writters to another game written (primarly) by one/two writters, I think is fair.
I never said that, I will never say that. I have bought and enjoyed many ~200K words books and will continue to do so in the future, quality over quantity, absolutely, but as there are big games that can provide both for a comparatively fair price, I think its fair for me to use these games as basis of comparison.
I do not fully understand the challenges that come with writing a IF game, but I do understand very much the work I have to do to earn enough money to buy these games, if you are willing to sell me a product, you should be willing to recieve criticism regarding such product, if I believe it was not worth the money I spent, that is not entitlement.
Im sorry if I had a part at making you feel this way, it was not my intention.
I’ve finished Chapter One of Daemonglass and I’ve got 3 days to finish my short story for my work competition but all in all I’m on track to start work on Chapter One of A Familiar Magic. Can’t wait to see which idea intrigues the most people.
I believe that this thread has become a bit off topic. Remember that this is a writer support thread. I am requesting that we rein back the wordcount discussion and focus back on the support.
I’m glad to hear that you are getting distance. I truly believe that it’ll be good to get this distance at this time.
It is the end of the third week, and what a week it has been for me.
I took a two-week break from Patchwerks to write and submit a Halloween Jam, and I am happy that I did.
I have received great feedback from everyone who posted it to me; things that will help as I take what I did into the future.
The beginning of this week was a bust, writingwise, due to life insisting it was time to deal with it instead of playing nice.
The second half of the week has been wonderful, with me making strides with my project. While I most likely will not finish this pass at month’s end, I should do so early next month.
So far, I have added about 5,000 words of dialogue and reworked more as well as non dialogue exposition. All told about 50,000 words were reworked with this change pass.
My goals for this week are to enjoy any Halloween Jam happenings and to get through as much of this pass as I can, without putting pressure on myself to finish the pass in three days or less.
Thank you everyone for continuing to contribute to the thread’s success.
I have spent the last week trying desperately to get used to the new schedule for my job, and find time to put any work, any work at all, towards my game… And like I was worried about before… I can’t seem to find time.
To be honest, I’m exhausted all the time now, trying to get my sleep schedule in order, so I haven’t been able to even put thought towards it. TAT This is the worst. I’m definitely not making my goals for this month… Ugh.
So I did figure out the block, which was good, tahnks to a ton of help from people on this forum! Now I’m just caught between a three-prong do this list
GOT A JOB! WOO! Money incoming, which is nice. I’ll be able to afford food and shit.
I did not score a commission or two, but that might be a good thing as I wouldn’t have time for them now, anyway.
I did not add another month of posts, but I have been adding posts, so… It should be okay.
After discussing it with my family and also considering the new demands on my time, I will DEFINITELY not be doing NaNoWriMo this year.
I’ve begun the process of outlining but so far it’s just been making me want to start writing scenes. One of those scenes spiraled into a full on chapter, so I’m going to go out on a whim and say it’s going to take a few weeks before I finish the outline without getting distracted
I’ve also been thinking about having a NaNoWriMo-esque writing goal but I’m just not that appealed by it. I know it’s good to have a deadline and a goal, but it felt like a chore the previous times I’ve done it and I’d rather it doesn’t burn me out too soon
I’ll spend the last days of October and the first days of November preparing for a local gaming convention (for those curious, it’s the E-Sports and Gaming Summit or ESGS here in Manila). And thus, until the convention’s over, I’ll hold off doing further revisions to Falrika the Alchemist, since I’m advised that it will miss the 2023 release window.
