Misread, my honest bad.
True.
Getting to read a WIP is a privilege, that would certainly never happen in the normal book market.
Sure, the author gets a lot out of showing it (input, advice, reactions, bug reporting), but in the end, it is a work in progress, and it’s important to remember that it’s impossible to have a set schedule for most people. Thus, it’s useless asking when things are going to be updated or released because we honestly don’t know.
And, one final thing: If there is ANYONE aware of things going at a slower pace than desired it’s the author. That is usually the one thought stuck in our head always, that follows us through real-life issues, other paying jobs, family stuff, health problems, and everything else that’s a part of life. We always KNOW we are too slow. We should be writing. We should be editing. We should be faster, better, and more creative. Trust me, that is the loudest voice in our heads. It’s also probably the reason they might abandon their threads and even the forum entirely because they fear that if they do go back, they will face a barrage of people berating them for being slow and asking when they’re gonna update it next.
And so, when someone asks when the next update/beta test/release date is, it’s not an innocent question even if it was intended as such. It is someone stepping on an already broken toe, it’s someone giving you a clap on a shoulder with a knife stuck in it. Some people have learned to ignore it, but it takes a while. And, most authors with WIP’s here are first-time authors. They haven’t really got the callouses yet, not to mention the ability to estimate how long things take. I mean hell, I’ve written enough in my life and my answer will always be: I haven’t got a clue.
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Look, I’m not the one who started a thread about it, I generally try to answer people as best I am able (I get a lot on Twitter and discord). I was just a bit annoyed at the tone of the thread and was perhaps slightly too caustic. But sure, a bot that could answer “It will be updated when it updates, it is impossible to say, please be patient” might be useful.
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They did address these situations. By establishing a forum rule of “don’t ask for timelines”.
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Well, it certainly doesn’t seem like it’s doing much, it’s a shame.
“It will be ready when it is ready.” is the only true answer, and this answer has never been accepted by gamers.
It is addressed: simply do not ask about an update, unless explicitly given permission to do so by the author.
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As you wish
So basically I made a straw man argument because I gave my opinion on a topic tangentially related to the thread…got it.
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That’s really not what I meant, however, I understand that it’s very easy when communicating solely through text for things to be misinterpreted and I may not be articulating myself very well, so I am sorry that my comment caused offense. I was not attempting to criticize, just to point something out that I had observed as a point for further discussion but I feel it clearly wasn’t very productive in doing so.
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I can tell that tempers are running a little hot in the thread; we are all big fans of this stuff, and we love our authors and our readers, so there’s passion at the base of it all. But please keep the temperature relatively mild to moderate, tone-wise, so that people don’t accidentally say things in ways they may not intend.
I’ve flagged for edit/DM’d posters/deleted a few posts to keep the thread sort of on track, which I hope was not too heavy handed. I think this is a really good topic, and people have brought out ideas and perspectives about it that I’ve never thought about before–I’d like to see the thread thrive.
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Yep.
We fear disappointing people. We fear people losing interest in our games. We fear the expectations that each game in a series should be bigger and better! Longer! More words! More ROs! Did I say more words?! We fear what would happen if CoG/HG goes belly up. Even the most thick-skinned of us carry these concerns, even if we don’t voice them.
So I totally get the default rule being in place to offer a sliver of protection to authors.
(That being said, I personally don’t mind when people ask me. At least they are still invested!)
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More choices! More options on each choice! More judges on the Supreme C- no, wait!
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Maybe this is simple-minded of me, but I can’t help thinking most of this conflict could be avoided if we all just remembered to treat authors as people. “I enjoy your work, and I’m excited to see what comes next” conveys exactly the same information as “WHERE IS THE UPDATE? UGH IT’S BEEN MONTHS,” but I think most authors would find the former pleasantly motivating, while the latter is just rude.
Remember, you have no right to an author’s work unless you commissioned it. The fact that their writing was good enough to leave you wanting more doesn’t mean you’re entitled to it. They owe you nothing. And if you treat them like broken vending machines instead of fallible human beings with complicated lives who have nevertheless labored for hours to create something worth sharing with the world, they aren’t going to feel more inclined to give you what you want.
If you can’t accept the reality that creating one of these games is a painstaking process, that life often gets in the way, and that probably a majority of new projects will never be completed and that’s just too bad, maybe your time would be better spent playing finished games, not WIPs.
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I just checked and found old folders with notes from the game I’m working on that date from august 2014. That’s more than 7 years, and I didn’t need a reminder from no one to keep me working on it. Actually the people around me that knows I’m doing this I can probably count them with the fingers of my hand.
On the other hand, I never posted a wip because of two little things. First, I didn’t knew what I was doing, speaking from the basic as to how to plot a story, to writing in general. I learned so much in all the time I invested on the project that I ended up rewriting and changing a lot, a lot of things from the ground up. And I knew that it was something that it was meant to happen, but I didn’t felt confident to show my work openly cause of that.
And second, I knew that posting a wip would have helped me a lot cause all of the feedback that I could have got, but I also knew that my free time was a roller-coaster, sometimes years without being able to make any progress. And I couldn’t allow myself to let the people hanging for so long.
Maybe the takeaway from my point of view is that a wip doesn’t imply a constant progress, as already mentioned before, cause of life, work, problems, etc, etc. And I haven’t dealt with the pressure of having people wanting an update or release date, but I can imagine it could even be detrimental to a creative process, not like math in which you put 2+2=4, and if you get it wrong you sit and try again and there’s only one output. Writing is a form of art, and writing an interactive book with the addition of code and variables and what else, I would be amazed if someone could just say a date of release and accomplish it (specially with non professional writers as a lot of us are).
At the end, I imagine that everyone wants to have their work finished more than anyone else, but if getting just normal helpful and friendly feedback isn’t going to motivate the author, asking for an update or release date, I don’t see how that could help. (Anyway, it’s a matter of personal preference, some people works better under pressure).
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All that is true, but I think it is a bit more symbiotic than that. You can often tell which games have not had a lot of beta testing put into them. FYI anyone who doesn’t realise, anyone publishing through HG that doesn’t get a steam release does not get their game professionally edited. It’s just too large a cost for individuals to shoulder given there’s a good chance you’ll never make that money back. So having folks on the forum hunt for typos and bugs is incredibly helpful to a successful game release. If someone has been providing a lot of feedback, and the game stagnates, it’s often not going to be the author’s fault (Re- External pressures, writer’s block etc) but by the same token I don’t think a polite “is this still being worked on?” is generally not unreasonable if it’s been a while. Demanding content (especially by a set time) is, but a polite question IMO at least is not.
This is coming from someone who regularly gets snowed under by external pressures and my ETA’s for updates and finishes at the moment seem to keep getting moved. I feel bad about it, but kind of need to prioritise keep the electricity on too or there’ll be no games at all from me. (+ high levels of stress do little for productive creativity.) Still, I’m happy to talk about which order games are likely to be worked on (pending my Muse co-operating, which sometimes they don’t) and what state they’re currently in.
Just thinking a little about pressures and expectations, I’m not saying they’ aren’t there on the author. I’ve actually got one that’s I reckon 3/4 finished and over 100k words at the moment that isn’t on the forums mainly because my life of late is stupid busy and unpredicatable and I’m already feeling bad about missed deadlines (and the fact that finishing up this “short” game has pulled an Oedipus on me at least doubling the size it was meant to be) and don’t want to compound that with another patchily updated WIP. So this one will likely be opened for anyone interested when it’s pretty complete which is unusual for me, but how I’m trying to manage it this time. For anyone asking the question “does disappointing readers with not being able to provide an ETA on slower than expected updates for a game exist for authors here?” here’s a prime example of the reaction and I’m not even bothered by respectful questions about the state of my games. But I do get very bothered about disappointing people who have supported my work and I already have too much stress to deal with right now.
But yeah, authors do feel pressure and often feel bad when they’re not able to keep readers happy, and I think it needs a bit of understanding from both sides. From Readers that Authors are not doing this full time and may not finish everything they start, be able to keep to deadlines, implement all suggestions or work on projects in a logical order, from Authors that some Readers are quite invested and taking time to provide feedback and would like to be kept in the loop if they ask nicely- and nicely is the key. (Although that doesn’t mean posting weekly on threads with "Is it finished yet, is it finished yet, is it finished yet? 
) And if an Author requests not to be asked, then that’s something that should be respected. For some, that extra level of pressure is actually going to delay the anticipated update, not improve it, because in the end it’ll come out when it’s ready whether or not you have a heads up of its ETA 
Honestly, I need to try to scrape out and defend blocks of time tooth and nail each week to work on my games at the moment. I can’t start a Tumblr. Well I could but it would be an incredibly bad idea for eveyone as it would likely suck out much of my writing allocated time and cause progress to slow even further. I know from discussions I’m not the only one in this boat either.
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Then don’t start a Tumblr, improvise into ways you can manage and not over-stress yourself
Exactly. That’s why I’m handing my writing largely off the forum at the moment and answering questions on what is being worked on as required. Tumblr is a terrible time sink unless you’re careful. I’d hesitate to recommend it to anyone already having time shortage issues for their writing.
Way way too late for that. Years too late lol. It’s damage control in full phase these days 
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I don’t see that there is any more to be gained by further discussion.
Thank you authors for explaining what it means to you to make one of these games.