BEGINNER'S INTIMIDATION AND HIGH STANDARDS

^Best post yet, Solitayre. Social behavior is my whole emphasis, not the permission of developers and critics to do what they please.

I must say though, I was mostly referring to quick 2cent comments where the critic has not invested a great deal of time as is the case for a review, and thereby become something resembling a stakeholder emotionally in the project.

It's hard to be disrespectful to the efforts of "deleted it after 6 minutes, what a silly way to begin a story." Which some people think deserves gratitude from the dev.

This is my last try at participating in this thread. NO TL;DR ALLOWED. If you want to respond to ANY of this you'd better read ALL of it or I will ignore your response. This is a wall of text, internet, and for once you're just going to have to deal with that.

author=kentona

author=Max McGee

author=kentona

author=Sauce

author=LockeZ
Pretty sure no one is under the impression that offering criticism without advice is helpful.

LockeZ, if those people don't think that criticism without advice is helpful, then they're just being an ass. Because that makes up a lot of the comments you see around.

Is that assertion true, Sauce?

Oh God yes. It's 100% true. Anyone who thinks otherwise is like...in denial.

Of course sometimes I question if people here even understand where lie the boundaries of criticism and advice; where one ends and another begins.

I would contend that people who DO perceive that this is the case are experiencing a bit of confirmation bias.

I find this extraordinarily hurtful and false. Also I really hate it when an internet argument degenerates into people accusing each other of various and sundry psychological biases and logical fallacies; that is just some tiresome bullshit.

In all seriousness, I would contend that YOU are experiencing a bit of confirmation bias as de facto hierarchic overlord of RMN, because this is an emotionally charged issue for you.

Now we've both accused each other of confirmation bias, don't we feel more educated and mature?

(I still love you bro.)

author=emmych

author=Max McGee

author=kentona

author=Sauce

author=LockeZ
Pretty sure no one is under the impression that offering criticism without advice is helpful.

LockeZ, if those people don't think that criticism without advice is helpful, then they're just being an ass. Because that makes up a lot of the comments you see around.

Is that assertion true, Sauce?

Oh God yes. It's 100% true. Anyone who thinks otherwise is like...in denial.

Of course sometimes I question if people here even understand where lie the boundaries of criticism and advice; where one ends and another begins.

We also have to remember that is not our job to be creative for other people. If I point to something that I think is wrong, I often try to explain why I think is wrong and sometimes I even suggest a way to fix it, but sometimes I don't quite feel like it. So the message ends up being more like: "I don't like your shooting form. It's too low. Fix it." ...Which is good enough already, if you ask me.

And if you ask me, that's not only not good enough but is inferior to DOING/SAYING NOTHING. (Of course...that's making blind assumptions about 15,000 situational factors in this hypothetical scenario that we CANNOT know.)

Ahhh, can I just...can I just take a second and bathe in how much I disagree with this? I need to soak it in, because maaaaan.

This idea of "giving criticism without fixing problems is unhelpful" is just plain laziness. I mean, if someone bakes you cookies and they come out hard as hockey pucks but you don't know what caused them to be that way, you should still mention it to the baker. Otherwise, they'll never learn! Half of being a...well a human being, is learning things. And how do you learn a lot of these things? By teaching yourself. How do you teach yourself? By figuring out that what you're doing isn't working. What's a way of figuring that out? By having someone tell you.

It is not the job of the person giving feedback to fix what is wrong with a game; it is the job of the game dev and no one else. Seriously, if a person wants to make good games, they need to not be lazy and figure that shit out on their own.

I am less than surprised that we disagree about this. But I do think your version of things turns on the assumption that the person giving the feedback is always right 100% of the time, more knowledgeable or more educated than the developer, possessed and not just being a bad player.

I DO NOT WANT THIS TO BE MISUNDERSTOOD. I am not saying that these things (being smarter, more experienced, more knowledgeable, right) are prerequisites for giving feedback. I am saying that they are prerequisites for saying something is wrong without giving any hint how to fix it. Because unless you are someone who I really, really, really already have good reason to respect, a perfectly reasonable response to that kind of thing is FUCK YOU.

But other forms of criticism, like "You have a lot of passability errors," inherently contain useful advice within the criticism. Suggesting that such criticism needs to be followed up by also offering the advice "You could solve this problem by fixing the passability errors" is asinine.

Sometimes a person is just trying to be malicious, and other times a person is trying to indirectly compliment other people's work or other parts of your work by comparison, and in these cases they will use the first kind of criticism. But the overwhelming majority of criticism falls under the latter category: criticism that inherently also contains advice.

Honestly, this is criticism that I retrieved a lot when I was MUCH YOUNGER so I can speak to this.

Saying "this game is a piece of shit you can walk on walls" is actively destructive.

Saying "you have a lot of passability errors" is unhelpful chaff/white noise. Because literally, honestly, it is UNHELPFUL. Like, there is an even chance someone hasn't made these errors out of laziness; they just don't know how the tileset works. This might contain advice, but in many cases it is NON-ACTIONABLE advice.

Saying "you have a lot of passability errors, for instance, you should be able to walk behind the green trees, and you shouldn't be able to walk in front of the blue pillars, also that gray square tile is meant to be a ceiling, not a wall" is legitimately helpful feedback.

author=Sauce
Kentona, I'm not saying people are trying to be asses.

While there are a few, most people just give their 2cents and no more, which SHOULD be fine.

The problem is that most of the time, 2 cents are not very helpful. Instead, many devs feel (mistakenly) hostility from 2 cents comments such as:

author=ChaosProductions
Bro what's with that garage

author=donline
I don't like his eye brows...

author=AznChipmunk
I agree with Tau, the pano looks alright, but the map is kind of ugly...

Emmy, or anyone. Tell me how this is helpful? These comments are not malicious at all. But they're certainly not helpful.

==========================================================================

author=LockeZ
In fact I would go so far as to say that in my year and a half at this site I don't think I have ever seen any criticism aimed at developers without advice attached.

LockeZ, that was a blatant lie. So blatant, I can't tell if you're joking.

author=DE
Sounds BOOORIIING!

author=Darken
This game's introduction bored me to tears.

author=JimmyLy
Only looks great. Tried the Demo too boring as it was random.

author=monstrumgod
I died on the first battle. Deleted the game. Thanks for nothing.

author=ThePrivateLifeOfMe
RPGMaker XP has the worst, most sterile RTP graphics in the world, and people still consistently use them.

author=iloveflash
I played this for 6 minutes... then deleted it. What a silly way to open up a story.

I clicked around random games and screenshots to pull up for 10 minutes. Sorry to anyone I took terribly out of context.

Do not tell me this is being helpful.

Anyway, the point is that you (no one in particular, I mean in general) can reserve the right to be an ass. But don't pretend like you're not being an ass by hiding behind your right to criticize. If I ever saw a youth basketball coach tell a kid to "jump higher" when the kid is struggling with some fundamental, I'd punch that coach in the face. If you say something knowing it doesn't help, you're just being an ass. That's all.

Everything about this post is 100% right, nothing further to add. Except that I've been saying this for years.

Some people can learn it on their own. Others can't figure it out and need coaching. Calling those people lazy is insulting, ignorant, bushleague, horseshit, whatever else, and I'm riled up just thinking about it. Needing help is not laziness. In fact, asking for help is the greatest humility.

Bathe in that and soak it up, Emmych.

<3

Well, the other thing is, that's how it's like out there. You can be all sheltered here and have everyone say sweet and happy/fluffy things, but really, when it comes to people playing a game, they'll say what they want. Even the best games have people just flat out going "This game sucks", "This game was tedious (rated 4/10)", and even some pro developers have reacted badly when they see this type of feedback given to them, and the consequence being that people can get even MORE negative or generate more hate for them than if they had responded nicely or not responded at all. You also have to learn how to deal with that kind of criticism/posts, not just feedback on the game itself. It's not nice, but you can't expect everyone to be nice or even set a rule that everyone must be smiley and happy!

RMN is probably not the only community you'll ever visit or post your game on, so I don't think it even makes sense to go so far as to be like "no one must ever be mean ever or else u r banned". It's nice to receive encouragement or feedback but you have to remember there's all different types of people out there that you'll encounter. If you want to make a game and go beyond just posting it to the same nice 3 people, you have to accept that some people will flat out hate it, swear at you for it, find it tedious, overstate how bad some parts were, be jealous of your project, or like it a lot more than you think or create an unexpected fanbase.

I wish that I had an insightful quote from someone brilliant to post here, the gist of the which would be the following:

Just because we can intellectually understand that the world is a shitty place, it doesn't mean that we can't philosophically strive to make it better.

But I can't remember the quote in question (and the ones I do remember aren't close enough) so that will have to do.

Out of interest am I the only one that, if someone writes a pointlessly negative comment on a game or screenshot, has a look at their profile to see their own experience? I'm much more likely to take a comment seriously if it is from someone who has a few completed games under their belt than someone who has no games, abandoned games or a crappy game. This counts in real life too, since I'm more likely to listen to advice from someone at work who is, at the very least, as experienced and qualified as myself.

This is a reasonable viewpoint, but one should also remember that "criticism does not work on a 'do-better' basis". Reviews, particularly, should not be held to this standard. Most professional film reviewers are not prolific film makers, for instance.

And actually, saying "nice work!" without any supplement is not useless. It's positive reinforcement in behavioral studies. Conversely, positive punishment is pretty much looked down on in optional settings. A dev is more likely to leave this optional setting (RMN) to avoid positive punishment. Because this is a hobby, and they don't have to put up with people being asses (even if it's just in their heads, they're often mistaken).

Also, the perspective of the common man is unimportant in this discussion, but they don't read this. So talking about the job of the nobody dev is useless. You can't impact their reaction to criticism or what they take from it, because they're not a part of this dialogue.

If they don't like it here, they'll leave. It's simple. The only thing that has the potential to change for the better is the behavior of the active users. You can promote an environment where more people are comfortable.

I like my friend, he's a real guy's guy, he's not a loudmouth like that cunthole Steve.

I think you really need to wrap your head around the fact that you can't control what other people do. What I'm talking about is controlling how you react to criticism, how you react to what other people say to you. Because you know what? I could stroll over to you right now (er... well you know), and say, "hey, Sauce, I think you're a mouldy bag of dicks and everything you've ever attempted in life is a complete failure. You're stupid and gross and also you're ugly and you'll never get a date." That's mean. That's terrible. But you know what? You can't actually stop me from saying that. What you can do, though, is control how you react to it. Will you punch me in the face? Will you nod and smile and say "thank you for your opinion, you rotten, stuck-up bitch"? Will you take your clothes off and start swinging from trees screaming "MUH'FUCKUHZ I'M TARZAN SUCK MAH DICK"?

The same thing goes for criticism. You cannot control what people will say to you. No amount of rule making and warn distributing on the part of staff will stop some people from saying "your map is ugly" or "your game isn't fun". The only thing you can control is how you react to such things when they're said, which is what I'm trying to get at here. Really, the constant debate about "SHOULD PEOPLE BE MORE NICE~" I see in pretty much every RM community I've visited is a moot point. People being dicks is a part of life, and you just need to deal with it.

That's all I really have to say on the subject, so I'm done here.

I am really glad you are here.

I'm not sure in what universe any of those except DE's post aren't helpful advice, and DE's post is the one that he followed up with a ton of very detailed advice. (Though even saying that the game concept is boring is still advice, really. The implied advice is: come up with a more interesting game concept.)

That is the shittiest advice ever. I mean can you imagine anyone EVER acting on it? Anyone ever scrapping their ENTIRE game concept and coming up with another one because one person found the idea THEY thought was fun to develop boring and starting over from scratch? That's insane!

Ugh. I'm doing developers a service by wasting my time playing through enough of their shitty game to give them a half-decent review. If they don't like my criticism, they can choose not to be children and ignore it; if they feel like actually improving then they can pay attention. I'm not going to hold people's hands through the improvement process because I don't have the patience to do so, but also because there are lots of other people willing to improve without being whiny brats about it.

If you can't take the heat, get out of the fucking kitchen.

This is such complete bullshit...I can't even...wow. Just...wow. I feel like it is not even necessary for me to ARTICULATE my viewpoint because I can just point to posts like this and some of emmych's posts and better articulate my opinion by saying...what I feel is the EXACT OPPOSITE OF THAT.

"I died on the first battle. Deleted the game. Thanks for nothing." is ridiculously ultra helpful advice. The user clearly feels the first battle is so hard that the game is unplayable. I don't know what else you want him to say; he gave a very clear indication of the exact point in the game he found problematic, and exactly what needs to change at that point. How is that not helpful? Yes, it's criticism. No one's debating that. But there's advice there, which is the whole point. It is obviously, blatantly meant to be helpful. It is mind-boggling that you could claim "this isn't meant to be helpful" just because it's rude. Being rude and meaning to be helpful are two completely unrelated things that have nothing to do with each-other! One doesn't in any way imply anything about the other!

This touches on an another issue, which is not that "criticism hurts peoples feelings and makes them quit, wah wah, boo hoo" it's that CRITICISM FORCES ALL GAMES IN WHAT IS OSTENSIBLY AN INDIE COMMUNITY INTO A SINGLE MODE. Stringent limitations like "YOU MUST NEVER BE ABLE TO LOSE THE FIRST BATTLE NO MATTER WHAT EVER" are shaping all of our games toward the same mold.

There is a HUGE GIGANTIC STEAMING PILE OF DIFFERENCE between "the first battle is possible to lose" and "the first battle is impossible to win". The former is courageous, different, exciting game design that bucks the trends and standards of the commercial RPGs being churned out by the cookie cutter commercial gams industry. The latter is just awful horrible fucking terrible games design. A solid example of this is Weird Dreams by Marrend. Marrend, no offense is meant by this, but one thing you could do as an experiment to try and make your game better is to make everything in the game about 50-75% easier and more user friendly and see how people like it then. Which is probably a more helpful statement than saying it was "awful just fucking horrible terrible game design"--"too hard" is almost always ACTIONABLE ADVICE although it's not always advice that SHOULD BE ACTIONED.

AGAIN, there is a HUGE GIGANTIC STEAMING PILE OF DIFFERENCE between "the first battle is possible to lose" and "the first battle is impossible to win".

If you died ONCE in the battle and you assume it's the LATTER you are being a BAD PLAYER. If you attempted the first battle three to five times and lost every time, then the developer is doing something RETARDED and you have the choice of saying so nicely or not-so-nicely. Obviously out of those it's better to say it as nicely as you can.

When your game is bad,criticism is more helpful than politeness. Harshness and strong language make it clear to the developer that the problem is serious. There is no other equally effective way to convey this.

The main problem with this paragraph--besides that it assumes that people somehow are less likely to listen to non-dickish feedback, which is the opposite of true--is the first clause of the first sentence which is so ABSOLUTELY AND COMPLETELY SUBJECTIVE as to be UTTERLY MEANINGLESS. WHO MAKES THIS JUDGEMENT CALL, WHEN, HOW, AND BASED ON WHAT CRITERIA?

For instance, I have not made a bad game since 2003. I have made games that certain people liked less than others. I have made games that were less successful than others. I have made games that I thought were less good than others but other people liked more in spite of that. I have made games that I knew were better that other people liked less. But nothing any of you or all of you could ever do, ever, would convince me that anything I've made since 2003 is bad. This isn't just because even my least popular games have received fans and champions and praise. It's because I know, in my heart of hearts, that none of them were bad, and that is to me an unshakable truth. It protects my feelings from getting hurt NOT AT ALL but that's BESIDE the point. The POINT IS...for me, I would NEVER consider criticism to be more helpful than politeness, because of that FIRST CLAUSE...because I would never consider my game to be bad.

Maybe I should literally just make a fucking thread called MY GAMES ARE AWESOME, WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT?

(Author's Note: Like everyone, when I first started out I made about three to five years of bad games. All beginners should expect their first five games to suck, utterly. Mine did, and it's fine; it's to be expected. But I've been past that point a LONG time.)

author=LockeZ
Unfortunately some people - like Sauce and Max McGee - will accuse you of being a dick just for saying you dislike something.

author=Sauce
I get the vibe that the goal is more like setting a community standard and if the devs can't reach that bar, tough luck. Mentalities like "if you can't take the heat, get out of the fucking kitchen" or "if they scamper off, so be it" gives me that impression.

This is bullshit and deep down you know it. You project images of imaginary villains everywhere. You see what you want to see and fight against strawmen. Look at reality for a change. None of us are projecting that vibe. None of us have this mentality. No one is suggesting this disgusting idea except you.

This isn't high school and you are imagining this idiotic drama. Maybe it's what you're used to seeing in other places and so you just assume it'll be here and so you imagine you see it in every corner. You look for anything that could possibly be interpreted this way, and interpret it this way.

I am sorry if my tone seems sharp, but it makes me unbelievably angry to be accused, personally or as a community, of having dishonest intentions.

I hate to go to such an old saw, but if it makes you that angry, it's probably because it's completely true. Not of EVERYONE ON RMN, but of a large number of people (who I could, if we wanted to make this really personal, name).

Ironically, I don't consider YOU, personally, to be part of the problem! So I'm not sure why you're so adamant in defending those who are!

Criticism and politeness are in no way or shape the opposites. You can have both just fine.

I don't know why, but for some people on RMN this just does not compute. A lot of RMN cannot imagine a world in which being nice and helping someone suck less aren't MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE POLAR OPPOSITES. It's really sad, actually. Because there is NO REASON you can't be genuinely helpful and incisive and cut right to the point while ALSO not being a complete bag of rancid assholes.

The fine points of giving/receiving criticism are likely to get discussed in any community where people show off their work, but there does seem to be an inordinate amount of discussion about it here. There's a thread like this probably once a week, and more often than not it degenerates into people not so subtly just defending their own right to be obnoxiously critical/super sensitive rather than talking about it in a broad sense.

This is because the people who are being super sensitive don't believe they're being super sensitive and the people being obnoxiously caustic don't believe they're being obnoxiously caustic.

/overly obvious statement.

I still maintain that if you actually want a game to improve, whatever criticism you give should come with at least a little bit of humility or sensitivity. That's only if you genuinely want to see improvement, though. If your goal is just to sit at your computer and grin with pride at the exquisite sarcasm you have unleashed on some poor 14-year-old kid who just wanted to show off "Legend of the Seven Dragon Crystals," well then that's different. Just lower your expectations for the game getting any better. You can write for numerous paragraphs about how people should just accept and compy with all criticism, even if it's nasty and full of RANDOMLY PLACED CAPITALIZATION, but "should" is not "will." I have yet to see anyone react to nasty feedback with "MUHFUCKAZ I'M TARZAN SUCK MAH DICK" but I've seen some conversations that got fairly close to that. Yeah, it would be nice if people were less sensitive. It would also be nice if nobody was poor. At some point you have to ask if you want to just rant about principles or if you want actual results.

I agree.

Let's not forget that the original idea behind this thread was how to treat beginners, not oldbies like most of us who are used to the often caustic tone of the RM community. If you want new people to stick around (especially if they are on the younger side), you'll be nicer. It's not that different from making connections in real life - if you want to recruit someone to your club or cause or whatever, you're not going to start off by yelling at them and telling them the various reasons why they suck. Sure, you CAN, but that's not the issue. You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. But if the majority of folks don't particularly care if newcomers feel welcome, then carry on.

We really should be super extra nice to newbies. Does...does anyone...actually not agree with that? Like...seriously? Does anyone actually think "newbies don't deserve even a little bit of special care and gentler treatment"?

Does anyone actually think that?

Is anyone actually taking that position? Because...my god....if you are...fuck you.

I mean fuck I'd go so far as to say that we should just treat EACH OTHER better. I can't even imagine that anyone would DISAGREE that we should treat ACTUAL NEWBS better.

author=MOTHERFUCKING SOLITAYRE MOTHERFUCKERS

author=LockeZ
When your game is bad, criticism is more helpful than politeness. Harshness and strong language make it clear to the developer that the problem is serious. There is no other equally effective way to convey this.

Slow down there, Attila. Critiquing someone's game is good. Brutally savaging it and leaving it for dead is not good. "Nice" isn't the opposite of "Helpful" and I'm not sure where you could have picked up such a notion.

Speaks for itself, I think.

I feel as though I must challenge perceptions here. I don't see anyone purposely seeking out newcomers and shitting on them. Every effort is made to make newcomers feel welcome (for example, most people here probably don't know that when a new member signs up, they get automatically redirected to the New to RMN? article. We have a good code of conduct now. We have accessible and clear submission rules and guidelines. We have several recourses to deal with denied submissions, or outright shitposting (Report Post go!). We have a Help & Request forum that is filled with helpful people being helpful and polite. Also, you attract more flies with vinegar irl

I mean, I can cherry pick examples from RMN to "prove" whatever position I like (just like the Bible!) but I doubt it would be representational. Like LockeZ, I get the sense that people are projecting their biases on the greater community, and that bias is not really reflective of reality.

Kentona, I don't think RMN is some kind of horrible Cess Pool and I'm not saying that, just to be absolutely clear. I don't think the majority of the users are "sewer demons" or anything of that sort.

That said...whenever I see people who have basically never had anything seriously mean said about any of their games talking about how having your game savaged is "not a big deal" and people should "just get over it" I get a familiar feeling. It's the same feeling I get when I see white people so clouded with white privilege they talk about how racism is "not even a big deal" or middle class people who've never actually struggled to make a living talking about how being poor is "not a big deal" or people who've been healthy all their lives talking about how having a serious illness is "not that big of a deal". The feeling is perhaps best described as a grimace of vague embarassment.

I earnestly believe that if some of my "critics" got even half the "criticism" I get, they cry like little bitches, take their tiny balls, and go home forever. In spite of their utterly bullshit "tough love" rhetoric, I don't think they could take 1/10th of the shit they dish out.

So yes, from your mindset, of course this problem doesn't exist. You want to talk about confirmation bias? You have the most popular game on RMN, everyone loves it and you, and the vast majority of users have nothing but nice things to say about it. Is it really any surprise that you don't think that RMN is or can be an environment that can stifle game design? For you and the lucky few who've received a reception comparable to Hero's Realm, it's not.

But the vast majority of us are swimming within sight of very different shores.

"This game is bad to the point of being completely unplayable because of the utterly random difficulty swings. Your battles vary wildly in difficulty as though no thought were put into the player's power or the game's difficulty curve. As it stands some of them are literally unbeatable and the game is ruined because of it. You should read some articles on designing game difficulty curves - or, hell, just play some games and pay attention to the difficulty curves - and completely redo your game's enemies with that knowledge in mind if you want the game to be any good at all. This is not optional."

If I were to word that any less harshly it would not convey how important the issue is--

That you actually think this speaks to nothing but your own limitations as a reviewer. I'm not even saying that THAT IS TOO HARSH or that YOU SHOULDN'T PUT THAT IN A REVIEW. Hell, that looks like something I might put in one of MY REVIEWS. But to say there's no way to convey the same importance while being less of a dick? Utter bullshit.

http://rpgmaker.net/games/3659/reviews/1565/This review by emmych. It is a very fair and balanced review, never harsh or rude, but the creator of the game flies off the handle anyway and accuses her of writing the review in malice. Does a creator of a right to react in manner like this? Some might say yes, but at this point, you're being disrespectful to the efforts of the reviewer, who also put time and effort (in this case, obviously quite a bit) into writing a review for your game.

So many of these problems could be resolved if people just followed a few simple behaviors that should be common sense in any form of social interaction. Don't be a jerk.

This is complete and total goddamn bullshit.

I never said that review was written in malice. I have never believed that to be the case. I have never said or thought that.

The ENTIRETY of what I said about the review itself or the author of the review was this:

I don't believe that this review was written from a place of complete malice, or that it is totally without merit. However, besides the fact that I was frustrated that this review covered a newly obsolete version of the game I found this review disingenuous and disrespectful. The former because it gives a rating in spite of claiming not to (merry Christmas to me, lol, 1/5 stars). The latter because the reviewer named the character DickBro and screenshotted it. That's borderline trolling, to me. It is obvious that the reviewer was obscenely prejudiced against the game before they even gained control of the character, because they gave the character a grotesque non-name. If your first act in playing a game is naming the main character "DickBro" or "Fuck" or "Stumpy" or "Smegma" or "Sir Choad" whatever, maybe you should reconsider reviewing that game.

Every single other thing I said in response had absolutely nothing to do with the review in particular or Emmych in particular. Everything else I said was in response to BROADER SWEEPING TRENDS in the community attitude towards me that I'd seen developing for MONTHS or YEARS. None of it had anything to do with Emmych or her review. At ALL.

If you think I flew off the handle about any of that, fuck you, no I didn't. But on the other hand, would I have been a happier person in the long run if I'd just said "Thank you for your opinion, but I disagree." and nothing else? Yes.

If I could change one single word of that quoted rant, I would remove the word disingenuous. Literally, of everything I said, that is the ONLY word I think it was wrong of me to use. I should not have called the review disingenuous. It wasn't. Neither emmych or her review was disingenuous, that word was THE WRONG WORD TO USE. I pretty much still back up 100% of the BROADER, MORE SWEEPING STATEMENTS THAT FOLLOWED THAT and had nothing to do with emmych in particular or her review. Of course, it was BAD TIMING. Because emmych was really not PART of the culture of antagonism in extremis that I was talking about.

This community, however? CERTAIN PARTS OF IT, at least? EXTREMELY INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST. And I can and will CONCLUSIVELY PROVE IT if necessary. But that is a discussion for another day.

----FINAL COMMENTS---

Do not phrase a comment or review you make on anyone else's game in a way that you would not like to be talked to yourself. (And be truly and emotionally honest when evaluating how you'd like to be talked to; don't mistakenly overestimate how thick your own skin is, and if you ARE unusually thick-skinned, then base your behavior on how an average person would like to be talked to instead. )

If we all followed this golden rule, we'd treat each other with respect, more games would get made faster, we'd all be happier and there'd be less of these fucking topics.

Max, please tell me you're at least partially aware of how unapproachable a post of that size is.

Do not phrase a comment or review you make on anyone else's game in a way that you would not like to be talked to yourself. (And be truly and emotionally honest when evaluating how you'd like to be talked to; don't mistakenly overestimate how thick your own skin is, and if you ARE unusually thick-skinned, then base your behavior on how an average person would like to be talked to instead. )

If we all followed this golden rule, we'd treat each other with respect, more games would get made faster, we'd all be happier and there'd be less of these fucking topics.

I do that and people still get hurt. Like I said before, even mildly innocuous comments like "stop posting in all caps, it's obnoxious" (like myself) strike some people to the bone, even if I'm aware that the other person has a point.. It really is completely subjective. You posted a lot of great examples of useless comments, or comments that had potential to help the creator, but were never fully evaluated on, and I agree with you there.

However, there are cases where someone will post a well thought-out opinion with logic and reason to back it up, and the subject of the review will STILL be upset. This is also undeniably true and proof that the whole process is subjective.

Should everyone be nicer? Yes.
Should everyone be less serious in general? Yes.
Should developers be aware that not everyone will like their game as much as they do? Yes.

"Say something nice, or don't say anything at all" doesn't really fly when you put your work up for review.

Max: "Saying "this game is a piece of shit you can walk on walls" is actively destructive."

My response: Yet saying "FUCK YOU" to critics is actively constructive?

If you don't want to take the feedback for whatever reason - and trust me, there are plenty of reasons to ignore feedback in many sitautions, especially if the person is saying 'there should be no puzzles' when it's a puzzle game - then just ignore it. Say "thank you for your comments" and nothing else.

Nothing else NEEDS to be said. EVER. If you want to go on and defend the perceived faults, be prepared for a long argument as both sides draw in allies and debate the very foundation of gaming theory. That stuff gets lame very fast.

Perhaps. I'm mostly talking about people arguing about things such as random vs. touch encounters. People like both. If a game does it either way, it's not a "fault" - it's a design choice, and criticizing a developer for such a neutral design choice is just wasting time. I prefer touch, but I'd only criticize random encounters if they happen far too often. I'd respect the design choice and focus my critique in other areas.

author=kentona
you could read the post history of srb2 event page or gameprofile, if you like.

How personally could you possibly take something said about a COMMUNITY PROJECT everyone is contributing to???

author=kentona

author=Max McGee

author=kentona
you could read the post history of srb2 event page or gameprofile, if you like.

How personally could you possibly take something said about a COMMUNITY PROJECT everyone is contributing to???

1) this is my community 2) it was my initiative (that I convinced grs to run) 3) my level was the most contentious level by far

Okay yes I got to the point where Solitayre started talking and I see what you mean and if I were you I would pretty much have fucking punched him straight off of the site, so clearly we are not exactly the same way. Still can't find anything contentious about your level.

I thought Super RMN Bros 1 was a pretty good game.

EDIT EDIT:
oh max, why do you get to reserve the right to be a dick, but only you? that just makes no sense :<

What...where...what....are you even construing as this?

author=Max McGee

EDIT EDIT:
oh max, why do you get to reserve the right to be a dick, but only you? that just makes no sense :<

What...where...what....are you even construing as this?

your right you reserve to say fuck you. it's very distressing to read "people should be nice and constructive, but I am justified in saying fuck you back".

I joke about this a lot, but I believe in it wholeheartedly: "Be the change you want to see in RMN" ~ghandi


EDIT:
I guess it upsets me to see that people against the "dick-cycle" of RMN reserve the right to be dicks. That's not going to help.

EDIT:
super rmn bros 2 was the one with the (more) contentious level

I said that people should be nice and constructive IN REVIEWING AND COMMENTING ON GAMES.

I never said that no one is allowed to say FUCK YOU. When did I ever even get CLOSE to saying that?

Games are fucking DELICATE. They need special care and consideration. Your games, my games, and especially the games of n00bs.

I'm not obliged to give up my right to say fuck you to emmych/craze/versalia/lockez/whatever/whoever nor are they obliged to give up THEIR right to say fuck you to me just because we should ALL be more respectful of GAMES.

I'm not quite sure how you guys got from "be respectful when commenting on and reviewing games" to "MAX MCGEE DEMANDS THAT EVERYONE ALWAYS BE CORDIAL, ALSO GO FUCK YOURSELF".

I joke about this a lot, but I believe in it wholeheartedly: "Be the change you want to see in RMN" ~ghandi

What you need to understand is that I perfectly exemplify the change I want to see in RMN every fucking day I post here. I want certain people to be taken down a peg, or twelve. And I want our overall attitude to be more respectful towards games and their developers. Assholes shutting the fuck up and people being respectful are not mutually exclusive; the former actually will HELP the latter.

"I found this game far too challenging. You'll likely retain more players by lowering the difficulty... etc and so on." - polite and offers meaningful commentary. I feel that this is the way most feedback should be delivered. This is how it's handled in the professional world!

So we're in complete and total agreement?