POPULARITY AND THE STATE OF THIS COMMUNITY

Don't worry F-G your review is coming soon, most likely today.

Yeah honestly guys, this community is really insular. If you're looking to increase the number of players for your games, look outside the community and advertise in other places.

I'm trying to play more games that come up on the homepage, ever since RMN3 at least. I'm gonna agree with Feld here and say thats the thing people need to at least try and do more often, play the games, instead of looking and leaving.

Although like Neok said, this community is dedicated towards development more than gaming itself, so theres definitely not gonna be a lot of feedback unless a game becomes exceptionally popular.

Do you visit any other forums/communities? For obvious reasons, your best bet is still places where people are familiar with who you are (the whole rep. thing). For example, some of us are on DeviantArt. I know Skie's dropped her game off there before and probably picked up at least a handful of players there.

It looks kinda bad if you sign up to a forum just to drop your game and leave, but you can do that too. Think about your target audience, and look for forums/sites that cater towards that. As to specific places, I don't have any in mind, but I'm also not at the point in my game's development where I want to do this kind of thing. You can try asking Craze once he gets back I suppose. Or do some searching on your own.

On a serious note: It is obvious people need to review games more, even comment more much as if you were posting in a game topic. This has all been said before. However, to further that notion, I would like to bring attention to the "Top Reviewers" that you see on the right hand side in the reviews section. Half of the people on there haven't been active in the last year, it is a joke. It would be nice to see every game with at least one review, not to mention competition on who can write the most reviews.

I think part of the problem is that lurkers to come on RMN solely to download games and nothing else (not even registering) are too afraid to express their thoughts (or too lazy to) I would like to see some kind of good encouragement for outsiders to register and write reviews/comments.

Of course, some people are excused from this critic collective, as they are spending their useful energy in other parts of RMN. I admit I am of a rare breed, who will willingly search for an RM game to play. I love seeing what people can do with a limited program. Just lately I have been searching for a lot of old rare RM games I used to play for hours on end. But I'm not the only one who does this. As I know of some people who have rpg maker game infested folders going way past the GB mark.

Which reminds me, where the fuck are Neophyte's reviews? Seriously someone drag him in here. I recall him writing a lot in GW way back. The administration is doing a nice job at employing people like Brick to write qualitative reviews, but we need more than that. If you know anyone personally who is a genuine critic and loves to write, bring him/her here.

I personally think one of the problems is people are afraid to express true opinions. Look at any game's comment page and there's 70% chance you'll see the first comment saying "This game is awesome!" regardless of its actual quality. When every game is touted as "awesome" it becomes much, much harder to sift through the community to find actual quality, and people are much less willing to actually try to play anything.

This is a developer community. People (hopefully) aren't here to hear mindless praise. They are here to have their work critiqued so that they may improve it. Am I wrong?

Edit: I totally read SNEWS

post=87394
I personally think one of the problems is people are afraid to express true opinions. Look at any game's comment page and there's 70% chance you'll see the first comment saying "This game is awesome!" regardless of its actual quality. When every game is touted as "awesome" it becomes much, much harder to sift through the community to find actual quality, and people are much less willing to actually try to play anything.

This is a developer community. People (hopefully) aren't here to hear mindless praise. They are here to have their work critiqued so that they may improve it. Am I wrong?

Edit: I totally read SNEWS. And expect a review on Hero's Realm soon. =)

I wish people were more critical and more accepting of it. It's gotten to the point where in any thread I make about my game, I have to essentially encourage people to say what's on their mind... To little effect.

This is a developer community. People (hopefully) aren't here to hear mindless praise. They are here to have their work critiqued so that they may improve it. Am I wrong?

Some people truly do want criticism. But, there are also those who do want mindless praise (or some form of recognition for hard work put into a game). Aside from download counts, if people are playing a game, the creator doesn't know about it. We here in the community can offer constructive criticism (although some don't respect others enough to value their opinion). What would be nice is building a better bridge over the gap between players who come here to leech games, and the people who create these games. Something easy enough to convince the players to leave a little feedback without requiring big submission forms or login procedures.

Before I even look at the OP: Mog made this topic.

EDIT: Wh-What the hell?

EDIT WITH CONTENT: If I recall correctly, wasn't Exit Fate advertised outside of the community? And didn't become insanely popular for an RM game? Just a thought.

post=87408
Play Something is a bad idea because it's something we should be doing in the first place. I recall the last one not changing the review/feedback spike at all.

I am totally onboard with ideas on how PS isn't a good idea, or what wasn't a good idea about it, but from what I remember (unless I'm remembering wrong), the number reviews skyrocketed after the last PS.