VOLRATH'S PROFILE

I don't come here that often because of the issue that inspired this thread...but I do make a point to check the Misao results around this time of year. I'm not surprised that this topic emerged right around the same time.

My thoughts are similar to what ariedonus said. I like this site's layout, I like the game pages, I like the prevalence of reviews...but in terms of the community, it's hard to justify a lot of involvement. It's too bad, because there are some nice guys here like Solitayre and Karsuman, but every time I start to entertain the thought of posting more....well, I see a thread like this year's Misao results.

I had a disturbing bit of deja vu while reading that. I've been familiar with Sailerius's work for a long time, and both his project and MotW upset a version of After AILA to win Game of the Year. That same year, another longtime RM friend won a Misao and when I told her, she wasn't the least bit excited. Instead she told me "Great, now they're just going to talk shit about my game." And sure enough...that's what happened. It's quite a contradiction - "Congratulations, the community named your project Game of the Year! Now the community will tell you the various reasons why your win was undeserved and/or illegitimate." Man, I remember when MotW won, someone actually said that some of our fellow nominees were "undeniably better." When inevitably confronted about his dogma, his reply was something I see disturbingly often on the internet - an attempt to make the case that opinion really was fact. What an eye-opener. All this time, I thought art was subjective, but I was wrong. Art was not subjective, it was what this guy said it was. What a burden off my shoulders â€" now I or anyone else needn't bother forming an opinion, because there was one helpful individual who decided all of these matters. You learn something new every day.

Alright, getting carried away. Hadn't thought about that crap in a couple years and now I'm pissed off all over again. :P

The point is, to someone who is not a regular member, this site's community can come off as antagonistic jerks who only accept a very limited number of projects as worthy of acclaim/interest, and when a project like MotW or Quintessence or Legendary Legend or Vacant Sky becomes popular despite their lack of interest (because let's face it, most of the time they haven't even played the project in question....not that this keeps them from forming an opinion, of course. Informed judgments went out of style around the same time as the typewriter), they try to devalue it. Honestly, it's the same reason I left rmxp.org (now hbgames.org) a couple of years ago. Life's just too short for this rancid bullshit.

I'm told hbgames.org is better now, haven't been in a while so I can't say. I do remember that it was only a few very active members, with a fondness for unearned superiority and dogma-laced declarations, who managed to ruin the site's entire atmosphere. I'd say it's the same thing here. Like I said, I like the site's features and this community has inspired a few comedic NPCs (bright side to everything, right?) but when I do visit and I see various discussions about game making that start out well but eventually get derailed into ridiculous arguments about semantics, it keeps me away.

I'm not egotisticial enough to think that any of you give a shit about whether I personally am an active member. But if my experience is shared by too many others, well....that could be bad.

This is good stuff. I wish I saw more people adhere to number 1, characterization is so important for any kind of successful story-driven project.

I struggle with number 2 sometimes - I tend to write a lot of less-than-crucial conversations between characters mostly to develop them a little at a time. I can get carried away with the backstory, too. I do hope I've never written anything as vague and pointless as those Xenogears guys, though.

I wondered why our score was suddenly higher...

Tell you what man, for all the hysterics over that original review, it did make us think about a few aspects of the project that could be improved, particularly battles. Once we have the latest edition of the previous arcs released, I hope you'll try it again and see if the experience is more tolerable this time.

This was pretty fun, guys. I got about 5 of the possible endings, there was some other stuff that just stumped me. For example, the two keys are supposed to give access to the treasure room through the throne, right? Well I went over to the throne and started searching like crazy but I couldn't get that to work.

I liked the lighthearted feel of Ethereal Dreams and this was similar in that way, which was nice. Pretty good considering the time constraints of the Game Gale.

1. How long have you been making games?
Many years, though for most of that time I didn't release anything to the public. I kept my RM2K projects confined to friends and some family members. I used RM2K up until 2007, when ArtBane and I started Master of the Wind and decided we would give RMXP a shot.

2. How often do you feel like not making games any more? What makes you keep doing it? (Anecdotes are good.)
I have never felt an urge to cease all game-making...nothing anyone says on an internet message board will upset me to that level and even if it did, I wouldn't give them the satisfaction. What I have done is take a hiatus every so often, and I spend my free time in other ways until I feel the inevitable urge to get back to work.

3. What is your motivation for making games?
"Facile" as it may be, fun is still a major component. Cause if it's not fun, why bother with the time and effort towards a hobby you're not getting paid for? Praise is nice, but it's not a high priority, and if you release a project anticipating loads of it, you'll likely be disappointed....especially here. The motivation stems from a desire to create stories and RPG Maker synchs up nicely with what I like about storytelling. Writing prose is tough for me because I get impatient with descriptive language and whatnot. I just like to get right to the dialogue, and in RM games the exposition is almost exclusively handled by dialogue...plus the engine allows you to make some "directing" choices to an extent, using lighting and music and other options to create atmosphere and tone. To me, it's empowering.

If I can make some tangential comments, I think people get way too invested in the reception of the projects, to the point where the fun of it gets dimished...and really, nothing is worth that. Some people have such ridiculous expectations of projects, unwilling to acknowledge that not everyone is an expert at spriting, scripting, custom artwork, etc. You would imagine these folks would have utterly perfect projects of their own...but generally, these are also the people with no finished projects to their name.

It's important to develop your own personal filter when it comes to dealing with criticism. However disappointing it can be to read at first, good enough criticism tends to sink into my head after a while and I realize "You know, they were right." The very first release of MotW in 2005 had awful mapping...we were brand new with RMXP and it was obvious. We got reamed for it all the time, and at first I was irritated with the tone of the complaints and would think "Who cares what these blowhards say? MotW's about story and puzzles." But you know....they had a point. And as we got more practice with mapping, it became clear that the older maps needed a redo. And it's probably still not good enough for some folks, but we did what we could to improve it.

Now sometimes you get criticism that is obviously uninformed, or based on false assumptions and arbitrary standards. It's annoying, but in the end, you can take what is worthwhile from it (if anything), and discard the rest. I guess my point is not to get too wrapped up in "navel gazing" about the reception of projects and just make them for as long as its a satisfying experience.