My attempt to form a forward-thinking and grass-roots gaming community

[mcmanusaur]

Hey everyone, I'm new around here and certainly a bit late to the party, but I can't overstate how excited I am for this project. In many respects Sui Generis incorporates many of the things I have been waiting on forever in RPGs. Namely, the active/dynamic world, the departure from hand-holding linear narrative and player-centrism (or as I like to call the latter, ego-stroking), and the emphasis on modeling the physics of systems. Really, the only thing I wish is that this game's development wasn't as restricted by financial parameters so that the designers wouldn't have to be so prudent (for which they deserve praise) in their prioritization. What I would do for the power to switch this game's budget with that of the next Assassin's Creed sequel or whatever...

This is actually a sentiment I've experienced quite a bit lately, as I've stumbled upon more and more promising Kickstarter projects, from Project Eternity by Obsidian to TUG by Nerd Kingdom, etc. And the worst part is that until a few years ago, I was one of those consumers contributing to the current status quo by buying the yearly Call of Duty and FIFA installments. Since then I've learned a lot, and I have realized that even with developers making a bold push for innovation via methods like Kickstarter, we the consumers are just as responsible if we want to see progress in gaming. People often point to the "do the talking with your wallet" approach, and while this has some validity I think it's not sufficient alone. I think it's equally important for gamers to take a critical perspective and collaboratively develop theories as to what "progress" would constitute, instead of just accepting a passive bystander role and relying on suspect reviews.

I've been looking for an online gaming community that promotes these two things for a while now, and I must say I've come up empty-handed. There's a good number of design blogs out there, but what I envision requires a forum format where everyone can share their theories from an equal podium. To that end, I started messing around with setting up free forums like the tech noob that I am, and what I'm envisioning is starting to come together. That said, you obviously can't have a community without other people, and so far it's empty, lacking in both casual users as well as people to help me lead this project. I just need to find one or two people that feel as strongly about these issues as I do, and the chances this project will succeed will increase exponentially.

If you feel like you can contribute in any way (whether that means giving a little advice about how to carry things forward or taking up the leadership mantle alongside me), please feel free to check out my mock-up or simply reply to this thread. Nothing, even the name, is set in stone yet, and this project is supposed to be all about a democratic approach to gaming, so anyone is welcome to make suggestions. I've already posted a similar message on the forums for another game (Project Eternity), but I haven't really gotten too much response yet. That's ultimately alright with me- the potential benefit if this community succeeds is well worth the possibility of failure in my eyes- but I do think it's imperative that the gaming consumers take this kind of active stance, and I'd be quite sad if reluctance to do so held back the state of gaming. Thanks for your time.

-mcmanusaur

 

[Komuflage]

Well, first of, welcome to the dar.. Bright side of gaming, you know belong to the minority of players who have a brain and understands what shitty games we get nowadays. (Or I guess it should be the Dark side? since we h8 on today's publishers who ruins all our favourite franchises, and are miserable we never get good and challenging games any more) Could you perhaps explain in a simpler way what the goal is with this community you want to start? Frankly there are to many words I don't understand, so the sentences have a bit of gaps to me.
Is it just a place to discuss, or do you want the members to take an active roll in trying to get better games?

 

[mcmanusaur]

Well, first of, welcome to the dar.. Bright side of gaming, you know belong to the minority of players who have a brain and understands what shitty games we get nowadays. (Or I guess it should be the Dark side? since we h8 on today's publishers who ruins all our favourite franchises, and are miserable we never get good and challenging games any more) Could you perhaps explain in a simpler way what the goal is with this community you want to start? Frankly there are to many words I don't understand, so the sentences have a bit of gaps to me.
Is it just a place to discuss, or do you want the members to take an active roll in trying to get better games?

I'd be happy to try to explain a bit more.

One of the goals of this community would be to facilitate the promotion of projects taking various alternative approaches to development, whether that be crowdsourcing like Sui Generis, independent development (without being affiliated with a large publisher), or even just DRM-free or open-source games. While browsing Kickstarter has helped me find a lot of cool projects, I can't help but feel that having a community designed around such consumer activism would be even better.

While this idea of "talking via one's wallet" is a step in the right direction, I think that it's also important for gamers to develop better critical thinking skills regarding the games they play. This means being able to evaluate aspects of game design in terms of their larger implications for gaming, and being able to develop your own theories about what good games should try to accomplish. While I've seen several intelligent discussions of game design before, too often I see statements like "as long as it's fun" or "if it has the right feel", etc. To me those statements are sort of useless as feedback to developers, as a good critic's job is to identify what about the game makes it "fun" or gives it a nice "feel". Thus, the second broad goal of this would be to encourage gamers to take a more critical perspective toward games, which allows us to decide which projects we'd really like to succeed the most.

For example, not to say there aren't good RPGs at the moment, but the RPG genre is a bit of a mess currently in that there seems to be little agreement over what an RPG is or should be, and this is one thing we could try to settle through discussion. Has the term RPG lost all its meaning, and we'd be better off using a different term? What about a "sandbox"; does that just apply to games with passive worlds like Minecraft, or does it also include games like Sui Generis with a more active world?

Other people have suggested a greater emphasis on the advancement of technology, or directly channeling ideas to developers, and while this would be great down the road I personally lack the knowledge and networking to make that happen just yet. I do think that even without direct involvement with developers this is a worthwhile endeavor, but if the community is successful enough who knows what could happen.

 

[Pilluminati]

Great idea. I could assist you with the website. I'm web developer. Check your inbox.
ps. I think something like a news/article feed which highlights interesting stuff could be a great addition and encourage people to visit the site.

 

[Cooper Holt]

we never get good and challenging games any more

I think every game is challenging, but maybe I just suck at games...

 

[mcmanusaur]

Great idea. I could assist you with the website. I'm web developer. Check your inbox.
ps. I think something like a news/article feed which highlights interesting stuff could be a great addition and encourage people to visit the site.

This is exactly the kind of assistance I could really use, and that sounds like a great idea to me!

 

[Komuflage]

I think every game is challenging, but maybe I just suck at games...

Hehe, I bought Madness returns, Hitman and Dishonored, played them all at to "hardest difficulty" and pretty much facerolled through the games
I also got GW2 and played a lot of dungeons with some friends, and we all thought they were way to easy, no tactics what so ever, just rush in and tank'n spank.

While watching streams and utube videos, I've seen a lot of people struggling with games I find easy, and what I noticed is that most of these people don't observe their opponents, rather they just rush in, spam their attacks, die, rush in, spam their attacks, die again.

For instance I watched some Dark souls Stream a while ago, and I noticed that the player didn't keep track of the enemys animations at all. The enemy could have a fast thrusting attack that they always used after a slow cleave attack, and even though the player was hit by this thrust, he still tried to attack the enemy after the slow cleave (Since the enemy's guard was down during that time) and he did this over and over




Anyway, to keep this somewhat on topic, Ty McManusaur for explaining it a bit further, I'll go and create an account and see what I can do

 

[nox]

This sounds like a really good idea. I'm off to make an account.

 

[Parco]

not very active that forum of yours got any plans to attract people? what about making advertising video on youtube? something similar to this one from the instantz forum.

 

[mcmanusaur]

This sounds like a really good idea. I'm off to make an account.

Great to hear, I look forward to reading your posts! Sorry for not approving your membership sooner!

not very active that forum of yours got any plans to attract people? what about making advertising video on youtube? something similar to this one from the instantz forum.

Well yes, inactive is how such things tend to start out. I haven't got any specific plans regarding gaining publicity, though I appreciate suggestions in this regard. To some extent I think I'm content to let people come to the community as they may, because in many ways this fits with the overall philosophy. Just like many Kickstarter games are publicized primarily through word of mouth, I believe- perhaps somewhat optimistically- that with a few strategically placed threads in forums like this one, the people to whom this sort of thing appeals will ideally come upon it themselves.

Seeing as grass-roots consumer activism is a tenet of the site, it would be very rewarding if such a community could coalesce merely through word of mouth. Growth is of course exponential though; once a few dedicated members have joined, they can in turn reach a larger demographic than I could alone, etc. I'd love to see the community take the responsibility of spreading the word, and ultimately that's the only way I can imagine that would show that there is in fact need for such a community.

That said, it is foolish to deny that creating another board in the internet's vast sea of forums could go unnoticed, and I'm open to suggestions in that regard. A video is an interesting idea, but then it becomes a question of how that video is discovered. If it simply serves to spruce up the usual recruitment threads, I feel that with my skillset I would personally be better suited to a different approach, but if someone with relevant skills approaches me then the sky would be the limit, so to speak.

 

[Empire²]

There's definitely enough interest for a forum which points its focus towards innovative gaming. I'd say that, through a handful of active and helpful members, a small forum may feel alive as one with thousands of members. I'm definitely one for amicable debate about the gems of the current gaming generation and the flaws in the industry. I feel like I couldn't be of much help spreading the word, seeing how my connections are reasonably limited, but were something to grow out of this, let's say a forum, I will be glad to join.

 

[mcmanusaur]

There's definitely enough interest for a forum which points its focus towards innovative gaming. I'd say that, through a handful of active and helpful members, a small forum may feel alive as one with thousands of members. I'm definitely one for amicable debate about the gems of the current gaming generation and the flaws in the industry. I feel like I couldn't be of much help spreading the word, seeing how my connections are reasonably limited, but were something to grow out of this, let's say a forum, I will be glad to join.

Thanks for the reply. While many people have expressed much appreciated interest in this endeavor, it never got quite enough buzz for the project to gain independent traction. Furthermore, due to travel and unreliable internet access I wasn't really able to continue putting in the effort to recruit. Now, since I've already sort of breached the idea without immediate success I am re-evaluating my options. I am still fully behind this project, but now I feel that it may be more successful if I start by doing some writing for an established site, before moving to a forum once/if I manage to gain a following. Currently Gamasutra- which already has a vast repository of posts discussing game design and theory- is the site on which I'm planning to try this, so check it out!