A modest proposal

[Max Power]

Hello all,

 

Long-time lurker, first-time poster with a proposition:

 

I have plans for a medium-sized scenario, plot-driven (a murder mystery), with a few novelties and quirks to keep players on their toes. I have planned out the plot arc(s), the main characters and some key dialogue, and I have rough sketches of how the towns will be. Unfortunately, I have had to accept that I am never going to have the time to put this scenario into code.

 

So I need a partner.

 

Is anyone out there interested in collaborating on this? I need someone who has a pretty good handle on Avernumscript because I really don’t have time to help with the coding at all. I’ll write all the dialogue, plan out the towns and encounters, etc., and of course help with the testing.

 

Anyone?

[Donald Hebb]

Max Power? Wait, OMGJ Max Power?

 

...probably not.

 

The answer should be and will be No. Group projects bring both people down. Avernumscript isn't particularly difficult. I suspect that if you want to make a scenario, you'll be able to learn enough of it to get by. (I was, after all, able to put forth RoR-BoA in a matter of three weeks after the game's release.)

[Kelandon]

It might be more merciful if you just EAT the babies, Mr. Power.

 

On a serious note, um, well, I didn't actually have anything to say, but I can make something up. Collaborations have, on the whole, not been very successful (at least in BoE). If you hold off a little bit until a few more scenarios have come out, you'll have some great examples of code that you can copy and paste into your own scenario with whatever slight modifications you need.

 

Especially if this is a plot-driven scenario, the code should be fairly easy. A few message_dialog calls, a few If calls, some dialogue, and you're set. Also, good coders generally have their own scens that they want to write.

 

But if you can find someone, more power to you....

[Max Power]

Thank you both for your constructive comments.

 

Quote:

Originally written by Kelandon:

Collaborations have, on the whole, not been very successful (at least in BoE).

I'm curious: what have been the problems?

[Spidweb]

I get E-mails of the sort, "I spent a few hours making up an idea. Now I will let you spend hundreds of hours doing the tough, grinding, painful work of bringing it into reality," all the time. My response is always a very brief, very polite No.

 

Idea is 1%. Implementation is 99%.

 

Of course, in your case, you are offering to do much more than 1%. You are offering to write dialogue, for example (FAR from a trivial job). But you need to find someone who will gamble a lot of hours on you following up on that big job, without knowing you. This will not be easy.

 

- Jeff Vogel

[Donald Hebb]

It should stand that the only two "collaborative" efforts (or the only good one, not counting the horribly defunct Wreck of the Slug) were made by one person basically writing the scenario and the next tacking other thingies on near the end. In The Claim, the work came close to being equal. Still, it was one person's initiative, and I offered to toss in a bit of work to improve it.

[The Creator]

You see, most scenarios don't get finished. Even those who can and do complete scenarios will often not finish one. I've probably started twice as many scenarios as I've finished. I'm willing to bet that every designer has a bunch of incomplete, abandoned works sitting on his hard drive. (Which is why most won't talk about their projects until they're done - it's setting yourself up for embarassment)

 

If you have two people working on a scenario, that's two people who can get too bored, or distracted, or busy to finish it - and only one needs to for the scenario to fail.

[*i]

Besides, no scenario designer I know wants to invest time in someone else's idea.

[Max Power]

You all make very good points. I’ve never built a collaborative scenario (nor any other kind, for that matter), but I’ve done my share of collaborative writing and I agree—it’s hard. There are many many bad models for collaboration, some of which are listed very poignantly above (thanks, Jeff). But when a collaboration works out, the product can be miles better than either could have produced alone.

 

I have a particularly frustrating example on the go right now, actually: a paper that has been alternately stalled and putting along for over a year now because the various collaborators (myself included) have more pressing things to do, but I’m determined to see it through and when it’s done, modesty aside, it’s going to be a spectacular piece of work.

 

I have to disagree completely with TMR’s blanket statement that "Group projects bring both people down." This CAN be the case, and I don’t doubt that’s been your experience, but it doesn’t have to work that way.

 

I’d also like to challenge the statement (but not to name names, let’s call the author "*j") that "no scenario designer I know wants to invest time in someone else's idea." I hereby challenge the Spiderweb community to produce a successful collaborative scenario. I know it can be done. Divide the effort however you want, but I’m talking about a project with roughly equal contribution from all participants. Maybe I can come up with a prize.

 

Frankly, I’m a bit surprised at the unified front you folks are presenting on this issue. Is this a reflection of a prevalent "lone-wolf hacker" mentality, or simply a lack of good examples?

[Kelandon]

It's just that people come along wanting to do this every couple of months and only a few have even managed to create scenarios at all. Those few scenarios that were created have not yet once been particularly good (head over to the Lyceum\'s CSR if you want to see for yourself -- look at the The Wreck of the Slug, for one).

 

That's not to say it's impossible, just that it's hard. I say if you can find someone, go for it, but our negative response is due to many failures before.

 

EDIT: Also, TM, Jeff, the Creator, and *i rarely all agree on something. I don't know that I've ever seen that before. But they are all people with considerable experience in the community and know far more than I do.

[Max Power]

You mean I’m not the first person to have this brilliant idea?

 

Sigh.

 

Well, my proposal is still out there if someone wants to take a gamble and at least listen to my plot. It’s probably better described as smallish than medium-sized; could be done with 5 towns, would be more fun with more like 8-10. Plot-driven, like I said, but with at least one very unusual fight sequence and a couple of I-hope-never-been-done-before challenging plot twists.

 

And as assurances that I’ll hold up my end of the bargain: I’m Canadian and a Mac user and a shareware supporter. How can you go wrong?

[*i]

You are far from the first to propose the idea. It's been tried several times before and always met with failure. The problem is there is no real incentive other than the warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment and reading praising e-mails. This lack of incentive means that participants have no real motivation and pulling out of the project is almost inevitable.

[Max Power]

Quote:

Originally written by *i:
... there is no real incentive other than the warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment and reading praising e-mails.

And yet scenarios do get finished. Is there more incentive to finish a project alone?

I can see that there might be less incentive to finish a collaborative project because, i) you have to relinquish some measure of creative control, which can dampen the thrill of creation; ii) it would be easier to lose momentum, with more potential bottlenecks to progress; and iii) you ultimately have to share the glory. On the other hand, i) you get the thrill of co-creation and scope for surprises in what direction the project takes; ii) participants can help each other through stalls (e.g., if you hate writing dialogue, find a collaborator who loves it); and iii) you ulitmately get to share the glory.

I bow before the assembled wisdom of the Elder Aranea—I have no doubt that you’ve seen this approach fail miserably, and the lone-wolf model certainly works for many of you—but I still want to try it. When collaborations work, they work in spades.

So assuming that someone wanted to try a collaborative effort, what do you think would be the key to making it work?

[Imban]

Well, the problem with a collaborative effort is that it's hard to actually put the pieces together. To the best of my knowledge, only towns can be imported from scenario to scenario.

[Kelandon]

I think this will be easier with BoA, though, because outdoor sections can be imported, too, and scripts (obviously) can be shared.

 

So maybe the problem was that BoE wasn't conducive to collaboration, but BoA could be. I think it would be easier, at least.

 

I would imagine that the same sorts of things that make collaborative writing work also will make collaborative designing work, although I am far out of my depth here and will let wiser ones speak.

[Lilith]

Realistically, the only way a group project will work is if it's structured in such a way that any number of its participants pulling out for whatever reason won't scuttle the scenario. I'd guess that at least 90% of scenarios that are started are never finished, which means that 90% of the members of a design group can be expected to give up halfway through. In other words, everyone has to be prepared to finish the entire scenario by themselves if necessary.

[The Creator]

You need two people who are both willing to do all the work. If you treat a collaboration as a way of getting the job done easier, I think it's doomed to fail.

 

EDIT: Thuryl beat me to it.

[Qalnor]

Quote:

Originally written by Kelandon:
It might be more merciful if you just EAT the babies, Mr. Power.

I don't much agree with you on that other thread, but I am profoundly delighted to discover that I am not the only one who opened this thread hoping for something amusing.

[Kelandon]

Quote:

I don't much agree with you on that other thread

That is why I'd rather that you not judge me by that thread. I became rather irritated over a period of several hours in a cross-thread discussion with someone who seemed to be trying to provoke me.

I'd rather that you judge me by what I say in, for example, the Avernum Trilogy or Exile Trilogy forums, where I help people out by pointing them in the right direction.

I can be irritable and disagreeable, but I try to be nice.

[Qalnor]

Quote:

Originally written by Kelandon:
I'd rather that you judge me by what I say in, for example, the Avernum Trilogy or Exile Trilogy forums, where I help people out by pointing them in the right direction.

I don't read those forums any more, but I have no doubt that you are a capital fellow. I certainly have not judged you poorly, especially since your only crime so far as I can see was not being in perfect accord with me, a folly that I find most humans live quite well and happily with.

If you think I might judge you because you exchanged mild rudenesses with that foreign chap, then you have an overabundance of dignity, I never fault a man for giving as much as he takes so long as he never stops smiling.

And at the end of the day, how could I ever think ill of a man who can appreciate a joke about baby-eating?

[PoD person]

I would like that a lot. I understand AvernumScript well enough to implement dialog and such things, plus I am a competent typist, so you needn't worry about your story getting messed up by my typos. I haven't used it yet, but I've gone over the docs pretty thoroughly on a mac that's not mine, and I am familiar with C, of which it is basically an easier version (IMO).

 

One little hitch: I'm a windows user, and I lack the software to convert PICTs to .bmp's (I think)

 

Drop me a line if you're interested at Adam_The_Prophet@hotmail.com

[Dark Elf]

Lets get this straight up front. I can't promise anything except maybe beta testing (if it is ever completed).

However, like Mr. Prophet of Doom, I'm a reasonably competent typist with some knowledge of a similar language (Java in my case). If you send me something to code and I have free time on my hands(this last part is very important), I'll try to send you something back that -I hope- functions.

Send it to d e r t e c h i e @ yahoo.com

Send dialog to the Prophet of Doom. I haven't done any dialog yet.

[Imban]

Dark Elf, I hope you realize that this thread was long in its grave when you posted in it.

 

The original posters in it don't give a flying crap about it any more, I'm wagering, so your contribution is meaningless and annoying.

 

Don't post in threads on page 17 next time!

[Tyranicus.]

(ignore this)

[Imban 4444]

(ignore this)