[arg_discuss] Re: Communities and resources

[Brian Clark]

Mike: > I have a big long post to add but I am truly wary of posting it
      > at this point.

Wendy: > The problem as I see it is that some of the things developers
       > might say to each other could inadvertently offend the major
       > player base our games are aimed at if they are listening in on
       > the conversation.

Those two comments pretty much sum up my thoughts as well: I have a lot of
increasingly ranty thoughts on the subjects (and I know a lot of us get into
those discussions on a more one-on-one or small group basis, so it's not
like the topic is a surprise to many of us -- thus the number of responses
already to this sleepy list) but feel a real need to temper my contribution.

Adam: > This appears not to be a problem - we've been around for 3
      > months, plenty of time for explorative ARG players to have 
      > discovered and infiltrated us ;), but it seems the
      > overwhelming majority are happy to leave us alone to do what
      > we do.

Respectfully, what we do hasn't been very much and those haven't exactly
been controversy-laden. 

Adam: > Incidentally, this is a current concern - that we could do
      > with a few more players on the list, as a sounding board, a
      > second opinion, etc.

I, for one, would prefer not: I think it would make this feel like a public
forum (and I'd then need to limit my comments the way I would in other
public forums.) That doesn't mean I'd drop off, just that my perceptions
would change. Maybe part of this is still a reaction to a recent Meta thread
at UF from me, but it wouldn't be a bad thing to have a "semi-professional"
PM community apart from the more public interactions with our audiences. If
the goal is to supplement the experiences of sharing one-on-one, the group
will also need to be able to maintain the "off the record just between you
and me" nature of the environments that produce those valuable
conversations. That's not impossible to do with players in the mix (and the
zone between designer and player is wonderfully fuzzy) but would become more
difficult the larger that proportion might become.

Marie: > Setting yourself up as a Puppetmaster may serve whatever
       > goals you have for your company and/or client, but please
       > don't expect to go into a forum like Unfiction and control
       > any aspect of how your game is received there.

What I think is fair to say is that I'm designing with the assumption that
ARGN & Unfiction don't exist: we're not seeding there, we're not working
from the assumption that such meta forums will exist, etc. We love to hope
that because what we do overlaps with some of their tastes that some of them
might get involved, and (of course) we always love to see familiar faces
from other games. We're also respectful of their rules as part of the
general "your server, your rules" politeness of the Web. We certainly note
their activity. And we don't care too much for the phrase Puppetmaster.

But the discontent I see already in this thread I think is a good sign of
just how damaging many of us would see having an honest and open discussion
might be: the accusation seems to be already that the discussion is about
"control" of Unfiction, instead of "control" of the game. Go back to the
original quote:

Wendy : > So I end up feeling like I need to cater to them, but not
        > let them get total control of the game.

>From my perspective, that seems like a totally non-controversial observation
to make as a game designer without being at all incompatible with the
Unfiction Consensus. Increasingly, I have a harder time predicting (I guess)
what will be controversy inducing for the ARG community and find myself
being more cautious in my contributions because of it :(



Brian