My concern.

[Sekiguchi Okitsugu]

Hi people,
This is actually my first time posting a thread like this. 
Anyway, I have a concern. I absolutely hate it when someone posts something in a thread saying that a person's game sucks, without saying anything good about it. I mean some people might take it wrong when someone says "Um, you work sucks so much. You really must edit." This type of post could lead to people leaving this forum. Do we want that? Do we really want people to start crying(no offence to anyone) because someone hates their game? 
This is my concern. I suggest people should post something like this:

1. First, say something good about their game.
2. Second, say what you don't like about their game.
3. Third, say something they should edit.
... In a nice way(I mean no swearing, people may take it the wrong way).
I'm not gonna mention any names, but this is what I feel for the people in this forum. Also, please don't take this post the wrong way as well. I'm not trying to be an admin telling people the rules blah blah blah. This is just a concern.

Seki at your service,
cheers.

 

[jcsnider]

If you feel like any post is overly negative and does not provide any constructive criticism we highly encourage members to hit the report button located on every post.

 

It's anonymous to regular members and helps us find offensive content since we cannot view every single thing posted on this site.

[SkywardRiver]

I get the point of this. I really do. But if I don't like anything about their project I'm either going to not post or tell them I don't like it lol. None of the vets here would be as skilled as we are if we had only heard good feedback. Criticism has its place. It's up to the one being criticized to be able to cope with it and improve. This simply comes with maturity. I mean, look at Seth. Need I say more?

[Nate]

As a game developer - what I want to hear most of is what is not working or what sucks. I say that because I cannot trust my friends and family for their true and unfiltered opinion. The internet is a good place to have your work picked apart if that's what you want. The earlier you nip it in the butt, the better, because you're no longer wasting time.

 

I started the tile set I posted in the resources area and it was very saturated and very green. I posted a screen shot after the second day and got the feedback that it was wayy too hard on the eyes and unusable in a serious project.

The next day I took their advice and by the end of the week I had a hugely improved tile set.

 

Art has no place for sensitivities if you wish to grow. But I do like the idea of the compliment sandwich.

[Neeknog]

All though I do agree with the message of this post I do feel as though this post was a bit random or out of place. If someone responds extremely negative to a topic or begins harassing members they can inform admins or report a post as JC said above. I think our current members are all mature and have had no real issues with this. I believe we are all aware of this and all respect each other enough to not do this. We are still in early stages of population growth and a Nazi type approach will never do any good here. We are not Eclipse Seki.

[Phenomenal]

Probably me again but I think most of us feel that criticism should be given fairly unfiltered to help them improve their game (given as a suggestion where possible) and that this is really an art form where ultimately you will always receive criticism no matter what you make as there are so many people who want to be negative for the sake of being negative and you drown them out, do you think creators like Toby Fox (maker of undertale) would have gotten where they are now if they had taken all hate negatively and given up on things anyone hated? Gaming is and always has been highly critiqued by gamers (look at no man's sky) and some hate is fair most is not and you generally have to either ignore haters or where applicable take it and improve on it and ultimately as you said yourself whoever you are talking about is only one person and you shouldn't judge a whole community for one person's actions. *end of inspirational rant hybrid thing*

[General Awesome]

Yeah I totally agree. Honestly, I'm getting to the point where I don't care what people are doing as long as they aren't hurting anyone. We all started somewhere, so I don't quite understand the point in berating people who are just attempting to fulfill a passion. It's up to JC what standards he wants to set for his forum. Obviously he shouldn't allow projects which are a blatant plagiarism of existing work, but again I don't see much harm in allowing a kid to post his/her project, no matter how poorly constructed it is. What does it hurt?

[Sekiguchi Okitsugu]

Wow, so many posts in one day(i'm in the Philippines, so it's day time here right now)! 

Thank you for posting all your thoughts.  I believe if we encourage people(who want to make games) instead of bringing them down we can make a great community.

[Dr.House]

How do you expect to grow in anything if you only get fake feedback about your work? [couldn't find the word I was looking for]

 

If I say, "this game sucks", this won't contribute to anything in your growth, making my post useless and I deserve to get a warning and my post deleted.

But, expect some hard truth from some people, because not everybody can put the fake smile and say only good stuff when there is nothing good.

 

 

 

 

[General Awesome]

22 minutes ago, Dr.House said:

How do you expect to grow in anything if you only get fake feedback about your work? [couldn't find the word I was looking for]

 

If I say, "this game sucks", this won't contribute to anything in your growth, making my post useless and I deserve to get a warning and my post deleted.

But, expect some hard truth from some people, because not everybody can put the fake smile and say only good stuff when there is nothing good.

 

 

 

 

 

I think this is true. Constructive feedback is such a critical component in our growth as human beings in every area of life. At the same time, I think it's important to realize that this is meant to be something fun. For a lot of people it's an escape from a reality outside the confines of this forum and the internet. Games are themselves a form of art, and thus I don't think we can in any certain way say exactly how they should be or in what way they should function. I think games have experienced an extreme commodification that will hopefully wither in a way similar to that which has happened for film. For me, a successful game cannot be measured in how many players it has or how much revenue it generates. A successful game is one where the vision of its author(s) has been fulfilled. 

[Sekiguchi Okitsugu]

1 hour ago, Dr.House said:

How do you expect to grow in anything if you only get fake feedback about your work? [couldn't find the word I was looking for]

 

If I say, "this game sucks", this won't contribute to anything in your growth, making my post useless and I deserve to get a warning and my post deleted.

But, expect some hard truth from some people, because not everybody can put the fake smile and say only good stuff when there is nothing good.

 

 

 

 

Well if you don't like the game just don't put a fake smile. just say what you don't like about it and say what to edit

[Beefy Kasplant]

Although I agree that criticism should be fair and constructive, I don't know why this post was made. Until now I have only seen criticism that was built on something and no posts like: It's horrible, go kill yourself'. 

[Kem]

8 hours ago, SkywardRiver said:

if I don't like anything about their project I'm either going to not post or tell them I don't like it lol. 

 

This, /really/ annoys me.

 

Do you see what happens when you do shit like "report if your feelings are hurt"  ?? It encourages people not to post- meaning the dev with the crappy game is continuing to live in ignorance, perpetuated by people who say nothing because they don't want to face consequences and they'll never even hope to improve. And it creates a habitual mentality of non-posting, meaning non-discussion and then you have people like General Pony was like towards Eclipse before he gave up for good (and he wasn't alone by any stretch, many members were the same) - they come on and never post because they know they'll get banned for some stupid shit.

 

Things like the report function and "but i dont want anyone to say bad things" are basically censorship of opinion- this was precisely the problem in later Eclipse- when I joined back in '08, people were upfront and honest with their posts and because people were honest and weren't being handed bans for their opinions that made some 12 y/o kid cry in his bedroom, we really got to know the real characters behind the usernames and that made bonds in the community stronger than a normal community.

 

You can't have an enforced system of "hey, say something nice at least" if there's nothing nice to say. It's like seeing a 300lb woman naked in walmart- you can't say something nice about that before you go and tell the truth- you'll only be able to think "that's disgusting."

 

This is some SJW Safe-Space shit and I'm vehemently against it.

 

There's no need to protect special snowflakes who can't handle reality and we SHOULD NOT be encouraging it.

[Beefy Kasplant]

21 minutes ago, Kem said:

 

This, /really/ annoys me.

 

Do you see what happens when you do shit like "report if your feelings are hurt"  ?? It encourages people not to post- meaning the dev with the crappy game is continuing to live in ignorance, perpetuated by people who say nothing because they don't want to face consequences and they'll never even hope to improve. And it creates a habitual mentality of non-posting, meaning non-discussion and then you have people like General Pony was like towards Eclipse before he gave up for good (and he wasn't alone by any stretch, many members were the same) - they come on and never post because they know they'll get banned for some stupid shit.

 

Things like the report function and "but i dont want anyone to say bad things" are basically censorship of opinion- this was precisely the problem in later Eclipse- when I joined back in '08, people were upfront and honest with their posts and because people were honest and weren't being handed bans for their opinions that made some 12 y/o kid cry in his bedroom, we really got to know the real characters behind the usernames and that made bonds in the community stronger than a normal community.

 

 

 

8 hours ago, jcsnider said:

If you feel like any post is overly negative and does not provide any constructive criticism we highly encourage members to hit the report button located on every post.

 

 

 

 

Note the importance of including constructive criticism. A post can be completely negative but only if the criticism includes points that the OP can work on. 

For all you say about Eclipse in '08, there also were a lot of posts which were variants of: This sucks, better not program anything again.

 

AGD is a growing community and can't have that negativity, especially since that negativity is something that drove most early members from Eclipse to here. 

[Sekiguchi Okitsugu]

51 minutes ago, Kasplant said:

Although I agree that criticism should be fair and constructive, I don't know why this post was made. Until now I have only seen criticism that was built on something and no posts like: It's horrible, go kill yourself'. 

I've made this thread because I just want to state that people's feed back shouldn't just be "Your work sucks"(not mentioning any names). They should at least state what they don't like about the game and what they should edit.

[Phenomenal]

@Sekiguchi Okitsugu As far as I know everyone tries to say what they should edit?

[General Awesome]

1 hour ago, Kem said:

 

meaning non-discussion and then you have people like General Pony was like towards Eclipse before he gave up for good

 

I'm still here in some form or fashion.

[Kem]

Quoting what JC said doesn't change what I said at all- he said it was up to the interpretation of the post from the person reading it, which is once again catering to special snowflake people who feel offended reading a post, get triggered and slam the report button because they /feel/ the post is overly negative.

 

As far as I'm aware, most negative posts contain constructive criticism to work from.

If you're meaning posts that just say "this sucks kys" then we're in agreement, that such a post is pointless, however that's the only case other than flaming in which a post of that nature would warrant moderator attention.

 

For an example, take a look at my post over in Bachraan's project on Unity- I pointed out all the errors and mistakes, now he can move forward and rectify them and if he disagrees with any of the errors I pointed out, cool, he can go ahead and keep them in.

 

At the end of the day, sometimes you need to tell someone "You're fat" (which points out both the problem and with some reasoned thought a deduced solution, i.e. lose weight) before they get it into their head that they need to lose weight. I don't see anything wrong with having people around who say the shit no one else wants to say. The problem with all this SJW safe zone stuff is that it actually silences people. We all know SJWs are the loud mouth minority overpowering the silent majority, and the reason the majority stays quiet is because if you speak out you get shit flung at you, it's basically a modern day version of witch hunting, on the internet.

 

@John Can't deny you used the site a lot less over the past few years because of the constant revamping of moderation and suppression of negative opinions in order to promote a community that is praising everything regardless of quality.

[Kibbelz]

Okay, I'm going to dive deep and say my two cents. This topic is pretty stupid. Ever since the creation of AGD myself and the staff team have always been trying to create an atmosphere where people can give constructive criticism. I have barely seen any instances of where a user has "attacked" another user with comments like "omg ur game sucks", those comments are removed as soon as the team sees them, often notified by a warning. Just because some 12 yo-kid cries because someone said "oh man, i really hate that logo, it really doesn't fit with your game, perhaps try changing the colour?" is not a post worth punishing for and the team will ignore the warning. Admittedly, this could be worded slightly better, however constructive criticism is good criticism.

 

Once again I find this topic very irrelevant with the current state of the community at AGD, there have been a couple of instances in the past where the team has "slapped the wrist" of a user. The only instances of this I've seen lately have been kids overreacting to some quite fair and well worded feedback.

[Phenomenal]

@Kibbelz That's pretty harsh and it's likely Sekiguchi stumbled upon 'the post' made by the 12 year old you are talking about (the one who isn't me in the above comment ) and that Sekiguchi took it out of context and missed jc's comment that triggered the event and assumed our community was basically attacking someone would be my best guess as to why he/she has made this post and ask Sekiguchi the comments they are referring to in their pm's would be the best course of action for this situation (also I'm no mod but maybe close this thread? idk )

 

Edit: Not to be rude but you should really think about how much a comment online can effect someone in real life and how they would feel if they received your comment I mean for example your slap (more like a punch ) on the wrist really affected me and made me legitimately depressed and what kind of impression of our community and feeling do you think this gives Sekiguchi? He/she likely sees agd as a place of hatred and flaming more than ever now. (If you feel this comment says too much/is irrelevant/unfair feel free to remove it I won't hold it against you it's just my 2 cents)

 

 

 

[Kibbelz]

57 minutes ago, Kibbelz said:

Once again I find this topic very irrelevant with the current state of the community at AGD, there have been a couple of instances in the past where the team has "slapped the wrist" of a user. The only instances of this I've seen lately have been kids overreacting to some quite fair and well worded feedback.

That is my reasoning for the post above. Wherever you go, be it gamedev or even business you will never get people essentially saying what you want to hear. No one will want to do buisiness with someone who wont take criticism and be willing to change for the good of the product/service  This community is probably the nicest i've participated from this regard. Admittedly I'm going to be bias considering this is my forums. In real life people are going to be blunt and to the point, don't believe me watch The Apprentice or Hells Kitchen. The real world is like this.

 

 

Admittedly these are extreme examples, however I hope it gets my point across for over reacting to a few mild comments. If you've read some of my posts, you will know I'm one of the "heavy driving force" behind keeping a constructive criticism community and as stated above by @Kem I want people to be themselves as much as they can with posting without fear of receiving punishment because someone over reacts.

 

@PhenomenalDev It may have been taken out of context, however I doubt any user will make a thread full of accusations without doing their research.

[Phenomenal]

@Kibbelz Watch both shows (and love them ) and I agree mostly but I feel that the response shoulf be calibrated to the situation at hand and that is something the comments above are not they are largely overblown and drive away Sekiguchi rather than helping them by explaining the situation and generally making change in any positive manor anyway I feel that we should sweep this under the rug and forget this all ever happened and welcome Sekiguchi.

[General Awesome]

The cool thing about the internet is that it can act as an escape from the real world. We don't have to perpetuate the same shitty realities that people face in their day-to-day lives. I think it's important to question the standards to which we are holding some people and their projects. Not everyone has their eyes set on going big, releasing their game on Steam, and monetizing everything. I think we should be respectful and cognizant of this fact. I haven't seen much of a problem with people putting down the work of others on this forum, but I'm sure it will happen eventually. 

 

I think OP proposed a reasonable paradigm through which to offer constructive criticism for projects. 

[Phenomenal]

@John I agree mostly with that statement and I think it summarises everything almost perfectly but the internet is like a see through mirror some people use it as a escape some use it as a second life where they have no consequence to their actions and some use it for other reasons ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 

[SkywardRiver]

8 hours ago, Kem said:

 

This, /really/ annoys me.

 

Do you see what happens when you do shit like "report if your feelings are hurt"  ?? It encourages people not to post- meaning the dev with the crappy game is continuing to live in ignorance, perpetuated by people who say nothing because they don't want to face consequences and they'll never even hope to improve. And it creates a habitual mentality of non-posting, meaning non-discussion and then you have people like General Pony was like towards Eclipse before he gave up for good (and he wasn't alone by any stretch, many members were the same) - they come on and never post because they know they'll get banned for some stupid shit.

 

Things like the report function and "but i dont want anyone to say bad things" are basically censorship of opinion- this was precisely the problem in later Eclipse- when I joined back in '08, people were upfront and honest with their posts and because people were honest and weren't being handed bans for their opinions that made some 12 y/o kid cry in his bedroom, we really got to know the real characters behind the usernames and that made bonds in the community stronger than a normal community.

 

You can't have an enforced system of "hey, say something nice at least" if there's nothing nice to say. It's like seeing a 300lb woman naked in walmart- you can't say something nice about that before you go and tell the truth- you'll only be able to think "that's disgusting."

 

This is some SJW Safe-Space shit and I'm vehemently against it.

 

There's no need to protect special snowflakes who can't handle reality and we SHOULD NOT be encouraging it.

 

I may be misreading here but you said my comment annoyed you and then you argue that it's correct? lol