Session Start: Sat Jun 21 01:14:17 2008 Session Ident: #baka-trio * Now talking in #baka-trio * Topic is 'Word Count: How much does it matter? - Check out our first log on http://real-life.animerd2k2.net/readme/channel.htm' * Set by lordcloudx on Fri Jun 20 13:48:18 -ChanServ- [#baka-trio] [#baka-trio] Welcome to #baka-trio. The Visual Novel developer's skill workshop channel. http://real-life.animerd2k2.net/readme/channel.htm #baka-trio url is http://real-life.animerd2k2.net hiya, any interesting discussion on word count? not much well, it was inspired by something FIA said earlier hello and hey, cloud. Guess what? sup renpytom Good evening "Link to Hebi Gakuen." Minutes later... Uh, it is pretty lousy... I think most jokes by FIA is confined to himself only. oooh time to make a kikered harsh words While I understand Eileenbuster is not as funny but he ditched that school drama effort? Owie... like that (After my hebi gakuen) Is it me, but it seems like most of the time now games produced are short. so, the juice is it's lousy because of wordcount? well, I was just thinking. Is shorter=inferior? and vice versa it depends, for me this is comparable to the discussion on the art but maybe it's just because it's a pet peeve of mine :P ok, go on Shorter isn't always inferior, nor is longer always superior. =P you're away lolz well, ever since I joined the forums (Thought I'd be but apparently we aren't leaving until my brother's friend gets here) ok, join in it's more interesting that way :3 * Kik|Away is now known as Kikered_ I found there was an opinion that games with beautiful graphics are without soul, so I guess there could be a current thinking that shorter games are more meaningful furumeta! Hmmm... I think it's the opposite toprove that they're not inferior to longer ones, as if one thing could exclude the other It kinda seems that mentality has shifted somewhat. =P it's similar to what happens to the authorial movies, atleast where I live yah? yeah, some critics just think that if a movie is made with poor tools, (and it's sometimes boring)it's automatically a masterpiece now, now, I love some of these movies Bah. =P well... I kinda get the feeling with the number of 500k word count projects sprouting but it irks me to see that there always have to be two opposite factions saying that one is better than the other that everyone is thinking "We will pwn j00 with our word count!" Apparently, if you think it's boring then you aren't sophisticated enough to understand it. ;P Ren: I agree And of course, no one wants to admit that =3 ok, then I'm not sophisticated Me either ;) that doesn't change one thing * Kikered_ is now known as Kik|Away I've always had one stand on the subject matter I'm usually open to any kind of thing, while movie conisseurs usually are pretty closed minded my stand would be... that a story should be as long or as short as it needs to be. I said that a number of times before in the forums nobody listens :( and of course, some blockbuster fans woudln't touch one of those elite movies even if it was a matter of life or death I guess this can also extend to anime. or preferences in anime I'll watch anything that catches my attention there is one game translated by Insani that proves short games can be beautiful I think maybe more than one and I was surprised by the amount of depth in even a kiddy anime like digimon Red Shift and Soeremata etc. come to mind. mmh, I can't say RedShift impresses me as Soremata does true enough but I liked it anyway but that's probably because you guys said it's far better than Tsukihime, I'm childish like that at the time I really liked it save probably for the ending, I didn't dislike it either, but... ...the rest of the game is much better of course, in my opinion The one that had me go totally crazy about it was allucinate and Adagio, being one of the shortest things I ever liked Haven't tried it yet But what I've always protested against this emphasis on word count. I tried them all, even the ones that looked really bad I mean... visual novels aren't really novels. otherwise, we'd need to come up to 50k for each release. we're talking only about free ones, yes? yeah for me it could even be 374645 million words, if it wasn't for the sake of the count hehe I'm still waiting for Katawa Shoujo well... I made a subtle hint about my frustrations with the word count issue. in the forum uploaded version of Shinsei but sometimes, i wonder if it will be all good I started hating this word count stuff. After people started classifying this length = epic! x length = mini game x length = average It implies that longer = better Which is not necessarily true. I can't say I noticed a similar pattern, but that's probably because I'm not a developer Still, a story should be as long as it needs to be. I think that an author should write with more passion and not have petty things like word count on the back of his/her mind while writing. because... that's what I'd call soulless but I guess that's just because that's the way I write. well, on this I disagree Ok, why? I wouldn't say that authors who write keeping the WC(:P) in mind think EXCLUSIVELY about that of course I didn't mean it like that What I really don't like is when OELVN developers impose this word-count stuff on other developers and act as if that's the only way to do things. But... this is from another era in lsf, I guess "The Great OELVN Race" it might be because my videocard deprived me of months there, but I reALLY DON'T FEEL THERE ARE AUTHORS WHO DO THAT this also extends to the way everything is being "conventionalized" NOT THOSE WHIO i LOOK UP TO ANYWAY Hehe, you weren't active sorry, caps on when DaFool was posting everyday I can still remember some of the stuff said back then just for the sake of clarity, he's part of the current that thinks things should be epic? yup he's the one who initiated this whole "epic" nonsense. Of course, the REM people are just drunk with Nasu's writing. and then... he burned out He dropped out of a lot of projects that he promised to help out in along with his big fat "epic" commercial quality VN. but still, I don't know about him, but even if those of the REM project are as you say shouldn't they be free to do as they please, as you should ? yep I really don't want to upset you in this, but I don't see how them having a different view could mean lsf is in a new era I'm not upset :3 this kind of things happen with aspiring comic artists all the time heh Well, it's the general view, I think when DaFool entered he started preaching a lot about this big "OELVN Race" I just have a hard time understanding how I come off in a different language and without a direct talk and a lot of people joined in I just don't want to be rude, that's all oh, that's alright. I don't take offense from discussions like this. I'm a pol sci. major after all ok then :3 I'm used to listening to different opinions without conflict :) so, he talked about a oelvn race yup and urged everyone to join in let's all compete with each other and see who makes the biggest VN. dude, my videocard(s) really own me something It kinda implied that short games had no place left on lsf. WHERE WAS I!? you were not around :) T^T I know to call them "mini games" I don't like the implication of that I'm in favor of the "every game is unique and deserves its own audience" line of thinking moar gundam! still listening to the radio?:D yah ah, to be totally sincere and this time I'll sound like a total prick ok some games do suck oh? Well, I guess I can't ask you to point out specific games. I'm not saying you can't enjoy them, but some do you can I haven't played most of the games in the archive but I wouldn't like to offend anyone I only choose the ones that grab my attention anyway one I forgot the name of i ended in a infinity loop it was painfully boring forgot indeed :P only the art was very good no, really ok it was malaysian maybe or filipino? Filipino? oooh not in the archives? the authors were from a place in Asia it should be there, maybe it was really buggy, I'm not sure it made it there Oh... reconstruction 01? wait, I'll search is it about a school? I have no idea I haven't played it It just entered my mind when you said good art doesn't look like it, the thread on the forums, has no post by me, I remember I commented Ok is it new? anywayz, those some games that do suck. What was it... Oh yeah I had this theory yes that yeah, OELVN are inferior compared to the japanese ones. but that's because we also have fewer games and developers and we're not that familiar with the VN format so, all we have to do is keep making games and trying to improve in that way, maybe in a few years, we can catch up to the japanese doujin stuff. but... I don't like this "hive mind" principle conventionalizing everything it restricts creativity when people say there's only one right way to do things. this is what I was fighting during the "OEVLN Race." with my usual sarcasm :P well, sometimes strict parents conceive the most rebellious children :P Well, it doesn't help when the one preaching doesn't hasn't done anything to back his claim. that "this" this is the correct way to do things * Hime has joined #baka-trio hello, hime we're on-topic today Mornings hi Hime Ooh :o how about you, opinions on word count? except that it can be shortened to WC? hm? pardon? WordCount oh even I can't understand my own gags, don't worry ok :) so... anyway, that's my one issue with this word count thingy. and also, I finished Magbou once! hmm, sorry, I just came home so I'm doing this and that but it becomes annoying when everyone starts preaching that we should do x lenghth projects ren: never played magbou In a way, I'd say wordcount is irrelevant If you're playing a good game, there's no difference between 20k or 50k if it's good But as a writer, I must say that I'm pleased to see my wordcount going up, even though I'd never stretch anything just to hit that Xk mark Then again, the script's size does matter in a way unless you were shooting for commercial or NaNoWriMo hmm... maybe Hime remembers. I was talking to Ren about the "Great OELVN Race" period Once again using my own work as an example, a TeraMura as short as Nattsu would be laughable and a Nattsu as long as TeraMura would be the most horrible VN ever written mm... I think I remember that Y'know that time when everyone was thinking, "Commercial Length Good. Mini-games bad." as I continued to respond with my usual sarcasm :P mm... It got even worse when ppl started preaching about transitions. I don't think a long script makes a good game Not at all I remember asking how to do a certain transition Tsukihime and especially Ciel's route, which barely had a plot to begin with, were overly long I asked to disable mouse-clickind during the transition Tsukihime could have been awesome if it had been 200k words instead of nearly 700k, which made it a nice average game and someone responded by telling me that I shouldn't do that because it lessens user interactivity. bottom line is... I don't care if it lessens user interactivity I want to do that for my game! Just tell me how it's done! RAWR If you write about well, for example, lying in a bed (Hisui's route, lol), even if you wrote it with over 9000 metaphoras and pretty language... You're still writing about lying in a bed, the way you write about it can barely make it any more interesting than it is yah, Ren. that's the part I found annoying during that time. people telling you their opinions? the way it was worded and... it wasn't just one person many others followed and no one even bothered to tell me how it's done. So instead of writing it as prolongedly as possible, it might be better to just say it shortly and proceed with the plot... because they all shared the same opinion (hive mind) She laid on the bad, I sticked it in her pooper, she moaned:SUCCESS! That's actually the biggest problem with Type-Moon's VNs, I think Ren: hehe still, I can picture that °w° Even the most casual, everyday scenes that happen all the time and are very predictable are written in huge detail Which makes me sleepy while reading it F/SN and Tsukihime... Both of them have great, exciting scenes and pages of repeated text Mmm... this chair! (repeat endlessly) They just could have made them three times shorter and a hundred times better by doing that actually, I think it worked for Tsukihime for some of those scenes kinda shows how deranged Shiki must've been. during those times. at the time, I thought it worked really well, not only for that since I was forced to click click click, I sometimes felt like killing someone haha FIA said it was fifty times for that scene. that made me empathize with Shiki I didn't count them, I was following the story lordcloudx, well, some scenes Not all of them D: Or... Most of them. also, Ren the great OELVN race ended When DaFool lost interest in his own project it did?so I missed itALL? yup which was? Which project was it? I forgot but it was the one after Geomancer Chronicles and before Nettestadt Troll I even wrote an OELVN-related article about my frustrations during that period. care to share? yup trying to dig it up hmm.. Aw, I feel a little blue http://animerd2k2.net/foelvn.htm drunk with the bluish blueness of my melancholic blues... I rode the azure waves which were very blue my conveyance held up by the bloated gas-filled corpses of my fallen comrades :P hee! hee! I like Watchmen It's a good article, lordcloudx :3 ah yes... this also reminds me of another thing during the OELVN Race. Everyone presumed that we were making our games with a similar purpose in mind. To capture a bigger audience than the next game. It was always presumed in every thread I posted in. So... I responded with subtle sarcasm again :) unfortunately, no one thought I was being sarcastic :( heh backfire it didn't occur to anyone's mind that some of us don't even want to be in this OELVN Race. mmm... but I felt like I was being dragged in as well. as you can tell by the number of times I've switched tenses unconsciously, I'm very passionate about this subject :P mm.. It's completely understandable Hmm... I summarized my thoughts much better in that article than I'm doing now. I guess it's because it was still fresh in my mind at that time. Yasunori Mitsuda did the music for Xenosaga!? Why oh why did I pass up that game? stupid! stupid! stupid! (repeat endlessly) hmm.. Oh btw ppl. ren, hime still here? Yes looks like ren is busy with something anywayz... I was thinking... remember that teamspeak session from LSF@5? mmm :o Oh yes <3 If everyone can set a convenient date/time ah, sorry wanna give it a try? That'd be great teamspeak? My schedule's a little random though yeah, we can talk to each other vocally in real-time And I'll be away tomorrow and on Sunday and talk about useless stuff like the weather :P mmh it's embarassing So anyway, Ren. That article sums up my thoughts on the OELVN Race issue read it my cynicism shows in-between the lines :P hee hee! DaFool instantly recognized that I was targetting him back to the topic WC me and ren have dissenting opinions on the subject kinda hmm though we don't really disagree Hime pretty much has the same opinion as me though I'm more against the guys that push other ppl to make 200k games especially during the "Great OELVN Race" i agree whole heartedly with that which is over now, thankfully it's one thing to aim for a million words it's another to push others to do the same mm... It was that period that inspired this article http://animerd2k2.net/foelvn.htm Myself, I've said the estimate for TeraMura's wordcount is 150-200k words, so I don't know if I could be counted as one of those persons in a way no you're not you're just doing this for your own project that's just fine Though I'm not AIMING for that amount - it's an estimate based on what has been finished this far and how big the unfinished part is compared to that mm... I hope so It becomes annoying when you try to push your ideas on other ppl.