Proteen's Design Philosophy: Vol. 2

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ID:151619

Dec 18 2009, 8:53 am

Proteen

I would like to begin by thanking everyone for being interested in my last volume of design philosophy. I also want to thank those who responded positively to the thread, rather than dish out mindless insults and jokes to try and destroy something they weren't intelligent enough to create themselves.

I was contacted and told I should release Vol. 2 a bit early by some well known members of the BYOND establishment. I was also reminded by those people that there are many members of the BYOND that have low vocabularies, so I will keep the wording difficulty to a minimum.

Thread Disclaimer: I am sick of people trying to ruin my reputation. Therefore if you respond to this thread negatively and stupidly, I will report you to the BYOND authorities which are Dantom and Nadrew. I will also call the police if I feel like you are trying to pose a threat on my safety.

Last time I explained originality. Today we will be discussing something different.

Simplicity ( avoid complexity):

Players tend to join games that are easy to play. No one wants to log into a game where you have to spend 20 minutes reading some huge guide. People enjoy being able to log into a game and start having fun immediately. Keep in mind that not all players have patience. Do not bore your audience with over-complicated gameplay and storylines.

Please stay tuned for Vol. 3. If I am contacted by those BYOND members again I will try and release it by tommorow.

Dec 18 2009, 9:16 am

The Magic Man

Maybe people are responding to your thread negatively because you are just not making a thread worthy of anything else?

Your "Design Philosophy" is pretty bad to be honest. There is very little information, and even less useful information.
In this thread you basically said "simple games are easier to play, therefor superior".
You gave to valid reasons for your opinion at all. I infact know a lot of people that prefer complex games than prefer simple games, and when game series they like get toned down, they complain about it an awful lot.

It is not a question of simplicity. It is about how you implement stuff. Sure, giving people a 20 page long manual and telling them to play the game is a bad idea (then again, Dwarf Fortress does exactly this, and is hugely popular), but that does not make games that are not simple bad.
You should include tutorials and try to integrate them into the game as much as possible. You should teach the person to play the game as they are actually playing it.
If you manage to do this correctly, simplicity should not be an issue.

I am not even going to continue with the issue of simplicity vs complexity. Because there is just hundreds of other things I could talk about, and I'd be here all day typing stuff up.

But yeah. You basically posted a single lined opinion, and wonder why people respond to your threads negatively?

Dec 18 2009, 9:47 am

Lummox JR

The negative response you have received to date is all about the condescending attitude. Nobody ever responds well to that even when it's justifiable. Presenting a paragraph with a one-dimensional opinion as educational, or a volume, is pretentious. And to be frank, it's not that people didn't understand the words you were using, it's that you didn't; your posts on that first thread were gibberish. Insulting the intelligence of people who correctly pointed that out, or took issue with the thinness of the material, doesn't help your case. Besides that, these forums are for discussion, not lecturing; you can easily post tutorials in your blog space if you want, and their reception will probably be better there.

These threads are what we call "flamebait". They're written in such a way as to invite powerful negative feedback. I'm pressed to find a reason to leave this one open.

Lummox JR

Dec 18 2009, 9:56 am
Radical Designs	You are going to call the police? lol.

Dec 18 2009, 10:08 am

Polatrite

Hey Proteen, I spruced up your post a little bit for you.

I used very simple colors in my design, too.

Cheers,

Proteen wrote:
> I would like to begin by thanking everyone for being interested in my last volume of design philosophy. I also want to thank those who responded positively to the thread, rather than dish out mindless insults and jokes to try and destroy something they weren't intelligent enough to create themselves.
>
> I was contacted and told I should release Vol. 2 a bit early by some well known members of the BYOND establishment. I was also reminded by those people that there are many members of the BYOND that have low vocabularies, so I will keep the wording difficulty to a minimum.
>
> <b>Thread Disclaimer</b>: I am sick of people trying to ruin my reputation. Therefore if you respond to this thread negatively and stupidly, I will report you to the BYOND authorities which are Dantom and Nadrew. I will also call the police if I feel like you are trying to pose a threat on my safety.
>
> Last time I explained originality. Today we will be discussing something different.
>
> <b>Simplicity ( avoid complexity)</b>:
>
> Players tend to join games that are easy to play. No one wants to log into a game where you have to spend 20 minutes reading some huge guide. People enjoy being able to log into a game and start having fun immediately. Keep in mind that not all players have patience. Do not bore your audience with over-complicated gameplay and storylines.
>
> Please stay tuned for Vol. 3. If I am contacted by those BYOND members again I will try and release it by tommorow.

Dec 18 2009, 10:20 am In response to Lummox JR
Popisfizzy	Lummox JR wrote: I'm pressed to find a reason to leave this one open. So that hilarity may ensue.

Dec 18 2009, 12:39 pm In response to Polatrite
Kuraudo	Polatrite wrote: Hey Proteen, I spruced up your post a little bit for you. I used very simple colors in my design, too. I just had a flashback. Liked mine better, though your style may have made the point clearer at that time. :]

Dec 18 2009, 1:00 pm

Kuraudo

So here's my summary...

Length of introduction/Academy Award acceptance speech: 301 characters
Length of reason for posting two days earlier than previously scheduled: 272 characters
Length of (disclaimer/warning? lol...): 294 characters
Length of recap: 83 characters
Length of subject: 31 characters

Total length of meaningless content so far: 984 characters
Length of [meaningful?] post content: 340 characters

Ratio: 2.9:1 useless text

Conclusion: Follow your own philosophy---Simplicity (avoid complexity). "Keep in mind that not all [readers] have patience. Do not bore your audience with [meaningless content]."

So basically, a large part of the reason why these posts are getting flamed is because the actual amount of meaningful content is quite low, whereas the posts are bloated with wordiness and other topics which are irrelevant to design philosophy; i.e. the reason why you post on the 18th versus the 20th and who the BYOND authorities are.

It also helps that your philosophies are debatable---I for one like complex games with complex storylines. RPGs are my favorite games, especially the Final Fantasy games which are notorious for drawn out and complex storylines. And with that all said...

Proteen wrote:

Thread Disclaimer: I am sick of people trying to ruin my reputation. Therefore if you respond to this thread negatively and stupidly, I will report you to the BYOND authorities which are Dantom and Nadrew. I will also call the police if I feel like you are trying to pose a threat on my safety.

Will you also call the police if I mention that this part made me laugh? Or is that only a report-to-the-BYOND-authorities-which-are-Dantom-and-Nadrew kind of thing?

Dec 18 2009, 5:19 pm
Jp	What reputation?

Dec 18 2009, 8:15 pm

Popisfizzy

Proteen wrote:

I would like to begin by thanking everyone for being interested in my last volume of design philosophy.

You have an interesting definition of interesting. It's similar to my "interest" of Twilight, especially the RiffTrax of Twilight.

I also want to thank those who responded positively to the thread

Yeah, the imaginary folks present in the replies spruced up the otherwise-boring, but funny, mocker.

rather than dish out mindless insults and jokes to try and destroy something they weren't intelligent enough to create themselves.

Well I'm SORRY, but we all can't afford a thesaurus and and Introduction to Elementary Philosophy, or Philosophy 101, or whatever your community college calls it.

I was contacted and told I should release Vol. 2 a bit early by some well known members of the BYOND establishment.

You mean like Falacy and Masterdan?

I was also reminded by those people that there are many members of the BYOND that have low vocabularies, so I will keep the wording difficulty to a minimum.

Well, you could just stop using your thesaurus and use words you actually know the meaning of, FYI.

Thread Disclaimer: I am sick of people trying to ruin my reputation. Therefore if you respond to this thread negatively and stupidly, I will report you to the BYOND authorities which are Dantom and Nadrew. I will also call the police if I feel like you are trying to pose a threat on my safety.

I do like how everyone you mentioned will laugh at you when you complain that people are making fun of you on TEH INTERNETS!!!!!

Last time I explained originality. Today we will be discussing something different.

Simplicity ( avoid complexity):

Redundancy (avoid redundancy):

Players tend to join games that are easy to play. No one wants to log into a game where you have to spend 20 minutes reading some huge guide. People enjoy being able to log into a game and start having fun immediately. Keep in mind that not all players have patience. Do not bore your audience with over-complicated gameplay and storylines.

Huzzah! Obvious statements that are not in any way philosophical. Well, at least the climax of this thing was worth the build-up!

(Hint: That was sarcasm, and the climax was not worth the build-up)

Dec 18 2009, 10:15 pm

Jaredoggy

Proteen wrote:

Players tend to join games that are easy to play. No one wants to log into a game where you have to spend 20 minutes reading some huge guide. People enjoy being able to log into a game and start having fun immediately. Keep in mind that not all players have patience. Do not bore your audience with over-complicated gameplay and storylines.

You're right and you're wrong. People don't like to be confused upon entering a game for the first time. But there's nothing boring about complex story lines. Having an intriguing story is one of the more important aspects of good game design.

Thank you so much for your sage advice though! I'm glad you decided to dumb down your language so that all us ignorant half-wits can understand what you're saying. You're a saint.

Dec 19 2009, 1:04 am
Stephen001	As far as design philosophy goes, all people want to know is, has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like? You seem like the kind of guy that would know, please tell us.

Dec 19 2009, 1:25 am

Stephen001

*dribbles* Durp durp, I still don't get it.

I'm gonna put my moderator hat on here, probably much to everyone's disappointment. The next time you make a topic in this section of the forums, give it substance. This guy at the least had a serious design philosophy topic, and is being pushed about a bit in the order by your non-topics. If this continues, I really will "destroy something they weren't intelligent enough to create themselves". I don't want to see some holier than thou drivel composing of 2/3rds non-sense or posturing and 1/3rd advice that's either blindingly obvious of totally unsubstantiated. As entertaining as this has been for all involved, that's not what this section is about.

Dec 19 2009, 5:58 am

Loduwijk

I just wrote up a bunch of stuff in reply and lost it when I tried to open something in a new browser tab and it opened in this one instead, and it was all lost. That's the second time that's happened to me in the last couple weeks and it's so **** infuriating.

Proteen wrote:

I was also reminded by those people that there are many members of the BYOND that have low vocabularies, so I will keep the wording difficulty to a minimum.

You don't have to try to sound smart. Many smart people actually prefer a conversation where people do not try to sound smart. If you have good content people will catch on.

Therefore if you respond to this thread negatively and stupidly, I will report you to the BYOND authorities which are Dantom and Nadrew.

Just FYI, that's not the entire list.

Simplicity ( avoid complexity):

As the saying goes, KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Players tend to join games that are easy to play. No one wants to log into a game where you have to spend 20 minutes reading some huge guide. People enjoy being able to log into a game and start having fun immediately. Keep in mind that not all players have patience. Do not bore your audience with over-complicated gameplay and storylines.

It's often good to keep the initial learning curve simplified, but if I like a game and come back to it, I often want to start learning its advanced features. It's good to have increased complexity that is available for those who want to utilize it, but unless the game is specifically supposed to be involved, don't make it mandatory.

Alpha Centauri, a PC turn-based sci-fi strategy war game, is a perfect example of this. On one end of the spectrum, you can leave many things automated so that your bases take care of unit production, resource gathering, even creating new bases, all on their own with an AI manager, so all you have to worry about is taking combat units and telling them to attack. On the other end, you can take control of whatever you want and even micro manage everything, right down to the form of government your bases use (even individual aspects of the government that affect specific things), what percentage of your base civilian population does what on a base-by-base case, and many more things.

Please stay tuned for Vol. 3. If I am contacted by those BYOND members again I will try and release it by tommorow.

I just checked, and it appears you have a membership and blog space. This stuff would probably be better suited to that. The forum is generally for people who have questions or want to discuss.

Dec 19 2009, 8:43 am In response to Loduwijk
Lummox JR	Loduwijk wrote: I just checked, and it appears you have a membership and blog space. This stuff would probably be better suited to that. The forum is generally for people who have questions or want to discuss. He does have blog space, though not a membership. Unquestionably these posts belong there though. Lummox JR

Dec 19 2009, 3:29 pm In response to Lummox JR
Moonlight Memento	No one read blogs anyway (I do recall a few instances from reading forum searches that someone would make a blog post for a discussion that was derailing the thread, and ask the others to talk about it there, though), unless you have a membership and it appears in the Community section.

Dec 19 2009, 5:57 pm

In response to Moonlight Memento

Lummox JR

Moonlight Memento wrote:

No one read blogs anyway (I do recall a few instances from reading forum searches that someone would make a blog post for a discussion that was derailing the thread, and ask the others to talk about it there, though), unless you have a membership and it appears in the Community section.

Eh. We've given everyone a soapbox. Anyone who wants to lecture on a topic, whether they're qualified or not, can do so there. Whether they'll attract an audience is their own concern, but users who want more attention for their blogs can always purchase a membership to get it.

Lummox JR

Dec 19 2009, 6:09 pm In response to Lummox JR
Moonlight Memento	That's just it though - the blog is very close to uselessness when money has to be spent to make anything of it.

Dec 19 2009, 6:34 pm In response to Moonlight Memento
Airjoe	If proteen had anything worthwhile to say, he could properly format it and submit it to Dream Makers. Unfortunately, that's not really the case here, so the null audience he gets on his blog is probably appropriate. Even if you're a nonmember, you can get content published through the official guilds.

Dec 19 2009, 7:29 pm In response to Lummox JR
Radical Designs	I did a review a a game on BYOND without having a membership and they still found it.

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