How about a new Background Blitz - Workshop Edition?

[Ilyich]

YES to this! Great to see this moving forward and even better to have loominous onboard again! Very much looking forward to, if not participating from start to finish, then at least contributing something and learning from others. I like the idea that this is supposed to be more of a Critic's Lounge activity rather than a competition from the start, since that's what our competitions are all about anyway - improving our skills and trying new things. Best of luck with organizing this thing, I'm sure it will turn out great.

Oh, and I for one am really interested in a similar Sprite/Character design workshop as well. I'm sure it'll prove to be just as educational, since character design is just as important for adventure games, but involves a pretty different set of skills and techniques. Make this happen! (Although probably not at the same time )

[loominous]

So, at least there seems to be some interest in a Character Workshop as well, while I'm taking the lack of responses regarding a game setting/world/script activity as an indication that there's less on the writing side.

As there seems to be less activity nowadays on the boards, do you guys think it would be best to have some kind of 'sign up' period, to allow people to get ready/read about it, or should we just go? Any preferable starting date, like before/during/after easter?

[Darth Mandarb]

This is definitely something I'm interested in (I wouldn't mind the workshop on the writing aspect either, personally).

I was thinking about this on my way in to work this morning... it almost seems like 1 thread (if there's enough participation) would be HUGE and hard to follow and/or maintain?

I wonder if we should make a separate board for the workshop(s)?  Maybe 'private' boards where only those who (loom's idea about signing up) have said they want to take part? (edit this wouldn't be helpful to others who just want to read/learn).  Each participant could have their own thread for the background(s) they are working on and the community could browse each thread leaving comments/crits for each artist.  This isn't really "more" work for the leader (or other participants) but I think it's definitely easier for each participant to see the comments/crits that are directed at them and not worry about missing anything.  Where-as one LARGE thread it's easy to overlook something directed at your work.  The board could have rules and general question topics stickied up top and then only threads for each artist's work-in-progress.

Am I over-thinking this?  I just really like the idea of these workshops and think they could/should be an on-going part of the community.  As such the "structure" of it should probably be considered

Thoughts?

[Calin Leafshade]

I didn't find the long thread to be hard to follow in retrospect. Maybe at the time it was more difficult.

If you make a new board then what distinguishes that board from the CL in actuality? I think it needs structure and the long thread facilitated that by being clearly chronological

[loominous]

Hm, unlike Leafshade the former activity thread did strike me as hard to follow when I looked at it the other day, particularly the feedback (which you often found many pages later, detached from the participants' threads), and I do think this needs to be addressed, particularly if we'd be moving in more of a collaborative CL direction, where things are bound to be even messier.

One way to counter the feedback lag would be to have the participants quote all the feedback in their progress post, though I'm not sure how this would work out, and doesn't address branching, as all branching could be considered feedback, and I just foresee one messy thread. Would also put place a burden on the participants to not only create but quote n organize, and might feel like too much work.

Another way would be to split up the activity thread into individual threads for each stage. Last time we kept all progress in a single post, which made the participant's main posts very anachronical from the rest of the thread. So with a separate thread for each stage, we'd at least compensate a bit for the feedback lag.

A separate board would be nice, and would solve some issues, though branching would still be a problem (when does a branch get a separate thread, does it? As we've seen in the CL, modifications can often be major revamps).

As creating a unique board for the one activity seems like overstepping some bounderies, perhaps there could be a workshop board, and as long as there aren't simultaneous activities, I suppose the dates should neatly clump the threads together, or perhaps there's some moderator trickeries that could be used to keep it organized.

[selmiak]

I didn't follow the long thread back then when it was created, but did read through it with this upcomming discussion and have to say the summarization posts close to the beginning by some participants are quite convenient, at first I was confused a bit to find the same stuff later on in the thread again but realised quickly that is was just added to the first post of the artist in the thread from there.
So Darth has a point, if every artist has his own thread he surely has the first post and won't vanish to page 3 of a very active thread with some great art. And if the first post in the thread is a really well written summarization of the whole process, like an article you would write for a magazin then this priceless. Also if you are not that interested in the comments and rather want to read a tutorial on how to get things done you have a very good ressource right at hand, where you won't have to search long and scroll much when opening the thread.
The only difference to the CL could be that you mods grant the fine artists the right to open threads and other people can't.
What about even a tutorials forum where all the best of these threads and some other valuable threads are moved to, there could be some more small icons for a users whose good tutorial thread is moved there to encourage writing good tutorials. But having a workshop forum and a selected tutorials forum will clutter things up and this will clash with wiki articles and also some technicals question threads evolved into elaborate tutorials, but are not summarised in the first post though. If you can't afford a new board for this, going to kickstarter for it might help
I wouldn't mind having a special workshop forum where not everyone can open topics as long as this is not a once in 5 years thing and after this workshop the forum and with it the idea of workshops is abandoned.
Btw, when I hear workshop I think of lots of people participating in what the teacher explains and then getting critiques on what they did by the teacher (or in this case by everyone reading and watching)... is this encouraged and how would this work with a few threads of some great artists?

[Eric]

I'm taking the lack of responses regarding a game setting/world/script activity as an indication that there's less on the writing side.

I'm interested in doing every kind of workshop that I can, especially if they're stretched over longer periods. I can never do the blitzes anymore, because I don't have enough time to pull together in one week to do anything, but a one- or two-month course would be perfect for me.

I have a lot of thoughts about writing and worldbuilding that I'd like to workshop with folks!

[Snarky]

I believe it's pretty easy for AGA to create new sub-forums, even on a temporary basis, so if that would help... (We can always move the threads over to Competitions & Activities afterwards, or if the whole thing fizzles.)

In principle I would be interested in other workshops as well, but I think we should start simple. First see how the second background workshop goes; maybe we'll learn something from the process. Also, there's probably going to be overlap in people who are interested in multiple topics, but can't take on more than one thing at a time. (If your concern is getting ideas for a screen to make grounded in a realistic game design, I could dig through my stack of game ideas, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.)

Some of the other workshop possibilities (writing in particular) sound like they'd tend towards actual game making, or at least game planning. Draculator II was great fun, and something we might definitely want to repeat, but I'm not sure it quite fits the workshop format.

Perhaps what we could do instead would be to take a game in alpha- or beta stage that someone would be willing to donate (with all the code and assets), and do something like a critique/punch-up of the design (including all elements: story, writing, puzzles, art, UI, animation, music, coding...). Or we could even start from an already-released game. But again, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

[Baron]

    I vote in favour of a workshop forum.  The critics' lounge is great for feedback, and heaven knows I've learned a lot there, but I find it has a reactionary format and sometimes even an adversarial feel: I suck, you point it out, if I'm open/motivated enough I listen and improve.  Folks invest a lot emotionally in the content there since it's for their babies (er, games....), so sometimes they get themselves worked up.  I would like to see a place where learning and skill development is emphasized, and the projects are studies and not actual GIPs.  I am 100% interested in this background workshop since I think it is definitely where I struggle the most at game design.  I think there would be demand for other workshops not only in all aspects of game design, but perhaps the software department as well (I'd be much more motivated to figure GIMP out if I could do it in a group workshop format, for example; and maybe Calin could teach us all to dance the Lula?).  However, I do think it's a good idea to pilot the idea first.
    A longer term problem to consider is the recruitment of energetic and knowledgeable people to run the workshops.  Maybe people who are interested in running a workshop can start a sticky thread specifying what they intend to teach in the workshop and maybe their qualifications for doing so if they're not well known, and then the thread will be given two weeks to generate enough enthusiasm to go ahead before being locked/demoted (to prevent clutter).  That way if you're shopping for a workshop you'll know where to look, and we won't have dozens of workshops running with only one or two participants.  Heck, maybe the workshops could even be advertised on the main board (I missed the workshop 4 years ago because I was not frequenting the C&A board at the time).

[Calin Leafshade]

I would actually be willing to teach how to use Lua for adventure games. I'm not sure exactly how that would be structured tho...

[loominous]

So, anyone with forum creation powers wanna weigh in?

[Baron]

I don't think there's any opposition, and I highly doubt Ali or Iceboty would object. You should feel free to go ahead.

I'd say start a master thread on the competition and activity board that sets out what the workshop will be about and how long it is anticipated to run, and which asks people to commit to participating.  We could even run the first one there with all the individual participant threads -the moderators know how to move threads later on if they decide to create a separate board.  We'll just make sure that all participants preface their thread title with the workshop's title so that we can keep track of them all.
   Let's learn some art!

[Andail]

Ok, it's been a month and a half, and since nobody has picked up the ball, I've gone ahead and fired up an AGS workshop:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=48175.msg636453457#msg636453457

I kept it pretty simple. I know there were plenty of ideas about sub-forums and all sorts of nice features, but then I figured it's better to just get something started.

So, happy work-shopping!

[Snarky]

Aw, I was just PM-ing with loominous about him getting one going this week!