The RoN Problem--How do we solve it???

[Dave Gilbert]

Um, i never said that.  If you read my previous threads you'll see the suggestions I have made.  I just don't think the Davy death thing is really that much of a big issue.  It's mentioned once, on the FAQ, and that's it. 

[Ozzie]

When the old RON games run under compatibility mode then it should stand in the FAQ at least. Not all people come to that conclusion, probably.
Also, when possible, maybe some RON contributors should compile their old RON games with a newer version of AGS.
This doesn't always work perfectly, of course.

1. Make RON accessible

Problems:
-too many characters

Actually, I don't think so. There's mainly Davy, Elandra, the Bum, George Watstatt, Mika, Melt & Drake, Phil Nihilist, Lucca, Dr. Die Vie Ess, Death and Gower, maybe the chicken too.
I think the rest was never really that important. The nightguards? The sheriff? Well, not more than supporting roles.
So, what's the problem?
I think we talked through it before. There's no seperation between main and other characters. They are all in the same pot. That's irritating for beginners.

-too much difference in quality of the many different games on the game pages

Yeah, right. Like we discussed, a categorization is necessary:
- Canon
- Recommended Games
- Other

Also, we should specify with which engine the game was created and in which genre it belongs.
These would be my suggestions.

-too much difference in styles of the many different games on the game pages
-too much difference in graphics of the many different games on the game pages

Well, it's impossible that all RON games have one consistent style, except if there were some head artists who make all the graphics of all the games.
But it's maybe a weakness of the concept. Everybody has a unique style and differing talents. The best you can do is to pick the backgrounds which are the most similar in style for your game. So, better don't choose the Town Square from Phantom Inheritance and with an old picture of the forest...

-too complex timeline

Dylan tries to cut it down. But to be honest, we can't forget the history. We should recommend on the start page for the developers to have a look at the timeline.
If we just try to cut it down to, let's say, Lunchtime of the Damned, I Spy, Apocalypse Meow & Purity of the Surf (just to have an extreme example), then people may see the introductory and some of RON best games, but they may also be confused. Because of all these strange side plots that don't seem to make sense (the appearance of death as a lifeguard would be strange for example). And they would miss some very important history points.
If they would then create a game based on this knowledge then we might have even more games with story inconsistencies.
The timeline would start to make even less sense and new users might be even more frustrated.

So, I think the only thing we can do ist to include those game in the timeline which have real significance.
This means that they had moments and introduced new characters which were also referred to in games of other authors. Also, they shouldn't totally contradict with the former RON history.
Further, we should include a walkthrough on every game page. This might reduce the time to get known to RON.
You can't hide the fact that many things already happened in RON. We should only try to make it easy, uncomplicated and short on time to get introduced to RON.

take into account that nobody would make anyone who has never seen Star Wars watch the Phantom Menace first in order to get into the movies (I mean, everybody would still start out with A New Hope right?).

You mean, it's better to play the games in the release instead of the chronological order?
Well, maybe. I did it this way.
I can also see why this is the better way. For example, a new game is set at an earlier time but still does refer to sth. which got revealed later on.
This problem is probably best explained with the Chzo mythology:

7 Days Skeptic may happen at the end in the timeline but was made as the second. And that's the reason why it doesn't have references to Trilby's Notes or 6DAS, though they happened earlier in the timeline.
When you would play it in a chronological order you would be confused to find yourself in a spacecraft as part of a horror moment, for example.
Or, then in 6DAS, you would control Somerset and have now idea who he is!

Still, while this means that it would be a better way to play the games in the order they were released it could be an interesting experience to play it after the timeline.
Also, the timeline is important for reference.

-Davy Jones is dead and alive and both and neither

I wouldn't have thought that Davy Jones' death would present such a problem. There's one really vague game with a unique style wherein he dies (Davy Jones C'est Mort). There's a non-interactive thing which tries to make more sense of it than the notice of Davy being sexually molested to death by a man in a cow suit (the Universal Equaliser). And there's a -quite nice (in my opinion)- game which brings Davy back in a very clear way (Davy Jones Is Back). I don't think it should be so hard to follow but apparently people have issues with the series, perhaps because of the controversial first game (featuring a rather disturbing rape scene)?
My solution would be: separate these games and put them into a subfolder, giving an explanation of the history of the games next to it.

I don't understand this subfolder thought. For me, the whole thing with subfolders may make it more complicated than easier.
I mean noobs may ask themselves why there's a DasTobias category, what DasTobias is, what it contains, why it is seperated. Also, just to make an own category for three controversial games seems a bit silly.
I don't think that Davys death makes no sense or is hard to understand. The controversy was about killing the character and not because it was a story quirk.
When people can laugh in a Simpsons episode when a steel block gets awarded for the best employer of the month then people won't be too irritated by the death and resurrection of Davy Jones. After all, he's even a sorcerer!

An obvious way to decide which games go where is to make a rating system or voting system, or maybe go by their current ratings on the RON page although those may be not too reliable (says the guy whose game ranks on the third spot...) Food for later!

Well, yes, we should definately improve on it. The current voting system was abused. I think it would be a good idea that only people with a forum account could give a vote.

Please get rid of the arcade games and the quizzes. They don't contribute anything to the series other than making it a haphazard inaccessible mess. A quiz can be made in HTML. Who would care to download an AGS quiz featuring five questions that you either know if you played the relevant game or don't know if you didn't? What's the point of having a paratroopers game supposedly connected to RON because it's said to be one of the characters' dream?!

Ehm, I think it would be unfair to remove the arcade games. While the paratrooper one has nearly nothing to do with RON it's a good game. So it should belong into Good Stuff. But it's not an adventure. That's a reason why we should categorize the games after the genre.
About the quizzes: Theoretically, you could use audio & graphics to make them prettier, maybe these mediums could even be relevant for a question. So, in general, they are nothing bad. But I have to agree: the current ones aren't very inspired...

Demos should be removed. You see a demo, the first thing it tells you is that it's not finished. That equals inaccessibility, especially since the real games of the couple of demos featured were never finished.

I agree totally.

The text parser games could go under another folder: 'non-AGS' games. But it should then be a subfolder of the 'collectors only' folder as that is what they would have been anyway.

Like I said already, we should also make categories for the game engines.

Speaking of other opinions, I'd love to hear what people think of the points I made above.
Do people agree that my 'three steps' are the issues needed to be adressed to save RON?
If so, let's first discuss the accessiblity issue. Do people agree with my folder division idea? If not, please tell me why and share your own ideas; what would make up an accessible RON game list in your opinion and why?
Who is going to take control of the situation? Renegade Implementor, you are the guy behind the RON site, right? How do you feel about revamping the website?

Keep the discussion alive, we might save a town!
Thank you all for thinking!

Discussion is good.
Of course, my opinion is also only one under many.

[Valentijn]

Good to read your thoughts, Ozzie, I agree with pretty much everything you're saying.

The problems I listed were what I, based on other posts in this thread, thought that people in general would see as the main inaccessibility issues. I also don't think that there are too many main characters, but it is indeed as you are saying; right now all characters are listed on the site's characters page.
(Let me quickly add that I've always liked the contents and presentation of the website myself, but I can see how newcomers might be put off by a list of about 90 characters)

Your 'canon / recommended / other' division is about what I opted for as well with 'essentials / good stuff / collectors'. Sometimes it's better indeed to choose 'canon' over quality. The very first game (Lunchtime of the Damned) and something like Reposessor are both very nice games but wouldn't top the list. Still, they're essential in shaping the RON-world so they should go in the main list for sure.
You understand my Star Wars analogy correctly (the Yahtzee comparison works much better!). If you would force an order going by what happened first and what happened later, it will take some time before 'the newcomer' reaches games like Purity of the Surf, the Melt & Drake triology or III Spy... most of the games of which I would say they make up the very best of RON.
What I now think is best is to have one extra piece of information with each game: a 'games referenced' list. What do you think?

I totally agree with you on the graphics point. It's just that some people were complaining about poor art in some games. But I guess the games that don't have much to offer in any department will be filtered out to the 'third category' anyway, and badly drawn games which are in one of the main categories will be there for a reason. So I don't think this will present much of a problem.

Well, maybe you're right with 'the more subfolders the messier'. I thought since people seem to have issues with the Davy Jones games, to have them separated (but of course still available), and to get a less messy 'others/collectors' folder by getting more stuff out of there that is just loosely connected to RON (the arcade game, at least the 'dream' games, ...). I was actually thinking of something like how Reality on the Norm is now featured on the AGS games page: simply one entry that links to all (=>the site). I'm still of that opinion but I can see your point here.

And okay, maybe not remove the arcade games and the quizzes all out. But these really do need to be separated from the bulk, as to not make more bulk where you'd still have to fish out the normal games. In my opinion, at least.

I'm all for a better voting system and then base a new presentation on that. One problem here is that there don't seem to be so many people hanging out on the RON forum these days.
Would it be possible, perhaps, to get ALL the games on the AGS game page? This was actually something I was thinking about for the 'step' of attracting attention. The current 'one entry that links to the site' isn't really the advertisement RON needs.
Speak of subfolders. Here you have "short games / medium length games / full length games / MAGS-games / non-adventure games / joke games / demos".
Would it be possible to get another folder there for RON-games? Have all games there? The voting system in here is pretty alright, at least it's way more reliable than the one on the RON-site.

Cheers,
Valentijn

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

All this discussion of arcade games, quizzes and non-ags games being stored separate...

...I mean, RON isn't an AGS project. Isn't that the whole point? RON is a community project. Since AGS is so damn good and so accessible to newbies, and there's a lot of packs for use with AGS, it's the suggested engine.

But the arcade games and the quizzes are as much part of RON as, say, Science of the Discworld or Wee Free Men/Hat Full of Sky are part of the Discworld series/universe.

[LUniqueDan]

Hum...

Nostradamus said :

All early RON games can run on XP if you run them under win95 Compatibility mode (right click--> properties on the .exe).
 

Don't worry kid, I can Run older stuff than that, under worst circumstances, with my hand tied over an acid vat.  That was not a tech tread. It's a publicity problem.

Sure I can ask about who's who. But I do prefer doing a game instead.

Listen the wisdom of the newbie :

A 10 yo autistic kid, deaf, and with serious color blindness can understand easily who's who in the Simpsons.  And this before the show starts.

A 4 yo molested child, raised by monkeys in the jungle of New-Caledonia, who have no f+++ idea of what's the stone age, will got the point of The Flintstones.

So please : Take 10 sec and watch RON like if you don't know it. And just re-read your posts with this perspective. You may find true enlightenment.


I'm sorry to re-quote myself :

A) Is the difficulties of keeping RON alive came from the reasons you wanted it alive? (long timeline, getting personally involved through years... crush for a given character who have suuuch a huge past...)

B) Is the difficulties to make RON  attractive / coherent for the newbies came ALSO from the solely origins of RON itself.  
Let's tell the truth : RON is NOT a Simpsons show : It's adventure gaming and everyone are trying to transgressing the boundaries.  The odd that any of the main character get killed were very high at the beginning. Or that someone mess with the bum identity.

EDIT : That's why we wanna create stuff !! No for any RON Worshipping.
EDIT2  : RON will work as a series of Fan Game. But there is no original You are failing where MMMania win.

C) Why keeping RON alive anyway? . It's sounds obvious but it's not. Old - RONites around here define RON as a community project. And we're 7 pages of tread asking yourself how to create/rebuild a community !?!. That's why Davy's dead hurts. It was a possible cement of the series.

Anyway... My last mean comment : Censorship for naive ears.

Spoiler

If keeping RON alive matters so much for you. If having a RON community matters so much. WHY THE F*** just not doing yourself RON game !?!. The RONite in this tread cumulate years of scripting.

[close]

Have a good day anyway.

LUnique"Gimme a Template and I'll rebuilt the temple in 3 days"Dan

[Valentijn]

Hi Rui,

Maybe. The thing is, what I would say: the openness of RON, the whole liberal idea of 'anything goes' (save for about three minor conditions) used to be the whole point, but also made for it's inevitable demise. I actually think we'd have a more durable RON-world should the main list (at least the 'canon'/'essentials' folder) become 'AGS only'.
You won't get the RON of 2002-2003 back but you'd have a more stable system. RON make II.
Removing the arcade games/quizzes all together is probably way too extreme (not to mention not so nice for their creators). It's of course also really nice to have a 'franchise' going on and see your fave characters in different presentations. But in any case, I think separation, like how non-adventure games have their own category on the AGS game page, is necessary if the huge game list is to be re-organised into something more accessible.

Dan, speaking for myself: I'd love to make another RON game! But I have other projects going on which I want to finish first and I can't see myself starting on any game within the forthcoming months. And should I ever start on one it may take more months to finish. But I love to share thoughts about how to keep the series alive, since I like the concept so much and think RON still has so much in it, and could still appeal to many people.

[Ozzie]

Anyway... My last mean comment : Censorship for naive ears.

Spoiler

If keeping RON alive matters so much for you. If having a RON community matters so much. WHY THE F*** just not doing yourself RON game !?!. The RONite in this tread cumulate years of scripting.

[close]

Because there's a concept called time and I can't handle it.
I have already enough today with math at university, otherwise I would work nearly nonstop on it.

Edit:

What I now think is best is to have one extra piece of information with each game: a 'games referenced' list. What do you think?

Actually a nice, but a bit problematic idea! When does a game get referenced? Probably not when one of its characters gets featured (I mean, every game featuring Mika would reference ISpy and everyone featuring Davy Lunchtime Of The Damned...)
I'm sorry, I'm not sure how this could work.
Hm, well, there are some rare cases, let's say the Melt & Drake games, the ISpys and the games with Gower running for mayor belong to each other....
...but these are the only ones that spring to mind.

Normally I would say, it doesn't really matter what I think.

But then, this is the irritation: whose opinion matters???
For RON, this would be the community, naturally.
But, honestly, it doesn't exist anymore.
Now the question is: Should some few people take the fate of RON in their hands, create a new license scheme, new rules and a new content organisation without affirmation of the (lost) community?
I think it has to be this way.
But actually, it's a big task, and it would be an unreasonable demand on Renegade Implementor & Bumblearse alone, especially since they weren't asked. This is community work.
And that's a problem without a community.
We have no time, but need games to promote new people. We have no community that can reach decisions and change the organisation.
Well, I just hope that some nice games come out in the future. Dylan has his last Tapestry game in the works. There's the exorcism of Julian Lapis and judging from the extremely short demo it does have at least graphics which show that some work has gone into it.
I work also at a game, somehow. I've finished two more backgrounds in the last week, but I can't promise that it will go on like that.
Also, I would need many animations and I can't animate even if my life would depend on it.

Hm. But what we definately would need is something like a RON 2.0, but less vague like Web 2.0, this should have more or less (in my opinion):
- better quality control before inclusion in the RON catalogue (fixing inconsistencies, checking playability; production quality might also play a role (MI5 Bob or The Spoons were unacceptable in my opinion))
- better graphics (nice for the eye, attracts more people. There has been done some work on it - see the sprites by Wogoat)
- new content organisation (seperation of main and supporting characters, in some cases adding more information about characters, all Bum identities, categorization of the games (Canon, Good Stuff, Other), more informations about the games (what engine, what genre, also, games should be searchable by author)
- walkthroughs for every game (Anym does good work on that, keep going )
- compact overview for beginners & developers (clear timeline, tutorials (like for background graphics),...)

Okay, this is all I can think of. Critic and other suggestions are welcome!!

[Anym]

I don't see the point of a wiki, since that all can be handled on the RoN site itself.

Well, the main advantage of a wiki would be that everybody could help writing and improving game descriptions, plot synopses and character profiles rather than just the admins, which are doing a fine job, but are probably busy enough as it is. But I admit that currently the wiki doesn't even provide the basic functionality of the current RON site and that's making it quite unappealing (to me at least).

Having now played all of the RON games, I can confirm that all the RON games ran fine, even without compatibility setting, under Windows XP for me (well, except Nightwatch, that is). If that isn't the case for other people, it might be possible to repackage most of those games with an appropriate ACWIN.EXE. I'm also (albeit slowly) writing walkthroughs for the games that don't seem to have one yet.

Regarding categories, I really don't think there should be more than "essential" (I really wouldn't call it "canon", because almost everything is canon, but there is important canon, like the mayoral election, and less important canon, like a new character arriving in town and I wouldn't think of it as "best of the series" either, it should be as small as possible, but as big as necessary), "not essential, but really good" (note that some of the best games, like A Better Mousetrap should be here rather than in "essential" IMHO) and "neither essential, nor especially good" (see also my previous post) and no further subcategories. I think everything can fit neatly into those categories, including non-AGS and non-adventure games which shouldn't be treated any different IMHO. I see no reason to treat games by a specific author any different either. If you want further granularity, then you should probably use tags in addition to the categories (non-adventure game, works as a standalone game, dream game,...) rather than have an intricate hierarchy of categories.

Davy Jones C'est Mort would be an "essential" game in my book, but I guess that's open to discussion. While the question about his death should probably stay in the FAQ, it might be a good idea not to name it explicitly if you don't want people to get a wrong first impression.

The characters also should be divided into important and unimportant ones. This might even be done automatically by counting their number of appearances. And if the game pages start listing references to other games, then this system might even be extended to games themselves as well (again, see also my previous post).

<EDIT 1>

When does a game get referenced? Probably not when one of its characters gets featured (I mean, every game featuring Mika would reference ISpy and everyone featuring Davy Lunchtime Of The Damned...)
I'm sorry, I'm not sure how this could work.

Actually, that's just how I imagine it. That way the people who make the games basically decide what carries how much weight in the canon. Nearly every game features Mika, which makes I Spy quite important. On the other hand, few people used Knoffel, indicating that Intergalactic Life was less "embraced" by the community. I'm not sure if it would work, but I thing it just might and at the very least it would be interesting to look at.
</EDIT>

Regarding demos, I agree they should be removed from the games page, but not from the entire RON page. There should still be a demo section somewhere. For example, the Without a Prayer demo is funnier and arguably has more gameplay than many of the "proper" games. I seem to remember a "Games in production" section from an older version of the RON site, featuring, among other things, screenshots for Descension. However, the only demo on the games page, that I can think of at the moment is the one for Time Out (which should be removed from there). Edge of Reality, while labeled as demo is more properly classified as part 1 in a series that didn't get finished IMHO. If you want to remove it anyway, what about the Melt & Drake games, which are also pending closure?

I always regarded the timeline more as a developers resource than as a playing guide and I always appreciated the all-inclusive approach, so I'm a bit skeptical about removing stuff from it. If you don't want it to scare newbies away, I think it would be better to keep it out of their sight than to cripple it. Newbies should get a big START HERE link pointing to the essential games category, probably already ordered by timeline.

I also agree that the ratings system needs an overhaul. The highest rated game is quite bad IMHO and the lowest rated game has a score lower than 1 that should be impossible in the employed rating scheme.

I also want reiterate one more point from my previous post, that I don't think tighter integration with the AGS site or the AGS engine is the way to go:

Rather than integrating RON more closely with the AGS site and forums, I think an effort should be made to try to reach other game making communities. I think most people here are at least remotely aware that RON exists, even if it's just because they wanted to check out the other games from the guy who made the Trilby-/Blackwell-/Ben-Jordan-/Whatever-games, but I guess it's pretty obscure anywhere else. I'm not familiar with other game development communities and I'm not even sure if they exist, but I think it might worth a try. I'm not familiar with Maniac Mansion Mania either, but noticed that they have Visionaire and PaC-DK (something I hadn't even heard about before) templates in addition to an AGS and character sprites in .PNG-format and not just as .CHA-files. The reaching out should probably wait until the issues of the intimidating large amount of games in general and relatively large amount of games with questionable quality have been tackled, though, in order not to immediately scare away anybody who decies to check RON out.

<EDIT 2>
I think RON has more in common with a soap opera than with a sitcom. Things do change over time and if you watch/play a single episode at random you can't expect to get everything. That's probably not a good thing, but that's the way it is and so Lost or Desperate Housewives would probably better analogies than The Simpsons.
</EDIT>

[LUniqueDan]

I know ... I'm not into RON.
I know ... My participation to this tread can sound controversial
I know ... I have hell of a time express myself

But are you realizing the main paradoxes of this tread :

The best plan you found to attract newbies :
- Making stricter rules
- Making stricter graphical requirements.
- Making stricter this and that.

Which means on the concrete world:
- Removing anything not good enough.
- Removing anything who break coherence.
- Doing a lots of extra jobs, while precisely you need extra people.

ARE-YOU SERIOUS???


I have a extraordinary respect for all the top game creators who enjoyed belongs to the RON community. (You know who are and I'm not here to licks anyone *** ). But, again and again and again : What are you trying to do?

Is this only a Vanity fair ? The series/characters/plot  that YOU start?
or
Creating a strong environment to release creativity easier?



LUnique"I don't wanna have a degree on Ronities"Dan

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

There have been several thoughts on "stricter" this and that, but overall the one plan everybody agreed with was categorization, innit?

The environment *is* strong. Creativity is all about the person who wants to make the games. The only reason I don't make a RON game is lack of time and general lack of game-making interest - I've got a RON story in my head, which I've even talked to other people about. The story is not in the least constricted by the RON environment. So naturally I tend to raise an eyebrow when people talk about a "too complex universe". Hey, if you want to add to the main storyline, sure, it's complex. X-Files and Twin Peaks also got REAL complex, but the X-Files also had its own "monster of the week episode" unrelated to the X-Files alien mythos.

I'm digressing a bit. What I mean, mostly, is that this discussion is taking us somewhere, which is great - don't think it isn't. People are just trying to figure out the best way to put it into practice without negating all the hard work that made RON. Put it like this - if you don't want history repeating, you need a constant reminder of what happened before. If you don't want another dictator, you need to remember what the past dictators did, and how they got where they were.

Plus, if you'd delegated the first 4 X-Files seasons to a sub-category and focused essentially on the following seasons, you'd have missed the best episodes.

[Valentijn]

A lot of good points made by both of you, Ozzie & Anym.
Dan, although I though your first post contained some interesting comments I'm afraid you're starting to troll me out a bit here. Making stricter rules for attracting newbies is not a paradox at all (having a well maintained, solid system is more appealing than a chaotic mess). With comments such as "No for any RON Worshipping" and "you are failing while MMMania win" and "You're being overly negative while people here are simply having a good think tank discussion on how to keep something alive that more people may care about. So you don't care about RON's future... well we do, please leave us be.

Anyway. The 'games referenced' info could indeed be taken as Anym suggested. I was also thinking that instead of listing every single reference (such as my earlier post suggested), you could say that for some games you really need the basis given in another game (like the status of the mayor or the coming of Death), so instead of listing every single reference you could narrow it down to a need-to-know basis... although this may indeed prove to be a difficult task.

- better quality control before inclusion in the RON catalogue (fixing inconsistencies, checking playability; production quality might also play a role (MI5 Bob or The Spoons were unacceptable in my opinion))

This for sure! To me, the DasTobias games and the Underworld were unacceptable. One thing that led to the current state is the way how in the past, lots of poor quality games simply had to be accepted because they still adhered to the minor rules.
I agree with your '2.0' suggestions. This is how RON is to be kept alive after we hopefully get some life back in it. It's probably a good idea to have such a template ready on a revamped site, so people know what to expect from the future, see that it's going to be maintained, and can get a good frameset right away in order to make their own games! But not too jump ahead too fast, let's try to get the life back in first...

The reaching out should probably wait until the issues of the intimidating large amount of games in general and relatively large amount of games with questionable quality have been tackled, though, in order not to immediately scare away anybody who decies to check RON out.

I agree with this for a 100%!! I actually had my suggestion for getting the world more on the AGS site ready for a later discussion. BUT, the reason why I wrote about it now, is the problem of the quite dead RON forum. There are some people posting there but I think they're all posting here as well, and more people get involved here. More people are needed if we want to get a better voting system in. If we get one on the RON site now, we might have to use the votes of about five people as a basis. It's a problem.

I think everything can fit neatly into those categories, including non-AGS and non-adventure games which shouldn't be treated any different IMHO. I see no reason to treat games by a specific author any different either. If you want further granularity, then you should probably use tags in addition to the categories (non-adventure game, works as a standalone game, dream game,...) rather than have an intricate hierarchy of categories.

Well, would it be so intricate? Take the AGS game page and look at the different folders there. Non-adventure games are moved to a different folder there as well.
You may put five out of every eight games in the 'third folder' but that would make such an unorganised bulk again. If people start playing through that they still fall into an endless junkyard, is what I think.
Additional tags are neccesary anyway.
Hmm, well, maybe I was a bit too subjective & mean when I voted against the DT games, but earlier in this very thread people were already referencing them as clear examples of low quality products that only made for a more confusing world. The nature of these games is so unique, but they are similar to each other, which is why I thought - and still think - that they'd best be heaped together (so, about like it is with the current RON link on the AGS game page).

You could do it with three folders, have the essential stuff and the good stuff and then move all the other games with a certain low rating in the third folder. But I think it would be similar to sweeping the trash under the rug. It's still there and it's still a mess.

I always regarded the timeline more as a developers resource than as a playing guide and I always appreciated the all-inclusive approach, so I'm a bit skeptical about removing stuff from it.

Yeah, me too. I wouldn't want to remove stuff from a timeline (actually I'm an archaeologist so by nature I prefer to add to a timeline!). But how do you feel about having an all inclusive timeline as well as an extract with the really major events and need-to-know stuff?

Oh, and indeed, the Simpsons analogies don't work anymore.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Re quality control -

By those standards, I don't think "Paranormal Investigation" would have been accepted, would it?

However, the flat and uninteresting character of "John Steel" was taken into account for future games. He got fleshed out as "a creepy man of few words".

Things grow, mostly in unexpected ways. You want quality control? Go right ahead, but first tell me - in a community effort, with all sorts of crazy ideas (even Nihilism had a point -a glued down silo door- that was used in later games, and that game didn't even have an ending!) and people that are so creative, who decides what stays and what doesn't? And who can say that anything may or may not work in the long run?

Want an example? Let's go back to Davy's death. And I'll bring up Defender of RON again - those two combined brought to lift The Surrealist, one of the biggest plot points of RON (very ignored...), just ripe for the picking. I'll argue that without Davy Jones C'est Mort, it wouldn't have appeared.

Overall, the game makers have been making their own quality control, haven't they? Picking up on what was good and leaving behind what was bad - most episodes are mostly self-contained, so that's entirely possible.

Categorization is good - selection of "commonly-agreed-as-canon" games is good. Go much further than that, though, and you'll start curbing creativity in a way that won't even be visible until much, much later on, if ever... but it just won't be as rich as it could have been.

And there should always be an overall "RON collection" with *all* games listed chronologically. If for nothing else, people need to be able to say, "Damn, I could do better than this! Especially with these characters! Why, I could do so and so, and then so and so, and then... holy cow, I'd better make a game with these ideas!".

Mind you - I've been pretty much skimming this thread, not fully reading every single itty bitty point. If I'm starting to repeat myself, or am deviating from the main points, please point it out to me, else I run the risk of doing it again.

[LUniqueDan]

Valentijn : I'm sorry - I didn't want to act like a Troll.  I gave you my most sincere apologize if I may sound crude or overly controversial.

(BTW, and apologies to any of whom think the same)

But I still maintain : those questions do matters. Maybe I'm not sufficiently involve on the R. universe, finally, to give an opinion.

Anyway, I won't post into this tread anymore.

Wish You Good Luck,
Sincerely.
- Dan

[Valentijn]

Oh, I'm sorry Dan, apology accepted and here's one back from me! For a moment I was a bit unsure what you were trying to achieve; the two quoted comments went down a bit wrong with me.
It's good to hear from your perspective as well.

[Valentijn]

Rui, very good post!

Quality control goes into highly subjective debates indeed. And it goes against all that shaped RON in the glory years.
But we do have this current problem that RON is in a coma and several people in here have stated they feel RON has become too inaccessible. How I see it: it is the whole liberal nature that made it so. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy thing. You either have all the freedom in the world leading to all the chaos in the world, or you can have 'law and order', which would probably be the more accessible option now.

But yeah, some degree of the original freedom should still be given, I agree.

Thank you for using Defender as an example - it's my game after all! I can agree with you and confirm that I was indeed trying to uplift some of the lesser appreciated/some of the looser games by getting loads of references in, and installing some plot points that could be used to tie more together (the Surrealist). And I've been very vague about Davy's dead or alive status throughout the game on purpose, trying to make it both into a joke and into a mystery... by looking at his house, using the door of his house... and did any of you ever try using the x-ray eye on his grave?

I'm digressing. All what you're saying is true. But I'm just not sure at all if the past ways can be maintained while dealing with the accessibility problem, and if we want to ensure that RON won't be overflooded again with an overdose of bad stuff covering the good stuff - yes, very subjective, again, but there are quite some people who think there are too many bad games on the list, aren't there?

I actually wouldn't like to have a graphics standard installed. What I would like to have as a quality control feature is an obliged beta-testing rule (at least two testers). Something that would prevent games from being hardly playable the way Intergalactic Life was.

Although I said earlier that I'd be in favour of an 'AGS-only' rule, this is actually not what I would really want myself. It's what I think would be most beneficial in sense of resurrection.

I would like to keep all the games available. Okay, so I said a couple of times that I preferred the quizzes, the action games and the Tobias games removed... but I keep seeing these as special issues. I still can't see the point of the quizzes, I still think the action games/non AGS-games need to be taken to a separate folder, and I still think the Tobias games work better grouped together than as loose fodder throughout the pages.

Rui, your point of 'creators getting their own quality control in' actually is more pointing out the fact that creators are getting a canon control in. Games can become more canon when other games make use of them (the Jhon Steel example works very clear here). In this light it seems stupid to get three categories in but still it is probably the best idea to do so. Games could always be moved from one category to another. Perhaps if rules and regulations are installed like we are suggesting it now, Paranormal Investigation would end up in the 'other/collectors' folder indeed. But then Purity Of The Surf would have come out, possibly pulling the game with it to the canon folder. Or leaving it where it is... but then making use of a 'referenced games' tag...

In any case, I love the way you're thinking, the things you're saying... but I'm wondering if it isn't more idealism than the road to salvation...

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

It probably is. It's a character flaw, I'm more of an idealist than a practical person. I would know *exactly* how to make things work to their very best if we were in an ideal universe, catered to my vision of "ideal".

In other words, I'm pretty much like everyone else.

But ayuh. I know I'm not really helping much on a practical side, I just want to say a couple of things while it's still time for them to be said.

[Nostradamus]

+++ An humble n00bie view +++

There's a series of games called 'ROM', 'RON' or whatever.
- Some of the first features 'who sounds sooo important' can't run easily on XP.

Hum...

Nostradamus said :

All early RON games can run on XP if you run them under win95 Compatibility mode (right click--> properties on the .exe).
 

Don't worry kid, I can Run older stuff than that, under worst circumstances, with my hand tied over an acid vat.  That was not a tech tread. It's a publicity problem.

Don't call me kid, and lose the attitude. I'm not far from your age. You said you couldn't run the games so I offered a little help. I'm getting sick of trying to help people here to always have some smartasses (usually new people in the forums) having a stupid remark and\or think they know better. The fact is you said you couldn't run early RON games on XP so don't go around cocky about how your supposed "superior" OS skills.
The post was also not only for you but for the benefit of other people reading the thread who maybe had that problem, they might have seen their solution now.
And again, lose the attitude!

Moving on.
Back to RON...

[Ozzie]

Of course, the thing is that the importance of a game can't be judged when it is released.
It would need at least a half year to see how other authors adopted the characters and ideas in that game.
RON is very dynamic and the importance of a game can't be foreseen.

Regarding quality control: I guess the thing I would like to reach with it is that people stop to work lazy on a game and draw just a background with three colors (red for the wall, black for the outline and gray for the bottom, a method that's not seldom in "The Spoons", for example).
If you do a RON game you should be a bit more ambitious and not try to make a game as bad as possible and see if it gets accepted.
It's not about reaching a professional niveau. I mean the graphics of "Purity of the surf" weren't pretty, but the game had wonderful writing and was well put together. Also, you feel that the author had fun making that game.
And, as a player, you also want to have fun with a RON game.

Regarding the timeline:
I agree, there should be an all-including timeline and one with the essential games.
Maybe it would also be a nice idea if I could search for essential games ordered in the timeline.


Of course, the authors shouldn't be a seperate category.
But the catalogue is so big already that we probably need a search function. And with that I should also be able to search by author.
And, at the moment, I can't look what other games the author made when I click on his name on a game page.

Regarding advertising RON in other game-making communities:
Well, we should start then to offer the character graphics in sth. different than the .cha files, like .pcx or .png.


Of course, it will take some to come to a RON 2.0. It won't happen over night. But it should happen.

[Anym]

better graphics (nice for the eye, attracts more people. There has been done some work on it - see the sprites by Wogoat)

Nice, but by no means necessary IMHO and it shouldn't be a priority.

better quality control before inclusion in the RON catalogue (fixing inconsistencies, checking playability; production quality might also play a role (MI5 Bob or The Spoons were unacceptable in my opinion))

Unacceptable how? Those two games didn't strike me as especially bad. Sure, they aren't cream of the crop, but the puzzles have a sense of logic, the games don't have any obvious bugs and they aren't inconsistent with the rest of the series. Are the graphics not good enough? Do they introduce too many new characters and locations? And compared to what? I think they'd probably compare favorably to such "standard" titles like Lunchtime of the Damned or Vengeance of the Chicken.

Take the AGS game page and look at the different folders there. Non-adventure games are moved to a different folder there as well.
You may put five out of every eight games in the 'third folder' but that would make such an unorganised bulk again. If people start playing through that they still fall into an endless junkyard, is what I think.

Well, it's Adventure Game Studio, so people expect adventures, so putting non-adventures in a different category seems reasonable. RON on the other hand is a shared universe where the games can be anything they like. Sure, the first two categories would probably be made up entirely by adventure games made with AGS, but that shouldn't discourage anybody from writing RON interactive fiction in TADS (as I think it would if other genres or engines were "ghettoed" away).

And is the problem really that there are many bad games? I thought the problem was that people have to wade through piles of the bad games to get to the good ones. If the games are categorized into "everything you need to know" and "everything you don't need to know might want to play anyway", is it really a problem if the "third" category is an "unorganised bulk"? Especially if it's labeled "collector's only" or something along those lines. Newbies wouldn't immediately exposed to some of the "worse" games anymore. I would expect people to play the first two categories first, so anybody who then wants to play through all of the games in the third one as well, probably is already intrigued enough not to be scared away by what he sees there. A (new and improved) rating system, the timeline, the name of the games' authors and references from other games would be enough "order" IMHO.

You could do it with three folders, have the essential stuff and the good stuff and then move all the other games with a certain low rating in the third folder. But I think it would be similar to sweeping the trash under the rug. It's still there and it's still a mess.

I'm not even suggesting sweeping it under the rug (away from sight), just move it to a back room (still visible, just further away). But what would be the alternative? Purging everything from the database based upon some subjective criteria? Wouldn't it still be a mess even if it was categorized further? And if you really want more categories they should be based solely upon the games' content, not the author or genre. For example, you might want to have something like "meta-games" which could house Davy Jones Spellbook and the quiz games (but not the arcade games) or something like "dream sequences" (which could house many of Tobias' games, but not all of them and also games not made by him).

Looks like I'm more on the conservative side regarding quality control in RON (which means liberal quality control). I very much agree with what Rui said:

Overall, the game makers have been making their own quality control, haven't they? Picking up on what was good and leaving behind what was bad - most episodes are mostly self-contained, so that's entirely possible.

I think the inaccessibility stems more from the fact that there's no easy way for a newbie to tell a good (or an important or self-contained) game from a bad one (which is something the categories would hopefully take care of) rather than just the existence of bad ones in the database. Maybe that's idealism, too, but it sounds sensible to me.

[Valentijn]

But what would be the alternative? Purging everything from the database based upon some subjective criteria?

Well, maybe, yeah!
I think somebody (preferrably a selected 'jury' or something like that) is going to get into the subjective anyway even if the 'three folders' plan will be acted out. I mean, what exactly will make a game go into the second category rather than the third?

Yes, an improved voting system. Should be decisive. Which brings me back to my point about the current inactivity on the RON-site. Where are the voters? I think they'll be found right here. RON was never an AGS series by essence, but it's how it's best known. If somebody is familiar with RON they're also familiar with AGS.

I personally still don't see why more subfolders make for a less organised layout. It's like entering a paper archive either having loads of documents scattered in different rooms, or having those documents in labelled boxes in those different rooms, or having labelled boxes in labelled cabinets in those different rooms. It's one extra mouseclick making the difference. You could have a number next to the subfolders indicating how many games can be found there.
It's just my two cents for the organisation. If nobody agrees with me on this, then don't do it.

Priority goes to a main sorting system. Extra tags are a must, as is the ability to sort games based upon tags and do multi-queries: 'give me all/long/short/... games and list by: ranking and/or game type / engine / author / ...'

Although I really love the liberal idea and the possibility of having lots of creative input from different sources, the old rules made it possible for a six year old to get a game together where you have Mika in the town square, clicking on Scids in order to reach a night-time forest area, where she can pick up a blue cup after which she'll say "I want to be a buterflie", after which you get a message saying 'game over' indicating that you finished it. Such a game then had to be put on the games list, after which the kid in question could make a sequel a week.
Even though somebody else could then make a game making creative, good use of the contents of the cup-butterfly concept, you shouldn't have to expect that. And in the meantime, RON gets killed again because people will get the same issues that were made clear at the start of this whole thread.
Such a scenario should be made impossible to make for durability.

I think the inaccessibility stems more from the fact that there's no easy way for a newbie to tell a good (or an important or self-contained) game from a bad one (which is something the categories would hopefully take care of)

Categories along with a better voting system, and also a timeline extract. The current huge timeline is fantastic. It's well kept, very complete and thought through. It works. But it's a huge list that probably puts people off on a first confrontation.
What would be the really important stuff? Which games should be presented as the main games? What will make up the introduction to RON?
A voting/rating system seems to be the first thing needed. I'm lost as to where and how to get a new system together.