intfiction.org

jamespking did use that word.

It's not that you're not wanted at the party, per se. It's more that, uh, there are parties where once you're invited it's cool to invite all your friends and relatives and take over the dance-floor, and there are parties where this is going to cause problems. You didn't really have any way of knowing which kind of party it was, and it's understandable that you'd be excited about your game getting attention, so I can't really blame you for anything.


I'm sorry that you're getting it in the neck, though I'm sure you can understand why people are upset.

And we are, I think, leaning in the direction of doing a one-off special category or categories for the ChoiceScript entries, just for this year; the long-term solution will almost certainly be something else, but we can work that out at leisure.

Thanks, matt. I tracked it down, but in my reading jamespking was saying nothing about CoG readers qua readers, nor could it really be called "bashing"...

But my use of "unwarranted" sense of victimization is also a bad choice of words. I do think this is a bad thing to have happened to Jim, and a sense of victimization is probably warranted. I just think that it arises from misunderstanding, not malice.

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Glimmr: Advanced Graphics for I7
blog | download | bug-tracker

I agree. Possibly just putting up some guidelines for voting on the awards website would help a lot.


I'm sorry you feel we're trying to push you out. Personally, if my posts came across as hostile (and I can see how my second post might), I sincerely apologise. I don't believe this is your fault. I don't believe it's anyone's fault - I'm sure the people who voted for Zombie Exodus did so in good faith. While I think the results of the first-round nominations are unfair, I also realise it's unfair that this issue is focused on you when you haven't done anything wrong.

It seems to me that the problem is mostly a misunderstanding about how voting in the awards is "supposed" to work, caused by the existing separation between the two communities. Codifying that separation is hardly going to help. We need to figure out a way to bridge the gap instead, but I don't know what would be effective.

(I'll be honest with you - I've played most of the official Choice Of games, but almost no other ChoiceScript games. I did play Zombie Exodus yesterday, after the XYZZY nominations came out. I remember when you announced it here originally, but zombies - and the horror genre in general - aren't really my cup of tea, so I didn't bother with it then.)

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Emily Boegheim

Yeah, exactly. XYZZYs are definitely weird for an internet contest, especially in the blog- and social-media-heavy internet that we have now. Perhaps just solidifying and explicitly writing down the social expectations of the voting process (as the IFComp does) would go a long way towards getting everybody on the same page.

That's the problem with talking to Americans. You go to bed and wake up with 2 full pages of posts.

I must apologize for a very wrong choice of words in my last post. As many know here, I'm not a native speaker and sometimes my choice of words is awkward. Stephen King once said "the first word that comes to your mind is usually the best", but he wasn't thinking about ME. I must admit "overenthusiastic" would not have come in ages, tho
(Anyway: voting for Barack Obama in the "Miss Texas" awards I wouldn't call "overenthusiastic"...)

The problem, again, is not about CYOA vs Parser. The problem (in my opinion) is that better games were more suited for some of the nominees and ZE shouldn't even be considered innovative or puzzle-driven. I know, there are some inventory puzzles but, c'mon. Deciding wether to shoot a zombie with a machine gun or a pistol is in another league than trying to understand how blorple works in Spellbreaker.

BUT. I may not be comfortable with ZE being nominated for best story or setting (and maybe that's because I prefer Hogwarts to a zombie infested american metropolis), but this is how it went. In the betting industry, when a match gets "strange" or too many bets (i.e., for those comfortable with football: FCBarcelona vs. Canicattì gets 100k bets on the second) the game is closed and the bets stopped. But this is not the case. If a very popular game like Angry Birds gets 1million votes from the crowd who plays it, it DESERVES to win. Even if the opponent was Final Fantasy VII.

So, as Xyzzy is right now: either totally cancel ZE from the list or let it go with the flow. Cause removing it from (i.e.) the best puzzles category would mean being subjective and imposing by the hosts and this is NOT RECOMMENDED.

Again, sorry for saying that someone was "stupid". I just meant "exited". Maybe a lil too much. (Or very much misinformed, which by far seems to be the best solution).

--- PSs
PS: Jim. Don't run away from criticism. Noone is bashing on your work. Just pinpointing what's wrong with it. If you can't stand the heat then maybe it's better you stay out of comps or awards. During IFComp2011 we had REVIEWS during the voting period. You can't begin to understand how it was frustrating and how one could have felt offended. But it was the most inspiring set of constructive criticism our games ever had.
PPS: Matt, thank you for liking my setting. It's kinda the FIRST public compliment my game gets, ever.

Cyanotic hellos to all.

Thank you for giving me my first laugh of the day.

Re "typical way of voting on an indie": I understand, and I wasn't aware that's how it happened - it makes sense for an indie game if it's to be known by the world at large, I suppose, if it's widespread as far and as wide as humanly possible. In this case, however, it kinda screwed up our numbers, and it's not like CYOA is the least-known thing in the world and the XYZZY are the E3. XYZZY is for IF; many people (me included) consider CYOA to be IF; so there's really no need to shout "This awsome game is here! Here! Here, you hear? It's da best! It rocxorz ur soxorz!".

If the people at the CYOA community thought it necessary, then that means only that we do have a bridge between us. It also means that they tried, in this manner, to shorten the distance (it could also mean, I guess, that they were trying to prove their superiority by getting a CYOA to win the XYZZYs, but that's a cynical view I don't subscribe to and only include for the sake of completeness).

Thing is, I don't think we parser-loving fellows can do anything more to jump that distance. We have CYOA tools and extensions for our IF interpreters, we list CYOA in IFDB. Quest is starting a CYOA mode. If the CYOA community would like to join us all, I'm sure we'd be all the richer for it, but, much like how it happened with ADRIFT, people have to want it to happen.

I've been to chooseyourstory.com. If I could, I would have downloaded every single story. I couldn't, so I never went back to the place.

If this is considered as a potential solution, can I request that the run-off vote tallying method satisfies the Condorcet criterion?

I'll request that it satisfy all the Arrow conditions.

Thanks for all the responses to my post.

I can now see that it is an issue of voting rather than ChoiceScript vs. Everyone Else. People who voted for ZE were overenthusiastic.

It sounds like XYZZY would be better as an "industry award." Of course, then you run the risk of exclusivity wherein you must define who a voter is and exclude anonymous but true IF fans (of which, believe it or now, I am one). Do only "experts" vote? Do only people who have created an IF game vote? It's a tough call.

I also am not opposed to constructive criticism (I actually posted asking for it). I grew up in a Catholic Italian-American area, so I'm no stranger to criticism