…as proof, take a look at these items which I present for your consideration.


First off, the official winners of the naming vote:

Blind-tan: Lilly Sato

Burn-tan: Ikezawa Hanako

Deaf-tan: Hakamichi Rosa

Legless-tan: Ibarazaki Emi

Thalidomide-tan (by a narrow margin): Tezuka Rin

Thanks to Liquid_Ra/m/en for totaling the votes and for making these graphs of the overall votes.

The list has been added to as the first addition to the canon section as well.

Secondly, the Core Team has been hard at work trying to work out the details of our project plan (chats at 2am… fun. Time zones are a bitch, let me tell you.) I can’t give too many details right now, but it looks a lot like what ________ posted here. We’ve also been putting a lot of thought into how we’re going to set up the eventual design team. Here’s what we’re going to be looking for:

Writers:
This is going to be the easiest job to fill up, since we only are going to need 6 or 7 of them, and there are way more people than that who want and are qualified for this job. The writers’ job is to plan out exactly what will happen in each path along the guidelines that have been decided, and then actually write out each path individually, as well as the opening parts. We’ll probably have one writer per path, and then one or two handling the opening content.

Editors:
A relatively thankless job, the editors are going to have the task of working their way through what the writers write and make sure its all consistent in style and content, and that if follows the plot that was set by the group beforehand. Most likely, some of the editors will also be writers and vice-versa, since I doubt we’re going to have people clamoring to be editor, and some of the people who would be the best editors are also the best writers.

Character Artists:
Penciler/ Head Character Artist: This is a relatively exclusive position. We’re going to have ONE character artist. He or she will draw all the characters’ pencil art, so that the style will remain consistent. We will then have two or three CG artists who will color the character art, using a consistent style. We have an idea of who we'd like to take this job, but would also appreciate suggestions and input of who you would like in this position.

CG Inkers/Colorists: Four or five people who will take the character art drawn by the Penciler and digitally ink and color them in a quality and consistent style.

Background Artists:
Unlike the Character Artists, this is a pretty open position. Rather than actually accept or deny people to the team for this, we’ll pretty much take open submissions for background art. Requirements will be listed, and just about anyone can submit their work. The backgrounds themselves are either going to be just filtered photographs or traced and colored photographs; exactly what has not been decided yet. We’ll have one or two people act as editors of this, and select which submitted backgrounds will actually be used. You will of course be credited if your submission is used in the game.

Music:
Again, this is a pretty open area. It’ll work about the same; with one or two editors who will decide on submissions. However, we are going to need several specific songs that are more important (i.e. OP/ED themes and character themes) so there may be a competition in order regarding those…

Programmers:
Last but not least, we come to the technical side of the project. The programming team won’t do much until all the other parts of the project finish their work. We need as many of these as are willing to work, and that know how to work in whatever engine we use (probably Ren’py, unless we get an influx of people who know ONscripter or something.)

I’m not saying that we’re going to be making a big decision on this any time soon, but then again, I’m not saying that we’re not. Just be thinking about where you’d like to fit in that list.


Finally, the Core Team is currently undertaking the monumental effort of sifting through all the ideas that have been posted so far and pick out those ideas that seem the most well supported both on their own merits and by the opinion of the community as a whole, and draw out some broad character and concept summaries. So keep those ideas coming so we have stuff to work with! We should be done with them some time in the next two weeks or so, at which time we’ll post them up for everyone to pick over. Eventually, they’ll be put up for vote, once they meet a relative consensus, and once they pass, they’ll be put into canon along with the names.


We’ve got a lot going on, really. This project is just beginning, and it’s not going to be stopping any time soon. So keep up the good work everyone! Anonymous shall deliver!

FUCK YES. Tezuka Rin came through for me in the end.

I am delighted.

*evil eye*

Has noone else got a problem with this? fine
I raise formal protest against surnames being included as canon.
For one thing a single chioce being voted for once is not a vote.
We could have had a tie if I really had suggested Poopyface for Emi at last minute.
If this is going to work out we won't be deiciding vital issues for final and forever like this.
Even then we should hold more than one vote in that case.

As of now I'd like to know if the core team is planning anything and if you are then
speciffically what that is. I don't remember the original nominatons thread saying anything about choosing people to tell us how things will happen whether we like it or not and feel pretty cheated by "we'll tell you when we decide".

I detest the notion that the core team has worked hard as if everyone else hadn't.

Actually, Solaris, there were two votes for Emi's surname. Lrn2redegraf. I do understand your uneasiness about the lack of votes in the surname category, and it wouldn't be too hard to organize a second vote for them if enough of the member base wants to.

As for the deal with the core team making decisions, we have to get the project off the ground some how. One of the major points that was made when everyone agreed to the nomination list was that you all trusted us. So trust us to get this game going.

(Edited because I misunderstood your post for a second)

Alright, Lilly won out! I think it's a good idea that one of them ended up with a non-Japanese sounding name. As an aside, I don't think we've talked about what Lilly's dog is going to be named yet, or at least I haven't come across that conversation yet.

Could someone remind me where the cat is taking place at? I mean, where the chat is taking place at?

A list of some of the decisions that need to be made before production commences, or at least immediately after production commences, from the perspective of someone who's been involved in a number of these projects:

There needs to be some sort of outline of the game, at least a list of locations where the game will take place. This is needed for background art, so the background artists know what they'll have to draw.

Similarly, it makes sense to come up with an "emotional palette" of emotions for each character, so the writer can simply indicate an emotion, and will know that won't add additional work for the character artist.

In general, there is a tension between the writers and the artists in terms of how much art needs to be produced, and it's important to try to strike a balance here. For example, if you go on a date to an amusement park, do you have art for all the rides? Or do you have a single background representing the park, and use narration to indicate where the characters are? It's important to reduce the amount of art needed, to make the game producable.

Character art will need to be able to be cut out so that it can be shown on top of backgrounds.

For the highest possible quality game, it may make sense to try to coordinate the perspective of the character art and the backgrounds. But frankly, good background art is hard to come by, as it's a thankless job compared to character art... many games tend to go with processed photographs here.

You'll need to pick a resolution the game will run at. While Ren'Py supports all resolutions, popular ones are 800x600 and 640x480. We've had a few games that run at 1024x768, but frankly that's a lot more pixels to be throwing at the screen, for little advantage over 800x600 quality-wise.

For the writing, you'll need to pick a tense that the game uses, either present or past tense. There are advantages and disadvantages to both... the important thing is not to switch tenses, unless it conveys meaning. (For example, the bulk of the story could be in past tense, and then the game switches tense during an ending that takes place after the bulk of the game.)

Writing for a visual novel is somewhat different then writing for other media. It usually makes sense to write in the first person, from the perspective of the POV character. Explore his thoughts, but do not show us things he doesn't know. Also, it's usually awkward to mix dialogue and narration on the same screen. So instead of:

"They need you now!", Emi shouted at me.

you'll need to write something like:

(Something like that... I'm not a good writer.)

It probably makes sense to come up with some sort of license/contributor agreement now, so that people know how their works will be used, and so you don't have a fight about this when it comes time to release the game. I suggest one of the creative commons licenses.

Damn. I knew the old guard would stick to their guns. I would like to go for an editing position. I'd write, but being in school and all, I don't think I have enough time for that. And several people on the board have already benefited from my editing skillz.

Believe me I see your point. Mod bashing isn't what this is about, but I feel that setting deadlines for things that aren't even off the ground seems worse than delays.
If worse comes to worse we'll end up with half-baked ideas just to fill up the blanks.

I don't mind Rin's name and most of the surnames, but its still clear that these got decided on prematurely just to get things over with and aren't really product of much debate.
Overusing the voting system like this will only bring out the current fad and demolish the game as a whole.
I'm convinced half the people voting for Rin did it just because they didn't like any of the other choices(I know of at least two who picked what the majority favoured against the opposition).
Do I really need to explaine that not revealing that the surnames would be voted on and that all proposals needed to be submited beforehand ruined things(lol@politics)?
If this is going to work then it needs to be done when conclusions are solid or there are two or more factions that each share a stable footing and work on their own but not together(e.g. conflicting scenarios).
It shouldn't be a means of easily getting out of decision making.
If the core team just comes up with "Hey guys we're gonna finish this thing tomorrow, oh and we decided to add aliens on irc" then I'm pretty much powerless to argue and everything until then flys out the window. You see my frustration. If you're organizing things do it so its clear for longer than 4 days before the final cut.
The polls are still open on the groups name and thats a marginally less significant issue.
EDIT:In hindsight, Isn't this the only place where I directly critizise the CT?

Her dog is dead.


You see what I mean?

NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

I love my job.

Actually, I think a lot of people voted for Rin because they liked the sound of it. Either that, or they went with it because it was the most in the lead compared to Moe, which was, in my opinion, a joke name that honestly shouldn't have been included. The names aren't really a big content issue, anyways. I mean, I could see how carefully choosing names could be important in a work that has a large web of characters, but in something like this where you're going to spend the majority of your time just getting to know 5 (even in just one at a time, really) the only importance is that the names aren't awkward or anything. Plus, it was better to get them out of the way now then wait till halfway through production. Not to mention that they've been discussed for a good three weeks or so now; you can't really call that immatured.

You're also really blowing how we're handling this out of the water, though. So far we've had you guys approve nominations for a core team and held a poll for the main girl's names. Thats it. You know whats next in our evil plan? Either start considering people and submissions for the design team and/or start picking through the character forums to figure out the basics that are going to be for each character and then presenting those ghastly, skeletons of an outline to be approved by the rest of the forum. Thats all. And even then, the outlines will probably be changed around a lot by the writers whenever we get the design team up and running. You keep talking about how we're rushing the project ahead before you turn around and try and rush us before we finish making our plan for organization.

And honestly, Solaris, we're not the giant fascist guard dog your painting us to be. If enough of the members got together and said "Hey, we really would like a revote for the surnames." or "Hey, we really don't like the direction you're taking such-and-such-character." then we'll listen.

Which is, to be fair, exactly what I meant.
And since this is in fact a game that deals mainly with these five girls I don't quite see how anything could be more importent.

I only have a problem with things with two votes making Canon because noone cares.
How would you go about changing that. Raise a riot if nobody cared in the first place?
Shouldn't organizing be directing peoples attention to stuff that needs doing in the first place?

Am I? Sorry
, I don't mean for you to rush, I meant explaine. Canon never was, if its supposed to be uneditable I presumed things that go there stay there until the forum starts getting raided.(which is what it sounds like really)
Besides as you say its better to get this cleared up now than wait until it comes back to haunt us mid-project.
If you start getting people bitching like this later on you'll know what to say at least.
Oh, and did I ever say I had problems with the names that were voted on for three weeks?
Thalidomite-tan wasn't one of them like I said from the beginning and thinking Moe was a dumb idea that we should gang up on doesn't make for much of an argument.

It was NOT a joke name. I even had an explanation and a little story of how her parents decided on the name. What really disappointed me about the older names being voted in is that (not because I didn't choose them, I was happy with some names that I didn't choose) they lacked soul, lacked charm, and was basically meaningless. These names were made because people wanted a Japanese or non-Japanese name, and so they picked a random one from some kind of name list, or remembered the name of an anime, manga, or bishojo game character and added "ko", "mi", or some other pre/suffix. There was no research, no passion, no real creativity in the creation of those names, in my opinion. I think that people, once they decided on a name, stopped reading the name threads and became basically inflexible on the topic. There you go, that's my rant.

Solaris, calm down. Seriously. At least try to keep your act together. It's been some time since my last post outside the core team subforum, but well, your little ranting has made me fed up a bit.

You seem to try mock the Core Team in your every reply, and trying to turn our sayings against us. I'm asking you to stop that, since it's completely pointless, and I think Liquid Ramen has already given a solid answer to all your rants this far, but you seem to just keep ignoring them and rant more.

You see, even your own posts doesn't make sense anymore in this topic. You seem to change your opinion in the same post again and again and that's bad.

For example:

So, here you say that there's nothing more important than the names of the girls. Or any decision about the girls.

And now no-one cares about the names or the decisions since they were made Canon with two votings? If a thing can be decided with only two voting sessions, then it's worthless and shouldn't be counted? Is that your point?
And this isn't just two votings anyway, there have been polls about character names earlier in their own subforums, and even though they weren't "final", there was still choices that came straight from there. Like Hanako.

At this point, you say it's good to clear up things like names at this stage. But haven't you just ranted the whole time about "This isn't enough, we still need to vote!" Isn't that exactly something that makes the whole process take more time, and delaying the whole thing? Names can't be cleared up if there is always someone ranting about "NEEDS MOAR VOTING ABOUT THE SAME FUCKING THING" and we would do it again, again and again just because of that.

And these were just the points about your latest reply. If I misunderstood something you have tried to say, then I'll blame your horrible typing. There's also many awkwardness in your earlier replies, like disagreeing with ourself, but I'm too lazy to list those in here.

And since you so much like to think about the Core Team as a bunch that secretly decides everything and does what they like, I'll write out the new motto that we have decided for this forum. You should all chant this from now every time you are posting here.

YOU SHOULD ALL HAIL THE CORE TEAM, OUR WORD IS ABSOLUTE AND WE WILL RULE OVER THIS PROJECT NOW AND FOREVER! THE CORE TEAM IS GOOD! THE CORE TEAM IS SEXY! YOU KNOW THAT EVERYTHING THAT THE CORE TEAM DECIDES IS RIGHT AND THAT YOU DON'T NEED TO DISAGREE WITH ANYTHING THAT WE SAY! UNDERSTAND? ALL HAIL THE CORE TEAM! WE LOVE OURSELVES!

Harsh
Like you don't contradict yourself-ever.
I'm trying to be clear on this, nothing more or less and if you think otherwise because of my typing I apaologize.
Ranting aside, I thought discussion was what the whole thing was built on. You can flame me just fine, I leave plenty of openings but running this place one might try not to?

I meant that noone discussed surnames for longer than one post- there was one choice reflecting that- I think its reasonable to assume that part wasn't well advertised.

I'm not trying to bring you down, but if things are going to continue the way they are I'm well in my right to say something about it if I want to- Thats what I wanted to get cleared up right now, not in the middle of the project. You can't decide these things on your own and expect everyone to just agree because you do. Do you seriously plan to ignore objections if they pertain to you?

You do realize you just yelled at anonymous for hurting your feelings?

This is getting retarded, I give up. Not in 4chan anymore apparently.

No, We've offered you MANY possible soloutions to the objections that you have raised, you've snubbed all of them. You seem unwilling to compromise on any point that you've brought up other than complete and total bowing down to you.

I guess I should come out of my cave.

Solaris, you are not a boon to this project at all. You are, in fact, counterproductive. This game is supposed to receive input from everyone, and be a group project. What you're doing is trying to have everything your way, at everyone else's expense. This forum has been up for a month, and the names have just gotten done. This project will take a long, long time, because this forum has about 50 people active in this thing, not two like Type MOON.

First you complain it's taking too long, now you want to vote again because you're displeased with the results. Good God, man. You've gone crazy with posts lately, as if you're trying to monopolize the boards. It seems that's what you are trying to do, forcing your ideas into every thread, complaining when it doesn't go your way. And now, like a little kid, you're saying ''waaah, I can't take this anymore because I am saying shit that goes against other shit I've said, and not getting the level of control over this I want to have.'' You don't think other people have their own wishes for this game? Of course, but nobody bitches on the level that you bitch at. You take this way too seriously. You say that Blank is yelling at you for hurting his feelings? You're doing the same shit, threatening to leave because you're upset.

Learn to compromise. You do contribute some good ideas, but you can't have everything your way.

You ever hear that song ''You Can't Always Get What You Want?''

No comment on the current subject. I will simply reiterate something that Luminous_Path posted on the previous pinned thread:

For the record, I agree with this. Now there's work to be done, everybody, so get yourselves to the Character forums and get busy.

I hate to interrupt this whole to-do and hullabaloo that you roughnecks are taking part in here, but a question just popped into my mind. With what frequency do you believe we will be putting aspects of the game up to a vote? Will we be putting things like minor character names and plot points up to vote, as well, or will this be kept to a minimum?

One of my high school teachers loved Jimmy Buffet. It's why I hate his music. Oh, wait, you weren't talking to me. Never mind.

Dude, that was the Rolling Stones.

Yeah, it was the Stones.

Yeah? Well, I still hate Jimmy Buffet.

So there!

-Ahem- back on topic guys.

As to your question, we don't know right now. I can assure you that nothing will be passed without putting it before the forum in some way. Some things like minor characters, final drafts of small works that a good majority of the forum has worked on together, and smaller changes to major works may only be put up a thread akin to the core team nominations while things like the final personality, history, and appearance designs for the main characters will most likely be put up to vote. I reiterate: nothing will be passed without passing it by the forum in some formal way.

Edited for grammar

Well, if i could slide in here for some discussion, I'd like to point out my obliviousness to there ever being last names to vote on. Poor me.

Also, Id like to throw my hat in the ring for any music related jobs, please.

So I haven't been paying attention to this for the last week or two.

I'll stop by now and then, and when you get some solidarity on the characters I might be able to write a bit with them, but for now I'll just be aimlessly drifting in now and then.

I like commas, so I use them all the time, even when I don't have to. Man that is a bad habit.

God forgive me if this gets started again.

This isn't really true. I'm to blame for not getting it across that I only ever had one objection that got blown out of proportion.
The reason I got pissed was that I didn't get to know what was being decided until the vote was actually over.
I had a problem with how things could get settled like this and got told off, which isn't really surprising. I'm still saying this shouldn't happen in the future(how that got confused as me rushing you is anyone's guess).

Heres a compromise: the core team can decide whatever they want, however they want, whenever they want as long as they make sure its been discussed.
In return I won't say anything about anything anymore, that sound ok?

PyTom's which is the most substantial response in the thread gets utterly ignored...
yeah this was pointless
EDIT: If you need a moral to his story: don't lead these kind of conversations at one in the morning. :(

No.

You seem to be labouring under the assumption that you have some kind of authority. It is true the team owes a duty of care - but it is to everyone as a whole, and not an individual member.

With that being said, some points you raised were valid. None of us has done this before, and mistakes are inevitable. We regret that some people felt the methods for voting were inappropriate. However, we are not considering a revote, primarily because the voting was in a sense a gauge of public opinion, to see what names people would like. However, they are still open to the final design team for creative interpretation, so a revote would be a waste of time.

We need constructive criticism, and appreciate all related opinions from everyone. You are free to comment or not comment as you wish.

I'm pretty sure everyone is just as sad as me in that respect.

I was never aiming for a revote anyway, it just got suggested while I was failing to make a point.
(getting dangerously close to 1 o'clock here, good night)

Well, one of us has done this a few times, which is why I'm trying to nudge you in the right directions. If you're going to make mistakes, why not make novel ones?

I actually think it's promising that there is a cabal that is making decisions for the project. On something like this, there are alot of minor decisions to be made. At the end of the day, something like the characters' family names is pretty minor... it's best that someone picks names and moves on, rather than spending huge amounts of time debating something of little importance.

I think the big question is: Will the cabal accept responsibility consummate to their decision making powers? There's a lot of work involved in making a game, and not all of it is happy fun-fun. It's rewarding work... but at times, it's work. Any good hobby is.

Oh, and I think this sort of project only works when the people who are making the decisions are the ones doing the work. That means things like the writer making the stories, and the artist doing the character designs.

I would suggest that it might make sense to, reasonably soon, pick one girl to focus on. While there are certain things that can be parallelized (writing, if you have multiple writers), there are some that can't (art, when there is a single character artist). By choosing a single girl/path to focus on, you'll get a playable game quicker, and having something working is always motivating.

We get to be a cabal now? Sweet! I've always wanted to be part of a cabal. ^^

No worries there. We've been pretty busy lately, even if most of our work has been behind-the-scenes. All of us have been doing our best to balance our personal opinons, the opinions of the majority and minority of the forum, and our need to keep the project from getting bogged down, or worse, forgotten.

Also, don't think we haven't noticed the constructive posts in this thread. Drama passes, just forget about it and move on.

A fascinating idea. We'll be sure to discuss it at the next top-secret cabal meeting.

Core team is SEELE.

I'll add my two cents

the thing about a group of people who have never met each other before, this is part of the coming-together process, figuring out how each person reacts to other's personalities...

anyway, the method of delegation of work hasn't really been agreed on, so that should really be our next concern, not as much canon, once we start getting groups focused on specific creative boundaries, we can get better work done...

Heh, actually the number isn't only one, I'm an indie game developer myself, too. The biggest project I have done (with my team, I have one with my friend) took six months to develop. It was one hell of a job, and I bet you know what I'm talking about. Like you said, making games is SERIOUS BUSINESS, and it's just work, work and more work at times but hey, that doesn't mean that it still couldn't be fun ;)

That is probably the biggest reason I am participating in this project. I like the concept of this game, and it would be a shame if it couldn't be finished due to bad organizing, planning or other things, so I decided to help with that aspect.

Well, anyway, it's good that we have more than one people here who are experienced in game developing too :)

Heres what i think, the core team should decide the story and everything without the need to openly discuss it on the forum. The only time the core team should need discuss anything on a forum is when the team is stuck on an idea and need outside input.

If every decision needs to be discussed with everybody in the forum before proceeding foward, the project will get nowhere. It's slow and I can honestly say I am losing interest and I must say same with a lot of other members.

Get something done and surprise us.

WHAT

I support this, seeing as how conterproductive actually participating seems to be <_<

Edit: not even kidding.

I am totally against this. This is an internet collaborative product, like Wikipedia, Linux, and others, a product of the new Web, Web 2.0. The product can only get better if people with all different talents came together to produce something. The doors have been opened to this, and it's going to very hard to be closed again. So then, how do we conduct ourselves? I think that a structure similar to other collaborative works listed above, there indeed needs to be a core team, but the new reality of a collaborative project is that of a flatter hierarchy. I propose a Wikipedia-type structure with a relatively small-to-medium sized core team and below them, everyone else, who are contributors. Both the team and contributors create the content, and the core team puts what stays and what goes up to a vote. I think what we had is already good, but it just needs to be more open.

the project you list don't really have much to do with literary/artsy/appeal. A factual thing is much easier to get popularly accepted than something thats really just a matter of taste.
Sure submitting ideas is good, but a positive outlook on this predicts that something of this callibre will take at least 8 months of constant effort. I frankly can't be bothered to that and neither can a lot of people so if things get decided by a majority rule we'll end up with a different majority most of the time.
As far as centralization goes, its bound to have it's ups and downs but turn out more consistant anyway.

Plus I really don't mind someone else doing all the work XD

Well, you're not particularly bound to this project, so you're free to go if you can't be bothered. Like coders for Linux, collaborators must know what they're getting into, and if it takes 6, 8, or even a whole year to make the product, let it be so instead of having a half-assed product created by 5 brains instead of a great collaborative project created by many, many more brains. Anyway, that's the beauty of a collaborative effort. You're not bound by what you studied, or whatever, you're really doing it because you like it and you want to do what you're good at. If you don't want to work on it, then don't. If you do, then do, but how much you put into it is almost always representative in the final product.

Edit: (I had more to say, but had a crappy connection)
Anyway, when it comes to this project, I'd rather be a collaborator than a tool whom the core team goes to when they get stuck. It's rather insulting to the rest of the people who have put their time and effort to this project just to have it disregarded and all put to a cabal who would have the final say. If it all goes to a cabal, then I think it's safe to say that people who wish to collaborate (including myself) will leave the project.