I have no intention of making a photonovel, but I'll try to be better about giving feedback when you guys post them. I think they're neat.
All comments are appreciated! I think they're neat, too! I was a fan long before I threw my hat (sporadically) into the ring.
Personally I think we should all just gather on yakforums where we have wonderful customising challenges, constant customs & great responses to posts but I'll keep my eye over here & Rebel scum out of habit!
Thing is, I don't want to "abandon" any of the sites. There are still great and unique things about JD. This place was the birthplace of the UGP and it used to be a HOTBED of photonovel discussion.
RS was hot for a while and died. It goes in cycles...or if not cycles, then erratic varying periods.
I would love to try to get ALL the forums vibrant and exciting again, not just give up. When I started my interactive story, for example, I considered RS to be the "home base" forum with the others as kind of supplemental, but JD soon overtook RS by leaps and bounds and became my new mental and emotional home for that story.
I would love to see this place crackling with participation again.
about the previews and pn specials, i wonder if there would be any reason to start a sub-forum over here dedicated to such a thing. i mean I'm the guy who started a making of a dark facade thread and even attempted to do a ep7 select of the week r-q, i know a little about trying to hype my pn by making previews. we really do need something like that. i mean the UGP is over , how bout we get that space?
Personally, I don't think we need a sub-forum for previews. There is the preview thread in the Custom forum which gets a fair amount of use. I'm not really crazy about previews (even though I recently did one myself) unless they contain something really cool.
Chewie's previews, for example, are great. He shows a few cool shots and then follows through with the finished PN within a week. I think it's the previews for photonovels that are so far away that are the ones that are problematic. I have seen dozens of previews for stories that never materialized. I personally have failed to follow through on countless deadlines and promises regarding my own progress.
Don't know if we need a whole forum just to track people's intentions. It could end up being just a lot of talk, but little action.
But that's my opinion. On RS, I have started a Feedback thread about splitting the Photonovel & Artwork thread in two, which I hope happens, since there is far, far more feedback on the artwork, pushing the PN's off the page almost instantly.
My second reason is that most of the time I read the PN, enjoy it, but do not want to leave a one or two word post saying "Good job!" or "Fantastic!".
Sometimes those kinds of very short comments can be a little frustrating - Personally, I wish those folks could at least write one to two sentences.
HOWEVER, it is always nice to get feedback and anything is preferable to nothing. Encouragement and comments are wonderful to get, no matter how short - it's at least nice to know people are reading and getting enjoyment out of it, which makes it all worthwhile.
So those kinds of comments take literally seconds to make, but they can make all the difference to those folks who have spent hours (literally hours and hours and hours just for one chapter) worthwhile. Hell, back when I was doing my interactive story, those tiny little chapter updates took at least six hours to do, with barely any digital effects or manipulation at all.
So it's really nice to hear feedback.
Lastly, I do not really like critiquing something that I know nothing about making. To me, critiquing a PN would be like critiquing a novel or comic book. I can't draw or write well, and if I'd begin critiquing a PN I'd feel bad, as I've never put any time or work into making one myself.
But I comment on the customs that I would never, ever be able to make myself.
My friends and I critique movies and TV shows and comics and novels even though we don't know how they are made or what goes into them. But everyone is entitlted to have an opinion.
I've heard this comment before, but I urge all those folks to ignore those kinds of feelings. I think
Swede said it just recently in another forum - if you like Star Wars stories, then you're qualified! That's it. Seriously, don't hold back, jump in.
And that's not to say all we want to hear are glowing praises. I love getting constructive criticism and I know many others do. All you need to do is be respectful and polite and not crude or rude or blunt, but all kinds of feedback, short, long, detailed or general, compliments and criticism, are essential to the health of the forums, the craft and are very much appreciated!!!