I am part of a very small team currently working on our first real project purely to have a piece of interactive media to our names at this point.
I can't really code, but I can do stories, lore, characters, dialogue, and documents. Basically, if it requires many many paragraphs of novel-grade text organized by headings and subheadings, I'm your guy.
ShadowDurza said:
Basically, if it requires many many paragraphs of novel-grade text organized by headings and subheadings, I'm your guy.
This is why it was moved. “I'm your guy” can be read to mean “I'm available.” Sorry for the misunderstanding. Moving this to the Writing forum (where writers are especially welcome).
Writers, authors or what ever title they give themselves are the most important aspect of any game franchise of content. (Tetris 9 million obviously doesn't require a story, or games without any story comtent, which are few for a very succesful game) In my experience most new developers see a writer as someone that takes a share of the profits, so instantly bad, or that they can just wing the writing, not appreciating what a writer brings to the table. The act of coding is percise, structured, and procedure orientated. Writing is 180 degress opposite, you make everything up as you go along. If done properly, a writer makes their own rules, own outline, own characters, (own content?). This is a vastly different skill set from the coding mindset/personality.
I've worked with around a dozen coders, and developers, what usually happens is they have a game and want a story made for it. Typically they have a vague story, and a 4 sentence paragraph that is their concept. I ask 100 questions, I get the anwser, “I never thought about that.” “I like that idea, but that don't fit the game.” “I don't want that much story”. The writer upsets the groups power structure, in the typical coders mind, and it hurts the game typically. The coders have sole control typically over the game design/plan in most groups. When the coders have made the game engine, and design they will seek a writer. At that point the writer is hand cuffed, the story has no flexibility, and as any forced activity… uninspiring? Devoid of fun? Boring? Predictable!
One fun aspect is as a writer you are told by developers, if you make a hit book/comic they will work with you on a project of your design. The funny aspect of that is, we have all seen movies were the story is written around special effects. The movies flop, are deemed terrible. The greatest movies you know the characters, people develope opinions on them, some even emotinal attachments to them. When placed in the confines of a box, its highly unlikely that a good, or a great outcome will occur. So as a writer, and let's say I make a million dollar book, and I wish to make a game. The coders that were of the opinion that say when famous, come back and talk to us. Well at that point, the coder would be the employee, and have lost the power, leading to a terrible game in all likelyhood. Because the writer paying the bill will have the ultimate say, and without the coding back ground, are doomed. An effective group dynamic, seeking a good end product should be the goal. Egos, and greed get in the way of a healthy group dynamic, preventing most from being succesful. Most games need to be developed at the start together, an over arching story need's to be established. The objectives, some story aspects, some characters. When a group at the 10th hour says we need a story now, preform magic and make the games ills go away. To quote Han Solo “that's not how the force works.” I would add that it is important that the coder, and writer have a similar style/sense of humor. In short if a coder doesn't want a writer, oh well their loss, when you make it, remember not to make their mistake, and ignore the talent. “Or suffer their fate you will”
