Talk:The Endless Forest

Video Game Development History and Canon/Plot Headings

This was brought up on the nomination for The Endless Forest on the Featured Article page. I was wondering if there should be a discussion on whether, and when, a short blurb about the development history of a video game is relevant to a Fanlore article. My personal opinion on that is in some games, such as with indie games or MMOs (like FeralHeart which had troubled development related to later controversy within its community, or FNaF where someone else included a blurb about it's development), a small piece of the game's development should be allowable because I see it in a similar vein as gameplay/plot, which we already allow for context to fanon. For example here- though I'll cut down a bit on it as suggested, I think the inclusion of how the developers did and did not display a link to their forums is relevant to how new members would have found and interacted with TEF community. And, even without cutting the history down, the section itself is barely any bigger than the gameplay section.

The same could be said for, say, small fan animated films (like Multi Animator Projects) where if the process of the film's creation could enrich something else in the article then I think it could be include. Vivzmind's indie-made cartoon Hazbin Hotel for example, I could argue that a history section including something about her other works, like Zoophobia, which itself was inspired by cartoons like Billy & Mandy and Invader Zim, which she made fanart for, could be relevant and enriching to the context of the show. That's opposed to major animated films; I wouldn't say articles on Pixar films need development trivia, nor "triple A games" like Halo. But I would argue for some indie games, MMOs, or projects made by an online community/small creator, that if a small piece of development information adds something and does not take away from other aspects, as we already consider with plot and gameplay info, then it could be included.

I hadn't seen any discussion like this before and talking about it on the Featured Article nomination just made me think I should ask about it. Has there been discussion about development history like that before? I know video game fandoms are one of the topics considered not well documented on FL, so maybe it hasn't come up before. But what does everyone else think? Patchlamb (talk) 17:32, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Some disjointed thoughts:

-If an indie game is also a fanwork or was developed with input from the community, or there's something to say about the relationship between the community and developers, or some sort of community upset happened during game development, then explaining the parts of game development that are relevant to community history makes perfect sense. But just being an indie game doesn't seem like a good reason to give a lot of detail about production history that's not needed to explain the fan community. We can always link to other sources.

-I don't know of previous editor discussion about inclusion of game development history--perhaps someone else knows. I made the comment on the feature nomination because a "History" section should be fandom-focused and not canon-focused, a history of the fandom and not the history of the canon. Game development history is the game equivalent of other canon production history that we don't feature on Fanlore unless we need it to explain why the fan community did something. I would recommend against having a whole section, even a short one, where the center of focus is the game production rather than fan behavior; when that information is needed for context to explain fandom, fold it in as part of the main narrative, which should be focused on the fan community. In some cases you might have a section that starts with "The canon creators made this change, and the community had some opinions about it," and that's fine. Or "The community wanted less X and more Y, so the developers made the next version accordingly." For a history section you could lead with when the game became available, but immediately follow up with when and how people found out about the game, joined the forum, etc. You make a valid point about the inclusion of how the developers did and did not display a link to their forums is relevant to how new members would have found and interacted with TEF community, but that fandom context needs to be explained and foregrounded on the page itself.

-I don't know how helpful this example is, but I ran into a similar problem on the Panic at the Disco page, where someone filled in the History section with a history of the band that included some fandom info on the side. The section needed to be completely inverted to become a history of the fandom with the band info on the side.

-(It was my understanding that Multi Animator Projects are fanworks so their development history would be relevant for their own sake.)

-Since I'm not a gamer, I didn't realize that Tale of Tales was an indie developer/that this was an indie game, so I think that could be noted at the top.--aethel (talk) 00:40, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

I would agree that we shouldn't really include development history unless it's relevant to the fandom itself. Canon and development information is included to give context to fandom details included on the page. For example, a page on Them Fightin' Herds would include development history information, because the MLP fandom did influence it. It started off as a MLP fangame, MLP and the game's fans caused it to be nominated for EVO, leading to a C&D from Hasbro, Laruen Faust then joined the TFH team to give them original designs. Similarly, The Thing (1982) notes that it was a box office failure because Carpenter's own fans hated the movie and this leads into it being a cult classic.

Agree with MAP projects, but don't really have much else to add to that. Pinky G Rocket (talk) 15:17, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

I think Pinky G Rocket makes good points about when game development is likely to be relevant to fandom. In the case of this specific page and the "History" section, I originally read it as a history of the community around the game (particularly as it used to contain forum info), but thinking about it now, that info would belong in the "Fandom" section and not "History", perhaps merged into the beginning of the "Community" subsection. I don't think a "History" section really makes sense for a fandom page, since "History" sections tend to deal with things like the evolution of a term (on a Glossary page) or the origins of a website/community/blog etc. (on those types of pages), but on a page about a fandom, unless it's part of a "Fandom" section, it would deal with the history of the canon, which isn't Fanlore's focus/purview.

The info about the game remake definitely strikes me as fandom-relevant, especially since it's funded by community donations, but I would like to know more about what the fandom thinks about it - are they impatient, since it's been in the works since 2017? Do they think a remake is needed? Are they excited, or not so bothered because they like the original game? There's lots to explore here (and some community comments would be great). I'm not sure which section this would go in; maybe the Gameplay section could be renamed to Canon, with Gameplay as a subhead, and then another subhead for the remake?

Similarly, for the line about the Feminist Theory paper and book chapter on TEF and its community, that is relevant but it should mention what was said - not just the fact these were published, but what they had to say about the community (maybe a couple of quotes?) and I would mention it in the Community section. It's definitely cool that the community was seen as worthy of study!

A final note - I asked a question about the removed forum info in the Featured Article nomination discussion; maybe Patchlamb would be able to shed some light? --enchantedsleeper (talk) 21:15, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Glad to have lots more opinions on it! So seems like so far the main thought is that development information, if it's judged relevant, is useful to include but perhaps not as it's own section (depending on the page). For the forum info enchantedsleeper- when I was looking at WBM initially it wasn't quite clear whether the link went to the "TEFc" forum or if it was a different one. Though, TEFc forum seems to be used by the admins, so it's probably the official forum... so it's still somewhat confusing where it led or where it's supposed to lead now, despite TEFc apparently being used by official sources. Much of the current TEF website is outdated and in places almost defunct, which is curious because the TEFc forum and community is still pretty active.

I or someone else can work on the page a bit more then, and maybe add back in the info about the forum that was cutback. We can just move around the info and tailor it a bit more to fit in other places like others suggested. If anyone gets to it before me have at it! I've ended up getting myself focused trying to flesh out pretty much all the FNaF pages so my energy has mostly been there, but I hate to leave TEF hanging! Patchlamb (talk) 21:46, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, Patchlamb! I'd like to help work on the page, though I don't have any knowledge of the game so I'd have to do lots of research, but if I get the time I'll try and do some bits here and there ^^ On the forum, is the Wayback Machine link the only way to know about when the forum first started, or could that info be looked up another way? I can poke at it myself but thought that maybe there's another way to find this out. --enchantedsleeper (talk) 06:11, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

There might be someone somewhere who's talked about the forum's start date, but WBM is at least a good way to check. The first capture of the website has a forum link buuut it's not for TEF, it's for the developer as a whole. You cans see it at the bottom of the page. Then when their website becomes TEF there isn't a forum link in the sidebar, but the developer forum stays at the bottom. However, even though I don't see any link to a TEF forum in 2006, I found that captures of the offical TEC forum date back to Jun 2006. Simultaneously in 2006 still no side link, but developer's forum has added a few new TEF related threads amid threads for their other games. By later 2007 the link at the bottom to the developer forum is gone, and the "community" side bar links to the TEF forum. Honestly the forum's history is a little confusing... I skipped way ahead to 2013 and see the sidebar has "community" AND "forum," though the community used to link to the forum the 2013 links to a page promoting fan clubs and the forum link still goes to an official forum with barely 160+ members. Which is where it's unclear if the TEFc was ever promoted as the official forum or not. Plus no matter how modern I check in WBM, when I click "forum" and it takes me to the forum, it shows the forum as all recent posts being from 2013, as if WBM didn't actually capture it past 2013...? Kinda makes my head hurt. But at least today in 2022 I can say with confidence that the forum goes to a blank page haha. Patchlamb (talk) 15:54, 24 June 2022 (UTC)