Campaign Criticism Etiquette

I feel the following points need to be made regarding criticism of others' work. I see the same things crop up over and over anytime threads pop up dealing with criticisms of new campaigns (they've been coming up since as early as I joined the SC campaigning community years ago) and they persist on and on for no good reason. Not that I think my words will change people's behavior, but I may as well try (or I may as well abuse my pulpit here at TWC to pontificate a bit on an issue that bugs me)...

Saying 'someone hasn't made something / can't do better than me. That makes their criticisms worthless' is not a particularly valid line of thought. It's entirely possible for someone to make valid ciritcisms of art / entertainment without themselves being proficient at creating what's being criticized. There are criteria which can be objectively and subjetively evaluated and discussed, and qualitative comparisons can be drawn to other similar works by pretty much anyone.

If, in order to qualify as a critic, you had to be able to personally outdo the works you were criticizing, who would be allowed to debate whether Picasso was greater than Van Gogh? Or whether Bach was better than Beethoven? Or whether the 1993 Pittsburgh Penguins were a better team than the 2002 Detroit Red Wings? The list would be pretty short.

In my opinion, in order to make valid criticisms of 'Fan made campaigns for Blizzard RTS games', you should have a good knowledge of the campaigns that have previously been made available. It woudn't hurt, either, to be able to objectively rate the craftsmanship of the art and sound created for the campaigns (but remember- evaluating their artistic merit as 'good' or 'bad' or 'they blow' is a subjective analysis relative only to the reviewer and likeminded people).

I think it's unfair to compare the storylines in these campaigns to, say, classics of literature, or even contemporary fiction written by professional writers. Looking at the quality of the story relative to the other campaigns in distribution would seem even handed... and comparing it to Blizzard's story is probably ok as well, since they are directly related in most cases.

Everyone's a critic. Everyone has an opinion one way or the other about the campaigns they've played. It's fine to make subjective statements that merely say whether you liked the campaign or not (ex. "It sucked!") and leave it at that. If, however, you want to seriously discuss the merits of a campaign, or perhaps you want to try to help the author overcome what you see as mistakes or problems, you really need to back up your opinions with coherent arguments or they do nobody any good.

If you thought a campaign was boring, jot down a couple reasons why you felt that way. If you thought there was a particular problem with the voice acting, spell out what the problem is so the people responsible at least know where you're coming from (hint: "I thought it sucked" doesn't help). If you thought one area of the campaign really stood out in a good way, let the author know. Presumably, most of you would like better, more fun campaigns to play, so do your part in at least presenting a clearer picture of what you appreciate / dont like in the campaigns out there today.

And a word to the campaign authors... being harshly criticized is no fun, since nobody wants to see their flaws exposed... but it's going to happen. The first thing you need to do is decide whether the criticisms being made of your work are potentially valid, or if they're baseless. If they're baseless, just ignore the person making the criticism and move on. Don't get into endless personal duels with them- that solves nothing and angers overbearing forum moderators like myself! If the critiques may have a kernel of truth (or a whole bucket full) in them, take them seriously and see if you can improve on the problems in the future.

I'm not pointing fingers at anybody, since we've all probably been guilty of being on one side or the other of the 'angry critic' fence at some time. It would make me happy, though, if on this forum at least, people made well reasoned arguments and carefully thought out rebuttals, instead of slinging fireballs around at the earliest opportunity.

- Joel