On game projects...

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
#1

Since this is the discussion forum, I felt like it was probably the most appropriate place for this topic, rather than the WIP forum.

I’d like to talk about the number of BGE “projects” that are filling up the WIP page. It seems like these groups are using the WIP forums as their only place of dumping their group project discussions. Currently there are 6 or 7 of these projects that have been floating on the top of the forum since they were originally started.

To me, the WIP forum is a place to showcase work… and not a place to update with every enemy model you add to your project. Most of the projects there don’t have any consistantly updated first post (you have to dig through the entire thread’s 39532 pages to find any content), have 100’s of “that looks good” posts, and I don’t know if any of them have anything BUT “art” (As in… there’s no gameplay, no game demos, no game concepts beyond “platformer” and “like mirror’s edge!”).

What’s the problem with this? It prevents legitimatly new WIP projects from getting exposure. I’ve seen posts with very cool games get sent down to the bottom of the forum very quickly, being buried by the mounds of group projects that clutter everything.

I understand that a lot of our members are young and easily excited by the things that they’re creating… it’s great fun :D! But all the time that you’re spending posting that new wall you’ve added to your game could be spent… on the game.

If other people aren’t bothered by this, by all means ignore this post. However, if enough people agree, something should be done.

In my mind, there are 3 routes we could go with this. 1 is to let it continue as is and let groups use the boards to organize their projects, 2 is to create another forum entirely for group projects, and 3 is to disallow the use of the BlenderArtists boards for group project discussion, and make it so that they have to find space and ways to communicate their progress on their own (there are lots of options for this… webspace is cheap and easy to get, a blog is very easy to set up, skype/any other IM client is easy to use to communicate… and good ol’ e-mail is a perfectly good tool).

Discuss!

-Sam

#2

You raise a good point. I don’t think that it shouldn’t be allowed, but unfortunately it is very difficult to get new forums set up around here, so we will likely be stuck with the current system for a while. The best I can suggest for now is to use the ratings system to try to bring attention to cool games.

#3

I’m not into making BGE games myself but it always strikes me that a forum thread, while fine for updating the community and attracting new members, is the most inefficient way of organising a project. You can set up websites / blogs / independent forums for free which would be much more usefull in actually completing a project.

Richard

#4

The problem is that these projects are so large that they not only dominate the board in number of posts, but all of their users appear to be rating it 5 stars.

Look at the Lori’s Tear thread for an example. It has 21 pages of posts by the people in it… and in terms of content it has a few sketches, 2 character models, and one tree model. I’m not saying that these are of poor quality, but they’re definitely not anywhere close to the quality of say… the Bot AI script (which actually has very substantial content) or Memorias.

Perhaps threads in WIP should be limited to a certain number of posts? Or maybe it should just be heavily discouraged?

#5

I voted “No! Let new games and major…” because every day new threads get created and abandoned the next week. Also, threads like “Wild West” and “Lori’s Tear” really don’t contain much but chatting between various team members (not a bad word about the projects).

I think it would be great if people posted a project when they had worked on it for a while. Major updates would also function well (Major Update=New levels+New Functions+New Models etc.).

#6

Game Engine Support and Discussion
Questions and Discussion regarding the Blender Game Engine

Finished Games and Demos
Finished game projects or demos of soon to be released games.

Works in Progress (old Works in Progress, Game Demos, and Finished Games)
Show off your current projects. No team projects please!

Team Projects
Announce team projects, recruit team members and discuss the projects

Game Engine Resources
Post tutorials, articles, and resources useful to other Game Engine users

#7

I voted for a new forum section for “Team Discussions”…

Good luck getting that implemented… haha. It will probably be at least 6 months before you even get a real response from THE administrator, or anyone in position to make such changes.

I think the administrator should pass his duties on to someone with more time, or at least someone who is more easily contacted. It should not take months to complete a task that should only take a few minutes…

Many problems are going unresolved because the administrator is never around and can hardly ever be contacted…

#8

Funny, I was just thinking something similar to this as I waded through heaps of posts.
If there’s a place for it great. Otherwise stick to the subject I think.

#9

well, I experienced that myself when after a small success you feel like telling all world about it. I understand why lots of members do that. On the other hand, we need a showcase forum. I think gameplay demo requirement should be mandatory for WIP. The rest can go to discussion

Also, I advise everyone to use skype for communication between team members. It is better to talk 10 mins per week than post tons of messages

#10

I agree with this. If we require a demo for the WIP/Finished Projects section, that will cut out a lot of these “all talk and no walk” threads.

No demo = Locked or deleted thread.

Sounds good to me = )

In fact, I would personally volunteer to be a watchdog for the WIP/Finished Projects section to keep it clean if this does eventually get implemented…

#11

option 3, i wouldn’t want this to become sourceforge… wip forum should be for keeping us updated of the progress of the games and give feedback on them, but team members should communicate by their own means (msn, aim, their own forums, some scm like sourceforge, etc).

I wouldn’t require a demo, but at least screenshots of the real game running in blender, or maybe even mockups if clearly stated as such, what should not be acceptable is just a bullet list of “features”, just a storyline/vague concepts, plain copies of other people’s work (eg: an unmodified template), or fake screenshots, not to say threads that only look for team recruitment for projects that haven’t even started.

#12

VenomSeven raises a good point… “WIPs” that have no content other than a story and a WhatGameIt’llBeLike statement are in a similar category. Do we need to require people to show that they have something substantial so that the forum doens’t get cluttered? Who gets to decide these minimum requirements? Currently there’s no rule against just posting a rendered image of a Sphere in the image WIP forums…

A demo may be a bit too much, but screenshots/videos of gameplay and not just character models may be a good place to start.

However, all of this really boils down to the mods, and whether they’re willing to enforce it. Hopefully if enough people agree with #3 we can do some convincing?

If mods need help… I’m willing to help ;).

-Sam

#13

Supersocks has the right idea. People don’t want to go to 5 different websites to get their blender information. Keep everything on blenderartists.org, but keep it organized. Post heavy threads drown out the threads with real content too fast. Those 5 categories seem like a great way to keep things organized.

#14

But I just changed the color of that wall polygon!

YOU MUST SEE AND BE IMPRESSED BY MY PETTY CREATIONS!

Heh, yea, it’s hard to sift out the garbage. Anyone remember when there was only one forum for all BGE related things. -> nightmare.

Although, it was fun pwning all those idiots who started multiple MMORPG threads.

#15

We’re not, at this time, going to make a whole bunch of rules about what can or can’t be posted. That would be both needlessly oppressive and too much trouble to police. I’ll do my best to get new forums implemented soon, but I can make no promises.

#16

I agree with plantperson, and my post about requiring a demo might be a little over the top.

I dont think we should regulate what can and cant be posted, however I do think we should have some guidelines that force people to actually show real progress in the WIP/Finished Games sections. Afterall, WIP stands for work in progress, not bullet list of the features in my fantasy game.

I hate having to sift through pages of hundreds of posts only to extract one or two screenshots of crappy models.

This really degrades the “quality” of the forum if you will.

Anyway, when his majesty comes around and figures out what he wants to do I’m sure we’ll be notified.

Until then, we’ll have to live with what we got… so be prepared to wait for months before anything gets done.

#17

No, that’s a perfectly rational requirement.

Pictures and concept art already have dedicated forums here on BA. Those who don’t have a working demo should simply post their art there.

I dont think we should regulate what can and cant be posted, however I do think we should have some guidelines that force people to actually show real progress in the WIP/Finished Games sections.
May the “force” be with you!

PS: “Rules” (aka: enforced guidelines) are not inherently “evil” or “oppressive”, as some here may assume. As long as the rules are appropriate for the situation in question, they can serve as a very efficient tool in improving the overall state of the community, and the quality of the resources that this community produces.

#18

I personaly think they should not be forced to put a demo, me personaly have enough for a game but i wouldn’t want people to play till its better. they should be regulated forums with just ideas are unapealing im new here and thats one of the only problems i have noticed. i think the forums that supersocks posted are a good idea though it may take awhile but i really dont think its that big of a rush, its not that bad…

#19

We don’t need “a whole bunch of rules,” we just need some basic guidelines, and we need to establish a norm of what’s “acceptable” on the forums.

The number of project threads has been growing and it seems, just from browsing these threads, like there are a few users who literally post something different 10 minutes from their last one. This is resulting in 7 or so threads being constantly on the front page of WIP. That’s more than 20% of the default 30 threads per page being taken up…

Perhaps another website… such as gameblender.org, might want to host these threads instead? Heck, I could even throw up some basic forums for people if need be… but I think that most people agree that something should be done.

If your hands are tied PlantPerson, then maybe we can work out another solution.

I also note that it doesn’t look like any of the “members” of these group projects have been to this thread? Or at least nobody has posted their opinion? I’d like to hear an argument FOR keeping these threads around.

-Sam

#20

The issue with the project threads, is their lifespan, A project can last from a month to 3 years, so every time a new project thread springs up, it stays up until the project is done, or fails. WIP threads or Finished Game threads, usually only stay alive for a couple weeks, once everyone has had a look, they are lost in the endless pages of useless information. The nature of project threads, requires them to be separated, just so we can find the threads that should truly be at the top of the list.