Users also have problems communicating their issues, understanding feedback, and using code tags. I don’t see why tags are suddenly too hard with everything else they have to get right. Besides, tags aren’t new; plenty of services use them (Steam, anyone?).
Exactly. So we shouldn’t be making it even harder for them to seek help.
They’re not “suddenly” too hard. They’re simply always been a bit much effort for forum posts. If they were as useful as needed/claimed, why have subforums at all? The reason we do is because the majority of people don’t tag their threads. I know I don’t and haven’t ever needed to given thought was put into the sub-forum names I posted in.
Having posts about all sorts of game engines crammed up in a single support cathegory, means dealing with both untagged posts and bad communication. Well, talk about adding insult to injury.
Again, it’s an all around bad idea. Don’t follow thru with it.
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having
GameDEV:
- UPBGE/BGE
- Godot
- Panda
- Pybullet
makes sense to me, they are all open source /free and use py or really close to it.
ue4 and unity have their own millions to do it,
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Integrating engines when the code is more closely related is one thing, it could work. I don’t know.
But turning this into potpourri is a no-no. A single page for many, all-different tools? What a mess.
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I addition, I would propose the requirement that the game creator is using Blender as his primary content creation tool (for assets and levels).
So that would go with the requirements of the engine being FOSS, popular with Blender users, and has a decent pipeline between it and Blender. That means Unity and Unreal wouldn’t count as they are proprietary and have costs associated with them (ie. pro versions or royalties).
Perhaps BGE/UPBGE and Armory can have their sections at the top of the list since they have what is akin to a full integration within Blender.
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can discuss do hierarchy 3 levels deep?
Game dev -> upbge -> discussion etc
Game dev -> Armoury -> resources
this forum cant do hierarchies like that. tags are supposed to fill that.
what about having another small server just game dev stuff?
like GameDev is a link to a second discuss server? (still blenderartists.org though)
The moderation team, along with the community here, can help with tagging, where necessary. I believe it’s also possible to put some quick links at the top of a category so users can quickly filter by tag.
What I do know is that adding categories in any forum is something that has to be considered heavily. Categories can be difficult to change or re-organize when there are changes (like having new popular game engines or old ones falling out of favor). Also, it’s not a pleasant experience to visit a forum and be overwhelmed with a wall of categories. And, as seen in a few posts already, the semi-permanence of categories raises the question of which specific engines get their own category and which ones don’t.
In contrast, tags are more flexible and extensible in a dynamic environment like this. Quick links to tag-based filters can be changed easily. Nearly any game engine can be supported/added. The general category list remains neat and tidy. Those are the main reasons I’d prefer to see just how much we can do to make tags a pleasant experience.
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Tags are good, but moving the current BGE Support and Discussion category to the side as “legacy” and creating a fresh one for the tagged general “Game Making Support and Discussion” category would avoid noise in the old one as well as in the new one. The other categories are not as important and could just be tagged from now on, IMO.
What’s your opinion on this?
I’m not opposed to the idea of doing something like that, but there are a number of currently active threads in there; I’m not sure the best course for handling those. My gut says that they’d have to be moved to the new forum (and appropriately tagged), otherwise, we’d effectively end up with two categories; one for the BGE and one for everything else. And if the threads are being moved, what’s the metric that we use to decide whether to move them? No activity for a year? 6 months?
I would post new threads in the new category, but would this separation be a big deal? Rename the category to “BGE Support - Legacy” (so everything is “moved”, virtually), and open the new category for everyone, it will be empty at first but it will also look clean.
Unless you wanted to have something already populated?
One other way would be to rename the category to fit a bigger scope and tag absolutely everything with the BGE tag on in the current category, not moving anything. The categories were solely about the BGE until soon.
Just know that BGE users would prefer to be in their own category on the side 
(1 category, not even the 5 current ones)
After all, the BGE was a part of Blender for a really long time, it is not making a special case, BGE is a special case 
So let’s say there are two categories: BGE and everyone else. Would the BGE category only be pre-2.80 BGE (as officially shipped with Blender) and anything not officially shipped with Blender (e.g. UPBGE, Armory, etc.) goes in the other category? That might be workable. I’d be curious to know what other folks think about that.
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I’m against making the current category “Legacy”. There will be duplicate content in both and people are going to have to remember to search both categories for answers. If you really want a new, more generic name, why not just rename this category?
wdym by search? I usually just browse https://blenderartists.org/c/game-engine and am able to see everything, don’t you?
I was seeing something like:
Game Making
- Blender Game Engine pre-2.8 (old category)
- Support and Discussion (new general category)
- WIPs and Game Demos
- Finished Works
- Team Projects
- Game Resources
That shouldn’t confuse people?
If you already see everything then what’s the point in splitting the category? I like to just view the Game Engine Support and Discussion.
In that case, if you are interested in the “BGE Support and Discussion” there will be a place for that, and people coming from different engines will have the general one. UPBGE users will also be able to try and flex in the general subcategory, using an engine from a different time.
TBH I don’t really care, it is just from the reaction of most people here that I proposed this way of doing. Also with 40,000 threads worth of BGE I assumed that we could place that on the side with people still contributing to it. Want BGE content, look there. People focusing on the “Game Engine Support and Discussions” are already missing on support discussions happening in the WIP section anyway, for instance.
We could leave some time for more input I guess.
Come to think of it, one thing that has always kind of nagged at my senses has been that support and discussion of the BGE have been bunched together in a single category. Personally, I would’ve preferred for game topics to be more integrated with the rest of the forum. So there’d be a Game Engine category in the Support section. Finished Games could sit alongside other projects in the Finished Projects category. Likewise for WIPs. Team Projects might be something suitable for the Jobs section, maybe. And Game Engine Resources could be its own Support category (or perhaps merged with the Tutorials, Tips, and Tricks category).
Granted, this is a somewhat radical idea, but why should the game-making community be cordoned off in a side section? Why not fold everyone in and have the passion of the game-making community feed into the Blender community at large (and vice versa)?
Of course, such a change would be pretty drastic and I’m not sure it’ll yield quite the results I expect, but since we’re bringing up the prospect of change, the idea is worth floating out there. What do folks think about it?
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Someone show this post to Ton asap!!!
(i agree.)