We moddevs are incredibble loud and noisy. Cant hear the new devs joining and cant hear the reason why they dont stick.
And because we the oldfolk are so loud and sure, and carry our workinghours like a battering ram into every argument, we scare off what could be new oldfolks, given time and easy access.
a sollution to the volume problem
Moderator: Moderators
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Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
- Posts: 14673
- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
That was not a solution. That was a statement of a preceived problem. Your title suggests that you have found a proper fix.
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
No i dont. But the problem continues to exist. We dont get feedback when people quit. We dont ask them when they uninstall mapconverter, or delete there tutorial game, we dont recive any info. Its were all our potential comes from, and ironically its sort of a blindspot.
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Forboding Angel
- Evolution RTS Developer
- Posts: 14673
- Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
Well, I don't disagree with you, but the hardest part is picking out the people with a willingness to stick to it.
Even worse, there isn't much pitching in on new projects because there simply aren't enough people which probably makes it seem really bad.
Even worse, there isn't much pitching in on new projects because there simply aren't enough people which probably makes it seem really bad.
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
There are 2.5 typical classes of problems: technical and personal. The technical part is constantly bettering (New Spring is not running here due to shitty hardware so can't tell about the last 2 versions).
The latter appears to be a revival of the discussions popping up every some months ever since Spring existed about "Why the community sucks".
.5 is documentation. From what I saw, knorke et. al are doing a great job to make required information accessible.
"The picking of new people" often leads to treating them all like lazy asking for a complete game, when just a single question is asked. (Not ignoring the fact that there actually are people asking for someone to make full games for them)
The latter appears to be a revival of the discussions popping up every some months ever since Spring existed about "Why the community sucks".
.5 is documentation. From what I saw, knorke et. al are doing a great job to make required information accessible.
"The picking of new people" often leads to treating them all like lazy asking for a complete game, when just a single question is asked. (Not ignoring the fact that there actually are people asking for someone to make full games for them)
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
Yep, knorke did a überdocu. I still recommend his tutorial to anyone asking a question with the words "how+ spring" in it.
Still, the absence of mappers (and modellers) bothers me, these are the entry level, the fishschools were people learned to swim with easy tools. Sometimes there were pages in WIP, were no modell had a texture.
And beside the faptastic four, who posts new maps in the map board? Jools and Zogop- are the only non-green thread starters or vetnames there.
If i have a guess, it is that distributed ressources have raised the entry level to be creative to a nice "Todo-list" only a dev or vet would be okay with. My suggestion is to ship all the tools (toolbox, im looking yourway) and the tutorialmod of knorke with the springdownloader. + PDFs of the Tutorials. And stop recomending external tools. If people wander off to external links, getting bombarded with tutorials who never were written for spring, the WTF-am-I-doing here moment approaches, and the project "myfirstMap" is dropped halfway.
Bashing on newbs lazyness and lack of dedication is not a real answer here. You have nothing invested at the beginning besides the " I can do better" when you reach for the wrench for the first time. Why should you? Painting is something for fags in schools! Programming something for bearded hermits. All you want to have is a fortress, so you can shoot with the tanks in your game of choice down on your "very-best-friend". That momentum doesent last long.
Thats why its so important that results are imminent. Thats why every mapeditor starts with a map allready open, and the "raise" height brush in your hand. Once that map is ready, you are hooked, you have invested. And once you invested, you dont want to loose. Thats when you can hand him the book of links.
Still, the absence of mappers (and modellers) bothers me, these are the entry level, the fishschools were people learned to swim with easy tools. Sometimes there were pages in WIP, were no modell had a texture.
And beside the faptastic four, who posts new maps in the map board? Jools and Zogop- are the only non-green thread starters or vetnames there.
If i have a guess, it is that distributed ressources have raised the entry level to be creative to a nice "Todo-list" only a dev or vet would be okay with. My suggestion is to ship all the tools (toolbox, im looking yourway) and the tutorialmod of knorke with the springdownloader. + PDFs of the Tutorials. And stop recomending external tools. If people wander off to external links, getting bombarded with tutorials who never were written for spring, the WTF-am-I-doing here moment approaches, and the project "myfirstMap" is dropped halfway.
Bashing on newbs lazyness and lack of dedication is not a real answer here. You have nothing invested at the beginning besides the " I can do better" when you reach for the wrench for the first time. Why should you? Painting is something for fags in schools! Programming something for bearded hermits. All you want to have is a fortress, so you can shoot with the tanks in your game of choice down on your "very-best-friend". That momentum doesent last long.
Thats why its so important that results are imminent. Thats why every mapeditor starts with a map allready open, and the "raise" height brush in your hand. Once that map is ready, you are hooked, you have invested. And once you invested, you dont want to loose. Thats when you can hand him the book of links.
Re: a solution to the volume problem
I disagree on the entry-level concept. Its about personal skills and interests rather than a ladder to climb. That's why work is split between different teams / people in development and that's also why I buy my food instead of growing it outside.
A full game needs people from all different fields or one/few people "mastering all" (i.e. being bad at everything) before even the first tank can be seen firing.
Starting off with an untextured model is quite rewarding, because it lowers the time until you actually see the output. Luckily it is possible to create the game step-by-step after some initial set up. i.e. create naked models (or even just cubes), use standard game-mechanics, paint them, script own things etc.
I find it very rewarding to see some content moving around even without looking all too well. In my case, sucking at modelling / painting, Razorblade gave some Models to me and I could focus on what I'm better at and so got something up. On the other hand I wrote some scripts for him, because he has no clue about lua.
This is the thing called "Teamwork" outside Spring – even if just in a small scale.
So the point in here is, that one has so learn too many completely unrelated things to get the ball rolling when being/left alone.
There is also no "I can do better", there are many "Hey, looks interesting, I want to try"s, followed by "Hey first grader, before trying to add numbers, learn to differentiate functions, stupid!"s
A full game needs people from all different fields or one/few people "mastering all" (i.e. being bad at everything) before even the first tank can be seen firing.
Starting off with an untextured model is quite rewarding, because it lowers the time until you actually see the output. Luckily it is possible to create the game step-by-step after some initial set up. i.e. create naked models (or even just cubes), use standard game-mechanics, paint them, script own things etc.
I find it very rewarding to see some content moving around even without looking all too well. In my case, sucking at modelling / painting, Razorblade gave some Models to me and I could focus on what I'm better at and so got something up. On the other hand I wrote some scripts for him, because he has no clue about lua.
This is the thing called "Teamwork" outside Spring – even if just in a small scale.
So the point in here is, that one has so learn too many completely unrelated things to get the ball rolling when being/left alone.
There is also no "I can do better", there are many "Hey, looks interesting, I want to try"s, followed by "Hey first grader, before trying to add numbers, learn to differentiate functions, stupid!"s
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
Thanks for sharing, guess i generalized my own noob experience in retrospective. But replys like yours we dont have that often.
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
My worst scoffs at your best.A full game needs people from all different fields or one/few people "mastering all" (i.e. being bad at everything) before even the first tank can be seen firing.
Nothing outside of gl shader work justifies any sort of master in spring
"Jack of all trades master of none" is one of the single dumbest generalization.
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
That one hit close to home!
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
Now that I am back on a laptop:
To understand most of your project is important. We are not talking about a large system which requires a team of 20+ we are talking about projects who's main cost is time. There is no deadline there is no standard. Most people I meet who talk about specialization like that are talking about serious specializations, actual dedicated DBAs, programmers or artists. Your work was cute and all Camo but don't try and pass it off as though it was a master's stroke of the brush which required that you have a dedicated artist so you can focus on your deep and complex code. Seriously, the engine devs have been writing the real meat of things.
I don't mean to rip directly on you but I strongly disagree with your sentiment. There are times where having a specialist is good and needed to meet the time constraints of a project. I have not seen 1 single spring project that is this well done or in need of THAT level of talent. Now the engine, or say something like chili, LUPS that sort of stuff? yeah those things are reasonable to require a specialized programmer.
"I can do better," Pfft, I say it all the time, have you READ the lua drama? JK and niobium just recently were having at it about who's unit experience code was better. It happens. On the art side of things, no one publicly says it but people will privately say it. Artists are ego driven and prefer to be fed kudos rather than competitive nudges. It isn't about what it is best, it is about what they feel and their expression. Just because you are a coder, doesn't mean that others will take things the way you do.
so NO I don't think that a coder is some sacrosanct guru who should be left alone. In fact every time a "guru" specialist shows up he ends up being some douche with convincing lies and a bunch of buzzwords who convinces management that he is some brilliant coder. I had a chance to work with one of these gurus and I chose a different company just so I would NOT have to work with someone like that!
To understand most of your project is important. We are not talking about a large system which requires a team of 20+ we are talking about projects who's main cost is time. There is no deadline there is no standard. Most people I meet who talk about specialization like that are talking about serious specializations, actual dedicated DBAs, programmers or artists. Your work was cute and all Camo but don't try and pass it off as though it was a master's stroke of the brush which required that you have a dedicated artist so you can focus on your deep and complex code. Seriously, the engine devs have been writing the real meat of things.
I don't mean to rip directly on you but I strongly disagree with your sentiment. There are times where having a specialist is good and needed to meet the time constraints of a project. I have not seen 1 single spring project that is this well done or in need of THAT level of talent. Now the engine, or say something like chili, LUPS that sort of stuff? yeah those things are reasonable to require a specialized programmer.
"I can do better," Pfft, I say it all the time, have you READ the lua drama? JK and niobium just recently were having at it about who's unit experience code was better. It happens. On the art side of things, no one publicly says it but people will privately say it. Artists are ego driven and prefer to be fed kudos rather than competitive nudges. It isn't about what it is best, it is about what they feel and their expression. Just because you are a coder, doesn't mean that others will take things the way you do.
so NO I don't think that a coder is some sacrosanct guru who should be left alone. In fact every time a "guru" specialist shows up he ends up being some douche with convincing lies and a bunch of buzzwords who convinces management that he is some brilliant coder. I had a chance to work with one of these gurus and I chose a different company just so I would NOT have to work with someone like that!
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
To be fair smoth you are the whole 1 of approximately 1 people with the trifecta of Modelling, Texturing and Coding in this community, for most of us, it does require a team. 
Re: a solution to the volume problem
It is of course possible to create a project without specialization. But theres not just the 0 or 1-way. If two people join and one is some percent better in one field than the other, he should take it. Time is the most precious resource of all – specialization begins on a small scale with small differences.
Your post is exactly what I was stating:
I never released anything, because it is not worthwhile so far. I agree on that one with you. Posting some concepts and screen shots is an implicit (Partly even explicit) question "Is that realistic? Are there serious flaws?" and not an "Oh look how beautiful my game is" and thus no "pass it off as though it was a master's stroke". Some people gave useful answers and general hints and I highly approve of that. Some other people were the typical weirdos complaining about everything without ever producing anything worthy their selfs. I read the LUA-Discussion and if it would be based on numbers, it would've been very interesting. Discussion as such are nice but in here they are barely profound.
Currently there is barely anyone with the Ueberclue of everything. So people should learn to relax and be realistic. You spent how many years? 7 if I remember to produce what? Gundam, eh well.
There is exactly one current game worth noting, which would be ZK. CA Version 1xyz was very strange but it became cool within some years. And I'm looking forward to see Journeywar because it seems creative. Knorkes cubes might be interesting too.
Your post is exactly what I was stating:
I never released anything, because it is not worthwhile so far. I agree on that one with you. Posting some concepts and screen shots is an implicit (Partly even explicit) question "Is that realistic? Are there serious flaws?" and not an "Oh look how beautiful my game is" and thus no "pass it off as though it was a master's stroke". Some people gave useful answers and general hints and I highly approve of that. Some other people were the typical weirdos complaining about everything without ever producing anything worthy their selfs. I read the LUA-Discussion and if it would be based on numbers, it would've been very interesting. Discussion as such are nice but in here they are barely profound.
Currently there is barely anyone with the Ueberclue of everything. So people should learn to relax and be realistic. You spent how many years? 7 if I remember to produce what? Gundam, eh well.
There is exactly one current game worth noting, which would be ZK. CA Version 1xyz was very strange but it became cool within some years. And I'm looking forward to see Journeywar because it seems creative. Knorkes cubes might be interesting too.
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
Ha it been 7? Wow, I keep saying six.
In that time I have worked on 3 projects, helped several others including zk, ba, ee and evo. It would be really dumb to assume the entire 7 years was spent just on gundam. The svn is publicly accessible if you want to see how much I really do on it.
So 7 years? Hardly. I could probably count 6ish months just to go over all the time spent on testing and patching for engine versions.. And let's not even forget when s3o became available or oh god, lua. There is a litany of things that has eaten time other than actual feature addition. For someone who does 90% of gundam(I am counting things like chili and help from random people, kdr and zwzsg as 10% which is probably a bit generous) has maintained the balance, reworked the economy >4 times now oh no tons of my time has gone to other stuff. This doesn't make any sense to compare a 1 man project to ZK which has had >20 developers at least 5 of which are still very active. If there were 20 of me, my god... but there are not. I had KDR help me while he felt inclined and Zwzsg helps from time to time. SO I still don't see how attacking gundam is even comparable. Maybe if when I started things are as they are for you now, I would have 2-3 less years of time spent but that is the price you pay for growing with the engine. It is the price I pay for making quality, consistent art, constantly tweaking and improving gameplay and making the broad sweeping changes people ask for.
You had a good post then basically ended it with a childish barb about how you think ZK is so great and gundam not that impressive. By all means tell me how Cuba is so crap when compared to Japan. I mean they are island nations and all, so it is fair comparison? Again shallow generalization.
*edit since the post was getting long and I wanted to finish it on my laptop*
In that time I have worked on 3 projects, helped several others including zk, ba, ee and evo. It would be really dumb to assume the entire 7 years was spent just on gundam. The svn is publicly accessible if you want to see how much I really do on it.
So 7 years? Hardly. I could probably count 6ish months just to go over all the time spent on testing and patching for engine versions.. And let's not even forget when s3o became available or oh god, lua. There is a litany of things that has eaten time other than actual feature addition. For someone who does 90% of gundam(I am counting things like chili and help from random people, kdr and zwzsg as 10% which is probably a bit generous) has maintained the balance, reworked the economy >4 times now oh no tons of my time has gone to other stuff. This doesn't make any sense to compare a 1 man project to ZK which has had >20 developers at least 5 of which are still very active. If there were 20 of me, my god... but there are not. I had KDR help me while he felt inclined and Zwzsg helps from time to time. SO I still don't see how attacking gundam is even comparable. Maybe if when I started things are as they are for you now, I would have 2-3 less years of time spent but that is the price you pay for growing with the engine. It is the price I pay for making quality, consistent art, constantly tweaking and improving gameplay and making the broad sweeping changes people ask for.
You had a good post then basically ended it with a childish barb about how you think ZK is so great and gundam not that impressive. By all means tell me how Cuba is so crap when compared to Japan. I mean they are island nations and all, so it is fair comparison? Again shallow generalization.
*edit since the post was getting long and I wanted to finish it on my laptop*
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
Since I forsee more drama between camo and I..
Want to hear more from new developers? spend time with them, help them with their schtuff. When they leave you can hear all about it. In the end people I think ultimately leave because doing free work for people is balls and not the good kind. They will play with a concept and when it gets to the tedium of making crate #41245 so he can then make soldier #24125 pop out then people leave because it is uninteresting.
Stuff is exciting and creative at first then you have the years of tweaking and adding wiffle bats for people who want wiffle bats only to have the engine add wiffle bats and then players realize they liked the game without wiffle bats and now want lacross sticks. It is just never ending.
With professional games out there raising the feature list and buzzword requirements the real heart of hobby development is missed. When I see a TRUE hobby project I know it by seeing that all the banditos have dapper mustaches or the cockroaches have their underside textured for the rare chance someone will see the underside as it is tossed through the air.
Hobby projects are awesome for this sort of amazing quality and are equally intimidating when you are a beginner and you have guys like me who will spend 2 weeks(no idea how many hours that is, half the time I am watching pod casts and stuff) of his spare time doing just 1 model. Some people have other hobbies they like to do. Not everyone is going to spend his downtime from skiing tweaking ui elements. Yet the players are always more and more demanding and rather than ignore the warts they want to pinpoint them and ignore all else.
I don't know, I find commercial games largely disapointing, that isn't me being hipster, battleforge was excellent and there are parts of starcraft that really impress me. Few developers left in the world like Carmack and honestly it just makes me sad! I am the kind of player who will spend hours reading EVERY image in bioshock. It took me 5 hours to clear the demo because i was taking in everything I could. I remember I spent the time to listen to every crew member in quake 4 and started to really get a feel for what each squad was there for. That sort of character I find sorely lacking and I am rambling offtopic again.
So yeah, hobby projects are awesome but don't be surprised if many hobby devs make something and leave. Like I said in my old rant thread, many real projects die at the concept phase if the developer is worth anything. I feel like I have said this before...
They are new, they are not part of the community, they leave they don't have any contacts.. CT had 2 guys, they became part of the community, when they left, they communicated it.PicassoCT wrote:We moddevs are incredibble loud and noisy. Cant hear the new devs joining and cant hear the reason why they dont stick.
Want to hear more from new developers? spend time with them, help them with their schtuff. When they leave you can hear all about it. In the end people I think ultimately leave because doing free work for people is balls and not the good kind. They will play with a concept and when it gets to the tedium of making crate #41245 so he can then make soldier #24125 pop out then people leave because it is uninteresting.
Stuff is exciting and creative at first then you have the years of tweaking and adding wiffle bats for people who want wiffle bats only to have the engine add wiffle bats and then players realize they liked the game without wiffle bats and now want lacross sticks. It is just never ending.
With professional games out there raising the feature list and buzzword requirements the real heart of hobby development is missed. When I see a TRUE hobby project I know it by seeing that all the banditos have dapper mustaches or the cockroaches have their underside textured for the rare chance someone will see the underside as it is tossed through the air.
Hobby projects are awesome for this sort of amazing quality and are equally intimidating when you are a beginner and you have guys like me who will spend 2 weeks(no idea how many hours that is, half the time I am watching pod casts and stuff) of his spare time doing just 1 model. Some people have other hobbies they like to do. Not everyone is going to spend his downtime from skiing tweaking ui elements. Yet the players are always more and more demanding and rather than ignore the warts they want to pinpoint them and ignore all else.
I don't know, I find commercial games largely disapointing, that isn't me being hipster, battleforge was excellent and there are parts of starcraft that really impress me. Few developers left in the world like Carmack and honestly it just makes me sad! I am the kind of player who will spend hours reading EVERY image in bioshock. It took me 5 hours to clear the demo because i was taking in everything I could. I remember I spent the time to listen to every crew member in quake 4 and started to really get a feel for what each squad was there for. That sort of character I find sorely lacking and I am rambling offtopic again.
So yeah, hobby projects are awesome but don't be surprised if many hobby devs make something and leave. Like I said in my old rant thread, many real projects die at the concept phase if the developer is worth anything. I feel like I have said this before...
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
My thoughts why there are not more Spring projects is kind of divided into two parts.
Until relatively reccently, Spring was imo not really ready to make playable games with it: (maybe still is not)
Lua scripting gameplay was a huge step forward, for a looong time things were simply quite limited.
I think some people also saw eg the cob unitscripts and instantly went "meh, some obscure basically undocumented language that needs some funny tool to compile." (Though I guess it helped a lot at start by attracting some TA people)
"Quirky" or non exist tools also keep/kept people away. Some people might accept those quirks but especially to more experienced game makers it might be a warning sign.
It is very hard to make a polished Spring game, appearently nobody has really managed that yet. Some projects "got close" but it required many man-years of work. How many people are really willing to put so much work in one project?
On the other hand, some small 2D game is something even a single person can finish in a realistic timeframe.
Spring might not be what most hobby gamemakers are looking for:
Many people might be more interessted in "making everything from scratch" instead of building on something existing. Especially true if your goal is to learn things and not so much to make something playable.
Also the epenis factor: It feels a bit lame when you show your spring game to a friend and he mentions "it is nice how units turn into icons when you zoom out" and then you have to say that you have nothing to do with that.
RTS games typically have a large amount of units so there is much repeative work. (In both art and scripting)
RTS games are complex: need a complex UI -> boring to make and prone to bugs. With some pacman clone all UI you need is to draw the remaining lives and score.
Until relatively reccently, Spring was imo not really ready to make playable games with it: (maybe still is not)
Lua scripting gameplay was a huge step forward, for a looong time things were simply quite limited.
I think some people also saw eg the cob unitscripts and instantly went "meh, some obscure basically undocumented language that needs some funny tool to compile." (Though I guess it helped a lot at start by attracting some TA people)
"Quirky" or non exist tools also keep/kept people away. Some people might accept those quirks but especially to more experienced game makers it might be a warning sign.
It is very hard to make a polished Spring game, appearently nobody has really managed that yet. Some projects "got close" but it required many man-years of work. How many people are really willing to put so much work in one project?
On the other hand, some small 2D game is something even a single person can finish in a realistic timeframe.
Spring might not be what most hobby gamemakers are looking for:
Many people might be more interessted in "making everything from scratch" instead of building on something existing. Especially true if your goal is to learn things and not so much to make something playable.
Also the epenis factor: It feels a bit lame when you show your spring game to a friend and he mentions "it is nice how units turn into icons when you zoom out" and then you have to say that you have nothing to do with that.
RTS games typically have a large amount of units so there is much repeative work. (In both art and scripting)
RTS games are complex: need a complex UI -> boring to make and prone to bugs. With some pacman clone all UI you need is to draw the remaining lives and score.
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
It is amazing how much things HAVE improved in the past 3 years though. The rejoin and very rare desyncs have done a lot to improve the spring experience. I think this intel bombing out stuff is just a growing pain as is the current issues with path following. Lua lobby is going to be awesome once the fighting stops and something gets done, because let's face it, people around here love to talk but if someone just manned up and did it most people would just shutup and use it.knorke wrote:Until relatively reccently, Spring was imo not really ready to make playable games with it: (maybe still is not)
This to. Really, the kudos received for improving the UI experience in proportion to the actual time required to do all of it(esp with all the gadget-widget crap) very disproportionate.knorke wrote:complex ui
It feels like spring and her games will never be done, because people's demands are constantly changing and growing. Gets to be like a dog chasing it's tail.
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
smoth wrote:
It feels like spring and her games will never be done, because people's demands are constantly changing and growing. Gets to be like a dog chasing it's tail.
smoth wrote:
It feels like spring and her games will never be done, because people's demands are constantly changing and growing. Gets to be like a dog chasing it's tail.
smoth wrote:
It feels like spring and her games will never be done, because people's demands are constantly changing and growing. Gets to be like a dog chasing it's tail.
It is a she? When did we decide that? OMG, must change Facebook stat to "in a Relation" with Spring.
Best day ever.
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
"it's complicated"
Re: a sollution to the volume problem
Why did she have other mods before mine? How could you.. having love interests all over the intertubes? I thought i was unique. Oh, a new kind of drama arises, i can feel it - getting born. Where is my leather glove?! Ah, there.
(SLAP)
Sir, knorke, having stolen the viriginity of my bride, and spoiling my honor, i change you to a duel till death do as part. I leave the choice of weapons to you.
(SLAP)
Sir, knorke, having stolen the viriginity of my bride, and spoiling my honor, i change you to a duel till death do as part. I leave the choice of weapons to you.