Before posting in this forum

[Saishy]

I could agree with you ADF86, but then we would both be wrong : D

Jokes aside, the bad teams don't go and follow this format, they flat out refuse even after being told to.
A mediocre team may follow this format and be confused with a normal team, but I don't think this is so bad as a team that is able to improve is indeed a quality of a good team. So they might be able to improve or will just die over time.

Bad teams refuse to do this, refuse to improve and are fast to die.
Anything else deserves a chance.

[fragfest2012]

I don't know, sometimes I leave threads alone (I'm not lying, I promise), but many times I want to help them if it looks like they have a shot in hell. But hey, I am not the expert here.

[lorbid]

Its a catch 22.

Some teams / leaders are bad due to inexperience, others are bad due to incompetence / arrogance.

The hard part is filtering out the latter.

Then just because someone is inexperienced, do you really write them off or do you help them?

If you help them, then may have helped someone grow personally and professionally. However at the risk of wasting your (and other persons') time.

If you don't decide to help, you save your time, but don't add value back to those that might have benefited.

Personally, I'd rather let a persons work ethic determine success or failure rather than if they follow a thread template.

However I do agree that a sticky should be made to help team organizers best recruit and THINK why they are recruiting. The why is everything.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[lorbid]

I don't know, sometimes I leave threads alone (I'm not lying, I promise), but many times I want to help them if it looks like they have a shot in hell. But hey, I am not the expert here.

+1


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ironbelly]

We seem to have a lull in new teams posting unpolished recruitment threads but I imagine that'll only last so long.. In response to the comment that this is only a cut and paste thread to allow ****ty teams to appear legit I'd say you missed the point of the OP. It's a checklist for new people to gauge their readiness to start building a team in the first place. You can copy and paste all you want but that's not going to magically cause a GDD to sprout out of thin air or sufficient experience to back up the claim that this new person is a capable lead. And for those teams that are in a position where theya re ready to start recruiting than having a nice copy/paste template for them to present their ideas and team in a nice, easy to read manner for potential recruits to go through is nothing but a plus I see.

[lorbid]

I agree.
A GDD (or in my eyes the game bible), is a continuous journey that rarely ends till beta.

However the journey can be made by surrounding yourself with a short list of people who have been there and can guide you in the areas that you're unfamiliar with.

I'd say if I were going to recruit a team with a partial GDD in place, I'd start with a concept artist, level designer, and unscripter.

The concept artist can help bring your game art style to realization. Knowing how the general look is supposed to be is important before your modelers or animates even think about anything.

A level designer can help you flush out your idea and provide direction on game flow. Game flow is KEY to having a 'fun' game.

A coder can help ask the right questions for functionality and features. Just having an idea for a game doesn't cut it if you can't write out how you want to play.


I'll post up a general GDD template that I've created that way others have an idea what questions need to be answered in the GDD.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Rytif]

I have been following this forum for a while, since I develop indie games on my free time, but from what I can tell, the people who are trying to give advice on this thread really should NOT be. Mr.IronBellyStudios up there hasn't made any games, yet he's trying to conquer a 3D FPS with a large team of non-paid 'employees'. Same with Mr.FragFest and many, many others posting in this thread (and others).

I'm going to get a lot of flack for this, but it must be said. You guys won't make anything in the UDK because: (A) It's not made with you in mind. (B) You don't have enough experience, nor money, nor a developer network to create any of the projects I see displayed on here. 1 to 2 concept images that looked like some 12 year old made in his mom's basement one night won't cut it neither.

Now what I will say UDK is for: (A) Level Design (don't mix this up with making a full fledge game). (B) Mods. (C) Art and/or Cinematic Projects (could be just as bad as game).

If you want to complete games, run away from this development kit and never come back again. Grab some C# and XNA, Flash, HTML/Javascript, Cocos2D, etc. and make some 2D games - no, not tetris - actual good ones. And you'll see just how a lot of you are in way, way over your heads.

And, that is why I keep coming to this forum for my daily dose of comedic project failing fun. =)

[juguefre]

I have been following this forum for a while, since I develop indie games on my free time, but from what I can tell, the people who are trying to give advice on this thread really should NOT be. Mr.IronBellyStudios up there hasn't made any games, yet he's trying to conquer a 3D FPS with a large team of non-paid 'employees'. Same with Mr.FragFest and many, many others posting in this thread (and others).

I'm going to get a lot of flack for this, but it must be said. You guys won't make anything in the UDK because: (A) It's not made with you in mind. (B) You don't have enough experience, nor money, nor a developer network to create any of the projects I see displayed on here. 1 to 2 concept images that looked like some 12 year old made in his mom's basement one night won't cut it neither.

Now what I will say UDK is for: (A) Level Design (don't mix this up with making a full fledge game). (B) Mods. (C) Art and/or Cinematic Projects (could be just as bad as game).

If you want to complete games, run away from this development kit and never come back again. Grab some C# and XNA, Flash, HTML/Javascript, Cocos2D, etc. and make some 2D games - no, not tetris - actual good ones. And you'll see just how a lot of you are in way, way over your heads.

And, that is why I keep coming to this forum for my daily dose of comedic project failing fun. =)

HOLY! could this be the equivalent of a taliban attack on the police base?

[theflamingskunk]

I have been following this forum for a while, since I develop indie games on my free time, but from what I can tell, the people who are trying to give advice on this thread really should NOT be. Mr.IronBellyStudios up there hasn't made any games, yet he's trying to conquer a 3D FPS with a large team of non-paid 'employees'. Same with Mr.FragFest and many, many others posting in this thread (and others).

I'm going to get a lot of flack for this, but it must be said. You guys won't make anything in the UDK because: (A) It's not made with you in mind. (B) You don't have enough experience, nor money, nor a developer network to create any of the projects I see displayed on here. 1 to 2 concept images that looked like some 12 year old made in his mom's basement one night won't cut it neither.

Now what I will say UDK is for: (A) Level Design (don't mix this up with making a full fledge game). (B) Mods. (C) Art and/or Cinematic Projects (could be just as bad as game).

If you want to complete games, run away from this development kit and never come back again. Grab some C# and XNA, Flash, HTML/Javascript, Cocos2D, etc. and make some 2D games - no, not tetris - actual good ones. And you'll see just how a lot of you are in way, way over your heads.

And, that is why I keep coming to this forum for my daily dose of comedic project failing fun. =)

To make over generalizations like that is not wise. I agree that a majority of people here will never make anything worth anything in UDK. however to say that Nobody can make a commercial game in UDK is just foolish. ALthough extremely rare, it has been done before. However those were either established studios or ones with significant funding, not some random turd on the forums. If anybody is to make a semi-decent "game" in UDK the group either needs to have a ****ton of money or a ****ton of talent. THe problem is that many people think they see talent when its complete ****, thus unless they have money they are hopeless. The forums are not meant to be taken seriously. They are for comedic relief.

[rM//AndY]

The forums are not meant to be taken seriously. They are for comedic relief.

I'm fairly certain that's not what the Epic staff intended them to be for, and while some people might just be here for fun, others would like to use this board to find the talent they need for their projects, or to find interesting projects to join.

All this nonsense is scaring away anyone who would potentially be interested in collaborating with others to build something great using the UDK. Whether or not their efforts would be in vain is irrelevant; what matters is the valuable experience they'd gain in the process.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd really appreciate it if the jokes and bullying were taken elsewhere.

[fragfest2012]

You say what you want, I will just keep working.

[Farseer]

I'm going to get a lot of flack for this, but it must be said. You guys won't make anything in the UDK because: (A) It's not made with you in mind. (B) You don't have enough experience, nor money, nor a developer network to create any of the projects I see displayed on here. 1 to 2 concept images that looked like some 12 year old made in his mom's basement one night won't cut it neither.

Now what I will say UDK is for: (A) Level Design (don't mix this up with making a full fledge game). (B) Mods. (C) Art and/or Cinematic Projects (could be just as bad as game).

If you want to complete games, run away from this development kit and never come back again. Grab some C# and XNA, Flash, HTML/Javascript, Cocos2D, etc. and make some 2D games - no, not tetris - actual good ones. And you'll see just how a lot of you are in way, way over your heads.

Yes, you are in for a lot of flak for this since it's either a very couragous or a a very cheekly stupid thing to say on the UDK forums.

But before that happens I have to admit I get where this guy is coming from. If someone got used to writing game engines from scratch, UDK may look like a simple game factory, like all those "fps maker" apps and whatnot (and "click&play" back in the day, anyone still remember that?). Even if you're familiar with UDK the workflow still isn't that much different from modding UT3 to be honest - whatever you say it will never be a real full-fledged game engine from the dev's point of view.

What's a huge advantage of UDK though, and Rytif seems to be completely missing that point, is that it's absolutely the best set of tools within its price range. No, that's a huge understatement - it's the best set of gamedev tools in the industry and we get it practically for free. And the time you'd spend writing such tools for your own game from scratch (I'm talking about everything Ued contains - map editor, mesh viewers, material editor etc. etc.) would likley be longer than the time needed to work around UDK's limitations - most of which can actually be circumvented despite the lack of access to native code.

Of course Rytif is right that most projects on these forums... well, let's just say they don't have a bright future ahead of them. Or any future at all. But that doesn't mean one's unable to make a game with UDK - it just requires either simplifying it to the level of an iphone game or having tons of talent and time.

[seenooh]

Rytif is wrong because:

1- It is not UDK's fault if most of the teams out there are so over-ambicious. Regardless of the used engine, if you lack experience and aim for big complicated project you will most likely not succeed at all.

2- It is not UDK's fault if those who want to use it to make games are 13 years old. This sector of users will never succeed. You can't judge a car by its driver. If those kids are scared by the forum police, then that's good. They must focus on learning rather than the foolish day dreaming of making AAA games at this age.

3- It doesn't require Ironbelly or Fragfest (or anyone) to be industry veterans to point out BASIC COMMON-SENSE problems with recruitement threads. Why should I be an expert before saying that a thread needs more information? This is a ridiculous argument to say that nobody has the right to point out anything if they are not professionals in the industry.

4- Also note that alot of the team leads out there know nothing about the engine but to place meshes and build lighting at most. As a result, it'll be really challenging to progress in their projects because a leader in the indie games industry need to be the most knowledgable one, and that only increases the chances of project completion. Otherwise, if the team lead is just a story guy or an idea guy, then definately the project will fail. Alot of teams out there suffer from this problem, and I can't blame UDK for that.

[MarkG85]

Wow, so much negativity in here. It's like people aren't allowed to be new to the system/process of recruiting fellow COMMUNITY members to there project.

Here's my motto: Respect & be respected

[lorbid]

Can't believe rytif said that. He obviously hasn't seen the UDK showcase. Wasn't dungeon defenders made with a team of 4 or 5 and the original demo was purely in UDK.

I'm not saying I know everything or even a lot, because frankly I have a ton to learn. However, the few things I do know I'm glad to share with others to enable them to grow as a game producer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MarkG85]

Can't believe rytif said that. He obviously hasn't seen the UDK showcase. Wasn't dungeon defenders made with a team of 4 or 5 and the original demo was purely in UDK.

I'm not saying I know everything or even a lot, because frankly I have a ton to learn. However, the few things I do know I'm glad to share with others to enable them to grow as a game producer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Totally agree man, that's what a community does. This isn't a place to brag & show off how much "knowledge" you have it's a place to share knowledge IMO

[ironbelly]

Well the Dungeon Defenders demo was made with UDK yea, but when they went to the full fledged game they switched to UE3 so in a sense Rytif is still right in that sense. As the old saying goes 'Its the poor archer who blames the Arrow' . The failure of teams here has nothing to do with the toolset, in fact I'd say they are failing IN SPITE of the tool set as apposed to because of it. As was said above UDK is the most powerful game development kit in the world, perhaps not the easiest and perhaps not the most technically efficient but it is by and far the most powerful and what that does I feel is to create a false sense of power in the teams that use it. Who then dive in head first with even modest game ideas, realize a year in how much more work it is than they thought it was and that this magic toolkit does nothing to help them run their teams, organize their workflow, negotiate distribution contracts, bug fix, implement actual features and game mechanics or find qualified and skilled people to help them realize their vision and then they quit.

In response to MarkG85, we aern't here to be negative for negativities sake, the reality(and those of us here that may rub you as the most negative have learned this the hard way) is that the VAST majority of teams coming here are going to do exactly what I just described above. What we are trying to do is to save them the year or 2 of spinning their wheels, followed by burn out and an eventual career in accounting. We are trying to push them, quite forcibly at times, down a road that will allow them to actually accomplish their goals instead of floundering like fish out of water and dragging an entire team of people down with them as they learn, again, what I just described above

Can't believe rytif said that. He obviously hasn't seen the UDK showcase. Wasn't dungeon defenders made with a team of 4 or 5 and the original demo was purely in UDK.

I'm not saying I know everything or even a lot, because frankly I have a ton to learn. However, the few things I do know I'm glad to share with others to enable them to grow as a game producer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rM//AndY]

What we are trying to do is to save them the year or 2 of spinning their wheels, followed by burn out and an eventual career in accounting. We are trying to push them, quite forcibly at times, down a road that will allow them to actually accomplish their goals instead of floundering like fish out of water ...

I think you're, again, missing the point: it's not your (or anyone else's) place to do so. Let people figure things out their own way, they don't need your help.

... and dragging an entire team of people down with them as they learn, again, what I just described above

If you're worried that you'll lose potential recruits to doomed projects, the answer is simple: people are capable of forming their own opinions and making their own decisions. Again, they don't need your help.

Most people on here will look for a fun and easygoing group of people to collaborate with on a project they find interesting, even if that group doesn't have all of its ducks in a row. I, for one, wouldn't want to work with any of the self-proclaimed "forum police", no matter how knowledgeable and talented they may be, simply because the impression I'm getting is that they'd suck the fun out of the entire experience.


In short, what you set out to accomplish through this thread isn't working; instead, it's encouraging others to be hostile to newcomers and giving our community a bad rep in the process. And since you incited this movement, I hope you can see the damage it's causing and find a way to put an end to it.

[seenooh]

@MarkG85

Wow, so much negativity in here. It's like people aren't allowed to be new to the system/process of recruiting fellow COMMUNITY members to there project.

It's not negativity. You're totally missing the point. Making AAA games is not for kids, and that's a fact that just needs little reading and common-sense to know that. It's like saying it's a negativity to advise a child not to smoke. Smoking is not for kids. Rather than wasting time, a kid can invest it in learning character animation or modelling or whatever, and grow himself in the area that he belongs to. After that join a team, work on games or modes with realisitc goals, and then worry about making their own games. That's the ideal path, but anyone is welcomed and encouraged to form teams provided that they show some talents besides being idea guys, and any potential developer will consider joining if also the presentation of the recruitement thread reflects seriousness and professionalism.

@ironbelly

Well the Dungeon Defenders demo was made with UDK yea, but when they went to the full fledged game they switched to UE3 so in a sense Rytif is still right in that sense.

No he's not. I'm working with a licensed team, and there is no difference at all between UE3 and UDK apart from that you can publish your game to other platforms (and obviously source-code which we only touched to fix minor bugs). I can't speak for Trendy, but I bet they didn't require the full source to finish their game, but only to be able to release the game for Android, PSN and XBLA. A full license is required in that case because you ideally want to test your game on each platform while developing and not at the very end.

@rm//Andy

I think you're, again, missing the point: it's not your (or anyone else's) place to do so. Let people figure things out their own way, they don't need your help.

That's the true negativity. When someone is trying to start a project with obvious poor planning and terrible presentation, one should just remain silent and let them discover the facts the hard way and never attempt to point out something that is absolutely wrong or doesn't make sense.

Nobody is forcing anyone to follow the advice given. There is no sane person that refuses to get any possible help. Now, it's their choice to fail miserabley or listen to facts and guidelines (which require nothing but some googling) and get a better chance of success.

[MarkG85]

@seenoh

I agree making a AAA is no easy task but who here feels they could do that anyway? I am pretty regular on the recruiting pages just browsing around I am yet to see any even reference a AAA project.

I also agree honing your skills & developing them within the right environment BUT could you offer that environment to anyone? I doubt it because you seem all business.

A lot of you guys seem negative due to past failures with previous teams. The term failure means the team fizzling out & thus the project never being completed. I can understand the frustration behind that but don't let that inner anger vent on to the forums with young kids who are excited to be starting out in UDK see a group of negative people thus putting a negative thought in there mind before they even start. That's the biggest crime.

[ironbelly]

I can't speak for any of the other forum 'police' but why don't you take a look at some of my replies instead of shooting from the hip. There is a big difference between overtly hostile and offering someone advice should they choose or not choose to take it and I always try to do the latter. Having a thread like this that says 'Hey if you want to attempt to make your dream game here's some of the facts you should know and here's some of the things that you should probably take care of before you start thinking about getting too serious about your project'. This isn't a hostile 'movement' this is reaching out to naive and ignorant people and trying to open their eyes to what they are getting themselves into. Saying that we should ignore these people and let them waste years of their life when their time could be spent far more productively is the truly cruel way of being and I'm sure as hell glad the people that stopped me along the way and gave me directions didn't share your mindset or I wouldn't be half as far along as I am now.

I don't know how much time you spend here but I'm going to guess not a lot because your out of touch with reality. Most people are NOT looking for a fun and easy going group to just collaborate in their spare time and have a few laughs and make a few friends.. I'm not saying people don't want that but the majority of recruitment threads here are serious in nature with the company looking to release a commercial project. Just look at the number of recruitment threads marked 'Non-Paid' versus 'Royalty' , while it's not the end all be all metric to determine seriousness, when a commercial goal is the endpoint of a project I start to look at it more than just a bunch of people hanging out on teamspeak, talking about e3 and occasionally collaborating on some fun project.

Again I'm not sure how much time you spend here but what I set out to accomplish with this thread was to create a single player to direct people for advice about what they should be doing first when they look at starting a game development process and a way for them to gauge just what's involved with such a process before they spend 6 months to find out they are in over their head. I mainly created it because every day I was writing up a reply to a post advising people on the things in the OP and I wanted to save myself some time so in that sense what I set out to accomplish worked the instant I sent someone a link to this thread, and in the sense of it being a negative thing I've received dozens of PM's and emails of people asking for further advice and giving thanks for this thread and to date there are only 2 people, you being one of them, who have voiced any overtly negative opinions about it, to which you are certainly entitled even if I think they are misplaced

That being said I do appreciate hearing yuor feedback and it will make me even more conscious of my replies in the future to naive newcomes to the indie dev scene so that they are as helpful as possible without coming across as defeating or hostile. So for that I'm sincerely thankful

@seenooh, I guess we'll have to ask them to find out!

I think you're, again, missing the point: it's not your (or anyone else's) place to do so. Let people figure things out their own way, they don't need your help.

If you're worried that you'll lose potential recruits to doomed projects, the answer is simple: people are capable of forming their own opinions and making their own decisions. Again, they don't need your help.

Most people on here will look for a fun and easygoing group of people to collaborate with on a project they find interesting, even if that group doesn't have all of its ducks in a row. I, for one, wouldn't want to work with any of the self-proclaimed "forum police", no matter how knowledgeable and talented they may be, simply because the impression I'm getting is that they'd suck the fun out of the entire experience.


In short, what you set out to accomplish through this thread isn't working; instead, it's encouraging others to be hostile to newcomers and giving our community a bad rep in the process. And since you incited this movement, I hope you can see the damage it's causing and find a way to put an end to it.

[hunharibo]

I can't speak for any of the other forum 'police' but why don't you take a look at some of my replies instead of shooting from the hip. There is a big difference between overtly hostile and offering someone advice should they choose or not choose to take it and I always try to do the latter. Having a thread like this that says 'Hey if you want to attempt to make your dream game here's some of the facts you should know and here's some of the things that you should probably take care of before you start thinking about getting too serious about your project'. This isn't a hostile 'movement' this is reaching out to naive and ignorant people and trying to open their eyes to what they are getting themselves into. Saying that we should ignore these people and let them waste years of their life when their time could be spent far more productively is the truly cruel way of being and I'm sure as hell glad the people that stopped me along the way and gave me directions didn't share your mindset or I wouldn't be half as far along as I am now.

I don't know how much time you spend here but I'm going to guess not a lot because your out of touch with reality. Most people are NOT looking for a fun and easy going group to just collaborate in their spare time and have a few laughs and make a few friends.. I'm not saying people don't want that but the majority of recruitment threads here are serious in nature with the company looking to release a commercial project. Just look at the number of recruitment threads marked 'Non-Paid' versus 'Royalty' , while it's not the end all be all metric to determine seriousness, when a commercial goal is the endpoint of a project I start to look at it more than just a bunch of people hanging out on teamspeak, talking about e3 and occasionally collaborating on some fun project.

Again I'm not sure how much time you spend here but what I set out to accomplish with this thread was to create a single player to direct people for advice about what they should be doing first when they look at starting a game development process and a way for them to gauge just what's involved with such a process before they spend 6 months to find out they are in over their head. I mainly created it because every day I was writing up a reply to a post advising people on the things in the OP and I wanted to save myself some time so in that sense what I set out to accomplish worked the instant I sent someone a link to this thread, and in the sense of it being a negative thing I've received dozens of PM's and emails of people asking for further advice and giving thanks for this thread and to date there are only 2 people, you being one of them, who have voiced any overtly negative opinions about it and I'm going to write that off to the fact that you are just an overtly negative person in general more so than anything else.

That being said I do appreciate hearing yuor feedback and it will make me even more conscious of my replies in the future to naive newcomes to the indie dev scene so that they are as helpful as possible without coming across as defeating or hostile. So for that I'm sincerely thankful

@seenooh, I guess we'll have to ask them to find out!

I just want to adress a single point you made, sorry for ignoring the rest. "THE" reason people post more 'royalty' type recruitment threads as opposed to 'non-paid' is because they think they will get more replies if they do so. Trust me, if people were jumping in on non-paid projects like crazy, nobody would be posting 'royalty'. That is not the case. People therefore do the next best thing to just getting work done for them free: getting work done for them with only the promise of money.

[ironbelly]

that could be partly the case but I don't think that's the main reason.. Almost all of these royalty threads talk about plans for a commercial release of some sort or another. Occassionaly they say 'if we make any money then we'll split it' but the majority of them indicate that the person leading the team has serious intentions of taking the game onto the market place and selling it for a profit upon completion. At that point, at any point that legal contracts are involved as they would be in that case, I say it stops being just a casual and collaborative hobby where people just want to have fun and becomes something more serious.

[rM//AndY]

I can't speak for any of the other forum 'police' but why don't you take a look at some of my replies instead of shooting from the hip. There is a big difference between overtly hostile and offering someone advice should they choose or not choose to take it and I always try to do the latter. Having a thread like this that says 'Hey if you want to attempt to make your dream game here's some of the facts you should know and here's some of the things that you should probably take care of before you start thinking about getting too serious about your project'. This isn't a hostile 'movement' this is reaching out to naive and ignorant people and trying to open their eyes to what they are getting themselves into. Saying that we should ignore these people and let them waste years of their life when their time could be spent far more productively is the truly cruel way of being and I'm sure as hell glad the people that stopped me along the way and gave me directions didn't share your mindset or I wouldn't be half as far along as I am now.

Again I'm not sure how much time you spend here but what I set out to accomplish with this thread was to create a single player to direct people for advice about what they should be doing first when they look at starting a game development process and a way for them to gauge just what's involved with such a process before they spend 6 months to find out they are in over their head. I mainly created it because every day I was writing up a reply to a post advising people on the things in the OP and I wanted to save myself some time so in that sense what I set out to accomplish worked the instant I sent someone a link to this thread, and in the sense of it being a negative thing I've received dozens of PM's and emails of people asking for further advice and giving thanks for this thread and to date there are only 2 people, you being one of them, who have voiced any overtly negative opinions about it, to which you are certainly entitled even if I think they are misplaced.

For starters, I'm not attacking you so please calm down as I'm really not interested in taking part in a flame war.

No where in my reply did I say that your posts were hostile. I said that this thread was encouraging others to be hostile to newcomers [...], which is obviously not what you intended to happen (but it's what is happening).

I'm all for the one-on-one approach, but it seems to be doing more harm than good in this case. Ignoring the fact that I don't agree with much of what you've written in the first post, I simply don't see the benefit of other people's threads being constantly derailed, and I'm sure most of them don't appreciate it either (for every one person thanking you in a PM, there are probably five others biting their tongues).

In my opinion, you can help others by writing tutorials (like the one you have here), but let them find them on their own and read them if they're interested.

I don't know how much time you spend here but I'm going to guess not a lot because your out of touch with reality. Most people are NOT looking for a fun and easy going group to just collaborate in their spare time and have a few laughs and make a few friends.. I'm not saying people don't want that but the majority of recruitment threads here are serious in nature with the company looking to release a commercial project. Just look at the number of recruitment threads marked 'Non-Paid' versus 'Royalty' , while it's not the end all be all metric to determine seriousness, when a commercial goal is the endpoint of a project I start to look at it more than just a bunch of people hanging out on teamspeak, talking about e3 and occasionally collaborating on some fun project.

One can be professional and take work very seriously without being an utter buzzkill.

(Most) Developers don't choose the indie route to make a ton of money in a studio-like environment; they're indie to work with people they like on a project that they love, one that is both innovative and creative, and to enjoy every single minute of it (while making much less money compared to a studio job). I can't see how a team could produce anything amazing if all they feel is pressure.


And while I may be fairly new to these forums, I'm not new to indie game development.

[eridan]

I hate to say it, but these forums are VERY confrontational, competitive, and usually boils down to a pissing contest between who thinks they know what they are talking about. This thread is a good example.

[juguefre]

I hate to say it, but these forums are VERY confrontational, competitive, and usually boils down to a pissing contest between who thinks they know what they are talking about. This thread is a good example.

AGREE, to much talk and too little results. They should advice to themselves "post less and work more"

[silent_bob]

I hate to say it, but these forums are VERY confrontational, competitive, and usually boils down to a pissing contest between who thinks they know what they are talking about. This thread is a good example.

Indeed ...


Cheers

Felix

[MarkG85]

I hate to say it, but these forums are VERY confrontational, competitive, and usually boils down to a pissing contest between who thinks they know what they are talking about. This thread is a good example.

Agreed, more work less talk is required

[lorbid]

AGREE, to much talk and too little results. They should advice to themselves "post less and work more"

Kettle meet pot.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ironbelly]

I hate to say it, but these forums are VERY confrontational, competitive, and usually boils down to a pissing contest between who thinks they know what they are talking about. This thread is a good example.

I would say the UDK community is the most active and helpful community I've been involved in. I think some of the most serious indie game dev is happening here, well and the Unity forums but I'd say it is a little less 'serious' . Serious just meaning the scale and scope of the projects coming out of UDK like Dungeon Defenders, Hawken, etc etc dwarfs anything we see anywhere else. The problem arises when you have projects like this as shining examples and a free tool kit that a ton of people come here with the notion that them and a friend who recently graduated highschool can come with no experience and put together a stellar team and create something of the scale and quality of the projects I just mentioned. There's nothing wrong with ambition and dreamers, quite the contrary, but if no one steps in to mix in the reality of the situation you have people spending copious amounts of their time and other peoples times toiling away on something that never gets done as it was far too ambitious and then they burn out and never want to develop games again. I think, and some of us are more gentle than others, what we try to do here is to direct their short and long term goals a little bit more realistically so that they have a better chance of achieving that abitious project down the road but take smaller baby steps along the way to get there much sooner and avoid the burnout that comes after 2 years of learning that you've bitten off way more than you can chew.

Some people could be more delicate in their approach here but I think as a whole people are far better off having a vocal community like this because at the end of the day you are going to have 2 types of people coming here. A.) Those who aren't going to listen regardless and then no harm no foul as everything we cry from our soapbox is falling on def ears or B.) Those who will listen and follow the advice and take a different path.

Keep in mind when someone comes here with an achievable well planned out goal or project and seems to have his or her ducks in a row there's usually nothing but support or maybe a gentle critique here or there, it's only the hopeful MMOFPSRPG Sandbox-warcraft-killer developers that incur the greatest wrath and as I said I think there's more good coming about in the long run than bad as those who are serious and mature about game development will come away with a very positive outlook of this community as they would have been supported and those who aren't ready will either join a new instead of trying to start one or leave to lick their wounds and maybe think about some of what was said.

Who knows, truly I imagine much of it is us liking to hear ourselves speak, or getting a kick out of feeling like a steward of those who are beginning to walk a path similar to one that we have already walks and hope to save them some of the hard ache but I feel that for the most part all that is said here positive or negative is done with the best of intentions

[darthviper107]

I actually kind of like seeing the stupid ideas that people come up with

[ironbelly]

and here I thought you hung around for juguefre's responses

[juguefre]

picking on me Mr?

[Jetfire]

How about- if you're not hiring or looking to join a team you all simply dont post in this forum? Simples.

Basically, with all the good will in the world, people generally have to be left to work things out for themselves and your 'advices' no matter how relevant and correct, most people simply dont want to hear and will carry on regardless. Then, the only thing thats really been changed is another thread turned into an ugly, demeaning flamewar.

And hey, Planetstorm back when it started up many moons ago, would probably have failed everyones little 'post quality standards', and do you see us giving a damn then or now?

[juguefre]

@Jetfire: to whom are you talking to?

[KenD]

How about- if you're not hiring or looking to join a team you all simply dont post in this forum? Simples.

Basically, with all the good will in the world, people generally have to be left to work things out for themselves and your 'advices' no matter how relevant and correct, most people simply dont want to hear and will carry on regardless. Then, the only thing thats really been changed is another thread turned into an ugly, demeaning flamewar.

And hey, Planetstorm back when it started up many moons ago, would probably have failed everyones little 'post quality standards', and do you see us giving a damn then or now?

If I could give rep it would be maxed out on this one post.

[ironbelly]

Nothing against Planetstorm, I'm a big fan of your team lead and respect him for everything that he's done, but that project, just like most all projects of that level and scope, has been going on for many many years mainly because there are an absolutely ton of lessons that need to be learned about game development before one can finish a game, that and well there's just a ton that needs to be done for a game of that nature, size and scope. In terms of the lessons that need to be learned, some of them are definitely best learned the hard way but there are some that can be learned in the planning phase, thus avoiding months of rework. This of course being the purpose of the myriad of Design Documents that come out of the pre-production phase of a game. Documents that not only make the actual development process smoother but also greatly improve the quality of the product at the end of the day as you go through a ton of iterative thought process before reaching a final picture of what you want to develop, how it should play and what it should look like None of it of course written in stone as it will still evolve regardless of how meticulously it was planned out.

The point of threads like this, the point of all the advice, which it seems you feel is best left unsaid, is to nudge the insanely unprepared towards a path that will allow them to capitolize on all of the benefits that come out of the suggestions mentioned in the OP here and those mentioned in the replies, some of them albeit a bit harsher than necessary so that with any luck someone can take 3 years to finish a product instead of 6 or better yet they can realize early on that they might be biting off more than they can chew and start smaller working their way up to their main objective.

We do the same thing with clients that come to us with overly ambitious projects who are completely in the dark when it comes to developing games. I've sat more than one client down ,who was ready to put a deposit down on the first chunk of work, and just spelled out the total amount of man hours and consequent long term costs involved in developing their dream game. Just as you hinted there will be some people who don't want to hear it and will go forward regardless but the majority of clients look at me as say 'Really? it's going to cost THAT much to develop what I want?' and then realize a.) it would be best to risk someone elses money and find investors or b.) they've bitten off more than they can chew, financially in this case, and it's better to start smaller with say a mobile game or something of that kind.

Like you said, some people will listen and some people won't want to hear a damned word in this thread or any other about some of the best practices of game design, learned the hardway over years and years from some devoted, and in the beginning delusional, developers but shouldn't we still give them the choice to listen or not rather than keep our mouths shut and let those who are open to taking even one piece of advice to heart suffer along with those who aren't open to it at all? I'm not condoning flaming, although I think it's certainly true that there have been kids on here that won't listen to anything until it's expressed that light, but I certainly am not one to keep all of my lessons to myself like some dragon guarding pile of gold. I don't think people constantly re-inventing the wheel is any way for a community of developers to better themselves, continually learning from each other and closing the gap on bigger studios to pursue their dreams without the 'means'. You'll find that the people who do stick around and do keep at it are the people who listen to threads like this, perhaps not in it's entirety but elements of it, and those who are closed to everything anyone has to say that might counter their way of thinking are typically the ones who we never hear from ever again after the 2nd week. Is it really the latter of that audience that we should be basing our actions on at the great expense of the former, at the expense of the community as a whole? I for one don't think so

How about- if you're not hiring or looking to join a team you all simply dont post in this forum? Simples.

Basically, with all the good will in the world, people generally have to be left to work things out for themselves and your 'advices' no matter how relevant and correct, most people simply dont want to hear and will carry on regardless. Then, the only thing thats really been changed is another thread turned into an ugly, demeaning flamewar.

And hey, Planetstorm back when it started up many moons ago, would probably have failed everyones little 'post quality standards', and do you see us giving a damn then or now?

[juguefre]

this is for you Ryan and for all GDD lovers

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1..._factories.php

just listen to the part number 8 (don't count the parts, scroll down and you'll find some numbered parts)

[MereMortal]

I might as well throw in 2 cents...
I appreciate others trying to help but it's hard to know who need what and how much help. I was a bit suprised to get directed to this post as soon as I made my first enquiry for help with my project even though I had a working prototype video which I thought clearly demonstrated I had already spent a lot of time getting to that point. I'm not sure it's beneficial to simply blanket the whole forum with the idea that everyone needs direction and I must agree that the forum has a purpose and it's cool that everyone is allowed to post whatever the crazy madness. Some forums I found when looking around do not allow you to post unless you have a paid position available and I think that's unfortunate but I guess that's how they control these issues you are trying to address, but Im glad Epic keeps it an open forum giving everyone a chance no matter how green they are.
I have seen many peeps put into design roles when they have had zero experience putting a level or gameplay together . I think the best advise is that a prototype, no matter how ugly, is the best approach to moving forward an idea and getting interest from others. In the industry publishers won't sit down and read through pages of a design doc. They want a short description that can nail the idea into their forehead, and they want to play the idea..the prototype.
One more thing...don't try to be an inventor..an innovator. It is very difficult and you might never make anything that deserves you praise for such a thing. Find examples of what you aim for and try to do that thing just as well or as close as you can get, then add your little twists and flavours to make it your own. Most who try to innovate will only revel in their own glory with little return to show for it.

I just realized ...they don't make 2 cents anymore so my post may well be worthless.

[Jetfire]

Ironbelly, much love back at ya I'd agree with you wholeheartedly if the idealised 'quick post to just lob them a bit of info to make them better informed' were how things went down in here. What are we seeing in practice though? Mostly a string of point scoring- people rushing home to see who can give the most cutting/sarcastic/'funny'/patronising response to the next new guy's thread....?
So sure, I could amend what I said to 'only post in here if you're hiring/looking to get hired or posting a simple link to the original post in this thread if the op managed to miss the stickies; but that should be the extent of it, all the information is there for those who have the eyes to see it, and everyone else should find something else to occupy their time with like, idk, making a game, surely?