Firstly, let ZFGC go. Those who understand that sentence are the people I'm addressing. Now I'm about to write a brick wall of text which I'm going to stick in a spoiler tag. I don't wanna see any "tl;dr" bull crap.
[spoiler=Very long, Do read.]
I don't hate ZFGC, but I sure don't like it. This isn't me going off on "OMG I MISS THE GOLDEN DAYS" either... It's me stating my opinion on what I think "ZF"GC should become...
"But DJ, why did you put ZF (Zelda Fan) in parenthesis?", you may be asking.
Well, don't start your sentences with conjunctions, ass-hat! I put it in parenthesis because many of us out-grew Zelda. Yes, we still have plenty of Zelda fans, and people post new ideas for Zelda fan games every day... That's a whole other story, which I will get back to soon.
Anyways, it's been said a million times, and it's been agreed with a billion times... ZFGC needs change. Actually, ZFGC needs to be relinquished, and anyone who aspires for more then just making a walking engine, or giving LTTP Link blond hair needs to move on to the forum(s) I'm about to lay down.
[spoiler=Forum 1 (actual forum)]
Basically, this forum would be more of a development/art forum... Everyone's suggested it, nobody's acted on it. Focus is on game development in general. Not bull-shitty game development either. Also more emphasis on, as Dantz eloquently put it, "all forms of creative expression"... Making games is more then being able to program. It's more then being able to draw, or compose, or write a compelling story. Now if you can do all of those yourself, what the hell are you doing here? Anyways, the fact of the matter is this forum has gotten to the point where it's most active boards have nothing to do with what the original basis was... (not OOT2D... TRM had oot2d.com and a subforum for that crap...) he made Zelda Fan Game Central for just that... The processes of making a Zelda fan game, and back in the day (oh !@#$%... I just said it) every forum was very active.
We had members interested in making graphics because we had members who were good at it! I personally was persuaded into graphic arts after seeing ChainDog's original Ghoma sprite used in one of TRM's mockups, and I've been told by other members that my sprites influenced them to create their own. Anyways, once again I'm going off topic.
Back to this new Euphoria (forum name!?) Graphic arts is more then just bitmapping. You have your 2 dimensional bitmapping, vectoring, painting, etc. You also have 3 dimensional CG, CA, etc. Programming is more then just C#, or C++... I don't want to forbid GM users from any new forum if we make it (mostly because I still use it, but I'd also most likely hang out in the graphic arts section) There are too many languages to name, honestly. Composition is more then making music that sounds good as well. I know that probably sounds odd, but there's a lot that goes into it, not to mention so many different ways to create music! So many forms of writing that go into game development too! Unless your artists are your character designers too (which would be lame, because then you basically have no hero to your story) then you're going to need SOMEONE to write down a description of how the people are going to look! ...as well as like everything else you want to portray graphically. Can you say backbone?
And for fucks sake, don't let it get to the point where your off-topic forums (if you add them?) get to be more popular then your dev. boards... If people want to shoot the !@#$%, go to the chatroom... (hint hint) or talk on AIM, or MSN, or Y!M, or ICQ if you still live in the 90's.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Bonus mystery "idea" I said I'd only pitch to the admins, but whatever...]
2 words. Image Board. Not to gank off of any other image boards, but when I thought about it, it would be very suiting for the current state of ZFGC. I'm not talking LOL4CHANJOKESLOL either... That !@#$% should be frowned upon. The only thing I want this pitched website to "spew" is finished projects (be they sheets of graphics, music, stories, games, etc.) Modern image boards aren't just "image" boards either which is part 2 of why I think this would be an awesome idea. Image boards now days have specialty boards for file hosting, music embedding, video embedding (trailers?) So now you have somewhere to:
1. Host your demo. (let megaupload handle something more daunting then your 2mb demo.)
2. Show your screen shots.
3. Show off your trailers, tech demos, etc.
And bringing it all together is as easy as >>This...
Furthermore, the dynamics of an active image board ensures you're almost always going to have the most up to date info on projects you're following.
"But DJ, what if I post some graphics and they get pushed back and pruned?"
What did I say about conjunctions, !@#$%!? I almost don't want to answer that question I'm so pissed! For one, I doubt the site would get to the point where your post would get pushed back and pruned before you got any replies, or if you did, you didn't get a chance to read them. Anyways, this pitch was to hop on to the whole Dynamic Content bandwagon. Also makes creating trial boards, and pruning back on less active boards a bit easier (one click)
[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]
There's my annual idea for the forum post.
These are my personal opinions. Don't litter this topic with your play by play on them. If you want to voice your opinion, make your own damn topic.
