ZFGC
ZFGC.com => Feedback => Topic started by: rivexco on March 05, 2011, 01:41:55 am
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With all these threads about this awesome website being down. Then why not up? Its called Innovation ZFGC did it about twice (started out on invissionfree, then a custom but not the greatest to what it is now) why dont we revamp the site in a whole new way and if the community could bring in some money (maybe advirtising) we could buy all the domains like ZFGC .com .org and .net so when ppl type those in it brings them to the site. And everybody seems to go to other places like DA or pokecommunity. so why dont we get spriters and fan gamers to come here? I'll go on DA
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What?
There was only one topic about this. We only really need one domain name :/
The site is fine... not sure why you want to revamp it (although a upgrade to SMF 2.0 might be nice)
And please, do not go spamming ZFGC all over DA.
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Yeah I mean...
In all seriousness, there are people way more capable and more suited for advertising. Leave it to the people who actually have some form of claim to the forum who won't smear it by spamming it :\
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Well, we tried something a little while back, which didn't turn out to nice. People here (no offense) don't really like change, whether it would help or not, rather... they don't want to try something drastically different (face it, all the 'revival's have pretty much been the exact same thing :P)
If it were up to me, I'd drop the Zelda Fan Game Central name and just keep it as ZFGC with no meaning, shift the focus a little bit. Plus all that other stuff that we suggested back. I'd still like to see a merge with GDU, which I think would be nice, no matter who's running it. >_>
I do care about ZFGC even though at times I may not show it, but seeing the place as it is, really sucks, and even if things are difficult, it would be nice for a change.
also lol DA, yeah no.
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Zordon's Funky Grass Cutters is a go then?
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I'd still like to see a merge with GDU, which I think would be nice, no matter who's running it. >_>
I don't know if you've noticed, but GD-U is pretty much shot to !@#$% >_> GM and I are no longer part of it and are developing on our own, it's just Wally now.
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I'd still like to see a merge with GDU, which I think would be nice, no matter who's running it. >_>
I don't know if you've noticed, but GD-U is pretty much shot to !@#$% >_> GM and I are no longer part of it and are developing on our own, it's just Wally now.
I wasn't aware of your leaving (I was aware of GM though), but what would that matter? It's not shot to !@#$% because two people left, it's still pretty active and Wally still works on it from time to time. I can't say though because I haven't been particularly active in any community I've been apart of. One person working on something with a semi-active community beats a few people working on whatever with a barely-alive community.
Point is, a merge is a merge. They're both game development related, and have both have pretty much the exact same goal. One has an alright community that's new and in the process of being built (GDU), and one has a community that's holding onto it's name and is struggling (ZFGC). This place wasn't built in a day (most of it's activity came from people wanting OOT2D back then, which then people stuck around and got to know one another). Putting the two together would not only bring two similar communities together, but it would allow both to work together and build into something bigger. ZFGC honestly has nothing to lose doing a merge or even trying something different, and even GDU doesn't have anything to lose because it's new and has nowhere to go but up.
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I'm definitely not interested in having people -specifically- from DA, or a bunch of pokekids swarming the forums. The community here seems like it's pretty good at the moment, if small.
If it were up to me, I'd drop the Zelda Fan Game Central name and just keep it as ZFGC with no meaning, shift the focus a little bit. Plus all that other stuff that we suggested back. I'd still like to see a merge with GDU, which I think would be nice, no matter who's running it. >_>
Indeed.. I think we'll always be a Zelda forum in spirit, since that seems to be the one single, unifying interest that all members of this board share, to some degree. We'll also need to retain the (Fan)Game-development aspect, otherwise we would just become another Zelda forum and new members would be even less interested.
How about starting to report on News across the gaming community, with a strong focus on Zelda and indie content? We'd maintain our focus, and people would have another reason to visit the site if they weren't immediately interested in posting on the forum. They'd come for the content, eventually check out the forums, and with any luck try it out.
Then there's the question of "What would make our News blog any more interesting than any other?". I think it come down to style. We could post video reviews on fan games that come out, with humorous (but light-hearted) critique from the members of the forum. We could also incorporate humor into our text news / reviews. Humor finds a larger audience than just plain old news, the people who want that would visit the larger, commercial sites. As well, the humor would attract a friendlier crowd, rather than just somebody who signed up to tell us how much our opinion sucked.
It also appears to me that our forum is greatly overstaffed. 50% of the active members are Mods or Admins. The issue with this, is that, for one it's unnecessary, the forum in it's current state requires very minimal moderation. The second, is that to a newcomer, a Staff member might not seem very approachable, even intimidating. When half of the active posters are in a position of authority, people might be scared to reply. It could appear to them that this is a very tight-knit group of friends who aren't interested in outsiders or newcomers. A new poster will be more inclined to give feedback to another member, rather than a staff member if they think they might be easily punished by such a large force of Mods.
Obviously, our staff as far as Administation and Moderation is filled quite nicely. But, I would be more than happy to provide my services to the forum in some other way. I could help our blog if need be.
I'm also quite adequate with Tech issues, I'm starting school in September in a course for System Administration, though my true passion lies in repairing PC hardware / software, as well as diagnosing general, moderate issues.
I'm just spitting out ideas as they come. The more ideas we can come up with, the better.
I do care about ZFGC even though at times I may not show it, but seeing the place as it is, really sucks, and even if things are difficult, it would be nice for a change.
I returned mostly out of nostalgia. I wanted to see how many old veterans remained here, I expected mostly "Who are you?" replies, what I got was a pretty positive response. I was worried that people would remember me poorly, as I wasn't always the best person (in fact I was a complete shitter for a while there). There's obviously deeply embedded camaraderie and memories in everybody who remains here. We're hanging onto that relic of our past, the glory days of ZFGC when our forum was thriving with activity and culture. I just will not accept "The forum is slowly dying, accept it", without a fight. Maybe it's in vain, but I'm willing to give it one last try to breathe some life into this place. It'll be a sad day when I type "www.ZFGC.com" into my browser, and get a 404 message.
I think we can pull a few more glorious years out of our asses, if we play our cards right.
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--Disregard this post, !@#$% mood, not personal etc
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--Disregard this post, !@#$% mood, not personal etc
You're talking as if ZFGC has a lot going on. Also Wally's engine has absolutely nothing to do with this lol, there was no need to bring that up. Not everyone codes exactly as you do. People have their own ways and styles of doing things. Nobody's perfect.
As I said, the place is new, it has an excuse for lack of activity when it's growing. A place like ZFGC on the other hand, has no excuse for being this inactive, and how things are being run, especially having a few years on a place like GDU. There's no need for a gigantic staff when there's basically 5 posts a day with nothing going on.
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These topics always get to the point where they should almost just be in Feedback, but meh, there have been some things I have been thinking about recently especially since the Developer rank wasn't practical. Basically global moderation has pushed most of the active staff activities to preventative and reactionary dealing with negative user. In the past more it seemed like a system of local moderation allowed for development boards to be more easily represented by someone who knew what they were doing in them.
But anyway MG-Zero, walnut100 sent me IM's in which he didn't like that you were criticizing his work like that. In any case it is kind of guff to talk about someone who can't talk back.
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=_= stupidity at its finest...
Anyway, I do not feel that GDU merge would be beneficial. My suggestions are towards development, obviously. Although each attempt on development has failed, probably due to not-so-great management due to our lives outside the forum.
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I'm definitely not interested in having people -specifically- from DA, or a bunch of pokekids swarming the forums. The community here seems like it's pretty good at the moment, if small.
If it were up to me, I'd drop the Zelda Fan Game Central name and just keep it as ZFGC with no meaning, shift the focus a little bit. Plus all that other stuff that we suggested back. I'd still like to see a merge with GDU, which I think would be nice, no matter who's running it. >_>
Indeed.. I think we'll always be a Zelda forum in spirit, since that seems to be the one single, unifying interest that all members of this board share, to some degree. We'll also need to retain the (Fan)Game-development aspect, otherwise we would just become another Zelda forum and new members would be even less interested.
How about starting to report on News across the gaming community, with a strong focus on Zelda and indie content? We'd maintain our focus, and people would have another reason to visit the site if they weren't immediately interested in posting on the forum. They'd come for the content, eventually check out the forums, and with any luck try it out.
Then there's the question of "What would make our News blog any more interesting than any other?". I think it come down to style. We could post video reviews on fan games that come out, with humorous (but light-hearted) critique from the members of the forum. We could also incorporate humor into our text news / reviews. Humor finds a larger audience than just plain old news, the people who want that would visit the larger, commercial sites. As well, the humor would attract a friendlier crowd, rather than just somebody who signed up to tell us how much our opinion sucked.
It also appears to me that our forum is greatly overstaffed. 50% of the active members are Mods or Admins. The issue with this, is that, for one it's unnecessary, the forum in it's current state requires very minimal moderation. The second, is that to a newcomer, a Staff member might not seem very approachable, even intimidating. When half of the active posters are in a position of authority, people might be scared to reply. It could appear to them that this is a very tight-knit group of friends who aren't interested in outsiders or newcomers. A new poster will be more inclined to give feedback to another member, rather than a staff member if they think they might be easily punished by such a large force of Mods.
Obviously, our staff as far as Administation and Moderation is filled quite nicely. But, I would be more than happy to provide my services to the forum in some other way. I could help our blog if need be.
I'm also quite adequate with Tech issues, I'm starting school in September in a course for System Administration, though my true passion lies in repairing PC hardware / software, as well as diagnosing general, moderate issues.
I'm just spitting out ideas as they come. The more ideas we can come up with, the better.
I do care about ZFGC even though at times I may not show it, but seeing the place as it is, really sucks, and even if things are difficult, it would be nice for a change.
I returned mostly out of nostalgia. I wanted to see how many old veterans remained here, I expected mostly "Who are you?" replies, what I got was a pretty positive response. I was worried that people would remember me poorly, as I wasn't always the best person (in fact I was a complete shitter for a while there). There's obviously deeply embedded camaraderie and memories in everybody who remains here. We're hanging onto that relic of our past, the glory days of ZFGC when our forum was thriving with activity and culture. I just will not accept "The forum is slowly dying, accept it", without a fight. Maybe it's in vain, but I'm willing to give it one last try to breathe some life into this place. It'll be a sad day when I type "www.ZFGC.com" into my browser, and get a 404 message.
I think we can pull a few more glorious years out of our asses, if we play our cards right.
In all honesty, how many Zelda fan games even deserve video reviews? Not trying to be mean and !@#$% all over the idea, but how many fangames out there are really past the walking demo stages? I'm not even sure how big Zelda Fan gaming in general is anymore. Is it big enough to warrent video reviews of random fan games? It takes time for people to throw together video reviews, edit in gameplay, etc.
Then you gotta think about hosting, i doubt the videos would be hosted on the ZFGC server, that would cost bandwidth, and with the current state of affairs it would most likely provide, none to little return profit to pay for the extra hosting the videos would take up. We could host them off site, on say Youtube, but then would ZFGC be getting a central youtube account?
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In all honesty, how many Zelda fan games even deserve video reviews? Not trying to be mean and !@#$% all over the idea, but how many fangames out there are really past the walking demo stages? I'm not even sure how big Zelda Fan gaming in general is anymore. Is it big enough to warrent video reviews of random fan games? It takes time for people to throw together video reviews, edit in gameplay, etc.
Then you gotta think about hosting, i doubt the videos would be hosted on the ZFGC server, that would cost bandwidth, and with the current state of affairs it would most likely provide, none to little return profit to pay for the extra hosting the videos would take up. We could host them off site, on say Youtube, but then would ZFGC be getting a central youtube account?
I meant more than just focusing on Zelda Fan Games, we could give news on -ALL- Zelda games, and -ALL- indie games. But we would still retain the primary focus on Zelda Fan Games, as long as they're still being made.
As far as the videos, why not on YouTube? Seems simple enough.
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In all honesty, how many Zelda fan games even deserve video reviews? Not trying to be mean and !@#$% all over the idea, but how many fangames out there are really past the walking demo stages? I'm not even sure how big Zelda Fan gaming in general is anymore. Is it big enough to warrent video reviews of random fan games? It takes time for people to throw together video reviews, edit in gameplay, etc.
Then you gotta think about hosting, i doubt the videos would be hosted on the ZFGC server, that would cost bandwidth, and with the current state of affairs it would most likely provide, none to little return profit to pay for the extra hosting the videos would take up. We could host them off site, on say Youtube, but then would ZFGC be getting a central youtube account?
I meant more than just focusing on Zelda Fan Games, we could give news on -ALL- Zelda games, and -ALL- indie games. But we would still retain the primary focus on Zelda Fan Games,
as long as they're still being made.
As far as the videos, why not on YouTube? Seems simple enough.
All Zelda Games, like real ones that Nintendo is making? We could i guess, Though it would be kind of mean to go from Skyward sword to Walking Demo 2 or Ocarina of Time: Navi's Revenge. Might be better to start with the crappy CDi- games when going right to fangames, it will make the fangames look so much better in comparison.
If ZFGC did put it on youtube, how would we collect all those internet dollars?
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All Zelda Games, like real ones that Nintendo is making? We could i guess, Though it would be kind of mean to go from Skyward sword to Walking Demo 2 or Ocarina of Time: Navi's Revenge. Might be better to start with the crappy CDi- games when going right to fangames, it will make the fangames look so much better in comparison.
If ZFGC did put it on youtube, how would we collect all those internet dollars?
I've been thinking on it, maybe it would be worth changing the name of this forum to "Nintendo Fan Game Central". That widens our scale drastically, while keeping Zelda Fan Gaming firmly within the scope. Thus, the essence of the forum isn't lost! I'm sure the combined fan games of Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Metroid, etc etc add up to quite a bit.
As far as Internet Dollars, are you referring to revenue generated by YouTube's partner program? Well, it probably wouldn't amount to a massive sum, unless the forum exploded in some way we can't fathom. The full profit would just go to improving the website, rather than into the pockets of the staff.
(If I'm misinterpreting you, sorry.)
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Hey all, just registered here to say why don't we do something about the community being down.
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Hey all, just registered here to say why don't we do something about the community being down.
Get out n00b
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The thing about these big new directional ideas is that they never go anywhere because no one is willing to put in the effort.
I'm not against change, just, make sure we're making small changes gradually as we get to something bigger. You can't really go from zero to hero in an instant.
Mostly, I like the little community feeling. It's nice, quiet, there's no real faggotry. But hey, whatever.
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The thing about these big new directional ideas is that they never go anywhere because no one is willing to put in the effort.
I'm not against change, just, make sure we're making small changes gradually as we get to something bigger. You can't really go from zero to hero in an instant.
Mostly, I like the little community feeling. It's nice, quiet, there's no real faggotry. But hey, whatever.
Well, there ARE people who are willing to put the effort in, but due to some things, that apparently can't happen.
The small community feeling IS nice, there still is some stupid drama, but besides that it's nice. Still would be nice to see this place booming again.
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Why not pick up on that idea of a combined zfgc youtube account? I find it a wonderfull idea.
Low level of effort required to try out. Large audiance to appeal to. Why not?
There will be the occasional shitty video, sure. But people interested in zelda fangames who see that most fangames are clustered on one forum will likely come and visit. More so then when I (or someone else) mentions zfgc in a video or in a comment on some other forum.
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Why not pick up on that idea of a combined zfgc youtube account? I find it a wonderfull idea.
Low level of effort required to try out. Large audiance to appeal to. Why not?
There will be the occasional shitty video, sure. But people interested in zelda fangames who see that most fangames are clustered on one forum will likely come and visit. More so then when I (or someone else) mentions zfgc in a video or in a comment on some other forum.
Wouldn't work.
It'd get about as repetitive as the PotM. :x Not to sound like a pessimist or anything, but it's true.
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The PotM had plenty of activity each month. The only reasons it isn't continued right now is because I got a new girlfriend last year (= less free time), nobody stepped up to continue on, 4Sword wanted to change it once again.
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i wasn't talking about spaming DA! i was talking about going to zelda fans on DA and seeing if they want to join but never mind that. (it don't matter). How about we do another big project like OoT2d but since the 3d is coming june 7 theres no point in oot why not a Twilight Princess 2D project? do u think that would spark interest?
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The PotM had plenty of activity each month. The only reasons it isn't continued right now is because I got a new girlfriend last year (= less free time), nobody stepped up to continue on, 4Sword wanted to change it once again.
Yeah but I mean it was the same project over and over again due to lack of new things to feature :P We'd basically put up videos of the same thing each week...
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Who says we have to upload video's each week, or each month for that matter? Just upload if there is something you would normally create a video for.
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Who says we have to upload video's each week, or each month for that matter? Just upload if there is something you would normally create a video for.
Which would ultimately be a new project, and or competition promo... For something like that to be successful, we'd need things like reviews and such and have regular activity on it. Ultimately it's a lot more work than anyone here would realistically keep up on :P It'd fizzle after a month.
I don't think it's a bad idea; I just doubt anyone here would actually do it and keep it up.
Even playing devils advocate and thinking "I'd do it because it's a great idea", I realize that I would simply stop within a few weeks. Reason being I have other things that I feel are more important. IP related things to me take precedence over fangaming, and even ZFGC as a whole :p The hour it would take me to record a video reviewing something I could be spending working on something else more fulfilling :\
Hate to say it, ZFGC is a one-trick-pony. We've all witnessed the community grow around a singular project twice over. Once with OoT2d (abandonware) and then again with Shadowgazer (abandonware). The in-betweens have never been good. The forum only works when there's a big project for people to gawk at.
As bad as it may sound; fangaming is more of an introductory/hobby thing... Most people who started developing here have moved on to their own IP's. It's a lot more satisfying to make something that's truly your own. It's because of this that I agree with Porkchop on just removing "Zelda" from the equation. Frankly, Zelda has kinda sucked for the past 10 years anyway.
In my completely honest opinion, ZFGC should be done. It's the community that people pine for in these threads, not the subject of the community. We're limiting ourselves by being "Zelda Fan Game Central", and the community just doesn't exist anymore. Make something new. Make something different. Whatever community is still here will obviously be there too, so what's the difference. Right now it's just silly how this forum lingers and lingers when it could just die and have something better come out of it's remains.
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Who says we have to upload video's each week, or each month for that matter? Just upload if there is something you would normally create a video for.
The laws of Youtube do.
To be a partner of Youtube, you have to actively upload videos and maintain a good amount of subscribers. It's also the laws of common sense. If we're never uploading videos (aka whenever we basically feel like it), we won't attract any audience. We'd barely hit 100 views on Youtube either unless it was something like Ocarina of Time 2D which gets picked up by a gaming news site. Even then, we'd get about 100k views max, and that would just be on one really interesting thing, not the whole lot.
For example, (I'm not one to boast myself, so don't take it as that), I uploaded a video of me playing Alien Swarm on a Pallet Town map I made. It was simply that, a test. Wasn't planning on releasing it, never am. Wasn't even closed to finish and had nothing in it. It was number 1 on Reddit for a while and got featured on Destructoid (alongside another Alien Swarm video), and as of now it has 158,077 views. 85% of those views came back from June/July when it got featured. This was nothing but luck and timing. I released the video about a day or two after Alien Swarm came out, so Reddit and Destructoid picked it up as "one of the first maps made for Alien Swarm". I hadn't uploaded that video with the intention of getting any views, I just wanted to show it off to some people I knew. I got lucky and got featured on a game news site because it was at the right time (unintentionally).
My point is, it's easier said than done. You can go and upload a video reviewing some random Zelda Fan Game that nobody's ever heard of, but you're not going to get anywhere. Nobody's searching for "Zelda Fan Games" on Youtube, or anything remotely similar. If you look up Zelda Fan Game on Youtube, you'll find most of them have 500 views tops, some have 1,000, some even have 40,000, but these have been from over the past 3+ years, and the ones with a lot of views have the named "OOT2D", notice a pattern? Hell, the few Shadowgazer videos I've seen have at least 40k average, but it's three videos. Even that didn't draw much attention to ZFGC though. We never constantly had people signing up to go "HEY WHEN DOES SHADOWGAZER RELEASE?" "IS IT COMING OUT ON DS?", which is a sign that a 'fan' game is drawing.
I'm not saying Lunar's idea is a bad one, infact, I think it's a great one, but Zelda doesn't draw as much as say... Pokemon. That's why a place like Pokecommunity is alive and still huge with it's ROM hacks and fan games, where as some place like this is dying and is barely active. There's nothing, and besides that, nobody's interested. Bolded for importance.
This Youtube thing is something that's going to need planning and time, not something we can jump into right away. We need content and activity before we can even think of starting this, and I don't mean what we have now with some random small projects and the few people posting like we do. We need ACTIVITY and CONTENT. Actual projects, a few big ones and lots of small ones. We need activity to the point where you wake up, or come home and you have to wade through dozens and dozens of posts, and before you even finish there's new posts. That's what you call an active community, not a few more people walking in here and saying "Hi, I like this game."
This brings to me my point of why ZFGC needs to change in a lot of aspects, not just bringing in a bit more activity. People see this place and think it's just a board for old friends to hang around in and talk, they get intimidated. Staff is pretty much made up of active members who are all friends (not that a staff shouldn't be friends), everyone posting pretty much has 1k+ posts on average and the usual "this place isn't very active". It's also filled with a lot of dead mess (topics).
Hate to say it, ZFGC is a one-trick-pony. We've all witnessed the community grow around a singular project twice over. Once with OoT2d (abandonware) and then again with Shadowgazer (abandonware). The in-betweens have never been good. The forum only works when there's a big project for people to gawk at.
As bad as it may sound; fangaming is more of an introductory/hobby thing... Most people who started developing here have moved on to their own IP's. It's a lot more satisfying to make something that's truly your own. It's because of this that I agree with Porkchop on just removing "Zelda" from the equation. Frankly, Zelda has kinda sucked for the past 10 years anyway.
In my completely honest opinion, ZFGC should be done. It's the community that people pine for in these threads, not the subject of the community. We're limiting ourselves by being "Zelda Fan Game Central", and the community just doesn't exist anymore. Make something new. Make something different. Whatever community is still here will obviously be there too, so what's the difference. Right now it's just silly how this forum lingers and lingers when it could just die and have something better come out of it's remains.
This this this this this this this. This so much.
Mammy and I have had our differences, but I've never agreed with him so much on something.
This is also why I mentioned the "merge" with GDU a second time. I actually talked to Wally again after I mentioned it, and he said he wasn't really interested in doing a merge, he said he's got some of his own plans for GDU and I can't wait to see how they play out, and I'll be there to help him if he needs it.
HOWEVER, I still think that merge is a great idea, not for ZFGC or for GDU, but for the community. ZFGC doesn't revolve around fan games or even game development that much anymore, and hasn't for a long time.. 95% of the active people here are here for the community. There's absolutely no doubting that.
Now that I'm putting more thought into, no, not a merge. A migration of sorts however would be nice. Head over to GDU, check it out, maybe even sign up and start posting there. That's what it's there for, game development as a whole, and for a community. Wally's hopes (at least to my knowledge!) is for GDU to be what ZFGC used to be, community and development wise. A nice community where games are being made.
He's not trying to be some !@#$% who wants to steal the community away from this place and act like top gun. He wants to see his site boom into a place full of activity and game development. He's not ruling with an iron fist, infact, he's pretty lax on everything. It's not the most active place in the world, but it's getting there slowly.
This was our intentions with that whole NuZFGC deal back in '09. It wasn't to try and steal this place away, it was nothing but good intentions of getting this place up and running and to it's fullest again. To make it a new place, but also a recognizable home for everything it used to be.
In end... what's there to lose? Your staff position or post count?
Anyway, time for bed, please don't let this be a thread full of drama and personal vendettas when I wake up.
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Porkchop is right.
Making ZFGC active isn't something we can just "do." We're going to have to do something very big that will attract a lot of attention, and until someone can pick up the torch and do it, we won't get very many new members or get a lot of exposure. I think the community project is a great idea, but I do see a problem of the older members on this forum simply having moved onto other things. Most of the newer members, I think, do not have the talent or organizational skills in order to head up something that huge.
I had a similar experience with my friend Boris' fake LARP videos. He made them for months until one day, his Minecraft LARP got picked up by Kotaku and skyrocketed to over 200k views. So even if we DO have something cool, it's still going to take a lot of luck for it to even get attention.
I remember a few years back I had the idea of broadening ZFGC into a general creative community. However, the problem with this is that most of our current userbase is in game design. And then there's also the issue of plenty of creative communities already existing around the internet that work perfectly fine, so why should people come to this one?
I'm running out of steam. Someone else figure this out.
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Hate to say it, ZFGC is a one-trick-pony. We've all witnessed the community grow around a singular project twice over. Once with OoT2d (abandonware) and then again with Shadowgazer (abandonware). The in-betweens have never been good. The forum only works when there's a big project for people to gawk at.
As bad as it may sound; fangaming is more of an introductory/hobby thing... Most people who started developing here have moved on to their own IP's. It's a lot more satisfying to make something that's truly your own. It's because of this that I agree with Porkchop on just removing "Zelda" from the equation. Frankly, Zelda has kinda sucked for the past 10 years anyway.
In my completely honest opinion, ZFGC should be done. It's the community that people pine for in these threads, not the subject of the community. We're limiting ourselves by being "Zelda Fan Game Central", and the community just doesn't exist anymore. Make something new. Make something different. Whatever community is still here will obviously be there too, so what's the difference. Right now it's just silly how this forum lingers and lingers when it could just die and have something better come out of it's remains.
Majora's Mask and Wind Waker did not suck D:
Anyway, I agree with this. If we promote and center around a large project, it needs to be managed properly so as to not abandon it. I.e. we have one guy managing the whole project? No, what happens if that guy has to quit? There needs to be co-management as well.
I do also agree with the whole community thing, but we should be careful about how we go about that; We don't want a repeat of Gamers Advanced.
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I think it's a great one, but Zelda doesn't draw as much as say... Pokemon. That's why a place like Pokecommunity is alive and still huge with it's ROM hacks and fan games,
I agree, which is why I suggest we widen our scope by changing our name to something along the lines of Nintendo Fan Game Central. We'd be including all Nintendo IPs: Pokemon, Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kirby Donkey Kong, the whole package. The combined fanbase for all those games (and fan games) adds up to a lot more than just the limited Zelda games that we've set for ourselves.
In end... what's there to lose? Your staff position or post count?
It would seem so. This is about what is best for the future of the forum, there is no room for ego anymore. A staff member with no forum to moderate, might as well not be a moderator at all.
A good place to start, as has been suggested, is to wipe the forums, and keep all the old content in an archive somewhere, so it isn't lost. This will be the start of a new era for ZFGC, and while we want to build on the success of years previous, we also want a fresh start, with fresh ideas and content. The easiest way to achieve this, is a wipe.
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I believe you are getting a little ahead of yourself there.
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I believe you are getting a little ahead of yourself there.
In what way?
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The "we" and "this will be a whole new era" parts. No offense meant though.
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Nobody liked my idea of local moderation of boards as a way to possibly trim down global moderation, which would instead put the role of the local moderator at the level where they'd be helping to improve the board they were in. Although to some degree we have needed global moderators more because life gets busy and people who have been here a while still cause problems which can be weird. Wiping and then linking back to some archive wouldn't be helpful if the archive is not sorted and sifted through for its content.
Our biggest market in terms of a potential userbase are those who use Game Maker and those who like Nintendo games. As I've expressed before I don't think that a break from Zelda would work in that we'd still have predominantly Zelda games here. This is why I separated the Coding boards into Zelda and Other in some respects, if there would to be the growth of something new from Other which it was deemed was worthy of a board of its own, it would be given that. But for that to happen we'd have to have users working on that stuff rather than just hoping for someone else who is into that stuff to come here onto a ZFGC forum that doesn't look like it is about that stuff. And really, an outsider who would come here and possibly see that other stuff would only likely stay here if that other stuff here was good and not second-rate compared to something elsewhere.
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The "we" and "this will be a whole new era" parts. No offense meant though.
Not sure what you mean by the "we" part.. I'm just referring to the community as a whole.
As far as a whole new era, I think that's what "we" need. A revolution, to stir up interest and ambition. I'm only suggesting one method, feel free to come up with your own, if you support change of some kind.
If we just continue down the same path we are on, we're heading towards inevitable death. I've literally grown up on this forum. When I was in my early teens, this was my home. I had no friends in real life, and the people I've met here have made a real, profound impact on my life, and who I am. I don't want to see something that impacted me in such a way just slowly die because nobody wants to take the time or effort and give it another shot at life.
I'm willing to commit and volunteer my time to improve my forum, our forum, in any way that I can.
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I believe you are getting a little ahead of yourself there.
The "we" and "this will be a whole new era" parts. No offense meant though.
Gee, I wonder WHY things like this will never work. You have such little doubt in this community that it's not even funny. You've been here since '09, and unless you're an old member who I do not recognize, you know absolutely nothing of what ZFGC's been through, which is the exact same thing, over and over again for the past 7 or so years.
Nobody liked my idea of local moderation of boards as a way to possibly trim down global moderation
Well what does that tell you then? Nobody liked the idea, it's time to move on and try something NEW. Not to sound like a DICK, but it's the truth. Pushing the same idea over and over that nobody likes isn't going to just automatically make them like it, it's going to make them sick of the idea and ignore it even more.
Wiping and then linking back to some archive wouldn't be helpful if the archive is not sorted and sifted through for its content.
Well see, this again, is doubting the abilities of others. This is called effort and putting trust in those who want to put the effort into doing things like this. If the archive doesn't work? Then scrap it. This is what being new is about, not holding onto old things forever. My NES died, I put it away for a while in hopes of it working again, which it didn't, so I got rid of it. What did I do? Well I downloaded ROMs, but I'd buy a new one in reality.
Our biggest market in terms of a potential userbase are those who use Game Maker and those who like Nintendo games. As I've expressed before I don't think that a break from Zelda would work in that we'd still have predominantly Zelda games here.
We predominantly have Zelda games because... this may come as a shock to you, this is a ZELDA forum. People have brought them here, or have come here interested in Zelda and game design and decided to start another walking demo. It was the main focus. It hasn't done much or gotten us anywhere. No one but US are interested in Zelda fan games, and even that interest is dying or is dead within most already. You don't seem to see that.
This is why I separated the Coding boards into Zelda and Other in some respects, if there would to be the growth of something new from Other which it was deemed was worthy of a board of its own, it would be given that. But for that to happen we'd have to have users working on that stuff rather than just hoping for someone else who is into that stuff to come here onto a ZFGC forum that doesn't look like it is about that stuff. And really, an outsider who would come here and possibly see that other stuff would only likely stay here if that other stuff here was good and not second-rate compared to something elsewhere.
Okay... aaaand... this is the whole point to approaching something new? This has been tried time and time again, and we've waited years for some new demographic, it hasn't worked and we've barely brought in our own demographics, a few new members is nothing noteworthy.
I really do think you're missing the entire point of this, and maybe you're avoiding it on purpose, I don't know. There's absolutely nothing to lose at the point, besides, like I said, a staff position and a post count. I see no point in clinging to something and trying something new when there's nothing at loss here. A number of people agree this place is in need of change, even a drastic one. It isn't about you, or how YOU want this thing to go. Sometimes (if not always), the community should go first before any admins or staff do. If you don't listen to your audience, you're not getting anywhere. Why do you think a company like Valve does so well on it's own? It listens to it's community and it's a lesson I've learned from my favorite game developer.
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!@#$% I lost my entire post, god dammit.
4Sword Save:
PLEASE:
1) DO NOT Wage war against this website.
2) Play nice and enjoy.. it's how your community will be built up..
I for one encourage innovation.. you can't change a website.. and Chris I know you just sent me a message on MSN, while I agree with what your saying in the context to ZFGC itself, if you want something new, you got to make it.. you can't take it out of what exists already. That just doesn't work most of the time. <3
PLEASE BE ADVISED -- AS USUAL I DID NOT READ THE ENTIRE THREAD TOO MANY LONG POSTS.
(4sword that wasn't my entire post, but thanks :P)
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I didn't mean that nobody liked my idea of local moderation in the sense that it had not become popular, but that when I posted the idea in this topic that it got no reply. If people think the global moderation should be trimmed down and that the resource and development boards should improve local moderation could be a solution to that; especially also in that local moderators of resource boards would be expected to sort through old topics or that they would be expected to help maintain order in the board.
I put trust in others all the time, why do you think that I gave primary leadership of the GM Minish Cap Engine to Niek and at one point leadership of the Project of the Month to Martijn dh? At one point I think I also had given you a Site Staff position but I do not remember you doing anything too substantial with that. Regarding the Zelda focus, I am not dumb in that I know this is a Zelda place but I have been against the idea of making this place too general in that it still would continue to be a Zelda place. How I see an expansion of focus beyond Zelda is to grow things from Other that work and once they are stable enough to give them their own forum; e.g., if there got to be good enough Pokemon projects, we could have a Pokemon Projects board. Even if it started small, if what was initially there was pretty good we could then appeal for others to come here to contribute to that stuff.
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I remember a few years back I had the idea of broadening ZFGC into a general creative community. However, the problem with this is that most of our current userbase is in game design. And then there's also the issue of plenty of creative communities already existing around the internet that work perfectly fine, so why should people come to this one?
I'm running out of steam. Someone else figure this out.
omg I love the creative idea part, I beleive that instead of focusing on any creative aspect, making a forum of GAMEDESIGN might work, since we don't have to teach coding or worrying about people actually making a progress on their game, we will just focus on paper work, designing enemies,levels, etc.. lol, that would be sweet.
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But then we're just gamedev.net without the coding aspect D:
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That's one reason we haven't changed. Anything we remove makes us another forum, but not as good.
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:\ Eventually somebody's gotta take responsibility though.
Seriously, reading through all of these posts all I see are a bunch of things proposed and tried before. Hate to be the dickhole that says it, but this forum needs new management. Management that will actually concern themselves with not just their own personal whims and internal struggles with the forum, but rather bringing new people in and building a community. There's no point in having management if it doesn't actually manage the forum. Even more so, it needs management that isn't afraid of what a few people think.
So here's the thing... We can be stuck with ZFGC; a place riddled with repetition (this has been going on for years) that's doomed to the same fate that it's had since 2004, or someone (who is responsible and reliable enough) can take the reins and make a new forum that actually focuses on things that people want. I mean think about it. This is (read: was) a fangaming community, but tell me exactly what it has to offer fangaming? Absolutely nothing. People don't want to come here because of that, and indie's don't want to come here because it's fangaming. You could revive it and make ~drastic changes~, but we can save you some time by telling you to shoot your own foot.
A merger isn't going to fix it. Adding a youtube account isn't going to fix it. A community project isn't going to fix it. 4Sword isn't going to fix it. I'm not going to fix it. You're not going to fix it.
Just make something new. It's already been shown that there's nobody in staff who can make this work. The time's run out, and credibility is gone for everyone involved in what it is now (myself included). Just let this place die. There are too many people here who are more than capable of making something way better than this. Don't chain yourself back for it's sake. Lunar; I'll help you get a foothold into indie dev if you want, or at least point you in the right direction. I understand you want this place to be the thing that gets you there, but it's just not that place anymore.
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Loads of text
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. In the first two paragraphs you seem to be supporting the notion of a change in the management. But in your later text, you seem to be saying "It's not worth it, just give up". So what exactly are you trying to say?
Yeah, it would be simpler to just make a new forum. But the community and culture is already well established here. I'm not throwing these ideas out there because I'm trying to get into Indie game dev. I'm trying to reinvigorate the old community that I remember, while drawing in new members to strengthen our ranks and keep the forum alive.
The reason I'm interested in game dev, at least in relation to this forum, is that I want to be able to give something back to the community. I'm kind of a hypocrite if I'm saying "We need more active users making content!" while giving nothing in return myself. I want to contribute.
You're right, there's nobody in staff who can make this work. But there are people who are pushing these ideas (not necessarily saying myself) who can make it work, and who want to make it work. The amount of apathy in management is astounding. The attitude seems to be that of "the captain(s) must go down with the ship". Well, you can sit there and drown, but I'm going to be bailing the water out until we go down.
(Note: I don't specifically mean YOU, Mammy, just the management in general)
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Loads of text
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. In the first two paragraphs you seem to be supporting the notion of a change in the management. But in your later text, you seem to be saying "It's not worth it, just give up". So what exactly are you trying to say?
Yeah, it would be simpler to just make a new forum. But the community and culture is already well established here. I'm not throwing these ideas out there because I'm trying to get into Indie game dev. I'm trying to reinvigorate the old community that I remember, while drawing in new members to strengthen our ranks and keep the forum alive.
The reason I'm interested in game dev, at least in relation to this forum, is that I want to be able to give something back to the community. I'm kind of a hypocrite if I'm saying "We need more active users making content!" while giving nothing in return myself. I want to contribute.
You're right, there's nobody in staff who can make this work. But there are people who are pushing these ideas (not necessarily saying myself) who can make it work, and who want to make it work. The amount of apathy in management is astounding. The attitude seems to be that of "the captain(s) must go down with the ship". Well, you can sit there and drown, but I'm going to be bailing the water out until we go down.
(Note: I don't specifically mean YOU, Mammy, just the management in general)
I was moreso pointing out that it needs a revamp in management, but it'll never happen :P... At least not the way people want it to. A bit of what I was trying to say got lost in inattentive posting XD ZFGC is still ZFGC in spirit no matter what you call it, but it's context mixed with horrid management is screwing us.
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I was going to say a whole bunch of crap but then I just decided to say that I think ZFGC is fine as is and I've started up my game again and I plan to contribute a ton of the GML code and ALL the graphics for anyone to use. It seems that Martijn is still working on his game and there are others that still seem to have life, like OoT2D (still going, right?). I'm sure other people have games sitting on their back burner just waiting to get started again. People probably just don't have the time or motivation right now (lots of people I know have finals right now or are getting married, getting a job, etc). I'm sure it will turn around, since it always has in the past (well, ish). I believe this is just another bump in the road.
Whatever, I think ZFGC is fine and the management seems fine to me. Maybe I just don't have super high expectations. I mean, yeah, it'd be nice to see it be a little livelier, but it's pretty obvious that a Zelda fan game community with practically no Zelda fan games is going to be pretty dead. Amright? Anyway, I'm going to get back to working on my game, because that seems to be the best thing I can do to help out ZFGC. But a revamp? Nah
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Maybe that's the key, everyone should lower their expectations. XD
Or maybe, people who (much like myself) don't concern themselves with ZFGC except when exciting topics come up, should just let it go.
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Maybe that's the key, everyone should lower their expectations. XD
Or maybe, people who (much like myself) don't concern themselves with ZFGC except when exciting topics come up, should just let it go.
That's essentially what I think. I've pointed out some issues with the forum but honestly I see no way to really "solve" them. I don't necessarily think ZFGC is doomed, but I do think that the forum is not really growing anymore. Perhaps the best thing to do here is just let things run their course, however that may be.
I am one of those people, unfortunately. As my interests have changed, so has my role in the community.
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Even playing devils advocate and thinking "I'd do it because it's a great idea", I realize that I would simply stop within a few weeks. Reason being I have other things that I feel are more important. IP related things to me take precedence over fangaming, and even ZFGC as a whole :p The hour it would take me to record a video reviewing something I could be spending working on something else more fulfilling :\
Hate to say it, ZFGC is a one-trick-pony. We've all witnessed the community grow around a singular project twice over. Once with OoT2d (abandonware) and then again with Shadowgazer (abandonware). The in-betweens have never been good. The forum only works when there's a big project for people to gawk at.
why not a Zelda Twilight Princess 2d? its worth a shot and NOBODY has attempted it (trust me i know) and an oot 2d wouldnt matter cause of the 3ds version coming. If about 5 people or more joined it. it would thrive. i would be a spriter.
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(sorry double post)
but i may not have had an account in the 2006 era of the past. but i read it all through all 3 of the version forums. and sure oot2d was a major boost and back then spriting was getting popular but IT STILL IS. Some things u guys aren't seeing is this website IS THE BEST for putting up fan games. no other zelda forum or site has ever had as much successful (or nearly successful) games than ZFGC.
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I have a mixed opinion on this as I think ZFGC is fine the way it is but I also think it could either be improved or it can just let itself die if nobody is going to take the initiative to try to improve it. When I came here in 2006, this place was alive and there were many interesting fan games to look at. Over four years later, that has changed as pretty much everyone who has stayed since then has changed and has pretty much lost interest in Zelda or doesn't even care about the franchise anymore but they stay because of the people they've met. It's pretty much the community that's keeping the site alive but some people and some new people are trying to keep the site alive as it means something to them.
Being a website owner myself, you're going to have to give in to some things and try something new. I don't think merging with another site is a good idea as you'll basically lose your identity and then you'll regret your decision or miss your old site. If this site were young and small, I could see a merge working out as that is pretty much how my site started out, two small sites that merged and became one. Even though you might not have much of a desire to improve things, you have to try something. You'd have to start small though obviously and work your way up. Sure, you'll need one big aspect to get new members but you can't rush into it. Back to my site for a moment. This past August, my site held a 96-Hour marathon for charity. Before the marathon, my site was seeing barely any activity and we were a year and a half old. After that marathon, we got a lot more visitors and opening a message board really helped out as well. Even though my site and this site are completely different, you need to find something that can spark interest in working or developing here.
If anything, try playing some Zelda again as that is probably one of the factors that brought you here in the first place as it was one of mine. I think at this point, you'd have to look back on the mistakes you've made and look back and see how you can improve them. I think the Community Project was a good and bad idea because it was too big to handle with the size of them team yet it had some interest aspects that even today I still think are cool. The thing with fan games I've realized over the years is that people want to make a full game out of it. If anything they should try to start small just to see if they want to keep continuing with fan gaming. I mean, you could start off with a puzzle game and work your way to something like Bomberman or Pac-Man, then work your way to something like Mario and then Zelda. Basically start off with something simple that's unique and has people interested. Even though you'd want to make your own full Zelda game or Indie game, you need to think about it clearly before you go ahead with it. I know I haven't been here as long as some of you but I think we can all agree that we've seen many fan projects die due to losing interest and real life mumbo jumbo.
Back to the whole issue with revamping the site (even if I may repeat myself), I think ZFGC just needs to try to rework itself. Even in the normal Zelda community, I've seen quite a few sites that were on the verge of death but they came back alive, with one of them being one of the most popular Zelda sites on the interwebs (talking about Zelda Dungeon here). Even with a different aspect, this site can still make a comeback as well but it's just a matter of doing it right and having the right people to do it. Some people don't like change but you have to live with it. Things change all the time and it's just apart of life. All I can say is, try giving an effort to do something. If you have an idea, try it out.
Some things u guys aren't seeing is this website IS THE BEST for putting up fan games. no other zelda forum or site has ever had as much successful (or nearly successful) games than ZFGC.
No other Zelda forum wants to focus on fan games at all as they don't really care about them or don't even know a thing about Zelda fan games in general. I have no desire to add a board for fan games on my own forums as I think that role has been filled by ZFGC, even in its current state. However, there are a few people on my forums interested in fan gaming except I don't really want to lead them here as they are in their early teens and will most likely lose interest in fan gaming because of how critical everybody is here.
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Hello everyone.
Its been a while hasn't it? The site's administration has been gracious enough to let me back on the forums, and I'd like to take a moment to comment on this whole revamping ZFGC fiasco.
First off, where I've been since I've been banned. I've spent a bulk of my college career now banned from ZFGC, and when it comes to the internet, I've shifted gears towards working on my own site (Many of you know it; Its GDU) and working on my game (For anyone who remembers Pwn Squad, I'm making a sidescrolling beat em up using those characters and its art style) I also have been studying Marketing at (What's somehow) a pretty damn prestigious business program, so hopefully I can give you all some insight that you haven't thought of previously, even if a lot of its already been said in here . I'm going to take this post by post and give my thoughts; its the best way I can think of approaching this topic when I'm coming into it so late.
why dont we revamp the site in a whole new way and if the community could bring in some money (maybe advirtising)
The first thing you all have to realize is that to make money you have to spend money. Advertising is an effective marketing tool when you have a product or brand image you want to expand, but ZFGC isn't anything like that. First off, you have to identify your goals for the forum, find your mission statement. What is it that ZFGC does? ZFGC is a place to help others develop Zelda fan games. How do you help somebody do something like that? You share resources, code, and so on to aid in development, along with providing a friendly community that will help new users when they get stuck. Does ZFGC fit those needs? Sorta. You have a dedicated resource section, but its clunky and hard to navigate. You have resources that don't pertain to Zelda which adds clutter. Your tutorial section has absolutely no tutorials even pertaining to Zelda, but rather how to skin Linux and how to encrypt pornography. The community is there but its pretty tight-knit and nobody new is coming in. Long story short, ZFGC is failing to live up to its own mission statement. Either that or the mission statement isn't clear enough. Either way its a recipe for disaster. But back to advertising. How do you monetarily gain from a place that has no growth in the indie game marketplace? You can't expect advertisers to pay off much of anything when you have a group of 10 to 20 unique active users, because there's no way they'll be able to sell enough product to cover costs associated with advertising. And if you want to promote the forums on other forums, what's your hook? Hi, we're ZFGC, and we don't know what our mission statement is? You have to have a clear plan for ANY organization to succeed, whether its a business or a non-profit organization like this. And spending $500 to grab ZFGC.net won't help the site grow, there's no reason to try to diversify the site's portfolio when its this small. Everyone can use the .com address and it'd be fine, no reason to grab .net and have it redirect back here. The other thing is that people aren't randomly typing any URL into their address bar. Its a waste of money to buy multiple domain names for this site, simple as that.
(although a upgrade to SMF 2.0 might be nice)
In my opinion, ZFGC does need real forum software. SMF is abandonware (last I heard) and 2.0 never quite got all its security vulnerabilities patched up, not to mention all the incompatibilities with mods and whatever else that will break the site. But then you have to consider that running on SMF1 is like having a ticking time bomb. Eventually a HUGE exploit could surface that could leave the site in shambles, possibly even everything else hosted on the server (Since ZFGC doesn't have a dedicated box)
I suggest the community pooling together some money so that Vash or somebody can purchase an Invision Power Board (Throwback to 2004 right! :P) or vBulletin license, or something similar. Those products have great support, are stable, and are overall the best software packages on the internet in my opinion. I run IPB 3.1.4 on GDU and besides a few quirks its pretty awesome. SMF could've been a better software package but its kind of fallen behind the curve.
I'd still like to see a merge with GDU, which I think would be nice, no matter who's running it. >_>
I'm gonna make this clear right here for everyone, I don't think a merge with GDU is a good idea. Horizontal mergers with message boards typically run into huge growing pains. I've witnessed three horizontal message board mergers, GameFAQs and GameSpot, GA and DSR, GDU and The World BBS. GameFAQs users picked on GameSpot users, calling them Spotheads, and the Gamespot users felt a false sense of superiority over the GameFAQs users because they could post images on their boards even though they couldn't spell. The features never really came together fully, and to this day its still a bit of a mess, although the userbase has finally settled down. GA and DSR we all remember what happened there. DSR users picked on GA users for no real reason, and GA users just wanted to have ZFGC back since GA had been an abysmal failure at achieving its goals. (There's that mission statement stuff again. Stick to your guns!) GDU and The World BBS mostly went ok, but thats because at the time GDU didn't have a userbase to speak of. It was almost more like taking BBS' community and introducing them to a more general concept, like pulling GA from ZFGC and getting a few new users in the process. The hiccup we had there was demographics; a lot of the younger users didn't understand that the forums weren't soley dedicated to Hawthorneluke's game anymore, and it took a few months before we stopped getting posts in the wrong forums about The World.
I don't feel that a horizontal merge does anything beneficial for either of us. GDU would get a few extra users, ZFGC would get some extra features and a slight speed increase on the site's load time. Nothing substantial on either end. And if anything, ZFGC has a lot to lose by merging with GDU since you lose all the history, short of me merging the database with GDU's. (Too much of a hassle, not worth it at all)
That's not to say that I'm against ZFGCers coming over to GDU and helping build the community there. I am all for it. ZFGC gave me a gift a long time ago--the ability to create indie games. I skipped the Zelda fan game stage and went straight towards making my own stuff, but I used the resources available on the site to do it and did it with the community's support. ZFGC was a perfect storm that nurtured creativity, but once TRM proved to not be skilled enough to finish OoT2D, everyone's drive fizzled out and people started leaving, and you all know the rest of the story. What I want to do with GDU is give something back to the indie community, so that other people can learn our craft. The first step is to provide resources for indie developers to learn how to get into game design, the next step is to build a community that's supportive and will help people learn, and then the last step is to put up resources that will help established developers sharpen their skills and learn to do things they didn't know how to before. My first step for GDU is to fill a niche that the death of ZiggyWare left behind for those of you familiar with the XNA community. I want to rehost as many of those old tutorials as possible on GDU, then have a system in place where people can submit new content and just have a constantly growing XNA/C# resource geared towards getting people's games onto the XBOX Live Indie Game marketplace. Once I have the infastructure in place (Which I'm working on now) I'm going to email the tutorial authors asking for permission to rehost their stuff and for copies of their code samples if they could provide them for me. Once we have a bunch of tutorials on GDU, I'll try to get the word out the best I can through official channels and then we'll have helped strengthen the indie community as a whole. (Not to mention Microsoft's product... :P) Eventually I'd like to put up information on how to get people's games onto other marketplaces like PSN, WiiWare, and Steam. So its like a website sort of like GameDev, only with less of a focus on professional development and more of a focus on indie development. It retains ZFGC's original spirit, and its something I really want to give back to the community.
If anyone's interested in helping me with this, sign up for GDU's forums at http://forum.gd-u.com . I'll send out a mass-email to everyone who's signed up once I'm ready to start contacting ZiggyWare tutorial authors, and hopefully together we can get it done very quickly!
Indeed.. I think we'll always be a Zelda forum in spirit, since that seems to be the one single, unifying interest that all members of this board share, to some degree. We'll also need to retain the (Fan)Game-development aspect, otherwise we would just become another Zelda forum and new members would be even less interested.
Its my opinion that the only real unifying interest this forum has is video games and to a smaller degree game development. There are lots of people here who don't know how to develop games but would love to play other people's original games, and that's an important demographic to consider when you have a forum like this. Its why I named GDU the way I did, Gamers & Developers. The emphasis is on both of them because you need both, even on a development forum. If we did banking software it'd be Bankers & Developers :P
How about starting to report on News across the gaming community
Mission statement. You have to either pick, do I want to make a new site, or do I want to focus on Zelda Fan Games. There's no reason you all can't keep the community and do both though, its not like you have to limit yourself to one website.
It also appears to me that our forum is greatly overstaffed. 50% of the active members are Mods or Admins.
Yup. There's no point in having everyone who's active a moderator. An admin's duty imo is to upkeep the site and add new features to it, and a mod's duty is to police the boards so that it stays within legal boundaries. Admins grow the market, mods prevent lawsuits. Without those needs there wouldn't be any reason to have them.
In the past more it seemed like a system of local moderation allowed for development boards to be more easily represented by someone who knew what they were doing in them.
IMO, local moderators are only useful on boards where the knowledgebase is so spread out that you couldn't possibly expect somebody to fairly moderate everything.
Hate to say it, ZFGC is a one-trick-pony. We've all witnessed the community grow around a singular project twice over
I wouldn't even say that Shadowgazer grew the community :P More like a boost if anything lol
As bad as it may sound; fangaming is more of an introductory/hobby thing... Most people who started developing here have moved on to their own IP's. It's a lot more satisfying to make something that's truly your own. It's because of this that I agree with Porkchop on just removing "Zelda" from the equation. Frankly, Zelda has kinda sucked for the past 10 years anyway.
I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree so much with this that it isn't even funny. Fangaming is intro to the hobby of making games. That's what you have to focus on if you do a new site, sans Zelda. You have to keep the end marker clear or else you'll never get to it.
Making ZFGC active isn't something we can just "do." We're going to have to do something very big that will attract a lot of attention, and until someone can pick up the torch and do it, we won't get very many new members or get a lot of exposure. I think the community project is a great idea, but I do see a problem of the older members on this forum simply having moved onto other things. Most of the newer members, I think, do not have the talent or organizational skills in order to head up something that huge.
The only problem with community projects is that you can't organize a group of people that large and keep them task-focused. The fact that Sonic 2 HD is still being worked on is a miracle in that respect. But when you really look at Sonic 2 HD, its a group of four or five guys working on the thing with the community giving feedback, more than the decentralized community putting the game together themselves. Its more like a sponsored project than a community project. Something like that could be good for ZFGC but you'd have to have a group willing to do it.
I agree, which is why I suggest we widen our scope by changing our name to something along the lines of Nintendo Fan Game Central. We'd be including all Nintendo IPs: Pokemon, Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kirby Donkey Kong, the whole package. The combined fanbase for all those games (and fan games) adds up to a lot more than just the limited Zelda games that we've set for ourselves.
The overhead for a NFGC is also massive. You can't do any one thing well so you don't really do anything at all. Its better to stay focused and start small than it is to try to broaden yourself like that. Jump to a different market if you can't survive in the fangame market, ya dig?
Our biggest market in terms of a potential userbase are those who use Game Maker and those who like Nintendo games.
Not as large as indie developers with all sorts of tools. You can teach somebody to program and sponsor a tool like GameMaker or XNA, but you're still teaching them Computer Science principles, and that needs to be the focus. If that makes sense.
I was going to say a whole bunch of crap but then I just decided to say that I think ZFGC is fine as is and I've started up my game again and I plan to contribute a ton of the GML code and ALL the graphics for anyone to use.
ZFGC needs a lot more people like you onboard. Props dude. Keep on keepin' on.
And finally, I was talking to MG earlier, and ZFGC has a few avenues it could take. It could stay like it is but get focused and improve the resource section, becoming the premier place on the internet to make Zelda fan games but have no community growth. It could also do something similar to Sonic Retro:
http://www.sonicretro.org/
And document information on every Zelda game, thorough information on Zelda prototypes, and host information on romhacks and fangames. Changing the market to more of a Zelda Fan Central than a Zelda Fan Game Central. You wouldn't have to change the name but you would have to change your mission statement to adapt. And finally you could create a new site with a different focus altogether and let the community move to it. You could even combine some of those, like keep ZFGC around as a Zelda resource AND create a new site, or keep ZFGC and help me build up GDU, or keep ZFGC and create a sister site ZFC, you get the idea.
I hope that this brings some fresh insight to the conversation, and if not, at least I got to listen to some good music while I typed this out :P
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Let me just say my feelings toward the community, and what I think about it. It's best to gather everyones opinion before doing anything right?
Back when ZFGC was booming with multiple projects being developed at the same time (LotP era) I felt really anxious to come onto ZFGC everyday and check for updates. It even inspired me to start and attempt to develop my own fangame. That was when everyone was younger, when we didn't move onto college, or start living by ourselves for the most part. Things have changed from then, and I feel that the whole community aged, and went on with their lives. Once everyone went on with their lives, I felt that this place just emptied up... served as a place for memories, and thats about it.
Now, this can't be anyone's fault as its only natural for everyone to grow up and move on, and it should eventually happen to each one of us.
I feel that one of the major problems with our activity (something that is out of our reach) is the recent focus on gaming. I hate it when I say that this current generation of gaming sucks, but it sorta does. It's being dominated by the FPS genre, and other genres have their own little community following it (much like ours). I feel that kids (just as we were back in the days) don't have the urge to look up fan gaming for Zelda because it isn't popular among them...
We may occasionally get a new member who has interest in Zelda fan gaming but I feel that they quickly leave because of either the lack of completed projects (no enticement) or the inactivity.
The solution? Community project.
I feel that if the whole community contributes to a single game, we can complete it. I love how our members have a variety of talents (see "Your ideal "ZFGC" dev team") and I think its enough for a fan game.
The only problem I see cropping up is the programming. Most of our community is able to use Game Maker, but the few programmers here who are very talented want to use a language.
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That's one reason we haven't changed. Anything we remove makes us another forum, but not as good.
thats not right and you know it, the people make the forum what it is not the forum make us, people change forum can too, I beleive that if people don't want to change zfgc, it feels like people are afraid of something different because they beleive they will lose people or something but thats not the case, we all as a community will still be here and support each other like we do now.
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This is going to see weird, but I am going to move this topic and those recently made like it to Feedback, in order to better emphasize that Community Speak is for our lives outside of ZFGC and that ZFGC is not the sum total of our lives. Also Community Projects are neat if people would be more willing to work together. And assuming that in the future the Zelda Coding organizes itself better so that there are topics of things that people frequently ask about and that Other Coding has something similar involving common Game Maker stuff, overall I think that both boards would grow - Zelda in terms of attempting to do different things, and Other in that games different from the Zelda focus might see more work attempted on them. I see a realistic goal of being able to do Mario and Pokemon projects here that outsiders who specialize in that stuff could find respectable.
But yeah, the point I have also been trying to emphasize in terms of board organization is to maintain what has previously been done here so that we can grow, rather than repeating the work and struggles of the past. This wouldn't be to say that new users won't be having questions and issues that we've had in the past, just that we'd be better and more quickly able to handle them.
Your statement about local moderation and how they might not have a knowledge-base enough to monitor the boards they are in makes sense, and I do think it would be perfect in that respect, just that it would be better based on current activity levels and that some greater effort would go to restoring those boards to a more efficient order. Because the current system has it to where no one really, including the global moderation, has the inclination to help make those boards better. I also get how people might say I could be seeing too big of a problem when it might not be so bad, but either way the boards could use some improvement.
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well why dont we make a project in the forum and let anyone who will. join up. I'm working on my custom zelda sprites in OoT style (looks like N64 but still sprites, kinda confusing) we can use those
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well why dont we make a project in the forum and let anyone who will. join up. I'm working on my custom zelda sprites in OoT style (looks like N64 but still sprites, kinda confusing) we can use those
Funny you should say that. It won't work.
If you don't believe me, take a look at: http://www.zfgc.com/forum/index.php?board=305.0
2 contributors :P it's been in existence for... years.
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It doesn't work because there's no sense of management or responsibility in the project.
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It doesn't work because there's no sense of management or responsibility in the project.
So in your opinion what would better facilitate the management and coordination of a project? (I'm not looking to offend anyone here, I'm looking at lessons learned and what can we done to actually make a successful community project).
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It doesn't work because there's no sense of management or responsibility in the project.
So in your opinion what would better facilitate the management and coordination of a project? (I'm not looking to offend anyone here, I'm looking at lessons learned and what can we done to actually make a successful community project).
I'd say the easiest way to look at it is to look at it from a contributer's point of view and see what kind of things would make you less likely to contribute.
For example, if I'm a spriter, I'm probably going to be interested in what sprites are already being worked on, what's left be sprited, what animations need doing, animation quality (ie. number of frames), what's the current quality of the work, overall project schedule or work already done (ie. am I wasting my time as this project will probably fail anyway?)
If I were to think of reasons as to why no one else is contributing code wise in regards to the minish cap engine (apart from I haven't used Game maker for ages), probably the biggest reasons would be:
a) Can't find the latest revision
b) Having a single file makes things confusing, only one person can work on the code at once, otherwise it ends up getting confusing when you have to merge code together
c) It sounds complicated
d) No centralised code direction / information on what needs to be done, eg. if I were to do such and such, how do you want me to go about it
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a) Can't find the latest revision
b) Having a single file makes things confusing, only one person can work on the code at once, otherwise it ends up getting confusing when you have to merge code together
c) It sounds complicated
d) No centralised code direction / information on what needs to be done, eg. if I were to do such and such, how do you want me to go about it
<_< That's why I'm pretty much against GM for a large scale project. I mean sure you can have scripts and such, but it's so much easier to work on individual parts of a project when it's done in a language that supports OoP. If each part of a GM project were individual files, it'd probably be a lot easier to work with in large teams.
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I know I never worked on the MC Engine because well a few things:
I don't feel comfortable with scripts in GM(though I started getting used to them with UN Squadron).
I don't like the coding style used at all. I just look at the code and to me look like one giant mess.
Sure if i slowly look over everything, I can understand it...even the scripts. But when you have everything centralized in one GM file, it is hard to put your own touch on it.
Maybe Travis is right. Moving to a language is the better route to take for a community project. I still place my vote on C# as it is very similar to GML and XNA is quite easy as well. If you want cross platform, there is java. I haven't personally touched it but I hear it is quite easy as well.
Someone needs to maybe spark some developmental interest again in languages with a decent starting set of tutorials based on Zelda styled games.
Hmm, I am at my dad's place so my time using the net before I get back to college is limited to today and tomorrow. I will look into maybe setting something up with XNA and C#. I am no pro at it but I could probably toss something decent together.
MG-Zero should be my mentor :D
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About the GM Minish Cap Engine, yes there are issues with it in terms of its management. When there are two people working on it and no one else is really seeking to help out, there hasn't been too much of a need for management beyond Niek and I just working to consolidate our styles. Additionally, I sometimes don't put comments in, we both get busy with life stuff, I have other duties on a forum where few others pitch in to help out, etc. There is a sense of responsibility with the project though, namely in that I don't rush to put something into the project at the sake of efficiency. I could throw a whole bunch of !@#$% together and there would be an engine with many features, but it would be !@#$% and people would have worse issues adding to it then. A lot of time is taken up trying to do things well that others have settled for being !@#$%.
Just because Game Maker has its quirks and moving to a new language might get rid of those issues of dealing with those quirks, there are still going to be new quirks. Beyond getting the engine's skeleton all sorted out, the game development guts all operate under similar logic. Issues like people rushing to hodgepodge features together without ensuring they work fully well together could still come up, there would be more hesitancy in using something other than Game Maker for users who wanted to help, etc.
On Windy's points specifically:
a) The latest version is a little tricky in that whenever the base needs to be refined, feature topics which are add-ons to that base also possibly need to be revised. Once there is a good enough base in terms of movement, then the issues with this shouldn't be so bad.
b) Game Maker 7 has the ability to merge games, whereas Game Maker 8 has importing/exporting of resources as a Pro feature. I have coded a lot in Game Maker 8 but should go back to doing stuff in Game Maker 7 since the merge games stuff would be helpful and Game Maker 7 code should run full-well in Game Maker 8. Feature topics would be able to be downloaded and merged into the base engines if the user wanted them.
c) I need to comment my code better, and switch from using move_x/absv_x/disp_a sort of naming conventions to stuff which is more readable. Oh and possibly have a different style of indenting as for some people that is bothersome.
d) It is true that Niek has done more weapons while I have focused more exclusively on movement. Once movement would be done it'd mostly break down into just doing features which happen to mostly be weapons. It's also difficult for those wanting to contribute when a base isn't fully out there as they don't want to start what has already been started.
If there are a group of users who want to do something in a fancy language though, organize yourselves and attempt to do what you are saying. Something like that can exist the same time as the GM Minish Cap Engine, as long as there was someone who knew what they were doing working on the project (there doesn't have to be a whole bunch of people, but at least someone dedicated to it).
But otherwise in terms of coding stuff, I really like coding Pokemon and some Mario physics stuff, so if I ever get time I will be putting more of my stuff out there for that.
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4sword, I haven't read your post yet, so I'll get to that in a bit. As for Mammy's question..
1) A project manager is obviously a necessity. I believe we have this right now for the GM Minish Cap Engine, but there's no one to take on that responsibility should the manager step down for whatever reason.
2) Delegating work. Right now, we're kind of just saying, "Ok, here's the GM file. Go do whatever you want with it." This is really not a good way to go about this. Specific things should be assigned to specific people. Otherwise you'll have conflicts left and right. People coming on board need to have work assigned to them and that needs to be recorded.
3) Source control (such as a git repository). This resolves the one file issue. There would be a release branch which contains the most up to date release which is not touched until a release is ready. Coming off of there are the development branches, which define what the release will be. This is where development occurs and when a development branch is finalized, it's merged into the release branch. This way multiple people can work on the project without interfering with each other. This is also where the work delegation would come into play. This is best suited for a real language such as C# from my experiences.
4) Coding standards, there are none as far as I know in the GM project (I could be wrong, please feel free to correct me). Standards meaning naming conventions for example.
5) Planning phases. This one is REALLY important. When developing a large scale project (such as the GM project), it's generally not a good idea to just jump right into coding. It's best to plan what you will need, how these things are structured and how they will work. I'm referring to UML diagrams and the SDLC in this.
An application process of some sort would be helpful as well. Last, every bit of information about the team should be collected somewhere.
I'm sure I can come up with more, but I want to read over 4Sword's post first.
MG-Zero should be my mentor
!@#$%, LET'S DO THIS !@#$%.
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Hell Yeah!...It'll just have to uh wait until Spring Break is over. However, I will throw some stuff together over the next few days.
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The leadership of the GM Minish Cap Engine is really just a de facto position in that Niek and I have given about the same amount of effort to the project, where though that I have recognized his most current contributions as being more than mine and at the time was too busy with other stuff here and in life. If Niek ever got to busy or didn't want to do it anymore, then I would take over; additionally I could also develop my own base that I continued my development from different from Niek's so that we wouldn't have to worry over some of the nuances of our own styles so we could develop things independently more quickly.
As for development plans, I've always just started small and built up; i.e., the movement and collision system, and then refining that system in order to work with determining what Link is primarily hitting and so he could collide with tiles. The most recent thing I had been doing was to do all that but in a dungeon setting, with the plan to refine older dungeon elements I had posted as well as add new ones. Oh and yeah, as I said I could comment my code better. There are a few users here who have worked on Zelda engines which would be awesome if they would want to contribute to the project, but it always seems difficult for people to work together here.
As I also said, if you want to start up some C# project then by all means get some users together, a plan, and whatnot, and the forum can be set up in some way to accommodate your efforts. I was looking to merge the GM Minish Cap Engine into the Zelda Coding board and run the whole project inside of the the board, but I haven't seen how that would go yet - which is to say if you need a board set up that can be arranged.
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4sword, I haven't read your post yet, so I'll get to that in a bit. As for Mammy's question..
1) A project manager is obviously a necessity. I believe we have this right now for the GM Minish Cap Engine, but there's no one to take on that responsibility should the manager step down for whatever reason.
2) Delegating work. Right now, we're kind of just saying, "Ok, here's the GM file. Go do whatever you want with it." This is really not a good way to go about this. Specific things should be assigned to specific people. Otherwise you'll have conflicts left and right. People coming on board need to have work assigned to them and that needs to be recorded.
3) Source control (such as a git repository). This resolves the one file issue. There would be a release branch which contains the most up to date release which is not touched until a release is ready. Coming off of there are the development branches, which define what the release will be. This is where development occurs and when a development branch is finalized, it's merged into the release branch. This way multiple people can work on the project without interfering with each other. This is also where the work delegation would come into play. This is best suited for a real language such as C# from my experiences.
4) Coding standards, there are none as far as I know in the GM project (I could be wrong, please feel free to correct me). Standards meaning naming conventions for example.
5) Planning phases. This one is REALLY important. When developing a large scale project (such as the GM project), it's generally not a good idea to just jump right into coding. It's best to plan what you will need, how these things are structured and how they will work. I'm referring to UML diagrams and the SDLC in this.
Yeah I like all this. Did someone suggest a project? (Didn't read all the posts)
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I'm quite sure everyone wants to restart the King of Thieves
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I would like to see king of thieves back, but with someone taking control on the choices and such, since we can't add all the ideas we get. I remember that was a main issue, we had like 10 or 20 stories, 10 or 20 dungeons, but nothing concrete on what should be done, If done again, I would like to work on it, but first I would like to see a team taking all the choices making it easier to tile and sprite later on, meaning everything as in dialogues enemies, bosses, story, dungeon, etc etc, number of houses on the city etc.....
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I'm quite sure everyone wants to restart the King of Thieves
if you guys gonna resurrect King of Thieves, Ill be happy to help, I learn a lot of gml at zfgc. XD
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i know this reply is not going to be read, because it is long. Okay, I purposely held of on replying in this topic for quiet a while. The reason for this is that I am currently not in the right state of mind for it. I am rather cranky, due to the lack of good sleep. TO put a long story short, Since my tenth I have been having a great lack of sleep due to almost suffocating about 30 times an hour during my sleep. And thus not getting mental and physical restoration. I have been given a breathing device to help me sleep better, however in the "getting used to it" period it actually makes the problem worse. And this is the point I am currently in.
So I am reasonably cranky, but I have to get this of my chest anyway as the conversation has turned from revamping ZFGC to another Community Project. My apologies in advanced for being rude to people.
First of all I think it is a good and a bad idea to do an actual game as a community project. And considering that I joined up due to the King of Thieves project back then I would love to see it come back and be finished. I would definitely be involved in some manner if possible.
However I have to point out that KoT was swapped for LA MC because of disagreements of content story and whatsoever and people lost interest. Thus if we start it up again people will have to accept that not everything and maybe nothing will be as they desire it. Some people will have to step up and dedicate themselves as project leaders. Another bad thing is that we have to start mostly from scratch due to the lack of a base engine. And like with LA MC there needs to be a lot of coding and planning done before content like story, sprites, music and whatever can be considered. We can start with a general outline, but then it is a lot of waiting. Even before spriters can get going one would need to make concept art. And concept art still requires storyboards. On the coding you also want to get a language that every one can use and uses development tools that everyone can easily get to and working with. You want this to become a community project and not an elite developers project.
Okay now my response to the MCS Engine project that everyone in this topic seems to love to bash. My opinion that it is not doing so well as a CP is because of the lack of community involvement. Oh yes, you can respond to that by saying that it is not well managed and there is no clear design. And it is either scattered over many files or stuffed into one file. But that is all brought back to lack of community involvement.
First delegating and managing requires that the manager has a team of dedicated people that or also willing to be delegated and do the work. I have asked a number of people to cooperate, but they all thought they were either not good enough or they thought themselves to be to good to help. And those people rather work on their own projects in secret. The people that thought they were to good offered their help as "advisers", which roughly translates to: "Yes I love to have my name in the credits, but I can't be arsed to do the work.". Even then actual replying on stuff in the MCS Engine has also become very little, besides bitching about how bad it goes. Which once again shows a serious lack in involvement. I can list a number of people who I can delegate tasks to because they have the skills in programming, but the result is that wouldn't do it anyway. Mamoruanime, MG-Zero, Xfixium, Theforeshadower, Windy, Dark Hylian, Ryuza, FrozenFire, do I need to go on?
Second. Yes I know that to get a some good development, you need a good design and planning phase first. I have a Bachelor degree in Computer Science. I also know that in order to make a good design you also need to have a basic understanding of the target language. The first thing I did for the MCS Engine was also the first time I worked with GML. Before that I only did the drag and drop tutorials with Game Maker, nothing more. I absolutely had no basic knowledge whatsoever. I gained this by doing things and hoping on feedback. Now that I have I am going to work on a design. How does this relate to a lack of user involvement. Well there are a number of people with good knowledge in GML, better even then me. And those members could not be bothered to make a design either. They stuck up their noses because they moved on to another language. If they didn't we already would have had a design, which only required code-monkey work.
Now on that multiple and single files. In all seriousness, even with C#, C++, Java or any other language which has its source code in plain text you would have scattered stuff. As everyone will be working on their own copy. Even with source control you will get merge and compile conflicts. There are always one or a few people that will merge all the work in a stable/release candidate version. And GM has the ability to import stuff into other project files. The disadvantage with GM is that it is harder to use in version control, because the source code is stored binary and not in plain text. And for coding conventions, it is true that there are very little. But there are some conventions. The conventions aren't completed, because due to lack of involvement there never had been an discussion on what to use.
I don't feel comfortable with scripts in GM(though I started getting used to them with UN Squadron).
I don't like the coding style used at all. I just look at the code and to me look like one giant mess.
Seriously. If that scares you already into not participating, then you will get a big problem when you are going to do software programming for work. Not everything will be perfectly documented and everyone has his own style.
d) No centralised code direction / information on what needs to be done, eg. if I were to do such and such, how do you want me to go about it
People have brains, don't they? Or are they just meager code monkeys waiting to be fed to get to work. It was a community project and every code is always appreciated. Not to mention look at the sticky topics.
Well, this is all I am going to say now, even if there still is some more left to say.
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First delegating and managing requires that the manager has a team of dedicated people that or also willing to be delegated and do the work. I have asked a number of people to cooperate
Have you thought that maybe there's not much interest in the current project? I personally think that people would be more interested in developing a game than an engine, but that's just me.
I also know that in order to make a good design you also need to have a basic understanding of the target language.
Why? The design is independent from the language. A good design will be able to transition from language to language without a problem. And you can tell me I'm wrong, but I've written plenty of designs and transitioned the code from one language to another without ANY problems. Put it this way: A flow chart is a flow chart. A CRC card is a CRC card, a Use Case Scenario is a Use Case Scenario. These aren't language specific! Someone with a B.S. in Computer Science should know this ;) Again, this goes onto a lack of interest, and has nothing to do with programming language knowledge.
Even with source control you will get merge and compile conflicts.
Yes, and this is why you have a specific tree structure. You restrict access to the master branch from specific users as well. This way, they CAN'T screw up the release. If this was truly a problem, Linus Torvalds would be a very VERY pissed off man as SO many people would have screwed up the Linux Kernel.
The conventions aren't completed, because due to lack of involvement there never had been an discussion on what to use.
Goes back to the design phase. This is something that should be sorted out long before any coding is started.
EDIT: And I apologize if I come off as nasty in this. Nothing personal, but yesterday was a loooong day.
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Have you thought that maybe there's not much interest in the current project? I personally think that people would be more interested in developing a game than an engine, but that's just me.
I agree with you here. I am more interested in making a game also. Seriously, I want to work on a game instead of just an engine. However, something that I think is currently wrong with the development activity is that everyone gets bored with making the engine. It is something I have said in the staff section also when it came up. What ZFGC needs is a couple of engine's in several languages that both programmers and nonprogrammer can use to create a fangame. For people that want to get into some serious game development as well for hobbyists.
On ZFGC a lot of engines are being developed and abandoned. The problem is that the open source engines don't get further than walking with an additional feature. And the engines that do get further and have potential are closed source and no one can continue it when it is abandoned.
So I think that ZGFC does need some engines for people to work with, but we have to put in a joint effort to get these engines done. And work on engines one by one, ensuring that at least there will be finished engines, instead of having everyone work on their own engine at the same time, resulting in no finished engine.
At least it seems logical to me to do that.
Why? The design is independent from the language. A good design will be able to transition from language to language without a problem. And you can tell me I'm wrong, but I've written plenty of designs and transitioned the code from one language to another without ANY problems. Put it this way: A flow chart is a flow chart. A CRC card is a CRC card, a Use Case Scenario is a Use Case Scenario. These aren't language specific! Someone with a B.S. in Computer Science should know this ;) Again, this goes onto a lack of interest, and has nothing to do with programming language knowledge.
Yes, I know that a good design can be implemented in any language. However a design has several layers and each layer makes the design more detailed. At a certain point your design gets more aimed at the actual programming. The high global designs hardly have anything to do with a programming language. The more detailed the design the more you go to programming paradigms. And each language has its own form procedural and programming abstractions. The more detailed the design becomes, the more you need to consider these abstractions. At least that is what teachers have been drilling into me all those years.
A design made without some knowledge of programming in the target language can and probably will end up in ugly heck work.
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But the design is only there to serve as a skeleton/plan for the program. It just shows the pure logic of the algorithms. Again, I've written some really detailed designs, the event manager in Harvest being one of them and it was MORE than possible to port the EXACT same algorithm (from the same UML diagrams as well) and logic from C++ to C# for another project. It's simply not meant to be implementation dependent. Such a feature would limit it. This is also evident when you consider the fact that once you know the algorithm for something, implementing it into a specific language is only a matter of being familiar with so said language. For example, if you know the bubble sort algorithm, you can implement it into any language who's syntax you're familiar with. That being said, I see no problem with users not being familiar with another language (not like we've even decided on a language anyway). The only thing they need is knowledge of SOME programming to hammer out the logic for those who WILL be handling the code.
The high global designs hardly have anything to do with a programming language.
so...you're agreeing with me, then?
Regardless though, there's no reason we shouldn't implement a design phase into this project.
A design made without some knowledge of programming in the target language can and probably will end up in ugly heck work.
And jumping straight into code WILL end up in an un-manageable mess.
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I really want to make KoT to work, I was wondering who is willing to work on it? we can actually start it tho, and just design a team, leaders, and start accepting ideas and organizing a document. I mut admit that the coding part might be a little tricky but still I beleive we can pull it off.
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On ZFGC a lot of engines are being developed and abandoned. The problem is that the open source engines don't get further than walking with an additional feature. And the engines that do get further and have potential are closed source and no one can continue it when it is abandoned.
So I think that ZGFC does need some engines for people to work with, but we have to put in a joint effort to get these engines done. And work on engines one by one, ensuring that at least there will be finished engines, instead of having everyone work on their own engine at the same time, resulting in no finished engine.
At least it seems logical to me to do that.
I noticed my name mentioned up there in tiny text. Were you saying that if you asked me to help with the MC engine, I wouldn't help? Well, that's true, but hardly because I'm lazy and/or have no interest in it.
Actually, I totally agree with your thinking Niek. I'll tell you exactly why I've never helped out with the MC engine: First, I can't do everything at once, so even though I have some interest in helping out with the MC engine, I have more interest in making a Zelda platformer engine (technically it could be used for anything, like a Super Mario or Metroid for example). And I do plan on releasing the code in various tutorials and examples so that anyone may use the code to make their own platformer games without having to build their engine from the ground up (well, as much "ground up" as you get in game maker).
Second, in all honesty, I'm not a very efficient programmer. My code is rather messy and it takes me a long time to figure out how and if I can make the code more efficient. Also, the code in the MC engine is kinda hard for me to follow last I checked. I just find myself at a loss as to how I can add to something that I don't fully get. :/ You see, I understand my platform engine because I'm the only one coding it, even though my code can be a little messy, I can easily glance at it and get it because it's my unique coding style. Pretty much, I'm just saying, I'm not a professional programmer, I've been completely self-taught.
That said, I do plan on looking at the MC engine's code again to see if I can understand how things are working, and I'm trying to increase my skills at coding in more efficient ways (which I feel better at doing this learning in my coding of Spirit's Quest rather than in the MC engine). So, pretty much my platform engine is my priority and I don't want to divide my time between the two because it will slow progress and I have a life as well.
I think the MC engine, when completed, will be the turning point of ZFGC, as far as fan games go, that is. I've seen so many people get great ideas for Zelda games, but their idea just loses momentum as they get bogged down by the most boring and difficult part, making the engine; it dies pretty much before the actual game has even begun to take form.
Btw, I'm not sure if this question was ever answered or asked but, is the OoT2D project using the MC engine, or something completely different? It just seems to make sense that it would.
Well, when I get Spirit's Quest done and after I release the code in the form of tutorials and examples, I do plan to try to help out with the MC engine. That is, if it's still going and if I can figure out how it works. :P Perhaps the comments just weren't helpful enough, or perhaps I just didn't give it enough time to gain an understanding of it.
WHY KOT ISN'T GOING TO WORK WITHOUT THE MC ENGINE:
Last thoughts, if we want KoT to work I think it would be a good idea to use the MC engine. The problem is that it means we need the engine BEFORE the game. Heck, the game is gonna need an engine sometime, and the sooner the better. So it just seems to me that the community project is either the MC engine first, or the MC engine AS WELL AS KoT, which is more work focused on at the same time. If we can't even get the MC engine done, how do we expect KoT to not fail again? Or is my logic flawed (could be, I'm rather tired atm)?
The thing I'm seeing as the issue is that nobody wants to make the engine, they just want to make the game, but you can't have your cake and eat it too... or whatever that saying is. Point is, you can't have your game without an engine. Unless the CP doesn't go by the normal 2D overhead Zelda style, it means: No MC engine, no success. All we can do is write some story, figure out the items Link will use and what actions he may have, do some art, etc. If I'm not mistaken, that's pretty much as far as KoT got before?
I guess that really means we could figure out what the MC engine needs by looking at whatever items Link will use and what actions Link will be able to do in KoT. As well as enemy ai, how the world is mapped out, etc. Though really, if I'm not mistaken, KoT should have mostly the same functionality as the MC, so really it comes down to new items and actions of Link. Right? So yeah, just my thoughts on the matter of a CP. :)
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Hey did anyone notice a small spike after creating this topic?
Humans thrive on emotion. the more emotion put into ZFGC the more active it is.
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I'll be more than happy to work on it!
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Well, I started a design for an engine already in this topic: http://www.zfgc.com/forum/index.php?topic=38186.0 You are welcome to add and help with it. I am a really slow writer and prone to make mistakes or miss something at the moment.
@FrozenFire: The list in tiny letters was actually a number of members I would feel comfortable on asking something to program in GML, but each one has their own (valid) reasons for not participating. And on getting better with GML, it is better to just show your code like TFS does. Because you can get advice and pointers on everything and learn things a lot faster. It is the premise of the modern education system. There is a teacher that shows what can and needs to be learned and guiding and correcting them on mistakes. The education system is not have a child just look at the world and have him figure out for himself.
The high global designs hardly have anything to do with a programming language.
so...you're agreeing with me, then?
Regardless though, there's no reason we shouldn't implement a design phase into this project.
Yes and no. I understand that the first stages in a design are very global and focus more on what you need and want instead of how to do it. A domain analyses and requirements specification are the prime examples in here. But the more detailed the design becomes on how to do it, the more it leans on the target language(s). UML for example does have parts that can be used for any language such as Use Case Scenario's, but UML is optimized for Object Oriented languages. Thus a design made in UML can easily be ported to C++, C#, Java or any other object oriented language as the procedural and data abstraction is similar if not the same. in that manner a design is language independent. But porting it over to a language that is not Object Oriented, like Miranda, Prolog and others, you seriously need to reconsider the design as they have different procedural and data abstractions.
Because Mammy frequently hammered on the fact that GM is NOT Object Oriented. I was not that rushed to make a design in UML as it might need some serious reconsiderations in order to work with the language. Now that I have a better understanding of GML and the possibilities of GM I can say that it best resembles C in procedural and data abstractions. But due to the limitations and the setup of the IDE and language, along with an inheritance setup in the objects, it is possible to use UML and OOD for designing the engine.
Which I will also do now. I agree that it is still a bit of a mess, but this mess at least has been a learning experience and some people have had some use for it.
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GM can be considered object-oriented. Not to the same degree obviously, but you have classes in a sense which can be instantiated.
Anyhow, are we going to start this project up or not? If so, we can start putting a team together.
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I know that now to yes. Any who I already started with some design at least for the engine or the back bone of the project. A lot of it will also apply to the eventual project. Any input is appreciated.
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Hate to say it, ZFGC is a one-trick-pony. We've all witnessed the community grow around a singular project twice over. Once with OoT2d (abandonware) and then again with Shadowgazer (abandonware). The in-betweens have never been good. The forum only works when there's a big project for people to gawk at.
As bad as it may sound; fangaming is more of an introductory/hobby thing... Most people who started developing here have moved on to their own IP's. It's a lot more satisfying to make something that's truly your own. It's because of this that I agree with Porkchop on just removing "Zelda" from the equation. Frankly, Zelda has kinda sucked for the past 10 years anyway.
In my completely honest opinion, ZFGC should be done. It's the community that people pine for in these threads, not the subject of the community. We're limiting ourselves by being "Zelda Fan Game Central", and the community just doesn't exist anymore. Make something new. Make something different. Whatever community is still here will obviously be there too, so what's the difference. Right now it's just silly how this forum lingers and lingers when it could just die and have something better come out of it's remains.
I agree with this, a lot.
All of the active users who actually brought something to the community for the most part have got bored with Zelda and moved on. In my opinion, what made the forums great were people actually working on projects, and people actually taking the time to play other people's games and give feedback. Rather than just lurking once in awhile and occasionally posting about how the site is dead now.
Drop the "zelda", go with something else. Something more broad and less restrictive. Make zfgc.com point to the new domain, that way any of the few active members will migrate and anyone coming back from years of absence will know what's up and still be in touch with the community.
This is a serious issue for the community in my opinion, and based on discussion featured here I think it should be brought into a voting phase. No more discussing it for days on end with no end result. Start a poll, see the results, take appropriate actions. Stop being afraid of change, especially when it's for the better. ZFGC's community deserves more.
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Hate to say it, ZFGC is a one-trick-pony. We've all witnessed the community grow around a singular project twice over. Once with OoT2d (abandonware) and then again with Shadowgazer (abandonware). The in-betweens have never been good. The forum only works when there's a big project for people to gawk at.
As bad as it may sound; fangaming is more of an introductory/hobby thing... Most people who started developing here have moved on to their own IP's. It's a lot more satisfying to make something that's truly your own. It's because of this that I agree with Porkchop on just removing "Zelda" from the equation. Frankly, Zelda has kinda sucked for the past 10 years anyway.
In my completely honest opinion, ZFGC should be done. It's the community that people pine for in these threads, not the subject of the community. We're limiting ourselves by being "Zelda Fan Game Central", and the community just doesn't exist anymore. Make something new. Make something different. Whatever community is still here will obviously be there too, so what's the difference. Right now it's just silly how this forum lingers and lingers when it could just die and have something better come out of it's remains.
I agree with this, a lot.
All of the active users who actually brought something to the community for the most part have got bored with Zelda and moved on. In my opinion, what made the forums great were people actually working on projects, and people actually taking the time to play other people's games and give feedback. Rather than just lurking once in awhile and occasionally posting about how the site is dead now.
Drop the "zelda", go with something else. Something more broad and less restrictive. Make zfgc.com point to the new domain, that way any of the few active members will migrate and anyone coming back from years of absence will know what's up and still be in touch with the community.
This is a serious issue for the community in my opinion, and based on discussion featured here I think it should be brought into a voting phase. No more discussing it for days on end with no end result. Start a poll, see the results, take appropriate actions. Stop being afraid of change, especially when it's for the better. ZFGC's community deserves more.
If people don't want Zelda, why not go join some other game development community like TIGSource? Some people (like me) still enjoy Zelda; maybe not the games so much as the idea. Honestly, if this website goes away from Zelda, my interest in it will also go away (not to say that I don't like the community, I do for the most part). Also, I would no longer have a place to get feedback about my Zelda project from a community with the same interest in Zelda, as nobody else would either. And feedback is very helpful at keeping the project going strong and to help it take form into a solid game. Furthermore, there is a good amount of Zelda resources on here that are not available anywhere else, and there are spriters that make custom Zelda graphics for others that need them.
People that really do want to make a Zelda should have a place to go where they can get support from others that share the same interest. If you take away Zelda from here, then THE place to go for Zelda fan games dies. Sure, the "target audience" is small, but widening the target audience will just weaken what makes ZFGC great. My view is that the few people that do want Zelda fan games should have the option of a Zelda-focused gaming community.
But that's just my humble opinion. The only fair thing to do would be to set up a poll of some kind to get the vote of the community as a whole.
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If people don't want Zelda, why not go join some other game development community like TIGSource? Some people (like me) still enjoy Zelda; maybe not the games so much as the idea. Honestly, if this website goes away from Zelda, my interest in it will also go away (not to say that I don't like the community, I do for the most part). Also, I would no longer have a place to get feedback about my Zelda project from a community with the same interest in Zelda, as nobody else would either. And feedback is very helpful at keeping the project going strong and to help it take form into a solid game. Furthermore, there is a good amount of Zelda resources on here that are not available anywhere else, and there are spriters that make custom Zelda graphics for others that need them.
People that really do want to make a Zelda should have a place to go where they can get support from others that share the same interest. If you take away Zelda from here, then THE place to go for Zelda fan games dies. Sure, the "target audience" is small, but widening the target audience will just weaken what makes ZFGC great. My view is that the few people that do want Zelda fan games should have the option of a Zelda-focused gaming community.
But that's just my humble opinion. The only fair thing to do would be to set up a poll of some kind to get the vote of the community as a whole.
My suggestion then, if people actually legitimately want the Zelda resources such as sprites and sounds, is to keep the zfgc.com domain as a resource page. Similar to Shyguy kingdom but for zelda only.
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drop both of those ideas cause we completely dont need anymore. theres already TSR, shyguy, DA, etc. and ITS A ZELDA SITE WILL PPL STOP SUGGESTING TO CHANGE THAT. Its litrally the best zelda forum online. seriously. Zelda universe has nothing on this !@#$% lol
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I've lost faith in the whole idea. It's obvious that the people in charge want to part in any sort of change, so it's not even worth arguing.
4Sword, if you ever have a change of heart, let me know.
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The problem with generalizing the focus is that we would still have many Zelda projects here, and we would need to do a whole bunch to attract users beyond that. I am not against expanding ZFGC's focus, I just don't want to hobble Zelda development here to do that, have Zelda development here viewed as a pariah, or for everybody to give up after said expansion and then go back into a chasing the nostalgia ghost kind of a mode.
The current board structure I was working towards was seeking to help out Zelda development while giving Other development more space to grow on its own. Otherwise though, in some sort of kooky brainstorm I just had (the ideas aren't fully thought through) I came up with this sort of stuff:
ZFGC.com
- Management
- Moderation
- Deleted Posts
- Reported Posts
- Updates
- Archive
- Feedback
- Community
Development
- Sponsored
- Projects
- Discussion
- Recruitment
- Contests
- Submissions
Resources
- Programming
- Engines
- Graphics
- Audio
Rename site from Zelda Fan Game Central to ZFGC
Either -
Eliminate all General Discussion boards
- replace with Community board which would be under the ZFGC.com category
- basically a lot of the General Discussion stuff isn't needed or doesn't need to be cared about here
Or -
Make it so posts in General Discussion don't increase post counts at all
Merge Zelda Projects and Other Projects to just Projects
- if both Zelda Projects and Other Projects are low in activity levels, it should be fine
- future growth might still show that there are a lot of Zelda projects but this would always be a "burden" to future expansion
- increase requirements to get project into board so that all projects have demos
Bring Sponsored back
- now for recognized team projects, potm, and community projects
Actually do the PotM again
- see if anyone comments on the articles for it at all rather than just voting
- laugh ass off when people complain about needing to explain why they voted, then have that requirement lifted and have it so people can vote for more than 1 project, then stand back in shock and dumbfounded awe when no one comments on the article explaining any sort of congratulation or thank you for the winner or his or her efforts.
Have specific Contests to do things beyond Zelda stuff
- e.g., Pokemon, Mario, etc.
Merge Zelda Coding and Other Coding and separate Engines out
- keep track of Engines better if boards are merged
Locally moderate all development boards with those with some interest and expertise in that development area.
- have global moderation done by administrators
Clean up the Archive so it isn't a spam hole and actually means something
The activity levels of the Project boards might be a little distracting for each project there, but in the long ago past people didn't see to mind that sort of stuff, and increased requirements in the form of making sure that each project in that board at least has a demo or trailer from the get-go would at least make sure all projects there are at some level of development. Local moderation would be done on boards in order to ensure that the boards would get cleaned up and monitored by people who knew what they were doing (there'd probably be 2 local moderators per active development/resource board). Basically the thought is to slim down ZFGC, make sure its development quality is top-notch, that its boards are clean, etc.
A lot of that though is wishful thinking and like putting a cart before a horse. Another issue to figure out would be what would a generalized ZFGC look like in terms of its theme (e.g., its forum icons and whatnot). We could keep a Zelda theme in order to appease the hauntings of the nostalgia ghost, but we'd need a theme that wouldn't scream at people we just Zelda dawgs.
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Well it looks like you're at least trying to broaden the horizons.
If anything, I think it should be similar to how it is now, but instead of a "Zelda Fangame Development" and an "Indie Development" it should be "Fangame Development" and "Indie Development". That way all of the Zelda, Pokemon, Sonic, ect fangames can have it's own section still with resources.
Then replace the name of "ZFGC" to something new all-together, or keep it and change the meaning.
"Zany Fan Game Central"? < - lol
"Zone For Game Creators"? < - LIKE!
"Zipper Fun Girl Couples" < - Ran out of ideas already... But I like the second one! :D
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ZFGC.com
- Updates
- Feedback
Development
- Projects
- Discussion
- Recruitment
- Contests
- Submissions
Resources
- Zelda Coding
- Other Coding
- Graphics
- Audio
(Community Boards)
I have been thinking over this stuff more and the above is how a "transition form" would look like between now and something more general. Basically Zelda Projects and Other Projects could merge because those who come here expecting Zelda would be assuming that Projects contained Zelda Projects and it wouldn't be too cluttered by merging it with Other Projects to contradict that. (The above is how regular members would see the boards, with staff boards hidden - community boards would still be there I just didn't feel like listing them).
Zelda Coding and Other Coding wouldn't be merged right away because Zelda Coding isn't organized. If the two boards were merged and someone who comes here is expecting to find Zelda help, the merged boards might be confusing to them. I get that at one point the two were kind of merged, but they were separated previously with the intent to make the Zelda coding on this site more organized and I don't think that should be regressed upon. Like I said earlier somewhere, we don't want to throw Zelda under the bus as we do have some talent for it here and to expand we need to still incorporate it. We can't just become more general so we don't have to do the work of making Zelda here more organized. If Zelda Coding became organized, then it would possibly be merged back and separated again into Coding and Engines.
I don't think we could really have and Indie Development area on its own just based on the level of activity associated with that. If at some point the activity levels of projects in Projects got to be at a certain point the Sponsored board could be brought back or possibly the board itself could be divided up into Team Projects and Solo Projects. I am more fond of doing that second idea because Sponsored as a board involved some effort in managing what went into it - be it Projects of the Month or whatever. A Team Projects board might encourage those who would want their project to not be swamped in Solo Projects to possibly work with other people.
I like the Zone For Game Creators name too, it seems reasonable and would allow us to keep the domain name. Beyond that though, there still remains the issue of what would the theme of the forum possibly look like.
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A theme? Maybe have a member mockup competition where we could all design mockups of the layout/colors. Then have a vote on which to go with. I think we should moreso keep the same theme, just color swap and replace some zelda imagery.
And I also agree that Other Projects and Zelda Projects should be merged. There's not enough activity in there to even need them separated, plus it'll promote more development as programmers seem to like the competition and always delivering updates to stand out among the competitors who are doing the same.
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When I stress that a theme would have to be put together I should reemphasize that before anything could really go into effect that Zelda Coding should have its content organized. That isn't to say that both couldn't happen at once, it is just that sorting out Zelda Coding is the most important and no transition can be successful unless that is done. I guess modifying the current forum default theme to be more general wouldn't be too much of an issue but I am not an artist and I didn't know if something fresher would be better or not.
I don't fully agree with the idea that a crowded board creates a competition aspect that leads to more development, as sometimes people won't be posting updates if they feel those updates aren't getting any attention, but I get how the appearance of an active board might encourage some people to start or continue developing. About merging the Zelda Projects and Other Projects boards, the mechanism that Windy's site system has to post topics on the forum would have to be tweaked so that each new project would just go to the one new place.