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[4Sword]

4Sword

Re: Hit the reset button?

In some ways posting topics which help users gets them past a crucial stage where struggling sometimes help them better understand it in the end, but there are others which get to that crucial stage and just give up because they don't have the self-confidence or time to preserver. Especially when the coding complexity gets to be at a high level to do anything interesting beyond a walking demo. I tend to post code without first being asked because if I left in the future someone who could use my help like mine could look through my material "research".

I mean like, if you told a guy who wanted to learn how to build a car to figure it out on his own, if that person was really motivated he could figure it out and end up knowing more about how cars work than most people. But the extra rewards of that struggle aren't always as necessary because they just enforced what is known rather than to try and do new things. I am getting lost in metaphors here, but with life and stuff stacked against us all and this stuff being a hobby for most people, most just won't have the guts.

[FISSURE]

FISSURE

Re: Hit the reset button?

Wait, why was the developers board removed, the initial reaction? It seemed like people were posting idea's to make the place better, the initial reaction seemed like a good thing.

[4Sword]

4Sword

Re: Hit the reset button?

The Contests board moved to Resources was my idea which I posted to help the board out, and the other two topics, Theforeshadower's was made in Feedback prior and the Resource system one was made in the staff boards prior to the opening of the Developer board. Kren and DJvenom thought it was dumb, and Mamoruanime thought that I made the board on a whim just because of Theforeshadower's topic (ignoring that I had been hinting about it for a months, had posted something in the staff boards about it, etc.).

I'll still be posting topics about development related stuff in the Feedback board, but I want others to know that they can do the same. If no one really cares though, then that is just sad - it's worse when people think the staff isn't doing anything, but that they aren't willing to do anything themselves when asked or the opportunity is set up to where helping out can be done. I wouldn't want to promote development too strongly on ZFGC, that might hurt the feelings of those here who don't do anything for that (sarcasm). No no, we should just expand or just ask new users to come here without getting the house cleaned up. Anyway, some of the development related ideas of the Developers board can be carried out in the individual boards themselves.

Personally I liked the Developers board idea. For example, let's say a team project leader wanted to create a contest about his or her game in the Contests board. Because they have the rank, they wouldn't need to go through an approval process to do their contest. Rather I figure they'd be mature enough to know when not to do something and that they shouldn't have to go through bureaucratic hoops to do something if they have already shown on many occasions that they are capable and know what they are doing. I liked the semi-staff nature for those who wanted to help others with development issues. I liked the idea that if you disagree with the focus and say would want ZFGC to focus more on Pokemon you could create a community project and if got big enough or had enough topics we could possibly have Pokemon set up as its own official board or at least we'd be able to tell those we want to come here that we do have a good clear example of something non-Zelda that will probably help you out. I also liked the idea because it took away some of the criticisms from the community project boards themselves - i.e., criticisms would be separate from the actual work done which makes the topics look neater.

[FISSURE]

FISSURE

Re: Hit the reset button?

The Contests board moved to Resources was my idea which I posted to help the board out, and the other two topics, Theforeshadower's was made in Feedback prior and the Resource system one was made in the staff boards prior to the opening of the Developer board. Kren and DJvenom thought it was dumb, and Mamoruanime thought that I made the board on a whim just because of Theforeshadower's topic (ignoring that I had been hinting about it for a months, had posted something in the staff boards about it, etc.).

Ah i see, i thought the developer board seemed like a pretty good idea. Although the board did come pretty fast after TFS topic, it easy to assume that it was made because of it.

I'll still be posting topics about development related stuff in the Feedback board, but I want others to know that they can do the same. If no one really cares though, then that is just sad - it's worse when people think the staff isn't doing anything, but that they aren't willing to do anything themselves when asked or the opportunity is set up to where helping out can be done. I wouldn't want to promote development too strongly on ZFGC, that might hurt the feelings of those here who don't do anything for that (sarcasm). No no, we should just expand or just ask new users to come here without getting the house cleaned up. Anyway, some of the development related ideas of the Developers board can be carried out in the individual boards themselves.

I would hope that people would care at least a little, if people put some thought into it i am sure they could figure out ways to help improve ZFGC. Lol at the sarcasm about hurting the feelings of the people who don't really want to think about development and such. While it may be harder for people to help with things like the making of games and such, it's not really  that hard for them to think of new idea's for things related to the website/forum, or at least give a little input on if they agree with current questioned changes and such.

[legendarylugi]

legendarylugi

Re: Hit the reset button?

Okay, it's not gravedigging if it's one of the few topics on this whole board.  

I have to agree with those who said that it's really the toolset that's missing. Asking people to spend as much effort on a fangame with largely premade game mechanics as they would with a completely original game is a tall order, and perhaps it's asking a bit much. The draw people have to a fangame is to add their original ideas and stories to an existing universe and framework. Then they end up spending all their time until they give up trying to get a working walking engine. And to be honest, fangaming is just a stepping stone anyway, using a pre-made world to explore one's creativity and coding skills until one has learned enough to break away and start on unique projects of their own.

Perhaps what is needed for any quality Zelda fangames to be completed is a quality Zelda engine, one that is entirely built from the ground up and streamlined for making Zelda games, that also allows one to script their own custom behaviors. Something that allows them to focus on the content of the quest rather than on the minutiae of setting up low-level basic game mechanics. A Game Maker engine simply isn't the same thing. The closest thing we have to something like this is ZQuest, and I'm not sure how much it's improved since I was a user (around 3-4 years ago), but it was incredibly lacking in features when I saw it, and you couldn't make much beyond the simple NES Zelda gameplay with some additional items thrown in.

Perhaps something like that could pump life into the community, people actively working together to build such an engine? After all, most of the long-time users have long since graduated to using real programming languages.

...or perhaps it would be a complete waste of time as it would be too large a project to ever get finished, or worse, it would come to fruition and noobies would still not have the drive to finish their game even with the Zelda architecture laid out on a platter for them. After all, there's no limit to how far some people's visions outmatch their dedication.

No other game save Shadowgazer has been able to fill that giant, gaping hole. And King Mob, like any responsible developer, saw his chance to elevate the game to a different level and took it.

Speaking of which, I haven't heard much on Shadowgazer since KM decided to take it private. Any news on development?

[Xfixium]

Xfixium

Re: Hit the reset button?

Perhaps what is needed for any quality Zelda fangames to be completed is a quality Zelda engine, one that is entirely built from the ground up and streamlined for making Zelda games, that also allows one to script their own custom behaviors. Something that allows them to focus on the content of the quest rather than on the minutiae of setting up low-level basic game mechanics. A Game Maker engine simply isn't the same thing. The closest thing we have to something like this is ZQuest, and I'm not sure how much it's improved since I was a user (around 3-4 years ago), but it was incredibly lacking in features when I saw it, and you couldn't make much beyond the simple NES Zelda gameplay with some additional items thrown in.

Perhaps something like that could pump life into the community, people actively working together to build such an engine? After all, most of the long-time users have long since graduated to using real programming languages.

Heh heh, would love to be involved with something like that.

• 

[Zaeranos]

Zaeranos

Re: Hit the reset button?

Perhaps what is needed for any quality Zelda fangames to be completed is a quality Zelda engine, one that is entirely built from the ground up and streamlined for making Zelda games, that also allows one to script their own custom behaviors. Something that allows them to focus on the content of the quest rather than on the minutiae of setting up low-level basic game mechanics. A Game Maker engine simply isn't the same thing. The closest thing we have to something like this is ZQuest, and I'm not sure how much it's improved since I was a user (around 3-4 years ago), but it was incredibly lacking in features when I saw it, and you couldn't make much beyond the simple NES Zelda gameplay with some additional items thrown in.

Perhaps something like that could pump life into the community, people actively working together to build such an engine? After all, most of the long-time users have long since graduated to using real programming languages.

Well, we are working on just such a thing. A solid engine made in Game Maker. It is the MCS Engine and you can find it as a child board of the "Zelda Coding" board. You are always welcome to contribute and help out in any way you can. If you want to change things lead by example.

But I do have to disagree with you on that it is the toolset that is lacking. Well we there is a lack of good tools for fangaming, but what is most lacking is the mindset of most. Everyone is making engines, but most of them do not allow others to help. They keep it closed source in stead of open source. After a while they get bored and the engine remains unfinished. Meaning it does not help anyone. There is no sharing. And no keeping things to yourself is not natural, it is only natural  to those who have been taught think that. Which happens a lot in western society.

Now, I have also said this to the staff once. We can make an open source engine (we already have one, but okay), the problem is the programming language. The mindset of the people is this: Novices are afraid to participate to a project, thinking they are not good enough and that they need to acquire the skills first. Thus they do their own projects and they make their own private engines. Ergo, they are not participating and learning things at a much slower pace. Once the novices have the required skills they become experienced users. And their mind set changes to the following: I know the language, there is nothing to gain for me anymore and new novices can learn just find as I did. By finding things out for themselves. Hell no, that they are going to participate on making a tool that would help others learn things and actually make something. So these experienced users move on to the next programming language and becoming novices again.

Like I said before we have an open source engine in development, but only 4Sword and I are working on it. Because most think they are not good enough to understand or they have no interest in GML. The choice for GML was made because novices generally start there before going to C++ or C#. And there are already a number of members experienced in GML. Thus if everyone pitched in a solid engine could have been made and the community could either start working on an engine in another language or on a community game. However there are only 2 people working on it and they also have real life to content with.

[Mamoruanime]

Mamoruanime

Re: Hit the reset button?

Like I said before we have an open source engine in development, but only 4Sword and I are working on it. Because most think they are not good enough to understand or they have no interest in GML.

Well that and the fact that not everyone finds Minish Cap to be the definitive design model for the entire series. It would probably have a much larger following if it were based on one of the more popular games in the series. I think that accounts for a lot of the disinterest. That aside, I also really doubt it has much to do with it being coded in GML honestly. There's no real structure to it outside of "I made this today". I'd say even something like a generic task list with due dates that anyone can openly work on would be a much more effective design model than the moderately whimsy one that's in place now If standardized code is a problem with most peoples submissions, then pass the code through some quality assurance and clean it up to fit standards, or return it with some form of markup stating what will need to be cleaned up prior to adding it in. There are so many different ways around the intimidation of developing for an already progressed engine and draw people in.

[legendarylugi]

legendarylugi

Re: Hit the reset button?

Now, I have also said this to the staff once. We can make an open source engine (we already have one, but okay), the problem is the programming language. The mindset of the people is this: Novices are afraid to participate to a project, thinking they are not good enough and that they need to acquire the skills first. Thus they do their own projects and they make their own private engines. Ergo, they are not participating and learning things at a much slower pace. Once the novices have the required skills they become experienced users. And their mind set changes to the following: I know the language, there is nothing to gain for me anymore and new novices can learn just find as I did. By finding things out for themselves. Hell no, that they are going to participate on making a tool that would help others learn things and actually make something. So these experienced users move on to the next programming language and becoming novices again.

Like I said before we have an open source engine in development, but only 4Sword and I are working on it. Because most think they are not good enough to understand or they have no interest in GML. The choice for GML was made because novices generally start there before going to C++ or C#. And there are already a number of members experienced in GML. Thus if everyone pitched in a solid engine could have been made and the community could either start working on an engine in another language or on a community game. However there are only 2 people working on it and they also have real life to content with.

Lol, fair enough. That's pretty much how I progressed. And I admit it wasn't very effective, I never made anything particularly special in Game Maker before leaving it behind. I'm currently in the early stages of C# novice as we speak.

You make a lot of valid points. When I came back to the idea of making games I had little to no interest in Game Maker anymore given that I now wanted to learn a more advanced engine or a general purpose language.

I was actually just about to say "Well there's no way I could help, I don't have the skills yet", but I guess that's precisely your point. People learn by doing, even if the code they submit is substandard, it can be improved and they can learn from it. The lack of sharing and everyone trying to keep their code secret like it was some kind of proprietary trade secret isn't helping.

Perhaps I will dust off Game Maker again and try to participate (I haven't touched GML in years, but now's as good a time as any).

[4Sword]

4Sword

Re: Hit the reset button?

I agree with what Niek said, mostly in how if you want things to change you have to lead by example. The act of proposing an idea for a super ultimate engine that ends all the problems here does not help unless someone or some group of users wants to put the work in, and it does not make one wiser to put forward something without it having some capability of achieving practical reality. That last part probably sounds harsh and I don't mean it against anyone personally but there is this culture of saying the current method is failing because it isn't some awesome ideal method.

As for fan game development, it comes down to being able to do what has already been done well enough and then to try and add something new which fits in well with what was done well enough. I understand your point about getting into things beyond coding what has been done and I agree. The GM Minish Cap Engine is trying to do that so other stuff can be focused on. Additionally, the board restructuring which I recently put forward is being done so in order to get the programming boards to be better. I had to sift through topic after topic dealing with the same old !@#$% over and over again. It is stupid to have a forum where knowledge accumulated over its history is discarded and forgotten about.

I haven't collected any statistics about it or anything but a lot of topics tend to focus on Legend of Zelda Link movement, pushing, pause menu, registration menu, online multiplayer, pushing, ice movement, view centering, rolling, etc. It starts around 2006-2007 and still in 2010-2011 the topics are about the same. Part of the problem is that when we had the Discussion board being for all programming topics and Engines be just for engines, there was less need or inclination to keep lists of what had been done well enough. The Discussion board also had a lot of topics that must have been dumped there when old boards were closed. The coolest things I found were Desgardes various Minish Cap stuff, Chesu's Kokiri people building sheet, and I think one topic had an aab ripped Minish Cap Red Darknut.

About helping out and stuff, I have about 10 more pages of Discussion to go through and make sure are properly sorted before I merge Concepts with Discussion. After that Zelda Coding and Other Coding will have to be gone through and salvaged for what has been made if that is still possible. This goes beyond just seeing what engines are there but also deals with going through request topics to see what was answered, and like for example if there are 24 topics on hookshot stuff for us to logically group those together in some way. There were more than a few topics which have poor explanatory titles too.

Also though, the GM Minish Cap Engine, one of the best ways to help beyond trying to contribute something to it is to actually give feedback about the features that are put forward. It is a little disheartening to put work into something and then get hardly no feedback about it. Well it is even more disheartening to see that it gets a few downloads from either those who aren't giving feedback about it, or worse from guests who are just reaping its benefits and are giving nothing back to the community. I am really considering a reorientation of the site's purpose to be a resource and project database with the forum unable to be see by all guests trying to view it.

[Zaeranos]

Zaeranos

Re: Hit the reset button?

Mammy, what you said is essentially the problem that I indicated. If it is the programming language or the graphics style or some other aspect they don't like, than paople don't want to put their efforts in it. And if it is the graphical style that is even easier to fix. Only for the 3D graphics it would require a complete new engine. For the GB, ALttP or MC graphics many of the behavior is the same. For example reading signs is only the graphics of the signs different. The same with the doors. Talking to NPC's and combating enemies. In ALttP you have diagonal ledges and with GB you have fixed room sizes.

75 percent of an engine you would make for one game can be reused for another. Many things in Zelda game is style independent. Thus creating an engine in the same programming language, although it still requires work, is relatively easy done.



And about making a task list with due dates, is nothing but blowing hot air. I have a tasklist put forth (although I can update it a bit) but adding dates is futile because without anyone picking up the task and actually commiting to it, there is no one and nothing to nag when it is not finished in time. And some people even like to take their time reviewing and rewriting their stuff. With team projects and paid development with people that have given their word to be commited, you can expect things from those people. This is a community project, where people can contribute when and what they like. More than the structure there is at the moment, can't really be done. And definitely not enforced.

A feedback form of some kind is a good idea. Maybe people are more inclined in giving feedback and usable feedback when they know what is expected in feedback. Mammy, maybe you can set up a template for that.

[Mamoruanime]

Mamoruanime

Re: Hit the reset button?

When you have time frames people are more apt to work If you just say "get it done when you get it done", you'll get nothing accomplished.

That's sort of the setup it's built itself into. You need to have some form of goals set and some time frame for those goals. Otherwise it's pointless.