What do people want to see from MakegamesSA?
I was reading through Travis's interview for Toxic Bunny that Danny linked, and thought he spoke a lot about making games (well, obviously)
So, what do people want to see from MGSA? I guess it's wrong to ask this of people who are here, so I hope everyone has some access to some people who should be but isn't here, and ask the shit out of them this question, and see what we can all do :)
One fortunate thing is it takes a PC some love and time to build a game.
Where is the financial investment and support to help South Africa get a footprint in the largest electronic entertainment industry in the world?
Well that got me thinking, he doesn't come to mgsa, this Travis guy (I don't know him). So why not? I'd think that people would love to share among people of same interests, that's what so many things have taught me. Obviously I'm wrong.Of course the most important thing would be for South African games developers to step up and be counted
So, what do people want to see from MGSA? I guess it's wrong to ask this of people who are here, so I hope everyone has some access to some people who should be but isn't here, and ask the shit out of them this question, and see what we can all do :)
Comments
As far as I am aware he's never made any effort to be part of any South African game development community (though please correct me if I'm wrong), and it's been quite a number of years since he worked on a new game.
The way Danny spoke about him it just seemed like he knows of and chooses to not be part of it. And I'm not just talking about Travis, there are tons of people who should be but aren't here. Obviously there's a motivation missing.
What is *that*?
Jadedness? Politics? Arrogance? Ignorance? Being able to get support and feedback elsewhere around the interwebz where there are larger numbers of experienced folks and where there's less emphasis on local?
That last point is valid and interesting, where are these other places, are you talking about like CGhub or game maker forums or unity forums? Sorry I'm noobing. Mayhaps we can learn from *those*.
(and just to be fair, so it doesn't sound like makegamesSA isn't a great place to be, we do have a great thing going here, and we [between a few guys including Elyaradine, Edg3, Danny, etc] are in the pipeline for some very cool upgrades when we all can afford to with what we can. This is just a call for things we might have missed)
While there's a lot of interesting discussion on this site, there is very poor technical talk and feedback IMO. Can the modellers share a tut on interesting workflow? Where is the discussion on an art piece being worked on with an emphasis on colour theory? What problem have unity programmers come across recently that required a creative solution? ..a few examples but you get the just.
Yes/no?
Have no idea what you are trying to say here??
And I totally hear you on the technical side. (But I didn't think Elyaradine art class didn't generate any interest/feedback, I mean he ended up with a class going for real there, right?)
I think that's a good point and maybe we should push towards having those kind of technical discussions, if that's what everyone feels they want to see/want to share. Although, aren't those the serious how-tos being done by dev.mag... When they can?
What I personally do come here for is mainly the networking; to find people who are looking for game artists, to find people who are game artists that I can recommend for when I don't have the time (which... is almost all of the time, nowadays), and to find people who want to be game artists, but don't know how to get there.
We're about getting into game dev and game dev. So while I think it would be nice to have that kind of tech talk here, it's probably not going to be better than the other big guns. So if you're only here for the art, then you're probably not in the right place, right?
Can I interpret what @elyaradine is saying as that art is a component of game dev, and makegamesSA serves that crosssection of networking side of game art - especially in SA context.
right?
Is that ok for artists? Or do they really just want some cool art articles here on makegameSA and nothing else?
All really good questions, specifically pertaining to game and art. What about the other guys (other than art)?
First off, I've heard concerns about this area on a semi-regular basis on various threads from various users. And I do seem to remember a time when feedback was much more verbose, frequent and enthused, if not here then definitely on ol' Game.Dev.
I do not think that it is apathy or non-presence, at least. There's a good number of people who exist on MakeGamesSA, and from a personal POV I know that even if my games get limited active feedback, there's actually a reasonable number of people downloading and *playing* them. Box.net tracking tells me this, and I know that on my end I've "lurked over" Elyaradine's semisane project, the HIV/boogers game, Fling Fu, Book of Blood and many others which I've gone to the effort of downloading and trying out while mysteriously not feeling inclined to pass comment on them.
I'm pretty sure we ARE looking at each other's projects and engaging with them (in quite some force, actually), we're just not ... noisy enough about it to one another. There could be a lot of reasons.
- Funnily enough, I think that the heightened presence of discussion, event and general interest threads may harm this a little. Game.Dev had very few of these, actually -- almost every thread was a game project. Our attention in the forums is divided, and as far as deep and meaningful discussions go ... well, topics on general game design and whatnot are always going to be more thought-provoking and expressive than saying how someone's prototype has nice, uh ... stuff. If I spend X amount of time on MakeGames every day, it's often spent responding to a hot discussion. Oh sweet baby Babs I'm doing that right now.
- Speaking of "stuff", there really are a lot of feedback threads where I simply do not feel qualified to give meaningful feedback (and I think this has been pointed out already). Mostly art, of course, where my first inclination is to write something along the lines of "YAY PIXELS" because I'll be buggered if I can even pretend to know how to say anything that would actually be useful. I think my best efforts at art commentary so far have revolved around "hearting" the occasional graphics-related post. I think this intimidation factor can be more generally spread (artists reluctant to comment on programmer stuff, etc), and I don't think people have the confidence to give many things a thought-provoking response.
- The classic problem: there's too many people setting up threads before they actually have a damn game. Oh god seriously, stop this. Stop it. Now. I will never ever ever EVER post a comment on ANY project that you have if you don't actually have the fucking project to start with. Nothing short of a "here's a download to an actual playable prototype that you can play for reals" is going to inspire comment from me. Not a concept thread, not a Q&A about whether or not you should use poisson sampling in a "project that's totally coming", not even a bloody tech demo showing off what will "eventually be an actual game". If the first post in your thread isn't actually the actual game you've actually proposed to make (no matter how shitty and rough it is), I will actually scream (the QCF office has been sadly disturbed by this lately).
- The second classic problem: the games being posted aren't always accessible enough. There's a lot of development going on for platforms that aren't immediately playable/testable by nature (require special libraries or, more frequently, are being devved for iPhone/consoles/whatev). Boardgames too. And there's the smart-arses like me who make multiplayer-only empire management games that pretty much disqualify anyone from just casually picking it up and getting to it whenever they have a convenient moment to themselves (dragging someone in to test something with you is ADMIN).
The above problems aren't necessarily solvable or even always bad in themselves -- discussions in particular are an interesting and positive aspect to the forums, and platform-specific games are just the result of increased popularity in those media (it would be stupid to tell ourselves NOT to develop iPhone games). But good or bad, they *do* erode the feedback and while bigger forums such as TIGSource theoretically provide more feedback opportunities, we're missing out on the intimacy and intensity that moderately-sized local communities have always provided.
Some ideas for sorting this out:
- Presenting and packaging a new game idea properly. As mentioned already, people should get into the damn habit of starting a damn thread with a damn prototype armed and ready, instead of wistful words and empty promises. Hell, there's absolutely no reason to make a placeholder thread without one, anyway. Nobody's going to steal your opportunity to make one later. If anything, I'm more inclined to skip over not-yet-ready threads completely, and I'm often extra slow to return to them afterwards. And if you've spent X many hours or days making a game prototype, you can spend 20 minutes making its first post moderately presentable: include a screenshot, a clear and concise summary, some basic controls and a very prominently marked download link. Yes, fellow devs are generally more patient and open-minded than most gamers, but any kind of help, orientation and appeal is still pretty well appreciated. No need to go overboard, but y'know.
- We should maybe use the "heart" system more liberally. Personally, I wish there was a more neutral alternative to the "heart", but at least it's a convenient way to acknowledge a post. Maybe if we download and play a game but don't have any particularly insightful/inspiring commentary, we can send a quick "heart" to the dev's post to at least help them know that their project is being watched and considered, and that further progress will probably also be observed. Sometimes it can take two or three prototype versions in a thread for some viewers to truly warm up to a game enough to pass comment anyway (especially if the earliest versions are just so damn thick and confusing that a player can do little more than look at it and think "well this seems interesting, at least").
- Ask direct questions where possible. If you reflect on your game for just a few moments, you can probably identify the shakiest points in the prototype, or at least some grey areas where you worry about there being trouble. Write about these bits, ask people where they need clarification, and even put in suggestions for players (try X, Y or Z and let me know what you think). Sure, often it's fun to let players discover things for themselves, but that's in a polished and marketable product. To your fellow devs, it's kinda forgivable to point out important game hooks and say "look at this, please". Early protos can feel directionless and confusing anyway, so guidance like this is appreciated.
- Future MakeGames competitions should really be more oriented around style, mechanics or constraints rather than theme. Just saying. "Semi-sane" isn't doing it for me. "Make a game without text" was much more interesting to think about back in the day. "Switching genres" was a new and unique exercise. We need more of that again. Constraints inspire refinement within a small creative space and help people focus. Themes tell me to properly skin whatever vague ideas I can muster, and chances are that they will have little impact on whatever actual mechanics emerge (ie you'll probably have come up with the same idea at some point outside the competition environment anyway).
This post is getting too long. Brain-splurge over.
On point 1 (Too many discussions, not enough games) and point 2 (People feeling they're out of their depth on certain subjects), I for one think that some more organisation in design (not prettifying) of the site can help with some of these things.
Maybe the "all in one" forum isn't helping people with content, and hence aren't motivating people to return. Without that initial "categorisation" in traditional forums with sections, people may feel overwhelmed when they either first come here or return after a long period of inactivity.
Seeing 100 posts in 200 topics without any structure is just a big "arrrgh" moment.
Sure we tell people there are category tabs that we can choose from on the side, but who actually A) uses them or B) makes sure people use them? Even putting a big "click here" button isn't going to work.
I reckon the current mash-pot of posts only serve people who come often enough. So do we need to "keep them"? No, they know how to use the "see all" view, they'll survive.
We could try and get back to a more traditional forum format with sections that prompt people towards certain content types - game prototypes, general discussions, art, music, hardcore code, events, whatever. TBC. That way, people know what to expect, and will click into things they find themselves interested in, instead of reading 100 thread topics to try and decide if they're interested in it. After they get used to it and return frequently, they'll discover the view all threads type vibe we got going. That's their prerogative to "level up".
We still keep the omni-view view, I for one would still use it, but I know I'm not *everyone*.
Some may worry that this will make the activity level "seem" low, but there are always ways to SHOW that activity is going on - a summary of "x posts this week" as well as the traditional "last post when" per section etc goes a long way.
This will address point 1 to a certain extend by putting "meaningful discussions" and "game prototype talk" in separate arenas and not interweave them. And address point 2 by putting the right people in the same place as the other right people. Cross-disciplinism is still encouraged, and anyone who's going to come back often will most likely go back to the overview of the whole forum with all threads.
But I think we need to "help" people into this. Cos it baffles me why people aren't, and there are obviously real reasons.
I'm wondering if it's possible to represent different categories with clear and colourful icons next to the thread titles? That may make it easier to see what type of threads are there "at a glance".
I think colourising will work cool for the more regulars.
The reason I believe we should avoid catering for inactivity is because it would lead to inactivity. On SAGD it felt really weird posting in design, because the only thread before the one I created was made almost a year before. So until there is enough post churn on a topic to warrant it being a sub forum I don't think there should be one.
I think adding iconography for categories, as @Nandrew, said would be a more elegant solution to this.
There's a catch 22 going on here: we're all of the regulars group, who aren't noobies who are the ones we should try to attract.
While it's great to be a part of a greater community and discuss games, at the end of the day you have to do the work yourself. Online communities are great resources for feedback, but can also be great timesink for productivity. As with any online platform, there's a big tendency to discuss pie-in-the-sky ideas ad nauseum instead of tangible things. I realise MGSA is trying to change this, but I believe it's encoded in the nature of the thing.
Having spoken to Travis a few times, he seems like a guy that primarily enjoys making games but understandibly less inclined about the business, marketing and community aspect of it. From what I understand Toxic Bunny HD is a personal hobby that he put into full production primarily for the hell of it and not a critical, strategic, "change the world" idea. Which is just fine by me.
I have a great amount of respect for the pure hobbyist ethic, but it starts to ripple out to the broader community when he starts passing public commentary on what local developers need or want, and by setting an example he's assuming a certain degree of responsibility, willful or no.
I'm also not entirely convinced that he's less inclined towards the business aspect of development, as I've yet to see a game project from him that *isn't* built for retail (admittedly, this may just be a side effect of the non-community approach). Many members of this forum, professionals or no, regularly build prototypes that aren't even remotely purposed towards business and marketing, and I think the whole "MakeGames is about business" perception is a bit misguided -- it's also a disservice to all those community members who never have, never will and never plan to be full-time professionals. Several of the for-profit projects that *do* currently exist certainly did not start out with that intention, either.
For the most part, the community doesn't exist as a platform to sell games, it's about improving and polishing one's art. Marketing and the satisfaction of a broader audience are icing on the cake and more the concern of people who have already invested money and need to stay afloat.
(And if you ever sit down for a deep and meaningful business discussion with *me*, you'll quickly understand that, to this day, I still know fuck-all about it)
Self-promotion and discussion serve a broader aim of making our passion easy, accessible and appealing for others who may consider getting into it. Cos that's just fun.
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But while Mr Bulford's new release may have inspired this thread, this discussion is not (and should not become) about him specifically. The dynamics of the forum itself have changed considerably since the days of Game.Dev, through a lot of possible factors, and I think @Tuism is trying to make sure that it actually stays valuable for people who actually find reward in community engagement.
I'd also just like to point out that we kinda did have an A/B test on the omniview/billions of categories thing. SAGD always had billions of categories and very little activity. Visible post types kinda makes sense... Has anyone moved their posts to the existing categories after the fact so far?
So Imma seconding what @Nandrew's saying. He's part of us, whether he's actually involved or not.
And my point isn't really a personal one, I was more pointing to why there aren't more activity, how we can cater for more activity, and what can we do to encourage the engagement of those we should/would be interested?
One can't take "billions of categories" didn't work and say that categories don't work... I'm proposing something simple and considered like max 5 or 6 - like "General topics, Game Prototypes, Game art, events, technical assist" - so that people immediately know what to expect from the site at first glance, instead of having to read everything that everyone's formatted in a different way to get a gist of what's there.
Though I must say raising the visual priority of the category list and making it louder (possibly putting it on top of all the threads so it's seen before the threads) will probably help a lot towards letting people know what the vibe is here.
Nevertheless the SA game devs must "stand up and be counted" is a really tone deaf comment right after we've set up a legal association which achieved just that (although Travis himself did not stand up to be counted so maybe he's just talking about himself in the plural).
I met Travis at rAge yesterday. The whole team actually. They seem super passionate about making games. I did talk to him about MGSA, but at the moment I can't remember everything he said. :( At least he know about us now ;)
I also spoke to the guys from Fuzzy Logic, they said they'll be joining in soon. They got lost in translation from SAGD to MGSA.
As far as what I want to get out of MGSA. I want more stickies. At the moment we have the Gamedev Newcomer thread that is marked as an announcement. It is a combination of how to get into making games, and how to get into making game art. The content of the thread is great, but I would like more emphasis on things like that.
I think people that join a forum usually tend to lurk for a while before they start asking questions and posting stuff, but there isn't enough stuff to lurk at. I think if we create some more guide like threads on the different aspects of game development we could be helping a lot of people. And maybe mark them as something else than announcement.
Do you guys agree with this? We're looking at stuff like
- learn to start making games
- list of game dev entities in SA (based on the list we've built/is building
- news
- events (CT and JB meets, coming up)
- hot threads
- monthly challenge
The current thoughts would be these are all linked to threads in the forum, so there will be no additional content to be made besides the threads. And if there are anything that hasn't updated in a while, that "section" will automatically fall off the front page, so there's no appearance of ancient content.
So would that answer your want for stickies?
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Also we're working on a wiki, we're going to release it to everyone to edit and update, it's the furthering of the list that we've put together. We'll release as we're ready.
Thoughts?
Also, the "billions of categories" wasn't an immediate thing, more and more categories were added to SAGD over the years to try and stimulate activity. The NAG forums kept experimenting with categories and the best forum activity was scene not when the categories were done right, but when the content was interesting and just slightly controversial.
Posts drive a forum. Interesting posts aren't falling off the radar because they're lacking the correct category to be put in. People aren't failing to post interesting posts because they can't figure out where to put them. It's just that coming up with the content that makes posts interesting takes time, focus and effort. Right now we're not great at that kind of focus as a community yet, as @Nandrew pointed out with his critique of the challenge topic... All we need to do is keep posting and we'll get there.
Why does the wiki need to be released? What needs to happen to it that people here can't do? Who's working on it now that wouldn't be able to work on it when it's public? (Wouldn't making that progress publicly visible spur more progress?) Are the same people who haven't released the wiki going to be the ones elevating content to the "hot topics" section of this landing page?
1) Posts about the next jhb or ct meet
2) posts about the next monthly challenge
3) posts about a couple of greenlight campaigns or whatever that deserves attention
And people are already writing these.
the other two are to the wiki and pretty much static unless update needed (learn to start making games and the list).
And if those content aren't current and up-to-date, we set, say, a 45 day threshold and bump them off the front page (so not even a, say, "news" heading).
Sounds logical?
Here's the wiki, guys, the idea is to put primarily two things on it:
1) How to make games - some beginner's info and guide
2) The list of game dev related entities
We have the info, anyone know how to wiki effectively?
http://makegamessa.com/wiki
I have no idea how managing wikis works, and have never worked with one before either, except as a viewer... but Google. :P
Let's just all keep at it :)
Dev.Mag has years of resources on this front, including the original PDFs
So here is a really cool article on prototyping by @Nandrew
But I suppose that always happens when you look at something a couple of years old.
For the different category colours and whatnot ... various comments have been made about that, but the only thing I'm really proposing is taking the categories that already exist (the three of 'em) and making them visually distinct instead of just textually. They're already listed next to each thread title (at least, I always take care to select the correct category when creating my own threads), but adding some sort of colour component would make it more "at a glance" while allowing us to maintain the omniview. I feel that's the best of both worlds, and it could be as simple as placing a different tint on the topic's rectangle.
We already have dark blue tints for threads / comments made by ourselves, which may be superfluous because we're all at least naturally vain enough to identify and beeline our own magical offerings of the written word without any extra help. (Or at least I am, woo!) So if Vanilla allows us to take that tint system and implement it by category instead of by user ID, we've got a nice 'n simple indicator falling into our laps without adjusting existing forum architecture in any major way.
I propose the tint colours should be Snow, Pale and Extra White.
@BlackShipsFilltheSky I lol'd, hard
And I think that article about platformer is still very relevant. Especially that head. Good for getting ahead when you're heading into a new heading.
I like the idea of colour coding the different catagories if possible. I will probably still read everything and respond where I can, but that way I can jump to the colour thread I like the most first :) But I'm guessing where moving into site wants instead of what we want from the community.
I would like for MGSA to become a resource for people that want to start making games and want to become better at the art. A central point to expand from so to speak. If we can create a churning pot of all the different aspects were people can see what goes into making games and help them find their path from there I would be exstatic.(I hope that makes sense)
And also games...I want games from MGSA that I can play. :)
I'd like for MakeGamesSA to help connect these people to developers who actually do do development for hire.
Could there be a sticky something to that effect? (I mean alongside the "So you want to be a developer" sticky could we have a "So you want to work with the best game developers South Africa has to offer" sticky)
I just kind of answer these people with a "Sorry I'm busy and not interested" response... but I'd like to be able to point them somewhere useful. I'd like to be able to point them at a list of developers who might be able to do the work, and maybe some advice as to having realistic expectations of game development (for those potential clients who know nothing about what game developers actually do).
I think if that sort of guide was in a sticky and very prominent then it'll likely be updated regularly and so be useful to our industry. Even if the sticky points to the somewhat mythical wiki that'd be great.
I also get a lot of those sorts of emails. Often they're structured rather poorly, making it hard to tell if this is a serious request that could lead to actual work, or if it's just some random dude hoping to find someone that could make that "revolutionary" game idea for free/revenue on the back end.
So what things should we put in that thread? My standard questions to those sorts of emailers are:
- What are the goals of the game, is this an advertising exercise, a for-profit game, etc?
- What are the budget and time constraints on the project?
- What are you prepared to pay for talent and what talent do you need - production/management, art, sound, code, design? (this is primarily to get people thinking about the actual project needs)
I'm also saying no a lot these days, but that's mainly because I'm not doing work-for-hire anymore. I strongly recommend that anyone looking to find their feet doing this for a living start out with this type of work. You just have to be careful to make sure you do work for reputable projects, getting paid off "revenue" on a pie in the sky project is never going to happen.
Time frame is maybe also something I'd like a prospective client to think about. A couple of the requests I've had have actually been impossible because they've left it too late. That goes for all client work I guess, but I think it's particularly hard to rush game production.
The main thing I'd want is a resource with contacts for the developers who are interested in doing client work, and a suggestion that the client start a comprehensive thread about it that is visible on the forums. So that developers who want client work can be successful, and that clients who want developers are also successful (and more money enters this industry).
A "hire game devs" button that leads to these information including
1) What to tell people if you want to hire
2) These are the people who want to be hired
Would be awesome to have.
And I stand firmly by the notion that a sticky simply isn't enough, we need a front page to intro people to the community and guide them to what they need in a way 5 stickies and 50 "latest posts" can never do.
:)
Sure, when loads of people are looking for local developers and the effort that @Dipso, @BlackShipsFilltheSky, myself and other devs that these people do get hold of online becomes seriously hampering to our own games, then I'll be shouting the loudest for that type of front page change :)
Right now all we need is a bit of a guideline for people looking to hire game developers and a self-selecting list of devs that would be open to work. The trick is for those of us that are getting asked to do work to first screen that work so that it's truly legit, then find locals that can do it without wasting loads of our own time. A sticky handles that second part quite nicely!
There seams to be a lot of concerns about my actions or inaction at times. I would prefer to answer questions on those topics face to face at one of the meetings. I certainly don't mean to snub anyone or imply anything nasty. That having been said I keep my own counsel on what I say or don't say. I am true to myself as I would expect all people to be.
We a friendly bunch of folks passionate about making games. I am here for my part as much as I can afford to be time wise. I will not be able to attend all the meetings but I certainly do want to come as often as I can.
To answer the original question about why I was not on the forums. I simply did not know about them nor did I think to look. This is a great forum with a lot of passionate people. I was involved a little in some of the previous forums that were started and I stress a little since I was not really doing much.
Also guys I really didn't want to be involved at one point since I was not really building games and been involved in forums like this simply reminded me of it (and that reminder was not a pleasant one). It felt awkward to join and say hey yes I am not doing anything but am here anyway.
You should all know that in effect Danny is one of the people that got me started on Toxic Bunny HD. Its a bit round about but he asked me to talk at rAge and the company I worked for decided instead to ship me off to Cameroon over rAge (and my birthday I might add). I was pretty annoyed about the trip but while there thinking about games and the old days of working on them also seeing stuff happening motivated me to started tinkering with the Java engine that we now shipping on.
On a personal note please when I read Mr Bulford I look around for my dad. :p try Travis on for size thanks.
It's probably some funky belief that I'm not qualified enough to weigh in on other peoples work very constructively or something. Time to do better. And try and maintain it :)