Project Consumed announcement and recruitment post!

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 12:11 pm

But assume you start a hobby project with whatever contents developed with an arbitrary 3d engine. You go through a handful of project announcements (which are probably similar to what you want to do) and you only find suggestions for not doing any of this stuff with the engine for the next few years. Who would reasonably choose such an engine for anything?
It's not really the number of dropped projects, but the number of projects which were not even started or anounced due to excessive criticism of the first announcements. One should at least keep up a reasonable amount of constructive criticism. Blind bashing won't attract nor help anyone.
Who thought that a single finnish guy could develop an operating system which will be used world-wide nowadays

Virion · Post by **Virion** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 12:29 pm

I have a suggestion. Why don't you get yourself involved in programming? I remember from the gamedev thread you said you are a student of computer science class. Don't just do administration works, the project won't going any further if you don't get yourself involved. And, who's the one who know the most on what you need for the engine other than yourself? Good luck man.

JP · Post by JP » Fri Sep 21, 2007 12:40 pm

My 2 cents:

Rogerborg makes a valid argument, a lot of people do take on projects that are waaay too ambitious and this does seem like a very ambitious project. Rogerborg has probably assumed you're just another over ambitious person and maybe you are or maybe you're not.

It does seem that you don't know a huge amount of the programming side of things so possibly you don't understand what a big project it is to take on. You say you trust your programmers when they say they can handle it which is great, gotta have trust, but possibly they're being a bit over ambitious themselves to think they can handle it. Or maybe they can handle it, none of us can really know that. I think that Virion makes a good point about trying to get involved yourself in the programming asyou'll get more of an idea of what's going on rather than just trusting your programmers.

So lots of people do drop their projects when the going gets tought, but lots of others don't. There are a lot of projects which see the light of day so it's not unimaginable to think that you may well succeed.

You mentioned doing a concept demo, that would definetly be a good idea and would certainly increase your chances of getting more people onboard. You can just grab whatever models/art you can find from the internet and use that to show people what your idea is all about and then when people climb onboard you can get them to do the proper models/art.

Anyway, best of luck, whether people have tried to knock you down or praised you thus far i'm sure everyone still wants to see you succeed and make an awesome game from the engine!

Monochrome · Post by **Monochrome** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 1:03 pm

Well but at least he attempts to do SOMETHING! Let us be honest, how many of you guys ever sucessfully finished a decent project? Most of you doesnt even try to! If you guys dont want to contribute, fine, but dont trash his ideas just because he has them, no matter how ambitious they are. Even if it ends up not working, he will earn precious experience.

After all, faillure is more valorous and noble than quitting before trying and preserverance is what makes great ideas happen. You should all learn something from this guy.

BlindSide · Post by **BlindSide** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 8:11 am

Lol, Monochrome I suppose your project is doing ok, hurry up and finish it quick so that you can show everyone it is possible to gather a bunch of programmers and artists on a whim and successfully complete a retail-scale game with no budget

.

omaremad wrote:Study this thread (a prophecy i think to this thread):
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=22378

I wouldn't really call that thread relevant, mainly because we already had some dedicated modellers on our side and more realistic aspirations (No PS3 support or "next-gen" whatever).

CuteAlien · Post by **CuteAlien** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 8:48 am

While I did trash it too harshly, just letz make sure you get the point, what's the problem here. It's not that he tries to make a project. It's the worry that an unexperienced designer does often not realize that a sentence like "lets make it squad-based, realtime in a dynamic 3D environment" which does only cost a few seconds to write down in a concept can lead to about (very vague) 7 man-years fulltime programming to do it well. And the real evil is that it often seems to work already 90% after 3 months...

A *good* design on the other hand which already knows about the pitfalls might do stuff which looks to the player very similar in a way shorter time. Example: Think of the jumppads in Quake. Compare those to the ladders in other games at the same time. Pure genius - it plays better, faster and is still easier to program than ladders (because you have for example not to care about what happens if 2 bots meet each other on the way up/down). It does lead to other small design changes, like - this can only happen in the future, etc - but that's nothing which costs much work ;-)

One more edit: A major difference between a good design which might work and a bad which is prone to fail.

1. Bad design:
Look at this big list of features which we plan to do and no other game in the market does have.

2. Good design:
Look here's a description on *how* we plan to do a feature which other games do not have.

Even without the features further described I already will be rather certain that only the second project will succeed :-)

BlindSide · Post by **BlindSide** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 1:34 am

CuteAlien wrote:
2. Good design:
Look here's a description on *how* we plan to do a feature which other games do not have.

Thats EXACTLY the reason why I think that graphics programmers themselves make the best game designers.

monkeycracks · Post by **monkeycracks** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 2:12 am

You're planning too many features before it's even been started it looks like. That's how this project has failed : http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=15690

That and I couldn't keep team members to save my life. So good luck with all of that and hopefully it turns out better than the 23940234 other projects that have died here.

omaremad · Post by **omaremad** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 2:16 am

That generalization inst too great, if so why do the best looking games always die away when their technology is old? Because they game play is bad. Both Doom and Doom3 are impressive graphical achievements for their day but Doom seems to have more lasting value (i played doom after playing doom 3 so nostalgia is excluded).

A good designer will study the current hardware and target platform anyway, no need to be a graphic coder.

when Miyamoto-san got Mario to ride Yoshi in Super Mario World, the thinking behind that idea was "functional." What I mean is that the SNES was a console which didn't allow a lot of sprites (the technical mechanism that allows graphics to be displayed on the screen) to be lined up on-screen at the same time. To explain why Yoshi ended up looking like a dinosaur, it's because that shape allows you to limit the number of sprites lined up on screen when Mario and Yoshi are overlapping. You'll understand if you take a look at the original blueprint for Yoshi, that Yoshi was designed purely from a functional point of view. So the reason Yoshi ended up being a dinosaur is not because we wanted Mario to ride a dinosaur. Rather, it was because something like a dinosaur was the shape which was allowed by the technical limitations.

vermeer · Post by **vermeer** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 8:16 pm

indeed, I still find Age Of empires rendered series amazing.

BTW, I am surprised about the good reaction of the original poster. Usually after all the words of warning, the reaction tends to be quite different. That kind of personality ensures someone easy to work with, and that is not so frequent.

I'd only join to the general opinion: indy games, even if with comercial purposes, better use your best advantages(flexibility, originality(no need to go super original, if that were possible, limit art content so that you can use some graphics and make variations, choose a kind of game allowing this, think a project of short producing time frame.Is mor einteresting to learn and produce, than get into some neverending story), freedom in all, enjoying, something close to impossible in a game company(I know well)) and avoid the worst dangers(huge project, more than one platform, count on more than simply other guy, large times of ppl, everyone with their problems in life, and as so large time frame, motivation goes away for each having each one their own...short games have less possibilities that motivation goes away: it's seen the light i nth eend of the tunnel. ).

I only write in those threads were I think the guy deserves it

Usually, is nothing more than a too young kid, no experience, and too much wishes, not having feet on the floor.

In this case, I think you could start a way smaller project, even counting most in your single own, and do a simple game, but with your tweal, your personal touch. It can end up of a much more interesting thing, even.

My 2 cents.

vermeer · Post by **vermeer** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 8:22 pm

About the othe rmatter, at the end of the day, I think the serious ppl wil pick an engine after very serious study of several, trying them deeply.

I have been requested by my programmers to find a modeler or twelve, and some concept artists

one or twelve...good sense of humor

Pay them and you will find a lot

I know...we're all poor. :s

I mean, for free I know will be hard to find.

MolokoTheMole · Post by **MolokoTheMole** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 1:14 pm

Sounds like an ambitious project and because it is your first one be sure to read my post here http://mm.soldat.pl/?p=40, it could help.

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 1:14 pm

MolokoTheMole wrote:Sounds like an ambitious project and because it is your first one be sure to read my post here http://mm.soldat.pl/?p=40, it could help.

That is, without a doubt, the best meta-article on games development that I have ever read. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Unfortunately, the problem with people who "don't know what they don't know" is that they tend to assume that anything that they don't know how to do must be easy. And it generally is, but only after you've found ten hard or bad ways to do it.

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 1:50 pm

Hey, all you naysayers; Mr Quinn has just put up a MySpace page about this project. Take that, those who said that a 26 year old married guy who was still in school, with no team roster, tech demo, concept art, USPs or financial backing couldn't push a project forward to this advanced stage.

rogerborg · Post by **rogerborg** » Wed Nov 21, 2007 6:57 pm

Monthly update: no sign of life on either the 'corporate' web site, or Mr Quinn's MySpace page. Tumbleweed.

Why am I beating this dead horse? Simple: I cannot abide individuals who wear the hat but don't have the cattle. Games development as akin to a cult, and cult leaders need their claims dragged into the cold light of day and challenged, lest they entrap the naive and trusting.

"we will deliver" is an extraordinary claim, which requires extraordinary proof.