New Board Discussion (Hard Theory, Creative Commons), A community discussion Options

[X-M-O]

If we decide to turn GUC into the same concept as "Hard Theory", eliminating the need for "Hard Theory", that means several things may need to be accounted for:

GUC threads would get rather clustered with ideas and feedback, and many developers would not want to carry their threads over to Project Demos with all that feedback and design work in the threads. They would then have to make a new thread with their actual project they want to advertise for Project Demos or Completed Games.

I don't think that's a problem at all. Actually sounds quite pleasant to have a fresh topic for your game once it has a demo. =]
(Closing the older topic and archiving it would make sense too.)

I'm honestly all for restructuring GUC to be our "Hard Theory" board but that may mean a large overhaul for GUC, which brings up the question of what to do with all the threads in it now. To be honest GUC games are prematurely advertised games. That doesn't mean they don't get some attention, and aren't useful for recruitment. Restructuring it may not be the best solution.

True, it would be a lot of work, but (with a new "expiration date" rule) most of the topics would be archived due to their lack of inactivity for more than 30 (or 60, whatever) days. So we'd automatically have less topics to worry about, and the work-load isn't too bad.
Of course, I'm not saying this is the best solution, but I'd like to keep it on the table. ^^

I would be okay changing TD's rules to allow for Hard Theory style threads, but TD gets a lot of action as is. Soft Theory and Hard Theory are also very different. Hard Theory is very specific to it's game, and may easily be seen as advertising for your own game, which is probably one of the reasons TD doesn't allow this among others.
In the end it may be less confusing and less problematic to keep them separate.

Personally, I like to avoid adding more sub-forums that might clutter things up, but this idea for a sub-forum doesn't really bother me. I think that changing the rules for the TD forum is possibly easier to do at first, but moderating/managing it would likely be more difficult and less confusing than simply having an HD sub-forum.

The latter is one of the most pivotal parts of game development, and yet we do not have a board where people are comfortable posting feedback for their work in this area.

I agree with this, actually. Which is why I think calling it "Hard Theory" is probably not the best name for it. I'd go with "Practical Application" or "Theory In Practice" (imagine it being called the "TIP" forum, lol) or something. :3

[Adrien.]

would we really want duplicate threads? and what about ideas for when its in long demo and your like "omg what about this concept?"

this is if im reading this correctly

[Titanhex]

If you have a great idea you want to implement for your game in Long Demos then you can make a thread for it in "Hard Design"/"GUC" or wherever this will be. Hell you could link to the thread in your Long Demo game as well to discuss a feature you want in your game.

This gives people a lot of ways to contribute to your game too. I'm not so sure I understand where duplicate threads come in though. Certainly you can have a Long Demos thread separate from your Hard Design thread.

[Sailerius]

The fundamental reason I'm opposed to a T&D board which allows discussion of specific topics is the same reason why that kind of discussion is presently disallowed from T&D.

If such a board existed, the vast majority of posts would be one-liners such as "I'm making an FF7 fangame, should it be a prequel or a sequel???" "what should be the worlds in my KH fangame???" "how many crystals should I have?" or "should poison take away 10% HP or 15%?"

In other words, the people with in-depth and interesting, discussion-worthy threads would be drowned out by the half-baked ideas that will never see anywhere close to fruition. GUC is safeguarded by the project requirements, but it would be much harder to implement cut and dry rules for requirements for a hard T&D board. Everyone and their brother has a half-baked project idea and the fact of the matter is, unless you have it at the stage where it's time to show it off, nobody cares. It would be flooded with topics with 0 posts and the only responses would be everyone desperately bumping their topics waiting for feedback that will never come.

It's a sad wasteland waiting to happen and we do nobody any favors by allowing it to come into existence.

[Kaust]

I'm sorry guys but I'm a few hours behind the current events()
Firstly it seems redundant to close the thread debating the reopening of a screenshot thread to make it occur here, not only was it in fullswing there (admittedly perhaps a little too much so), but the potential of people being redirected here will end up spamming this with something that was specific whereas this was about titan's idea on the whole (like I have done xD).
And since I didn't get my say on that thread, and you recommended these things be said here, yes I like the idea of the screenshot thread (and the hard theory thread but that seems a little out of my league) and was disappointed I joined just shortly after it closed, as it took me a while to take mapping into serious consideration and had nowhere to post, bar my GUC where few people were looking and fewer were offering advice (and no Adrien don't take that as 'one more person agreeing'; quantifiable is less valuable than qualitative data, I'm relatively new to the forums and certainly don't understand running them like a Director)
In regards to people selfishly posting without helping, I think its notable that people gain reputations on this site, if you're known for taking and not giving then the ramifications are obvious. This system wont harm newbies, simply because they are newbies.

Before I potentially respark the last threads debate, I'd like to point out again I was redirected here, I'm merely voicing my thoughts and have no desire to 'take a side', merely be taken into consideration. Sorry I have so little to say on Hard Theory itself.

[Titanhex]

Sai brings up a valid point as well. However saying that is no different from saying "GUC is a wasteland where people bump the thread" as well.

However a Hard Design thread encourages much more discussion directly than the GUC forum. Hard Design is a very essential part of game design as well. It is the bridge between game completion and soft theory, but it is a stumbling point for designers.

One great thing is that it gives people an idea of what it looks like to have an idea come to fruition and the steps taken by someone to make it happen.

Questions like "15% or 10%" is actually quite relative to game's balance. Even discussing that with someone can make them think about their game even more. What would I reply if someone asked that?

" 15% would essentially bring an enemy to 1 health in 7 turns, whereas 10% would bring an enemy to 1 health in 10. How long do you want your battles to last, along with compound damage from attacks and abilities. Will you be putting immunity on the enemies where poison would be helpful to defeating them? If so, consider the strategy you want a player to take against the enemy. Then, the difference between fast poison versus slower."

The question may be inane, but the answer can be still be helpful. This answer would get people thinking about just that, the hard design of their game. And that is just one of the ways such a general question can be answered to make a person think of their game and what they want that function to do. Anyways, a vague question like that without any context within the game would likely be moved to Theory and Design.

But all those questions, especially in the context of the game it's being created for, can be pivotal to the design and the way the game plays. All those questions are relevant to the designer, are things some people may legitimately be stuck on, and be helpful to completing a game if answered.

Kaust, the Screenshot Thread discussion should be saved for after the Hard Design discussion is over. I think if Hard Design is used or not will determine a lot of what we're gonna do with the Screenshot Thread.

[Kaust]

Ah, okay. Then it should exist, if only for the sake of the screenshot thread >:]
I jest, I jest.
But honestly it seems like all the unpleasantness of the last thread could have been avoided if someone had simply started another screenshot thread. If it took off, it took off. If it didn't, it didn't. Perhaps not left it to the mods and directors to babysit the thread (a concern shown) and left it to its own devices, and again, if it proves unsustainable on its own merits then the question no longer remains unanswered.
The same applies here I believe. Personally I think you're going to find a lot of support for this Hard Theory idea, but ultimately (with all yes/no questions) there'll be a divide whether its 'worthwhile' or not.
Obviously this implementation is bigger than a single thread, but really can anything ever be established without actually trying?

[amerk]

The fundamental reason I'm opposed to a T&D board which allows discussion of specific topics is the same reason why that kind of discussion is presently disallowed from T&D.

If such a board existed, the vast majority of posts would be one-liners such as "I'm making an FF7 fangame, should it be a prequel or a sequel???" "what should be the worlds in my KH fangame???" "how many crystals should I have?" or "should poison take away 10% HP or 15%?"

In other words, the people with in-depth and interesting, discussion-worthy threads would be drowned out by the half-baked ideas that will never see anywhere close to fruition. GUC is safeguarded by the project requirements, but it would be much harder to implement cut and dry rules for requirements for a hard T&D board. Everyone and their brother has a half-baked project idea and the fact of the matter is, unless you have it at the stage where it's time to show it off, nobody cares. It would be flooded with topics with 0 posts and the only responses would be everyone desperately bumping their topics waiting for feedback that will never come.

It's a sad wasteland waiting to happen and we do nobody any favors by allowing it to come into existence.

This is part of why I was thinking the current GUC can be made into the new HD (or whichever name we decide to go with), rather than another subforum. This way, they would still have to submit via a specific form, and it can be anything from a particular game idea/mechanics to the beginnings of and up to a working game demo. The submission form might be more relaxed because of this (ie., a simple idea wouldn't have the things that a normal GUC would) but we'd avoid or direct to a better forum for a simple question such as if a sequel is a good idea. Heck for that matter, they can reserve the first post in their new GUC topic for a future GUC game, and just ask their game mechanic question in the second post. Can that be done automatically, ie., given them reserved space in the first post? Anyways, that way, once they have the pertinent info they need, all they have to do is instead of creating a new thread, go back to their first post, change the name of the topic to something related to their game, and then begin fleshing out their game ideas.

The reason I suggest GUC be changed because while it may be a game in the making, at this point there is no demo. Once a demo has been made, people tend to take a game more seriously. Once a game gets to be a demo stage (as X-M-O suggested), we could have them create a new topic via submission form to ensure they meet the standard template. This may be a required evil to keep undeveloped GUC threads of circumventing the standard submssion by slapping a demo on their mechanics question and getting a game into LD when it doesn't meet normal requirements. At the very least, maybe a new thread is not needed, but if a person wants a game moved to the demo section, a mod can check their initial post to see if it meets the requirements or not and make them fix it up before moving it.

Think of it this way. A lot of people with working demos already use their game thread to post updates, get feedback, ask game related questions, and so forth, so it would seem a bit redundant to also include a special forum for those people who choose not to use their game threads. And while this idea may still pull away some of the attention a person may seek for their GUC games, I think it will help much more than having a sub forum, since it will encourage developers (and would-be-developers) to work harder on their games to get them into a downloadable stage. In a sense, we would be rewarding those who get a download (demo or complete) by moving them to a special section instead of GUC. As it is, so many GUC topics never get moving past the initial post anyways, and the current method seems to hinder those who do have a download, but it may not be long enough to go to a demo topic, and so there it sits in GUC buried amongst hundreds of other games that are soaking up the spotlight for no other reason than to say "Look at me, I'm not going anywhere, but please give me feedback all the same".

[Adrien.]

If you have a great idea you want to implement for your game in Long Demos then you can make a thread for it in "Hard Design"/"GUC" or wherever this will be. Hell you could link to the thread in your Long Demo game as well to discuss a feature you want in your game.

This gives people a lot of ways to contribute to your game too. I'm not so sure I understand where duplicate threads come in though. Certainly you can have a Long Demos thread separate from your Hard Design thread.

from my understanding I could multiple threads called war of the Souls ones discussing future features and one actually discussing the game and actual implemented features?

sounds like a bad idea - keep it all in one area. HTD should be about game design elements relating to all games using particular features. for example I might want to talk about a possible job feature using Yanfly based scripts and see what the community think as opposed to it being a War of the souls only thing.

thats if I understood what you said correctly.

Plus i never see this actually getting implemented like i never see screen shot thread coming back ...

[X-M-O]

sounds like a bad idea - keep it all in one area.

That's how we currently have it set up (no HTD and no Screenshot Thread). The HTD is meant as a way to have specific design discussions about a particular aspect of a game's design (and yes, it could be only about your game - if it's a topic about any game and is related to hashing out simple design ideas, then that is what the "soft" TD is for).
Of course, this is just in discussion and not yet implemented, which is why this topic is here. =]

At any rate, if there is no demand for an HTD area and its activity goes no where, it might not be implemented for a while (or at all) based on the ideas presented here - not because we don't implement ideas (we implement ideas all the time, many behind the scenes development, but plenty in open view that directly affects everyone).