Contests
by Glenn Thomas · in Torque Game Builder · 01/02/2008 (1:51 am) · 4 replies
The public is not motivated enough to develop tutorials for your forums. I've been a member for awhile now to know that there is a bunch of talent here but few are willing to commit their time and energy just to be a good Samaritan. If GG would host contests to come up with tutorials or games with source included then people would complain less about the lack of help. I went to school for game design and I still can't build my desired games due to not knowing how to utilize the power of torque. If there was more community involvement this wouldn't be a problem. The community is more focused on asking for help than working towards a common goal. I hope the merger allows GG to focus more on its communities requests but contests are a good start plus they are fun and offer members a great since of accomplishment. They would also make great portfolio pieces for those that are seriously in the industry for their career. Thanks for hearing me out and hopefully we'll see more.
#2
It would be nice if there were more complete games that came with TGB so newcomers could get a better idea of how to go about putting something together. I'm a bit surprised actually that the pre-built examples have regressed a bit, from the nice side scrolling shooter (with tutorial) in older versions of TGB to now just the behavior playground. Granted, what you can do now with behaviors is really awesome and the playground shows off a lot of good concepts, it just lacks the flair of a complete game with script source.
Now on that subject, I took the asteroids level from the playground source and built a basic but full game around it with increasing levels of difficulty, a scoring system with high score saving, sound effects, and GUI elements. It's 100% behavior based, and hopefully I can get it on TDN as a tutorial in the near future. It's just an issue of finding the time. :)
01/02/2008 (3:57 pm)
Back in the day just before TGB 1.1 was released, there was a bounty program for the community to create tutorials and artwork. It was quite successful in getting people to participate. Whether or not that is the best solution to any documentation problem is for GG to decide.It would be nice if there were more complete games that came with TGB so newcomers could get a better idea of how to go about putting something together. I'm a bit surprised actually that the pre-built examples have regressed a bit, from the nice side scrolling shooter (with tutorial) in older versions of TGB to now just the behavior playground. Granted, what you can do now with behaviors is really awesome and the playground shows off a lot of good concepts, it just lacks the flair of a complete game with script source.
Now on that subject, I took the asteroids level from the playground source and built a basic but full game around it with increasing levels of difficulty, a scoring system with high score saving, sound effects, and GUI elements. It's 100% behavior based, and hopefully I can get it on TDN as a tutorial in the near future. It's just an issue of finding the time. :)
#3
01/02/2008 (7:15 pm)
It's good to see that this is at least a desired means towards a solution. We can't put it all on GG because this is a community forum, but the community can inspire GG to assist them in making their product more desired and user friendly. I'll do my best to find the time to get the community involved. I look forward to seeing that extension to asteroids you made it'll help alot of people. I hate asteroids though cause I suck at it so bad. It's like throwing your steering wheel out the window during a rainstorm while doing 200 mph on the autobahn while trying to steer by throwing your body against the walls of the car and simultaneously chucking trash at cars that get too close. That's just my opinion though. 
#4
I've posted a game here a year ago, and still gotten no feedback from any fellow TGB developers. That's what makes me angry about the community.
Your idea is great Glenn, but just try and get Garage Games in on it. They're too busy to answer emails that don't benefit them directly. Broad statement, but I've emailed three or four employees and only one has ever responded. I've even begged one employee to just send me a yes or no. They sent me nothing. Maybe they missed it.
The other hard part is this: sure, there are a lot of talented TGB users out there, but who has time to write a newbie tutorial on any kind of game structure that they have made? Making the game structure takes a massive amount of time -- the tutorial takes just as much, and most developers aren't fond of doing such things when they could be working on a new game.
People are naturally quite selfish -- I'm not excluding myself from that -- so what does Garage Games say?
1.) "Hey! We're making this new game platform called InstantAction. Great huh? Why don't all you developers compete and make a game for it. 'That way the whole community can benefit.' That'd be great! "
Yeah right. The winner and Garage Games benefit from the InstantAction compo. I'd much rather see something like you have explained, Glenn:
2.) "Hey! We want our community to thrive and we want our customers to be indefinitely joyous that they bought a Torque product, so let's sponsor a competition for Torque learning. That'd be great!"
Yes it would. Unfortunately, Garage Games is already too busy with endeavors that are monetarily beneficial.
Hoping Garage Games will one day prove my smug, cynical face wrong,
Kevin
02/24/2008 (12:06 pm)
Yes, this is a community that asks for help more than help is given -- but that's just the nature of the beast. I for one have been on both sides and have been pretty satisfied on both sides.I've posted a game here a year ago, and still gotten no feedback from any fellow TGB developers. That's what makes me angry about the community.
Your idea is great Glenn, but just try and get Garage Games in on it. They're too busy to answer emails that don't benefit them directly. Broad statement, but I've emailed three or four employees and only one has ever responded. I've even begged one employee to just send me a yes or no. They sent me nothing. Maybe they missed it.
The other hard part is this: sure, there are a lot of talented TGB users out there, but who has time to write a newbie tutorial on any kind of game structure that they have made? Making the game structure takes a massive amount of time -- the tutorial takes just as much, and most developers aren't fond of doing such things when they could be working on a new game.
People are naturally quite selfish -- I'm not excluding myself from that -- so what does Garage Games say?
1.) "Hey! We're making this new game platform called InstantAction. Great huh? Why don't all you developers compete and make a game for it. 'That way the whole community can benefit.' That'd be great! "
Yeah right. The winner and Garage Games benefit from the InstantAction compo. I'd much rather see something like you have explained, Glenn:
2.) "Hey! We want our community to thrive and we want our customers to be indefinitely joyous that they bought a Torque product, so let's sponsor a competition for Torque learning. That'd be great!"
Yes it would. Unfortunately, Garage Games is already too busy with endeavors that are monetarily beneficial.
Hoping Garage Games will one day prove my smug, cynical face wrong,
Kevin
Associate David Montgomery-Blake
David MontgomeryBlake
One of the problems with most development sites is that many people who frequent them go to get quick-fixes or talk shop with others using their engine or creating a similar gametype. They often do not come specifically in the spirit of sharing their work, especially if they are contractors. It doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, but it is not as frequent as most would like it to be. I see this with a large number of dev communities. Two of the best when it comes to source sharing are the DarkBasic and Blitz communities. Perhaps it is the language-based approach (PureBasic and Omni Basic had active and sharing communities as well), though it really depends on the products as well. The RealBasic community is helpful, but reluctant to share code since they can sell plug ins for RB to other RB programmers to add convenience while coding. On the one end, it allows programmers to make money from their hard work, but it drops the sharing of code somewhat.
When it comes to game engines versus languages oriented towards game development, there are a bunch of cans of worms. Game engines like Quake/2/3 have a TON of great information now that they've been released into the GPL, but much of that information comes from the many years of modding the engine. And since the vast majority of mod teams never made a penny (or intended to), there was not a problem releasing their QuakeC or SDK code for free. Same with UnrealScript. There's some great code out there from mod teams that fostered the coding community. But the license restrictions helped in this instance because they made it clear that the modders probably would never make any money from their mods without purchasing an expensive license and going through a license vetting process. So there was little reason not to release code, aside from hubris at coding well-done when other teams were not producing as cool of code as yours.