"I can't speak for everone, but I suspect may other people would feel like leaving such a community as soon as it was clear it only benefits the top 1%."
But that "top 1%" are projects, not individuals. I think it's exactly why such a community would not work and end up a just another messy junkyard of trolls, unless some very strict criteria and organisation is in place, and with an absolute focus on projects over individuals. If people are only interested in working on their own projects and not willing to compromise, and not confident their project would get upvoted in some substantial way, at some time, then maybe that's saying something? I hope they enjoy being alone as a solitary developer and watch people continually come and go, because I think that's what it means. It's for people wanting to form solid teams and finished projects, people willing to work together and cooperate. Alpha-rockstars need not apply.
For professional studios, you have a roster of skills and full planning, with each member ready to be productive and put the needs of the project above their own personal feelings and opinions. Yes, money is the glue that holds it together, but I think it's much more than that. The teams are constructed before the projects, for the projects, and the projects take priority over any member of the team. Drama and politics can certainly also destroy professional studios, but not nearly as easily. Projects evolve through careful planning the design and workflow, getting input from everyone at every stage, with constant prototyping and iteration. The more indies understand and try to adopt that workflow, the higher chance they will succeed with a finished product and fleshed-out team ready for the next big project. That is the main goal.
For indie developers, you typically find individuals starting up their own projects and thus assuming a leadership role, and instantly you find this hierarchy of command, of "founder" making demands for "their game", often without enough planning. In this situation, someone would be extremely lucky to find a bunch of underlings to participate, which is where most indies find themselves and unwilling to compromise, even if the underlings had some money for their work. When I work with people, I make an effort to ask for opinions, even when I know there's really no room to compromise, I still ask. I pretty much never say "no", the closest I get is to say something like "that sounds like a good idea for another project down the road", which is always true.
With such a community that attempts to automate itself toward these kind of criteria, putting projects above individuals and keeping discourse strictly on development, people stand a much better chance of forming teams, working together in a productive and fun way, and staying together as teams long-term. The ultimate aim is to bring the right people together to then continue on to much bigger and more ambitious projects, hopefully professionally. What I see, and what I think is sad and often even toxic, is this rockstar-wannabe mentality (borderline dictator-envy) of people who consider themselves the "alpha", the "boss", right from the beginning, when in actuality they usually qualify as just another role with an unfinished idea. A thousand lonely indies with a thousand separate ideas, where the vast majority will stay. In such a community, as I imagine it, we'd naturally figure out who cuts it and who doesn't, but always with the projects as a priority. The projects themselves are the "boss". Individual rockstar-wannabes who believe their project is the best thing that could ever exist just wouldn't fit into such a community as they wouldn't really fit into a large professional team, like some kind of natural selection, and the community wouldn't even miss them.
The idea for a ranking system, as my idea goes, was not really about reputation but actually more like obligation, as strange as that sounds, and not just members are ranked but groups/sub-groups and entire projects themselves. The reason for doing this is to make sure the most deserving projects rise to the top and the most capable members will be working on the most important tasks. It's not a dick-measuring contest at all because members with high ranks would be way too busy working to sit around farting their ego in everyone's face. It might sound elitist and possibly it even is, admittedly, but it would certainly take a lot of the "bitch-work" and drama out of everything. That's the whole point.
Personally, anything that gets in-fighting, politics, bitchwars and drama out of game development - I'm all for it, elitist-sounding or not. I'm beyond tired of getting involved in teams and communities like that, I just want to make games, and I don't even think it's cool! :P
Actually I've had a similar idea for a while, something like a gamedev community where ideas for entire projects are upvoted, then approaches to developing that idea are upvoted, and then specific tasks are upvoted and shared among the community, and these tasks would earn reputation points when completed, with points going toward forming serious teams for serious big projects. With enough members, several projects could be in development at one time and nobody would get bored, in theory. There's a lot of concerns about legal issues and rights, making sure everything is original and legal, so to begin with it would need to be non-commercial projects, small-scale and signed-off, but eventually could lead to something more serious.
I'm in the same position, except I'm a content creator and pretty much nothing of a programmer. I'm in a position to commission coders for achievable per-task one-time jobs but I would rather just team up with someone for the passion of game development and think about money later, if that's even realistic anymore. I think the commission approach is reasonable because it forces things to be prioritised and folks can be compensated for their time.
My outlook on the situation is that if someone is going to assume a leadership role (and honestly, only 1 person can and will, always) then they have a LOT of extra work to do to plan _everything_ out, and I really mean everything, including an ending - have documentation and reference material to work from, have prototypes and be able to visually demonstrate concepts, have a fairly chunky "dev-bible" (and expect nobody to actually read it) that is written in such a way that it expands from basic bullet-points into pages of details that attempts to answer _every_ question. Not just with storyline and mechanics, but also an operating workflow - detailing which engine and softwares and templates, etc.
The game should already exist, in its entirety, "on paper" well before anyone is spending time poking around an engine. Then, just because it exists, doesn't mean it won't change drastically. I think branding also goes a long way, personally. It may seem shallow, but if a project already has a professional-looking title and a logo or something, it will appear to be more of an actual project that's going somewhere rather than just some high schooler's fantasy cooked up that day during lunch.
Normally what I see around is a paragraph or two, drop the names of a couple of games or even genres and just say "something like that". What's worse is a lot of people seem to be reluctant to keep their ideas under wraps from fear of it being stolen. I believe, 99% of the time, if someone is the type of weasel that's going to steal your idea because they have nothing better themselves, they are likely the same kind of weasel that have no practical skills and will try to make everyone else do it for them. So, better to just put your ideas out there and risk them being stolen by weasels, in order to allow fellow developers to understand the project and possibly team up. While you guys are busy actually developing, the weasels will be trying to shove the puzzle together and looking for more ideas to steal and more assets to flip.
Anyone who thinks "it's not that kind of project, I don't need any planning, let's just wing it and make it up as we go along, etc." should actually just express that, because that will say a lot about the project and where it's likely to go.
In short - yes there are lonely programmers and yes there are lonely artists, but everyone has their own ideas and getting people together, in agreement and getting along so everyone is cool, flexible and professional - is the hardest thing to do.
I don't think there's anything wrong with outsourcing some textures and basic scenery, but just be sure that it's mixed up nicely while also seeming consistent with theme and quality. So, don't just use textures all from the same set all in the same place, and don't have one cartoonish "hand-drawn" texture sitting right next to photosource realism.
I don't think people will mind seeing a familiar texture here or there, or even a familiar tree or trashcan, etc. This in itself doesn't count as an "asset flip". If it did, then we could say the first STALKER game was an asset flip, which is something only the most obnoxious and misinformed would try to claim.
Just be sure that your characters, weapons/items and everything that is at the core of the design is original, and nobody should lose any respect for the effort put into the project.
Couldn't he (/they) just be banned from posting but still have their assets/portfolio pages up and still be allowed to contribute to the site? I don't see the harm in that, it seems reasonable to me. As much as I think this is all stinky and ridiculous, I still see the ability to "speak" and the ability to contribute as two entirely different things.
"I can't speak for everone, but I suspect may other people would feel like leaving such a community as soon as it was clear it only benefits the top 1%."
But that "top 1%" are projects, not individuals. I think it's exactly why such a community would not work and end up a just another messy junkyard of trolls, unless some very strict criteria and organisation is in place, and with an absolute focus on projects over individuals. If people are only interested in working on their own projects and not willing to compromise, and not confident their project would get upvoted in some substantial way, at some time, then maybe that's saying something? I hope they enjoy being alone as a solitary developer and watch people continually come and go, because I think that's what it means. It's for people wanting to form solid teams and finished projects, people willing to work together and cooperate. Alpha-rockstars need not apply.
For professional studios, you have a roster of skills and full planning, with each member ready to be productive and put the needs of the project above their own personal feelings and opinions. Yes, money is the glue that holds it together, but I think it's much more than that. The teams are constructed before the projects, for the projects, and the projects take priority over any member of the team. Drama and politics can certainly also destroy professional studios, but not nearly as easily. Projects evolve through careful planning the design and workflow, getting input from everyone at every stage, with constant prototyping and iteration. The more indies understand and try to adopt that workflow, the higher chance they will succeed with a finished product and fleshed-out team ready for the next big project. That is the main goal.
For indie developers, you typically find individuals starting up their own projects and thus assuming a leadership role, and instantly you find this hierarchy of command, of "founder" making demands for "their game", often without enough planning. In this situation, someone would be extremely lucky to find a bunch of underlings to participate, which is where most indies find themselves and unwilling to compromise, even if the underlings had some money for their work. When I work with people, I make an effort to ask for opinions, even when I know there's really no room to compromise, I still ask. I pretty much never say "no", the closest I get is to say something like "that sounds like a good idea for another project down the road", which is always true.
With such a community that attempts to automate itself toward these kind of criteria, putting projects above individuals and keeping discourse strictly on development, people stand a much better chance of forming teams, working together in a productive and fun way, and staying together as teams long-term. The ultimate aim is to bring the right people together to then continue on to much bigger and more ambitious projects, hopefully professionally. What I see, and what I think is sad and often even toxic, is this rockstar-wannabe mentality (borderline dictator-envy) of people who consider themselves the "alpha", the "boss", right from the beginning, when in actuality they usually qualify as just another role with an unfinished idea. A thousand lonely indies with a thousand separate ideas, where the vast majority will stay. In such a community, as I imagine it, we'd naturally figure out who cuts it and who doesn't, but always with the projects as a priority. The projects themselves are the "boss". Individual rockstar-wannabes who believe their project is the best thing that could ever exist just wouldn't fit into such a community as they wouldn't really fit into a large professional team, like some kind of natural selection, and the community wouldn't even miss them.
The idea for a ranking system, as my idea goes, was not really about reputation but actually more like obligation, as strange as that sounds, and not just members are ranked but groups/sub-groups and entire projects themselves. The reason for doing this is to make sure the most deserving projects rise to the top and the most capable members will be working on the most important tasks. It's not a dick-measuring contest at all because members with high ranks would be way too busy working to sit around farting their ego in everyone's face. It might sound elitist and possibly it even is, admittedly, but it would certainly take a lot of the "bitch-work" and drama out of everything. That's the whole point.
Personally, anything that gets in-fighting, politics, bitchwars and drama out of game development - I'm all for it, elitist-sounding or not. I'm beyond tired of getting involved in teams and communities like that, I just want to make games, and I don't even think it's cool! :P
Actually I've had a similar idea for a while, something like a gamedev community where ideas for entire projects are upvoted, then approaches to developing that idea are upvoted, and then specific tasks are upvoted and shared among the community, and these tasks would earn reputation points when completed, with points going toward forming serious teams for serious big projects. With enough members, several projects could be in development at one time and nobody would get bored, in theory. There's a lot of concerns about legal issues and rights, making sure everything is original and legal, so to begin with it would need to be non-commercial projects, small-scale and signed-off, but eventually could lead to something more serious.
"So are you an artist seeking a programmer worth joining your project or are you an artist seeking a project worth joining?"
At this point I'd say both, but moreso the former than the latter.
I'm in the same position, except I'm a content creator and pretty much nothing of a programmer. I'm in a position to commission coders for achievable per-task one-time jobs but I would rather just team up with someone for the passion of game development and think about money later, if that's even realistic anymore. I think the commission approach is reasonable because it forces things to be prioritised and folks can be compensated for their time.
My outlook on the situation is that if someone is going to assume a leadership role (and honestly, only 1 person can and will, always) then they have a LOT of extra work to do to plan _everything_ out, and I really mean everything, including an ending - have documentation and reference material to work from, have prototypes and be able to visually demonstrate concepts, have a fairly chunky "dev-bible" (and expect nobody to actually read it) that is written in such a way that it expands from basic bullet-points into pages of details that attempts to answer _every_ question. Not just with storyline and mechanics, but also an operating workflow - detailing which engine and softwares and templates, etc.
The game should already exist, in its entirety, "on paper" well before anyone is spending time poking around an engine. Then, just because it exists, doesn't mean it won't change drastically. I think branding also goes a long way, personally. It may seem shallow, but if a project already has a professional-looking title and a logo or something, it will appear to be more of an actual project that's going somewhere rather than just some high schooler's fantasy cooked up that day during lunch.
Normally what I see around is a paragraph or two, drop the names of a couple of games or even genres and just say "something like that". What's worse is a lot of people seem to be reluctant to keep their ideas under wraps from fear of it being stolen. I believe, 99% of the time, if someone is the type of weasel that's going to steal your idea because they have nothing better themselves, they are likely the same kind of weasel that have no practical skills and will try to make everyone else do it for them. So, better to just put your ideas out there and risk them being stolen by weasels, in order to allow fellow developers to understand the project and possibly team up. While you guys are busy actually developing, the weasels will be trying to shove the puzzle together and looking for more ideas to steal and more assets to flip.
Anyone who thinks "it's not that kind of project, I don't need any planning, let's just wing it and make it up as we go along, etc." should actually just express that, because that will say a lot about the project and where it's likely to go.
In short - yes there are lonely programmers and yes there are lonely artists, but everyone has their own ideas and getting people together, in agreement and getting along so everyone is cool, flexible and professional - is the hardest thing to do.
I don't think there's anything wrong with outsourcing some textures and basic scenery, but just be sure that it's mixed up nicely while also seeming consistent with theme and quality. So, don't just use textures all from the same set all in the same place, and don't have one cartoonish "hand-drawn" texture sitting right next to photosource realism.
I don't think people will mind seeing a familiar texture here or there, or even a familiar tree or trashcan, etc. This in itself doesn't count as an "asset flip". If it did, then we could say the first STALKER game was an asset flip, which is something only the most obnoxious and misinformed would try to claim.
Just be sure that your characters, weapons/items and everything that is at the core of the design is original, and nobody should lose any respect for the effort put into the project.
You might want to give this a go, if possible bandwidth issues wouldn't outweigh the convenience you're looking for:-
https://www.httrack.com/
http://soundimage.org/wp-content/uploads/
Index doesn't seem protected, as of posting this reply. If it suddenly isn't accessible, Mr.Matyas just fixed it. :P
Couldn't he (/they) just be banned from posting but still have their assets/portfolio pages up and still be allowed to contribute to the site? I don't see the harm in that, it seems reasonable to me. As much as I think this is all stinky and ridiculous, I still see the ability to "speak" and the ability to contribute as two entirely different things.
This is what you get from a couple of simple clicks in a software called "Genetica":-
http://spiralgraphics.biz/genetica.htm
They basically get farted out of the software by default without any creativity involved.
I've seen these exact textures before in many different places, "by" many different artists.
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