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[Grey Goo]

How I should put it, I have ideas. Few too many ideas. While I can't say I am bubbling out of ideas, I still have some of them. Those which are for myself aren't that bad. I can just take all of my time and sit down. Then there those ideas which works best as shared ideas. I do not mean that I create something and share it. More like I have something and need share work with it.

In other words I am talking about those ideas which are best be doned with team.

This is where everything crashes down. Finding good team mates. Either it is people believe everything must be as of solo or everything must be paid before anything happens. Then there is those who don't understand team work well and are trying do things by theirs own head. Regardless or this I do however believe it is possibly to find good team mates. Those who can accept good leader.

Well, I am not sure if am good leader. I am pretty strict about how work must be doned. Through if anyone is in mindset "can this be doned like this?", it may help. However I am also bad to explain things and Armok and other help you if I have gone into mood!

Now to subject. I have programming idea. While I do understand about programming, for example I am into much older kind of programming. Modern isn't my piece of cheese. On other hands I have concepts which may work with modern programming too. Also idea what I am just now thinking is probably most shareable of idea.

Freeware RP game maker!

What? Sure, there is such things already. However not all are freewares and even those which aren't, well, wasn't created by us. Can I say already us? Probably if team work is planned. However this one is different from all of those others, this maker? Let's see, if we go into technical specs one things is portability as well general control over product. Also wishlist.

Generally goals are ease of use, customization, extremy customization and aside from 2D graphic additional of 3D models. Yes, 3D models. Ease of use is simple. Minimum amount of hassle and everything are withing reach of hand. Customization is simple too. Everything and I mean everything is custominable. Don't like title menu? Customize your own! Not liking how maps are handled? Make your own map handler! Like not damage formulas or data structure of items? Yep, create your own. Data is data and can handled as user like. Even in insane ways.

But that about 3D? While 2D tiles aren't impossible, 3D models probably requires tools and too much skill. However there is solution for it too. There is base model, let's say stardard humanoid. Model itself isn't much, but now comes trick. Simplest is skeleton and hotpoints making animation simple. Probably creating own animations are also simple just creating own skeleton and hotpoints.

This is not all of it. Trick is models have another kind of hotpoints for appearance. Like character to have long noses? Change hotpoint. Ears, hotpoints. Everything else? Hotpoints. And there comes probably most important trick. 3D paper dolls! Probably 2D can also have such if one really wants, but with 3D they are important. Adding different parts and creating even more different character is this way quite easy. Plus textures.

Of course, this is just idea in it's barest form. Sure, much of this is probably just question of starting programming. Too bad I have learned only hate modern programming. I should rant so much why, but better not. Some people just like talk and point into manuals without actual help. One time too much.

Anyway, I am not sure if I can explain this so that it sounds interesting. In short like to have team for this. Kind of. Through, I should warning immediately that I have kind of short attention. So trying put things to motion fast enough and burst all material in my mind. Should also do some good my psyche have something be doned or under being doned. Don't worry however, as long there is momentum and enough attention from any possible team, I can be some use too after starting...

[Urist McScoopbeard]

... what's the idea?

[Lectorog]

... what's the idea?

From what I gather:
A free RPG maker with:
- portability
- ease of use
- customization of literally everything
- 3D models that are handled as easily edited base human models (using "hotpoints")

And he wants a team to do it. He admits he won't be of any real credit to the team, but he wants to lead it.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

ah.

Well in that case, one of the most common comments I see on Moddb is that the team cannot be lead by 'The Idea Guy' and there actually really isn't a place for one of those.

[Bauglir]

As an Idea Guy, your role will pretty much be to draw up a formal design document and hand it off, probably along with money, to people with the skills to create what you're interested in. Work on unambiguous communication and specificity, because without those, Idea Guys are utterly worthless, and to be blunt, you haven't demonstrated skill with either in the OP. If English is not your native language, that's one thing, but it does mean you'll either need to improve your skills with it or else find somebody who does speak your native language to handle the coding.

Once you've got the skills you need, you will need to make a complete, exhaustive, and clear design specification that lists every feature you think needs to be present (protip: do not refer to any other project when writing this, so no "It should be like Game Maker, except..."). This includes stuff you think is obvious, like a Save command for work you've done. Wherever possible, avoid simply saying a feature should be present, and instead attempt to describe how that feature is used, and what it does. For instance, instead of "Users should be able to save their work", try "The File menu should include a Save command, which creates or updates a folder, containing files that store all of the work done thus far. Files created in this way should be available to be edited with text or image editors, as appropriate to the file's content. Ctrl-S should activate this command as a hotkey."

This sort of thing is something I'm working on practicing myself, but even my (fairly ambitious) idea pales in complexity to what you've suggested. And remember, having ideas isn't enough - you need to motivate other people to help you fulfill them. In most cases for something like this, that means money. An Idea Guy who's also the Money Guy has a role that will keep him in the project.

[Grey Goo]

>Lectorog

Yep, you are right...

>Bauglir

Money is complety problem, unless I go and make this idea be not be free for use but instead need some payment. Which I don't do and instead i'll just say fuck the money I have idea. However I consider idea of setting donations fine but whats probably job of team leader. Consider extremy working one if money is issue. However I won't touch that part myself because just fuck the money! Not literally however, what's just gross. Through ideal guys are still those who have skills, but no ideas or anything to use them. Even better if they are those who loves theirs skills and not money they gains.

As for formal design document, is it okay if i'll give short version there? I am doing this with basis of gained interest. If anything that i'll say gains interest from people i'll continue. Not going waste time to sleeping audience. Okay? There is lots of details to talk about like, even if they are short ones:

-General things.
-Interface and editor, files.
-Scripts, controls, handling game data like enemies, items and maps.
-Graphics, tiles, sprites and 3D models. Screen layers and effects.
-Audio, fore- and background. Background music.
-Miscellanious features.

General things

Project is freeware roleplay game maker. Goal is make it easy to use, light, portable and custominable. Easy of use means both low learning curve for basics and easily accesses features. Lightness means generally processor, memory and disk space usage. This is in terms of modern and few years old machines.

Portability is ability to create, edit and play same game under different OS as long executables are right kind. Data is always same. However this is secondary goal and has low priority unless code can be directly compiled into OS in question. Main OS is current Windows and older versions down to XP. Other ones are variants of Linux and OS X.

Custominable means that many features how game looks like and even many features with editor are possibly to modify. In simplest form this is giving created game any kind of look ranging from different kind of 2D rpgs to 3D of different kind. However most features of editor can be modified by having keyparts of game's data modified. These parts tells to editor how to handle games data, for example layouts of map if they have any.

Interface and editor, files

Interface is doned using native GUI of OS with that program is running. Any interface feature required like menus and buttons are from this. Default state for editor is complety blank until new project is created or old one opened. For projects there are templates. These include all same data as potential game, unless template is blank.

Files and Folders

Several kind of folders exist. There are main folders and sub-folders for various kind of data.

-Main folder, "<insert name of this maker there>". Includes editor's exec file, config.ini and sub-folders. Under main folder is these:

-Template folder, "\templates\<name of template>". Folder "templates" includes sub-folders what are used to create new project. Only blank is not there because it requires only creation of folders.
-Project folder, "\projects\<name of project>". Project's files and sub-folders.
Under any template and project "<name of foo>" is these:

-Executable and config, main folder of "<name of foo>". Includes executable and config.ini for project. With templates directory includes config.ini.
-Graphics and models folder, "\visuals". Any graphical data, tiles, sprites and models are there.
-Audio and music, "\noise". All sound and music files goes there.
-Scripts and data, "\data". Scripts and miscellanious game data is there.
-Maps, "\world". Raw data of maps are there.

For templates config.ini includes title and author information of template. With projects it includes game title and author information for it, but also current state of project. This have current position of editing with map and map being edited.

"\visuals" includes all graphicals files, pictures, tiles, sprites and 3D models. These aren't edited directly by editor so 3nd party editors are required. Valid formats for this folder should be at least .bmp and .png for tiles and sprites, with or without palette. Any other pictures can accept .jpg and any other lossful formats. These files on loading are converted into simpler format and cached. This is doned for speed purpose. Filename can be anything.

"\noise" have audio data and music. Again no direct editing. Unlike with graphics any playable format is handled as available audio library allows. This is due to amount of available audio formats and generally audio being hardest one to handle compared to graphics. However caching file and playing from memory should be available. More information required of library in use. Any filenames.

"\data" is place for anything which tells how game works. All data there is editable by editor itself. Scripts, data of tiles and sprites, hotpoints, all this. Unlike with two earlier folders, filenames are always in format "data????.bin" and "gscr????.bin". First one is for miscellanious data, latter is for game scripts. "????" stands for 0000-FFFF. Those are hexadecimals. How filename is chosen is explained in later sections. Anything in these files are binary and editable in editor.

"\world" has raw data of maps. These can be edited in editor according to rules defined in "\data\gscr0000.bin". These files are named in "????????.map". ???????? again stands for long hexadecimal and is chosen for a reason be long. More about this in later sections.

File menu. Quick access through key Alt+F. Includes these features.

-New project, Control+N. Creates new game project. If there is open unsaved project, confirm is required before proceeding forward. If this happen next is project template to choose or creating new blank project. After template is chosen, title of game, name of game folder and author information are asked.

*Title is one line text and is show on a program's title bar. Default string "game".
*Game folder is name of folder where project is saved. Also name of executable comes from this for project. One line text. Default string "game".
*Author information is multiline text. If game is played this text is show first unless string is empty. Default string empty.

If there is already project under same folder name, another name is request until different name is given. If everything proceed fine, required folders are created and template is copied into it. If template was blank, no data is copied. Required folders and sub-folders are created instead as of empty.

-Open project, Control+O. Opens list of projects in "/projects" folder and loads selected project. Ask for confirmation if unsaved other project is open.

-Close project, no hotkey. Closes current project. Asks for confirmation if project is already open and unsaved. Goes back to blank screen. Menu is grayed our if no project are open.

-Save project, Control+S. Saves data of current project. This save includes all script data, all map data and any pointers into graphics, audios, scripts, maps or !!puppies!!. Also paperdoll layouts and hotpoints for 3D models are saved. Graphics and audio data aren't saved because they aren't edited directly in this editor. Grayed out if no project open.

-Change title, no hotkey. Changes title of game and author data as in creation. Only folder name cannot be change this way as it is grayed out there. No changing of templates either now. Grayed out without open projects.

-Recent project 0-3, no hotkey. Four recently opened projects. Grayed out if no project is opened. If project don't exist anymore, give message and free unused recent project.

-Exit program, Alt+F4. Ends program, asks for confirmation if unsaved project is open.


*****************************************************************


And this concludes rude version of design document demo. If you want see more you must send payment to... fuck with money! Anyway, this is semi-real but fast written example I do these days design documents and really. I do think it should be programmer who should pay us! Seriously, writing these straight into this post reply is hard enough. Over three hours for this and this isn't even everything! It is really true designing is 90% of programming.

Anyway, I am willing do full and fixed version of design documents if anyone has interest there. However I don't give any payment as I am not getting one myself from this at all. Besides anyone who is asking for money should not have any, any rights use free stuff themself, like DF. If Toady should be not doing his works so much, I should go and ask him. Not for date, but as of programmer. However not going do it because I already understand well how busy he is.

And this gives me one important thing come to my mind. This isn't oneshot project which can be doned in overnight or few. Even if I can pay somehow, you aren't any good because you have surely other works later too and jumping between different programmers isn't good idea. Too many cooks will spoils anything. So there must be really stable team or otherwise only few people.

There is certain things also I don't mind of. I do not care about have so called professional programmers as long they can understand concept of human language. Yes, I have seen programmer who do not understand even ours, his and my native language at all. Another is deadlines, there is none. Through it don't mean lacking of. Its means there is no stress for completing anything. Besides, I do anything that my designs are easy enough to implent.

Because I hate both. Money greed people who still likes free stuff and complex things which have thousand too many features...

Plus, I wonder that is limit of text there?...

[Caz]

. I do think it should be programmer who should pay us! Seriously, writing these straight into this post reply is hard enough. Over three hours for this and this isn't even everything! It is really true designing is 90% of programming.

...No, it isn't.

If you're really interested in doing this, learn programming, or have a fat stack of money ready to pay people for their work. That's the only way this is going anywhere. Everyone has ideas. Without the skills to implement them, you're useless to the creation team.

[Anvilfolk]

. I do think it should be programmer who should pay us! Seriously, writing these straight into this post reply is hard enough. Over three hours for this and this isn't even everything! It is really true designing is 90% of programming.

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHsfiuahfkvzxv

Aw man, that made me laugh out loud in real life, seriously



So as not to be just a dick in my reply, let me try to explain. You need to spend weeks, if not months learning how to program the very basics. After that, you STILL don't know how to make a game. You need to learn about datastructures. Then you should learn about patterns, and generally about how to design game engines, about the target platform, about the libraries you're going to use...

Heck, I've got plenty of university background in CS, I've spent months reading about game development, and it's still a huge struggle.

Noone is going to work for you with that attitude, because they know how much work goes into developing the technical parts of a game. Also, everybody can come up with ideas for the ultimate game. And I do mean everybody.

[Pranz]

Every programmer has at least as many ideas you got that they want to implement. The difference is that they actually can implement them. If you don't have other skill except coming with ideas you will constantly struggle with a sleeping audience. Why would someone who has spent years learning programming want to be constrained by your design vision?

[cerapa]

That is a woefully inadequate design document. I know Bauglir said to even do the most obvious features, but you're supposed to talk about everything else too.

You spent a while talking about the names of files, when instead you should have been talking about the actual structure of the project. What language are the scripts in? How do they interface with the rest of the data? How is input, physics, and everything else handled, considering the game could be 2d or 3d? What is the actual internal logic? If the map handling is completely custom, why is it being treated seperately from the rest of the custom data?

I'm just gonna say it: This is not for you. You have no actual skills in this field. You do not have any money to make this happen. And you do not even have an unique idea. This project has already been tried and done multiple times. Even if you could find a team, you would have nothing to contribute yourself. And you most certainly aren't charismatic enough(at least in english) to gather your own team regardless of your other failings.

Scrap this idea. Start over. Learn to program and make something simple. Make a mod for a popular game. Learn to write better. If you need some help with something you could actually accomplish, then come back and we will help you. You could very well become a great programmer or game designer some day, but you need to improve a whole damn lot before that.

[Bauglir]

It's good that you're able to take the time to write that out. However, it's premature. First and foremost, you need to work on your English. There's no way around this - in order to communicate well with your programmers, you will need to have a good mastery of the language. This is especially true if you expect to do this without money. It's possible to get a collaborative effort off the ground without paying for it, but you need to be so inspiring that people want to use their precious free time to help you, and you furthermore need something concrete you can show off as proof-of-concept. That also means that, like it or not, you need to learn programming so you can create that starting point.

Let me repeat that - there is zero chance of success if you have no funding, and no relevant skills. None.

There's additional advice I could give, but I think it would be a bad idea. That was probably a mistake I made in my last post. Don't work on this project right now. Work on the skills that will let you contribute to it. You can do this. But not right now.

[Grey Goo]

>Everyone else

I do know about programming. Thing is... I don't like it. Not for modern machines. No, I am not talking just about AppleSoft or basic. I know assembly too or more like understand it well enough to be able to write programs. At least if writing hexadecimals should be called programming. So it is not about skills or ability to learn. It is I just dislike modern programming and it dislikes me. No, really. They hates me from full of theirs core.

>Bauglir

I can put this on a very low priority. Freezing isn't quite possibly due to fact that anything which is in my mind, stays until I write it out and to be honest I feel little insane these days from all that information.

However I do not want doing nothing or doing boring or already doned things. It is like with those eldars. They become insane if they aren't active an I need be active. Really, I have never ever moment of peace even with all wasted time.

When it comes to skills, I have one or two skills. Through, not sure how useful they are. I am able to and have tools for creating levels to both Doom and for Blood. Yes, they both are fps games. There is enough skills, but one thing, one very important thing is there...

I complety suck with level designing...

I complety fucking...

Yeah, you get idea. I have all theories, I have ever tutorials about how to design any levels and no help. In other words, I do have full knowledge about something where I am really not good at all. It may not matter if designing levels for those modern games because they tends be complety linears. Too bad it won't work for older games.

Either way would like to create full amount of levels for Doom. What is point to have skills if there is no use to them? On other hand creating levels for Doom isn't that hard. Tools are easy to use. Its design, its always design. I am ranting again?

Right to subject. How about custom levels for Doom II designed resemble layers of inferno from Dante's divine comedy? Fits well into 32 levels available with all sub-layers and there is even place for Purgatory and Paradise. What? I have calculated how they can fit. Tried long time ago do this myself but everything turned out extremy boring to play. Shift+Del.

Also I demand I am one who is doing work. Not for design, only for building levels to exist. Besides I am sure there is Doom fans who wants new levels to play. Well, can't say I am fan myself but like to have also new levels to play...

Besides, I anyway want take break from modding DF and playing it. I have passed already its-now-boring point. No, really. Need something else for now...

[Araph]

...Okay, my two cents on this matter.

If your mindset is 'I dislike programming', you're probably not going to get very far. It's far more important for a project to have programmers than idea-men, because, whether you like it or not, programming is going to be the vast majority of the work that needs to be done.

Simple example: graphics. If you want the system to be totally moddable, you can create a good framework an the internet will fill in the graphical blanks. Hobbyists will put up models, images, and animations on an internet-based repository for everyone to use if they like the system.

To GET the system, though, you need programmers.


Let's talk about design docs. I'm only an amateur game developer, but I've at least had a couple year of experience at it. Currently I'm working on a multiplayer survival horror game, and it's far enough along that I've gotten through some of the 'now what?' stage of game design (when your vague ideas run out and you need a more concrete plan). Here's an example of how I planned out game mechanics.

Bad: Players are in a haunted house and one of them plays as a monster and is chasing the others around.

Better, but not good: Some of the players are protagonists an one is the monster. The protagonists have to destroy altars scattered across the map to exorcise the monster, which is controlled by another player and hunts the protagonists.

Good, but still incomplete: Some of players are protagonists, while one player controls the monster that hunts the protagonists. The protagonists have to destroy altars scattered across each map to exorcise the monster, which changes forms each time an altar is destroyed.

There are several different types of monsters. Physical monster can disguise themselves at will as inanimate objects or protagonists, while ethereal monsters can attack the protagonists to cause insanity. When player's sanity decreases, they begin to see hallucinations (shadows moving, distorted vision, vignetting on the camera). After a certain level of insanity, they die. To defend themselves, they can light candles (which repel ethereal monsters in a radius around them) and blast disguised monsters with magic (which temporarily incapacitated them). In addition, players can project a short-lived shield around them to repel ethereal monsters.

Protagonists have two stats: stamina and magic. Stamina is lowered by sprinting and is regained over time. Lower stamina levels gradually slow players. Magic is used to light objects, create shields, and stun monsters.

Each game ends when either all the altars on the map are destroyed or all the protagonists are dead.


That's actually a short and incomplete gameplay plan, but it's hard to type all this out on a phone. It illustrates my point, though: each aspect of the game should be written out enough for the programmers to be able to break it down into individual chunks of the game to work on.

As an example of what's still missing, I should have written out about the maps; how big they are, what each one looks like, and interactions the players can have with them. I should have specified how multiplayer should be set up: how the monster is chosen, how maps are chosen, etc. there are countless things designers don't realize are necessary to write up, all the way down to how menu systems are set up.

PARTICULARLY SO if the project idea is still gestating. I already knew that I was using Unity with JavaScript, and I didn't need to write that out because I'm the only person working on this. But what about a more ambitious project? Would Unity work for that? What other options are you choosing from? Can the rest of your team work with what you're choosing?

Technical things are just as important. My game doesn't have a save system because it doesn't need one. What about yours? You're wanting to make something incredibly complicated; do you know everything that needs to be saved? Level layouts, character stats, scripted variables, enemy data; it's quite a list that you'll need to be able to handle, save, load, and use again. One of my earlier projects was a 3d version of Maptools, which serialized object and character positions into an XML file. It was... painful to write, for someone as amateurish as me. :/ Having a full-on RPG maker would be far more difficult than even that, particularly having in-editor scripting. If you don't have enough programming experience to understand the concepts involved, odds are your programmers will get exasperated and outright quit just from your lack of understanding.


tl;dr
You probably don't know what you're doing. I don't mean that to be rude, but it's most likely true. Creating a game, particularly creating a system like the one you're talking about is almost nothing like modding DF or Skyrim or what-have-you.

My advice is to download Unity and spend a couple months tinkering with it. A couple months MINIMUM. A year would be better. Learn JavaScript. Create something cool. Only look for a team when you can say 'hey everybody, I know what I'm doing and you can see it through my work on this other project. Let's make something awesome.'

[Moghjubar]

Alternatively, skip programming altogether if you 'don't like it even though you understand it' and 'want programmers to pay you'.  Make a card or board game instead, because if all you can do is design, and you refuse to program, thats where you need to start.

[Grey Goo]

Yesterday was quite rainy day and don't mean snow. It was raining water and everything was quite wet. It is very depressing to have such weather, especially at this time of year. It is quite dark and gloomy this time in these latitudes and I fucking hate JavaScript so much that I mass puppies into fine paste everytime I hear about it! So I am waiting for snow to come there again and I am preparing come puppies for my oven.

I do remember there have been few years like this. Winter comes so late and at least one year was without snow at all! Also my J-script is always off. Hopefully however snow comes this year. Hate winter if they don't have snow. It is said that snow is light of dark time of year and they are right. I am pretty sure some people think same and those who don't are idiots who are too lazy read through someones text.

In my younger times I may have been hated snow and cold. Now however as older I quite like cold. It is easier to work and you don't get exhausted easily. On other hand I am also too lazy to read peoples text, especially if they do same for me. Sometimes I am thinking however that I am solar powered or something. While it is easier work in winter, I still feel losing energy and my hands even indoor gets colder and I really like eat smashed puppy brains. Perhaps it is just my biological batteries which are broken or something.

Mostly times like winter I stay inside, like most of times of year. Not very productive time either way, through I do try much. Sometimes I do get inspiration from things like movies or more like I watch them while doing something. Usually I draw, but not always. Actually I haven't draw for while actively. Mostly I have been playing games. Usually those older ones or DF with modding. And why don't people understand DF isn't only game which can be modded? I have all possibly tools for modding Doom and creating also levels for it!

And now I can go into real subject after clearing off people who fails to read text carefully enough to see changes of subjects or anything. I say three words. Doom Wad editor.

Doom wad editor!

Fucking Doom wad editor! But whats four word.

I have tools to edit and create levels for Doom.

But I have nothing for doing them. In simple words, I am better with these tools than designing anything be doned with these.

If you are now going rant anything about programming, I am going dig up oldest one of your own message from this forum and everytime I reply to you I reply as of replying to this oldest message of yours. Programming, end of that subject for now. And, no, not going create new thread. What's just complety stupid idea. This thread stays, subject changes. I control topic there as of under rules of forum itself.

Now, Doom! Hopefully you read it. I am going to repeat myself so that you surely are forced to read this, explosive runes. I have wad editor for Doom and skills to use it. I lack all skills for level designing. All skills for level designing.

I have played in my past very wonderful custom levels for Doom, and checked some not so wonderful ones. Either way I have some to my limits. No matter how to trying playing those again and learning about their level design I can't copy something marvellous as them. They are most beautifully crafted of pieces of art I have seen and explosive runes.

And if I can't design myself, I am willing to build some them according to someones design. However I am only willing go by layers of Dante's inferno. If you don't like Doom, Dante's Divine Comedy or my radiant uncharismatic aura, please don't even try answer and continue picking your puppy's nose, explosive runes. There is other kind of forums for starting any kind of flamewars.

So, Doom..