The over ambition is probably due to this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

The lack of indie programmers asking for help with their smaller projects is probably that the experienced developers are mostly making their products rather than seeking help.

[quote name='StauntonLick' timestamp='1315476197' post='4858977']Any ideas?

Probably because the main demographic here is typically young, ignorant, talentless and completely lacking in understanding about the functioning of the world in general.
[/quote]

I can't tell if you're joking or not. For anyone thinking that you aren't, I'll chime in and say that GD hosts some of the brightest minds in game programming that I've come across. However, those people aren't trolling the Help Wanted forums and a lot of them left the Lounge.

You can go to any forum of a "cool" topic and see the same thing. Car racing, acting, singing, etc.

"Hey I want to make this really cool movie, it's like Avatar but way better. I need some experienced camera men and effects guys. Some of my friends are pretty good actors so we have that covered. I'm going to produce it. We can't pay you but we'll give you a share in the profits."

The realistic people are going to start small projects that most of them can manage solo. I mean realistically, unless you have a lot of experience and are really good at directing people on what to do, bringing a whole bunch of people on to a team from a forum, that you've never worked with before, is probably not going to work out well. For those people that can make it work, they probably already know people and don't need help from random internet strangers.

I suppose the best way to go about it is to start the project yourself. That way you can host the expectations, "This will be an extremely basic mouse shooter, it will not be sold for money". I would try to team up with no more than one person, more than that and you're going to have issues. Personally, I think if you can program, there's no reason you can't do a game on your own. A programmer can make a game with crappy art, but an artist doesn't have a game until someone makes it for them. If you're a programmer, have a good working prototype or even a finished game before asking for help. If you're an artist, have some digitized assetts or synthesized screenshots, write an extremely detailed spec/design, and be prepared that your programming buddy can and probably will make changes to your idea in implementation.

And of course fix your post signature, so I don't have to copy/paste the address and change its TLD(?) in order to visit your portfolio. ;-)

[quote name='ChurchSkiz' timestamp='1315489025' post='4859032']I can't tell if you're joking or not.

Sure there's some smart people here, and there's some brilliant professionals, but mainly this site is "I wan't to maek teh gamez" noob-central... not that that's a bad thing (I was in that demographic too), it's just because most people end up here because they don't know how to make games and want to learn, not because they already do and want to take on apprentices.

...and like you say, the professional members don't waste time on the help wanted section, which leaves the other 99% of members to their fun.
[/quote]

I wouldn't lump the crowd in Help Wanted with the entire GD.net site. If you view noobs as a pareto chart you're going to have an extremely high proportion in the Help Wanted section, Breaking In section, For Beginner section, some in the Lounge. The rest of the forums are filled with expert advice from top-notch developers. You don't see Hockey MMO posts in the Math & Physics or AI forum...