I've followed your posts on here somewhat the last couple of months, and you definitely haven't been rude or arrogant in my eyes, but you do need to set some more realistic goals for yourself.

Starting an indie company is not an impossible goal, but it is never the first or even the second or third step you make in your career. Direct your focus at building a game that is within the limits of your current skill level and try not to delve into the very advanced topics like engine development just yet. Trying to build something extremely complex while you still have to get reacquianted with the most basic principles of the tools you're using will just become a very frustrating and demoralizing experience.

Build a game which you will be able to complete within a reasonable amount of time, say a couple of months, and repeat that process for a while until you have the experience, knowledge and maybe even the basic reusable codebase to move on to the advanced topics. Get some games of yours out there, show people what you can do, show us the progress you're making by building these games, put your name out there. Once you do that you'll see that you'll already be closer to your initial goal.

I can see that game development is something you really like, otherwise you wouldn't find the passion to start on such large projects, but it takes quite some time and experience to get to that goal of yours and to become "that guy".

Sounds like you might want to get a restraining order against your in-laws... o_O

[quote name='Radikalizm' timestamp='1347238832']
I've followed your posts on here somewhat the last couple of months, and you definitely haven't been rude or arrogant in my eyes, but you do need to set some more realistic goals for yourself.

Starting an indie company is not an impossible goal, but it is never the first or even the second or third step you make in your career. Direct your focus at building a game that is within the limits of your current skill level and try not to delve into the very advanced topics like engine development just yet. Trying to build something extremely complex while you still have to get reacquianted with the most basic principles of the tools you're using will just become a very frustrating and demoralizing experience.

Build a game which you will be able to complete within a reasonable amount of time, say a couple of months, and repeat that process for a while until you have the experience, knowledge and maybe even the basic reusable codebase to move on to the advanced topics. Get some games of yours out there, show people what you can do, show us the progress you're making by building these games, put your name out there. Once you do that you'll see that you'll already be closer to your initial goal.

I can see that game development is something you really like, otherwise you wouldn't find the passion to start on such large projects, but it takes quite some time and experience to get to that goal of yours and to become "that guy".
[/quote]

You're right! I've been Happy Hungry for the advance topics that led me to frustration. Thanks for the support, much appreciated!

Not sure how to respond to this one. I can understand the frustration and pain of trying to make something out of nothing but I think you are adding in other things that shouldnt be a part of it. The drive to make something of yourself is a powerful one but it seems to be less pure when you are doing so to prove it to somebody else. I cant tell you how to fix those things or even try to pretend to understand your situation. What I can tell you is that I believe anything is possible so long as the right motivation and dedication is applied.

I do feel you have something right and that is that there can be nothing without a team. One man can do a lot but he certainly will have a longer time doing it than a few people who are dedicated to the same purpose. I think you have it in yourself to do something great you just need to sit down and refocus your efforts. I look forward to seeing what you can come up with and good luck with the in-Laws. Trust me... i dont know anybody who likes theirs.

[quote name='riuthamus' timestamp='1347274636']
I do feel you have something right and that is that there can be nothing without a team. One man can do a lot but he certainly will have a longer time doing it than a few people who are dedicated to the same purpose.
[/quote]

I'd be careful with statements about teams as more people doesn't magically result in more productivity. When working in a team you'll want a group of people who can work at a similar pace and who don't have opinions about the game you are building which are too conflicting. Each member will also need to know how to properly work with other people and how to give proper feedback when this is required.

You also have to remember that the productivity of a team is as high as the productivity of its weakest member. If your skills are still at a beginner level you will either end up in a team of beginners (and I've never seen any noteworthy results from a pure beginner team) or in a team of people who will probably get quite frustrated with you as you'll probably be slowing down their work.

I've worked on a lot of solo projects the last 10 years, and doing those projects allowed me to take my time to finish them at my own pace and to learn the things I wanted/needed to learn. Teamwork is something you should do when you feel comfortable with your skills, and when you actually are a valuable asset to a team.

Just get back on the horse and keep working. you cant stop now.

[quote name='Radikalizm' timestamp='1347282975']
riuthamus, on , said:

I do feel you have something right and that is that there can be nothing without a team. One man can do a lot but he certainly will have a longer time doing it than a few people who are dedicated to the same purpose.

I'd be careful with statements about teams as more people doesn't magically result in more productivity. When working in a team you'll want a group of people who can work at a similar pace and who don't have opinions about the game you are building which are too conflicting. Each member will also need to know how to properly work with other people and how to give proper feedback when this is required.

You also have to remember that the productivity of a team is as high as the productivity of its weakest member. If your skills are still at a beginner level you will either end up in a team of beginners (and I've never seen any noteworthy results from a pure beginner team) or in a team of people who will probably get quite frustrated with you as you'll probably be slowing down their work.

I've worked on a lot of solo projects the last 10 years, and doing those projects allowed me to take my time to finish them at my own pace and to learn the things I wanted/needed to learn. Teamwork is something you should do when you feel comfortable with your skills, and when you actually are a valuable asset to a team.
[/quote]

And while that is certainly one point of view I think you are lacking to understand the other side of the argument. Teams can help you to build yourself in many different ways. By motivation, or competition between members. I did not say that one way was better than the other, simply that with a dedicated team you can accomplish more in a shorter period of time. You could attempt to argue that but it would be flawed based on the simple fact that if you have all things equal more people working towards the same purpose ( and driven in the right paths not conflicting ) will always do work faster than a team of one. ( sure there are other factors but I was working with generalities here ).

Anyway, not sure this is on topic with the original post, then again I am not sure the original post really had a topic as it was more or less just a blog post stating how he is feeling. I dont see a reason for us to argue what the positives of a team are or are not.

[quote name='riuthamus' timestamp='1347287909']
And while that is certainly one point of view I think you are lacking to understand the other side of the argument. Teams can help you to build yourself in many different ways. By motivation, or competition between members. I did not say that one way was better than the other, simply that with a dedicated team you can accomplish more in a shorter period of time. You could attempt to argue that but it would be flawed based on the simple fact that if you have all things equal more people working towards the same purpose ( and driven in the right paths not conflicting ) will always do work faster than a team of one. ( sure there are other factors but I was working with generalities here ).
[/quote]

I completely agree with you that teams can help you improve yourself, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make. If you end up in a team of either people who haven't a clue of what they're doing or what they're supposed to be doing, or if you're in a team of people who are way beyond your skill level you will not learn anything at all.
You will really learn something from working in a team when you work with people who you can 'compete' with, who you can actually work on a problem with, who you can throw ideas and concepts at and who will give you valid input based on those ideas and concepts. If someone on your team has to take the time to tutor someone else on the team then there's something wrong with the team. If nobody in the team has a clue of what they're supposed to be doing and if everyone still has to learn everything from scratch, then there's something wrong with the team.

Also, if you work on a team of beginners you can't avoid the problem that you'll be learning completely false information. There might be people who think they understand a certain concept and who then teach it to the rest of the team, without even being sure of whether they had it right in the first place. Things like these can just wreck a team before they even have a project underway.

Throughout my academic career I had to do teamwork for quite some projects in different disciplines (so not only software development). These teams varied from 2 to 10 people, and in quite some of these occasions I was the one responsible for managing the team. In these projects I've had occasions where people did not understand some concepts of what we were working on, or where people just had no knowledge on the subject we were studying. This meant that if we wanted to deliver our project on time these people would have to catch up on the subject matter, which basically rendered them useless for quite some time. This of course also meant that the rest of the team had to wait longer for those people to catch up on the work they were supposed to do, or that the work which didn't get done had to be divided among the rest of the team. As you can imagine this resulted in pure frustration for both the team members who had a clue of what they were doing and the team members who basically had to start from scratch.

I know it sounds like a lot of fun to start out on a project with a couple of friends, and that it might sound like a good idea because you can "teach eachother", but this mostly is a romanticized idea.

I think I know where you're coming from, SIC. By yourself - it is completely overwhelming. But perhaps instead of seeing the completed project with a budding company behind it as [i]your[/i] goal, perhaps set your goal a little closer to your current situation.While I'd love Antilia to one day be this immense, beautiful, immerse world to explore... that's not what I set out to build when I work on it. That would be impossible for me.

I set out to get two players in-game on a server and see one another move around. Then I set out to make the world look nicer. Some people noticed it, and offered to help me. So we set out to get a little sample gameplay - fishing and cooking. Then a better character creation system....

In the past I've tried different ideas - volunteer programs, internships, etc.. and you do end up with a lot of people who aren't necessarily right on the dev team. Since then, I've tried to kind of keep the door open - but not just let everyone in, and found a good balance.

One thing I did learn for certain though - is that it does take more than one. I still fill too many roles in Antilia's development - lead programmer, engine maintenance, tool maintenance, lead artist, modeler, animator - etc.... and some tasks I've learned I'm just not good at, I [i]need[/i] people to help fill in gaps that still exist in the the team.

I cringe now when I look at earlier screenshots of my project, but that's ok. I was less experienced then and had fewer people helping out. Those earlier shots and demos were enough to get other people interested in the project - and some of them even said "say, I'd like to try making some better textures for Antilia."

Seriously, keep at it - it is a mountain to climb with all sorts of surprises, obstacles, opportunities, and shortcuts to be found along the way.

SIC Games,

Oh, I feel for you quite a lot. I am 46 years old and still learning much as I go. When I was very young, many people put pressure on me and knocked me for this or that. As my username implies, I am a dreamer - like you, so I also became fiercely independent but within reason. With time I grew to learn most things by myself and I get much done this way.

I worked very hard, but people saw very little of it because the work I did was mostly solitary, so they called me lazy, too. Long term results matter most, so
do what you passionately want to do!

Teamwork only for teamwork's sake is not good. My opinion is that you should have teamwork usually when it suits [i]you[/i], yet have the compassion to help some people. When we look at the great inventors, scientists, and other thinkers who accomplished things in their generation that only [i]they[/i] had achieved, such as Thomas Edison, we see highly motivated people who spent most of their work time [u]alone[/u]. This was not always the case, but often was.

There really is nothing wrong with teamwork, but if you want to be a trail blazer, then indy is a good way to do it, but even indy people have a network around them. You at least have to maintain a solid, practical network if not a team.

Critics hounded every great achiever throughout history, so take joy in that. Do what you need to do to get both short term results and long term accomplishments. Balance is not necessary all the time, but you need to have [i]variety[/i] - there's a difference and variety might suit you better than balance. In my opinion, balance is not always good, but variety is very good with [i]you[/i] deciding the proportions within that variety, which is actually opposite of balance.

How far are you in your growth? Perhaps you are far enough in your understanding that you can maintain independent work. On the other hand, learning with
a team has some advantages which you already realize.

Now... Lastly ....

Thomas Edison no doubt had the help of his personal network, but his labor at inventing a practical light bulb took him through over 10,000 attempts (mostly alone) before he discovered the one which would change the course of world events in a huge way. SIC Games, you are no Thomas Edison but you can do great things after you find the methods which satisfy [i]your[/i] conscience, so I urge you to very soon discover your own personal way.


Clinton

[quote name='Jeff.Leigh' timestamp='1347299643']
I think I know where you're coming from, SIC. By yourself - it is completely overwhelming. But perhaps instead of seeing the completed project with a budding company behind it as [i]your[/i] goal, perhaps set your goal a little closer to your current situation.While I'd love Antilia to one day be this immense, beautiful, immerse world to explore... that's not what I set out to build when I work on it. That would be impossible for me.

I set out to get two players in-game on a server and see one another move around. Then I set out to make the world look nicer. Some people noticed it, and offered to help me. So we set out to get a little sample gameplay - fishing and cooking. Then a better character creation system....

In the past I've tried different ideas - volunteer programs, internships, etc.. and you do end up with a lot of people who aren't necessarily right on the dev team. Since then, I've tried to kind of keep the door open - but not just let everyone in, and found a good balance.

One thing I did learn for certain though - is that it does take more than one. I still fill too many roles in Antilia's development - lead programmer, engine maintenance, tool maintenance, lead artist, modeler, animator - etc.... and some tasks I've learned I'm just not good at, I [i]need[/i] people to help fill in gaps that still exist in the the team.

I cringe now when I look at earlier screenshots of my project, but that's ok. I was less experienced then and had fewer people helping out. Those earlier shots and demos were enough to get other people interested in the project - and some of them even said "say, I'd like to try making some better textures for Antilia."

Seriously, keep at it - it is a mountain to climb with all sorts of surprises, obstacles, opportunities, and shortcuts to be found along the way.
[/quote]

I hear you loud and clear bro. I know I discussed that I'm working on the editor first hand because I think it'll be alot easier when loading the map file inside the game. I realize that I am working backward steps from Editor - Engine Prototype to actual Game that uses the same type of engine powers the Editor. Kinda unorthodox but it kind of help me from jumping back and forth some by figuring out alot. I know how to load multiple model files because at that one time I was running into a bit of a problem. Now, I'm utilizing vectors because it has advantages over arrays and can grow and shrink in size. Which is a plus. I'm use to creating arrays for other programs I've created besides game programming.

But I'm keeping my head up high and aiming high like usual. I've put so much effort and so much into it - I have to continue it! Maybe in the future; what I want to implemend in games will be awesome!

I do not thinking there has not been a person that tried to venture out on their own that did not feel the same way at points. Success is great and yes a "team", meaning people with a similar passion and hopefully drive can help out a lot. The last major project I worked on the team had a great balance. Right as part of us would begin to feel burnt out the other half would feel in their prime and in would inspire us all to continue working.
There will always be people that talk down about everything. Look at Reddit it is a site that was built on the idea that everyone has an opinion about everything. Does that mean that everyone's opinions are correct, no. Push through it and hopefully you will find success more rewarding for having stayed with it.
Hope this helps, as you can see there are a lot of people here trying to help each other. Whether it is a kind word here or an amazing art asset that helps focus your vision of your project, this is a great place to find help.