As an infrequent visitor to this forum, I've decided that there are two equally respectable classes among the regulars: The first class is comprised of amateurs who voice their opinions based on little experience or knowledge beyond basic gameplay. These individuals have an interest in game design, but have no academic background in the subject upon which to base or develop their ideas. These individuals' ideas run the gamut from conventional to groundbreaking, but in my own opinion tend to have limited foresight and seldom innovate; or conversely, the ideas are so wild and random as to have little practical application. The second class includes notable indivduals like Inmate and Dauntless, to choose a couple of names randomly. These folks give the impression of having studied game design for years, or else their academic level of interest in the subject combined with an "intellectual" view point almost invariably produces revolutionary ideals and spawns fascinating material amidst the traditional debates. There are a significant number of individuals of such high caliber on this forum, and I have always enjoyed debating with them. Now, I have a proposal. I hope it does not seem overly predjudicial. I have been toying with the idea of setting up a special forum for the purpose of inviting revolutionary idealists in the amateur game design arena to participate in frequent roundtable discussions on a variety of pre-determined topics. I'm curious if there would be any interest among all of you in seeing what kind of new ideas might arise from such a forum. The discussions would be restricted to a handful of participants, and those participants would be selected by all of you at the GameDev.Net Game Design forum. The discussion would go on for about a week, and the resulting discussion would be published here on the GameDev.Net forum, or with the operators permission, perhaps even as a series of articles on GameDev.Net. As a disclaimer, I myself do not claim to fall into the second category, and with my limited participation here lately, I would not wish to be selected early on; although if my future participation on this forum warranted a nomination, then so be it. The idea here is that the participants are chosen fairly, with the whole community having an opportunity to honor the individuals we feel have the most to offer in terms of innovative and exciting game design ideas. A wordy post, for which I apologize, but I look forward to everyone's feedback. **************************************** Brian Lacy ForeverDream Studios Comments? Questions? Curious? brian@foreverdreamstudios.com "I create. Therefore I am." [edited by - irbrian on February 7, 2004 5:59:50 PM]

The round table discussion format is a good one. Several game industry trade papers/magazines do this and it usually works quite well. GDC and the IGDA also host similar discussions.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions (www.obscure.co.uk)
Game Development & Design consultant

i nominate warsong.

Sounds like a good idea, however we already have #gamedev on the AfterNET network. But, I don''t attend there, I run the channel #neocesspool on the EsperNET, which has on average about a dozen members.

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quote:Original post by krez
i nominate warsong.

I wouldn''t. I nominate Iron Chef Carnage. If memory serves me right, we''ve disagreed on some things before, but he''d deserve a place on the Revolutionaries Roundtable, in my opinion.

Nice to see the idea has been well received. I''m thinking it should work like this -- the number of individuals invited to participate in each discussion should be decided first. I''d think Five would be about right.

Then, each week (or month -- maybe that''s more realistic?) a topic would be decided. After the topic has been decided GameDev game design forum visitors could nominate the individuals we feel are most qualified to contribute valuable insights to the discussion. Individuals that receive more than one nomination would be added to a simple poll, and each visitor can vote for the previously decided number individuals (i.e. five). The top (5?) individuals would then be invited to participate.

Although I don''t think there should be limits to how many times or how often an individual can be invited to participate, although visitors ought to base their votes primarily on how much the individual can contribute given the topic. I also think the voting should occur prior to every discussion so that other individuals still have a chance to participate.

Interesting idea..but who chooses the topics that should be discussed?

-Luctus
Statisticly seen, most things happens to other people.
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Honestly, I refuse to accept that ANY area of Game Design has been so thoroughly tried and tested as to merit no further innovation. In particular, I was thinking that we ought to simply pick topics each (month?) that keep coming up over and over in this forum. The only question that really matters is how specific to make the topic. I mean, should a panel be discussing ways to improve the First Person Shooter genre, or should they be discussing the use of sniper rifles in FPS''? Should they be discussing realism in games, or realism in bullet effects? Violence in games, or the appropriateness of dismemberment in teen-targeted games? MMMORPGs or the Economics of Health Potions in Fantasy MMORPGs?

Naturally, these are extremes, and most topics should fall somewhere in between. It seems to me, the more specific the topic, the more direct and specific ideas will come about; on the other hand, if the topics are too narrow, there just may not be enough interest to sustain a decent discussion.

At any rate, as I said, I think the topics should be selected first from those that come up regularly here on this forum. Maybe visitors could propose topics and then vote on topics in the same manner in which panel members are selected?