[size="4"]Not trying to flame here, just offer an objective opinion on the current state of the site.
Yep. No one here is posting about anything interesting anymore. This isn't really much of a game programming community. All those guys have moved on to the Unity, Unreal, XNA, and similar places.
I also feel like I've lost touch with the community; like a lot of folks who were very active during 2000-2007 have moved on.
The average poster on GDNet in 2011:
-Is an anti-social nerd with an overall bad attitude
-Argues just to argue, muddying the waters when good programming advice is posted
-Has no creativity or drive to produce anything interesting
-Gives horrible art advice
-thinks a geocities page with a drawing of an elf and no further knowledge or skill is a viable game project
All the articles are product placement by Intel, or worthless puff pieces by an Autodesk employee. Fine. You have to pay the bills. But where are the actual usefull articles?
There are journals, but their RSS feeds look like I tried to open an .exe in Notepad. Thry are kind of buried in the background and too easy to miss and forget about.
The Image Of The Day gallery is filled with fugly screenshots of blank windows that say 'LUA', or horrible programmer art. The good images are few and far between.
'For Beginners' is linked to all the time. But it's blank. And before it was blank it was ten years out of date. Why is there no article that points people to UDK, Unity, XNA Creator's Club, Realm Crafter, Panda3D, and other RELEVANT in 2011 resources?
What actually happens in these forums?
We have a high ranking moderator giving advice to everyone when they haven't even been able to get through a 'hello world' tutorial in 12 years. But they keep restarting their beastility sim / mmo every 3 weeks. Another one just spams links to their FAQ in every thread. We have a billion page thread about Steve Urkel throwing his broom at a rodent because he's more afraid of it than it is afraid of him. Anything else is basically a bunch of shut-ins talking about how anything normal people do or like sucks.
Not much game programming or creativity here.
What happens when a beginner asks for advice? They get the worst possible advice from losers with a can't do attitude who don't have a clue of what the current scene is like. They get mocked and chased away, or horribly outdated advice and language / api wars.
When someone has an interest in ORPGs they get raked over the coals instead of pointed to MUD sources, MMO maker programs, and MMO toolkits for popular engines. The advice here is equivalent to telling someone they shouldn't bother trying to make a movie with their friends for fun with a cheap video camera because they don't have the resources and budget to recreate a big budget hollywood movie.
People ask about XNA and they get a ton of BS about how you can't get your game up in the shop, and how 'M takes all the profits.
You don't need C++ or years of programming experience to make a good looking game anymore. All kinds of creative people are using products like Unity, UDK and other products, learning to script as they go along, and pumping out polished games. I've watched people on other forums go from complete noobs to published app store game authors in roughly a year. You don't need C++. You need CONTENT and DRIVE.
On GDNet, everything is impossible, and you're an idiot for even wanting to try. On the Unity forums, people who knew nothing 2 weeks ago are posting working prototypes right in their message board threads.
Other communities (Unity, UDK, polycount, GameArtisans, etc...) are full of creative, driven, people who are highly supportive of each other. They are working on good looking, interesting projects. They share code, assests, and techniques. All the best tutorials are on other websites, wikis and forums.
At least now the bad posts can be marked down.
Game programming has never been easier or more accessable, especially at the indie and hobbiest level. But this place has devolved into the game programming ghetto. A site lacking any modern or relevant content, and a forum where all the people who can't produce anything come to split hairs eternally.
I still come here mostly out of habbit, and to read the insightful posts from the dozen good/knowledgeable posters we have left, like Hogdman, Antheus, Apoch, etc.., and because I like to answer beginner questions sometimes.
