Hi.

I would like to discuss the criterion that gets used to approve help wanted topics. I believe that making some adjustments can greatly improve the professional image of gdnet and help members find feasible game projects much easier.

IMHO there is really just too much clutter to siff through if you’re honestly looking for a project and even worse sometimes great talent (especially great artists) get wasted on projects never had a chance to begin with.

I am not saying the forum is not working. It definitely is. 2 weeks ago I successfully recruited an artist into my team that I am really happy with and I have used the forum successfully in the past as well. I just think it can be much better.

My suggestion is a simple extra requirement for a new help wanted thread. Show some progress on the game you want help with. (Note I am specifically referring to Help Wanted posts not Help Offered posts)

If you’re a programmer. The requirement should be that you include a link to (or at the very least have screenshots of) a working prototype of your game. This might seem like a harsh requirement but if someone cant produce a prototype for his game using stickmen drawn in paint or cube models typed out in notepad or created in blender then he wont be able to create the actual game and his thread just adds to the clutter and worse case he waste’s the time of a good artist. The argument "I don’t even have enough artistic ability to create programmers art" is invalid. He can draw stickmen and he can type out the 3D coords for cubes and rectangles in notepad or alternatively spend the time to learn the basics of blender and create the cubes and rectangles in blender instead. That’s a purely technical process. 0 artistic ability requirement just a little bit of effort. If he feels spending 3 days to learn blender, draw stickmen and model cubemen is not for him since he’s a programmer and not an artist then I don’t think he will get very far.

If you’re an artist. The requirement should be that you include a good amount of functional assets for you’re game. Not just concept art.

If you’re a composer you should understand that if you cant program or create visual assets for you’re indie game its going to be very hard to finish it. Music and sound is usually only needed later in an indie project. Note I say "needed" Its definitely an advantage to have music and sound from the start but it can be safely omitted in most cases. Of course a composer should get his fair chance to try and create a game if he can include a good amount of functional assets in his thread. Fortunately not many composers try their hand at starting a team most probably because they realise the implications or there just isn’t that many composers on gdnet as opposed to programmers and artists.

If you have a great idea for a game and you want to assume the role of team leader or manager. IMHO I don’t think posts like these should get approved at all. But I suppose to be fair it can be allowed if a link to a detailed GDD is provided.

Maybe I am missing the bigger picture so if someone can give me a counter argument it would be nice. I’m sure I am not the first person to think that help wanted should be stricter so I am guessing there might be more to it.

I agree!

As requested, counter arguments

Programmist -- a picture is no proof of coding. A YT video is more proof, as it actually shows that something is done -- a picture might as well be a static scene that will mean nothing.

Artist -- It happened in the past that people presented not their work and forgot to mention that. And some are reluctant to showing off art as it might be criticised instead of taken for proof of concept/being serious

Music -- strong disagree here. Music can be VERY important -- as all the other elements -- especially if it comes to aesthetics and the feel of the game. We, people, are geared towards being stimulated both visually and through sounds. An excellent sound track can give birth to a game on it's own.

Designer/idea dude -- here I would also disagree. You cannot just shun away a person who thinks he has another block buster AAA title. He might actually have one. Just because he can't write code or draw doodles doesn't mean he is less important, or less likelly to create a game for that matter. What I am saying here has very little to do with me being in the same situation -- IMO, if you come out with only an idea, you need it at least fairly well written out and it's for the community to decide is it worth a shot or not.



What troubles me is that non-template posts are springing up all over the place. The fields marked as mandatory are either not filled or left out alltogether, resulting in post wars in the topic about "why do you hide information X". I understand the template is not mandatory to people offering help, but it should be for those that seek it.

On the other hand I do agree it's frustrating in a way to see some projects gain hype and crew, while from our point of view they are just too intangible.

To conclude, being a bit more strict in the template department would do the trick. I understand the forum mods have lots of work on their heads apart from their daily lives, but checking if all the mandatory points are there and properly adressed should take up 1-3 minutes more than usual.

Also, while we're at it, I propose introducing a better guideline for creating topic subjects -- f.e. a cryterion such as [FPS], [TPP], [MMO] followed by [PAID], [UNPAID] or [STRT] which would stand for a starting project or [WRKNG] which would stand for work in progress (like getting past the design stage, supplying some art or YT videos). I saw that work quite well on the UDK forums And it was a drop-down list, if I recall correctly, available at thread creation.

I think Zethariel talks more about a "composer offered" while Wilhelm V. H. talks more about "composer wanted".

Both are right; music is extremely important in a game, but Wilhelm V. H. makes a good point: it comes last. This means first you need to have strong, stable (and fun!) playable game, with mostly finished 3D assets before adding (most) music and sound effects. It's one of the final steps in the process. If you don't have a game in such stages, a composer would be wasted (and ultimately dissappointed because his work is lost)

There are a few exceptions, like music-based games (guitar hero) or games where music plays an important gameplay element (i.e. Lost Woods in Zelda OoT)

I will never post that I want to hire people from here, as there are better boards (pst for a list) that contain artists, composers, and programmers of industrial grade degree. If I wanted to hire talent, personally I go down to the art institutes in my state and place a ad there. That weeds out the hobbyists and posers. Unless over night you add special linkage to industrial professionals on here, I wouldn't bother weeding out the life blood of this forum. Those "posts" are traffic, and if gamedev.net is going to get picky, I'd assume they have a plan to spend money and draw a more professional crowd here.

I will never post that I want to hire people from here, as there are better boards (pst for a list) that contain artists, composers, and programmers of industrial grade degree.

There's quite a few people here who will disagree on that. Personally, I think you're mostly wrong about programmers, somewhat true about composers & 2D artists, and definitely right for 3D artists (finding a good 3D artist here takes a lot of digging).

If I wanted to hire talent, personally I go down to the art institutes in my state and place a ad there.

Amen.

Unless over night you add special linkage to industrial professionals on here, I wouldn't bother weeding out the life blood of this forum.

I've heard the staff is working towards that kind of integration. More info in the Developer Journals from the Staff

Thanks for the detailed suggestion! Apologies in advance for what is likely to be a lengthy reply -- some of which will directly address the suggestion (and feedback already offered!) at hand and some of which, whilst still related, may not directly address the suggestion at hand.

IMHO there is really just too much clutter to siff through if you’re honestly looking for a project and even worse sometimes great talent (especially great artists) get wasted on projects never had a chance to begin with.

Also, while we're at it, I propose introducing a better guideline for creating topic subjects -- f.e. a cryterion such as [FPS], [TPP], [MMO] followed by [PAID], [UNPAID] or [STRT] which would stand for a starting project or [WRKNG] which would stand for work in progress (like getting past the design stage, supplying some art or YT videos). I saw that work quite well on the UDK forums And it was a drop-down list, if I recall correctly, available at thread creation.

I think Help Wanted, perhaps more-so than some of the other forums will get a lot of benefit from the next update to the site software due later this year; specifically, we get "tagging" and "prefixes" added to the software, which should allow for much easier categorisation and filtering of topics. We should be able to apply and police the use of tags such as "paid"/"unpaid", "mmo", etc. in order to allow people to quickly cut through to the sort of projects they're really looking for. Before we knew these features were included in the next release and coming soon we did actually consider splitting the forum into two separate sections for "Help Wanted" and "Help Offered", but given the amount of manual work moving existing topics and additional work of moderating the topics as separate forums decided it wasn't worth it for the short period before the update.

As software support for these features is expected fairly soon, I'm hesitant to go through the hassle of implementing temporary rules/guidelines in the meantime to (poorly) mimic the tagging and prefixing capabilities; I got a lot of good feedback about requiring the "[MMO]" prefix a couple of years ago, but it took a while to catch on when first introduced, and I suspect policing additional "tags" of this type before we have the software support would add a surprisingly large amount of overhead to running the forum.





I'm also looking at adding an additional small feature (I'm actually planning on sending my suggestion and request for the necessary changes to be made to the staff later tonight!) which may help narrow down which projects are more worthy of your time, as well as helping to identify those forum members who might be a better recruit than others:

You may have noticed since the migration to the new forum software that some users now have "badges" displayed under their username and display picture to the left of forum posts for varying things; if you hadn't noticed and don't know what I'm talking about, you should see I have a couple if you look to the left of this post, in my case given for supporting the site and for having posted journal entries. What I'm going to propose is the addition of a couple of new badges, indicating completion of prior projects, valued participation in on-going long-term projects, and similar. Users should then be able to look for these badges as an additional hint that a particular project or recruit may or may not be the right one for them.

My suggestion is a simple extra requirement for a new help wanted thread. Show some progress on the game you want help with. (Note I am specifically referring to Help Wanted posts not Help Offered posts)

I was originally hesitant about this to begin with, but giving it some consideration it does make a lot of sense, and would very likely lead to a higher visibility of quality projects in the forum -- hopefully then having the flow-on effect of those projects finding better help and thus being completed.

Enforcing this sort of rule would exclude a lot of users from the forum, but I think if the requirements for acceptance are relaxed enough we should be able to strike a balance between improving the quality of posted projects, and setting a reasonably low bar that would hopefully give newer users something to aim for.

I'm strongly considering it, but I'll be looking for plenty more feedback before enacting any policy changes of this sort.

What troubles me is that non-template posts are springing up all over the place. The fields marked as mandatory are either not filled or left out alltogether, resulting in post wars in the topic about "why do you hide information X". I understand the template is not mandatory to people offering help, but it should be for those that seek it.

There shouldn't be any non-template posts ("help offered" of course excluded) in the forum since we introduced moderator approval, although we do have the occasional topic slip through without all of the sections either included or sometimes present but not properly filled out.

There is a "report" button (I believe it's in the lower left) on every post -- if you see any of topics that are missing required parts of the template and report them, then I or another moderator will see about having that corrected.

@jbadams -i really like the idea of having a badge to show the user has previous completed projects, however i have two questions:

first how will someone prove they have completed games and second are we talking Indies or AAA games?

Many users have produced some great games however relatively few work for a game studio as their paid job (me being one of those who don't!) :-)

first how will someone prove they have completed games

Under the terms of my proposal, to get one of the badges a given user would have to satisfy either myself or another member of the moderation or staff team with the capability of awarding badges that they had done so; they might do this by providing links to journals showing their development progress, by having team-mates vouch for them, or any other reasonably verifiable method of demonstrating significant participation. I also have a list of users who would be given the badges as soon as they are added, as I already know of plenty of people who would deserve them -- as I'm requesting this from the staff they may reject the idea or might have different ideas as to how the badges should be awarded.

and second are we talking Indies or AAA games?

Many users have produced some great games however relatively few work for a game studio as their paid job (me being one of those who don't!) :-)[/quote]
We're talking both -- any completed game is fine for the purposes of Help Wanted. I can see some merit to the idea of specifically flagging those with industry rather than simply indie or hobbyist experience, but for now I'm only interested in showing that people are capable in whatever capacity. Remember also that there are some members of the forum who are industry professionals but who would prefer not to openly disclose that fact.

I really like the badges idea -- That would definnetly boost the ambitions of members to be more serious about their projects.

If there will be an update that will provide the tags and prefixes, then I guess we can just bear with how the situation is right now -- it's not drama or anything going on at the moment, and the community is healty either way.