I'm aware of that the moment you see the length of this text you will think "too long, I've finished school, I don't have to put up with this"

After the first paragraph you will think "Another Ideas Guy"

But please read what follows and allow me to possibly change your mind about me. If I am unsuccessful then please post or send me a message about what I've done wrong. My email is tiberiugredina@gmail.com.

I'm an 18 year old student from Melbourne and have completed my high school education at Melbourne High School. I'm "that kid". Yet please allow me to reveal that I may yet stoop lower. Unlike the many talented individuals on this forum I lack an extensive knowledge of programming (I made a calculator in C# once) and the talent for art, whose distribution is undeniably the long lost murphy's law, if art exists everyone who is not you is better than you at it. I can't flaunt all the programming languages I know like a general flaunts awards just like I can't show you the best thing I've ever drawn in photoshop and say "Oh this one sucks but it's the first I found" just so you're reminded of how I'm better than you at art. I can't flaunt involvement with AAA studios or brag about that one time I ate ores from the hair of a drunk Todd Howard, although I could and just did. The truth of that statement is up to Todd to verify.

It's in my opinion that all of us here who are passionate about developing games had a switch point. A switch point is that moment where we realise how much we enjoy these things we waste our time on and how much we'd like to waste time making things for people to waste time on. I also believe that a person's talent has a direct relation with the time when that switch point occurs. There are those here who demand the utmost respect of us plebs, the "Order of the Greenlit on Steam", the precious few who have made it and now have the privilege of actually turning down offers to work on projects had their switch point around the age of 10, this gave them 10 years to become the revered and respected giants they are today, the Oprah Winfreys of gaming. Most of us had our switch point around the age of 15, giving us a measly 5 years to achieve our dreams, which were at first literally making Diablo, not a game similar in concept but actually making a game that had already been made. Your success is labelled "pending" but you'll get there yet. You are the hairline of Donald Trump, you sit atop an idiot and try desperately to get all the way across but age begins to limit your progress and the wind of financial burden seeks to displace you. I wish I could name myself amongst you, to be like the hairline of Donald Trump. The truth is I'm not, because I didn't have my switch until three months ago. I am the idiot that is under the hairline.

I don't pretend to command attention through authority or expertise because I have none, and frankly the fact that you are reading this is by virtue of my own terrible "The Daily Show"esque sense of humor. I can't make soccer balls explode into kittens or draw a city in photoshop that makes you think "Okay, I've used Photoshop before and there is no way he did that in Photoshop". What talent I can hold to my name which of course is subjective and unverifiable (you haven't caught the vibe yet?) is my skill with story and design, with my words.

I anticipated this to be a short request for assistance (who am I fooling, any consideration whatsoever) in a project I wanted to complete yet it has quickly transformed into a twatty kids appeal for acceptance and validation. So to keep with the content restrictions imposed by the moderators (to whom I apologise if they have to read it in its entirety), I should wish to bring it back to my intended contention after a recap. I'm an inexperienced artistically amputated (a figure of speech, I am fortunate to have all my limbs) teen/man who has come here asking for help, I'm the "Ideas Guy". I've come in search of help because I've found, and please take a moment to curse at me for being a stereotypical dick, that I don't really like the games I can play right now. I'm particularly troubled by the simplicity and ease of games published by large studios and some indie publishers in an attempt to appeal to a generation of kids that were raised with "shoot the birds at the castle and if it doesn't break try again for free"(which may be a luxury of the past as its only a matter of time before AngryBirds introduce pay per attempt system. Imagine that, a whole generation actually boasting "I remember when Angry Birds was free"). First wing of Naxx pissed me off, but Diablo III traumatised me for life (I can still see the death of bosses in less than 10 seconds). It is this modern silver platter feeding that we've come to expect as players and deliver as developers that I despise the most. This baby feeding content is not restricted to difficulty, it applies to thematic content too. Take the story evolution of Call of Duty after world at war, or rather the lack thereof, or for instance every single expansion to WoW since Burning Crusade, here are the bad things, they want to do bad things, stop them. I killed the Lich King without caring about his story, Deathwing fell and all I was asking was "where did my 2 hours go", Pandaria was released and Blizzard said "where did 2 million subscribers go", Warlords was kind of cool but ultimately a cop out. Hellscream, the unbreakable infallible warlord just kind of went "yeah I've had my fun with you, let's kill Gul'Dan" and no one asked any questions until we realised Hellfire Citadel is easy when you're geared to the teeth. All this devoid story has lead Blizzard to, in a desperate attempt to make their story cool again, bring back Illidan, the only dynamic and conflicted character in the entire game and the only one anyone ever cared about. You and I know that for literally 8 years half of Blizzards inbox has been "When is Illidan Coming back". I don’t want to make games that are simple and easy, I don’t want thematic cop outs and story cuts or content removal. I want to take as long as it takes to make the best it can be, so that unlike WoW people play it and come back to it because they WANT to not because it’s the only competent iteration of its genre. Yet I digress and loose most of my audience

Prepare for my pretentious closing where I ask for help as if I could spare not getting it. I’m looking for new or freelance artists and programmers who share my displeasure with half-jobs and obsession with perfection, who are tired of churning out clones every year to expand profits. Who wish to be part of a new RPG with online elements that is, and I swear this is not a cliché, genuinely different from anything they’ve played before. I have spent many weeks building as much of the world and mechanics as I can, now all I need is the faith of a team to drive this project to fruition. It has been a long journey for those of you who are now reading these words and I commend your achievement. However at the end of this road is not a pot of gold, a yellow legendary or like to many games, just the end; no, at the end of this quest is another quest, because I did say before I hate serving rewards on a silver platter. The first clue is my email, and the quest could be the greatest you’ve ever completed (I promise there will be a reward on the other side this time) tiberiugredina@gmail.com

Edit** Flowery language and metaphors aside, my contact info is if you are interested in learning about the game and can confirm yourself as a programmer or artist.

Time vs complexity. That's why you think games are simple. They choose to spend more time on the tech behind the game, and have less to flesh out the complexity.

Now, I think your base premise is wrong. There's tons of amazing and complex games you haven't heard of before, simply because people don't want low complexity tech, high complexity game rules as a mainstream genre.

For example:

Dominions 4

face of mankind (died though, what a shame. Go look it up)

from the depths

the repopulation

mortal online

darkfall online

shores of hazeron (No man's sky but a real mmo, 100 times the ammount of content/complexity, and already out).

Wizardry online (English release died from low population

x3: Albion prelude (With litcube's universe mod)

The list goes on and on, really. Plenty of games have tons of depth, but get overlooked because that's not really what people want.

Basically, you're asking for people to help you, when you offer no skills, to work on a game genre that no one wants, and you think you want but probably don't.

So, what exactly is your idea for a game that has more complexity than the games listed above, and would still be a viable product on the mainstream market?

Please don't make me out to be an out of touch asshole. I understand full and well the time and complexity that revolves around the production of a game. What you seem to forget is the time constraints imposed by softworks companies to sell the games and make money from them so they can support the whole enterprise. Let's take for example Path of Exile. Incredible depth and mechanics, however lacking in any engaging story or end game content. Players were left waiting for expansions. Path of Exile was made by a group of dudes over the course of 3 years. It has has the most potential of any game in its genre released. What you miss is that players are sick of diablo being difficult for a little while and then becoming a redundant grind for items that will have no use. Why not build something which is dynamic, a game that evolves as players interact with it, that presents freedom in what you can become and no restrictions to that choice. That abolishes classes and leaves you as a blank slate. Where dungeons for levels below your own are difficult and not easy and where once you finish there is so much more to do and a relevant multiplayer scene. Imagine a third person top down RPG in the spirit of that. I said already and please don't make me look like an asshole again that I have been working on this for a while now. The specifics of what I've come up with to implement these I can't discuss unless I'm sure the person is interested in being a part of it.

Edit** I can't criticise you on your examples of games since I haven't formally stated the style of the game. It's a 3rd Person Top Down, Camera locked hack'n'slash RPG in the aesthetic flavour of Diablo but borrowing thematically from Lord of the Rings and the biblical coming of the Four Horsemen. It's less flowery and fantastical than its thematic sources and maintains an aura of Dragon Age however it steers clear of traditional "races" and "classes"

In reply to what you said about tech over complexity. Technology behind a game will make its gameplay exciting, but a lack of compelling story and characters coupled with rewards handed on a silver platter means the "tech" of the game is redundant. I don't need to avoid Diablo's intelligent A.I and use of displacing abilities at appropriate times because I lifesteal more than he deals damage. Because I care that little about the characters and the story that I don't even want to roleplay fighting him, I just want rare weapons so I can NOT compete is an intelligent multiplayer system and just use them to brag to my friends.

I understand full and well the time and complexity that revolves around the production of a game

Doubt it...

Let me help you out here. That is great that you have flushed a game idea out on paper, but that is all you have done. You admit to having no programming or design background and lack the required technical skills to accomplish what you wish to do. So then maybe you should start learning then yah? The one problem with being the "idea guy" is that nobody likes you. You present a large wall of text about how you don't wont to be viewed as an asshole and you have this magnificent, grandiose idea to revolutionize gaming, but want other people to take on YOUR dream. You are only 18, get over it. You have a lot of learning to do and relying on others to accomplish your goals will get you no where. There are a lot of people on these boards who have put YEARS into developing what they are good at and potentially have not yet fulfilled there "dreams" up to this point.

Don't take this as a flame, take it as constructive criticism.

I think you need to do two things before thinking about game development:

- Learn how to program in order to immerse yourself in the complexities of development that you are clearly overlooking.
- Write novels, so you can create stories as fulfilling as you want without having a dependency on programmers or artists, while honing your craft.


I have almost zero respect for writers in game development. Too many I've worked with have been utterly disconnected from what programmers actually do that they can't conceive why it's so complex. It's like they're the fast-food worker at McDonalds putting together a burger without knowing that farming, butchering, food inspection, cold storage, trucking, marketing, human resources and franchises even exist. Because they don't need to know; Meat gets magically delivered every day, and then they cook it! That's how they see game development. They don't respect all the complex crap we have to deal with, because they never have to help solve any of the problems that crop up in development. We have to solve all of the complex problems for them. And then they have the gall to complain that it's still too complex.

I am saying this because I don't want you to become yet another one of those people. I want you to become someone I could work with at some point in the future, and to do that you need to understand game development much more than you currently do.

They don't respect all the complex crap we have to deal with, because they never have to help solve any of the problems that crop up in development. We have to solve all of the complex problems for them. And then they have the gall to complain that it's still too complex.

Our company (Business dev, not game dev) always includes the technical writers in our meetings just because of this. Orinally, the complain was that they didn't feel like part of our team, because we'd just dump the finished product on their plate. Now that they're included, they can actually draw conclusions about what's ready for them to write up in dev, instead of waiting until the end.

It's definately something I'd recommend.

Our company (Business dev, not game dev) always includes the technical writers in our meetings just because of this. Orinally, the complain was that they didn't feel like part of our team, because we'd just dump the finished product on their plate. Now that they're included, they can actually draw conclusions about what's ready for them to write up in dev, instead of waiting until the end.

It's definately something I'd recommend.

Technical writers have a much more analytical mindset than story writers, in my experience. Many technical writers I've worked with have done programming before, as well. I don't have a problem with them. Just story writers.

Ideas are cheap. You need to bring _something_ to the table. Decide what it is, master it, and then try again. If you have beautiful concept art, you'll get contributors excited. If you have a really fun game you programmed with terrible art, you'll get contributors excited. It's not that you're bad at art, it's that you haven't spent 5,000 hours practicing it, have you?

If you really think your ideas are so much better than everyone else's that you don't need a tangible skill, then prove it first. Interactive Fiction doesn't require much or any programming, win some competitions. There's quite a few game development tools you can prove your chops with. Board games can be built out without programming or passable art, make something so incredibly fun and unique a developer is happy to publish it. You spent half your post telling us you aren't qualified, and then half just complaining about the game industry. Imagine if instead you'd pointed to all these respected things you'd created, and invited us to be a part of your next big project. This isn't wasted time, if you decided on this path 3 months ago then you need to practice, practice, practice. The first things we build are never very good. So start building them.