WIP board

General Discussions
#1

“Why do we need such a board?”, I hear you ask.

Well… there are several good reasons for having such a board :slight_smile:

[]It’s very interesting to see what everyone else is doing (Cas’s AF diary was really nice).
[]This way you’ll read much more about specific problems - noone would start a thread for a problem s/he was able to solve. (There is no need to make a mistake, wich someone else has done before - injected experience is a nice thing.)
[]It’s so nice to see how a game evolved.
[]It’s also nice for the author itself - it just feels great to look back and reflect the stuff you’ve achieved in the last weeks/months :slight_smile:
[]More screenshots.
[]Higher activity.
[]No need to abuse other boards for that.
[]Pressure - most people work harder if they know that someone is watching :wink:

Oh and it should be somewere under “General Game Topics” :slight_smile:

#2

What does WIP stand for?

#3

Work In Progress

Isn’t this is what “Your Games Here” is for?

Perhaps it is more geared to betas rather than just development and alphas but people have used it for that.

Will.

#4

We need a showcase area where the links to the games are easy to get to. The forums aren’t really the best for that… maybe a wiki page?

#5

Isn’t this is what “Your Games Here” is for?

Kinda… the “Imperium design diary” was there but “the Alien Flux Development Diary (aka XAP)” was in “Volunteer Projects”.

Perhaps it is more geared to betas rather than just
development and alphas but people have used it for that.

Yea, “Your Games Here” is more for things wich are (already) games or atleast somewhat playable (alpha/beta).

A WIP board would be something were you can write down everything… from the very begining. Screenshots of your leveleditor, design studies, sketches and ofcorse it’s a nice place to talk about problems. For example: I’d alot of “fun” with alpha channels (antialiased pre rendered graphics) these days but I was able to sort out all problems. In a WIP board I would write about stuff like that (I’m already blogging my way down the road in another forum - therefore I said there won’t be no need anymore to abuse other boards/forums for that).

#6

/me thinks that “Your Games Here” should have a sticky topic with just a list of links to all the games mentioned in the various threads within.

A WIP section or Developer Diaries topic would be nice. So long as it keeps on topic and doesn’t just become a 2nd “Your Games Here”

#7

Don’t most dev’s keep a log on the associated web page?

Kev

#8

Do people actually have time for that? :o

#9

[quote][*]It’s also nice for the author itself - it just feels great to look back and reflect the stuff you’ve achieved in the last weeks/months :slight_smile:
[/quote]
should read: weeks/months/years.
:wink:

#10

Ok,

So how about we set up some ground rules then?

  1. Each author gets 3 threads (Diary, Media, Discussion) and all of your projects get lumped under these three.
  2. You update your diary posts under a single reply. For example, you create a topic named diary and under that post your first entry. Net next entry, you go back and modify your entry to include you new information and so on.
  3. I have to maintain these posts and sticky the diaries, so let’s try to have some order here :slight_smile:

If these work for everyone, I’ll open the board today. PLease add any suggestions you feel are missing.

-ChrisM

#11

We’re supposed to put all diary entries in the same reply?

… why? ???

#12

That keeps the entries in one place that can be followed. Otherwise, you will have them mixed in with a hundred other posts.

-ChrisM

#13

Oh.

Good point.

#14

I’ll just add the suggestion of allowing the opening a new thread once the first one gets “unweildy” - I used to browse here on a 56K and still remember how long some threads took to open and reply to.

A sensible definition of “unweildy” is hard to pin down, but I expect over ten pages or more than 300KB of inline graphics would be a fair start?

#15

Hm… but editing a post wont push the thread usually (at least it is that way in all boards I know).

However, I’ll start sucha thingy after I’m done with my current mini project (because I already blog around in another board with it’s stuff).

#16

What about two threads? One that only the dev can post in, and another thread to commend on that thread?

#17

[quote]Ok,

So how about we set up some ground rules then?

  1. Each author gets 3 threads (Diary, Media, Discussion) and all of your projects get lumped under these three.
  2. You update your diary posts under a single reply. For example, you create a topic named diary and under that post your first entry. Net next entry, you go back and modify your entry to include you new information and so on.
  3. I have to maintain these posts and sticky the diaries, so let’s try to have some order here :slight_smile:

If these work for everyone, I’ll open the board today. PLease add any suggestions you feel are missing.

-ChrisM
[/quote]
Nice try; personally, though, despite being a “yes” vote above, I won’t read it if you go ahead with that. Simply because - despite your cleverness - it’s thoroughly the wrong tool for the job, and I can’t imagine it being anything but unwieldy. I haven’t got the energy to fight the UI to try and get the info I want to see :(.

Nod to what’s already been said about “features” of the board making Chris’s clever scheme unwieldy in practice…

The board itself is already marvelously broken :wink: in other ways, even small things (like the fact that every topic is now permanently “read” for me, or that email notification is random). These already show how just small problems make life significantly harder (I’d be ab
le to follow more topics if email notification worked, for instance, rather than me having to constantly check by hand).

…but despite such minor problems, as a forums board it works well enough to be OK. What you’re suggesting IMHO will push it beyond breaking point w.r.t. usability.

FWVLIW, I still feel that things like this can only really be solved by sorting out the front page, rather than trying to do everything in the forums. IIRC a lot of people felt that they only really read the forums largely because the front page has nothing worth looking at; I appreciate that the page is currently shoe-horned into a template that is forced upon you, but over time (IMHO) it only gets more and more damaging not to be able to use it as you need to!

In a perfect world :), I’d love to see an almost direct copy of Flipcode’s IOTD system linked from the front page, with a feed of the last 5 posts (or whatever) from the forums embedded in the front page, plus similar embedding for the Wiki and a REGULAR chunk of news about “the official view” - or what Sun is getting up to vis-a-vis java gaming. Oh, and articles too (although the pressure for that is slightly abated with the new moderators and the ability to create sticky topics where needed, e.g. to make a howto thread stick at the top of a forum).

Phew! Sorry, was only expecting that to be a short reply!