I've got design, you've got programming.

[Zedreth]

Hey there. I have been looking into creating an era for quite some time now. I've tried making units and rpgs in the past. I'm not very good at it and I am not quite sure how to start programming, and where to put things afterwards. I always seem to follow what the tutorials tell me to do, but it always seem to breakthrough. I'm not giving up, but I had a thought . What if I had someone else help me?

I would love partner up with someone who is willing to help. I love the design and strategy concepts of creating an era, and I would love doing it. I would like to get a small team together to create a project. Here is the idea

-Someone to design units & balance strategies (Me & anyone else)
-Someone to find and make art (Open)
-Someone to program (Open)
-Any other neccisary people. (lol. Open .... for discussion.)

Basically I would love it if I could get a team together to create an era with me, and by dividing up the work, make it easier for all of us. Who's with me?

[styles1005]

Yeahhh . . . Put some work into it and someone might help. Design is easy. Designing well is a bit harder, but nobody can tell how good your design is unless you post your ideas. Doing art, programming, all that stuff, is a LOT harder. Put some work into it - even if it's just copy/pasting coding for the easier units and doing franken-art - and people will be a lot more likely to help.

However, if I like your ideas, I might volunteer my skills at being absolutely horrible at art. (Improving, though!)

[Dixie]

I've toyed with programs such as RPG Maker in my teens and got bored with the programming and art parts quite fast, although I continually had design ideas. In my naivety, I searched for people wishing to help (much as you are doing right now). The problem is, everybody wants to design. Everybody has ideas in the back of their heads, and a lot are probably quite worth it. But much less people want to produce art/code, let alone do it for others. And even more so if they haven't a say in the design, or a very little one...

Anyway, sorry to come and pop your bubble. But seriously, WML can be learned quite easily. I've done it: read the tutorials a bit, opened other eras and looked at the files... If you look into it and come with specific questions, people will gladly help. Seriously, I've received a lot of help on the forums with issues I had coding units/abilities/WML stuff. It's really not that complicated, you should try. As far as I'm concerned, art's the real hard part, not wml.

Another option, if you like design as a whole, is looking at others' projects and give your comments, ideas to possibly improve them, etc. They might not take your views into account, but they as well might.

Anyway, good luck with your design ideas. Maybe you will be the lucky one who finds a good team to realise his projects, but I personnally don't believe it.

[artisticdude]

My advice? Learn either art or WML. Those are the two main factors in creating a faction/era. If you can supply some cool code or art, people will be much more likely to help you with the other. Art usually speaks for itself, but if you're planning on doing the programming, get a 'demo' on the server with placeholder images, in order to attract more interest.

Good luck.

[ancestral]

People are not going to do the work for you. If you want something, put some effort into it. If people like what they see, then they'll contribute their skills towards your project.

[Zedreth]

Lol, I expected this response. I've had many a wrestle with WML, and for some reason I always lose. I've tried over and over to make simple maps, but failed. I could do art, but I usually end up creating awkward positions and weird looks. I can contribute the strategy. I am familier with game creation and game design and have done it for quite some time now. I am a fan of Starcraft, and if you know that game well, there is a lot of strategy in it. I realize this is not that huge of a part, but I would get very in depth. I lvoe the art of out-smarting the opponent, and out-smarting an opponent that is trying to out-smart you.

Basically this is how my map making failures go:
-I build a map using the editor
-I open it and add the multiplayer code
-I add a few extra things like units to spawn
-Test it <insert some error here> (Usually followed by my repeated attempts to fix what it tells me too)
-I decide to start over
-I take away everything but the raw map file.
-Now the map doesn't work at all.
-Give up.

Also, I end up having no clue where to put everything I need.
-I look up what I need in "create"
-I navigate to places
-I place the files
-I end up having too many copies
-<or> I end up having to little copies
-Things get mixed up.
-Fail
-Also much information is out of date as of 1.8.1 *facepalm*

I also have random errors here and there
-Using notepad++ seems to mess up the format
-Quote marks are said to be absent (Just because in Notepad++ the end quote is not in the same line)
-Certain files have wrong content
-Certain files have wrong tag (.txt/.cfg)
-other things like that.


It always ends up with a facepalm and it ends. That is why I request this. Other people seem to have no problem (yes much work, but minimal errors). I do use vista, but I doubt its that. Please join me, or help me

[zookeeper]

It's fine if you want to only stick to designing things and not touch WML, however in that case you should probably rather seek to help people who can handle the implementation but could use some help in the designing part. People rarely want to write stuff according to someone else's design, but likely many would like to have help with some aspects of their own designs: balancing, map design and so on. Of course it's perhaps not as interesting since you'd be working on someone else's initial design, but still, that seems the best option if you want to stick to designing things and not have to worry about art or WML.

[boru]

From one novice coder to another: there's no way you can learn WML strictly from the wiki. It's a reasonably good starting point, but it's not enough.

* Open the .cfg files of your favorite scenarios. Sit down and read em. Try to figure what's going on. You'll find some are very well commented, so it's possible to follow along, if you know the campaign.

* Search the WML Workshop in this forum for answers when you're stuck. If you can't find answers, then post your code and someone will help.

* Never give up something you want to do because it's difficult. It's a bad habit to break.

[sLaughter]

Even supposing you're some kind of super designer who is leaps and bounds ahead of the skills of your artist/coder... you've yet to show us anything.

How do we know we want to work to make your vision real when you haven't given us a glimpse of that vision?

[Edwarfin]

I wouldn't be too harsh on Zedreth; he's not the first person to propose this type of team.

It's worth noting, though, that design (at least when it comes to original work, not so much the rebalancing) is generally considered to be the 'fun' part of any mod's creation process, where you can let your imagination run wild. As a result, the original topic can be loosely translated to "I'll take care of the fun, creative part; you go through the drudgery to make it work".

Design is a process that involves work, but anyone can do it, and most of us aren't significantly better than anyone else at it. Programming, or art, is something that not everyone is quite so adept at. For this reason, there's always more wannabe designers than there are programmers or artists, and the latter groups don't normally take kindly to the idea of bringing someone else's vision to life, rather than their own.

Of course, the design process itself will eventually become drudgery, after you've knocked out all the work that requires creativity and the only thing left is making microscopic tweaks to units to ensure balance. But most people never get to that stage, for one reason or another.

With that said, I have several principles that you can consider.

1) You need a compelling reason to convince other people that they should work on your project, instead of their own. Learning to code, or produce art, is a very valid way to do that, since it gives them the idea that the project has a higher chance of success than if you depended on some other person to do your existing work. People like to work on projects that they know will succeed, so their effort achieves something, instead of being wasted on another failed idea.
2) If you're in charge of unit design, you need to be there after your units stop feeling new, creative, and exciting, and make all the tiny changes that will ensure that it is balanced and good. You can't just get bored and wander off; you owe your team and project more than that.
3) If you end up actually getting both coders and artists to carry out your vision, by some means, be nice to them, and give them a bit of leeway in the project, to make some design decisions of their own.

For an example, if you look at the Art forums here, the artists always end up adding a bit of their own work into the art; something of their own inspiration. For instance, someone made the design decision to give the mermaids in the portraits those shells and seaweed garments, even though it wasn't mentioned anywhere before, or shown in previous pictures, to my knowledge. They took someone else's vision and made it into their own.

If you have a project team, you have to remember that the other people aren't just machines who produce everything you're thinking about -- you have to give them the chance to do something they want, like they could do if they weren't a part of your team. The end result of their work might not be exactly what you had in mind, but that's just a compromise of dealing with other people -- the only way to get things 100% as you conceived of them is to do it yourself.

A lot of this has already been said, but maybe it'll help?

- Edwarfin

[thespaceinvader]

If you want something done right, do it yourself.

Noone else will do it for you.

[Edwarfin]

I'm not entirely sure about that; the mere existence of Wesnoth as it stands and the art contributors, multiplayer balance designers, and campaign developers all prove that other people can be willing to contribute to someone else's overall vision.

If Dave had to rely solely on himself for all the work that's been done, we'd have maybe two or three campaigns, probably not many more factions than that, and much worse graphics.

You need something that stands out above the norm, whether it's your programming skills, the most brilliant story idea ever conceived by man, or amazing graphic skills, to start off a great project, and to get a team together, it's true.

But I think the history of this game proves that, if the original developer is willing to put in his fair share, and perhaps a little more, of the work to fulfill his vision, help can and often will surface -- which the oft-quoted "Do it yourself" entirely avoids mentioning.

The main problem with this topic, and others like it, is that usually the people who post them, such as myself, haven't put in their part yet.

[thespaceinvader]

Dave MADE A PLAYABLE GAME before anyone else came on board and did anything.

If he'd said 'I have an awesome idea for a game, make it for me' he would have been exactly nowhere at this point.

Everyone has ideas. Most people have more than they will ever realise. Ideas are WORTHLESS if you cannot make something out of them. And until you prove that you can make something out of them and follow up on it, they're all you have.

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/in ... -my-ideas/

[Edwarfin]

And I've never denied any of what you just said. I said myself that the designer has to put work in, and that he needs to have something of significance, in my last post. I also said that everyone is capable of design and idea-crafting, and suggested that getting it implemented is another detail entirely, in my first post. I simply feel that your original assertion, which suggests nobody will ever do anything, is maybe a bit extreme. Perhaps I'm simply nitpicking; think no more of it.

On the side, it's been a while since I saw a link to Schlock; perhaps that strip's more popular than I thought. I read all the way through it two years ago, or so.

[Zedreth]

From one novice coder to another: there's no way you can learn WML strictly from the wiki. It's a reasonably good starting point, but it's not enough.

* Open the .cfg files of your favorite scenarios. Sit down and read em. Try to figure what's going on. You'll find some are very well commented, so it's possible to follow along, if you know the campaign.

* Search the WML Workshop in this forum for answers when you're stuck. If you can't find answers, then post your code and someone will help.

* Never give up something you want to do because it's difficult. It's a bad habit to break.

I've had programming experience before. I know C++ and Html. Its mainly file locations types and content that is needed where. Thanks for the suggestions though.

Also, Edwarfin, I am aware on how to treat a team. I've experience with making raw games, and I know how strenuous it is when people are sayin' " Hey you should make it so they shoot missiles that make little enemies that eat the walls so you fall into little fire pits that little spiders hide in" (Etc. =) I plan to be nice to my team. And also, I would let them insert their ideas. I'm pretty easy when it comes to accepting other people's ideas. Also, after the initial files are created, I would be glad to help with the programming aspect.

As for showing what I'm worth, I may post here some example soon.