Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by MMOExposed

Can you give me an example of an idea that's commonly shouted around here that isn't possible to be produced?

i want a better picture of the situation discussed so I am asking for an example.

"...there's a very real difference between plausible and feasible."

It would probably be better at this juncture to stick with "far beyond the scope/resources available" than sidetrack there. 

You just linked to a list. So pick something. Because seem like you are making the same argument that Quiz does, which is that any idea we post here is bad and can't be done. Seem to generalize, which is why I disagree. So please be more accurate and not link to a large list...

I linked to the quote that I pasted here as a reply. As explained several times to you by several people, there is a difference between what can be done and what can reasonably be done.

I keep asking you to post these ideas that can't be done. You still havnt shown me an example I requested....

that quote means little. It's meaningless without pointing out what can't be done. 

"If I myself can simply break this down in to many things in under 5 minutes. There should be no reason why a developer can brainstorm the ideas given by the community in a single workday."

Your entire post is a perfect example of the disconnect armchair developers and some 'indie' developers have with what is truly involved in game design, especailly for a massively multiplayer psersistent state world.

What is the impact on the game's economy?

How does it fit with the rest of the transportation and inventory management systems?

Is this for a PvE world or PvP world?

What projects would have to be scratched to create the resources to add this?

What percent of the playerbase would derive value from this?

What are the rewards of these mundane tasks? How do those rewards impact gameplay? the economy? other reward systems?

What is performance impact of these systems on the server? the scene? the install/download size? And, yes, that last one is one of the considerations in many feature decisions.

Does this fit with the vision or theme of the game?

 

The list of questions that require even more involved answers and even deeper planning goes on and on.

 

Most tasks seem easy to someone who has no idea what is really required to do them.

 

It's very unfortunate that people and companies do not take the ideas of the player base and use them. They're only hurting themselves because many of those ideas are great and are vastly approved by that community. The developer essentially has the customer brainstorming their game for them. All they truly need to do is pick and choose those ideas.

 If only I could afford to be a game designer, but I cannot afford the schooling or the resources to do so. Now that I've read my post I truly wish there was a game like that. *sigh*

Originally posted by Quizzical

Lots of people have ideas for games, including nearly all gamers and a lot of people who aren't gamers.  Lots of gamers have ideas that they'd like to see made into a game.  Those in the industry typically ignore those ideas as worthless, and rightly so.

Got this far and had  to stop reading it seriously. I did skim the rest though.

I've played great games that are good because of their ideas more so than their execution. The OP suggest that minor things like the amount of damage dealt by an attack is more important than the original concept and I disagree. You don't need to refine an idea to the level that a good game designer would to make a decent game and ideas prior to that stage aren't worthless.

This is exemplified by the fact that game pitches don't start with a 50 page document they start with the concept. They start with it because it is the single most important aspect and most definitive aspect of the game.

Now I will concede that the execution is extremely important and for an unknown or armchair designer, that the idea will never see the light of day unless you can refine and probably do a lot of the actual work towards making it too. However that is far from saying they should be regarded as worthless as the OP says in the opening paragraph.

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

I didn't say it couldn't be done, I said in many cases it isn't practical and some are examples don't really hold up.

The witcher was allready a success as a book, yes they did have to pay him to have as a consultant, but the people responsible for development would have allready had some idea of what it involved and decided they had the ability and resources to do it.

KoA was a mess, they spent a ton of money.  They split the ideas and coding and the game was a flop.  They spent way to much money on way to little.  Not a great example.

Skyrim was made up by people who have both, they have shown the technical ability (in most cases) and the creative ability to do that. 

Your right great ideas are not easy.  Great ideas that can be done by the resources available are even less. 

People on these boards will whine no matter what comes out.

Making a good game is not just about ideas, IMO that is the least of it, there are lots of good ideas out there.  Vanguard had some interesting ideas, the game was crap and to a large extent still is.  Making a game is about effective resource use.

KoA was a mess, that's what I said, so it's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. They let the wrong people dictate how the gameplay was designed and it came out sucking.

Ideas are definitely not the least of it. Vanguard didn't have any interesting ideas and it sucked technically too. Hence why it flopped.

Effective resource use is extremely important, but who cares how effective your resource use is when you are building on top of a foundation of boring?

How about Rift? Trion has to be one of the fastest content developers out there, they really are fantastic. And Rift was almost great. They had a hint of a single great idea (variety of souls) but no one really developed that idea into something more and it devolved into cookie cutter poopsocks when they failed to realize their greatest asset. So people came and left. So close yet so far.

Originally posted by Mtibbs1989

It's very unfortunate that people and companies do not take the ideas of the player base and use them. They're only hurting themselves because many of those ideas are great and are vastly approved by that community. The developer essentially has the customer brainstorming their game for them. All they truly need to do is pick and choose those ideas.

 If only I could afford to be a game designer, but I cannot afford the schooling or the resources to do so. Now that I've read my post I truly wish there was a game like that. *sigh*

Here is an idea that will solve your problem:

Make a lot of money.

By implementing this simple idea you will be able to afford your schooling and will be able to become a game designer.  If you do not take the idea and use it, you are only hurting yourself.

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by Mtibbs1989

It's very unfortunate that people and companies do not take the ideas of the player base and use them. They're only hurting themselves because many of those ideas are great and are vastly approved by that community. The developer essentially has the customer brainstorming their game for them. All they truly need to do is pick and choose those ideas.

 If only I could afford to be a game designer, but I cannot afford the schooling or the resources to do so. Now that I've read my post I truly wish there was a game like that. *sigh*

Here is an idea that will solve your problem:

Make a lot of money.

By implementing this simple idea you will be able to afford your schooling and will be able to become a game designer.  If you do not take the idea and use it, you are only hurting yourself.

Right, make a lot of money how? That's a better question.

 When the schooling for game design costs roughly $110,000 dollars to attend it's fairly hard to come up with that money. So it's easier said than done. If you're going to say that I should just take out a student loan then there's another issue. Due to the fact that I'm under a certain age in my state and my parents are making XX income I cannot obtain federal student aide.

 However, I never said I was not trying to get into the gaming world. I am indeed trying to get my foot into the door. Networking is what I'm currently working on. I know game companies; specifically ones that run mmo's are always in need of people in that field. It's an affordable alternative to getting my foot into the door and then working towards something I want to do in that field. 

Originally posted by MMOExposed

I keep asking you to post these ideas that can't be done. You still havnt shown me an example I requested....

that quote means little. It's meaningless without pointing out what can't be done. 

Well, dipping back into the past...

A player proposed a certain change to the way crittur loot ("drops") was handled, which was actually quite a nice little idea that Marty (lead dev) really wanted to do.

Unfortunately, implementing this (fairly trivial, on paper) idea involved the full development team revising, individually, several thousand existing subroutines, and a few hundred thousand lines of code to correct a problem that affected virtually everything. Given that this player's idea was essentially cosmetic...too many man-hours, too little benefit.

Plausible idea (it could be done), but not terribly feasible (not quickly and not cheaply).

Those bug-fixes that hang around unfixed for years? Generally involve overhauls that are just too large in scale, in relation to a bug that's basically cosmetic-level...not a game-breaker, just irritating little screen display bug or somesuch.

Remember the Blizzard classic "Why can't we have armor dyes"? Hard-coded colors in the models. Cosmetic change, but one involving oodles of updates and a zillion man-hours. Cost/Benefit involves a lot of decisions for sensible-sounding ideas that could be done if we really wanted it badly enough, but don't expect it by next week.

How do you tell a player that his Pet Idea is cool, and we'd like to do it, but don't expect it for at least a couple of years? The usual answer is to say nothing. Saying anything yields message board firestorm. And the never ending litany of "you promised!', if (for wharever reason) you later decide not to do it after all.

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by MMOExposed

I keep asking you to post these ideas that can't be done. You still havnt shown me an example I requested....

that quote means little. It's meaningless without pointing out what can't be done. 

Well, dipping back into the past...

A player proposed a certain change to the way crittur loot ("drops") was handled, which was actually quite a nice little idea that Marty (lead dev) really wanted to do.

Unfortunately, implementing this (fairly trivial, on paper) idea involved the full development team revising, individually, several thousand existing subroutines, and a few hundred thousand lines of code to correct a problem that affected virtually everything. Given that this player's idea was essentially cosmetic...too many man-hours, too little benefit.

Plausible idea (it could be done), but not terribly feasible (not quickly and not cheaply).

Those bug-fixes that hang around unfixed for years? Generally involve overhauls that are just too large in scale, in relation to a bug that's basically cosmetic-level...not a game-breaker, just irritating little screen display bug or somesuch.

Remember the Blizzard classic "Why can't we have armor dyes"? Hard-coded colors in the models. Cosmetic change, but one involving oodles of updates and a zillion man-hours. Cost/Benefit involves a lot of decisions for sensible-sounding ideas that could be done if we really wanted it badly enough, but don't expect it by next week.

How do you tell a player that his Pet Idea is cool, and we'd like to do it, but don't expect it for at least a couple of years? The usual answer is to say nothing. Saying anything yields message board firestorm. And the never ending litany of "you promised!', if (for wharever reason) you later decide not to do it after all.

I think he was asking more for examples for starting in a new game. Trying to implement something such as dyes for armor could be extremely simple in one game, or near impossible in another. That has more to do with coding. Daoc had no problem with dyes, but WoW, which came out later, nope, can't be done.

I think devs take short cuts when making the game, so there is not much flexability later on when they think of something good to add, but are unable to because they wanted to save a little time doing something in the beginning.

There are a lot of good ideas that can be done, and be done easily, for new games, but trying to add to existing games, probably not feasible. Of course there are a lot of bad ideas too that can be added, that 1 person thinks would be cool, but if you think of it in the overall scheme, it just sounds stupid, lol.

Originally posted by Mtibbs1989

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by Mtibbs1989

It's very unfortunate that people and companies do not take the ideas of the player base and use them. They're only hurting themselves because many of those ideas are great and are vastly approved by that community. The developer essentially has the customer brainstorming their game for them. All they truly need to do is pick and choose those ideas.

 If only I could afford to be a game designer, but I cannot afford the schooling or the resources to do so. Now that I've read my post I truly wish there was a game like that. *sigh*

Here is an idea that will solve your problem:

Make a lot of money.

By implementing this simple idea you will be able to afford your schooling and will be able to become a game designer.  If you do not take the idea and use it, you are only hurting yourself.

Right, make a lot of money how? That's a better question.

 When the schooling for game design costs roughly $110,000 dollars to attend it's fairly hard to come up with that money. So it's easier said than done. If you're going to say that I should just take out a student loan then there's another issue. Due to the fact that I'm under a certain age in my state and my parents are making XX income I cannot obtain federal student aide.

 However, I never said I was not trying to get into the gaming world. I am indeed trying to get my foot into the door. Networking is what I'm currently working on. I know game companies; specifically ones that run mmo's are always in need of people in that field. It's an affordable alternative to getting my foot into the door and then working towards something I want to do in that field. 

 

I think the sarcasm translator is broken.  I wasn't suggesting a solution. I was merely providing you with a valid 'idea' that would have solved your problem once you found a way to implement it.  Of course without that way to implement it, the 'idea' is fairly useless even though it is obvious.  I am fairly sure that you would love to implement this 'idea' but are nto doign so because your current situation and resources do not allow it. 

Originally posted by Torik

Originally posted by Mtibbs1989

It's very unfortunate that people and companies do not take the ideas of the player base and use them. They're only hurting themselves because many of those ideas are great and are vastly approved by that community. The developer essentially has the customer brainstorming their game for them. All they truly need to do is pick and choose those ideas.

 If only I could afford to be a game designer, but I cannot afford the schooling or the resources to do so. Now that I've read my post I truly wish there was a game like that. *sigh*

Here is an idea that will solve your problem:

Make a lot of money.

By implementing this simple idea you will be able to afford your schooling and will be able to become a game designer.  If you do not take the idea and use it, you are only hurting yourself.

Well played.

Originally posted by Vynt

I think he was asking more for examples for starting in a new game. Trying to implement something such as dyes for armor could be extremely simple in one game, or near impossible in another. That has more to do with coding. Daoc had no problem with dyes, but WoW, which came out later, nope, can't be done.

I think devs take short cuts when making the game, so there is not much flexability later on when they think of something good to add, but are unable to because they wanted to save a little time doing something in the beginning.

There are a lot of good ideas that can be done, and be done easily, for new games, but trying to add to existing games, probably not feasible. Of course there are a lot of bad ideas too that can be added, that 1 person thinks would be cool, but if you think of it in the overall scheme, it just sounds stupid, lol.

"Taking shortcuts" is a key part of the development process.  Trying to acccount for every possibility is way to resource intenisive so you figure the best use of those resources.  Blizzard took many shortcuts with WoW in order to have it run on lower end systems.  As someone who had a lower end computer when WoW came out, I really appreciated that.

As a software devloper I hate it when I have finished developing an application according to a spec and then the client decides that they have a great 'idea' how to improve it and to them it sounds like an easy fix.  However, since this was not in the original spec, the design simply cannot fit it in easily. 

I believe that with a 50 page document you probably have a good set of ideas for what game you want.  The problem is more of one in describing the technicalities of the game.  The further along in the process you go, the more detail you need.  The ideas are easy.  Like with all planning, you start with a mission statement, and begin to detail on down.

I've seen some good ideas on this forum and I've seen some boneheaded ones.  Either way, the idea is the easy part.  'I want involved crafting'  Idea formulated.  'I want it to be 3 phases........' you begin the process of details' and on it goes until you are ready to be coding.

As a general rule, the ideas are pie in the sky 'I want involved crafting types.'  which is ok for a forum like this.  If someone were interested in actually getting a game done, they would use this for networking people as opposed to the random, 'I have an idea.'

Originally posted by maplestone

Originally posted by MumboJumbo

I think this is a great take-home: Know your target market/demograhic/niche for whatever game idea you have.

Starting with a target demographic is going to result in an excellent marketting campaign.  If a game accidentally ends up getting designed somewhere in there, it's a bonus.

Well I did use marketing language... but what I mean, "a game made by gamers for gamers" as well as "there is space where this idea will grow and not be crowded out among all the other iterations of the same idea". IE know the players and how many of them there are for said game idea.

Originally posted by MumboJumbo

IE know the players and how many of them there are for said game idea.

Fair enough. 

( this could branch off into the difference between the technical difficulty of creating a game behind closed doors vs the complexity of being a service to a community full of contradictory visions and priorities )

Would you like to see my spreadsheets? They come with complete explainations of classes, stats, lore, roles, advancement, zones, cities, handling of new content releases, mechanics of dungeons, dungeon layouts, scaling values, range, damage scaling for distance from target, accuracy as a coefficient for damage and critical strikes, etc. I have close to half a gig's worth of documents, not including some graphics, explaining what I want the game to be like. Specific detail is not an issue for me. Details require lots of math, and sometimes even physics come into play, which often scares off potential ideas.

It's not that I don't have the ability to make a game, it's that I lack the time, audience, and funding to create the game I really want. I would love to make my ideas into reality but I can't spend anymore time dreaming up this idea if I will never be able to create it.

Some of my ideas utilize advanced ideas like making travelling merchants or travelling towns. Some use advanced character building opted by the player, if they wish to choose specific attributes for certain skills using the sliding scales for each individual skill. A few even use story as a method for introducing new content (heaven forbid the game actually justifies the introduction of a new zone/race/instance/class that was previously unavailable).

P.S. Some of the stuff you mention is things nobody has to worry about, like individual pixels on skins. They are generally designed in some sort of software that allows the artist to create the skin on the character and export it in a format that will flesh onto the item perfectly. Also, collision is pretty standard as far as combat and character placement goes. If the player is within range X of target, enable the use of skill Y. It's not that tough of a concept really.

Debugging is one of the most important concepts in programming that many people try to overlook and fail miserably. If you can't figure out what the problem is, why it is happening, and when it happens, you'll never fix the issue fully.

Originally posted by Rossboss

Would you like to see my spreadsheets? They come with complete explainations of classes, stats, lore, roles, advancement, zones, cities, handling of new content releases, mechanics of dungeons, dungeon layouts, scaling values, range, damage scaling for distance from target, accuracy as a coefficient for damage and critical strikes, etc. I have close to half a gig's worth of documents, not including some graphics, explaining what I want the game to be like. Specific detail is not an issue for me. Details require lots of math, and sometimes even physics come into play, which often scares off potential ideas.

It's not that I don't have the ability to make a game, it's that I lack the time, audience, and funding to create the game I really want. I would love to make my ideas into reality but I can't spend anymore time dreaming up this idea if I will never be able to create it.

Some of my ideas utilize advanced ideas like making travelling merchants or travelling towns. Some use advanced character building opted by the player, if they wish to choose specific attributes for certain skills using the sliding scales for each individual skill. A few even use story as a method for introducing new content (heaven forbid the game actually justifies the introduction of a new zone/race/instance/class that was previously unavailable).

P.S. Some of the stuff you mention is things nobody has to worry about, like individual pixels on skins. They are generally designed in some sort of software that allows the artist to create the skin on the character and export it in a format that will flesh onto the item perfectly. Also, collision is pretty standard as far as combat and character placement goes. If the player is within range X of target, enable the use of skill Y. It's not that tough of a concept really.

Debugging is one of the most important concepts in programming that many people try to overlook and fail miserably. If you can't figure out what the problem is, why it is happening, and when it happens, you'll never fix the issue fully.

"It's not that I don't have the ability to make a game..."

If I understand you correctly, you feel that you do have the ability to create a game and the only thing holding you back is that you don't have the time or money. Is that correct?

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Rossboss

Would you like to see my spreadsheets? They come with complete explainations of classes, stats, lore, roles, advancement, zones, cities, handling of new content releases, mechanics of dungeons, dungeon layouts, scaling values, range, damage scaling for distance from target, accuracy as a coefficient for damage and critical strikes, etc. I have close to half a gig's worth of documents, not including some graphics, explaining what I want the game to be like. Specific detail is not an issue for me. Details require lots of math, and sometimes even physics come into play, which often scares off potential ideas.

It's not that I don't have the ability to make a game, it's that I lack the time, audience, and funding to create the game I really want. I would love to make my ideas into reality but I can't spend anymore time dreaming up this idea if I will never be able to create it.

Some of my ideas utilize advanced ideas like making travelling merchants or travelling towns. Some use advanced character building opted by the player, if they wish to choose specific attributes for certain skills using the sliding scales for each individual skill. A few even use story as a method for introducing new content (heaven forbid the game actually justifies the introduction of a new zone/race/instance/class that was previously unavailable).

P.S. Some of the stuff you mention is things nobody has to worry about, like individual pixels on skins. They are generally designed in some sort of software that allows the artist to create the skin on the character and export it in a format that will flesh onto the item perfectly. Also, collision is pretty standard as far as combat and character placement goes. If the player is within range X of target, enable the use of skill Y. It's not that tough of a concept really.

Debugging is one of the most important concepts in programming that many people try to overlook and fail miserably. If you can't figure out what the problem is, why it is happening, and when it happens, you'll never fix the issue fully.

"It's not that I don't have the ability to make a game..."

If I understand you correctly, you feel that you do have the ability to create a game and the only thing holding you back is that you don't have the time or money. Is that correct?

I also lack the knowledge, experience, and skill with some things. I have the resources for the most part, short of the game engine and developing kit. I have the knowledge of programming, minus the online interaction of players. I lack the ability to make 3D skins that appeal to others in a timely manner and I don't have the funding to buy the licenses and some associated programs. I also lack the man/woman-power to maintain the actual game, nor do I have a userbase identified. I also lack the experience in programming on such a large scale and creating a positive user experience. I lack the time to learn all of these skills and acquire the knowledge needed to attain my goal.

Are those things I listed in my original post not qualifying attributes a game creator must have to create an actual game?

So, are you saying you do or don't have the ability to create a game? Nevermind, don't answer that. I found your answer.

"I have close to half a gig's worth of documents, not including some graphics, explaining what I want the game to be like."

"...nor do I have a userbase identified."

Originally posted by Loktofeit

So, are you saying you do or don't have the ability to create a game? Nevermind, don't answer that. I found your answer.

 

"I have close to half a gig's worth of documents, not including some graphics, explaining what I want the game to be like."

"...nor do I have a userbase identified."

 

 

Pretty much. I'm unsure of what others want from a game and that pretty much shuts down my want to actually follow through with my ideas.

I don't have the ability to create the game, but I have the potential to do so. Which really doesn't amount to much in the end if I never make use of the potential.