If you're making a big mod, how do you...

[waywardOne]

... keep going when you stop caring to make it even for yourself.

In b4 retardo.

 

[villain of the story]

Let us see those crappy concept art images that you thought would translate into a game

 

[laclongquan]

You should have ignored this thread so that "no reply in one week" achivement is scored.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Post your concept and screenshots here, everyone will shit on it, that'll get you all riled up and you'll keep working on it just to spite the haters.

 

[waywardOne]

I'm in the process of convincing myself that I've already put too much work into it to quit now. So basically I'll finish just to spite myself. I don't need you, Codex.

 

[tiagocc0]

 

[villain of the story]

I'm sure you have put too much work into drawing a few crappy concept art images.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

I don't. I move to another project until I'll get inspiration back .

 

[Zed]

This is actually a pretty good topic.

Some people write blogs about their projects. Some people do lots of, uh "internal" planning, setting up milestones and shit (as if it was a super serious project you'd get payed for).

Some people do lots of shit at the same time to create some variation - they work on what's fun at the moment. Flip-side is you never get shit done.

 

[tiagocc0]

This is actually a pretty good topic.

Some people write blogs about their projects. Some people do lots of, uh "internal" planning, setting up milestones and shit (as if it was a super serious project you'd get payed for).

Some people do lots of shit at the same time to create some variation - they work on what's fun at the moment. Flip-side is you never get shit done.

It's so true that I just got scared now, I hope my shit get's done.

 

[EG]

The answer depends on whether you're the sort of person that starts things and rarely finishes them (like myself) or not.

If you're like me, you stop for an indefinite amount of time and eventually just get the feeling that it's time to get started / finish it. Alternatively, you try to find as much novel shit as you can relating to it and hope what you've found blends together into something productive.

Good luck.

 

[shihonage]

Only videos work for me. I look at older videos of what I'm working on, and they remind me of the end-goal. Of how things should "feel" in the game. Of what inspires me to go on.

I tried blog/twitter, that shit doesn't work. I am not a PR machine, and it certainly doesn't stimulate me to have 2 subscribers on Twitter after a year of posting useless technical updates that are boring anyway.

 

[Davaris]

"how do you... keep going when you stop caring"

Continuing to work on something, when you do not enjoy it and you're not going to get paid, would be insane.

 

[taxalot]

Constant feedback and having a community of people interested behind you is a must. Have a forum, a Facecbook group, release screenshots, gameplay videos.Get positive feedback so that if you feel like going on.

 

[chewie]

"how do you... keep going when you stop caring"

Continuing to work on something, when you do not enjoy it and you're not going to get paid, would be insane.

The problem with this is that there are always periods where you have to do stuff which you don't enjoy - and if one isn't careful in those situations, the "I don't care anymore" feeling can be generated by a wrong impression, e.g. that the current (necessary) tasks are not connected to the project anymore.

Translated this means: creating a [mod] [game] etc. is 5% fun, the other part is hard work. (figures just to show the relation - no real data)

So if you find yourself in the situation like this:
1) Do I enjoy writing a quest? -> Yes
2) Do I enjoy program a quest system? -> No

You shouldn't answer this one: "Do I enjoy working on the project?" while working on your "quest system" (which you don't enjoy :D). Instead you should get some distance to both 1) & 2) and e.g. re-evaluate the overall achievements.

Shihonage already mentioned that - look at old screencaptures, screenshots, design iterations etc. and FEEL your process. Make it clear for yourself what has been done, then decide if you still care or not.

And as we are in the "amateur league" you also have to take into account what you learned so far.

Sure, it is tempting to "just throw away everything and start something new" - but you eventually get to the same point with your new toy, too.

Constant feedback and having a community of people interested behind you is a must. Have a forum, a Facecbook group, release screenshots, gameplay videos.Get positive feedback so that if you feel like going on.

My opinion regarding that one: It can work, but it can horribly bite back. If you rely on the constant feedback too much and it is gone (people change - we are talking about time periods spanning years), it can harm your motiviation and / or the motivation of your team.

So I factor that one out for the "early stages" - made that mistake once. People with an outside view can be helpful, but they can also make you loose your focus (e.g. "Feature XY is a must" "Oh, you are right... *worksonnewfeatureandloosesfocus*").

For everything there is the right time, and constant feedback is IMO only helpful if you are prepared for that (project-wise). While moving a lot of code it is sure not helpful to get distracted by a totally new feature. But when you are in concept review process (Beta testing!) it can be a powerful help.

So far, that's my condensed (lol) view about that - with the background that I'm working since 2006 on 2 large scaled projects (FIFE & Zero), so for a little mod it sure can be different, but the principle stays IMO the same. (project management stuff, organisation, team dynamics blabla...)

 

[tiagocc0]

There's always the question "Why did I start it in the first place?"
Whenever I abandoned a project I would get this feeling, "come on, you can do it! put it in on paper and start coding it, you faggot"
Even though I liked this feeling, before a new project, I don't want it again
I want a "good job, better later than never" feeling, that's what motivates me most

 

[J1M]

If you really want to shackle yourself to a project and have a way to keep yourself from quitting it, get a partner. Then you will need to let them down in order to quit.

 

[waywardOne]

I'm fairly monomaniacal when it comes to my intent, so even if I had a cheerleading section I really wouldn't be interested in any feedback other than "This is cool, hurry up so I can play it." In fact, I'm only doing it because I want to play it. It doesn't help that the game is revered for its fuck-ton of content and that I'm essentially pulling an Oscuro here.

I'm simply at a point where I've gotten enough stuff in that playtesting is starting to eat up an assload more time. I tend to get the technical parts in clean the first try so most of the testing is really tedious scheme stuff, and subjective at that so I can't just dump everything in a spreadsheet and see how it's balancing. Because of the size of the overhaul, I also have to keep coming up with ways to test shit that isn't feasible with a newly created character, so I have to write scripts to level up, set variables, and spawn stuff just for testing. Of the five major mod categories, I'm only 1.5 of the way in. I've got everything mapped out, it's just a matter of executing it.