Section Guidelines/Necessity Discussion

Continuing the discussion from the other thread: Since its inception, this subforum has been host to plenty of ideas, but not a whole lot of development. If it's to be worth retaining, some stricter limitations on content should really be enforced; and even then, it may prove possible to provide everything this section would contain in the other subforums.

Here I'm going to start by listing out everything relevant modding aspect I can currently think of, along with a guideline statement/recommendation:

Posting a thread in Showcase: Currently requires a demo of some kind, at least according to the rules still there. Screenshots not mandatory?
Posting a thread in I&D: Needs at least, say, two screenshots showing what has been changed, not to be asking for creators (see below), and perhaps some limit on thread creation per user. This can all probably be merged into the Showcase rules.
Asking others to collaborate on a mod: Needs to have a demo of a certain length available, preferably with placeholders for where things need to be changed, and evidence of a plan for the future. (Note: Not the same as asking for help getting something right (see below again).)
Asking for help with general modding (e.g. scripting, hacking, art, etc): Currently handled in General Discussion, or in the Music section for ORGs.
Asking about or discussing ideas (mostly regarding settings, writing, etc.): Currently handled here. A general ideas topic was already tried and never really went anywhere; however, a topic dedicated to helping with requests may suffice.
Posting new madding hacking tools, finds or strategies: Can go here or in GD.

Without getting too obtuse, that's everything I can come up with now. As per usual, please mention any thoughts, particularly concerning what you'd like to see as restrictions or what you feel would be lost if this section were to be ended. Some proper discussion will really help in deciding where to go next. If I haven't overlooked anything, we very well could do without this subforum, but either way it might be better to see how some new restrictions would work out first.

 

Honestly I would feel it better if the I&D section was just removed, and users were required to have at least a small demo of their work to show off before posting any mod threads on the forums. It can't be hard to generate something as little as that, and it would eliminate a lot of users who don't care enough to try to mod or that don't know how to mod etc. If they want help with modding they can go to GD.
This is my opinion, but I think it would cut down significantly on spam threads.

 

I don't exactly see why we should kill it as long as these rules are enforced. But I guess if we can all use it general discussion maybe it should die. I dunno. I haven't tried modding seriously enough yet. >_>

 

At this point, the I&D section should just be put to rest. It's overstayed its welcome. The problem is, like Doors said, that they just don't care very much and never get anything done with it. If we get rid of the I&D section, we force users to post a demo. With that, we can at least get the ball rolling for development on the mod and eliminate those posting ideas just for the sake of posting ideas. In some cases though, posting in the I&D thread will give you a plethora of ideas to work with and give you the drive to keep a project going. I know that this is rarely the case, but I'm starting to think that some use can be made with the I&D section. Personally, I'm in favor of making the rules much, much stricter. On the other hand, getting rid of it altogether would be the easier and probably more effective solution.

 

The thing is the I&D section is pretty fucked up from the amount of new users making mod ideas that never reach even a small demo and pretty much nothing that goes in I&D can really be appreciated anymore. I barely even follow the section now.

 

I don't want to alienate those who use it properly, but the Ideas and Development section is more trouble than it's worth, as stated above. I, personally, never even found much of a need to use it. When I was developing my fourth ending mod, I saw no reason to post it in the Ideas and Development forum, and simply decided to wait until I had a release ready to even create an account here and start posting. The same thing goes for my current mod that I recently started working on. In don't plan on (or feel a need to, for that matter) start a thread regarding my mod until I have a demo ready. The only people who are really going to care about what I've done before I have a demo to show are the people who check my status updates, so I can post stuff there before the first demo's ready if I want.

However, I understand that this is not the way everyone feels. There have been cases where the I&D section has been used properly, some of them even recent and ongoing. While I myself would not be bothered at all if this section was killed, I would be in support of trying out keeping this section with these rules enforced more, on behalf of the users who have threads in this section that aren't creating spam. If things don't improve after some months of trying to enforce these rules, then by all means I think this section should be put to rest.

What I don't want to happen though, supposing we euthanize this section, is all the past threads from this section get deleted, as that would be a shame.

EDIT: 875th post! "Deaths: 4000"

 

I can safely say, as someone who has quintuple posted as a result of once-a-week updates in his mod topic, that this forum section doesn't even generate very good hype or discussion. People show their excitement at the start, but it quickly peters off into a lack of input after a certain length of time.

Of course, since such a topic likely exists before a demo topic, it's kind of hard to break off, especially without confusing newcomers with information about a future demo in a topic about a previous demo. And you'd obviously need said demo before you can go "Hey everyone use this topic from now on kthx", inevitably followed by at least two people saying "Sure!", and one dork saying "WHERE DO I DOWNLOAD!?" after 4 months.

 

The general response I'm gathering from this is "yeah we probably don't need it"; the next thing to consider, then, is which threads will need moving out. Modders still need to be able to access their threads, but I'm not going to trawl through and move every vaguely active-looking thread to Showcase. They need demos to be there anyway. Instead, I'm thinking of some type of request system, where users can ask that their thread be moved when it fits the (new?) requirements, if they so desire. Again, the main potential problems I see arising from this are things like users losing a place to discuss their work, or having to continue on a large conversation from a blank starting point. It's never going to be perfect, so we may just have to live with what works.

 

You could send out a notice asking active modders to request that their thread be moved to showcase before you close it down and give like a fair bit of time for them to do so.

 

Seems like the best bet would be to first lock the ability to make new topics and put some big bold red-text announcement count-down that the section will close. Then maybe migrate it to a locked subforum through the main mod forum in case people are looking for old information, then they can write a new OP using the gist of the old topic.

 

From what I've seen, most people do actual mods. Of course, I am not one of those people, since I have two 3D Cave Story games in the works, a mod does not allow me the options I need to accomplish my goal. Because of this, it takes far more work to get things going. Most everyone else already has the engine provided (i.e. Cave Story), and even the editor(s). In my case, I am making the engine and editors myself, because they obviously do not exist. Therefore, if an ideas and development section was going to be useful, you'd think it would be more useful to someone like me, rather than for those who already have the engine and tools to create a demo much more quickly.

With that in mind, I've thought a lot about it and I agree that the entire section should be closed. Even in my case, there really is no point in showing my progress or asking for feedback until I get to the stage where I have a playable demo with some real content. The reason I say this is because it is not necessary to ask anyone to help me in the creation of the engine and editors; I already know what I need to do, so I don't need to talk to people and get feedback on it. Besides, I really don't expect it to be all that interesting to people to hear about how I'm making progress on my physics engine and crap. People generally don't want to hear about something nearly as much as they want to play it. So, even in my case, I don't see a point to the ideas and development section.

As for the 3D models I've been making, I can always post the most interesting ones in the Cave Story fan art thread or I could just upload them to my personal gallery. I honestly think the I&D section is helping people get lazy. Forcing people to actually have a demo will encourage people to step it up and do some work. I think it would be a healthy thing to remove the I&D section completely, and this is coming from a person who has to do a lot more work before a demo can be produced.

There may be some flaws in my thinking (might be overlooking some small usefulness of I&D?), but I just wanted to say that the I&D section is something I've decided to avoid from now on, because it is of no use for me and it appears to be doing more harm than good, producing less mods and encouraging more spam. I just plan on making one last post on my thread in the I&D section so I can answer some things and let people know what to expect from me later, then I'm done with it.

 

I hate to burst your bubble, but this section has been closed for weeks now.

 

I hate to burst your bubble, but this section has been closed for weeks now.

Does this mean that all of the threads will (eventually) be deleted/moved to another location?

 

Maybe. For now it means no more new threads.

 

I hate to burst your bubble, but this section has been closed for weeks now.

I knew that people couldn't make any new threads. I was just meaning locking all existing threads. Of course, giving some time for people to wrap things up (like I did), but I really think things should just be stopped. That's all I meant.

 

What'll most likely happen eventually is that the section will be locked from posting. I don't see the worth in deleting or hiding it, although it may be a good idea to convert it to a subforum so that it's not still sticking out on the front page.

(This to be auto-merged.) Having thought about it, I doubt that a storyboard general thread would prove any better off than I&D. While there is certainly room for serious discussion about plot/settings/characters/et al, it's very difficult for a modder to request specific help without giving their future plans away, or for someone else to provide said help without effectively making part of the mod for the author. As a result, such a thread would, in a way, end up working against its own goal. It also stands to reason that if someone did want that sort of help, they could always ask in their own thread, which I can't ever really recall happening. Running out of ideas tends to trigger abandonment and not much else.

(This again to be auto-merged wow.) As nothing is happening here now, I'm going to finish closing up shop. I'll update the notice to reflect this and sift through to see what threads I can move to GD. May our hopes and dreams live on!