Just yesterday we launched some new discussion forums on our web site here: www.dexterity.com/forums One of the forums is for topics of interest to indie developers. Since we can only publish a small fraction of the game submissions we receive, I wanted a way that we could offer some benefit to the rest of the indie community. Because of the volume of developers who come to our site each week, I expect that this new forum can eventually become a hub where indies will learn from each other, much like the Association of Shareware Professional's members-only forums. I'll certainly be posting frequently, offering what advice I can to help developers improve their businesses, whether they work with us or not. The forums on our site are based on VBulletin's software, which is similar to this site's boards, but I find it has some really nice additional features. For instance, you can send private messages to other people on the board, and you can quickly view all the threads you've been participating in. Plus there's no anonymous posting allowed. In addition we've also added several forums where players can discuss gaming in general; hints, tips, and level solutions for our games; and a level-posting forum, where players can post their own custom levels created with a game level editor. Let me know what you think.... Steve Pavlina Dexterity Software www.dexterity.com "Boredom's Greatest Enemy" ------------------------------------------------------- Earn $1000 - $10,000 USD per month in royalties when we publish your next game. See developer.dexterity.com for details. [edited by - Dexterity on September 19, 2002 1:38:54 PM]

weird,
i''ve signed in but didnt get any confirmation email


Gil

Hmmm... that''s odd. I see your account has been created though, so you should be able to post.

Steve Pavlina
Dexterity Software
www.dexterity.com
"Boredom''s Greatest Enemy"
-------------------------------------------------------
Earn $1000 - $10,000 USD per month in royalties when we publish your next game. See developer.dexterity.com for details.

ive changed the email. works fine
10x

Hi Dex,

This is just a crazy idea of mine but hopefully you''ll like it.

I think developers need a peer rated system so we can quickly identify the skill sets of thread posters. Most people advertising for groups members don''t have any skills to speak of. And it really wastes the time of those of us who are serious about game development.

Perhaps you can have a 5 star rating depending on the quality of a persons demos (if they have one that is) or experience.

If you set up a system like that I would definately be interested in joining your board. I gave up on the Help Wanted section at Game Dev a long time ago.

I havn''t headed over there yet but I''m really glad you did this steve. I went on a crusade a while back to try and convince the gamedev.net staff that making content for indie game developers instead of just for people learning to make games was worth while. However nothing came of my efforts and I didn''t feel strongly enough about it to go and do it myself. I''m glad someone finally did.

Hmmm... I had never thought there was a demand for such a thing. This is a new idea to me. My initial thinking is that such a rating system could easily be abused. For instance, the user ratings at many download sites such as download.com are sometimes hideously abused. I''ve heard many stories that some competitors keep posting negative feedback about each others'' products, while others submit fake positive reviews to boost their own ratings.

So I''d be concerned with a peer rating system of one''s skills having any integrity to it, especially on a completely public board.

I understand the problem you''re trying to solve, but I don''t see an easy solution to it. Finding good team members is a challenge for any company in this industry. The best way I know is to carefully review a person''s past work and to spend a good deal of time interviewing.

How to recruit good team members would be a good topic for discussion on just about any development forum.



Steve Pavlina
Dexterity Software
www.dexterity.com
"Boredom''s Greatest Enemy"
-------------------------------------------------------
Earn $1000 - $10,000 USD per month in royalties when we publish your next game. See developer.dexterity.com for details.

Actually the solution for forum ratings is pretty simple. Just make the ratings yourself. The moderator status on gamedev.net works like this and it works well enough. A five star rating system may be too complicated, but a member/guest system should suffice.

Ironside and others: Ludum Dare ( http://www.ludumdare.com ) has been around for a while, and it is specifically an entire website for real indie developers to discuss what they do. I''m not involved in it, but I really champion it because I would very much like to see a single place where all the serious indies get together, instead of the current fragmented situation. I''m surprised almost weekly by coming across a new indie group or person who it turns out is actually pretty big in the field, and I''ve just never encountered them before. I think we can all do better if we have a place where we know we can find each other and discuss what we deal with.
Why do I recommend this over Steve''s forums? Because it''s already established, and it''s an entire site devoted to indie game development - it includes news of interest to indies, 48-hour game development contests, an IRC channel, and other features like an area where you can put info about your company and your projects. It seems like the most logical choice for a meeting place, since it''s dedicated specifically to the task. Nothing wrong with Steve''s forums, or even the Gamedev ones for that matter (and I will visit both still), but if you are a serious indie, PLEASE add Ludum Dare to your favorites, whether or not you visit these other ones. It really just makes the most sense to me as a primary gathering point for serious indies. And the contests are really fun - check out the games we churned out in 48 hours from near-scratch. If you haven''t played The Flame Game, you''re missing out.

Mike Hommel
Hamumu Software
http://www.hamumu.com

Ludum dare is cool too, I agree that the fragmentation is a bad thing, I guess we all need to decide where to hang out. Anybody?

http://www.positech.co.uk