Yes, thats exactly what I was getting at. SunAndShadow, no one is doubting your design skills. IMHO, after reading alot of your posts, I love most of your ideas, and you make a fine designer. But you also seem to have your ideas for a design already in your head, you dont really need additional designing help. It sounds more to me (Please dont take this as a condeming statement) that you are looking for approval rather then actualy having people help you design. I would happily go through and help you with the pro/cons of all of your ideas, but thats not what designers are really for, just post it on gamedev. Additions to your design can be achieved through normal brainstorming sessions with your entire staff (In fact... it probably should, because then everyone could name what they can and cannot do)

Siolis:

It seems to me, after keeping up with most of his posts. He has a design pretty much complete, and he is looking to either A) expand upon it (something that content creators would normaly handle), or B) gain approval on his work (something that I really dont see as necessary, but since I look for the same thing so much, I cant really put it down either.

quote: Original post by ice_code9
every society needs a leader, period.

Off topic, but this is just completely untrue and frankly makes me shiver ... one word Democracy.

quote: Original post by PaulCesar
Yes, thats exactly what I was getting at. SunAndShadow, no one is doubting your design skills. IMHO, after reading alot of your posts, I love most of your ideas, and you make a fine designer. But you also seem to have your ideas for a design already in your head, you dont really need additional designing help. It sounds more to me (Please dont take this as a condeming statement) that you are looking for approval rather then actualy having people help you design. I would happily go through and help you with the pro/cons of all of your ideas, but thats not what designers are really for, just post it on gamedev. Additions to your design can be achieved through normal brainstorming sessions with your entire staff (In fact... it probably should, because then everyone could name what they can and cannot do)

Siolis:

It seems to me, after keeping up with most of his posts. He has a design pretty much complete, and he is looking to either A) expand upon it (something that content creators would normaly handle), or B) gain approval on his work (something that I really dont see as necessary, but since I look for the same thing so much, I cant really put it down either.

Thanks, long day today i tells ya. XD

I dont get why the content guys would handle the expanshion, im doing my design if i do get anyone in im only going to get them to build the graphics and stuff but ill give them detailed instructions about what i want, if they dont give me what im after than i wont be useing it, simple as that.

As for B} why dose he need our aprovel to make his game...seems odd to me, but if hes trying to make sure his ideas ok isnt that kinda odd to..why dose he need to do that....O.o

quote: Original post by JOL

quote: Original post by ice_code9
every society needs a leader, period.

Off topic, but this is just completely untrue and frankly makes me shiver ... one word Democracy.

Democracy needs a leader, everything needs a leader, without a leader you wouldn't have direction, you wouldn't have organization, it doesn't make since not to have a leader tbh.

[edited by - Siolis on March 13, 2004 5:30:55 PM]

quote: Original post by JOL

quote: Original post by ice_code9
every society needs a leader, period.

Off topic, but this is just completely untrue and frankly makes me shiver ... one word Democracy.

One word: President
afaik, there''s never been a society without a head of state.

Even a committee has a chairperson.

Anyway, on topic, it sounds to me more like sunandshadow needs what I think of as a catalyst - someone to take his ideas and feed them back to him in a way that brings out the design buried amongst them - and fill in the gaps where needed. I''m probably not explaining at all well - it''s something I''ve done for people in the past (leaving my fingerprints all over their design, but still their design from my viewpoint at least)

quote: Original post by PaulCesar
It seems to me, after keeping up with most of his posts...

"He" is a she.

quote: Original post by sunandshadow
It has been my experience that when game designers think of building a team and making a game, they always imagine themselves as the lone designer on top of the heap. Why is this?

Because the alternative requires formalities and objective assessments: Is this a good design? Does it mesh with our product goals? Is it sufficiently realized, or does it need to be fleshed out a little more?

Most of the "designers" on GameDev are not designers at all; they''re kids with big ideas. They lack the knowledge and discipline necessary to convert abstract visions inside their heads into tangible specifications a team of programmers can work from, and they lack the maturity (or experience) to grasp the magnitude of their objectives and receive deserved criticisms. In most instances, their juvenile egos are over-involved as well.

Because designing has no obvious technical requirements or objective, design-agnostic measures of quality the way programming does, many more sub-standard pretenders can masquerade themselves as "designers."

Keep looking, and not just on GameDev. Finding what you want is like looking for a needle... You know the rest.

Siolis and PaulCesar, I will try to clarify for you. First, yes I am a ''she''. Second I do have content creation skills: I am a semi-professional writer, and a decent concept/anime artist. Have a look at my samples page if you like:
http://members.cox.net/wickeddelight

I have considered just joining someone else''s team as a content creator, and have in point of fact just been asked to be the art coordinator for an RPG design project; I''m still deciding whether I will agree to this for lack of more interesting options. I _am_ a designer at heart, I like to have at least a little say in the design decisions made in any project I''m working on, even though I don''t want to be the lead designer. Think of me as the advisor to the king, who quietly provides wise suggestions but doesn''t have the ambition to try to become king himself.

I do not have ideas for a particular game design already in my head. I would think that from having read my post in the helpwanted section that would be obvious, but I guess not. What I have are some general thoughts about what would make a good RPG or Adventure game or MMORPG, and what styles of art and writing I enjoy and am good at creating. That''s not nothing, but it does not a design make, either. If you''re thinking of the "Gimmie Those Wings!" game design I linked to, that project is years old and I merely provided it as an example of what I consider to be a good and interesting game design. A starting point for discussion about what I could cooperatively create with another designer or two.

Am I looking for approval? No. Enthusiasm is nice, I like getting complements as much as anybody, but it''s not what I''m searching for here. Do you really think it''s so wierd that I enjoy working with my equals to cooperatively create things? I believe in division of labor. I believe that "Two heads are better than one". I believe that "You can''t create in a vacuum." And most importantly I agree with Oluseyi that creating a mature and artistic game design requires criticism and objective assessment, which is exactly what I would be great at providing if only I could find a designer who knew to ask for that and wasn''t totally smitten with his own vision and unwilling to compromise.

@sunandshadow:
If I had time, a development machine (my laptop''s hardly beefy enough) and a concrete project idea, I''d ask if you wanted to collaborate. I''m not a big fan of RPGs (as they currently stand) or most MMO-games, but I have a vague idea of what an adventure game could look like... Mostly visual/atmospheric, probably induced by my Art History classes (I''m thinking something like Seurat''s pointillism and non-illusionist style meeting Picasso/Matisse in a surreal world, with a film noir story to boot!)

Let me know if you just want to brainstorm.

quote: Original post by Oluseyi
@sunandshadow:
If I had time, a development machine (my laptop''s hardly beefy enough) and a concrete project idea, I''d ask if you wanted to collaborate. I''m not a big fan of RPGs (as they currently stand) or most MMO-games, but I have a vague idea of what an adventure game could look like... Mostly visual/atmospheric, probably induced by my Art History classes (I''m thinking something like Seurat''s pointillism and non-illusionist style meeting Picasso/Matisse in a surreal world, with a film noir story to boot!)

Let me know if you just want to brainstorm.

Hmm, interesting. Myself, I like Franz Marc and Van Gogh''s shape-aware expressionism a bit more than pointillism, and Van Gogh much more that Picasso. I''m also a big fan of Renee Magritte, Salvador Dali, fantasy artist Nene Thomas, and T''ang Dynasty China if you like any of those. Did you play Chrono Cross? It has an interesting expressionist art level. The second Puff the Magic Dragon movie would also be a good example to look at.

So is there a kind of hypothetical not-as-they-currently-stand RPG you would be a fan of?

quote: Original post by sunandshadow
Hmm, interesting. Myself, I like Franz Marc and Van Gogh''s shape-aware expressionism a bit more than pointillism, and Van Gogh much more that Picasso. I''m also a big fan of Renee Magritte, Salvador Dali, fantasy artist Nene Thomas, and T''ang Dynasty China if you like any of those. Did you play Chrono Cross? It has an interesting expressionist art level. The second Puff the Magic Dragon movie would also be a good example to look at.

Thanks for the recommendations. I''ve only this semester switched from the sciences (CS) to the humanities (Cinema and Cultural Studies), so I have quite a ways to go.

And no, I never played Chrono Cross.

quote: So is there a kind of hypothetical not-as-they-currently-stand RPG you would be a fan of?

Well, yes. I think that the concept of role-playing is not limited to any particular interactive framework, and that its core characteristics (character growth/advancement, strong narrative) can be integrated into many more types of games. I think that an RP-RTS would be interesting done right: the player would be concretized in an avatar rather than a diffuse, god-like entity; the player would interact directly with personalities, not arbitrary groups of units distributed over a mind-bogglingly large area; and the game would weave dramatic elements into the "background" of large-scale conflict and war (an example would be highlighting death through the demise of a valued aide, which affects team/squad/company/whatever morale and is subsequently reflected in both the narrative and the environment).

I''d also like to see more science fiction - and not post-apocalyptic wastelands a la Fallout! Heck, I''d like to see anachronistic miscegenation of strong sci-fi elements, medieval elements and fantasy elements (wait... didn''t I just describe Star Wars?)