I know I am among the minority who believe in a design heavy/design oriented foundation.

I don't think that's accurate. I think you're part of the group (not necessarily minoriy) that considers 'design' to be a mostly pre-implementation phase, where you can design your game to 75% without ever going into development specifics. (figure cited from what you said in your original post).

In that aspect I think your poll may not be as useful as it seems at first.

A more important question would perhaps be "How much of your original design survives the implementation/testing process and reaches the final product?"

The reason I say that is because I don't think any one person can fully visualize how all the designed but not yet implemented systems in a game will handle by themselves, let alone how they will handle when mixed together.

Unless your game is really simple and uses a lot of known mechanics, you'll have to implement the systems to see how they act, and potentially - and this where the the above question comes in - because I don't know how often this happens - change your design because the implemented results may not be exactly what you envisioned.

Also, Morphia's posts sound like a bit like an automatic translation, and since gamedev.ru was mentioned, I'm guessing that Morphia is probably Russian.

The reason I say that is because I don't think any one person can fully visualize how all the designed but not yet implemented systems in a game will handle by themselves, let alone how they will handle when mixed together.
Unless your game is really simple and uses a lot of known mechanics, you'll have to implement the systems to see how they act, and potentially - and this where the the above question comes in - because I don't know how often this happens - change your design because the implemented results may not be exactly what you envisioned.

I'll edit/add to this this later.. but my first small project should be of some use in showing somethings about me and the small team I'm with.

I too have plenty of experience and knowledge due to many sources of exposure. Thanks to these sources I have a rich understanding of the current technical limitation and capabilities of the gaming industry. I have a strong sense of the techniques applied in both design and development. I've also been a gamer for as long as I can remember (picked up a nintendo controller and played well enough at the age of 2).

This means I have plenty of experience in reviewing/critiquing video games from a technical side as well as a fan/gamer.

1) "Been playing games for X years" does not count as game design/development experience and should never be one of your strengths/achievements/selling-points.

2) From what you posted, I don't think you have any idea what the current technical limitation/capabilities are.

For example, your idea to use an algorithm that will effectively separate players who are macro-ing/botting/automating vs legit players, and your idea to use an algorithm that will automatically generate/predict lower body movements/positions based on upper body motion is quite far fetched and unrealistic.

Also, your networking idea: "localizes server loads between players wishing to play with each other (sort of like lan with a bit of a twist in networking) which would in theory allow large gatherings of adventurers without requiring dedicated servers by spreading the load of bandwidth allocation to each individual player wishing to play" seems to demonstrate a lack of understanding of basic multi-player networking.

A more important question would perhaps be "How much of your original design survives the implementation/testing process and reaches the final product?"

Milcho's recent post is great, but this in particular is super valuable. We need to define what we mean by "implementation/testing process" though, because I think the given is "It comes after the design phase" and the further inference I make is that "There's a fully functional prototype that may be ugly but is basically the game we want to make." That prototype is made during the design phase. In other words, there's already a ton of coding being done before the team sits down and really hammers out the game. Now, in established teams/firms they have libraries of assets and tools they can use to speed up the bootstrap (and for the rest of us, things like Unity and Gamemaker can really help us get a leg up) but it is both a step before implementation and a step beyond the "pencil and paper stage."

Maybe the question of interest is "How much of the pencil and paper stage survives coding" and I suspect the (conservative) answer is "Maybe half; hopefully most of the big features we don't cut for time or other resource considerations."

Finally, this has been said but bears repeating: there's absolutely no way to really tell whether or not a video game is fun without playing it. No amount of charts or graphs on a white board, no number of pages in a design document, and no pro-spun elevator speech will show you it's really fun...but a few minutes of actually trying the game will.

Maybe the question of interest is "How much of the pencil and paper stage survives coding" and I suspect the (conservative) answer is "Maybe half; hopefully most of the big features we don't cut for time or other resource considerations."

I think that's a pretty good way to narrow that question down to something less prone to misinterpretation, since what people consider 'design' varies. Pencil and paper design sounds less vague, and targets a more specific area - and it can only go so far as you said. On the note of this, quoting some text from this lost garden article: (which thade linked in a different thread earlier, and it's a good read to all)

A game starts out with 1% game design and end up 100% production and polish. During the production and polish stages of the title, the game design is likely to change dramatically. For example, there was once a genre busting game design by a famous designer that involved a magic hammer and was described as an epic fantasy action RPG. Something very interesting happened along the way to creating the title. First, they did what every good team does in the early stages. They prototyped the concept and evolved what worked. The grand initial design ended up turning into an intense FPS shooter. What was this fantasy RPG? It was a little title called Quake.

Someone may consider that more of an exception, but it still shows that evolving a game through prototyping (which is generally coding/testing) can lead to drastic changes of game design, depending upon the feel of the game. And as that shows, it's not a bad thing either.

I'll edit/add to this this later.. but my first small project should be of some use in showing somethings about me and the small team I'm with.

What approach is your team using when it comes to your pre-coding and pre-testing design stage (what thade calls pen and paper design)? I think you have some interesting opinions on that, and I'm curious to see what will happen once you actually set out to make a game.

First off, I would like to bring in the Moderator who banned Sir Morphia to attention. I've read all his post and have come to the conclussion that he has broken some forum rules but not under purpose bias. There is a language barrier which should have been taken into consideration by whichever Mod took this action. I believe it was done unjustly so, please take this into consideration or relinquish your moderator satus IMMEDIATELY.

English:

@Sir Morphia: Upon first reading your messages I must admit I originially thought you were someone with a poor vocabulary which is why I disected your message.

However, I soon realized after your third post or so that you have been a memember since 2009. This meant two things to me: One, you've avoided trouble for a long time which could mean one of two things; You are either, really good at hiding you're a flamer OR you are a legit member of the forums with a language barrier. I believe it is the latter. I am attempting to gain "greater" moderator attention with this post in hopes of lifting your ban status and will be attempting to contact you personally with whatever means I find possible. If I am incorrect and have missed some of you're actions (which I doubt I have) then I am sorry for wasting anyones time. I do believe you are an intelligent and valuable part of this forum though, which is part of why I have responded at such lengths to defend you as well as reply with so much detail and effort. I surmised your native toungue is Russian so I aim to translate this in hopes of easing the restrictions of our language barrier.

I think you are trying to gradually understand me!
Vision of Gameplay as the ChessBoard: it is soonely the word-revolver.
I know people who from UbiSoft , but I did not say that I work in UbiSoft.

I'm trying

Yes, it will soon be a more common notion if it isn't already. Game Design isn't respected nor is it covered in definition as much as I'd like it to be. "Vision of Gameplay as the ChessBoard" will hopefully some day be the common accepted truth. Design isn't checkers as some here would like to believe, it is akin to Chess. Like design, chess (which is a game of skill which many can play and few will ever master or even be considered skilled at) is beyond the depth some will ever understand.

Understood, excuse my misundertanding, I did not see the video.

That is, you did not watch the video - you, like most of the other all the same, or more then one computer bots (programs), because of your text is not true.

You're right, I responded from my phone that day so I didn't even know there was a video attatched until recently.

And I said that we needed to account for AmazonPayments for Kickstater.com

Makes sense and I totally agree. This is what you meant by:

As of right now to think about KickStater.com :
who have Amazon account - USA and UK (I with UA)

__________

would say that I am Freelancer - Independent Manager (yes GameDevIndustry modern companies - just a "modern trash")

Ah, this elevates you to "Sir" status in my opinion/eyes lol.. You have far more expierience in the field than I do.

In translation: better to act. Will Write one hundred thousand Theme than those in the text and a Zero Result in the End. In EpiEnd none GameProduct and none Money : eating text or other it ?!

If I could paraphrase and translate: Actions speak louder than words. You can write a thousand themes (designs/concepts) and in the end have ZERO results. In "EpiEnd and GameProduct"; Not sure what these are honestly and I haven't looked them up yet so I cant offer a full translation/paraphrase but I think it basically means this: "Ideas = No money". This is further supported by "eating text or other it?!". Basically I think you meant that you can't live off of words alone lol

What was done on GameDev.net or GameDev.ru : nothing .. tell me again of Orientation of this Forums .

I think this counts as slandering/bashing of the forums which might be why you were banned upon first inspection. However, when the language barrier is taken into account I see it differently. You could of simply meant to say something like:

??? ???? ??????? ?? GameDev.net ??? GameDev.ru: ?????? .. ??????? ??? ????? ?????????? ???? ?????.

Which in english probably sounds alot worse. I wouldn't know personally, but I speak multiple languages so I know things get lost in translation and are alot rougher on the cut.

Russian:

? ???????, ??? ??????? ??? ???? ??????, ? ???????? ?????? ??????????????? ?? ?????? ????, ??? ?? ??????????? ???? ?????????? ?????? ? ???? ?????, ????? ????????, ? ????? ???????? ???. ? ???????, ??? ?? ???????? ????? ??? ????

English:

I hope this helps you Sir Morphia, I feel personally responsible for your ban seeing as you felt strongly enough about my post to reply and subsequently get banned. I hope to see you reply soon my friend

First off, I would like to bring in the Moderator who banned Sir Morphia to attention. I've read all his post and have come to the conclussion that he has broken some forum rules but not under purpose bias. There is a language barrier which should have been taken into consideration by whichever Mod took this action. I believe it was done unjustly so, please take this into consideration or relinquish your moderator satus IMMEDIATELY.

I don't know what Mod banned that user (I am not a mod on this site) but if I had to guess, the ban was not due to the poster's hard to understand posts...but due to the completely irrelevant Youtube links he or she kept posting.