What is the deal with PGD?

**Traveler** · 06-07-2005, 07:25 PM

Ever since this community started, it has been the starting point of my day. Well not entirely, as I there are some things that just have to go first, but yes after that, I start my pc, open Firefox and hit the PGD link.

But for quite some time now, something is bothering me.
Let me show you todays version of how my session in PGD went, as it is a prime example of how many appear to go the past few months.

"Hmm no news today.

Oh well, off to the forums.

Hmm only three threads with new posts.

Ah that's nice, cairnswm has posted an update about his 4E4 contest entry

Oh nobody has replied to his post yet"

I tried cairnswms updated game and wrote a little something about it.
I also added a PS to it, hoping somebody would reply to that. Only cairnswm did. Unfortunately he didn't see the hint I was trying to make.

For quite some time now, I have been asking myself the following question:What is the deal with PGD? I mean we have nearly 800 registered users. Lets say for the sake of argument that only 700 are valid users. Why is it then that we so few new posts in the forum? Why is it that only a handfull reply to new threads. Why is it that only 4.3% of all members have logged in today?

To put it all in a reallife example: why is it that someone like cairnswm who's working his butt off during the day, still finds a spare hour to work on his entry and only 5 people take the time to comment on his work!
Tell me how many of you have actually taken the time to download his entry just to try it out?
Don't you all care about it? I mean, he is reaching out for a bit of help. He isn't asking for a lot! Just 10 minutes of your time. Ten minutes to download his game run it and write something nice (or bad) about it. (I'm pretty sure I don't have to tell how important feedback is)

Sometimes I think that people only come here to get a quick answer for their problems or an easy source for some code and then quickly disappear again only to come back months later with a new problem.

I thought we were supposed to be an active community of pascal game developers. But right now, I don't know what to think of it anymore.

Do you?

**cairnswm** · 06-07-2005, 08:27 PM

This site is always my first stop. I actually wanted to make a similar comment yesterday but didn't.

I think that this site has guys who are too focussed on their own stuff. I know I suffer from this - I dont often download other peoples stuff and test it out. I am trying to chnage this - if I want others to download my stuff I should download and test theirs.

Because of the lack of feedback I stopped writting articles. I dont see anyone actually reading them, and of the three I wrote this year I got 2 messages about the first and nothing else

On the net - this is my home.

I live here. While I am at work (or connected from home I always have a window open here.

WILL breathed a whole lot of life into this site when he arrived. When he can he still does. But one person cannot make a site work. We all need to do it. I tried but my style didn't fit in with what WILL wanted

WILL even got PGD onto the front page of GameDev.Net yesterday

**{MSX}** · 06-07-2005, 08:55 PM

Originally Posted by Traveler

I mean we have nearly 800 registered users. Lets say for the sake of argument that only 700 are valid users.

Well that's too optimistic i think

In whatever community there can be about 10% of active users.. maybe we are even less.
If you think, the hard-core posters are just 5 or 6 peoples.. and 15 peoples posted about 50% of posts.

Apart from this, sometimes i'm still disappointed to see so few messages

This is one of my three everyday sites (along with slashdot and spacedaily/spaceflightnow), and i check it lots of time every day.
Anyway not all topics interests me. Most of them are just about stuff i don't care of. For example all the threads on gameboy are cool, but i don't own a gb and i'm not going to develop to it in whatever language.. So the number of topic i partecipate is quite low.

The thruth is that there are not so many pascal game developers around.
That's not that bad, in the end this is a small friendly group of people. I never saw a flame here and i almost know all of you (the most active at least) and what projects each one is following. that won't be true if the site were "C game programming"

Enought of this or i'll get affected

**Paulius** · 06-07-2005, 09:32 PM

I tend to not reply if all I can write is a subjective negative opinion or generic good job post.
I guess there?¢_Ts not that much people interested in making games in Pascal, some might try it, google up PGD, make one or two posts and move on to trying other areas or languages.
Most active members seem to remain, except for a few mysterious disappearances, but then again there are people constantly in the "who?¢_Ts been online today" which weren?¢_Tt in DGDev.

**Sly** · 06-07-2005, 10:21 PM

The vast majority of my time in these forums is while I am at work. Unfortunately, we have a policy in place here that downloading and running untrusted applications is forbidden, so that rules out trying any games that are posted here. I do post replies where it seems appropriate and the subject matter interests me.

**cairnswm** · 07-07-2005, 05:09 AM

PS. as quiet as this site is - I still get more replies here on my game than I get on NAG.co.za

We have also lost a lot of our old regulars - TheLion, Alimonster are two that I seriously miss. Momor, Bluecat are another two that I cant remember when I last saw.

**lief** · 07-07-2005, 05:49 AM

hi traveller, cairns. i see you around, even if you don't see me.

nice job on the shooter comp entry cairns (mine is still around, i didn't worry about trying to finish it in the 2 weeks i had, its a longer term project)
i stop in here at least 3 - 4 times a day, mainly for the forums. i skim the new posts looking for any newbies I can help etc but my focus is fairly limited - delphi (general), delphiX (i no longer use it but did for about 3 or 4 years), asphyre (my current wrapper - its brilliant... not sure i'm liking pro as much as the last 1.5 versions, its geared too much to 3d i think, and its also lost the mouse delta variable in input, replaced with a tkeyboard component), fmod ... and any 2d graphics questions at all.
i posted in the ai section a while back just hoping to get a few replies and a discussion happening, but nothing.
problem with forum: its too categorized.... makes it seem like a vast wasteland, there aren't enough regular posters to support such a system.
pull them back to broader sections (delphi, free pascal, sound, 2d, 3d, ai, offtopic) and most things fit in there somewhere, it also groups the users together more.
but like i said, i see a few of you around in surprising places, and i should say hello more often (hi, my name is lief, i live in australia, delphi game maker for 6-7 years now, contract artist for nintendo DS developer - im interested in 2d programming, pretty effects, AI & romantic walks on the beach

bye.

**Traveler** · 07-07-2005, 08:53 AM

Thank you all for posting.

@cairnswm

Because of the lack of feedback I stopped writting articles. I dont see anyone actually reading them, and of the three I wrote this year I got 2 messages about the first and nothing else

When it comes to articles or tutorials, feedback is a must. Unfortunately as you make clear with this example. We get very little. Perhaps the audience is again too small. And of the few that actually do read it (because they have an interest in the matter), only one or two take the time to write something.
Its becoming a vicious circle: no feedback on articles means less interest in writing a new article. No new articles means less visitors to the site. Less visitors, less feedback etc etc.

WILL has indeed done a lot for PGD. However, where WILL came in the picture, people like BlueCat just... vanished.

@{MSX} I think you are right when it comes to the number of active people. My estimates were a bit overestimated. 800 people may have subscribed, but as the memberpage clearly shows, only a little under 450 people have actually written a post. In fact only 225 members have written 5 posts or more.

You also have a point about the threads of interest, I too find it hard to reply to some topics. Some simply dont have my interest, others have questions I find myself unable to answer.

@Paulius
I visit cgtalk (a cg site where people post 2d/3d art) quite often and you see a lot of "good job" posts there. Sometimes one image gets 5 or 6 pages stuffed with 'well done' and 'good job' posts, in just a day or two!

While the posts do get tiresome to read after a while, and actually don't have anything constructive to add, it is IMO so much better than to see that only one or two have replied to your message.

Also a negative, but well argumented reply is IMO better than no reply at all.

@Sly
Your position applies to a lot of us I think. Myself included. Although rules for installing software aren't that strict, in my case.

@cairnswm
The replies at Nag were actually the reason for this post, because it actually annoyed me that the (constructive) replies there outnumbered the replies here.
You see, if you count all posts here and at NAG (of the 4E4 entry), excluding your own, NAG posts win by 10%. Infact, in terms of constructive posts, bugs 'n ideas that sort of things, NAG is clearly better.

We have also lost a lot of our old regulars - TheLion, Alimonster are two that I seriously miss. Momor, Bluecat are another two that I cant remember when I last saw.

Very true! Question is why did they leave? Is it reallife issues or did they find a new home?

@lief
Perhaps you are right about the number of different categories. It is something we have discussed earlier. However, at the time it seemed like a logical step. And I'm not sure we can easily change that now.

**Crisp_N_Dry** · 07-07-2005, 05:01 PM

I always download programs made by PGD members. I love hearing and seeing what others are working on even if I never display my own work. I always try to give some form of feedback about design or basic hard data regarding framerate, crashes etc. Of the members list I would say there are probably 20 members that I would recognise as regular posters but I guess since Pascal game development is in my eyes a very niche area it doesn't surprise me to see a lack of post or feedback. In fact, the biggest surprise to me is that there are as many as 800 registered members on this forum, although most are undoubtedly AWOL. Maybe we could all give a bit of feedback on others work but there's a thin line between recognising a persons hard work and turning the forum into a circle jerk, many forums have gone the same way. I'm not so sure that a "Good Job" post has any merit whatsoever. If any of you guys are familiar with the late Pixelation forum you'll know that the mods put a restriction on this sort of thing and encouraged proper communication of what is good or bad about a particular work. Pixelation was obviously an art forum but I think the same rules can be applied in any creative forum.

**lief** · 07-07-2005, 10:46 PM

circle jerk?! o_0
RIP pixelation. I was a regular there. Try out pixelerate.. its rather elitist though (but I still got a picture into their hall of fame woohoo!)