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WILL
01-08-2003, 08:48 PM
This one is mostly for BlueCat, but I'm sure quite a few people might have an interest in this. BlueCat, why don't you have DGDev host tutorials and articals relating to Delphi Game programming issues. I'm sure that there are a few members of DGDev that would be glad to author a few things for you. :wink:

It might also offer some staying interest for those programmers that just float on into here and take off due to a lack of content(You have to admit, the forums *could* be busier). The forums are great, but think that having something to check up on and read from time to time would promote the site more. :D Didn't I hear it menioned that this is THE community site for Delphi Game programmers? :wink:

Also the fact that there aren't that many articals written in Object Pascal just for general game design things kinda stinks too. Why should all the C guys steal all the glory?

:arrow: This is my proposal; What does BlueCat and everyone else think?

Traveler
01-08-2003, 10:39 PM
I believe we already have a place where you can add tutorials.

It's right this way:
DGDev Forum Index (http://terraqueous.f2o.org/dgdev/index.php) -> Programming (http://terraqueous.f2o.org/dgdev/index.php?c=1) -> Getting Started (http://terraqueous.f2o.org/dgdev/index.php?c=15) -> Tutorials and Links (http://terraqueous.f2o.org/dgdev/viewforum.php?f=20)

BlueCat
01-08-2003, 11:07 PM
I think it's an excellent idea, in fact I thought it was an excellent idea when the site was about ummm... 6 days old :twisted:

This thread (http://terraqueous.f2o.org/dgdev/viewtopic.php?t=83&highlight=tutorials) kind of got things started but it would be great to see some more tutorials here.

I've always said I'd like to see DGDev expand into more than just forums, new ideas are always welcome. I don't always have the time to promote the site as much as I'd like (very little in fact for the past few months) but I don't really think of it as my site any more than it's your site. It would be great if we could get a team together (DGDev staff? :) )who could work on improving the site and adding new features. It's not something I can do alone, but we could make a really great site together. :mrgreen:

So what do you say? Who's in the team? :wink:

Traveler
02-08-2003, 08:55 AM
What exactly are your plans BlueCat? Do you want to put this site at the same level as Flipcode and gamedev.net? I mean, with (daily) news, articles, forum, books(reviews), tutorials, links, iotd's etc?

It think it would certainly help to put DGDev on the map. But I can't help thinking, what about DelphiGamer and Turbo?

BlueCat
02-08-2003, 09:56 AM
This is exactly the sort of the thing we need a team for... to talk about what we want from the site and how to achieve it.

If you visit DelphiGamer and click forums you'll find yourself here. We joined up with DelphiGamer because they had no forums and this was a forum site. If we were going to add all those features Traveler mentioned that would change DGDev into something entirely different. I have no problem with that, but as I said, we need to talk about it :)

What I propose we do is:

I'll set up a new usergroup with it's own private forum

Anyone who's interested in helping out can join the group (might set a size limit at some point though :wink: )

We use the forum and have regular IRC meetings to chat and talk about what we want to do with the site


Post here if you're interested

:cat:

Traveler
02-08-2003, 10:09 AM
I'm quite interested as to were all this is leading to, you may put me on this list. :D

Sander
02-08-2003, 12:43 PM
Ahh, this should be interested, I'm interested in joining that group as well. I was already thinkin about writing a low-level tutorial anyway... :D

cairnswm
02-08-2003, 12:48 PM
Why a seperate group. I have time to look at one forum everyday and this is the one I have chosen. If you make an 'exclusive' seperate group to discuss this site I probably wouldn't take the time to visit it.

Just add a new forum at the bottom of the list for suggestions and I'll visit it every day.

Also I think I have already got the highest number of tutorials on this site. Why arn't there more? Because nobody gives any feedback on tutorials and therefore it seems a bit pointless to write them if nobody is interested.

I also think the same of the DGDev project - why does it have to be exclusive - why cant the progress be discussed here in a general forum so everyone can chip in with comments?

WILL
02-08-2003, 04:51 PM
BlueCat: I'm gonna be a big hypocrite here and tell you that I want to but may not have the time(new carrer starting and all). :) At least maybe not for a bit anyways. I do want to though and have some interesting ideas. Something on par with that you'd see on GameDev.net. If you can put me down as a part-timer I'd be greatful.

cairnswm: I'm not sure you fully understood my idea. I'm not talking about making a second site or group of pages or anything like that. Maybe at first until the pages can be sorted out it may be only linked to. I'm sure BlueCat kind of figured this out (I'm pretty sure he actually does want to do this, I'd put money on it ;)) we want to add articals and tutorials to the site in a more sophisticated manner.

A bunch of(almost text) tutorials, no matter how great the content is, stuffed way back in some hidden folder in a forum is no way to display your masterpeices. I'm actually talking about making nice fully graphical tutorials made by anyone that wants to contribute, but as BlueCat is requesting, with a deticated staff. Well, when we have the time of course :)

:lol: [Pictures BlueCat throwing things at him for making alot of work for him now.]

Seriously though, if you guys really want DGDev to stand out as THE Delphi Game programmers home, you have to make the place more ...furnished, pardon the pun. This may involve making a menu bar that sits at the top of the pages and you can flip through the sections of the site. News, Forums and Articals(/Tutorials), "Project Spotlight"? Maybe we can enlist the help of both Turbo and Dominique Louis to handle the news get them to team up. The project can be as big or small or any shape really that we all(well... BlueCat, really) want it to be.

BlueCat
02-08-2003, 05:33 PM
Yeah that's about right WILL!

The forum doesn't have to be private at all, I just think that 'signing up' to a team shows some kind of commitment (however small) to helping to improve the site.

It doesn't matter if you can only spend 10 minutes per week. I just don't think much is going to change around here until we get a group of people together who care enough to change things.

cairnswm: The comment you made about the lack of feedback is a fair one and it's true that the tutorials aren't exactly easy to find. But I really appreciate you writing them and posting here and I'm sure many other people do even if they haven't said so yet :oops:.

If we do make a tutorials and articles section of the site, the tutorials we already have will be a good start.

Avatar
02-08-2003, 06:33 PM
You'll excuse me, but I didn't understood the goal of the team if everybody can write ... Anyway I'd like to join you ... Since I'm having some knowledge I'm ready to share with others :P (but some not a lot)

But I'm like Will ... I'm not sure that I'll have a lot of time to contribute ... Anyway, I guess that I'll be able to spend more than 10 minutes a week for this project ...

The lack of documents about Game development with Delphi should motivate (not sure this word really exists) everybody to help DGDEV being the best site on Game Dev with Delphi :)

I've already got some tuts(in French but I can easily translate into English), so if you need anything :) Say it to me :P

Bye
Avatar

WILL
03-08-2003, 12:22 AM
So what about Turbo and Savage? I think that Dominique will be interesed for sure, since he's already "partnered" with DGDev anyways... Turbo would be a great asset to us here aswell...

...and would you mind BlueCat if I pssed the word around about this thread? Turbo is dying for news. :o lol

Interested people so far(other than BlueCat :wink:)

WILL
Traveler
Shadowcore
Avatar

I think that a general call for people interested wouldn't hurt. BlueCat?

BlueCat
03-08-2003, 10:08 AM
Avatar, Shadowcore, Traveler: Thanks, your help is appreciated :)


So what about Turbo and Savage? I think that Dominique will be interesed for sure, since he's already "partnered" with DGDev anyways... Turbo would be a great asset to us here aswell...

Yeah I'm sure Dom will be very interested in what we're planning to do. When we have a better idea of what are plans are, we'll need to talk about how it will change our role as the 'DelphiGamer forums'.



...and would you mind BlueCat if I pssed the word around about this thread? Turbo is dying for news. :o lol


I don't mind at all!



I think that a general call for people interested wouldn't hurt. BlueCat?

Definitely. Anyone who can help out in any way is welcome.

Who thinks it's a good idea to have our own usergroup and a private forum? It's worked well for the DGDev game project team (OK we're not the fastest game developers in the world but we're getting there :) ).

It's not that I think we should exclude anyone from discussing new ideas or making suggestions, that can be done in this forum. I've found from experience that making it private gives you more of a feeling that it's a team effort rather than just a public discussion. It also helps people to get to know each other better. I wouldn't really want to post FTP passwords in a public forum either :twisted:

Everyone can still discuss anything in the other forums, I'm not trying to exclude anyone from the process, just need to a way to see 'who's in and who's not' :wink: Either way, we could do with a forum, private or not.

I may be wrong, I'm just going on past experience.

So there's 5 of us now, that's enough to call ourselves a team. Just choose a name and we'll get started :lol:

Avatar
03-08-2003, 10:14 AM
We could pass the word on Flipcode too ... if Turbo doesn't do it :) (I knew dgdev here).


Who thinks it's a good idea to have our own usergroup and a private forum? It's worked well for the DGDev game project team (OK we're not the fastest game developers in the world but we're getting there ).

I guess it's a good idea to have a private forum, but only for writing ... So that other people could read on what we are actually working. This could be a good way to show other people what is the point of that team and that could help us to recruit other members :)

For the name ... hmmm ... no idea for the moment :)

Bye
Avatar

Traveler
03-08-2003, 12:34 PM
Who thinks it's a good idea to have our own usergroup and a private forum? It's worked well for the DGDev game project team (OK we're not the fastest game developers in the world but we're getting there ).

I can think of a number of reasons why this is a good idea, but also why this is a bad idea. This forum was (and still is) meant for every delphigamer to express their ideas and thoughts.
If people have ideas, let them post those. And if they don't have any then let them read about the ideas of others. We are working on an important fase in the Delphi Games Community, we can't shut people out from that?!

On the other hand, we do need a (selected) group to filter out those ideas. A group of people who are going to carefully decide which ideas are to be realized and which won't.

My suggestion would be, great 2 threads. One where everybody may write their ideas in, and one where the selected view can discuss about the ideas, written in the first thread.


Perhaps I'm going too fast with the next thing, but there is a matter which hasn't come up yet. One that might be something to think about.
Say we do decide to put DGDev technically at the same level as flipcode and Gamedev. I mean with all the options I wrote earlier and the stuff you all come up with.
Who is going to build and especially maintain it? The same people who are going to be in this group? I personally wouldn't mind helping out, I can do both layout and coding. I have lot's of code from my own site which we can use, plus experience as a webprogrammer. (Note that I'm not talking about writting articles or tutorials here, just building and maintaining the site. )


What I was trying to say about Turbo and DelphiGamer is that, if we really are going to do this, then it's like putting a shopping center next to a grocery. People will eventually stop going to the grocery, because they can find everything they need in the shopping center. It's not a very pleasant thing for the owners of the grocery, who worked so hard for the cause. I think the least we can do is find a solution for this.


As for the name issue. I would keep it at DGDev. It's something people know by know. Plus, it's also the in the url.

BlueCat
03-08-2003, 01:33 PM
Yes Traveler, the last thing we'd want to do is upset anyone else or 'put their grocery out of business' ;) - that's assuming we could even do that if we tried.

We just want to provide the community with something that isn't already there. DGDev is a good meeting place for the people who regularly visit game development sites (including DelphiGamer and Turbo) and it's something you couldn't have found a year ago (at least I couldn't).

So we've made something that we needed but wasn't there and I think we should carry on doing that. There shouldn't be any competition between sites and I don't think any of the people involved would even contemplate that idea. Let's just help each other out and give the members of our community more opportunities to give something back, in the form of tutorials, articles, whatever.

It's really not about making a busy site just for the sake of it (I don't like the thought of bandwidth charges anyway :lol:). The problem with the site being quiet is that we know there are lots of people out there who want to see more and maybe pass right through here because they get the impression there's not much going on.

We just need to work out what it is we don't have and then work out how to make it happen.

If people don't want a private group we can be public, it really doesn't matter as long as the majority are happy. I certainly don't mind either way :roll:

:cat:

savage
03-08-2003, 02:08 PM
Hi all,
Will told me about the thread. I have read through it but do not have a clear picture of what you are trying to achieve. Could someone sum up what your plans are and where you are heading and how you think DelphiGamer will fit in, if at all.

As you can imagine, as other projects take up my time, DelphiGamer is starting to suffer a little, but I still think it has not achieved it's full potential yet.

So anyway, clarify your points and I will see if I can help or be of assistance somehow.

WILL
03-08-2003, 02:46 PM
Wow, that was alot of ideas to read. :)
And BlueCat snuck a post in there right when I was reading too. :lol: All good.

:arrow: Well first was the admin/staff forums: BlueCat had a good point about the passwods for FTP, etc here. I think that Avatar's idea of having them write only by us and read only by everyone is a pretty good idea. How would we handle the passwords and private staff information though? I think that this will ultimately dictate weither or not we are to have a private forum for us alone. Problems and issues and unsure ideas can be discussed here.

:idea: We obviously would want use it to discuss things that we wish to "keep it within the family". This is something I've learned with the Army(served 6 years), if you have to rag on buddy for doing something stupid you do it in private. Some times in more than one person so together, but in PRIVATE. You don't want to embarase them and make all of us look bad. Just something else to consider amoung the other reasons.

:arrow: There is the concern of putting other sites out of business: This is a fair question. I've been to, I think(might just be assuming I have) mostly all of what the Delphi Game Dev comunities major sites around(I do count Traveler's as one). Turbo and DelphiGamer seem to be the main ones right now. Though interest in them might ween towards us due to the "One Site One Community" attraction, we are inviting them to come and join the new site so that that thunder isn't stolen. If they want to stick to their sites then I'm sure we would not falt them for it a single bit, but I think that by enlisting the two(but not limiting to them) into one would multiply interest in the Delphi community. I think that we get more just based on the thought of more frequent updates in news.

:!: Just a heads up guys: I have just dropped a line to Turbo(comment on his site and email), Savage(email) and Bobby(his forums).

:?: Are we going to use the same existing script used here for the forums? Just modify them? I would LOVE to keep these forums the functionality is really nice, but we may have to narrow down to a single theme (or two if feesable?).

:arrow: Just to throw up my credentials:
- PHP (just over the last year or so, but caught on really quickly)
- JavaScript (if I have to, but not that great at it)
- Delphi 3/5/6/7 (be in awe... :shock:) <-- actually about 5 years running...
- Flash 3/5/MX (I'm rusty though)
- In-line ASM (Denthor was the man back in the day!)
- I can cook a mean stir-fry?

:idea: Name Ideas(Doubt it'll change though):
- DelGamDev.com/tk/net
- DelphiGameDev.com/tk/net
- DelphiGD.com/tk/net

Awe heck, it's good as it is... :)

BlueCat
03-08-2003, 04:36 PM
Hi all,
Will told me about the thread. I have read through it but do not have a clear picture of what you are trying to achieve. Could someone sum up what your plans are and where you are heading and how you think DelphiGamer will fit in, if at all.

As you can imagine, as other projects take up my time, DelphiGamer is starting to suffer a little, but I still think it has not achieved it's full potential yet.

So anyway, clarify your points and I will see if I can help or be of assistance somehow.


Hi

I don't think we have a clear picture ourselves yet. But the basic idea is that we plan to improve DGDev by adding new features and thereby making it more than just forums. This might affect DGDev's ability to be DelphiGamer's forums but we just don't know until we get our team sorted out and starting talking about things.

It's important that you know what's going on from the start Savage, and if you have any ideas, whether or not they include DelphiGamer, they'd be welcome.



Though interest in them might ween towards us due to the "One Site One Community" attraction, we are inviting them to come and join the new site so that that thunder isn't stolen. If they want to stick to their sites then I'm sure we would not falt them for it a single bit, but I think that by enlisting the two(but not limiting to them) into one would multiply interest in the Delphi community. I think that we get more just based on the thought of more frequent updates in news.


Now Will's talking about something a step further than I talked about above :shock: .

BTW Will, we can have a stir-fry recipe section if you'd like :lol:

:cat:

[edit] I'll reply to your post later Will, not enough time right now :)

savage
03-08-2003, 05:29 PM
When DelphiGamer.com started our aim as also to be the "One site One community" portal for all things Pascal and game development orientated. But as Dean is quite busy and I am mainly the only one updating content, it is falling behind a bit.

I think that as a united community to game development, both DGDev and DG.com will reach a wider audience, but I also have no problem with the possibility of this new DGDev site being a competitor to DelphiGamer.com as my aim has always been to compliment other sites like Turbo and anything that furthers the Pascal game development community is OK by me.

Avatar
03-08-2003, 05:53 PM
I also have no problem with the possibility of this new DGDev site being a competitor to DelphiGamer.com as my aim has always been to compliment other sites like Turbo and anything that furthers the Pascal game development community is OK by me.

I don't think that competition is a good idea for us ... Why not trying to make some kind of Network ... This time my example wouldn't be Flipcode but Gamedev ...

Tuts and Articles on Gamedev doesn't always belong to gamedev ... But they promote some other sites as Gamasutra or less famous gaming sites by putting links to these sites.

We could do the same thing for DGdev and DG and Turbo ...

Another possibility would be to group the 3 sites in order to build a huge ressource site .

Now ... about the site itself. I can't really help you building the site(since I suck at PHP, Java and Javascript). However I can help in writing tutorials.
Personnaly, I admit that I have no professional experience(because I'm still a student), anyway I can write articles mainly on DirectX, after that I've also some skills in algorithmics and I'm going to interest myself in AI.

For the name, I guess a simple : Delphi Game Developpers would be sufficient, wouldn't it ?

iLLUNis
03-08-2003, 07:47 PM
I have been following the discussion for the las days and i have come to a few main conclusions....
The DGDEV site is short in members...(dont tell me...:) )....the reason in my opinion though is much more obvious than you may think.....
The DGDEv site was born with the idea to bring Delphi programmers together which is more than fine but also to bring ***NEW*** users of Delphi to the community.....HOW do you do that?......

-For the duration of the DGDEV site i have seen people coming and discussing several subjects concerning Delphi game programming issues involving HIGHLY technical stuff....(you see where i am getting here)....

-If a newby was to join and try to keep up with all that...well i am sorry to dissapoint you but he/she would not stay....What they want is clear and close to English information of why this is happening and what can be done about a specific problem....

-This takes us to the tutorials area.....In my opinion the Tutorials should be clearly marked and have their own place in the forum...I personally consider them to be a major and undivided part of a Delphi community that wants to help.....

-Secondly the tutorials included in the tutorial area are fine but just not quite there....A newby that will come here will try to find out how to use for the first time sprites and how can he/she move them and actually contro them....I dont see anything like that in the tutorials.....I also dont see anything about HOWTOS in intialising 2D/3D engines and all these "magical" stuff that we all take for granted.....well a newby WILL NOT.....and this will make the difference whether he/she will be coming back or not....

-I am not saying that people should right now go and start righting tutorials.....I merely say that these subjects should be clearly covered in our site if we want our community to flurish.....

-Considering the development and the progression of the site i could not agree more with the ideas that have been expressed here and i am fully backing them.....

I apologise for this short essay....i just felt i had to express my opinion on that..... :oops:

BlueCat
03-08-2003, 09:17 PM
Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow :)

I've moved the Tutorials forum to the Community category so it's always visible on the front page. Well it's a start......

:cat:

iLLUNis
03-08-2003, 09:44 PM
Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow :)

I've moved the Tutorials forum to the Community category so it's always visible on the front page. Well it's a start......

:cat:

I never meant to discourage anyone... :( ....I hope that the opinions i have expressed will be taken as a motivation by all the members that have that EXTRA something to offer to the community.... :salute:

splattergnome
03-08-2003, 10:40 PM
I think it would be easy to divide the responsibilities of the websites to prevent anyone's toes from being stubbed.

DelphiGamer.com is mostly a NEWS site, with frequent updates on new developments within the Delphi scene, with screenshots and information - and as such, a perfect source for new information (better than posts hidden on a forum, for example).

However, DelphiGamer has very few tutorials hidden on their site - DGDev.Tk could concentrate on that asset, along with the forum and any "house" programming projects available.

In the end, I could reasonably imagine a cross-linking - a "News/Updates" link in DGDev.tk leading to DelphiGamer.com, the Articles/Tutorials link on DelphiGamer.com leading to the mutual tutorial section... after all, this is the Internet, and content doesn't HAVE to belong to one or the other. If everyone links to each other, and to this forum, then we should be happy.

In the end, it wouldn't be seperate stores, but two stores with differant entrances and the same backrooms, so to say.

splatty

WILL
04-08-2003, 05:40 AM
iLLUNis: You bring up some very good points and I think we really do need to address them, if not just keep them in mind as we all go here.

:arrow: I'm not too keen on the idea of this turning into a patch-job network or websites. Those never turn out well. AND it would really throw a monkey wrench in trying to help the "new guys" out. It think the proper solution would be to take the two sites and merge them. Seriously... take all the content from DelphiGamer and all the forums and accounts from DGDev and make a new site from it. This whole project needs to be centeralized or it won't take off. As for tutorials and articals, well we will host them here of course, but we could also, like Avatar suggests, do a "GameDev" and have links to tutorials on other sites.

:arrow: Lets face it though, DelphiGamer, Turbo, DGDev(as it is) and any other site out there that does post news about Delphi Game Dev is never going to be as robust and successful as a combined effort project.

:?: I say we should merge them into one single site at one single location. Who agrees with this idea? Savage, would still be doing the same job really, only he'd be a part of a team. LOL Think of it as a job offer. :) Savage would you like to be the new DGDev's news guy?


[BlueCat is gonna kick me. :) I keep stirring the pot.]

BTW, I might have to get you do live up to that stir-fry forum(just cuz he promised)... ;)


:arrow: The new staff would have to fill in some requirements if it does go full blown GameDev-a-like though. Thoughts on this?


I'm going to stop here. I think we need to really vote/decide on the details of what will be done now anyways. And see what Savage wants to do aswell. I really hope I don't seem pushy guys, but I just have a few strong opinions on what the Delphi game comuunity's needs. And of course I'd really like to see this idea take off, it has great potential.

BlueCat
04-08-2003, 09:22 AM
iLLUNis: Sorry, that wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, it was just late and I'd had a few beers and that quote seemed to fit somehow :oops:
I think the points you made were very important, it's easy to forget how it feels to be a newbie visiting a site for the first time when you see that site every day and know a lot of the members.

splattergnome: May I call you splatty? :P I can see that it doesn't matter how you get somewhere as long as you get there. It would make sense to use the DGDev and DelphiGamer names to bring traffic to a new site.
But keeping them separate could be a little confusing when just about everybody who visits one site is going to visit the other.

WILL: Pushy? You? Never! :twisted: I didn't think the 'one-site' idea was the right one for us at first. But the more I think about it, it does make a lot of sense. We have a chance to build the best Delphi game dev site and there's nothing wrong with 'thinking big'. Putting everything into one place might be the only way to do this properly. Wasn't GameDev.net a combination of about 5 sites? Imagine if you were trying to sell 2 soft drinks, one called 'Coca' and the other called 'Cola'. Try telling your customers they're both the same drink. Bad analogy but you get what I mean? :?

A quick point about Turbo, it covers more than 'just' Delphi, it's for Borland compilers. Might not be important but thought I'd better mention it.

iLLUNis
04-08-2003, 09:34 AM
iLLUNis: Sorry, that wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, it was just late and I'd had a few beers and that quote seemed to fit somehow :oops:

:D No offence taken Bluecat :D .....I am glad that you agree that newbies are THE potential customers after all....Everyone can learn from each other but new members can learn from all of us....(I like that... 8) )...

As far as it concerns the ONE site we are talking about, i agree that the CocaCola example was not the best to be found...:P...but think about the folowing one....Think about Microsoft and Intel.....Microsoft supports intel and Intel supports Microsoft but none of the companies crosses a certain point.....Both they make sales and also they stand for each other.....
I would think that if a merge was going to happen something similar could be acheived....... :roll: .....

Alimonster
04-08-2003, 10:57 AM
Good to see that changes are afoot. I'm tempted to volunteer for the tutorial writing people. I'll give a definitive answer soon-ish, since I'm a little worried that I won't regain my motivation soon (but hopefully I will, since I've got used to the new flat).

DGDev world domination tour, 2003! :viking:

turbo
04-08-2003, 12:57 PM
Hey guys,

After running turbo for about 4 years now, I do think we could use some sort of "rebirth" with some fresh new content, tutorials, etc.

The only problem is that the cards are "stacked against us..."

:arrow: I don't do that much Delphi development anymore
:arrow: I don't do that much game development anymore
:arrow: Outside of Delphi3d.net and GLScene there aren't very many active projects these days
:arrow: Many of the good old sites aren't up anymore

...I could go on and on, but it just gets bleaker.

If I we're going to fix things, I do agree that a division of labor would be great. And here's the areas that need help....

:arrow: More "reporters" are needed to find/post news on turbo
:arrow: The very stale links area needs updating and maintainance
:arrow: More promotion is needed to convert all the non-game Delphi users into "DelphiGamers" :)

I used to have a deal with Torry.net where I had a banner ad in his rotation, and that used to bring 1000s of users a week.

With more users the site pretty much runs itself. People send me news, I post it, people comment, people discuss, rinse, repeat.

How does that fit into the current discussion?

WILL
04-08-2003, 03:45 PM
BlueCat: :D I'm glad you agree with the 'one site' concept. Would could somehow merge the name too to show that one isn't taking over the other, rather they are both comming together to make one site. Still need to see what Savage decideds though. Does he want to do this with us?

iLLUNis: Hmm... Maybe not the best example either. That would fit if they had the same function(Intel makes chips and other things, MS makes software and a few hardware bits), both have a very different "products and services". Now it could work if DGDev stayed as forums and DelphiGamer stayed as is, but I don't think that is what we are wanting to do here...

Turbo: Hey thanks for joinning our discussion. Your a big part of the community and I believe that with your interest in this we can really benifit from your knowledge and efforts. We already do so with Turbo(the site). BlueCat brings up an interesting point about your site being not-just-Delphi, which makes oddities, if you would want to bring Turbo to the mix(This is just to throw the idea out there, I'm not forcing the issue or anything...). Now, is this something that you would like to throw into the mix? You could very-well move your news to the new DelphiGameDev site and still be able to have quite a bit of content to host, if you chose to do that. The reason I'm so into the idea of merging the "staff" of these sites is that instead of having all of them existing as separate entities hurts the overall idea of a large single community as opposed to a few small scattered villages, if you will. So, like I asked Savage, would you like to join the new Delphi Game Developer Super-Duper Community Site? [<-- Please lets not call it this?]


And now I rant:

:arrow: Typical Scenario with the mish-mash approach

New(and I mean new to programming in general) guy learns pascal/Delphi for whatever freak reason(I caught on by fluke after playing with TP7/BP7 for so long).

His friends who are *ahem* self proclaimed "experts" by the age of XX-teen(yeah, I'll admit, I was very oppinionated at an early age myself :twisted: ) in highschool keep bugging him to drop Pascal and its dead and a whole line of stuff. But he is determined and finds the language, like most of us, to be easy to code in.

Now he hears somehow that there are tools and libraries that help you make really cool games with it... Uh oh, he starts looking for game development sites. Has already been to some.

His searches bring him to GameDev and other site(alot of them feturing and C++ and a whole ton with crazy names that I don't care to remember half of them :P) AND eventually to the new DelphiGameDeveloper site-err sites?. Uh oh...

He sticks around long enough to see that oh look there is news for new and exciting things going on with Delphi...on another site...??? :shock: err... ok... well there are tutorials here... hmm all next to text, not to colorfull... hmm borring!(Not the best attitue to have, I do agree, but new people are like this they need to see pretty graphics and nicely designed everything or they lose interest, quickly...) He will also notice that the people working on the sites are sparse sue to lack of enthusiasm, the pages are that great to look at([Hold on don't hit me!] Now, I'm not saying that the sites look bad or that the great effort put into either one isn't at all good. But to tie in the two sites so that they are joinned at the hip, how nasty a contrast would they be to one another with the current scemes they are in now? Plus the fact that seemless will not be on the table at this point.)

Here is where our hero(err new guy) starts to squirm... the young brain is starting to work out his new found knowlage(hampster power! - I'm in a strange mood can you tell?) :idea: Hmm... well everything is all over the place and now very well designed... it looks like a little hobby site(ok ok, so some hobby sites look great and we are sort of doing this as our hobby, but what we are looking at is building a comunity not a small hobby site).

So our new found new guy remembers all the crap that his friends dumped on him about Pascal(probably still are) and he continues to be discouraged by the lack of organization that the mish-mash presents(If you don't have a solid foundation to build upon from the start the structure will shake and someday fall...) he continues to see how sites like GameDev thrive with activity and that most of the content is C related things... eventually one day :idea: Screw this... I think I'll just learn C.


This is worst case scenario, but not far off from what a spit up divided, multi-site, patch-up project would detail. We do not want this we want something to the effect of GameDev for Delphi right? We have to start it right from the start properly if we want to actually build a larger community from where we are now. Am I "beating the war drum"? Well... yes. I think we need this. And we need to do it right from "go".

BlueCat
04-08-2003, 04:03 PM
I think it's time we started posting some new threads so that we can keep track of different issues. There are some really great ideas but they could get lost in what is becoming a very long post to read from the start.

In fact, I'm going to take my own advice right now and start a new thread :)

Avatar
04-08-2003, 06:51 PM
Will, I totally agree with you. (I remember some times ago when I was in the case of the "hero")

Since we do not want this worst case scenario happens, we have to make things properly. I guess that building a design doc and having a good share of tasks within the team can lead us to a good result that would avoid that case. But we must be organised :P

The problem with the activity of sites like Gamedev or Flipcode is that plenties of people thinks that Delphi sucks ... But you can't tell since you've tasted can you ? Anyway some guys won't make pub for Delphi since C(or C++) is the *best langage ever*.


well there are tutorials here... hmm all next to text, not to colorfull... hmm borring!(Not the best attitue to have, I do agree, but new people are like this they need to see pretty graphics and nicely designed everything or they lose interest, quickly...)

I apologize but I'm french ... I fear that I didn't understand what you were meaning. You say that people won't hold on since there are no graphics on the pages ? But, I feel that it's quite logical. Because, If you're trying to achieve an effect, you find a tut but you do not see what will be the result ... This can be quite frustrating if, at the end, you realize that it's not really what you were looking for ... isn't it ?

Anyway, if I write tuts for DGDev(and I'll surely do), I'll give images with the text ... I guess it's very important to have some previews of what you are doing ... To help the reader to understand and to see the goal :)

so ! That's all for that post lol !

Bye
Avatar

Useless Hacker
04-08-2003, 08:18 PM
I think it would be a good idea to expand DGDev, and merge with DelphiGamer and/or turbo if they are willing. I have nothing to do between now and the end of September, so I would be happy to write some tutorials or help with the site's development.

WILL
04-08-2003, 09:00 PM
LOL I think we're getting back to the original reason why this thread was posted.

Avatar: What I meant was that with these forums only any tutorials that would be posted here with phpBB would at best, be like reading an RTF document(you can stick small images in RTF can't you?). But if they were full HTML written and had images of examples like you are saying then it becomes a better experience and more than just straight text(formatted and colored or not) fed straight to your brain. That and they are just plain more fun to do and read.

Usless Hacker: Glad you are interested. You should have a look at some of the other threads relating to the new DGDev site project.

Avatar
04-08-2003, 09:27 PM
Avatar: What I meant was that with these forums only any tutorials that would be posted here with phpBB would at best, be like reading an RTF document(you can stick small images in RTF can't you?). But if they were full HTML written and had images of examples like you are saying then it becomes a better experience and more than just straight text(formatted and colored or not) fed straight to your brain. That and they are just plain more fun to do and read.

Oh yes :) For sure ^^ HTML is far more comfortable than RTF lol

cairnswm
05-08-2003, 06:48 AM
I would like to see DGDev grow. I love using delphi and use it at every opportunity that I get :)

I would definitly be willing to be part of whatever group is getting together to discuss the future of the site. My feeling is that it should be a public discussion as we are having now rather than a private discussion (I will however join a group specifically for this anyway).

One of the big things missing from DGDev are links to other sites tutorials - look at all the tutorials available at Travellers and Alimonsters sites. Lets start collating all the information on the internet together as well.

technomage
05-08-2003, 05:47 PM
Hi Guys

Dom has just informed me of this dicussion so I thought I'd post my comments.

As Dom aslready mentioned limited spare time has been the main cause of the lack of posting on Delphi Gamer (a big thanks to Dom for doing almost all of the posting in the last 2 years :D ). As Turbo said more dedicated reporters/Article writers would be needed to bring these sites back up. A central Delphi Game Developement site is a great idea, as Dom said that was one of our goals when DelphiGamer was started all those years ago, but with limited time, resources and new projects things are going to slow down.

Now if a large enough group of commited developers can get together and push the Delphi gamer development comminuty then I for one would support that movement (in what spare time I had). If DelphiGamer is replaced/merged with this new site then so be it.

I personally like the name DelphiGamer, the origional idea was to have a monthly on-line magazine which covered all the latest delphi gamer development news and tutorials, kind of an on-line Game Development Mag.

I am the one that owns the domain for DelphiGamer and I will continue to pay for that domain as long as the comminuty wants it. So the option is there if the community want to re-launch DelphiGamer (with input from myself and Dom) .

Dean ( aka Technomage)
www.delphigamer.com
www.cerebral-bicycle.co.uk

WILL
05-08-2003, 06:38 PM
Hey Dean, thanks for taking the time to come and post your thoughts on this very important topic. Obviously, I'm the guy that started this whole new super-Delphi-site idea as of recent(though there were other hinted discussions of the like before). I think that by creating one big site from the combining of both "staffs" would allow us to create a larger Delphi Gaming community from the existing one that exists and is shared here on DGDev. It would also make cultivating that community all the more easier because we will litteraly be sharing the same resources and all be on the same team. There are alot of modivated people that want to start helping with the idea as I type and I think that this is out best solution. If you would like to see some of the other ideas that me, BlueCat, Traveler, Avatar, cairnswm and all the others that want to help out have come up with, please come and look at the other threads in this forum directory.

I think that the merger of the two staffs and creation of the new site wouuld be in ll of our best interests, thats not to say that we can't pool our current resources(older news posts and tutorials and the existing forum messages on DelphiGamer and posts here) to help kick off the newly made site.

The BIG question: :?: Savage has said that he is willing so long as it's ok by you. So if you give us the official "OK" then we can start establishing the staff and get to work. :?: :D

Eriken
05-08-2003, 06:48 PM
Speaking about Tutorials and Articles... The idea came up to have some scouts around to look for articles/tutorials elsewhere and check if we can use them, because I think there is enough to do without actually having to reinvent the wheel everytime..

There is probably also Delphi-sites in German, Dutch, etc which have great articles.. and if we get a permission from the owners to translate them to English those would be quite an asset too.

Well, it was an idea atleast..

(And now I've stepped right into Will's big question so now I'll get shot ;))
_____
Eriken

WILL
05-08-2003, 07:17 PM
LOL thats ok Eriken, my BIG question is off-topic-ish anyways so I guess I'm the one who should be shot. :shock:

I think I'll make a new thread so that Dean can respond easily to this. Besides this thread is starting to burn up anyways. After Dean responds BlueCat can lock it?

We can continue to discuss these issues on the following threads:

:arrow: Staff Recruiting (http://terraqueous.f2o.org/dgdev/viewtopic.php?t=747)
:arrow: Should we merge DGDev and DelphiGamer (http://terraqueous.f2o.org/dgdev/viewtopic.php?t=746)
:arrow: Selecting a name for the new site (http://terraqueous.f2o.org/dgdev/viewtopic.php?t=745)
:arrow: What would you like to see with the new site (http://terraqueous.f2o.org/dgdev/viewtopic.php?t=749)
AND
:arrow: This weekends IRC meeting for interested staff members of the new site (http://terraqueous.f2o.org/dgdev/viewtopic.php?t=750)

BlueCat
05-08-2003, 08:47 PM
After Dean responds BlueCat can lock it?


YESS SIRRR!!! :salute: (You can tell he's an army man, can't you? :twisted: )

WILL
06-08-2003, 02:35 AM
LOL Sorry BlueCat, I meant it as a question. :) It would be good to lock this thread so that people will post in the other ones because we are alot farther along in where we are with the new site project than this thread shows. I'll try to be less brash in the future.

BlueCat
06-08-2003, 07:26 AM
LOL Sorry BlueCat, I meant it as a question. :) It would be good to lock this thread so that people will post in the other ones because we are alot farther along in where we are with the new site project than this thread shows. I'll try to be less brash in the future.

Hehe np, just waiting for Dean now :lol:

technomage
06-08-2003, 05:42 PM
Well, If it's OK with Dom then it's OK with me as well :D

WILL
06-08-2003, 05:50 PM
Excellent. :D Then all that is left is to see how we shall do this. BlueCat, what do you say; Are we done with this thread now? ;)

iLLUNis
06-08-2003, 06:07 PM
I think that we are done indeed.....This thread is officially LOCKED....:P...