Motivation

[WILL]

It's funny, but I think the one thing that can make or break your bigger projects has absolutely nothing to do with programming. It's project management. You are working on a project so why not treat it as such.

I found out that the more I draw out and write up goals, benchmarks, bug lists andother to do like lists, the more things progress or move along nicer.

Following this though, you will probably run into your bigger problems quicker. Lack of artists, musicians, story writters, etc... run out of good ideas, marketing problems, whatever it is...

But that has nothing to do with the project's management, it's just the facts of your available resources. If you plan fully, you can even predict and plan for these too. It's all in your planning stage.

[marmin]

For me, motivation comes from the playablity of the arcades games of the 80ies. Programmers didn't have nothing, and still.. with a224 x 320 resolution the graphics and gameplay are awesome . I want to make this too.


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I am not a xbox 360 -super - graphics - ( but - too - complex -and -no -gameplay -anymore - ) fan. But that remark was extremely Off-Topic!!! :lol:

[LP]

For me, motivation comes from the playablity of the arcades games of the 80ies. Programmers didn't have nothing, and still.. with a224 x 320 resolution the graphics and gameplay are awesome . I want to make this too.

For the very same reason I still try to contribute to TMDC. This is because although the hardware was rather limited back in DOS days, the creativity was not (what you do and how you do it was up to you). Things are rather different now: "how to do it" is defined in Micro$haft SDK and "what to do" is dictated by the beurecracy (seems like after Windows Vista I might have to throw off my OpenGL books which I haven't even had the chance to read well). Few cents for the motivation :?

[Sly]

Uninstall all games from your machine, put the disks away, so you won't remember about them.

Damn good idea Lifepower, although I'm not sure if I have the will power to delete BF2. It really is that good.

I just spent most of today trying to play multiplayer BF2 over LAN. BF2 is so much less stable and less mod-friendly than BF1942. EA bought DICE after BF1942 was so successful, and as a result what could have been a great game has been crippled. The BF mod community is crying out because BF2 is not mod friendly, and they do not support co-op play over a LAN (stupid marketing decision to promote online play). This is one of the reasons I think game development is heading for a crash. Games are becoming too complex, therefore being released with more bugs. The big publishers are letting the marketing department determine the features that a game supports, not the developers. Therefore we end up with buggy, crippled games being released. That's killing my motivation to work in this industry as well.

btw, Grats on the marriage there Sly.

Thanks. Passed the first anniversary a few months back.

[LP]

I just spent most of today trying to play multiplayer BF2 over LAN. BF2 is so much less stable and less mod-friendly than BF1942. EA bought DICE after BF1942 was so successful, and as a result what could have been a great game has been crippled. The BF mod community is crying out because BF2 is not mod friendly, and they do not support co-op play over a LAN (stupid marketing decision to promote online play). This is one of the reasons I think game development is heading for a crash. Games are becoming too complex, therefore being released with more bugs. The big publishers are letting the marketing department determine the features that a game supports, not the developers. Therefore we end up with buggy, crippled games being released. That's killing my motivation to work in this industry as well.

I thought it was just me. I noticed that in most modern games the complexity increases and the overall quality decreases. UT2003 + UT2004 was a disappointment to me. UT2003 was plain buggy and when I got UT2004, I practically saw UT2003, or what it should look like in finished form. Why should buy two separate game titles, if they can't even sum to a decent single game? Just bought Half-Life 2 - another disappointment. WTF is the story about? When I got my first pistol (after about 30 mins of play!), it was already awful boring. Not to mention that while playing it, the "story script" got messed up few times (for instance, the girl got stuck in the elevator entrance so she wouldn't hit the switch button). And it took quite time to deinstall too, not to mention the sadness of wasted money.

[Traveler]

Just bought Half-Life 2 - another disappointment.

Too bad you feel that way. I thought it was one of the better games we've had in a few years. Perhaps I'm a sucker for PFS games, but I think it was worth every peny. I still play CSource often (though not as often as I used to now that I play WoW) and when it comes out, probably will buy the addon as well.

Good calls on the motivation subject though. As far as Wow goes theres a better option available. Dont buy any gamecards

[LP]

Just bought Half-Life 2 - another disappointment.

Too bad you feel that way. I thought it was one of the better games we've had in a few years.

[size=9px]Off-topic:

This is only matter of opinion (perhaps because I was kinda HL fan). I'm upset about it because of the storyline and because of bugs. IMHO HL1 storyline felt much more realistic and more justified than in HL2. Although HL1 was neither bug-free, but it really gets boring having to re-load three times just so that NPC will *do* what it is supposed to do (so you can advance in the story line).

Here are some examples:
1) The girl got stuck in the elevator several times after her speech (I was standing in the back) - without actually entering it. She was supposed to enter the elevator and hit the damned buttons! She also got stuck exactly on the entrance (i.e. made one step inside, but suddenly got frozen). Throwing boxes on her back didn't help. Had to reload the game twice, so that she would proceed.
2) Teleporter room - Barney just stayed still when he was supposed to get to the console (it was my turn to get teleported). I even tried throwing stuff in his face, etc. - no effect. After few reloads, he finally got to the f#@aking console.

I didn't use any patch (if there is any) though. In my personal opinion, HL2 is just a commercial sequel to HL1 and besides its physics engine (which is not new and easily beaten by UT2004 IMHO), there is no great deal about it.
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[Sly]

I'm with Traveller in that HL2 was one of the better examples of recent games. I only found one bug in it and that was a pop-through-the-ground bug that resulted from trying to push the physics engine a bit too far (swampboat jammed in the entrance of a shipping container that had a couple of crates in the doorway, and me in the middle of it all). The game soon recognized that I had fallen through the world and it automatically restarted me back at the last save point. Steam is a good way to keep the game always updated (except for the one time where for about half an hour it was automatically delivering a broken patch).

Granted, your experiences have been different as you explained. I have not found fault yet with the scripted AI and have been totally immersed in the story.

HL2, in my mind, has been an exception to the rule because Valve is still an independent developer. Vivendi were just the distributor of the game, and therefore had very little say in what went into the game. EA bought DICE and therefore had a great deal of influence in what went in and what did not get in to the game.

[jasonf]

I find that feeling like you're not making any progress is the biggest motivation killer. Followed by the feeling of being overwhelmed.

You sit in front of the screen thrying to think your way around a problem.. all of the solutions to a seemingly innocent problem all of a sudden mean a weeks additional coding. That kind-of puts a wet sponge on the fire for me.

So what I do is step away, do something else to do with the project. I let my brain work on the problem in the background and get on with something else, like graphics, music or SFX.. maybe scripting.

Then I revisit the problem and see if I can come up with a better way around it. More often than not, I've reprioritised the problem and decided I can do it better another way, or.. not have to do it at all.


Right now I've got a problem.. I need to make destuctible buildings that work within the Torque engine .. EY!! Back off with those pitch forks fellas!!.. There are several approaches I can take, all involving a massive investment in terms of coding/scripting and art.. some more than others, but there's an element of each in every solution I've come up with. I've got to give it a lot of thought 'cos each solution has got additional issues of performance (network traffic, rendering) and gameplay issues. So I think about it for a while... then, I do something else like work on weapon scripting or modelling, then revisit it.. still no solution.. OK work on the UI.. and so on. There are enough small tasks I can complete to feel like I'm making progress.

Keeps me motivated because I'm always busy and always making progress. Not getting stuck in a hole fighting to get out.


I learned this lesson the hard way on a few other failed projects where I'd coded myself into a hole with a half thought out solution which became a mill stone around my neck.