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Thread: So whatever happened to the whole PGDCE thing?

  1. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by AthenaOfDelphi View Post
    So I'm asking you guys... what do you want? What would you like to see here? What kind of events would you like to see PGD run? Do you want a community project to get involved in? If so, what? What sort of tutorials would you like to see? Who would you like to interview if you could? Would you like to have a PGD team enter say Ludum Dare? And most importantly what are you going to do to help make that a reality? If the answer to the last part is nothing, then that sums up the problem and I see no way things will improve, so if you'd answer that, what would make you do something for the community? And if you don't want to share you views, thoughts etc. publicly, PM me. But really, I need to know what you guys want and what it would take for you to give back to the community, because I just don't know what to do about it?
    What I want is just a window for may projects and a place where I can ask about game programming with Pascal.

    Actually I would like to write some articles about Allegro.pas but I have no time right now (or I should say I don't find it now).

    A LudumDare team would be cool.
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  2. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by AthenaOfDelphi View Post
    The downside to this decision is that I have practically no money because I'm just starting out and I don't have a steady stream of work yet. Unfortunately the hosting contract for PGD is up for renewal and I've been asking myself what to do about it. With no major projects, no competitions, no regular flow of content (aside from forum activity), I've been contemplating moving the site to my own server to save money. That will mean slower page serve times and the possibility of bandwidth caps.
    Hey Christina if the hosting expenses are a big problem for you then this is where I can and I'm prepared to help immediately. Initially I was planning to use that money to buy Mobile Add-on pack for Delphi for developing a mobile application for my employer but since my employer isn't showing a big interest in this I have no need for buying the Mobile Add-on pack at this time. So feel free to share more information on how can I help you in this matter.

    As far as content creation goes I must shamefully admit that my extensive tutorial about working with classes in Object Pascal that I started several years ago (I'm actually afraid to look when ) hasn't seem much progress lately.
    The main reason for this is that my current job is draining almost all of my energy from me. Man I miss my old job where sometimes I even had time do to some programming during work time (don't tell my old boss about this ).

    PS: If you need an idea about the theme for next PGD competition I got two words for you: Deterministic Simulation
    Last edited by SilverWarior; 12-03-2017 at 09:22 PM.

  3. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by AthenaOfDelphi View Post
    Unfortunately the hosting contract for PGD is up for renewal and I've been asking myself what to do about it. With no major projects, no competitions, no regular flow of content (aside from forum activity), I've been contemplating moving the site to my own server to save money. That will mean slower page serve times and the possibility of bandwidth caps.
    I guess I could conjure a few shekels. What are the running costs, currently? Also, can you give some numbers on the site's disk & bandwidth usage? We could look at what the various hosting providers are offering and maybe choose something less taxing.

    Quote Originally Posted by AthenaOfDelphi View Post
    If every regular visitor wrote one article a year (two would be better), we'd have bags of content
    Sure. What kind of content would you like to see, though? I don't think another "Pascal from square one" tutorial would be very useful, as there's a ton of those on the internet. "Any" content isn't the way - quality content is. Although yeah, often bad content is better than no content.
    Sorry if this sounds condescending, but it's a serious question. The primary reason I don't have a blog is I don't really think of anything I do as particularly interesting nor challenging, thus there's no incentive to write about it.

    Quote Originally Posted by AthenaOfDelphi View Post
    Would you like to have a PGD team enter say Ludum Dare?
    Instead of a PGD team, just have people join Ludum Dare individually and then we can have a mini-competition for the best LD game by a PGD visitor.

    Quote Originally Posted by AthenaOfDelphi View Post
    Do you want a community project to get involved in? If so, what?
    An engine is a really broad subject; maybe have something more focused? Like "let's make a platformer". Try to agree on basic design principles, and then collaborate via Bitbucket / GitHub. The code will probably be far from an architectural masterpiece, with individual fragments being added on-the-go and glued together - but I'd say an approach like this has a way bigger chance of shipping. Less focus on getting the design 100% right, more focus on making stuff work and shipping.

  4. #14
    PGDCE Developer de_jean_7777's Avatar
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    I can pitch in with a donation to help the costs, once my next paycheck is here Thinking about posting my code onto github, and some parts of it can be used for an engine as I develop my own. I do admit I've wanted to help with PGDCE but I've set aside everything for my personal projects, and I don't get much time around with that either. I also agree that Ludum Dare should be used instead of our own competitions, as there's not enough people to make a competition.
    Existence is pain

  5. #15
    PGD Staff / News Reporter phibermon's Avatar
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    I'm also more than willing to contribute what I can to running costs - you do us all a great service in taking responsibility for the site Athena and it *is* appreciated - I promise you that.

    I'm going to do some work towards a finished article now.

    I hope you're all well - I'd like to try and keep the ball rolling and I've 'known' you all for a long time so anybody that would like to add me on FB or just message for chat please do so - build a rapport, reify each others mutual existence etc - I find that progress is greatly aided with more real-time communication and I'm always connected to FB if I'm awake.
    Last edited by phibermon; 18-03-2017 at 05:25 AM.
    When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie - that's an extinction level impact event.

  6. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by phibermon View Post
    so anybody that would like to add me on FB or just message for chat please do so - build a rapport, reify each others mutual existence etc - I find that progress is greatly aided with more real-time communication and I'm always connected to FB if I'm awake.
    I myself am not a FB fan. In fact I must admit that I'm beginning to hate it. The only reason that I haven't terminated my FB account is the fact that I occasionally still use to check on my relatives that live across the world.
    So I personally prefer using Skype as instant messaging communication but I'm not always online so it is best that we synchronize out timings here through PGD forums as I come here at least once a day.

  7. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by de_jean_7777 View Post
    I also agree that Ludum Dare should be used instead of our own competitions, as there's not enough people to make a competition.
    I don't agree with this. Well I admit that due to low recent activity there probably won't be so many participants in PGD competition as they were in previous years but still I'm sure we can pull it of.
    Now don't get me wrong I don't say that participating in Ludum Dare or any other competition is bad but the truth is that when you are participating in Ludum dare you are basically only promoting yourself.
    The main goal of PGD competitions was not to just promote individual developers but to promote us all as a community. And that is one of the things that can bring new people in.

    Here is another wild idea that might boost our promotion. Why don't we personally challenge Eli M. from Delphi boot camp to participate in our next PGD challenge
    https://community.embarcadero.com/bl...oot-camp-day-4
    I guess that for a man who developed over 300 mobile based games (many of them with Delphi and FMX) he should have no problem in participating. Also his participation could also bring some other Delphi developers to give it a try.

  8. #18
    PGD Community Manager AthenaOfDelphi's Avatar
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    To answer the question which has been asked about hosting costs for PGD, they are about £135 per year.

    To add some context to what I said about regular visitors and 1 article each per year... so far this year, 50 unique users (nearly all with well over 10+ posts) have visited the site. 1 article each = 4 items of new content every month for the next 12 months. And if you consider the costs, if everyone who visits regularly donated £2, the costs would be mainly covered. I'd rather not go down the route of having a subscription which say removes ads, but if we want to do some stuff, like get good prizes, being able to buy them from community money would be a good plan... if you've never tried to secure prizes for one of our competitions, trust me when I say it's hard work and it always feels a little like begging.

    I absolutely agree with the comment about quantity vs quality, content is not about quantity, quality is important.

    My view on the competition front is that I'd like a mixture of both... involvement under a PGD banner/team in the likes of Ludum Dare and the chance to run our own. If I actually sit down and finished the site I was writing to run them, running them won't be an issue (most of it is done, it's that illusive last 10%).

    And I don't want anyone else posting apologies etc. or implying that they haven't done enough. What I'm after is honest feedback from every regular visitor about what they would like to see. Do you want tutorials about things? If so, what? Should they be geared to a particular platform, be entirely theoretical, what? Interviews... if you could interview anyone in the industries related to the site (game development, marketing, language development etc. etc.) who would you want to interview? What would you want to ask them?

    Engine devs... can people help these guys out by writing documentation, quick starts, tutorials for their engines?

    I guess what I'm wanting is information about the future... what the site needs to do to be more appealing, and if possible get a firm commitment from as many people as possible that they will do something to help. Does anyone want to volunteer to post news? Anyone want to volunteer to go hunting out projects developed in Pascal and write articles about them, interview the devs about stuff?
    :: AthenaOfDelphi :: My Blog :: My Software ::

  9. #19
    PGD Staff / News Reporter phibermon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SilverWarior View Post
    I myself am not a FB fan. In fact I must admit that I'm beginning to hate it. The only reason that I haven't terminated my FB account is the fact that I occasionally still use to check on my relatives that live across the world.
    So I personally prefer using Skype as instant messaging communication but I'm not always online so it is best that we synchronize out timings here through PGD forums as I come here at least once a day.
    ok.
    When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie - that's an extinction level impact event.

  10. #20
    PGD Staff / News Reporter phibermon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AthenaOfDelphi View Post
    And I don't want anyone else posting apologies etc. or implying that they haven't done enough. What I'm after is honest feedback from every regular visitor about what they would like to see. Do you want tutorials about things? If so, what? Should they be geared to a particular platform, be entirely theoretical, what? Interviews... if you could interview anyone in the industries related to the site (game development, marketing, language development etc. etc.) who would you want to interview? What would you want to ask them?
    I'd like to see a series of step by step tutorials that produce a visble, working output at the end.

    Each successive tutorial building on the previous tutorials code.

    Each tutorial coming with complete working source code available to download.

    They should target Lazarus - it's free, available on all platforms and would require the bare minimum if at all covering platform specifics (up to a certain point at least)

    They should target OpenGL 3.0+ style contexts, firstly focusing on 2D (but very briefly) then bringing in 3D. Any tutorials on old immediate mode GL are just teaching bad practices - GL3 is *easier* - there's just less information around for learners.

    Tutorials should be pushing people towards 3D. People should get into 3D straight away instead of seeing it as this distant target that they have to be a master of 2D before they move on to. I've always found this mildly aggravating and to the determent of people's progress - nobody insists on learning to ride a motorbike before they get in a car because they want to master 2 wheels before they move onto 4. It's not 'the next level up' and learning 2D first only spawns naive notions about working in 3D. There should be absolute emphasis on the fact that 2D and 3D approaches are vastly different and the former is NOT a precursor to the latter.

    Basically exactly like the famous NEHE OpenGL tutorials (http://nehe.gamedev.net/) but specifically for Pascal/Object Pascal and the standard GL3+ way of doing things.
    Last edited by phibermon; 14-03-2017 at 05:25 PM.
    When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie - that's an extinction level impact event.

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