It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, but I need to post this because I’ve let it fester in my mind for far too long. Forgive me if anyone is offended by what I have to say, but these thoughts are burning a hole in my mind.
So I’ve posted a few times in this section, ideas for games I would love to see made, but I don’t really have the skills, patience or resources to accomplish them. I figured the ideas forum was a place where I could throw these ideas out there & see what, if anything, might come of them. Last time I posted, I received a reply from a seemingly disgruntled game dev who believes the ideas forum is for aspiring game devs to share ideas & receive feedback. The wording of the reply really hurt, but I don’t blame them for what they said. It sounded like they were tired of hearing people make demands, which I can understand is very frustrating. For my part, I was not trying to demand anything, but rather seeing if anyone was interested in fleshing out my ideas, though I can understand the misinterpretation as I find it difficult to say “this is something I want” without sounding demanding or rude & I apologize if that’s how it comes off.
This brings me to the thought, as another comment said, that maybe we should separate ideas of devs & non-devs into separate sections. I have no idea how running a forum works & I assume that this would be easier said than done, but it seems there may be those on the forums in favor of such a thing. If it would make it so I’m less likely to piss off a game dev with my lack of experience, then I’d be in favor of such a move, but again, I don’t really know how forum moderation works so I have no idea if this is even viable.
I apologize for the rant & thank you for your time. Take care & God bless.
Honestly, the person was out of line for railing at you in your own thread when you had correctly marked it as a game idea. I don’t agree that every game idea posted here needs to come with a design doc attached to it.
Ideas are free and easy but are also ephemeral - it’s easy to find oneself scratching around for a good, novel concept. There’s nothing wrong with posting a comprehensive idea or game concept if it can serve as a source of inspiration for others. Worst-case scenario, it can be ignored with little fuss.
As long as one isn’t overtly begging a developer to put something in their game, or spamming the forum about the same idea then I don’t see an issue.
Also, the inflation racing game idea is neat. We discussed it a little on the Discord server.
Personally, the ideas section is for the discussion of concepts from both devs and non-devs. Splitting it into two separate subcategories I feel may cause confusion on which subcategory to post in. That being said their is merit to the idea, especially if devs may feel concept discussion may be getting buried by suggestions. We will discuss this internally, but would love to hear any one else’s take on this as well.
As for the way the user responded to you, from the sound of it, it sounds like they where out of line. If you want to, or if you have another incident like that feel free to flag it so we can look into it.
Sorry to hear you had a bad interaction. Repressing someone else’s creativity is never a good thing and does nothing but hurt the community as a whole.
I agree with grotlover2 on the splitting of communities causing confusion. Although, I think you are on to something that would help users find content they’re interested in easier. There’s a tag system already implemented so having two tags(game feedback, and game ideas for example) could help users know the “feedback” threads are actual in dev games while the “ideas” thread is just throwing out ideas and feelers. It could even be as simple as adding [feedback] or [idea] as your title opener. This way the forum isn’t being spread thin in terms of content being posted and people get a clearer idea of what the thread is about. Just my two cents.
Side note, if you ever get bummed about not seeing your ideas come to fruition that may be a good motivator to get into game dev! It’s what certainly got me into art and development. Python is a really easy language to learn and it’s what ren’py uses so that’d be a good starter with lots of free learning resources out there.
Although if the thought of losing your hair and crying for two hours over a misplaced semicolon doesn’t appeal to you then it may not be worth looking in to.
Either way, try not to let someone who has zero stock in your life ruin your day, and keep having fun coming up with ideas!
I also agree that separating out devs and non-devs would be a bit confusing, especially since a non-dev can easily turn into a dev in the future, and being a dev doesn’t necessarily mean you want to make every idea you come up with. I always saw the distinction between the projects (actively being worked on) and ideas (not being worked on by anyone, just posted for discussion’s sake) categories as pretty clear. If I’m looking to talk about stuff, I look for ideas. If I want to play something I look for projects. Thought maybe tags to denote development stages on that end could be useful, we have the release tag already but maybe a demo tag or something to indicate the project doesn’t have anything playable yet?
Yep, that was me. Just to be clear - my rudness is byproduct of me being blunt and honest, not from spite or hatered thorwards op. Which is not an appology - i think people, especially on the internet need a little more honesty, even if it will upset them for a few minutes
As for the topic on hand, my point still stands. If you dont want to put time, effort or at least money into your idea, then it hold as much weight as a babyfart and its hard to consider it being anything of substance if even its own creator doesnt seems to belive in it
But who cares? The ideas category is for ideas. That’s why it’s called “ideas” instead of “games that people must make for me.” We all tacitly understand that posted ideas are not expected to manifest in actual games. Rather, the utility of the “ideas” category solely lies in enabling users to present their fantasies regarding what fetish games could exist—not what fetish games must exist.
Nevertheless, you’re not being “honest.” You’re just straw-manning people into a position they don’t hold so you can criticize them on something they don’t believe so that you can feel better about yourself for fixing a problem that didn’t even exist in the first place. “Brutally honest” people aren’t honest. They’re just brutal.
Eh, being seen as just “brutal” is fine too by me, as long as i see myself as honest. And yeah, i do it just to please myself, we all do, but at least im not two-faced sleazebag who act all nice to the point of being dishonest to people to achieve exact same effect - feel good about himself
The ideas category is for exactly what you used it for, no question, and you shouldn’t have to feel bad about posting there. Yours was actually one of the better ideas posted too to my mind.
One user thinking the ideas category should be something else entirely and hijacking the thread about your idea to say so doesn’t change things. They should have come here, to site feedback, and started a discussion, as you have.
Personally, I’d keep the ideas category as one rather than split it: you don’t need to be a game dev to have an idea, or invite others to critique or expand on it. And being a dev doesn’t mean your idea is going to be better or worse than anyone elses (it might just be a little more practical to pull off, or might not). I’m with Lt. Doolitle on this: “the concept is valid no matter where it originates.”
From a dev point of view it’s true you could look at ideas negatively as a begging bowl, but why not think of it as free market research instead? Look through the posts, see which are faved most - those are potential “customers” for your work.
There’s already a Game Design Discussion category for devs to get into the weeds with an idea. And if it’s something they are working on, then it reasonably belongs in Projects.
If it were possible I think an option would be to improve things would be to require ideas posts to be well defined (like yours was) and more than just “{commercial-game} but fat”. Perhaps a first step would be to change the ideas category pinned message to explain this, and also that the chance of anyone picking it up are slim?
Oh, and that “disgruntled game dev” - they’ve never produced a game here. So there’s that; at least you’ve contributed ideas.
