Open letter to the Dreamcast scene (attention: 100% emo)

This forum is for discussion pertaining to homebrew and indie software for the Dreamcast, such as homebrew games, emulators/interpreters, and other homebrew software/applications. Porting requests and developmental ideas are not to be made here; you can make those here. If you need any help burning discs for homebrew software, this is the place to ask as well.
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Post by JS Lemming »

I completely agree with this! We need a site dedicated to programming the Dreamcast. One that would be maintained by all the users, not just the big admins. Like a giant wiki, but with control.

It would be the hub of all DC Developement information. You could upload tutorials, programs, documents, everything.

I have a feeling that thechaosrift.com might just be the place to start this!
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Post by GyroVorbis »

Sure, if you guys want. The website isn't really being used for anything. I've had it since 8th grade and it's just been more of a personal site.

I have like 2000MB of disk space, PHP, CGI, 200GB data transfer, and yeah...

I don't know about me making the site though. After all, I do suck.

EDIT: Xylene just offered to host me for free. He's got way better than I do... heh, cool.
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Post by lackofsense »

Here is a simple idea.
In way to help unify the website into the one. You could e-mail all members of the various forums offering an automatic signup to a forum on the unified website. This would be a way to bring all those who have forgotten, it would make signing up for another forum less of a hassle, call attention to the website, and revitalize the community
I guess.
this is just an idea a thought.
Do what you will with it
sense-lacking is a tough job but somebody's got to do it
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Post by Alexvrb »

Good concept, essentially impossible to execute, even if they wanted it - which I doubt. The Lords of CV would surely snub the idea of a DCE signup automagically becoming a member of their boards, and potentially vice-versa.
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Post by gamedudex2 »

look at example of a great scene

dc has loads of potential just needs to grab outsiders attention

http://www.atariage.com/
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Post by LyingWake »

gamedudex2 wrote:look at example of a great scene

dc has loads of potential just needs to grab outsiders attention

http://www.atariage.com/
Also take notice of the very nice site. That seems to be the only site that has information of Atari games too, so like I was saying a strong site. There's also no ads. No one wants to be bombarded with them.
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Post by lackofsense »

i had a feasible manner in my mind for the idea's completion
but it would work if certain assumption were true
and beside corperations and spammers do it everyday
sense-lacking is a tough job but somebody's got to do it
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Post by MetaFox »

JS Lemming wrote:I completely agree with this! We need a site dedicated to programming the Dreamcast. One that would be maintained by all the users, not just the big admins. Like a giant wiki, but with control.

It would be the hub of all DC Developement information. You could upload tutorials, programs, documents, everything.

I have a feeling that thechaosrift.com might just be the place to start this!
http://gamedev.allusion.net/dckb
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Post by Freeze »

Dopey Dark Savant0 wrote:It would help if our sites weren't plagued with porn and few if any updates. The first part of that sentence was for you, Freeze. I just checked DCS. Under the current highlighted article. Have fun deleting it!
Yeah, I saw it a few minutes later. Those are Wiki bots who spam standard Wiki sites like "Main/News" randomly on the internet. Really annoying.
Imerion wrote: Might not be that active on the forum (already have to many forums...) but I might add info and such things. As for petitions, you can be certain I will sign them! Also planning on buying one of those T-shirts...
Thanks, thanks! Nice to hear. :) Drop me an email to max (at) dreamcast-scene (dot) com if you need more information.
goatdan wrote:This seems to be more of a question of why Dreamcast-Scene isn't used as much as it should be, and I'll toss my two cents into the equation. I'll be as honest as possible...
Well, to be honest, of course this was the reason why I thought about this more and more and made me to start this topic, but even DCS only wants to support the DC scene. I'm more interested in supporting the scene as cling to some idea which never works out.

But your specific opinion about the layout of DCS really helps me out. Thanks for that. :) I never got any feedback about it before.
goatdan wrote:I know the GOAT Store has a great new affiliate program that we created where you could even link to our database, and when someone browsed it could show up at the DCS site saying, "Hey! You can get NFL 2K at the GOAT Store for only $2.00 right now!" or something.
Sounds good, I like the idea and would like to try it out.


Okay people, after reading all your opinions on this case I think we need some kind of release list, just like the big companies have. A release list which shows all projects which are currently in development or on hold. This might be an impossible looking piece of work, but when we spread those lists on all larger Dreamcast (scene) sites, this will motivate and give newbies at least a small overview.

But I don't only mean applications, games and emulators, but also everything which is going on in the scene. For my part, I'm attending with Dreamcast-Scene on the DemoZone demoparty this month in the Netherlands, and end of August at the Games Convention in Germany with an even larger booth than 2003.

Just my 2 cents.
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Post by Imerion »

Okay people, after reading all your opinions on this case I think we need some kind of release list, just like the big companies have. A release list which shows all projects which are currently in development or on hold. This might be an impossible looking piece of work, but when we spread those lists on all larger Dreamcast (scene) sites, this will motivate and give newbies at least a small overview.
THAT is a very good idea! Add a wiki-page with releases so everyone can add their own game/program (as well as others programs) with a small description and screenshots. Then link it to the main-page so the ten ones closest to release is shown on a list. (Might be hard to do though since release-dates never are certain).
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Post by curt_grymala »

Freeze wrote:Okay people, after reading all your opinions on this case I think we need some kind of release list, just like the big companies have. A release list which shows all projects which are currently in development or on hold. This might be an impossible looking piece of work, but when we spread those lists on all larger Dreamcast (scene) sites, this will motivate and give newbies at least a small overview.
This would work really well with the new (well, it's over a year old, but has recently been revived) homebrew tagging system that's being discussed in another topic on these boards.
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Post by Quzar »

I think it really shows something about people that every single response so far has been off topic. Dr. Freeze was looking for people to write more articles about things that already exist. Anyone here who has been to DC-Scene knows it's a wiki style database site for dreamcast stuff, and it is very well organized, but lacking in information because even though anyone can, nobody does help out by writing up articles for it. I have written 4 or 5 emulator descriptions and added in some others that were'nt recorded before, but considering there are hundreds of entries and many without content, he could use help.
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Post by goatdan »

Freeze wrote:But your specific opinion about the layout of DCS really helps me out. Thanks for that. :) I never got any feedback about it before.
No problem. Truth be told, usability of Web sites is about the only useful thing that I learned in college that I didn't know before attending, but it really made me examine everything. If you really want more constructive criticism like that, I could go through the whole site in PM later. :) I actually like to do that stuff, and my job has none of it now :(
goatdan wrote:I know the GOAT Store has a great new affiliate program that we created where you could even link to our database, and when someone browsed it could show up at the DCS site saying, "Hey! You can get NFL 2K at the GOAT Store for only $2.00 right now!" or something.
Sounds good, I like the idea and would like to try it out.
The sign up for our affiliate program is here:

http://www.goatstore.com/affiliate_info.php

To learn more about how to implement the XML features that would give you direct email access to our database, email Gary at heil@goatstore.com, and tell him I sent you so he knows where you're coming from.

Also, I'm not saying just use us. I know you're also a Lik-Sang affiliate, and I think you can work their search into sites. I would also suggest perhaps using Amazon or something to give people more options.

Not meaning to sound like I'm tooting my horn or anything, but our system with the XML feeds is still the best option, but I don't know of anyone else that does that currently :(
Okay people, after reading all your opinions on this case I think we need some kind of release list, just like the big companies have. A release list which shows all projects which are currently in development or on hold. This might be an impossible looking piece of work, but when we spread those lists on all larger Dreamcast (scene) sites, this will motivate and give newbies at least a small overview.
PM me on this more. Gary and I are early in development of a new GOAT Store Publishing page that would give developers a much better platform on our own site for updating people with their projects. This is a project so new, we haven't even started to tell the developers about it yet :) Seriously though, ours won't be comprehensive, but it would be great if we could feed DCS or vice versa so the developers only had to update one place, and the information would spread everywhere. I wouldn't mind doing a weekly update once, but if I'm doing the same thing at five or six places, it might become overwhelming.

Just a thought :)
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Post by MetaFox »

goatdan wrote:PM me on this more. Gary and I are early in development of a new GOAT Store Publishing page that would give developers a much better platform on our own site for updating people with their projects. This is a project so new, we haven't even started to tell the developers about it yet :) Seriously though, ours won't be comprehensive, but it would be great if we could feed DCS or vice versa so the developers only had to update one place, and the information would spread everywhere. I wouldn't mind doing a weekly update once, but if I'm doing the same thing at five or six places, it might become overwhelming.

Just a thought :)
How about setting up a script that takes input from specified fields, then outputs a XML feed (oh wait, that's what you're probably planning on doing reading your post more :doh:). Consolevision has had such a list for a while, but it's a pain in the butt to update:

http://www.consolevision.com/dreamcast/status/

It would be nice to have one list that can be updated by many authors and that can be shared between sites.
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Post by GyroVorbis »

Quotable Quzar wrote:I think it really shows something about people that every single response so far has been off topic. Dr. Freeze was looking for people to write more articles about things that already exist. Anyone here who has been to DC-Scene knows it's a wiki style database site for dreamcast stuff, and it is very well organized, but lacking in information because even though anyone can, nobody does help out by writing up articles for it. I have written 4 or 5 emulator descriptions and added in some others that were'nt recorded before, but considering there are hundreds of entries and many without content, he could use help.
I agree. DC-S, I believe has a lot of potential. I've been wanting to go and fill in some empty pages (Samba De Amigo!), but I've been lacking time and too lazy.

I'd say it's about time I made my contribution.
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Post by bizzle »

I added a small (copied) page for Cryptic Allusion until someone can do something better. I also just did a page on GTAFreeDC.
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Post by Warmtoe »

I think I'll go off topic for a moment too!

I wholeheartedly support the idea of a better development community fostering better communication between the devvers - I think its a great idea and we should do it and all contribute to it (I know I will)...

...But you know the real problem with developing for the DC? It's hooking the people with different talents up - I can code, I am good at code, code is what I do (there, I've said it) but I can't draw and I can't play (music that is)...

...Now my suspiscion is that this is a place where a lot of the people who think they can't contribute can really shine, and really contribute - but how do we make the connection?

If we can work that out, we'd make a lot of progress - perhaps an 'availability' board - and people post their availability to work on different aspects of projects. As people pick up a project, their availability gets altered - when they come off a project it comes back - when they want a break, it drops.

As an aside, all my projects are still there in some form - I'm working actively with others on them - for the most part, things have gone on hold because I've lost other people on projects and cannot replace them.
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Post by MetaFox »

Warmtoe wrote:If we can work that out, we'd make a lot of progress - perhaps an 'availability' board - and people post their availability to work on different aspects of projects. As people pick up a project, their availability gets altered - when they come off a project it comes back - when they want a break, it drops.
I love this idea. It can work like the "Help Wanted" section of the translation site - The Whirlpool.

Programmers post help wanted ads and state what help is needed and post contact info. Once the spot is filled, the programmer unchecks their ad, and the ad is pushed out and the lower ads are pushed up.
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Post by Hobbes T Tiger »

I think it really shows something about people that every single response so far has been off topic. Dr. Freeze was looking for people to write more articles about things that already exist.
What? That we didn't go? Bleh! I thought he was looking for newsposters. Wiki is still a new idea to most of us and we seem to have been a bit confused.

Anyway, I just did my first 2 pages and I'm happy :D
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Post by Sir Savant »

I posted DCGnuboy. Maybe I will do all the handhelds. Maybe.
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