Where do you see the DC "scene" 1 year from now?

[Phantom]

I still intend to contribute stuff to DreamChess.

The problem is I overextend myself with stuff all the time. I'm always working on about 40 or so projects at once.

My remarks weren't directed at you, just to be clear. You're one of the pilars of the scene.

EDIT: I didn't know you wanted music though. I'll add that to my to-do list as well.

That'd be great, ofcourse.

[toastman]

Has anybody besides me noticed the irony in the fact that the Dreamcast is probably going to commercially outlast GC, PS2, and Xbox?

Wow... pwnt? Looks like the 'Cast didn't lose the console war after all. Spinning

lol never thought of it that way.

For me personally I've found that I really need positive user feedback to keep my motivation for a certain project alive over a longer period of time.

thats one thing i never understood is why anyone gives bad feedback about anything. its a good thing the scene has lasted as long as it has because most the lamers ar long gone and its a lot of good feedback most the time.

And of course we cant forget AleronIves, Jodin, and Schthack keeping the PSO community alive and updated with new quests!

I think when Phantom says "positive feedback", he means feedback that can be used to improve the product.
"You rock" is just as meaningless as "You suck" and "I think it could use a tutorial mode" is not bad feedback.
We sort of trust the scene to be our totality. You are our audience, our QA department, our testing department. We need to know if something is working well, if something isn't working at all.

[MetaFox]

My remarks weren't directed at you, just to be clear. You're one of the pilars of the scene.

They should have been though. I did promise you art for the game. I like to help out anyone who needs help. If I help coders, artists, etc. then there's a greater chance that they will continue what they are doing. It's like you said before - without the help you don't feel like continuing. And I know exactly how that feels. So, that's why I do what I do as far as offering help goes.

Speaking of which - I just threw this together:



It uses white and black marble for the chess pieces, and my Uncle Ron for the player characters.

The chessboard is just white and black with no texturing. I'll work on getting a new background picture in there, seeing if I can find a good chess board texture, and getting another player character.

http://dreamon.cyberdogcastle.com/dream ... ttheme.zip

[impetus]

Fox, I had no idea you were doing 3-D.

[MetaFox]

Fox, I had no idea you were doing 3-D.

Heh, that doesn't really count as 3-D. It's just texturing. Phantom wanted 3D chess pieces, and I was going to give it a shot. However, there's really no need as the 3D chess pieces that Phantom made himself are actually really good.

[Phantom]

We're getting way off-topic here... I sent you a PM.

[Quzar]

Has anybody besides me noticed the irony in the fact that the Dreamcast is probably going to commercially outlast GC, PS2, and Xbox?

Wow... pwnt? Looks like the 'Cast didn't lose the console war after all. Spinning

lol never thought of it that way.

For me personally I've found that I really need positive user feedback to keep my motivation for a certain project alive over a longer period of time.

thats one thing i never understood is why anyone gives bad feedback about anything. its a good thing the scene has lasted as long as it has because most the lamers ar long gone and its a lot of good feedback most the time.

And of course we cant forget AleronIves, Jodin, and Schthack keeping the PSO community alive and updated with new quests!

I think when Phantom says "positive feedback", he means feedback that can be used to improve the product.
"You rock" is just as meaningless as "You suck" and "I think it could use a tutorial mode" is not bad feedback.
We sort of trust the scene to be our totality. You are our audience, our QA department, our testing department. We need to know if something is working well, if something isn't working at all.

I remember telling that to somebody once, the thing about 'positive feedback'. A better term would be "constructive feedback". I'd rather get a single bug report, or comment about features and whatnot than 100 "awsome work"s. I specifically stated that I HATE seeing someone post "great work", "AWSOME JOB!1", or "great release" so quickly after a newspost that it is 100% obvious they have not even seen it yet. The biggest problem is that people often have legitamate bug reports that they could post, yet simply say their mindless compliments or insults instead, thinking it's what they should be posting. [/rant]

[Phantom]

I remember telling that to somebody once, the thing about 'positive feedback'. A better term would be "constructive feedback". I'd rather get a single bug report, or comment about features and whatnot than 100 "awsome work"s.

I only partly agree with that. I want to know if people are actually using my software. If that's not the case it's all a waste of time (I generally don't use my own software). So I'd rather have people show their appreciation, than remain silent.

[Quzar]

I remember telling that to somebody once, the thing about 'positive feedback'. A better term would be "constructive feedback". I'd rather get a single bug report, or comment about features and whatnot than 100 "awsome work"s.

I only partly agree with that. I want to know if people are actually using my software. If that's not the case it's all a waste of time (I generally don't use my own software). So I'd rather have people show their appreciation, than remain silent.

i just track the number of downloads to see how many people are using it

[Warmtoe]

I remember telling that to somebody once, the thing about 'positive feedback'. A better term would be "constructive feedback". I'd rather get a single bug report, or comment about features and whatnot than 100 "awsome work"s.

I only partly agree with that. I want to know if people are actually using my software. If that's not the case it's all a waste of time (I generally don't use my own software). So I'd rather have people show their appreciation, than remain silent.

It is sad - but personally, I live for 'awesome work's !!!!!

I'm trying to be honest and open - I think it is partly about getting constructive feedback and partly about ego massaging - I like both, I prefer the latter.

[Warmtoe]

I really start to like this thread. The more I read the more happy I get.
There really is much more things going on than it seems.

Yes - it is kind of refreshing, isn't it - and more than a little pleasing.

[Phantom]

WHOA! Will DreamChess be on the GoatGames disc?

After the first demo release I was contacted by Goat about doing a commercial release. However, both I and MrSiggler felt that it wasn't feasable. We simply don't have the resources needed to create what they had in mind.

Then I was contacted again in december, about including it on the GOAT Games disc as an unlockable. I told him I was interested but I never received a reply. So the answer to your question is most likely "no".

[toastman]

I remember telling that to somebody once, the thing about 'positive feedback'. A better term would be "constructive feedback". I'd rather get a single bug report, or comment about features and whatnot than 100 "awsome work"s.

I only partly agree with that. I want to know if people are actually using my software. If that's not the case it's all a waste of time (I generally don't use my own software). So I'd rather have people show their appreciation, than remain silent.

It is sad - but personally, I live for 'awesome work's !!!!!

I'm trying to be honest and open - I think it is partly about getting constructive feedback and partly about ego massaging - I like both, I prefer the latter.

I'm kind of anti-ego massaging, mainly because of my first release. When I released Clonetris (which was supposed to be more of a proof of concept than a full game) there were a lot of "so awesome" comments and I really got an ego boost.
However, the gameplay was flawed on multiple level, the code was a kludge of functions that was assembled on the fly as my whimsy decided what was needed. However, due to the ego boost, I began to expand the game. Which wasn't what I wanted to do, and an exercise in futility due to the state of the code.
So, now I am leery of unabashed praise. It also produces people like reaper, who can't handle even constructive criticism.

[mankrip]

For me personally I've found that I really need positive user feedback to keep my motivation for a certain project alive over a longer period of time.

I think when Phantom says "positive feedback", he means feedback that can be used to improve the product.
"You rock" is just as meaningless as "You suck" and "I think it could use a tutorial mode" is not bad feedback.

A better term would be "constructive feedback". I'd rather get a single bug report, or comment about features and whatnot than 100 "awsome work"s.

The biggest problem is that people often have legitamate bug reports that they could post, yet simply say their mindless compliments or insults instead, thinking it's what they should be posting.

I hardly ever get bad feedback, However, I frequently get little or no feedback at all, I'm not sure which is worse.

I'm glad to see I'm not alone on this. I would love to get bug reports, but it rarely happens. Lots of times I find bugs, bugs that could be easily noticed, but no one alerts me about them. For example, I disabled the network menus in Makaqu 1.0 (the Windows version) by mistake, but no one informed me about this bug. Well, no one from the internet; I only discovered this problem because a friend from my school told me about it.

I want to know if people are actually using my software. If that's not the case it's all a waste of time

Well, I'll tell a secret:
Years and years ago I promised to release the JoyMenu source code, but I wanted to improve it first, because at the time I really didn't like the code - it had too many bugs and unfinished things. Because of this, I released the "JoyMenu 1.2 basic" source, which only had the structure of the menu code, but didn't have the options and miscellaneous features.
In the end, nobody ever really used it for anything; it was only included in one mod, but it didn't work because the menus were empty - the coder didn't realize he had to include the options himself.
After this, before finishing JoyMenu 2.0, I released the "JoyConsole" source code, which was an improved version of FrikaC's console. Nobody even tried to use it. A few mods released after it (I guess one or two) had a console included, but in all cases the console they used was the older version which mine was based on.
After these events, I desisted to release the JoyMenu source code. I couldn't see a point in releasing it if in the end I'm quite sure nobody would use it.

By the way, when I think about it, I realize that probably no one will try to improve nxMakaqu when I stop working on it. It's a bit sad, because I'm sure that if it had hardware acceleration it would easily become the best "easy-to-develop" platform on the Dreamcast, and anyone with little programming knowledge but with good talent could make games as good as many official Dreamcast games.

i just track the number of downloads to see how many people are using it

I just checked it, and Makaqu 1.0 got 182 downloads from my site. It's nowhere near the thousands of downloads other stuff (mainly BOR and emulators) gets, but it's enough to keep me working on it for a few months.



Wow, looks like I ranted a lot now. Well, nevermind. Actually I'm in a quite good mood lately.

[Christuserloeser]

Hm, gotta get back to my dozen or so DCEvolution projects once I finished the work on Rage of the Streets.

Btw, it's not only BoR and emulators that recieve thousands of downloads over at our site. Literally everything is downloaded in a similar amount.

BoR is only slightly ahead compared to original DC homebrewn games and our media releases.

Perhaps the DCEvolution staff should really expand...

[Imerion]

I guess the community could listen and learn here : feedback is wanted. Ill try to be better at it from now on, specially when it comes to bug-reports. I haven't done much of that at all...

I just checked it, and Makaqu 1.0 got 182 downloads from my site. It's nowhere near the thousands of downloads other stuff (mainly BOR and emulators) gets, but it's enough to keep me working on it for a few months.

I think that if you would put up a ready-to-burn images which contains content (I don't know if its allowed to spread the shareware Quake-files but perhaps different mods) those would get just as many downloads as BOR or emulators. A while ago I decided to try Neo4All/Aes. I had never put together a disk like that before, I had only used images and sbi-files. This first time took me many hours to get correct. (Partially due to me first putting everything together on my Linux-system and then realizing that the needed tools didn't work in Linux, so I had to redo it all on my brothers computer, but anyway...) i guess there are many users that skips something if its to hard. That might explain the low amount of downloads for Makaqu.
Also, I don't mean that you should put up images, I only mentioned it as for comparison.

Btw, it's not only BoR and emulators that recieve thousands of downloads over at our site. Literally everything is downloaded in a similar amount.

Exactly. I belive ease of use is the main factor...

[Quzar]

I just checked it, and Makaqu 1.0 got 182 downloads from my site. It's nowhere near the thousands of downloads other stuff (mainly BOR and emulators) gets, but it's enough to keep me working on it for a few months.

well, if it makes you feel any better, i can't remember which, but a few of my last releases only had about 10 downloads in the first 2 months.

[DCDayDreamer]

I just checked it, and Makaqu 1.0 got 182 downloads from my site. It's nowhere near the thousands of downloads other stuff (mainly BOR and emulators) gets, but it's enough to keep me working on it for a few months.

well, if it makes you feel any better, i can't remember which, but a few of my last releases only had about 10 downloads in the first 2 months.

Setting up some CD images is fairly easy, others do require hours and hours of work and testing, an image featuring Makaqu along with many extras is in the works at DCEvo. As far as downloads go, once a ready to burn and play release of Makaqu is available, Fragger can easily add at least one zero to his tally of 182 downloads, that in itself should prove that his work is popular. Even a ready to go version of Makaqu still might not prompt people to send Fragger bug reports though, but hopefully, someone will continue to work on Makaqu if and when Fragger does stop.

It sounds as if some of Quzar's releases could do with some extra promotion too, if those releases are the ones I'm thinking of, they'd certainly make a very good compilation CD image (time to add that one to the ever increasing list at DCEvo then ).