Right, I'm going to change things around here a little bit. For a short test period, ALL new threads are required to follow a format. I've pasted the format at the bottom of this post, and following that are two more posts with a couple of simple demonstrations. Notice the use of formatting (bold titles) INCLUDING THE NEW LINES AND BOLD!!! Why? Because it's getting harder and harder to pick out the well thought out projects from all the clutter around here, and I'm hoping that by at least having to fill this out it will make more people think about what they are trying to achieve before pushing it on others. THIS WILL BE MANDATORY, if you do not follow this format you will be told in your thread. Failure to change the thread to suit (remember you can edit the original post!) after a period of 24hrs will result in the thread being removed. I would like to hear your comments and suggestions, so feel free to respond here or email/PM me with your thoughts, although I reserve the right to take and leave ideas as they seem appropriate. Another thing I would like, is for people to post their own demonstrations here. One more thing, DO NOT take it upon yourself to post a link to this thread to any member who fails to follow the guidelines. This is strictly so I can do so and keep a close eye on whom takes the time to read the guidelines and who doesn't. Thanks for your time and happy hunting! Marc. **TEMPLATE, PLEASE COPY AND PASTE TO RETAIN BOLD AND FORMATTING*** Thread title - (Give basic info about what you need, no real need to make it too long with any game description) <b>Team name:</b> (Or if you are calling it a company, though be very careful to abide by the faq and not mislead anybody into thinking it's a registered company). <b>Project name:</b> (or working title) <b>Brief description:</b> (Here you put a brief overview of the project, including how long it has currently been in production for). <b>Target aim:</b> (Shareware/Freeware/retail/etc) <b>Compensation:</b> (Can you pay, or are you offering a percentage of potential revenue? Can you put it in writing for potential help?) <b>Technology:</b> (Target system, programming language and/or tools, Artist tools, Sound tools) <b>Talent needed:</b> (List the people you need, their expected tasks and any experience needed) <b>Team structure:</b> (The people who are currently in the team, how long they've been there, and most importantly what YOU do) <b>Website:</b> (Anything you have, even if it's a wip. Just make sure it is here as a clicky link!) <b>Contacts:</b> (Your email address/forum/etc...) <b>Additional Info:</b> (Anything else you want to say, snippets of the story/design, screenshots. AT LEAST SOMETHING!) [Edited by - mlambert on April 1, 2005 2:16:52 AM]

EXAMPLE 1:

(Thread title: Arists/programmers/music needed)

Team name:
Lags11

Project name:
Spacey invaders

Brief description:
A 2D shoot-em-up set in space, whereby the player controls a spaceship defending a base station against enemy invaders. This has been in production for three months.

Target aim:
Freeware, hopefully to build up a website and a name for ourselves!

Compensation:
Plenty of credit for work done! [smile]

Technology:
DirectX, Promotion, Photoshop

Talent needed:
Sprite artists, a.i and sound programmers, from beginners up.

Team structure:
Currently, I'm the concept artist and designer, we also have two 2 engine programmers who have been here for the duration.

Website:
(obvious what goes here!)

Contacts:
(and again!)

Additional Info:
Go here <insert links> for small demo of what we've done so far. Also we have a lot of ideas for cool weapons and features that we've put into a design document and would be happy to show potential help.

[Edited by - mlambert on March 29, 2005 9:16:03 AM]

EXAMPLE 2:

(Thread title: Beginners needed for collaboration)

Team name:
To be decided

Project name:
n/a

Brief description:
I want to put together a small team of beginners to help each other learn and develop small games. I would like to get a website and forum up and running where we can show our progress and talk about our ideas.

Target aim:
Freeware, just for experience

Compensation:
n/a

Technology:
Preferably C/C++ with OpenGL.

Talent needed:
Any beginners who would be interested in helping! This means programmers, artists, sound engineers, basically anyone willing to learn!

Team structure:
At the moment it's just me. I've been programming for a few months now and am building up a steady knowledge of C++. I've managed to start a pong clone, so it might be cool for some help with that.

Website:

Contacts:

Additional Info:
It would be cool to hear from anybody, even if you don't think you'd be much help! You never know what we could achieve.

[Edited by - mlambert on March 29, 2005 9:20:44 AM]

Quote: Original post by TheArtifex
You asked for comments and questions, and I'll gladly give them. ^___^

Excellent!

Quote:
Should these be seen as rules, requirements, or guidelines?
---Are we required to pretty much copy/paste and fill in the blank...
---or are we simply required to include each item in the list in a distinct and clear fashion?
---Can we change the order of items?

These are requirements for now. You can be creative with what's there in terms of the order, but the "Additional info" section should be further down (for reasons following) and everything should be included.

Quote: How much are we allowed to elaborate?
---Can we include a header image?
---Can we modify the formatting to something equally or more organized/aesthetic?
---How much can we put under the "Additional Info" section?

You can elaborate as much as you like, it's still a case of the more info the better, including header images and the like. The "Additional info" section is where the meat should go, the others are mainly for people to look up and get interested, kind of like a c.v.

Quote: Should these restrictions be seen as temporary?
---How long are you planning to use these restrictions?
---At what point will you say "Okay, I've seen enough"?

It all depends on how well it works. For now it's a test, but it may or may not be adopted full time, but more than likely will be adjusted and upgraded as needs permit.

Quote: You see, I'm not trying to look like a rebel or anything. I have a ton of respect for you and the decisions you've made in the past. But you asked for comments and concerns, and this time around, I've got them.

That what this thread is still open for, and I welcome everything you ask and will do my best to answer as quickly as possible.

Quote: We're about to recruit, again, and in the past, we've done very, very well with recruiting here: if I'm not mistaken, you've actually given us positive feedback, occasionally. But many times, our recruiting posts are not at all "standardised", and include much more information about the project and what we need than is allowed by these rules- unless, of course, the "Additional Information" section is allowed to be several paragraphs long.

While your posts are usually amongst the best ones we get here, using this standardised method shouldn't change that, especially since you can still use your headers and the "additional info" section can be as long as you like.

Quote: I guess my biggest question is simply whether or not we should make our posts follow these cookie-cutter guidelines, or if we're allowed to view these as guidelines, rather than a fill-in-the-blank.

You should follow everything that's there, but you are open to be creative within the guidlines. As everything I've answered above says.

Quote: It seems to me that what you are trying out here is forming more of a reference sheet of hiring projects, so potential applicants can browse through all of the teams, neatly standardised, and then visit their website to get to the nitty-gritty, if they're interested. I'm sure there are mixed opinions on this, but in my opinion:

GarageGames has already tried it, and failed miserably.

I've always loved GameDev because the Help Wanted section is a forum, rather than a database. You can learn an awful lot about a team simply by how much thought and time gets put into their recruiting post, and, again, in my humble and respectful opinion, standardisation has a very good potential to kill the "individuality" in recruiting posts.

Just my opinionated two cents. ^^

This is exactly what I'm trying to keep, the community spirit. This is a discussion I've already had with another mod about. You see the forum needs to change, it cannot continue the way it is going and there have been many ideas, but the one major one floating around is some kind of database/form filing system, which I'm not sure I like the idea of. I want to keep the community as it is, but make sure that everyone posts in a more "standard" manner so people can scan through the early sections to get an idea of what is there, and proceed to the full on part (as you keep saying, the 'additional info' section) if they like what they see. Another benefit is it should cut down the flames and repeat questions of "what will you be doing", "is it paid", "website?" and the like, which is a major turn-away for people likely to want to actually help.

This should also have the added bonus of forcing people to actually think about what they want before posting two lined-threads here.


If you have any additional idea's to modify the template, then please send them my way - along with responses to what I've said, of course [smile]


Thanks!

Marc.

Quote: Original post by linternet
What about people looking to offer their services to a team as a member or for freelance work?

I don't feel that they should have to wait for a team to ask for them.

Yes, good point and one that was previously brought up (before the post met with an accident)...

I'm going to draft one up very soon and get it up here shortly. In the meantime, I'm open to suggest on what to add in.


Marc.

Well, mine was the post that met with an 'accident', and since I didn't save it and several of the points have been raised by others or added into the OP now, I'll simply summarise the contents rather than re-typing the whole thing:

-Use constructive titles on the threads. Almost everyone is making a game, so you don't need to include that. Including the positions available if there are only a couple is good (ie. "Composer and Artist needed"). If there are more than a couple of positions, a big list would probably be too much information for the thread title, in which case the games working title and/or genre could make an appropriate alternative (ie. "2D Sidescroller seeking team"). Remember, the body of the post is where most of the information should go, but the title is the first thing people see - so it may as well be at least slightly informative.

-Some people are advertising thier services rather than looking for people to help them. This has been raised once more already - an additional template for this purpose is probably the most elegant solution. My suggested fields would be: Name, Service (Artist, Composer, SFX, Programmer, etc), Experience (links to relevant websites a plus), Portfolio (link to website), Additional comments.

-Posting images: While not really a neccesity, it's nice if you can post thumbnails of images, so that they load quickly, and more detail is available if wanted. Also saves people looking through all your full-sized images when they may only be interested in a couple. In addition, it's good practice to fill in the alt attribute of the image tag, in case the images don't load or a user either has them disabled or is using a text only browser.


Hrm... well, that wasn't so short, but still a lot shorter than the original I think... no matter, I believe that covers most if not all of the previous points acceptably.