Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Lorric on September 13, 2013, 04:48:35 pm
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I've already seen people say they won't learn SEXPs because they don't think they can pull off what is done in BP, JAD or even ST:R. And SEXPs are eeeaaaaaaaasy.
Another problem is people saying FRED and SEXPs are easy. They're not. At least to me. It's got better for me, but only after plenty of hours worth of FREDding and there's still loads I don't know. You'll make people think they can jump right in. And maybe they can, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it took me a lot of hours before I got a grasp on even the basics, and when I asked for help I had people thinking I hadn't even bothered putting any effort in to try and figure things out for myself when I had.
Let me tell you something. I can't remember exactly how the conversation went, but basically it was a teacher from school saying in an exam someone (a teacher, but not the teacher talking to me) had either for real or hypothetically picked up the exam paper and read out the first question and said something to the effect of "Oh well that's easy, everyone'll know that one." There's like 200 people in an exam room. Everyone won't know that one, everyone won't think question 1 is easy. What do you think that's going to do for their confidence, right at the start of the exam? Could very well shatter it.
A final problem is seeing something like Wing Commander Saga being picked apart as seemingly only a couple of steps up from garbage, and why would someone even bother trying to do start new? They'll just think "What's the point, everyone'll just say it's ****/not worth bothering with." I just picked that because it's a recent example, but you see the finest work at times on here treated like sub-standard, with little else getting a look-in. There's little incentive for new people, the FRED Academy went down a long time ago.
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First off, completely, utterly off-topic. Nowhere near what we were discussing.
Another problem is people saying FRED and SEXPs are easy. They're not. At least to me. It's got better for me, but only after plenty of hours worth of FREDding and there's still loads I don't know. You'll make people think they can jump right in. And maybe they can, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it took me a lot of hours before I got a grasp on even the basics, and when I asked for help I had people thinking I hadn't even bothered putting any effort in to try and figure things out for myself when I had.
SEXPs are a programming language. People who know how to program, or have experience building scripts, have an easier time figuring out how they work. That also means that people who have no aptitude for this have a pretty hard time adapting to it (That is not meant to be a negative assessment. Programming is something that one has to have an aptitude for, while it can be taught, it can only be mastered by those who understand it and its concepts instinctively).
Let me tell you something. I can't remember exactly how the conversation went, but basically it was a teacher from school saying in an exam someone (a teacher, but not the teacher talking to me) had either for real or hypothetically picked up the exam paper and read out the first question and said something to the effect of "Oh well that's easy, everyone'll know that one." There's like 200 people in an exam room. Everyone won't know that one, everyone won't think question 1 is easy. What do you think that's going to do for their confidence, right at the start of the exam? Could very well shatter it.
We are not teachers, we are just gamers. Setting up events is easy if you have done something similar before, and utterly arcane if you haven't. There is a learning curve, and it is pretty steep, but that's what the FRED tutorial (both the original and the updated Diaspora one) come in, as well as our FRED board and the old standby trick of looking at retail missions, or missions from mods, to figure it out.
A final problem is seeing something like Wing Commander Saga being picked apart as seemingly only a couple of steps up from garbage, and why would someone even bother trying to do start new? They'll just think "What's the point, everyone'll just say it's ****/not worth bothering with." I just picked that because it's a recent example, but you see the finest work at times on here treated like sub-standard, with little else getting a look-in. There's little incentive for new people, the FRED Academy went down a long time ago.
Well, there is a slight problem here with the way we as a community approach new content. We've been modding this game and exchanging tips for over a decade now, and as a result, we've become pretty ruthless in our assessment of new people's efforts.
The problem with WCS in particular is that those missions that I and others have criticized would have been absolutely fine 10 years ago. But during those ten years, we (as in, the FS modding community) have developed so many more and innovative techniques and approaches to storytelling in FS that WCS looks quite simple and constrained in comparison. If we hold it up to the other big Total Conversion that released the same year, Diaspora, WCS' defects become immediately obvious. Even if we hold WCS' massive campaign in its favour, the shorter, sharper, better written and more technically proficient and advanced Diaspora comes out on top.
WCS, if measured against what the FS modding community has done in the past two years alone, loses massively. We've gotten used to a string of uniformly high quality content here, and that unfortunately has a chilling effect on the people who are just starting out, but we can't just abandon being good at what we do, can we?
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er, diaspora's mission design... isn't that good, although it is varied
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First off, completely, utterly off-topic. Nowhere near what we were discussing.
Indeed. But I've heard this "easy" thing said before (and have confronted it before too) and it just sticks in my throat every time. And it’s in relation to new people as well, I’m not talking about people saying what a good tool FRED is or how easy to use it is when not talking about new people.
SEXPs are a programming language. People who know how to program, or have experience building scripts, have an easier time figuring out how they work. That also means that people who have no aptitude for this have a pretty hard time adapting to it (That is not meant to be a negative assessment. Programming is something that one has to have an aptitude for, while it can be taught, it can only be mastered by those who understand it and its concepts instinctively).
That's an interesting assessment. So the thing is, even if someone has no experience, they might get good if they give it time, everyone has to have started somewhere, surely, even the people on here who make FRED dance to their tune easily. FRED is starting to open up to me now, but it's taken a long time. I'm not going to be able to do what the masters can do, not even close, but maybe I can still make some fun stuff, even if it's not going to blow any minds.
We are not teachers, we are just gamers. Setting up events is easy if you have done something similar before, and utterly arcane if you haven't. There is a learning curve, and it is pretty steep, but that's what the FRED tutorial (both the original and the updated Diaspora one) come in, as well as our FRED board and the old standby trick of looking at retail missions, or missions from mods, to figure it out.
And this is exactly the kind of information which should be the norm imo, not "Oh, FRED is easy." This is reality. Now you've got both sides, an easy tool to operate for the programmers, but possible to eventually fight your way through and understand even if you're inexperienced with such things.
I’m not asking for teachers even though I mentioned the FRED Academy. It’s the thing about what was said in the exam. Think of FRED as the exam, and if people think it’s going to be easy and it’s not, they go in with false expectations and the potential to have their confidence destroyed before they even get started. If they go in expecting a challenge and to need to put many hours into it then they’re not going to run into this.
Well, there is a slight problem here with the way we as a community approach new content. We've been modding this game and exchanging tips for over a decade now, and as a result, we've become pretty ruthless in our assessment of new people's efforts.
The problem with WCS in particular is that those missions that I and others have criticized would have been absolutely fine 10 years ago. But during those ten years, we (as in, the FS modding community) have developed so many more and innovative techniques and approaches to storytelling in FS that WCS looks quite simple and constrained in comparison. If we hold it up to the other big Total Conversion that released the same year, Diaspora, WCS' defects become immediately obvious. Even if we hold WCS' massive campaign in its favour, the shorter, sharper, better written and more technically proficient and advanced Diaspora comes out on top.
WCS, if measured against what the FS modding community has done in the past two years alone, loses massively. We've gotten used to a string of uniformly high quality content here, and that unfortunately has a chilling effect on the people who are just starting out, but we can't just abandon being good at what we do, can we?
I think the problem is bigger than slight. I can see why you would think it slight though, the standard is just getting better and better across the board. Where's the problem, right?
The problem is the shop’s closed. Somehow all the people who are at the top had to get to the top. They went through the gradual process that has been seen over the years to get to where they are today. But can anyone else get there now? Maybe one or two gifted ones could, but what about the rest? You’re effectively stuck with the people you have now. They’re not going to stick around forever. How are you going to replace them with new talent? How is anyone else going to climb the ladder? I did ultimately get the help I needed, but there’s really no encouragement at all for new people. I’m only carrying on because it’s a personal challenge, and to be fair I have received some positive feedback for my demo campaign, and have used it to make it better and to inspire me. But I can’t imagine it could be anything like what the old hands would have had in their time, learning together and helping each other and then later pushing the boundaries together.
Wing Commander Saga, when I read that post of yours, my very first thought before anything else was I hope he doesn’t critique my campaign. And as we’ve moved along in that thread, I’m okay with what you’re doing, I know what point you’re trying to make in there now, and I’m very much interested in what you’re going to do, as I think there’s great potential in what was created for WCS, and I guess you must too if you intend to work on it, but still, I think that first impulse of mine is important for the message it sends. I'm not singling you out, loads of people do similar, you said it yourself: we've become pretty ruthless in our assessment of new people's efforts.
but that's how it makes me feel. New people shouldn't be worried about what people might say about their efforts, it should be fun for them, the learning and growing process.
So sure, keep on pushing the boundaries of quality and what’s possible, it benefits us all, but spare a thought for new people. Spare a thought for how it was before the Blue Planets and Diasporas, before the bar got raised so high above where it used to be, and how it will be for someone starting out. And wouldn’t you think as time goes by, the number of available new people would shrink? Don’t squeeze them out.
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Man, you could use that argument for anything. "Everyone else makes it look so easy! I can't get to that level at all!" Which is like the worst attitude ever.
For the past year and a bit I've been trying to teach myself playing the piano (with the whole of my music theory coming from Guitar Hero). Can't be that hard, right? Ahahaha... I was terrible at first. And I was still pretty terrible after that. Its only until recently I can say "I can sort of play something that begins to resemble a few very select songs." It's a lot of work and I had to really tone down my own expectations of what I wanted to do and want I can do.
It's like so easy to give up when you see something that you know you couldn't aspire to. But its so much better when you use it as inspiration. "I'm not there YET, but I will be one day."
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Man, you could use that argument for anything. "Everyone else makes it look so easy! I can't get to that level at all!" Which is like the worst attitude ever.
For the past year and a bit I've been trying to teach myself playing the piano (with the whole of my music theory coming from Guitar Hero). Can't be that hard, right? Ahahaha... I was terrible at first. And I was still pretty terrible after that. Its only until recently I can say "I can sort of play something that begins to resemble a few very select songs." It's a lot of work and I had to really tone down my own expectations of what I wanted to do and want I can do.
It's like so easy to give up when you see something that you know you couldn't aspire to. But its so much better when you use it as inspiration. "I'm not there YET, but I will be one day."
Don't worry about me, I'm still going, I have passed the point of no return. I will try to finish my campaign in my own way without worrying about Blue Planets or what have you.
I'm worried about other people being cut off right at the start or near the start. I'm surprised you thought learning to play the piano wouldn't be difficult though.
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Fine... I'll say it this way... FRED is eeeaaaasy compared to most other games' mission editors...
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Fine... I'll say it this way... FRED is eeeaaaasy compared to most other games' mission editors...
Now this I'll have to take your word for. But the only other PC game which I've played with it's mission editor, Warcraft 3, I find MUCH easier to work with than FRED.
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Can I just say something? I hate FRED's 3D interface. You know, the zoom, pan, rotate thing? Hate it with a passion. It's ****ing terribad. Whenever I tried to make anything in FRED I just give up on account of that ****, I am just too damned spoiled by all the other tools I work in the day job (you know, the archicads and all) so much that I just think "it isn't worth it".
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Can I just say something? I hate FRED's 3D interface. You know, the zoom, pan, rotate thing? Hate it with a passion. It's ****ing terribad. Whenever I tried to make anything in FRED I just give up on account of that ****, I am just too damned spoiled by all the other tools I work in the day job (you know, the archicads and all) so much that I just think "it isn't worth it".
Oh Luis, it took me so many hours to get to a state where I could operate anything like smoothly with that, I know exactly what you mean, so frustrating!
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Don't worry about me, I'm still going, I have passed the point of no return. I will try to finish my campaign in my own way without worrying about Blue Planets or what have you.
I'm worried about other people being cut off right at the start or near the start. I'm surprised you thought learning to play the piano wouldn't be difficult though.
I was mostly talking to those "other people" you might have been talking about. Nothing's easy, to get a good work you (or they) need to put a good amount of work into it. But FRED is certainly easier than 99% of all other mission editors. They shouldn't expect a BP on their first campaign, but when they do post their first campaign, the criticism that we give is taken from the already successful ideas that other campaigns have done. The newbie FREDder now hopefully has some new ideas and accumulated knowledge to begin to try to be "better" than what is already here. It should be a positive feedback loop.
(Also I knew learning piano would be very difficult, but it gets especially hard when what you play is crap and what you listen to is so far ahead)
Fine... I'll say it this way... FRED is eeeaaaasy compared to most other games' mission editors...
Now this I'll have to take your word for. But the only other PC game which I've played with it's mission editor, Warcraft 3, I find MUCH easier to work with than FRED.
I bet I would find the Warcraft 3 editor confusing and I would be completely lost in it!
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I was mostly talking to those "other people" you might have been talking about. Nothing's easy, to get a good work you (or they) need to put a good amount of work into it. But FRED is certainly easier than 99% of all other mission editors. They shouldn't expect a BP on their first campaign, but when they do post their first campaign, the criticism that we give is taken from the already successful ideas that other campaigns have done. The newbie FREDder now hopefully has some new ideas and accumulated knowledge to begin to try to be "better" than what is already here. It should be a positive feedback loop.
Oh okay. This is more in line with what I'd hope for. Realistic expectations for what it takes to make a campaign. Keep the criticism positive and constructive. None of the stuff where people basically say something is garbage, or the lists of everything "wrong" with nothing positive. Or putting every campaign up against the Blue Planets, which is also bad.
I bet I would find the Warcraft 3 editor confusing and I would be completely lost in it!
Quite possibly, simply because you're so used to FRED. But even so, you're so good with FRED, I would think you'd pick it up easily. It's a brilliant editor. FRED is the hardest editor I've ever used by a long way. I've used editors for other games and always been comfortable with them, along with Warcraft 3's editor. I only mentioned Warcraft 3 though because it's the only one which could compare properly to FRED in terms of complexity.
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I'd say that new FREDers need a "growth mindset" (Dweck)
Challenge is good! (stretch myself to learn)
Failure is good! (it helps me learn)
I can improve my abilities!
:)
And while beginning FREDers should not be held to the same standards as the experts/old hands, appropriate criticism/feedback needs to be given in order to improve.
(note: haven't studied pych, just interested in growth mindsets from the point of view of a parent)
Can I just say something? I hate FRED's 3D interface. You know, the zoom, pan, rotate thing? Hate it with a passion. It's ****ing terribad. Whenever I tried to make anything in FRED I just give up on account of that ****, I am just too damned spoiled by all the other tools I work in the day job (you know, the archicads and all) so much that I just think "it isn't worth it".
You should send some interface ideas to z64555 for wxFRED :)
Quite possibly, simply because you're so used to FRED. But even so, you're so good with FRED, I would think you'd pick it up easily. It's a brilliant editor. FRED is the hardest editor I've ever used by a long way. I've used editors for other games and always been comfortable with them, along with Warcraft 3's editor. I only mentioned Warcraft 3 though because it's the only one which could compare properly to FRED in terms of complexity.
Not that I've really used either, but War3 doesn't need to worry about a true 3D environment.
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You know? I'd really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really love a new camera interface. Something along the lines of a small side window with a bunch of buttons that rotate/move the camera. Bonus: You keep the original keys for veterans.
Something like:
Up
Left Right
Down
+Zoom -Zoom
Movement Multiplier Tab[x3]
Movement Type Toggle[Rotate Cam, Move Cam, etc.]
Because like Luis, and who knows how many others, FRED keeps telling me each time I try to use it that I am a useless ****tard for not being able to comprehend it's spacial orientation system. And I don't have that much trouble reading six pees.
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I wonder if a FRED-movement tutorial video would be a nice thing.
I don't need it now, but maybe it would help with this roadblock.
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I was mostly talking to those "other people" you might have been talking about. Nothing's easy, to get a good work you (or they) need to put a good amount of work into it. But FRED is certainly easier than 99% of all other mission editors. They shouldn't expect a BP on their first campaign, but when they do post their first campaign, the criticism that we give is taken from the already successful ideas that other campaigns have done. The newbie FREDder now hopefully has some new ideas and accumulated knowledge to begin to try to be "better" than what is already here. It should be a positive feedback loop.
Oh okay. This is more in line with what I'd hope for. Realistic expectations for what it takes to make a campaign. Keep the criticism positive and constructive. None of the stuff where people basically say something is garbage, or the lists of everything "wrong" with nothing positive. Or putting every campaign up against the Blue Planets, which is also bad.
Criticism soooo hard to give correctly and can be just as hard to deal with. I can say your campaign is god's gift to the earth, but do I encourage greater growth? If its perfect, what needs to be worked on so the next one is better? While we should be as positive as we can, when we find something we don't like, we shouldn't be afraid to say it. That way the newbie creators can see "oh, maybe that didn't work" or "I didn't know of another way to do this." With the latter we can point them to things like BP and go "this is an example of what we thought was really well done. You should look to see if you can take inspiration for it."
When I get feedback from my testers, sometimes I get "this is dumb, why did you think this was a good idea again?" and I believe they are dumb because they do not appreciate my sheer genius and greatness!
Until I think about it and go "yeah, this is kind of dumb. I better do something about it."
You've got to have some balance in your criticism and a creator has to have the skin for criticism.
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As a less-than-neophyte at FRED, I'll agree that having to use what's basically a ship-flying control scheme to move the camera around feels really awkward at first. You get used to it, but it's hardly ideal.
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Criticism soooo hard to give correctly and can be just as hard to deal with. I can say your campaign is god's gift to the earth, but do I encourage greater growth? If its perfect, what needs to be worked on so the next one is better? While we should be as positive as we can, when we find something we don't like, we shouldn't be afraid to say it. That way the newbie creators can see "oh, maybe that didn't work" or "I didn't know of another way to do this." With the latter we can point them to things like BP and go "this is an example of what we thought was really well done. You should look to see if you can take inspiration for it."
When I get feedback from my testers, sometimes I get "this is dumb, why did you think this was a good idea again?" and I believe they are dumb because they do not appreciate my sheer genius and greatness!
Until I think about it and go "yeah, this is kind of dumb. I better do something about it."
You've got to have some balance in your criticism and a creator has to have the skin for criticism.
As far as criticism goes, it should come across as trying to help someone. Don't just say X is wrong, say how X can be fixed if you know. Don't just reel off a list of things which makes it seem like you just care about yourself and want the game to be made to your personal specifications.
Talk about the positives as well as the negatives, and be gentle. Constructive criticism is great. Destructive criticism is not. If you don't want to genuinely help that person, then don't post. A positive and friendly mental attitude will go a long way.
You though don't need telling these things, I've always thought you do well at this.
As a less-than-neophyte at FRED, I'll agree that having to use what's basically a ship-flying control scheme to move the camera around feels really awkward at first. You get used to it, but it's hardly ideal.
Extremely irritating trying to get it to do what I wanted it to do in the early days. Excruciatingly slow pace of progress because of fighting with the control scheme all the time.
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Lorric, why don't you try the Diaspora Walkthrough and tell me what problems you had with it? Bear in mind that improving the quality of FRED training is my major goal in this community, if you're experiencing problems, I want to know about it. The Diaspora documentation was built with the idea of teaching absolute newbies how to use FRED, if people are having trouble doing so, I'd like to know why.
There's little incentive for new people, the FRED Academy went down a long time ago.
The biggest problem with the FRED Academy was finding people to playtest the missions. Usually it would fall to 3-4 people to do all the work. The Academy needed to be a community project where everyone who plays FS2 regularly played the missions and said what worked and didn't work. Then the technical experts like myself and Axem could come along and teach the newbies how to use FRED to solve the problems the others highlighted. Expecting the technical experts to also do the mission testing proved to be too much work, with the results that no one ended up testing the missions at all.
I still think the idea of the Academy is sound. I'd just need people to commit to mission testing a lot more.
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Even just mouse panning would be a massive improvement to FRED's 3D navigation.
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Lorric, why don't you try the Diaspora Walkthrough and tell me what problems you had with it? Bear in mind that improving the quality of FRED training is my major goal in this community, if you're experiencing problems, I want to know about it. The Diaspora documentation was built with the idea of teaching absolute newbies how to use FRED, if people are having trouble doing so, I'd like to know why.
I don't have Diaspora.
However, the Diaspora walkthrough is supposed to be (I think I heard something about this) an improved version of the FRED walkthrough, right? I also know I've read it in the past, and I'm confident I liked it. I did try that (FRED walkthrough), but got frustrated, not with the walkthrough, but with wrestling with the control scheme, the walkthrough was good as far in as I got. So I kind of ended up giving up there. I came back later, but ended up tinkering around instead. Experimienting, making easy little battles and opening up other people's missions to try and see what made them tick, sometimes going back to the walkthrough for pointers.
Alright, let's go find that thing and have another look, I'm interested in movement...
Here we are:
http://www.fs2downloads.com/freddocs2/concepts.html
It tells you how everything works, but nothing more really. Maybe some people can pick it right up and don't need anything else, but others like me clearly couldn't. I'm used to the controls now though. Perhaps asking some of the others who haven't got used to the controls and struggle with them if there's anything more that could be added it would help? The controls were by far the biggest impediment to my progress. It tells you clearly enough how everything works, but doesn't offer any tips on how to get the best out of anything, how to move around smoothly.
The biggest problem with the FRED Academy was finding people to playtest the missions. Usually it would fall to 3-4 people to do all the work. The Academy needed to be a community project where everyone who plays FS2 regularly played the missions and said what worked and didn't work. Then the technical experts like myself and Axem could come along and teach the newbies how to use FRED to solve the problems the others highlighted. Expecting the technical experts to also do the mission testing proved to be too much work, with the results that no one ended up testing the missions at all.
I still think the idea of the Academy is sound. I'd just need people to commit to mission testing a lot more.
Interesting to know how it was supposed to work. I wonder if there's any way to revive it.
Maybe you could think smaller? Have people put their names in a hat, and draw a "lucky winner" who gets attention from the experts for a while.
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The problem with that idea is that the winner would have to actually produce the mission after being selected. It would annoy the others if the person selected at random then didn't do anything. And it's not like we could ask everyone to write the missions first as that would mean a lot of people wouldn't get help after having submitted a mission.
I do like the idea of concentrating one one lucky person but I'm not certain how to make it work.
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I personally don't like the idea of one person being the chosen one for however long. What if they get bored, leave the community? Others might wait months for their turn, especially if they get the impression that it's so hard that you need outside assistance to get anywhere. The truth is that it isn't if people are willing to put the time and effort in to learn. Do the walkthroughs, not just read them. Use the wiki. Ask questions on the forum. These are all you really need to do yo get competent with FRED.
That asides, I have two ideas to reduce the entry barrier. I'm not sure how practical they are, but what the hell, let's get the out there.
One, we put one of those "new user tips on startup" boxes in FRED, obviously with a "Don't show this again" button for vets. I'm certain that between a few of the more experienced FREDders, we could knock a hundred or so tips up on the wiki in a matter of a week or two, especially if people like Lorric gave some input about what they struggled with. Something like the camera controls could be added in multiple times, so that they're seen more often, as they seem to be a major hurdle.
Two, we add a separate but very prominent way for nrwbies to ask questions, maybe something like a Yahoo answers type setup, exclusively for FRED neophytes where they can ask any question they want without registering. Eliminate that very basic hurdle sp that people can get very quick answers to basic questions. If we integrate it with the forum, registration could be required to answer questions, and if we gave all registered users above, say, 500 posts the ability to delete questions in that subsection only, we could probably control the inevitable spam associated with a registration free service.
Anyway, just thoughts. As I said, for people who make the effort, use existing resources and ask questions (even ones they think see silly), I really don't see why the entry barrier would be very high, but if people are saying it is, maybe we do need to look at some options to lower it.
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A final problem is seeing something like Wing Commander Saga being picked apart as seemingly only a couple of steps up from garbage, and why would someone even bother trying to do start new? They'll just think "What's the point, everyone'll just say it's ****/not worth bothering with." I just picked that because it's a recent example, but you see the finest work at times on here treated like sub-standard, with little else getting a look-in.
There are two things here you are absolutely and utterly failing to make a distinction of right there.
FREDing and mission/campaign design.
The first one involves learning sexps and is a highly technical task.
The second involves neither of those. It's about inventing feasible, yet engaging and creative mission concepts and storylines.
WCS utterly failed at mission design, and this is what we've been judging. WCS didn't have any (major) issue with the technical aspect of FREDing.
You seem to have trouble with FREDing. That's ok. You can have very great mission/campaign design with simple FREDing. I'd quote Crossing the Styx and Uncharted Territory as two example. Note that those two campaigns are recent and were published after WiH, yet they received a lot of praise, and they earned it.
When people review user-made campaigns, they're not reviewing your FREDing (unless you've really come up with breakthroughs in FREDing like BP), they're reviewing the mission/campaign design. And mission design doesn't require technical skills, it's a purely artistic part of the job.
I'd also note that the community has been pretty careful to not shoot down new campaigns that tend to be of sub-par or even mediocre quality. Shadow Genesis being the best, recent example of that scenario.
EDIT: and I am very disapointed that noone else brought to light that critical distinction after two pages of thread. :<
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I've always said that mission design is the most under-appreciated skill in this community. No one will comment on your mission design unless you get something wrong. :p
I personally don't like the idea of one person being the chosen one for however long. What if they get bored, leave the community? Others might wait months for their turn, especially if they get the impression that it's so hard that you need outside assistance to get anywhere. The truth is that it isn't if people are willing to put the time and effort in to learn.
Yep, those were some of the reasons I couldn't see a way to make it work.
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The problem with that idea is that the winner would have to actually produce the mission after being selected. It would annoy the others if the person selected at random then didn't do anything. And it's not like we could ask everyone to write the missions first as that would mean a lot of people wouldn't get help after having submitted a mission.
I do like the idea of concentrating one one lucky person but I'm not certain how to make it work.
You wouldn't have to wait for someone to produce the mission, they could send the WIP to you on maybe a weekly/fortnightly basis, whatever's comfortable for you, to show they're still working on it. Maybe they can miss one or two of these time slots, but miss three and they're out and someone else is in.
There are other ideas, you could instead of by random select have people state why they want to have your help and what they would do with it, and pick the one who impresses you the most.
Or you could simply ask for a commitment of a certain amount of free time and if the person picked randomly fails to meet that (they'd get two or three chances as IRL can screw you up) then they're out and someone else is in.
Another idea could be to keep some sort of log of what happens with these, focusing on one single person would allow you to do this in some detail, and uploading those logs to HLP I'm sure would be beneficial to others.
What would you ideally like to be able to do/expect of your one person? If you tell me that then maybe I or others can think of a way to make it work.
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I think you've missed the point that both Black Wolf and I made. Which is that while we are concentrating on one user, everyone else is left sitting around holding their dick. This gets even worse if we're going to have to wait 3 weeks doing nothing while we wait for a user to disappoint us and produce nothing.
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I think you've missed the point that both Black Wolf and I made. Which is that while we are concentrating on one user, everyone else is left sitting around holding their dick. This gets even worse if we're going to have to wait 3 weeks doing nothing while we wait for a user to disappoint us and produce nothing.
I'm not saying you have to be there for them 24/7 to the detriment of everyone else. Set your own rules.
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One, we put one of those "new user tips on startup" boxes in FRED, obviously with a "Don't show this again" button for vets. I'm certain that between a few of the more experienced FREDders, we could knock a hundred or so tips up on the wiki in a matter of a week or two, especially if people like Lorric gave some input about what they struggled with. Something like the camera controls could be added in multiple times, so that they're seen more often, as they seem to be a major hurdle.
I have been pondering this idea and I think it has great potential. Now and again someone posts something about FRED which is useful to a few people. Imagine having such things and more all in one place, on every user's machine! There would of course be a full list of all the tips in addition to flashing one up every time you load up FRED. I think it's a brilliant idea!
As for me, I'm not sure how I could contribute though personally. This does seem like something for the masters. Take the issue with the movement controls for instance. I wasn't just fighting with the controls, I was fighting with my own brain. In order to get to where I am now, I had to get rid of what was there before, if that makes any sense. I can't remember what was there before properly because it had to be replaced. And I'm still no master or anything at moving around.
On the tips, perhaps a thread could be opened up. People could post tips for this, and then they could be put into this idea along with some choice words of wisdom from the masters.
You could mine the FRED board for ideas as well.
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Hello,
as a very young FREDder (1 month of experience or less) i'd share with my feelings a bit:
1. FRED camera movement isn't so bad, though. Or at least for players using keyboard to play FS. It's rather... of it's kind. You control the camera like a fighter, and i would confirm the need for changing camera control style is real... but how to change it?
2. Well, i think it's natural that a young, unexpierienced FREDder would think "Will they like it?" or "Did i miss something?".
3. A man learns through his entire life. I, personally, found learning FRED a bit fun. To learn how events work and then check every tool/SEXp/ect. by trial and error method. I want in-game cutscene? Let's see what are cutscene SEXp's doing. I also can tell that FRED needs mostly being patient and community likes being creative.
4. I find tutorials VERY useful, but also shrinking the horizon of creativity a bit. A human mind is most expieriencing the "first encounters", so if i first read that function X is good/made for/useful for Y or Z, my first thought while seeing X is Y and Z.
Of course, i may be wrong somewhere.
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I wonder why programming tutorials never start with programming lesson #1: algorithms. You wish to program in C? I'll throw data types at you right away! You wish to FRED? Memorize these beautiful sexps for a start! I tried to learn C++ some time in the past, but couldn't understand what was really going on. At least when I attended uni, where I got proper introduction with algorithms. I understood those fast and then the programming in general and in fact it turned out I'm quite predisposed despite my earlier failures. Pointing to some good lesson on algorithms for programming newbs would be a good start for any FRED tut.
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I wonder why programming tutorials never start with programming lesson #1: algorithms.
You need to pay attention to the prologue of the tutorials, a lot of times you'll come across a tut that assumes you already know the basic theory of logic and algorithms, and just want to learn the language post-haste. The "proper" learning courses in the Computer Science colleges also have this to an extent (in the form of prerequisites), but for freshman and sub-freshman level courses you get the bare basics of everything and build up on that.
Hello,
as a very young FREDder (1 month of experience or less) i'd share with my feelings a bit:
1. FRED camera movement isn't so bad, though. Or at least for players using keyboard to play FS. It's rather... of it's kind. You control the camera like a fighter, and i would confirm the need for changing camera control style is real... but how to change it?
2. Well, i think it's natural that a young, unexpierienced FREDder would think "Will they like it?" or "Did i miss something?".
3. A man learns through his entire life. I, personally, found learning FRED a bit fun. To learn how events work and then check every tool/SEXp/ect. by trial and error method. I want in-game cutscene? Let's see what are cutscene SEXp's doing. I also can tell that FRED needs mostly being patient and community likes being creative.
4. I find tutorials VERY useful, but also shrinking the horizon of creativity a bit. A human mind is most experiencing the "first encounters", so if i first read that function X is good/made for/useful for Y or Z, my first thought while seeing X is Y and Z.
Of course, i may be wrong somewhere.
First off, Hello and Welcome to Hard-Light! please be sure to stop by the Official New People Thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=71938.msg1420793#msg1420793) to get the complementary beamz. :)
Now, for your questions:
FRED currently does not have any means to allow you to remap the keyboard shortcuts, so you'll have to make due in the mean time. The SCP does have project in the works that should hopefully allow a lot of new things for FRED in the near future.
The tutorials are there to offer a venue for people to try new things to get a result. Creativity isn't something that can be hampered by outside sources once you understand that creativity is really just a clever way of using something you already know in a different way. Granted, you don't need to take a tutorial to learn something new, but with a tutorial you know exactly what the end result will be. Once you know what process yields what result, you can then apply your own creativity to make the process easier, or perhaps modify it a bit to come out with a higher quality result.
I hope this has been helpful. :)