Hold a one day tiebreaker?

Nope... I'm the tie-breaker vote. I'll think about it for about one day. I'm leaning toward collaboration. I like the idea of inviting the entire Guild Wars community to participate... make a game that's truly beautiful. I'm thinking that the final product would be shared with other Guild Wars fansites. Then... after collaboration is successful... a competition can be held. I have to do something with the extra Nightfall code.

So... does anyone have any persuasive arguements for competition?

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Michael Garofalo
Webmaster - http://photics.com

None that you wouldn't strike down like my others

I have a very persuasive arugment that I will set up using points.

Point 1 is the fact that you are using more then 1 person to complete the project it is a rule of thumb that you should have a little as possible to finish the project in a timely matter to convey an idea because with alot of people there are a lot of ideas that are shared and ideas that a seperate and when you have a big group it gets harder to agree what to put into a game and whether the person who has the task at hand for the project can finish it within a fair amount of time as well as being of good quality.

Point 2 is actually against a competition, for a competition a person may not have the motivation to create the game for a couple of reasons whether it be the fear of losing or being lazy or actually worring about time constraints. Also if you have a competition you remember what happened last time remember. There were technically only 2 entrys for that one so I would assume that it would be the same way.

This is all I have to say right now on this matter I'll come up with more to say later on.

It looks like we're going with collaboration. I'll post up a more official post later... probably tomorrow.

Bolshevik does raise some interesting points. It can be difficult to manage a group of people. Considering that I led 1000 players to victory in Guild Wars: Factions, and another 1000 players to victory in Dark Age of Camelot, it shouldn't be too hard to manage 3-10 people to create a Rock, Paper, Scissors game. Since it's collaboration, I can help out too. I think this will be great fun.

Let's make something beautiful!
Who's with me?!

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Michael Garofalo
Webmaster - http://photics.com

Does this mean I have to stop working on my RPS or can I still submit mine? I was really looking forward to making a good one. I still would like to work on my own though and I still would do it without any reward. What do you say Mike can I still do mine and have it be posted?

Hmmm... this changes everything.

OK Bolshevik, I don't want to ruin your fun. If all you want is to see your work posted on Photics.com, how can I say no to that? It's gotta be good though! If you need help, don't forget about your friends at photics.com!

Remember - it has to be all original work. You can copy Guild Wars sound effects & Graphics from the game, but you can't copy music. I'm going to be a pain about enforcing copyright, so don't put any authorized code or content in your game.

You said it would take you two weeks, right? That means the rest of us will need something else to do in the meantime. Anyone have any suggestions for a game? It doesn't have to be Guild Wars based either.

Today, I'll be looking at XNA. I'd like to convert Photics: Revisions into a true video game. If I like what I see, I might have to drop the word "Flash" from the title of this forum. HA!

...and I might have to pick up an XBOX 360.
(Why couldn't I pick a cheaper hobby, like Basketball or paper folding?)

So hey, what do the rest of you want to do? Here are the possibilities that I see...

1. Nothing - let's wait and see what Bolshevik and Photics do first.
2. Make a different version of Gwen's RPS (Maybe a skill based RPS game?)
3. Work on a colaborative project - Flash Game, Guild Wars Theme
4. Work on a colaborative project - Flash Game, New Theme
5. Work on a colaborative project - XNA Game (I'm still researching this though.)

The poll was split down the middle, so I had to make the final choice. I've decided that I don't like competition - we're all friends here! Let's build something together.

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Michael Garofalo
Webmaster - http://photics.com

Erm, I think Photics Revisions would make a great Interactive Fiction game. I don't know where you can learn about it best from (my brother taught me, I don't know where he learned it from) but the wiki for Interactive Fiction games is here: ifwiki.org

I think Photics: Revisions would make an awesome video game. I was thinking about this for most of the day. I've been reading up on XNA. Quite frankly - IT'S AWESOME! I was chatting with Nemisari about this earlier this month, but I dismissed the idea at first. Then, I started watching some videos. It's tools to make professional quality games...

XNA Developer Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/directx/XNA/default.aspx

I watched the videos and I looked at the games. I was so SOOOOO impressed. Then, I found out about this...

Game Studio Express Contest
http://www.dreambuildplay.com/index.html
(That's morse code at the bottom of the page. It says, "YOUR WORLD YOUR GAME")

It looks like there's going to be a contest starting in January. I thought, "Wouldn't it be awesome if we put a team together - here at photics.com - where we make Photics: Revisions a true PC / XBOX 360 game?"

Yet, for that to happen, it would take some serious coordination and some serious hard work. That's a lot for a volunteer project. Yet, there are aspiring game designers in this community. If we can win the contest - even if we can make a decent game - it could be a great way to achieve Internet glory.

I watched some videos, it looked like a lot of fun to try. I watched the "Looking at XNA" video pages. It was amazing stuff. One funny part is where the interviewer says something like, ""Do you guys get this? He just set a break point on a 360." The race game shown was amazing... running at 1080 Progressive.

I was psyched, ready to run out the door and pick up an XBOX 360, but I'm waiting for some coders to show up and comment about this. I don't know C# or Maya. Game studios spend millions to make stuff like this happen. Can the Photics.com community pull it off, just for the fun of it? And actually... there is a money making opportunity here. While the games cannot be sold on the XBOX 360 - yet - I think it's OK to sell the PC version.

Am I insane to think this is possible?

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Michael Garofalo
Webmaster - http://photics.com

Hey Photics all I have to say is that you aren't crazy and that it is possible but you would need to find out how long the contest is. If it is less then 3 months there is no way in hell but if it is like 5 months to like 6 months thats looking like it is possible. Even with experienced coders or graphic designers/animators it would take a while. Think of it this way you would need just about 1 month for planning out the whole game, this means getting the concepts done and making sure you find a good art team and programming team. Also it should be noted that an amateur programmer would not be suited unless you were planning on using some of the most basic commands. The second month would be working on getting all the art done from the concepts and making sure they all look the same for a coherent game. The 3rd month would be for incorporating the art for whatever they used as a place holder when making the code. The 4th month would be for working out all the bugs with alpha testers and trying to elminate the biggests bugs. Lastly the
5th month would be for beta testers to refine the game and make it as good as possible. Mike all I have to say is one thing, if you plan on doing this you are going to need alot of heart for this project because to see a project fail really stinks.

PS. I don't know how much I could help but I would be willing to give it a try.