Development Process

What do you like/dislike?

Poll: Development Process (20 member(s) have cast votes)
I like doing these:
Graphics: Interface Elements
(3 votes [2.26%])
Percentage of vote: 2.26%
Graphics: Ships/Stellar Objects
(12 votes [9.02%])
Percentage of vote: 9.02%
Graphics: Outfits/Weapons/Yard
(6 votes [4.51%])
Percentage of vote: 4.51%
Graphics: Landing Scenes
(1 votes [0.75%])
Percentage of vote: 0.75%
Writing: Overall Story
(14 votes [10.53%])
Percentage of vote: 10.53%
Writing: Missions, Dialogue
(9 votes [6.77%])
Percentage of vote: 6.77%
Writing: Outfit/Ship Descs
(15 votes [11.28%])
Percentage of vote: 11.28%
Writing: Planet Descriptions
(8 votes [6.02%])
Percentage of vote: 6.02%
Gameplay: Progression
(9 votes [6.77%])
Percentage of vote: 6.77%
Gameplay: Weapon/Ship Mechanics
(16 votes [12.03%])
Percentage of vote: 12.03%
Gameplay: Balance (faction/ships/weaps)
(13 votes [9.77%])
Percentage of vote: 9.77%
Technical: Innovation
(9 votes [6.77%])
Percentage of vote: 6.77%
Technical: Organization
(5 votes [3.76%])
Percentage of vote: 3.76%
Technical: Data Entry
(3 votes [2.26%])
Percentage of vote: 2.26%
Technical: Testing
(10 votes [7.52%])
Percentage of vote: 7.52%

I was reading some game development articles, and started wondering how much similarity or difference people had in what they considered 'the fun parts' of development were.

Consider anything you tend to gravitate to doing, are good at, or enjoy, as a 'Like'.
And anything you put off, struggle with, or dislike as a 'Dislike'.
If you feel neutral about an item, just leave it blank.

Interesting topic. I'm looking forward to what other people think.

My number one favorite thing to tackle is technical innovation as those of you who've played Anathema may have noticed. As someone who's played the Escape Velocity series since the days of www.escape-velocity.com (read: a really, really long time ago), standard fare can get repetitive, despite the variety the Nova engine added to the series. Things like Anathema's funding segments or the endgame mission (got your interest now? ) are tons of fun to create, and even more fun to brainstorm. Besides, isn't the point of modding to break the software?

A close second in terms of importance to me, both in my own works and in terms of what I enjoy in others, is what I would call "atmosphere" or "immersion." It isn't really on here, but I suppose it could go under "overall story." Basically, great graphics, gameplay, writing, et al can be rendered completely moot (at least in my opinion) by a universe that seems shoddily thrown together or just downright wrong in spots. Also note that very little problems can cause major immersion-breaking, making this especially important.

Although I'm not great at it, I also like doing ship graphics. It's just another way of getting the creative juices going, at least for me. I have also learned of late the importance of doing good concept sketches as well, which I would highly recommend to anyone else who's doing graphics.

As for 2d graphics, I'm very bad at them and find them tedious. So landing images, spöb graphics, and interface are all a major pain. Again, anybody who played Anathema would also probably have come to that conclusion. :rolleyes:

The same thing applies to spöb dëscs, at least in terms of tedium. It pretty much seems like I'm just BSing my way through whatever I'm writing for the most part, which I suppose I am given that I'm making it up. I do, however, like doing ship and outfit dëscs since there's something more concrete going for them.

Oh, and testing isn't as much a "dislike" as "depressing" as you take a look at all your hard work and notice how badly you screwed it up in places. :laugh:

Definitely my least favorite has to be making descriptions for planets. It's long and tedious and it can be difficult to think of unique descriptions if you are doing several planets.

That's funny, because writing planets is one of my favorites! I didn't mark it as a "like" as most of my plugs expand a story within a given universe. I'm really big on immersion as well, and for me, that's building a really well crafted universe, setting, or scenario. If I ever make a TC (not gonna happen), I know that "universe building", and brainstorming unique planets would be one of the more fun elements.

As far as graphics go, I like 2D graphics best. I don't have any 3D graphic tools (just downloaded blender, but haven't installed it yet), but I've been blessed to own a copy of Fireworks for 7 years now. I prefer simple detail-oriented images that I can edit on the pixel level. That isn't very helpful for building Nova graphics, but it does help at the outfitter.

If anyone wants help on a TC, though, I can volunteer to write up a batch of planets.

The biggest problem I have with CTC-C is getting the storyline off the ground. Until I can think of a direction to take it, I'm stuck. Yes, I know it's October. I'm sorry!

ahem Well, I too like to write outfit and planet descs. That's where the majority of your universe's personality is going to stem from. It's also a great opportunity to insert inside jokes into your game/TC/Plug-in/whatever.

This post has been edited by JacaByte : 07 October 2009 - 10:41 PM

I enjoy all aspects of writing, although trying to do a bunch of planets in one sitting gets really tedious. I also enjoy designing ships and mucking around with their stats, although my ship designs are rarely anything above average.

My favorite part is developing the history and over-arching storyline(s). My least favorite part would be the technical side of things - data entry, mission scripting, organization, testing.

I like most parts, including developing and balancing ships, making graphics. I kinda dislike doing descs simply because I'm bad at writing, and I would prefer for someone else to do it. But the worst part of working on a plug with someone else, is when the other guy either decides for whatever reason to just quit, or he just evaporates into thin air and you're left hanging. But I definitely love to make ships/weapons and their graphics.

The most fun part for me was writing (overall story & missions themselves). Second best: racking my brain to figure out how to do certain things with mïsns, cröns, …

The thing I disliked the most was testing it all. Gets boring re-doing everything 50 times.

This post has been edited by Pace : 10 October 2009 - 04:56 AM

And of course, debugging is crazy. Kind of fun at first, but quickly makes you want to yank your hair out.

I really like writing, testing, and the gameplay category, but am terrible at making graphics.

This post has been edited by oryhara : 10 October 2009 - 04:41 PM

QUOTE (EVWeb @ Oct 10 2009, 02:57 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But the worst part of working on a plug with someone else, is when the other guy either decides for whatever reason to just quit, or he just evaporates into thin air and you're left hanging.

For real. I still get bummed thinking about the graphics I did, way back in the days of EV Classic, for a plug that never saw the light of day. Don't recall what it was going to be named, but it had four, maybe five different factions, each with three to six unique ships. There was one alien race in particular that had ships that looked like insects that I was very, very proud of, and another hi-tech alien race with a glowing ship texture that looked a lot like the Polaris (although not nearly as cool, as those were the days of 8-bit color).

But the project lead bailed, and then my hard drive crashed a couple of years later, and all of those ships were lost for good.

Although I did run across one of them on somebody's "shipyard" web site a while back, so who knows... maybe they're still floating around somewhere.