[Disc] Is it the Summer holidays here already ?

It's not a general site actually!
1) The tutorials are needed to bridge the void that has been created with the coming of as3. FK is mainly being flooded with noob questions, cause there are lack of proper tutorials! In old days, whenever people came up with a problem, we could send them to tonypa's tile based tutorials, or other thousands of as2 type tutorials available out there! But is there such a thing for as3? How many tutorials have been posted on FK in the days of as2, and since the coming of as3? Also, though there are few tutorials, those are mainly concept oriented which only those, who are familiar with programming can benefit from! Seriously, just one "how to move the mc in as3" tutorial, can get rid of a hundred of the same question being repeated over and over! And once written, we are done with it, no more need to maintain it, unless adobe comes up with something crazier!


2) For the "normal" part of the forum, thats there so that beginners can get started, and we can evaluate who should actually be invited in the main group! You know, if you just think of devs and leave out the beginners, the void is just gonna grow!



well in any situation, majority rules! but one thing for sure, if we do make this board, we need someone like squize, renderhjs, pazil,.... who are real devs, alongwith someone from among the passionate beginners on the board, so that there's a proper balance on the site! The type of site we are talking about cannot be maintained by mods or admins, but rather needs to be sustained by members, so we first need someone who actually knows what all devs from here would be looking for!

I think the tutorials argument has very little to do with creating a new forum. Sure there's no such thing as too many tutorials, but it's better to concentrate on one thing at a time.

I think that what most of here want is somewhere we can talk about making games, not another help site. Flashkit will hopefully still exist for a long time and it does the job of helping beginners relatively well already.
Yes there would have to be a public forum, or new members who want to join in would have no way of getting in unless they already knew someone on the inside.

The main point is though that we want somewhere to hang out, share ideas and show stuff off to get valuable feedback, that's all that really matters at the moment, the rest will work itself out.

Ali

hmm, ok, but how are we going to pick whom to invite?

and, does anyone have a spare domain name?

All these suggestions of a new forum make me wonder: what's the advantage?

Is it that a few select members migrate from this forum to this new forum and suddenly start posting and inspiring each other (something they didn't do on this forum)?

Is it that you want to invite friends over to this new forum to just talk about game design (something that hasn't happened on this forum)?

If it didn't work on Flashkit, how could it work on "a new forum"? As far as I'm concerned all that is suggested doesn't demand a new forum, so thinking that a new forum will solve everything and work itself out is a bit on the positive side. It seems to me that everybody is grabbing the chance of the idea of a new forum for letting their imagination ride on how it would ideally look like. Makes me wonder why Flashkit can't be that place.

If anything bummed me out to post here it's this. The negativity is sickening. Negative prophecies are quite easy to make selffullfilling, as it's quite easy to think a forum into oblivion. If you guys want to start up a new forum so everybody can magically do the things they didn't do here then fine, good luck to you.

EDIT: Is it me, or is everybody pointing fingers to "the forum"? Here's me thinking that the forum is actually a community of people regardless of what technology is behind it. For some reason None of the people that damage this forum are in this thread, while all posts are how everybody has lost hope and doesn't post here anymore along with an excuse. Blaming it on the forum would be much, much easier.

The benefit of an invite-only forum is the ability to more easily show works-in-progress without thinking it will be ripped off, or released as it is etc...Thus the argument would go that you could show more things freely and have more community/feedback. (Not saying I agree or disagree with it, just stating what I understand)

I think FK is mainly about Flash games development, and shall show case the members work.
Instead of "game of the week" thread, FK should start a "submit your game" page, where registered members can submit their alpha, beta, and completed games (.SWF files only). FK has a "movies" page now with a games section, but you have to also include the .FLA file there. In the new page only .SWF file, with an icon of the game, description, and instructions to play, etc, should be posted. The author of the game can also post the .FLA file of the game as an additional option. Separate page should be given for each game, with a provision for comments; and ranking by the reviewers, along with replies by the author/artist. These games can also be cross-referred to the board's games section for further discussion through threads/posts. This method removes the necessity of members of going to the other games websites, for publishing their work, and for obtaining reviews. The present "game of the week" thread fulfills this requirement only partially, since the game posted is not published in a separate page with provision for reviews, ranking, etc, and the in the "movies" section you must include the .FLA.
I hope my proposal is not against FK's existing policies.

I also think we should try a private forum. I'm not sure it will work but, we all agree there are excellent people here, that don't share anymore their stuf. So why not trying something else like a private forum.

@bluemagica, my adivice is to make a quick try with a simple forum like punbb. I don't think you should rent a new server/domain for this. If it works (the forum is active), then later you can improve things.

The problem with that is, if you create a private forum you're dragging people away from this one straight away. You would also need to find a way to distinguish between users who can and cannot be trusted with seeing the content in the forum, and it must be a method of separation that everyone agrees with because who one user may trust with seeing their WIPs another may not.

And seeming as the only solid, usefull statistics PHPBB stores are join-date and post-count, which are pretty bad indicators as to how trustworthy someone is, you are left with the option of manual selection, which makes the whole process subject to the selectors' opinions and, obviously, much more time-consuming. See how it wouldn't work?

Somthing you could add is a form of karma where users could rate up posts in which a user demonstrates their own material. Once they hit a certain threshold they could be allowed to see certain posts in the forum, posts which are designated [WIP-Hide] when created (the option for this could be in the same drop-down menu where flash-version can be selected). This way users could also create their own posts like this, of course users would be able to see their own posts, regardless of whether they're over the "karma" or not. I don't think it would be very hard to create a plugin to that effect.


The site could just be going through a lull in discussion :rolleyes:. FK can't die, it'll obviously come through. :p

@Site-Jp, I have already started building the forum, and Right now I am modding it a bit for better usability! I will pm a few people here to take a fist look at it, later today!

Oof, I was trying to chug through all the text and points made in this thread, but I think I'll stop short
I'm not even visiting the thread with the hundreds of responses

I'm just going to say what made the Flashkit forum good to me, aside from the friendly atmosphere, was that I was stuck right in the middle

Good enough so that I could help offload new programmers from bothering the senior members, yet bad enough that I'm overwhelmingly impressed whenever one of the professionals release a game

I'm guessing the gap between new and older members is widening?

What we do is we don't open a site to rival FK, but to sister it. So we have one site for guys who are keen on the new platform development and monitising chitchat (flash to ipod etc). And another for AS3 coding and hardcore games design discussion-

The forum rules would go something like this:
In this forum you CAN:
a) start threads related to the games you like and mocking up similar Flash replications.
b) post your WIPS and expect feedback
c) post tutorials and gain credit for your work
d) discuss other software in relation to their involvement in the creation of Flash games,ie sprite creation with photoshop. Bipeds in Max etc.


In this forum you CANT:
a) discuss the 'business' of Flash. Potential profits, average game revenue, MochiAds.
b) ask questions that are already in the FAQ and expect answers.
c) ask for AS2 assistance.

Just as a start.

As per some of your suggestions I have created this far(the looks are terrible, I know, but graphics ain't my forte, especially when I have exams starting in a few days)! Join up, and tell me what changes you want! If you don't like anything, just tell me.....

www.burningice-games.com/forums

It's a fair enough start. Realistically these things take time though, it's good to see someone spending the effort to mock up a forum though it's unlikely to catalyse a new wave of contributors into posting with its current lack of anything uniquely attractive.

Needless to say you've much planned for the forum, so it's a little early for criticism. First and foremost you'll have to match the apparatus FK has, Quick Reply, Wrap [] Quotes, and hopefully a method to upload flash files and have them instantly appear in the thread after you submit. If you do get to that point then it'll be time for some bonafide discussion as to where to go from there.
There is space for another, more integrally games-based FK brother but it's going to take someone quite a lot of determination and willpower to bring it to the attention of guys who will truly bother to contribute heavily.

All it takes is a few inspired posts and what has just been mentioned and it may kick off, but sadly, like most collaborations -even those with the best intentions- it'll most likely fall hard on its ass before it gets going unless it's got something really going for it.

Anyway good luck.

Well, quickreply, wrap[] quote, and file uploader/attachment module are already present and installed! Also, I have included some special bbcodes to make life easier.... but those aren't available to guests or registered users, but only to those who are actually accepted as a flash dev.


EDIT: I am having a bit of trouble at the data center, so the site may be unavailable to some of you! I am trying to resolve this as quickly as possible! Please bear with me!

So apparantly it takes me 2 days to get around to installing an art program,
and just last night I threw together a quick chamber to see if this game is
going to be attractive

In other words it took me 5 days to do something that takes a fraction of one

I am going to post a short-term image because I feel I never show anything
quality on FlashKit, but I will not start a thread for my work-in-progress until I develop a
work ethic =\

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m...458/sample.jpg

Mostly I am just looking for someone to tell me I am capable of making a game
-cough-

The forums are back again after some changes! And the most important one is, the registration now requires admin verification, cause the email based verification had a possible security risk! So once you register, please wait for me to activate your account! Also you can shoot me a pm here if you want!

Oh and if you have any suggestions, please post it at the forum there(in the suggestions section)!

Thought I should return to the scene of my crime, really surprised it's still where it is on the front page ( But then again, not too surprised ).

I think for a "spin-off" forum to work then it has to be by default to be elitist. That means invite only and everyone at pretty much the same skill level ( The level itself doesn't really matter, it doesn't have to be only for the "highest" skill sets, whatever that means, but it should be an equal playing field ).
I know that goes against everything I've ever said about FK.games, but a spin off isn't FK.games, it's a unique beast and the rules should reflect that.

Also I don't believe a forum has to be feature complete before it's of use, members make a forum what it is, not being able to do this or that.
If everyone is waiting until that board is all singing all dancing, then that's just time wasted. It's about chatting and the interchange of ideas in an open and honest environment, not nice tag support.
( Too many people take that approach with their games and never release anything because of that ).

Squize.

Agree