I'm jealous of the Unreal developers...

They do reward users in many ways now.

 

I wonder if some people didn't receive the big bag of Halloween candy from Unity this week.

 

Time to go play a trick then...

 

The community is a lot more positive and friendly than it used to be when I first arrived here! I think a lot of the grumpy people have left. Maybe they went to Unreal Engine. Give them a bit of time and I bet they get grumpy there.

 

I have a feeling this would most likely be the case. It would be kind of a waste if the Unity team actually did the leg-work to make Unity community game-jams happen, and then very few people actually engaged in it. Then it slowly loses steam and dies a slow death.

I agree with that as well.

 

I like the idea of a game jam held every so often. At school we have about 3-4 a year & class is usually pretty deserted on the Monday. There are no prizes, just the fun of seeing how others interpreted the theme & the brief coverage of what worked/didn't work in their development.

As most people here are making games as a hobby & working full time, or working full time making other games, having a jam too frequently would likely lead to not many entries.

Perhaps if one was held the winner could be shown at the next Unite rather than winning a physical prize that would need to be split between the teams (all of different sizes I'm sure)? Some kudos/reputation/exposure may be more welcome as a prize.

 

It could be worse. A LOT worse. Some of the boards I visited back in the day' were so full of cynical jackasses and childish people I don't know why I put up with the abuse.

 

Not sure about "more fun", because I'd prefer "more productive".

While unreal community does have unique friendly vibe (which I thought was extinct from today's internet), your chance of getting assistance with complex issues is identical in both communities. Meaning, it is very low or zero.

Unity community could use a bit more friendliness/politeness. While people laugh and joke around as hippomoderator said, that generally happens in offtopic section of forum. In technical sections getting response is fairly hard and you can literally hear cicadas chirping sometimes. Still, it is the usual thing with all the software related stuff these days. Right now the community is at decent level of ye olde technical support forum (without extra bloodthirstiness and bonus murderous intent present on some other sites), except population seems a bit low.

Anyway, instead of all the "fun stuff", I'd prefer to be able to get answer to any technical questions (no matter how difficult or complicated) in 15 seconds. However, that obviously is not going to happen.

 

Examples? Links?

 

I'm already in a competition, it's Steam's Top Sellers list and the prizes are millions.

 

Hmm, its halloween soon and there are 666 pages of threads on General Discussion. Coincidence?

 

I'm still trying to find when Epic technical people are fun when they respond to people questions ?
Is fun factor coming from your own interpretation of what is a fun response and what is not

 

Congrats, now I am jealous!!

 

Competition within a group always has a negative effect
There are different degrees of negative effect depending on different levels of competition however competition as a community builder is actually a rather inefficient way to address community.

Within a community events that encourage cooperation for a shared goal has a much better outcome.
I can provide links on studies in this area if it at all changes things.

In short, companies that spend time creating competitive events to encourage community are actually wasting their time and in some cases causing the exact problems they are trying to solve

I should also add that different personality types respond differently to competition and the one group that often responds negatively to competition are creative types which is the majority of game programmers I would think.


Personally I think Unreals attempt to make competitive speed competitions for a creative projects is one of the worst ideas ever.

 

LOL
So why all UE4 users participating really have fun and enjoy it ? A lot just join for the fun and tp play with UE4 features.
I think it's more a fun competition than hard competition and people participating are not showing AAA skills, this remains a friendly and fun contest.

 

1. I think 'all users participating really having fun' is a statement that is filled with a lot of unproven conjecture based on a bias.
2. Fun and efficient are not always the same thing. IF and I stress IF you want a community that works well together then you want projects in which all members are working on the same goal. Doing so teaches the team collaboration skills which are extremely helpful and fairly rare in high quality. Now IF you are just trying to sell license the they might be on the right path even more so if they are rewarding with cash.

 

Ths game contest goal is not to marry forum users or making it friends.
This is only a simple optionnal contest , you participae only if you have time and want, no stress at all , and some can win some prizes.
If some user got lot of stress because he only want to win something it is it's own problem.
Like anyone making a game , if the user is getting to much stress making it's own game we can't do anything about it , this is it's own personnal problem.

I never seen big collaboration community projects working , because motivation goes away and many people super motivated at start will also fade away for lot of reasons.

I think Epic goal with this small contests is only to motivate people with no commercial game project personnal goals to participate for the fun and at same time learn the engine.

Anyway, i really don't mind no more about if X or Y community is fun or have some contests
Community is lot more than that and very valuable to help or learn or simply share ideas and it is great here at Unity
and also great at Epic , and on some other places, while it is an abandonned place at Cryteck forums for example.

 

ok I follow and I know what is going on now.

Unreal is doing this to get more users into unreal in hopes of winning prizes

its not for building community and to be honest not even sure its for 'fun' and I doubt very seriously that having these competitions are making the community more friendly.

 

Oh god, I can see it now.. there would be a game jam, and 5 mins after the winner was announced Steam would have 20 clones of it.

Which gets to the real crux of the issue of the OP. Unity is very easy to use. Unity is very easy for people to do almost no work and learn nothing, and still be a ´developer´ and throw something on Steam. Unreal is more complicated and there are not nearly as many ´import this asset and call it a game´ type things.

The more time I spend in the asset store and watching tutorials and then looking at steam, the more I realize how many dozens if not hundreds of people do nothing here except take tutorials and add them to the asset store, or take asset store items and add them to Steam.

 

@anselmo.fresquez every time I try to address you, I have trouble because your name is so different (I really have to spell it out)

I'm not going to provide a link, those sites are mostly unpopulated now or offline completely. I was one of the childish users for a good chunk of time, and my history in those places is not something I'm proud of (or like to think about). Suffice to say I don't want to talk about it.

I like to think that I have grown up lots since that time. I was quite hesitant to even post on these boards, given my history. I was quite charmed by the friendliness here though!

@Carve_Online Thats just not true. The UDK may utilize C++, but that doesn't mean its hard to use or that either of these platforms requires "learning nothing". It takes a considerable amount of skill and knowledge to program, let alone make a game regardless of what aid you have at your disposal. I am still learning!

 

Cryengine isn't really

Yeah thank goodness consoles aren't that open. It'd have been flooded with utter garbage by now. Hopefully this will all lead to a split between indie professional and indie amateur. Mixing the two really just makes some sort of gloopy mess baked beans in custard.

 

Who said games ? Did you know about Archi Viz contest ?
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/winners-of-the-vineyard-challenge-revealed
And the winners are really skilled people i think
Some people should take a look at what is going on at Epic before assuming things.

And what is the problem, because only great games or great Unity plugin matters , no ?
It is like internet you will find lot of garbage, just skip it.

 

It won't be so bad if you also get some rice.

 

Sorry, I didn´t explain that well enough. It takes almost zero knowledge or skills to flip something from the asset store into a ´game´that could be pushed onto Steam for $1. It takes almost zero knowledge to build a map and have a character running around on it in Unity and trick people into thinking you have done a significant amount of work ( to someone who doesn´t know Unity). Unreal does not have that ultra-easy first step nor the downloadable assets that allow it to happen as frequently as it does on Unity.

Unity has 3 classes of Indie Developers

1. Scam artist who do no work, just download assets and do minimal things to either push a game on steam, or take enough screenshots to go to crowdfunding.
2. Hobbiest who are at the earliest stages of learning and attempting to make a game
3. Indie developers with the skills necessary to make a game.

Hopefully everyone from 2 will become 3.... but the people in 1, never even aspire to be anything but 1. Unreal does not have nearly as many 1s as Unity does, and that is where you see much of the friction in the Unity community. It is just not as easy in Unreal to do s lot of the asset flipping and ´screenshot PR´ that a lot of 1s do in Unity.

 

Did you ever used Unreal 4 one time only ? Don't you know about UE4 game templates and Blueprints?
Feww .. i'm away from this thread , this is becoming worst every time.

 

There will be once their asset store is as mature as the unity one though.

 

Yep, and I speak English with no discernable slang or accent. Vocab word bonus round: Unabashed ethnocentrism... And people ask me why I am so cynical.

@Braineeee - Your posting style doesn't change, anymore than your personality changes. It evolves and refines with time. So whatever problems you used to have will likely happen again. See, I spelled your name right and it isn't even a real word.

 

I think this is great idea. The 'prize' is a benefit you can't easily buy (publicity), and benefits unity. Also it doesn't just turn it into a prize competition, it keeps the focus on developing the game for its own sake and just to get free stuff. It also promotes the developer and encourages further development of the game

 

There's different kinds of competition and different kinds of cooperation.

People that compete in groups are coopearting with each other within the group.

Also, the pharse "the only thing I learned from group project is how much I hate the other people" comes to mind.

Both communities are the same in terms of efficiency, and you're seriously overthinking it.

Forced collaboration won't get you anywhere. People need to enjoy what they're doing for the maximum impact.

They won't. Prizes aren't that often discussed on UE4 forum.

You can do similar thing in Unreal. Also, you can use Unity assets for that. When you make a new project, you can chose to use premade skeleton game.

You forgot people that already work for studio but prefer to waste all their free time in general/offtopic forum for some reason.

 

+1. Chilling out. Will get back to work on Monday.

 

I call it research.

 

Work is just meetings, this is game development.

 

I thought I heard this thread needed a vibe.

Personally, I don't have time for game jams- I'm loving the community as it is, but I can see where it would be fun for people, and I'd definitely check out some of the entries.

Prizes? Meh, unless it's a date with a publisher to finance my next game, I don't think id get too excited about winning a prize- but maybe slapping a 1st place sticker on my game might be handy for marketing.

 

I agree that the Unity Community needs to be more fun and enjoyable. That would allow for more fun and enjoyable threads to read, all day.

Then, you never need to fire-up Unity and enjoy a marvel of game creation godliness. You can just imagine it. There, where every one of your Unity made games is an awesome the word awesome was invented for.

Then you are free. Free to do fek all. Free to let your brain turn in to Vegemite. Free to procrastinate till your just a thin, can't be bothered to even breathe dead guy......

Or something like that.

 

Would you settle for an Oprah sticker? I hear those make things sell like crazy.

A Million Little Pixels anyone?

 

There's the unity awards which has the marketing thing!

 

This is what is a fun forum where all people mainly have fun all the time.
Thanks God Unity forums are not so fun

 

So I am unclear what the OP of this thread is talking about then.

 

THIS is exactly my point.

If you want to 'build community' competition within said community is what you DONT want to do. That is called war.

Its the clan mentality that makes us successful hunters and conquer.
You humanize those in your clan that you are in cooperate with and de-humanize those clans you are in competition with.

Having competition within a group runs the risk of divisive mentality which by the way is why I never support such efforts at work on community its all wrong

 

Are actually being serious?
If yes, then how the heck did you come to this conclusion?

I think it is either nonsense or a massive overreaction. Have you ever participated in any competition yourself? It is not how they work.

Athletes don't murder each other in sport competitions and neither do racing teams.
The spirit of the competition should be friendly, and that's enough.

"Dehumanizing" during war times is result of propaganda by the way, not an automatic outcome of the "competition".
And comparing videogame engine competition to war is ridiculous.

It is an event where you can look at who's capable of what, maybe make new contacts, notice some new people, and get some experience. And that's it.

You're overthinking it. Someone should just make an event already and just see how it turns out.

 

I guess you guys are new.

We've seen all that and done all that and it's fine.

 

I know you said you're "away from this thread", but I would just like to say something real quick.

I have used Unreal Engine, and honestly? I found it to be too cluttered to do anything efficiently. Yes, blueprints are AWESOME and I love them (and Timelines, those things saved my butt in several cases), but if you're just an average joe who wants to look into game development, I would say stick with Unity because it's much easier to grasp for a first-time user than Unreal is.

Plus, if you want to move beyond Blueprints you're stuck with C++, which is just more cumbersome than it needs to be.

But that is just my $0.02!

Now, back on topic with this thread here.

Contests/competitions are great and all, but I find it can also detract entirely from one's motivation to work on their game, rather than a game designed for a 30-day competition. This is, of course, assuming you're already working on a game. If you're not then obviously you can join if you want, but I guess my point is that I would get distracted too easily and probably forget about my game altogether.

I'm finally actually building my game, one line of code at a time, and I would hate to see a competition pop up that I knew I couldn't join because it would distract me too much.

 

OK, I've been working on something that I think could add some fun for the Unity Community, an AI Tanks challenge.



It's been around for ages, but the idea is programmer's write controllers for warring virtual bots. It's kind of like robot wars for programmer's. But I've kept it simple and just adapted the Tanks tutorial so you can write a Tank AI script and do battle with other programmer's tanks.

Maybe later we can add destructible designer carapaces, pincers, grinders and flamethrowers. Or multi-unit combat, power-ups, ammo points etc.

But if we start simple we can see who can write the best little (no cheating allowed @BoredMormon ) TankAI.

Anyway pop over to its current thread, I know I need to start a new thread for this, but it's early days.

I know programming AI is not everyone's cup of tea, but the game designers could think about how to improve the game mechanics, artists could work on new tanks and level designers on new levels.

We could all have some creative fun with this, not that it should take you away from your current project just something we can tinker with and share as a community.

Have Fun

 

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235229

SCIENCE!

to be fair this isnt the article I was looking for. a study was done and found that businesses that supported cooperation had higher productivity then those that did not

and yes sharp people should be able to convert the needs of business to the needs of community. and yes community and businesses have been doing it wrong for generations

and no I dont participate in competitions like ever that I am aware of

 

An article in entrepreneur with no reference to any studies or data is science?

Well, cooperation has its own limits due to team size and project management. Competition can introduce problems where sub-optimal solutions can be reached that if combined could become optimal solutions.

There are plenty of arenas where small dedicated but highly skilled teams can achieve what much larger teams might not due to project management complexity and flexibility.

For instance have your heard of the IT company that has a FED Ex Friday, where developers are freed to develop a solution that they think the business or their clients needs.

I would say that it's a balancing act and the styles of cooperation or competition would greatly impact the performance as well as the skill levels of the team members.

 

I demand multiple links to studies that support your idea.

The article you linked talks about business/enterprenuership, not about game dev contests.

Which has nothing to do with your idea that "contest means competition, therefore it is not cooperation, therefore it is war, therefore it is dehumanizing and harmful for the community". Your argument is jumping to conclusion and landing on the moon in the process.

That explains a lot. Well, you should participate in few of them. Art competition, sports, music, anything.

 

you demand?

nope done talking to you.

Maybe if you provide a link in turn but overall nope...done

are you the result of this community building competition

as far as Unreals creative competition projects with dreams of bringing people together for community fun they can suck my big hairy

 

The moon landing never happened. Inside of a 9V battery is just two AAA batteries. What don't they want us to know? Wikipedia is owned by communists.

#arguingontheinternet

 

We need RNG Team Devmatch

One week of signups and then all participants and scrambled and assigned to random teams. One week deadline.

 

This will pay as much/more than my day job, right?