Game Development - 2012-01-17 (page 1 of 2)

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12:09 AM

Anyone know some good tutorials on using the GPU to do calculations? I know the idea behind it, inputting data into the buffer instead of colors, and then doing the math you want.

But when I see it doing fluid simulations, it has to know where it's neighbors are and where they're going. I don't see how you do that as a parallel process.

12:35 AM

well, it's doable in parallel processes if each state is only based on the previous state. There's a really cool way to do multi-threaded entity updates in games where you do this

A wrote a quick little paragraph about it here: gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/19487/…

As for CUDA (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUDA), I don't know anything about it other than it's great at doing linear algebra and multi-tasking

12:59 AM

Hmm. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around handing collision.

I was thinking of seeing if I could make a simple test similar to wxSand that runs on the GPU.

And... on most machines, you'll have 1-3 idle CPU cores that could help out. Is there a requirement that it runs on a GPU?

Nah, it's mostly for the knowledge of how it's done. I was wondering if something like SPH could be done on the GPU.

yeah, Ok

I'm not really interested in that area of computing

Multithreading - yes, getting some code to run in SDL? no

:( I just finished getting rid of all of my singletons, and now I want to add one again

sigh

(this is where someone chimes in and says: "DON'T DO IT", and I say: "But how do I get info from A to B?)

I like singletons.

@TrevorPowell Not that it's definitive, but I found I really didn't need my singletons and it made for cleaner code once they were gone. Here's some articles that I think @Josh put me onto: code.google.com/p/google-singleton-detector/wiki/… and digitalsandwich.com/archives/77-why-i-hate-singletons.html

1:15 AM

Oh, I agree. If you don't need singletons, don't have them. But occasionally they really simplify code architecture.

yeah... in my case, when I first made the singletons, the reason was: "Because there's only ever one, and it makes it easier to access everywhere". And that's a bad reason

There's still only ever one, and I can't even imagine how there could be two, but still

Interesting links, too.

yeah, I thought so

(it could have been Jimmy, I get those two confused because they both know a lot and their names are similar)

Too many 'J' people. ;)

Anyway, so the new singleton I want to make is for Settings

heh, yeah

1:18 AM

If it's global settings, I don't see any problem with making it a globally accessible object.

yeah, it's settings for the game, so technically it could belong to the game, BUT my main menu knows nothing of the game and still requires access to the settings (the music volume)

If it's document settings or handles a more localised domain, then I'd think twice about it.

In my case, my game engine has a "System" singleton which provides access to things like the screen size and general engine configuration values. Including music and sfx volumes. But game-specific settings are handled by the game itself, and are not provided in singleton form.

yeah

(Also basic controller mappings, resolution, bit depth, and all that generic 'engine' sort of stuff)

1:42 AM

In XNA I just pass game around to most things, embracing the GameComponents idea, so I have Settings as a game service.

I haven't used game components in my home stuff, yet.

I currently have InputGameComponent, NetworkGameComponent and LoginInterfaceGameComponent.

The last one will be merged with a more general InterfaceGameCompoenent later.

Most game components are also added as services.

So the Login Interface just looks up Input and Network service, and uses the methods and events exposed.

As long as I don't request services in the GameComponent constructor and only in the Initialize override, I'll never have a problem with correct initialization.

And I recently learned that I can have separate DrawOrder and UpdateOrder on the GameComponents, making them ideal to handle input as well I think.

But I'll see once I start working on the interface.

I don't know if it's clever or not with GameComponents, but they're an integral part of XNA, so I figured I'd try embracing them.

user4704

2:00 AM

Grr singletons rage!

2:31 AM

Oh! I was thinking about game object components, when you were talking about components, earlier.

Yeah, I designed and implemented an engine which was entirely component-driven for an employer, a few years back. Was kind of an interesting engine. Don't know if I'd design something like that for personal use, though.

@JoshPetrie Lots of rage today. :P

3 hours later…

6:07 AM

@NYARGH singletons!

hmmm

i wonder if there's anyone named NYARGH

I don't "hate singletons" I just don't think they are the solution to any particular problem

and 80% of people don't understand when to not use them (most of the time) so it becomes an anti-pattern very fast

I have two singletons in my code

I'm pretty sure I only need one, max.

and honestly with enough refactoring, i could get rid of both of them

well, that's one issue, because singletons are usually used as a global variable

so you can always make a global Ubervariable that holds the other variables

doesn't really make things better

although in game-dev, sometimes you just think. Well, I always have one GAME running. so I should probably be okay with making it a singleton.

and a lot of the time, you're right.

see, that was my original thinking

but now, i am pretty sure i'm only ever going to have one game running, period

that's the easy singleton to get rid of

where people mess up is something like, "I'll have one networkmanager class ever"

i'd actually probably end up doing it if/when i do a massive refactor of code after i release the first version of my game and start making tens of dollars

6:13 AM

or "I'll have one data abstraction layer ever"

ha, "manager" classes

i just throw my code into a pot and stir

then eat glorious, glorious spaghetti

anyway it's time to bed. refactoring comes after i finish my game

9 hours later…

2:46 PM

whoo hoo! update on my game: plus.google.com/u/0/112962835616627612049/posts/YeApV3pRXAW </shameless plug>

3:37 PM

Yay! Lookin' good there @thedaian

for certain definitions of "good"

Sure, I guess it could use a skin, and I need to start thinking about skinning some time

it looks terrible, but the functionality is done, so it's about half there

Well, I'm glad you're making progress, :)

so am i :)

3:50 PM

So, I think I found a reasonable way to handle my settings without using a singleton. Just make it when the exe starts, and pass it to both the game instance and the 1 menu item that needs it. These are going to be the user-configurable graphics settings, sound settings, key binding (if I allow changes, hey, starcraft doesn't allow changes), etc.

hopefully I can fix up bugs and do some polish this weekend, and then level up my PR machine from 0 to 1

hah, that'll be cool. When can I play?

as soon as I fix up the bugs

right now, the game crashes in a few different spots that would be easy for most users to hit

so I need to prevent that from happening

but if things go well, I'd have an early playable version this weekend for the people here and such

Sweet

@JohnMcDonald That sounds like it would work, but what happens when you pull up the menu items that need that setting object? would you just pass it around between the game and menu?

3:57 PM

Well... there's "screens" in my game. "The Game" is implemented as a screen, and the "Main Menu" is an other screen. The two know nothing about eachother, other than the fact that other screens exist and how to transfer control to an other screen. So, at the start of the exe, I make all of the screens, then pass them to my ScreenManager that handles transitioning between screens and what is being drawn and updated.

So, my thought is right before all the screens are created, I should create/load the settings, then pass that to the Game screen, and the Main Menu screen, and any other screen that may need the settings.

From "The Game" screen, other things like the entities and HUD will be able to look up settings

ah, ok. so... you change a setting in the "main menu"... and how does the game screen know about that?

hmm... I just thought: maybe my main menu shouldn't bee the one that starts the music.

@thedaian Everything in C# is a reference

ahh, so it's all automatically pointing to the same object

yup

ok, that makes more sense

and is a hell of a lot easier

4:04 PM

Yeah, you can do the same thing in C/C++, you just have to be more explicit about it and use a *

hmmm, i guess i could technically do the same thing to get rid of my "gui" singleton without having to do any real refactoring

that would eliminate all the singletons from my game

yeah, of course the other option is to use a singleton for the settings. It might make sense you know?

wonders if he has a singleton for his settings

I think my settings are just a global variable because it's easier. though I think it uses a static function for accessing settings.

yeah, ok

So it may as well be a singleton

but it's not a singleton! and by static function i mean something like Settings::AreTilesVisible();

4:11 PM

Not a lot different than: Settings::Instance().AreTilesVisible(); (pardon my syntax)

hahaha

it's probably not that much different, but I don't really care enough

i do use global variables in my code because sometimes, it's just easier

yeah, on this project, I'm trying real hard to find a home for variables, and so far, I've been pretty successful

user4704

Ew singletons!

don't worry, they're mostly gone now

user4704

Global variables if you must; singletons aren't worth the effort. They're evil and wrong.

4:17 PM

Thanks for that. So you'd recommend not even using a singleton for global settings?

user4704

I would recommend never using a singleton for anything, ever.

user4704

It is the single (har) most egregious sin ever committed on the craft by the GoF.

So you'd say static, global variables, instead of making a singleton to hold the global variables?

I guess when it comes down to it, there's no real advantage to using a "singleton" for globals, over just using static variables

Other than there's a constructor

user4704

I would recommend finding a way to avoid the globals, but such a thing is often more involved and very domain-specific.

user4704

So instead I would recommend you minimize them; at least package them into as few logical structure as you can and make instances of those global.

4:20 PM

So more like what I was saying here: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/3025709#3025709 or actually here: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/3025618#3025618

user4704

I don't think, for example, that settings are good candidates for globals. In fact I think they're poor ones because they often end up being checked way too frequently as a result of their newfound ease of accessibility, leading to exactly the maintainence issues one would hope to avoid (promiscuous dependencies)

shrugs I'll fix all these issues in the sequel

user4704

More like that, yes, but I would use the settings at the highest possible level to configure the lower layers of abstraction directly via their public interface rather than to allow them direct access through a global; if they have to be given access, I'd encapsulate that in an injected dependency.

hmm

I'm not sure that's completely possible. I'm my case, I need to give settings access to all of my Entities for one. Do I really want to pass the settings to them on creation?

pass the settings to all the things!

user4704

4:25 PM

a) yes, because you already are, you're just being lazy about it and b) why do you need to?

Just so that when I'm building something, the user has the choice of whether or not to see the words "Power Range" on the range ring?

as seen here:

user image

user4704

The range ring is an entity? Why doesn't it just have a flag accessible from its public API that can control the display of the ring label?

It should be a separate entity, but it's not. So, the settings go from the root, to the game screen, to the hud, to the range ring on creation? hmm

user4704

Well something in or about that entity has to know to read a particular property from the settings interface, right?

user4704

Instead why not just have what creates or has authority over that read the settings and tell that thing whether or not to draw.

4:32 PM

yeah, I think that makes sense. That way, the ring will have no idea that settings exist

user4704

That means you remove one of the layers to which you are passing the settings, which means that layer need not know about them explicitly and rather only knows about the configuration of itself in its own terms.

and I do like hiding stuff like that

Cool

Sold

user4704

Plus that means the configurability of that thing is now more explicit because it's part of its API. It has a "setDisplayLabels(bool trueOrFalse)" method or whatever, instead of not mentioning anything at all about whether or not that kind of thing can be controlled.

user4704

Oh. That was easier than I expected it to be. :D

Yeah, it was easier than I expected it to be too

Well that's good. So, the HUD (in this case) would hold on to the settings instance, then would pass out pieces of the settings to whoever needs it

That's nice, I'm going to do that

And I'm going to separate the rings from the entity, I was blind to that earlier

(With the exception of the rings during creation, and the power bar), My entities have no clue the HUD exists, or whether they are selected or not, and it makes for quite a defined line between the "game world" and what the user sees on-top of the game world. I really like that.

user4704

4:56 PM

Huh, I thought we had one of those bad "where can I find free 3D assets" questions floating around, but now I can only find the one for sprites and this one: gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/624/…

Why do you ask?

The panda3D one?

user4704

Yup.

user4704

I was going to close it as a duplicate.

Maybe other questions like it have been deleted?

couldn't be

5

Q: Where should I go looking for low-polygon 3D assets?

The biggest problem for me as a game programmer (who isn't also an artist) is getting good quality 3D models. I have checked out some of the 3D model market places like The 3D Studio and Top 3D Models but I have had difficulty finding the artwork I am looking for and, when I do find something I l...

assets 3d-meshes low-poly art

user4704

5:00 PM

I think I can see deleted questions. Maybe only answers, I know I can see those.

derp, you already linked that one

user4704

Oh, there's this gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/18381/…

oh well

an other similar one: gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/20923/…

i'd almost want to combine all three of those into one question with all the answers merged

user4704

5:03 PM

Yeah... maybe @Tetrad or @Noctrine can do that.

user4704

(hint hint?)

user4704

I really dislike these questions. :\

I think it's useful to have one or so "art asset" question just as reference, but otherwise, whenever a new 'where do i find art" question comes up, it's always kind of meh

the panda3d one especially seems really localised

Well... it doesn't feel localized to me, it's just "Where can I find free models that are low poly"

but yeah, it could be nice to be able to quickly close questions like this and point them to a master list

@JohnMcDonald sorry, i'm not talking about the question I linked to in here, I'm talking about this one feeling too local

0

Q: free asset library for panda3d

my game with panda3d is slowly taking form. It's still a mere testcase but I'd like to improve its visual. Since the assets from my previous projects don't fit this game I've used placeholders for the player and enemy models. Now the moving cubes and spheres are starting to annoy me. The game is ...

models 3d-meshes assets panda3d

5:11 PM

Yeah, I was talking about that one too. If he's asking how to convert from 3D Max to .egg, that's a question in it's own, but the way it's worded, he's asking for low-poly free models

i think it's mostly that he asks specifically "Do you know a free asset library for panda3d ?"

I'm reading "Asset Library" as "Free libraries of 3D models"

/me shrugs

the fact that it's for Panda3D seems irrelevant

maybe i'm just reading it wrong

user4704

5:18 PM

No I think you've got it right.

Merge what now?

Oh

The "where can I find" question.

user4704

We are debating what to do about the panda3D asset library question.

He is just asking, where can I find a set of free models.

user4704

The other "where can I find" questions dug up have answers that are mostly about finding tools to produce art, and not finding ready-made art itself. So I actually don't think merging is reasonable for them.

We really need one go-to question that handles all of the where can I find / what tools can I use to generic questions

5:30 PM

yeah, I was thinking the same thing

gamedev.stackexchange.com/…

ugh.

I propose taking the same action that Gaming takes on Game-Req questions.

user4704

Which is? I don't follow gaming much, except to try and get my flag weight higher than my rep.

Close.

user4704

(many many not-an-answer flags)

closure + deletion?

5:32 PM

Or at the very least, we need a Where can I find question

That has answers for all the different pieces

Kind of like our version control question

like... all in 1 question?

Yes

Where Can I Find....
- linkto 3D models
- linkto 2D Art
- linkto Legal Help

There are some tutorial style questions on SO that are like that, a collection of resources

user4704

There's meta on this here: meta.gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/669/… and meta.gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/702/…

I'm wondering if there might be enough content for some of these categories to warrant their own question, like there could be an entire question about Art assets (2d, 3d, music, effects, etc.)

That'd run into an inadequate searching issue wouldn't it?

5:35 PM

frankly the current main question on "where do i find 2d art" is an awesome resource list

5

Q: (Where) Can I learn to create art for my 2D games?

I'm currently bad at drawing. If I want to create something looking acceptable, it usually takes me hours and hours to fiddle around just to get the basic looks right. I think that I'm not completely skill-less, I just lack simple drawing techniques.. Am I a hopeless case? Where is a good plac...

That one?

user4704

So we should have a "where do I find 3D art" question then, I presume? I'm not sure having one "where can I" questions for all resource types is ideal. Seems like it would create an issue subsearching the answers for people

Instead of having each thing be an answer, I would propose grouping for an answer.

@Noctrine That's a good tutorial one, but I was talking about this question:

110

Q: Where can I find free sprites and images?

I need sprites and images, such as characters, landscapes and others. Where can I find them?

graphics assets textures sprites free

nice

5:37 PM

i think it'd be... better? for each topic to have their own question, though

user4704

@Noctrine I'm not sure I understand what that means.

So one where can I find, with separate answers for art/music/etc

Different questions would no doubt be easier to search, but that's why we get a new one for every different edge case. Do we just merge all of them together?

user4704

Sure, but if there is one master "where can I find" question, and I'm a user who wants to find 3D art, I'd have to wade through an unsortable list of answers about other resources too.

user4704

(I mean the answers are sortable but not by the criteria I need).

user4704

Unless you're saying there's only one answer per asset type? Could we enforce that?

5:40 PM

Yes, I meant one answer per asset type.

Hm, I wonder.

how about we just close all of them

user4704

I am personally in favor of closing all of them. The meta consensus seems to be split, at least for the older "where can I find assets" question.

"where can I find models" is almost as bad as "where can I find tutorials" on

user4704

Although the newer "where can I find people" meta question seems to overwhelmingly favor closure / nuke-from-orbit.

then again, there do seem to be questions on SO that are "where can I find resources" types: stackoverflow.com/questions/139944/…

5:43 PM

I think there's a good reason to keep at least one "where can i find assets" question hanging around just because it's a useful resource. But I'm perfectly fine with closing any edge case questions that might come up

Because saying where can I find people makes you think either, they didn't research at all, or they don't think existing places are ok.

Looks like that is where questions get merged into.

there "where do i find people" questions definitely make me wonder

user4704

I don't like the questions because as time goes on the answers can become less and less relevant -- the resources can move, or vanish altogether.

user4704

where-can-i just seems to encourage answers that contain nothing but links, which we otherwise tend to discourage, so why allow it for these?

Having strong criteria for what allows something to be included?

user4704

5:46 PM

How would we police that? Protecting the question only puts a 20 rep guard on it.

you can put a moderator notice on a question that says "you must put some thought into your answers or it'll get deleted" gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/3223/game-development-blogs

With 20 rep, you wouldn't be able to edit the question without us seeing it. They wouldn't be able to post answers when they should be commenting.

It would at least be neater than the current situation, and then if not, we can just go the close-all route.

user4704

But that means we're just increasing the workload on the moderators. For what benefit? I wonder if data.se will let me construct a query pertaining to outbound link following.

user4704

@Noctrine That is a fair point.

hmmm, does SE keep track of outbound links?

user4704

5:49 PM

it must track following of at least the inbound, since there are badges related to it.

user4704

but nothing's expose on data.se anyhow.

it only tracks following inbound links if you use the specific "link to this question" which contains your ID at the end (so it knows who posted the link)

and I'm sure the track inbound links using server logs and such, but there's nothing set up that would really track outbound links

user4704

Oh. Well, anyhow. I'm willing to concede the point on the basis that we can always switch to a close-everything policy later.

user4704

But I still think one question per asset class is better.

I agree

5:52 PM

How would you divide the asset classes?

3d art, 2d art, music/sound....

Going from the 105+ to 5/6 is also acceptable.

user4704

2D, 3D, sounds, music. Um. Is there anything else? So four questions?

maybe a general "where do I find people" and "lawyer help" question but i really don't know

There is a legal one

8

Q: Where can I find legal or business resources for a game production company?

Where can I find information on the legal or business aspects of running a game production company?

books legal business

5:53 PM

ok. cool

Some of "3D" crosses over into the "2D" section though, like skins

Is the stuff in Asteroid Outpost 2D or 3D? It's made from 3D, but it's technically 2D. And some resources will cover both 2D and 3D

some of the "how do I do X" are bad questions but the answers are good

So, maybe the 2D/3D stuff should all be in the same question

"Where do I get sprites / how do I create sprites" is fundamentally different from "where do I get textures / how do I get textures" let alone 3d models.

But I suspect many of the answers/links will have overlap

6:00 PM

assuming "hire someone to do it" is an overlap, yes.

Like this resource covers both 2D and 3D: reinerstilesets.de

or "use photoshop"

both of which are terrible answers

okay I stand corrected :P

user4704

I don't think there's a problem with an answer in both 2D and 3D questions that leads to the same resource.

k, and things like grass textures being useful on both sides? Just 2 answers then?

user4704

Yeah.

6:02 PM

ok

user4704

So here's another issue: the current questions on these subjects explicitly specify "free." Will that be a problem? Should we make new questions titled "Where can I find 2D assets for my game?" and merge the existing answers into it?

Well... I think the answers should specify "free" vs "paid"

Or... free to distribute, but not to sell

user4704

I agree, but the question should be generalized so as not to specify one versus the other, imo.

I don't necessarily agree with that

I agree

6:05 PM

we should be finding answers to specific questions, not trying to make a wiki resource just to push these questions out of the way

So you think there should be 2 questions for each of these? One for free and one for paid?

the needs for an indie/prototyping/whatever are different than those of people who are in a position to pay for things

true, And the resource lists likely have little to no overlap

there's some

like, Turbosquid has a small selection of free stuff

The overlap might be someone who allows their work to be used for non-commercial purposes, but wants money for commercial use

6:09 PM

or there was that random art pack for $20 a couple months ago

Or a resource with some free content

user4704

Okay, I can see that. Eight questions max is still better than what we have now.

that's probably interesting even to people who are looking for free

overlap isn't terrible blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/…

"Having one “perfect” form of a question that contains every possible answer to every slight variation of that question is a myth at best and actively harmful at worst."

on the other hand, sometimes you have a perfect answer such as stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/… that deserves to be shown to all variants of the question :P

6:11 PM

hahah

@Tetrad but this is a slightly different concept. We're discussing questions that are unfocussed, CW/close-candidates that are valuable list-of-resources-for-X. I'd think that duplication here is more harmful than usual.

here's one I have bookmarked on SO: stackoverflow.com/questions/388242/…

It'd be a lot less useful if there were 5 different questions covering C++ books, one for say, "beginner C++", one for "coding style", one for "C++ for Java programmers" etc. although I'm sure each of those has been asked plenty of times

that's a good point. we should probably just have a single "art asset" question. or even one for any assets, art, music, sound, paid, free, 2d, 3d

@Jimmy the question you have bookmarked would be closed in by modern SO mods. See the post notice at the bottom of the question

Well... the harm in separating it is that when a resource goes dead, there will be multiple dead links instead of just 1, or... what's the harm in having multiple questions?

@Tetrad I can't speak for SO mods or SO policy. I'm just talking about how useful I personally find a particular question

user4704

6:23 PM

We don't have to be everything to everybody; we should have directed and focused questions, as much as possible. Making one big question for all resources just seems counter to that, and is something that should be done or go elsewhere.

If questions like that didn't belong, why would it "have historical significance"?

@JoshPetrie yeah, I was just checking to see if there was a wiki list somewhere that we could point people to.

stackoverflow.com/questions?sort=votes

@Jimmy A lot of times, questions marked with that line were asked before SO policy was really solidified, and it was kept because it was an awesome question that is no longer valid, as opposed to deleted outright

whether the mods like it or not, some of these questions are invaluable and are more comprehensive than anything else on the internet

user4704

6:25 PM

For example, gpwiki.org

Yeah, that looks great

okay, what do you think about a meta-GD question that is a "List of Wiki/sites that have useful lists of things that arne't allowed to be asked on Gamedev.SE"?

user4704

I'm not sure that would be worthwhile as our meta has very low traffic.

frankly, i'd either have a single massive, useful community wiki question for resources we can point to and close any other "where do i" questions, or have something like gpwiki.org be linked in the FAQ under the header "where do i.... questions", or something

Stack Overflow Blog: Question [Closed]… and it’s probably best that way

Posted by Sam Brand on November 30th, 2011

If you’ve poked around our network, then you’ve probably noticed that we hate fun at Stack Exchange. Hard-line Q&A is in our evil DNA. And you know what, I kinda like it that way. But I haven’t always been onboard…

Flashback to late September, when I asked the following question at our Skeptics site:

New York pizza is the best pizza, sure. But is it really because of “the water”?

I would link you to the question, but it no longer exists; it wasn’t just closed, but deleted forever by a moderator because the question did not improve the Internet. Or maybe it …

6:28 PM

@JoshPetrie Well, I think the idea might be to close inappropriate questions and link them to the meta question

"because it didn't improve the internet"

if it didn't improve the internet, stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/… wouldn't have 3400 stars

i'm all for closing and deleting the "where do i find..." questions, but I just want there to be somewhere to point someone when they do ask those questions

and I don't even like that question

just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good for the site

Stack Overflow Blog: The Wikipedia of Long Tail Programming Questions

Posted by Joel Spolsky on January 5th, 2011

Have you ever noticed how certain questions come up again and again on Stack Overflow sites?

Oh look, my PC is freezing. Should I use SELECT *? Oh, and, how can I host a server from home?

Really, people, do you want to be answering these same questions ten years from now? How about when you’re 65? That doesn’t sound so appealing now, does it?

We predicted this problem, even before we launched Stack Overflow. Why? Because the same thing happened on Usenet, where:

Most users could only see a few days or, at best, one month of archives for any given newsgroup. It was literally impossible …

maybe i misunderstand newsgroups, being not of that generation

but it was my impression that most old-timers stopped using newsgroups because there were too many non-old-timers.

The signal-to-noise ratio got too high not because of the questions, but because of the users.

user4704

6:39 PM

so why don't we just nuke these questions and point people to gpwiki?

I'm perfectly happy with that

if there's an obvious link on gamedev that says, go to GP wiki for these things

@Tetrad The moral of that post is "Help us build a great library of canonical answers. If you keep seeing the same form of questions [... ] write a great, canonical answer, once and for all."

user4704

content.gpwiki.org/index.php/Game_Content_Resources

I'm with Jimmy

note the "If you keep seeing the same form of questions part"

user4704

It looks like they even already have such a page, we wouldn't even need to make it.

6:41 PM

@JoshPetrie I didn't know about gpwiki before like 30 minutes ago

user4704

It isn't super popular, but I'm sure they'd love the extra traffic.

now I'm okay with nuking all the "Where can I find X" questions and redirecting to a "Where can I find X" question where one of the answers is "gpwiki"

I'm sure they would, and it looks good. And it's a wiki, so I'd assume there's away to add or modify it

Add a link to GP wiki to (at least) the FAQ, so we can point people to that, nuke all other "where can i find..." questions

and I'm happy

@Jimmy I'm sure I'm not going to be able to change your mind, I'm just trying to express what the people at the top are trying to instill in their moderation practices. Part of that is to try to steer the sites towards a very specific format: specific questions and answers.

6:45 PM

@Tetrad okay, I'm not going to argue. I just feel like you're excluding the most needy of users

The site isn't designed to handle, nor should handle, being simply a redirection-to-other-assets service. The site itself should have the content.

yeah... I was wondering about that. Do we want to have a list, or a list of lists?

It's not a redirection of assets service, it has always been a mix of onsite content and curated links and explanations to blogs/external full-length articles

The site shouldn't be catering to "the most needy of users". The site should be catering to "the most expert of users". Because the experts are the ones to generate the answers to questions.

user4704

I have no questions because I'm an expert, pssh. :P

6:47 PM

If you don't have moderation practices in place to filter out cruft that drives away experts, then your site turns into what usenet turned into (like that article was talking about).

user4704

But I'm confused, are you saying you don't agree with closing "where can I" questions with a link to gpwiki in a comment?

@Tetrad hmmm okay I see where you're going with this. if you drive away the riffraff, then the forum becomes a place of enlightened discussion.

i.e. Gamedev.SE is not where "I'm about to make an MMO should I use Ruby on Rails" questions belong

Exactly. There is some additional discussion on this mode of thinking here: meta.gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/542/…

I guess it's a problem with Gamedev in particular

@JoshPetrie I can kind of see that side too, like... linking to gpwiki is just an opinion, and it's just a list. Is it The list to end all lists? It could be, but others might like to have their say too.

6:49 PM

because the number of hobbyists is so high compared to professionals

compared to SO, where it's mostly professional

@Tetrad So, based on this and the blog post you linked, do you think we should instead have questions containing links to various assets? Or what?

user4704

I think it's a nice compromise because I don't think it's possible to provide an authorative answer to "where can I find free assets" that improves the overall quality of the internet. Google answers that question better than we ever can, imo.

@JoshPetrie I disagree. the reason I pointed out the C++ books question is

it's about curation

@thedaian at the very beginning of this conversation I was in the "close them all" camp

because right now, we are talking about cleaning out a bunch of crappy, repeated questions that at least some people here are getting bored of, or want to see less of

user4704

6:51 PM

Closure says "this is not appropriate for this site," but letting somebody know where they might get an answer says "we;re not trying to be dicks."

3

Stackoverflow has the most competent community of librarians in the world

@thedaian if I'm understanding correctly, you should just make an awesome list / add to an existing list on gpwiki if you were otherwise going to write an answer. you then comment that they should go to gpwiki and then close the question.

@JoshPetrie Indeed. That's why it's usually a good idea to point people to chat if they have a general discussion question, or something.

I'm not against closing the "where do i find..." questions. I'm for it, actually, but I think there should be a place we can point people to to solve their question while we close it.

Either a question here, or a site like GP wiki

So, I guess the question remains, do we maintain a bunch of resourcing questions/answers and point people there, or do we think those are a bad idea and we should just point people elsewhere right away?

user4704

I think they are a bad idea and we should close them.

I was meaning community wiki questions/answers, sorry

I think we should close the questions about resourcing that people may ask, but where do we point them?

user4704

6:59 PM

I still think they should be closed, and the users pointed off-site, because we're not trying to be a wiki and that's where that kind of information can best be found, imo.

I'm ok with either option. Pointing them offsite works, pointing them to a single question on gamedev.se also works.

I guess pointing them offsite has the added benefit that it says "We don't answer that kind of question here, come back when you have a real question"

True

So, close them all? Had a meeting.

close them, but leave a comment about gpwiki or something?

I just hate to have a dead-end for people who are looking

7:11 PM

It looks like a solid resource to me

I think most of us agree with "close them all"

In fact I don't think anyone has said "leave them open" or anything

The question is really "where do we point them to"

heh, Nooo, please leave them open, I want to answer the same question with the same answer over and over to get more rep!

Close as NARQ and leave a comment saying "perhaps you should try here"

@Tetrad Pointing them to gpwiki?

user4704

I am doing so but the comment throttle is slowing me down :D

7:17 PM

don't you have superpowers?

I'd figure the throttle would go away for trusted users

woah wait

user4704

No superpowers.

this rep scale always surprises me

I forget how scores are so inflated on SO

user4704

Oh @bummzack is in the 10k club now

7:51 PM

I'm a diamond mod and even I have a chat throttle

user4704

Well, I voted-to-close and commented in a bunch of the "where can I" questions.

The chat throttle is removed if you hit the coveted "double diamond mod"

@JohnMcDonald It's okay, you can still gain rep by answering "use Unity" to any of the remaining questions.

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