Wanted: One Pythoneer and one SDKer

[NikNaks]

I'm looking for one pythoneer and one SDK coder to join the World 2008 team. We have a lot of complicated features to implement, and I'm hoping that someone is interested enough in our project to join in

There's a link to our forum in my sig, where there are preliminary plans for the features.

Oh, and apologies if this isn't the right forum. It seemed like the best place to me.

 

[NikNaks]

No takers?

 

[Victarus]

Sorry to be a curmudgeony old man here, but this is a very frequent message for amateur game programmers to see. Nothing against you or your team, and this is half in jest, but in the context of the countless messages like this out there, your request gets translated as:

Hey there programmer types. We have a team that has neither the time or inclination to do whatever it is that you do, but we have ideas. *Great* ideas. Ideas the likes of which you have never seen before, despite thousands of forum posts from unskilled, wannabe game developers claiming to have the next blockbuster game (generally Counterstrike or World of Warcraft related for some strange reason).
Anyways, we want you to make this game for us. It's a massive amount of work, although we're sure to underestimate it since we have no idea what you do to make all of that code stuff; we can knock out a AAA title in a few months, I'm sure.
The process will basically consist of us throwing ideas at you, having no information on how you make them work or how they might conflict with other ideas, and sitting back and coming up with other ideas. And we'll come up with lots of ideas, most of them conflicting with how you built the code for the previous ideas, but that's ok because we don't understand that part -- it's your problem, not ours.

So, how about it? I mean, you have nothing better to do, right?

Again, tongue in cheek there, but the knee-jerk reaction to "We want coders, but don't have any" is right there. It might not be accurate for your project, but it's a hard bias to get past.

The number of people who can code in Python or C++ is significantly less than the number of people who have "ideas" that need them, especially when it comes to games. This, combined with the number of "ideas guys" out there, leads to a general dislike of non-programmers asking for programmers. If you want to attract coders, you're going to need a reason for them to join you and not join some other team, or even start their own. Especially for more "veteran" coders, a game idea isn't going to cut it -- there are a lot of ideas out there, and the programmers who have been around long enough learn that it will pretty much be their job alone to make it happen, and most people aren't willing to take on that load without any support.

Your best bet is probably to get someone already involved in the project to learn the skills necessary to do whatever it is that you want for your mod. I'm sure you'll be able to get plenty of help in solving any problems you might come across, and it certainly won't be a walk in the park, but having even just a little work already done will help a lot in attracting more help. Good programmers are much more willing to join projects that already have other programmers, even if they're just beginners -- that little bit of help goes a long way.

 

[NikNaks]

I know exactly what you mean, and it's a fair point. I am, as it happens, trying to learn the basics of Python, but I thought this thread might just be a shot in the dark. As you can tell, there hasn't been much success finding them, but I have been able to start merging appropriate mods on the SDK front, and I've found a team who'll help out with a few of the new features.

So, I am learning Python, but very slowly. Thanks for posting, anyway. I can see you're pretty sensible.

 

[Victarus]

No, just grumpy.

Again, if you need any help just post and I'm sure someone will be able to help you understand anything. I'm going over the code myself (its nice to see how others do things, and I might make a mod just to force myself to work in an existing system), so I'd be pleased to answer any questions, if only so I can learn the answer myself.

 

[NikNaks]

Well thanks for the help offer. I might just take you up on it eventually

 

[xienwolf]

I tend to think that the best way to get a coder is to find someone with a MODCOMP that seems to fit what you want, encourage them heavily, and show off that you have an artist The rarest beast seems to be someone who can code AND do artwork, so while lots of "idea-boys" might seek out code-monkeys, lots of code-monkeys dream of finding art-guru's

Main reason to snipe the MODCOMPs and not the MODs is that those people generally have a nifty idea and just want to see if they can code it, but don't want to be bothered with all of the XML and balancing fluff.

 

[NikNaks]

Interesting. I can do a bit of unit editing, hindered by my computer's hatred of any version of Blender, and I can make reasonable buttons. I tried LHs once, and they came out in-game like they'd literally been through a blender.

I'm not sure if any of the other team members are artists. I know we can all use other people's art in a variety of ways