I am just wondering why I see so few teams here, ever?

Probably cause other engines are better for that I think. I see gs3d mostly as a lonewolf engine or ~2 people working together.
Cause of the editors, tools, debugging and probably some more stuff I can't think of right now.
In general it also is alot harder to pay whole teams (commercial) or to get people together regularly (hobby).

Though there was that Turkish (?) developer that is creating a prof. counter-strike like game, I think that was a whole team of people.

I just find it odd that a team can build a contest game in a weekend but doesn't spend a few months putting out a major effort.
I have been here since A5 and watched so many lone-wolves fall off because they were unable to do all the needed work alone. There just way never a good team idea here.

That's exactly what it is though, a major effort (in the sense of work) for everyone involved. Motivation, time and common interests and opinions are all highly problematic in such a case. A game built by a team with paid developers and one or multiple guys in charge who dictate the game is something completely different.

Yes that was my team experience, everyone wanted to make there own game, everyone wanted to be the boss. Worse was working for newbies, who had little idea of how to achieve the ideas they wanted and totally lacked the ability to communicate their designs. I was totally rewriting code sections over and over to add,adjust and extend a play effect because the "designer" had no clear idea of it before it was written and seen.

However, I assumed this would be less of a problem with the high level vets, we have in the community now. I have been corrected.
Thanks



It must be very difficult for creators to assume a role of just following a single(set) of lead(ers).
It seems to me if a team achieves a selling game, then each member earns more money to fund that "developer" dream.

And everything comes down to the design document If it is a full explanation of the features, theme and mechanics, nobody would be the boss, but just do what the document says...But, design documents are rarely extensive.

There have been times when I was looking for help and people laughed at me, some because of my design document (or lack of), some from arrogance...

A bulgarian was looking for help, years ago, on a project with 3DGS. I offered my help (I was the only other Bulgarian with skills in 3DGS) and he said I was incompetent, before actualy seeing anything... After two months he dropped his project. I published mine a month ago...

My point is, that, many people are arrogant these days. No body likes to work for free. And thats one of the reasons teams dont exist here.

But, I'm hoping that if I get a good playable demo I will be able to attract a free good modeller & animator some day... Until then, I'm constantly browsing YouTube for tuts on 3ds

These are two different kind of beasts. When we meet each year, we are fully committed, drunk, willing to hack something together, and to make it fun, and beautiful to look at (in this order, and oppinions vary). The commitment is very strong, and nobody cares if it his/her "dream game", it is more about the experience. And the beer. Ah, and the fun to do something "complete" with lots of people in parallel and OH's and AH's, when something new is added to the game.

The year before last year, we had to add AFTER THE WEEKEND for the contest 2-3 additional levels to complete the game as we imagined it ... and almost no one was available and committed anymore. Real life took over...

So what is missing to keep the spirit alive for a longer time frame? Maybe a gathering that lasts a week? That might be possible, but most of us are now employed and would have to spare vacation days.. this is difficult. That is why almost all startups / new indie games from teams emerge from college or university, because you have so much free time.



Hm, in my opinion there is only a maximum time frame of 10 years available to people to be willing to work for free - that is inbetween the age of 13-16 and 23-26... because afterwards you have a regular job, girlfriends/wifes, maybe children, interested into travel/building a house/riding motorbikes and/or you have become a professional. Until then, during school, college and university you have an awful big time to spend, you get more experienced and see all those experimental/creative stuff - and this is the big chance that you eventually become able to make your own game(s). And because you know people around you or on the internet that are in the same situation, you will likely become friends and work together.

After that, it is more likely that you don't have enough time to do so... and I think that the most experienced users with Gamestudio matured along with the product and now have difficulties to find time to work on their games, or even play with it...

On the other side: why should anyone do something free for another one? Again, my theory is that people are willing to do so, because they are improving, still learning and want to show off their work. But in the moment it is for you just "something to work out" which only requires planning, coding and time... well... you want to be paid for your time to do so. Sure, there is the Open Source movement and those people are very nice that they give out open source software.. but for single persons, well.

All I can tell is that time is money and if you want something from me, I definitely would let you pay the free time I would have to sit in front of my computer instead of having a beer with my girlfriend in the moonlight - and I am sure you'll understand why.

On the other side: Why don't we take the risk and fund ourselves a self-owned, independent studio?

Hm, because it's business and drives you away from creative/fun coding and stuff. Then, it is not about time, but about money, which you have to generate for yourself and your employees, so that they can afford their girlfriends and that cold beer and maybe the occasional trips to the beach. Doesn't sound easy? Yes. And I highly suspect that most professionals here regard their regular job to be more paying than any of the risk you would have to take to fund at least 1-year of game making. Too bad!

Maybe this is the reason why only students start a business (because they have already no money and no work experience, so it doesn't matter and the risk is smaller)... OR: you are already a long-year professional and fund a new studio with other long-year professionals, because you know how to do stuff and make a business - also because you have contacts and standing at your clients or in your industry.

And to be honest, I know only very, very few people here in this community that I would regard to be able to start a successful game business in real life somewhere in Europe, including moving to another place.

Well said.
Apart from that, this question was part of the last AUM interview - where the reasons why there is no AckCon Team working on some big thing could have been found as well

I like the idea, I love the people - and I am sure we have a chance to create something great - but there is a good risk that by doing so we lose what we loved so much and what everything got started: Freedom of choice to do whatever crazy stuff we want!
Still I would love to try... being aware the dream might become a really bad nightmare pretty much immediately.

Wow, well written. Unless there are any other opinions. I am satisfied with the answers given.

Now where are the college kids???? Lol

my little sad story:

I tried to build up here a team last year, lived from June to Dec, without too much result. it went slowly, and members came and fell out unexpectedly, what was very hard to me to control. the target was to make a complex strategy game, so it would have been at least a 2 year long project, based on my preliminary works developed within MapBuilder.

at least the game concept and a basic documentation was established in the summer with another member, and made a project management site at trello.com with to do lists, some concepts, and basic design rules for artists. since the other programmer disappeared early, I had to do all the programming, and to reorganize everything, resulting in the total rewriting of MapBuilder, which required months.

when it was ready in the beginning of Oct, I started to work on the new RTS AI using formations enabling a more flexible battle AI system than my earlier tests, because it heavily determined other parts of the game. it required Oct-Nov-Dec, went fine, including a formation editor, but game AI development is normally slower than expected, because of the many fine tuning subsystems required after implementing the main system, which was relatively fast (but also required some research among pathfinder systems because my first idea was not good enough). also developing the proper visual debugging tools of the game AI required time.

by this time every other members became inactive, only a basic character was made. the disappeared programmer returned, but I could not know what job to give him, so finally I cancelled the project as I saw no chance to complete it in this form (target plans and members).

---

in Jan I worked further on it, having a lower scaled RTS battle game in mind, and in Feb I rewrote again MapBuilder, because I wanted to make a version I am really satisfied with.

in March-Apr I did nothing with 3dgs, I focused mainly on the possibility to move to UE4. after I was able to finally update my old GPU driver, and the significant performance improvements of UE4.7, it immediately became a near future target. it is much more difficult on the programming side, but from the artist side it is much more developed, and helper material is more widely available, so probably a nearly similar game can be developed with it, if I learn more, more, and even more C++, and dig deep into UE4 API. hopefully there I can find more artists and experienced programmers to team with, but there are still a couple of things I want to develop with 3dgs, because it goes faster, e.g. I mean AI system prototyping, or maybe even a little RTS demo.