TDC will always be a Click site. It allows lots of other non-Click products. Click products can now win GOTW. But deep down inside, it's a Click site by heart. It's a bit funny, it's like how nationalist fight against immigration, nobody really wants to work against other products.
But here, things are still directed at Click, because it's how it was made. Articles are written for klikers. Engines are built for klikers. Forums are about building Click teams.
It's not ever going to be a full indie site because it wasn't built to be one. There's been a lot of attempts to turn it into one, and it's met with some controversy by the admins, lol. The original consensus was to build a separate site for indie games in general, then we slowly integrated non-Click games into TDC, like letting them have the front page and win GOTW.
But we just can't break from being a niche for Click games. If we changed to full indie, half the members would leave, because it's where they go to for Click. There's been a few thoughts thrown around from TDC's owners to build a new, cleaner sister site for just indie games, but it's never really gone through.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
I think it would be nice to look at TDC as a place to make games, not showcase them. In a small, focussed community you are more likely to get support while making game. Then when the game is done you can post it on large flashy community sites for bearded indiegamefaggots and brag about it. TDC seems to be in between right now.
Originally Posted by Hayo I think it would be nice to look at TDC as a place to make games, not showcase them. In a small, focussed community you are more likely to get support while making game. Then when the game is done you can post it on large flashy community sites for bearded indiegamefaggots and brag about it. TDC seems to be in between right now.
I think the opposite. In my opinion, developer section and game portal section could and should exist alongside and form a successful symbiosis of a kind, not at all excluding each other. I always like to refer to the Game Maker community at YoYoGames as an example: Play - Make - Share. The actual front page of the site is gamer focused, it's basically a gaming portal. The games produced by the community that are featured in the central marketing spots on the site get thousands, even tens of thousands of game sessions. The most popular games have been played nearly half a million times. The active developer community that is integrated to this gaming portal has a direct path to get their content out there and visible among the community - not only other developers but especially players. No need to market your game to outside portals when your own community has a huge user base of players that you can reach right now. --> more incentive for developing new stuff AND publishing it in the community site --> more and better games --> more active developer community --> more players... it's a snowball effect.
*This* is also what Clickteam would really, really need for MMF/TGF.
TDC is pretty much completely developer focused only. Developers submit games for other developers to play. Average download count per content item is measured in dozens. Don't get me wrong here - I do think TDC is a great Click developer community, the best that has ever existed in my opinion. I'm just saying that there is a lot of wasted potential in the user generated content that doesn't reach its #1 user group, gamers, in the Downloads list very effectively at all. There are so many good, even great games, developed by the community that get forgotten immediately after release. Of course if TDC is aimed to be only a "closed" developer group of a handful of people, that is completely ok then. I would set the bar a bit (a lot) higher though.
Arcade was the first step into the right direction. To provide the members a way to really showcase the games and try to get non-clickers, non-developers, gamers, to the site to actually play the games created by the community. Offer more incentive for developing and publishing games when the users see that the games are actually played and not just buried in the downloads list. Of course the Arcade is just in the beginning (I hope) as currently there are still major challenges in the manual content submission process and long lead times, and to some extent a bit too developer focused site layout. But it does have some nice potential in extending the scope of the site and activate also the dev side of the community.
Well, either way, I hope to see this site thriving in the future and getting more and more users.
Originally Posted by Hayo I think it would be nice to look at TDC as a place to make games, not showcase them. In a small, focussed community you are more likely to get support while making game. Then when the game is done you can post it on large flashy community sites for bearded indiegamefaggots and brag about it. TDC seems to be in between right now.
It's an interesting point; do we 'market' our games in the hope that more and more people take up developing games with click, or focus more on the development of new users in the hope of them making better games and thus more people playing them? Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
The difference immediately obvious between here and YoYo is that YoYo has a better resourced based community, with its excellent Wiki. Maybe we could do something like this? The Articles page is incredibly chaotic, and it's very hard to find the article you're after - MMF2 is mixed up with MMF1.5 which is mixed up with TGF, there is virtually no vetting of completely rubbish articles, and the ratings system is so easily abused and often misleading. There's no organisation to vast areas of the site; downloads with broken links aren't removed, articles with missing images aren't either. I would like to hear some opinions of new users of the site to see what they think - if I were knew I think I'd be flummoxed. This is what I mean by streamlining, making it easier for people who want to learn to find the info they want. And making it easier for people who want to play to find the very best games. A single Top 15 list is no good. I can understand why people don't want to submit their games to this site.
You are aware of the fact that you're basically saying that the TDC backend needs a full redesign with new functions, methods, systems and implementations in order to correctly maintain the vast amount of data in nearly all of the site's sections.
But I do agree with the fact that the 'listed chaos' may need a change or update. And full games, even little ones should probably be separated from game demo's, engine's and other half-baked cookings. They might need their own list instead of being a sublist.
I like TDC and the fact that I can put up any game here that I created no matter what way of creating I used. But still it's main focus is click and developers.
The arcade could be updated as a general games page focussed on players instead of developers. However I might not generate more click creators because not every player is a developer.
Originally Posted by Jenswa The arcade could be updated as a general games page focussed on players instead of developers. However I might not generate more click creators because not every player is a developer.
It would generate more developer activity indirectly acting as an incentive for developers to submit games. Currently those incentives are quite limited, which does not encourage publishing.
In the optimal situation (in my view anyway), 99% of Arcade users would be non-developers.
I do agree the articles page needs an overhaul. But the big question how would it look like? The smaller questions are who'll sort it out and who'll do the coding? An even smaller question, for the sake of bulletproofing from trolls, is that whether we can do it fairly. I think some article categories could also help, and maybe a database for obsolete articles (TGF1, MMF1.5, complaints on how TDC used to be).
If you see a download with a broken link or any other technical problems, you should tap that Alert Admin button about it. It's not just for people spouting bad language or flame wars, it's for "if you believe the content needs reviewing". That even includes minor things like double posts, typos, bugs, etc. They don't always get fixed, but a lot of problems are only noticed when someone points them out.
Anyway, I think TDC has a nice balance between making and showcasing stuff. It's just that when you try do two things, you end up achieving only half of both - reviews/ratings are a bit below par compared to dedicated sites, and so is helpfulness when making games. Total Klik did a great job with showcasing Click games, and Klik Academy/Klik Resource were better at providing help. TDC's always been sort of providing everything, maybe that's the only reason it's outlasted them.
Disclaimer: Any sarcasm in my posts will not be mentioned as that would ruin the purpose. It is assumed that the reader is intelligent enough to tell the difference between what is sarcasm and what is not.
I never really thought about what this site needs. But reading all of this is vary interesting. I never realized all the challgens the site faces. And I'm kind of indifferent to all the bells and whistles of the site. Who knows what this site will be like in the future.
We need not worry about it. Each member has a unique skill set that lead him to this site. Of course, I'm talking about 2d. Everything about mm2 tools, and other click products are geared towards 2d. In my opinion their is still lots of interest in creating 2d animation. This interest 2d is what bought me here, and the jounery has been a fun one.
I like the site how it is and don't plan on giving up my 2d art hobby any time soon.
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