pouët.net

Hello all, not sure how to kick this off, so I'll start it off as a story I guess.

So, about a month ago, I'm talking to my girlfriend about this idea I have for starting a demo team again (again being in reference to the horrible failure that is fbf). I'm talking to her and talking to her, all excited about how we can start sampling what we like with different 3d engines, and ultimately, writing our own based on what we liked from others.... The reason I originally had the idea to use game engines was to lure her in to demo coding because she's always been interested in making an MMO (more on this later).

Anyways, I make her a member and give her a couple codeing tasks. I feel the tasks are things she could do, in fact, should be more than able to do seeing as she's read book after book on codeing in c++. She immediately starts talking about how she doesent understand this and that, and she needs to go back to her books and read through them again (books that she's been through a good 3 times). So, eventually I set down with her and walk her though it.

Anyways, after a week of not working on anything she starts talking about how she doesent want to work on it, because its for demo's and she doesent see the point, adn that she doesent like the demo scene like I do.

Its understandable that she doesent like the scene and demo's, to each their own. But my argument to her is, codeing demo's will give her experience with codeing she needs to take on game coding, and in this case, sinse we're working with game and graphics engiens, it will give her experience with game engines, and not solely just graphics... Still, she's not interested in helping, only in makeing her game. So I explane to her, that she hasnt spent much time codeing, and you dont just jump into a successfully coded MMO, if she tries for that with no experience, she'll fail, and most likely be discouraged in a way that she wont want to try again. I tell her I'm trying to help her work her way up.

I remember when I was like that. I hadnt coded anything myself, but I had been through book after book after book. I wanted to start out doing something huge, and gave it a shot... Early on, I was met with frustration, and failure... I stepped back for a while, just messing around, doodles here and their, then started a medium size project in a language that I had no book for and only a reference. Through that project I learned a lot about how to regard codeing books, how to design, and how to build up to being able to take on larger projects.

So my question is, how can I help her to get where she wants to go? She's still meddling with asm books, and c++ books, but not really coding anything... She still bucks against the idea of working on a "pointless" demo system, and I'm almost to the point where I feel like I should expect to see nothing from her... in that area. How can I motivate her to take the necessary steps?

TL;DR;

do a decent demo first.

dont freaking post at pouet bbs and start working for demo. kthnx bye

@ps
I'm not sure what you mean...

Encourage her to build the game, whenever she gets tired, put some cameras on the world and do a flyby-demo ;)

hmm.. is she interested in coding at ALL?

apparently not :)

¡ʎpɐǝɹ1ɐ oɯǝp ɐ ǝʞɐɯ puɐ dn ʞɔnɟ ǝɥʇ ʇnɥs

xteraco^EnToX: how about you leave her alone so that she can do her business the way she wants to do it? :)

I believe she's interested in coding.... But only in a very specific way.... It has to be coding what she wants and nothing else. Someone told me that I should set down and write pong or space invaders with her, to get her started... I ran into the same problem though, "I hate space invaders and all that 8bit crap, I want to work on a 3d MMO".

So its all or nothing seemingly... She's seemingly not willing to crawl before she starts walking...

@keops: Thats the approach I've been taking the last week. She hasnt really coded anything, but she's mentioned "if we make an mmo it could do," and "when we make an mmo we could".

I want it to happen, and work out for her. Kinda worried that if she tries though, and it doesent work out, she wont wanna try again...

get her to post on gamedev.net with "im a newbie coder and i've got an idea for an MMORPG, anyone want to help me?" - that should get her some motivating responses.

roflol

I was tellin her how the timer system I made for the demo sys i'm working on could be worked into an mmo engine, and used for triggering events... trying to put things in to perspective for her, but I suspect I dont speak her language, because she's not getting it...

xteraco: what's the point in making a demo if you don't even like them? No point persuading her to make one at all I think. She needs practice though if she wants to be a coder, perhaps get her to code a lot of small games or game related things, if she wants to aim for an MMO then if she plans her code well for reuse she'll build up plenty of useful bits of code. And maybe you could use some of those bits for a demo without much work, so you could work together a bit.

@psonice: awesome!

doesn't sound like she will ever code anything...

nah, she's coded stuff.... she helped me a little with my demo stuff before jumping ship

tell her to start that fucking mmo project, then her mmo crisis will be over faster..

Maybe you could create a blog with her where you could both tell about your private life instead of doing it on pouet :)

why start a blog on another server when the scene.org server is so damned fast ;)

just kiddin...

I didnt suppose it was to personal. Just lookin for tidbits of advice on helping someone with coding potential see the path to richeousness

Also, we demand pics.

either she wants to code or she simply doesn't want... nothing much you can do :)

uh. . . I have a pic of her using a psp. . . I guess. . . uh...