That's interesting. Are you saying people should be working on games together?
Sort of, but I probably don't mean that in the sense that you mean it. I don't mean that you should have someone else helping with your graphics and code.
What I mean is that people currently work on their own games (sometimes in small groups) but they don't really care about other people's projects. Sure, developers read each others posts and say things like "wow that looks great", but this is mostly just for the sake of wanting to seem polite or interested without actually being interested (which makes it impolite!). Sometimes people discuss game ideas but it's usually at a theoretical level - you're discussing potential ways to implement a feature you're not offering criticism of how someone did implement a feature. This leads to two problems:
1. Each developer is so focused on their own game that they don't care enough about other games to give a decent critique.
2. Because each developer is so obsessed with their own work, they are quick to dismiss any criticism they do receive, even if it's quality feedback.
This means that developers are doing very little to push each other to make better games and are unreceptive to the pushes they receive from others. Another part of the problem is that people often try to make epic RPGs that will never be complete, so when someone complains about part of your game being bad, there's always the excuse of "this is a pre-alpha test, it's a work in progress, I didn't get to that part yet." The same thing is happening here except it's with BYOND news blogs instead of games.
To think about it another way, think of every BYOND developer as a chess player. Except nobody ever plays chess against anyone else, we're all just practicing by ourselves. There's only so much we'll improve on our own. If we played some matches against each other we'd be able to exchange ideas and learn from each other. People are comfortable practicing by themselves because they can never lose that way.
That's interesting. Are you saying people should be working on games together? I do kind of agree with what Forum was saying, it could help you all sharpen your skills, also like Bravo was saying, Journalism won't "deny" your submissions, but would request you do this and that if it didn't meet the standard). I do like the CSS of this place and all, but perhaps you can put your interviews into Journalism. You can come up with something unique for this place like focusing on the Blog aspect. (hench DMBlog)
@ Interview: I actually enjoyed reading it, but I felt the curse words inside of it didn't make it sound professional, weren't 'needed' to make the point, and don't quite appeal to the younger audience. Other than that, good interview.