Modding Community becoming exclusive Club?

[[frl]myke 14]

Although the topic title is rather provocative, it isn't my intention to offend anyone, be it personally or indirect. I have just a bad feeling and i would like to share this with you to hear your opinion and thoughts.

Even if you might feel yourself personally attacked (whoever you actually are), you aren't. Although if you really feel personally attacked, maybe think about why you do.

Is the ArmA/ArmA 2 modding community turning into a exclusive club for selected members?

Although there are a lot talented addonmakers, scripters, texture artists and other out there, really valuable informations or even tutorials are either very rare or, if they exist, outdated. Information about <NAME_OF_ANY_TOPIC_OF_YOUR_CHOICE> are cluttered all around the web, rarely that you find all needed infos, if ever, on one site.

Myself, i found myself completely lost on my first steps of texturing (namely UV mapping just to name at least one specific problem). I'm not a pro in modelling, just took my first steps. The only texturing tutorial i've found was from brsseb (hope i spelled it right) which was written back in the good old OFP days. But it wasn't really helpful, the keystrokes described opened different windows as the tutorial said.

Sure, there are some sites around which covers some parts, but even there, info's are incomplete, half done or written in a way only experienced people would understand.

It seems like a lot of addonmakers are sitting on theyr knowledge, knowing it makes them special, top of the pops, kinda. I know this was now pretty provocative, please don't feel offended.

Also the latest(?) project that was launched with www.dev-heaven.net is designed for experienced developers, it says it even on the start page:

DevHeaven is a place for experienced devs to learn, share, discuss and collaborate

or people willing to work hard to become skilled as well.

What about the not-so-experienced devs out there? And i do count myself into this group also. I already get lost just while trying to navigate through this site. From my point of view, the site concept seems to be designed for pro-programmers, high educated, elite developers...completely left out starters. Although i understand that in the forums they will focus theyr topics for experienced devs, at least some infos for starters in a readyble and understandable form.

Ok, now you might say there is also the BIWIKI. But even there, the info's are mostly vague or outdated. Lot of reference sites showing stuff from OFP, leaving ArmA completely out.

Ok, i guess thats enough provocation for the start. Again, please don't feel offended, this isn't my intention. But do think about that said and share your thoughts about it.

Sincerly

Myke

[saintaw 0]

Seconded.

Ofpec seems to only have OFP/Arma related tutorials. Where do I find the info like:

How to use the modules?

How to use the new briefing texts

And so on...

[dmarkwick 261]

I think you're feeling unnecessarily put-upon, when you should not. First, there are actually very few expert addon makers, most of us just muddle through asking questions, getting feedback etc. Most of us get our knowledge from BIS info (when they decide to release it ;)), or by looking at other people's work & reverse engineering it, or by simply asking. Most of my problems are solved by asking.

Second, you misinterpreted the statement:

DevHeaven is a place for experienced devs to learn, share, discuss and collaborate

or people willing to work hard to become skilled as well.

the pertinent part of that being:

"or people willing to work hard to become skilled as well."

I guess this means they don't wish to be endlessly doing other people's work for them, but instead will welcome people willing and able to learn.

[mrcash2009 0]

Never in any genre, in the workplace, local, do you ever get a complete transparent learning. There will always be the pyramid to things and that wont change really.

Ive found the ofpec site and guys really helpful you should chat to Loki and the crew they have teamspeak (Lokis nightmare) http://www.lokisnightmare.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum.php speak to them about being a member or guesting via their teamspeak server. Nearly all the main modders from Ofpec and usual suspects pass through discussing all manner of modding etc.

Ive been their myself and many of the main modders use it to talk and discuss. I got roped in after doing the sahrani radio spoofs .. Loki's a great guy and really easy going.

AS regards dev heaven I cant agree with your quote :

DevHeaven is a place for experienced devs to learn, share, discuss and collaborate

or people willing to work hard to become skilled as well.

In bold is the key.

EDIT: LOL DM got in with the bold before me :)

Edited June 29, 2009 by mrcash2009

[[frl]myke 14]

@DMarkwick

Thanks for your reply. My problem there (and it is my very own problem, i don't speak for others) is that i already get lost with the site structure. Although i'm sure it's perfect for devs and those who are familiar with, for me it looks unstructured.

Sadly i wouldn't say i'm a high educated person although i wouldn't consider myself as dumb. Maybe i'm just too old or too slow learning. I even wouldn't feel offended if someone was saying this about me since i feel myself thats just true.

Thats why i have this feeling, everything seems to be pointed towards experts. Informations and new finds are shared among the experts. Nothing to say against, i just miss those infos on a lower level. I fully understand that at a certain level you would prefer to discuss things with people on the same level as this would give faster and more accurate solutions. But what about sharing this with lower experienced.

I am willing to work hard although my time is limited and also my possibilities. Thats another point. If ever programs are named to do things, you almost stumble upon 2 names: Photoshop and 3Dmax. No doubt these are perfect programs, but they cost a lot of money and i personally i'm not into installing cracked software. So i'm stuck with tools from BIS or free software. Let me name one example: .paa plugin for Photoshop by Kegety. Surely a highlight and he's doin awesome work, no doubt about that. Also he even updated the plugin to work with the new texture format used by ArmA 2. Excellent...if you have Photoshop. I'm using GIMP. No luck for me then.

TexView2 can't handle ArmA 2 .paa/.pac file format, release date of the new tools is unknown.

Again only "privileged" people can make effort of the new stuff.

This was just an example, you stumble very often upon sentences like "...and then open it in Photoshop..." or "....best thing is doin it in 3DS max...".

:EDITH:

@mrchash2009

Thats the point, you have to dig deep, dig at different places and dig pretty long to get pieces of info together. And if you're unlucky, some of your digs are already outdated.

Edited June 29, 2009 by [FRL]Myke

[andersson 285]

I guess the thing is (speaking from my personal experience) that when you finally figure out how to do a thing you dont have much energy or interest to write a tutorial. You want to do the thing you tried to make in the first place. Then you use your knowledge until you bump into next problem and so it goes on. Writing a tutorial takes alot of time and most often you do not understand 100% what you are doing and how it works.

Thats why Im grateful for the few that take the time to sit down and make tutorials that the rest of us can use! All respect. Me myself is to lazy and egoistic to be honest. I gladly give my input on the forum if I know the answer, but to write a tutorial is not something that is easily done.

[dmarkwick 261]

@DMarkwick

Thanks for your reply. My problem there (and it is my very own problem, i don't speak for others) is that i already get lost with the site structure. Although i'm sure it's perfect for devs and those who are familiar with, for me it looks unstructured.

Well, I wouldn't worry too much about it. DevHeaven is a fairly new site, and although I'm registered there, I haven't made any use of it. In fact, the place I leaned all my own knowledge is this very site, coupled with specific pages I've got bookmarked at the Biki.

[Dwarden 1124]

all the guides are always published, the biki is constantly updated, the devhaven is open to everyone who 'wants' take part and is not just trolling ...

exclusive clubs tried and died in past several times so i don't think anyone is going try repeat same route ...

also take in mind ARMA 2 is fresh, if you need help look at huge topics for ARMA 1

modding tools aren't yet out for ARMA 2 either so the real 'takeoff' of various resources is just behind door

and about DevHeaven as far i know most of it's members are regular members and posters on OFPEC and BI forums (and great people)...

[scubaman3D 0]

I definitely do not agree with you Myke. If you have any addon-making skills, you will be a welcome addition to any team. From my point of view, everybody is self-made in the addon-making community and were all in the same boat at some time. There are people who will absolutely help, IF they see an effort on your part to learn and some potential in your abilities.

On the other hand, if you want to join a team for the sole purpose of having somebody teach you "how to...", this won't work out.

[soul_assassin 1723]

I don't agree with elitism being present in this community. In fact i think this community is quite unique in its openness. Most devs will gladly answer any questions you have weither in private chat or just on these forums (or other forums). Not all info is published, your right on that, but not because ppl are withholding info intentionally, just that they are lazy :) just ask and you will get ur answer. The o2 modelling section in these forums is not just to read, you can always post a question there, no matter how simple it is. You cant just expect to sit on ur ass and do nothing while devs research, experiment and publish papers to ur email, you have to be pro-active to learn.

[granQ 293]

well, it isnt a total lie what Myke is saying.. there is "exclusive clubs" sorta.

Now why and how does that work. OK, i will use myself as exemple.

First hang out in ofpec learn stuff, then you get contacts.

You start to do things together, like addons.

Now you start sharing them with some friends, the addons suck so you dont release them.

Now you got friends to play with, to do addons with and so on. You run into problems, will you first ask on a forum or your friends.. you ask your friends.

Suddenly you are sitting with a "big" community and many times in the ofp/arma community that is Spanish, russian, swedish, german and so on communities so we dont see all.. in that aspect they are exclusive. However I dont really know any tutorial page and so on that been "exclusive".

Then there is some mp squads that are international and so on.

What is exclusive is often mods that is hyping themself and got plenty of hidden boards where they can talk freely about their mod not being that great at the time..

the problem is not that lack of information, or exclusive clubs but infact the opposite, there is so many places, so much information its hard to find.

A part from OFPEC, the wiki, dev-heaven.. there is one page I would recommend.

http://tactical.nekromantix.com/wiki/

its great in the aspect of just answering how do I actually do that.. without too much other information. So thats my recommendation.

I think esp for new people it can be hard to get inside "the circle of trust" and then feel like its exclusive clubs all over, but I been part of the editing missions, addons for ofp/arma for almost ten years, same as many others. Of course we have a large personal network of people we can ask quickly on msn, or just know where to find information that doesnt seem to be there.

[mrcash2009 0]

Thats the point, you have to dig deep, dig at different places and dig pretty long to get pieces of info together. And if you're unlucky, some of your digs are already outdated.

Welcome to the world of self teaching, its not the most unusual outcome in any field.

[ebud 18]

Like it's been said, it's not a club, but addon makers who have been here for more than a couple of years tend to hoard hard earned knowledge like it's a currency yet will usually be more than happy to answer your questions IF you are not just looking to have someone do the work for you. Imagine what it was like from 2001 to just couple years ago. There was no wiki, no real documentation and there were almost no tutorials other than the most simple ones and the only way people learned was to figure things out on their own or ask questions of other addon makers, then maybe join a group to collaborate. One of the biggest issues over the years has been people not wanting to try and figure things out on their own first and just coming here demanding answers and help when the people who have the knowledge gained it through countless hours of hard work. Some people feel that others should have to go through the same trouble that they had to and that others shouldn't just "get it for free", but again if you ask, people will help you. Luckily there are a lot of selfless people out there who can make guides and tutorials, but most people just don't have the skills to write documentation.

This engine is not hard to work with now with the wiki, just time consuming and many people don't have the patience/time to figure it out on their own, but you cannot just jump right in to addon making without a proper foundation to work from. Addon making takes a lot of trial and error as well as a lot of time to learn. You cannot just figure it all out in a day, week or even a month. I laugh at some people TBH who come and go with HUGE ambitions, talking about these HUGE projects they are going to make... on their own or that they want to lead but have others do the work. They come and go all the time. You have to start small, make a couple personal addons to learn, then people will be more than willing to help.

[soul_assassin 1723]

Ebud is right, dedication and self-learning has to be there. Simplest of projects can take years to do by yourself, much more if you are just starting. Devs will help you, but you have to show interest and effort.

[Guest RKSL-Rock]

Also the latest(?) project that was launched with www.dev-heaven.net is designed for experienced developers, it says it even on the start page:

What about the not-so-experienced devs out there? And i do count myself into this group also. I already get lost just while trying to navigate through this site. From my point of view, the site concept seems to be designed for pro-programmers, high educated, elite developers...completely left out starters. Although i understand that in the forums they will focus theyr topics for experienced devs, at least some infos for starters in a readyble and understandable form.

Myke I sympathise. I had a very similar discussion about this with Sickboy a few weeks ago.

I know its frustrating considering the info we had available in the last days of OFP. But, playing devils advocate, you have to remember that:

a) there are fewer addon makers and teams

b) the skill level required for arma1 and now 2 addons is far higher than OFP. (which highlights the need fo entry level tuts even more)

c) the perceived "quality" standard is incredibly high now. People are almost afraid to release in case they get flamed.

c) public "community" attitude in recent years has driven a lot of very skilled people either out of the community or underground.

d) rampant "theft" has caused a lot of teams to go "private", making stuff only for clan use.

Ok, now you might say there is also the BIWIKI. But even there, the info's are mostly vague or outdated. Lot of reference sites showing stuff from OFP, leaving ArmA completely out.

I've been trying to help several small teams recently (6 months +) and they are all stuggling in one or more areas. There is a huge lack of basic easy to understand tuts out there. I use the BIKI a lot but most of the info is written in such a cold clinical techie manner that the uninitiated just don't understand. (I've worked in IT and software dev for years and i struggle) And the practical 'real world' examples are few and far between. Most show you the usage and syntax but not the application. I've had several discussions with other modders about the direction of the community and providing accessible tuts. Depending on who you ask its "not needed" or people are begging for help. While i personally don't object to Dev heaven's stated goal. I don't think its supporting the part of the community that actually needs the support. Its very easy to say "anyone can participate" but if you don't know where to start you have no chance. While I do agree with a lot of what Ebud said. I know what you mean when you say "exclusive club". Its quite a common impression in the less well connected ends of the community. You have to have skills to get into the "club", but to get into the club you need to learn. Its a vicious circle.

A while a go I was approached by a small team (Special Forces Group Mod) to help them out, unfortunately I'm, as usual, over committed to be much real help. But I was helping them when I can. Sadly SFG folded last month due to various reasons: compatibility with other mods, scripting problems, lack of an animator etc. But one of the main problems was lack of technical understanding. They did approach various teams and people in the community but didn't get much of the help they really needed. They weren't bad modders and they did want to do the work themselves but they didn't get much help when it came to the really technical stuff.

I've said this in several other places in the past; we need to support the noobs more. If you want more content to play with you need to encourage and support modders. Especially the new guys who want to learn. In the course of working with some of these noobs I think I've built up a pretty good understanding of what is needed in the way of tuts and I have made a start on them but its going to take me a long time on my own.

Rather than use Devheaven's deeply technical approach what I would like to see a set of easily accessible, simple novice level tuts for the less experienced. A while a go I committed to writing some myself, but as I said earlier im over committed (being self employed really limits my time). So what i'm going to try and do (probably this upcoming weekend) is publish a list of the tut topics that I think would be the most valuable and ask people to help out and write a quick tut. Anyone with some know how and would like to help would be appreciated.

I plan on hosting the results myself but I'm sure the community sites like ArmAholic, ArmedAssault.info etc will be happy to mirror them when they are complete.

The bottom line is, most of the more established addon makers have gotten so far with the generous help of others. Maybe its time we paid some of that back in a more visible and lasting way than just PM'ing answers? I'll post something on saturday with a basic framework. If anyone is interested in helping out im sure we'd all appreciate it.

[USSRsniper 0]

Modding Community is not exclusive, almost all questions I had about O2 were answered by more experienced users :) Some even made step by step tutorials just to answer my question! The problem is those tutorials on forums sometimes are never released on WIKI or some official modding website.

Edited June 29, 2009 by USSRsniper

[Inkompetent 0]

I guess the thing is (speaking from my personal experience) that when you finally figure out how to do a thing you dont have much energy or interest to write a tutorial. You want to do the thing you tried to make in the first place. Then you use your knowledge until you bump into next problem and so it goes on. Writing a tutorial takes alot of time and most often you do not understand 100% what you are doing and how it works

I think this is an often overseen truth. Practically every single one of the most skilled coders, animators, texturers, modelers and sound engineers are already spending all their free time creating stuff for ArmA. They neither have time nor energy to write tutorials about it unless they'll start getting paid for their time, and who is going to pay that?

The majority of us, even though we can manage to create working stuff here and there, aren't qualified to write tutorials since we do not thoroughly understand what we are doing.

[USSRsniper 0]

The majority of us, even though we can manage to create working stuff here and there, aren't qualified to write tutorials since we do not thoroughly understand what we are doing.

Yes we are qualified to write tutorials, If we write one, the experienced modder can read it and give suggestions and even talk about the best way of making something.

[scubaman3D 0]

A while a go I committed to writing some myself, but as I said earlier im over committed (being self employed really limits my time)...

This is the same boat I think a lot of us who would like to help are in.

I have a 9-5 job and in my "free time", I do freelance work (as you know). Then, in my free time from my "free time" I do addon making, in between juggling a social life and a marriage.

Thank God there's no kids yet :eek:

[[frl]myke 14]

Gentlemen,

i'm not talking about beeing "elite" in mind but in the way how (if ever) informations are shared. But before i ellaborate about this, let me state a few things:

I'm not into "hey i need this, whoe does it for me?". I prefer to do things myself because thats the way i learn.

I do ask for help if i'm stuck and prefer to get a explanation on how to do it rather than receiving a "ready to apply template". Although it is surely nicely meant, i don't learn much this way.

I also have to say, whenever i've asked a question, i can't remember that i didn't received helpful comments and tips for each of my problems. So yes, there is and was always helpful people around.

Although i'm not quite a noob (some might know my ArmA Coop Essential script pack or the Dynamic Viewdistance addon for ArmA 1) i'm not a high-educated guy. I'm also not the youngest anymore, so learning takes a little longer sometimes. And finally, english isn't my native language and didn't learned it in school but by myself (is autodidactive a english word?).

Ok, now BTT: let me bring you an example which covers the software often referred to in tutorials or forum answers. I quote just one sentence:

1) Start Photoshop and create a 512 x 512 px document.

The following instructions are completely based upon PS keystrokes and menus and so on.

As said before, i can't afford PS and i do not pirate software (no discussion now about this please) so i use open source software, in this case GIMP.

Now don't get me wrong, i'm sure this tutorial is excellent as far as i can judge. But keeping it more general like:

"do this (XY in PS) and try to do this (would be AB in PS)"

would open it to far more people.

Let me give you another example about the feel of eliteness. As maybe some of you might have noticed, i try to establish a standard for plane wepons like missiles and bombs which would allow easy exchange of weapon systems between addons (and als mid-mission with little to no scripting for mission makers). First i thought that would perfectly fit to dev-heaven as it needs surely some tweakings and fine tunings and a lot of input.

But when i stared at the site...well, i was lost. I felt scared away from the high level of language used (terminology) and i didn't know at all how to navigate through all this (well, i know how to click a hyperlink, you get it).

As said before, i wouldn't consider myself as one of the smartest guys around.

Ok, but there it starts: where's a place for guys like me? Searching for answers about things that surely have be done a thousand times by other modders/addonmakers. Is it really needed to re-invent the wheel for each step i make?

Sure i can ask in the forums. But you all know that it takes time before you get the first (and hopefully helpful) answer. Not complaining about this, it is the nature of a forum that it takes it's time.

But meanwhile one is stuck with it's work. If there would be a tutorial for all those things done already thousandtimes, one could read it and maybe continue his work just a few minutes later.

So please don't get me wrong:

There is always help in the forum for specific problems, sure thing.

Dev-Heaven is surely a good thing for those who have the skills for it. I wouldn't say at all there's no need for it and i even undertand that they prefer to keep a certain professionality, level of knowledge.

But it still remains the problem:

Tutorials are often outdated and/or cluttered all over the internet.

A lot of tutorials need a high level of personal knowledge to even understand them, even more when english isn't your native language (not the problem of the poeple out there, i know that).

So again:

I do not talk about being elite in mind and/or behaviour but about eliteness in presenting and/or opening knowloedge to the wide masses.

[oyman 0]

G

Ok, but there it starts: where's a place for guys like me? Searching for answers about things that surely have be done a thousand times by other modders/addonmakers.

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard311/ikonboard.cgi?;act=Search;CODE=00;

[soul_assassin 1723]

But this is where you hit snags:

1. I would not write tutorial for software that i do not use. That just has to be accepted. If a tutorial is generalized it will often end up using an even more complex array of vocabulary. If you use something like GIMP then you have to yourself lookup how it is possible to achieve the same operation in ur software (usually as easy as looking into that software's help file).

2. To your second point, well the terminology there hasn't been "elitized" at all. The mod-makers that take their creations seriously just use the industry standard vocab. Noone is going to start calling "normalmaps" - "vector of light reflection maps in red green and blue space". Any area of education comes with a learning curve and it takes some personal training to climb it, you need to look up words, read up wikipedia etc.

And whereas I do agree that perhaps number of tutorials could be larger, I think the personal aspect should not be overlooked. I think it is completely wrong and unfair to say that there is a lack of new mod-makers cuz "the elite devs who bothered to unpack the original configs and take a look in them didnt bother to post what they found there".

[franze 196]

Myke,

A huge part of the problem is that even the most skilled addon makers honestly don't know either. They stumble around and spend thousands of hours just trying something to see if it will work.

Consider this:

I make a tutorial on how to create an airplane. I thoroughly detail how to start off, what needs to be done, etc. and even though I think I've explained it comprehensively, there will always be people out there who will email me with specific questions that do not pertain to the tutorial or simply don't comprehend it at all.

These people often miss the point entirely - a tutorial isn't the end-all, be-all solution to your problems. You use it as a guideline and work from there. You try something, see if it works, and go from there. So much of the higher level stuff is simply too complex for a beginner to understand and you cannot simplify it enough without learning the basics first.

Now throw in the fact that a lot of us already have enough projects of our own that we want to work on. We don't do this just to make tutorials or show others how to do it; we do it because we have something we want to make using what we've learned.

The first addon I did in FP took me days and was a horrible piece of junk. I can now make a similar addon in vastly improved quality in a matter of hours.

Most of my attempts to show some folks the ropes were met with gruesome failure. The majority just wanted me to do something for them, and that's not what I do. I can help you with what I know, but the majority of that is simply "Try it and find out".

[mr burns 131]

There´s plenty of info available for almost anything that concerns OFP/ArmA modding. As others said, OFPEC, brsseb, PMC, LN, etc.

It´s just horribly cluttered all over the interwebs which makes it ultra hard to get started with. Most of us know know who to ask or where to look and so there isn´t a really existing deficit in information sharing - but for newcomers it must be hell figuring that all out.

Then again, name a modding community where this doesn´t apply, other than Crysis for which Crytek put up an excellent and extensive tutorial on their own (good move btw *hint *hint).

Maybe a giant guidepost would help, giving directions to all the essential places one would need to get his nose stuck in ArmA modding. But then again, it´d still be a major pain if you don´t know what to search for.

Also remember that most mod/addonmakers rather spend their free time making mods than writing huge articles.

Or we just need an Ari Gold like figure, connecting people, hugging it out

[Defunkt 431]

As far as I can see dev-heaven is largely a source code repository, if that's a fair summation then, while a useful tool for shared projects, there's little point in looking to it for much else. They even say as much under "What is dev heaven"...

The BIKI is the place we merge our knowledge into, we are cooperating closely with the BIKI admins, and provide a forum to talk about BIKI problems and to discuss BIKI related topics.

...so, seen in that light, it's not elitist, just possibly not what you were hoping/looking for.