Author Topic: Livening up Roguetemple  (Read 65924 times)

getter77

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Livening up Roguetemple
« on: September 02, 2009, 02:30:21 AM »
I'm not at all lucid at the moment due to nothing good afoot, but still.

As suggested by Elig upon a proper thread derailment, let this topic be centered upon strategies by which to hopefully increase the amoung of people regularly checking and interacting within and about Roguetemple---providing the ideas actually work and/or are feasible.  I'll keep updating the OP as new random things get thought up by folk already here and as things get accomplished.  For starters:

-A Roguetemple Youtube channel to serve as an aggregate effort for video Let's Play's, walkthroughs, review, monthlyish news roundups, and whatever else concerning Roguelikes as a whole.  Any various people that would cook up good stuff would then have the password and such to be able to post it all up in one organized place to build something of a brand in Roguetemple's comprehensiveness.  Likewise some manner of streaming channel on the likes of http://www.livestream.com/ for matters of coordination of certain kinds of events, workshops, and thus undone team projects---just seems too handy to not take advantage of exploring.

-A MUCH stronger effort to reach out to/latch onto the various Retail Roguelikes as they happen and as they come along----especially the Japanese Mystery/Fushigi Dungeon franchise of games.  There tend to be tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people that purchase these games the world over and enjoy then thoroughly...so getting Roguetemple into the stream of awareness as a place they could see discussions and/or content related to it that would hit word of mouth and Google searches would surely be a good thing.   These games have a history of serving as a gateway to PC fare Roguelikes, providing people actually get pointed along in those directions lest they just stay in the Mysteries.  In general, to not attempt to give a general good faith effort to raise up retail projects is self-destructive and smacks of utter foolishness in terms of undercutting further advances with the scope of Roguelikes.  Possibly look into setting up an affiliate system in regards to any online retailers that carry Roguelikes----something along the lines of how RPGCodex has the like with GoG.com.

-Try to grab more interviews with Roguelike developers and other people relative to the Roguelike process and related tangents.   These anecdotes and illuminatory pieces are in tremendous need of 1. Existing 2. Being archived good and proper for future reference years down the line.  John Harris is only one man afterall.

-Screenshots of all games possible, ideally in a variety of situations within each respective game.  Even the ASCII folk have need of seeing the letters and symbols.

-Contests along similar, yet perhaps more comprehensive themes, in line with the 7DRL, Crawl, and Nethack affairs that happen here and there with each year.

-Localized and Personalized resources onsite in regards to helping people write Roguelikes of their own...lots of them.  The mystery needs to be in the play experience, not the makeup of bars to entry---walls to be knocked down to hurdles and steps.

-As mentioned before, for as many new and ongoing Roguelikes as possible to include good old www.roguetemple.com somewhere within their splash screen or shortly thereafter so as to inform the myriad, currently nameless and faceless players the world over of the site's existence and hopefully allow them to connect the dots and venture to this place.  In turn, of course, Roguetemple must be a fit residence/stopover for said title.

-Webchats or some other thing where there can be a general meeting time and place to pop into without having to mess with IRC and have a realtime conversation with other people regarding Roguelikes in general.  Possibly try to attract noticeable guests to attend for some such times.

-If anybody happens to be a Goon, to keep them fully abreast of the latest releases and developments for their various megathreads, especially one biggie they have for Roguelikes in general that seems to have a tendency to generate mega-threads for specific games.  In some ways I can easily see how they'd have a much more robust discussion environ than here at Roguetemple and the Google Groups, but in other ways I feel that's just damn insane considering said kind of discussion is pretty well the central core of the latter.

-Profuse crosslinking and crosspromotion onsite with all manner of Roguelikes from the ever popular to the ones languishing in the darker part of the shadows.

-Providing it pans out the way it is being framed in the coming months, investigate the new aspect for Stardock's Impulse Reactor Phase IV which, among other aspects, seems to have doors open for hobbyist game free dispersal and perhaps sale...seemingly to a more flexible degree than Valve's Steam.  Likewise, there should probably be an effort to get at least some of the older, "done" Roguelikes up on GoG.com's free game section.  I doubt they've people beating their doors down at this point to get up there---thus I would reckon better odds of a more favorable response and likewise more visibility for the world of Roguelikes in general as many of the lapsed customers on there may very likely be well out of the loop.

Well, there's the top of my head roughly.  There must be more and/or better yet still...

Such as:

-Analysis and cataloging of the various topics of implementation relative to Roguelikes, ie Religions, ID games, etc.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2009, 08:47:34 PM by getter77 »
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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2009, 11:19:15 AM »
That kind of advertising and promoting can backfire. I think roguelike games don't need advertising. People that are interested about them will find them.

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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2009, 01:08:37 PM »
I suggest an interview with Krice, including scantly clad money shots.

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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #3 on: September 02, 2009, 05:43:09 PM »
One of the problems for roguetemple is it's audience is focused on roguelike development and not playing.  Well that's not a problem per say, but that audience is smaller.

Most of the players are interested in the one specific game they play and most games have their own independent side area, something that is necessary.

I don't really have a solution in mind, but it's not a bad thing to attract developers.  Trying to get more of the developers from other games to post here would be a good start though, so I second the interviews.

Also, maybe directing some more topics on implementing features beyond the fov, map generation discussions, and basic AI that tends to dominate roguelike discussion despite the fact all of those are relatively easy to do and take a small fraction of the time necessary to develop a game.

Stuff like power curves, or player choices, skill system vs leveling, religion, and other stuff like that would make the development discussions more interesting.

Well, that's what I am interested in at least.

How about, The Roguelike Item Game Megathread!  Or, The Roguelike Religion Megathread!

Now that would be very cool stuff.  I'd love to hear what developers were thinking when they put in their identification games, or how religion is implemented in various roguelikes.  Status effects could be cool too, every major roguelike seems to implement confusion, fear, and poison nowadays.  Let's see a poll bands vs. hacks and discuss the differences and what that means for game play.

I'd love to talk to other developers about their ideas.  I find that stuff very interesting and picking their brains would help keep me motivated.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2009, 05:51:38 PM by justinhoffman »

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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #4 on: September 02, 2009, 08:56:04 PM »
I'm not at all lucid at the moment due to nothing good afoot, but still.
Awesome :)

Quote
As suggested by Elig upon a proper thread derailment, let this topic be centered upon strategies by which to hopefully increase the amoung of people regularly checking and interacting within and about Roguetemple---providing the ideas actually work and/or are feasible.  I'll keep updating the OP as new random things get thought up by folk already here and as things get accomplished.  For starters:

-A Roguetemple Youtube channel to serve as an aggregate effort for video Let's Play's, walkthroughs, review, monthlyish news roundups, and whatever else concerning Roguelikes as a whole.  Any various people that would cook up good stuff would then have the password and such to be able to post it all up in one organized place to build something of a brand in Roguetemple's comprehensiveness.  Likewise some manner of streaming channel on the likes of http://www.livestream.com/ for matters of coordination of certain kinds of events, workshops, and thus undone team projects---just seems too handy to not take advantage of exploring.
Excellent idea. I definitely think this should be done. A central youtube channel for the roguelike community is definitely needed.

Quote
-A MUCH stronger effort to reach out to/latch onto the various Retail Roguelikes as they happen and as they come along----especially the Japanese Mystery/Fushigi Dungeon franchise of games.  There tend to be tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people that purchase these games the world over and enjoy then thoroughly...so getting Roguetemple into the stream of awareness as a place they could see discussions and/or content related to it that would hit word of mouth and Google searches would surely be a good thing.   These games have a history of serving as a gateway to PC fare Roguelikes, providing people actually get pointed along in those directions lest they just stay in the Mysteries.  In general, to not attempt to give a general good faith effort to raise up retail projects is self-destructive and smacks of utter foolishness in terms of undercutting further advances with the scope of Roguelikes.  Possibly look into setting up an affiliate system in regards to any online retailers that carry Roguelikes----something along the lines of how RPGCodex has the like with GoG.com.
Along these lines, it'd be nice if we did a better job in reaching out to the larger roguelike community in general. It'd be nice to get a link to here on Nethack's website, for instance. Or at least a link to Roguebasin which links here. Although it'd be more difficult, if we could get a link actually inside some roguelikes (Even 7DRLs) that would be awesome. We should also try to get links on DoomRL, angband.oook.cz and any other major sites.
Quote
-Try to grab more interviews with Roguelike developers and other people relative to the Roguelike process and related tangents.   These anecdotes and illuminatory pieces are in tremendous need of 1. Existing 2. Being archived good and proper for future reference years down the line.  John Harris is only one man afterall.
This is an excellent idea. Interviews can be as simple as 10 questions over e-mail. We should really be doing more of these, and trying to get links to Rogue Temple from said developers. :)
Quote
-Screenshots of all games possible, ideally in a variety of situations within each respective game.  Even the ASCII folk have need of seeing the letters and symbols.
It would be nice to have user uploaded photos like a content management system for this and other uses.
Quote
-Contests along similar, yet perhaps more comprehensive themes, in line with the 7DRL, Crawl, and Nethack affairs that happen here and there with each year.
In the MZX community, the main competition happens twice a year. Perhaps a bi-annual 7DRL would be good? I'm not sure if it makes things better or worse to run it twice a year. Certainly, we should have more competitions of some kind.
Quote
-Localized and Personalized resources onsite in regards to helping people write Roguelikes of their own...lots of them.  The mystery needs to be in the play experience, not the makeup of bars to entry---walls to be knocked down to hurdles and steps.
More tutorials and such are always good :)
Quote
-As mentioned before, for as many new and ongoing Roguelikes as possible to include good old www.roguetemple.com somewhere within their splash screen or shortly thereafter so as to inform the myriad, currently nameless and faceless players the world over of the site's existence and hopefully allow them to connect the dots and venture to this place.  In turn, of course, Roguetemple must be a fit residence/stopover for said title.

-Webchats or some other thing where there can be a general meeting time and place to pop into without having to mess with IRC and have a realtime conversation with other people regarding Roguelikes in general.  Possibly try to attract noticeable guests to attend for some such times.
There are good webchat clients these days, we just need to make sure we get one thats good. A Java IRC client that uses a webstart is one idea. Any webchat we have should probably connect automatically to #rgrd. Anyway, I think this would be a great addition.
Quote
-If anybody happens to be a Goon, to keep them fully abreast of the latest releases and developments for their various megathreads, especially one biggie they have for Roguelikes in general that seems to have a tendency to generate mega-threads for specific games.  In some ways I can easily see how they'd have a much more robust discussion environ than here at Roguetemple and the Google Groups, but in other ways I feel that's just damn insane considering said kind of discussion is pretty well the central core of the latter.

-Profuse crosslinking and crosspromotion onsite with all manner of Roguelikes from the ever popular to the ones languishing in the darker part of the shadows.
Agreed!
Quote
-Providing it pans out the way it is being framed in the coming months, investigate the new aspect for Stardock's Impulse Reactor Phase IV which, among other aspects, seems to have doors open for hobbyist game free dispersal and perhaps sale...seemingly to a more flexible degree than Valve's Steam.  Likewise, there should probably be an effort to get at least some of the older, "done" Roguelikes up on GoG.com's free game section.  I doubt they've people beating their doors down at this point to get up there---thus I would reckon better odds of a more favorable response and likewise more visibility for the world of Roguelikes in general as many of the lapsed customers on there may very likely be well out of the loop.

Well, there's the top of my head roughly.  There must be more and/or better yet still...
I think this is a pretty good amount of work to start on.

getter77

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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #5 on: September 02, 2009, 09:03:53 PM »
That kind of advertising and promoting can backfire. I think roguelike games don't need advertising. People that are interested about them will find them.

The issue as I see it is one of stagnation risks and things falling through the cracks.  I pick up on an undercurrent of the "Old Guard" reckoning that all will work out with no effort because it came up around them by chance and little to no thought given to History and carrying onward as the years go on to where there won't be any people left within even vague recollections of the heydays.  Otherwise, by my reckoning, there have only been a few scattered new posters in absolute terms since I happened to luck out and find this place---let alone most of the registered folk's would seem to be very much inactive.   All in all, such matters don't add up on consideration of the significance of Roguelikes in general within the grand scheme of videogames, let alone the RPG niche.

Besides, come on Krice, if things were REALLY set to be self-perpetuating/sustaining in regards to the lot of this, the outstanding majority of the posts and topics I've made and raised on here and elsewhere would've happened all on their own well before the presence of me, a 3rd party interloper newcomer, having to raise a ruckus on anything and everything at times.  Not to mention we would've have not as likely already lost at least one or two substantial Roguelikes long before the likes of this place existed---tragic as that all is in terms of waste and the historical implications.  Thus, a need to be proactive in the present/future to prevent the horrible, if unintentional at the time and given the times, mistakes of the past as best as possible.

Or even just the fact that if people don't see information before them to process and take in readily to form interests, odds are they won't spontaneously figure it out through a mad process of independent discovery and/or hallucination.
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getter77

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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #6 on: September 02, 2009, 10:07:29 PM »
I'm not at all lucid at the moment due to nothing good afoot, but still.
Awesome :)

How are the rough/bad times in my personal life awesome?   :'(   ;)
« Last Edit: September 02, 2009, 11:25:43 PM by getter77 »
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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #7 on: September 02, 2009, 11:09:05 PM »
No offense, but sometimes it's hard to understand exactly what you mean. I think that just happened to him! I'm pretty sure he misunderstood you! Either way, here's hoping for the best. Most of the ideas sound great!

Of course, me being too busy... ::) ;) ;D
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getter77

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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #8 on: September 02, 2009, 11:28:53 PM »
No offense, but sometimes it's hard to understand exactly what you mean. I think that just happened to him! I'm pretty sure he misunderstood you! Either way, here's hoping for the best. Most of the ideas sound great!

Of course, me being too busy... ::) ;) ;D

Bah, largely fixed.  Sorry about the incoherency at times....it tends to happen often due to whatever choice of words not quite hitting the mark.

Even as a busy fellow, ye can always throw ideas out!   :D  Besides, in theory, as/if some of these notions get streamlined with the kinks worked out, some bits wouldn't wind up taking more than a couple minutes to wrangle and post/upload as the case might be.
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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #9 on: September 03, 2009, 04:22:33 AM »
I'm not at all lucid at the moment due to nothing good afoot, but still.
Awesome :)

How are the rough/bad times in my personal life awesome?   :'(   ;)

I thought you meant you were drunk :) Anyway, no one is hurt from discussing ideas for the improvement of the Rogue Temple, so discuss! :D

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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #10 on: September 03, 2009, 08:34:40 AM »
Besides, come on Krice, if things were REALLY set to be self-perpetuating/sustaining in regards to the lot of this

They usually are. People who like to play roguelike games are not looking for words, they are looking for new games that are at least equal to old classics like Nethack. If we developers can't make such games then no words can save the day.

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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #11 on: September 03, 2009, 12:50:06 PM »
Besides, come on Krice, if things were REALLY set to be self-perpetuating/sustaining in regards to the lot of this

They usually are. People who like to play roguelike games are not looking for words, they are looking for new games that are at least equal to old classics like Nethack. If we developers can't make such games then no words can save the day.


Elig:  Oddly enough, I'm too lazy to drink.  No idea how that works...

Developers are but one (important) aspect to all this.  There's something to be said for the other people involved helping to boost something past a highly sequestered environ.  The works of history's great artists and musicians would NEVER be where they were at right now if not for their fans AND patrons putting forth many efforts of their own to wrangle for more and more people to hear and view the works, and in turn showcase it to yet more people...you get the idea.

There's also issues of taste.  Nethack may not be the magic ticket for an untold number of people...could be Mageguild....or Nazghul, there's really no telling.  Frankly, it is hard to draw very many conclusions at all in the grand scheme of Roguelikes since there has been such a relatively small population sample to work with over the years to establish even varying trends based on the people at the time.  Even though it has Tiles, I'M not really even drawn to Nethack.

Not to mention, playing other games enhances developers by allowing them to confront differing ideas to their existing ones and broaden their horizons.   Roguelike devs miss games too, sometimes lots of them, so it is to the overall benefit of the Development pool for everybody to have as wide a body to draw experiences from as possible.

I reckon Roguetemple as the logical place to exist with something to offer on most all fronts considering the state of Roguelikes in absolute terms and in relation to other videogames.  Like anything though, it'll take some various doings.

You would be a good interview target regarding Kaduria and such down the line once all is situated an a good, comprehensive rubric is hashed out..
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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #12 on: September 03, 2009, 01:29:34 PM »
One of the problems for roguetemple is it's audience is focused on roguelike development and not playing.  Well that's not a problem per say, but that audience is smaller.

From rgr* and Roguetemple it appears that people who play roguelikes are also usually interested in roguelike development (and are skilled in it or willing to learn). Although other roguelike forums (centered at specific games) do not give that impression.

I see the following uses for a general roguelike forum: 1) discuss what good ideas have been implemented in which roguelikes, and what good ideas have not been implemented yet, and how to combine these ideas into new games -- people interested in such discussions are likely to be developers and we have them. 2) announcements of new games and other roguelike-related things -- we have that too. 3) suggest the roguelike players which roguelikes in existence they should try out -- I think that's what you say is missing, but specific roguelike forums are also good for that...

Quote
Also, maybe directing some more topics on implementing features beyond the fov, map generation discussions, and basic AI that tends to dominate roguelike discussion despite the fact all of those are relatively easy to do and take a small fraction of the time necessary to develop a game.

Yeah, I noticed it long ago (at rgrd). Lots of posts regarding basic stuff, and not many regarding e.g. balance, which is IMO a real problem in roguelike development.

Quote
Status effects could be cool too, every major roguelike seems to implement confusion, fear, and poison nowadays.

You mean a thread listing all states existing in roguelike, and ideas for new original states? That could be fun :)

Otherwise, by my reckoning, there have only been a few scattered new posters in absolute terms since I happened to luck out and find this place---let alone most of the registered folk's would seem to be very much inactive.

For me Roguetemple appears in Google search for "roguelike" just after Wikipedia definition, Roguebasin, DCSS, and image results. So this is quite good placement (although Wikipedia's definition is worse than Roguebasin, and DCSS might be placed lower). I have not looked at sites of big roguelikes that much, but I think they usually state their Roguelike roots, and guys interested in trying other similar games and discussing them should find Roguetemple... at least it seems so.

Maybe the big games should try giving Roguetemple as an alternative to discussion at rgr*. I think most people nowadays feel much more comfortable with web-based forums than with rgr*, and yet e.g. DCSS lists only newsgroups and mailing lists as possible discussion sites. (Is there any DCSS developer on Roguetemple? Maybe we should get one, and let our DCSS section grow)

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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #13 on: September 03, 2009, 05:31:31 PM »
Honestly, the RGR groups, dev in particular, drive me insane at their lack of moderation leading to the mass spam of junk ads that tend to bury any actual talks.  It doesn't even need to be as rigid as *Announce has it...just give various logical people the power to click an "x" or something to delete/ban the spammers after the fact.  That kind of problem simply doesn't exist around here.

Somethingawful, by my reckoning, has the most ongoing discussions period in general terms of Roguelikes, whereas Dwarf Fortress does most of it on itself onsite.  Somethingawful also costs money to post on....so again it seems so very odd that a free place with a good setup like around here falls far behind in some areas like that.  Though it is older and more well known to be fair.  In that regard I see it as beneficial to boost the notoriety of Roguetemple as proactive since we've not the luxury of age to beget it.  As more things are wrangled here, visibly with clamour, that should at least get people posting here as well as places like SA or gamefaqs for a start---then ultimately get new people and just keep going as the ideas flow and as what works is discerned.

There's things in the short term to experiment with same as with the long term since this is a general place not dedicated in large part to any one game.  Obviously Slash will have to weigh in on the lot of it, especially the likes of a youtube channel bearing the name.

I can't see how there's not good progress to be made though once some general checklists get nailed down.  If anything, since Roguelikes are so behind the times in lots of respects versus the other big genres, it should be possible to make some great leaps in cultivation moving forward.
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Re: Livening up Roguetemple
« Reply #14 on: September 03, 2009, 08:15:23 PM »
Honestly, the RGR groups, dev in particular, drive me insane at their lack of moderation leading to the mass spam of junk ads that tend to bury any actual talks. 

Don't use google groups.  Get usenet from a real provider and you won't get any spam.

-Ido.