The “yes and…” concept is about creative brainstorming, that is it is about synthesizing new ideas that may or may not be considered for implementation at some point. But in order to consider if an idea is good or not, we fist need ideas created, which is the primary purpose of the Evil Genius Think Tank category. At the same time don’t be too clinical nor too serious in the process, loosening up and having fun is generally very good for the creative process. Disagreement and debate is more for the later stage of analysis, but ideas need to be allowed to be conceived beforehand.
Not to address anyone in particular, but I would also like to add that insults and name calling can be very distracting to the creative process if included in a negative context. Additionally if someone sees a problem with a post, please use the flagging system, as discussing in the topic a potentially problem post (a post that might violate the guidelines) can derail the conversation in a given topic even more so than the potentially problem post itself.
If anyone has questions, concerns, disagreements, or suggestions about how the forum/website itself is operated/managed/moderated in general (and not about a particular potentially problem post), please make a post in the GrangerHub Meta category here: GrangerHub Meta - GrangerHub Forum
the “yes and” attitude is retarded because it assumes that people will take random strangers on the interwebz seriously and treat them with respect (ha)
the “yes and” attitude works in a professional environment (as in: a job; a development team etc) but it’s pointless in an environment like a game forum for an already dead game. People here don’t get paid for their ideas, they don’t depend on making good changes to their project, and as a result they spew random garbage they came up with when they were 8 corona’s in and for some reason decided to make a trem post.
It gets to the point where i don’t know what’s a troll post and what’s (just) a garbage idea, and most of the other “ideas” are so fucking obvious that i don’t know why it’s taken so long for them to get implemented / considered and why there’s a need for debating at all (team overlay idea for instance) on the other hand: Idea: Storage Hat
Like fucking really? Guyz lul how bout we maek rant hev 4000 hp obvius god idae rite
Too fucking often people shitpost pure garbage and then resort to saying things like: “use constructive criticism and yes-and attitude you cyberbully!” when you say their idea is “the purest form of cancer in the history of mankind”
Some decent ideas that would obviously need testing in that thread yet i haven’t noticed any testing since: Funny looking blaster changes on the test server huh Like if you’re not going to do anything with good ideas, why should i bother trying to point out the bad things in obviously shit ideas?
“Yes, and” < “No, thanks”
Edit: should point out that i was drunk while writing this so there might be complete bullshit statements in here idk i’ll just leave my rant here
For as long as people still play and work on this game (and they still do), Tremulous will be alive.
For this Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) project people don’t get paid in a monetary sense for giving ideas, nor for working on code, nor for making assets, nor for hosting servers. However, people still do those things for two very important reasons:
This is a fun hobby to work on with friends.
The results of our efforts is a more fun game to play with friends.
When that is said, that statement is usually an extreme over-exaggeration. There is a difference between discussing ideas and implementing them. Talking about and expanding on any of the ideas in the Evil Genius Think Tank does absolutely no harm as considering an idea does not mean that it will be implemented (actual implementation in Tremulous, mods, servers, maps, and other projects is for discussion in other categories). So those ideas are not even remotely similar to a form of cancer nor any of other disease as they do no harm in a conception state.
However, while an idea is still undeveloped It is not always easy to tell in advance if the idea is a genius positive game changer, nor if it is horrible in action, nor if it is somewhere between, nor if it will indirectly inspire the creation of other new good ideas (even “bad” ideas can inspire good ideas). If people feel that it is likely that introducing a non-conforming idea will result in negative consequences, they will likely be hesitant to introduce any new ideas. Just calling an idea in a brainstorming session cancer isn’t adding anything to the creative process, but rather brings the process to a hault.
Yes the creative process can be very messy and very uncertain, but it does work, and it is even fun if you open your mind up and explore beyond self-imposed creative limitations.
The idea of people spending their free time for no monetary gain with strangers on the internet to work and play on a game that is based on a conflict between humans and aliens where both can build things while engaging in combat, can be interpreted to be an absurd idea. But the idea was conceived, implemented, tested, and developed, resulting in us working and playing together on it today.
Dreamers, explorers, and risk takers are essential to the very existence of human civilization. Yes constructive criticism, analysis, and reasoned debate are all important and have their place too, but they should work along side and complement creativity and not work against it. This is why in GrangerHub we created a category that is dedicated to and fundamentally encourages creativity.
Here is an article written by the highly successful comedian and actress Tina Fey going into more detail about how the “Yes, AND…” attitude works and its benefits:
Sparky that article doesn’t achieve anything as it goes into detail about constructive criticism & the “Yes and” attitude in a scene, aka people all working towards the same goal of making a play aka a professional environment. I know perfectly fine how the attitude works and why it’s beneficial in certain situations, i just think it’s overvalued and people use it like race/gender cards, don’t want to go offtopic but “yes and” and “constructive criticism” is thrown around on these forums like “mysognist pig” gets thrown around on tumblr (bad site btw it’s filled with idiots)
I appreciate you and the dev team working towards a goal of improving the game (regardless of whether you’re taking the right approach in certain situations, that’s another discussion) but i don’t think it’s fair to assume that everyone wants a better game. People want a game that caters to their playstyle. If you’d ask players that mainly / only play humans whether goon headchomp should get nerfed, i already know the answer they will give you, i also know that it’s a terrible idea and that it shouldn’t happen. I could go into detail about why it’s a terrible idea (it would make humans stronger / on par with aliens in every single stage of the game for instance, while still being ahead at s3) but almost every single player that voted yes on said poll knows why it’s a bad idea, they just don’t care about balance, they’re looking for personal gain. [quote=“dGr8LookinSparky, post:3, topic:1736”]
There is a difference between discussing ideas and implementing them.
[/quote]
How is this a good thing? Proves my point again that there’s no use discussing ideas.
Not always perhaps, but it usually is
Tremulous is a game, not your private project for an art major, stop giving me these lame quotes that don’t actually mean anything outside a college campus.
Which proves …?
Hitler was all of the above, why am i pointing this out? i don’t know, why are you throwing around quotes from art / philosophy classes?
I have no idea what the fuck both of you are arguing about, but I don’t think it matters because this right here should be the focus. I agree with Dark’s sentiment regarding the nature of the “Yes, and” attitude. I think “guidelines” are better suited to encouraging positive behavior than enforcing them. You can’t mandate people to work together towards decent discussion, it has to happen naturally.
However GH staff should be held to a higher standard than normal members. Rules should exist separate from guidelines to outline what are those standards expected from GH staff, such as what actions they are allowed/not allowed to do. Right now the official GH guidelines are in a weird grey zone that noone knows the boundaries of, which seems to be the source of recent frustration. I believe it is worthwhile to take the time to separate the current guidelines into two distinct entities: guidelines and rules. Example:
Guidelines = Try to present a positive attitude when disagreeing with others.
Rule = Don’t derail the thread with personal insults to the point where its no longer relevant to the topic.
The difference is that guidelines are there to set an example of what GH wants from staff and won’t necessarily punish those who don’t adhere to them. GH staff should be allowed (for a lack of a better term because I’m tired and its 4AM) be complete straight-up “faggots” and ruin their online reputation. Why? Because being a complete straight-up faggot online =/= being a bad GH moderator/editor/whatever.
This doesn’t mean their behavior should not be taken as a factor into how they act as staff, but I think solely targeting people on how they act is a VERY BAD IDEA.
Finally, this is advice everyone should be taking to heart, including myself. Take it from a guy who is an expert at derailing threads: if you have an issue that isn’t relevant to the thread topic, take it elsewhere. It can be through a PM or a post on a different category.
That doesn’t prove your point “that there’s no use discussing ideas.” It is a good thing that there is a difference between discussing ideas and implementing them because there is no reason to feel threatened from the mere discussion of ideas (whether they are great ideas, bad ideas, or somewhere in-between).
However, while most ideas won’t be implemented, some good ideas are needed to be created in order for anything new to be implemented, this is true of any project.
A lot of people have a hard time recognizing the value of a potentially revolutionary idea until it is fully developed, implemented, and already yielding results. The people who actually make good ideas a reality are not afraid to take risks, nor to get their hands dirty exploring through bad ideas to find the good ideas, nor to help the potentially awesome ideas mature.
That is not to say that there would still be many things implemented in projects that are found after testing that they turned out to be bad ideas, or at the very least needs to be improved, but that is all part of the development process.
I’m not assuming that everyone wants a better game, and I don’t expect everyone to participate. But everyone who does participate does have something to gain, which the two reasons I gave above (working on a fun hobby, and playing a more fun game). While currently the GrangerHub development team is working on Tremulous 1.3 with closed source development, we will be releasing that code when it is ready, and then anyone who has the skills and interest could work on the new code independently from GrangerHub if they wanted to. Tremulous does not belong to GrangerHub, Tremulous belongs to the Tremulous community.
Of course there are players that prefer playing 1.1 vanilla over new game plays and that is why we are porting 1.1 vanilla game play as a game mode in 1.3 to cater to their interests in Tremulous, but even those players would generally appreciate the tons of bugs fixes, and non-gameplay related enhancements/features that are going to be included in 1.3 regardless of the game mode.
It is important to keep in mind that one of the main reasons the Tremulous community dwindled over the years was because the original Tremulous developers didn’t follow through on a new release and stopped developing Tremulous. In order to have a chance to regain a lot of those old players, and gain even more new players Tremulous development needs to resume (which we are doing). Tremulous needs to move towards the future in order to have a future. To achieve this Tremulous needs new awesome ideas.
If someone has no interest in our work yielding new good results, there is nothing wrong with that, that doesn’t make them a bad person, and they don’t have to participate in GrangerHub’s projects.
That is not a quote from any art/philosophy class, that is reality, and any project that doesn’t understand that reality will fail sooner or later.
The “Yes, AND…” attitude is actually more applicable in some places than others. While it can be helpful to always exhibit it to some degree, it is most useful in brainstorming sessions. After ideas are formed and implementation is considered, and even tests are done actually disagreement, debate, and constructive criticism would be more useful.
At GrangerHub we created The Evil Think Tank category to be one of the designated creative brainstorming powerhouses, and the “Yes, AND…” attitude is more useful there than in many other places. People don’t have to participate in that category if they don’t want, but if they choose to participate there it is best for them to approach with an open mind and don’t have a weak stomach for the weird, the crazy, the outlandish, the revolutionary, nor the ingenious.
The bottom line is loosen up, don’t take things too seriously, and don’t be afraid to allow your mind wonder once in awhile, all of this is about a game after all.
Whatever sparky, just keep in mind that you reap what you sow, and if you tell people to “allow their minds to wonder” you’re going to get terrible ideas out of those people. If you tell people to just fuck around a bit with an idea, then be condescending to anyone that speaks up against said idea, you shouldn’t be surprised that noone plays on test7341.
I expect to see “terrible” ideas, there is nothing wrong with that, because I also expect to see good ideas and awesome ideas in the mix as well. That is how brainstorming works, even if just 1% leads to awesome results, it is worth it.
Again the “Yes, AND…” attitude is primarily about generating ideas in the brainstorming phase (which is the primary purpose of the Evil Genius Think Tank category), analyzing ideas to determine the likelihood of the quality of ideas is important as well, but that occurs after brainstorming (generally in all other categories on the forums).
Some people prefer analyzing over brainstorming, some people prefer brainstorming over analyzing, some people prefer them equally. Both roles are important and great things can result if the two roles work together harmoniously in a project.
Test7341 is a test server, is not designed to be played like a regular one, nevertheless the days appointed to test the new features in the server, a lot of people show up. Just last saturday we got a 8v8 game going, with most people being non admin players (regulars from pub) which wanted to see the new features that are being added in trem. Sorry for being off-topic but the above statement of noone plays on test7341 had to be clarified.
And the Saturday before that we had a bunch of 20 vs 20 games.
Exactly, test7341 is meant to be a development server where new bugs are to be expected, and new features/enhancement are experimented with, which might demonstrate to be good new features/enhancements, or features/enhancements in need of improvement, or feature/enhancements that need to be scrapped completely. Development is a process that involves taking risks, making mistakes, and learning from them. It is a necessary process that yields great results in the end.
saying „fuck off” when i have an issue with someone sounds pretty positive for me.
what if someone is WRONG, but thinks that he’s on to something ?
what if someone is WRONG, with making it personal ?
in other words: only criticize an idea after it has been created. if u do not comply, ur life shall be wasted.
what is the prior stage of the analysis ? nah, that doesn’t make sense. here, „analysis” must include „creation of an idea (prior stage)”, and then there’s „destruction of the idea (later stage)”.
If we are talking about a situation that calls for creativity, that would be the “Yes, AND” attitude.
How?
See:
It is okay for people to be wrong, without making it personal.
But even “wrong” ideas could inspire potentially good ideas.
Here wrong is primarily referring to being wrong about a concept, as opposed to taking a wrong action by implementing a wrong concept. Which goes back to how considering a concept is not the same as implementing it.
Your life may not be wasted, but the potential creative results of a brainstorming session might be.
Actually I wasn’t referring to different stages of analysis, I was referring to analysis as a stage. Analysis is about breaking something down into basic pieces and investigating those pieces and their relationships with each other. However, a concept must first be conceived in order for it to be analyzed. That is where the prior stage of creative brainstorming comes in.
Yes, AND… less build a vehicle to safely traverse that portal to heaven and bring some sandwiches in case we get hungry along the journey.
considering a concept is not the same as implementing it.
baseless. how about „noted (will later say whether u r awesome or should die). <creative_shit>” ? how about „<creative_shit>” ?
that’s how my personal scoring system works.
but what if he’s going on a WRONGness spree, where the WRONGness is due to the reliance on the initial, WRONG hypothesis ? waste of effort must be saved…
the „ideaness” within a message cannot be WRONG. the WRONGness comes from the claiming element. for example:
„flying tyrant !” cannot be WRONG; well, at most for the arguable part that the presenter should have displayed more diligence to avoid repeating frequent proposals.
in a game balancing thread, „make granger have +10 hp” can be called WRONG for the carried claim (supposedly not explicitly disclaimed) that the change would be a balancer.
in other words, it makes hardly any sense to say „to be WRONG, making it personal”. the text probably should have been:
„It is okay for people to be wrong, so express that he/she is WRONG without making it personal.”
now, u do realize that an idea cannot be criticized before it has been created, right ?
so first conceive the idea (first post), and wait for analysis to drip in ?
Again, in brainstorming, “wrong” concepts are not necessarily wasted as they can ultimately lead to the inspiration of good ideas. We have plenty of room for plenty of posts with “wrong” concepts. As long as it is all well organized we can go back and search for any good ideas that are buried in “wrongness” piles.
The guideline to post stuff related to an existing topic in the existing topic instead of creating a new repeated topic still applies. We ecnourage necroing old topics on these forums .
For creative brainstorming, in general suggesting finetuned values is kinda boring I admit, and that is more for actually testing in-game, however a suggestion along the lines of increase the granger’s speed 5 times, increase the granger’s claw rate and spit rate 20 times can be very interesting (I tried that a few times btw, complete destruction resulted from this not so defenseless granger )
That sounds approriate, although it is kinda outside the “Yes, AND…” concept for brainstorming and more related to disagreeing without exhibiting personal attacks.
Ideas that are still in development can be criticized before they are fully formulated, which may result in the discouragement of the formulation of those ideas being completed, and thus the unavalaibility of the fully formulated idea to be analyzed.
Since we are talking about collaboration in brainstorming, and in a forum medium one post is generally done by one player, a brainstorming session in a forum topic may require a long series of posts for the idea(s) in a given topic to be fully formulated.
You can always use “Yes, and” in accordance with the code of conduct whilst using obvious sarcasm to disagree. “Yes, and we should have advanced tyrants with wallwalking, fireballs and 800 hps.”
The F server’s rants had wall walking and the Edge based gpp mods had rant that shot fire balls our of their belly region. Regarding the 800 hp, I haven’t seen that yet, but for swirl mode we are going to try something similar to the bp reserve system, as an hp reserve system for the aliens.
The problem with wallwalking rants was that surfaces were generally harder to climb and the camera would freak out. Also they could easily escape humans, even if they had faster jetpacks than the original qvm.
how to determine when a given (partial) idea has been fully brainstormed, and how to calculate the (expected) number of posts needed to finish the (partial) idea ?
how about separating brainstorming threads from analysis threads ?
if there will be plenty of brainstorming and criticism, a corrected, extracted and, most importantly, rethought formulation would need to be posted anyway. this constitutes brainstorming after analysis. why not create new, fresh versions of the thread (as subthreads) for each proposed reformulation ?
otherwise, since there will be mixtures of brainstorming and criticism, why not just ignore analysis and continue brainstorming ?
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