I loved the ROM Hack section when I was working on Lost Legends under the name Dissension. It was a solid community that liked to check out what others were doing and share their knowledge and thoughts with the community.
The GD section however, is something entirely different. We tend to attract people who have an elitest attitude towards other members. Not only can this turn new members off from coming to this section, but also it can drive them to avoid developing all together, which does not contribute to the strength of the community.
I have to agree with you here. It's not really changed much since I first started here actually. For the first month, maybe two, I went to the thread to read some of the fixes/advice and ask for occasional help, but it wasn't long before I began answering my own questions (this is a good thing that everyone should at least attempt to do, but it took a whole lot longer for things that were turned out to be pretty simple) and those of others. The notes were ok for general stuff, but the wiki hadn't been created yet and there just never seems to be enough knowledgeable Essentials users (and at that, ones that have the time/desire to add their input) to provide a steady flow of answers to peoples questions (and of course there's plenty of unwarranted questions that get asked, and refusal to answer these likely causes new users to feel like no one cares about their questions, so they may think twice about asking legitimate questions too). I'm kind of in an out for the most part. Sometimes I'll be on for a few days and do some stuff, other times I'm not around at all and just check in to see what's going on occasionally. If there were more knowledgeable users (even just about RMXP and scripting in general), it would probably significantly benefit the community.
And I can see your point on the elitist attitude thing. I don't know that that's what people intend, but I see where it could be interpreted as such. There are times when I've read back over responses that I've made (usually to get my own advice on something I forget), and found that my way of presenting my response was less than optimal. It's usually when answering questions that seem so invariably obvious that I can't understand how someone could NOT understand them. Of course, it's never intended to make the other party feel intellectually inferior (I would like to think that others who may speak in such ways don't mean it that way either). It's merely because some questions are so basic that it's almost hard to even answer them. Think of it this way: what if someone asks you how to press the space bar on the keyboard? I would probably sound like I'm being a pretentious smart alec if I said "Take your right index finger, then push the key with it," because it's so straightforward that it sounds like an insult to their intelligence (and it's hard not to be straightforward with something so basic). The problem basically comes from new users who don't know how to even use basic RMXP functions, who want to build something with Essentials. Essentials is pretty advanced though when you get down to it. You end up with new users viewed as "pests" and advanced users viewed as "elitists." There has to be some middle ground for it to work (i.e. new users should understand that there is some prior knowledge required to successfully do anything with Essentials, and to try and work out problems themselves if at all possible).
Essentials should really have it's own little section. There is a lot going on and it is easily one of the biggest things going on in this section. It drives many members and has a wide array of things that could be sorted out better.
I agree with this as well. This would actually provide a great opportunity to address some the issues that crop up when new users pick up essentials (i.e. have some stickies for things like the wiki, an FAQ, common bugs, rules about what kinds of questions can be asked [and encouraging users to try out the magical "Search" feature], etc). Pokemon Essentials is now a huge part of PC, especially given that Essentials is probably the single most complete and accessible attempt at an open source Pokemon-type engine. It's just barely simple enough that average users can learn to work with it pretty quickly, but also contains enough complex features that advanced users can do some rather impressive things with it too. It's a nice middle ground, and it's the best (and most complete) Pokemon starter kit I've come across yet.
Maybe a contest section would help encourage other members to hold them as well as take part in them. There is a way to do it I am certain, it just takes some thought and motivation to do it correctly.
This is something I would like to see. The problem is that probably 90+% of the game developers here use Essentials, and complete games with impressive quality are pretty much nil. This will change eventually when some of the more prominent projects finally finish, where there will be some very well made (and complete) games based on Essentials. Until that time though, we're still stuck in a community who is still in the WIP stage (and some will sadly never make it beyond that stage). Others have suggested it, and I'll suggest it as well: there needs to be more non-pokemon games to expand the community's portfolio and give users a chance to put their skills to use and make original games. When working with Essentials, you play by the rules of Essentials. When making your own game, you can do pretty much anything. Sure you can theoretically make Essentials do some wild stuff, but it takes much more work than a completely original project (and it's very, very, VERY easy to break something in Essentials. Just try toying with the battle scripts and making any sizeable changes. You'll also find that sometimes it just "skips" right over something. Happened to me this morning actually), and at the end of the day, it will still be a pokemon game. If more users would go for non-pokemon games (or at least non-traditional ones, like DarkDoom's and the current project I've been playing with), competitions would probably work out pretty well. Sure this is a pokemon community and all, but pokemon isn't the only game out there. Heck, we don't even have to stick to RPGs.
I've been noticing more and more lately that I type a lot (with a lot of parenthetical interjections, like this one. Must be hard to read for everyone. Glad I'm not in the "everyone" category that will actually be reading all of that), even when there's not actually a lot that I'm trying to say...
