The content of my AGS Tutorial was met with disapproval by an authority in the field. Since no second opinion of equal weight was available, I removed the Tutorial from the Internet.
I haven't read the whole thing (it's light grey text on white), but skimming it I picked up three issues:
QuoteTo place the cup item in Jimmy's Inventory at the start of the game, use this in the "room_Load()" function of Room "3"
cJimmy.AddInventory(iCup);
Inv items have a "player starts game with this item" property in the editor.
The other thing was implementing "use inv x on character" by checking for the mouse.Mode inside the Any click event although there is a dedicated "use inv on" event in the character's event list.
There was also a passage about how to increase the time that spoken text is displayed. Instead of telling about the relevant game variable, you solved this by creating a temporary Overlay yourself, and instead of using a local, temporary variable to store the created overlay, you had the reader needlessly create a global one.
Bottom line: I appreciate the effort, but it doesn't look like you have enough experience yourself to write a tutorial like this. The main problem here (and I have seen this lots of times in the beginner's tech forum) is that people find out how to do something but are unaware of a much better, faster way. They will then spread that "wisdom" at the first opportunity, unaware that they're giving bad or even false advice/information to other beginners.
Sorry if I sound harsh, but I'd rather be honest.
Quote from: Khris on Wed 19/06/2013 17:40:35
Bottom line: I appreciate the effort, but it doesn't look like you have enough experience yourself to write a tutorial like this.
...although I'd advise not to stop writing it, because not many experienced people write tutorials. ;)
It should of course be checked and corrected before releasing "officially".
I wanted to help but it didn't cross my mind that I could teach people bad things. It is true that I have little experience and a Tutorial may be too much for my possibilities. Thank you for your replies. I could have go on thinking that all is right. I'm sorry if I caused any harm.
Just for the trouble of reading something of what I wrote, allow me to share my point of view on the issues that you picked up - it is the beginners' page after all:
1.
QuoteQuoteTo place the cup item in Jimmy's Inventory at the start of the game, use this in the "room_Load()" function of Room "3"
cJimmy.AddInventory(iCup);
Inv items have a "player starts game with this item" property in the editor.
The main idea was to make the reader familiar with handling Inventory items through the script. At some point anyone uses this. Why not follow the same procedure from the beginning ? I think it is just as valid a way of doing things as is using the Property Editor. Besides, I did not overload the reader's mind with scripting. I think the issue refers to my choice of tutoring style.
2.
QuoteThe other thing was implementing "use inv x on character" by checking for the mouse.Mode inside the Any click event although there is a dedicated "use inv on" event in the character's event list.
While working on my game I discovered that it was easier for my mind to handle all content related to a game element, for example - a character, if there was only one function for that game element. Hence the use of "Any click". Also, this choice was consistent with the way I started the Tutorial, telling about puzzle pieces that describe game elements. I did not see any effect on the game's speed from using ifs instead of multiple event functions. And another point was to make the reader more familiar with "mouse.Mode" and "if" - the Tutorial was ment for an Absolute Beginner.
3.
QuoteThere was also a passage about how to increase the time that spoken text is displayed. Instead of telling about the relevant game variable, you solved this by creating a temporary Overlay yourself, and instead of using a local, temporary variable to store the created overlay, you had the reader needlessly create a global one.
I still don't know what relevant game variable you refered to. Would it not have been more constructive to instruct me about it - as a contribution to the Tutorial ? Of course, you may imply that I should spend more time reading through the Forum. But why should an Absolute Beginner, with less time and dedication ?
About prefering Global variables: where the Overlay was ment to hold a speech line for a particular character, the idea was that the character may be passed to another Room during the game - hence the use of a Global variable( that you define only once ); the same situation with the Overlay used for a single variable meant to describe the Hotspots and Objects in
any Room, and I also presented "Label_Info.Text = Game.GetLocationName(mouse.x, mouse.y) as the better alternative; I'm sorry that I don't know of another reason why Global variables would be worse than Locals - anyway, considering that the Tutorial was for an Absolute Beginner, doesn't having all variables in one place make things easier, while there are not too many of them ?
4.
As for the "bottom line":
Any contributions to my Tutorial could only have been welcomed. I didn't mean to take your place or anyone elses. Each Forum answer from an expert like you is priceless - I also benefited from reading on the Forum. But a Tutorial achieves more because it puts together all matters that may concern a game maker; even if some techniques are rusty. What I intended was to allow someone that hesitates about using AGS to get started. My choice of tutoring may not, of course, be suitable for anyone. And about that little I know - it works - so it would have worked for someone else, if only to get started with AGS.
I wouldn't assume to teach you anything, but allow me to tell you that "sounding harsh" was your personal choice. While I appreciate "honesty". I think it would have been more based on facts if you would have taken the time to judge all I have written, as a whole - perhaps from the point of view of an Absolute Beginner.
5.
I appologize for not being aware that the font used was light grey on white. I did my writting off-line, then went through a lot of delays until being able to post - using Weebly is a torture for my connection - then used another browser than Mozilla to verify the posting, one with minimal functionality - suitable for my connection. But really, it only takes a few clicks in Mozilla to override the font used by any site with one of your choice; also I advised on the Home page to copy the contents of the Tutorial for off-line easier reading
I will not attempt again to share the little knowledge that I have.
I'm sorry that you feel you need to react like this.
Edit:
Two quick things I want to point out:
-in no way at all do I feel anything like being threatened by another guy giving advice or something, let alone "taking my place". That's not why I criticized your tutorial, and it's not what I'm like at all. I actually feel a bit insulted by that suggestion, but I think it only reflects badly on you, not me.
-what constitutes an appropriate tutorial for beginners is purely subjective. Having said that, making them write huge if-blocks in a single function instead of using a basic, easily understood mechanism provided by the engine is clearly bad advice, especially in a beginner's tutorial. Those should focus on teaching basic methods and getting results, and not alternative ways that require some extended scripting knowledge.
In my experience, people who have never programmed before are overwhelmed with what I consider extremely basic stuff. So in my opinion, while claiming that you have set out to tailor your tutorial to beginner, and even suggesting that I missed this, you have badly failed at doing so. Which is why I decided to post in this thread (which is no only in the wrong forum but would have disappeared to the second page a few days later.)
Quote from: springthoughts on Mon 17/06/2013 05:30:38
The content of my AGS Tutorial was met with disapproval by an authority in the field. Since no second opinion of equal weight was available, I removed the Tutorial from the Internet.
A good way to show what my opinion's weight is. :D
Seriously,
springthoughts, you are referring to "authority" too much, I think. Khris did not
deny you to post your tutorial (nor he has a legal right to do this, anyway, since he is not a moderator), he just pointed out that you need to work on your knowledge. But isn't writing your own tutorial a good way to learn more through comments and discussion?
What kind of confusion led you to the thought that
anyone could think that you are up to take someones "place"? And what "place" is it? There's no "authorized" position as a forum guru here. People just trying to help others with what they can. Sometimes they make mistakes doing so, and being corrected by others. But isn't it what forums are for?
What furthermore surprised me is that although you provided a list of arguments to support your work, you still ended up with quitting. This kind of behavior always saddens me. It looks like slamming a door after a long speech.
Quote from: springthoughts on Thu 20/06/2013 05:21:02
I will not attempt again to share the little knowledge that I have.
This is bad. You shouldn't have stopped writing the tutorial. By continuously writing it, you would have gained more knowledge. As they say:
QuoteKnowledge Increase By Sharing.
You shouldn't dishearten yourself. Take all the criticism in positive way, because the work which you had started, was bound to get criticisms and you should have been expecting that.
I recommend you to start writing it and advise you to review your decision. People here will provide you suggestions for improving it. You may add them in the end as alternative solution, what say you?
I again advise you to review your decision. It would be nice to have a step-by-step tutorial for making a short but complete game, something, which the manual doesn't provide but it should.
@Springthoughts - You don't need to stop writing the tutorial, you just have to be aware that you might not have everything 100% correct, and perhaps consult someone with deeper knowledge in order not only to make your tutorial more accurate, but to help you hone your new skills.
I'm a big believer that teaching something is a great way to consolidate something that you've learnt and commit it to memory.
It seems that the intended meaning of the words 'authority in the field' is not apparent.
The following facts have lead me to consider Khris an authority - no feelings involved:
1. He gives answers on the Beginners' Technical page, and on matters that exceed my current knowledge or scope of interests, due to my lack of experience with AGS and game making in general.
2. His profile description sais "experienced scripter"
In the passing, I will add that I would have considered a second expert opinion not only that of a person that could be refered to in terms of the points 1 and 2 above, but one that would have talked about the same issues brought up in the first reply.
Khris did not deny me to post my tutorial but he wrote, and I quote:
"The main problem here (and I have seen this lots of times in the beginner's tech forum) is that people find out how to do something but are unaware of a much better, faster way. They will then spread that "wisdom" at the first opportunity, unaware that they're giving bad or even false advice/information to other beginners."
So what would have looked like if I continued writting the tutorial ? To me it would have looked like the writter is careless about giving bad or even false advice.
And what do the quotation marks around "wisdom" imply ? They may as well imply 2 very different things: one is a lack of experience - like Khris pointed out when refering to there being "a much better, faster way"; another comes from the use in a derogatory sense - meaning sustained by the fact that "bad or even false information" is not the opposite of "a much better, faster way". If Khris would have said "not the best information" instead of "bad or even false advice" then the first of the possible meanings would have clearly signified his intention.
Khris also said: "Bottom line: I appreciate the effort, but it doesn't look like you have enough experience yourself to write a tutorial like this."
Does this look like an encouragement to continue, apart from the entirely critical approach in the rest of his reply ?
And you, Crimson, you said: "...although I'd advise not to stop writing it(...) It should of course be checked and corrected before releasing officially."
What am I to gather from this, not to mentioned the beginner that would have already read the tutorial ? I will tell you what I understood: that I should stop writting on-line and not tell anyone about my writtings before some more experienced AGSers would have approved the text.
I am not against, and I will use some of your words Crimson: "learning more through comments and discussion" or "being corrected" for my mistakes. I look again and again at the words of the first reply of this post and I cannot see the beginning of a discussion or a hand offered to help making something better. I see 3 issues and a disqualifying bottom line. I also don't see any justification for my way of doing things being called "bad".
Since it may be my "confusion", as you put it, let me try and clarify this:
I am not against collaborating, but it should be from an equal position.
I am not against sharing my ideas, and I refer to my way of tutoring - as a gradual way of learning about AGS - since I haven't invented AGS. But I will not be dealt with as an inferior.
Obviously you may raise question marks about this idea of inferiority, while to me it is clear that I was not invited to a discussion, meant to improve my attempt of a tutorial, on the basis of my inadequacy to the task.
Equality implies that my thoughts, that I express to you, are given the same consideration as if they would have been your own thoughts. If I make a mistake and you tell me something like: wrong ! keep learning - that's not ok. What good are the words "I appreciate the effort" after concluding that my work is bad and not showing me why ? Generally, as I see it, constructive criticism is something like: you did this, but our experience shows that it is better to do it this way: ... and this is why: ...
Now I have only your words, I cannot guess your intentions outside those words. My words may shock you and your words may shock me. I have your words on one side and my lifelong experience on the other side and I make connections between these. I expect that you do the same.
The right path to take, in my opinion, would be to move over our current feelings - whatever they may be - and reach a place where we can find better words for each other from equal positions. Where people like you, Khris and Crimson, would have your knowledge to offer, I would be ready to participate through work and maybe questions from the point of view of a beginner.
I would not mind to have my name lost under an "AGS community" cloud term, as long as I am treated as an equal by you guys - as work at a common project is concerned. My initial intention was to give something back in exchange for what AGS offered me.
However, should you have your reasons for not working on a tutorial project or if something I said raises doubts about my character, I agree with your decision to close the matter. And for the moment I don't let out a tutorial that may teach people bad techniques. A door is closed, but there is no slamming. Any tension that was created by our first encounter I feel that I have dispelled by speaking my mind to you in so many words. I hope to have found the proper words for you too.
I'm all for making intentions and viewpoints clear so here are mine.
I told you that you aren't experienced enough yet to write a good beginner's tutorial while apologizing for being harsh but honest.
Your reaction as I read it: pouting and making excuses because your ego got bruised
Quote from: springthoughts on Fri 21/06/2013 14:12:20
And you, Crimson, you said: "...although I'd advise not to stop writing it(...) It should of course be checked and corrected before releasing officially."
I would say this about everything else, even my own work, because that is how things are done: first we write something, then we test it. I didn't imply that your work must be put into strict control, or something like that.
E: To elaborate more, the last sentence was addressed rather to Khris.
Quote from: springthoughts on Fri 21/06/2013 14:12:20
I am not against, and I will use some of your words Crimson: "learning more through comments and discussion" or "being corrected" for my mistakes. I look again and again at the words of the first reply of this post and I cannot see the beginning of a discussion or a hand offered to help making something better.
<...>
Obviously you may raise question marks about this idea of inferiority, while to me it is clear that I was not invited to a discussion, meant to improve my attempt of a tutorial, on the basis of my inadequacy to the task.
Well, perhaps Khris did not invite you to discussion, and did not offered his help right away (and being no telepath I can't tell if he would agree), but that does not mean other people won't do that if you'd suggested to, doesn't it?
There are many people around who could give you advice.
There is a big problem with cases like this: free projects are done in a free time (and with a free will). You can never be sure who will have time and will to help you. This is why it is usually better to keep such things public: this way you get more chance to find collaborators.
My own opinion about this is that any kind of article or tutorial meant to help beginners is a good thing, and happens not often, therefore it is a pity if it is
abandoned removed because of first mistakes or occasional harsh criticism. Your tutorial was WIP, which implies it may have errors, and by simply stating it is WIP and that it is being written by beginner too, you would give a warning enough to make less experienced people wary of the "danger".
Another thing is that when more experienced person decides to share his thoughts and knowledge, he usually addresses to similarly more-or-less experienced readers and discusses more advanced problems. It is not so easy to write a good tutorial for beginner.
That's why I think that it could be an interesting project.
(I see that I may have a disagreement with Khris on this part)
I agree that writing a tutorial for beginners is easier if you're a beginner yourself, but it doesn't make you more qualified to do so.
Between the manual's tutorial, Densming's videos and book and Calin's book, I'd say that most of if not all beginner issues are covered. So it's not that we'd desperately need another beginner's tutorial. If that were the case, I'd probably have been much more generous.
Apart from all the game tutorials (which are great) I think learning how to 'set games up' is also very important if not even more so.
It seems that you don't want to listen to anyone other than Khris or Crimson Wizard
OR you have already made your mind. But again, I'd advise not to stop writing and remove what's written already. I
SHALL NOT advise you again.
However, if you really want to stop writing. Then let me use your tutorial as a base. I'll write it completely in years to come.
Quote from: slasher on Fri 21/06/2013 22:27:00
Apart from all the game tutorials (which are great) I think learning how to 'set games up' is also very important if not even more so.
Slasher, can you please elaborate more. Do you mean 'how to make games'? Or you intended something else which I were unable to register.
Hi Adeel S. Ahmed,
What I mean is learning about choosing resolutions and colours for your game, using the game settings panel, GUI's: Z orders and how to manipulate them and how to have them display etc. Making a 'Splash Screen' / 'Credits Screen', Changing mouse graphics etc etc etc.....
I.E. All the 'Back-end' stuff.
Some of this is explained in the tutorials but bringing it into the 'light' could be helpful for the beginner.
The list goes on....
The real issue seems to be that I alone engaged in writing a tutorial, even if it was only what I learned so far. There is one simple solution.
If more beginners would participate to a common effort of writing a tutorial - from a beginner's point of view - then I don't see how could anyone more experienced bring in something else than constructive criticism. And the need for such a tutorial will be motivated by the sum of individual needs of all who would participate.
I am entirely for team work, as long as there is no person or small group of persons guiding the project. Everyone's contribution should matter equally. Everything should be discussed and agreed upon by all members, independent of skills and experience. It would be a common effort to discover AGS and we would together determine what is possible and what not and better ways of doing things.
Should enough people be interested in such a project then of course that I would make public again what I wrote so far - as a team member, having ideas with equal rights.
Quote from: slasher on Sat 22/06/2013 09:27:29
What I mean is learning about choosing resolutions and colours for your game, using the game settings panel, GUI's: Z orders and how to manipulate them and how to have them display etc. Making a 'Splash Screen' / 'Credits Screen', Changing mouse graphics etc etc etc.....
There's something to that but I feel that many of these are very subjective. If I want to know about how to add an inventory item, there is a clear answer, which is a single comment. If I want to know what resolution is a good one to choose, I'll get many different answers.
I like the idea of an AGS Cookbook, and many things you mention would look good in that!
springthoughts, you come over as a friendly guy, maybe a bit insecure if I may say so. Do your thing. Writing a tutorial is nice but, and here I side with Khris, you should get the basics down for yourself first.
I think if you wrote that tutorial for yourself instead of putting it up chapter-by-chapter you'd have found that you are basically telling yourself how to do things, and that is a good approach.
The only bad thing I could say that you insisted on not using images. That really felt unnecessary- loading times can't be that bad and an image is a much better way to explain a screen layout that a paragraph of text (nod)
Quote from: slasher on Sat 22/06/2013 09:27:29
Hi Adeel S. Ahmed,
What I mean is learning about choosing resolutions and colours for your game, using the game settings panel, GUI's: Z orders and how to manipulate them and how to have them display etc. Making a 'Splash Screen' / 'Credits Screen', Changing mouse graphics etc etc etc.....
I.E. All the 'Back-end' stuff.
Some of this is explained in the tutorials but bringing it into the 'light' could be helpful for the beginner.
The list goes on....
Slasher, these are things which were bothering me when I started using A.G.S. But soon I figured them out myself. It would be nice if these things are included in a tutorial. As you said, these things are included in the manual but not descriptively. Thanks for explaining.
Quote from: slasher on Sat 22/06/2013 09:27:29Making a 'Splash Screen' / 'Credits Screen'
Actually, people have asked how to create Main Menu couple of times last year (that's what I remember).
Thing is, that there is "fundamental", "lower-level" knowledge (how to make character move to other room, how to set up button click event, etc), and there are practical problems, and sometimes people stumble at "high-level" tasks like that. Perhaps that's because they learnt about tools but did not yet grasp how to use them in combination.
I quite like the idea of some instructions for specific tasks to complement the tutorials.
A lot of stuff is covered in the tutorials and in these forums. For example, how to make working doors that open and close (and block you from entering when shut/locked). That question has been answered to death, but people keep asking it because there is no specific lesson on how to perform such a task. Well, possibly Densming covers it, I can't remember.
The main tutorial covers all the individual elements you would need to make a door. But I think some specific lessons like this would be really useful. Of course, everybody might make their doors differently. But that's good - a number of people could make a lesson about how they make their doors, and then new users would have several door-making lessons to choose from.
But there is even a door module (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=47842.0) but most newbies probably don't search the modules forums.
The advantage of modules is that they do stuff for you so that you don't have to learn how to do it. The disadvantage of modules is that they do stuff for you without you needing to learn how to do the stuff yourself :)
I'm no codemonkey. I happily accept that there are skilled programmers here who crank out cool stuff, and I will happily use it. But I always make a point of taking their code apart and see what it does and how they get things to work, and I actually have a good grasp of the basic and more advanced features of AGS. The official AGS tutorial is a good way to get familiar with the basics. But the "higher" you go the more ways there are to reach a certain goal. What I really miss is the old original Demo Game. It had (for its time) great code. It was instantly playable and then you could dig into the script and see what was done behind the scenes.
I really think we could use more games like that, released as playable games WITH well documented source. And then we can just whack people on the head with pointy sticks until they start reading them. ;-D
[edit]
Ready to be moved to gen gen?
Quote from: CW
Another thing is that when more experienced person decides to share his thoughts and knowledge, he usually addresses to similarly more-or-less experienced readers and discusses more advanced problems. It is not so easy to write a good tutorial for beginner.
I agree. The reason is that that folks with experience don't know what questions to answer for the less experienced folks. Instead of getting your knickers in a twist why not;
1) Pose the questions that are important to you as a beginner
2) Present your solution and how/why it was derived
3) Solicit alternative or advanced solutions
4) Compare and contrast the 2 (or more solutions) using criteria such as scalability, skill level required, etc,,,
This Forum is here to help beginners. And you guys are always ready to give good advice. To know that one can depend on you for help means a world of difference to a freshman. I do not attack this tradition. I have refered to an Alternative Tutorial - an alternative way of learning about AGS that may be suitable for some beginners. And probably, at its best, it would have proven to be a supplement to the wealth of information already available.
To put together a few suggestions from this post in the light of what I attempted to do - why not let any willing beginner publish his game making story ? It would be like exchanging course- or private study notes. When I wrote that first game of mine I asked myself questions and found answers for them; and this is how I gathered a little experience. But when I started writing the "tutorial", I did not go through asking the same questions again because that little experience I gathered indicated a better order of doing things. What I had in mind was structure - the passing of information in a structured way, from simple to complex subjects. And I wanted to have a game evolving gradually from small functional independent stages - like 1 main character frame being displayed and 1 Say() - to more complex ones.
The idea that got me started with writing a "tutorial" was that all the available information is huge. Once one has progressed with his first game, what is needed and what has to be done is much clearer than at the beginning - at least from his own point of view. To know what course to follow, a beginner must read the Manual, other Tutorials, compare his ideas with what is written in the Forums, formulate and then ask questions. And then the beginner has to see everything working together, there is a lot of trial-and-error involved.
When I wrote my first game there was a conjuncture of supporting influences in my life: I had some free time, I had my mind free from pressing matters, I had the dedication to learn a bit of AGS, I had the patience to face obstacles; but it was a much earlier wish to make a game. I expect that there are other people with a similar situation that would feel more encouraged to continue a game project, even across some periods of time, if they would not have to face a lot of information at once.
My initiative may not be according to the reality of things in the AGS community. I am probably only aware of little of what is going on here. And perhaps there is no need for new tutorials but for a map to guide people in the already established order. A first negative reaction took me by surprise because of the way it was communicated. But seeing so many experienced AGSers gathering here makes me hope that my awkward step may remain behind a useful decision or initiative.
I like the concept of a tutorial for beginners by beginners, and would be interested in perusing it once finished.
The issue I have with a lot of the tutorial / manual / module / forum information is that it can be difficult to tell if it is current. I search the forums often, and the results always take me to threads from something like 2003 or 2005. I really have no way of knowing if that information is still relevant, or if the engine has been updated to a new, incompatible version (except for strenuous trial and error). I also know that this can be difficult to fix, since people come and go, they don't update their threads, and it would be a ridiculous amount of work for moderators to weed through it all.
But back to the topic at hand, I would encourage the continued writing of a beginner tutorial. Have it answer all of your beginner questions. Look for other common queries and mistakes, and include that information. Don't let yourself get discouraged by a few harsh words, just find the criticism in them and work to improve.