Better Than Wolves Forum

Now the title may be deceiving but i had an epiphany. Why doesn't flower record a bit of his coding? I understand how much work you do flower and how hard it is to continue such a project as yours but this idea i figured would bring an audience. This is simply a "Suggestion" (and before you get mad i know that "Suggestions" are meant for the suggestions part of the forum but i figured this wasn't a mod suggestion). So that all being said i may be banned for this post and i may be put down by everyone and that's ok but this was just an idea i had.

Thanks
Austin

The big problem here is that it doesn't fit the relationship between the community and FC. He'll tease us with his dev diaries, or pictures of what he's been coding (in minecraft) and little blurbs on morv's minecraft update thread. Showing us the code himself would be a huge spoiler which just wouldn't work for the loving relationship between FC and our community.

Anyways, this belongs in the suggestion forum, not the BTW discussion forum.

I think a better question than "why not?" is "why?". Why do you feel this would be so worthwhile as to warrant the effort involved?

Don't I have enough going with the mod without diverting my attention with other projects that will ultimately only detract from the quality of the mod itself?

William Shelby wrote:Now the title may be deceiving but i had an epiphany. Why doesn't flower record a bit of his coding? I understand how much work you do flower and how hard it is to continue such a project as yours but this idea i figured would bring an audience. This is simply a "Suggestion" (and before you get mad i know that "Suggestions" are meant for the suggestions part of the forum but i figured this wasn't a mod suggestion). So that all being said i may be banned for this post and i may be put down by everyone and that's ok but this was just an idea i had.

Thanks
Austin

I don't think FC would do this, but evenif he would consider it I'd rather he not spend time describing what he's doing, and I'd much prefer if he spent time just making features. I know from my own coding experience that it's easier to just do something then it is to talk about what you're doing, often by a factor of like 10 or so. Especially considering working on a mature project like BTW means going into many different areas to make tweaks and test those tweaks in a way that wouldn't be understandable by someone not intimately involved with the code. So either we'd get an interesting video that drastically cuts into FC's productivity, or we'd get one where he just does his process which is impossible to follow by youtube viewers. Not to mention FC generally gets annoyed having to discuss technical details and coding details this would undoubtedly be a timesink that would cut into the fun of making the mod, and our fun of playing it.

Edit - Ninja'd by FC himself.

FlowerChild wrote:I think a better question that "why not?" is "why?".

Don't I have enough going with the mod without diverting my attention with other projects that will ultimately only detract from the quality of the mod itself?

Come on man. Nobody here really cares about the mod. We're clearly all here for the reality tv-esque drama surrounding it's development! Why do you think the suggestion subforum is so popular? ;)

Sarudak wrote: Come on man. Nobody here really cares about the mod. We're clearly all here for the reality tv-esque drama surrounding it's development! Why do you think the suggestion subforum is so popular? ;)

Damn it! I was wondering what all these cameras were doing around my home! :)

Which, reminds me of this:

William Shelby wrote:... this was just an idea i had.

Thanks
Austin

No offense man but not all ideas are meant to be shared. While seeing FC's thought process and coding on video would be interesting- ID rather just see the end result. The man has enough to do without recording himself while he creates new and interesting challenges for his fan base

Coding is an absolute mystery to me, I had a roommate who was a web developer and he'd spend hours just looking at code - it drove me a little nuts thinking about spending a whole day like that. A well explained video how a tweak or block is created would be very interesting to me, but in no way would I ever expect FC to devote time talking to us in drooler-dummy-talk, just so we could understand it. I imagine he spends 20% reading through code to find the relevant files, 20% writing new code, 10% in game testing, and 50% going back through code trying to figure out wtf went wrong - not doubting his skills, but usually lots of bad words reverberated from my roommates room late into the night.

I work as an artist, and when people ask me technical questions, I usually respond in the stupidest answer possible just to avoid the 30 min explanation of the real answer, so I have somewhat of an idea of where he's coming from. I don't need to know how he does what he does, I just want to know what he'll do next. :P

I can understand why people want this. The mod is popular, people love it. It is always changing and evolving, and is satisfying a certain part our our curiosity and imagination just like Minecraft originally did. You FC have become a bit of a forum hero, not taking any crap, doing what you believe is right and have thus garnered the adoration and respect of a lot of people which is in itself very alluring for others as well (popularity feeds popularity). There is quite a lot that is open about you... except for the mod itself which people are so heavily emotionally invested in. It is understandable why people want to see how it is made behind the scenes, just like we all like to see how our favourite chocolates are made in the factories or why people chase after celebrities and delve into their personal life.

Congrats dude, You're a celebrity with all the adoration and hatred that comes with it, but minus the paparazzi, crazed females screaming in your presence and the actual monetary benefits.

I'm not saying through that I want you to do a Livestream though. Big brother got boring a LONG time ago and only demonstrated how little care i give to watching other people do normal stuff.

Also people... watching another person program is REALLY boring. I mean it. It involves surfing through a lot of code, compiling, getting build errors, fixing, debug, view code, check watches, stop, write code, take a few seconds to watch movie being played in corner of second monitor, repeat. I can't imagine anything more boring than watching a programmer program.

FlowerChild wrote:I think a better question than "why not?" is "why?". Why do you feel this would be so worthwhile as to warrant the effort involved?

Don't I have enough going with the mod without diverting my attention with other projects that will ultimately only detract from the quality of the mod itself?

I completely understand why you would be saying that. I myself enjoy java and coding to no end and being able to see someone go about there work finding the glitches and fixing the bugs would be of interest to me.

and when Sarudak said "Come on man. Nobody here really cares about the mod. We're clearly all here for the reality tv-esque drama surrounding it's development! Why do you think the suggestion sub-forum is so popular? ;)". i didn't mean it to be fully about him coding or releasing a new video every time he releases a patch it was meant for people interested in that sorta stuff(like myself) to see it in action.

I think I know where this suggestion is coming from. It's become popular among some developers in the Forge crowd lately to livestream while they are actively working on the mod. Many of them make it a very entertaining and educational experience. The thing to keep in mind as different, though, is the vast majority of developers who do this have open source programs that they are working on. Better Than Wolves is not open source, and as such livestreaming its development would be a liability. Beyond that - much of the development in terms of design takes place in FlowerChild's head, and he can undoubtedly think faster than he can talk to us about it. ;)

heyz wrote:50% going back through code trying to figure out wtf went wrong - not doubting his skills, but usually lots of bad words reverberated from my roommates room late into the night.

Hardly. That's a matter of experience. I spend at most 5% of my time debugging the code I've written, and I often code for hours only to have something work flawlessly the first time I run it.

Not dissing your room-mates with that, but I sincerely doubt they've been programming for 30 years either.

morvelaira wrote:I think I know where this suggestion is coming from. It's become popular among some developers in the Forge crowd lately to livestream while they are actively working on the mod. Many of them make it a very entertaining and educational experience. The thing to keep in mind as different, though, is the vast majority of developers who do this have open source programs that they are working on. Better Than Wolves is not open source, and as such livestreaming its development would be a liability.

Beyond that, I think that many of the Forge developers are primarily programmers. People that are primarily programmers like to show off their programming skills.

Given that I'm not primarily a programmer, my ego isn't at all invested in the code itself, and I have no desire to show off my ability to hammer nails. Maybe if I could show myself designing I'd be more keen on it, but I doubt you guys want to watch a couple of hours of me pacing outside chain-smoking and drinking coffee :)

Beyond that, I think that many of the Forge developers are primarily programmers. People that are primarily programmers like to show off their programming skills.

Given that I'm not primarily a programmer, my ego isn't at all invested in the code itself, and I have no desire to show off my ability to hammer nails. Maybe if I could show myself designing I'd be more keen on it, but I doubt you guys want to watch a couple of hours of me pacing outside chain-smoking and drinking coffee :)

uhm..... there is a following of people who like to watch a guy drink scotch and smoke cigars for hours... just saying. im not for the watching of the Flower drinking coffee and smoking cigs... just saying people would watch

FlowerChild wrote:I doubt you guys want to watch a couple of hours of me pacing outside chain-smoking and drinking coffee :)

Is it odd that I would actually like to watch this? I think it would be interesting watching you walk back and forth and thinking out loud about different ideas for the mod. It would be like watching Einstein as he comes up with his theories on relativity.

Over and above anything else, requesting this sort of thing kind of flies in the face of the whole 'respect Flowerchild's privacy' thing. If he wants to reveal his identity, he'll do so in his own time in a manner of his choosing. Trying to get around that is really disrespectful in any case, let alone in an instance like this where someone has taken careful steps to avoid it and has specifically requested that it be left alone.

Honestly I want to hang out on your front porch with you while you chain smoke and drink coffee. That sounds like a fun saturday night to me. But It's still only a close second to the desire to play DnD with you.

I think another FC/Battosay interview is a much better idea than a LP would ever be.

Isn't this the sort of thing we have a MCF folder for? Modding tutorials?

*short post*
I think having video of the code would ruin the immersion and the lore of BTW...
It's like seeing stupidly obvious spoilers for the next chapter of a book

FlowerChild wrote:

Sarudak wrote: Come on man. Nobody here really cares about the mod. We're clearly all here for the reality tv-esque drama surrounding it's development! Why do you think the suggestion subforum is so popular? ;)

Damn it! I was wondering what all these cameras were doing around my home! :)

Which, reminds me of this:

Does that mean your a dentist who fills teeth for freedom and the right of privacy?!

Ok I know that you don't like to talk about anything technical when it comes to modding, programming and designing, presumably due to the inevitable questions from the hordes of uneducated guessers (early minion-me included....).
But I have to say, I LOVE everything I can see about you and your developing of this mod, in short you are acting as some kind of idol to me when it comes to programming and game-designing.
Although I can try to look through your change-log and try to third-person-guess every change and balance you make to BTW, everything that means easier access to the delicate workings in the most tenderest parts of your game-designing brain will inevitably get a positive feedback from me.
In short when it comes to programming + game-designing, I pretty much uphold you as the highest quality (yet also the most elusive ) source of knowledge, even a quick run-through where you'd briefly explain some of your older notes + thought-processes would be imo gold worth.
I know this sounds like brown-nosing (I'm pretty sure that my words are meaningless in this matter), but paradoxically it's not. I've simply lived all my life greedy for knowledge and I know a el dorado necronomicon when I see it.