Ideas, Codes And Freinds Come together

[Niko]

Alright, I have come to a sort of ad start it seems on my topic created in the unpaid employee secion of this forum. I have come to notice not many of the topics get attention because they are unpaid. I do realize that many people do not think I am capable of programming because of my previous grammar and the why I have started that topic. I would like to start making many small games with help from this community. This will help show that I can indeed program and that I do finish games. This will also put some games in my portfolio/resume so in future projects people may decide they want to help me. What I want to do is get together with some of the people of this community (which can be done in this topic) and share ideas and thoughts on some games. I want to be able to work with you guys to create some of the games You want to make and sort of keep to controll in your hands instead of vise versa. I want to show you I am a reliable programmer by coding some smaller game ideas, instead of jumping into a big project and not having much support.

[ndchristie]

Nothing you have said here isn't already implied by creating an unpaid employment post.  A desire to work is par for the course and needs no additional thread.

In addition, people are not necessarily disinterested because you do not seem capable, although your manner does you no service in that regard;  Most people here cannot afford to embark on unpaid projects, or see little point when there are many more professional offers.

It is perfectly possible for a seventeen-year-old to write with proper or, at the very least, passable business formality and diction.  While it is true that unpaid work does not require the same level of refinement, there are few who would find sloppiness, erroneousness, and a general lack of direction to be appealing.

It is my suggestion that, rather than flood the board with your same sort of mostly intelligible rambling that served you so poorly before, you might retreat for a moment and collect your ambitions into a well-worded and comprehensive pitch in order to receive positive attention.

[LoTekK]

Paid or unpaid, the best way to attract talent is to have something tangible on offer. One of the main things that will turn people away from a project is the very real possibility that their efforts will be for nought. Many projects end up unfinished, stalled because the project lead lost steam, or was never ver dedicated in the first place. What the contributors end up with is, effectively, jackshit aside from possible portfolio pieces. Remember that what you're effectively asking is for someone to work on your dreams, for free.

As a programmer, nothing is stopping you from putting something together with placeholder art. Whether that means throwing together "programmer art" or temporarily using existing assets (sprite rips, stock art, etc) is up to you. By doing this, you are doing a couple of things:
1. you show a certain level of dedication (Ring of Charisma +1)
2. you end up with something tangible to entice talent (Bracers of Attractiveness +2)
3. you are able to get your game ideas in some working form, without having to wait around for artists (Helm of Intelligence +2)

The same thing goes for artists. While it could be said that artists have it easier, in the sense that it's easier to entice with pretty art, that's really not the case. Yes, it may be easier to attract publicity with art than with lines of code, but just having pretty art is not going to attract a decent programmer. For my own part, I have a game I would like to develop (a couple, really, but I'm fairly focused on one project for now), and for now, I'm doing all the legwork. Putting together art assets, doing research on the target system, doing more research on game mechanics and interface decisions, putting notes together on game logic, etc. This way, once I'm ready to hunt for a programmer, I will ideally have a coherent package to present. Additionally, he should be able to hit the ground running, since a good deal of groundwork has already been laid out.

As Adarias has mentioned, grammar does play a big role. Let's put it this way, if the "project lead" doesn't feel like this request to work on his dreams is worth his time to spell-check, let alone grammar check, then it sure as hell isn't worth my time to work on it.

But again, to me, it comes down to actively showing your dedication. I could look past poor grammar and spelling (especially for a non-native speaker) if something tangible and cool was on offer. Just stating your intentions is typically not good enough to attract free talent.