Mario Fangaming Skill Workshops in #mfggirc?, Just an idea....

It has just occurred to me that there may be a way both to informally continue the usefulness of the workshops at the NCFC and to get an actual use related to MFGG's main focus out of the chatroom (#mfggirc).

Perhaps it would be possible to have weekly discussions in #mfggirc concerning particular aspects of Mario fangame programming and/or design?

These would be less formal and "professional" than the workshops at the NCFC, and would be a lot more focused on particular aspects of the making of Mario fangames specifically. For example, one week programming of Mario's running and skidding physics (as seen in different official games) could be the topic of discussion; another week the subject could be good programming of jumping and variable jumps; and yet another week skillful power-up implementation could be the topic. A separate topic could be thought up each week, and hopefully some fangaming experts would show up during the workshops to give some highly useful guidance that could benefit all game creators on this site who attend. Hopefully people who are good with GM and people who are good with Clickteam products would be present, so that users of both types of game creation programs would be able to benefit.

The #mfggirc chatroom, as is well known, doesn't even get too much attention as it is, and when it does, it is often used for, well, pointless chatting, that could just as easily be done over instant messaging or in instant messaging chatrooms. Setting aside a small bit of time (probably 2 hrs. or less; I actually have no idea how long the NCFC workshops took, and these would quite likely be considerably shorter) each week for another purpose would certainly be no real inconvenience for the few people who visit the chat just to talk.

Now onto the subject of conducting such events: I would be glad to be the primary organizer of these workshops - the guy who schedules the events, decides on the topics of discussion (though of course I could take suggestions from others), and shows up every week in the chat to preside over the discussion. Other people could possibly be given leading positions in the events as well, if they are regular participators and contributors to them. However, if this idea is accepted, I would certainly give it time to be fleshed out more, partly because I'm too busy with various things currently (mainly college work) to be able to properly conduct these events yet.

What do you guys think?

As an IRC op of MFGGIRC.. i Endorce this post.

Cool.


I also meant to mention one of the things that gave me this idea, but I forgot before. What primarily inspired me was a chat I had in #NCFC during the event with Guinea and xn--e5x. We were talking about techniques and parameters for Mario running and jumping physics, and I found what they said highly informative. Both of them are capable of making engines with physics quite close to official Mario physics, and I was thinking tonight about how cool it would be to learn more about this sort of thing, because although I already have figured out a lot about Mario physics, there are certainly still some things I could be better informed on. Hopefully, if this idea comes to fruition, one or both of those two experts would attend some of the workshops.

We could have members from different timezones run drop in sessions to do some basic Q & As too. The irc was the life of the ncfc, and perhaps mfgg's chat should be more busy.

Well, If people actually joined the IRC.. it would be better in it..

But it's got into a rut where people don't join because there is nobody there... which is a vicious cycle.

Only problem with that idea is that NCFC's workshops will be made redundant.

Although it could work. Don't think you'll find many people willing to do it on a weekly basis though.

Not really. NCFC's workshops, if I understand them correctly, are more general-purpose and far less specific and focused on one aspect of programming at a time. So these would in my opinion be a bit too different to be thus compared.

Other people wouldn't need to come on a weekly basis. It would just be like whoever wants to come on a given day, can come. Of course people would be encouraged to attend as often as possible, though.

the other forum i go to has a drawing/flash seminar thingy in irc every saturday where an op posts topics and we draw stuff and post it in the corresponding forum topic

it's awesome and would be awesome here if people actually did it

It could happen as long as there's people who want to do it.

sounds good, when the few people who do visit there now come they usually just go AGIWGNAWGIANGAGAW:GAG:AWGAGIN@!!@IT;;;;;; or talk about 4chan (you know who you are) so something productive in there would be great to have

Yeah, there was only one programming workshop at the NCFC that no one attended (which I still happen to be particularly pissed off at).


So this could work. If I have time in my horrifically busy schedule, I could do some Clickteam stuff.



Also, the workshops at NCFC took about an hour, and the most time that was taken was about an hour and a half.

as an ex-irc op i endorse this thread

Definitely

As another IRC op, I endorse this endorsement.

YEAH ****ERS USING IRC IS A GOOD IDEA

also if I find the time to between my classes and ****, I will try to teach people some computer science + how to code games with C/C++ and SDL

and maybe also for the DS

I endorse this idea greatly.

Yeah, uh, I doubt you'll have anyone participate, other than me and RII and maybe one other person. RII's workshop involved the simpler language of LUA in MMF2, only a small part of how to use it, and no one attended, so I assume there's hardly anyone here that gives a damn about something they can actually use in their future.

this is crazy talk
c/c++ is not a thing of the future

it is a thing of the now

I will very much participate




...Am I that one person you're mentioning

I'm going on the assumption that we're dealing with young people.


But if you want to go on your view, sure, something that will be of use to them now and benefit them now. They're still too naive or something to realize it.