I wish I had some valid points to argue with you about this. Sadly, I don't. I have to agree things here recently seem to have taken a turn for the very unproductive, especially so on my end. I did get one application written here recently, but it had nothing to do with game dev.
I will say, sometimes the worm turns with life and things that were once very popular drift into obscurity. (Don't worry if the worm turning makes no sense: It's not supposed to, it's an Al Bundy quote). I DON'T think that's what's happening here though - We'll always be the cool kids. I think what is going on is that we've (all) grown and learned things that perhaps we thought would still be mystifying to us. We've taken on different paths than what we may have been planning. Speaking for myself only, I've gone from a stay at home caregiver with tons of free time to pursue my own projects to working sometimes 70 hours a week to settling into a nice steady 9 to 5 'normal' job. I've also been promoted at work, away from so much straight computer work to a mixture of that and other responsibilities. RBWhitaker has gone through a similar transition, as others have as well I'm sure. All that being said, I think it's led to a shift in priorities and available time.
I think it may be time to re-evaluate exactly what we're aiming for here and in the competitions. As I've said, I think we've all grown quite a bit and perhaps need a bit of a push into unfamiliar territories, ideas, and avenues of expression. I'll throw out what my thoughts are now:
I think, as a whole we've moved beyond the 'beginner' stage. Sure we still get the new people who have questions, and it's always fun helping someone wade through a nightmare when you can. So, I would personally push for something a little more challenging. Maybe some basic 3d gaming. Networking is another thing we could explore. We've touched on it before but seem to get stuck in a rut when actually trying to get something out. Either one of those would be fun and challenging.
Carrying on with that idea, I think it would be neat to try and get a few releases out. Maybe nothing super fancy, just a nice, well rounded game or two with some nice special effects and decent game play. To that end, it might be in our interests to sort of form the competitions around a particular game, or set of games - and to carry on work on that game through the various competitions and collaborations until it is completed. Again, this doesn't have to be the next big MMORPG, just something with a little more polish and thought than our normal attempts.
It might also be good to create a set of base classes like a framework that we can reuse as we move forward. Each game obviously will need to have it's own unique implementations, but that's no reason we couldn't make a few general things that kind of define the game structure we've come to know and love. gameObject, various controllers, gameState, and renderers come to mind right off the bat. Data serializers, Persistence Modules, and a NetworkInterfaceObject would also be pretty useful.
And, if we manage to tackle those and are doing well, we could add support for a separate set of framework classes based on an Entity Component System. I'm still working on getting my head around all the nuances of that!
Anywho's, just my thoughts. Feel welcome to chime in with anything that might come to mind!
