True, but how does that disprove my claim? I did say my game was on the scale of a Halo title, but I never said my environments were mostly terrain. My game taking a long time doesn't mean a Goldeneye map would, too. A height map and a script to read it into a model would be way faster to produce than a detailed Goldeneye map, but a level comprised of square rooms and rectangle hallways would not take weeks because a map of a detailed city section would take months.
It was never about my "experts" and that I'm 100% right and you're absolutely wrong, it was that if you don't model and therefore will just take a guess and then later stand by that assumption as if it was fact until someone showed you otherwise (like
@Siolfor the Jackal just did), it just comes off as being closed-minded and foolishly assertive which was why I suggested you just ask somebody else for their opinion if you weren't going to take only mine, or at the very least not hold yours so strongly. I mean, your attitude on the matter was off-putting and it's why I wasn't going to waste an afternoon building the level just to get you to open your eyes and pull your fingers out from your ears; I had better things to do, like working on my own game because it's already been long enough. While I do freelance work from time to time, I currently have no interest in modelling for other people because I don't care to spend time on other projects when I could be working on my own. I appreciate the opportunity you're offering. I'm not against working for some extra cash, but I don't need your money. I'm not a broke developer living on ramen in my tiny, unfurnished apartment.
Actually, never mind all that. If you can just say you're the best at coming up with ideas, why can't I say I'm the best at designing levels and just have you accept it and agree with my fact on the matter? Experts? What experts? I am the expert. Who cares if you think it's far-fetched to make the level so quickly, I think it's totally plausible because Bungie wishes they had me for Destiny and I would have not made their levels so tedious to go through over and over again. It would take me only one hour to make the map, but I need a four hour nap after the first half hour so that I can unwind from all the stress those 30 minutes would give me. I'm right because I say I'm right, so who are you to doubt me?
I don't think the message was to just give away everything in a thread, but you're not going to get a bunch of resumes in your inbox by merely parroting DJ Khaled. My suggestion was mainly to hire some concept artists to showcase a couple of interesting teases from your ideas asking for members with other necessary skills that can match your needed level of expertise in order to produce these AAA ideas of yours. You won't get your million-dollar team to create a AAA-looking game, but you won't be alone in making your AAA concept that could eventually take you there.
Sitting around doing nothing in the sense that you're the best, you're the best, but only if "something like 16000 would give me the high end mocap software instead of the low end stuff. And I would also need to buy a better computer so that the motion cap and modelling programs do not freeze up. And I would also like to hire high quality 3d artists to make the models for me. And I want high quality musical keyboards for great music. And a computer with no lag that can do high quality music with no lag." and "It would help if I was a millionairre, and could buy my own team, rather than relying on virtue".
You keep wanting to start from the point of success in order to further it with even better success, rather than the humble beginnings of a garage setup. You're just one guy with a less-than-stellar laptop, but you keep asking for the same opportunities that commercial game devs have because you know you're better than all of them out there. Your budgeted beginning could start by doing what we other folks are doing - saving up money from working jobs we don't want to. It's going to cost me whatever thousands to get the licenses and export modules to port my title to the consoles, but I've got the money saved up for it by working for it, rather than hoping someone will just hand it to me because I feel I deserve it because I'm better than Bungie. I mean, with what I have to offer, I don't doubt I could get it easily funded, but I don't want any other hands in my cookie jar, especially when I can already easily afford it myself. Money comes from proven abilities, if not just plain risk-taking, but just saying you're the best isn't going to get you anywhere.
There are plenty of ideas that get funded but don't pan out. The Ouya is no special story; in fact, let's look at two projects that I'd argue were even more promising, Mighty No 9 and Yooka-Laylee. Both were developed by former employees of their originating franchises, were intensely crowd-funding, had plenty of media coverage and hype from anticipating fans, released digitally as well as physically on consoles, and yet both failed hard for the same reasons. How about Cliff Bleszinski with Unreal and Gears of War under his belt, trying to push out another of his billion-dollar IP ideas?
How do we know that if someone gave you a small loan of a million dollars you wouldn't be another failure story? How are you so sure your ideas are as grand and world-changing as you claim when many others who held the same opinions and luckily had the exact opportunities you pine for collapsed hard during their moment in the spotlight? You keep saying budget is holding you back from changing the world, but all we know of your true potential talent is your word that you're better than EA and Activision. You go on about humility all the wrong way. It's not humble to ask for a million dollars, the same way it's not humble to say you're better than two big publishers. You want to work well beyond your means by having all sorts of fancy equipment and talented employees working under you and you have no proven track record to show you deserve it. You think it's wrong that people have to work hard to reach the top instead of just starting there and only having to prove why they should remain there. You want to skip the beginnings with the garage workplace and inept hardware and get straight to the fancy office with daily massages. You want to be Gears of War before you're Jazz Jackrabbit. You're the best because you say so. That's not humility.
I get what you're saying, but it comes across like the person who would rather get in the unemployment line with a chip on his shoulder than the job fair line hoping to turn his life around. Rather than playing the game, you want the rules to change to allow for you to work the way you're used to.
Since the subject of my development period keeps coming up, I'll address it. I didn't work for 12 years (not 9, unfortunately) expecting to make it big in the game industry. I haven't been sitting here not realizing the years are just floating on by while I'm dreaming of fame and Lamborghinis. Think about what the indie scene was like back in '06, think about the reputation Steam still had, and that console releases were completely unrealistic. My game was a small-scale hobby project that I worked on for several years before I saw potential in it and started it over from scratch (twice) in order to fulfill the original, grand vision that was birthed from my disappointment with Halo 2's release versus its initial promise. I didn't know programming before working on this game, and I went to college right out of high school for computer programming as the goal was for my uncle to hook me up with a cushy job, eventually that being at Oracle. The project was also practically on hiatus for nearly two years because of a terrible breakup that completely changed the course of my life. I wish I could have released my game years ago but, regardless of my life interferences, that wasn't possible because the game was never initially envisioned as what it eventually became. Releasing this game to success would be a dream come true, but I still have a job and other opportunities on the horizon because working hard for what you want is the only way to get it.
If you want to get to the top, you have to fight for it. The mentality that plagues society is that everybody deserves being at the top, regardless of opportunity or starting position, whether they actually deserve it or not. The reality is that those who actually reach the top didn't think solely about what they didn't have, they focused on what they did, used it to their advantage, and hustled their way through every ladder of success until they achieved their dream. They didn't run around claiming they're the best and deserve handouts. Those that got to the top without that struggle were aided by luck, not skill. Winning the lottery next week would get you the budget you need to acquire all the equipment and team members you need to make your AAA game, but unless you know for sure that's going to happen, you might as well put in the effort and hours to make up for that lack of luck.
And then you have the guy who's short of a million dollars to change the world with his revolutionary ideas. I mean, all I really got out of all that is that you, of all the people in the world, hold all the correct opinions, but you have nothing to prove that besides your own reaffirmation. Mario Kart 8 received glowing praise from both critics and players, but it sucks because you say so. I read your nonsensical thread about it, nonsensical in the sense that your proof Double Dash was the best was because 8 had issues. Well, WWII is the best Call of Duty because Black Ops Declassified is the worst. Snickers is the best because Mars sucks. It's not a valid argument. You complained about why nobody got at the core of Mario Kart 8's issues - maybe because these people didn't feel the same way as you - and yet I'm still here wondering why Double Dash is the best without being told why. The core of all your arguments seems to be a single, unshakable claim followed by an unrelated opinion. The reason you're the best is because you can point out the mistakes of others, but that doesn't say why you're the best.
So this whole thread started just because you're broke and are unwilling to make compromises with your supposed handicaps, and you won't hustle to get the money you need. You want to work outside your scope. You sound like you want to make a game with the looks, depth, and complexity of something like The Division but with the production process of something more like Undertale, with the girl Fox hired to also get under the table a couple times a day.
Well, yeah. It would also help if I had GMS2 with its YYC and shader cabilities, as well as all my current talents, ideas, and design documents over a decade ago so that my game would have taken 3 solid, productive years instead of the difficult 12, but that's not the reality of either of our situations so we should make due with what we have.