What to do when you have 'no idea'?

[Harrison]

I will take that as a compliment, I think.

Washing Machine created many ideas... laundrette, East London, Guy smoking, leaning against dirty laundrette window watching the reflections of passing cars. Prostitutes calling cards tucked into the notice board of the telephone box outside. A guy trying to take one of the cards without being noticed. A tall smartly dressed man in his 40's wearing a long trench coat concealing a sawn off shot gun, walking towards a nearby betting shop...

See, it's easy to come up with ideas based on the simplest thing. Bet you didn't think that would come from washing machine!

[Submeg]

Take it as a compliment....take it...lol. I havent let my imagination do that....but I do like to try and mix two things that definately dont go together. For example, one day I said to one of my friends, "I feel like I'm a cheeseburger caught in a twistie" you should have seen his face

[Stephen Coates]

I managed to come up with an idea for my project by listening to Tony Christie's Amarillo over and over for about half an hour through my head phones.

I like that song, so listened to it, then came up with one idea, and as I kept listening to it I came up with more ideas. Some of the ideas that I came up with were based on real events which I had seen.

[Ghost]

Hello

Thanks for the responses, well I have been writing down ideas but to me they never seem to match what someone else has done in the same setting, and I always feel that I am somehow imitating such ideas just in a different form.

[Submeg]

What type of story are you looking to write?

[Harrison]

to me they never seem to match what someone else has done in the same setting, and I always feel that I am somehow imitating such ideas just in a different form.

It is good that your ideas do not match what someone else has done in the same setting. It is much better to have your own unique perspective and interpretation of ideas towards any given subject as this gives you a unique perspective and hopefully will generate unique work. I personally think there is no point in creating anything unless you are generating something original and unique.

People covering old songs and then not sounding as good as the original is one good example of a pointless exercise. Another is people trying to recreate the art of others. Why? Use their ideas, yes, but don't try to duplicate ideas of others, instead use those ideas as a starting point to develop your own.

The most important thing you have to first come to terms with regarding any work is that no one is right. Everyone has their own unique outlook on life and their own interpretation of their views on life. It just requires you to find a way to outwardly express these unique aspects on life through a medium that you are suited to.

Hope that made sense.

[Ghost]

Hello all,

Since I started this topic I have been making you all curious what it is what I am exactly ‘working’ on.
Well it is related to the Fallout game series.

Back in 2002 (2003?) when it was made official that Van Buren or Fallout 3 was cancelled and all the people of Black Island had been ‘released to pursue other careers’ I have been thinking hard about a fan made third part of the series, or at least simply a new setting and story for players to explore.

I wanted to set up a team and work on an idea but this is harder than it sounds, several others, mostly Europeans in fact, have also tried to set up fan based Fallout projects and not much of them are successful or even around anymore.

My little project ran for a couple of months before the hype passed and it died off, I admit that it was not set up well and currently I am trying to assist another project called FMF by writing dialogue for the many characters in that game, but I still wish to make a Fallout idea of my own.

Now Bethesda has the licence and goes all about how they will make a ‘sequel true to the spirit of Fallout’, I do not believe that Bethesda is capable of this, Oblivion on which engine Fallout 3 will also run is not a true cRPG rather a Hack’n Slash with RPG elements.
I share the worry that Fallout 3 will end up as ‘Oblivion with Guns and mutants’.

These days I am still trying to come up with ideas but one of my problems is that I feel can’t come up with a storyline as good, exciting and ‘epic’ as those from Fallout 1, 2 and the cancelled Van Buren.

What I have made so far feels to much like Van Buren, something I wish to avoid.

As Harrison suggested to me, perhaps some of you would be willing to share ideas with me and help me with some of my own.

If you are interested I could post the outline I made for FMF to show what I came up with so far.

[Harrison]

I've had some additional thoughts regarding this since your PM earlier. Have you looked at the Fallout Modding scene as many people are working on mods for the earlier games and coming up with some amazing expansions for the original games.

Also I'm sure there is some Fan Fiction for Fallout, and this would contain some great plot and story ideas that you could either use as starting points for your own ideas, or the Fan Fiction writers may be a good source to contact to help you in your story development as they may be interested in coming on board and working with you on plotlines and ideas.

BTW, what are you finally hoping to achieve with this project? Do you hope to eventually get a game based on the Fallout series into production and made?

[Ghost]

Hello Harrison

Heh, well that is the dream
I know someone who is working on an engine and he knows a few graphics people, with perhaps some luck this might lead at least to a development kit.

Edit: To be honest, I just enjoy trying to come up with new ideas instead of just looking at old ones and thinking what might have been.

[Harrison]

It would be great if you could eventually get such an idea into production.

Don't forget though that you don't always need to make a game completely from scratch as you could go the modding route yourself and construct the game using an existing game as the basis to build it. There are many games built as mods for other games and they don't look or play anything like the original.

A great example of this is Neverwinter Nights 2. That game comes with a complete construction kit to build a whole complete universe including every element, character interaction and game rule.