up vote 8 down vote favorite

As suggested in the contact us page, I am posting this question here.

I posed a question originally on Stack Overflow. I thought the question was appropriate for posting there, but it was ruled to be to be more appropriate for the Programmer area. So I posted the very same question in the Programmer area. Here is the direct link.

The question was closed with no helpful information on what was wrong with the question or how I can improve it so that it is appropriate. Please help me to understand how it is not appropriate, how I can improve it, or what other resources I might look at.

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From quickly scanning your question, it's not immediately clear what the actual requirements for what you're looking for are, the analogy isn't very helpful (at least to me). It certainly seems like a question that could fit Programmers, but you really need to clarify its technical parameters. You could start by telling us why you think smartfoxserver wouldn't be a good solution, telling us what you don't want might help us understand what you do want. – Yannis Rizos♦ Nov 16 '12 at 22:52
Actually, smartfoxserver was listed as something that would probably fit my requirements. Surely it's not the only thing out there. I offered it as something that I hoped might clarify what I was looking for. – Victor Engel Nov 16 '12 at 23:23
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"I've been looking at smartfoxserver, but I'm not convinced yet that it is the best option or even that it will work at all" To be honest I'm not exactly sure what you are saying there. Why are you not convinced? What makes you think it might not work at all? – Yannis Rizos♦ Nov 16 '12 at 23:37
Well, I haven't read through all the documents yet on the smartfoxserver site. But I get the impression from the documents I have read that the framework is designed for a model where players join rooms where the gaming occurs. In my setup, all users play in the same world. You can think of it as a virtual world that everyone belongs in. Interaction among users results from proximity within this virtual world. Possibly the two ideas can be mapped to each other, but I haven't worked out how that would work. – Victor Engel Nov 16 '12 at 23:49
@Yannis, I'm continuing because I'm not sure my previous post was enough. Continuing the darebase analogy, suppose a player could explore the world with his team, establishing different bases along the way. A battle with another user happens when they wander within range of each other. – Victor Engel Nov 16 '12 at 23:52
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@VictorEngel You might want to consider looking into the Game Development Stack Exchange site. You might get better answers there than you would at Programmers. – maple_shaft♦ Nov 17 '12 at 1:20
Thanks @maple_shaft. More and more stack exchange sites. Is there a listing of stack exchange sites somewhere? – Victor Engel Nov 17 '12 at 1:44
@VictorEngel I like the focused parts you added, but I felt that the not constructive bits were not necessary and I removed them. I reopened the question. – maple_shaft♦ Nov 17 '12 at 3:54
"The question was caused." Huh? Do you mean closed? – TRiG Nov 21 '12 at 2:23
Stupid autocorrect. :) Fixed. – Victor Engel Nov 21 '12 at 15:41

2 Answers

up vote 7 down vote

The question was closed by 5 members of the community rather than a moderator. I can't speak for them but I will speculate as to why. Perhaps one of them may chime in with their thoughts as well.

What sort of platforms are available to develop this sort of game?

This part of your question isn't very constructive. You offer a lot of good information about your specific case however what will happen is that people will just start posting their favorite game development platform. This won't help anybody determine what you should do.

So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

That is far too broad. We tend to look for focused and answerable questions.

I think I need to establish the architecture first before proceeding with this project.

This should be a given.

My suggestion to you is to try and focus on an aspect of the architecture that you are having trouble with specifically, and post a design specific question regarding this, or perhaps edit your post to focus it on a single area. When you have done this, flag it for moderator attention and they can consider it to be reopened at that point.

Also, in the future, please do not cross post the same question across StackExchange sites. If you posted the question in the wrong place, then flag it for moderator attention and they will take care of migrating it for you.

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Boy, using StackExchange is turning out to have a much larger learning curve than I expected. For example, I only cross-posted after the original question was closed. It was closed because it was deemed not appropriate in Stackoverflow and was suggested to be posted in Programmer. I thought I was following the instructions I was given. This is getting to be frustrating, because I am following what I perceive as the guidelines and then am getting rebuffed when I do exactly that. – Victor Engel Nov 16 '12 at 23:27
@VictorEngel Don't worry about cross posting, now that you know you have the option to flag, just do that next time. – Yannis Rizos♦ Nov 16 '12 at 23:37
OK. Thanks @Yannis. I had not idea there was even cross-communication between the forums at the time I posted on Programmer. – Victor Engel Nov 16 '12 at 23:39
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@VictorEngel - Yes, you got bad advice about cross posting - not your fault. And it isn't obvious that asking a question is as difficult as it is. – psr Nov 16 '12 at 23:42
@VictorEngel No need to be frustrated over it really, we are not criticizing or judging you :) There are just some things that you only learn by somebody helping you out. – maple_shaft♦ Nov 17 '12 at 0:11
As one who voted to close, Maple_Shaft's answer pretty much hit all the points that I came to. Overall, I thought it was too broad and needed a lot more focus to be answerable. – Walter Nov 17 '12 at 0:39
I for one voted mostly for the stuff wiped out in revision 5 and, well, for the reasons you laid out. BTW not surprised that question is reopened, it felt like salvageable to me. Closing instead of editing looked safer though, for I just couldn't quickly figure how to clean it up before it collects irrelevant garbage answers that would effectively lock it from any substantial editing at all – gnat Nov 17 '12 at 6:29
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As a newbie here, my frustration was not so much that the question was closed but that it was closed with no feedback. Feedback is necessary, particularly for a newbie. I will hasten to add that there is plenty of feedback now. I don't know, though, the mechanics of how a question is closed. I assume there must be some function unavailable to me, which, of course, further obscures a potential remedy available to the newbie. – Victor Engel Nov 17 '12 at 15:02
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@VictorEngel I agree that you should have gotten feedback but most of the time it is hard to give the necessary attention to every question and answer on the site. We do honestly try our best. – maple_shaft♦ Nov 17 '12 at 15:09
up vote 1 down vote

You seem to have provided a business spec and are asking for a technical spec, this is far too broad for SE. Programmers is for when you have a specific issue to do with the general architecture of your system or methodologies, ie if you wanted to know whether AWS or a dedicated server suited your use case more.

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I think you meant e.g., instead of i.e. I don't know what AWS is (Amazon Web Server?). FWIW, the answer Daniel B gave is exactly the type of discussion I was after. If that sort of discussion is not appropriate at PROGRAMMERS, where might I go for that sort of discussion? I thought that was exactly the kind of thing PROGRAMMERS was set up for. – Victor Engel Nov 22 '12 at 22:29
From what I've heard on the podcasts programmers was originally intended that way however it has turned into a place for concrete questions about software development which are not syntax related. The format of stack exchange dosn't lend itself to discussions. AWS = Amazon Web Services, it includes S3, EC2 ect – Inverted Llama Nov 23 '12 at 10:19
@VictorEngel What Programmers was originally set up for is irrelevant, as the scope changed drastically almost immediately after the site came out of beta. Please read the FAQ thoroughly to see what the site has been about for more than two years now. – Yannis Rizos♦ Nov 23 '12 at 19:25

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