How to motivate

master1114 · July 25, 2017

I have been a part of the LCPDFR and LSPDFR community for quite some time now. I always wanted to "give the community something back" instead of only using the plugins and mods that others create. Many people invest a lot of time into their stuff and thousends of people can improve their gameplay with it.

As a computer science student in the 4th/5th semester (Java Development). I already have the basics when it comes to programming. Wich means that I dont need to take time to learn something about programming. This should make me quite suitable for a job like that. So I starded in September 2016 for about one week with a project called AlphaCallouts. It took me some effort but with the help in the forum, I finally got my first, pretty unique callout to run. Happy as I was, I started the next one, nearly finished it aswell. At this point I was very hyped to join like the "high class of content creaters on lspdfr" (please dont take that too seriously). I tested my stuff over and over again, and worked on it. Then it came across a bug that made my game crash. At the same time, my vacation ended and I had to start the 3rd semester at the university. I didnt touch my project for quite a while. Having to do with coding and software development all day doesnt make you want to come home and work on coding again. What that means is that I completly abandoned my small project. I wouldnt say it was on purpose, it just wasnt doable for me. I always thought about getting started again, and my inner me always reminded me how "cool" it would be to have a plugin finally finished and open to download, but that were only thoughts.

And there we are. Its about 10 months later, and the situation hasent changed at all. I opened my IDE today, took a quick look at the project and closed it again. I wonder how you motivate to get ypur projects done. My will is still the same and I dont know why I cant motivate myself. You should think that the "happiness" once the project is finished should be enough as motivaten but somehow it wont work for me.

Callout plugins have always been important to LSPDFR because if u play alot, you dont want the same callouts to popup over and over again. We already have a good variety of callouts, but some are better than others and even the best callouts are used up after some time. So I think having a refreshment from time to time would be cool. I have so many ideads of callouts that are pretty unique and have some twists that are currently not in the game, but how can I get them out?

This has been a lot of personal talking and stuff, but I feel like I need someone to talk about this. So if anyone has suggestions, any ideas or something then hit me up with it. Or maybe someone plans on creating a new callout plugin and needs some ideas for his callouts, I´d be glad to assist him.

~~Deactivated Member~~ · July 26, 2017

I have had a problem with this too. I am half way through making a plugin, but I haven't touched it in a couple of months. I lack motivation when it comes to LSPDFR. For other projects, I am more than happy to open up Visual Studio, IntelliJ, Pycharm, Codeblocks, etc... but when I see the huge amount of code from my LSPDFR plugin, I click off immediately.

The biggest reason why I think I do this is because I have nothing more to gain from LSPDFR development. Last year, I was only learning C#, so toying around with LSPDFR really helped me develop my skills. Now, I am more than proficient, so making plugins for LSPDFR feels like a chore, especially when there's a ton of other people who do that stuff too.

SpikeTerm · July 26, 2017

5 hours ago, master1114 said:

I have been a part of the LCPDFR and LSPDFR community for quite some time now. I always wanted to "give the community something back" instead of only using the plugins and mods that others create. Many people invest a lot of time into their stuff and thousends of people can improve their gameplay with it.

As a computer science student in the 4th/5th semester (Java Development). I already have the basics when it comes to programming. Wich means that I dont need to take time to learn something about programming. This should make me quite suitable for a job like that. So I starded in September 2016 for about one week with a project called AlphaCallouts. It took me some effort but with the help in the forum, I finally got my first, pretty unique callout to run. Happy as I was, I started the next one, nearly finished it aswell. At this point I was very hyped to join like the "high class of content creaters on lspdfr" (please dont take that too seriously). I tested my stuff over and over again, and worked on it. Then it came across a bug that made my game crash. At the same time, my vacation ended and I had to start the 3rd semester at the university. I didnt touch my project for quite a while. Having to do with coding and software development all day doesnt make you want to come home and work on coding again. What that means is that I completly abandoned my small project. I wouldnt say it was on purpose, it just wasnt doable for me. I always thought about getting started again, and my inner me always reminded me how "cool" it would be to have a plugin finally finished and open to download, but that were only thoughts.

And there we are. Its about 10 months later, and the situation hasent changed at all. I opened my IDE today, took a quick look at the project and closed it again. I wonder how you motivate to get ypur projects done. My will is still the same and I dont know why I cant motivate myself. You should think that the "happiness" once the project is finished should be enough as motivaten but somehow it wont work for me.

Callout plugins have always been important to LSPDFR because if u play alot, you dont want the same callouts to popup over and over again. We already have a good variety of callouts, but some are better than others and even the best callouts are used up after some time. So I think having a refreshment from time to time would be cool. I have so many ideads of callouts that are pretty unique and have some twists that are currently not in the game, but how can I get them out?

This has been a lot of personal talking and stuff, but I feel like I need someone to talk about this. So if anyone has suggestions, any ideas or something then hit me up with it. Or maybe someone plans on creating a new callout plugin and needs some ideas for his callouts, I´d be glad to assist him.

28 minutes ago, tanu1215 said:

I have had a problem with this too. I am half way through making a plugin, but I haven't touched it in a couple of months. I lack motivation when it comes to LSPDFR. For other projects, I am more than happy to open up Visual Studio, IntelliJ, Pycharm, Codeblocks, etc... but when I see the huge amount of code from my LSPDFR plugin, I click off immediately.

The biggest reason why I think I do this is because I have nothing more to gain from LSPDFR development. Last year, I was only learning C#, so toying around with LSPDFR really helped me develop my skills. Now, I am more than proficient, so making plugins for LSPDFR feels like a chore, especially when there's a ton of other people who do that stuff too.

Well I want to say thanks for the work that you two have done for LSPDFR.

The community could use callouts. We always can use callouts of course.

I wish you both the best of luck with your studies and motivation to make callouts.

There's not a lot I can say but if you do continue to work at your LSPDFR goals you and the community will most likely be very happy at the end of all your hard work.

master1114 · July 26, 2017

I dont want to turn this in a too psycological discussion, but I can tell you the situation doesnt feel good^^ It also doesnt help when you come up with a new callout idea every morning when waking up. You desperatly want to see it in game but you know you wont do it.

I wonder if people that dont have to to with computers and programming regulary have less problems with motivating to work on their stuff. I have about 2-3 software projects in a half year. When you have freetime, and you have to chose between working on coding or watching Polecats new DOJ video or something like that, well guess what happens^^

ToastinYou · July 26, 2017

I hate developing callouts.. yet that is what I am known for.. lmao. I can never stay motivated enough to develop callouts because to me it's so boring. I hate testing shit.

LtFlash · July 26, 2017

I'm actively writing code for now over 3 years. Making the story short:

I started because I was interested in the history of NYC high-crime areas (policing), especially SoBx + I wanted to remind myself a little bit of programming. Writing callouts seemed to be a perfect opportunity to combine both interests. It works well - I still open VS2012 to improve my 1st plugin even though it wasn't updated for ages.
When I learned GTA enough to be able to write working code from the 1st try, it became a good hobby to relax after hours.
I found some areas in programming I like to master and till I see some space to improve I'm working on it.
It turned out the code is my favorite type of art and everybody likes to be creative.