I was thinking, and after looking at our progress on the forums, wiki, and ModDB websites, I cant help but notice something glaringly important; we need programmers! Now I know you are all probably thinking "thanks smartass, but tell me something I dont know", but let me continue. I worked out a basic step by step chart as to how we can get more coders.

Whats our final goal? To finish Thrive 1.0

But for that we need to attract WAAY more coders...
But for that we need to attract WAAY more people (and some are bound to be coders)...
But for that we need to release playable segments of the game to attract large numbers, aka our efforts to release a solid microbe stage before anything else...
But for that we need to attract more coders...
But for that we need to attract more people (and a few will be coders)...
And for that, we need to spread the word of our project, Thrive.

We need to brainstorm ideas as to how we can, without spamming and advertising, slowly but surely draw people into the project. I was thinking that we start small, like by simply adding "Thrive, possibly the greatest game ever concieved" in our signatures on other forums, along with a link. Thats sure to spark curiosity if someone reads it.

Of course we must all congratulate ourselves on getting this far with Thrive, but to really get going we need some plan of action. We need to get noticed. Ideas?

(Btw, this is not meant to result in a conversation between two people, as several of my threads have. Ideally everyone should get involved, because promotion is very important for Thrive to thrive!)

Ok so i realized that programmers, like gamers, must have forums for themselves too, where they discuss code and software and stuff. So I found a particularly nice, juicy stash of them at a certain website, and I posted a request for coders for Thrive, to help speed up our progress and lighten the load on Roadkillguy's back. I made sure to point out that this is a non profit project, so we will not pay them.

Heres the link: http://forum.codecall.net/topic/71030-thrive-an-epic-game-of-evolution/

Ideally, theyll be pouring in by the hundreds in a couple of days, and all our problems will be solved!

Lol, just kidding, but hopefully at least a couple show up...

Not meaning to say you did bad, but I believe there is an advertising section? And I agree with Nick, we should really post on programming forums, even science/biology ones might be helpful. You never know, maybe Will Wright browses forums about evolution.

Nice work Nick . I too now I'm going to publish on the programming forum.

A bit late to post here, 2010 topic and all, but anyways. I happen to know a few coders here. If I could convince them I could get at least 2-3. One of them also goes on forums basically all the time so he could easily get us out there. And attract others. Thoughts?

I mean here as in my area. Awesome, i'll talk to them as soon as I can

Is it ok if I go and advertise Thrive on my Youtube? Since I make (not trying to advertise myself here) videos every few days. I have some subscribers so yeah. I could just mention Thrive alot in my videos and/or make a video for it. Just need a yes or no.

Greetings! I recently heard about your project and am very excited about its progress. A game like this would definitely push video games beyond the realm of entertainment.

While I admire your dedication to making this game have a budget of 0$, I can't help but notice how long yall have been working on it. If I am not mistaken you are in constant need of programmers and developers to continue the project. I have a solution:

There is a great demand for a game like this. Why not start a Kickstarter? You can receive donations from people just like me, who may not have the technical skills to help but are willing to pay for a game like this. I believe even meager funds would help speed the development greatly.

Just a suggestion, I think yall are doing fantastic work and I applaud your spirit.

I agree with solveitman. While doing this all voluntarily is a great cause, eventually your hard work has to be rewarded somehow.

Another thing I wanted to throw in here is, please be careful with spreading around the IP of the project.. There's no copyright anywhere so any large gaming company can simply steal this game concept.
Please, don't start spreading all information. Recruitment is fine, but keep information on a low and just advertise for the need for programmers and keep information spread to private messages for instance.

Don't just post the whole game concept on public forums. Also, advertising with being the successor to Spore is very much being a douchebag and very arrogant and I think it might even be illegal. The developers at Maxis worked very hard on the Spore project so you can't just start blabbering about saying Spore sucked and failed so now comes the game it was supposed to be.
If anything, this game is a tribute to spore and aims to make the game as realistic as real life.

This game should be a whole new experience and people shouldn't be comparing this to Spore. (at least don't give them reasons to)

This game is still in the conceptual stage as the game hasn't been thought out fully yet. You can wait with the recruitment of volunteer programmers until you actually start programming the game.

Again I ask, keep your enthusiasm to your self or on these forums but don't start announcing how awesome this game is going to become as you might be promising things that the game is not going to live up to in the end.
(don't create high expectations with the public you're not sure of meeting)

This goes for now, but also when the game is in development. Don't tell the public what awesome things lie in store (unless they are actually being programmed) because stuff turns ugly if later an announcement is made certain things did not make it into the game.

The idea of a kickstarter has been discussed before here (among a few others), though in that case more as a publicity exercise, with any income being donated to charity. Many of us here are very keen for this project to remain open source and $0 budget, our reward is in developing the ideas and seeing the result.

That's not to say the discussion is entirely closed, but what was agreed on is that we won't be publicising the project any more until we have something to show for ourselves, either an advanced prototype, or an early cell stage demo.

The odd external post helps to lure a few more potential members here, and does fairly little harm, but any extensive spamming won't help our reputation, especially when we have so little to show the casual visitor (i.e.: those looking for something playable, and not willing to read whole concept discussions).

Carnifex makes a good point about potentially having our concepts (effectively the games IP) stolen. I would think that at this point the concept is so vast that no profit-oriented developer would touch it with a bargepole, though that doesn't stop anyone skimming off some of the simpler stuff. In one sense, thrive is destined to be open-source, so this is ok, so long as noone else develops parts of the game first, and claims IP on those parts before we're able to use them.

Thanks to the recent reddit post, we now have more programmers involved than at any one time in the past, so I'd suggest we start working with what we have rather than worrying about/waiting to get more.

Yeah I suggest we start working now too. I started this thread before the Reddit influx. Any more programmers would be nice, but we need to make progress too.

@GmansWatching: I would be in favour of your idea, especially if it will bring more programmers, but I don't think I have the authority to say yes or no.