PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Alfonso Knaf on November 25, 2006, 02:10:49 am
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First, please don't take this as a rant thread, I honestly would like to see PS evolve, but I also see some problems in matters of organisation. Here I would like to address some:
The processes are too closed. You barely know what is happening right know, on what the devs are working. If this work would be more open, the community could give much more feedback, even before things "go live".
The community as a whole should be much more integrated in the development process. I think much bigger steps could be taken much faster if some work would be delegated to the community.
So connected to this issue is the problem that applications are much too long in the queue, without "somebody looking at it soon" ;-)
So maybe more people should evaluate applications.
Actually it seems far too much is only the responsibility of Talad. More things should be delegated too other Devs or as said the community whenever possible. Anyhow anyone has to know exactly what his/her responsibility is.
A quote from Karyuu:
"Other NPCs are involved, and their involvement needs to be approved by Talad. Hopefully approval of the new quests won't take long, as well as loading them into the game."
Why does this have to be approved by Talad? Why not other people who maybe are not so overworked? I suggest to transfer such tings to the matching department, or a work group.
The setting should be much more detailed. If there is more, release it. I do not mean to release huge spoilers if there is a big story going on, I mean different details about the world. Like descriptions of flora and fauna, politics, who is who - things your character would know if he lived a couple of years in Yliakum.
The reason for this is simple: good role-playing needs a common basis. If everybody creates their own world it is hard to come together.
To solve some of these problems I suggest to create community-working-groups. Special groups to work on a single field of interest. Those groups could get support and input by a developer who coordinates a single group. And they should have the promise, that their work somehow really would get implemented.
Developers, or any other dedicated group leaders, could define precise goals to speed up processes.
Some groups I thought of:
- Setting
- Artwork
- Rules
- PR
- Homepage
- ...
Of course it would take some initial effort to set up those structures and to create a manifest on how things should be done etc. but ones established things would speed up and really involve the community.
And now start the discussion, cause my proposels are by far not perfect - some issues stay untouched by this post and of course not everybody will agree.
But I do not want to see this thread burried in small rants about single persons or anyting like that and of course I really would like to see some developers taking part in the (maybe) discussion, posting their point of view.
And I would really like to see some changes in the nearer future...
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Read threads like this before and agree more involvement of the community would be a good thing and that it is really hard to start helping with Planeshift with things like roleplaying and setting and such and that the distance should indeed be reduced when possible,
However there doesn't seem to be such a motivation coming from Talads side atleast and so I don't see it working.
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*Matt, with a robed guy on his shoulder.*
Indeed. The problem with these threads is that you're preaching to the choir. Obviously we're not the ones who need to be convinced that PS development should be more community-oriented, it's Talad who needs to be convinced, as he holds all the power.
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*frowns, nods his head in short agreement, then walks off with the frown still in place*
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I agree with Phinehas, most of the community is already of this opinion. If I'm not mistaken, the devs don't want things to be seen by the player base before they enter the game, although I can't fathom why.. Personally I would prefer to see the game move along faster with quality community contributions than have a surprise when I enter the game after an update.
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I will try to reply, don't take my words as 200% official PS devs something, but at least use them as indication.
As said already, I think there have been different threads similar to this one, so, this is not a new request.
First, please don't take this as a rant thread, I honestly would like to see PS evolve, but I also see some problems in matters of organisation.
I honestly agree with you that there are organisational matters. A lot however depends from the circumstances, which are not always the happiest one. We have always to keep in mind that what it is behind PS is a group of people that are devoting part of their free time to something and what arises in the real life is (at least imho) more important and has higher priority. When something happens there, the contribution to PS is minimised.
Another good point is that people have a tendency to help in their first period of contribution and then, they fade away for unknown reasons, making the organizational plan less stable and reliable. Summary: often you don't know how much trust you can put in a new team member because you are not sure he is going to stick with the team long enough.
Here I would like to address some:
The processes are too closed. You barely know what is happening right know, on what the devs are working. If this work would be more open, the community could give much more feedback, even before things "go live".
True and false. I think the development is rather open. You can check what it is going on reading the history of the source code commital, however, the art is always a surprise and I think it is nice to have *some* surprises like that. Anyway, the things have got quite open also on that side, since in the website you can see some sketches about future things.
It is important to involve the community in the development, but the community is big and you need to have a clear target to follow, which might get slightly deviated by some suggestions, but you can't always listen to everybody or you will end up swiging and changing things every 5 seconds.
A lot of wishes from the community are taken in consideration, and the community feedback is important for bugs and for appreciation. I think the new features are based on what the players would like and the fact that there are new features instead of just bugs correction (which would be necessary for having a better base) is just because we have a strong community.
So connected to this issue is the problem that applications are much too long in the queue, without "somebody looking at it soon" ;-)
So maybe more people should evaluate applications.
The fact is, there are no more people.
We are already quite overloaded and it takes time and you want to have people that do a good job, becauses otherwise you end up just correcting what the other people have done wrongly.
And you don't want to waste time when there is already little time.
Actually it seems far too much is only the responsibility of Talad. More things should be delegated too other Devs or as said the community whenever possible. Anyhow anyone has to know exactly what his/her responsibility is.
We know which are our responsabilities. Or is the community that should know who is doing what? In that case, It hink it is enough to ask. There are no secrets there.
It is true that Talad is the "bottleneck", but this assures a quality that you can't find in any other game and also it assures a really important thing. Things will not fall apart. If Talad finds people that is reliable and talented, you will see him delegating things. But he is the "owner" of this project and he can't just give things to the first that comes, otherwise he will have to follow him/her and check everystep he/she is doing.
I am the first to hope that some tasks would be speed up or delegated, but I understand the thought behind this prudence and I would just hope that there would be strongly committed people in the team, like some of us are already (and we all know who are the pillars here!).
A quote from Karyuu:
"Other NPCs are involved, and their involvement needs to be approved by Talad. Hopefully approval of the new quests won't take long, as well as loading them into the game."
Why does this have to be approved by Talad? Why not other people who maybe are not so overworked? I suggest to transfer such tings to the matching department, or a work group.
Because certain things are pretty delicate and at the moment there is nobody with the perfect knowledge to fulfill such task.
The setting should be much more detailed. If there is more, release it. I do not mean to release huge spoilers if there is a big story going on, I mean different details about the world. Like descriptions of flora and fauna, politics, who is who - things your character would know if he lived a couple of years in Yliakum.
The setting department has been scarce of people for a really long time. Finally, some valid member has started to appear and things have started to move also in that direction. Why there are few people there? Because the setting department focuses on a really delicate part, you need not only talented people, but also people with the right set of mind. And it needs time before the person is ready to be actually 200% productive. It is also true that some good applications have been slipped away for some unknown reason, and I am really sorry for this, but I know that not everything can be done unfortunately in a perfect way.
About your suggestions, I honestly see a bit dangerous creating community working groups, simply because you need reliable people (and I know there is) but then the ones that are excluded will start to rant because they are excluded (even though, if they would participate they would contribute nothing at all).
But, I am open to discussions (however, I am not the boss here ;))
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Yes, everybody here thinks the same way. Communitiy involvement it great, and it works, just look at other open source games.
And the idea of community workgroups is also great.
I see the problem Talad has, but it's not realy a problem. The community could concentrate on things like, doing new artwork (items, etc), or even small monsters (i saw lovely 3d models of a creature that is supposed to live in the woods, in the artwork forum). Perhaps even some simple quests could come from the community. But the dev team would work on the technologie to make things work, and on the main storyline, i mean, the realy important things in game. Like that everybody could be happy, talad because he can keep the secret about the main story line, and the community, because the world could be expanded much faster, and more content could be added (even if that content is not directly connected to the main storyline)
i'm something can be worked out. the art contest with the rats was a start ( i could'nt find them ingame until now... but after the changelog they should be in :-) ),but in my opinion not enough.
Realy, if you want to find out how open source game developement works, look at the wesnoth forums. There, a gamedevelopers posts some sprites and says: well, they need some work, give me your propositions. And then many people modifiy the sprites, discuss the changes, and at the end something great comes out (and in the process of discussing the changes, the people with poor art skills are teached how to do it better, and they realy get better, that is why wesnoth has quite a few realy good 2d artitsts now)
But we will see how things come out
PS: i wrote this before the last reply was posted.
I disagree that community workgroups would be a bad idea because of the quality. The community workgroup would lead by one person(or two, thats not important), and the workgroup as a whole (and everybody that is not part of it can also posts sugesstions and even participate) works on certain things until they are happy with the product. only then it goes to talad, and he decides if it goes in, if it goes back to the workgroup for some improvements, or if it goes out.
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Obviously we're not the ones who need to be convinced that PS development should be more community-oriented, it's Talad who needs to be convinced, as he holds all the power.
Yay, and deep inside I hope this thread convinces some devs who then convince Talad ::)
If nothing is done, nothing will change...
A lot however depends from the circumstances, which are not always the happiest one. We have always to keep in mind that what it is behind PS is a group of people that are devoting part of their free time to something and what arises in the real life is (at least imho) more important and has higher priority.
Of course, RL comes first but if the framework is good, it's not such a big deal if one person takes a time of, because there are others to do his/her job. Working groups do a great job here.
I know how hard it can be to gather a trustfull team, but the open-source-community is full with commited individuals, so many projekts - even of a bigger scale than ps - just work.
The fact is, there are no more people.
We are already quite overloaded and it takes time and you want to have people that do a good job, becauses otherwise you end up just correcting what the other people have done wrongly.
And you don't want to waste time when there is already little time.
Can you rephrase this, I really don't get it, sorry :-[
We know which are our responsabilities. Or is the community that should know who is doing what? In that case, It hink it is enough to ask. There are no secrets there.
A example may be the homepage. There was a thread in the forums about creating a new one. Bastiq volunteerd to create a new one and started - parallel others from the dev team started, but didn't mention it in the thread, until one day accidently it was mentioned in irc.
So I am speaking about everything - every process - of course ingame-surprises are nice, but because there is no roadmap for the projekt, I only can guess wich direction it will take in the next year - so I am also speaking about "the big picture", well the absent of a roadmap is indeed another issue.
Because certain things are pretty delicate and at the moment there is nobody with the perfect knowledge to fulfill such task.
What is so delicate about this one? Why is there nobody with the perfect knowledge? Could you be a little bit more precise here?
Why there are few people there? Because the setting department focuses on a really delicate part, you need not only talented people, but also people with the right set of mind. And it needs time before the person is ready to be actually 200% productive.
Indeed the setting is a delicate part, non the less it should have higher priority - there are talented people "out there" and even on this forums. A little step in te right dikrection is better than nothing. Why do they have to be 200% productive, 50% would be sufficent for the moment, because 50% is far better than as it is know.
It is also true that some good applications have been slipped away for some unknown reason, and I am really sorry for this, but I know that not everything can be done unfortunately in a perfect way.
If good applications "slip away" there definitly has to be done something. This should be a alarm signal and things really should change.
About your suggestions, I honestly see a bit dangerous creating community working groups, simply because you need reliable people (and I know there is) but then the ones that are excluded will start to rant because they are excluded (even though, if they would participate they would contribute nothing at all).
I could only repeat what Asraniel said and want to add that the system even works in projects of a larger scale than PS.
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First, please don't take this as a rant thread, I honestly would like to see PS evolve, but I also see some problems in matters of organisation.
/me reads the threads and stands guard aganst flamers and ranters.
/me has pointy swords... they sting.
Now for the serious part.
It's true, Talad "Takes his time" or "has to little of it" Quite frankly I'm nsure which of the two it is. One thing I can tell you is that he isn't sitting down doing nothing. Currentely, I'm waiting for my GM events to be approved, which will take some time. IMO, GM events are devellopment as well, only Community development, not game devellopment. Currentely it's tough to decide what the pririties are, there are just so many. A little of everything won't do, cause then everything will go slower. But steps are being taken. I agree with you when it comes to you saying to devide the chores and tasks between several people, and to a certain extent, something similair yet less effective already exists. But when one decides to take his hands of certain tasks and hand them to others... a major problem arises. Whom to trust? Now for you and me it might be easy to say whom we trust. But Talad is the "director" of PS and naturally is proud and careful with it. He'd best think twice before giving something out of his, into the right hands.
The Stone age didn't end cause we ran out of stones.
planeshift won't end causewe run out of plans.
Patience is a word that suits PS perfectely. I used to nag.. ow... wait.. I still do. Alright, I used to nag a lot, now a little less, but in time (loads of time) changes are made, often more then meets the eye.
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First, please don't take this as a rant thread,
I prefer the term yackety-yak myself...
The community as a whole should be much more integrated in the development process.
Yes, to speed things up we need a bunch of people "talking" about what needs to get done :)
And now start the discussion
3, 2, 1, loading PlaneShift ranting module 2.3 ;)
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Right now making sure the world does what it should and does it well is more important than the *content* of the world. Once this beast goes into full release I think that content will be added at an astonishing rate. The basic system is getting worked on right now, so we don't necessarily *see* what is going on. If one wishes to build a different game using this server and client, then one is allowed to as the essential components are public. Then one might manage that project however one wishes to. And the project history does make for a good read during downtime, BTW.
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Hi,
I agree with some of AryHann answers, but I would clarify few points.
The development is open to the point of attracting new developers. This means that we push ideas and new features to the community of players/developers as soon as those are usable, so people see what we are doing and they can decide to contribute or join the team. I don't want groups of fan that try to develop some parts of the game, I want a selected team of talented people that develop defined pieces of a shared plan. To make an example of the other approach, look at worldforge.org . They are organized in a way that the community can create groups of people and add assets, areas, code. In my opinion that's the worst way to manage a project and will lead to nothing.... well, will lead to a big waste of time for everyone, apart from learning new things. They exist since 1998 and try to check what they produced.
On the other hand we are extremely eager to enlarge our team as much as possible, picking the good people from the community. So everyone that wants to help is encouraged to use our recruit forms. As we have always done we recruit just the best people (where "best" is a mix of skill and committment, a very skilled but not committed guy is of no use to us). About enabling the community to create content we are exploring the "contest" format. This looks pretty good to me because doesn't take much time to manage and provides good results.
About internal organizational problems, I strive every day to keep it to a good level and to organize the team. As mentioned in this thread, we are volunteers, so real life comes first. This aspect is what lowers the quality of the game and organizational integrity. We can make plans, but deadlines are not always met.
Overall I'm extremely excited of what PlaneShift is today. There is no other project like us, no one made it without payed, full time-job employees. We are progressing well, and the current team of members can produce a great game. Time is the main problem, the one that make some of the collateral initiatives we would lke to do nearly impossible (like better community support, better public relations, events, ...).
About myself, I surely don't sit down doing nothing. After 5 years of hard work on PS, I'm still extremely committed to deliver a great free mmorpg, and I'm putting everyday a lot of effort into this, ask any dev about me. I try to keep coherency in all departments and assets, and ensure quality. Remember that our textures and models are made by many different people and without control, it may become a bad patchwork of very nice assets. Without this you will see a very different game. I'm eager to delegate relevant pieces of work and leadership only when all these 3 assumptions are met:
1) I trust the person in terms of having a medieval fantasy vision similar to mine
2) he has the skills to produce good assets
3) he has the committment to produce the assets in a good time frame.
There are not many people like this, and that's why we still lack leaders in some departments. But I see the team growing every months, with some people leaving, others joining, few returning after some time out of the team. I hope there are more people out there that share our passion and vision, willing to dedicate some of their time to this project.
The organizational model will not change, we will continue to search new good members to enlarge our team, with no predefined upper limits. For now "the more the better".
We often listen to the community and to player's suggestions, but consider that we are already full of ideas, we lack resources to do all we would like, so we prioritize and select the top items.
Meanwhile... enjoy PS.
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and so he spoke..
i would juste like to add one thing.
After the result of the art contest with the rats, i think the community proved that it can come up with at least textures that fit the PS style.
Sure, i dont think a completely open aproach would be good, but there is more than just black and white.
As a example, i think that art that has been posted in the forum, should still be able to get into the game. I'm quite sure that there is some artwork that has to be done, but that no dev has the time right now. Talad could just post a message in the artwork forum and tell the people:"hey, i need a creature X that has the background Y and i had this things in mind"
And then people cand post sketches, create a model, perhaps someone else can do the textures, all that in a open process, and in the end talad can still say, no, that does not fit PS. You see what i mean.
What i want to say with this, is the following.
When there is artwork comming from the community that is good, even if its already posted in the forum, why dont use it? i dont talk about bad artwork, but about the good one. Talad has the final say, it's not like everything would go ingame.
think about it, i think it would benefit PS very very much
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About your suggestions, I honestly see a bit dangerous creating community working groups, simply because you need reliable people (and I know there is) but then the ones that are excluded will start to rant because they are excluded (even though, if they would participate they would contribute nothing at all).
I don't see the danger really. If a particular group fails to complete its task then it doesn't hurt PS, its just something that will have to be done later. The community is capable of fantastic things given the chance. Organizing a group like has been suggested is possible, see:
http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=26659.0 (http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=26659.0)
While it takes commitment I think the community is underestimated in this regard.
What i want to say with this, is the following.
When there is artwork comming from the community that is good, even if its already posted in the forum, why dont use it? i dont talk about bad artwork, but about the good one. Talad has the final say, it's not like everything would go ingame.
I've spent a lot of time arguing this and have given up. Opinions are varied and without perfect knowledge of others perspectives, invariably some arguments are useless.
The organizational model will not change, we will continue to search new good members to enlarge our team, with no predefined upper limits. For now "the more the better".
There are changes to organization that might be helpful, and not being open to organizational changes is a mistake I think. If I'm doing something and I see a better way to do it I just change instead of worrying about being a bit stubborn ;)
For instance, I think positions on the dev team for minor art fixes and a bug buster position would be helpful. One would "bug bust" on maps, the other on code. I also know that people have volunteered for both, and I'm not sure why they would be a bad thing.
Another position I would LOVE to see is a community even art dev sponsor. A long while ago there was the "Hydlaa Festival of the Hunt" a giant festival hosted by Zan which was a tremendous success. A mod was made for the game that temporarily changed the banners in the arena and added some signs around town. Of course people had to install these manually to really get a feel for these custom parts of the festival. An art dev sponsor for the community would have the ability to add temporary mods to the art for approved events. It would have to be someone who's judgment was trusted by Talad, because its the sort of thing he can't be bothered to constantly review. That said I think it would really add a special community feel to the project because people could really feel like they truly affect the world of PlaneShift.
There are many other things I think could be tweaked but all in all I'm merely trying to point out that change is sometimes for the better. Just because a method gets you so far doesn't mean its "THE WAY" or is guaranteed to propel you in the future.
----The community as a whole should be much more integrated in the development process.----
Yes, to speed things up we need a bunch of people "talking" about what needs to get done Smiley
Thats what they already do. What would it hurt if some of them did DO something?
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I didn't think someone actually remembered my little event :D I do agree that the banner mod was a very nice touch though and small things like that would be a great addition to events. Especially if they were recognized and integrated in the update system so everyone recieves them.
As for the original topic ...
I have been a temporary member of the team that was created to test out GM controlled events. I only took part on a few events but enjoyed my time a whole lot. My only connection was through Chaos, who would in turn talk directly to Talad and other involved Devs involved. It wasn't always easy creating events without having access to the settings and we usually needed approval of a higherup to do anything. Despite those things I really did enjoy creating events but in the end it just wasn't worth the trouble.
At the structural reforming that went on within the GM team and the disappearance of us event testers as a separate group I decided to drop out and not reapply since I figured the things I had to go through weren't worth the results. I just contribute as a player now and that is fine. I understand the tight selection processes and needing to deserve trust but I couldn't bring up the time to pass all that. No matter how much I enjoyed creating events.
What I'm trying to say is that selecting on dedication is good but like has been said ... this is a volunteer project and real life comes first for all of us. Because of that dedication can be tricky. Especially because I think that we can say in general the most competent and especially most reliable are those who are a bit older and have more 'experience' but also less time on their hands. In this light dedication could sometimes even be a negative selection marker.
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Hi !
I have worked (and I am still working) in small and big projects which were solely based on volunteers. The difference was that these projects always ran in RL and therefore a failure would have had real consequences. And maybe another important difference is that these projects were mainly within an movement which trains his followers from the first day on in Teamwork.
The most important things I learned there:
- To meet the dead lines you have to delegate.
- When you delegate give exact goals. That does not mean that you prescribe every little step, but you have to describe the final outcome exactly.
- To ensure a consistency within the project the general settigs must be defined exactly.
- You have to have a open comunication within the team to prevent things missed or done double.
- You have to monitor the status of each team regularly - but only act if you see deviations. If they are on track only a few encouriging words are needed.
- From time to time you have compile an overview for everybody on the team so that everybody knows whats going on.
I see it in my job that this way is not always easy - especially for the bosses since they have to hand over some authorities, but believe me with some coaching almost everybody (and especially comitted people) can learn to work in teams, and the team output boosts.
Finally I want to add that I did such things even with kids and in 9 out of 10 cases the kids surpised with their part of the project - and believe me after 20 years you are not easily surprised anymore.
So I can only advice every teamleader: Be confident in your team and delegate !
Sunshine
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Awesome post, I am the only paid member of a voluntary organisation and I must say that you are correct in all you say. Especially the point about delegation, If you dont Delegate you end up with far too much responsibility, that causes what ever you are doing to all fall on your shoulders. This is generally not a good thing. Seeing as the Devs are all volunteers, I must mention the fact that 'volunteer burn-out' Is the biggest reason for volunteer organisations failing.
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The short of the story is, We all want this.
The short story of the problem is, some people want a centralized team not a community to help.
{those people hold all the chess pieces}
You look at a spade, for a spade.
Basically, this game has always been run by a centralized team, lead by a person who holds everything.
It has always been that way.
Although you want community participation, and i do too, it won't happen.
Why? Because the person who holds all the chess pieces, won't let it happen.
This thread is actually the horse that will never die, it's a constant want.
People think this game is all about a community that comes together and makes it as one.
Maybe that whole open source thing tricks them into this, who knows.
But to keep it short, a centralized team, is all that has ever been wanted, and as for eagerness to let poeple join that team.....
Let's just say.... if they get a new member..... every 2 months..... that's a record. (I'm serious by the way)
The team says they arn't in desperate need of help, and i believe them, because they are getting updates out about every 1 and a half months.
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Again to make it short:
This has always been a Centralized effort to create a game.
And the community has always been denied entrance to their work.
And no, don't say, "fine i'll just get the game and rebuild it on my computer, touch up the code and make my own planeshift"
I'm sorry to say, you can't, none of the art is open source, to my knowledge, and alot of steps have been put in place to stop such a thing.
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So what can you do?
Apply to the team, if you want to join them, someone will post a link eventually, i'm too lazy to look for it.
And if you really need something to do or help with, Go see baldur's thread, Adraax: The klyros city project.
There you can atleast stretch your muscles working on projects.
~~Datruth
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I'd rather a centralized group.
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I'd rather a centralized group.
Your not alone bro, alot of people would, not me, but other people.
And the best part is, the people in power side with you ;) :thumbup:
~~Datruth
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You can't talk about it like a democracy if the majority are against you.
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I am not necessarily for or against a centralized system. It seems to have worked to fruition well enough. What I do not like is the complete disallowment of community contribution without being a developer yourself. I had to go through 2 people to get my changes to the ubuntu build guide in because I'm not a "dev". I don't want to be a dev, nor work on deadlines, I would rather enjoy the community and contribute what I can. I'm not looking for another job, just a nice place to contribute some things.
You see I don't think that people totally object to a centralized system, but rather the policy of "anything made by a non dev can never be utilized." I've seen some excellent character skins on the forums, seen beautiful scenes and buildings. The Community Modeling Project was designed to be as general as possible so that it could easily be extended by a real art dev to finish off a new area thats already planned. My point was that the community is capable of accomplishing many things on its own, and given the chance could be a valueable asset to the PS dev team if they would ever decide to utilize it. We don't have to be just "testers". We can help bring the world to fruition.
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If you want to be more than a tester you apply to be more than a tester. I don't see a problem.
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We could use some more Liaisons to the general community but that is a job in an of itself. I know that I don't have the time to hand hold every person that wants to build the client. I can assume it's the same for people that want to donate artwork or other such content. We need to develop an effective layer between the core development team and the community that can pre-screen some of the content. This can often be a fustrating role though since it's sometimes hard to get a clear picture of what is needed.
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acraig;
Liasons are a great idea, but.. even when the screening procces is done it is still left on the table for Talads approval. His time is limited and his duties are plentyfull. I know this has been discussed a million times but, there needs to be more deligation from Talad. He needs to entrust people with the task of following his vision, or else the project willcontinue at a snails pace for decades.
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I know that I don't have the time to hand hold every person that wants to build the client.
No need, we have Rolenun for that :D
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If you want to be more than a tester you apply to be more than a tester. I don't see a problem.
Maybe you don't, but I do. I think that a few people might love to help but simply don't have the ability to make the comitments and work within deadlines. That doesn't mean those people shouldn't be able to contribute to PS, it just means they don't need to be part of the core team because their situation doesn't make that a viable option.
I know that I don't have the time to hand hold every person that wants to build the client.
I'm there almost daily, as well as Rolenun who knows even more, and as such I think we do a pretty good job of handling build questions. :)
He needs to entrust people with the task of following his vision, or else the project willcontinue at a snails pace for decades.
I agree but thats definately a hard thing for anyone to do. It SHOULD happen but I don't know if Talad will ever trust any of us enough for a role like that.
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Induane I completely agree with you.
Why can't players just come in and pitch things here and there, and help out without being a dev?
Me and i feel, the vast majority of the community, would love to do that.
Sadly, the centralized team, does not want this to happen.
Remember, they hold the chess pieces, and the only way to move a pawn, is with their permission.
I'm just content now, playing the game.
You make excellent points Induane, so don't think you're at fault, it's just, this is Planeshift politics.
~~Datruth
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Here is an example of a open-source development team that works finely together with the community of players in the artwork, music and programming of the project:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/ (http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/)
In this project a considerable amount of the models came from the community and not from a permanent and centralized development team. Basically there is a list with the rough descriptions on how should the models be done and the one responsible for the Settings analyse those 3D and 2D artworks(That are licensed under GPL btw) made by the community and put the suitable ones into the game(In this project there is one person entrusted in the development team for each specific area of development with autonomy to take decisions without consulting the main dev, like was suggested in the first post of this thread, and it does not detract from its original goal because of it, also there is a contribution forum for soundtracks and some members of the community even give suggestions on programming algorithms to achieve the future features for example)
While here I see great 3D and 2D works being simply wasted away because "You're not a dev, only we can contribute!" approach. As was said... if this strictly centralized development will be the permanent view for PS. It will take decades for this game reach 1.0, and I am being optimistic.
Note: I hope the mention of another Open-source project as an example is not spamming.
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It would help if you stop putting words in our mouths...
And I have no idea what
so don't think you're at fault, it's just, this is Planeshift politics.
means.
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It would help if you stop putting words in our mouths...
And I have no idea what
so don't think you're at fault, it's just, this is Planeshift politics.
means.
I'm sorry, if i put words in your mouth, if i did, please quote them, and i'll withdraw them all.
And by PS politics, I mean just that, the politics of getting on the dev team.
It's not all about talent, and quite a few talented Dev's have left, thanks to ps politics.
~~Datruth
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I have to say that i think little by little the community is being introduced to planeshift development a little more all the time. take the texturing rat competition for instance. I think that was a brilliant way to involve the community!
A little more could be done probably, but compared to hw it as when i first came, its a step.
I thnk that there should be a few more community challenges like that, it places guidlines and such on what can and cant be taken in. talad gets to decide if its good enough for PS and fits the setting and style etc. SO maybe a few ore of these type of things would be the right level of community involvment.
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It's not all about talent, and quite a few talented Dev's have left, thanks to ps politics.
Ooh, I want names :) Gimmegimme.
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Of course it's not all about talent. You need pratice, teamwork and devotion in there aswell.
The Devs have a lot to do so recruition is slow. I'm sure everybody would appreciate it if you stopped underestimating their workload.
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It's not all about talent, and quite a few talented Dev's have left, thanks to ps politics.
Some devs have left, yes.
That's normal.
But because of "politics"?
Nope :)
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Some devs have left, yes.
That's normal.
But because of "politics"?
Nope :)
How can you be sure? Do you know the reason of every single dev who is now gone?
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I'm pretty sure Datruth doesn't :P
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I can assume a dev may leave because of loosing interest and having not enough time anymore. For the community it is sometimes like there was a dev and sometimes he is gone, without a word. In such situations i start wondering what could have happened. But maybe people don't leave just like that? They tell Talad whats going on and so he dev team know, whic the community doesn't, what may be subject of some mistery ;D
I sometimes wonder where DaveG went, or why Kada disappeared. But there is no proof to state any reason of the leaving ;P
I'm only a kind of person who allows each possiblity, even the normally unsuspected. But please don't mess DT to this x)
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I can't say whom because it would be a breach of confidence so you'll have to either take my word or don't. I personally know 3 different developers who have left because of politics because I maintained contact with them for quite a while after they left. I was fairly good friends with 2 of them and one of them was someone who helped me with a ton of different things when I first arrived here. Some had personal problems with others in the dev team, others felt that their concerns were being ignored - I know they were trying to help, and I agreed with some of what they tried to do. Too bad some of them left :(
I don't know about any others but I do remember all kinds of accusations of social engineering by Moogie to hurt some devs and vica versa personal problems, etc... Politics play a role, there is no doubt.
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I know who you're referring to, but I don't think that interpersonal issues count as politics?
I guessed PS politics meant like, the goals of the project, the way it's lead.
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I know who you're referring to, but I don't think that interpersonal issues count as politics?
I guessed PS politics meant like, the goals of the project, the way it's lead.
Here are some good definitions i got on politics, and induane is quite right when he meant personal problems with people.
use of intrigue or strategy in obtaining any position of power or control, as in business, university, etc.
to deal with people in an opportunistic, manipulative, or devious way, as for job advancement.
The art or science of government or governing, especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs.
Let's just say, i've heard of enough cases of powerstruggle going on, with the team against itself.
People have left the team because of the ongoing powerstruggle in the Centralized controlled Planeshift team.
That and some bickering between the team and it's members.
We all agree on this point.
~~Datruth
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I don't think "personal problems" count as politics. Who has left the team during your time here because of power struggles? Seriously now.
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I don't think "personal problems" count as politics. Who has left the team during your time here because of power struggles? Seriously now.
Are you saying, no one has left the team since february of 2006 because of internal problems?
Give me a break karyuu, you know the names as well as i do, and you know i'm not allowed to discuss Gm or Dev decisions on these boards.
You'd gladly delete any comment i made and spent precious time on.
~~Datruth
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Are you saying, no one has left the team since february of 2006 because of internal problems?
That's exactly what I'm saying :)
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Give me a break karyuu, you know the names as well as i do, and you know i'm not allowed to discuss Gm or Dev decisions on these boards.
Er, sorry... but this is a public thread, right? The rest of us don't know what (you say) Karyuu does. Since she's asking for your answer, I don't think she'll be likely to delete it.
josePhoenix
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Are you saying, no one has left the team since february of 2006 because of internal problems?
Eh, seriously.
I know the reasons for the ones who left, and it wasn't power struggle.
...
So, eh?
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I don't think "personal problems" count as politics. Who has left the team during your time here because of power struggles? Seriously now.
Are you saying, no one has left the team since february of 2006 because of internal problems?
Give me a break karyuu, you know the names as well as i do, and you know i'm not allowed to discuss Gm or Dev decisions on these boards.
You'd gladly delete any comment i made and spent precious time on.
~~Datruth
Yeah.. I can't think of anyone who's left because of internal problems in the last 13 months. Personal problems maybe and lack of time, but nothing else. Feel free to enlighten me via pm ;)
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In the end power struggles are pointless. rm -r -f there, you are all screwed. Not everybody can get along all the time and not everybody gives a reason why they disappear from the project. Since I started I think the only people that are the same is Vengeance and Talad. Everybody else I knew left for some reason or another only to be replaced by somebody else.