I have a couple of questions for people.
1: Are people interested in contributing to either a: a project lead by me or b: the game in general?
2: Do people have ideas to increase/encourage community involvement in game development?
I do feel most in this community are capable of contributing.
I have a couple of questions for people.
1: Are people interested in contributing to either a: a project lead by me or b: the game in general?
2: Do people have ideas to increase/encourage community involvement in game development?
I do feel most in this community are capable of contributing.
As an ex-prospect, who tried but lost motivation after a month and a half, I can provide some context to the how and why people will not contribute. Just one opinion among many, don't take it too hard.
How to Enter the Dev-team.People join the dev-team all the time. In my short stay I've seen plenty of folk trying to join the team. It's rather easy to join, which is great: Just sign up the google docs document and present yourself in the IRC-chat, which is operated by people who are online 24/7. These people welcome you, point you to your manager. He interviews you and he gives you a task. Depending in the department, you get swift access to certain parts of a dedicated dev-wiki. Here you can look at models, stories, all the quests, textures and every in-game book you can think of.
Once you've completed your first task, you gain the respect of your fellow developers who will then quickly give you a new assignment and before long you can call yourself a real planeshift dev...
Right? That would be the optimal way of handling recruits but sadly this cannot be the case due to time and energy constraints. Everybody's a volunteer after all. Let me paint my experience
You sign up for the crew. You wait a week before you get answer. In the mean while you join #planeshift-prospects and find that it is empty, unless you live in certain parts of the world. After rejoining for several days (since most people do not keep their laptop/pc on for 24/7 to keep a constant connection) you finally meet one of the devs.
After explaining yourself he tells you he needs to find something called a ABC-license which you have to sign in order to join. This is a basic contract which in turn hands over all your rights of your created content. Quite reasonable but some may find it hard to hand over their babies unconditionally. With some luck you'll get the contract after a week of waiting. When you hand it in another week for a response.
Now you're in. The problem is that the person that welcomed you isn't the department leader of your department. So you can chat all you'd like but he can't give you an assignment. This is because of the fragmented nature of the development team, which serves as a sort of Titanic; You could poke a hole somewhere, but nobody will have access to 100% of the content at any time.
Finally, after finding the correct person in the chat (or sending several emails as I have) you get a response and a task. This is often a very simple, orientational task so you will grasp the concept. You complete the task fairly quickly but got no response for a while. Then I turned to one of the devs and asked if I could help. He said he could use some help but I would have to go by my manager to request this transfer. Once again I have to note that the only way to talk to my manager was to find him online, on IRC at exactly the same time as I was online.
So I believe we took a shortcut and I just started on working for the project (note that we're about a month into the process now). I had to write a few quests in the quest syntax. But just writing isn't good enough, you have to make every last little part fit in the ever expanding world of planeshift. Unless your character was 100% thought out, it would't be accepted by the people responsible.
I didn't quit officially, but drifted away as my attention was simply drawn to other places. I didn't feel like misplacing my unending enthusiasm and precious time in a project that didn't respond in kind. I lost motivation and here I am telling my story.
Communication.
Note in my story that the communication was slow. It took weeks for e-mails to be answered and IRC is only effective for those that have servers that run 24/7. For most people it's simply a lucky draw, influenced by your timezone, whether you will find the person you require. IRC is lauded as the end-all-be-all of communication technology and this will probably never change in the minds of the dev-team.
Community-Feeling.As an outsider, you are just that. Rather than a warm welcome you are treated as if you're probably going to drop out anyway. The only way to be accepted is to have an undying appreciation for the current way of how things are done, to have endless internal motivation to provide and help and have unlimited patience in order to receive your seniority.
The dev team has stated that they're not there to motivate. Personally, I don't think that's a thankful way to lead a team made of people that offer their time to your freely.
Leadership.The team is fragmented and based on a "leader-team" model on purpose. I understand that. However, it meant that the quickest way I got anything done was to talk to fellow prospects and apprentice-developers as they were just as lost as I was.
On the chat I met a 3D-modeller, who left after two weeks because nobody in charge would be online whenever he was. When they finally were, his models were deemed 'okay' as he endured lots of 'constructive critisism' which demotivated him a lot. While it is easy to write what should be changed, it cost him time. In this case it was to make really nonsensical things, such as oven-doors I believe, or a miss-alignment of the textures. Both?
He left after creating just a single model, probably not even used in-game yet. I got the guy's Skype and what he told me was simple: Nobody was online, they want silly changes and when I've changed the model, nobody responds.
Rather than simply accepting the model, asking him to make a model of something else, returning after a month or so to ask for the oven's doors when it's no problem... The man had to endure critisism upon non-reaction. (Honestly, the quickest way to lose motivation?)
The Technology.The wiki, the IRC. They are all useful in the creation of such a game. However, the wiki is rarely updated (I was adviced against using it intensely) and IRC is considered the best of the best. Regardless of the fact that there are many powerful and complex project management tools which could streamline many processes. But, even though we could easily use IRC alongside a management tool, IRC is the only means of communication deemed neccesary.
Assertiveness.
Any attempts to prospects to create something of their own is squashed quickly by the development team. You need to create what you're tasked to do or you won't do anything. Maps, books, textures even models that arn't asked for will be trown away, never to be used. Rather than using an organical growth model, where a person builds, under guidance, what he prefers and receives satisfaction from, growth is bottlenecked by the development leaders.
QualityThe developers want to make this the best game ever. Every quest, story, texture, model etc. handed in is scrutinied extensively and won't be used unless it's 'quality' work. This level of quality is purely based on the subjective opinion of the development leader. Regardless of the hours you put in the texture, if he wants a certain thing changed, you better work at it some more. If you want every user/volunteer to add content to the game, you simply cannot adhere to this demand in the current way.
TraditionAnd finally, simultaniously the greatest threat and champion of the entire project. The notion that 'this is how it's done and this will never change'. New prospects are expected to enter the fold mindlessly, to follow suit and drone ahead untill a higher position can be attained through seniority.
New ideas are squashed without a second thought. Attempts to communicate to the developers that things should change are taken as an insult to the achievements the team has made. Attempts to persuade the owner to loosen the demands of quality or the strict adherance to 'self-made' content (i.e. Not allowing to use license-free websites that happens to have the texture readily available for commercial use for example) is seen as an attempt to weaken the game's stature as 'The greatest, most uniquest MMO ever!'.
But I won't be listened to. The underlying message will be ignored and my words will be dissected minutely for truths and half-truths or deleted. Below me will be angry posts by insulted people that defend the status quo. People that tell me to change the system myself if I have such great words! People that will reason we're doing the best we can since we're only volunteers! People that will reason with logic that what they're doing
really works! That it's not us, but the people who must change!
I don't know why I wrote this as it doesn't matter. Nothing will be gained and nobody will suddenly open their mind or change their ways because of my words. Instead new words will be written and traditions defended regardless of the glaring truth; With the current ways of doing things, people are leaving faster than that they join.
