Xavier, my following remarks might sound pretty critical, but don't take me wrong I'm emphasizing only on what I think could be improved : the time has not yet come to praise... And if it sounds like I'm lecturing, be sure it is not my intention...
First a quick remark on the gameplay: I very much agree with what Anton has brought up. I very strongly feel against the "tree" thing : even for someone who gave it time to understand, it still does not make any sense... Now the real thing : I think the overall effort is not focused enough. Your website examplifies what I think is wrong : it is difficult to understand and to browse because there are lots of contents that reach in many directions. I totally understand that you want to make the project as open as possible : not only the code but also the process. I value that a lot. However I think the website could be brought down to a few pages and a mailing list without losing any of the signal. But you would get rid of the noise... IMO the core issues that you should be putting all your efforts into are the following : 1. You need to define the audience you are targeting 2. You need to frame the game *The target* Till now it looks to me like you are trying to meet all possible gamers expectations. I think you cannot target people who want to fight over control, people who want to nurture, people who want to use the game as political medium, etc... at the same time. I think you should focus on one market segment and define from there what is the smallest set of features you need to develop in order satisfy your target. *The framing* The framing is about the context, the role of the player in the game, etc... Typically the framing is defined by the metaphore you use. Anton has recently brought forward some ideas that tend to reinforce the Hacking frame, meaning : you are a hacker and you fight over websites to make money. You buy stuff that help you get better,etc... However, and that brings us back to the target issue, you have to acknowledge that if you frame the game as a pure hacking game you are de facto ruling out some segments and focusing on a rather savvy, more or less hardcore gamers target. Maybe it has been clear to you for quite some time but it does not seem that way from the outside. An example is : Anton recently reiterated a question I asked the first time we met : what are the attack and defense mechanisms ? If your game is indeed about territory struggle, I think the first features to be defined should be those... And features like the ability to modify the website content, minigames, etc... are most certainly not core. You need a story to tell : who is the player's character ? What is its goal ? How does he reach it ? Even though you want to be as open as possible from the begining, you need to package *some* thing, make some statements about what it is you are offering not statements about the method, the values, etc... You won't get anybody from the open source community to work on your project if you don't have players, and you don't get players without a clear offering... I hope I did not come down too hard, but, well, now you know where I stand. I believe focus and iteration to be key in order to achieve what some call a Minimum Viable Product http://venturehacks.com/articles/minimum-viable-product My english is a bit rusty, so I hope what I wrote makes sense. Joss
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