The original mail in question had what I really two different topics - one for the idea of redoing what players see when they connect, and a second about group efforts to get things done in a timely fashion. This mail more focuses on how to do group efforts - ideally to come up with some scheme that can be used as a model, because as Ryo pointed out, there are lots of big projects on the list beyond just a new starting village.
Some projects/changes may have dependency issues (rebalancing spells should likely be done after redoing classes/races as an example). Those need to be identified and ordering sorted out. For other projects, there are some that are really too big for one person to complete in a reasonable time period. It really isn't enough that developers agree not to step on the toes of another, as that doesn't really help it gone done. Instead, as Alex says, a concerted effort of at least several developers is needed. But for any volunteer project, it is difficult to force people to do anything. My thought here is that each month (or maybe more/less frequently, based on how long it takes to do the different things), the developers should decide what is the most important thing to change/add/fix. My rationale here is that if the developers agree that some issue is most important, they are much more likely to help out. If the general developer response is 'that isn't very important', then you could pretty much figure they probably aren't going to put much effort in. Note it may be reasonable to do less frequent votes, on the basis that after the top priority is done, whatever was #2 probably makes sense to be the next top priority, etc. But new projects may pop up, or the completion of one may spawn a new one (before such and such feature was added, no one thought of something or it wasn't feasible). In this particular case, I agree that a new intro should be something at the top of the list. But going forward, I think we need some way to decide what is done. In the context above, developer is anyone that is willing to help out to get the project done - doesn't mean coder, could be map maker, artist, person writing documentation. but someone that just plays the game probably shouldn't be included, as that isn't going to help get the project done - my idea here is that you want the project decided on by those actually going to do the work. One the project is decided on, all are welcome to pitch in ideas, etc. So after the project is decided, there needs to be a project leader. Depending on the project, what that means may vary. But I would say that the leader should come up with a plan detailed enough that it can be divided into work by several people. An example would be maps - having broad outlines of what should be done is a good starting point, but having a 1 or 2 line description of what is needed on the maps then provides folks enough detail to work on it. For coordination, putting this chart on the wiki, and people signing up for parts of it is probably a good way to go. I tend to think that it is best of the project lead starts by sending out a fairly detailed document - the reason I say this is that a fair number of developers have been around a long time, and can probably come up with a fairly complete starting plan without a lot of input. They should still send that out and get input, but having a good starting point may trim a week or two off the discussion, and also provide a clearer picture to everyone what the idea is. Some of the basis here is also that some points have already been extensively discussed in the past - new points are welcome, but we don't necessarily need to fully discuss all the issues again. Once the plan is more or less agreed to (hard to get 100% agreement), people start working. In fact, work may start before this, as there may be some points which everyone is in agreement on, and it may be more adding new points/details to the plan. The role of the project lead/coordinator is to take the pieces and make sure they all work. In the case of the map example, look over the maps, make sure they meet various standards, basic idea behind the map, and link up the exits, etc (possible that some maps completed before the ones they link to). All projects should be worked on until fully done. If a new NPC speech method is done that requires modifying the NPCs, it isn't sufficient to put that new support in and modify the NPCs in scorn and say 'it is ready' - that project isn't done until all the NPC's on all the maps are updated. Otherwise, past experience shows that those other NPCs probably won't get updated. I don't mean to have draconian policies in place in the above - in fact, just the opposite. What I really want is something in place so that projects can be decided fast, what needs to be done decided fast, and that broken down into pieces so that it can be completed rapidly. That's not to mean without thought, but lots of things has been extensively discussed, and all the discussions in the world don't really make it so that the project gets done any faster. _______________________________________________ crossfire mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.metalforge.org/mailman/listinfo/crossfire
