I was just thinking how cool it would be to work with others. I have been thinking of why these forum teams have usually never finished a game, and I just got to thinking a few things:
The idea is too much. Yes, we have all seen or heard this before. Like a open world game. Or a MMO. I know even FPS games can be tough. I was looking at the Easter Land game, and I thought, “Simple platform?”. Thanks for that BebanVPlana.
The second thing is team roles. Being in a big teams that can only communicate over this forum or email can get confusing and you might often have to wait on a slacker to get his model done or something like that. [Partial]Solution? How about only have one person per “job”. Like one programmer, one modeler, one texturer. No overlapping roles. Industrializing may make team projects work better, not to mention the theme being the same through out the whole game. I hate seeing a game that is supposed to be a Minecraft rip-off and for stone there is a 512 by 512 image and the grass is 16 by 16. Bleh.
So, I have kind of been wanting to work with other people and get a feel for this type of thing. Do you guys think this would work?
The part I don’t like very much is that I (or any overseer of a team) must be a jerk and turn people down. Sorry, but that’s how it works. If this is successful, we could get a team name and work on future projects and such.
My idea for team roles, give or take a few(one person per job):
Animator
Programmer(most likely have to finalize the game into a runtime)
Character Modeler
Prop Modeler
Environment Modeler(may just be character or prop modeler too)
Sound(foley/recording/making. . . not downloading off Free Sound)
Concept artist(pretty much comes up with the whole theme and characters, but isn’t needed all that badly)
Teams are a funny thing, and in a non-paid environment like this, most work is done by the initiator or people he actually knows (in person).
Maybe that’s just because I’m not pushing people enough to get stuff done though.
And on point 2 you are correct, smaller teams work better.
Do not rely on roles. This will never work as you will miss “roles” or have to much of them. Rely on tasks. You can assign one task to one person. Make a task as small as it is managable strongly dependent on the skills of the assigned person. In doubt split a task into multiple smaller tasks.
If someone can’t manage a task, redesign the task or give it to somebody else.
Btw. It is the task of the project manager to define and assign tasks in conjunction with the team member. There are always tasks that nobody likes but still needs to be done.
“Roles” should be allowed to overlap, but it should not be the General Case. If in the End Things should fit together, it can be well as well if several People do several Things but for each Category there is one “Director” – like, several People can make Textures, in different Sizes, Formats, Colors, Realism-Factor, depending on their Style, but in the End the “Texture-Director” would use his Textures and those of Others and he would change those other Textures so they suit his Style – shared Work on Textures and still the Results fit together.
That also can apply to Sounds and Models. It becomes a Bit more difficult when it comes to Coding and Music, as they are more complex, both are “composed”.
(I suppose that this Suggestion is eventually similar to what Monster has said.)
Most important, because that can be most frustrating for “neclected” Members: Everyone should be allowed to have Input on every Design Choice, and if there is a Problem, NO DEMOCRACY, because as sad as it is, it will either end up as an Idiocrasy or Opinions differ too much and Parts of the Team won’t be happy – Design Issues should be solved by proper Dicussion and finding a Consense that most Members are okay with. (One of the Reasons to keep a Team small.)
My thoughts about roles was to get people to specialize. I know I get sick of working on projects because I have to model, and texture, and program, and animate. . . Rinse and repeat. BLEH, I get so sick of seeing the project I want to puke. If other people worked on it too, my appeal for the project should last longer.
Seriously this is experience from work. Because work means you focus on one … item … at the time. Roles describe the responsibilities. Being assigned to a role does not restrict you to just what is described in for the role. In just you focus on this job.
