The Mana World Forums

First of all, sorry for falling asleep at my computer right before the meeting, but you did come to the same conclusions you would've come to even if I had not done so.

So:

1) I don't have enough time. (Or the capacity to function as I've tried to, even if I had the time.)
2) One of you won't have enough time.

Conclusion: we're dividing the power.

Pajarico - city
Iru - desert
Modanung - savannah
Crush - forest

These persons are now officially in charge of the development of the areas and have full authority to order people around.

As you guessed by yourselves in the meeting, I'd like to take a more passive role (which I've already taken without discussing it with people enough, sorry) in the development. Practically this means that I'll be lurking around the forums and participating in the meetings. The weekly meetings should become the primary channel for progress monitoring and idea exchange.

Additionally I think we would need a person to manage creature development: both human and non-human (mostly the player model should be FINALLY completed and after that equipment work and NPC standardization should begin.)

Suggestions, ideas, feedback, anything?

congratulations!!!!

Hi, Rotonen.

Suggestions, ideas, feedback, anything?

Well, to me the finalization of the playerset is a good milestone, since we could give job to artists so they can start to do sets of armor, clothes and weapons. It's been a while since I had news from Talaroc.

Right now, my only task is to organize (or suborganize) the tasks relative to the city.
Thaty's why i suggested in the meeting the idea of two sepparate meetings:
-1. Head development (Rotonen) and people in charge of the zones. This should be a private meeting, we don't take feedback, we just make decisions towards story and cultural references. This should be the time ti make a coherent background that unifies the style of every zone. We discuss suggestions to, but only ones written on the wiki, forums, etc prior to the meeting.

-2. Artists (pixel artists, ilustrators...) and people in charge of zones. We take suggestions here from forums, wiki, etc and also from everyone who atends to it. One of the first things i will do is to set a group of tasks (ie: buildings to do) and give them to artists. We should divide active pixel artists in groups in the first meeting so every zone has a group of artists to work with; then the zone boss should manage the time of those artists.

I have this idea of organization:

I thinks is self-explanatory, but if you have any doubts go ahead and ask.

This didn't go as well as I had expected.

So at least hear out my suggestions:

1) Every person in charge of the development of an area should try to recruit their own workforce for it. You are responsible for the development of it, after all.
2) Additionally these persons should also set their own goals for the area and possibly deadlines if they feel the need for it. With a nice list of tasks and goals new people and random contributers have an easier task of thinking about things to do. Use the wiki, it's a great tool.
3) A form of regular status updates would be really nice, perhaps we should have our own mailing list since we come from around the globe. Any ideas on this one?
4) If you're not up for the task / do not have time, come forth with the problem and we'll replace you. It's harsh, but that's the way life works. If you ever have time again, you'll probably get a new area to look after, though.
5) I've also been thinking about closing the new content development discussions from the public via creating a private forum section for us. How would you react to such a change? (For the record, I'm not interested in the public opinion about this one.)

We'd really need to get this train back on the track once again.

I'm trying to move the weight of responsibility for the graphical development from my shoulders. I'm going to concentrate on the soundscape and story of TMW and if I've not accomplished anything by March, you'll know I won't probably accomplish anything this year.

1) Every person in charge of the development of an area should try to recruit their own workforce for it. You are responsible for the development of it, after all.

I agree, even thought I haven't cherished this. The problem is that recruiters and artists had been busy.

2) Additionally these persons should also set their own goals for the area and possibly deadlines if they feel the need for it. With a nice list of tasks and goals new people and random contributers have an easier task of thinking about things to do. Use the wiki, it's a great tool.

Personally, I'm working on it.

3) A form of regular status updates would be really nice, perhaps we should have our own mailing list since we come from around the globe. Any ideas on this one?

I don't feel like it. Wiki and forums is enough, the only problem is that people seems like they don't read the wiki or at least check the "Recent Changes" page.

4) If you're not up for the task / do not have time, come forth with the problem and we'll replace you. It's harsh, but that's the way life works. If you ever have time again, you'll probably get a new area to look after, though.

If you are thinking about me just let me time , I have ideas but, yet again, basically i haven't time.

5) I've also been thinking about closing the new content development discussions from the public via creating a private forum section for us. How would you react to such a change? (For the record, I'm not interested in the public opinion about this one.)

This has two major advantages:
-All new content becomes a surprise.
-You don't have to deal with opinions from outsiders, actually my only complaint are users who leave a comment and never come again.
And disadvantages I can't think of any, sure there are some, but for me I would say yes.

the disadvantage would be that it would be more difficult to get into the art development team. at the moment everyone can see what we are working on and everyone can contribute something. but imagine you are an artist and feel like making something specific for a game project with a closed art development team. you don't know if they are maybe already working on what you want to do. and if you decide to make it anyway you have to contact an administrator and apply for access to the closed community first. maybe not a high physical barrier but it's a psychological one.

im sure the actual open development community is much more attractive to new contributors then a closed one would be.


about comments from outsiders: i don't know whats bad about that. in fact i prefer to have the range of feedback as wide as possible. be it from players, pixel art fans, other artists or even antis (as long as the critic is constructive). the opinion of a player is even more important to me than that of another artist (although artists usually have much more useful improvement suggestions). in the end we make this game for the gamers, not for other artists.

Rotonen wrote:1) Every person in charge of the development of an area should try to recruit their own workforce for it. You are responsible for the development of it, after all.

Would it be easier to just have a pool of artists that could be alerted when a new resource is needed? Maybe someone hired for helping with forest chipsets might try their hand at making a city chipset and it turns out to be their forte.

Rotonen wrote:2) Additionally these persons should also set their own goals for the area and possibly deadlines if they feel the need for it. With a nice list of tasks and goals new people and random contributers have an easier task of thinking about things to do. Use the wiki, it's a great tool.

BFE (bold for emphasis)!
It's very important to stay on-task and synchronized with the rest of the team. It'll make things go a LOT smoother.

Pajarico wrote:

3) A form of regular status updates would be really nice, perhaps we should have our own mailing list since we come from around the globe. Any ideas on this one?

I don't feel like it. Wiki and forums is enough, the only problem is that people seems like they don't read the wiki or at least check the "Recent Changes" page.

I agree. Wiki + Forums + CVS is good enough for most of us. =]
I do, however, think it'd be a good idea to make some sort of RSS feed. Just because I love RSS feeds. lol.

Crush wrote:the disadvantage would be that it would be more difficult to get into the art development team. at the moment everyone can see what we are working on and everyone can contribute something. but imagine you are an artist and feel like making something specific for a game project with a closed art development team. you don't know if they are maybe already working on what you want to do. and if you decide to make it anyway you have to contact an administrator and apply for access to the closed community first. maybe not a high physical barrier but it's a psychological one.

im sure the actual open development community is much more attractive to new contributors then a closed one would be.

I agree

The wiki would still stay open even if we have a private section for artists. I wouldn't remove or move the current graphics section to the private section, I'd leave it as the bridge between artists and other people.

On the other hand (stupid me for not realizing this earlier), we could just make it so that everyone can view the forum section, but only artists and selected users can post there. That would leave it open enough (at least in my opinion) and would also filter out the unnecessary comments quite effectively.

Just to make it clear I'm not against opinions of players or any kind of outsiders. What I don't like are "hit'n'runners" who register, post some rapid fire comment and leave, I want comments and opinions to be a bit more elaborated, not just sporadic short comments...

So talking about a closed forum I'm for it but keeping contact with players, of course.

Like mentioned before, all art styles should be as similar as possible. So maybe set up meetings where each artist criticises eachothers art for some time and changes it accordingly to all look the same.