From: Takomtor
Date: 2002-09-16 03:31:49
Some thoughts, comments, opinions etc. oh, sorry for the messy structure, I tend to write what comes to my head, try to pick the pointers.
Here is a list of some main ideas to show the way
1.\tStart Ry, meaning that we should have legal status for our Majik project
2.\tDesign and implement better responsibility structure
3.\tIn world development, take roleplay approach
4.\tMake it as open and independent as possible
5.\tStart to collect money for the operation
6.\tReward system should take care of the rest
To start with, being affiliated to outside licenses, contracts and finance is a liability if the affiliation has any requirements that hamper free development. Majik-project has been pulling the sledge with only one hand, not being able to attract coders or any other developers, because of the Taika-license. Sure we could have had some new blood, but still the upstairs and downstairs coders had been the norm.
This strategic decision to choose Taika has now created situation that hurts the development and the finances of the Majik. Will we get the license, is there any point to have only 4 coders who don't have time (like me...) What about that plan to keep Majik on the Taika's servers, until Majik is so popular that it can get lucrative sponsor.
Offering something for free, means that it doesn't have a value for the donator, as I mentioned earlier, I can understand voluntary work, but at this stage (later too) we will have times when the quality of the game is not very high but the demand for the bandwidth will increase steadily. How to support this need of bandwidth? Previously I could accept the answer of putting it all to Taika, but since the latest developments, I am rather doubtful if the new answer is somewhat similar and includes friendly angel-sponsor as the final solution for financial problems.
We should opt to the possibility mentioned in the Majik Channel (hmm, let me use this occasion to put forth the idea of extending the channel logs to include... mmm, a week's worth of chatting. That way a person like me, who visits the site once a week, can also keep up with the latest gossip) of establishing a Ry. Ry gives us the benefit of an independent bank account for the Majik-project and as mentioned we can have fancy www.majik.fi as the address.
Bank account will be used to pool donations and other "income" in order to support Majik development, we can get independent hosting and other needed services, to guarantee that we are not dependent on any one major instance. Acquiring funding should be a major focus that then enables the further development. Organization should therefore be designed such that it enables the donations and even encourages them (good example is that much puffed www.slsk.whatever that gives some queue-hopping rights for people who “donate” money for the program)
After establishing this, we need lots of people to work with, because the loose structure, bad time management, general aimlessness and non-existent responsibilities of an open project seem to discourage working and encourage preaching (yes, just like this). To use these people in a best way possible, we need a very rigid structure and processes (hmm, like those plant, animal etc forms), which keep the quality of the work more or less standard.
Sages and the sage council is an excellent framework for this new structuralism. Everyone has a responsibility that one should take care of. Sage could handle things as one would want, but still be under the surveillance of sage council. As there is lot of things to do, sage could accept new applicants as needed, but restrict their rights to access worldbook etc. Sage would have access but sage’s subordinates would be granted only incremental rights to worldbook and Majik operations in general. Starting out as “please design a bird for us” “we need idea for … come up with one”
As the apprentice would prove oneself, more rights would be granted, otherwise – well, it was a nice try. This would give us a nice touch for the world development, since these new apprentices would be, eh, “lesser sages” appearing from this mess that we call world development.
Now, what is the point of all this? Let’s introduce a system that distributes power for sages in exchange of produced content or code. When the game would start, this accumulated power would be the individual power of each one of us. With gods situation would be the same. After the starting, divine points system would kick in.
By doing this, we would get some practice in commanding massive :) armies of team players… heh. Well, anyway we would get more people to contribute - every one of us would have a specific focus and a team that we would put together by ourselves. So, if someone finds applicant to be worth trying one could take that person. If there is competition, council politics take the charge and so forth.
Ok, that’s enough for now, until next time.
T
From: yorkaturr
Date: 2002-09-16 11:30:20
In-Reply-To: 2037
First, brief answers to your suggestions.
1. Majik RY (Registered Organization) has been on our todo-list for years now. I'd say it's about time. If we are to receive donations for example, this is a necessity.
2. A strong leader would be especially convenient with world design; an area that is especially controversial because different people simply have different views, and every measure should be taken that the ideas best founded and most coherent and loyal to our goal win. A design leader should be someone who brings direction by assigning specific tasks, encourages discussion, has many suggestions of his own to contribute (and accepts criticism himself), and possesses the otherworldly ability to piece scattered bits of collectively agreed information together, which sometimes includes bridging gaps between good ideas that may at first seem mutually exclusive. Being good with people is a necessity. Origon is currently doing this.
A lead developer would be someone who has a very clear technological vision of the various parts of the project, is able to divide the project into smaller steps, is very critical and demanding of every line of code, expecting not only results, but also likes to keep the code base clean, and is quite the code wiz himself. Now, every current developer would be qualified to do this I think, including some of our new ones that we've recruited from Taika. Most of them were our ex-bosses. Then, assign leaders for every distinctive part of the project based on qualifications, interests and clarity of vision. These would namely include server, 3d, game scripts (maybe different people responsible for AI, player interaction that includes combat/magic etc), and supporting libraries/technologies. For example:
Server: HCJake
3D: Dazzt
Game Scripts (Player Interaction): Yorkaturr
Game Scripts (AI): ?
Supporting libraries/technologies: Namhas
Now, higher positions in leadership would include at least the project leader (Namhas), who basicly only has to observe what is being done and how. I would also like recruitment to ultimately go through Namhas. Namhas should also be assigned as webmaster.
As for artists, all I can say we need them.
3. I don't really understand what taking the role-playing approach means.
4. I think we are already quite open, and we are currently working toward being independent codewise. This includes discarding Taika's code base. We have a fairly good vision of what to use and how to use it.
5. Currently we have no need critical need for money, but we could of course start collecting it now, because some day we might need some for hosting, hardware and refreshment ;). Part 1 should be taken care of first.
6. Yes, we will naturally reward donators.
And then some other ramblings...
I feel that we certainly do not need new designers. We hardly need new coders either, because we just recruited quite a few, and if we did, it would be difficult to find people with an amount of expertise comparable to that of our current developers. I'll be damned if I let Majik in the hands of some amateur mudcoders. Further, I do not remember that we have denied other, able coders from joining the project. For example, SlowByte has been a hang-around member for quite a while now, educating us in the usage of scripts.
As for the need of server bandwidth and computing power, we can begin by running this game for a smaller amount of players at first, in which case bandwidth will hardly be a problem. In the future I'm sure we'll tackle this problem as well, but I have no suggestions yet. Nor do I think it is even timely.
As for giving more influence to sages based on produced code, you are barking at the wrong tree here. A sage should know about the designed world a lot, and it is likely that most coders will not. Let's keep this manual.
From: Takomtor
Date: 2002-09-17 04:28:36
In-Reply-To: 2039
3. roleplay approach was meant to show the connection between development and the game, in order to motivate people. Even the game is not online, we alreade have the Sage council and hierarchy such a things... Getting in to the team of sages not developers. The reward system for developer should also be one aspect in this, so that discussion would have bit more magic in it. :) Well of course that could cause some hickups...
5. Wouldn't be very correct or legal to start collecting donations for the Majik, if we don't have this Ry-entity.
that other stuff
Giving influence can of course be adjusted in whatever way wanted. Sages job is to design so we should have a reward system for that. Work could be rated in general way by the council and that would turn into power.
Coders, gods could have similar systems among them. Sure, code and design won't go hand in hand. Oh, by the way, I don't see why we cannot have sages that are coders, giving god status to every coder wouldn't work and e.g. SlowByte might appreciate a nice, tall, fast, strong Sage character which to use in cruising the world of Majik. Or maybe they just take a form of some ancient creatures that seem to be free from all... that there is. :)
What comes to the inexperienced people, they will get experience and if we, in the beginning, keep them in their own little sandbox, we can choose the best to work with us. I also think that if we elevate lot of people to the status of coder or designer, we only create a mess. Doing this in incremental steps would be quite accurate.
Let's take this latest applicant, if I honestly say what I thought of the text he wrote... hmm, just horrible, but he might get better if given right conditions. Ah, have to say one more thing about what he thought is his strongest feat. Not once I thought that he had the way with words, just seemed to be another non-native english writer (we seem to have plenty ;)
bye
From: Takomtor
Date: 2002-10-06 05:19:03
In-Reply-To: 2040
One more word about roleplaying. We have been having rather shaky voting situations. could we start some sort of "legislation" about voting, like maybe we have 20 people with a vote and approval needs over half of the total votes. Voting should have time limit and everybody who didn't take part, would be counted as empty etc.
This would be a good opportunity to introduce the in-game politics as Sages would need to form some sort of loose alliances according their style or God alignment. We would have more continuity, maybe even the development process could speed up, because of this loose team/group structure.
For new players/developers/designers this would be beautiful experience, they could see some sort of dynamic development with movements. This would also encourage them to take their place in community and work hard to gain more influence.
Now, every one new person would learn this on their own and community would get stronger. If we don't introduce this sort of activities/gaming policy or what ever... we will be in trouble when the game really starts, we all need to toddle our way towards some sensible system of game reality.
J
