Global Development Team?
 

The Playerworld Administration has been discussing forming a Global Development team (GDT). We have already received some input from Stefan on it and would like your suggestions/input as well.

There have been requests for individual global teams but these have failed for several reasons, usually due to a lack of time commitment. What we propose is abolishing the Global Scripting Team and forming a single team that covers all phases of development. The PWA and GST were originally formed to help servers make interesting content and become successful but have since become more of a global police department. Our main purpose has evolved into a team that spends its time checking for copyrights infringement, content theft and solving staff problems.

The overall purpose of this team would be to organize the development so that servers help each other instead of fighting, stealing or spending most their development time making commonly used systems on their own.

There are a few things that Stefan believes must be included for this to succeed.

1. The main tasks should be helping with documentation. This would include filling in missing parts in the wiki. Updating things such as the Playerworld Creation and Setup Basics at
http://wiki.graal.net/index.php/Creation. It would also be good if we included tutorials for Gani making. GMAP construction, etc. If Youtube tutorials were made, those could also be linked to the wiki.

2. Making systems of all development platforms that can be used on any server (e.g. the guilds system Tig and cbk1994 made for Zone that would just need to be fixed slightly to make it ready for use on other servers)

The Team itself would not have global rc. They would however be a part of a special guild that would give staff requesting your assistance some assurance they are at least qualified and trustworthy to help them with their needs.

Up for Discussion:

a. This team would act much in the way contract workers would. The members of this team will not be obligated to help everyone with individual developing. I do NOT want this becoming a team of slave labor for every dev server on Graal. The server must first show that they have made an effort to get their own staff but are currently having a problem getting someone to do one specific job. The GDT could either guide them to the proper area of the wiki that may answer their needs or help them with individual problems they are having.

b. While the team would be overseen by the current global staff, an admin would be appointed to help oversee setup, hiring and implementation of the team.

c. We could have an open application process where references are required and checked out. That is not to say though that someone cannot be actively recruited if their skills and reputation warrant it. Due to the nature of it they need to be trusted members of Graal and should understand that if they do decide to go corrupt the consequences will be severe. We'll need to decide what the requirements should be though depending on their major skill since many people have multiple skills that could be useful to the community.

d. We would need to set up the Global/Staff Connection forums again where important links could be stickied in one place. This should make searching for things a little easier than it currently is. All server owners/managers would added to it and they could use it to request specific help. I've already started forming this list but I'm sure some of these links need some updating done on them.

We would appreciate your comments and suggestions regarding this process as there is a strong chance that many of you hear would be actively involved and feel your input would be beneficial.

Sounds interesting.

Sounds like a good idea! It really does.

Depends on how involved Stefan and/or unixmad want to get. After Stefan's post I don't believe they really want to try to make Graal great anymore. Although it could have good intentions, it seems like a form of cheap labour.

well first off, this idea if works, could and would help many servers get further in the path to classic. The only thing i have concerned is the staff on this team will be biased in the sense that they will help only their friends servers or help servers that are already doing good. IMO a member of this team should be ASSIGNED to a set of new servers and help them get on the right track and that one member would be an overseer and guide for these servers. I think this would work well as a bond would form between the staff member and the server staff and if the global is actively urging the server to get to classic, then it might get done. (I hope you can understand what im getting at, my thought proccess is going kinda choppy.) I don't think 2 globals should be able to help the same server as they may have different views and then the server will go nowhere.

I have to agree with Crono on this being a form of cheap labor.

I don't see many benefits at all since people can/already do many of the things this possible team is aiming for. Especially when not given Global RC.

I can't see this working. As far as helping out others, pointing people toward documentation rarely works, and the fact is that there simply aren't enough developers for all of Graal's servers. The team would end up being a bunch of slaves doing work for playerworld owners who want help.

The only useful purpose I can see the team serving is updating documentation, creating videos, etc, but stuff like scripting documentation is only good for people already acquainted with gscript. Scripting is probably the only development field that you can't just pick up by messing around easily; the level editor and GANI editor make it really simple to play around, but GS2 requires knowledge of a lot of concepts that you can only learn by first learning another language (Java? <3)

I really don't see any benefits to making a global team out of this; if players want to help, they can just get on Testbed and help people, make their own videos, or script things for the Code Gallery like the guild system.

I agree with zeus, but I dont think it will work, like vimes said they could just go to testbed, and maybe testbed can be moved to the hosted section, so everyone can see it? As a discription it could say classic enabled, ect, sorry for getting off topic lol.

Don't even need to read his post to guess that.


Anyways, this sounds like it could be really good it planned extremely well.

From my point of view, currenly a Global Development Team would be best to replace GST.

Basically, it would help on anything right ? It could possibly work, but like Chris said it would ruin some of the development process.
When you rent a playerworld, it's actually your job to develop it, so if a team was already ready to dedicate time for it, it would just screw everything up. That team would actually need to be really good I guess ? For most new people renting out a server and having projects, don't you think that it would be kind of "unfair" for new and growing developers?

"Global Documentation Team" would be better I guess. Could just be a "moving" wiki, and people needing help would ask members of that team for their current knowledge.

So, you're going to take some of the best developers? This is a game that is starving for good developers and original content, and your "main purpose" is going to have nothing to do with development? :(

Just keep the GST, even if their role would have to be slightly different than before

I think Bell means that the Playerworld Administration and Global Scripting Teams have lost their intended purposes and have deteriorated into checking servers for copyright infringing content, cross-server content theft, and solving staff problems.

I thought she meant that the GST no longer does what it's intended to do, and now just checks for infringements, staff problems, and such.

Well, the things she outlined are also the main aspects of what the PWA team does. I don't think that the GST is very active these days as it only contains Skyld and he's a very busy guy.

I can't see this taken up for the most part.

I can't talk for other development branches but I doubt alot of scripters will come out of their roles of UC server gods to join a team which offers plenty of work sans Global RC reward.

Maybe not necessarily scripters but maybe graphic artists, lats, sound artists, etc... And it doesn't necessarily have to be the best scripters.

The idea seems nice. Although maybe it's just me not being a real developer, but I doubt Devs would want to help people just like that. Maybe if they like it like I enjoy writing news but I don't know.... perhaps some sort of credit?

A lot of people say Global RC is ah-mazing, why????

Bragging rights. It only works if you're a well-known developer.

And if you have the ego to go with it. It's unfortunate but alot of staff members have the main goal of gaining more, 'power' while furthering their own needs. The best way to entice younger scripters (and maybe other development branches) is with the promise of power.

Older scripters generally become apathetic to the situation and slowly branch of to other sources of coding.

Would this be a better project if you didn't have the word global in it?

Doubtful. It would still be the same thing: Doing lots of work, improving Graal with no immediate reward. It sounds like a noble concept but most staff will be disappointed at their lack of rewards.

Global RC really is the best encouragement tool there would be as it comes with a sense of power and standing.

Clearly.

What else do you expect them to enjoy freelancing with no pay for an under populated game? The only thing Bell has said that might seem beneficial, but very doubtful, is the addition of having a tag. Yay.....

That's also my answer to Nataxo's global RC question.

Why not do something like Stack Overflow (google it) where everyone is rewarded on a case-by-case basis and more help gives you a higher spot on a list.

That way it encourages all developers to contribute, and encourages people to continue contributing. This is in contrast with something like the GDT where there are only a few members, the members can go inactive, and the members do not have any incentive to contribute after they gain the tag.

However, a solution like that has other problems like Participation Inequality (read the article by Jakob Nielsen) and the quality of the help provided.

Regardless, if you are just creating a team that goes around and helps people and doesn't get any reward from it, I believe a "competition"-style system like that would work better.

If you're talking about that one website with merits, badges, etc....it could work, but what reward would a merit give you for doing hours of work for other servers? Bragging rights on an unpopulated game? Not really worth it. In game Gralats? Doubtful

I had already posted about it once but I do think it would be helpful if there were several systems created and documented for use by every server.

I think it's obvious why I wouldn't want to create a large scale project offering everything from movement to HD myself but I wouldn't be adverse to making GUI related scripts that could be easily implemented by most servers.

What post?

Fantastic idea!! I really do hope this gets launched and is successful enough to keep going and not die out after so many months. If you need any tutorials creating in regards to GMAP's send me a forum PM and I'll do my best to help!

Well if this gets done, I'm ready to help with the best I can.

All your points are absolutely correct.

Inspiration is what is necessary to fuel my scripting, not money or promise of power. Stefan has not done alot to inspire me to put time and effort into Graal. I have made a great deal of simple feature requests that have fallen on deaf ears and I'm just tired of it.

If Stefan could do more to show me that Graal actually might have a future I will be interested in joining this Global Development Team with or without a global RC, simply because I enjoy coding.

I think the title will imply something that it's not. Furthermore, as a general rule taking talented people (in terms of development) and giving them non-development tasks and duties only limits the time they are able to develop - a generally negative thing for Graal.

What I thought the team would do (from the job title, before reading the description) would be to make content for a server. This I would suggest with all my heart, as there needs to be a new classic playerworld in my opinion to set a quality benchmark to motivate current classic and development servers to up the ante and start producing a lot of new content to keep current players entertained and attract/retain new ones.

Therefore, considering the above will not happen as I believe there is generally zero support for a new classic world from the powers that be, at least I would request the two roles of this proposed team are separated, so that someone who knows about the general Graal systems without too much skill/creativity/motivation to make them for real worlds is given the task of updating the wiki rather than distracting talented individuals (also not sure where current global staff are not able or are underqualified to update the wiki?)

we haz gdt!

That's right, you'd better have scripting above the other development roles.

That's the beauty of it.
It will consist of mainly scripters, a few level designers, a bit less graphic designers, and almost no Gani artist.
"POWER TO THE PEOPLE!"

This is quite a bad idea and really won't go anywhere. The responsibilites listed are all currently things that forum members do anyways, and the questions that the team would answer are currently being asked and mostly answered on the forums themselves. The players already update the wiki when they feel like doing it, and development questions are answered pretty quickly on the forums (at least we do a good job of it in the scripting section).

Honestly this just sounds like a labor force even though you're trying to avoid creating one. All this will do is further backtrack development because you're going to remove some of the only active talented developers that the game has left from the servers they are working on (since they'll probably not have as much time to be developing on that server) and sticking them on a team where there is no benefit to joining (unless you consider a guild tag a benefit). Hell, even if you threw in a global RC for the team, there would be nothing new coming from this project (especially since the members will probably just server hop and show off that they have global RC).

The suggestion Spark made is interesting where a team would be created to develop a new, high-quality server, but even that would be labor work since the developers would be developing just for the sake of developing (which most of us have been doing for way too long at this point).

this just isn't what graal needs unless this task force is being assembled to make their own content and release it. a globally-supported server in the works that is made up of a collection of the best developers on graal given direction and motivation would be awesome

This should be given a chance atleast. Its almost the same concept as the GST, and shouldn't be thrown away. There are some good Developers out there that would join this team and be helpful.

Give this team a shot. The chances of it failing is slim, but not that slim.

This team could be put together by anyone via Guild CP. See my image, it's exactly what the GDT, as explained, would be.

It couldn't be created by a normal graal player. It would be declined because it has global in the title.

It doesn't necessarily need to be called a "Global Development Team", for example there's this one: http://graalonline.com/guilds/viewgu...ll=0&view=info