questions about the hiring process..
 

This is somewhat of a question about playerworlds in general.. but the bulk of what I need to know is about scripting and the high-in-demand folks that practice the art.

I'm in the ever-so common situation, where I have this conceptual system laid out and ready to create for a playerworld.. but don't foster the knowledge to do it myself. Now, I'm not going to pretend for a second that I am, or even desire to be the programming-type; I can poke and prod my way through a smattering of languages, but hold fluency in none.

Luckily for my hippy-ass, visualistic-self, a good friend of mine is quite a proficient programmer.. (mostly C/C++) .. and has stepped up to the plate many a time, giving a home to my graphics and ideas. Recently, however (last year) we began kicking around the notion of running something focused more on expansion than just.. "a game" .. the obvious alternative was something online. This ended up being a text-based MUD. After about a year of conceptualizing and speculating (fast-forward to about a week ago) ..we decided that a MUD wasn't EXACTLY what we were searching for, and all but scrapped the project. However, as I've been a fan and on-again-off-again player for so long, I immediately suggested Graal be the home of our brainchild.

The problem: That buddy of mine that I mentioned, hadn't even tried Graal until I shot the idea at him.. He was so intrigued by the possibilities.. he purchased an account the night I brought it up. So needless to say, he knows barely anything about the scripting language.. (last I heard, after a few days.. he had a fine grasp on the VERY basics..)

The blatent fact: We're sticking with it, but it's going to take him a MINUTE to learn everything.. I mean sheesh.. it's an entire scripting language.. I can't expect him to pick it up immediately.

The possible solution: I really want to keep him on as head coder.. but I also want to get things under way as soon as possible, because the system is basically finished. (now in a number of possible forms, because we've made adaptations due to Graal's graphical nature) I'm going to apply and thereafter, start hiring.. but I'm VERY worried about getting help with scripting. It seems that since I've returned to Graal.. things have become very much a matter of trust, as well as availability.

FINALLY .. THE QUESTION: (GET ON WITH IT!) ..

Is it unrealistic to assume, that if someone is skilled enough to lead the coding of a complex system, that they are probably already dedicated to a playerworld and hence, not available?

The system we have planned is somewhat deep due to the blend of genres.. and the features and concepts it was derived from originally .. (MUD systems and all.. gotta love em) If anyone has any advice to help me feel a TAD more confident about:

the hiring process..
my friend's learning process.. and how I can help him..
or just tips in general for getting started, when trying to develop a playerworld.

..I'd appreciate every word you had to say.

(I realize this could be in the wrong forum.. but I just thought the emphasis on scripting would render it "suitable" for this one)

Thanks in advance for your advice, comments, etc..

[also!! almost forgot] .. aside from snippets on graal.net and the forums.. AND the command glossary.. is there any other documentation that I could provide my pal with.. he'll learn it one way or the other.. just wanna help him any way I can.

Damn. Keyboard jammed. I'll have to retype.

Graal and C++ are very simular, except it has commands C++ doesn't have, and is a lot less function then C++.

Make him pass through the list of commands, and looking in NewFeatures for the details on it's functionality if he doesn't understand.

He'll have to learn Serverside on his own.

It's realistic. Most good programmers already have thier own projects. Hence, I don't mind giving tips out, nor my junk-scripts to show how it works, but I'm dedicated to my server.

You should wait for the New Scripting Engine to come out. It'll be a lot better, and possibly compatible with MUDs. (Stefan might not include that feature. Graal Kingdoms is MUD based. Infact, it's CF's MUD)

The new engine will have a lot more like C++, thus, it would be easier for your friend to learn serverside and clientside much faster.

If you need someone of a particular developement tree, you could try hiring people. If you don't need more, don't hire. The more staff you have, the harder it is to cooperate (My server consists of two staffs. Emi and I.)

Plan => Find Resources => Build Core System => Fill in Details.

Erm... Need more help about anything?

Uhm. No. Seriously not.

The mudlib is not just another feature, and has nothing to do with the new engine, and "compatible to muds" is not a good expression.

A little.

To a certain degree. => The main core is much like C++, such as if, for, while, and a lot of basic things.

I don't know what Stefan'll offer us with the new engine. Not much people know. Thus, I have no clue. Secondly, I don't know how MUDs work all that well.

In comparison. It'll have a lot more functionality. Such as passing variables in functions.

Hmm.. I've heard very little about the new engine, save the fact that it's under development.. I'm guessing there's no projected release date? ..and as for the MUD aspect.. we'd pretty much just be mimicking the playability with Graal.. I don't think we were going to try to just all out port and adapt the code itself.

Since I've started the thread already.. does anyone know the basic terms for starting a playerworld, other than being accepted and registered?.. There's a modest annual fee, right? I'm just not sure at what point to apply.. if I have my ideas organized, am I ready to go, as far as getting the registration out of the way? .. or should I have something substantial to show for it, before I even apply?

(thanks for the responses.. :D )

Dude, almost every language has those

lol every pw on graal wants to have a GK system.

I agree with the statement that you should wait for the new scripting language -- GScript1 is far too crappy to do any complicated MUD style gameplay.

Such features, obviously, are very unique to C++.
I mean, you remember in C where we had to repeatly type out our statements instead of using loops, and use global variables because the stupid functions could not take arguments and the parentheses were just decoration?