Global Development Team: Official Introduction
 

The development community alongside the Playerworld Administration have formed an alliance to provide Graal with the Global Development Team (GDT). Our hopes are that we have a long and productive future together. Our goal is to improve the overall quality of Graal and make it a more enjoyable atmosphere for its players while teaching others the skills they need to become Graal's future.

You will be able to recognize the official members of the team by their tag (Global Development Team.) They will be able to be contacted through the Development forums and projects will be discussed there. They have also been added to Global Link and once hiring is underway all server owners/managers will be added there as well. People should also be able to find them in game for assistance with issues you may be having or for advice.

While the team itself is in its infancy and we fully expect some things to change as it evolves. It will work on some basic principles as its foundation.

The Role of the GDT

*First and foremost your responsibilities and role should be to the global community itself.

*Striving to provide better documentation in your field of specialization. The wiki leaves a lot to be desired and it could be considered a GDT project to help clean it up. Scripters should help to provide high quality reference material both in the form of raw reference tables and in prose. Tutorials are also good. Graphic artists and levellers can also contribute tutorials which show how to create specific effects and reduce errors.

*Helping those who need it. That means being in the front line when people need your help. You have been given a Global Development Team tag, please use it when you are able to. We've also set up the IRC channel AT #graaldt on irc.freenode.net; your participation would be nice.

*Helping with server projects. Sometimes staff from a server may call upon you for advice or even for a helping hand. If you feel a requested project is reasonable, feel free to participate. If you don't feel it's reasonable for you, suggest people who may be interested, GDT members or otherwise. The important thing is to remember you are not obligated; the GDT are not slave labourers and shouldn't be taken for granted. However, the local management still has final say on any matters. It is not your role to be involved in administrative duties in any way.

*Providing core packages which people can use to rapid prototype servers. Create public content (core packages) that could be used on all servers.

*Serve as a bridge between Stefan and Graal's development community. This involves recommending features that are generally desired and creating demonstrations of features that have been added by Stefan.

*Serve as advisers to developers and playerworld management. This would involve evaluating content or just giving general tips about development in general.

*Respect the privacy of the server. Do not share information with other servers that you see.



For those interested in applying we've broke it down into 4 general areas. Scripting, Graphics, Levels and Gani's. While many of you have multiple talents this is for organizational purposes and whats considered the primary talent. We will attempt to provide members to help in all areas of development. We've attempted to make the application process simple, but you must bear in mind that not all of us are aware of your capabilites so in many cases an application process is required.

Below is the official Global Development Team application. Please email your applications responses to [email protected] or submit through the guild control panel here. We will follow up on applications that pique our interest.

Account:

Subscription Status:

Primary and Secondary Expertise (if applicable)

Related Experience:
List your experience of working in a team development environment. Additionally, feel free to cite situations outside of Graal or ones that involved teaching others.

Availability:
How much time will you be able to dedicate to working with the GDT on projects? Do you have other obligations; such as school or work?

Questions:

* What do you hope to accomplish as a member of the GDT, and how do you plan to go about doing it?
* What do you feel separates you from applicants with the same and/or similar backgrounds?
*Are there any incidents that may negatively affect your application?

References:

*Server managers/admins/globals that can vouch for your abilities and honesty.
* Servers/forums where the work you have done can be viewed and verified.

Optional:

*Additional information you feel you would like to add


Global Team

Good luck everyone! Let's make this team rock.

http://webchat.freenode.net, for those without an IRC client.

Lovely how you conveniently resurrected from the dead when they started discussing the GDT.


As for the topic, glad that the roles are better laid out and established this time. It's still quite a shame that there's no benefit to joining the team other than helping the greater good. I don't need anymore lectures about it being just about helping out because I do enough of that already both on the forums and whenever anyone contacts me with any problems.

He actually returned sometime before that, I believe. Though I wouldn't doubt that he is more active now after the whole GDT thing. :p

I'd like to join but I'm focusing on BI at this moment in time. Thanks and goodluck!

(I stole my reply from Ziro, I just happened to post it first lol...)

I would be very interested in applying to the GDT, but like Andy, my priorities lay elsewhere at the moment (namely Maloria). Good luck with the team though, hopefully it will be of great use. :)

I sent in my application through the Guild CP.
Just saying this because I submitted one before when the GDT was first made.

Yeah it actually was a pretty good coincidence. It was mostly because summer ended though. I've been silently checking on the forums every now and then though for a long while. I'm just glad to see this team being made. I think it can do good things. :D

Well, more power to you then, not like you aren't qualified for the job. I guess you just have good timing. :p

Good luck to all those applying. I hope we can pull together a great team!

Good luck everyone !

Awesome work Bell.

It was a team effort BigBear but thank you.

For those of you talented people out there that just don't have the time to put into it, we fully understand. Others of you such as Gambet have an outlet of helping on their own without the team and its still greatly appreciated. This is just another avenue that players and staff will have to select from so that in itself can't really be a bad thing.

For any of you that currently had applications into the guild cp prior to today, but have not been accepted. Could you reapply through the normal means so the rest of the team can review your applications. All remaining applications have been removed. I apologize if this has caused an inconvenience but we were uncertain of the hiring methods before this time.

I'll just re-send my app to the GMAIL address.

Sent.

Good luck to the team, as well as good luck to people applying.

Hope to see this come out well :)

Good luck everyone.

Any estimated time on when we can start expecting responses? Not to push, just wondering.

i wish no one good luck. you dont need luck when you have skill. hopefully this team is skillful not lucky P:

Id apply, but I need more work with my levels, mainly scripting before I can apply lol.

some good better come from this

Since this is done by a guild review process. Vulcan is going to have all applications moved so they can review them over the weekend.

The reviewing process has now started, and existing GDT members and globals will start to sift through the applications. We'll start making decisions in a couple of days. Thank you to everyone who submitted an application.

Well, this is a good step in the right direction. I hope we can start to see some progress/ more support for the playerworlds. :)

I won't apply due to my short time, otherwise I'd really appreciate joining this.

However, if you guys need any scripting advice, I'll be more than glad to help.

The name "Global Development Team" really implies something that it's not; I know some people consider the GDT a team of "globals", but I don't. They don't have the power to carry out the tasks that globals traditionally do, and aren't necessarily held to the same standards (of trust) as globals.

People are wearing the tags on Era, and it could be abused if people think they're staff when they aren't.

I wonder if it wouldn't be more appropriate to rename the guild in some way that isn't implying that they are globals with global powers. "Global", from what I understand, is meant to mean that the GDT works "everywhere", not that they have global powers (like with the former GST, for example).

Thoughts?

They have the power to carry out the tasks that they need to do.Elaborate.

They are what their tag says they are, a member of the Global Development Team. The guild is not required to be on the staff list.
Global means for Graal as a whole and not any single server. Why should it matter if they have global RC or not?

"Could"? Has it been abused?

Why would you trust global staff with Global-RC, and not a global community of developers, who have been certified by global staff, but just don't have Global-RC? Hm.

You need to elaborate on your definition of "global" - your assertion that "global development team" is not "global" is confusing :confused:

But not global power, which is what I said. They are not "globals" if we take being a "global" to be having global RC. The definition is debatable, but that's not the point. They don't have powers that normal globals (PWA, etc) have, while the tag implies that they do.

Is there anything to elaborate on? They don't necessarily need to be trusted as much since they aren't given any actual rights.

The tag is misleading; they are not globals, do not have global powers, and should not necessarily be trusted as globals.

Why wait for something to happen and do nothing to prevent it?

Because they aren't held to the same standards as globals. If they don't have to be trusted with a global RC, then they don't necessarilyhave to be as trustworthy.


My intentions are only to prevent an abuse of the tag, not to diminish the purpose or power of the GDT. There are likely different names that wouldn't imply that they are "globals", but still work just as well. I'm not trying to attack anyone by saying they can't be trusted, but instead trying to avoid any potential problems in the future.

I disagree with this notion. We are expected to be trustworthy enough to be given RC on an as-needed basis, without so much as a second thought that your NPCs might get stolen, deleted, etc. We do not have Global RC because we do not need it; if a problem requires RC, the server manager can decide to extend it. We are expected to be knowledgeable enough to explain to others how to do things, rather than having to log on RC and do them ourselves.

The name should imply that we are globals, because for all intents and purposes we are globals. Also, you may think you're not diminishing the GDT, but you aren't exactly helping it. You're making look okay to assume that GDTs aren't anything special; don't treat them with any more trust you would anybody else asking for RC to help you. Hopefully, we're counter-acting that.

Anyways, if a GDT member abuses their tag, then report them. The point I'm trying to make is that you shouldn't automatically assume that we are held to lower trustworthiness standards than Tig, Bell, Skyld, etc. The GDT isn't an open group; we are vetted. You shouldn't automatically assume that somebody is going to waltz on Era with a GDT tag and do whatever it is that's possible to abuse it. It really shouldn't cross your mind, in my opinion. Either way, the tag is just a regular global guild tag: if you don't want it to appear in the staff section, don't put it in the serverops.

I'm glad I have you around to put things in better terms than I can :D

Dylan (LoneAngelIbesu) has made all the points I would have in response to your post, Chris.

Come on guys, the point here is: Help the community.

Nomenclatures would not care as long as a decent work is being done.

Chris, stop being so paranoid. If a member of the team would abuse in the slightest way, he would obviously be removed and that would be the end of that.

And yeah, what Dylan said. Don't think I could've said anything better then he did. :D

Well, it's fine for everyone to sit back and say how useful the team is, but I don't exactly see any of the GDT scripters helping some of the active questions on the scripting section of the forums (and for that matter there are also active questions in the graphics section of the forums).

How about you guys stop talking and start doing? You've been active for a few weeks now (most of you, since some new people were recently added), but still no visible changes have been made. Use all of that energy you keep wasting trying to defend your usefulness and actually show it! :)

Let's see. I see your post, which was posted yesterday. I don't see any other active posts that haven't been answered by anybody? x_x

This page has gone on for two pages and the guy still needs help because he hasn't received any clear instruction from anyone in the thread:

http://forums.graalonline.com/forums...ad.php?t=87874


Don't assume that questions are being properly answered just because the threads have been posted on already.

Why did you delete your possible solution?

Well I only posted a solution to his findNPC() problem because I didn't want to have to explain everything that most others failed to explain on the count of not having the time to sit and answer all of his questions as I have in other threads where it has taken dozens of posts to get him through his problems.

As for why I deleted it, well, I figure now that we have a team whose job entitles things like this, I wanted to leave it to some of them so they can get into the habit of actually answering questions on the forums since many of the members don't actually do this on a regular basis.

That's very helpful, Gambet. I'm so glad you've decided to be a helpful member of the developing community. :)

I myself have also been a helpful member of the development community by answering questions on the graphics forum! Yes, indeed - it appears that his claims are unfounded. :)