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.