Global Development Team?

[DarkCloud_PK]

None of that matters in the grand scheme of things, you need to look at the bigger picture, beyond what individual developers agree upon and desire. It doesn't change anything, not the egos, the growing seperation of development.

[Inverness]

Originally Posted by DarkCloud_PK

None of that matters in the grand scheme of things, you need to look at the bigger picture, beyond what individual developers agree upon and desire. It doesn't change anything, not the egos, the growing seperation of development.

Then explain your reasoning and how the situation can be improved instead of simply being a naysayer.

[DarkCloud_PK]

Originally Posted by Inverness

Then explain your reasoning and how the situation can be improved instead of simply being a naysayer.

Originally Posted by DarkCloud_PK

They're scattered because the system in place now, for how development works, allows them to scatter themselves to work on projects that interest them, either by heading up their own server, or working for an existing one where they have significant say in what goes on(most scripters on servers have significantly bolstered RC and folder rights beyond what they need to do their job, and sometimes unneeded authority aswell).

Talented developers aren't scattered by chance, longing for finding each other and working as one cohesive group, its because they've become so rare and desired, that a lot of them have a huge ego, and egos don't work well in a group setting. So they scattered more and more throughout the years What will magically make them finally collaborate in a group to do something meaningful, without some drastic changes being made?

Originally Posted by DarkCloud_PK

What prevents them from working together, without a underpowered staff division, that is largely been getting negative feedback? You need to identify and knead out those issues before you can stick all the devs together and expect anything meaningful to come out of it.

edit: the solutions have been posted all over the place on these forums, it isn't like noone has a clue.

[Spark910]

Originally Posted by Bell

We are not taking talented people and asking them to do non development tasks.

No, but it is part of the mentality of global staff or at least someone with the perception of extra responsibility. If someone has to do something else with their spare time, clearly it will have some affect on their development time. This may not be too noticable or it could be really negative. Your own comment demonstrates this mentality/effect of additional responsibility:

Its in response to many of the complaints we see on the forums about how there is a lack of participation by the global community in improving the overall quality of Graal itself

I am not too up-to-date with Graal, but the general trend over time with promotional and additional responsibility appears to be the final destination of responding to support tickets on Graal Support Centre. To do this to a good enough standard, there is generally very little time for other Graal activities such as development.

I still strongly suggest that the title will suggest something it is not. Perhaps consider a list of people who are good at what they do who can be added to a list and will be willing to either (a) answer various development questions perhaps via the support centre; (b) look at or fix various development material; and (c) both a + b.

Those who wish to develop for the general community are free to do so already.

[Hiro]

i understand where DarkCloud_PK's coming from since it's essentially the same thing i first posted in this thread - a global team that's purpose is to help out other aspiring developers is nice in conception, but impractical. if they aren't even going to receive gold or a global RC then a bunch of developers won't join, and the ones that do will be few and far between making the work for this team spread thin

what i originally thought of when i saw the team's title was that this was finally going to be a new server that was going to be created by this team as assembled by the globals. bringing developers together under one roof to create a server, with the globals there to take charge and direction for the server and keep everyone in a atmosphere of rapture, something awesome could come out of a project like that, and a team like that

[Bell]

Why do I get the feeling I'm wasting my time on this.

No response needed.

[Crono]

Originally Posted by Bell

Why do I get the feeling I'm wasting my time on this.

No response needed.

Well the intentions behind it are good, it's just that it would be better if it worked more like the old GST/GGT teams did. But this time actually have active teams for each of the major development positions (LAT, NAT, and GAT) that contribute to the Classic servers.

[Pelikano]

Originally Posted by Bell

Why do I get the feeling I'm wasting my time on this.

No response needed.

Because people don't understand that Stefan doesn't give a crap about their uber development skills and won't give them development tools with which they can change graal.

[Sinkler]

Good idea! I think this will really benefit Graal as a whole and help bring new players to Graal.

[Cloven]

Originally Posted by Crono

Well the intentions behind it are good, it's just that it would be better if it worked more like the old GST/GGT teams did. But this time actually have active teams for each of the major development positions (LAT, NAT, and GAT) that contribute to the Classic servers.

Which brings us back to the point that some new team with a clever guild tag is not needed to perform commonsense actions like collective teamwork. Sadly, theft and corruption are some of the largest issues that prevent any abundance of cross-server cooperation and that's just a shame.

[Switch]

Too tired to read 4 pages after Bell and Chris's replies to me.

Originally Posted by Bell

No it couldn't, this would be in special guilds that is run by a global administrator that will be chosen when the team is properly formed.

The only difference I see is that it will be in the Special Guilds section.
Anyone could make a guild called "Graal Developers" with a "mission" of helping any server in need of help.

Originally Posted by cbk1994

"First of all i watn to..."

from the guild description. I seriously doubt this guy can participate in any kind of development project.

I was only stating that there could be a guild made by anyone to do so, since I too cringed at seeing all of his spelling mistakes.

[cyan3]

Originally Posted by Switch

The only difference I see is that it will be in the Special Guilds section. Anyone could make a guild called "Graal Developers" with a "mission" of helping any server in need of help.

It will be an official team thus giving it more support from the Playerworld Administration as they would be managing and monitoring the team making it more reliable and organised other than a player based global guild which would have very little direction other than showing off to others.

[Switch]

Originally Posted by cyan3

It will be an official team thus giving it more support from the Playerworld Administration as they would be managing and monitoring the team making it more reliable and organised other than a player based global guild which would have very little direction other than showing off to others.

All of that's true (except the part about showing off, which would probably happen anyways), I'm just saying that it could be done by any player.

[Pelikano]

I'm smelling waste of time

[WhiteDragon]

Maybe if this was a small group of developers that have a direct line of contact with Stefan?

That way there would be a good representation of what the development community needs.
Stefan would have to deal with less PMs from frustrated developers and he would always know that what comes out of the group is important.

Edit:
Note that this would probably help the "communication break" between a lot of the developers and Stefan.

Obviously, this all depends on if Stefan agrees to always listen to what the team has to say.

[Inverness]

Originally Posted by WhiteDragon

Maybe if this was a small group of developers that have a direct line of contact with Stefan?

That way there would be a good representation of what the development community needs.
Stefan would have to deal with less PMs from frustrated developers and he would always know that what comes out of the group is important.

Edit:
Note that this would probably help the "communication break" between a lot of the developers and Stefan.

Obviously, this all depends on if Stefan agrees to always listen to what the team has to say.

I absolutely agree, but I also thought that was implied. If that is not one of the aspects of the team (as it stands now) then it needs to be.

[Gambet]

Originally Posted by WhiteDragon

Maybe if this was a small group of developers that have a direct line of contact with Stefan?

That way there would be a good representation of what the development community needs.
Stefan would have to deal with less PMs from frustrated developers and he would always know that what comes out of the group is important.

Edit:
Note that this would probably help the "communication break" between a lot of the developers and Stefan.

Obviously, this all depends on if Stefan agrees to always listen to what the team has to say.

Originally Posted by Inverness

I absolutely agree, but I also thought that was implied. If that is not one of the aspects of the team (as it stands now) then it needs to be.

Having a line of connection with Stefan is not as great as some of you put it out to be. Sure, he gets back to you on your messages, but it can sometimes take a few days. It's nothing out of this world and wouldn't really change much since it's more important for him to actually be doing something rather than just talking about it.

[Inverness]

Originally Posted by Gambet

Having a line of connection with Stefan is not as great as some of you put it out to be. Sure, he gets back to you on your messages, but it can sometimes take a few days. It's nothing out of this world and wouldn't really change much since it's more important for him to actually be doing something rather than just talking about it.

I agree with that point.

In an ideal situation, I believe the GDT would organize requested features for Graal based on an observed need for the features across the various playerworlds and communicate their findings with Stefan. The GDT might then create a demonstration of how to use the feature based on what it is and have that made available for playerworlds to use.

[Loriel]

Originally Posted by DarkCloud_PK

See the GST, it had 3-4 extremely talented devs on it for months, and not a damn thing came out of it, what has changed now for the better? Nothing, things have gone downhill, not up.

Shush, we spent a whole bunch of time resolving specific issues on playerworlds and I am pretty sure that a bunch of us also released generally-useful things, which was not even in the job description at the time.

My two cents on this whole thing is that the unresolvable entanglement between development and administration is, again, at fault for ruining everything.

[Spark910]

Originally Posted by WhiteDragon

Maybe if this was a small group of developers that have a direct line of contact with Stefan?

That way there would be a good representation of what the development community needs.
Stefan would have to deal with less PMs from frustrated developers and he would always know that what comes out of the group is important.

Isn't this what the PWA is? To some extent, at least, whether or not that line of communication exists and is listened to is another thing.

We can't listen to every developer - at least through the PWA the ones responsible for making money and creating subscriptions have the opportunity to get through issues.

[WhiteDragon]

Originally Posted by Gambet

Having a line of connection with Stefan is not as great as some of you put it out to be. Sure, he gets back to you on your messages, but it can sometimes take a few days. It's nothing out of this world and wouldn't really change much since it's more important for him to actually be doing something rather than just talking about it.

Well, I think it's also important to differentiate between "having a direct line" and "having a valued opinion".

It's true that Stefan just talking about stuff wouldn't get us very far, but if he comes in with the assumption that what the team says is valuable (which it would be if it was comprised of competent members), then it becomes less talk and more action.

Originally Posted by Inverness

In an ideal situation, I believe the GDT would organize requested features for Graal based on an observed need for the features across the various playerworlds and communicate their findings with Stefan. The GDT might then create a demonstration of how to use the feature based on what it is and have that made available for playerworlds to use.

Yes, I was thinking something along these lines as well.

Originally Posted by Loriel

My two cents on this whole thing is that the unresolvable entanglement between development and administration is, again, at fault for ruining everything.

I agree. At least it's one of the major faults. Pretty ironic when you look at it, considering one of the main administrators is also the primary developer--you'd think that'd bring some sanity to the situation, but alas, it does not.

Originally Posted by Spark910

Isn't this what the PWA is? To some extent, at least, whether or not that line of communication exists and is listened to is another thing.

I was under the impression that the PWA was so overwhelmed with policing that they couldn't do very much else.

[Ronnie]

Bell, the first step to the creation of this team would be to find a leader with enough intelligence and devotion to lead the team, without a great leader there will be nothing.

[Clockwork]

Originally Posted by Ronnie

Bell, the first step to the creation of this team would be to find a leader with enough intelligence and devotion to lead the team, without a great leader there will be nothing.

It was already stated that a PWA (yet undecided) would be the leader.

[Inverness]

Why does the team need a leader exactly? I don't see a problem with the PWA (or Bell) managing the application process. Beyond that I don't see why the team needs a leader? I would prefer all members have an equal say unless there is a specific reason to do otherwise.

[Hiro]

Originally Posted by Inverness

Why does the team need a leader exactly? I don't see a problem with the PWA (or Bell) managing the application process. Beyond that I don't see why the team needs a leader? I would prefer all members have an equal say unless there is a specific reason to do otherwise.

well then why don't we just give all well known and noticeable developers a GDT tag who want one so that they can all help out and contribute? if there isn't going to be any type of leadership, then any developer should be able to join

[Inverness]

Originally Posted by Hiro

well then why don't we just give all well known and noticeable developers a GDT tag who want one so that they can all help out and contribute? if there isn't going to be any type of leadership, then any developer should be able to join

And what kind of logic made you come to that conclusion? You also haven't answered my question: why does the team need a leader? The team does not need a designated leader to have leadership.

[Scary_Sock]

I still find it hard to believe how the GDT would fail miserably. I think it would start off with a good and fresh start.

[Hiro]

Originally Posted by Inverness

And what kind of logic made you come to that conclusion? You also haven't answered my question: why does the team need a leader? The team does not need a designated leader to have leadership.

having no leader means there won't be any clear direction for the team to take under the guidance of one person: in a counsel setting, things will be split up based upon either voting or volunteering. if it's going to be done that way, it will be most productive and worth while with a larger group of developers who wish to be apart of the group, because the more votes the more opinions and brainstorming power, and the more work will get volunteered to people who want to do the job - there shouldn't have to be any serious application process, only a small one so that the team knows who wants to join. this is especially true if the team isn't only for development purposes

also i never meant to answer why you needed a leader. i don't think you need one, i just point out that if the team is going leaderless, then the more the merrier, and the more the mightier

[Inverness]

Originally Posted by Hiro

having no leader means there won't be any clear direction for the team to take under the guidance of one person: in a counsel setting, things will be split up based upon either voting or volunteering. if it's going to be done that way, it will be most productive and worth while with a larger group of developers who wish to be apart of the group, because the more votes the more opinions and brainstorming power, and the more work will get volunteered to people who want to do the job - there shouldn't have to be any serious application process, only a small one so that the team knows who wants to join. this is especially true if the team isn't only for development purposes

also i never meant to answer why you needed a leader. i don't think you need one, i just point out that if the team is going leaderless, then the more the merrier, and the more the mightier

I'm still failing to understand why you think that the application process should not be serious if there is no leader? You need to explain that in more detail.

I sure as hell don't want a bunch of people on the team just because they want to be there, that would decrease the significance of being on the team and its effectiveness as a whole. It is quality vs. quantity; you seem to think that just because the team might not have a leader that it can't be a quality team, and I don't understand your reasoning.

[Vima]

With the right people, this could actually work.
But it will be hard.

[Chompy]

Originally Posted by Vima

With the right people, this could actually work.
But it will be hard.

Finding those will be a challenge.

[Loriel]

protip: First outline the tasks for the team, and then have applicants do actual work, and then decide what the team is going to look like if you still think it is necessary.

[Elk]

Originally Posted by Loriel

protip: First outline the tasks for the team, and then have applicants do actual work, and then decide what the team is going to look like if you still think it is necessary.

Nice structure! I agree

[Bell]

To clear up a couple things. The GDT would be a subdivision of the PWA. Therefore under its guidance and jurisdiction. While our intent is to have the members of the PWA form the division, do the initial hiring of a core group. I have no desire to 'govern' it beyond encouragement and keeping it stable.

The reason for an admin is twofold. If the members help select an admin to help resolve any internal issues they are having with each other it will help keep the department stable. This department WILL have issues since its a highly testosterone driven entity with ego's that are larger than life. (No insult there guys, just a well known fact).

When it comes to new hires there will be a single entity to check the applications or recommended new hires. Sort through and toss any non viable ones then along with the rest of the group decide on whether a person would be a good addition. This way they won't have to come to a PWA every time they wish to hire or fire someone. Since it will be a multitalented group of individuals they will know better as to who would be a good addition and who wouldn't I believe.

I wouldn't say this person would necessarily be the "boss" in the sense you have to go to him for permission for everything. He will be more of the one person thats everyone goes to when they need something.

[Bell]

Originally Posted by Loriel

protip: First outline the tasks for the team, and then have applicants do actual work, and then decide what the team is going to look like if you still think it is necessary.

Pretty much, yes.

[WhiteDragon]

Originally Posted by Bell

This department WILL have issues since its a highly testosterone driven entity with ego's that are larger than life. (No insult there guys, just a well known fact).

At least we're being honest.

[Gambet]

You should find out how many top-tier developers are actually interested first, since most of us either don't play anymore or are busy with obligations to our servers. Personally I'm not a fan of the idea since it doesn't bring anything new to the table that we currently couldn't do ourselves considering there are no benefits to joining the team other than a guild tag (I have my own connections with Stefan, the tag wouldn't change a thing with regards to that), but I don't really log on the game much anymore, I just browse through the forums and help with questions when I can.

Many of us have already released tons of scripts on the code gallery and continue to do so, we've written some documentation on the wiki and posted threads on the forums to clear confusion with using certain commands, and we try our best with the time that we have, but I'm not seeing how this team would change what is currently possible.

[Vulcan]

I keep seeing you guys saying that its something that you could do yourselves or its only a guild, anyone can make it, etc, etc....Well, why isn't anyone? Bell and the PWA are taking it upon themselves to put this group together and use what influence they have to make it work as best as possible. I doubt that the team will initially have everything it needs, but if things start moving along nicely, I would expect for Stefan to take an interest and become more involved.

Also, one thing I've not noticed in this thread (or maybe I've overlooked it?) is that there is no mention of private forums for this team. I think it would be highly beneficial for the team to have their own private forums for PWA/GDT communication, as well as a revival of the GlobalConnect forum for Classic Server management and PWA/GDT.

[Gambet]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

I keep seeing you guys saying that its something that you could do yourselves or its only a guild, anyone can make it, etc, etc....Well, why isn't anyone? Bell and the PWA are taking it upon themselves to put this group together and use what influence they have to make it work as best as possible. I doubt that the team will initially have everything it needs, but if things start moving along nicely, I would expect for Stefan to take an interest and become more involved.

We have done it, we just don't get together to work on a system as a team. Everyone has their own lives and their schedules so they contribute to the forums and the wiki when they can. Almost all questions are answered in the scripting section of the forums and we often provide good examples and documentations to back up these examples when answering questions.

In essence, we have fulfilled the expectations of this team without it ever officially being formed. Currently we work as a community, which is much more broad than narrowing it down to a small team.

[WhiteDragon]

Originally Posted by Gambet

post

While I agree with a number of the things you said, I believe this team does have the potential to do a number of things "the community" can't do.

For one, if it is made up of talented developers, it will have a strong influence on the decisions Stefan makes.
It isn't just about you "having connections with Stefan," it's about making a connection with the community and Stefan.


And yes, while many developers post examples and more in the Code Gallery, something this team could do is release a series of coherent and high-quality packages for servers to use (as discussed in the Scripting Forum's thread); nothing of this sort exists in the Code Gallery.


A strong team brings uniformity and coherency to the table, something that will never come out of a mass of developers releasing content.