RMRK Guilds, 2010?

[Zylos]

Most everyone here knows all too well about the guilds. We tried this last year but failed pretty badly, probably due to lack of motivation and drive to finish. However, the guilds did do a good job in joining the community together in a competition that gave us a lot to laugh/fight/bitch/cause drama/boast about. We made closer friends with some people through the guilds, whether teammates or rivals. Can't lie that it was fun, despite the fact that we all failed.

I wanted to see what people thought about trying once more at a guild competition between two large groups of RMRK again. With the recent turnout of the latest GIAW V and number of people able to successfully finish, we might be able to be more successful this time around. And even if we aren't successful, there'd be plenty of laughs along the way at least.

What do you guys think?

[haloOfTheSun]

It might be a good idea just for, as you said, sort of bringing the community together a bit even if they don't actually finish the project.

I'd be fine making the boards and getting everything set up again but someone else needs to set up the rules. I guess I could even create sign ups and we could let those go until about January since the RPG Maker crowd here doesn't seem to visit the forums every single day. Assuming of course, other people here think this is a good idea.

[tSwitch]

it was fun as hell last time, even though nothing got done.
We should wait until around summer though, when people don't have school and can actually work on things.

[Zylos]

Or we can have it be something longer than a few months, perhaps have it actually end at the end of summer or something?

[haloOfTheSun]

Having it a summer-long contest and an extended contest ending in July/August or so both have their merits.

Perhaps it'd be better to try the extended contest this year. You could start in January/February, and even though everyone has school and such they could still work when they could which would work well for planning the smaller details. When summer comes around you could get the big stuff done.

Then again that has the effect of getting tired of it by the time summer comes around, but everyone should be fine with that if they're using RPG Maker anyway.

I don't know I'm just rambling xD

[tSwitch]

I'm not sure, the only reason GIAW is successful is because it's quick, it's a week, people don't lose interest fast enough and the work actually gets done.  

Not sure how I feel about an extremely prolonged competition.

[Dwarra?]

GIAW is also just one person

[Falcon]

You guys probably know my view. People try to bite off more than they can chew, drama begins, shit like that.

[Zylos]

Thinking about it, if one person can make a whole game in a week with or without school, I don't think it'll be hard for a team to do so with or without school either given a short period of time. They'd need time to plan out, obviously, and then time to get their act together and build it. Need a period that's long enough for people to get shit done (since it'll take longer for a group of people to agree first and decide what's going on), but not too long so as to lose interest in.

[Falcon]

A short time frame is the only viable option, procrastinators and drama whores (Atemu) were what really ruined my guilds game.

Anything under 5 weeks might be worth a shot.

[haloOfTheSun]

True. People were saying they didn't think there wasn't enough time before. Maybe there was too much.

[Irock]

I don't really care how long as it is. Though I'd prefer it be at or over a month and a half, since a lot of people are busy with school this time of year. It doesn't really matter if the games get completed, because it will still be fun.

On a side note, NAMKCOR and I were discussing both co-leading a guild together~

[Zylos]

So, maybe start building teams soon and then start the actual game making process on Jan. 1st, lasting up until either the end of February or end of March, so that there's enough time for people to agree on an idea and then carry it out.

[tSwitch]

I still personally think we should hold off until people are less oriented on school, but I'll join whenever it starts.

Might I suggest not limiting it to 2 guilds?

[Grafikal]

I'm up for it. My last semester is going to be really empty. I took the maximum number of credits this semester and it ends in 2 weeks. So I'm good to go into any guild for a while.

[Zeriab]

I really like the long-term project idea.
I would suggest urging iterative development with bi-weekly or monthly goals. That way people always have a short goal in focus.
There are problems with iterative development for RPGs, but people will learn about them so I don't think that's bad either.

The biggest problem with that would be to define each goal and how they count.

[tSwitch]

Zeriab did you change your sig?

[Zeriab]

Yup, garygill made me a new one :3

[modern algebra]

I like

Also, I think I like Zeriab's idea, if it is what I think it is. I think that people are right in saying that it won't work if the term is too long. However, if the time is too short I don't think we can expect any coherent results - The reason GIAW works is because there is only one developer. With a large team, it will necessarily take a long time to build a consensus on the project to work on. Or else all of the functions are split off where 1 or 2 members each work on a single aspect, and then there is no real coherency to the project.

If we set short-term goals with penalties if it is not completed, then people will be encouraged to focus on the task at hand, and each aspect of the game will have been collaborated on, so it's not disjointed.

So, a potential chart with bs values would be:

Character Development - 1 week - 5%
Plot - 2 weeks - 25%
Initial Database setup - 1 week - 5%
Mapping - 3 weeks - 25%
Eventing + Dialogue - 3 weeks - 30%
Balancing - 1 week - 10%

with feature development and resource finding throughout where appropriate, and of course the freedom to change any element that does not work as the other stuff begins to progress.

and then all of that could factor in as say, 60% of the final grade, with 40% going to the quality of the project itself and that could be judged on other factors, such as gameplay, cohesiveness, etc...But, if we set short-term competetive goals, then I think it might work better.

That chart may not be an appropriate time + value analysis, or even a good way to go about it. Also, I should mention that the categories do not mean people can't work on anything else - if you have a dedicated mapper, he might only want to work on maps through the entire project. But, knowing that something specific has to be done by x deadline I think will force most of the team's resources onto that goal where it is appropriate, and that will likely result in a better project and one more likely to be finished.

I also agree with Zylos that there should be more than two guilds and we should limit team numbers to 8-12.

[Grafikal]

I'm a dedicated mapper

I like what I'm seeing here. To be honest, I can't wait until we decide to start this. It's been a while since I worked on anything good.

[haloOfTheSun]

I suppose we could start sign-ups soon, regardless of when the actual game-making process begins. We can't know how many guilds to have until we know how many people there will be. If only 10 people sign up, it'd be silly to have more than 2 guilds.

Of course, I expect a lot of people to sign up, like last time. The problem is, many of the people who signed up were not active. I still have the membergroups from the last guilds set up and there were 29 people total and that's after removing people from the guilds because they left for whatever reason (Atemu). But how many of you actually had everyone show up for their job? I remember several times someone was waiting on someone else to do something or someone was picking up someone else's slack.

The point is, multiple guilds are fine, but let's take into consideration that too few people is a waste. At the same time not everyone who signs up will be dependable.

As for when this all actually takes place and exactly how long, perhaps some public polls would be a good idea. If this is a community event, then after all the community should have a say.

I'll create a topic for sign-ups later today or tomorrow, if nobody has objections. While I'll probably be less involved in the overseeing of the guilds than last time, it's easiest for me to handle sign-ups and such since I have to put everyone in the proper groups.

NOTE: Again, this does not mean we are starting soon - although most of you seem willing to start anytime.

EDIT: This also raises the question of who is actually judging the finished product (if it even makes it that far)? I believe last time we agreed on just letting members vote in a poll rather than having actual judges, but whatever you guys feel is best is fine by me.

[Redwyn]

I know I'd enjoy participating in this again. Though, I feel like I held back my team last year but now I feel much more confident in myself about my ability and I believe I would be able to be able not to be a set back this time.

[Zylos]

I agree, Halo, we probably shouldn't keep all of this behind the closed doors of RMRK Advanced. For the timing of it, we should see what everyone has to say, not just us. And for the multiple guilds, first we have to see how many people we actually have.

The biggest time consumer is to get everyone to agree on something, because if I recalled right there was a lot of tension just between deciding on the style of spriting. But I agree that short-term goals might be better, so as to force people to focus and agree on things quicker. Instead of having set deadlines and penalties though, perhaps we can have competitive judgings of whatever teasers and info the guilds release on set dates? Like, one week having the guilds present a basic outline of a non-spoiler story and any concept art they have like we did for a teasers last year, and the next week we show off maps or possibly a playable demo. The guilds agree to release certain pieces of info, and each week we have the community vote for which one they like better thus far. Keeps up the competitive edge and the urge to do better than the other group if you fall behind a little.

[Irock]

The guild members don't necessarily have to agree on everything. They can pitch ideas and the guild leader(s) can make the decisions and organize how and when things will be done. I think one of the reasons why I only got like 5 or so maps done was because I wasn't able to picture everything perfectly, and didn't have much of an idea as to what I was expected to do. Guild leaders should play a much bigger role this time around, so we get more work done in an organized fashion.

[haloOfTheSun]

The guild leader(s) should probably be thought of more as a director. The final decision should be theirs but there should be some discussion of course about what to do. After all, do you think on real video games everyone making it is in 100% complete agreement about everything? No.

Even better would be if the mapping style, for example, were decided solely by the mappers and the guild leader. Let the scripters, spriters, etc. focus on their own work rather than how the mapping is coming along. (If I remember correctly, this wasn't a huge issue last year but it still happened and proved to be just a time waster).

In short, yeah pretty much what Irock said. Ultimately none of this is up to me though, just offering my opinion