Organization Needed Options

[andrantos]

Okay, I understand that to some extent, venting our ideas is needed. What we need to do is come up with a list of goals and milestones of some sort for us to accomplish. I'm not just talking about development or the design, I'm also talking about discussions and decisions that need to be held so that we can get to the point where we are designing what our final product will be like. Right now, we juggling various decisions and ideas and its getting to the point where we're not organized. So we might set up a schedule like this:

Plan of Action:
1. Discuss Open Source vs. Community Owned on such and such
*at this discussion, all sides would be presented to everyone. The pros, the cons, the consequences, everything in detail so everyone is on the same page. Then we discuss whether or not we will go with open source or community owned. Of course, these discussions could be handled through irc or forums or even both(like posting all the points and information on the forums then discuss in irc).
2. Design Core Components
3. Chose Tools
4. Create Tasks and Jobs, and schedule so that we can hopefully stay on track with a developed prototype.

Note: This was just an example, what I think should be done or something similar. Right now we're going in so many directions, we need to be focued.

[Vampirian]

Agree.

Goals, both short and long term need to be realized.

Teams need to be made with people being assigned to those teams.

Tasks need to be outlined and delegated to proper teams.

Timeframs to complete said tasks intitiated.

[KallDrexx]

I agree, this is why we are getting feedback on who we want to be project manager. Look at the end of the "developer list" thread.

[pearle]

One of the first things the team does should be to decide, on a high level, the focus and goal of the game. This could be just a couple of paragraphs that provides a mission statement for the game.

[Mole]

You are all correct in what needs to be done "next". I'll be posting some messages tonight to get the ball rolling on our next steps.

I'm looking forward to seeing all of your input.

[Hawkins]

I think actually the horde of artists can be be sent out before everything is final.

To me, the char and item models and animations of both EQII and WoW are not up to standard yet. If PnC is the way to go, we can dupe and tweak from Lineage II. Even if it's WASD i think it does no harm to design the char and item models sticking to the Lineage II standard.

[Blacksmile]

Hawkins, i hope you dont forget about some things here: firstly noone gets paid for this and noone around here can be expected to be professional at what he's doing for the project, so your expectations might be a bid to high. Secondly i know of a quite big part of the community that would like to see the hardware requirements for the project not to be at the high-end side at costs of graphics if needed. The last thing is, that having high-end graphics is not a main goal of this project, but rather the gameplay and immersion (read the mission statement, if you havent yet). So of course we should try not to have to low gaphics, for not destroying or even interfering with the imersion, but highest-end graphics in my opinion are not what this project needs to put focus on.

[Matto]

Starting to get a fuller picture of events to follow would be good. I havn't seen anything on current decisions about staying on our own or joining with another group. EG, Boundless Adventures and/or Planeshift.

[Fuinelen]

Just adding another thing to Blacksmiles exhaustive lists :

The modelling can only start once we know which engine is used and we have at least a slight idea of what the world should look like.

The engine determines the format of the models and the animations. It also puts limitations on the number of polygons and (if supported) bones each model can have, along with the size and the type of the textures needed (does the engine have support for env mapping? bump mapping? etc...)

Before modeling starts, you'd need at least a description of what exactly is needed and what for. Therefore, the only artists who could already start right away are writers. The 3D artists can then model things according to the lore created by the writers.

So .. just be patient, there wil be a moment when the artists will be able to rush off, ignore their private and worklife and do 24/7 modelling for this project. But it wil be some time until that happens.

bbye,
Fuinelen

[GageEndal]

I would like to offer my services as a writer and (somewhat crappy) artist. I am pretty good with Flash MX and I am a great quest designer. My friends always wanted me to be the DM in games because I would put them in more intiresting situations that the rest could think up.

Even if at first it's just getting quest ideas together I am sure that I could think up thousands of ideas that we could mesh together to make a googleplex of possible quests. Not just the "get me the plate armor from the armorsmith" kind of quests, but ones where they are given a small quest that leads to another thing, and that leads on in an endless cycle (if they want it to) that they can enjoy and play as a single feature of the game if they wanted to.

There are so many ways to run a quest that the mind truely boggles. If there is already a team getting together for this, send me an E-Mail/AIM/Chat and find me a way to get on the team with you. This is something that I really want to do.

[Hawkins]

Char and item modeling has nothing to do with high-end graphics requirement, it's kinda polygon tricks. Amongst WoW, EQII and LineageII, LineageII may have the lowest graphic card and system requirement.

Char and item modeling is somewhat independent of the 3D engine as commonly available engines will have a way to support the various modeling formats to a certain extend. Even if the chosen engine doesn't support the modeling tool format, it's not much effort to reproduce the polygons and especially the animation.

I dont know how difficult it is to clone the models from LineageII and tweak the models to suit for the game. My point actually is, it's that's not that difficult, why not just clone and tweak the models. Moreover, the giants (Sony and Blizzy) wont follow the LineageII standard because,

1) They dont feel that they need to

2) Their engine is built from scratch, effort is put in bringing up the engine instead of refining the models.

3) The issue has been overlooked as WoW and EQII were developments years back when LineageII was not present

If you ever played LineageII, you can tell how visual effects will neurally impact players' minds and brains, consider that LineageII is just a game with extrordinary graphics (char and item models and animations) but no contents.

Of course, in the end it's just a calculation of effort vs return. Yet to me, awesome graphics itself may make a game sound, while an awesome game with medicre or second rated graphics may make a game much less appealing than it should be.

Thou consciously one may argue that he never measures a game by how the graphics (char models and animations) look like, that's simply not what his spinal chord tells. And I do believe that the Wish game contents (a skill-based system) plus the LineageII graphics (char and item models and animations) will simply beat down EQII (or perhaps WoW).

However, if duping then tweaking from LineageII is simply impossible (or too much effort shall be put forward) and our artists will have to build the models by their own, it's not worth the effort to tune up the graphics standard, game contents are always the first to cater, I know.

And i do think that the artists can do char and item modelling and animation without knowing the detail specs of a 3D engine, bearing in mind that the modeling must be polygon efficient and that they need to take out some polygons once the detail engine spec is available.

Anyway, DUPE from LineageII is what I'd like to say. :lol:

[Blacksmile]

Hawkins, i must have misunderstood you then, sorry about that. I am with you, that better graphics impact a players mind always and that there are many players that will see crappy graphics when starting the client and then say "no way i am playing that, this game is out of date" and will never even see the great gameplay stuff.

But duplicating from anothort MMORPG is no option in my views, as this could be like calling for lawsuits... If you analyze what is so good about the Lineage 2 Graphics ad make this a standard in modelling our stuff it's fine with me, but please do notthink about exctlay trying to duplicate anything.

[Hawkins]

I know the word *duplicating* may not be a good word, we may be *referencing* the LineageII models.

I think that as long as the game is a unique one, why minding tactically *referencing* the good things from others (of course the bottomline is that lawsuits wont work in the case). Consider that we are actually *duplicating* from Wish subsequently UO, while LineageII, FFXI, EQII and WoW are ALL duplicating from EQ, they are EQ clones. :P

I am not insisting on that I am right about the issue, because I could be wrong and very wrong sometimes. :oops: And I am used to be treated as a hypercrite :lol: , so just ignore my voice if this is not what the community wants. :)

[manifold]

hi.. new to the party... had been a lost ghost who did occasional searches on Wish after the project ended and saw this site posted on stratics.

just a little sidetrack oot before I come back to topic.

honestly speaking, I don't have much confidence on community-developed project for something as big as wish. It is not impossible, but I've seen too many smaller community projects die out due to insufficient interest. Still, I think it beats being a ghost (like me) lamenting over the 'good old times' so I tot might as well give it a try ;) To those who start this, no matter how good the chances are, at least it's a start. Even if it doesn't have a product, sometimes the process is well-worth it.... (like Wish). And thanks :)

Anyway, back to topic on the organization part. I don't know whether this means the HR part or the actual system part so I tot I throw 2 cents worth of my own tots n experience. Must declare that I'm not an expert in a large-scale proj like MMO so a lot of things I say are based on smaller-scale projects. Thus, I may not be correct and I'm really just tossing things off my head without organization (ironic, since I'm commenting on organization), so feel free to contradict me. Just ignore the useless part and I hope what remains can help to generate further insights.

On People organization:
A large project can be built by a lot of people. but ultimately, the kernal or core group has to be small and able to make sure you get things done. For those people who work with large teams b4, you'll know the true meaning of "too many cooks spoil the broth". The key way around this is to have only a few cooks who decide on the dishes and method of preparation and keep enough of cooking assistants who can carry out the instructions capably.


On the actual "engine".
I do not know much about the use of existing systems until I get to see the actual architecture, so I'm assuming the development of a general system (for games/visualization systems). The design/architecture of the system has to be decided early but has to be flexible enough to be modified or extended as the requirements gets clearer as the project develops. Deciding on this early can allow the formation of relatively independent developement teams who can work better in smaller groups. E.g.

-visualization engine (gfx/sfx)
-game mechanics (game rules)
-art/story
-modelling/animation
-main script/simulation engine (+network. ) this prob also contain the sub-group who'll put all things together to make it work.
-hardware/testing We have to get some hardware somewhere to make it work.....
-tools development (services all other groups)
-security concerns -- people who do research usually assume a perfect world. The "real" world isn't perfect. We all know it is impossible to stop all cheating/exploitation but at least we have to make it difficult enough so that it becomes infeasible for most.

all the above is also split into client/server side.


On the scale/archtecture/hardware:

From what I can see, hardware is the main problem. The original Wish, if I'm not wrong, is based on a close server cluster which is effectively a modern super-computer. And it has to have a very wide bandwidth. I don't know about the actual cost but it's not goin to be cheap. The maintenance alone is already a killer. Unless somebody has a lot of money to donate, there are very few other alternatives:

-distributed server cluster? Many servers which are not close. This suffers from the fact that inter-processer comm is unrealiable. The good side is that if we can pull it off well, we can slowly "grow" ganedan by putting up servers one by one. But this is not easy as splitting up ganedan into artificial "zones" as it will limit the PC distribution. The best is a system that distribute loads based on PC density. But the "farness" between the servers make this very hard.

-skip the "M" of the MMO? adopt something like NWN? where the scale is reduced such that a network of ordinary PCs servers suffices. But that would mean that the number of PCs on a server is traffic and processor limited to what can be handled by the system. making a world without zones is also limited.

-come up with a new architecture based on distributed computing. Make it such that an MMO can run off geographically distant small server-clusters (the the finest scale, every client is also a server) connected over the unrealiable internet which also does dynamic load distribution (based on traffic and processor load). I'm not sure if any research group is already doing this as I'm not in the network-related field (anybody who knows this please clarify), but I think if somebody can pull this off, it's material for publishing a paper. This is sort of inspired by the p2p file network which turns out to be quite an amazing distributed archtecture that realizes a massive, semi-persistent online file system. Of cos, an MMO is far more complex.

but no matter which way we go, I think distributed computing is the most feasible under the most optimistic projection. Definitely need experts in the HPDC field.