Off to a bad start Options

[pearle]

I agree with documenting and thoroughly designing game systems, story elements, and all technical aspects.

However, in the meantime you can prototype ideas and test out your theories. I come from the school of thought that thinks it's a bad idea just to sit down in front of a computer and crank out design docs without testing any of the concepts you are creating. You can have a 800 lb design document that took months to generate (and sounds perfect) and still run into trouble when you get 20% of the way into developing it.

I think it would be in everyones best interests to also think about efficient ways to test the validity of ideas and concepts. This might mean simply playing another game that has a similar game system or it might mean spending a few days writing some code to test out a server communication protocol idea.

[Mole]

I have a lot of experience in leading very large projects and in being a developer on very large projects. My main project (at work) right now is over 2 years in development -- it's very big.

Having been involved in so many large projects, I have had a chance to see some succeed and some fail. I've learned how to do things from both, and I've learned how not to do things. Unfortunately, all the talk we're currently doing in IRC and a lot of it on the forums is the incorrect way. (I haven't read all the forums though)

The mistake that most projects make is wanting to "start coding" from day one. If you do this, I guarentee that you will fail.

Success is important in this project, and should not be an option.

[Strangerr]

a very good post Mole and I agree with you , we need to slow down a bit or this will never work the way it is supposed to work :)

[Valkyrie]

Anyone of you knows doxygen?
It is very useful for compiling documentation of code in an open source thing several spread over the world are working at. And useful is "one world time" usage for appointing meetings or so, as it prevents all kinds of timezone confusion.

[pearle]

I know of doxygen but not have used it. I do know that a lot of C/C++ project do rely on it for technical documentation.

[Blacksmile]

AS doxygen has been called by name already i wanna give my vote for it, would've wanted to do this later, but as we were not even close to start coding i din't want to say it now.
I used it on a rather small project and it is quite usable.

[Mole]

The original intent of this thread was to get everyone thinking about a successful way to get our project going rather then to jump in and start blindly coding on day one.

We're moving ahead in what many feel to be a correct direction. We're also starting to gain momentum as many people have been expressing interest in PW, from individuals, to teams, to opensource projects, to commercial projects. More importantly, we are starting to see some results (albeit very slowly right now). All these things are telling me that we're doing thing correctly.

I think this particular thread has served its purpose. That being said, I'm going to lock this thread.