PW Synopsis up until now.

Posted on: Apr 27 2006, 01:48 AM

Well, you can go here, if you'd like to see the original thread for this topic:
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=19800

QUOTE("Jerky")
Hmmm, where do I begin? Thanks for getting this out in the open I guess . What follows isn't necessarily on topic, but this topic started due to my PM to jacmoe, so deal with it .

Let me use the history of Project Wish as an example here:
We started PW in January of '05. When Wish disappeared, there were tons of people who wanted to see it (or something like it reborn). We had almost 400 users in the first week. To clear things up a bit, there is a difference between indie and what we are doing. I dislike calling it hobby, because it is more than that, but there might not be a better term (world-wide team working on and open-sourced indie-type project).

Our core programming team was selective and started with around 6+ talented individuals. Most were students (some here might know of Lucky_Luciano, he was our client side lead). We had a server team lead as well. Between Lucky working pretty much on his own and our Server guy practically the same way (with a couple of reliable others) we had a mostly working map editor (see what Falagard has done with it on his PLSM2/GOOF editor) and a working chat server and client. Then life happened.

Most teams like mine that have been around are very aware of this stage. It seems the Ogre team is similar at times, although having someone as hardcore as Sinbad keeps it going always . During that time, I was working with our world and story teams helping get things together as I taught myself Art better than I knew it. The teams were very sub-divided back then, with Animation, Modeling, Texturing all having separate teams. While we were working on getting requirements together, artists with real life commitments started to fade, as there was nothing yet for them to make, because it all wasn’t decided yet. Our Project Leader (who still leads the project to this Day) has been a pretty consistently busy guy who is a senior developer at Intel. I mention this because when Intel calls, he has to do his thing. This leaves times where he has been in and out.

At the end of last summer, the first blow was Lucky_Luciano disappearing. To this day, we still haven’t had more good work from a programmer than him. After that, due to the remaining egos trying to either take over the project or just get creative control, most of our server programmers finally left. At this point, our story team had enough to be done for a while, so they went on hiatus. The world team had designed what we needed for our Alpha phase (working prototype with 1 city and no gameplay, just a chat server in a 3D world). They slowly disappeared too. The artists had mostly gone as well, so I took the art team over with the help of Fuinelen as my co-lead (who ironically has done a lot of cool little programs here on Ogre). We knew what we needed and we knew the amount of work needed. We continued slowly as we learned the pipeline. I had purchased ZBrush and was learning it, but not much was getting done.

During fall of last year, we hit our low point. It almost came down to me, but not quite that bad. The Project Leader has always been in and out, and I never have worried about him, because he has the same desires as I do. Lots of real life hit for the remaining members, but even the community started to fade. Our ex-programmers who had been hosting our Trac needed to take it down, so they did. The remaining people could not get to the info that we had been collecting, so they also started to either get pissed, or just leave.

This is when I decided to pretty much take the bull by the horns and start to steer. I started with the website. We had had a CMS planned for quite some time to replace the plain PHPBB forums that we had, but since those who volunteered to do it had never finished it and had RL issues, it never got done. I tried a few CMS's and stuck with e107 since it has one of the better rated ones and had everything we needed. I am not one to just stick up a default theme, so after getting the prototype working I had to then dive into the DB. Getting it converted to the e107 forum format, I then moved onto graphics design and PHP/CSS. After some more uber-learning, I had 2 custom themes (very basic ones). The test site looked ready to go, so just before Christmas, I released the new website. Since then, things have been better than ever, activity-wise.

With the new site, people started coming back. I had, by this time, built quite a library of MMO design sources, and had been visiting many websites. With my exposure came more new people visiting the site (they clicked the link in my signature). We also made a decision during this reorganization time to reply to a lot of the old applications (we have probably received 50+ inquiries since the start) and some of the old team members. The Project Leader has since taken over as lead programmer and started work with our server programming. Since the old server team lead had refused his advice before, the code was scrapped because it was not designed correctly. We actually got a lot of replies to my emails. This started the rebuild/reorganization. I also got the Trac db and got it up and working on my own server at this point.

At the beginning of this year, we really started rolling again. The Project Leader had been working on learning ICE (our server middleware) and we had gotten a lot of my artists back. We started producing. Since then, we have 5 set programmers on the team with 3 more currently in the interview process. We released our first two test renders of our alpha 1 design, but only done in Max, still no Ogre. I still run most of what happens, including more new website designs that will be finished soon. We have reached a happy medium where there are no egos trying to control things (I am happy to run things until the Project Manager gets time to redirect some things that could be better). This leaves us with essentially 2 main leaders who have a pretty set vision and all the patience in the world to see it through.

I left out quite a bit (like Cobra who has been with me all along), but I think you get the picture from that. This now brings me to my PM to jacmoe. He mentioned in a reply to someone recruiting, that he knew some programmers who were looking for serious projects. I PM'd him, rather than hijack the thread, to see if he could point me in the right direction. This thread is now the result . You should notice that Project Wish is absent from the recruitment forum. This is on purpose. Not once did we ever think we could withstand the ridicule of that place, and rightly so . We still are not at the active recruiting phase, and may not ever need to be. Both the Project Manager and I have always felt that if we build it, they will come. I do try to recruit privately if I see someone who I think could help us, while working on a dedicated project.

This also brings us to here and now. None of our programmers are very familiar with Ogre, at all, yet. This is the obvious glaring absentee from our website. We have no in-engine screenshots. If we were to pickup even 1 Ogre-ready developer, we could have a prototype in no time. That is the reason for my PM to jacmoe. Am I begging? Heck no. Am I serious? You better believe it.

I expect to not get ANY replies about MMO's, so please don't waste my time arguing with me about how they are impossible to make and a waste of time. You will find that my team and I are well versed in the area and are FULLY aware of what it takes. That aside, will it take a long time? Yes, most definitely. We have followed the Extreme Programming methodology since the beginning; consistent small updates are the way to go. If you have made it this far in my post, congratulations. You actually have an attention span. I hope there is something to learn from it, since there usually is from "post-mortems," but this is not one of those. We are doing well, and would be willing to accept dedicated individuals who are willing to be part of that one project in a million that doesn't fail.

Any responses are welcome, PM's or right here. I have nothing to hide and am proud of where PW is.


This was posted on Ogre's forums in response to a discussion that I started with a PM. To add a little more truth to it, so it is not so centered on me, some more additions are necessary. They will be forthcoming in another entry.

Powered By Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionboard.com)
© Invision Power Services (http://www.invisionpower.com)
Blog system copyright © CJVJ