Fate of Io: Rethinking a few things

Rethinking a few things

2003/08/24 20:31:42 PDT by MoogerFooger [0/0]

I noticed that my previous thread met with the trash folder. Fine with me.

I read the charter twice, and liked what I read, but my problem comes with the fact that i don't see any work for me to do. If you want people to contribute then give us or me at least a frame work to work from. Story out lines are cool, but how about outlining EVERYTHING. Generating TODO scripts that everyone interested can work from and select items from. That would mean deciding where and how the project will go now. Not just saying submit whatever you like and we'll see if we can draw a spot up for it.

What I'm proposing is simply outlining every aspect of the project at hand. NOT taking away the creativity of those involved. They still have to choose how they want to do the items selected, but they atleast have a direction to start from. For me this is like having internet access... I have free riegn of where I want to go, but I don't know where to go. I have too much freedom to the point where I go nowhere. Give me some direction and I'll go in that direction and discover what I need from there. You know what I mean? I bet most of you contributor types feel this without realizing it.

2003/08/24 22:42:42 PDT by mystik3eb [0/43]

Or you can just look at the situation in the storyline and take it in the general direction automatically given. It really isn't that big of a deal. If you think about it, just looking at where the story is, where the characters are, what characters are present and what has just happened in the storyline makes it pretty easy to figure out the general direction of where to take things. We just need ideas.

So I'd suggest looking more at the surrounding situations and finding the easy to figure out TODOs. If there are some where you just can't figure out any idea of what TODO, then ask about it specifically. Thanks for bringing light to this subject, though.

2003/08/25 11:35:23 PDT by MoogerFooger [0/0]

Yeah well that's the thing. Not everything is readily aparent. There are alot of little things that need to happen before the story can even be considered. Like every single aspect of the overall framework of the engine concept, game mechanics and all that. Stuff that the average joe won't consider off the top of his head. Those things are what need doing first I think. Then beginning on the cool stuff that you have here

2003/08/25 17:09:39 PDT by mystik3eb [0/43]

Here's where I disagree. Story is of upmost importance. Once you have a story, everything can be created around it. Until then, nothing else can really be done. After the story's set (the general story, most of which we have done), then other things can be done (gameplay and engine stuff most importantly), but only after the story's set in stone.

2003/08/25 17:57:05 PDT by Temporal [manager]

Nah... gameplay mechanics, for example, can be developed completely separately from the story, as long as both groups know the general direction in which the game is headed. You could even make a convincing arguments that gameplay mechanics should be developed before the story... so that the story can be designed properly to have plenty of good gameplay opportunities.

MoogerFooger, you're right... we need much better planning and management around here. This is something that we've all sort of known for a long time. The problem is, no one has the time or the patience to do it all. I have two or three projects which are more important than FoI (including my job), Dev has work and school to deal with, etc.

I don't believe all of the planning necessarily has to be done by Dev or myself or the advisors, though. Any contributor could draw up a road plan for development and submit it. Others could then read it and make modifications as necessary. In fact, submitting an idea is the best way to get people thinking about and working on something, even if your idea is absolutely horrible.

Basically, that's the situation. If I had time to work on Fate of Io, I can guarantee you that it would be much more active and organized... I just, frankly, don't. :/

2003/08/26 00:19:19 PDT by MoogerFooger [0/0]

Right well. I see you're point Temporal. I don't have the time to run a project either. Nor do I have the managerial skills needed to organize all this stuff. I mentioned drawing scripts because I don't know where to begin myself. I guess I'll just see what I come up with if anything.

Mystik3eb: I didnt mean to imply any one item's importance over another. I was simply using examples. The story was one where the framework had already been outlined, and I thought we should do that sort of outlining for everything. Eventually a final script will be drawn with EVERY little detail in it.

I mean like all the dialogue will be present, but alot of subtext that sets up the scene from what peice of music is playing to who stands where, who does what, how they react to this, or that, and what the scenery is doing around them. Those are actually just a small number of what needs to be written up. If we start with smaller scripts for specific items we can get broader and broader with each script generation until we have just one. (which would go through it's own revision process till its finalized)