HOW DO YOU COLLABORATE ON A PROJECT?

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Every time I've tried to work together with a team on a RPG Maker project, we've run into difficulties in one particular area: sharing changes.

If I add a new map, I need to send everyone the new map file, but I also have to change the map tree file and send it to everyone. But if someone else added a new map at the same time, they can't accept the map tree file from me, because it will stomp their changes, so adding new maps becomes a big effort in coordinating changes between everyone involved. Same goes for database changes.

In "real" programming, this has been a solved problem for decades: you set up a source control server that's able to track and merge changes from different project members and it magically takes care of 90% of it automatically, and the last 10% just requires a team member to review the merge process and make sure nothing broke too badly. The problem is, because of the way source control functions, all that magic only works on source code, specifically, on text.

Every RPG Maker version so far has used non-text source files for its maps and databases. SMBX uses text files, but its format is undocumented and unstructured enough that a user would have a great deal of difficulty tracking changes if he had to review things to try to resolve a merge conflict.

Does the RPG Maker community have any established practices for making collaboration easier when you can't use source control effectively?
BizarreMonkey
I'll never change. "Me" is better than your opinion, dummy!
1625
The best I can think of is having a dropbox server and a constant skype chat where you collaborate with team members, but I've never really tried that, as I tend to take care of databasing and eventing while my team does most else.
Mirak
Stand back. Artist at work. I paint with enthusiasm if not with talent.
9300
We're using the method bm talks about, we set up a shared dropbox folder and communicate on skype, we find this is best.
I've never worked in a team, but I've considered teammates could split switches, variables, common events, and map numbers to work with.

I get even, you get odds.
or...
I get 0-100, you get 101-200.

This way we could work without stepping on each others toes. I've never tried this, but it seems like it could work.
There are a few articles Red_Nova wrote.

http://rpgmaker.net/articles/1058/
http://rpgmaker.net/articles/1072/
http://rpgmaker.net/articles/1135/

The last one in particular.
They recommend using rmn's inbuilt gamepage system (the hidden for developer area).
Is worth a shot if you are having troubles with other stuff, although it works similarily.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
An RPG Maker project shouldn't really have multiple people working in the same area. You shouldn't ever need to merge your database changes with someone else's because only one person on the team should be in charge of the database. A typical team consists of:
- Map builder
- Writer/Story director
- Script programmer
- Combat/database/gameplay designer
- Artist
- Musician

A team of 6 people is rare, though. Typically, multiple roles will be filled by one person. If your game has unusual needs you might have more roles, but you're not going to have multiple people in the same role like you would in a large software design team.

The only parts of the game that multiple people should ever really be working on in 99% of RPG Maker collaborations are map events and the common events. Because RPG Maker uses events for so many different types of things, there will be unavoidable overlap here. Your mapper will need to add doors and blocking tiles and cosmetic objects, your gameplay designer will need to place battles and treasure chests, and your story developer will need to create the cut scenes.

The good news is that the mapper has to finish before anyone else can start, and very few maps will have both cut scenes and battles/chests. So 98% of the time, it should be extremely simple to keep track of.

I definitely recommend having one main project in Dropbox, and then everyone else having a local copy on their own hard drive that they do all their work in. Maps, database work, common events, graphics, sounds, and scripts can all be extremely easily copied from one project to another. So if you're collaborating, do all your work in a copy of the project, not in the master file. However, in certain situations, you'll need to break this rule just to prevent the problem you're talking about in the original post. Just let your team members know "Everyone stay out of the project for the next two hours please, I need to change all the treasure chests from common events to script calls."
Haven't tried but SVN could work. It's like dropbox but it merges files and deals with conflicts on its own. So if one person edits one item and another person edits another, both people will have the latest changes

It wouldn't work 100% since RPGMaker encrypts the project's files, but it would still work if people aren't working on the same file
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
author=7Soul
Haven't tried but SVN could work. It's like dropbox but it merges files and deals with conflicts on its own. So if one person edits one item and another person edits another, both people will have the latest changes

It wouldn't work 100% since RPGMaker encrypts the project's files, but it would still work if people aren't working on the same file

It could work if people were experienced with using version control systems so they don't get overly confused. Dropbox is newbie friendly and it works effectively as a version control system with albeit limited functionality but probably enough power to do whatever you need it to do for your RPG Maker team project.

RPG Maker only encrypts a project's files when you package it as an encrypted project. Otherwise, as far as I know, all resources are unencrypted.
author=CashmereCat
RPG Maker only encrypts a project's files when you package it as an encrypted project. Otherwise, as far as I know, all resources are unencrypted.

Yeah, it doesn't encrypt them; it just saves them in a binary format that would make SVN (or any other version control system) puke all over itself if it had to perform a merge.
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

Even if RPG maker encrypted the files, without an option, there's nothing to stop you from zipping all the files?
Maybe "encrypt" isn't the right word, but it fills all the data files with unreadable nonsense, which you see if you open the data files in a text program
author=Infinite
I've never worked in a team, but I've considered teammates could split switches, variables, common events, and map numbers to work with.

I get even, you get odds.
or...
I get 0-100, you get 101-200.

This way we could work without stepping on each others toes. I've never tried this, but it seems like it could work.


This is what emmych and I ended up doing in our last project, and yeah it worked out pretty well. However I only think it worked out because we were making a small game on a time limit, so there weren't many chances for the switch count to bloat up. I don't know how well this would work on a longer project.

The other person I work with all the time, TDS, basically handles all the code stuff and I keep my fingers out of the game file so I don't fuck it up. It usually works out.....but if something goes wrong it's usually my fault ah-hahahaha

Basically I echo what other people have said about Dropbox. It's what I use and it works out. Usually just means telling people "I'm going to be doing X for Y amount of time, can you stay out of the main project for a bit?" and like LockeZ mentioned, there's usually enough division of labor that I don't worry too much about overlap.
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