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QUESTIONS ABOUT COLLABORATION
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callmejeed
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CloseSo I'm only just discovering this community, but myself and a couple of my friends have been talking for a while about collaborating on something, we're not entirely sure what. Webcomic has been the default answer, but I've been thinking that a game might be cool too. The thing is, two of us are very busy, and the third is very lazy unless he's very motivated, and none of us knows anything about using the engines people use to to make games here.
Personally, I've played a bit with RPGMaker on the Playstation but never really figured it out. I'm also working on a PhD, and the free time I have I don't really want to spend learning my way around an engine to make a game that, let's be honest, might never happen (not that I wouldn't still play around with a given engine). I'm more interested in acting as kind of a producer and sort of pitching in where I can, with dialog, character design, etc. The really lazy one, he's the artist, and a good one too, and the other guy is on board with the world building and plotting. Also the artist can handle a lot of the finer points of a story.
So this is where we're at, the three of us are convinced that we can create a story and a world and make that story work, but the medium still eludes us. I expect that, short of one or more of us learning to use one of the engines well, we would need at least one more person along for the ride, probably two because music and sound effects, I haven't forgotten about those.
So the question I pose to the forum then is this: How do people here go about collaborating on works? I'm going to go ahead and assume that a number of projects discussed/posted on this site have been/are being developed by teams of people (alongside all the very brave solo projects), and that some of those teams either met on this site or met elsewhere and are not based out of one person's house, or even in the same state, or country (I myself am in Russia right now, my friends are in Michigan). How do people make it work? How do teams form?
Hopefully I can glean some pointers from this thread, but maybe it'll help some other people as well. And if this has already been covered or would fit better in a different forum, let me know! Thanks in advance!
Personally, I've played a bit with RPGMaker on the Playstation but never really figured it out. I'm also working on a PhD, and the free time I have I don't really want to spend learning my way around an engine to make a game that, let's be honest, might never happen (not that I wouldn't still play around with a given engine). I'm more interested in acting as kind of a producer and sort of pitching in where I can, with dialog, character design, etc. The really lazy one, he's the artist, and a good one too, and the other guy is on board with the world building and plotting. Also the artist can handle a lot of the finer points of a story.
So this is where we're at, the three of us are convinced that we can create a story and a world and make that story work, but the medium still eludes us. I expect that, short of one or more of us learning to use one of the engines well, we would need at least one more person along for the ride, probably two because music and sound effects, I haven't forgotten about those.
So the question I pose to the forum then is this: How do people here go about collaborating on works? I'm going to go ahead and assume that a number of projects discussed/posted on this site have been/are being developed by teams of people (alongside all the very brave solo projects), and that some of those teams either met on this site or met elsewhere and are not based out of one person's house, or even in the same state, or country (I myself am in Russia right now, my friends are in Michigan). How do people make it work? How do teams form?
Hopefully I can glean some pointers from this thread, but maybe it'll help some other people as well. And if this has already been covered or would fit better in a different forum, let me know! Thanks in advance!
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
Very few games are team projects. If you want a successful one, you need to make sure all people on the team (including yourself) have finished a full-length solo game. If someone can finish a solo game and still want to keep going, they're in game design for the long haul. Otherwise, there's about a 99% chance that they'll get demotivated and drop out.
Basically, your team is going to do one of two things. Either all but one person will decide that game design is a chore and drop out, and the one person will finish it on his own three years later, or everyone will drop out and the game will be totally and permanently abandoned. Sadly, there's not a third option.
Basically, your team is going to do one of two things. Either all but one person will decide that game design is a chore and drop out, and the one person will finish it on his own three years later, or everyone will drop out and the game will be totally and permanently abandoned. Sadly, there's not a third option.
This is not something I had considered, and to be honest, it's pretty bleak. I mean you're probably right, in fact chances are that we wouldn't even get to the point where we were ready to start such a project, but I wonder if it's still possible. I mean I've always wanted to make a game along the lines of what RPGMaker, but I've never had the motivation to go it alone (or the resources, just this site alone makes that a much easier task), and now I'm not sure I have the motivation to use what time I have to get something like that done.
I wonder too though if the tendency for a team to fall apart is reversly proportional to the number of n00bs on said team, so if for example I teamed up with other people who have done solo projects, are the chances better than if it's three n00bs and somebody who knows what their doing?
It just strikes me as weird how rare team projects apparently are, I think part of the reason I never finished anything like this was because I couldn't quite conceive of it as a solo project.
I wonder too though if the tendency for a team to fall apart is reversly proportional to the number of n00bs on said team, so if for example I teamed up with other people who have done solo projects, are the chances better than if it's three n00bs and somebody who knows what their doing?
It just strikes me as weird how rare team projects apparently are, I think part of the reason I never finished anything like this was because I couldn't quite conceive of it as a solo project.
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
Well, if you assign your team duties in such a way that if one person drops out, the project can no longer be finished, then adding more people to the team increases the chance of failure. When teams assign one person to graphics, one to scripting, one to combat and game balance, etc., this is often what happens. If any of those people quit, it's difficult or impossible for the rest of the team to pick up the pieces and keep going.
However, if you assign your team duties in such a way that the project can still be finished unless everyone quits, then adding more people to the team increases the chance of success. To do this, you would basically need to get everyone doing everything together. You all work together and talk amongst each-other on each aspect of the game. This is a counterintuitive way of handling a team, as it isn't how professional teams work and it doesn't result in nearly as much of a reduction in work per person. But because you all are involved in every step of the decision-making process, if (when) someone quits, you know what they were doing and why and know how to do it yourself and can keep the game going. If you already have a team and plan on making a game, this is how I'd recommend doing it.
Also, remember that everyone wants to be the ideas guy. If you let them all help collaborate on the story and the ideas, they'll stay a lot more motivated.
However, if you assign your team duties in such a way that the project can still be finished unless everyone quits, then adding more people to the team increases the chance of success. To do this, you would basically need to get everyone doing everything together. You all work together and talk amongst each-other on each aspect of the game. This is a counterintuitive way of handling a team, as it isn't how professional teams work and it doesn't result in nearly as much of a reduction in work per person. But because you all are involved in every step of the decision-making process, if (when) someone quits, you know what they were doing and why and know how to do it yourself and can keep the game going. If you already have a team and plan on making a game, this is how I'd recommend doing it.
Also, remember that everyone wants to be the ideas guy. If you let them all help collaborate on the story and the ideas, they'll stay a lot more motivated.
Some good points, thanks. The team that I have so far (which is by no means really a team yet, mind you) would all be idea people, it would be a joint effort, although I would leave much of the visual design to the artist, for example. But that is because he can draw, and the rest of us cannot. The real problem I see would be the programming itself, in that none of us have any experience with these engines and would need to learn them to be able to pitch in/take over.
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