LCP3 - Leadwerks Community Project

[beo6]

Hello everyone.

First I want to apologize that the Leadwerks Community Project didn't really worked the way I hoped it would.

 

Most part of it is surely my mistake.

 

I wanted to keep the development as open as possible. That resulted in me trying to put a open source like approach on it.

 

That went so far in trying to have all the details defined by votes and forum discussions.

 

That combined with the lack of a proper forum software that sends emails if someone answered to a thread or having a proper voting in the forum ended in a really low participation.

 

I am sure some members would like to continue but when I tried to turn the rudder to safe the project it was mostly already too late and a bad choice of time (and a mistake from me with the different time zones)

 

As everyone can see a lot went wrong, but I would like to try not letting it die completely which is why I post this now here.

For the meeting only one member so far has responded but that is just not enough.

 

If someone is still interested in the project please message me or post here.

 

The plans are as following:

1. Have a meeting in a chat with as many members as possible to get all the details of the project together. I have done a mindmap for a start with all the decisions so far and questions I think are important to discuss.

 

2. Define more detailed on which part everybody will work on.

 

3. Possibly repeat a meeting when a specific goal was reached.

 

 

To make a fresh start I think I will need to delete every user from redmine who does no longer respond or don't want to participate anymore. If he has created something for the project I would love to keep it, otherwise that part will be removed.

 

If there is anything else what I should optimize I am open for suggestions.

[gamecreator]

I watched the forums on this for a while and I saw some promising concepts and even models being worked on (I liked Guppy's especially). Were there any dedicated coders? Was there ever an executable even with placeholder models? If so, I'd suggest maybe uploading it here even if you just want to close the project.

[beo6]

Hello gamecreator,

 

i agree there where some really good concepts and even models being worked on.

 

we had some coders and i was already coding some things for it like the camera script.

Agreed that i was not working on the enemies AI yet.

 

There is not much to show as we only had a demo map with some scripts being used.

 

Not sure why it seems like there is really not a tiny bit of interest anymore.

[Thirsty Panther]

@Beo6,

I think the project lost it momentum just before you organised the online get together. The time zone confusion for the meeting blunted any forward movement. Nothing seemed to happen and no one knew what to do or what to add to the project.

 

I know you have put a lot of time into getting this project going. Setting up file storage and updates and the like. But trying to get a concensis of ideas has proved problematic. Everyones input and ideas seems to end up in many different directions that the project should go. I understand that polls on the website are difficult but it is convinient for users to make their ideas known. Especially as we have users scattered across the globe. It worked well for the initial start of the project. So Maybe go back to this system.

 

I'm still keen to participate.

 

 

[CreativeOcclusion]

I managed a community project a long time ago in Blitz3D...I started with a basic level...with player and collision and the basics for the game...

When participants see this, ideas start to flow to add to the game...trying to start just with ideas can cause a failure...

Everyone's input and ideas seems to end up in many different directions that the project should go

...Like Thirsty Panther said...beo6, I would recommend that you start the project and get a basic start to the game and then get ideas from the people who are interested in the game you started....I used this process back in the Blitz3D days and was successful in keeping people working on the project for over a year...The game was not finished, but was starting to look pretty good....

 

I'm trying to tell you what to do, just trying to help out with some life experience....

[Rick]

I'm working with Tj on a game (just 1 other person) and the biggest issue with LE is that the map can't be worked on by more than 1 person at a time (via source control). It's not text based so it can't be resolved by merging which is a pain (as far as I know). Considering that level design is a massive part of game development it really makes working in a team more difficult.

 

Because of that I think the main person running the project would be better off being a level designer (vs any other skill) who is the only person designing the game level. You can have many artist's making models and committing them to the project at the same time and many programmers making little scripts and committing them to the project at the same time, but you can only have 1 level designer working on a level at a time and that's the point where the models and the scripts come together to make the game so it makes sense that the level designer is the project originator as artists and programmers can come and go at will and it won't be the end of the project, but if a level designer leaves then really you don't have much to show of the game.

 

Doing a few polls to get the game figured out, at some level the project owner needs to be firm with decisions. Once the game idea is set you should be able to get a list of assets (art/sound/scripts) required to make the game. Make this list public and ask if anyone can do any of them. Ideally for the scripts you'd want very well defined self contained scripts that the level designer can hook up in the editor without much trouble.

 

When I lead I went to the extreme of this and didn't tell anyone who was working on what. They all had their task and that was that. I treated it very much like a contract situation. Do your task and that's it. Don't worry about the end result. Don't worry about anything but doing your task. I'd say 75% of the people did this.

 

The problem I had when running this is that I wasn't the level designer. The level designers left or weren't that interested in the project to really put some passion into the level design (which was probably too much to start with), and since I'm not a level designer I couldn't bring everything together well enough in a level.

 

So basically, I think a successful community game is people contributing to a game that a true level designer wants to make. However, level designers may not be well project organizers so they wouldn't start up a community project to start with. So ideally a project organizer starts the community project, finds a level designer and asks them what kind of game they want to make. What kind of game will keep the level designer interested for the long haul as they fill out the assets from people coming and going.

[gamecreator]

Some words of wisdom there. Though in a perfect world the project doesn't fall apart because of a level designer leaving but instead there are backups to take his or her place.

[Rick]

Some words of wisdom there. Though in a perfect world the project doesn't fall apart because of a level designer leaving but instead there are backups to take his or her place.

 

See I don't think level designers are as disposable as people making specific models or well segregated scripts. Those people can come and go at will but a level designer bringing all those assets together in a level and hooking up all the scripts is a much more broad job with a lot of responsibility. Anytime a person leaves that has a broad job with a lot of responsibility (in any career) things fall apart. This is why having a main programmer or a main artist opens yourself up for failure because now you've created 3 broad jobs with a lot of responsibility (level designer, artist, programmer).

 

People aren't getting paid to do a community project so their attention span will be very small and they will leave. If you can minimize the broad with a lot of responsibility type of jobs, then your chance for success is greater. What keeps a person on a project they aren't getting paid for and it's not THEIR idea? Nothing. That's why the 1 person who has the broad job with lots of responsibility (level designer) needs to be very dedicated to the project and how do you do that? You make it the game they want to make. Something they are passionate about and people are generally only passionate about games they want to make and not other people's games. The "passion" at a real company comes in the form of a paycheck for the majority of the people

[beo6]

thanks for all your comments. Really good stuff to think about.

 

I will probably see if i can come up with a small demo game first before i continue.

It will most likely only contain boxes or spheres

[YouGroove]

People aren't getting paid to do a community project so their attention span will be very small and they will leave. If you can minimize the broad with a lot of responsibility type of jobs, then your chance for success is greater. What keeps a person on a project they aren't getting paid for and it's not THEIR idea? Nothing.

Wise words Rick, specially because any participant will have it's own vision and ideas , and can leave any time to work in it's personnal game vision instead. I would say find good game ideas , a real project, then find some team mates and make it, it's perhaps better invested energy

 

To interest people you must bring solid concepts and lay down some basic gameplay first, it will be more attractive like Unreal Tournament for ue4. For example if you plan some Halo style game, first bring on some basic gameplay, basic AI , basic driving car and a rought level map design.

Having a playable prorotype i think will motivate lot more new comers. Then ask for participants to work on improvments :

- better AI

- follower or flying AI

- more weapons

- bridge model for the level

- alien house asset

- floor alien textures

- sky

- alien model

- rigging and basic animations for some alien

etc ...

Coming with solid map concepts drawings, solid alien drawings, game ideas drawn down on paper ... I think this is the minimum base before asking any participation. Just my two cents

[Rick]

But we are talking about a community project. I guess we have to ask what defines a community project? If a person makes a skeleton of a game and asks for certain tasks and people from the community contribute does that still make it a community project? One could argue that makes it that persons project where some people from the community contributed vs a project where the community voted on the genre and some high level decisions as well as doing tasks.

 

You have to ask yourself if you'd feel you are part of a community project if you made no decisions on it but just contributed a few piece of art (or code in my case) to some guys project. Or, would you feel you were just contributing to that persons project.

[YouGroove]

I don't know. And it's even more complicated to manage then a team project already

You have lot more chances to finish a solid team project , than a community project wich many times never leads to a complete game.

For people just toying or having fun making small code or models this is i think where a community project can be ineresting.

[Sakru]

I agree with you Rick. I did try to create a game with my friends too, and we created a big demo of "skyrim" like game based on Unreal Engine. I think we could complete a project if the guys I did work with, was more active. I did 3D modeling, programming in C++, but in the end, I have just given up. It is to the large task for one person. Then I found Leadwerks + I hate Windows, cannot even use it. So I moved from UE4 and Win to Linux.

I think as group leader you must create the "basic" game by yourself. So you don't need to worry about programming or other stuff later. YOU need to do all planning work and when you achieve what you want, you can just buy 3d models or find people who could help you. If you are not a programmer and level designer, you will fail + game arts are very important. My sister works as an architect, and she did create many levels on paper, without her I wouldn't even bother with this idea to create a game. Good luck with you game, and never give up. But don't start to plan about the new Skyrim game or Mass Effect. It is to Large project for one guy, or is this is what you want, try to start with character controller first + animations. If you are able to create a good looking game play with good animation the you can move towards the idea of creating levels. And never ever change your first plan. If you are making a simple game, make it simple. Do not try to create another Diablo, because if you fail, you will start to hate it.