Builders Team and HB

[rorax]

Just wondering...

Currently, building done on server basis.

Usually HDM tell their own server builders and DMs crew what need to be done and that's how things get done.


How about creating global builders team that would be managed by HB(Head builder). This HB would be in regular contact with all HDMs to see what needs to be done in the different servers. He could compile a list of areas with priority , and assign the work between the different builders, alternatively - the builders could choose what areas they want to work on from the list.


HB would be a staff members, and he would get elected each 6 months? after a while, HB could be re-elected or not according to his success in changing game areas for better.

I think in all "production" servers, around 80% of the areas are beautifully built. But in every server there are bunch of areas that remained as left overs from the first stage or could really use some re-skin / re-work. I think if a dedicated team could map those areas(again, with agreement with HDMs) , ALFA could look a bit better, no?


Thoughts?

[t-ice]

The biggest potential advantage of a well-managed build effort, as I see it, is that it would hopefully manage the mess that is the classification and listing of creatures/items/areas. The trouble in finding most anything, going through dozens of categories, most of which have only 1-3 entries, is a big barrier to start DMing so that it's fun. It causes delays both when preparing and when you need something unexpected in the middle. Or then you just forget about it and use zspawn. The trouble is totally unnecessary - had the thing been built for its use in the first place.

As another example, the Exodus module when I started DMing there years ago had virtually every creature and item jin ust one category "Exodus". While this is not optimal, either, it was a lot more useable in the end: having an alphabetic list of everything in a huge bucket allows you to find what you need. Having 30 categories to go through, if you really don't have a well-defined way to say where it must be if it exists, is awful by comparison. And for God's sake could we pelase get rid of overlapping categories. Like 5 different "undead", one generic and 3 more for each server.

As they are, the DM Creator and Chooser are a prime example of the mess that comes from conflicting and overlapping categorization schemes. At least on MS they are. Likely it's a result of a build effort with a constantly changing team and building standards. Perhaps it's also a side effect of builders who are not DMs themselves, who don't see how these things are actually used. Perhaps a "HB" could help with it. Keeping books and categories on stuff is certainly not a glamorous task, and it's tedious as heck. But one can hope someone would do it...

[Swift]

One con would be that building is often very much a labor of love to get the areas just right. Having a team that suddenly has to build whether they want to or not would be damaging for morale.

Additionally, how would you prioritize which server gets areas built and when?

[rorax]

One con would be that building is often very much a labor of love to get the areas just right. Having a team that suddenly has to build whether they want to or not would be damaging for morale.

Yes, true - part of the fun in building is that you are "free" to build what you want.

That's why i offered the option that the builders would be able to choose what they want to build from the list the HB will create.

Additionally, how would you prioritize which server gets areas built and when?

That would be his job and he'll be in contact with the HDMs. Currently, i think that BG is in the best shape(just personal opinion), so i guess efforts should be made in MS and TSM. Again, HB would take into account factors like improving existing areas, building new areas, and overall benefit for the players and the community. Of course building roads , forests and dungeons that players would often visit would be prioritized over a remote area that just need re-skinning.

[t-ice]

One con would be that building is often very much a labor of love to get the areas just right. Having a team that suddenly has to build whether they want to or not would be damaging for morale.

True dat. Which is also why I sorta imagined HB being more in charge of how to organize and label the builds, than to order around people to build this and that. Though a list of suggestions can't hurt, presumably the builders want also to build areas that will be used by DMs to shape exciting stories in and about. As much as the DMs want to get builds for their plots.

[Castano]

I nominate rorax and t-ice for this. Anyone is welcome to step up and get this going. We don't need an election etc., just get together with DMA and TA and volunteer.

What we really need is a builder's toolbox, not tons of redos of areas:

1) a standard pallete of organized items that are priced right and legal
2) a standard pallete of monsters and NPCs (and groups for random spawning!!!!)
3) a standard pallete of placeables
4) a standard set of editable conversations for shops
5) a standard set of statics with simple setup instructions
6) a standard set of scripted systems (TA to decide) that should be deployed across all servers (right now we have goals - e.g. a server must have p-storage, but we won't tell you how to make the p-storage - find us in IRC!) I would recommend each server have the tailor, consumable crafting, phat lewt, random NPC spawners. By scripted systems I mean more than the script - many can't read code, and the remarks are far from adequate to actually put in a system for some of us. I mean a set of stock waypoints it needs, triggers it needs, etc. with instructions to modify the tags etc.)

These would let us get a build off the ground fast, because we could focus on terrain.

I don't care what organization scheme you pick, but it should flow across all servers.

What happened initally with ALFA is we did not realize subfolders do not show in the DM Creator. ALFA's items were actually organized by type and you can see this in the toolst. I dislike the idea of one big item list, it will ruin the client GUI with such a long list.

Now that we have the tailor we shoudl kill alot of the color options for items. We only need like one of each item.

I spent hours re-categorizing all the items, price checking etc. on MS so people could find items more easily.

Server specific named items/monsters etc. that you make for your own server's use can go into a special folder like 009 Monsters etc.

What we do not need are comments about "ugly" areas needing to be redone. Go build your own servers - ALFA's server competition for members will make HDMs fix stuff on their own. besides, everyone here thinks they are some master artiste capable of rebuilding existing stuff to their vision, most of us/you are not. Half of our builders cannot use perspective correctly, others make crappy areas, I could go on....many are learning and that is good, they should learn on new content, not redoing whatever it is they hate by making it worse.

Some people complain about area looks because they have turned down their graphics settings. If you have turned off grasses etc. go play someplace else, our servers will look sucky to you because you elected to remove content. I designed MS to run off an nVidia GeForce 7300 GS, which is far from a top of the line card, so get one of these off amazon, or ebay.

[t-ice]

I spent hours re-categorizing all the items, price checking etc. on MS so people could find items more easily.

My intent wasn't to piss down on efforts that have been done. We all know there would be zero DMage if there wasn't a server to begin with, and nothing is perfect. It's a nice playground we have, and a crapton of effort and love has been placed into it. I know a lot of stuff that has been built under a different assumptions and it's impossible to re-label them from scratch. It's like this:
http://xkcd.com/927/

But the point remains that I think the ideal would be no more than about a dozen categories of "generic" stuff, plus a for-personal-use bucket for each DM and/or builder.

But yeah, I'm just crowing on the fence here, I do not have the time to seriously build anymore

[maxcell]

This is something that popped into my head the other day as well. The servers all look great, but the idea of a group of builders (contractors) who could be brought in to build new areas, update existing areas etc would take a huge load off of the HDM's mind.

It would not be a forced thing, yet a request from the HDM to the HB and team. Details can be worked out between them.

Requests and suggestions for areas can be funneled through the BT (building team) for a server to the HDM rather than them being barraged with such requests.

The team should be independent so not affiliated with any one server.

and so on. I have seen many wonderfully built areas right now on all 3 servers that just need some aesthetic love to really bring them to life (grasses, shrubs, trees, weeds, random rocks and all the little details that weigh a builder down after getting an area built)

The team could have specialists - items, areas, buildings, placeables, and so on.

anyhow, I love the idea, thanks for posting it.

[I-KP]

I might have the time to start (re)building again fairly soon. I don't have the time (nor the inclination if I'm honest) to get into scripting but I do have an eye for what looks good so tend to stick to just building the visible parts of an area and leave the NPC / store / scripting stuff to others. For example, on Exodus I built areas and Trid would sort out all of the scripty bits - that was a very amicable, not to mention productive, relationship. (I did do some stuff here for Wynna who then completed the scripty bits.) If similar partnerships could exist in ALFA today I'd feel less daunted about firing up the toilset once again, and if the idea of a pan-ALFA build team gets off the ground it would probably make such collaborations easier.

[Adanu]

TSM could definitely welcome the help, especially the travel system. I hate traveling on TSM because the map it uses is so buggy and prone to throwing you across the world that it's just ridiculous.

Yes, I realize that's more a scripting problem, but making new sections to travel in is building.

[Brokenbone]

Every server I believe has a builders forum where volunteers are welcome.

Vague "boy we could use some more builders", or "someone" really ought to do something for me posts... GO FOR IT!

I know some of the people above have done just that, building dungeons, live DMing, contributing in all sorts of ways, so it's not an indictment of thread participants. Just saying "I wish volunteers would do X" is a tough sell. Volunteer yourself, do (or really, offer to do for an HDM) something you think is within your interest area and skills, it's cool to see your new stuff in game, whether it's on store shelves, or NPCs wandering past, or some site of interest that you've always figured should've been represented in City XYZ, etc.

[Zelknolf]

We do already have people to manage these efforts. If you (or anyone, really) are interested in heading up some building efforts for core content (i.e. bringing the standard item palette in line with ALFA's pricing and item property standards; bringing creatures on the standard palette to ACR compatibility and dragging their stats in line with the SRD), shoot me a PM. We'll get you started.

If you're keen on building specific areas, it's very easy to just be a "builder" who fulfills DM requests and ships areas off to the HDMs. It's usually very purpose-driven (that is, people identify areas in which they would like to play or DM and build them), but if you've got the vigor and umph to assemble a team to hop on board, gather said team, shoot PMs to Paazin, Castano, Curmudgeon, Teric, Dorn, and maybe Javajutsu. And maybe Heero. I'm sure I'm missing a potential server.

Anyhow, yeah, if the people to provide this work exist, no one's going to say "No, no stop contributing your work! We don't want more game!"-- I'd bet that PMs sent would result in people willing to help and eager to see success.

[Heero]

Big thanks to the people that do all the work.

[CloudDancing]

I think what Rorax and Castano is trying to negate is the obvious difference between an area made in 2007 on a computer of that year, with a video card of that year, with a 19 inch CRT monitor which most people had in 2005, versus one made in 2012 with a video card that has the memory of the 2004 computer, a HD LCD 22 inch Widescreen, and Quad-Core processor which is also operating on state of the art high speed internet.

And the result of this is a learning curve that only becomes apparent if you travel server to server. If HDMs never see BG or MS or TSM live, they never do get that perspective about what can be done area wise (this goes for other gameworlds who's scripting and coding have brought many nice fun things.) This also resulted in a reverse learning curve with Caer Calidyrr where we made it "too good" and Castano had to do some clever walkmesh acrobatics to make it a place where characters can be without being stuttered around due to the frame rate from its visual complexity.


Sand thought/thinks like a video game designer and he published three tutorials a year ago to that effect emphasizing detail, lushness, and concentrating that into smaller areas. The richness of detail in the Cloakwood compensates for the lack of huge size and you still get the feeling you are lost in a thick living forest. It was really not untill I read his two tutorials on roads and forests I saw his artistic vision become part of my own

IF there was such a team, my vision would be for them to help Java convert Amn to Alfa-compliant and bring it on board. It is the HDM's who get to decide which areas they find need facelift and turn them over to an appropriate party (or team.)

[Rotku]

Years go, before NWN2 came out, NickD ran for Lead Admin (or Tech Admin? I can't remember) on this very platform. He envisioned that instead of six or so server teams that there would be one central build team, made up of the builders from the six projects. They'd first all work together building [Baldur's Gate], then once that is done, they'd all move onto building [Moonshae], and so on. The key problem raised was what Swift mentioned - I (a generic I) know this area's canon and layout, it's the area I love in FR, so why should I want to build that area over there?