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FREE H0T NEKK1D G1RLZ HERE! Displaying 1-13 of 13 total.
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mcgrue
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Got your attention. Cheap, yes. Effective... well, you're reading this!
I responded to a thread further down no the board. As I wasted a good twenty minutes on a response, I figured I wanted as many people to see it as possible, because it's important.
The question asked, in short, was "Do all VERGE games need more than one person to be made?"
(My reply starts here)
It depends. If this is starting a chain of thought like 'Where can I get people to work with me, too', you should really consider where you need more people right now, tho.
Small teams, ideally one person, are easier to manage. The more people you have, the more communication you need to keep everyone productive. The larger the group, the more morale will play a part in getting work done. Apathy will set in with a large project that is being managed poorly. Trust me on this. I've seen it on my own project, and others... (SotS, Revelations, Fantasy Realms... Years in the making, and dubious amounts of work done on each in the public's eye ;).
You must be careful when dealing with groups of people, especially when all of the work they do is pro bono (for free). Everyone has their own lives, and is working on the project as a hobby. Not much time a week can be devoted to this, unless they're a high school student(VERGE's traditional user base, and sadly not me anymore...), or a hermit(like sharkey ;). Making a game takes a significant amount of man-hours, and progress will most likly be slow.
Another fatal error in VERGE-team management is lack of morale in the team. This is your biggest killer, actually. If your team members aren't excited about the project, it'll die a slow death. This is remedied by keeping everyone involved in the design process. If you have programmers and artists and musicians, let them all see each other's work on a regular basis! Continually update your game, and keep them pumped. Once you lose steam, inertia will make it hard as hell to get rolling again! It's possible to do, but it's much easier, and *much* more productive to never let it slip in the first place.
Finally, only ask people to join that you really need. Initially you'll think that getting more people on board will make it go inherantly faster, and you'll need to do less work. This is wholly untrue. If everyone starts doing less because there are more people, then the point of bringing more people in is defeated. Small teams tend to work more efficiently, because there's less obfuscation in the communication lines.
The *real* reason to ever bring a new person on board is to cover a skill set you don't currently possess. If you suck at art, get an artist. If you can't code worth shit, get a coder. However, don't immediatly say "wah, I need an artist/coder/musician, because I cannot draw/code/rock!" Freakin' *try* to draw tiles or learn vergeC before crying. Nobody will want to help you if you haven't released anything yet. At least, nobody sane or useful.
So, in summary:
1) keep your team as small as possible, to maximize efficiency and managability.
2) talk to them regularly (email each other compulsivly, using a client program like eudora instead of hotmail, so it stays open and checks mail every 5 minutes or so, and tells you when something new's up. This will distract you less than IRC, which destroys productivity.)
3) Do work and show everyone! This keeps people motivated! Nothing gets people to want to work more than visible progress!
4) Don't be a whiney bitch. No 'project leader' will really get anywhere bossing everyone around and doing shit. That works in the Real World, because full-time managers are good things for getting teams to work. Unfortunatly, this is a largly free/shareware community, so nobody gets money. This means, unless you have all incredibly intelligent, rational, and subservient team members (hint: you don't), They are going to want you to carry your weight. And rightly so. You need to be shouldering development work *on top of* keeping everyone together and moving forward.
It's daunting. And frankly, so far it hasn't produced anything yet tangible in the community. Face it: Zara works largly alone, and he's the only one in 4 years to finish a full-length game.
A few more hints. Spend more time working on your game than talking about it to 'the public'. Talk about it a lot with your team, and shut up to 'the community'. Yeah, it's fun to boast and brag, but that gets you nowhere. Sure, release a game or two, put up a small website, but don't devote massive amounts of time to a fancy-pants super-mega-flash-enabled website-o-rama. All smoke and mirrors a good game not make. If there's a big, pretty website for a game that's 'coming soon', realize that there's no actual proof of work on the game, and only proof of work on the site. Not a good sign.
It's better to be ugly and have a game nearly done, than to have a prtty page proclaiming how wonderful your vaporware will be.
Ahem.
All that said... Anyone here a good manga-style artist who is willing to draw about 400 sketches for me to convert to colored sprites, and miscellanious speech portraits? ;D
-Grue
Sometimes, Ocham's Razor needs to be more like a scimitar...
Posted on 2001-03-01 04:21:15
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BladeDragon
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I can't believe the cheap, lousy gimmik that was?! I wasted a whole 5 seconds of my life clicking on that post thinking I'd find me some 19 year old supermodel girl who's making games too. Then of course, I'd ask her to model as Solera Lightwing for my game, seduce her with hours of charm and remembering to slip in that I was a senior year homecoming king, and then, if all else fails, plead that I have no life and am worth dating on a sympathy basis. But, since there's no hot, nekkid, supermodel.....
On the subject of the team formation, I'll be quite honest... I'm a one-man team. As of yet, I've only released 1 demo that was alphad by one guy in the Verge Community, who said it was awesome, and needed touch-ups here and there, and I never got around to doing the battle system, so it remained a secret. Truthfully, music isn't worth any of us devoting the time to, in my honest opinion. I have written 2 songs to be placed in my game, 1 as the theme, and another as Solera's monologue, and another (potentially), as a song for the revelation and near final battle. I think what I'm trying to say is, all of us developing a game has BIG ideas for our games to turn into the next Final Fantasy, and Squaresoft will drool at our masterpiece. I personally am in College to get the degree to let me make games for a living, so mine is a nightly endeavor to work on it... So though I too, would love Square to drool at my game, hire me, and let me lead a team, I can't say it's in the near horizon for me. This is a slightly disheartening concept I'm portraying, I know, but I also have to emphasize that, Verge really can't be more than a person's hobby. I am going on month 9 myself now of working on Trebezia, redoing everything from the ground up graphic-wise, sound-wise, story-wise, and revamping my now 6 year project game, but try as I may, I have this nagging feeling that doing it in Verge may be a sort of waste of time when you look at what is expected of games now graphically. The other thing is, think about the fact that this game we all work on for hobby, for fun, and ideally to get ourselves known (I think. ;p Broad assumption, so forgive me if I'm wrong in this.) takes an IMMENSE amount of time. My game has an ideal sit-down-time of 200+ hours, and I've got the textbooks filled with ideas, story summaries, character sideplots, etc. to probably do it. Anyway, this bring's me to my point, the time devotion it takes to complete a Verge game of a Squaresoft-esque quality (as all of our ideas are geared towards, the 40 so odd games and demos I've played of this community all having a great story and effort placed inside of them)is going to lead to heartache when the game is finished, and the forum for gaming is so far from our completed products. I think there is so much talent in this community, it's slightly sad that no one is buying the talents here up. Vecna probably is a lost diety due to this same fact, all of his time and devotion, which has been the pinacle of most of our lives (mine anyway. ;p) will look great on a resume to get himself instated in the field of his choice, but doesn't provide the graphic and engine capabilities to really compete in the modern market.
Anyways, I know that's a compilation of several different thoughts, but you can skip to this part of it if I lost ya long the ways to find my true point based on Grue's post. ;p
I don't see the point in putting together a group in which nothing can be offered to a member except deep gratitude, if the finished product does not yield anything but the same from a group of friends, or online community. An artist of calibur, note, and worth, should be creating galleries, portfolios, and entering contests and applying for work with their skills, rather then design a dragon for my game. I'm the kind of guy who'd hate to see someone work on my game and not be able to give something to them, some promise that the final project is going to yield so much cash, he can have 60 percent and I'll take 5. I think my honest recommendation is that, you have to truly have this be your hobby, and have it be nothing but pure fun and enjoyment to consider grouping, so that you do not mind if the other persons end up dropping out, or quits from boredom, or desires there're other things more worthwhile to do.
Heh, bet you didn't think I could do a summation of the summary's summary, did ya? Well, surprise surprise..... ;p Form a group if you are truly doing this for mere fun, if you're doing this as a professional demo, you'll tend to get too pissed at group members if they slack off, which leads to problems.
Posted on 2001-03-01 05:25:05
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evilbob
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'completed game' seems to be a loose term when talking about verge2 games. I think it means it has to take at least an hour to beat. either that or it can only have the word 'zeux' in the title. Personally, I'd consider a complete game one that has been completed, and needs no more work. It's a wrap. hell, I made a complete v2 game over a weekend contest. it wasn't a good one, but it was complete. I've seen a few puzzle and card games that aren't just demos too, and they weren't half bad. yet, people don't like to give them credit when they talk about vergers' work ethic.
that's one of the big problems. most of these people want to make a good game, but they want to be noticed, and they want to be appreciated. this is what spawns the webpages-for-the-never-to-be-completed-games, and it's what makes half the people shoot so far over their heads that they can't possibly finish. the fact that they -are- high school kids, and haven't developed their skills quite a far as they'd like to have yet for the most part, doesn't help much.
there are more things that are pretty detrimental to the life expectancy of a verge project. unlike a professional or hopeful/startup developer team, a verge team doesn't have a deadline to work towards, there's less organization, and less motivation to get it done. when verge teams hit a slump, there's a lot of temptation to just give up. why? why not? it's just for fun anyway. we're not going to be published or anything, and this isn't going to launch our career.
other developers though have those things to look forward to, even if it's blind faith in a pipe dream.
verge-rpg. it's not just a job, it's an enema.
Posted on 2001-03-01 19:30:12
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rpgking
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Poor communication/motivation is what caused the collapse of the team me and Animeman were in(Animesoft). But after working solo for a while now, I've gotten a lot more work done on a new game I'm making than the one I was working on when I had a team.
My theory is that unless you have direct(as in face-to-face) contact with your team members, it's close to impossible to get anything done. If you look at game companies like Squaresoft, when they worked on FF6 in the past(the best comparison to a V2-quality game), they probably had their entire staff working in the same building. How can a team of 3 or 4 people, who only communicate through the internet(and who are separated by long physical distances), possibly be able to work as efficiently as a professional "team"?
-rpgking
Out of clutter, find simplicity.
-Einstein
Posted on 2001-03-02 02:54:22
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rpgking
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Why was it created if the developers didn't make money off of it? Why finish a GCE that's only gonna spawn more freeware games, the majority of them being unfinished demos? I myself haven't found a good answer to this question(or an answer to the questions you asked)...
-rpgking
Out of clutter, find simplicity.
-Einstein
Posted on 2001-03-02 02:59:18
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Fantasy_Edge
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Heh heh. yes, you are right about teams that work for free. and yes, visual documentation is always a perk but sometimes that isnt enough to sway lazey people. I have attempted to assemble a team for several projects on gamedev.net and just recently, a verge team. lets just say that the response was less than encouraging.so, in this case i will do some advertizing. lol ALL SOULS VIEW MY CRAPPY ART AT MY HOME PAGE!!!
oh, incidently, i might be willing to work with you but 400 sketches... come on, be a little more realistic. unless of coarse you were talking about the animation frames. then again. there are probably about that many no my web site...
Conshape millennium: the fantasy edge
Posted on 2001-03-02 11:59:51
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evilbob
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they can't work as efficiently, but it's a long stretch to conclude that it's close to impossible for a non-location-based developer to ever get anything done. it always boils down to the same thing -- the team members, their mentality, and how well they're organized.
verge-rpg. it's not just a job, it's an enema.
Posted on 2001-03-02 13:33:19
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evilbob
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er, I didn't really ask any questions, I quoted questions that would plague a verge team if they were tempted to just quit. a lot of people can't keep up that kind of blind optimism.
verge-rpg. it's not just a job, it's an enema.
Posted on 2001-03-02 13:40:31
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mcgrue
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well, verge 2 isn't really 'finished', but it's getting there ;)
Sometimes, Ocham's Razor needs to be more like a scimitar...
Posted on 2001-03-03 20:12:04
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mcgrue
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No. This'd be ~400 manga cels. SotS is supposed to have still frames of manga like Phantasy Star 4 did to aid the plot points. The sketches just need to be things that I'd use as templates as I convert it to a fully colored low-res cel. It's mainly for size/positioning/expression that I need an artist. And for consistancy in style.
I've gone through about 6 now. Nobody's been able to go the distance there yet. It's the biggest stumbling block, really.
Sometimes, Ocham's Razor needs to be more like a scimitar...
Posted on 2001-03-03 20:16:02
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Devon
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VERGE was created so that people who might never otherwise get the chance could try their hand at Console RPG design. It was never meant to be sold, nor anything created with it, though the Dev Team did say that if someone ever made a truely awsome game that had commercial potential, they would discuss fair terms. That was quite a while ago, though, and at this point in time, VERGE technologically has a very hard time keeping up.
-Devon
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Square's making money.
We're making art.
Posted on 2001-03-03 21:35:20
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Devon
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Damn board ate my post, so I wrote it again, and accidentally hit CTRL+R. ARRGHH! Here's version three...
Granted no one is going to be impressed with VERGE's graphics these days, but if you're looking for someone to hire you based on graphics alone, you're looking for the wrong company. A good game company would value the gameplay above all else. Graphics can always be added later.
If you're ever seen/played Master of Orion, it started out as a graphically puny game called Star Lords that was pitched to Microprose, who elected to publish it following a graphical overhaul to bring it up to commercial standards. And try Sid Meier's games. I don't think that guy could ever be accused of being on the cutting edge of graphics. Hell, Alpha Centauri looked two years dated when it came out, but it sells, as all his games have, because they are GAMEs, not just graphics which become dated rapidly. This is also why Blizzard sets sales records.
Make your game. Show it to people. Find someone who is willing to help you turn the game into something commercially viable. You aren't pitching an idea, you're pitching a finished product that just needs to be made to look pretty. That counts for alot.
-Devon
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Square's making money.
We're making art.
Posted on 2001-03-03 22:08:31
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Devon
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This is something Sid has always said, "If it aren't fun, it aren't done."
Take a look at every game that has the top of the line graphics. The game probably sucks unless it's a 3D shooter. Take a look at all the real Gaming Gods and very few you'll find have had games with top graphics(Deus Ex and Black & White are the only really great looking games by Gaming Gods, not called iD, that I can think of that have top graphics that have come out resently) and yet all their games sell. Must not be the graphics then.
Hell, check out Dragon Quest 7. It doesn't have any where near the top graphics yet every company fears this series.
My bro mentioned Master of Orion. Also Laser Squard. That game was very bad looking but was turned into the classic X-Com.
Graphics are only important if your selling to graphics junkies who don't understand what gameplay is and I personally am not selling to those kind of people. And those kind of games are forgotten quickly by real gaming fans.
Being able to show a finished game to a company is FAR better then showing them a bunch of notes. So is Verge a waste of time? Nope. It gives people a chance to work on their skills (Be it programming, writing, art, or design) and to design things to show off that aren't hogged down with graphics.
Oh yeah, about teams. I've found it to be very easy to put together a team. Then again they all owe me for saving their butts in Ultima Online. ;)
-Leon, future Gaming God.
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Square's making money.
We're making art.
Posted on 2001-03-05 09:38:51
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