What do you all think about pulling together a small group to evaluate which team is closest to having something for release and then pulling all of our remaining members together to get that project released?
Then moving on to another team, and getting that project released?
If all the other teams are as short on active members as the Akavir team is, this may be the only way for any of our teams to actually get content released.
Although I don't really belong to any team I must admit I find this a pretty clever and plausible solution TBH.
This is something I have been thinking about as well. Working for several teams as I do, there does seem to be a manpower shortage. This is both a good and bad thing, because the people who are left are very committed, but it does slow the rate of overall progress...
I guess I was just waiting for somebody who's a project leader to post about this.
What criteria would we use to decide, though?
I guess it would have to be on the basis of the amount of custom content created and the total size of the area being modded, as well as the amount that's actually been completed.
Edit:
Based on these criteria, the projects which are closest to releasing something appear to be (highest first):
Valenwood (the Abacean Islands have everything done except quests)
Skyrim's First Beta (needs only dungeons, AI and quests)
Akavir (island mod has almost all the required meshes, etc. just needs placing in the CS and quests)
Black Marsh (about halfway in terms of assets and areas done towards the first beta, 1/3 of the total landmass)
I'm afraid I don't know where Elseweyr is at right now, though they already released one beta and I don't know how far off the next one is. Anyone know more about this?
Elsweyr is almost ready for release. Having issues writing the installer. maybe i should give up on it and release without one. Sorry for my inactivity its been very busy in RL
I think that all the project leaders should put up a checklist here of all the things that are left to do before they are ready to release.
That way, this thread becomes a one-stop shop for finding out the status of all the projects.
i think this is a stupid idea based on a good concept. it is good that you realize that there are not enough people to finish off 9 large landmasses, there have never been, and i have been saying that some sort of limit is necessary for 2 years now. it is also smart that you realize that you must pool your resources and complete things.
where it is not smart is this whole notion of competition and of judging how close things are to completion. what is close to release? one team might want to release an area that is entirely new and a quad in size, another team might want to do a 10 cell island using retextured materials. which one is more important? furthermore, do you poses the skills necessary to complete these projects (AI makers, questers, what ever is needed).
lets take the provinces Deeza posted.
Valenwood - afair, the files necessary for release are in the hands of one semi-active person. the island can technically be released without quests. the island is a standalone teaser mod, its completion will not further the main valenwood landmass. very little activity in the team.
Skyrim - not very familiar with this one. afaik, there resources are likewise in the hands of one-two inactive people. the team has next to no activity from what i can see, and the beta is months overdue with no progress. its completion would however finish part of skyrim.
Akavir - from what i can tell most areas are not yet completed. the team is more active than the others though
Blackmarsh - halfway progress is pretty good i guess. the team is also rather active. i dont pay too much attention but im not sure how organized the beta plan is atm.
narrowing down what needs to be done and what can be done is a must. only after everyone knows what is on the agenda can efficient work start to happen. if there is no clear list of priorities people will end up working on things that are not needed, wasting hours of time.
what needs to be considered is the possibility of releasing all the work of some projects (complete or not) and archiving them. if not enough progress is made having it gather dust doest not help it. if there is only 1-2 people working on a mod they dont need a forum. there are soooo many landscape projects out there, as sad as it is to loose a project it would be better not to confuse potential modders with its existence.
Quote:Originally posted by Senten
And as soon we release. our Summerset Isles Project First public Alpha.
Ysne,do you wanna a cooperation team with us?
We are the Summerset Isles Team. =)
We are active,and as I say,we as soon release our Alpha.
If you guys help for us,then we at your service I'm sure.
Ysne,what do you think?
I am wondering if we can start getting things released if the different projects work together on one, get it released, move on to the next, get it released and so on. Senten your proposal does fit in that question that I have.
Lady N-- "narrowing down what needs to be done and what can be done is a must. only after everyone knows what is on the agenda can efficient work start to happen. if there is no clear list of priorities people will end up working on things that are not needed, wasting hours of time."
This is a very common sense thing to keep in mind while we decide whether we want to do this and how best to go about it.
Akavir is kind of just hanging in mid air right now. I'm trying to trouble shoot how to make more progress. We need more people.
I have the sense that there are other projects that are closer to releasing something than we are. This is why I'm not setting any priority on what gets done first.
The key here is the oblivion community looks like it is starting to slow down and lose interest. If we want to see our projects succeed, we need to start getting mods released that people can use. Fallout 3 does look like a huge success by the way.
I am more than happy to post this as a suggestion to my team once we have something more specific to propose. Although most of them are also on other projects and will already have read this. I think we all want to see our works released. This may be a way to get that done.
slowing down? hardly. there is still tons of stuff in development, and thats part of the problem. the number of potential modders is quite small. divided by the number of comparable mod teams (that is large landscape mods) and you result a with a very small number of workers per team. its not a precise science, but if there are less projects taunting people to join and never delivering any releases there will be more team members per project, which in turn makes success more likely.
Forgive me, Lady N, I'm afraid I don't quite follow your argument.
So if I'm right, you're proposing we shut down all the projects except for one, and work to complete that (or at least get it to a stage where an area of it is finished, and/or releaseable), so as to stop all of the work getting diffused into multiple projects?
I like Ysne's proposal to get one finished, then move onto the next, and so on...
no, i propose you think hard about which projects are making, and will continue to make, progress. keep as many as you think will release anything, archive those that will not.