19 May 14, 11:19AM
AC does need Players. It's the goal of almost all the games, but for AC it's something more than essential. Actually it is critical, because as a Totally FREE game, the Players are the main precious assets of it. You can see many of the current developers of the game used to be a player at the first place before they take the responsible in the developing team. So I'd say, More Players means more coders, more mappers, more modders, more new players, more income and to make the story short, more Players means: the faster and better expanding for AC. Here below are some of my personal ideas about bringing AC to a better level:
- It seems that AC needs an accurate schedule with the list of all TODOs for the next release and an estimated deadline for the future release according to the resources in hands. Players also has the right to know about all the new exciting stuffs which are waiting for them in the next release and absolutely how much they have to wait for it.
- It seems that AC needs to upgrade the organizational structure in its developers' area to gain more efficiency. Having a glance at the developers' team for now, we've got such a structure:
![[Image: 69858388339621961078.jpg]](http://www.uploadax.com/images/69858388339621961078.jpg)
Like the diagram above, AC team is already consisting of 10 persons, including 3 team leaders (2 coders and one website maintenance), 4 coders, 2 modders and 1 as the server hoster/maintenance. Analyzing this structure both as the matter of quality and quantity, will lead to the fact that, the developers team has really done a great job up to now for upgrading the game to the next level. Although there are also some weaknesses such as:
- Redundant connections between the groups
- Insufficient members in teams
- Missing teams
About the first and the second weaknesses, we're facing the the huge time gaps between each releases (about 4 years from v1.1 to v1.2?). Obviously there's some lack of members in the developers team, mainly the coders who have more than 70% of the all the time developers team members from the beginning to now. On the other hand we can see in the team, that a coder has several jobs beyond his main coding part such as project leading, hosting, maintenance, solving the problems in the forum, akimbo etc. It seems that the efficiency of the coders can be increased a lot by focusing more on their main job which is coding. To achieve that goal, it's needed to have some other members in the developer team who can take the part of the coders' other jobs. For example, today it seems that all the players believe anyone who is inside the developers team is responsible to answer all their questions of any kind about the game, but as a solution, the team can have one person only in each field of subject to reply the players and leave the rest of coders focus on their coding job. Or as another example, it's really good that the developers team inform people about what they do or what they have done, but it's not a coder's job to spend his time and energy to write all the development status information, obviously someone else in the team can take this job.
the "Modding" Team, is another area which that the matter of lack of members in it is very sensible. As a modder, there are some tasks in the game that none of the modders dare to get close to them to do it all alone, such as: upgrade the animation of the current playermodel, making new playermodels(which is very needed for the singleplayer campaign mode) and even adding the reload animation to the current weapons and etc. Actually any of those tasks are very time consuming individually. But if there would be team of modders all those very time consuming jobs can be done in short period with association.
Missing team (Testers): regardless of how much the bugs are really pain in ass for all the old players, it affects a lot the new comers who want to join the community. So that the "testing game" is really a delicate spot which seems it's really missing in the main team. Personally I have seen a lot when the developers are about to release a new version but they have almost nobody to test it, and finally they have to release the game without enough testing because of the pressure from the players.
On the other hand it seems that the process of testing should be something consistent and must be done during all the process development. Otherwise we can see developers face a bug that they have no idea where it has come from or it takes a lot of time to find the solution since the cause of the bug is mostly unknown.
Missing team (2D artists): Bringing a new looking to the game after each update for a software is one of the basic rules in every software developing. It doesn't only give a fresh looking the game but it also inspires to the players more feeling of facing a visually change in each new version. The fact is that, the user interface of the game has almost been not changed from 0.93 to v1.2. Probably the main reason is the lack of a team which is specialized in 2D art contents. It seems having a 2D team associating with the coders team, can bring a new looking to the game and also the website after ages.
Note : The main page and also the screenshots section of the website hasn't been updated visually for ages.
Missing team(sound engineers): knowing about the fact that there has been almost no upgrade to the AC sounds from v0.92 to v1.2, make it more sensible to understand how much it's needed to have a team whose job is working on upgrading the current sounds and also adding new sounds to the game.
Missing team (mappers): Mappers are defined as one of the groups in the main developers team, but the fact is that, mappers community is not even a real team and has no place in the current structure of the developers team. Actually, currently the mappers community is consisting of individual mappers outside of the developers team, who have made some maps and the developers has decided to add their maps to the game according to their unknown criteria and some polls. I believe that process of adding maps into the game is very delicate, and can be improved by adding a real team of mappers consisting of a few decent mappers who observe and judge all the new maps, set up the polls and also the mapping contest. This team can also cooperate with the modders team to decide what mapmodels are missing or mostly needed in the game.
Missing team(advertiser/sponsorship): AC is already 8 years old now. It's no more a newcomer game which is looking for absorbing the players. Actually thousands of players are the assets of AC brand which any other games dream of it. It seems that AC has already got the enough potential to earn at least its own expenses itself by a good marketing beyond the donations (i.e from the advertisement in the website and the forum). This is so important to be done because : 1. The developers has the right to concentrate on their job only, instead of being afraid all the time about the expenses of the maintenance from their own pocket and keep hoping a few donations might compensate a few of their personal money loss. 2. Furthermore even an extra money can be set to the official tournaments as a prize, to absorb more players (investment for the future) and therefor expand the future projects.
Also it seems that AC has almost no adequate activity in social networks, such as Facebook, twitter, Instagram and etc. Actually nowadays these are all the places to introduce the game to others and absorb new players to the game. Therefor reviving AC actions in social network by assigning active admins to its official pages seems to be highly needed.
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Proposal Structure: There is always a risk of inconsistency when expanding the members of a team. So that the existence of a new role in the team to manage all the members and connects them to each other is kind of essential. If we assume the whole game as a project, that new role would be called the "Project Manager".
![[Image: 73101363371259051946.jpg]](http://www.uploadax.com/images/73101363371259051946.jpg)
Like in the diagram above, the developers are devided into 5 teams and each team is leaded by a teamleader to increase the efficiency of each team. It's each teamleaders' job to assign the tasks to its member according to the schedule and he is responsible to reply all the questions related to his field of work. In such structure, the project manager has his high effects in setting up the connections between the teams and keeps his eyes on the whole project to make sure that the tasks are done in time as it's assigned in the schedule. The whole diagram above is just a prototype proposed one according to what is mainly needed in a game like AC, and surely can be modified according to the requirements. The structure above is a simple example of showing how the efficiency can be increased in the developers' team by some little changes in the structure.
More info @ :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_video_game
http://www.blitzgamesstudios.com/blitz_a...v/dev_team
http://www.digital-church.com/html/week_53.html
AC is a Family. For many of us it's not only a goddamn game, it's more being some part of our life that get all of us together from all around the world, and we all have grown up together with it. AC is an excuse to communicate, to see, to laugh and live with all the cool persons who's gotten involved in. Actually the whole Life is all a game, and for me the most amazing one is "AC" for sure.
- It seems that AC needs an accurate schedule with the list of all TODOs for the next release and an estimated deadline for the future release according to the resources in hands. Players also has the right to know about all the new exciting stuffs which are waiting for them in the next release and absolutely how much they have to wait for it.
- It seems that AC needs to upgrade the organizational structure in its developers' area to gain more efficiency. Having a glance at the developers' team for now, we've got such a structure:
Like the diagram above, AC team is already consisting of 10 persons, including 3 team leaders (2 coders and one website maintenance), 4 coders, 2 modders and 1 as the server hoster/maintenance. Analyzing this structure both as the matter of quality and quantity, will lead to the fact that, the developers team has really done a great job up to now for upgrading the game to the next level. Although there are also some weaknesses such as:
- Redundant connections between the groups
- Insufficient members in teams
- Missing teams
About the first and the second weaknesses, we're facing the the huge time gaps between each releases (about 4 years from v1.1 to v1.2?). Obviously there's some lack of members in the developers team, mainly the coders who have more than 70% of the all the time developers team members from the beginning to now. On the other hand we can see in the team, that a coder has several jobs beyond his main coding part such as project leading, hosting, maintenance, solving the problems in the forum, akimbo etc. It seems that the efficiency of the coders can be increased a lot by focusing more on their main job which is coding. To achieve that goal, it's needed to have some other members in the developer team who can take the part of the coders' other jobs. For example, today it seems that all the players believe anyone who is inside the developers team is responsible to answer all their questions of any kind about the game, but as a solution, the team can have one person only in each field of subject to reply the players and leave the rest of coders focus on their coding job. Or as another example, it's really good that the developers team inform people about what they do or what they have done, but it's not a coder's job to spend his time and energy to write all the development status information, obviously someone else in the team can take this job.
the "Modding" Team, is another area which that the matter of lack of members in it is very sensible. As a modder, there are some tasks in the game that none of the modders dare to get close to them to do it all alone, such as: upgrade the animation of the current playermodel, making new playermodels(which is very needed for the singleplayer campaign mode) and even adding the reload animation to the current weapons and etc. Actually any of those tasks are very time consuming individually. But if there would be team of modders all those very time consuming jobs can be done in short period with association.
Missing team (Testers): regardless of how much the bugs are really pain in ass for all the old players, it affects a lot the new comers who want to join the community. So that the "testing game" is really a delicate spot which seems it's really missing in the main team. Personally I have seen a lot when the developers are about to release a new version but they have almost nobody to test it, and finally they have to release the game without enough testing because of the pressure from the players.
On the other hand it seems that the process of testing should be something consistent and must be done during all the process development. Otherwise we can see developers face a bug that they have no idea where it has come from or it takes a lot of time to find the solution since the cause of the bug is mostly unknown.
Missing team (2D artists): Bringing a new looking to the game after each update for a software is one of the basic rules in every software developing. It doesn't only give a fresh looking the game but it also inspires to the players more feeling of facing a visually change in each new version. The fact is that, the user interface of the game has almost been not changed from 0.93 to v1.2. Probably the main reason is the lack of a team which is specialized in 2D art contents. It seems having a 2D team associating with the coders team, can bring a new looking to the game and also the website after ages.
Note : The main page and also the screenshots section of the website hasn't been updated visually for ages.
Missing team(sound engineers): knowing about the fact that there has been almost no upgrade to the AC sounds from v0.92 to v1.2, make it more sensible to understand how much it's needed to have a team whose job is working on upgrading the current sounds and also adding new sounds to the game.
Missing team (mappers): Mappers are defined as one of the groups in the main developers team, but the fact is that, mappers community is not even a real team and has no place in the current structure of the developers team. Actually, currently the mappers community is consisting of individual mappers outside of the developers team, who have made some maps and the developers has decided to add their maps to the game according to their unknown criteria and some polls. I believe that process of adding maps into the game is very delicate, and can be improved by adding a real team of mappers consisting of a few decent mappers who observe and judge all the new maps, set up the polls and also the mapping contest. This team can also cooperate with the modders team to decide what mapmodels are missing or mostly needed in the game.
Missing team(advertiser/sponsorship): AC is already 8 years old now. It's no more a newcomer game which is looking for absorbing the players. Actually thousands of players are the assets of AC brand which any other games dream of it. It seems that AC has already got the enough potential to earn at least its own expenses itself by a good marketing beyond the donations (i.e from the advertisement in the website and the forum). This is so important to be done because : 1. The developers has the right to concentrate on their job only, instead of being afraid all the time about the expenses of the maintenance from their own pocket and keep hoping a few donations might compensate a few of their personal money loss. 2. Furthermore even an extra money can be set to the official tournaments as a prize, to absorb more players (investment for the future) and therefor expand the future projects.
Also it seems that AC has almost no adequate activity in social networks, such as Facebook, twitter, Instagram and etc. Actually nowadays these are all the places to introduce the game to others and absorb new players to the game. Therefor reviving AC actions in social network by assigning active admins to its official pages seems to be highly needed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Proposal Structure: There is always a risk of inconsistency when expanding the members of a team. So that the existence of a new role in the team to manage all the members and connects them to each other is kind of essential. If we assume the whole game as a project, that new role would be called the "Project Manager".
Like in the diagram above, the developers are devided into 5 teams and each team is leaded by a teamleader to increase the efficiency of each team. It's each teamleaders' job to assign the tasks to its member according to the schedule and he is responsible to reply all the questions related to his field of work. In such structure, the project manager has his high effects in setting up the connections between the teams and keeps his eyes on the whole project to make sure that the tasks are done in time as it's assigned in the schedule. The whole diagram above is just a prototype proposed one according to what is mainly needed in a game like AC, and surely can be modified according to the requirements. The structure above is a simple example of showing how the efficiency can be increased in the developers' team by some little changes in the structure.
More info @ :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_development
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_video_game
http://www.blitzgamesstudios.com/blitz_a...v/dev_team
http://www.digital-church.com/html/week_53.html
AC is a Family. For many of us it's not only a goddamn game, it's more being some part of our life that get all of us together from all around the world, and we all have grown up together with it. AC is an excuse to communicate, to see, to laugh and live with all the cool persons who's gotten involved in. Actually the whole Life is all a game, and for me the most amazing one is "AC" for sure.