By working out in the open, we accomplish a lot of things. Luke-jr mentioned one of them, and you're basically looking for another. Here's a list that probably isn't complete:apparition wrote:(Lucifer) told me that his philosophy of open source means that what information is communicated between people should be open, therefore he closed the private chat. I think we were both turned off by the exchange enough to not press the issue. This made me realize, however, that while I was trying to see if I could contact Z-Man as an individual, my questions and ideas shouldn't be directed toward an individual, but the community. Anyway, this complicated my approach to asking questions and made me question my understanding of the philosophy of the game development.
* Sharing of effort for tech support
* Archiving of old problems so that people having similar problems can find the archive and work from there
* General transparency, people who want to know what's going on can just ask, or read about it without asking.
* Ethics.
Some of us believe that software development should happen in the open.* Participation: By acting out in the open, people who want to participate don't have to try to penetrate some private social structure. They can just jump in.
* Close connection to end users. Whenever you see ads for Microsoft and other large companies asking for people to come in for "usability studies", I'd like you to think that you can just go to armagetron forums and post your usability issues with the game.
This "policy" of ours (it's another de facto thing) completely contradicts a complaint you've made in your post:
Let's differentiate between clans and other closed groups within the community and the development and these forums.Let's get rid of this "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"-act that the elite members and developers have going on that may distance new users from falling in love with the game.
Clans mostly have closed sites and exist as closed communities. They have their special secrets and goings on. In fact, this is one of the top reasons I dislike clans. They are everything against which I stand: closed doors, judgment of other players' abilities and conduct, intentionally discriminating against anyone not in their clan, etc.
Here on these forums, and here on this development team, we are not like that at all. We take anybody and everybody that comes. One of the reasons we switched to bazaar for our source control management was so that other developers need not join the team to be able to contribute. It's no longer necessary to distinguish between who can write to the bazaar branches and who can't. And we welcome everybody who shows up with their first post wanting to join us here. It's always been this way, at least while I've been here. In fact, one of the hot topics around here is how do we get the rest of the community to realize that this isolationist behavior we see out of clans is really unethical and unacceptable in an open source project? Even developers here that are members of clans complain about the isolationism of clans (and here's a chance for each of them to jump on me
).I will comment that in fact, when I first showed up, before Z-man reappeared out of thin air, development discussion *did* happen behind closed doors. But that was years ago, and it doesn't happen like that anymore.
Please don't misinterpret a lack of progress updates as a lack of communicating progress. I don't think I've *ever* seen a developer here do something for arma without posting about it. The lack of updates indicates a lack of actual progress, not a lack of communication.The idea of "everyone under the sun" knowing about the progress
For some of us, this is not a popularity contest. And it's not a love affair we need to announce from the top of every skyscraper.But really, why aren't we trying harder? Don't you think people want a game like this... one that has people coming back years later and enjoying it just as much?
We're here to have fun, not see how many market segments we can penetrate.However...
As I said before, this community is *not* closed off. It's one of the most open communities in the open source world, in fact. Try posting to LKML sometime.It is this sentiment, this attitude, and this closed off community that I want to understand more. Is it really as intentional as Tank subtly hints at?
For precisely that reason, you won't get any objections to members of the community that want to evangelize for us. You just won't get a lot of support from those who aren't interested in it. That's both reasonable and acceptable. In any group of volunteers, you only get work out of them that each individual is willing to contribute. That's a limitation you just have to accept, unless you can inspire people like MLK could.
Not necessarily offended. Please don't try to cast aspersions on what people are thinking. The fact is, as some of us have stated many times before, we're tired of answering a certain set of questions. We're tired of telling people how to write in colors, how to make the car go fast, how to connect to the master server, etc. There's an entire set of questions we put on the FAQ that we're tired of answering.The Arma veterans have been in it so long, and are so elite that they seem offended when someone doesn't understand something.
We don't get offended when people ask questions. We get annoyed (and sometimes outright pissed off by repeat offenders) when people ask questions that are thoroughly answered in the resources we have already made available to them.
I believe this question represents a failure to read the forums.All of us who play fortress or Arma teamplay know this "noobism" when a person doesn't grind (Corn just had a post on Play Fortress talking about it), and we are struggling how to combat the situation by using /vote suspend or instant chats that are meant to teach users how to play.
This exact issue comes up on the forums, we do a few things, talk a bit, and then it comes up again. This is one of the hot issues around here, and many people have taken a stab at fixing it. The situation is much better now than it used to be, believe me. I'm not saying it's good, or even acceptable. Rather, I'm saying that the incremental work that is done in this area is working on the whole, and any contributions you'd like to offer for this are welcome.Depends on the person. We've got a lot of players that aren't interested in forums, others that aren't interested in irc, and still others that just prefer to meet up ingame. Many people don't feel the need to have a sense of belonging here, they just want to play with fun people and have fun.And how does one assimilate into the community?
Your last sentence ignores everything else you've said.Unless someone actively seeking to understand the game takes the necessary time to sift through all the bullshit on the forums or the outdated information on the site/wiki to really learn the ins and outs of the game, people just get annoyed with them and write them off as some guy. In reality, that rando dude might have ideas about the game that could potentially make it even better!
That random dude may have great ideas, but we're also tired of people who are extremely creative coming along and suggesting all the same stuff because they failed to read previous discussions. That failure to find out (when a simple google search turns up most recurring suggestions quite easily) represents a deeper problem. Rather, that consistent failure to find out represents a deeper problem. If you post your first idea to us and get a "we've already beat this one to death" response, then your second idea better damned well be vetted at least through google. If you're just going to suggest something we've already beaten to death, you really need to have a new take on it. Otherwise, you're wasting your time and ours, which is disrespectful to both you and us.I find that arma's online community is much more accepting than most others. I've talked to WoW people that don't want to know you if you're not at least level 74. I've been in the scorched3d world and seen how they treat newbies. I've gone to the pubservers in freeciv.but in terms of an online game with an open community, Arma seems to just barely live up to its philosophy and that's why it doesn't grow as fast as it should. This game is ****ing amazing and should be way more than it is.
Ok, your questions:
The last time we had consensus on where we want to go, the consensus was to make the game extremely flexible so that within the context of what the game is, people could make any game out of it. We're not quite headed to turning it into "just another game engine", but close to it.Where is Armagetron going?
There are no project goals. There are only goals of individuals with varying levels of activity in the project and in the community.What are the goals of the project?
Maybe. In a capitalist society, you can attempt to make money any way you want. It's up to the market to decide.Could Armagetron ever somehow make money for individuals (2020 touched on this on Play Fortress)?
As I previously mentioned, some of us do not consider this a priority.How big do you want the game to get? How big can it get?
What kind of recognition does Armagetron deserve from the general public, if any recognition at all?
Possibly never. It may reach a point where all current developers pronounce it finished, then someone comes along and starts a new fork and takes it in a new direction. Open source projects almost never end.When will Arma evolve from an "open source project" into a completed online game?
We picked up a dedicated web guy some time ago to take care of this.Web site: it's stagnant, so let's revitalize it to be more inviting, informational, functional, full of live, and dynamic: game guide, donate button, updated info, updated layout, schedule, merch, separate developers' section, more user-friendly download section, IRC right on the site with different channels, member profiles, etc.
(/me pokes him)I'm not sure how to respond to this. There isn't much on the forums that is irrelevant, and we have all many times gone back through to search for posts that were several years old to get stuff. When wrtlprnft started work on the cockpit, I had to go dig up a thread that at that time was a year and a half old to show him what I meant by "flexible". It was a thread that contained mockups of suggested cockpits. Later, as the cockpit gained more features, we have continued to dig up those old mockups so we can test the new features.Forum: I've said this before, and no offense, but the forum looks like barf with lots of old bits of forgotten food. I've been part of forums that have archived information before, why not work on combining information, purging the old, irrelevant, and unnecessary? And while Tank insists that there are certain threads here for nostalgic and historical purposes, which I understand, I think it'd be more beneficial to archive some and delete others. Please don't expect every new user (especially ones who don't speak English) to sift through all the BS before they ask questions, give feedback, or just post in general. Even after two and a half years of visiting the forum, I'm still daunted by its clutter.
We don't ask anybody to "sift through the BS". We ask people to do a fairly simple google search (or other quality search engine). This is not only reasonable, but it is expected behavior in the open source world. There is not a single open source project that has the amount of archived information we have that think it's reasonable for people to come in with their ideas without at least checking to see what sort of discussion has already happened on it.
Except maybe for some of the more closed communities that don't keep their archives out in the public.
As you pointed out, most of that stuff you're suggesting is already in place. As for the rest, I remind you that it is a volunteer effort. As such, we (the 'we' here is me, z-man, and tank program) are mostly anarchists. We expect that when someone wants to initiate a particular effort, they will do so. Leaders stand up and try to do stuff, followers sit back and ask why stuff doesn't get done. Anarchy isn't "every man for himself", it's "Everyone is free to contribute to the best of their abilities, interests, and available time". We can't ask for more, and by asking for that, we've gotten to where we're at.Development Teams: Open that curtain that developers are standing behind. I mean to step on no toes here, but I am perplexed by the organization of the developers. Why don't we work on establishing/unveiling/remodeling the way the details of Arma are being worked on? Improvements to the development could include organizing development into stages and divided into teams: version and system control team, graphics team, testing team, technical writing team, reviewing team, packaging and releasing team, bug tracking team, usability team.
I believe z-man answered this pretty well.Feedback from users: Create a game feedback form: Tron name, real name (optional), feedback category/classification (in-game design, game feature, audio, server, other, etc.).
I like the ideas you have here, but I have a few caveats:Feedback from developers! What are the developers working on anyway?: Yeah, I could definitely try to read through the complex language in the forums, but it's not exactly easy and takes a long time to google simple things and understand how they fit into the development of the game. I've tried it. New users beware of the development threads. So, why not have a section of the web site AND forum devoted to simplifying the language of recent and upcoming additions/improvements/deletions that are being worked on?! I want to know!!! This can also help the developers avoid having to answer pesky messages/threads about updates that are already completed but not packaged, or ideas that are new and useful.
* Not much development is happening because most of the developers are terribly busy in real life. So we're working on the same stuff we've been working on for some time. Lack of updates is a lack of progress, not a lack of communication.
* Much of what we're working on, you have to be a programmer to understand how it fits into the game. Epsy's working on an event system. I'd like to see you try to translate that for end-users.
Most of this is stuff we're interested in, but *can't* write yet. The existing state of the code means we'd have to continue coding into the corner, or rewrite big parts of the game. Epsy's event system should help, heh....Game navigation design: those of us who play regularly all know the divisions of the game (hr, sumo, ctf, racing, fort, etc.), so why not embrace it? Organize the server list in a similar way to how xbox live used to be...
In-game menu
Finally, to comment on some other suggestions I don't feel like digging out to quote. The *wiki* gets a lot of criticism for being "out of date". Who is expected to update it? A lot of suggestions that come out are suggestions for which the wiki was originally provided to answer. If you want better documentation about the game, the wiki is there for you to provide it. If you want a place to translate development discussion into everybody else's language, the wiki is there to provide it.
I'm personally getting sick of people telling us we need to do *something* that they want done for which the wiki exists. The wiki is there for many reasons. One of the biggest reasons it's there is so that people who are *not* developers can document any part of the game/community they want.
So, quite honestly, whenever someone suggests coming together in a collaborative way to do something and they want to build all these new websites for all sorts of different reasons, and they throw in the seemingly required cheap shots at the wiki, I just want to know. What makes you think you're too good to use the wiki? And who are you to decide that "somebody else" needs to fix the wiki to help all the new people? You want it done, you do it. That's what the wiki is for.
binaries only.