Implementation of CMMI on Empires Development

Empires developers have a responsibility towards the betterment of Empires itself, and consequently, the community. This does not mean democracy; it means the best actions are taken for the betterment of Empires.

You mean the forums “weren’t” free. vBulletin is a one-time purchase of $200, not a subscription. Servers can be bought and colocated at a data center sometimes cheaper than buying a game server every month. If the server is virtualized it can have services sold off of it.

It’s called Project Manager, and if you’ve ever studied project management you’d know how he does it and the significance of things such as design documents.

Supported how (not denying, but I am not following you)?

And yes, all I want is structure.

I never asked Trickster or anyone else to step down. You completely misread and misunderstood my original post. Read my previous replies for expansion.

Also, if someone isn’t working on the mod in the slightest and they step down, how would that kill Empires if he wasn’t doing anything to begin with (hypothetical, I’m not referring to anyone in particular)?

Read my post.

By becoming a developer, that person told the community that there is some way in which that person will better Empires (otherwise why did the person become a developer?). That is giving the community his word, an obligation and responsibility. That deserves to be ranked.

Seems I need to explicitly restate myself.

Trickster does not have to step down as Project Manager; I merely want the position to have rotational timeframes such as one year. If all the developers believe he has done a good job, he takes the rotation for another year.

 

I’m a coder.

I believe I’ve changed my position several times Trickster so I am not intolerant. I am not smug as I do not believe I am superior to anyone here. Everyone has their ups and downs, good and bad.

What I am confident in is my own ability, my own knowledge, and the potential of Empires.

I do not understand, however, why you have to resort to insulting me.

I agree, it’s as if artists hate programmers, exempt flash games.

Then stop saying the mod is dead. So long as people post on these forums and servers are hosted Empires will not die. If you truly wanted to kill Empires, tell people to stop posting on the forums.

You think in hindsight, you see only the past and not the future. Look at the bright and glorious future that Empires has, instead of death and decay.

That was the last one NOT THIS ONE~S.

And it was only the last thread I forgot to comment on by my own admittance, otherwise I usually follow through.

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Sorry for the double posts, but I could not fit it all into one.

EDIT: Also, please read my posts as an evolution of thought: not a static but malleable discussion as I try to understand everyone's position and POV.

 

:D lol, just sneak that little jab in there, good stuff...

Chris's post (along with this thread) really makes obvious that the dev team seems to actually be in a good place atm... and yeah man Trickster I don't know why you do it but you deserve kudos for what you do.

I just wanted to say that PatPeter obviously has a lot of love for the game, and his post owed to that... Sure he kind of missed the whole "spirit of collusion" that drives Empires forward, but it came from the right place.

 

Now who does that remind me of?

Well duh, it's me, I can't very well give a straight compliment can I?

For all I disagree with trickster on most things I really can't fault his dedication to what he does, nor overstate how helpful it is that he does it, I really don't think the team would still be here without trickster keeping everyone organised and working together.

If we didn't think he was doing a good job, he wouldn't be whatever it is he is.

It's like the programmers aren't programmers unless they do programming, empty wouldn't be particle guy if he didn't do particle effects. There's no formal system because there doesn't need to be one, if he didn't organise everything he wouldn't be the guy who organises everything.

This isn't some weird corporation where you hold official positions, this is a thing where people do stuff they're good at, if they don't do it, they don't do it. Trickster doesn't hold a position, nobody does, we just do stuff, usually when someone else asks for it, or sometimes because we're good at it. I'm doing some mapping at the moment, if it turns out to be good, maybe it'll get adopted, although probably not, but it'll probably go on the servers. There's no official channel though, I make stuff I like making, show it to people, and if people like it it gets used.

Development works more or less the same way, if one of us does something good, it gets shown to people and tested, and if everyone likes it, it goes in. It's more organised for coders because they need to work from tests to find bugs and stuff, but as far as I know they just pick bugs off the list and fix them as and when they have time.

Like I said, everyone's pretty good at what they do, they don't need strict oversight and people nagging them and generally a lot of administrative rubbish, they know what to do and how to do it, and do it under their own steam, and stuff gets done.

 

I don't think you understand software lifecycle at all. It's not empires that is dead, but the modding scene in general for Source. Why would anyone work on a mod when they can download UDK or Unity for free and do the same thing with a modern toolset? Even Valve recognizes that, and haven't updated SourceSDK since 2007. If I'm living in the past, you have rose colored glasses.

I have pretty much believed for the last 4 years that a game like Empires needs to get the hell off of the source engine. I have said it in public and private multiple times, and I don't think there is a developer on the mod team now who didn't know I hold that opinion.

Also, I thought my post was harsh, not yours. Your posts are just stupid and ignorant of how to make anything on your spare time.

What is the point if you have no idea if you will hit it or not. If anything, setting a deadline sets you up to fail.

We had deadlines for stuff when I was Lead. Every 4 weeks we got our code in and made a release. It didn't work for very long. For reference, 2.21, 2.22, and 2.23 were all released on this schedule. They didn't have anything super interesting in them, and there were quite a few complaints about how little got done.

 

Yeah empires as is isn't going anywhere, it really is only going to get worse. It's possible that there might be some sort of successor project at some point, but as it is? On source? With the current art assets? There isn't anything you can really do with it.

It's not 'dead', it's just stationary, it's still played by some people, it's still kinda fun, and it'll probably continue to be played for some time yet. And while it is we can keep fixing bugs and make what small changes we can to make it a bit more fun.

But the only way to make it amazingly popular would be to go to a new engine, which means new code, and would also probably need a complete art update. You would have to remake the game, which would therefore mean it has very little to do with the source version except the general idea.

I'd like to see a successor version, but that'd need a lot more resources than we have, maybe it'll happen sometime in the distant future when the cryengine is abandonware and making 3d models is as easy as making pixel art is nowadays. I'd play it, but at the moment we really can't make a fully polished state of the art game to appeal to a massive audience on a bespoke engine.

I think of empires as being something like the spring engine, or warzone 2100, very niche games which are certainly fun, and are certainly played, but which are necessarily quite small, they won't ever be big, but that doesn't stop them being fun.

 

Friendly advice to the Empires devs:


Stop wasting your time in this thread and
GET THE FUCK BACK TO WORK!


Regards,
McGyver - Empires Developers Motivational Assistant (EDMA)

 

Dear EDMA,

No.

Love, Empdevs.

^ This is basically the response you'd get if you tried to administrate the empires development.

 

So much wrong it's not even funny any more. Just stop, for your own good. I know that you mean well ), but really, just stop. You're trying to apply principles for large scale project management with an employed team to a hugely understaffed, small, very time constricted team. It just doesn't work. Stupidity offends me considerably more than someone being insulting.

Also, I resent the "responsibility" part. People don't pay for the game, and there isn't anyone lining up to put more time into the game, so there's no responsibility, just the fact that we WANT to do it.

 

I wouldn't mind getting paid for doing this lol

 

Personally I would, if I got paid to do what I do I wouldn't enjoy doing it, and I wouldn't do it as well as a result.

 

+1

time == money

 

Then just wait and you will be rich in no time!

 

6 months to two years? You wouldn't have to make a rotation for that as the average time a dev stays with empires must be somewhere around 6 months anyway. Or in other words, utterly pointless.

Yes, but the way you said that stuff with devs shouldn't be mods was like a quote from Mr. Derp.
There are reasons devs shouldn't be moderating the forums, there are no reasons however for them not to be able to moderate if really neccesary, like if some douche is badmouthing certain devs or make a new darkholian constitution, this is a big difference from what you want.
Mr. Derp doesn't like devs being able to do anything on the forums. So yeah ...

I just shed a tear of pride hearing this abomiation of an election campain. Thanks. ove:

 

Then time doesn't equal money, equality works both ways, they teach you that in maths.

 

if you are rich you can have plenty of time to do the things you want... up to a point of course. There comes a points where more money != more time due inflation. Unless your in that movie that people use life time as a currency and people generally live to 25 years old then die.

 

I'm so confused.

I was sure I clicked the General Discussions link, not Off Topic.

 

Typically, a couple means two. So I know you're trolling if you want to contest that.

The request was unspecific because I didn't want to just rag on you without knowing where you were coming from. It sounded like you were highly unfamiliar with the Empires mod scene.

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There are a few types of manager. The worst is really just a bad manager, but every so often the other fairly bad type pops up - this is the type that has learned something that they really want to apply to a situation because they think it's good and because they think it will fit.

Usually, they think it will fit the situation.

This type of manager usually comes in to an already established environment and goes about instituting the new system. They don't really learn about the employees or the environment, they just have a few variables that they think the system is tailor made for - and that the team have just been unable to see it, or haven't known about it.

Typically, this manager ends up forcing people to conform to his or her system, usually ending up with disrupting the normal work flow and causing a lot of stress for people. After about 6 months to a year, though, that manager leaves (usually for a better job), and the institution has taken a downturn during his tenure.

You are similar to this archetype. But where the work environment is different and people don't leave their jobs under undue stress - because they're still getting paid - in a hobby such as this, the people would.

The real tragedy there is that that manager could have been good, had they actually paid attention to what was going on around them. Had they talked to the workers, kept their eyes open and taken a few months to get to know the system in place, they would have seen that their new system didn't work and would begin to apply different methods.

They could have been an effective manager, instead of the bullshitters that infest our working world in this day and age. People who don't know what to do and don't care what other people think because they've been doing this all their career and keep getting booted upstairs. Why do you think we have so much trouble with the corporations and the banks and business stability in these times? It's because the managers don't know shite and still get promoted up.

I just wanted to see if I could catch you before you went down that route, and explain that if you pay attention and talk to people - and actually listen - you might not have to be that ineffective.

'cos I sure as hell don't want to be managed by someone like that.

 

Lul, if Trickster isn't the lead developer, what else can he do?