[Divunal-list] Re: [Divunal-author]author efficiency

[Glyph Lefkowitz]

This message will probably also sound caustic, although it is not intended
to be.

A brief paragraph or two might concisely address all the concerns raised
in this email:

We need more areas in the library.  We need each individual archetype's
personality to be more fully defined.  We need more people who know what
they're doing authoring for a TR-based game.

We need writers to collaborate more with developers.  This, I think, has
been our biggest failing so far ... those who have characters who are
interested in developing them need to talk to developers who are just
sitting around waiting to write some random code.

And now I will attempt to address most of these issues specifically.

On Tue, 3 Aug 1999, Michael Dartt wrote:

> We need to be more independent of you and Dave (Y&D).  At this point,
> that's really tough to do, mainly because there isn't much in the way
> of documentation about the world, features available, or how to get at
> those nifty features.  It's really not feasable to do much creation or
> coding without having an AIM or IRC session open to Y&D because of
> this, and that's not the best use of anyone's time.  Also, there's
> evidently a bunch of stuff that's been decided/developed that no one
> outside of Y&D know about, e.g. the magic system.

A simple answer to your concern about not knowing anything about what is
available is to read things when you get changes on CVS updates.  
(forgetting about the world for a moment). Read the code that's available
to you.  That's what it's there for.

The magic "system" (I quotate that because it's not really fully fleshed
out yet) is documented in divunal.magic.Spell. The skill system in
divunal.common.Skill.

> In your email, you ask us to let you know if we're not interested in
> doing stuff.  My question is: what stuff needs to be done?  There's no
> list anywhere, and I know that I've come up with ideas for things only
> to have them rebuffed as unecessary, not crucial, or already done.  
> Again, we shouldn't have go to Y&D for this: there should be a list of
> things to do posted on the web site, covering at least programming,
> web stuff, docs, and writing/design.  I want to make a note about the
> last of these.  I've been explicitly told that we really don't need
> people who can't code.  I think that's wrong--I'd rather have one good
> writer than two great programmers: we have (most of) the tech we need;
> now we need puzzles, a world, and a plot.

This is a large oversight on my part.  Although I've hinted at this in
past emails, I've never clearly set forth the fact that the learning
process of building a domicile in the library is not just important for
the process of learning, it's important for the development of the game.
Every author needs to have a place where they live, and large parts of
that should be "open" to the public.  I say "open" because some of the
archetypes are probably more private than others -- so they would have
more complex locks on their outer doors, rather than simple pass-thru
puzzles like Tenth's "back door".

Also, as I said before, getting writers and developers to talk to each
other.  Writers should really start posting requests to this list for
code... if the writer/coder ratio gets out of hand, then we'll start
developing other channels that can be used, but I'd like to see one or two
verbs get written first.

> This brings me to what's become my biggest concern: what is this game
> about?  We still haven't answered this question.  Yes, we've got "an
> immersive, text-based environment", but that doesn't say much about
> the game itself.  It's like only telling someone that Baldur's Gate is
> a CRPG, or that Zork is a puzzle-solving game.  We've talked about it
> being puzzle-centric, but we haven't any real reason for people to
> solve puzzles, and without one, we're fundamentally the same as a MUD.  
> There, people kill stuff for the sake of killing stuff; in Divunal,
> they solve puzzles for the sake of solving puzzles.

The game is about roleplaying, exploring, and solving puzzles.  There is
not now, and never will be, an "ultimate goal".

Unfortunately, this is the best we can do.  I think that it's a much more
entertaining way to write a game than to simply say "kill this stuff",
because the act of "killing" in an RPG is often mind-bogglingly simple,
whereas the idea of a "puzzle", especially in a world such as Divunal, has
an incredibly broad application.

> Still, we need to give the players distinct goals to pursue, and
> reasons to pursue them, or we're going to end up with a bunch of
> puzzle-solving machines and waste the richness of the world.

You can't hand a player a set of rich, complex goals along with their
character.  We're stretching it a bit by giving them a set of memories and
associations.  The essence of roleplaying is to have players develop these
long-term goals by *themselves*, and to give them a rich environment
within which to do that.

The environment should give them some incentive to do *something*.  If
some things are cool to discover, and others are disturbing, I'd think
that players are able to judge some things as worth protecting and others
as needing to be destroyed -- this without any additional prompting from
the game.

> Finally, you need to trust us.  I've also had several conversations
> where we've talked about things, esp. stuff outside the library, and
> I've basically been told, "Dave and I are doing everything outside of
> the library.  The rest of you can stay in your sandbox and play where
> you won't hurt anyone."  I understand that there's a certain amount of
> learning that needs to happen, but comments like that, the fact that
> there's almost no documentation (making it hard to learn), and us
> having to filter all of our web site stuff through you (stuff which
> doesn't always get looked at), make me feel like you want to keep a
> very tight rein on us, that you have to be in control of every little
> detail.  Think of it like being a parent: how will you ever trust us
> unless you give us a chance to prove ourselves?  (Esp. when we haven't
> done anything to make you think otherwise, AFAIK.  Is this residue
> from previous projects?)

No.  This is a well-considered, although perhaps ill-phrased, design
decision.  I do want to keep tight control over the development over the
outside game-world, because it's extremely important that those areas be
consistent.

The inside of the library is, indeed, a sandbox.  It's for learning, but
it's also to establish an environment for in-character creation.  This is
*extremely* important.  The reason I have asked you all to start there is
to make an area, where you don't need to worry about consistency with
other parts of the game.

It's not that we view it as some sort of priveledge of the inner circle to
work on areas outside the library.  You may have noticed that the most
well-developed area in Divunal is Tenth's house.  This is because Dave and
I wanted to learn how to write stuff for the game.  It worked out rather
well, I think -- both Dave and I are pretty expert at writing verbs, and
the engine has had a lot of bugs discovered and fixed in it as a result of
these rooms.

Now that we've mastered what needs to be mastered to create an interesting
environment (and not even quite yet!  There are *still* problems with
tenth's furniture!) we are moving on to some of the outside areas, but I
really want to get to working on Maxwell's castle also, so I can have a
consistent area to call my own inside the library.

To extend the parent analogy, just because we trust you doesn't mean we're
going to give you an uzi.  You don't need an uzi, or even a hunting rifle,
to prove that you can shoot, you need a bebe gun with a decent amount of
recoil.

It is to foster the very sort of independance which you have requested. We
don't *want* you to have to ask about every little detail. Areas within
the library need very little design-level consultation from us, so the
time that you spend asking us questions will be geared toward "how do I do
X" type questions, rather than "is X compatible with the game" or "does X
conflict with any plot information". You can do nearly whatever you want.
Areas on the outside, on the other hand, you don't know enough about yet,
and given how much the design of those areas is changing right now, it
would be infeasable to even *try* to write comprehensive documentation.  
When we know exactly what's out there, we'll tell you.

As far as the website is concerned, we have never recieved any email for
stuff to post on the website.  Unless both Dave and I deleted it
immediately, and then forgot about it, it's not been sent.  We both
checked our incoming mail folders for the past month or so.

If you believe this is in error, please re-send any submissions to the
website!!  It would be really nice to start putting up some pages that
other people wrote.

However, if you take exception to the fact that Dave and I are going to
read and OK everything that goes on the website before it goes there, I'm
sorry.  That's the way it's going to be, for a long time.  At least until
we've disseminated enough information that others *do* know as much as we
do about the game... and I hope more than any of you do that that's
sometime soon.

The human brain is not designed to be a "push" information service,
though. It's all "pull".  You're going to have to approach us, and ask us
questions, perhaps even write down our answers.  By now, we can't remember
who knows what!

> *This is the most important* Y&D, as the guys in the know, should
> shift your focus away from adding new things and put your energy into
> documenting what already exists.

I don't think that's a good idea.

For whatever reason, the amount of work coming into Divunal by parties
other than myself and Dave has been negligible so far.  This does not mean
I don't appreciate what's been done, but we've already spent a
considerable amount of time writing documentation that nobody seems to
have read, and if they have read it, they've done nothing about it.

The way I'm seeing it now, the documentation that we've done so far has
subtracted from the time we had available to work on the game (we spent a
long while on that website) and we had to wheedle and beg to get anyone to
look at it.  When people did look at it, we got no feedback, no additions,
and no appreciable work done within the game.

It seems like the effort of writing that documentation wasn't worth it,
and we could better have spent our time writing stuff for the game.

Speaking of documentation that nobody seems to have read: here's an
example of the average player's experience in Divunal, in case you should 
be wondering about the ineffible point to all of the player's trials,
tribulations, and puzzle solving:

http://www.twistedmatrix.com/authors/about.html

That's been online for about a month.

> This will allow the rest of us to work independently and faster in a
> shorter amount of time.  The documentation should include at least:

> what the design parameters are (i.e. what guidelines exist for
> creating new areas and adding to existing ones, e.g. what do I have to
> keep in mind if I want to add to the underground city?)

The guideline is this -- work in the library.  This is where you start.
The underground city isn't even begun, its design isn't completed, and no,
I do not trust other people to work on it until we have a consistent
plan for its construction.

I might trust others to work on it if I knew that they were proficient at
creating code for TR, or creating well-written areas as would be evidenced
by the existance of interesting library areas, but I don't see any of that
happening...

I think we all understand a few basic guidelines to be followed -- such
as: violence is bad, puzzles are good, make sure your descriptions are as
immersive as possible.

If you have no idea at all what an area for divunal should be like, feel
free to talk to me to get a general idea, but I don't think that
generalities are really a problem anymore.

> what features we have available and how they work (e.g. extending,
> those popup windows), and the history, society, etc. of Divunal.

Well, we can all thank James for completing the JavaDoc documentation on
TR.  This should solve many "not knowing functionality" gripes.

I'm not sure what you mean either by "extending" or "those popup windows".
While we should document it for future reference, The history and society
of Divunal is not important for authoring in the library.

> - Everyone: when you learn something, either through talking to G&D or
> by figuring it out on your own, document it, even if it's small. Less
> work for everyone that way.

This is very true.  The implicit assumption behind this is to have
everyone working on something, so that they can ask us questions and learn
things.

The biggest problem is that nobody is doing that.

> 	- Update the documentation and post to the list as soon as
> something new is decided on or developed

Frequently posting to the mailinglist is an important activity.

An active mailinglist gives the project an impression of "life" and is a
constant reminder to those who work on it that some things need to happen.

I know that these messages, regardless of their content, are helping to
remind *me* that there's work I should be doing on Divunal (not TR).

Thanks for a prompt and detailed reply.

--glyph