A Planetarion vision - a manager required?
The number of changes we've had in recent rounds seems to show a lack of vision within Planetarion. So why is there no project leader for Planetarion?
At the moment there are seperate "departments" of people who seem to do their own thing at times. The multihunter department decides to remove the support planet rule. I thought this department was here to remove cheaters and instead we have a department which is setting all sorts of little rules. I want to see a more successful team which runs Planetarion, I'd like to see the following: Planetarion Manager - A non-coding job with control over all aspects of Planetarion. This person sets the vision of the game, decides the future as well as most recruitment for Planetarion staff. Any other member of staff who no longer fulfills their job can be removed by the manager, instead of being kept around in other positions trying to stay as long as possible. The manager should set deadlines and know how to manage people. I'd suggest that someone like Appocomaster would be most suitable for this job, assuming he would drop his coding duties to let others work on the game. Development Team - Similar to the existing team but is ultimately answerable to the manager. Preferably with more recruitment as many projects (such as the portal) aren't being delivered. Support Team - Similar to the existing support team, the current team is doing okay. Gamemasters Team - The GMs. Similar to the multihunter team, why a team which enforces other rules are still called multihunters confuses me. These are the people who enforce rules but do not set them at all. If any suggestions are to be made then they go through the manager. The Rest - Anything not covered above which helps run Planetarion. Server administrator, forums administrator, IRC, etc. These are extra roles which help the game and are all answerable to the manager. They are not inflated roles with grand titles to keep people in PA Team, but instead people who can help the game with their field of expertise. One of the key points is that the manager should be able to spot when someone else isn't contributing much to the game anymore and replace them. As a manager I'd just say thank you for your contribution, but it's now time for someone else to have their chance at helping to make the game something better. This is something which I feel holds Planetarion back, many of the staff are the same old people and very few people are given an opportunity to shine due to a lack of recruitment. |
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I think that Kal has the PA Manager role cornered as he has fingers in many pots; if Appoco gave up coding I'm pretty sure there would be little dev done on PA as the coding pool would shrink from 2 to 1 (Cin does some if I remember correctly).
Dev Team was myk and Appoco but then myk found real life. If the community was asked to do the portal I'm pretty sure that we could come up with something pretty damn funky and in a much shorter time frame than we've had with the current portal issue. I think that one of the cockups PA Team do is continually blurring lines of who does what and giving too much responsibility to one person, ie Fiery running 2 departments; dont get me wrong, no disrespect to Fiery but you don't see in a normal company someone incharge of both Sales and Recruiting, they're separate jobs with separate work loads. |
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Indeed, the multihunter department is both judge and executioner at the moment, it's something that I've not been totally happy about myself.
As for the vision, you're right, there is little to none. PA has been pathetically low on people who could and would develop the game with a little more long term vision. Appoco and co do their best, but I think it's clear they either can't do it at all, or just don't have the time to do it. |
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didnt misty come up with a design document some eons ago?
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lol
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There seems to be reasonable recruitment for multihunting and the support team, Fiery has two forum threads for both of these. It's an effort at least. Game development isn't quite as fast as it could be and no recruitment is done. Some recruitment was done a while ago but it doesn't seem as if anyone got recruited from it, instead yet another support person was chosen. Many talented people are being missed because of the lack of recruitment here. I'd guess that some of the more skilled coders wouldn't have any interest in joining support or multihunters, they're being missed if this is the only recruitment being done. If my memory serves me correctly Appocomaster, myk and lenore are all people who have been through the support team. Sadly I can't think of anyone recruited in any other way. Portal development is also slow and poor. Many people have offered to help with this in the past and the same people who have failed to give us a new website are the ones working on it. This is an area in which PA Team needs help from people. I'd suggest the following to help bring extra useful staff to Planetarion: Go through all people who have offered to help on the portal or game development and ask if they'd like to help finish the new website and portal. Ideally this wouldn't involve an NDA. Get the best contributors from this and turn them into game developers and then get them to sign an NDA. By introducing them to the portal and getting that done you'd have a finished website and you can see if the work they've done is of any use and if they're worthwhile to keep for more development. Real life affects us all, most of PA Team have done a good job before but it's obvious that extra help is required. |
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What you're ignoring, Phil, is that Planetarion has no paid employees. It is no-one's job to make sure that Planetarion succeeds. Jolt have made it clear that it's not their priority. There is little reason to work on Planetarion unless you feel particularly affectionate towards the game or its community. You certainly aren't going to get any financial reward. It's very unlikely that anyone can be found with the kind of managerial ability you want to see who isn't already working for another company - and this automatically limits their disposable time. In recent years PA has primarily had university students running the game, since they have the closest skill set to what's required and also have the spare time. But at the end of the day, they're not professionals even if they work to professional standards (which I don't doubt). If you want professionals to run Planetarion then they'll need to be paid professional salaries, which evidently isn't going to happen. |
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No offense, but PA has never had a vision of what it wanted to be. It was a fluke that was simple enough for the community to do what they wanted with it, thus spawning the format of alliance wars and politics, non of which existed in the game to begin with. The playerbase had a vision, not the devs.
So what happened to that vision? Well, in essence the devs tried to "implement" the vision of the alliances, but because they never even understood their own game(don't argue with me on this, there's too many examples of it, know your PA history), their attempts at implementing this "vision" resulted in a needlessly complex environment that strangled the creative gameplay. Bad decisions, populism and inept leadership hindered progress and in fact set the game back. Instead of developing, the game has been devolving into the weak replicas which existed before and during it's hayday. And really, did anyone expect Jolt, an outsider financer, to come in and provide the game with leadership and moment for progress? Seriously, they were the only people more ignorant about the game than the devs... |
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You guys can go round and round on this all you want, this simple fact of the matter is that unless the game goes open source, or Jolt does a sudden about face and injects some leadership and money into the game there is really nothing Appoco or Kal can or will do to change the current direction of game development. It's frustrating to be sure, but unfortunately there is really nothing us average gamers can do about it unless someone wants to pony up the money to buy the game from Jolt.
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Open source is a way of coding, which still requires a centralized management. If the management is inept, no amount of free coding will fix that. For understanding these concepts better, I recommend reading about Cathedral and Bazaar coding.
However, you are correct, I doubt anyone on the current staff knows the game well enough to create a vision much less implement it. That's never been what PA staff was chosen to do, and thus non of them have ever been capable of doing such things. |
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Open source isn't the answer because, as Sun_Tzu said, it's a response to coding needs not general needs. Planetarion's biggest problem at the moment is in management and development.
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It would be nice if recruitment was taken more seriously. I'd guess that most people agree that the game needs real leadership, but it's easier for PA Team to just carry on as they are and ignore it. Yes they can probably run the game for a long time, but I really think it would take new people with new ideas to help rejuvenate the game.
What I find annoying are mistakes being made and not that much is done to improve the situation. A dead portal has been launched and instead of trying to get people who might have experience in the area of building a portal they tend to try and redo the entire thing all over again by the same people who made the mistakes in the first place. Many people have offered help in the past (myself included) but seem to get ignored. It's hard to help Planetarion when the people who run it don't seem to want much help. |
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PA has never been willing to listen to those who could have helped it. It's always seemed to me that the people working on stats and game mechanics were picked quite arbitrarily, whilst ignoring offers from several well respected and knowledgeable community members.
Now it's a bit late, since almost all of those who knew enough to be able to do some good have long since quit playing. |
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Joining PA Team has, since r7 or so, more been a case of nepotism than providing skill.
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Last time there was a 'manager', things fell to pot :) Its all well and good in practice, but when your not paid for it and relying on others it just doesn't work (I was there).
A leader is needed, but its very hard to do whats needed with very little support from those above. Jolt need to commit a bit more first before anything will really happen down here |
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with regards to PA development..whats the point in hiring people when the PA Suggestions forums does exactly the same job...and even that is ignored most of the time.
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Because there's not a lack of random suggestions, there's a lack of consistent longterm development. Did you read the thread at all or did you just decide to post the first thing you could think of when you saw the thread title?
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but when none of the "random" suggestions are implemented, how can they possibly make it to long term development. Theres no point in saying something is a long term development simply because you think it will last a while. Lots of these random suggestions could be altered, adapted and improved on to make it successful for the future and for the game
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off topic, there needs to be a systematic approach to suggestions forum to make sure they get implemented, ie :
* template for people to suggest there idea, so not just 3 paragraphs or 3 words of your idea, but getting people actually thinking about it and saying how it would benefit the community, the pro's and con's of it, development time, exploitable or not etc * a running log to be kept CONSTANTLY updated (i think there is one at the moment but its not updated much) to let people in the community to know whats what * proper moderation in there, ie once a suggestion has died down for it to be closed but still kept for record. |
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Smudge, someone needs to be there to implement things before anything useful like that can ever happen :)
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The PA team is aware of the need for long term development, and there is a pipeline of sorts that helps narrow what suggestions from this forum get seriously considered for implementation, but it is not systematically organized, and there is no clear leadership to develop vision. This is in large part because of what I have already mentioned, there is simply no incentive to put in the hard work and long hours necessary to develop and maintain a consistent vision for the game. |
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Most of the suggestions on the Suggestions forum these days are repeats of old suggestions that have already been argued against ad nauseaum. Others are completely hopeless because they'd excessively unbalance the game. Some are good, but are lost in the dross. Quote:
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I think people are getting a little bit confused about my expectations when I suggest the game needs a manager. I'm not suggesting a person with management training or experience in management is essential!
The ideal manager is someone who understands Planetarion as well as game design in general. Someone who has a good idea on the strengths and weaknesses of Planetarion and how to improve them. A person who is familiar with web development as well as the coding side, although this could be a person who doesn't code so much anymore. Most importantly this person needs to be a people person, who can recruit people and delegate the tasks which need completing. Not someone who just gives a huge task to another team member but stays with them every step of the way to ensure that the job is done. Basically someone similar to Spinner. He had an idea, a vision, was good at recruiting other people and is a reasonable coder. I wouldn't say he's the best at any of them but he obviously had the ability to lead Planetarion. |
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[edit]Oh, I was too late. |
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I might aswell say it as everyone who knows me knows what I've been implying throug-out the thread, and that's that there really aren't that many people(except me and a few other retirees), who actually understand game mechanics well enough to do the job of managing this game. Arrogant? Yes. |
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ps. For reference I've often used teams of people to bounce ideas of, knowing each persons strong points and weaknesses. If I can defend my viewpoints against any objections they may have, then I know it's a good decision. |
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There should be an active developement team, which makes suggestions themselfs to be valued by the community, or otherway around a team that values suggestions made by the community and possibly finnish them in form which is doable by the coders. The hard part about coding is many does it their own way, (as much as I understand about it) and if there are many to code, finally no one can read or edit the mess. Thats why the developement speed is limited and the amount of coders need to be limited. Anyway anyone in the team shouldnt hold up to their positions so tightly, I am sure they will be let in back to work for the game, when they loaded their batteries and hold interest again. Even the HCs of the alliances take breaks and returns to their work when able again. Good post! |
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What you say about the coding is right - everyone ahs their own distinct development style, what helps others to work on each others code, is to between the team devise a set standard to lay code out in, and also to make sure all your code is actually commented well so anyone can read and attempt to understand what is going on. |
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Whilst there are huge differences between coders, the key is to build a modular infrastructure which allows a single person to work on a single aspect of the game which is then patched into the game as a whole. It is also paramount that coders always document their code, even as the saying goes, "a piece of well written code is better than any amount of documentation". Editing or patching together code should really not be a problem, as has been discussed before here, open-source software is far more stable than closed source, even with hundreds, even thousands of coders working on it independently and their efforts being patched together to form the programs. |
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One key point which is needed is accountability, something which doesn't exist these days. If something fails then PA Team seem to give excuses. With recruiting comes the ability to remove someone if they're causing a problem. If the manager is becoming a problem then there is always someone above him - Jolt. To be honest Jolt should be having regular conversations with the manager to see the progress of the game, instead of letting a bunch of volunteers do their own little thing. If the dialogue has dried up then that manager should be demoted or removed. Also if anyone else in the team has problems with the manager then they should be able to contact Jolt regarding it. Just because MrBrick had to be removed doesn't mean that everyone else would be the same as a manager. However if you think about it the current PA Team are quite similar to him, instead of standing aside and letting other people to join and improve the game they're refusing to budge. They constantly shuffle their own positions even though they don't have as much time to commit to the game as they used to. People can be replaced, nobody is so valuable that other people can't do the same job. Something which you should all understand from the real world. |
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Believing that Jolt are going to be there have regular contact with PATeam is a little silly, regardless of how professional and friendly Jolt (and Jolt reps - ie: Biffy) are with regards to other Jolt interests, PA will never be given that same level of attention. Appocomaster does his upmost in steering PA in the direction he feels is best and he is supported 100% most of the time by the rest of PATeam but the problem (as so many others have pointed out) is that unless PA pay someone to manage the game it will not be able to develop in the way it should if someone was full time (or even part time) paid to develop it. |
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Also, a little note about professionalism: Professioinalism does not come from being paid, it comes from being skilled. If you are unable to dedicate yourself to something, then you are unable to ever be a professional in it. |
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I have to wonder over what the big deal is with joining another server if that would improve the lines of communication between PA Team and Jolt. After all, most top players of this game resides in tens of channels over several networks and have hundreds of pm's open at a time. Atleast I used to, when I played back in the day. For PA Team to be on 2 servers and about 10 channels...that's not so much asked imho.
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Plus add in that as far as I know appoco was trying to develop a game in perl, a language he had no previous experience in? Nothing really to add the to the discussion, just hopping on the anti-jolt bandwagon for a couple of stops! |
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I do know what you mean though. If it's a pure popularity vote to determine who becomes said manager, then we're going to end up with some tool like Tesla in charge. That's why the choice should be made, as always, through non-democratic means by vouch of people of merit(this does not mean high planet rankings or such but people who've proven a deeper understanding of the game). |
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Good Standing in the community has always helped when getting into the team (after all, who'd pick a no-body that just 'appeared' out of nowhere).
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It's rare to find people with these skills, however, who aren't already using these skills in a full-time job - and are being paid for them. |
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Perhaps you've been looking in the wrong community? GD is only a good place to look if you need spambots ;) |
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There was an interesting study recently about failures and problems in large software projects. Their summary was that it doesnt depend on the complexity (as most people assume) but directly correlates to specification changes during the project.
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Indeed. 50% of ****ups during software projects come from wrong, incomplete, inaccurate or changing requirements.
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I think Sun_Tzu should be King of Everything.
If you could vote for a King, I'd vote Sun_Tzu. The game needs competence in leadership; which at the moment it severely lacks purely due to the restrictions of having Jolt in charge. |
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However I do know one language, english, and luckily they do lots of studies and publish said studies in said language, thus allowing me to acquire knowledge of things without having to experience them firsthand. I also discuss things with other people who do have firsthand experience, thus fleshing out my viewpoint quite a bit. Nice try though. |
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If you make such a radical claim like you did, i challenge you to actually support that by some kind of evidence. With evidence i dont mean the fact that you talk with a bunch of enthusiastic hobby coders or php coders on irc. But in a seperate thread, preferably on another part of the PA forums to not spam this one. |
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