Crucible of Omens: Forum news feed

[Loa4ever]

Looks amazing, keep on good work guys .

[Bikerdude]

Here are some fun facts, some of you are probably wondering who built those particular scene's shown in those splendid screen shots :-D

 

Angua - I didn't know this bit had been built until I spotted it last night! - keep up the good work girl!

Dram - Would you believe this work is ancient, Dram created this beauty when the rest of us were still learning how to create a basic scene.

Jdude - A labor of love by another one of our team members, still lots of work to do in this area.

B1k3rdude - This is a map that both Melan and myself have been working on, we were getting an fps hit in this location so I came up effective and pretty way of compartmentalizing that section - some of you may recognize the clock tower....

[zergrush]

Now this is podracing. Again, I beg not to do a per-mission release of this. I don't think my heart could handle waiting months for a new mission to come out.

[Bikerdude]

I beg not to do a per-mission release of this.

We don't have a choice on that score I'm afraid due to diminished numbers on the team, atm there only 3 active members myself being one of them.

[Ladro]

Awesome! O____O

[lowenz]

Terrific (in a good meaning )

[brethren]

Those screens look awesome guys, man, can't wait for this.

 

We don't have a choice on that score I'm afraid due to diminished numbers on the team, atm there only 3 active members myself being one of them.

 

I'm not sure how to take that - does that mean you will or won't be doing a per mission release?

 

Also - obviously there's a lot of Thief4 news lately and ensuing discussion - any chance you guys could release before or right around the time of Thief 4, if it was released say next fall sometime? I think it would be great to have this campaign released right around that time to potentially show people that this is what a Thief game is supposed to be like.

[Bikerdude]

If we had more people working on this I imagine we could give type of question a more definitive answer..

[Sotha]

If the campaign is in trouble due to man power loss, maybe the campaign team should consider asking the community officially for help. There are lotsa new aspiring mappers and nice people doing other kind of help like betatesting and stuff.

 

Just sayin'.

[Bikerdude]

I could have sworn we had, but there is certainly no harm in asking again. I shall go and pose this topic to the rest of the team...

[nbohr1more]

Let me offer my armchair developer (peanut gallery) take on the current Crucible status. The large bulk of the mapping is done and playable. What is the area of stagnation then? The story elements of the campaign. The story for this campaign is very rich and complex. Primarily Melan and Fidcal have woven their story concepts together and have developed a complex set of inter-mission story dependencies. Melan has been his usual perfectionist self and has slowly been taking the story and turning it into readables and cut scene scripts. These then cause the maps to be adjusted to fit the story. The prospect of all that story work and revision has a palpable effect on the motivation and energy of the involved workers. Especially Melan who the others must wait on for direction. What would really help IMHO opinion is someone who would make sloppy readables and cut scenes just to complete the architecture. Then Melan and Fidcal would be horrified by the shoddy work and would replace it with a vengeance without worrying about how much there is to create. It's the perception of how much unknown work that lay ahead that is slowing the pace. Releasing the missions one by one would also work because you then only have per mission goal posts and don't necessarily need to think of all the story bridging between missions. You can add that after the fact, which makes the single mission releases akin to that sloppy draft idea but with a higher quality requirement. I think once the first one is released the subsequent maps will be out promptly afterwards. Sure it would be cool to have them all arrive at once but it would also be cool to have a gold crown and a cappuccino maker...

[Melan]

There are the story bits, but they are more manageable.

 

I think what we need most right now is coordination. Mapping is one huge chunk of work you do in steps. You create an area, it looks good, you move on to another, repeat, repeat, repeat (this is one possible way of doing it). There are a few smaller mapping tasks ahead, but where we are at right now is turning those maps into full missions, and that's a lot of small independent tasks. Take a conversation: it needs a script, it needs recorded lines, then it needs implementation. That's usually four people! You need to coordinate this effort, oversee it and know what needs to be done. You need to communicate with external helpers, get cutscene art, music and whatever (we have a few great vocal actors who have already done very good work, BTW!).

 

For various reasons, nobody is filling this role right now. Some because they don't have the time (grayman did a valiant effort on it, but he is working on making TDM standalone ATM), me because I am incapable of managing other people. The problem is, this really needs someone who knows the project and what needs done where, and by whom.

[Bikerdude]

The problem is, this really needs someone who knows the project and what needs done where, and by whom.

I love TDM and I would love to manage this campaign, but I have never managed a project before, either in my personal or professional life. And most days I'm quite tired when I get home from work and I only the have motivation to do a little mapping on the various maps I'm working on, a bit of texture creation and helping other mappers with thier perf issues etc.

 

We really needs Fids,Greebo or another senior Team member to fill this gap in our team for us, that said there is no reason why a new person cant join the team, get upto speed on the project and then manage it.

[Obsttorte]

I'm always happy to help out with scripts if needed.

Implementing conversations is something I haven't done by now, but I would also offer my help there.

[STiFU]

I believe New Horizon and Komag have experience in supervising a bigger project. Maybe hit them up?

[Bikerdude]

New Horizon and Komag have experience, Maybe hit them up?

Good idea, done.

[brethren]

So just out of curiosity, who is actively involved in the project right now? Biker, Melan, and...?

[Springheel]

I think what we need most right now is coordination

 

Absolutely. The final 20% of the work takes 80% of the time, and during that stage you absolutely need someone who can keep on top of what needs doing, who is working on what, how different parts need to come together, and organize people to work effectively. I would go so far as to say that a massive project like CoO simply cannot reach completion without that kind of organization.

[Sotha]

Start a private thread (or use a free task assignment program like wunderlist). Populate it with tasks what needs to be done. Distribute tasks among people. Crunch tasks and clear the list.

 

If you have to agree with everyone with artistic or plot details, then you risk hitting a wall if people disagree. Too many cooks for a single soup and so forth.

 

I can't see how administration could take 80% of the time. Mapping should take the most time.

[Obsttorte]

The task idea mentioned by Sotha sounds quite good. It's done the same way on the bugtracker, and as it hasn't been changed I guess it's working good. This would also give other members a chance to look at tasks that may don't need that much information about the campaign in whole, and can therefore be managed by people not yet participating at this project.

[Springheel]

I can't see how administration could take 80% of the time. Mapping should take the most time.

 

It's not that administration takes up 80% of the time (though it can be time-consuming); it's that even though maps might be 80% done, the remaining "small" things, like conversations, RITs, readables, objectives, scripted events, briefings, cut-scenes, loading screens, balancing, playtesting, fixing and playtesting again, etc, can easily take up more time than the original mapping did.

 

I know that phase takes me months, at least, and that's for one map, and no coordination needed with anything or anyone else.

[Sotha]

So what is the CoO team overall strategy to achieve the campaign anyhow?

 

You have written a plot and told mappers to do a mission with these things in it? How do you manage the information what the mission should entail and how a continuum is formed? Or do you just have geometries at present and now you need to implement some kind of plot to overarch all the missions?

[Glyph Seeker]

The mere presence of a catacomb map makes my heart flutter <3

[Bikerdude]

So what is the CoO team overall strategy to achieve the campaign anyhow?

Sounds like You should join the team matey.

[Melan]

You have written a plot and told mappers to do a mission with these things in it? How do you manage the information what the mission should entail and how a continuum is formed? Or do you just have geometries at present and now you need to implement some kind of plot to overarch all the missions?

Both mapping and story are maybe 90% complete. In a few missions, it may be 85%, but that's the exception, and it's mostyl non-geometric work that needs to be done. Mind you, these are large maps, generally a size category larger than what is currently considered large among TDM missions.