Info

Participants: Henri Kuuste, [~patosan]
Duration: 1.5 hours
Start time: around 1430 GMT
Medium: Skype + Gobby

Agenda

Core Agenda Items

The Next Meeting (1 min) - Priority 1

• May 22nd?

New Iteration

Project Management

Add to the document already existing: Here

What tasks are there to do?

Who wants to do what? 

Media

Finish the Lantern
Assignments
Modeling: [~patosan] (LODs mostly)
Texturing: Henri Kuuste

Code 

Generator Research (optional)
Research the approaches of other games with respect to generators / random generators (e.g. spore)
mutability of objects?
Random Generators research
paste research links into the wiki

Game Engine progress review

• DreamsOfAGameDesigner review
  • conclusions?
• Where are we now?
  • What resources do we have?
  • Who is leading the project?
  • What has been done?
  • What failed? Why?
  • What was successful? Why?
• Where do we go from here?
  • What resources do we need?
  • Who should be leading the project?
  • What is the game plan for the next month or so?
  • Promises, deadlines and progress meetings

Work on TechUCs

• See what [~patosan] did on RockTechUC and discuss what the problems were
  • Finish the RockTechUC
• Continue work on various UCs

Mutable and Diverse World

• Definition
• Technical challenge
  • Never been done - spore comes close in some sense
  • Fractal data generator

Optional Items

Refine asset categories and types

• Check out the asset types in Meeting2007-04-14
• What's wrong?
• What's missing?

Security levels

• What security levels do we need?
• Are there any that we do not need?

New skill ideas

• Tactics and leadership
• Bards and singing
• Locally scripted chat
• Weather prediction

Demo GUI specification

• Add to DemoGui and make it nicer

Werewolf powers and other skills

• Werewolf powers described in the blog RTSan:/2007/02/06/Werewolves and cheating
• Tactics and leadership
• Bards and singing
• Locally scripted chat

Seer and cleric skills and differences

• How do regular seers and clerics differ?
• How do seer skills manifest themselves? What's the UI like?
• How do we balance seers vs werewolves vs others?
• What are the downsides to being a seer?

Cleric guild clothing

• Review the images so far.
• Choose elements that are there to stay
• Think about new directions to go in
• Different uniforms for different people

Herbalists

• Discuss the new Herbalists document.

Generic human project

• What kind of a polycount should we aim for?
• How important is sculptability?
• How important is facial animation?
• Some samples of lowpoly humans.

Dragonhunters

• Discuss the new document if it can be entered in time.

World Development

• Viking Laws and Government
• The Guild Information and Backstory
• Berrin backstory
• Pantheons for Laurelin and Vikings

Renaming Objects

• We need to rename a number of items in Laurelin, including its inhabitants.
• Needs more research before discussing...
• Naming guide for Laurelin and the Norse world in general

Outcomes & Decisions

Next Meeting

Sat. 10:30am 

Project Management 

Brain Dump (please see the Problems document in CVS /docs/ for a nicer and more up to date version of this information)

Tools for Active Collaboration
    Requirements
        Post Agenda
            Comments on agendas
                solutions
                    comments on solutions
                        (voting)
                            specific solutions
                                comments on those
            Reporting (maybe it shows Agenda and solutions)

Details previous problems (in brief)

    * Lack of management / plan
        * documents were started
            * not much collaboration
        * no plan to make the plan
        * when bite sized plans were made they weren't followed
            * tasks just didn't get accomplished
                * we didn't follow up
                * i.e. milestones
                    * weren't followed in order milestones
        * Solutions to lack of management
            Using Jira Properly
                jobs needs to be assigned by someone or at least acknowledged
                   
    * morale (stemming from a lack of productivity [because in part bc of little or no mgmt])
    * communication issues
    * expectation gaps
          o what is a project manager?
          o skill gaps - make sure everyone knows exactly what you think they know
   
Henri's Airing of Greivances
    No Order
        no design
        no documentation
            leads to...
                people just doing random things
                lots of things were left unfinished / not even started
                    leads to...
                        no motivation
    Communication
        Team Communication
            No indication of progress
                personal pride "I'll try to figure it out"
    No Motivation
    Slow feedback /slow feedback
    No collaboration
    No Analysis and Design
        Henri was suggesting things
            Controls (why do we want / need stuff)
                critical questioning about why something is the way it is
            media and code needs design
                there needs to be methodology
    No rewards
    Expectation Gaps
        skillsets
        mindsets (e.g. what motivates / moralizes ppl)
    No Brainstorming Sessions
    Getting preoccupied with things not related to the project
        Lack of Progress during this time is very frustrating