Participation from the Guild of Maintainers

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Montgomery
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Participation from the Guild of Maintainers

Post by Montgomery »

I've been away from MOULa for awhile, now, but with the release of CWE and MOSS, I can see that there will finally be a real need for the GoMa to find it's place in Rand and Cyan's vision for adding fan-created content to the official MOULa shard. We created the GoMa with this in mind, and while things grew quiet in the long hiatus, we will definitely be stepping up to take our place in the mix.

I would appreciate any guidance on where in this forum I should start any discussions or pose any questions about our key role in creating and managing the Fan Created Art License (FCAL) and the panel which will review submissions, which will be key in the process of getting Cyan approval for inclusion into MOULa. While I realize that many new projects and much content may be created for other shards with no intention of making it to the Cyan server, however I'm certain that whatever process the Maintainers and the FCAL Panel eventually put in place to bug-test and evaluate new content will also be useful for fine-tuning those projects as well even if no license is sought. I imagine we will want to provide different types of services to meet the needs of Writers in both catagories.

There was some work done back in the days of MORE, much of which I think is still relvant and will serve as good starting point. I've also gotten a reply to my request for information on the MOUL forums from one of the moderators.

If there is a better place in these forums to have this discussion, please direct me there (or kindly move this thread). I am a stranger in a strange land, and I want to learn the rules and etiquette as quickly as possible.
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JWPlatt
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Re: Participation from the Guild of Maintainers

Post by JWPlatt »

I'll write a couple of words, but defer to Mac_Fife's sense of things as he is better acquainted with GoMa.

- You could use the existing GoMa website for your purposes, of course, but you're welcome to either set up a full-fledged project here or simply an outreach.

- It seems to me that the role of GoMa fits in best with our workflow concepts of review and test. That will have a lot of value on Foundry.

- I'm not immediately sure where you might hold discussions here. "Open Uru Creative & Community Projects, "Open Uru Infrastructure Projects," and somewhere in "CyanWorlds.com Engine (CWE) Projects" all seem appropriate. Choices. Any way you look at it, there's a place for you.
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Montgomery
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Re: Participation from the Guild of Maintainers

Post by Montgomery »

JW,

Thank you for the kind reply and welcome.

We are certainy holding discussions on our own GoMa forums, but I felt like some presence here was required. The way I see it, you guys will be our customers, so we need to make sure you are represented when we develop our product so that it best serves you.

When I have more time to look around in here I'll post more that will hopefully be more informed.
Last edited by Montgomery on Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Participation from the Guild of Maintainers

Post by Mac_Fife »

I've already responded to Montgomery's related post on the MOUL forums (http://mystonline.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 597#369597), so there's probably not a lot more I could add here. This site doesn't really hold to a particulary Guild oriented view of things - it's more "if you can, then you do" here.
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Montgomery
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Re: Participation from the Guild of Maintainers

Post by Montgomery »

We've been having a discussion with input from members from various communities in the GoMa forum on this, and in particular past efforts and how they failed and why.

One key thing that has come up is a reluctance of artists to let comment or report IC on their work-in-progress. That is, afterall, how we in the GoMa have historically approached our role. How do you all here feel about setting up a test server for bugtesting, etc. but also creating an NDA so that any comments or discussion about work-in-progress gets artist approval before being made public? We always thought one of the most important services we could provide was promotion of new content by reporting IC on our experiences inspecting it prior to "approving" it for gereral release. BUt I agree that before we say one word about what we see, the artist should get to approve or deny those comments.

I think this is key. To quote myself:
Montgomery wrote:I agree that interfereing in any way with the intent or vision of the Writer is something that should be forbidden. It should be our Prime Directive, in fact. I'd like to see the Writers and Maintainers jointly develop some form of NDA with regard to work released to the Maintainers but not yet released to the "public." And I think ANY discussion of what the inspectors experience should require approval from the Writer (and maybe even a peer review within the GoMa to keep ourselves consistant) before details can be released to the public in the form of an IC journal or even idle posts on the various forums. IC is all about storyline, and until the Age or other content is made public it should be considered a work-in-progress with a single author. Any IC mention of that WIP becomes part of it's canon, and the writer should still have full control over that up until the moment it goes live.
And I think this should apply to everything we touch, weather it is intended to ultimately go on the Cyan MOULa server or not (presuming any artist desires the services of the GoMa to inspect and critique their work regardless).
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Re: Participation from the Guild of Maintainers

Post by rarified »

Do you see the need for a seperate server for each new age, or one testbed for all in-progress ages? Does the original Writer expect to use the testbed (and therefore see other writer's ages?)

We can set up permissions on bug tracking and code review to be limited to specific groups of individuals. That's not a problem with the toolkits we have in place.

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Montgomery
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Re: Participation from the Guild of Maintainers

Post by Montgomery »

I no longer recall where, but I believe I read that Cyan is planning to set up a test server. I imagine, if this is the case, that all testing could be done there. I'm no programmer, but could not each Age have its own permissions, so that only those people or groups granted permission to look would get access to do so? And could this acces not be granted or denied by the author?

This seems like the best idea to me. On any test server set up.
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Re: Participation from the Guild of Maintainers

Post by Mac_Fife »

There were references to a test server - it was last mentioned as being "the next microstep along the way to open source" or words to that effect, but I think with where we are now, with the very real potential for open source servers, that Cyan probably feel they're better keeping any spare server resource for revenue generating work, or for thier own formal (and possibly private) testing of any fan submissions. But in any case, we're more likely to be in control of our own destiny and timescales with a fan server, even with limited capacity.
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andylegate
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Re: Participation from the Guild of Maintainers

Post by andylegate »

I can tell you that testing Ages, for the purpose of functionality, only requires access to log on to a MOUL type of server. The actual age files do not have to be located on the test server itself, but people that need testing done on their creations (and trust me, when building an age, you start spending more and more time exporting it to test things).

However, this requires a special internal version of the client software, so that the tester(s) can use the /localdata switch, so that logging on will not clobber the age files.

The beauty of this is, a person can simply copy the age files that they need tested into the "dat" folder for the special internal build, and log on and test. No uploading required.
One exception to this is the sdl files. Changes done to this, will require that file to be uploaded to the test server.


Cyan can set up a test server for this function with their existing servers, without it affecting the actual MOUL:a game server (please refrain from asking me how I know this). Also, with the OS release, it's within the power of us here to also set up a "Testing" server, so that those who are using Max and Cyan's plugin can test our creations (without any special conversion using Drizzle).

Does this mean Drizzle doesn't have a use anymore? No, actually it will still come in handy. We can still use Drizzle when a creation is first being made, so that creators can quickly test basic things using the offline version (Uru:CC, etc), such as rendered meshes, basic detector / responder wiring, etc.
Once an Age has reached a more complex point (IE subworlds, lighting, precise colliders, etc), then it can be tested with the testing server.

What does this mean for the Maintainers? I'm not sure as I've had to leave the GoMa due to some complex commitments, heh. But I know that I would not mind at all having Maintainers do a lot of the "grunt" testing of my Age (making sure all the colliders work, trying to get stuck, etc) at first, and then helping me with test things like Multiplayer testing.
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Re: Participation from the Guild of Maintainers

Post by MustardJeep »

Just wanted to put my two cents in here.


As a Maintainer GM emeritus I'm still very interested in helping the group I helped found. I've got a idea in the works for the Maintainers place in this wild world of open source software that has absolutely nothing to do with testing peoples WIP Ages and everything to do with it and everything else. Honest I'm not meaning to be obtuse but I'm waiting on e-mail confirmations first.

The idea I have has none of the IC'ish bug hunting (but that can still happen if people want), and a lot more creativity and fun available to anyone in the Maintainers Guild. All so we can hold events and such without depending on overworked and under appreciated level designers to crank out levels and then suffer through us telling them design flaws they probably already knew about in the first place. Picture something below level design and slightly above FPSBanana and you will have the level of difficulty I'm picturing. I don't want the Maintainers stepping on the toes of the Writers anymore (They hate that) but I want us to be able to make as much a contribution as the writers making new game levels or the Greeters helping people in the game.

My idea will work I know it; I just have no doubts a lot of Writer/Level Designers will be spitting mad and hate it but I hope they can adjust and live with it especially considering they may never be on a server where they have to see it in action. The initial outlay of cash may be mine to open this first door but if it works like I'm hoping Uru will take a big step forward to the vision I agree with JWPlatt on and the Maintainers will have their part in it to.
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