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[baconman]

So, yeah. I've already had the feeling that the entire scope of what I'm trying to accomplish with my project is almost certain to be above my head. And perhaps even the total development/refinement of the current phase of it, as well (but I don't know that for sure). I have a lot of the bases in place, drawing and animation principles, logic-friendly design, basic musical theory and some style variations, software engineering skills. It's not quite as on par as much of what I've seen around here though, that's for sure. I know this forum, this world, is OOZING with eager talent, I see it all over!

And then comes the dilemma. (See bold, below.)

Don't get me wrong, I've worked as part of a team on things like this before (perhaps not of this scope). I've co-founded a local gaming community, some of whom dabble in gamedev stuff, too. I've worked entire projects to completion a few times, even; although it's mostly a matter of rearranging existing material, and not creating such from scratch. I have complete faith in both the concept of said game, the simplicity and ease of executing it*, and how fun the result will be from doing so. There's really no excuse, reason or rhyme why, yet I hesitate to propose a collab.

*I mean, it's almost all stuff that's been done already, just not tied together so neatly.

Q to self: WTF is with that?!
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First few things that come to mind:

For now, it's a freeware, experimental project. This in itself has no rev-share attached to it, but I do intend that a couple of more polished and expansive follow-ups that WILL, assuming some degree of success is established.

The overall scope of the project series. It's only partly relevant to the current project; and that for now, is what I'd like to focus it on. Also, I have no idea how many directions I would have to anticipate splitting the pot, in the event that this does take off, regardless of math skill.

Perhaps I CAN do MOST of it, I just don't know if I can devote enough time and resources to actually get it fully produced. Maybe it's just impatience talking. Maybe it's a subtle, compulsive need for idea-bouncing and feedback. Maybe I don't want to accidentally overmanage, or undercontribute to it. Perhaps it's just the conflictive tendency I have to work alone, paired with the inner desire NOT to. I don't know, but it's SOMETHING.
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Originally, I was just going to spam this in my DevLog. But upon reviewing it, it's not really about the project, or even directly relevant to it's content (that could be phrased better, I'm sure ) at all. It's an issue I think a fair number of us may face, and it might be good discussion fodder. Who knows?

Anybody else here get like that?


  (Going to bed now. Been a hard "workend.")

[iggie]

You've got the energy - so if you've got the time - you can do your project successfully on your own, there's forums and the internet to fill any holes in your knowledge, and readymade game engines in all genres to take care of the math.

Collabs are best for shorter projects, otherwise you might lose some key people partway through and find it even harder to finish. On the other hand, idea bouncing and feedback is very useful, doesn't have to come from a collaborator

[GameRoom]

otherwise you might lose some key people partway through and find it even harder to finish.

Ugh, I've had that happen one too many times.

[xen]

I know most people say you shouldn't bother with internet collaborations as they never get finished and fall apart blah blah blah. While in theory I tend to agree with this, its getting easier and easier. Applications like dropbox and various free tools that are becoming available are making it easier to manage projects privately without setting up your own CVS or paying for scheduling tools. There's a start point available for almost anything you want to do rather than doing it from scratch.

It comes down to drive in my experience. Projects always end up taking way longer than I plan/expect and always suffer from feature creep. "Wouldn't it be cool if..."
I'm coming up on a year working on a project that should have technically taken me 3 months. That being said I worked through most of it over the internet with my business partner and we're about to start public beta, so I'm quite proud.

Everyone needs someone to motivate them, I find as projects drag on interest wanes. On the flip side, having too many people in a project you end up getting quantity over quality and it falls apart. I think if you keep the team minimal with people that are on the same page as you, you stand the best chance of getting it done. Just some scattered thoughts (I'm tired  )

[baconman]

I certainly agree that quality > quantity of partners; and the trickiest part is often finding people enough on the same page to have a semi-common vision of an outcome, but diverse enough skills and talents to function as a non-conflictive team (like two artists with very different and distinctive styles, for instance), that all have the time and proper pacing for it.

Then the other thing is... I'm not exactly sure how long this project is going to take. At first guess, I'd say 1-2 years, but it's entirely possible I'll be finishing this before then.

 

[G-Factor]

My problem with collabs is very simple.

I am always, in every single project the most excited and motivated member on the team. ALWAYS. At the start everyone's super keen and suggesting ideas and talking about the art direction and so on. Within 2 weeks people stop replying to emails. Within a month people actually start to look uneasy when I mention the project like they really wish I would just stop talking about it (I've tried to start games, short films, youtube blogs, scripts...you name it all sorts of things). I'm  a pretty creative person by nature and always feel the need to create something, even when it turns out crap. At some point I am the only one left working on it. When the realisation comes that it's not going to happen because people just don't want to do anything...I don't have a choice but to stop working as well because it wasn't designed to be a solo project from the start.

A lot of people's attention spans are so short that I just can't trust collabs. The only times I've ever finished anything is when I'm doing it alone. I would love to find someone who is more excited than me when it comes to doing something creative, someone who would actually start to get on MY nerves because they mention the project so damn much but I just haven't found such partners yet. I might sound a bit bitter but maybe that's because I am. Flakey people FTL  

I might ask for help for my project later on but I should be at a stage where it won't really bother me too much if people simply decide to drop off, since all my projects are  now designed to be 100% gameplay completeable by myself.

By the way...this is with friends in real life. I can't even imagine trying to start a project with people online. Never say never...but I certainly wouldn't like my chances.

[Smithy]

I am always, in every single project the most excited and motivated member on the team. ALWAYS. At the start everyone's super keen and suggesting ideas and talking about the art direction and so on. Within 2 weeks people stop replying to emails. Within a month people actually start to look uneasy when I mention the project like they really wish I would just stop talking about it (I've tried to start games, short films, youtube blogs, scripts...you name it all sorts of things).

Had this friend a while ago, back when Red Vs Blue was popular. We were kids. Everything was funny. After watching some RVB, He said,

"We should do the same thing! With CoD instead!"

I just looked at him like he was crazy, and like it was the worst idea I ever heard.

"Yeah, yeah! And, we'd have this character that was like the commander. Not the sergeant, because that would be ripping off RVB. We'd have him be the captain instead, or something like that. We'd call him.. Uh. Bruce."

"Uh."

"Hah! And--yeah, and Bruce, he'd have his own team. I guess they could be the nazi's or the americans, I'm not quite sure which. Anyway, one of his people would be lazy and insubordinate, and Bruce would always get pissed off at him and order him into the line of fire, and trying tokill him/making jokes about killing him! His name would be..."

"Grif?"

"No! that's ripping off RVB. Maybe it would be 'mike.' No. That's too plain."

"Private Sandbag."

"Yeah! Yeah!"

"And whenever someone dies, a he walks over to the corpse, looks down, and makes a war quote. Winston Churchill, Stalin. Whatever."

"huh?"

"Like in single player. When you die. Actually, you know what, never mind." I was trying to make suggestions to make the project seem palatable, because I had a feeling that if I was going to end up being involuntarily committed to this thing, I might as well have some say in it. This was all before I learned to say 'fuck you,' or 'this is really stupid,' to people who tried to rope me into things. I was pretty sensitive to other people's feelings, to a fault.

But that's a digression.

"Anyway, we'd have this one guy, who was really retarded! He'd walk up to a field of corpses, and instead of saying, 'look at all the sleepy people,' like caboose, he'd say, 'look at all the CREEPY people!"

"heh. Yeah. Uh."

"Oh man! We're going to be so famous with this thing! We're going to get millions of viewers, advertisements, all sorts of stuff! We might even send a copy over to the RVB people, to see what they think, and then maybe we'll collaborate with them! It'll be great!" He started pacing back and forth. "I'm FEELING this, man!"

"Yeah..."

"We'd have one character that's really bad with a sniper rifle! And he can't hit anyone! But now and then, he hits Pvt Sandbag, but Sandbag stays alive, and then the sniper guy screams, 'I hit him! He should be SOOO dead! Get it? Like the people who yell at stupid laggers!"

Heh.

This was going to be the million dollar project.

He kept assuring me that it would be nothing like RVB. Nothing like it. Our characters would be completely unique. Creations of his irreplaceable imagination and ambition.

He tried to rope one of his other friends into it. That guy was just as polite as me, knew that the idea was horrible, but he didn't say anything.

"My god," I thought. Maybe this is how Limbaugh followers and the like ended up getting the slight foothold they have now. The people who know better are too decent to tell the truth.

He was clever though. The other guy. He said that it's an interesting idea, might be a fun summer project. And then, he pointed this guy in the direction of a machinima website. To watch a few examples and get some inspiration. haha.

We watch a few, really, really bad machinimas.

The project leader's spirits were shattered. Sunk. He said later,

"that was depressing. Man. It just goes to show. Every time you think you have an original idea, a million others have thought of it."

...

Anyway.

I think it's a common problem, to try to put together a team and find they have no enthusiasm. There could be plenty of reasons for that. It's not necessarily that you're putting together an RVB ripoff. That idea was so stupid that I can't imagine it accounts for the majority.

More likely, they just don't see it taking off like you do because, well, they don't have your same vision.

Had the two subordinates, myself and the other roped in person, thought the idea would take off and that we'd make millions--had we come prebuilt with that conception in our heads... Well, then there'd be another really shitty machinima out there.

But the point isn't that it would be really shitty. The point is it would be done.

It is very, very rare to find people with the same idea built into them. And that's not a bad thing--it's just the nature of a unique (or possibly terrible) idea. I told my dad the story of the humble indie bundle, a while back. Forgot what the conversation was, something about business models. When I mentioned a pay what you want sale, he said it would never work. I pointed out that over a million was made, when all was said and done, in just one week. His eyes popped out. Suddenly he saw the value in the idea. Most people are like that. Most people will believe something can't be done until someone else has already done it (and then a million copycats come out of the woodwork.) It's a shame, but it's true.

So if you want people to be enthusiastic about something, you can't just make talk and hope that they join in. You have to build something on your own, independent of them, show them something they can put their faith into. If your idea is alright, they might join. Otherwise, it is best to work on your own.

Anyway.

I might ask for help for my project later on but I should be at a stage where it won't really bother me too much if people simply decide to drop off, since all my projects are  now designed to be 100% gameplay completeable by myself.

This is a good way of doing things.

[G-Factor]

I get what you're saying and I agree to an extent. But in the past I've had people actually ask me if they could help. I say yes and the same thing happens...2 weeks later they stop working even though they knew exactly what they were getting into.

I've also worked on projects where I didn't even start them (not many but I have). Someone else is doing something cool and I thought it'd be fun to jump on board and help out. Even in these projects I am the last man standing.

Whether projects don't work because people are too polite to say no, lack long term motivation or whatever I think the point still stands at least in my experience. Trying to start a collab generally leads to members simply stop doing any work. Obviously there are exceptions and these exceptions are the ones that actually manage to create awesome stuff.