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MUGEN needs more manpower! (Read 3796 times)

Started by extravagant, September 12, 2014, 10:53:24 am
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extravagant

MUGEN needs more manpower!
#1  September 12, 2014, 10:53:24 am
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I feel like over the years I've seen so many full games, characters, new concepts and ideas arise and looked so damn promising and interesting. but from what I could always tell there was always a lack of interest as time dragged on. (I'm guilty of this too)

I really do think having a 1-man job do an entire full game or releasing xx number of accurate character creations is really demanding and puts a lot of pressure on one or two people. I mean, just two people working on an entire full game is still a lot of work.

Just wanted to share and ask but, would you think that some of these promising projects from the past might've been finished, had we had a chance to have more manpower in these projects? Like a team of developers, coders, testers, gameplay idea innovators, sound guys, spriters, etc.

It seems like over the years I have seen many talented individuals come and go here at the Guild. I just wondered what it would be like if all those people got together and worked on some sort of team project with at least a staff of 10+, here at the Guild's innovative talent.
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Re: MUGEN needs more manpower!
#2  September 12, 2014, 10:58:48 am
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There are people who gather in teams to make games.
Sometimes (often) it fails because a couple of people on that team vanish and never return. Sometimes (rare times), it works out and something comes out of it. Most of the time, coordination is terrible and people just give up.
It only works out when there's one person dedicated enough who won't give up (even if it takes years) and doesn't need to rely on someone else.

Have a look in the projects of the full games section to get an idea of how it goes.
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Re: MUGEN needs more manpower!
#3  September 12, 2014, 12:08:57 pm
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Sometimes, working in teams fails due to creative divergences. Team member A wants the character to do something, and team member B is totally against it. Arguments happen and then everything goes to oblivion.

And another reason is because in general we're not being paid for doing stuff. If I have to invest my free time in a skill that would improve my career, I'd do it learning a new programming language instead of learning mugen. So, at the end, whatever comes out of mugen is pure hobbyists and fandom, because no one would be 100% devoted to mugen.
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Bea

Re: MUGEN needs more manpower!
#4  September 12, 2014, 12:25:11 pm
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We'd also see more completed projects if Mugen was a suitable engine for commercial games.
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Re: MUGEN needs more manpower!
#5  September 12, 2014, 12:59:55 pm
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Or a beta gets leaked. Or someone gets a job, pops out a kid, etc. Teams have too many potential issues to rely on them. Its better to go it alone. Plus, if the project is too grand for yourself then you can save it by just cutting back and expanding later. Esp when you can really only rely on yourself 90% of the time

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Re: MUGEN needs more manpower!
#6  September 12, 2014, 01:10:06 pm
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Most people arent really that trustworthy. That doesnt mean you should do all alone, but you can do your own stuff, cutting down to what you CAN do, and eventually you might find more like minded people you can trust more to work with.

coordination amidst 2-3 persons requires more social skills, discussions and agreements than most people can handle when they are not getting paid =P

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Re: MUGEN needs more manpower!
#7  September 12, 2014, 01:35:46 pm
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Just about every full game i've seen involving a "team" degenerates very quickly as 2 people pull their weight while the rest slack off. The 2 people pulling however have differing ideas and don't want to compromise. It all goes to hell. Regularly. A full game could potentially be 3 people

Spriter
Coder
Stages/Screenpack

With one of those 3 in charge (probably the spriter) Beyond that point people start being terrible. Seen it over and over. In fact, most of the failed "full games" in the WIP forum are from teams.


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Re: MUGEN needs more manpower!
#8  September 13, 2014, 01:59:11 am
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To work on a team, all members have to be on the same page and have the same dedication. More times than not, that's really hard to achieve with simple fans. Other times, finding teammates is the actual problem. As for me, I've been working on my game for a long time and had once partnered up with a friend early on. Then I had another friend join in too. Soon after seeing the quality of their work, I was not pleased, so I kicked them off my team and just went solo. It's nothing against them but it was clear that either they didn't care or didn't have enough experience to be on my level at the time. So, we didn't see eye to eye.

Another factor to consider is that not everyone might share the same vision as you do. For example, there a lot of people who like my game, but it stops there. They wouldn't want to be a part of it because they know it would be a huge time sink. There's the problem of history repeating itself as well.

In the case of the Z2 team, they are an example of a team that has members who share the same vision. Also, there are different roles. In my case, everyone wanted to make characters and nobody was going to anything else except me.

Bea said, September 12, 2014, 12:25:11 pm
We'd also see more completed projects if Mugen was a suitable engine for commercial games.
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Blackscale299

Re: MUGEN needs more manpower!
#9  September 13, 2014, 02:21:09 am
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Well currently i'm working on a mugen game with my team (4 people. one coder(me), 2 spriters and one designer [screenpack,etc]) since 2012 or something and we really are going to finish this thing, not unlike other projects i've seen..
Just wanted to throw my 5 cents here n stuff.

rgveda99

Re: MUGEN needs more manpower!
#10  September 16, 2014, 01:17:58 am
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Worst is having to hire a spriter with his own agenda who doesn't understand the concept of how a fighting game works and doesn't share you vision for the character but wants his vision for the character. Keeps doing stuff his way like telling him to sprite a Shoryuken like move but what he does is a crouching uppercut. Does animation more appropriate for an RPG rather than a fighting game. Complicates things because he thinks his ideas are better instead of simplifying them. The one thing I learned from all this is don't hire someone from a specific fandom unless they know about fighting games or beat em ups.

Sadly artists are some of the hardest people to work with. So glad I hired someone here who is competent.

Also some coders will never invest in hiring a professional spriter because its a fan game that doesn't supplement their income. This is really a poor excuse not to hire an artist that requires professional level of quality. The coders know they don't have the talent for spriting  and yet still expect some noble spriter who will do their work for free.

As a spriter myself its frustating having to do all the work.
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extravagant

Re: MUGEN needs more manpower!
#11  October 07, 2014, 09:26:38 am
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XGargoyle said, September 12, 2014, 12:08:57 pm
Sometimes, working in teams fails due to creative divergences. Team member A wants the character to do something, and team member B is totally against it. Arguments happen and then everything goes to oblivion.

And another reason is because in general we're not being paid for doing stuff. If I have to invest my free time in a skill that would improve my career, I'd do it learning a new programming language instead of learning mugen. So, at the end, whatever comes out of mugen is pure hobbyists and fandom, because no one would be 100% devoted to mugen.


does that mean you would actually work on commission if someone approached you for a fair deal?
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Re: MUGEN needs more manpower!
#12  October 07, 2014, 12:47:01 pm
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extravagant said, October 07, 2014, 09:26:38 am
does that mean you would actually work on commission if someone approached you for a fair deal?

I'm always open to all kind of proposals. I'm rather adaptable to group working and have proven experience on Mugen creations
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Re: MUGEN needs more manpower!
#13  October 07, 2014, 03:52:09 pm
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@OP
I honestly think what you want is quite a daunting task unless, Mugen becomes commercialized and is ported to other platforms such as the Playstation, etc. Once that happens, big companies will be able to put out big bucks for project funds, but I highly doubt that's going to happen. I mean, Mugen is just a hobby, or a sideline job to some extent, and will never be able to replace a real job. People can only dedicate so much to something so little a value. Though, there are selected few who actually do put their time and effort to full-games (Hyper DBZ, Shades of Manhattan,  etc.) and they deserve special mention. Unless the workers are extremely attached to that project, I highly doubt it'll ever pick up and be finished. Adding more manpower without the proper managerial of the original team leader could result into a different final output, and that's a big no-no.

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Re: MUGEN needs more manpower!
#14  October 07, 2014, 09:28:04 pm
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In my case whenever a hobby I have starts transforming in some kind of additional obligation besides my job I normally quit it. It happened to me in the past with MUGEN, sports and Fighting Games tournament organization. As XG said, none of these activities are paid, so "love for what you do" isn't enough to spare your time in it when you could be doing something else that rewards you in some way.

The rare case for me was Arcade Stick Modding; It started as a hobby, but then people wanted to pay me to do it and I had a small business running for two years (I even crafted my own arcade sticks). In the end I also closed the store because the earned money wasn't enough to spare my time :/
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