Guild of Writers

Hey, Writers.

I'm Montgomery; many of you already know me (hi, Whilyam and Jennifer, Pryftan, Lieghana, Owehn, Marten, Paradox, Time, and of course Andy, MJ and Jishin).

I've just been elected the Maintainers' (temporary) guildmaster in charge of Age inspection and reporting (we call it the Submissions Department). And we have had a lively little discussion on our forum about what kinds of things we should be looking for. We've discussed programming bugs, obviously, and even copywrite issues. I had something like this in mind:

Creative bugs (inconsistencies, unrealistic modeling, visual and sound problems, missing pieces, etc.)
Performance bugs (collision planes, moving around the Age, manipulating interactive elements, ability to solve puzzles, switches working correctly, etc.)
Programming bugs (crashes, glitches, borks, etc.)
Copywrite issues, and perhaps even Myst Universe "correctness."
The list could be much longer.

But the fact is, we just don't know yet what our customers want -- YOU are our customers. So I'm asking you. This applies to the reporting function, too. The reports are primarily for you. I'd like to know what you think would be the best way to present you the feedback you need. The bottom line is, we Maintainers are going to need to develop a strong working relationship with the GoW, because we are going to be playing in your yard, with your ball.

What I DON'T want, however, is twenty-seven people listing what THEY want us to look for and report to THEM. That is not going to be useful, practical, or even possible. The Guild of Writers and all of its members are our customer -- not each individual Writer. So here is an opportunity for someone here to step up and form a committee, hold a discussion, hell, just compile some responses and find a consensus. Our guild needs your guild to tell us what our job is. And as soon as you can do this, Andy, our Training Guildmaster can start developing some tools to make us experts in your sand box.

OK let's have the discussion right here then we can summarize and send you the results.

It is important to classify the bugs in categories as you did, but also in severity. For example, a crashing bug is blocking, the Age shouldn't be released with it. A missing texture is severe but not blocking. A poorly wrapped texture is a visual defect but not severe. So a Maintainer's checklist should have a "severity" column.

Here's a couple ideas:

1) Storyline inconsistencies
2) Classification of:
- Navigational ease
- Age size
- Puzzle difficulty
- ...
- ...


One thought I had is that it might be a good idea to make a basic standard report, as feedback to the GoW//individual writer after review, containing the results of the initial survey. Perhaps including among others points like I mentioned above.

Not sure that congratulations are in order, Monty; from what i hear, you may wish you had not taken the job – temporary as is it. So, i will send my blessings, a cup of hot coffer, and big big jigger of Kaluha to season it with.

I am not a fan of check-off sheets, yet there may be repetitive issues that eventually demand some check items. My suggestion for now is not to worry about the great variety of possible categories (check-offs). Do not try to codify all essentials into a neat list yet, but let that demand emerge. If its really worth what one looses in referring to a check-off list –- that is, in what one looses in individual, unique and necessary criticism -- then the check-off items will loom up and not be avoidable.

What Montgomery is speaking to mostly (but not entirely) is the modeling portion of Writing. And what Trylon refers to mostly (but not entirely) is the story line.

I doubt not that it has been mentioned many times, but here it is again: These two major categories rise to the top of the Christmas wassell bowl and far as we can tell, they will survive many an argument, remaining the primary pair:

.....(A) Graphical issues of 3D modeling will always demand one type of
perspective; while the
.....(B) Textual issues of story-lining will forever call for its own more linear thinking.

To my mind, this division should be kept in the Reporting Format, and whatever else may devolve out of the need for reporting, it would seem counter productive to ignore this divide. So for now, it seems better to let the other issues work out in the wash.

And lest i forget, i also agree about the need for qualifications. A standard list of qualifiers for most subjects should be easily had, as both Chacal and Trylon mentioned. Of course, the more precise the qualifiers become, the more argument will be generated. The most simple ones would be qualities from 1 to 4, where numbers range from weak to strong qualities. More complex qualifications were mentioned by Trylon as, textual inconsistencies, navigational ease, size and puzzle difficulty. This list could grow quite long and would probably be better used on an individual basis, rather then developed as standard law for all submissions.

Not much time to write anything of much substance.. but welcome to our forums, Montgomery. And congratulations on being elected temporary Guildmaster! That's not a bad title as far as they go.

Just some quick thoughts.

Maybe everybody who has an 'active' age should make a list of known bugs and limitations in said ages. Do we really want reports from the GoMa that are in reality limitations of the current tools? Admittedly it could be good practice for them but, tiresome in the long run, I think. They can look for as many issues as they like but having a list can prevent duplication of effort. Perhaps each age forum could have a sub-forum or bugtraq for listing bugs and whatnot.

teedyo wrote:Perhaps each age forum could have a sub-forum or bugtraq for listing bugs and whatnot.

The Maintainers already have inspection forums dedicated to each age currently available on ULM. Take a look.

Robert The Rebuilder wrote:

teedyo wrote:Perhaps each age forum could have a sub-forum or bugtraq for listing bugs and whatnot.

The Maintainers already have inspection forums dedicated to each age currently available on ULM. Take a look.

Just what I was thinking was needed here with the addition of a sticky that lists all known bugs and their status. Said sticky should be editable by the age creator. Of course, having these lists in both forums would be duplication of effort. I would prefer the list be kept here but, in the absence of that; each age forum should at least have a sticky with a link pointing to the corresponding bug discussion on GoMa.

teedyo wrote:I would prefer the list be kept here but, in the absence of that; each age forum should at least have a sticky with a link pointing to the corresponding bug discussion on GoMa.

That's a great idea, teedyo!

YES!

We know in a general way that the blender plugin can't do animated water, background sounds (Other then footsteps), and a few other things at the moment. If a list of what it is capable of doing could be worked up for us [GoMa] types that would be a very good thing. I know the Blender plugin is not exactly "Stable" (More like nitroglycerin depending on the version), but with such a list we would only need the plugin version the Writer used to find out what in the Age should be overlooked as a limit of the software, and not overlooked because it's a honest bug.

Also I don't think that it would be a duplication of effort for us at The [GoMa] - Supporters to maintain our own inspection forum. We are trying to get up to speed so we may provide something useful as Fan Age Testers, but our inspections should and will be one of the last stops on the line. Having your own forum here for inspection covers everything from the start of the concept work for the Age, to the point where the Writer says "Ok it's ready." and kicks it to us. The current duplication is just because of the backlog in the ULM, a lot of what is in there is "Mostly" abandoned, and only three or four Ages that have had it's Writer contact us. Eventually we will work through the Ages currently in the ULM and in the process pickup some of the software limits. Till then we are learning and something like a list of working features sorted by plugin version would be very helpful so we don't have to bother you asking over every little thing.