[!!!] About TR [Project Organization]

Threads related to the general organization of the project.

Moderator: Lead Developers

Locked
User avatar
Gnomey
Lead Developer
Posts: 2869
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 11:55 am
Location: In your garden.

[!!!] About TR [Project Organization]

Post by Gnomey »

should contain general information such as a list of the leads+admins, our [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24590]statement of vision[/url], [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=19173]responsibilities of modders[/url], etc. Whatever new members ought to know about the project. Leads and admins to whom new members can direct their PMs should have their names hyperlinked. If you're busy or simply don't want to get such PMs, just edit the post to remove the hyperlink. (I think the hyperlinks should not be there by default and people should just add them as they like).
User avatar
10Kaziem
Lead Developer
Posts: 248
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2015 1:46 am

Post by 10Kaziem »

Some rough thoughts on About TR.




[Post #1]

[Intro to statement of vision]
Welcome to Tamriel Rebuilt!
For more than a decade, Tamriel Rebuilt has been a project dedicated to extending and expanding the game world of Morrowind in a manner consistent with the themes, tones, and back story of the original game - as we have often said, "as Bethesda would have done it."

A more complete statement of vision is available here...[link]


[dev list]
Tamriel Rebuilt is run by a set of Lead Developers, who...
  • [Forum Tour]
    The forums are divided into sections...
    Discussion
    In which things are discussed, such a project organizations, feedback, bug reports, developer showcases, and miscellaneous off-topic things.
    Planning
    In which things are planned according to out pipeline, which includes our overall vision, the nature of the various factions and locations, and quests.
    Assets
    In which things are made, such as concept art, models, textures, books, and sounds.
    Section Development
    In which the active sections are developed with interiors, exteriors, NPCs, and quests.
    Claims
    In which individual claims are posted and then claimed.

    [assorted things]

    Things you might need (to be rearranged in here somehow)
    A link to How to Contribute
    A link to Where to Start
    A link to IRC
    A link to Downloads


    Post #2
    [Reserved space for FAQ]




    What else do we need in here? This is at the moment just a very rough idea of the sort of information we need.
User avatar
Gnomey
Lead Developer
Posts: 2869
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 11:55 am
Location: In your garden.

Post by Gnomey »

Making a rough start. I'm still contemplating the forum tour; it might work better in the second post, as I don't want to pad out the first post too much. I'm also not sure if a link to downloads is necessary in the first post, though it would naturally be part of the forum tour or, failing that, the FAQ in the second post.

[Post #1]

The intent of this thread is to, as briefly and broadly as possible, bring new members up to speed on all that needs to be known about the Tamriel Rebuilt project. If you have any questions, please ask them below.

You are also welcome to PM lead developers if you have particular questions for them. Private Messages directed to the names with links are the most likely to get answered; few leads can maintain a reliable presence on the forums at all times. A lot of us also hang around on [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=25004]TR's IRC channel[/url] from time to time, though as with PMs it can sometimes take a while before you get a reply. A list of TR's current lead developers:

Aeven
arvisrend
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=6585]Gnomey[/url]
gro-Dhal
klep
[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=13105]Not[/url]
Rats
rot
seneca37
Swiftoak
Theminimanx
Why
Yeti

ko2fan
- Website Service Provider

All TR members are encouraged to make a showcase thread in which they can showcase their work. A showcase thread is generally not required to become a TR Developer, however. Check out the [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=25018]How to Contribute to Tamriel Rebuilt[/url] sticky for more information.

Finally, you can read Tamriel Rebuilt's Statement of Vision here:[spoiler]For more than a decade, Tamriel Rebuilt has been a project dedicated to extending and expanding the game world of Morrowind in a manner consistent with the themes, tones, and back story of the original game - as we have often said, "as Bethesda would have done it." As a fan project which has grown, changed, and learned as it has gone through the process of developing this content, our understanding of what this means has evolved over the years.

Once, there was a time when Tamriel Rebuilt interpreted our self-imposed mandate to mean including every town in Arena, under such wonderfully inspired names as "Reich Parkeep," "Karththor Dale" (double th in the original) and "Green Heights." Once there was a time when Tamriel Rebuilt interpreted our mandate to mean we couldn't raise land higher than Red Mountain (because it is alleged to be the second highest mountain in Tamriel), that we couldn't use ash or Sixth House or ancient stronghold assets on the Mainland (because of some throwaway lines of dialogue), and so on.

What we've realized, though, is that our commitment to creating this game world "as Bethesda would have done it" requires something much more than scouring every line in every book and dialog topic for tiny statements that we could blow up into strict edicts of fact. What it requires is a commitment to the high caliber of storytelling, world-building, and art that makes Morrowind the game we all love so long after its release. Moreover, we have discovered that some aspects of the original content are actually very limiting on our ability to achieve our goal, and that we must sacrifice strict adherence to the literal content of Morrowind to maintain the integrity of our commitment to the themes, narratives, and lore of Morrowind.

These are mainly aspects of the game which have their origin in its limitations. Surely no one believes that if Morrowind were set in all of Morrowind and not only Vvardenfell, it would have one version of each faction on Vvardenfell and another version off of the island. The quarantine, similarly, is a small line of dialogue in order to justify the player's inability to leave the island, not some integral narrative element that makes the game what it is. In time, Tamriel Rebuilt will make these small changes for the sake of a better final product.

We believe it is vital to treat the province of Morrowind as a single gameworld, a vision that requires the integration of vanilla content. To do otherwise means artificially separating vanilla content from our lands and thus breaking the illusion that Morrowind exists as a single unified fantasy experience. For example, keeping the content of Tribunal separate from the larger city of Almalexia constrains our ability to portray it as the cultural center of House Indoril. What sense does it make for the heart of Great House Indoril's city, the Mournhold of Tribunal, to have not one single member of House Indoril walking its streets, and instead house dozens of outlanders? To fully take advantage of Morrowind as a storytelling and world-building platform, we feel we must modify Bethesda's original material to fit alongside our own. There must be one Morrowind, not "Vvardenfell, Mournhold, and everything else."

All of that said, we wish to summarize our intentions as follows:

  • We intend to avoid conflict with other mods whenever possible, and we do not intend to remove original content without replacing it. This policy is important to us, as we do not want to discourage people from downloading and using Tamriel Rebuilt.
  • Mournhold as depicted in Tribunal will not be a part of Tamriel Rebuilt's final product. We intend to re-implement its content in time in the main world space, but not in an identical arrangement to its depiction in Tribunal. While Tribunal functioned as a stand-alone world space, it does not meet the needs of our project.
  • We have found a way to disable the Dark Brotherhood attack script without creating load error incompatibility with any other mod or save game. We will enable this in the first release of TR_Mainland.esm to contain Almalexia. Any character which has already been attacked by the Dark Brotherhood will still be able to access Tribunal's Mournhold, and a plug-in will be distributed with the release that re-enables the Dark Brotherhood attacks script.
  • Over time, similar policies which change vanilla and increase incompatibility with other mods will be announced. While Tamriel Rebuilt does not enjoy being incompatible with other mods, please recognize that Tamriel Rebuilt is the most extensive modification to the world space that exists for Morrowind and it cannot be universally compatible with all modifications.


We have one last point. Over the years, Tamriel Rebuilt has changed, but so too has the larger modding community. There was a time that Tamriel Rebuilt could not be discussed on the official forums because of flame wars initiated by people who had nothing better to do than to tear down a hobbyist project because its goals were unrealistic. Now, Tamriel Rebuilt is widely recognized as one of the most important mods that exists for Morrowind. Please continue to put your trust in us as we attempt to steer our project toward even greater things.
[/spoiler]You can find the original statement of vision thread [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24590]here[/url].

[Post #2]
[Reserved space for FAQ]
User avatar
Gnomey
Lead Developer
Posts: 2869
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 11:55 am
Location: In your garden.

Post by Gnomey »

I just realized that there is a very large elephant in the room this sticky should address which hasn't been mentioned here, namely the contents of the [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24286]Tamriel Rebuilt Structural Overhaul[/url] sticky.
As I see it, the sticky focuses on two main topics: our management structure -- what the positions like developer and lead developer actually mean -- and our development pipeline.

Now as far as the management structure is concerned, this still needs to be discussed. Both the positions of developer and lead developer seems to largely be formalities; while leads get moderation powers and access to the Administration forums, there are no real attached responsibilities, and the same goes for developers. Which I think isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I do think it's something we ought to clarify.
The senior developer rank seems to have been rendered completely meaningless, so we can probably cut that one out, though I'm not quite sure whether the current senior developers should be reverted to ordinary developers, developer emeritus or what. I'd tend to say the former, and if they come back we can further negotiate matters on a case-by-case basis.
Then we have the other usergroups:
AI/Quests
Art Assets
Concept Artists
Exteriors
Interiors
Literature
NPCs
Playtesters
Reviewers
Sound & Music
My tendency in this case would be to cut all usergroups that do not require a showcase.

The pipeline bit is naturally a little more straightforward; we just have to link the (ideally finished) pipeline document. That would also probably be a really good place to link to the [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24999]Where to Start[/url] thread and the Master Plan.
User avatar
10Kaziem
Lead Developer
Posts: 248
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2015 1:46 am

Post by 10Kaziem »

If we have usergroups that correspond to your job, ie, making interiors, I vote that those all be compressed into members. Then, anyone who wants developer status can get it by either making work for us or pointing out what they've already done, according to whatever section they want to work in.

Many of us don't do only one job anyway, so having all those titles would be a bit misleading, anyway.
RyanS
Lead Developer
Posts: 532
Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2013 12:32 am
Location: California

Post by RyanS »

I seem to be the only semi-active senior developer around nowadays, so I guess I'll throw my thoughts around.

You're definitely correct when you say the title is meaningless right now. However, I think if we went with at least part of [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24286]the original definiton[/url] of senior developer, the rank could remain as a part of the structure.

Like most other people on the planet, I would mind if my rank was demoted, particularly when the demotion is unearned. After almost 2 years of service and dedication to the project, it would be very disappointing on my part. And becoming developer emeritus would be wrong, as I'm still working with the team. As for now inactive senior developers, I think they should be changed to developer emeritus, rather than developer. Their experience and time spent contributing to the project should be recognized.

On the topic of other usergroups, I agree about cutting the ones that do not need showcases.
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. –Albert Einstein

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. -Ayn Rand
User avatar
Gnomey
Lead Developer
Posts: 2869
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 11:55 am
Location: In your garden.

Post by Gnomey »

I'm glad to get the opinion of a senior developer. At the moment, making senior developers developer emeritus by default and then lead developer on request sounds like the right way to go about it.
My perspective on ranks is a little different, as I see them in a rather utilitarian light. Ranks provide access to certain forums and tools, but to my knowledge (I'm really not sure about this) there are no longer any forums seniors have access to that other developers do not (Halfway used to fill that role), and senior developers don't appear to have access to any particular tools. As such, there's no real difference in my eyes between senior developers and ordinary developers at the moment, but, naturally, I realize different people will see things differently.
All people with access to Halfway were given the choice of becoming leads or senior developers, so I see no reason to hesitate in making all seniors leads in principal.
But then comes the question of what, if anything, we expect of leads. As far as I can tell, the only difference between lead developer and developer emeritus is that the latter doesn't have moderation powers, though even that appears to have been implemented inconsistently. As such, for the time being, I see the difference between making people leads and making them developers emeritus as whether they'd use the moderation tools, and inactive people would tend not to need them for obvious reasons, whereas active people are encouraged (though not required) to exercise them when necessary. People who drop by from time to time may or may not end up using their moderation tools, so as far as I'm concerned it's up to them whether they want to be developers emeritus or leads.
And I see no reason to limit mobility between positions either; as soon as someone has shown themselves qualified to join a usergroup, and naturally assuming they haven't proved otherwise in the interim, I don't see any reason to restrict them from leaving and rejoining the usergroup as they like.
Then of course there's the matter of being on the list of leads in this sticky, but I don't see that as too big an issue, as the linked names serve to differentiate between leads members can contact and leads who, for whatever reason, prefer not to be contacted.

As for the intended role of senior developers, it was legitimate enough at the time, but given the current number of active developers, leads and senior developers, I don't think there's really room for a rank between lead developer and developer anymore. Nor is there any sense in having leads assigned to specific sections anymore -- even though it was already only a loose assignment in the first place. Such measures, in my opinion, are only really suitable for projects with a larger active membership.
As things are now, I think mobility and flexibility are very important; members can start contributing right away, anyone who has shown they can contribute to the project can become a developer, anyone who has demonstrated that they are reliable and interested can become a lead. Placing responsibilities and restrictions on any of those positions can hinder activity, and as such -- while we can hardly do without those entirely -- are best kept to a minimum. In such a situation, I don't really see any advantages in a separate senior rank.

And the same goes for the other usergroups. The Lead Developer and Reviewer usergroups are useful to most members, designating moderators and developers qualified to approve claims and showcases respectively. The Exteriors, Interiors and Quests usergroups are useful for granting claims, to provide an easy way of recognizing whether the claimant has completed the associated showcase. Though I'm frankly not sure if we've been consistently adding people to those usergroups lately, so their current reliability might be limited. I don't really see any advantage to the other usergroups.
Seneca37
Lead Developer
Posts: 912
Joined: Mon Feb 10, 2014 1:04 pm

Post by Seneca37 »

Though I'm frankly not sure if we've been consistently adding people to those usergroups lately, so their current reliability might be limited.
INTERIORS has been reliably kept up. I'm not sure if we've had any exterior or questing people make a showcase recently (Haplo and others were taking care of those groups).
User avatar
10Kaziem
Lead Developer
Posts: 248
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2015 1:46 am

Post by 10Kaziem »

So, then, it looks like the rank structure would be something like this:

Inactive senior devs become dev emeritus.

Active senior devs become ???

Dev emeritus has no extra forum powers.

Lead devs have mod powers and are not assigned to a specific spot.

Inactive lead devs become ???

Anyone who was a dev in the past remains a dev.

Anyone in a user group that no longer requires a showcase becomes a dev.

Anyone in a user group that requires a showcase becomes a ???

Members ascend to dev status by making a showcase or by making stuff, as depends on the type of work they're doing.

Thoughts? Objections?

Aside from rank structuring, what else needs to be added to the post?
User avatar
Gnomey
Lead Developer
Posts: 2869
Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 11:55 am
Location: In your garden.

Post by Gnomey »

The ranks are as follows:

Member - anyone who registers
Developer - just a title given to anybody who completes a showcase, including for stuff like concept art. Has no actual significance in and of itself, other than 'oh, that fellow completed a showcase'. And formal recognition that the fellow in question has or will actively contribute to the project.
Reviewer - have limited mod powers so they can do their job
Lead Developer - mod powers
Developer Emeritus

Developers can have additional usergroups assigned if they complete a showcase. (Exterior, Interior, Quests) These are there so that people who can grant claims and such can easily tell if someone has completed the necessary showcase, and are also a handy way of giving Developers recognition for completing a showcase. They are not, however, ranks, as such. A Developer is a Developer.
Lead Devs can have admin powers, but that doesn't make them super Lead Devs. They're just Lead Devs with admin powers. Like CEOs who are also janitors.
Website Administrator, however, is god. :P

Inactive Senior Devs become Developers Emeritus.
Active Senior Devs become whatever they like, but Lead Dev by default.
Inactive Leads become Developers Emeritus eventually. I think this is less of a deal than with Senior Devs, where we want to phase out the rank.
Developers Emeritus can naturally become active again; it's not like they're barred from becoming Lead Devs or something.
Locked