Team Management

[StroggCmd]

I've been thinking on how I should approach team formation and management.

I have no experience, and the idea seems a little daunting. Keeping track and being ontop of a development team, some members of which might just be 'passing through' who only joined out of slight interest and will suddenly be gone the next week, sounds difficult.

Any tips?

Any info on what methods I can use for sharing and updating assets between team members would be really appreciated as well.

Thanks for reading

[UnspoiledWalnut]

Management itself isn't that hard, you just set up a transfer system and communicate through MSN or on the phone or something, create some kind of a hierarchy with a 'leader' for each team (modellers, programmers, etc) who keeps track of what's going on with that and keeps all the files and whatnot and who can communicate effectively with the rest of the people.

But I really wouldn't join a team if the person leading it didn't know how to do anything. I don't mind really working for people like that if they pay me, but on indie projects where the money would be divided it's not worth it because I don't think that someone who just 'manages' really deserves the same amount as anyone else because they don't do anything that the rest of the team can't do themselves. Especially if that leader doesn't know how to manage.

[StroggCmd]

I don't think that someone who just 'manages' really deserves the same amount as anyone else because they don't do anything that the rest of the team can't do themselves.

I agree. I would be doing modelling.


Especially if that leader doesn't know how to manage.

Well, that is why I created this thread asking for info and tips I guess.

I think I'll just be keeping any ideas under wraps for now until I have this worked out better.

Thanks for the reply :)

[UnspoiledWalnut]

Well if you can model that's different, sorry I read "I have no experience" and kinda jumped the gun on that. It's really not that hard, finding people over the Internet is a pain because they drop out a lot. I would find some friends or something that are interested in the concept, and go from there. Depending on the type of game, you'll need different people. If you're looking for an MMO, this isn't the engine and you're going to want someone who probably knows C or C++ to code the server and client. If you just want a single player campaign, maybe with online play, you'll want to find some people who can use the engine, which for the most part isn't that hard.

I would get some things done, if you can model then that's good since most people will look mostly for aesthetics and put on an application page or go to various forums for game design in general, a lot of them have team application sections and things like that. If you want to sell the game, be sure to figure out a payment plan, like if you want to continue on with the studio put some amount of it into a corporate bank account and then divide the rest between everyone or something. That's what I'm doing at least, although it's a lot easier for us because we're forming a partnership instead which is a bit easier financially I think.

Go get Management for Dummies or something, I'm sure they have one. They have one for everything else you can think of... Facebook for Dummies, really I think that one was a bit overboard.

[Makaze]

Wouldn't Facebook for Dummies be a bit redundant?

[StroggCmd]

Its okay :D

Definitely won't be an MMO (I've read the mmo thread). It will just be a sci-fi third-person action/adventure, with sandbox gameplay (think GTA IV, Assassin's Creed 2, Hitman: Blood Money, and TCoR: Escape From Butcher's Bay).

Yeah I'll probably see if I can't find some people who are interested in the project once I start my courses (right now I'm self-taught with 3ds Max and Maya, and so far I mostly do weapons, props, and generally non-organic stuff, but I'm getting better).

I'll look around Chapters next time I'm there, to see if they have any books on the subject =]

[UnspoiledWalnut]

Wouldn't Facebook for Dummies be a bit redundant?

You'd think so....


Definitely won't be an MMO (I've read the mmo thread).

The only really hard part about an MMO that we've run into so far is coding the server to work right, although that is a pretty big part of it honestly. Of course you'll need to take a bit of a hit financially for the servers, since you'll need a decent database and bandwidth.


Yeah I'll probably see if I can't find some people who are interested in the project once I start my courses (right now I'm self-taught with 3ds Max and Maya, and so far I mostly do weapons, props, and generally non-organic stuff, but I'm getting better).

Never liked Maya's UI so I never used it. I'm just going to send emails to Autodesk every few weeks until they combine Physique and Skin modifiers like they should have a long time ago. You might want to look into Zbrush as well for organic models, it's pretty cheap. Few hundred dollars, although the retopography tools leave something to be desired. I personally never minded it, actually I've been doing retopography in Max using projection tools so I don't think they're terrible, but a lot of people complain about it.

[StroggCmd]

Yeah I ditched Maya (2009) a long while ago because of the tools it lacked. For retopography I'll probably be using mudbox 2010.

[henzy190]

I'm a game developer myself (see sig) and I would advise that you do a small project first.

If you do it solo and for your own sight only it would really help when it comes to understanding workflow. I did exactly that and created a model of the kitchen that was being built in my house using UDK, Photoshop and Max, and then played around to acheive different settings that you could toggle on boot. I also made it so you can fly around set camera paths and then packaged it off in FrontEnd like a game in a certain sense.

You develop knowledge of all the tools needed for development, you get an idea of how long things take and get vital experience that really helps in a long project. It would be a good time to pull a team together afterwards.

Also, you could try looking into the 3D Buzz top-down game tutorials but make your own character and world for experience, as opposed to making a kitchen.

[Sir. Polaris]

If your going to lead a team, all thats needed is leadership and a means of communication.

You could build a AAA title though MSN. Everything else is just a aid or a crutch depending on your skill level.

Your going to need to be well versed in all aspects as a producer to know what your team members are doing and how long it's going to take them. The only way this is going to happen is if you become a member for a team - rather then a leader for a short while.

As noted you should start small until you get a understanding of this larger process. 100's of mods start monthly and 99% start reciting a team and then die within days or month. Common COD is abandonment and lack of talent due to inactive (avoiding, abandoning) members.

[Solid Snake]

Team management, oh where to begin!

The easy parts have been said, and they are forms of communication. Whatever form of reliable communication you like is going to be the best. Email is not particularly reliable. Use something like Skype or a logged IRC. The reason why email is not reliable is that some people don't check their accounts, their accounts get deleted or they lose email due to spam. Using Skype or logged IRC not only records conversations, but you will be able to track who is actually communicating back to you. People on the internet disappear off the face of the world occasionally ... and keeping logs will let you know who is going to stick around and who isn't.

The next part that is important is that you have to know what you're managing. Are you managing a commercial game or non-commercial game. Sorry guys, you can't have it both ways, as they entail different things.

For most of you, I imagine that you will be starting with a non-commercial game. (I don't care if you want to make it a commercial game at a later date or not, what matters is what is going to happen in the first 6 months to 2 years).

You will need to sort out the actual game requirements first and what the game is. That way you will know how many people to bring on board and who you need. Theres little point in bringing in three game artists when the idea of the game is hardly fleshed out. Either they'll be doing nothing, or they will be making assets you wind up not using.

...

There's actually a lot of ground to cover here, but basically, you want to try to manage a small team of three to four people first. Managing anything upwards of ten people is basically a full time job.

[UnspoiledWalnut]

Thus a heirarchy.

[MMRashad]

You could of course start by gathering people with different skills (1 guy\gal for each skill) .
And make sure that your first project is purely made for fun , knowledge and practice .

Other than that i think solid snake and the guys said it all

I could hop along the ride as a level designer :)

[StroggCmd]

Thanks to everyone for all the helpful input :)

I'll be putting a team together (much) later, right now I'm still at the drawing board (scope, story, concepts, etc), and I'm still working on some models to use in advertising it, but I hope you'll still be interested by time I get around to posting a thread MMRashad =]

I'll also be taking time to start small and get the ball rolling by myself (to help familiarize myself with the UDK), but after that I'll see about throwing together a small team.