{"id":380,"date":"2015-06-29T22:23:14","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T21:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/epochgames.co.uk\/?p=380"},"modified":"2015-06-29T22:39:53","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T21:39:53","slug":"dev-blog-3-communication-is-key","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epochgames.co.uk\/wordpress\/2015\/06\/29\/dev-blog-3-communication-is-key\/","title":{"rendered":"Dev Blog #3 Communication is Key"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><b>Team Organization, Part 1: Communication<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Hello Althas Fans!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">My name is Matt, and I\u2019m one of the Team Leads here at Epoch Games. If you\u2019re at all like me, you\u2019ve always been interested in creating your own game. What does it take to create one? Well, I\u2019m definitely not here to give you the technical details, but I will give you a little insight into what I do know:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">I started out as a rookie modder probably as far back as the early 2000s (someone who modifies games, a \u201cmod\u201d creator), until I eventually ended up working on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.moddb.com\/mods\/merp-middle-earth-roleplaying-project\">MERP mod project<\/a> back in \u201809, which was eventually shut down and lead to the formation of Epoch Games. Unfortunately I\u2019ve come to find I\u2019m not particularly talented in programming, and definitely not art, but over the years I have learned a thing or two about organizing online teams. If the subject of team organization doesn\u2019t interest you, then I recommend turning around right now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">There are countless books out there about creating video games, as well as books on forming a small business. I doubt you could find me one on creating a completely-online, volunteer team. All my experience comes from over a decade of working on various team-based game modifications, a few years working on LoA:SO and some of what I\u2019ve applied from university courses and my daily job in IT.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">The key is (undoubtedly) communication. You have people from around the world, all in different Time Zones. There are several useful tools at your disposal:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><b><\/b><b>Skype:<\/b> Love it or hate it, Skype is your friend (although you can find other real-time chat programs). This is our main form of communication. We particularly use Skype because A. Everyone has a Skype account, B. Skype is an industry standard and has a version in just about every modern OS, and C. The ability to create group chats. We have our team organized via Departments (3D Art, Animation, Writing, etc) as well as group chats for the whole team, department leads, etc. If you have a large team, it is vital that different discussions are organized appropriately.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><b>Forums:<\/b> In case you weren\u2019t aware, we do have an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epochgames.co.uk\/forum\/\">online forum (aka bulletin boards)<\/a>. You may think its just for you, the fans. You would be wrong. There are private boards there as well, for the Epoch Games team. Discussion boards that are separated in much the same way as our Skype group chats. Forums have their advantages and disadvantages over real-time chatting: yes you lose the instant feedback (although you may be able to add a chat plugin), but forums are great for lengthy discussions (posts are always saved), polling, and debates. I personally recommend using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.phpbb.com\/\">phpBB<\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/groups.google.com\/\"><b>Google Groups:<\/b><\/a> Not a particularly well-known Google tool, but Google Groups I\u2019ve come to find is a wonderful tool. With Google Groups, you will get a bulletin board (I personally don\u2019t recommend this feature, but it&#8217;s there if you want it), but you will also get the ability to add members into a single @googlegroups.com email address. This single email address, you can use that single email address to send out a single email to everyone in the group. You can also use this single email address to give permissions to everyone in your Google Group access to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/docs\/about\/\">Google Docs<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/sheets\/about\/\">Google Sheets<\/a> (two tools I will talk about another time). Only downside: there is no proper Google Groups app for iOS or Android, so don\u2019t expect to add\/remove people to your group if you\u2019re on-the-go.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/calendar\/\"><b>Google Calendar:<\/b><\/a> Another valuable Google tool. Use it to create dates for team meetings and other team events. You can have notifications sent out via email (and, again, you can pair with Google Groups). \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><b>Email:<\/b> Be sure you have email addresses of everyone on your team (and that it\u2019s an address they check regularly). If you want to announce something, Email is your best friend. Also, if you have your own site, setting up your own web domain is certainly useful. If you\u2019re using a propensity of Google tools as we do, make sure the email account you are using (and others on the team use) are compatible (for example, Hotmail addresses cannot have their own Google Account, but Yahoo ones can).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">No, we\u2019re not being endorsed by Google, we just happen to end up using a lot of their tools. They are great for an online group such as ourselves.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">And lastly, here are a few tips I can give you:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Know your Timezone, and make sure everyone on your team knows their own. This is particularly useful when setting up team meetings. I would personally recommend setting using the GMT standard where possible.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Find out which of the above communication platforms your team is most familiar with. If you\u2019re forming a development team of forum-goers, online discussion forums may be the best way to go (although a real-time chat plugin, doesn\u2019t hurt).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Keep track of everyone on your team. Know when they\u2019ll be out, and if they haven\u2019t been responding for awhile (and haven\u2019t explained why prior), call them out on it and ask why they\u2019ve absent.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Keep a Contact List of everyone on your team, as well as other contacts in relation to your team. Be sure that everyone on your team has access to such a list, so that they know how to get in touch with anyone else on your team.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Do keep in mind, some of these tools and tips are particularly useful for a larger-sized small team, where a lot of team members can come and go (and I\u2019ve seen a lot of that).<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"> If you\u2019ve enjoyed this, please let us know and stay tuned for Part 2, which will likely be covering either Recruitment or Assigning Tasks.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The key is (undoubtedly) communication. You have people from around the world, all in different Time Zones. There are several useful tools at your disposal:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epochgames.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epochgames.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epochgames.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epochgames.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epochgames.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/epochgames.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":383,"href":"https:\/\/epochgames.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380\/revisions\/383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epochgames.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epochgames.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epochgames.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}