Unsure where else to paste it so I'm putting it here. Transparency within PWO has been going well so far so I might as well post these things as I consider them.
This is more of me being a nerd a thought drop. Not a project update.
After doing a bit of research and a bit more schooling, I've learned that I've been unofficially acting as what is called a producer in the game industry. Producers kind of oversee a game and schedule/budget for it and its prioritized features - sort of like a project manager, but our team is on the small side (ESPECIALLY FOR AN MMO) so it works out better to merge these things when person who has the interests to do so shows up. Of course, since this is a passion project, people on the team can decide to do something else and flip the schedules/plans on their head, making that whole "scheduling" thing a bit of a pain. We also "finance" with our time and motivation instead of cash; throwing money at people for a job well done will smooth over a lot of motivation issues, but that's just not an option here.
So, some background. I currently understand dependencies as assets/production steps that are required to be made before other work can be done. For example, you can't animate a 3D character before actually modelling and rigging it. You can't script a quest before writing it. Simple in concept, yes, but it can balloon, and unexpected/unplanned dependencies can screw up everything.
I also read a bit about the management concept of dependencies within a team and how reliance (and chaos that comes from it) multiplies for every person on the team. Since PWO has about 13 active members, there are around 78 potential instances where a snag can occur at any time (in theory). But, for example, artists and GMs don't normally have much of anything to do with eachother, so some groups interactions are much less likely to be necessary than others.
But that independence is actually a rather large exception in PWO. A simple quest with a new map, for example, will probably have 21 easy opportunities for snags to occur. Somebody needs to make the map, somebody needs to make the scripts, somebody needs to put the map in the game, somebody needs to oversee the designs and approve it, somebody needs to be there for players/oversee the initial release, somebody needs to test and give feedback. The groups with the most interdependence are, I would argue, the Dev and Scripter groups.
Here are some consistent inter-dependencies between groups that I have noticed:
Admins & GMs
GMs & GMs
Art & Devs
Scripters & Devs
Scripters & Admins
Scripters & Mappers (and Admins here also, half of the time)
Devs & Admins
Mappers & Devs/Admins
I noticed that CG is sometimes part of this, but rarely. It is a very independent group, and I wonder if that is partially why I'm struggling with keeping them inclusive despite there being a lot that we need CGs for/would really benefit from. Hmmm. Most people don't really care for this stuff, so I'll have to look at this on my own time.
It's easy to lose yourself in your own self assurance or your lack of confidence.
The other groups made fun of our ugly art, but their own team artists, despite being skilled, never pulled through despite the sneering. We were the only people with a game by the end of it.