MeckMeck GRE
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What about makeing a community hold ? What the heck is that you may now ask. Well its simply a hold annybody who wants to help can work on. We could do this like this :

1.) At first we all discuss about what story the hold should have and how difficult it should be (it would be good if it starts with very easy and ends on very hard so anybody can help building). How many level it should have, what themes the level should have.... this phase would take 7-14 days.

2.) Everybody can apply for making n rooms with XY difficulty, the selected theme and the belonging story part. He may also add (best would be in a seperate level of his hold) some rooms himself not belonging to the part he applied to (Of coure these should contain no story elements). These would be open for grabs and may fit in elsewhere in the hold

3.) Everybody sumbits his rooms as a annyonedit standalone hold to the forum. Then we will discuss about what rooms we can use and at what place of the community hold we can use them.

4.) Now we discuss which rooms we can use and where the rooms sumbitted fit best.

5.) After the concept is made, some people will arrange them according to the rules we worked out. Of course somebody may place a room 1N instead of 1E, or transfer a room to another level, but it should be too different from the worked out concept. No room edits allowed ! (Expect spelling/grammar correction or fixing of critical bugs)

6.) THe best arrangement will win (poll).

7.) Beta testing. Everyone may test

8.) Hold will be sumbitted. A credits room will show who worked what. The official architect will be named "Drod community" and will be sumbitted by a fake account called also "Drod community" Everybody may give it a name and a poll will decide which name will it have.

9.) Have fun with the hold !

[Edited by MeckMeck GRE at Local Time:05-26-2005 at 08:40 PM]

silver
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I was planning on something similar because I have a neato map idea but I'm terrible at puzzle design, so I was thinking I'd have a "can you design one or two rooms, but don't feel you have enough for a whole hold? let's toss the room in here" hold. So it would be less community in the global sense of your idea (and you have a good idea, too, mind you!), but a little easier to contribute to as well (just send one room. or two. and don't worry about the rest).

Anyway, you have a decent idea here. Good luck with it.


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schep
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The idea has some merit. After all, JtRH had a team of architects. I wouldn't expect an utterly outstanding hold to come out of this, but I would expect the process to be fun for most involved.

I worry a bit that your outline seems to try too hard to avoid any centralized decision-making. A project leader with a bit more say in things than the power to create polls could keep things working more smoothly than a random hodge-podge of ideas, and the project wouldn't be any less of a community effort. But that's just my two greckles.

Oneiromancer
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I think working with other people can make a good hold great; going to the lengths here might be a bit too much, though. In general, for JtRH, we knew what the levels were, and everyone claimed the levels they wanted to do the most. There ended up being more overlap, of course, but it was a good way to start.

I have at least one old AE hold somewhere that is pretty much completely empty...I re-created all of Ultima IV's Great Stygian Abyss, one room per dungeon map square, and really didn't even start populating it (there were tons of empty hallways, of course). One of those things that only us true nerds do. If anyone is really curious about it, I can dig it up some time. I still would like to do a tribute to an old computer game in DROD some time, but I have recently been thinking about doing a different game. (Or a linked pair of games, actually...I wonder if that's enough of a clue for someone to figure it out?)

Game on,

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Leus
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Sounds like an idea I'd be up for.

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agaricus5
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This suggestion poked at the corners of my mind, and I managed to find this (also on this board):

Dungeon Collaboration

It's now a bit outdated, although it might be worth reading if you're interested in the Forum's history. I guess the reason why it stopped being considered was the fact that not enough people were building at the time to make it viable. I guess now, with far more architects, it might be now more possible to do than it used to be.

As an architect, I would strongly advise there to be some sort of coordinator (or close group of collaborators) to run the project. From experience (I can't say I've got that much, but...), leaving organisation to a large group of people that are not visible and therefore cannot meet often in realtime, will end up with no-one understanding everything about what is going on, and so it isn't likely to progress much. Also, collaborating with lots of people is very difficult since you need to understand every part of what is being sent to you, so you'd also need to be meticulous in recording everything and storing it away for future reference.

However, I could also join in and throw in a few ideas if you need any.

[Edited by agaricus5 at Local Time:05-27-2005 at 12:20 AM]

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silver
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And don't forget silver's rule of committee intelligence (assuming you can quantify intelligence).

"If I is the sum of all the intelligence "quantities" of the members, and N is the number of members in the committee, then then intelligence of the committee is I/N." (I think I started saying this circa 1994).

The formula is, of course, a joke. The actual rule would follow a curve which increases greatly when N is small ( < 4) and then drops off quickly and is near 0 around N=10 or so. And there's a complicated term based on the the strength of leadership and I-sub-leader which can keep you from hitting 0 so dramatically until N approaches even 15 or so.



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mrimer
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Heh, I often agree with this. However, I've heard of a book that provides an interesting slant on this phenomenon:

The Wisdom of Crowds

Anybody read it?

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silver
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I haven't read it, myself. I imagine there's some reference to open source and the "million eyes" thing somewhere in there. But, then, that's not a committee. My guess is the book isn't about committees, because I've never seen one of those that wasn't broken. But I could be wrong. I may have to get that if I ever get a job again.


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trick
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Revised:

"If N is the sum of all the intelligence "quantities" of the members, and A is the number of members in the committee, then the intelligence of the committee is N/A."

- Gerry

MeckMeck GRE
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schep wrote:
I worry a bit that your outline seems to try too hard to avoid any centralized decision-making. A project leader with a bit more say in things than the power to create polls could keep things working more smoothly than a random hodge-podge of ideas, and the project wouldn't be any less of a community effort. But that's just my two greckles.

Well, the project shall be a community product so a centralized decision maker is maybe a problem. Well, but your also right. A poll for every small thing isnt that great either. Well lets say there is a director that leads the project and can make decisions, but not against the will of all others (Send him complain PMs if he makes crab). But still most of the decisions (e.g. about story / where to use rooms) should be made by discussing.

Rule change : Arrangers may change the room exit/entrance as long as this dosent change the rooms logic too much.

Well, maybe begin Phase 1 now. Everybody who wishes to commit may post that into this thread. Also you might start right now with discussing about the story of the hold and what it shall look like, the levels it will have....

And : Any volunteer for director ?

rowrow
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I don't wanna be the director but I will gladly make some rooms.

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Jacob
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Ditto. Good idea.

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sims5000
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Good idea

Ill help with some rooms

but, are we going to disscuss ideas/post rooms for in in this thread?

MeckMeck GRE
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Yes, Sims5000. If annyone has idea about story or form : post it here !

Someone Else
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Are we going to use JtRH or AE?
Either way, I'm willing to make rooms, but not to be the director. We can use JtRH for the final hold, as rooms from AE can be imported. We can also delete all the JtRH rooms if someone wants to use AE to play it.

[Edited by Someone Else at Local Time:06-15-2005 at 08:38 PM]

Doom
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We use generally JtRH for everything now, right? What's the downside in that? JtRH has better graphics, undo feature, more elements and other cool stuff... (Why would someone want to play it in AE?)

Even people who don't have registered version of JtRH can still make all kinds of rooms. It's not necessary to import anything from AE.

MeckMeck GRE
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As Doom said, we use JtrH. Because we cant find a director, we have none. Well, lets start discussing about the form and story. Any ideas ?

sims5000
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A possible story:

Beethro starts in his own house (made by ?). He goes outside to find that the whole town is full of monsters. Someone comes running up to him, "Beethro please help the town" "Why should I?" "Because I'll give you $$$ if you do" "I'd better get started then"

Each player who makes the community hold has their own house, which they make, then we join them together to make an infested town.

MeckMeck GRE
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sims5000 wrote:
A possible story:

Beethro starts in his own house (made by ?). He goes outside to find that the whole town is full of monsters. Someone comes running up to him, "Beethro please help the town" "Why should I?" "Because I'll give you $$$ if you do" "I'd better get started then"

Each player who makes the community hold has their own house, which they make, then we join them together to make an infested town.

Quite good idea ! This would be an interesting concept. But : What about adding a second level (a kind of dungeon) where you solve the mystery of the infested town.

Jacob
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Like it. As long as we're talking about the kind of houses/town you'd get on the Eighth, rather than modern day kind of thing.

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sims5000
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Jacob wrote:
Like it. As long as we're talking about the kind of houses/town you'd get on the Eighth, rather than modern day kind of thing.

It will probably be that unless in your house you make a time machine of something like that

MeckMeckGRE wrote
Quite good idea ! This would be an interesting concept. But : What about adding a second level (a kind of dungeon) where you solve the mystery of the infested town.

Good idea! And there could be a final brain/charecter as the last boss

Genexile
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If you still need someone to do the first level (generally the easiest), then I could join in. (before the House thing)
It is a sort-of 'after JTRH' thing, or it will be only puzzles?
If it's an unexisting sequel, (like it's after JTRH, but we've never heard of it) then you may need something for a Tutorial-like, if new players download it...

I think that you understand my message, at least, what i said.
I, too, am confused.

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[Last edited by Genexile at 06-25-2005 08:12 PM]

Someone Else
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File: My House.hold (280.1 KB)
Downloaded 101 times.
License: Other
From: Unspecified

I hope I'm interpreting this house thing right, so here goes. I tried to make a storyline.

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[Last edited by Someone Else at 06-25-2005 08:12 PM : Added Sound and a second room]

Someone Else
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File: Community Rooms.hold (2 KB)
Downloaded 112 times.
License: Other
From: Unspecified

Also, here are some rooms that I made that could be placed anywhere in the hold and script added.

Jacob
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Your house level only has room, unless I've missed something. It's quite a nice room, if easy. I see no reason why we can't do multiple rooms and levels. Plus there's no exit stairs so no way of completing the level. The two other rooms in your second hold are also not bad but have easy lynchpin solutions The S room could be developed into a more complicated room where you have to choose the right order to get Halph to open the doors or you get swamped by roaches.

Count me in for building a house.
They could be connected like in HIJK, where completing each one brings you to an extra room, previously unaccessible in the first "town" level such that each of these rooms have to be visited for the blue door to drop (to get to the next level, the dungeon or whatever). This would mean that the houses could be played in any order, but would all have to be completed to advance to the next level. Makes sense?
I think we should submit rooms as anyone edit.

My comment about not setting the game outside of the Eighth was only because you wrote "$$$" and because MeckMeck has previously made holds with houses, roads, phones etc. While they were mostly fun, I'd like to keep it in the Eighth. Just wanted to check. No time machines for me.

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rowrow
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I probably can't give some rooms after all since I will be going to camp or i am traveling.

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Jacob
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File: Community hold Jacobs house.hold (9.5 KB)
Downloaded 122 times.
License: Other
From: Unspecified

Here's my house.
3 floors, each of which has to be completed before you're allowed out (if I've done it right)
Challenge: Kill the snakes in the entrance with 1 roach.
Challenge2: Find the source of the infestation (assuming it's coming from a dungeon in a later level)

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sims5000
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File: Sims5000s House.hold (5.8 KB)
Downloaded 120 times.
License: Other
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Ok, I've done my (small) house that needs testing.

Also, who is going to put all of the houses together?

Jacob
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I'll volunteer to link things together. sims5000, here are my comments

Please get back to me with whether you want me to start linking things and with comments on my hold.

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