Keeping the team motivated

[kulik]

Hi,
we are making an RPG and engine powering it and it's going pretty good, but IMO a little bit slow. The artists are doing great, but they are slowing down lately, because they lack tools, they want top-notch editors ... Click n play things. When you talk about architecture and technology to them, they are not very interested :-D And while I enjoy doing UMLs and great APIs, I hate coding tools (Qt helps a bit, but still ...).

The problem is, that I am the programmer that does 90% of the job, the others are either learning or busy (not that I am not busy, I am most of the week, weekend saves my projects ;-)), therefore, things are going slow at the programming side. And it's getting worse, since I don't feel comfortable to be doing all the hard work. Everybody is just waiting, checking the forum, etc, but I suspect I am the only one working. It's like I am responsible for bringing the fun :-D And I lose motivation as well ...

The situation is not that bad, I mean we got most of the technology ready and a lot of art, but we have lost a lot of momentum lately ...

Any ideas how to accelerate the team? It's a non-profit thing ...

[.oisyn]

Did you get them enough popsicles? You can never have enough popsicles. It's a good motivator!

Anyway, in my experience these "hobby" projects will only work with true dedication, small teams of people you know very well and lots meetings (in real life, I mean). As crappy as it may sound, some people actually do tend to have personal lifes ;), so these kinds of projects will always come second. If you want true hard-working people, you need to get them payed. And popsicles, obviously.

[kulik]

Heh, popsicles you say ... :sneaky:

I know several team members personally, but some of the team members work over the net, I never met them ... That might be the problem.

As you say (and as I implied ...), we all have personal lives. I don't work that much on the weekend, I prefer going out and playing guitar (I think we need some programmers that have no personal life, volunteers? :yes:) ... However I tend to work at least a bit on it every weekend ...

I think the situation would improve dramatically if we could work together in an office or something like that, personal contact helps. If somebody wants to donate a modestly big estate with 100 mbit connection, PM me :lol:

[onyxthedog]

The forums at Gamedev.net are horrible, but they have some pretty good resources when it comes to articles. Here is one that pretains to your question, well really it is about having an "net" game development team. http://www.gamedev.net/reference/business/features/virtual/.

P.S. I go here for forums and there for articles!

[kulik]

I am going to dig into that article very soon. Thanks for you help.

PS: I also find the gamedev.net forums not worth reading ;-) ...

[starstutter]

I know several team members personally, but some of the team members work over the net, I never met them ... That might be the problem.


Maybe a bit less than you think. I've led about 3 projects (only the most recent one got finished) and here's what I found:

People over the net are kind of a 50/50 chance. They may be good, and the may be full of it (met much of the latter :) ). But rembember that the ones you meet on the net are typically seeking to start into a project, they also, as you say, may have a bit less personal life because of an interest in this stuff. If they prove to be useless, or a pain in the neck, just drop them. While it's inconvinient and takes a few tries, there's typically little to no backlash.

On the other hand, my experience with face-to-face people has not been exactly promising. My resources were limited, I wanted my friends to be in it, and my friends wanted to do it because they thought "making games is sweet!". As similar to your situation, I ended up doing about %95 of the work and it got to where they did no work at all, yet still expected compensation. When I told them I really needed them to work, they said they would and then didn't do it. When I demanded they work, they called me a bossy asshole. I actually had one guy exploit me, long story I won't get into.


The thing I have found that works best is really to never put faith in somebody else. It sounds kind of like a hopeless goth motto, but there's actually a positive message behind it. Cycle through people, whether over the net or in real life. Just keep on getting them, and if one is lazy, don't hang on just leave em behind. Eventually you get somebody who will actually be interested and want to do work.

Unfortunatley, unless fair amounts of money get involved, it's hard if not impossible to make people motivated about something they don't care a lot about. The only other advice I can give is that you shouldn't drop your current people before you are sure you have new ones. Make sure they aren't being replaced by something worse :lol:

One last thing, as said above, stay far away from GameDev forums and "help wanted". I almost joined gamedev before I realized that people just bitch at eachother most of the time, and half the people wanting jobs are the "I R teh 733t MMORPG'er"s. I honestly think this site is where the more experienced people really are. You tend to get less answers here, but they are normally very good and informative ones.

Good luck with the team.

Oh, and if none of this works, there's always hanging a popsicle on the end of a stick.