Developerfields - we need research(ers)

[Chroelle]

Hi deeee Ho peeps! (I am simply pasting this from a message from the shadows)

Next feature after review system & official 1.0 version (which should be released at the end of march) will perhaps be developer info pages. (Well, here may be some other major changes to come too, but it is really too early to discuss them yet. And anyways I see that developer info pages will be done at some point, whether here'll be other changes or no). But however for developer info pages we do need some info about developers. (naturally) I have been pondering of possible 'fields' in dev info. (IE what kind of info we could gather/provide about developers). This is a tricky question, because some of the developers are better known than others, some have homepages, some don't, and some are even dead

So there should be some fields which could be filled for every developers (so that no pages would be empty), and then space for extras we may get from some devs.

Anyways, I have been thinking at least following fields. (Some of these may be suggested by someone else too, but I try to gather all things in one place here...) If you have any ideas what to add / remove, feel free to let me (us) know

Fields planned atm:

name (obvious)
email (if there's public one)
send email to dev field (if we get permission from the dev) ((registered users only))
Also a picture of developer (or logo or something if piccie is not available) would be nice
games published by the dev. (at least the ones we host, perhaps other titles too)
games/projects he's currently participating
(perhaps names of our helpers allocated to developers projects)
Description about the developer (as person, if available)
Interviews.
Perhaps a field the developer himself can fill with info he wants to give.

If anyone is willing to start collecting this information about the developers, I do appreciate it There's really no point in making the engine to display this info, if we do not have this info

[eMTe]

anyone

That would be me.

For a start.

As for description... "Serious" description or more informal, like "Developer X is a student from NY who likes x and y, has one cat and two dogs, lovely girlfriend and his favourite game is Monkey Island"? Or mix of both? Can it be taken straight off dev's site (if there's personal info)?

As for fields filling... If we gather some info ourselves than it will be easier to convince the rest to do this themselves and saving much work to us. Each self-description is better than others' one.

I can start with "A".

[Maz]

Gnark. I typed long answer, and when I pressed submit, I noticed I forgot to login

However, I was thinking of funny, enjoyable description, which would still contain some information. And of course most of the things we know will be digged from devs sites. But I rather read descriptions written for CWF, than direct copy pastes..

Another thing I remember I wrote was that this is quite challenging.
It's hard to dumb developer information in strict format, because developers are so different.

There's lots of info for some of them, some are quite unknown. Some are permanently unavailable, while some have active sites. Some consist of many persons, some have only one man behind it all.... So the system and page should be flexible enough to suit viewing so different information.

Therefore I believe it could be good idea to start with some quite different developers. And for 'hidden reasons' it would be good to have firstly gathered information about developers behind some popular (and moreover good) games. I had at least following things on my mind:

The battle for wesnoth. (huge team, no clear leader AFAIK)
Trackmania Nations (produced by a company)
Some Game from individual developer.
Some game from quite unknown (or permanentyly unavailable) developer.

That way we can see what are the challenges in site's layout && planning the database/engine, before trying to meet the requirements.

[Chroelle]

Maybe we need something like: Person view, Company view...
Maening that for example if I want to know something about a specific person then I search him out (Mark DArin for example), but he also works for Pinhead games, which consists of more than him. That way I can search out other people that work for pinhead games too.
And under Pinhead games and Mark Darin it should list what games are made with them in the credits.
That way we can also make more specific notes for some.

[Maz]

Gnark and Gne. This is though call.I simply cannot think how to do this in a smart way. But it's also quite hard to decide where to draw the line considering who we'll introduce as a person, and who we dont. We cannot think of digging up details about every person working for wenoth for example.. Not to mention the pain adding this info into database will cause to certain someone

But let's see what kind of info we can dig up at first, and plan the system after that... (I did not say introducing single persons is impossible, I just said it should be considered carefully). I wish the certain someone would be here giving a few tips. I would really like to listen someone who has experience about planning the databases... Zyx? I assume you at least have some input regarding this, right?

[Chroelle]

I will try and see what I can thinkk up regarding limitations of who we should introduce...

I think there migth be some idea in it if they are also mentioned in other game-credits. But I will see what I can plan.

[eMTe]

I think common sense must be a basic rule. If there's a group of people (even with project leader) presenting themselves as a development group then there's no sense with making separate info for all members. If there's single person like Bernie presenting himself occasionally as Origamihero then info must be person-centered (i.e. we should write about Bernie not about origamihero). However Bernie says on his site that he's developing games in the name of Faind, indie dev group. So it's question of good research. And common sense.

Bernie, if youll read it by any chance - sorry for using you as the example.

[Chroelle]

And more developers are using Faind as their developing company. This means that we need to mention Faind as a developer but also mention the seperate developers inside Faind, becasue they do make games under their own name too.

[Maz]

Yes. And that makes it technically hard to do. Remember that info pages are not created by hand, but that I need to develop engine which can get correct info into appropriate place. In order to do this, I must know what kind of info we'll get... This reflects to all of the technical implementation, from the page layout, to database structure to engine which reads data and puts it in correct places...

[Chroelle]

Ok. HEre goes ideas for developers (single person):
Real name
Gender
Age (when asked)
Former games
Planned games (When asked)
Dream game to make (What type of game)
Associations (companies and other developers)
Specialities (Like coding, graphics, music)
Gametool (What tool they need for game-engine)
Country of Origin
Currently living in (City)
Favourite freeware game (maybe on CWF)

Questions for a development company:
Developers involved (in case of many, just the leading parties)
Games made
Games planned
City of origin (if any - maybe netbased)
Country of origin (-II-)
Age (of company)
Dream game to make
Currently working on
Gametool
Best game they made according to them
Specialities (Storyline, code, music, voiceacting etc)
Need this type of worker (See the above)

Any new input will be welcome. I simply took up what came to mind within a reasonable timeframe.

[Chroelle]

I will pick up this thread to find out how to do the developers-sites. If anyone has any more input on tis please feel free to write it in here. I will discuss it here, and then add info to the bugtracker as we go.

[Chroelle]

Here is a suggestion.
http://www.connect-webdesign.dk/Developer-site.htm
Feedback please.
There is also a company-site suggestion. Try and see if you can find a link on this site.

[Chroelle]

Really...? Nothing...?

[Maz]

Sorry peeps. My time has been terribly limited lately And now that ice-hockey started... BTW, Danes are really playing better and better each year.

Anyways, a short comment, I am not sure if I like the idea of 3 (equally wide) columns.

[Chroelle]

I agree. I was simply making an outline of what material we needed in this one. But I will work on how the site should LOOK now, since there is no further input it seems.
But thanks for the feedback.
If anyone has any ideas as to something that should be shown here then please inform me asap.
Any feedback actually would be nice to get ASAP. I will see if I can have something done by monday.

[Scythe]

I have no input. I have no feedback. Please don't feed me... I might breed.

[Chroelle]

Ok. Then I will go to work on this tomorrow. I am thinking that we might be able to get something designwise up and running this week regarding this.