Restarting

[AHadley]

Most modders have jumped ship on this one. Thus the idea to restart has appeared.

I want as many people as possible to cast a vote on this one. Even if you don't intend to have a part in the CP, cast a vote.

A complete restart will likely mean going back to the drawing board on all sides - not just the storyline. This would mean that assets already created may well be useless, though may also be incorporated. Fortunately not many have yet been created.

It does, however, that there will be more than three modders working on the project as there are now, and we will have a much more realistic storyline that fits with what we know so far.

[VSMIT]

If it is restarted, the modders will have final say.

[General BlackDragon]

I'm all for the more realistic storyline

My advice, if we want to do this right, Lets look at BZ1 more the we do BZ2. Draw off that, and try to make a storyline and atmosphere that captivates the player just as much.

[Mr X]

Personally, instead of the modders being in charge, I think it should only be the people who are actively contributing who get to have a say on anything.

For example, me and Ahadley spent a long time on the story only to have people who weren't helping at all, and didn't offer anything better, criticising it.

I genuinely believe that if me and AHadley went back to the start with the story we could make it much better if we weren't trying to accomodate everyone else's ideas (no offence meant). I'd certainly be willing to try anyway. I'd do a survey to find out what people liked and scrap everything else.

[mrtwosheds]

Forget the story for now, build your race/game assets, by the time you have done that, you will probably have a much better idea of the story you can tell using them.
I have not been involved in the CP, I saw design by committee and hid. 

[VSMIT]

We just need to figure out what we need to build that's new.  Once we figure that out, we can start building assets.  The story can come a bit later, once we actually have something to show.

[Clavin12]

Maybe we should do more committee's like a writing committee then a different committee to review it and such then we present it to the public.

[mrtwosheds]

We just need to figure out what we need to build that's new.  Once we figure that out, we can start building assets.

You need to build assets in order to figure that out, expect to build/rebuild the entire race 3 or 4 times, each time it will look and work better as your art improves and bugs are ironed out.

Committee's are lethal to artists, use all means you have to cast them back into whatever evil pit they crawled out of...

[Clavin12]

May I suggest story submissions again then?

[Mr X]

We have already established what people like in a story, if me and Ahadley cut out the compromises we made first time around we could make the story much better.

And I think we can acknowledge that story submissions weren't the best idea before, and probably still aren't. People will just re-submit their stories and we'll get the same result anyway.

[Clavin12]

I was actually planning on righting a completely different one. We all know what ppl want now so the writers have guidlines.

[Zero Angel]

This might be a good idea, to restart the CP. We have a general idea for stories and such, but holding a community wide vote on planet and ship names, in retrospect, seems a little foolish.

It should be noted that the initial planning phase would not take as long since a lot of ideas have already been formulated.

I think that part of plot and asset development should be moved to the private CP. Those who have already contributed a large amount of story and are working on assets should discuss that amongst themselves -- so that the story writers already have a larger amount of freedom and the asset guys can contribute ideas as well, as well as say whether they are able to do specific things or not. In that respect it's good to have some of the CP done privately, and with realtime communications between its members (members who can IM each other will allow development to progress a lot faster).

[Mr X]

I agree, everything got bogged down because there is always someone in the community who isn't happy.

[Clavin12]

What if we made it so that only the people who signed up for the project can vote in it.

[Nielk1]

For example, me and Ahadley spent a long time on the story only to have people who weren't helping at all, and didn't offer anything better, criticising it.

I criticized it a lot, more directly talking with Ahadley giving long detailed reasons for my concerns, but, meh.

Yes, the point is contributors should be the ones who get the say, 90% of contributors being modders. We can't have people latch themselves on for story or testing and then try to take full control. Only very good writers or those who have very specific knowledge in required areas should do story. Instead of pleasing EVERYONE, the story should please the modders and the writers.

Votes for names of things are foolish.
Votes for everything are foolish.
The point of a CP is the community comes together and makes a mod, not that some modders say they will help and get slammed with tons of weird stories and ideas from people not the slightest involved in actual work.

We had some WONDERFUL ideas from Tempest Storm, but many were randomly poo-pooed for no real reason (the name Anean, for example, when though more twists and turns than the last US Presidential election).

Also, people have LIVES. Everyone needs to understand that. Most of those who have the skills to make this project a reality can't be on guard 24/7 to police bad ideas and editorial misconduct. I mean, I was just WAY to busy to deal with it all. I just left at one point because of how far out of control it had gotten. I had finals (still have a presentation tomorrow I should be working on right now) and have job interviews coming up, I like many others cant be here as constantly as school children who seem to think their ideas are sent from some holy deity (you know who you are, and who you aren't).

I think we need a new system, were we use a private board for the majority of development but we allow people to join the group (provided they have something to SHOW, some sort of mastery of a modding skill, or of story writing, or of general knowledge and experience)