[STHX]

roxahris, on May 4 2009, 12:23 PM, said:

STHX, on May 4 2009, 07:44 PM, said:

But this happened because the project lacked a true leadership.
You can't ignore this thing. Every project, to being able to go anywhere, needs a solid leadership. A leader must give his take on everything, not just when he feels to.

Haha, what

All right, I'll try to be more specific.
If the project steered in the direction of Sonic Chimpo, as I said, don't you think that, maybe, Chimpo must be present?
Originally the project was very different, and I disagree with many choices Chimpo made. But I helped when I could.
But, let's say we all complete, for example, the Sonic Sheet. What if, after that, Chimpo arrives and says "this is not what I wanted, do it again". This is his project, and he has the final word on everything. He must tell us if we are doing what he wanted, or else we don't know if what we are doing is good.
I don't understand why you all insist that a leader must not be omnipresent. Look at Sonic 2 HD. Vincent is always there to validate every new piece of art. He gives directions on how to improve every art posted. In this way everyone knows what they have to do.
But look at the current topics:
If test-object hadn't wrote what was the problem of the look up animation I posted, I would have never known that it needed some fixes.

roxahris, on May 4 2009, 12:23 PM, said:

STHX, on May 4 2009, 07:44 PM, said:

Then, for reasons unknown, you went away, only to return today and erase every topic you created, basically erasing the whole project.

I was under the impression that at some period, Chimpo had to deal with some real life issues. After that, he saw that the forum was a "disorganized mess", and removed (not deleted, mind you) most of the topics, to give everyone a central focus. A good idea on paper, but...
...oh wait, you said today. Well, considering the lack of activity...

Disorganized mess? Yeah, of course. Everyone started to post their own things without following the guidelines. No one actually continued what was been doing before
[/sarcasm]

Disorganized mess? Where, Roxharis? What have we done for messing the project? Would you be so kind to show when this project gone messed, or when we started to ignore Chimpo's guidelines?
We kept doing what we were asked to do. Yet, it could have been better if, after completing something, we had a clear idea on what we needed to do after. But yeah, its our fault. We should have continued to post the same thing over and over.

roxahris, on May 4 2009, 12:23 PM, said:

STHX, on May 4 2009, 07:44 PM, said:

You turned this into Sonic Chimpo, but then stopped caring.

Allow me to regurgitate some facts; before Chimpo took over, there were constant clashes between what people wanted. Everyone has a different vision of a Sonic 4, after all. That is why the project became, as you eloquently put it, "Sonic Chimpo"; to steer everyone in one direction.

Again, to avoid the project steering out of the "good" direction, you must be present, otherwise the contributors don't know what to do, especially if so different from the original plan.
Because, you know, everyone has a different vision on Sonic 4, but Chimpo's one is so different that this project should've been renamed Sonic Advance 4, not Sonic 4. There is nothing that could be remotely similar to the classic games here, besides, ironically, the 2 Badniks completed, since Chimpo never cared about them. But wait, don't they seem out of place with the level art or the character art? Yes they do. And you know who should have said this? The leader.

And know I'm going to say something I'll repent one day, but:
What have you contributed, Roxahris, to the project? You don't have any right to speak here. You are no one in this project. And even if you did something in the past, you abandoned the project lately.
So, we will be glad if you stop pretending you know everything.


And besides Diablohead is right.
Today Chimpo acted like a 10 years old spoiled boy.

[Dark Sonic]

You know STHX instead of bitching about stuff how about you try to make this project come alive. You seem to care about it a lot. You can talk all you want but until you do something that's all it's going to be, talk.

[Thundertimi]

Okay, first, we have to decide new leader.
Let's start this. What about collecting candinates now.
using this topic. Then vote?

[STHX]

Dark Sonic, on May 4 2009, 01:11 PM, said:

You know STHX instead of bitching about stuff how about you try to make this project come alive. You seem to care about it a lot. You can talk all you want but until you do something that's all it's going to be, talk.

You right.
I care a lot about the project.
I would even draw a full Sonic Sheet, or all the badniks by myself if it keeps the project alive.
Hell, if no one is chosed I can even be the next leader if that means it will save the project.

But I can't, because I don't know where the project will go. Chimpo gave up, and probably a new leader is needed.
But it is Tweaker (and of the other admins) decision to let this project to live.
Only he can give mod powers to one of us so that he/she become the next leader.


Be careful.
Being the leader in this moment won't be easy.
The project went trough 3 leadership in past, and many times it risked to die. Not many would take the responsability to save it, and probably many think the project is doomed forever.
If a new leader is chosed, then everything will be in his/her hands. This means that if the project is saved, then all glory will go to him/her. But if the project dies, he will forever be marked as the one who killed this project.
Also, since Chimpo is gone, a fresh start is needed. Many things must be reviewed again. The guidelines, the rules, the style. And this are all things only the new leader can do.
However, since the project already changed 3 leaderships, I don't know how many still think it can be finished. If the admins give us at least 2 months, I'm sure we will try our best to save what can be saved, and then the decision of the project fate will be on the back of the community.

I don't know how many are ready to accept the leadership now.
I'm ready to accept any consequence and the stigma of failure if the project dies. I was in this project since the beginning, and I helped in any way I could. I lived every leadership with my eyes, and I have an idea on what went wrong. I'm ready to take this responsability. But I can't be alone.
I would point at Matwek as another possible leader, since everything I posted on me can be said for him too. If he wants to return on the leadership, then I have no problems.

We can't have only one leader. Sometimes it happens that someone can't be on the internet for whatever reason, so more than a leader is needed. It would be best if every leader is specialized on something (character are, level art, music, programming).
Since Thundertimi is collecting candidates, I, STHX, candidate for project leadership.
As other candidates, I propose Matwek, since he already was a leader in the past, and his skill is widely proved. Also, he too was on the old forum, and has been active since then.
A second candidate could be test-object, since lately he did most of the work for the level art.


One last things.
Today I'm not posting anything because I was a bit surprised on what happened, since I didn't expected this. I'm not at my house, and this isn't my PC, so I can't post nothing now because I haven't brought nothing to post from home.

[Kurosan]

[Jan Abaza]

Tell you what, guys. You could make me your project leader. I've been sitting on this material for a complete Sonic game for five years by now. I can't promise A Sonic Game To End All Sonic Games, but what we CAN deliver here is sort of an ansver to Megaman 9, a Sonic game that is like Sonic 1, but brand new and with a whole lot of stuff. You'll be going through another reboot with this becoming Sonic Abaza running on a fricking Mega Drive, but I can promise you'll always know what you should be doing, and it'll be a lot cleaner working with Genesis limitations.

I've got the tough bits (design and level art) down, what should be done is the fun bits, like enemies, music and *cough* actual implementation, because both ASM and SonED2 hate my guts. -_- I can post a plan in two days and have a full layout of stage 1 done in a week.

What you say, Retro?

[Metal Knuckles]

I don't know how it will throw off the votes, but STHX is the bastard who knocked me up and then ran away. My poor baby (???) will never know the tender loving touch of a father, and all because this man decided to leave his family life and turn to 90's video game icon fan project forum politics!

Meanwhile, Chimpo has been supplying us with a steady income as we've worked under his supervision, and has alloted me the appropriate time off to eat, sleep, and as of recently, fight swine-flue infested zombies. This gentle creature of God's creation has even invited me over for Christmas dinner on several occasions. Clearly, this project deserves someone who shows such dedication and interests in every aspect of the project, including those working on the most minute tasks.

Are you really willing to throw away all the progress made by this majestic architecture of a man for the ramblings of a runaway dad?

[Tweaker]

My vote is for Jan. I want to hear some opinions regarding him as a leader and less bitching about Chimpo, since he's not gonna read it and doesn't give enough of a shit to give you the middle finger in response to your comments.

Matwek has already tried the leader thing and backed out, and Rave is a good spriter, but he's too much of a prick for my liking. Let's get some opinions flowing so we know where to go from here.

[Ollie]

You could give all the art to my Sonic Dash project

Seriously, I would let this project die for a bit. The last restart pretty much bore people to death and they stopped working on it. I'd say wait until the Summer Holiday's when most people have free time on their hands to get the foundations in place, it's just that first "leg up" that's going to be the hardest/most time consuming, so if there are a large majority of people wanting to continue progress, restart in the summer. Start fresh, let all the old posts go to waste, make sure they are backed up though, just incase someone does want to bring back an old concept.

Before you begin, you would need to start off with a Solid team, have a x number of artists and get a x number of programmers, starting with 5 artists but no programmers is pointless since progress won't reach anywhere after the art stage. Once that has happened, then the programmers will have to decide which engine they are going to use, you need something that everyone can use.

You need to give each volunteer a specific role, if everyone works on just one thing (E.G Sonic's Standing Sprite) then there is just going to be constant bitching about other peoples art style. Working behind closed doors on a little bit of work might be a good idea for a start, then release the art/music/etc to the public in order to hear their input.

Next would be the concept stage, make sure you know how many levels are you going to have, what you are looking for in a level (Concept-wise) and how the whole game is going to flow. (Sega Screen - Sonic Retro Presents - Title Screen?)

Make sure you have a sensible target, nobody can ever make a full game from start to finish, in my own case, I have aimed to make a working platform engine for the PSP in lua. I have next aimed to make sure that I have Sonic feeling physics, gimmicks and so on, then I would aim to getting general art done then just art for one specific level. Once you have got all of that done, you can either release a demo or continue with a new level and so on.

To be honest, that plan is what I use for when working on Sonic Dash, I think it's a very straight forward plan and is the easiest guidelines to follow when creating any game. Although you do need a solid kick-up-the-bum like what Chimpo did start to do at the very beginning of his role as Project Leader.

EDIT: Also here is what I would do forum/topic wise:

Sticky: Project Overview - Just a brief overview.
Sticky: Help Wanted - If you are requesting new team members have a topic of applications with examples of their work etc, a giant free-for-all of artists isn't going to work.
Sticky: Current Targets - Display what art needs to be work on or what music needs to be done, etc. That way people on the team won't get derailed and work on something completely different.

Level X - Display what the level artists are doing right now with the art.
Art Showcase - Display general WIP art to let the other users on this form have their say.
Music Showcase - Same Goes.

I would, personally, split up the main team into three/four parts:
Project Leader - An all-round project member with a good sense of direction, who is organized in order to tell each member what they are doing.
Artists - With specific tasks to work on.
Musicians - With a track each to work on.
Level Designers - ONE person to work on just ONE level for now.
Programmers - To do the Programming side.

This post has been edited by Ollie: 04 May 2009 - 09:46 AM

[Diablohead]

I suppose I could enter my name into the hat, just to give more choice.

I not seen any of Jan's work so I can't say much.

[Spanner]

Jan seems to have good ideas, a community "hack" could work out if it is executed properly. I don't know though, would there be people willing to help such as programmers? I could contribute with some music importing but that's really it, I'm not good with anything else. Also if it was a hack, perhaps you should use Sonic 2 as a base, especially that more stuff would be available without having to extend stuff as well as 128x128 tiles.
Just my two cents, I don't know if anyone will agree with me or not but whatever.

[Afti]

No leader can succeed in this climate. No matter who wins, they too will fail. They will be directing a committee too large to be efficient.

I would like to suggest an alternate system.

The group allowed to contribute is kept relatively small- say, twenty-five people or so. They are elected by the committee formed of all those who see fit to come here, based on their offerings on a monthly basis. As such, you will be required to do good work for the game on a regular basis to contribute to it. In addition, a leader to direct this group is elected quarterly.

A group of one-hundred-fifty people is uncontrollable by a single leader, regardless of their competence- Chimpo has demonstrated that. Twenty-five is more manageable, while electing them means that it's still a "community" project.

[Tweaker]

25 leaders? Are you shitting me?

Yeah, no.

Anyway, can we get some replies regarding what I actually, uh, asked for? That'd be totally rad, dudes.

[Ollie]

SOTI, on May 4 2009, 03:43 PM, said:

Jan seems to have good ideas, a community "hack" could work out if it is executed properly. I don't know though, would there be people willing to help such as programmers? I could contribute with some music importing but that's really it, I'm not good with anything else. Also if it was a hack, perhaps you should use Sonic 2 as a base, especially that more stuff would be available without having to extend stuff as well as 128x128 tiles.
Just my two cents, I don't know if anyone will agree with me or not but whatever.

Yeah, all this discussion about trying to make it like the 16-Bit games, why don't we all aim this project towards a giant overhaul of Sonic 2. That way, I can actually contribute alot. Since I have a reasonble amount of skill for art, I'm getting a REAL good understanding of assembly, I'm not too shabby with layouts and I think I have a slight understanding on how Music works. It is very possible for stripping down the Sonic 2 Disassembly and making a pretty slick new engine using existing (Official) code. HEck I'm sure there have been WAY more good quality hacks than good quality games using the E02 Engine.

[Afti]

Tweaker, on May 4 2009, 10:51 AM, said:

25 leaders? Are you shitting me?

You misunderstood me.

One leader, but a leader of 25 people rather than the entire forum. MUCH more manageable. The others would only be allowed to vote for contributors, but not to contribute themselves. The current system is a direct democracy, even under Chimpo's "dictatorship". I propose a republic.

-------------------------------------------------------------

I would go with Jan using the current system, though, because it means that there is a solid direction for the project.

Also: being on the Genesis means that large chunks of the engine you want are already present and documented, even if it isn't a hack of a single game.