Offhand, I’d suggest: "completely open it up." Let it be a community project in which source modifications are handled through GitHub (a private repo …), discussions and work are generally very open, and updates are posted regularly. Well, much like the ongoing “Blender 2.8” project. I wouldn’t suggest considering any story ideas, graphics ideas, and so forth to be something that must be “NDA’d.” Instead, I would opine that this approach would only get in the way and set the project back. The project needs clear leadership, but no secrecy.
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This.
These kinds of projects don’t usually die from someone else stealing your ideas. They die from a lack of skilled, talented people being able to see real progress and chances of succes, so they just don’t join and nothing gets done.
I saw this happen hundreds of times over on the BlenderArtists forums where people were always looking for other people to essentially make “their” game, and considered that their ideas were the secret sauce. Garbage. Ideas are cheap and plentiful. Skilled, talented people willing to put in hard work are the not-so-secret sauce, and they’re only going to join if they see serious talent/experience/resources/progress.
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That we have actually, the only thing is it is on gitlab, because private repo wasn’t free on github at time of creation.
Discuss what exactly? there are only 2 main people are working, some other has their thing to take care of, so things are done slower and open discussion would not be possible, because it would boring considering no. of people are actually interested in project, since only main 2 people are working the actual output to discuss is real less.
Well, Blender 2.8 project is actually handled by hundred of people and millions are interested and is industry proven, and i don’t think it can actually compared.
Actually the leadership is actually quite good, if you had come, and you can’t actually test leadership when the project is at bare minimum. I don’t know what you mean by No secrecy, secrecy between people who are working with each other? between Spectator ? between people who want to join the project.
Case 1: There no secrecy.
Case 2: You can’t just go and say everything you know about the project
Case 3: I think this is where you are correct, tho, people are free to ask about the project if they PM him, it would not hurt to do PM, but i do think some basic plan needed to be told in public, so that more interest come and public know more about.
That not actually the thing here, we are not asking anybody to make game for ‘us’, we neither consider our idea as secret sauce, it actually community project, you can ignore the project if you want, if you want to be interested, you can be interested or if you want, if you don’t want to care then No Problem at all you are free to decide it for yourself, nobody is forcing/saying anything, and again you are free to ask/PM him or me if you want to just ask about anything, there is NO secrecy at all. It just that people don’t need to reveal anything when anything start at all, cause hyping everyone and disappointing everyone is said to be really bad and is proven many time by companies with AAA titles, if the project is broken down to nothing and i will guarentee you that it would be really embarrassing getting asked about the project by the people who are ‘hyped’, so just trying to say that the being ‘big show’, isn’t always the way.
And on the other hand armory is relatively new, and it would be not easy to make game without docs, but sometime people just find a way to do it, so people need to stop hiting on projects, when they themselves don’t know what is happening at all, it is easy to say anything from outside but not easy when you are inside.
Do read above ^, project is about showcasing armory comp-abilities, not making super game with super secret-sauce.
So, I will say this last time that this is community project, people are free to join, people are free to not care about the project. And the project final plan is to be community driven(just like how blender2.8 is being made and supported), and the project is not private at all, not personal at all
I want to say @trsh, @BlackGoku36, and the rest of the current team, that if you have a dedicated core team that really cares about the project, then that is what is going to be more valuable than anything else. The talent may be hard to get your hands on and it may take a long time before you get the resources that you need to get the job done, but if you really care about the project and you have a team of members that also care about the project, that is what is going to make the difference.
I would suggest that when considering anybody else that might want to contribute to the project, try to understand whether or not they also have the interest and passion that you have for what you are working on, assuming that you have the passion yourself! Those are the people that will stick with you when things are difficult, the people that actually care personally about the project you are working on and the goals you are trying to accomplish, even if you do not yet have all of the talent you need.
Something that me and my team always say is that attitude and aptitude are the biggest things that we look for in people that might work with us. If somebody really wants to do what you are doing, then that is going to show in all the work they do.
The other thing is make sure you have a clear vision. The only way to make sure that you are doing what you planned to do is if you have a clear vision that everybody involved understands. Everybody needs to know why they are there and what the team as a whole is trying to accomplish. If everybody is working on the project trying to accomplish something different, then it will eventually wear down the project to nothing unless a clear vision is established.
If you really do want to make your project happen, and you really believe in what you are working on, then don’t be deterred by the people who challenge what you are doing. If it is what you want to do, fill your team with other people who also want to do it, hopefully for the same reason that you want to do it. Your team is important. Even if you have all the talent that you need, if the members are not invested in your project, they are going to be working for you and not with you, and if you aren’t paying them, well…they could easily leave.
Anyway, that is my contribution. I hope that you can form a team that will build your project with you. Good luck.
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Hey @BlackGoku36,
I apologize if what I wrote came across as trying to discourage you or anyone from moving forward with this. Personally I’d love to see you guys forge ahead, and I think that @trsh is very right in posting that Armory really needs a great demo to showcase it’s strengths. Personally, I’m actually more of an artist / marketer than a dev and am interested in joining a group of people working towards that.
What I (and I’m guessing @MagicLord) was trying to get at is that people are inspired to help by seeing good stuff being done. Whatever you’ve got (concept art, tests, etc. Doesn’t have to be anything finished or polished), if you show it regularly, people will see progress, get excited and want to help. Without posting anything but an idea, well, it’s hard to tell the difference between a skilled, focused team that’s likely to succeed and a couple of people with no idea that’s likely to fail. Even if you don’t really have anything done for this game yet, post stuff that team members have done in the past, and what they’ll be contributing here.
I actually just came from being the lead artist on an old but reasonably well known FOSS game, where it stagnated and then got rebooted by a new bunch of people. They’re good devs, and good people, but they’ve taken forever just sitting around talking about refactoring things and tweaking long, in-depth story concepts without actually really creating anything. Without actually seeing anything, who can tell if anything is ever likely to happen? Contributions have dropped off and other good artists have drifted away. Now I’m here learning Armory instead to create my own smaller, but realistic solo projects unless I can find a team actually doing something. I say this not to sell you on myself, but to point out the dynamics of what attracts people to help and to stay helping, especially after having personally been involved in countless failed community projects.
Great projects do exist and happen, and I truly hope this will be one of them. You just need to show people what’s happening and who is or will be doing it, regularly, to a) inspire them to help and b) make it clear to the right type of people who are looking to make something like what you do.
At least tell us what type of game it would be (rouge-like? FPS? 2.5d platformer?), what style (the last game I left partly because they wanted to go dark and gritty, and I love creating colorful Marioesque style stuff mainly), what will be the unique or core-focus of the game that makes it uniquely fun?
I hope that helps in some way and good luck! I’ll be watching with interest. 
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Right now it’s a bit a shot in the dark for enthusiast, ppl why know as already, and ones why dare to take a look. Not really aiming for pros. The search for modeler is postponed, as we nailed the models for mechanics demo our selves. When that demo will be presented we will also reveal more details about next steps, some concept, etc. Right now it’s not ready for public. The first impression does count.
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Also making project repo public would require proper tech. If multiple ppl will start to update one blend, and do pull requests, why will manage that? And then Ppl will do pull requests with own ideas how the game should be better and will pull my hair out :D. Its not some software, I needs proper private management and tasks made in stone. So the really gain of making a repo public, it’s just that someone can pull something for own project. And that ain’t helping Armory at this point.
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There is some thing with Community projects. As artists are afraid to invest they time for a project, that could go nowhere, so do programmers. They don’t want to code for months, then just to find out that no artists will join anyway (busy, school, job, something else.), or that ones that join lack the skill to make the thing happen.
So a circle of trust and motivation must be established. I mean, sure, artists can point out demands, to join a project with full power, but he/she should also put something motivating for others on board. Like maybe doing one gig (model, drawing), or/and showing of skills besides the demands and pointing out that he/she is highly interested in joining - if and when. Because this is motivation/trust for programmers, managers, etc.
Nobody is doing me a favor. It’s a community project for the community. And if artist likes the idea, and want the project to thrive, he/she should also ask own self, how can he/she motivate others, not just think about own comfort. Its always about taking some risks in a community project- bit by bit.
So - showing more of the concept from us - Yes. Demanding some bad ass team or/and work already done, not by adding own 50 cents - No (not for community project).
@zicklag is also making good points here.
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I discover/land into your exchanges which I think are very interesting and put the finger on a general problem that affects the organizations that we could say to be “capable to fit for the future”.
If you summarize all your comments, I think we have materials for defining first steps that would become the hallmarks of an online community and open innovation project.
Openness could be the center of the mindmap of it 
un truc like this
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Merit and power? Don’t get that part
I put this in reference for example to thereafter
I think that developing this point is also in a more subtil way linked with this kind of remark too, that I see as a goal of building credibility and the need to knock down barriers to collaboration.
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I actually plan at some point to write an article of how to plan and organise community game projects. Learned so much from this and others. Good and bad.
There is no one golden key. But keeping some principles in mind, can boost and increase the probability on success.
@Didier
Until you show something :
- sketches
- quick design draws
- references with paint on
- some models or textures
- some level blocking
- game planning (starting work, alpha content, beta content, polish phase, test phase, game balancing, advert)
When you don’t have any of those you will not attract people to join and work on your game project.
This is common to see someone propose a project without any work and planing done, most of the time it leads nowhere.
Everyone has great game ideas on forums, but it’s not enough to get people join you, you must show some attractive work to interest skilled people (or you’re lucky to find some people interested and motivated).
I don’t need to participate in the discussion, so don’t quote me lol
How hard can it be to understand that we are just assembling core team, a 2-3 man team who are just near to release mechanism demo 1 can’t show everything, because it is not perfected. All @trsh is saying is to invite a new modeller, because of course you know, programmer can’t model or design.
you aren’t wrong about showing concept and stuff, but if team doesn’t have core working then i don’t think it good idea to spout concepts and thingie, so please wait until Mechanism Demo 1 and then we will release more info about our plan.
If you don’t want to participate in the discussion then it is better to not write anything at all. This is getting rather annoying, when showcasing time come, we will just open new thread and post it there
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