How can I get volunteers to make faster progress on a game?

[Mutive]

You mean to tell me that there are people out there who actually write like that?? Because the examples that you put of how to phrase these questions better is what I normally type and I thought thatwas blunt? Yikes.

People can be monumental jerks, alas.

(And I think mildly blunt is fine, I think. But it's always best to assume that people have good intentions, at least at first. Doubly so when all you can do is remove them from the project.)

Well if you want to get really technical, I'm working with 6 people (not including myself). 2 writers, 3 artists (though they each have separate jobs like two have split the work of the sprites for example so one is working on sketches and outlining and the second is working on coloring and the third is working on backgrounds/concept art), and 1 composer. One of the artists and one of the writers are also going to do programming and GUI as well.

That doesn't seem too crazy. Although it still might be worth looking back through interactions and seeing whether there might be creative differences that are slowing one aspect or another of the work.

What do you mean with the last part? All of us who are working on the story (that being the two writers and me suggesting ideas/reading/editing/etc.) collectively agree if an idea might work before we start writing it, so I've never really felt like it's my story as it is our story. Since this is based on a game that already exists, I depend on them (probably more than I should honestly) because I suck at characterization and many times when I've suggested an idea for a scene what I get most of the time is "nice idea, but the reaction of this character would be this instead of that". Originally, I was supposed to be the second writer, but because of how often this happened, I guess I got nervous and took on another writer instead and demoted myself to editor (which is something I feel a lot more comfortable doing. I get to read the story that we've all built together from our combined ideas and fix any errors that the writers might have missed or make dialogue a bit more realistic. Do you mean to say that having us all combine ideas like that is a bad idea?

I don't think that combining ideas is a *bad* idea, per se. But at best, it slows things down (while utilizing the best ideas and creating a better overall project). At the worst, it makes it almost impossible for work to get done and can lead to an incohesive mess.

Ideally the way a joint writing project should work is something like this:

Person A: "Here are some great ideas!"

Person B: "Here are some other great ideas!"

Both people: "Let's pick the best and form a cool, cohesive story from both. A will work on POV X and Y while B will work on POV Z!"

Both people: "*high five*"

** Two months later

Person A: "I have a great script!"

Person B: "So do I!"

Person A: "I like your script, but would suggest these minor changes."

Person B: "Yours is also great, and here are some minor changes I'd suggest."

** Two months later

Both: "We're done! **high five**"

#####

But what I've found in experience is that it often works more like this...

Person A: "I have this great idea!"

Person B: "I have some other great ideas!"

Both: "Let's figure out which ideas are the best!"

**Two months later**

Person A: "Now that we've figured out which are best, let's put together an outline!"

Person B: "Hmmm...I'm not sure that your outline makes sense. It's kind of a mess when we put all our thoughts together. We should cut idea X, Y and Z."

Person A: "But those were my favorite ideas."

Person B: "..."

Person A: "I'll put together a different outline and you'll see how awesome it is!"

Person B: **thumbs up**

**Two months later

Person A: "I have cleverly put together an outline that's super cool and incorporates all the best ideas!"

Person B: "Now it no longer has *my* favorite ideas."

Person A: "....Fine. Then you put together the outline."

Person B: "Sure."

**Two months later

Person B: "Let me present you with my glorious and masterful outline!"

Person A: "This outline lacks all the ideas that I joined this project to write about. I hate it."

Person B: "...fine."

And on and on and on...

(I'll also throw in that, at least for me, it's often hard to know if an outline will even make perfect sense until I start writing it. Maybe we thought Alice was the better love interest, but it turns out that the scenes with Betty sparkle with chemistry. Or perhaps Cathy was supposed to be the villain, but suddenly Dorothy's motivation for killing a bus load of children suddenly makes more sense. In an individual project, I'd just go with that instinct. In a group one, every one of those changes needs to run by everyone else. And while I wait for them to respond, that's both time that passes and momentum that fades. And, half the time, I go in the direction we agreed on, which leads to a not as great outcome.

I can't say which scenario yours is. But if you're seeing elements of any of the above "bad" behaviors, it might be worth seeing what you can do to reign them in. (Which might mean saying, "Okay, this is the outline and we're running with it.")

[XBDC36]

I can't say which scenario yours is. But if you're seeing elements of any of the above "bad" behaviors, it might be worth seeing what you can do to reign them in. (Which might mean saying, "Okay, this is the outline and we're running with it.")

Thanks for those two little scenario scripts, it was quite helpful(it probably took you a long time to write too, I'm sorry).

I think that's hard for even me to say, since the script is still in its early stages. What I can tell you though is that the routes aren't really interlinked together, if that makes sense. Each of the character's routes are like their own little alternate universes. I.E. Characters 2 and 3 don't appear in Character 1's story at all. Or if they do/will(will is probably the better word here), they're such minor characters that they might as well not even be there to begin with (and any chemistry that might exist doesn't matter because you'll end dating(?) them anyways). It's once you get to Character 4 that things become kind of connected, but how there isn't quite a clear idea for yet. I guess you're free to tell me your thoughts on that if you like.

When you say "Which might mean saying, "Okay, this is the outline and we're running with it.", couldn't that possibly lead to them having a bad experience because they didn't get their way? How could I combat something like that? By trying to find a way to incorporate everyone's ideas into the story somehow if it's flexible enough like you said or could there be another way, because trying to have everyone's ideas might not always work.

Something that I figure I probably should have brought up sooner (and that I might make a new topic for since this could be a question that others might want to know and it will be easier to access for them) since it's been mentioned so many times is how do I gauge what is a "realistic time" to complete a game as everyone else has said? I've never been that good at planning ahead, even for stuff like school projects. It's always happened to me where I think that something will take a short time to make but it ends up taking so much longer than I anticipated which can really mess stuff up, and I think that might be important to fix as soon as possible, especially with something like this.

[Mutive]

Thanks for those two little scenario scripts, it was quite helpful(it probably took you a long time to write too, I'm sorry).

You're most welcome.

It's once you get to Character 4 that things become kind of connected, but how there isn't quite a clear idea for yet. I guess you're free to tell me your thoughts on that if you like.

To me, at least, this could be quite challenging. It seems *easy* because they're two distinct stories. But since you know they're going to interconnect, as a writer you need to ensure that whatever you're doing doesn't make the later connection impossible. (e.g. an obvious problem would be killing a major character. But even, say, sending one off on a long journey could wreck the story.)

I guess it all depends on how it's done. But having part 4 hazy may not be a benefit to your writers. By not knowing the ending, they're effectively having to write towards an unknown with the realization that, when they get there, they may have to redo their entire story in order for things to make sense.

(e.g. if I *know* that the two protagonists will eventually meet in Oz, I can keep directing them down the Yellow Brick Road. But if I know they'll just meet somewhere, sometime, it's a bit harder to direct them.)

When you say "Which might mean saying, "Okay, this is the outline and we're running with it.", couldn't that possibly lead to them having a bad experience because they didn't get their way? How could I combat something like that? By trying to find a way to incorporate everyone's ideas into the story somehow if it's flexible enough like you said or could there be another way, because trying to have everyone's ideas might not always work.

It can, yes. People often are deeply unhappy when they signed on to, say, work on a humorous stories about unicorns and suddenly they're stuck with a serious story regarding mermaids.

With that said, you probably *can't* have, say, a fantasy game that simultaneously is a gritty, quasi-realistic story similar to "A Song of Fire and Ice" *and* a goofy, light hearted romp similar to, say, a Robert Aspirin novel. (And that's even within ONE genre! Just imagine your gritty hard sci-fi story trying to mix with your slice of life otome in a Japanese high school!) But a direction *has* to be decided on in order to make progress.

(And ideally the other components - such as the music, art, etc. mirror the theme. It's hard to imagine "A Song of Ice and Fire" being done in cute chibis as anything other than a parody.)

Something that I figure I probably should have brought up sooner (and that I might make a new topic for since this could be a question that others might want to know and it will be easier to access for them) since it's been mentioned so many times is how do I gauge what is a "realistic time" to complete a game as everyone else has said? I've never been that good at planning ahead, even for stuff like school projects. It's always happened to me where I think that something will take a short time to make but it ends up taking so much longer than I anticipated which can really mess stuff up, and I think that might be important to fix as soon as possible, especially with something like this.

It depends. Which I know isn't the answer you're looking for, but it's the true answer.

Some of it depends on how well fleshed out everything is ahead of time. (An outline helps a lot! So does knowing that Bob is a redhead and Carl is a brunette or, alternately, that it doesn't matter. But inserting placeholders *sucks*.)

Some depends on people's schedules. (Do they have 2 hours a day or 2 hours a week?)

Some depends on how many edits are demanded and how substantial they are. (Every edit is going to take at *least* a few hours, most will take a few days.)

Some depends on how clean/perfect the work has to be. (Think of a rough sketch vs. a polished final project.)

Some depends on the person themselves. There are authors who've turned out a novel in a week. Others who've taken a decade to write the same amount.

Some depends on the genre. (In general, writing in the modern world is much easier for me than historical fiction as it's a lot easier to put my character in blue jeans than it is to figure out what kind of underwear a 16th century Japanese lady would be wearing.)

Some depends on other factors.

[XBDC36]

It's once you get to Character 4 that things become kind of connected, but how there isn't quite a clear idea for yet. I guess you're free to tell me your thoughts on that if you like.

To me, at least, this could be quite challenging. It seems *easy* because they're two distinct stories. But since you know they're going to interconnect, as a writer you need to ensure that whatever you're doing doesn't make the later connection impossible. (e.g. an obvious problem would be killing a major character. But even, say, sending one off on a long journey could wreck the story.)

I guess it all depends on how it's done. But having part 4 hazy may not be a benefit to your writers. By not knowing the ending, they're effectively having to write towards an unknown with the realization that, when they get there, they may have to redo their entire story in order for things to make sense.

(e.g. if I *know* that the two protagonists will eventually meet in Oz, I can keep directing them down the Yellow Brick Road. But if I know they'll just meet somewhere, sometime, it's a bit harder to direct them.)

True, and great point! Again, I probably should have thought of that sooner, so I feel kind of dumb ^^; You know how the saying goes, "begin with the end in mind"

Something that I figure I probably should have brought up sooner (and that I might make a new topic for since this could be a question that others might want to know and it will be easier to access for them) since it's been mentioned so many times is how do I gauge what is a "realistic time" to complete a game as everyone else has said? I've never been that good at planning ahead, even for stuff like school projects. It's always happened to me where I think that something will take a short time to make but it ends up taking so much longer than I anticipated which can really mess stuff up, and I think that might be important to fix as soon as possible, especially with something like this.

It depends. Which I know isn't the answer you're looking for, but it's the true answer.

Some of it depends on how well fleshed out everything is ahead of time. (An outline helps a lot! So does knowing that Bob is a redhead and Carl is a brunette or, alternately, that it doesn't matter. But inserting placeholders *sucks*.)

Some depends on people's schedules. (Do they have 2 hours a day or 2 hours a week?)

Some depends on how many edits are demanded and how substantial they are. (Every edit is going to take at *least* a few hours, most will take a few days.)

Some depends on how clean/perfect the work has to be. (Think of a rough sketch vs. a polished final project.)

Some depends on the person themselves. There are authors who've turned out a novel in a week. Others who've taken a decade to write the same amount.

Some depends on the genre. (In general, writing in the modern world is much easier for me than historical fiction as it's a lot easier to put my character in blue jeans than it is to figure out what kind of underwear a 16th century Japanese lady would be wearing.)

Some depends on other factors.

Aaah, don't we all hate the "it depends" answer. I figure with what you've told me, there's a lot of factors in here that a lot of these kinds of problems could be worked through with just a conversation and a little plan. The other day, I asked my writer what was going on and if they were still in on it just like you guys told me (thanks guys ) and they told me they had a full-time job, which was something they hadn't mentioned before along with saying that of course they wanted to stay. Something I'm worried about though is that even with a plan of some kind, diligence could be an issue. I've mentioned before how we tried to have some kind of a system for having them write (which went "write a paragraph's worth of lines a day. If not, then the next you'll have to write two, and so on".), but it didn't quite work, even though they agreed on it. They've told me before that their writing style is that (and I quote) they need to write in small bursts so they don't lose their place, and I respect that. Maybe I didn't enforce it enough for it to fall through like it did?

[Mutive]

Aaah, don't we all hate the "it depends" answer.

It's a sucky answer. It's also the true one. *sigh*

I figure with what you've told me, there's a lot of factors in here that a lot of these kinds of problems could be worked through with just a conversation and a little plan.

Working through them definitely helps. It doesn't account for *everything*, but it does help somewhat.

(Also, planning tends to be a lot easier for people who are experienced. I've done enough projects that I have a decent sense as to how long it'll take me to write a given scene in a given genre. But people who are less experienced almost by definition will not have as good a sense of how long it takes them to finish something. And you're probably working with people who are not-super-experienced because you're not paying them.)

they told me they had a full-time job

This will be the case with most hobbyists. Unless you're able to pay people a living wage (an impossibility for most game designers), they have to support themselves somehow.

Something I'm worried about though is that even with a plan of some kind, diligence could be an issue. I've mentioned before how we tried to have some kind of a system for having them write (which went "write a paragraph's worth of lines a day. If not, then the next you'll have to write two, and so on".), but it didn't quite work, even though they agreed on it. They've told me before that their writing style is that (and I quote) they need to write in small bursts so they don't lose their place, and I respect that. Maybe I didn't enforce it enough for it to fall through like it did?

Again, diligence will always be an issue with people (esp. when it's volunteer labor). It's easy to get excited about a project at the beginning. It's harder towards the middle where it's a LOOOOONG slog.

And doing precisely a paragraph a day sounds...to be frank, miserable to me. Some days I might have 3 hours to work...others no time at all. Somedays I'm inspired and can write 5k words. Others I write 0.

(Although I do think that saying, "I'd expect approximately this much to be done in X period of time" is reasonable...just with hobbyists, I'd put it more on biweekly or monthly time frames. And, again, expect schedules to slip. This (probably) isn't anyone's priority. And also expect people to be optimistic.)

[XBDC36]

And doing precisely a paragraph a day sounds...to be frank, miserable to me. Some days I might have 3 hours to work...others no time at all. Somedays I'm inspired and can write 5k words. Others I write 0.

(Although I do think that saying, "I'd expect approximately this much to be done in X period of time" is reasonable...just with hobbyists, I'd put it more on biweekly or monthly time frames. And, again, expect schedules to slip. This (probably) isn't anyone's priority. And also expect people to be optimistic.)

Miserable in what way? And what do you mean with "also expect people to be optimistic."? Is that a bad thing somehow or am I just reading the sentence in the wrong context(wouldn't be the first time that's happened on the Internet)?

[Mutive]

Miserable in what way? And what do you mean with "also expect people to be optimistic."? Is that a bad thing somehow or am I just reading the sentence in the wrong context(wouldn't be the first time that's happened on the Internet)?

Miserable in it leading to burn out. Miserable in having "Write X words one day" be a carved in stone goal (esp. considering that I wouldn't even be paid for it.) Daily goals sound great, but they can also be super stressful. (e.g. "I wanted to go out hiking today as it's lovely, but I guess I can't as I have to get 1k words written".) Even NaNoWriMo is a monthly goal. (It does have daily goals, but...it's pretty easy to make up a day or two of missed work by writing more on another day.) And for most people, Nano is HARD (because most of us have jobs/families/other duties/other hobbies which make sitting down for 1-2 hours a day to write difficult).

I do think it's good to have goals (as well as to try to progress a bit daily). But for many of us, it isn't possible. Illness happens. Being overloaded happens. Work emergencies happen. Most of these take precedence over a hobby that pays nothing.

And what I mean by "expect optimism" is that people are *always* going to think they can do more than they can. They think they can write 10k words in a week (because it *has* happened in the past)...but then they get sick. Or their dog jumps the fence and they spend three hours looking for her. Or they find that they're doing more revisions than they think. Or they get writers block or...add any number of other reasons.

I'm sure out there (somewhere, somehow) is a person who perpetually underestimates how much work they'll get done in a timeframe. But people like this are rare. If someone tells you, "I'll get 5k words written in a week", assume that they'll get 2.5k words done.

[puppetbomb]

To be frank, I would only use free labor if it's either someone who can do it well owes me big, or if the thing I'm asking for is disposable. Making a game that relies heavily on volunteer work sounds like a one way street to development hell.

When someone's working for free, you have absolutely no leverage to make demands on their time and labor. The best you can do is be as upfront as you can with deadlines, milestones, word count and other expectations. You can take a step back and introduce new parameters right now while giving the writers a chance to bow out if the project has become something they aren't excited to work on anymore.

In general, I've found that volunteer projects work better with relatively short, independent tasks (see Moon Animate Make-Up and fanzines). It's an option if you aren't married to consistency, and it tends to have more favorable results (in terms of completion).

[XBDC36]

Miserable in what way? And what do you mean with "also expect people to be optimistic."? Is that a bad thing somehow or am I just reading the sentence in the wrong context(wouldn't be the first time that's happened on the Internet)?

Miserable in it leading to burn out. Miserable in having "Write X words one day" be a carved in stone goal (esp. considering that I wouldn't even be paid for it.) Daily goals sound great, but they can also be super stressful. (e.g. "I wanted to go out hiking today as it's lovely, but I guess I can't as I have to get 1k words written".) Even NaNoWriMo is a monthly goal. (It does have daily goals, but...it's pretty easy to make up a day or two of missed work by writing more on another day.) And for most people, Nano is HARD (because most of us have jobs/families/other duties/other hobbies which make sitting down for 1-2 hours a day to write difficult).

I do think it's good to have goals (as well as to try to progress a bit daily). But for many of us, it isn't possible. Illness happens. Being overloaded happens. Work emergencies happen. Most of these take precedence over a hobby that pays nothing.

And what I mean by "expect optimism" is that people are *always* going to think they can do more than they can. They think they can write 10k words in a week (because it *has* happened in the past)...but then they get sick. Or their dog jumps the fence and they spend three hours looking for her. Or they find that they're doing more revisions than they think. Or they get writers block or...add any number of other reasons.

I'm sure out there (somewhere, somehow) is a person who perpetually underestimates how much work they'll get done in a timeframe. But people like this are rare. If someone tells you, "I'll get 5k words written in a week", assume that they'll get 2.5k words done.

There's just so many factors here that are unpredictable, it's pretty disheartening. So are you telling me even throughout everything that was said in this thread, the best I can do is say "I'd like this done by this date", and if they don't do it, just give them more time, but that the process of this might be faster with a proper plan and dates and everything? (I re-read the entire thread again, so sorry if I missed some notes)

[Mutive]

There's just so many factors here that are unpredictable, it's pretty disheartening. So are you telling me even throughout everything that was said in this thread, the best I can do is say "I'd like this done by this date", and if they don't do it, just give them more time, but that the process of this might be faster with a proper plan and dates and everything? (I re-read the entire thread again, so sorry if I missed some notes)

Yeah, there are. And it sucks.

It sucks for projects where everyone on the team is making six figures. It sucks more when people are making $0. (And thus will almost certainly prioritize the job that pays the bills.)

And yeah, I think for volunteer (aka those where you're paying nothing or, to be frank, those where you're paying *something*, but not a lot), pretty much all you can do is say, "I'd like this done by date X. Does that work for you?" and then remind them of what they agreed to do. (And if it feels like they're consistently not meeting deadlines - esp. by a significant margin - remove them and see if you can find someone else.)

The process *will* be faster with a proper plan. I'm not sure that it's *faster* per se with set dates, but set dates do give you something you can hold people to. It's unfair to be angry that someone isn't finished with work that they promised "sometime". It *is* fair to be irritated (and impose consequences - such as you're off the team) if someone promised something on March 1st, it's May, they're still nowhere near done, and it's holding up the project.