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Ok, with all these posts (and even topics) about how PGI should stop making camos/bobleheads/*insert your varian here* I finally decided to try to explain people, what the development team consists of, which roles each part of team normally has and why the bobbleheads have nothing to do with, say, ***** "webcode".
Here is our dev
- Executive staff - these people may not even know, how to start a game. What they must know is overal strategy, which they build basing on info they get from different departments - how to sell, what to sell, how to distribute (limited) resources the team has, how to "grease the wheels" etc.
- Financial department - and they are actually counting M0NEYZ. How much to pay to employes this month, how much should go to taxes, how much the advertisment will cost and so on and so on.
- PR department - speaking of advertisment. These people actually find the ways to tell people about the products, how to show better parts of it, when to do it and, well, HOW.
- Game design department - "this gun should make a big hole, and this one should just be annoying. Oh, and if there is a hole, a *insert very bad thing here* should happen" - that is what this department is about. They actually develop the overal mechanics of how the objects (hm, mechs, for example) should interact and what should be the result; should DPS of this particular weapon be 12.1 or 12.2, should the atlas make haka dance before death, so that everyone could see him dying in rage and so on. Well, I think you got it.
- Graphical design department - these people make all what we see in the game the way we like it (or not). Sometimes, artists and 3d designers form different departments, but for simplicity I just put them all in one. Also, everybody here does sometimes the tasks together - when, say, we need a nice mech render on the webpage. Oh, and stuff like bobbleheads, camos, skins - they all come out from here.
- Mech design staff - sketch a mech, draw a mech, model a mech, texture a mech, kick 3d programmer's butts, because shaders are not working properly or get kicked by 3d programmers, as what they want to achieve is not available at current tech level - these guys love all this stuff. And we actually ride the product of their love every day. Oh, and animations too - someone should animate that haka dance, doesn't he?
- Map design staff - a hill or a mountain? A rock or a tree? Maybe a half-destroyed dropship with burnt mech inside (btw, spoiler)? These people give birth to all these ideas and even more. They try to make the maps look good and immersive. Also, they work in tight cooperation with game designers - we don't want our maps being "LRM ONLY" party, right?
- Web page design staff - css is the best friend of these guys. They actually make the place we all whine at look pretty and nice.
- Mech design staff - sketch a mech, draw a mech, model a mech, texture a mech, kick 3d programmer's butts, because shaders are not working properly or get kicked by 3d programmers, as what they want to achieve is not available at current tech level - these guys love all this stuff. And we actually ride the product of their love every day. Oh, and animations too - someone should animate that haka dance, doesn't he?
- Programming department - these people make the game to be a game. Coding day and night, sometimes even just for food and nothing more.
- 3d/2d programming staff - well, whatever the designers had drawn, it won't be seen without these guys. C++, glApi and dxApi, shaders and matrices - they have their hands full with it.
- Database programming staff - SQL. Stored procedures. Selects and updates. Base consistency. Can you live with all these words? Well, they actually do live and make so that your precious xp/cbills levels are stored and updated properly.
- "Netcode" programming staff - clien-server interactions, buffer encoding, sockets, pipes, schemes, syncs, "OMG, we miss ONE BYTE here!" - all this stuff is these guy's life. In order for client and server to "talk" to each other in a proper way they, sometimes, do not sleep.
- Internal game logics/math/AI programming staff (not related to 3d) - calculate balistics trajectory, so that it would fall, calculate damage to your mech, calculate... well, lots, lots of calculations. And all of them are implemented by these guys.
- Security code programming staff - DIE HAX0RZ! Authentication and identification, signing and encryption and also lots of math. Who said, that it is easy to fight HAX0RZ? However, sometimes there is no such thing as a distinct group of programmers, doing only this, so these responsibilities are distributed between the above programmer's groups.
- 3d/2d programming staff - well, whatever the designers had drawn, it won't be seen without these guys. C++, glApi and dxApi, shaders and matrices - they have their hands full with it.
- Testing department - well, sometimes these guys are not even employed in the company. They are all responsible for catching bad bugs indoors and not letting them out. Unfortunately, they are not supermen, so they cannot catch everything. Oh, and by the way, they also test if what has been actually implemented works as the game designers want it to be. So, basically, it's a hell of a job. So, before blaming them, go and try to find a bug in, say ATM. You found one? Congrats! You are fit to be in this department!
- Admins and network engineers - these guys actually make so that everybody else could even work. You need some real stuff to run the code at, to draw the designs with, to watch p... Well, for all the tasks you need networks, computers, servers, and they set them all up. Normally, you'll see these guys drinking coffee - then you know, everything is all right. But IF you happen to see them running, well, you may not like the result.
- Sound producing department - these people actually make the sounds, that we all love. What is an immersion without sounds? Nothing! So, they spend their time doing weird stuff (like, say, mixing sound of hammer hitting a metal plate and kitten's meows) so that the game would be realistic not only for our eyes, but also for our ears.
- Service personell - do they even have anything to do with the game? Of course! If an important appointment would be missed, or noone talks to angry investor, or noone answers an important call, or (OMG!) Garth won't have his coffe nothing good will come out of it. So never underestimate the role of these people!
*this list is just an assumption of how it can be, but it should give you an understanding, what a complex organism the development studio is*
*WALLOFTEXTMODE=OFF*
So, after reading the wall of text, do you still want to ask the designers to go and implement socket interaction , or netcode programmers to rebalance a weapon? Or, maybe, PR guys to make new sounds? I really hope, that not. If you still do... Well, I have very bad news for you.
Edited by Undead Bane, 28 November 2012 - 05:58 AM.
netcode - they just used whatever the game gave them
