Final Fantasy Hacktics

RECRUITMENT SUBFORUM

This subforum is for people who make large projects they cannot test themselves.  This includes large ASM hacks / tools, as well as your traditional game patches.  FFH right now has way too many solo projects (many of which may be impossibly large), not enough teamwork, and virtually no testing (for bugs or balance).  Even when there is teamwork, it's never durable.  This impairs our ability to comprehensively hack the game.

To stop laziness, recruiters must meet the following requirements
1) They must have, by their own work, released a WORKING BETA with at least some of the desired features.
2) After the recruitment process, they will continue to do work on the patch.  MERE ADMINISTRATION OF THE RECRUITS IS NOT WORK ON THE PATCH ITSELF.
3) They must specify an estimate of how many people they need and what each person should be doing.  In particular, testers should be told to analyze whatever the recruiter thinks could be broken/bugged (whether this be in the plot, in the balance, or in the ASM code).

Similarly, to ensure work is done steadily, fairly, and without duplication, recruits must meet the following requirements.
1) They should voluntarily agree to work for the project and do what they are best at.
2) If more than one person is working on a section, there should exist constant communication between all members working on that section.  This way, the final result is self-consistent.
3) SELF-IMPOSED DEADLINES ARE TO BE EXPECTED FROM EVERY RECRUIT'S WORK.  Essentially, a recruit will say that he expects to finish some % of the total work by a given time when he starts the task.  If unforeseen difficulties arise, it is acceptable for the work to not be entirely completed, but on the deadline, WHAT WAS COMPLETED WILL BE SUBMITTED AS WELL AS AN EXPLANATION OF WHAT IT DOES DO AND DOES NOT YET DO.  Either not submitting work or submitting minimal changes between any two deadlines WILL RESULT IN TERMINATION FROM THE PROJECT.
4) THE RECRUITER HIMSELF IS NOT EXEMPT FROM THESE RULES.  A RECRUITER WHO REFUSES TO ABIDE BY THESE GUIDELINES HIMSELF LOSES ANY AUTHORITY TO COMPEL OTHERS TO WORK.

The categories (not mutually exclusive nor exhaustive) for recruits are:
1) ASMers
2) Event Editors
3) Mechanics (i.e. people who work on/balance battle mechanics)
4) Spriters/Graphic Editors (the latter includes battle animations)
5) Writers
6) Testers

yay! Finally I can get out and help people more!

Should we open a "Feedback topic" too?

Quote from: Dome on December 18, 2011, 06:13:53 am
Should we open a "Feedback topic" too?

I feel like the forum section for a patch is generally a good enough place to put feedback.

Isn't this precisely what was said a year ago? Too many wasted projects. Mercenaries, FFT Remix, SOR, King of Ivalice... Maybe if everyone had worked together we would've had an amazing patch done by now rather than four incomplete ones.

Good to see were finally learning though.

What was said? That everyone's working on their own content and that everyone should work together on "X" hack? If so, then yeah, you're right in that sense.

Blame: LastingDawn, Zozma, SentinalBlade, and Xif for failing to follow through and produce their hacks with constant updates, don't blame everyone else who contributed to them with ideas which unfortunately haven't seen the light of day.

Honestly, this entire place is a waste of time for those who already have their own forum section (PW, FFT+, CCP, CoP, etc...) since they can make topics there saying "HELP PLEASE with _____ (X/X/12)". This is more of a "For Dummies" area for new people that can't keep their shit together and is the only reason why it deserves an existence at all.

Wiz, one person can only do so much.  The biggest limitation I currently see in our ability to make larger hacks isn't ASM or events or spriting, it's workload.  There's currently too much work for one project leader to handle, mostly by himself, even if he works for 12 hours / day.

Yes, if a given large project is not completed, most of the fault lies with the project leader.  However, it is unreasonable to expect a patchmaker to be a spriter, writer, ASMer, scripter, mechanic, tester, and composer (or even three of the above things) all at the same time while dealing with life, work and/or school.
Before, when FFH's tools were relatively undeveloped, it may have been reasonable to stint our imaginations and aim lower.  Now, with the tools we have, it would be a shame if we couldn't make a larger hack, but we're hitting the limits any one person can do by himself.  Hence, we need a public mechanism for working together on projects, if only to ensure that we don't have another Ivalice Arena.

I agree FDC, If it wasnt for all the help i have on my mod it would be much harder to do, since it is quite large, but with the proper help we've managed to get most of the entire first chapter done in less then 4 months, (Only 3 more events and then abilities and balancing to do and it will be out) granted, I'm on FFH majority of the day, but still.

This recruitment idea was what prompted several people to ask for my help in Event editing which will in turn lessen there workload as well and produce mods faster, While at the same it time helps me learn more
information that will help in the process of the tutorial I'm working on for event editing.

So while this section may not be as useful to some, it has definitely has been useful to me, if not only for the fact that it was a place for me to offer the extra help that people may have otherwise not asked for  

every time i get close to finishing a project(not just for this game), something happens to my computer and it dies. that should give you an idea of how long a large mod  can take when you have to do everything yourself. it slightly unreasonable to expect every project leader to be able to put together a working beta alone. depending on the project, that could take years, especially for people who aren't skilled in every area.

lmao