10-09-2013, 04:24 AM
Dear fellow Xonotic players!
XONOTIC IS NOT DEAD.
THE DEVELOPMENT DID NOT STOP.
The structure of Team Xonotic aka the devs
Members of the current core team are:
divVerent, Antibody, merlijn, Morphed, Samual, -z-, CuBe0wL, Mirio
Decision making: xonvote
Who to blame?
UPDATE 11th Nov. 2013.
As I promised, the RSS feed is now alive here:
http://46.4.83.5:27500/feed
http://xonpickbot.designxenon.com:27500/feed (updated Nov 22 2014, Mr. Bougo)
Conclusions
- All decisions on minor and major changes are made as a TEAM, not by individuals
- The outcome of polls have to be accepted
- Team Xonotic will be 100% transparent about these decisions
- XONOTIC IS NOT DEAD
- THE DEVELOPMENT DID NOT STOP
Thank you for your attention.
First of all, in the name of Team Xonotic, I would like reassure everybody:
XONOTIC IS NOT DEAD.
THE DEVELOPMENT DID NOT STOP.
It's uncommon for a game developer team to stand before their playerbase and be honest and transparent, but the nature of Xonotic and our longtime mutual respect and good relationship with the community (it's almost the same, afterall) allows us to do this, and in some cases, forces too.
The structure of Team Xonotic aka the devs
In the past couple of weeks we noticed some negative tension building up in the community towards the developer team, and to be fully honest, there were some problems in the organisation of Team Xonotic too. For an open project like Xonotic, one could say this is inevitable; everybody would like to shape the game to his or her own taste, contributing either with ideas or deeds of different skill levels on their own respective fields. Unfortunately, this might lead into some disagreement now and then, and in some cases, antagonism and heated discussions. However, we can all agree on one thing: we'd just like to make the game better, to be the most possible enjoyable for the casual and the more competitive players too. Sometimes however this might force us to significantly change some aspects of the game, and by that in the end, make some decisions that might proove to be not so popular. These decisions are not made by one person, but as a team. Let me explain how it works.
The structure of the developer team is divided into two groups: the core and the extended team.
The structure of the developer team is divided into two groups: the core and the extended team.
Members of the current core team are:
divVerent, Antibody, merlijn, Morphed, Samual, -z-, CuBe0wL, Mirio
The extended team consists of long time contributors who are also generally trusted by the community:
Gatts, sev, IDWMaster, packer, s1lence, Sydes, Nitroxis, JH0nny, theShadow, Soelen, kuniu the frogg, Debugger, FruitieX, zykure, MrBougo, matthiaskrgr, Mario, bitbomb, unfa, Archer, terencehill, Halogene.Decision making: xonvote
Now, let me tell you about how decision making works: the team has an invite-only IRC channel, which has a bot coded by zykure, that allows every team member to start polls about topics that might cause some controversy. A poll runs for 2 weeks - during this time, every team member can vote either yes, no, or they can abstain. Any core team member has veto rights too, that stops the poll in question. The stopped poll can be challenged by another core team member by reopening it and also escalating it into a core team only poll. There is no supreme power over either the core team or the extended team by anybody. There's an agreement in the team that everybody has to accept the results of Xonvote, like it or not.
We'll provide more details on voting rules and such later, as I think this is just slightly offtopic here.
We'll provide more details on voting rules and such later, as I think this is just slightly offtopic here.
Who to blame?
For being accountable on the Team's decisions, we've decided to publish the results and all details of ended polls with names, decisions and comments. This way you'll all know all the details behind a decision, and also the names who you should blame in case it's not for your liking. I hope in the end you'll realise those decisions were not made by an all above supreme dictator alone, but the simple majority of different minds in Team Xonotic.
Note: there might be some polls, that'll still be invisible like release date discussions and other such private matters.
I cannot post a link where to find this information, simply because it's still under construction by zykure, but it's just minor technical problem. It'll most likely be a public RSS feed. When the feed or the equivalent is done, I'll update this post here (and maybe I'll publish news about it too).
Note: there might be some polls, that'll still be invisible like release date discussions and other such private matters.
I cannot post a link where to find this information, simply because it's still under construction by zykure, but it's just minor technical problem. It'll most likely be a public RSS feed. When the feed or the equivalent is done, I'll update this post here (and maybe I'll publish news about it too).
UPDATE 11th Nov. 2013.
As I promised, the RSS feed is now alive here:
http://46.4.83.5:27500/feed
http://xonpickbot.designxenon.com:27500/feed (updated Nov 22 2014, Mr. Bougo)
Conclusions
Now that you've carefully read through this huge wall of text, I hope I could answer your told and untold questions, and release some of the pressure.
To sum it up:- All decisions on minor and major changes are made as a TEAM, not by individuals
- The outcome of polls have to be accepted
- Team Xonotic will be 100% transparent about these decisions
- XONOTIC IS NOT DEAD
- THE DEVELOPMENT DID NOT STOP
Thank you for your attention.