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Why isn't the dev team larger?


SkyHook

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'Computer programmers are simply a method of turning coffee into code.'

And/Or Booze. There is that fine line of amazing programming ability that lies between a good buzz and being out right drunk. It is almost scary how much and how well coding can be done if you can get a team on that razor's edge... However go either side of it and you just end up with a horrible mess. Or more than a single mess.

But still, expanding a dev team is a risk and massive investment unless you can mostly go with low/unpaid university grads, and they come with their own unique set of risks as well.

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KSP is "developed" by many more people than the few guys from Squad. There are people creating mods for parts, aerodynamics, resources, planets, and so on.... and it all seems to work fine together. Actually it's pretty rare that different mods conflict with each other. So I don't believe the argument that adding more developers (for example 1 for parts and planets, 1 for resources, etc.) would complicate things. If it works with mods, why not with stock development?

But, you know... The longer it takes for Squad to develop KSP, the more time they have to sell their product.

My original response to this post was to say that modders should not be in a discussion about game development, but I think it's a good idea. I think it would be a GREAT idea for Squad to obtain assets, plugins, and ideas from the modding community (as they have in the past). Not only would this be a great recruitment program for future devs, but it would save time. This way, the devs could focus on Harvester's vision while the lower priority (but still important to some) items could be developed as well!

Mods conflict more often than it appears. And no, using that method to obtain content is a very, very bad idea. Mods are most often coded around the game. Espescially mods such as FAR, have to hardcode themselves into the game, and it's not the most efficient thing. And then you end up having a bunch of unorganized devs who add content left and right without any way to control directly what's going on. It's really not as simple as "add mods to the game" unfortunately.

I think he reckons that there are two "community managers" for a dev team of four. Which is ... odd.

There's only one community manager, and it'S Rowsdower :)

The dev team doesn't need to be larger. It just needs to stop shrinking. There was no reason to fire bac9, nova, and N3X15. And now the people responsible for making this game actually look good are all gone.

I can assure you that bac9 and Nova were not fired. N3X15's comments on the thing seems to indicate he was, but for the two others, I'd appreciate that we do not start spreading false rumors about them being fired when both left on their perfectly good and own will.

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Remember that adding man power to such an indie project is a significant financial risk. If only a few developers need to be paid, they might continue support for a very long time. As soon as you need a lot of man power to proceed, then you need a lot of sales to justify them.

The first "Unreal" game was also developed by four people, and it took them six years iirc. It was a huge success, and obviously today Epic Games is a giant company.

It's often amazing how much a small team can achieve, if they have a lean process and short communication ways. In the end, creating a game like this (especially if it is the first game they ever did, and it's far away from feature-complete) is mainly a creative design process. It doesn't make sense to add more developers if you are unsure what you are trying to create.

You can't rush creativity by adding more people to your team. You might even get the opposite effect, where the main goal gets blurred by too many designers.

Considering that Minecraft also was basically a one-man project, I think we shouldn't worry about SQUAD.

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