Review of blue team

For reviewing the blue teams work I have browsed their campaign files and trac communication. It seems they had well organized work and comments on it. Their graphics were close to ours in the meaning they were processed images not created artwork for wesnoth criterias.

From the copyright problematic they had with the names of characters, I have not understood if it is a problem using existing copyrighted name but the images of the characters are perfectly fine to use. Or were those not in the category? The images are humorous as is the storyline.

Storyline and scenario use various combinations - like having a character to be used on your side if you have found it in the previous scenario or realising that one has killed a substitute to the character not the real one.

Report of Role and Contribution

Working in the red team of the open source management project was an experience that gave knowledge in variety of fields. The task was to develop a new scenario for the open source game the Battle for Wesnoth. We had a rather big group that needed strong organisation to start working and organise the tasks. The roles were divided - I was at first supposed to be one of programmers, which I chose myself. My role changed later on while at the moment our team was ready to program, I lost my laptop (it broke down) and was unable to contact the team.

So my role and contribution was mostly the design part - I was studying the way things work around Wesnoth with graphic files and I also learned the Wesnoth art and art forums, even though our characters were not done according to these guidelines.

I worked on the portraits and some icons as well as cooperated with Jindrich in the design questions while he was working on the maps. My other part of the contribution was in connection to the programmers. We were in skype conversation during the programming and I was searching for information to overcome the problems met and find solutions to the ideas we had. For that I also used browsing default codes and code of some other campaigns.

On the one hand we had complications in getting the work started and organize ourselves, but on the oher hand we finished the work and got different experiences through that. As everyone got more active we managed to divide the tasks so that the community work got better and better. Everyone worked on their piece and the collaboration was successful. So I did get the feeling of the community work as well.

Concerning the tool used - Wesnoth - I must say that I was not too exited about it, while it is a time consuming game and over all I have not been a game fan myself. I cannot bring an example but I guess there could be some alternative tool to get the idea and experience of open source management and community cooperation.

To summarize - I have worked together with the team, experienced the community cooperation and learned from both positive and negative sides of our team work organisation.

Ideastorming for Better Wesnoth Campaign Building: Artwork

The community of the Battle of Wesnoth is big and the forums have numerous topics and various subthemes. From my interest towards the graphical solutions and artwork I have searched for the ways the community works in this field. In the forums people post their artwork both in progress and finished and wait for critique towards it. There is a thorough post by development team on how to critique. I started from that and firstly would like to point out the skill set needed for being a good Wesnoth (and probably overall) designer:

(a) conceptual/stylistic judgement and design skills;
(b) a technical understanding of how to model aspects of reality eg. knowledge of human proportion, realistic lighting and perspective; and
(c) the ability to translate the concept and understanding into an artwork. eg. skill at drawing & ability to work a paint program.

The problematics of design derived from insufficiency in one of the above mentioned fields are illustrated and divided into levels. Understand your level of proficiency and notice hwo you should or should not critique.

It sounds a bit harsh and funny the way the author states: "Who should critique?: Someone with superior skill in the pertinent area (or subarea) only. Anyone else is incapable of providing useful advice." I guess it might happen that useful advice comes from anyone, but probably the author speaks of experience and it should be followed.

From all the points listed in the post about how to critique and how to take the critique, when to do it and when to drop it, I think it is very important to give out exact info on what do you think at which stage your work is, mention the problems you see yourself and ask upfront what would you like others to comment on precisely. This all helps make the communication more clear, faster and more practical.

As a coclusion. It seems to me the community is growing and evolving. There are lots of people putting their effort to the development and the community is working its ways to create the guidelines to go to a higher level of organisation in the campaign building process.

Cory Doctorow and His Business Model

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction writer, active blogger and an author known for his attitude towards digital ownership. He finds the laws limiting the spread of works and complicating the usage of products already owned by someone (i.e installing a product to another machine). He has published his works - the first one Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom in 2003- under different Creative Commons licenses which restrict the user from commercial derivates.

In his interview with Greg Grossmeier he reasoned his choise as follows:

“Not only does making my books available for free increase the number of sales that I get, but I also came to understand it artistically as a Science Fiction writer that if I was making work that wasn't intended to be copied, then I was really making contemporary work.”

His business model of publishing his works consists of free sharing of his books and stories, gaining fame with it and earning from everything else around his works. He earns from hardcover books, films, theatrical adaption, writing columns, giving speeches and many more. In Fawny blog following to a comment Doctorow has given to The Digitalist his high total estimate of income covering years 2008 and 2009 could be $622,750 as the low estimate is above $400,000. So they estimate his average income for a year between $200,000 and $300,000.

I find the strategy very nice while the cultural product itself can be purchised for no cost. On the one hand, audience gets to experience his creation and share it freely to others. On the other hand, the producers and commercial media channels can publish his ideas and work for money and the author with principals gets his share. The author also gets to keep his non-commercial and non-economical imago.