• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


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Introduction

Brynn MacPherson

HoO Team Member
Creative Support
Hey there guys,

So about a week ago I showed up and just started to dive into topics, posting thoughts i'd had regarding the direction of this game. I figure it's about time I make a post to introduce myself and explain how I see myself contributing to this effort. This is going to be long so bear with me.

First; a little bit about myself. I am a Systems Administrator working in Vancouver, British Columbia for a Visual Effects studio that focuses on feature films. What this means, is that I work on a team that maintains some of the most powerful and expensive gear on the planet. My personal role involves artist-facing support. I along with one other team member take care of all production hardware/operating systems/production tools for roughly 250 artists and production staff. I work on a daily basis with every aspect of a production studio including Modelling, Animation, Rigging, Texture, Lighting, FX, Compositing etc.

More specifically (and this part is going to appeal to developers more) I follow the DevOps methodology. The full explanation is super complicated, but the bottom line is that I belong to a "New Wave" of Systems Administrators focused on integration between software development, QA and Operations (me).Traditionally, Software Development and Operations exist as two separate entities in a business. This worked great in the 90's when Information Technology was in it's infancy, but now that it's starting to become more mature people are realizing the old model just dosen't work efficiently. DevOps seeks to improve reliability, consistency of product and reduce developer time spent customizing build environments.

What does this mean in practical terms? Well, it means that i'm an expert at planning, building, deploying and maintaining production development environments. I take care of everything infrastructure related in order to free developer/production time to focus on their passions. This includes web servers, source code control, asset libraries, production pipeline development and documentation.

In addition to all that, I have a huge passion for the great age of sail. I focus primarily on Naval Architecture (including interior fittings of ships) as well as history and culture. I'm by no means an expert, but I have a voracious appetite for knowledge and research. I've exhausted just about every naval fiction book out there and have started into old shipbuilding textbooks. Until recently, all of that seemed to be an interesting diversion.

A few months ago, during conversations with a developer at my organization, we concocted the idea to create a napoleonic age-of-sail mobile game. It was to be called seafarers and would be historically accurate to the greatest degree possible. Sort of a tactical/exploration/rpg sort of thing. We got into the development process, with my developer friend learning how to develop mobile games while I gathered massive amounts of source material and prepared game mechanics (Why, that's precisely the same stage Hearts of Oak is at!)

Unfortunately, the business world is fickle and my company went straight chapter 11 bankrupt. This has had far-flung consequences but the bottom line is that I still have a job, the company got bought by a chinese/indian consortium and our business has changed dramatically. But my developer-friend got laid off and moved back to Toronto for another job.

So, looks like Seafarers is dead. Oh well, life goes on. But in one of my searches for source material (that I was still carrying out in the hopes the project would be spontaneously resurrected) I found your community and it seems like a perfect match.

So, all that fluff aside what do I hope to bring to the table (gold star if you're still reading)

It seems that there exists in this community a great deal of talent and passion. Finding these elements is usually the hardest part about embarking on a project this bold. The team has already been forged by creating mods for popular games and has reached the point where when dicking around with stupid engine limitations the thought "Why the hell am I doing this, I could just re-write all this crap for the amount of effort i'm putting in" comes up often.

What I think is needed is organization. Not in a restrictive way, but simply a framework that allows people to focus on their passions. Modellers shouldn't have to worry about things like "oh where did I put that model" or "okay it's finished... how do I get it into the game". Coders shouldn't have to worry about maintaining web presences or creating source control libraries and so on. I'd like to see a few systems implemented that allowed people to really start concentrating and focusing their effort towards the final product.

Now, anyone who's been involved in a community effort knows that one of the greatest dangers is ensuring that everyone plays nice and it dosen't turn into an endless spell of bickering. Many a great and noble project has been torn apart by minor diferences that would be prevented with clear understanding of roles and universal respect for opinions. I'm concerned myself that coming into this project with the stuff that i'm working on, and my passion to see something like this completed is going to upset the balance you have. I just want to be totally upfront and put on the table that's not my goal. I don't want creative control or to "lead" this thing in any way shape or form. I want to put tools in the hands of professionals and help all of you achieve your goal. If I get to assist with designing game mechanics along the way, bonus.

So anyways, that was way longer than I intended. I'd like to hear some feedback regarding my intended role for this project and where you think I might fit in. I'm totally flexible and want to help however I can. I don't really know who's filling the role as "leader" or that sort of role, which is what i'd usually look towards to see if they thought I could contribute. In leu of that I suppose community consensus will do.

So, what do you guys think?

-B
 
Sounds like you've got a lot to contribute, so by all means you are welcome to do so!

I never did care about who is the "leader" of any project and I only became the PotC Build Mod "leader" by complete and utter coincidence. Or at least... not by doing in on purpose on my end.
But we've always had people show up such as Thomas the Terror, Captain Maggee and Armada, who have taken on part of the leadership role as well and I only ever welcome that.
After all, I can't do everything myself and I don't even want to.

I wouldn't worry about "upsetting the balance" either. This community has survived because new people joined who could and wanted to contribute.
If we tried to keep things the same all the time, we would have died a long time ago.
 
It sounds like you are exactly the type of person we need right now. I don't think the term "administrator" is the best for the job you are describing. "Coordinator" would seem to be the better description. And we desperately need one of those! Right now we are very uncoordinated, spastic even.
I have thought about attempting this, but know I do not have the skillset needed for this job.

Welcome! :cheers
 
Thanks for taking the time to write all that down Brynn, it's good to know exactly where you are coming from. As Pieter said above, we do get new people showing up occasionally, and that really helps us to keep going. There are very few people still around who were here from the beginning of PA that are still active, and none of the original modders. Without new people like you showing up occasionally, we would never have lasted this long. Modding is a great hobby and it is extremely rewarding knowing people really enjoy something that you have worked hard to develop. But it can be very consuming as well, both in time and in spirit, and I have seen many modders burn themselves out on projects that they pour their hearts and souls in to. Unfortunately, we have lost some very good people that way. Finding a good balance is a tough thing to do. Throw in the real life challenges such as yours that people have to deal with as well, and that only adds fuel to the fire.

Personally, I have dabbled in modding over the years, but there are certain aspects that are beyond both my capability's, and the time that I can commit to them. So I have tried to help in ways that I can, such as the front page news stories, some historical research, brainstorming, tech support and working on documentation. I am just an average blue-collar working Joe, and PA helps me to keep my sanity by distracting me from the every day grind.

In other words, to second what Pieter and Hylie said above, jump right in! You have a very good insight, and we all obviously share similar interests and goals! We are glad to have you aboard! Do what you feel comfortable doing, and eventually you will find your place here, if you haven't already. :onya
 
Thanks for the kind words guys, it's tough to sort of just "insert" yourself into a community or a project, but you've all done a fantastic job of making me feel welcome and needed!

I suppose the bottom line is that I see myself being able to manage the technical infrastructure of this project. I know it's something most people HATE doing, and even when forced to it takes forever to get right.

So I suppose the next step is, where do I start? What elements of infastrucure do you have in place? I see a moddb page but i'm not sure as to what sort of resources that gives us. I'm also curious about how assets/code are handled. Is there source/change control? A central database somewhere?

One of the biggest problems i'm going to have is finding ways to do what I do best, for free. I'm used to working with multi-million dollar budgets and the answer is often "we need one of those draw up a purchase order" which obviously is not something we're able to do.

is there someone handling these sorts of items now I could get in contact with to see if they could use a hand? I don't want to step on any toes or take away someone's "baby"

-B
 
At the moment, things are basically "what you see is what you got". We don't have much hidden behind the scenes. Even the FTP we used to have is no more.
All there is, is any stuff that people have saved on their hard drives. Eg. Hammie has his work and nobody else does really. Not at the moment, anyway.
Far from an ideal situation, I'm sure.

Then you have the situation where new stuff can be hidden as attachments/links all over the forum. I've been having a hard time keeping up with all that myself.
That is why I started many, many years ago putting everybody's work together in one single pack that is easy to find. :facepalm
 
As I see it we are in dire need of a central storage facility where all of the work done can be stored and shared. The FTP worked well but is gone. Dropbox is far too small. We will need at least 1 TB of storage. I have that but have no idea how to set up a secure network.
 
Maybe we can ask Keith to reinstate the FTP. That always worked well and we are now severely missing it.
If he requires any monetary contributions, perhaps we should set that up as well? But I feel like we lost quite a bit with that FTP. :facepalm
 
Indeed, the FTP would be exactly what we need for this, unfortunately script kiddes love FTP's. Even if we restrict access, they will hammer it with bots probing and trying to find weaknesses that will let them in. It is only a matter of time before they find one. As much as I would love to have the FTP back, I sure understand Keith's reasons for taking it down. It is unfortunate timing to be sure.

Keith found a much more secure cloud solution a while back, but it was a real pain to setup as he would have had to set each login individually. We may be able to talk him in to trying that again though, but the login requirements may be a real killer. We might have to look at a commercial cloud solution, such as Amazon, to really get the kind of storage we would need. :shrug
 
The UDK supported perforce, it's a version managing system that would work very well.

The downside is I think it only supports up to 20 people and it isn't easy to setup.
 
Indeed, the FTP would be exactly what we need for this, unfortunately script kiddes love FTP's. Even if we restrict access, they will hammer it with bots probing and trying to find weaknesses that will let them in. It is only a matter of time before they find one. As much as I would love to have the FTP back, I sure understand Keith's reasons for taking it down. It is unfortunate timing to be sure.
I am unaware of anyone ever attacking our FTP. If we keep the login details on the Modders-Only forum, that should help right?

Actually, we DO still have an FTP at my request for modpack uploading purposes at my request. It just isn't as big as it used to be.
It shouldn't be a huge step to increase its size or add a second one for general use by Modders again. I hope...
 
FTP is an inherently insecure protocol, it's not something i'd ever put onto the internet and expect to remain safe. If we could get an SFTP site set up (or switch it to using just SFTP) that would be a hell of a lot better. Only problem is that it will switch the port from 21 (allowed for most people) to 22 which may cause problems but I can help people resolve those through port forwarding or something.

I'd be willing to maintain the cloud solution that Keith was talking about. It's not that big a deal to manually maintain authentication credentials for a team of this size.

As I see it, we require a number of things to really get into "production mode" with this project.
  • Documentation source (A wiki of some kind. I'd chew my own arm off if we could get our hands on a confluence deployment, it's the prettiest/best around but it's not cheap)
  • Version-control source code repository (Probably either Git or SVN. I'll have to have a conversation with the lead developer to see which he prefers. I've used SVN more but i'm running into developers who practically have their own GIT-pope-hats they're so passionate about it)
  • Asset database (no idea what we'd use to do this, it technically just has to be a bin that we can dump shared assets/models into but i'm sure there's stuff out there that will be designed for projects like this)
  • Web hosting (for a website, we'll need someone with web skillz to design a simple splash page for now. If we get the right hosting plan we can also run our wiki and SVN off this host)
Now, the big problem. These things are not free. I think we can get a decent project collaboration environment for free, provided we have somewhere to post it (web hosting) but storage is going to be the biggest money sink. What kind of assets are available? Doing budgets is not one of my specialities, and i'd love someone to take up that yoke. Maybe we could solicit donations, have adds on the site, something like that.
Thoughts?
-B
 
As I see it, we require a number of things to really get into "production mode" with this project.
  • Documentation source (A wiki of some kind. I'd chew my own arm off if we could get our hands on a confluence deployment, it's the prettiest/best around but it's not cheap)
  • Version-control source code repository (Probably either Git or SVN. I'll have to have a conversation with the lead developer to see which he prefers. I've used SVN more but i'm running into developers who practically have their own GIT-pope-hats they're so passionate about it)
  • Asset database (no idea what we'd use to do this, it technically just has to be a bin that we can dump shared assets/models into but i'm sure there's stuff out there that will be designed for projects like this)
  • Web hosting (for a website, we'll need someone with web skillz to design a simple splash page for now. If we get the right hosting plan we can also run our wiki and SVN off this host)
I think we're pretty fine with using PiratesAhoy! as the main website for Hearts of Oak development. There's no point investing in a new one at this stage, if at all.
What we can do in the meantime is perhaps put more emphasis on the HoO section of the forum. It could be promoted to its own category, for instance, and have links to it on the forum's main page.

We also have built-in Wiki support here, even though it hasn't really taken off yet. If someone could make use of it for this project, that would be excellent.

Anyway, could you please have a look at this new thread about development roles: http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/list-of-development-roles.19797/
I'm wondering if you'd like to take up the first "Coordinator" position.
 
Yeah I could take the first one, as long as it's understood my primary focus is technical. I'd love to get another coordinator who could focus on artist wrangling. I can do the job for now in this stage of the game (hah!) but as we shift into production mode I think i'm going to have my hands full with other stuff to be able to focus on organizing artists.

Who manages the pirates ahoy thing as a whole? I'm not really sure if we're a project living on someone else's webspace or what. do we have the resources of the piratesahoy.net site/infrastructure available to us?
 
Keith is the webmaster who maintains the site for us, but Moderators like myself and Pieter have access to a control panel that can be used to manipulate the forums etc, with very few limitations.
 
I am unaware of anyone ever attacking our FTP. If we keep the login details on the Modders-Only forum, that should help right?

There are many different uses for a compromised FTP server, I won't get into all the details, but they are great for storing warez among other things. As for the login details, that is what we did when the FTP was public, and it made absolutely no difference. A login is a deterrent for a normal user, for anyone who knows what they are doing however, it is a minor annoyance at best. There are many ways to get in and use the server for other things, even without a login.

Brynn, thanks mate, I doubt we will really be able to use any commercial solutions though. Things start changing when money gets involved. When I get a chance, I will PM Keith and make him aware of your offer. Like all of us, he is pretty stretched for time these days.
 
We never did have security issues with our FTPs as far as I know.

A Wiki we've got: http://www.piratesahoy.net/wiki/
Hasn't been put to good use yet, but it is available.

We had an SVN for PotC for a short while and I found it to work quite al-right. Not many people used it though. Actually... Just the person who set it up and me. :facepalm

Asset database: An FTP would ideal for that. Or some other massive storage site thing.

Web hosting: We've got this website and the ModDB. Put together, I think we've got enough resources for that in place for now.
 
I think we're pretty fine with using PiratesAhoy! as the main website for Hearts of Oak development. There's no point investing in a new one at this stage, if at all.
What we can do in the meantime is perhaps put more emphasis on the HoO section of the forum. It could be promoted to its own category, for instance, and have links to it on the forum's main page.
I reckon it is time it can be upgraded to its own category and moved out of "General Naughtiness". :onya
 
Done that now. Certainly makes it stand out a bit more. :keith
 
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