[MUD-Dev] DAoC dev team (was: MMORPG Comparison (UO, EQ, AC, AO, DAoC))

[Eli Stevens]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Rickey" <daver at mythicentertainment.com>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Buehler <johnbue at msn.com>
>> Dave Rickey writes:

>>> For the most part, it's been anti-climactic, we had one bad
>>> crash Wednesday night, and beyond that nothing much has
>>> happened.  Everybody is still crossing their fingers for
>>> tonight, we figure if we make it through the weekend we're
>>> pretty much solid.

>> Is it permitted to ask about your development process?  As in,
>> how you went about construction and how you went about
>> verification of the system's behavior.

>> Was it the classic approach of taking a bunch of talented
>> engineers and designers and let them mix it up, make some
>> internal demos, come up with specs, code some, refine the specs,
>> discard the specs, code it up for real, and then play with it
>> until it doesn't appear to crash any more?

> Actually, the process was somewhate unique, different both from
> what I've seen of other game shops and from my experience with
> business software (both commercial and in-house projects).

[snip description]

What you describe sounds a lot like Extreme Programming (XP).  I
just picked up the first book in the XP series a few weeks ago, and
the similarities between the process described in your post and the
book are significant.  You didn't mention XP, however, and I was
wondering if any of the team / management had taken a gander at the
book(s).

If the team's process was based off of XP, I (and the list as well,
I would bet ;) would be interested in how you used the XP ideas, and
how you differed.

If no one had been exposed to XP, I (and again, the list) would like
to know how the team came up with the process (what spurred you to
think "hey, this might work") and what might be incorporated from XP
into the team's hypothetical "next project," assuming you take a
look at it.  :)

By my count:

    1 sever programmer
    2 client / sever programmers
    1 client programmer
    3 tools programmers
    1 customer service programmer
  + 1 QA manager
  ---
    9

You said that about 30 people worked on the project.  Who were the
other 21?  I would assume a lot of content production, but hard
humbers would be really interesting.  I find it very encouraging
when smaller teams can pull off a game as well recieved as DAoC.  :)

In reference to the first paragraph, how was the weekend?  :)

Thanks,
Eli

--
Never use brute force in fighting an exponential.
      -- Andrei Alexandrescu, "Modern C++ Design"
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