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Path: utzoo!watmath!watdcsu!herbie
From: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong [DCS])
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: Forming our own gaming system?
Message-ID: <1193@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 31-Mar-85 21:33:48 EST
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1193
Posted: Sun Mar 31 21:33:48 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 1-Apr-85 04:19:13 EST
References: <1179@reed.UUCP> <4596@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Reply-To: herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong [DCS])
Organization: U of Waterloo
Lines: 63
Summary: 

In article <4596@ucla-cs.ARPA> reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (Peter Reiher) writes:

>In article <1179@reed.UUCP> greg@reed.UUCP (Greg Stein) writes:
>>
>>One of the advantages we have over companies is that, for
>>the most part, only a couple people design the system.  We
>>have an entire world full of people (sort of) who could
>>contribute their best ideas.
>
>I would think this a disadvantage, as we would be very likely to produce an
>incoherent gaming system.  Many people feel that about the only good creative
>work ever to come out of a committee was the King James Bible (and many people
>will only subscribe to that statement to the extent that this version of the
>Bible is literature, not theology).  Personally, I think that one or two 
>well-informed, talented designers stand a much better chance of designing a
>good system than do 20 or 30 well meaning, perhaps even equally well-informed
>and talented people.  
>
>I think a format much more likely to produce good results would be to have
>one or two people with a large amount of time on their hands bring up topics
>for discussion, request people's advice about how to design that portion of
>the game system, and then make up their minds on their own.  This method gives
>the benefit of the net's experience but does not risk producing an incoherent
>potporri.  Of course, we need one or two folks with ample free time...
>
>>	One of the major things to overcome is where the
>>discussions are to be held about this thing.  Should it
>>all be over mail on over net.news.frp?  Mail could get
>>pretty cumbersome maybe, but a the newsgroup would solve
>>that.  Although, some people on the newgroup may not be
>>interested, and mail would solve this.  Personally, I
>>don't know how hard it is to create a newsgroup, but that
>>would be most ideal.  
>
>Actually, I doubt if many net.games.frp readers would object to seeing this
>sort of thing.  Clearly, the right way to go if you're really interested in
>doing this is to start out in this newsgroup and see how much traffic is
>generated.  If there's lots of traffic and people start to object to its
>clogging up the newsgroup, then it's time to investigate a new newsgroup.
>-- 
>        			Peter Reiher

designing ANYTHING by committee is fraught with peril.  it takes a talented,
well organized, and dedicated group of people who work well together
to produce reliable and well designed work.  peter's suggestions are ones
that i wholeheartedly agree with.  three or four people working closely
and sharing similar philosophies and a large group of resource people
are more likely to get things done in a reasonable length of time and
produce a coherent system.  large software projects are of comparable
complexity and we all know how much work has to go into producing
something useful.  e-mail is out unless the people are one or two
machine hops away, and using this newgroup is likely to result in the
whole project being dropped because of lack of timely communication.
my opinion, only, of course.

Herb Chong...

I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble....

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