[projectx] Project X Newflash (READ THIS)

[Ben C. <cro...@ne...>]

Comrades,

I apologize for the recent latency in getting things going -- with this
programming competition looming around the corner, and not to mention
school, it's been hard finding the needle of spare time in the haystack of
my life. ;)  But enough's enough -- it's time to start working.  I've
included a list of the teams and the members in each, and also what each
team needs to do, starting ASAP.  The member names are in the order I got
them.

Game
----
  Nate Newell
  Matt Davis
  Tom Ouyang
  Don Jordan

  The Game team will need to start planning things out, coming up with a
  coherent design for the game.  This means a storyline (if we decide to
  have one -- it isn't necessary), a menu system (for starting the game
  and connecting to servers and such), the actual battle system (how much
  you get hurt, what weapons you can use, etc.), scoring, characters (i.e.
  do we have only humans, or do we have elves, gremlins, etc.), and so on.

Scripting
---------
  Nate Newell
  Matt Davis
  Mike Reynolds
  Don Jordan

  Scripting will need to decide on a scripting language -- SeeR or Lua.
  We want flexibility, primarily.  The team needs to start writing hooks
  for Striker, so we can test things out (i.e. hook Lua or SeeR to Striker
  and use those hooks to write tests).  Once the basic hooks are in place,
  it's mostly testing things and putting in more advanced hooks until the
  Game team gets their design in code (and then Scripting will start
  hooking the script engine to *that*).

Networking
----------
  Scott Burton
  Nate Newell
  Don Jordan

  Networking will be in charge of the wrapper class (which I believe is
  almost done), and they'll also manage all in-game communication.  We'll
  have chatting support built into the game, and this team will take care
  of that (how it fits in, etc.).  The necessary communication will be
  connecting clients to the server, keeping all the clients
  synchronized with each other, sending map data to clients, sending
  updated graphics (tilesets/sprites) to clients if necessary, the
  chatting, and anything else that we may need (once the Game team gets
  going, we'll find more things that need to be done for this).

Graphics
--------
  Tom Ouyang
  Christian Moreno
  Nate Newell

  Graphics will provide us with draft tiles and sprites -- rudimentary
  placeholders so we can start working -- as soon as possible, and then
  they'll start doing the real graphics.  Most of the work will either be
  drawing directly on the computer or scanning artwork in (and then
  touching it up in a paint program).

Audio
-----

  Well, nobody signed up for this, but that's okay since it's not a key
  part of the game just yet.  It's a major factor, yes, but it can wait.

Testing
-------
  Nate Newell
  Tom Ouyang
  Richard Snapp

  Testing will start running everything through the grindmill once we
  actually get things to test.  They'll create maps and play around with
  them, try different tactics with the gameplay, find bugs, and try to get
  it to crash.  They'll tweak AI scripts (which will be written by the
  Game team), try all the different options they can, and help to make
  this an awesome game.

----------------------

Just out of curiosity, let's run a little straw poll here: is anyone in
favor of having "team leaders," i.e. like patrol leaders in Scouts?  Or
would you rather have just the group, with everyone equal?  We need some
input here, folks.

If anyone has any questions at all, e-mail me.  Or, better yet, post to
the list so everyone can answer.

Later,
Ben

-- 
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort 
and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." 
  -- Martin Luther King, Jr.