myself wrote:Have you given up working on the Vega Strike project in the capacity of content director?
Because we haven't seen you post anything in about 9 months now and there is a great deal of submitted content that hasn't been reviewed and art direction questions that haven't been answered.
Your help has been and would be greatly appreciated, but if you don't have any free time or motivation for this project anymore then I think someone or simple consensus will need to take over this role so that VS doesn't go into practically total stagnation from lack of approval and guidance.
jackS wrote:Yes and no.
Starting some months back, I began working on redoing the art design
process to fit the next generation engine that Daniel has envisioned,
but since I'm operating with long time horizons (order of a couple
years) the community should probably select a new content director for
the current generation games. Daniel and Patrick introduced me to a
group of people from the Art Institute of San Francisco, and, while
we're still in the infancy of content generation, we've made some very
excellent progress on organization, process and documentation
policies, so I'm actually very happy with the directions things are
going in.
Unfortunately, my time is deeply constrained right now, and dealing
with the VS forums in a truly serious fashion has, for me,
traditionally been both a large time sink, and, due to the presence of
a small number of (often well-meaning) people, not without some aspect
of frustration-induced emotional drain. While I will endeavor to
always be available for targeted consultation via e-mail with whatever
person or persons takes over the role of content director, I don't
feel I have the time and energy to perform day-to-day duties in any
near-term future. I am not without some feelings of regret and guilt -
there's plenty of signal to be found amid the noisy bustle of the
forums, and those people producing good work (like those voicing the
comm files) have been shortchanged by my inaction. I should have done
something about my absence sooner than this, and I
thank you for taking the time to poke at me.
If you have any personal interest in the position, from what I've seen
of your postings, I think you'd be quite decent at it. There are
certainly some that I could not say the same for, but, given my likely
degree of involvement in any near term future, I think it's something
perhaps better commented on from below by the community than shouted
down from some distant mountaintop.
I hope that, whatever ensues, things are able to move forward again
smoothly, and reiterate that, should whoever takes over have
particular questions of me, I shall strive to make myself available
enough to answer them.
myself wrote:Okay so if I am reading you right, it sounds like you are looking for a go between to pass on canon and art direction to the forum from you and the AISF folks while you are putting together the content design documentation for 'Sirikata Strike'. And also to direct and judge content for inclusion (if only any of us left had the technical know-how to actually implement it).
If you want, I will try to fill this role as best as I can for the interim period. And there's probably others who would volunteer and if they did would certainly bring good things to the table. I think the candidates would be:
Fendorin.
Safemode.
Chuck_Starchaser.
Turbo.
So as you suggested, I can bring this matter up on the forum so that the community can elect someone to fill this role or you can just pick him. Or you can pick out the people you'd prefer to have to work with from time to time and then let the community choose amoung them. I for one don't really care how or who is picked for the most part and I bet most of the other artists feel similarly, I just want to see things continue to progress under some kind of system. So let me know how you want to proceed and I'll do what I can to make it happen.
jackS wrote:One thing to think about is that there can be multiple people taking
on these responsibilities. I think if, for instance, you and Turbo
wanted to share some responsibilities, with Turbo overseeing voice and
sound related content, perhaps, that might work well, or so forth.
Likewise, if responsibilities are shared, it allows for people's
strengths to be played to and weaknesses hidden.
I think the best that can come of this is an opportunity for useful
decoupling between "good enough for now" and "fully adherent to
canon". You, or whatever person or persons ends up making such
decisions, can concentrate on the former while the latter is being
turned into something sufficiently tangible to be of high utility. If
we force ourselves into a mind-set wherein all content can be subject
to frequent iterative changes, and intermittent revolutionary changes,
I think we'll end up being happier than if we wait for everyone to get
on the same page at the same time (which, historically, has very
rarely happened). This is not to say that we should ignore what canon
we have, just that, in a mindset where we will eventually modify or
replace much of the existing content, quality and canonicity can be
traded off - works of high quality can be made use of provided there
is some minimal respect for the universe. There's still no need to
accept works of low quality.
As far as technical knowledge goes, if there's a list of task-specific
how-to's that need to be written/updated, I'm sure those of us who are
knowledgeable in the relevant arcana can be poked until we write down
all of the necessary steps
One day we'll have it running 
