Over Productive Day

[m0ds]

Nothing in life is free. BUT ON OVER PRODUCTIVE DAY, LOTS of things are! I'd like to introduce an idea that I believe should take place once a month, for the benefit of the community.

What is it? We all have many talents, be us artists, musicians, voice actors, character animators, coders, designers etc - we all have plenty to share. Therefore, OPD (I don't love acronymns, honest) makes use of what we can do - but moreso, what we can do for others.

So this is how it works. Lets say, 14th October 2003 is "over productive day". On the 13th, a thread is posted on the forum, a wish list, where everyone and anyone can specify ONE thing they need. I.e, a background, a piece of music etc. Just one thing. At the end of that day, the thread is locked - full of a list of what people want.

Then, on the 14th, each person that wants to be productive takes an hour, two hours, four hours - however long they want of their day/time to rattle through the list and produce what they can from the list. Even if they only do one thing.

So lets say, ths wish list has five music tunes on it. I'd dedicate three hours of my time on the "Over Productive Day" to make as many of the five tunes as I can.

You may be thinking "What if I make a tune for Mr_Noob - and so does N3TGraph" - well, lucky Mr_Noob gets both tunes for himself.

If you put what you want on the wishlist, you can choose to also help other people on the wish list too. So, I for example could ask for a background, and I can also make tunes for people. So I've asked and I'm helping. You can of course, just do one. Ask on the wish list or just be productive.

Of course, asking on the wish list is a good incentive for you to give something back in return.

Then we come to the benefits of taking part. If you create something for someone who has asked for something on the wish list, they must naturally thank you or give you credit in their game. The "reciever" gets what they asked for, the "giver" gets their name in the credits and possibly an oppurtunity to work more on the project or whatever.

It won't eat your time if you're making a game as it's only one day a month. People take time to make things for the sprite jam, for the tune contests etc - I think its time we put these actions to good use.

What d'ya reckon? Worth doing?


m0ds

NOTE; heres a rough idea of how each catagory could work. To make it fair I think it should just be ONE request. So, I can't request a background and a piece of music, I have to request one or the other.

Backgrounds. You can ask for one background per OPD.
Music. You can ask for one tune per OPD.
Voice acting. You can ask for up to 20 lines of dialog.
Code. You can ask for one script**
Characters. You can ask for one character, walking and talking.
Animation. You can ask for one animation.

If you can think of anymore, just say. I'm not too sure what other people would want!

** Perhaps you want a script that makes your character spin round, or a script that incorporates real time into the game. That is two different scripts. You could ask only for one or the other.

[auhsor]

That sounds pretty cool mods. I know i wouldn't be able to participate in the next 1.5 months cos of school, but after that i got about 3 months holiday, and would probably do it then.

[SSH]

  I thought this thread was going to be an announcement that FoY was finished  :

[Fruity]

yet another great idea mark

[Pet Terry]

Good idea! Maybe A Winter Night-soundtrack could be finished this way

And of course, I can do something for you, guys and gals

[Dave Gilbert]

Good idea, but people can take advantage of this.  Mr_Noob will get all sorts of talented people helping him while doing nothing for others.  Maybe an added rule is that in order to ASK for help, it is required to GIVE it as well?

[Ishmael]

You got m0ds' point not? That's the idea! And when you can, you help others, or am I wrong again?

[TheYak]

One down side to this is that most people would like all of the stuff in their games to be of the same (or similar style).  It would look totally different if Pessi, Helm or Mr. C did a background.  By the same token, different tunes could add variety to a game's sound-track but some people's styles may clash a bit.  There's probably a solution out there somewhere but the only one I can think of off-hand is to 1) Ask for help by people that can do a similar-looking background or similarly-styled MIDI or 2)To extend the requests and provided items to slightly larger projects, but this defeats the purpose of OPD.  

Ideas?

[MillsJROSS]

There's also the problem of asking for something, and not recieving anything back.

I think this is a fairly good idea, it might get people motivated, and it might be the begining of partnerships for people who like the work they've seen.

But to address the above, unless someone asks for something ridiculous, then there should be some sort of system of working out who does what. Otherwise this guy would get ten, and this other guy might not get any. If a persons request is reasonable, then for this day, it is only reasonable that someone do it. So we might actually have to do an assignment type thing.

-MillsJROSS

[|Alky|]

I'd prefer if we just worked on one big game - like we make loads of backgrounds, characters, and music, and somehow put them together. But the other idea is cool too.

[OneThinkingGal and ._.]

Nifty idea m0ds!

As for the taking advantage thing, why not just restrict each asking person to two items?

As for recieving anything back, you really shouldn't expect more than credit, since its more about giving than an exchange.

Unless I've misunderstood and its an exchange...

[m0ds]

Yep, it is deffinatley about giving. It's easy to take but it shows what kind of person you really are if you give So its deffinatley about giving.

And yes, although consitency of the recievers game may vary, Yakspit - I think you'd still find people would grab up free backgrounds if they could. Plus, there's no saying people who ask for something can't set some specifications.


m0ds

[OneThinkingGal and ._.]

Oh you already said only one request a person. ._.  

Disregard two request suggesion in last post. Carry on.

Mills, we can just post in the thread saying you're going to do a back/midi/whatever for person x and so on. That way multiple people won't work on the same thing and there will be more resources to go around.  

[MillsJROSS]

That's what I meant when I said we go on an assignment type thing. People would get assigned to give something to someone. And while I agree, it is more about giving, it would only seem fair that if you make a request, and give yourself, then you should recieve, too.

-MillsJROSS

[Andail]

I'll request that Annie gives me footmassage

[OneThinkingGal and ._.]

It's not about fairness!!! Its about giving something without expecting anything in return(well except maybe credit) - if you want to do an Exchange Day that would be different.

Why tie the giving and recieving together? ._.

Andail, come back on OPD and we'll see.

[loominous]

Yakspit's point about styles clashing when a single background/tune/whathaveyou from another artist would be used, struck me as well when I read the idea.

To get around this the categories could be more conceptoriented, for instance:

Music - Instead of a single tune that would be used somewhere in the game, a theme/melody could be provided ie something the requester could then make a tune of in his/her own style.

Sprites - Instead of a fully rendered sprite some conceptcharacters could be provided. For example, the requester describes that he/she wants a depraved clergyman character n then ppl could submit some conceptsketches.

The idea is that the submissions would provide the requester with detailed ideas/sketches that could then be ripped off more or less, but would have the requesters renderingstyle.

Then again, I m perhaps a bit too obsessed with consistency.

[remixor]

loominous: the problem with that, I think, is that most likely the person asking for the stuff doesn't already KNOW how to turn a concept sketch into a full sprite (this is particularly true in the case of animations).  That's why they're asking for it.  I don't know how to get around the consistency problem, but I unfortunately don't think this is the way.

On the whole I think OPD isn't a bad idea at all.  I think it would be great to try.