Design documents
Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2016 4:47 pm
I have a proposal wrt to the design process, I think we should reintroduce maintaining design documents, at least for basic/fundamental game mechanics, and for those that get sufficiently complex. However, what I have in mind isn't the original "requirements documents" which were based on versions, but design documents based on specific game mechanics (e.g. combat, species-empire relations, influence&happiness, etc.).
The reason why I want to propose that is my experience with the current design discussion about influence (and related mechanics). IMO it gets difficult to keep track what has been agreed upon/decided, what's still under consideration and what alternatives for the things still under consideration are on the table, etc. TheSilentOne currently tries to do that by posting summaries now and then, but this isn't ideal IMO, as those get buried in an ever growing thread.
I think it will be helpful if, for design discussions like that, we maintain design documents on the wiki, where the current consensus as well as the options still under discussion are specified. These documents will be continually revised, until a complete (maybe just for the time being, but still) consensus has been reached, so actual implementation can start.
If the game mechanics specified in a design document get revised/extended later on, the document needs to be revised/extended accordingly.
I'm aware that only the bits and pieces for which we start producing design documents now will actually be documented in this way, so the design document collection will be far from complete (the old requirements documents are so badly outdated that we can only archive them for historic reasons, no point in trying to base anything on them). But even if we only manage to write down those bits and pieces, I guess that's better than nothing.
The current game design only exists scattered among many, many threads, in the heads of the most active contributors, and what still applies of the old requirements documents.
Thoughts, opinions?
The reason why I want to propose that is my experience with the current design discussion about influence (and related mechanics). IMO it gets difficult to keep track what has been agreed upon/decided, what's still under consideration and what alternatives for the things still under consideration are on the table, etc. TheSilentOne currently tries to do that by posting summaries now and then, but this isn't ideal IMO, as those get buried in an ever growing thread.
I think it will be helpful if, for design discussions like that, we maintain design documents on the wiki, where the current consensus as well as the options still under discussion are specified. These documents will be continually revised, until a complete (maybe just for the time being, but still) consensus has been reached, so actual implementation can start.
If the game mechanics specified in a design document get revised/extended later on, the document needs to be revised/extended accordingly.
I'm aware that only the bits and pieces for which we start producing design documents now will actually be documented in this way, so the design document collection will be far from complete (the old requirements documents are so badly outdated that we can only archive them for historic reasons, no point in trying to base anything on them). But even if we only manage to write down those bits and pieces, I guess that's better than nothing.
The current game design only exists scattered among many, many threads, in the heads of the most active contributors, and what still applies of the old requirements documents.
Thoughts, opinions?