Dev diaries

UPDATE: Instead of just one dev diary, there should be individual development diaries (each member gets their own diary) and they should be released in-between the main progress updates.

These dev diaries can be written or put into video form.

As long as these dev diaries show enough of the game, we shouldn't have to release a trailer any time soon to keep people interested as the dev diaries will do that for us which means we can push the trailer release dates back a bit.



Here's my idea:


We should make a dev diary video instead of a trailer for next month.

The dev diary video will include all the key information people want to know (a bit like an FAQ) and it should contain pictures and development techniques (like a small modelling tutorial/preview).
Perhaps we could also include some brief gameplay footage?

The reason this should replace the trailer for next month is because it will take a long time to make a good trailer and we don't want to rush it. This dev diary should be easier to make and more useful. We can leave the cinematic trailer and gameplay trailer for later on this year.

Things to do for the video:

• Make a script,
  
• Get modellers, coders, texture artists, musicians and mappers to record what's on their desktops with fraps
  
• Send this footage somewhere (dropbox will probably be too small, so maybe megacloud would be better?)
  
• Make titles and captions,
  
• Do a voice over (Altureus would be a great choice!)
  
• Edit and cut the video
  
• Release on Youtube and Moddb
  

What do you guys think?

PS I was thinking about this last night and funnily enough, Deforges mentioned it on Twitter, what a coincidence!

It's a great idea.

dev diaries should be in between mod updates and focus on a specific team member.

traction wars has a very good example of this
http://www.twmod.org/content.html#.UOb6p2xi4rU

Yes, I think one diary per member is better. Then that one member can go into more focus on his work. And we can fill many more diaries with that approach.

Should we do videos tho? Or written? Or both?

whatever the member prefers

Yeah, individual dev diaries sound good. They should be easier to manage too.

Man, the Traction Wars devs are set up really nicely. We need a website like that!

Can a member who wants to make a video but doesn't want to speak (i.e. me) let someone else (like Altureus) do the voice over? I dislike my shitty voice...

You can do a written one, too.
For other 'departments' like coding or even art it would be weird especially if he has to go into details on creation and stuff. But in your case it's the same department so I suppose it's cool bro.

That would be a good idea! I wouldn't want to record my voice, same reason as rocknroll, but it would be a good way to get a fanbase going and keep them hooked in between major updates and such.

If you guys want me to speak for you that's fine.

Well, who wants to go first?

I could, if no one else wants. I can't really record me coding something. That would be pretty boring, and weird. So if at all then I could showcase what we have in-'game' already.

Or you could write about what you've done. Maybe show a few screenshots or flowgraphs?

Don't have no flowgraphs because they're baaaad.
They're only good for per-map stuff and we don't have any maps, sooo...
And functionality is best presented how it ends up ingame, just screenshots won't do it justice, cause it'll just look ugly, as opposed to working and ugly.
But we'll see... I'll think about it, and then think some more. And then I'll decide.

When I will get walkers walking (haha), I will up a vid.

So, who's gonna do the 2nd dev diary this month?

i think it should be Ande

Well, someone who actually got something new to show? Maybe the UI? Or the grenades?

We could let Josh do a dev diary or perhaps someone like Calum could show off the voice overs/sound effects?

yeah, I should probably do one. Maybe when i've done a bit more though

Do we even need the dev diaries if we are constantly doing monthly updates. They just seem redundant, or maybe just switch from monthly updates to dev diaries. I'm just asking

I like the idea of dev diary. It's just another part of the monthly update. Sometimes we have, sometimes we don't. It depends on whether anyone has actually anything interesting to say.
I doubt anyone would be interested in a bunch of Matrix transforms