Putting Almalexia Section Into Hiatus

[Sload]

I put this here because its a conversation about what sections to work on, making it (I think) the domain of all the lead + senior designers.

We've had a long IRC conversation & many of us feel that Almalexia should be transitioned into hiatus status for the time being. Basically, a lot of us have a lot of different issues with the way Almalexia is designed right now that came out in IRC today.

This is just my opinion:

We also have trouble addressing these because frankly there is a lot hanging on Almalexia in the way the project is right now: we spent some time selling it as the "next release" so people feel obligated to finish it soon; several people put a lot of work into Almalexia and some of them have a personal investment in seeing it get made. We can't have a real conversation about what's best for the project in this envrionment. We need to step back from Almalexia in order to properly address these concerns.

The fact is that a lot of people in the project are unhappy with Almalexia as it stands right now. It seems extremely unwise to have people putting a lot of further work into the city while the project is in such dissensus about what to do with the city.

Regardless of what we each think should ultimately happen to Almalexia, I hope everyone can agree that having things be made while some people don't want them to be made is really negative & that there is all this baggage around the city that needs to be disengaged so that we can talk about it more fully.

[Aeven]

For the record: I disagree.

[Swiftoak]

+1 for Sload's proposal, this I feel has dragged on painfully enough as it is. I don't really know what else to add because Sload has basically stated everything perfectly.

[arvisrend]

I'm undecided on the hiatus thing because while I see the controversies, I don't see much of a hope that they'll become easier to solve after some months of not working on the city. This isn't as much a matter of emotional attachment as you're thinking, Sload. People are tired of getting things redone over and over, and particularly wary of suggested rebuilding when the success of the new iteration is far from guaranteed. I'm seeing some people dislike current Alma for very different reasons, agreeing mainly on it being too big (something that can be fixed without changing the layout and design, by adding more water and green/public space -- some of it has actually been done already). I'm reading some statements on IRC which are outright wrong and some which don't apply much to the situation. I'm seeing different participants of this discussion giving entirely different weight to some issues. Last but not least, I'm seeing Adan and Sload suggest a project (moving the ints from Tribunal's Mournhold into the ext) which is daring, to say the very least (it will require a lot of work, will lower the framerate significantly and will make TR incompatible with savegames that have visited Mournhold -- if not, more likely, with all savegames that have had Tribunal loaded). What I'm not seeing is a list of problems to be addressed that we can agree on and that requires drastic measures. So I'm not sure what we really win by this hiatus...

[Nemon]

A hiatus will kill off an important part of this project's drive. We will not recover.

Edit since this annoyed valuable members of the project.
As arvisrend posted, we cannot continue remaking endlessly the stuff we have. It takes a toll on the project as a whole, I believe. A new remake will be quite an undertaking, I do not think TR is up for it. I've posted what I consider to be a decent amount of suggestions to fix what I currently see as the main issues with this city - and if people in charge can make decisions I'd be willing to try and fulfill the work in the CS. I do, however, find many of the recent irc arguments to be weak and feel that some members have made up their minds regarding this city, and no amount of argument can sway their opinion. I hope I don't get accused of the same, seeing as I've made quite a few grand alterations along the way, and have volunteered to continue contributing to TR as best as I can.

[Aeven]

I agree with what arvis and Nemon have said. It's frustrating as hell to redo everything, every year. (Obviously this is exaggeration.)

There's a level of contempt in suggesting we redo everything thrice over. We can all, hopefully, agree the city is not without its flaws. Mitigating issues we have is far easier and more productive than yet another fifty years spent on brainstorming for something which likely won't be made to the satisfaction of some people.

[rot]

(...)

This. Except not quite as worried about ousted Mournhold.

[gro-Dhal]

I'll hold up my hands and admit this was initially something I suggested on IRC, to Sload and others.

The amount of time and effort Almalexia has absorbed, and the amount of stress and bad feeling previous disagreements about it have engendered, have really held the project back as a whole. I would have preferred for the city to have always been the last release of TR.

A lot of what's been done has been great, and I am confident that much of the existing work will make it to release. But a hiatus will allow passions to cool, and for the project as a whole to up its game to the point where we can tackle this to maximum effect.

I look at the progress TR has made over the years i've been a member, and I firmly believe that given more time we will reach a point where the unique challenge of Almalexia can be met.

[immortal_pigs]

I once read in my psychology text book that people are driven by emotion and use arguments made up on the fly to justify their underlying emotional position. This process is known as "rationalization." When discussing Almalexia I've mostly seen people throwing around rationalizations and not actually responding to the arguments being discussed. This is not very productive. I think it would be a good idea to put Almalexia on hold for the time being.

I also think it might be good to get a 3d party perspective on Almalexia. Why don't we release an Almalexia Alpha to a select party of reviewers and ask them to fill in a survey where they can share their opinions on the city? Such an external party will be able to look at Almalexia from a less emotionally invested point of view and be able to look at it through the lens of a gamer.

[Yeti]

Quite frankly, Almalexia is too much for us to handle right now, what with us trying to adapt to the new sectional process of working on things. I personally love parts of Nemon's current design, but I simply can't shake the feeling that Almalexia as it is isn't the ideal version of the city we could create.

What would the ideal Almaleixa look like? Fuck if I know. What I do know is that we'll probably have a better understanding a year or two down the road. Until then, we have huge ass cities like Old Ebonheart and Andothren to worry about.

Edit: Most importantly, I think we need to wait until we've finished a comprehensive Master Plan before tackling the city that is the very heart of our province.

[Sload]

Edit: Most importantly, I think we need to wait until we've finished a comprehensive Master Plan before tackling the city that is the very heart of our province.

This I think is maybe the most important issue.

The fact that I think Mournhold is a problem is something others have brought into this thread (again, I want to talk about putting Almalexia on hiatus, not what I think it should be like). This is the consensus statement on what TR is that we were able to develop:

Tamriel Rebuilt is a fan-based game project which modifies The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. The goal of the project is to expand the original game in a manner consistent with the intention, style, and vision of the original game designers, Bethesda Software. Through various systems of quality assurance and a meticulous attention to detail, we maintain an exceptionally high standard of quality, depth, and distinction for all of our content.

...

While the primary focus of Tamriel Rebuilt is creating new content, in order to maintain a seamless player experience the mod may make some changes to the original game content. These changes may make Tamriel Rebuilt incompatible with other mod projects; Tamriel Rebuilt will make every effort to document changes to original game content to assist other projects in being consistent with ours.

This is vague as all fuck and we actually don't agree on what it means. A big part of the dispute about Almalexia has to do with what we think our parameters are & we need to understand that before we can talk about it.

[Aeven]

Idea: already integrate Mournhold into the city proper, moving some interiors there already made. This would decrease the city size quite quickly.

Edit for clarity:

The idea is that we could already integrate "Mournhold" into the exterior. Finished interiors could be moved into the circle as it were, a great deal of which could fit in just fine.

Doing this allows us to decrease total city size, and will let us go ahead with tackling the issues that go with this integration (mostly scripts.) The integrating does not mean everything would be a direct port. For example, we could have a beautiful Grand Bazaar, and be able to do a Royal Palace that doesn't defy all logic.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

Mournhold integration would make this edit the final edit. I am opposed to any edit short of this as it would be rearranging deck chairs on the titanic as opposed to patching up the hull. This integration though would need to be properly planned as to prevent the same sort of problems that everyone has been talking about for the past forever.

If this motion passes then we should begin proper planning for the city before the CS is even opened.

[Why]

I think it'd help the discussion if we clarified a timeframe and scope for this hiatus. To me personally, hiatus means System of a Down dropping their instruments and ceasing to exist for four years and I doubt that's what we're considering here. How long would your proposed hiatus last, and what activities exactly are we putting on hiatus - do we move on entirely and let all Almalexia related activities rest, do we merely not put up any additional claims and continue planning and discussing, or do we take some kind of middle of the road approach?

On to the actual grounds for this proposal. I think that as you describe it this comes down to 1) Almalexia being flawed and 2) people being unable to discuss those flaws rationally and objectively. I definitely agree that Almalexia has its flaws and I doubt we'll find anyone who thinks otherwise nor that it can ever be perfect. Agreeing on what exactly those flaws are, I suppose, is part of the second problem.

As for issue number two, I know that I can get passionate about things but I'd hardly say that I'm letting it get the better of me or that I can't recognise it when I am getting too involved for productive discussion. Quite frankly, I think all of us should be grown up enough to sit down and talk about what we think are issues with the current version of and (absence of) planning for Almalexia without getting emotional, or self-conscious enough to reflect on our own state of thought and realize when we need to take a step back, or at the very least not too prideful not to lash out if we are called out for getting emotional and advised to let matters rest. That's pretty much professional conduct 101 and if anything, professionalizing has been the goal of all recent developments and structure shifts. I wouldn't have supported those changes had I not believed we could handle them. At the same time you are right that debates on what to do with Almalexia have gotten mildly chaotic, not least of all because of the baggage involved. However, to me that only underlines the importance of the difference between the issues that need solving, and the actions by which they are to be solved.

That's why I'm opposed to just throwing in the towel and shutting everything Almalexia down because of "feelings". We haven't even properly attempted to gather a list of outstanding issues the city has yet - a process that requires little to no debate on how to solve those issues. First and foremost, we need to have an open discussion on what is flawed, what needs to be addressed, what needs to be fixed or changed. Only once those issues have been properly identified can we continue discussing the actions we need to take to solve those issues. I trust that we, even if we are emotionally attached to certain aspects of Almalexia (and we all are - I love that table in the Council Chamber), should be able to have a nice, open and amicable discussion about what issues the city has, without getting lost in endless debates on how to fix the city despite not even having any idea of what we all think is wrong with it.

Once the outstanding issues have been identified, I'm all for reviving this discussion. In the meantime, I can live with the idea of not putting up any new claims and taking down potentially controversial open claims. There's enough to do elsewhere.

tl;dr let's discuss issues before we discuss solutions, and behave ourselves.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

The hiatus proposal's primary purpose was to facilitate a discussion on the scope of TR, but this proposed mournhold integration would fit into that master plan. For this reason the only delay regarding the almalexia section should be to ensure proper planning for the new version of the city (assuming this change is passed)

[Nomadic1]

I strongly agree with this, FWIW. Put Almalexia on hiatus as quickly as possible.

Almalexia is currently toxic to TR. People are far too invested at the current time and talk about it is making everybody miserable. Let it sit for a couple of months so people calm down.

[Aeven]

Any talk of this hiatus will put off the city indefinitely. Far better to discuss any possible issues at the present.

[Why]

I think the potential for Mournhold integration, just like other instances of editing vanilla content, should be talked about in the master plan but whether or not we actually do it is a very Almalexia-specific decision and it wouldn't make sense to consider it isolated from the city's other aspects. Mournhold's integration is but one of many things we need to talk about before a cohesive plan for the city can be made and to discuss and decide a priori whether or not we're going to pull Mournhold into the city proper while putting all other discussion on hiatus is wrong. Almalexia is too big and interwoven to take decisions one step at a time and any changes need to be part of a greater whole.

[Thrignar Fraxix]

This thread is a confusing jumble of a great number of ideas borne out of a mindset that we are not currently capable of discussing this as adults at the moment. This has proven by and large not to be the case through the progress of this thread, and I've come to believe we are capable of this serious discussion.

Hiatus on the whole seems to be a very divisive thing, and I can certainly understand why as fears of lost momentum are something I share as well. What results will not be so much of a hiatus though if we are mature enough to have the discussion on the scope of TR, including mournhold integration, in the here and now. What would result from this would still be a delay, though it would merely be the sum of the time taken to discuss the scope of TR, then to plan the city properly. No artificially inflated waits because we don't think we can handle this discussion at the moment. That is something we'd have to do with the old setup. This new setup is supposed to treat us as adults, so I think it is high time we stop acting like we don't trust each other or ourselves to do so.

To sum it up:
-I don't think we need a hiatus
-I do think we should discuss this VERY important issue of TR's scope now, and mournhold integration
-I do think that this discussion, and the planning that would most likely follow it will mean a delay in Almalexia's progress, but that to not do so would be obvious folly.
-I don't think this delay will result in a loss of momentum because discussions will remain, and other sections can keep the grunt work modders busy.
-Any discussion about TR scope should happen in a new thread as this one has a negative vibe and preexisting feelings.

[Sload]

Forum discussions can make whatever the most recent poster thinks seem like what the majority want, so I just want to do a count of stated opinions in this thread:

In favor of a hiatus:
Sload
Swiftoak
gro-dhal
immortal_pigs
Yeti
Nomadic1

Against a hiatus:
Aeven
Nemon
TF

On the fence:
arvisrend
rot

I can't tell exactly what Why thinks:
Why

6-3-2-1.

-----

I talked a lot about feelings but I think Yeti's point is better & really what drives me now. If we're going to seriously look at Almalexia & do it right we need more experience integrating all aspects of the mod into a planning process than we have now. Seeing how the other sections have been going makes me doubtful of our ability to organize Almalexia well right now. Doing it now worked when it was just "come up with int descriptions for Whitehall," but since many people clearly have bigger concerns with the current state than that I really don't think we are ready to take it on.

It seems like a lot of the negativity toward a hiatus comes from a belief that it would be "indefinite." Obviously, that's not true - no one doesn't want TR to do Almalexia, that wouldn't make sense. Why don't we put a specific time on it?

Let's do the other sections & possibly one more (since the Alma section would be on hiatus). Then we can release them, they're definitely enough content to be a release. We'll have experience working out planning issues and such and we can circle back and make Almalexia the big focus once we have the experience that these other smaller projects will provide us.

[gro-Dhal]

Agreed with Sload 100%

[Aeven]

Funny how all the hiatus people have nothing to do with the people working on Almalexia. It's so fucking hilarious, I can't breathe.

Edit: concerns are ungrounded.

[Haplo]

I think all Lead and Senior developers have "something to do" with the capital city, and by extension the Master Plan, Aeven. To suggest otherwise is to undermine the organizational structure we just implemented. That kind of language is unhelpful. If anyone is feeling particularly impassioned about this discussion, recusing themselves, at least temporarily, might be a great idea.

Since people seem so concerned with the ambiguity of the term "hiatus", I don't think it is the best one for what is being suggested. Sure, I agree we need to decide what we want from our mod's capital city. I agree that we don't know what we want right now, and I agree that means active development on the 'TR Almalexia 3.0' that we have now should stop. This isn't the same as suggesting we re-do Almalexia, or that we close all the claims, or that we scrap the interiors or exterior work. And work on the idea that is Almalexia might/will still go on, just in a different form.

I think we need to go back to the Master Plan and determine exactly what kind of capital city we want, without respect to the Almalexia we have now. I highly doubt we--or anyone--could have an effective discussion on the Ideal Almalexia with the shadow of TR's Almalexia 3.0 hanging over their heads. Again, this is not to say that TR's Almalexia 3.0 is bad or should be destroyed. For the intent and purpose of the Master Plan discussion, TR's Almalexia 3.0 doesn't exist, and any mentions of it or references to it should be withheld.

Instead, we should focus on the big issues like, among others, how to integrate Mournhold into the city (for example, from the IRC discussion it looks like some people were suggesting we, essentially, re-do much, if not all, of the Tribunal expansion content ourselves), and whether that would help us better realize the goal of TR or not, and whether any pros would outweigh any cons (e.g. arvisrend's concerns about lag and scripting nightmares) of doing so.

Once all the details of what we want in an Ideal Almalexia have been hammered out and chiseled into the Master Plan, we can compare and contrast that list with what TR Almalexia 3.0 offers (a TR Alma 3.0 details list can be made as well), at which point (but not before) we can talk about "oh it's too big" or "it's too boring" or "it's unnavigable", etc. We cannot, however, have the aforementioned necessary discussion on Ideal Almalexia if we are too worried and obsessed with the TR Almalexia 3.0 that we have now.

I do think, regardless of which exact process we take, it's a good idea to let various select non-TR members play the heck out of TR Almalexia 3.0 and, in an open-ended response, tell us their thoughts. I do not think we should provide them a questionnaire because that is too specific and runs the risk of being entirely leading or pointed (like much of the IRC conversation was, unfortunately). It wouldn't be hard at all to find well-respected modders on the Bethesda forums who would chomp at the bit to play TR content of this magnitude. This private play-test can help shape our view of what TR Almalexia 3.0 objectively looks like, because it's proving pretty hard and polarized for us at the moment.

EDIT: I also kind of think we should have Great House Indoril more or less built as a faction before we build their capital.

[Jule]

I haven't read a lot of what you wrote today, but I still believe a decision should be made as soon aS possible. I'm against putting Alma on hiatus. Coming up with a decent plan and THEN putting it on hiatus would be OK, but I think most of us are just trying to ignore the problem instead of solving it.

[Swiftoak]

Funny how all the hiatus people have nothing to do with the people working on Almalexia. It's so fucking hilarious, I can't breathe.

Aeven, I know you're better than this. I know we disagree, but let's try not to use that kind of cynist language, as it really doesn't add anything to the conversation. I admit not letting you know my concerns in past conversations might have been an error on my part. Hell I might have reacted the same way if somebody told me to redo Necrom 3 years ago. I've made 3 ints for Almalexia that had to be redone. Redid one of them myself, and reviewed many, some that were redone, a few new ones. I once made Necrom 16 cells and it was cut down to 8-9 and I wouldn't get upset if someone said we have to cut it down to 3 cells and redo/delete alot of work. But please man, stuff like this doesn't add to the conversation, as frustrated as you may be. I definitely think we won't have to scrap all the work that's been done so far to make an ideal Almalexia.

I haven't read a lot of what you wrote today, but I still believe a decision should be made as soon aS possible. I'm against putting Alma on hiatus. Coming up with a decent plan and THEN putting it on hiatus would be OK, but I think most of us are just trying to ignore the problem instead of solving it.

The problem is we're too poorly equipped to handle formulation of such plans Jule. We're not trying to shove it under the rug. Far from it, this is the first step we take to tackle the problem head-on. I think it's one of those things where to solve the problem, we actually have to put it aside for now. In the short term it might sound demoralizing and unproductive, but it will probably be to our benefit in the long term. (I honestly believe that we ironically could be more efficient/finish the city in a timely manner if we build a planned, ideal Alma to spec, that balances visuals, gameplay, and story in a more manageable fashion then if we tried to complete the city as is. This is my opinion though and is seperate from what is currently being discussed). Putting this on hiatus to examine project-wide issues would not be shoving it under the rug, it would be the first step in getting it closer to release, and making content production more manageable.

We're in the midst of a huge change in the way we do things, and it will take us time to get used to. We need to finish the Master Plan and flesh out Indoril (and not the questline here, I'm talking their characterization as a faction in the bigger picture of Morrowind's story) before we can tackle el-grand Capital of Morrowind. We need to familiarize ourselves with this new system, through the conceptualization and production of smaller areas that are more release-ready. Which is not to say any work done on Alma is being cast away for good, which I think is the general concern amongst those against. I do not think we can do Almalexia the justice it deserves by prematurely trying to solve the problem when we don't have the tools or skills to tackle such a challenge right now. Continuing work on the city won't get it done any faster than putting it on hiatus and planning it properly IMO. Like we're not done interiors or npcs or dialogue, so a 2014 release is unlikely. And I think the throngs of people waiting it will understand that if we need to take more time to do it right, they'll accept that, especially if we can finish and release other conteant in its' stead.

I'd rather take our time and walk through this. If the end product is better in the project long term, then a hiatus is a small thing to accept. TR has been through far worse. This was the project that wanted to rebuild Tamriel. This was the project that had to redo Map 5 3 times to get it right. This was the project that will have to redo Telvannis someday, alongside perhaps even some parts of Map 3.

Haplo Edit: we've only redone Map 5 once...

[Adanorcil]

I have been off-line for a couple of days, but I have just read up. I'll try to keep this short, because I think any post with paragraphs spanning more than a couple of lines is probably more fire than actual discussion.

Having read the arguments in this thread, I believe there is merit to the idea of temporarily (but not indefinitely) putting Almalexia on hold, chiefly for the following reasons:


- Our primary concern should be with releasing content in the foreseeable future, which would really get us exposure. The Andothren, OE and Roa Dyr sections are largely self-contained, which would allow this. The Almalexia section, on the other hand, touches upon almost every important topic in the game. We don't plan for all that now and we basically shoot ourselves in the foot many times down the road.

- We're getting increasingly good at all this. We should refine our new workflow and let passions cool a bit until we're completely ready for this one as a project. (gro-Dhal)

- We don't know what we need out of this place. (Yeti, Sload, Haplo)

[Thrignar Fraxix]

Locked the thread, this one is too far gone. The next thread should be made by someone who is not me. The three options to vote on are:

1: Alma section on hiatus before we even begin the discussion on TR scope and mournhold integration.

2: Alma section put on hold while we begin as soon as possible the discussion on TR scope and mournhold integration.

3: No delays, no hiatuses, changes made to the city are to be made with discussions now to minimize delays.

Discussion in the new thread should be minimal as we've discussed plenty already I think. I don't want this getting out of hand again.

[Sload]

That is an imprecise way to discuss this. We don't need to talk about "TR Scope & Mournhold integration," we need to talk about "TR Scope" (independent of Almalexia) and "What we want Almalexia to be," which may involve discussing the integration of Mournhold as well as many other things.

There are two questions:

-Should work continue on Almalexia before we have new major conversations about the design of Almalexia?
YES/NO

-If NO, should we have those conversations now or begin them after we have had more experience working with the other sections?
YES/NO