MinisterFish/Developer Journal
June 2, 2003
I found an old UT map on my hard drive that wasn't completed and decided to go ahead and finish it. Took me this whole last week to finish it. If you are interested, it can be found at http://www.utunlimited.net/downloads/ministerfish/CTF-Cathartic.zip .
I'm still skeptical about working on The Machine. I would hate to start a big project and not get any fulfillment out of it. I would think it would be better to just work on smaller projects that wouldnt take as long and I know i would finish.
April 30, 2003
I'm being lazy on my project The Machine but spending a little time getting to know a little more about scripted bots in UT2003 so it ain't all bad. I'll probably start back up on the game design doc for The Machine this weekend. I also need to go out and get a copy of Unreal2 since The Machine might be better suited for it than UT2003. I'm thinking lazy but realistic.
May 2, 2003
PHP time! Because game design documents (GDDs) can change quite a bit during the development processs, I'm going to start with a tool that will work with the dynamic property of a GDD. Creating the tool will delay me from actually working on the GDD for my game, but hopefully, it will help with this project and possible projects in the future.
I think the technical design documents could also be integrated with this tool, but I haven't quite figured out how I would do this.
Mychaeel: Hmm. Did you ever consider using a Wiki for that? 
MinisterFish: A Wiki would be handy for the editing part of a design doc, but it's too open. I'm going to digest your suggestion and figure out what would be the pros and cons for me using a Wiki.
Wormbo: The UDN and the JDN (Jailbreak Developers Network) are both Wikis.
May 4, 2003
OK, I have been playing around with my own Wiki and will most likely use this for my own project.
I have also been thinking about my project. I've been looking at my [treatment] over and over again. I've been thinking of changing my background story and setting to something based on an Unreal story and setting. The things I would changes in my [treament] are:
- Getting rid of the ALMs skill base system and just go with acquiring weapons and weapons upgrades as the means of advancing skill.
- Weapons will be based off of Unreal 2 weapons with maybe some additional functionality to some of the weapons, such as a stun component to the dispersion pistol.
- No explosives except the grenade launcher.
- No environmental training, hacking, or infiltration skills.
- The suit system will be just like that of Unreal 2.
- Infiltration would be just having the player trying to be quiet to avoid detection (walk vs run).
- No training session mission because people should be familar with gameplay from Unreal 2.
- I still want vehicles added.
- There should still be dual paths to reach the main objective of the game based on the player's actions. So, the missions are still basically the same but the names and setting changes.
- I still want an inventory system.
I have dumbed down the project quite a bit (this has really been dumbed down from a beginning of a MMORPG on a totally different engine than Unreal). Now I'll need less models and skins, less coding, and less time to do the project. Hopefully, it will still be fun to play, but I know it won't have near the depth of what I actually want to do. Just trying to be realistic with myself and want something I know I can do myself in case I don't get a team to help me.
So, my next step with this is to rewrite the treatment.
