The ConflictIndustriesZen

The Zen of Conflict Industries tries to set some baserule which is the base of our development and teamwork. These rule should protect all developers to be driven in a situation that only depends on the will of a single person or a view. With these rules we already had in the first days several successes to reduce discussion time about direction of development or logic of the game project. We hope these attract more coders, even tho it is still NOT FINISHED, but when its finished its something all developement will be following.

Realism is more important than gameplay.

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This rule follows the general requirement of people to dive fast into games and play fast what they know out of reality. Most games add special moves or tricks that improves your result very good, and if you dont know them you are getting worst result. This collides massivly with reality so we try to remove anything that is not real and doesnt make any sense (strafe jumping, recoil jumping, fighting 24/7 without dying)

Balance is more important than realism.

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Even if realism is very important, there is also a border to the "fun" of the game, the game needs fun, and this fun is mostly sitting in the balance of the game. If a new player can be as good as an old player just cause he is better, then he must have a chance, this means, that for example both sides have exactly equal weapons (so even if we introduce a M16 and an AK47, both have the same values, so that there is no big discussion "which is better", the realism doesnt require exactly real weaponammo size, cause this is more for the historical books, then for a game)

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few; or the one.

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I think this is farly logical, we dont want that a small elite group of players decide what is going on in the game, the more player comes the more the players are involved in the development. With help of the Zen its easy to stay on a course. In middle-term many parts of the game will be voted or decided by the community or with tests to proof results.

More players are better than less players.

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We think that it should be the target to gather as many players as possible to the projects to have as many people who are involved in the development and help to define what is the game and what they want from the game. This way is the best way to find something that fits the most people. BTW: noone said this way is easy ;).

Players are more important than quality.

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In many parts of the world, the people dont have the high end equipment, and even inside this world there are situations, like outdoor, where you dont have low spec systems, like an EeePC. So we think its important that many people can play the games, and even on a bad PC, if they dont have the money for a good computer, we shouldnt block them from playing (students, pupil). Beside this, of course we try to make also games in high quality which needs the decent computer, but this is always 2nd priority against the needs of the more...

Stability and security for the work is more important than anything else.

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Its always bad todo work for nothing, especially if you dont get paid. This is why we always try to secure the way the people do, and try that all steps of the development are productive. But this isnt easy to go, but all persons who make tickets or try to coordinate the work, should be aware of that fact and try to work towards this. If there is a decision open you dont start to work one a way that is probably never choosen...

Respect and Teamwork is more important than skill.

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I prefer 20 people who teamkill by accident, against 1 dude that kills another teammate on purpose cause he is pissed.

Its better to have it now, then never.

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Fast development is important. Proof of concept is important. You cant finetune a concept and make it with awesome graphics if later the player doesnt accept the concept of it. So first we test what we do, we see if it comes out fine, and test with players the concept before they look nice or work perfect. Then you can talk about how to finetune it. Its bullshit to say "hey its cool if we add also this" if there is nothing where you can add.