Oswald Rant: Managing the Mod: Part 5
The Importance of Technology
A final issue relating to mod management is the importance of technology in managing a mod team. Apart from the programs we needed for building the actual game such as graphics tools, modelling tools, programming IDEs and so on, we used a number of other software programs to aid management and communication.
Most important is communication amongst team members. The team uses web-based “ez-board” forums for communication with the community and also for internal communications by way of a password protected limited access team forum. Web-based forums are particularly useful because they enable longer, more thoughtful conversations to be written, and they store the conversations so they can be followed by others. They can also be accessed from any computer with web access, so team members can access forums from work or when on holiday.
The Urban Terror team uses ICQ and IRC for instant messaging. Each has certain strengths and weaknesses. ICQ is good for general communication between any two team members, whereas IRC supports real-time conversations between multiple team members. Both services support a file transfer protocol which is useful for exchanging small binary files between team members for testing purposes.
For more substantial file transfers, a dedicated FTP server has been established by one of the team members. This allows large files to be uploaded and then distributed more efficiently than if an individual team member tried to send the same file multiple time to each team member. With a team of 27 and mod size of more than 100 megabytes, the person distributing the final release would be tied up for many days.
Management of source code is done via an Internet-based version control system. The mod has used a number of different systems over its history. The most recent software allowed multiple people to work on the same piece of source code at the same time and let them resolve change conflicts either automatically of interactively. This freed up the code team to work on the code at their own pace.
Finally, perhaps most important is bug tracking software. Urban Terror uses a free web-based bug-tracking service called Elementool. This web site allows the entire team to enter bugs into an online database, that can then be reviewed by team leaders who can assign bugs to individual team members. The site can e-mail team members if bug is assigned to them, which makes the process even more simple.
