Why do I feel like its so difficult getting a team together?

[CygnusX]

I've always enjoyed working on group projects, and I'd very much like to start/join a bbg development team, but I can't ever seem to get this to work out for some reason.  Does anyone else struggle with this, or is it just me?

[Chris]

Maybe it's because of your motivation? The "enjoyed working on group projects" part is wrong, if you enjoy doing things with others go play some games with them or join a club. You do games in a team for one and one reason only. Because you can't do it on your own. It is because of a necessity, a critical necessity, not because of likes and dislikes. I can't see a team working when their primary motivation is having fun (instead of making the game done).

I was working in teams in the past, it was working out. We have not finished anything but it was because of design issues and taking more we can chew, not because of some team related problems. So, I guess working in a team can work and could give results.

Nowadays I avoid working in teams, partially because in order to make it work you have to be ruthless to your team mates (especially if you are a project manager), which does not necessarily make an enjoyable experience

[CygnusX]

I can't speak from experience, but I don't think all teams must come from necessity.  There have been small groups throughout history that have come together to work on a common idea and with much success. 

What I specifically seek is someone interested in making a tile-based space bbg.  A trade-wars based game where you are not limited by turns per hour but rather actions per second.  The goal would be to venture away from your base of operations, collect resources, upgrade your ship (or buy a new one), trade with other players, and have an ultimate goal of claiming all space territory as your own.  With a time constraint of 30 seconds per tile move, it would calculate to a minimum 80 hours of play just to cross a 10k tile map.  The variations from here are quite limitless. 

[hiigara]

It's hard to create a strong team remotely. You are more likely to succeed if you search for a team in your home town.
Most remote teams break up as soon as there is a big challenge, or as soon as one of the members misses a deadline.

[Chris]

It's hard to create a strong team remotely. You are more likely to succeed if you search for a team in your home town.
Most remote teams break up as soon as there is a big challenge, or as soon as one of the members misses a deadline.

Good point. Our team was partially remote but all the core team (all programmers and the lead artist) were onsite, the remote part of the team were just artist who were getting a well defined standard tasks and were not participating in meetings. No clue how it would look like if the whole team was remote but I guess it would be not working very well.

[Doidel]

I wrote a big text, telling that there were 14 tries to recruit people for CoK. Then I pressed backspace.

Continue searching, we still believe in the good people out there!

[Kyle]

I agree with Chris about being ruthless. You really cant be friends and teammates..it just doesnt work.

[Doidel]

Me and Marko (my teammate) are very good friends, yet it is still clear that I'm the project leader. We just have this agreement that we discuss decisions but mine is final if we disagree.
So far this works perfectly well and we're a really good team. I don't know how it is with bigger groups though.

[Mutant]

I think it's hard to find other developers.... it's mostly because people who want to form a team with you fall into one of two categories.... either they're not good enough to make a game on their own, or they are good enough.... the former will most likely lose interest very quickly... it'll be 1000 times tougher than they thought, and they will struggle daily.... it's meant to be a "fun" project, so they will disappear before you know it (and you'll have wasted time trying to show them how to get going).

The latter group generally won't be interested in working on "someone else's" project.... so if you meet them before you've done anything, other than come up with some vague ideas, and you manage to agree on a general direction, it might work... but that's pretty hard to do.

Not saying it's impossible to find a dev to work with (especially if you don't already know them), just really hard....

It's a bit easier to find artists to work with... I've got one I've been working with for more than a year, and it works really well.... we're on opposite sides of the world, but we manage to find plenty of time to communicate, and the game would suck without his help.

[CygnusX]

If it means anything, I think CoK was a project worth collaborating on.  It just didn't fit the theme of what I personally wanted to work on. 

[Doidel]

Very kind, however I didn't mean to indicate anything like it You said space, so...
Maybe try in the gamedev.net forums, I figured this to be the best place to search for help so far.

[Chris]

You really cant be friends and teammates..it just doesnt work.

I would not go that far. Friends are the best to work with from my experience.
It's just so it does not turn into a club where you do games for fun and to unleash your creative desires. The goal of finishing the game shall go way before the team's fun. Otherwise the game won't be done. As simple as that.

The latter group generally won't be interested in working on "someone else's" project.... so if you meet them before you've done anything, other than come up with some vague ideas, and you manage to agree on a general direction, it might work... but that's pretty hard to do.

It is an irrelevant point. If you are trying to gather a team before you did anything alone you are simply nuts The "having something done already" is a minimum prerequisive to be recruited as a lowest team member, not to mention project leader... Otherwise it is not a dev team but a group of lazy kids with big dreams.
I mean, can you really believe a programmer can do well in team if he never did anything before (anything, like Tic-tac-toe minigame)? Or an artist who have nothing to show except 3 sketches and an unfinished banner? If they could not do anything when they were doing it alone (and had all the time on the earth and no deadlines) do you believe they would magicly become a supper efficient when they joined a team?

As for recruiting people it is rather easy, but there are some tricks of course You don't post that you need help on the forums, you go to the forums (like artists forum) observe the people, select one or two you find the best and then email them with the proposal. Of course you need a working demo first (you don't want to recruit those who would want to work with someone who have not a working demo anyway). Also, don't do it on game dev related forums, people from there wither work on a project or sux (althrough, with luck, who knows), specialized non gaming related forums are best.

[Doidel]

How should one find skilled developers interested in game development when not searching for them specifically? Can you provide an example alike the artists forum for game developers?

Since I've never been able to recruit another developer for CoK I don't have any experience there...

[BlackScorp]

the same problems have companies too, you can get developers which could help you, but you cant expect that they are skilled you can try to get some developers at php.de for example, but iam sure most of them are unskilled if you look for an artist, try at opengamearts.org forums

but as mutant says skilled developer, artists dont work on "someone else" projects. so i gues you need to find at least any developers and try to get them skilled(teach them).

but i assume so, never had experience in it

[hiigara]

For a programmer to recruit a remote game designer or artist is relatively easy. Real game designers may not be easy to find, but artists are abundant. I am not saying that artist is a low profession, what I am saying is that if you require average quality graphics, then there are plenty of options.
The problem is when a programmer tries to find another skilled programmer to create the core of the game. That usually only works if they are long time friends.
If your game is almost finished and you just need world builders and scripters to glue the core components together, then the best option is to ask for bids in freelancer.com . In this case you are just outsourcing the components which are not critical.
You can also outsource art. It's not that expensive.
Teaching a rookie programmer can be more expensive in terms of time wasted than paying an average programmer.

[Chris]

I have been recruiting like 10 years ago, so saying on which forum it was would be obsolete... I will instead give the "happy ending" example We were making a 3D FinalFantasy/Diablo2 mix (low poly) and I went on some artists forum (or was it usenet? yeah, it was probably usenet group). There I found one artist, she was a 2D artist, but incredible one. We recruited her and fast trained in 3D (it was ridiculous, me, the coder, training an artist, oh well, 3D software is just an tool of putting 3 points in a 3D space an joing thesxe to form a triangle, at least at the basic level, so why not; the lead artist prepared also some simple tutorial so together we trained her remotely in the basic stuff). In the end we had an excellent AAA quality low poly artist (the trick is she was not interested in games, so she was not recruited by others also she had no 3D skill prior to working with us (but incredible 2D skills) so again no one was interested in taking this gem before us).

But there is a more fundamental problem. As hiigara mentioned, recruiting artists and programmers to work remotely are completely different things. Imagine for example you are a programmer and you work with an artist remotely. You don't understand each other. Then you work together in the same room. You still do not understand each other No matter what you do programmer and artist will have communication difficulties, so the onsite working is not so much different from remote one.
Now imagine you are a programmer and you want to work remotely with another programmer... If you are making a highly standarized product (like forum, wiki, 3D engine, etc) then why not, it might work (there is, at least theoretically, one best way of making all of these and all features requirements are given and clear before you even start working). But working on something as undefined, vague and artistic as a game? I can't see it working out...

[Mutant]

Well, I don't think it's impossible to work remotely, but I agree it's a lot harder.... I think your best bet for programmer for a "hobby" project is (as hiigara said) find people you know... they could be friends or maybe someone from work...

I've had a few attempts at getting people helping me out by working remotely.... most of them end up with people disappearing after a couple of weeks... the longest one lasted a couple of months... he seemed to know what he was doing, but he was learning Perl (the language I use), and a few other things like git, and I think he eventually got frustrated. I wasn't too happy with the quality of the code he produced either, but he did manage to get a few things done. If we'd lived in the same city (or even country) it might have worked out better.

If you're doing a commercial project, then you the problems are similar... you can offer people equity, and that might get people to hang around a bit longer (and attract better people), but I think it can still be tough... if your project is already successful enough to be able to afford to pay people, then you probably don't have as much of a problem.