KQIX

[cesarbittar]

I thought we might as well open a topic for KQIX.

Regarding its status, we are currently in negotiations with Vivendi and that's all we can say at the moment. We may have news soon, but for the time being, we can't comment on the situation any further.

If there are other questions regarding the project, feel free to post them.

Thank you!

C�sar

[Petter_Holmberg]

Hi! My name is Petter and I'm one of the PO Studios programmers. I'd be happy to try to answer any technical questions you might have about working in this great team and about the process of creating something as huge as KQIX on an online, voluntary basis.

[kq9ownzmeh]

hey there,

I'm Allert van der Leij, and I was basically in charge of everything 3D related in KQIX. So, again, feel free to ask how we approached some of the many challenges 3D has

stick around!

[Yonkey]

Hello everyone,

My name is Neil Rodrigues and I am the Director of Web & Programming. I'll be glad to answer any questions you have about the site or game.

[Whiskey]

Hi! I've been watching your project for a long time and I was shocked by the recent events as many people too. Since in your forum at KQ site I found that there were so many opinions and stuff about this, I don't know what more to ask :. I'm still hoping you'll release this game someday, even if it will be a commercial title or with a different name.

[axelkothe]

I actually hope this will become a commercial project released by Vivendi. Maybe the game would sell better than they expected, making them rethink their policy on adventure games. They have so many great adventure brands...

[Petter_Holmberg]

Just hang in there guys! It's not over until we say it's over...

[kq9ownzmeh]

yup, i haven't heard the fat lady sing either yet...

[eggnog]

Hi! My name is Petter and I'm one of the PO Studios programmers. I'd be happy to try to answer any technical questions you might have about working in this great team and about the process of creating something as huge as KQIX on an online, voluntary basis.

I don't know if this comes under the heading of "technical," but how do you work together?
As I understand it, you're located all around the world.
How do you divide up the programming?
Does one person work on one part of the game and someone else on another?
Do you have some way of having more than one programmer working on the
same part of the game at the same time?
Do you send each other pieces of code to check out and make comments on?
How do you get it all coordinated?

[kq9ownzmeh]

as for the teamstructure, I can tell you this:

I, for example, am from The Netherlands, and I coordinate many people from all over the world, including Australia, Canada, the US, and communicate a lot with programmers as well (Sweden and Brasil). The main hub of communication goes via MSN messenger, and we have weekly teamchats on an IRC channel. People have set weekly deadlines, and this proves to work pretty good most of the time.

[Yonkey]

Thankfully, we don't have a huge amount of programmers, so it's usually fairly easy to integrate everyone's work together. We usually assign specific tasks to people, and once they've completed the assignment they upload it. It's everyone's duty to stay up to date, but we would also create builds every few weeks to ensure this.

When people work on the same file, it's sometimes tricky to integrate. We use a tool that compares two versions of the same file, so it allows us to tell immediately what new code has been added, altered or removed. To coordinate, we usually have one person in charge of keeping the most up to date build containing the latest programming, art, sound and dialogue fixes.

[Petter_Holmberg]

Coordination is a very difficult thing when we are working online and have our normal lives going on, sometimes allowing more hours on this, sometimes less... But we have found a working structure that I believe works better than in many fangame communities, and we've been through trials that have really proven that we can achieve a lot of things even if we don't meet face to face.

I think our director structure is a very good idea. It's impossible to keep track of around 50 persons without some sort of hierarchy. Our directors are trusted individuals with expertise in their respective areas, and they coordinate the work with the people in different departments. Usually we do things by assignments, in which a director appoints a task to a suitable person, and then this person completes it and submits it for review. This can be anything from painting a set of textures to making a piece of music to implementing some gameplay functionality. If the result is fine, we have that task completed. Otherwise it might go through refinements or be picked up by some other person.

We communicate through emails and use MSN for real-time discussions. Also, almost every Sunday we have a public chat where we have a chance to meet up in a larger group and discuss important issues that concern the entire team. Or just fool around making silly jokes about each other, which is just as common, and I guess a very important part of keeping alive the team spirit too... ;D

At the end of the day I also think much of our success lies on the shoulders of some very devoted and amazingly talented individuals who just see this as a passion, not a mere hobby, and spend countless hours on making things happen. We are blessed with a very large number of such people in our team and the fact that they have such amazing talent at doing what they love as well is a great source of inspiration for us all to keep up with each other!

[LJUBI]

Hope dies last

LONG LIVE KING GRAHAM!!!!

[eggnog]

Do you use a secure channel for your chats? (I'm not sure if it's possible with MSN)
It's probably not so important for a free game. But if you ever decided to go commercial with a game, you might want to make sure no one on the outside is eavesdropping on your discussions and ideas.