Team Expansion & Application Process
Dear Community,
It has now been more than a year since the voluntary team took over the day to day operation and development of Neocron. Together we have experienced many ups and downs, but nevertheless we have made steady progress in not just stabilizing Neocron, but also improving it. We are working hard with the resources we have to bring you the best Neocron ever.
However, we admit that on occasion progress can appear slow. Some people argue that the progress could be a lot faster if we expand and invite additional people to the team. We most certainly agree with that!
Unfortunately it is not all unicorns and rainbows when that idea is put into action. For the team to function well and progress be made, potential team members need to match a far longer list of requirements than for people may need to join a company. People need to have their heart in the right place. They need to be extremely dedicated towards the project and willing to sacrifice a significant portion of their spare time towards Neocron. They need to be prepared to work autonomously, be prepared to do the grunt work, the boring stuff, the stuff no one wants to do even if they're getting paid.
As developer you often here people telling you: oh I know where that bug stems from just do this and that and everything will be fine. Surprise, surprise, fixing a bug is not as easy as it sounds. Minor bugs might take days or weeks to fix and at a certain point it stops being fun but instead feels like work. People usually do not want to work in their free time, which is very much understandable. Members of the team may start out fixing maybe one or two bugs but lose interest in a matter of days, because everything feels like work and therefore again nothing gets done.
As with many things, looking in from the outside can make you feel like everything could be done so much better. Then when you get to the other side of that fence and a feeling of obligation kicks in, that enthusiasm can be sapped somewhat quickly. When things change from "you could do this" to having to actually get down to it and DO them it can be challenging for some to continue – the phrase easier said than done has caused a number of new recruits to burn out very quickly.
Nothing getting done is another issue. For a team to work flawlessly people need to be reliable. The work of one member or group of the team usually depends on the work of others and vice versa. In case someone decides that he does not want to do the dirty work but instead just the fun stuff, the progress of the whole team will slow down. The 'dirty work' is there and it must be done to ensure we can keep marching on.
Skill sets are also an important factor. Neocron's code base is far beyond that of a simple "Hello World" program, it is old and has suffered over the years as numerous developers have passed through. As such a solid grounding in C++ is essential, it is always easy for those on the internet to declare they are the most skilled programmers and bug-fixers, it happens in every community when a product has issues. However when faced with Lambda-expressions or reflections they may suddenly go silent. Getting individuals with the right skill level is essential, if we need to spend time fixing their code and making it readable before making use of it, progress is slowed even further. In some cases this could result in even more work than starting over and rewriting everything from scratch.
To try to avoid this, we have started more thoroughly training people, but this is a time consuming process. We are more than happy to have members of the team with less developed skill sets, who are eager to learn. However at first to make use of these resources it is the less glamorous work that needs to be done. Teaching people to work autonomously and gather information autonomously is an important point for us. In today's companies people quite often get their projects split up in many parts so that everything is pretty clear already. They just need to fill a few bits and pieces in between. On our end however, the people have to break the projects down into pieces themselves they need to investigate different options, plan, lay out and implement and especially they have to get used to agile software development!
The second to last point when considering an application is the application itself. A short application which lacks concise overviews of an individual's skill set will usually not be considered further. This lack of detail comes across as the application being a brief thought, that perhaps the dedication we need is not there. One should take the whole process seriously from start to end! An application that lets us immediately see where we can use an individual, is just as important as the work they would do as a result.
The last point on the list for us which we have to consider are possible conflicts of interest. People working for other software or even game development companies might be problematic. Why? Because their company might find out about it and might not like it or try to sue, trying to accuse us of stealing their secrets or poach their talent.
So to summarize, recruiting people is not only a time consuming process, but also needs us to look very closely. People need to be trustworthy, reliable and dedicated towards Neocron, not to mention that they need to be skilled and be able to work autonomously. We have already extended the team quite a lot, you do not see or hear much from them as of yet, but trust me, you will!
Part of this expansion are the lab initiatives (for web and art development) we started some time ago, to recruit new people and find fresh blood devoted to Neocron. These labs are a platform for us to begin development of assets external to the game's source code. They also act as a proving ground for those individuals to become a part of the main Neocron Support Team.
We still want to expand. We want more people to help us make Neocron the best it has ever been but as you can see there is a lot involved to ensure we can do that in the best possible way. We have to protect the materials we have been entrusted to develop futher.
If you believe you have the skills required to make Neocron better, please let us know via a formal application.
All applications can be sent to applications@neocron-game.com, be sure to list the skills you have and examples of your work and we WILL get in touch with you. We have responded to every application that has landed in that mailbox. Just remember, there is a LOT of hard work ahead of you if you have the skills we need.
Sincerely,
Your Neocron Support Team
