Recruiting, you'll no doubt
have to do it to fill some areas, whether its by websites, around your school or
university, whatever. But I'll tell you a little rule now, it doesn't matter how
talented someone is, if they can't work as a part of the whole, there isn't much
sense in bringing them onto the team. This is especially critical for
freelancers who do this in the off time and don't receive a steady income from
it, if anything at all. Loose bolts on a team has spelled the downfall of
hundreds of upstart game development groups, software groups, and even more mod
teams for games such as Half-Life or the Quake series.
Also, there's the other
type of team unit that can spell your downfall, this type is the slacker. Its
all well and done to do something as a hobby and not have a lot of time to
devote, but if you have a team member who's holding the entire project back by
not finishing a key element in a reasonable amount of time, or continues to
submit work that is shoddy at best, then you might just have the slacker type on
your team. No one likes having to wait a month just for someone to finish some
small, but crucial piece of the project. Other members of the team suffer from
forced inactivity, which can really suck, trust me, especially if the team is
really driven or full of energy to finish the project.
It's always good to try and
find people who are talented, able to work well in at least a loose team
environment (such as a virtual team across the net) and have at least a little
bit of enthusiasm for the project as a whole. People like this can be a bit hard
to find, or they may be among the other hordes of lamers that might clamor to
join you if you have a website or other method of informing large numbers of
people. Its pretty easy to get word out that your forming a mod team, or a
development team, sites such as PlanetQuake's Polycount usually don't have a
problem with listing "Help Wanted" notices for groups.
Perhaps one of the most
vital tools for recruitment is actually getting to know a person somewhat before
you say "Ya, hop on!". Talk to them, its simple, its effective, it only takes a
day or two of having them on your ICQ list or on IRC, or email or whatever. It
can tell you a lot about someone and help you better sort gems from jerks. If
you want to test talent, assign the person in question some task on the project
on a submission basis, and see if you like what they do. For example, you want
to see what a 3d modeler can do for you, sure he has some work for a portfolio,
but what does he do for you with you're team? Something like "Model an orc for
the bog" or "Can you create an armored soldier we can use for this military
base?" will let you see just what they can do for you, and more importantly, if
they actually want to do something quality for you. Its pretty irritating to
bring on someone with a phenomenal portfolio, only to find they really don't
want to do anything beyond "ok" or "average" for your project, or worse.
Next page: Taking a backseat
[Page 1]
[Page 2]
[Page 3]
[Page 4] [Home]
