Summary of first dev meeting

Posted elsewhere, but in case anyone is following only on the blog:

1. Preliminary V1 feature set is on wiki: http://wiki.github.com/ocs/OpenCityStreets/feature-list-for-v10
2. Client interface will use XHTML & CSS & JS, no flash.
3. jQuery will be used as JS Framework
4. UK db with spatial data is available for testing, accessible from OCS web server only. Directions and tools for creating your own database are in import directory in git.
5. Krato has expanded on kakaroto33’s map demo http://opencitystreets.com/users/krato/
6. Shihan has a demo user interface at http://opencitystreets.com/users/shihan/interface.swf
7. Thursdays at 21:00 UTC/GMT seemed to work fairly well for most, we will probably try to use this time for future meetings, interval depending on project activity

Going forward:

1. Aaron – finish registration/log in system, will use reCaptcha. In git this weekend. <- Done
2. CySlider and AngeloG – Work with Jay to further develop mathematical models
3. Prentice and Shihan – Create a high quality Photoshop mockup of OCS client layout, using Jay’s design as reference
4. Ice_Blade – Turn the PS mockup into a CSS/XHTML layover

First developer meeting

Based on the schedule information entered on our web site, it looks like 8-10PM GMT is the best time for most of us.

We will have our first attempt at a developer chat this Thursday, October 22nd at 9PM GMT in our IRC channel, #opencitystreets on irc.freenode.net. You can access this via the web here: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=opencitystreets

If you can join us then, great! We will send a copy of the discussion to the mailing list for those that cannot attend, and I'll post a short summary to the blog.

Also, I've updated the "Feature List for V1" section on our wiki in an attempt to document the design decisions made so far. The wiki is at http://wiki.github.com/ocs/OpenCityStreets

Status Update

Just a quick note about what we've accomplished so far and where we're headed:

Our development team is being headed by Mr. Nick Stallman. We've finished making decisions about things like programming languages and databases, and have moved on to more interesting things like implementation details. Our GitHub repository is at http://wiki.github.com/ocs/OpenCityStreets and code to import OpenStreetMap data into the MySQL form that we will be using can be found there. We also have some interesting client side work contributed by Haroldo Mitsumi Murata.

On the design side, Jay Shong has taken the lead role and is finalizing a feature set for our initial version (and already collecting ideas for future expansion :). The concept has grown from the simple original ideas into a game with great depth, but still focused on being easy to play for casual gamers. We hope to provide an experience that will entertain and challenge a wide range of players.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the project! If you're interested in joining our team, please visit our forums or find us on IRC (#opencitystreets on irc.freenode.net)

Twitter and IRC channel

There are a couple new ways to follow what we're up to with the Open City Streets project and join in with the discussion if you'd like to.

First, you can join our IRC channel, #opencitystreets on irc.freenode.net

You can use your favorite IRC client or simply click here for a web version.

Second, we'll be using Twitter to parallel any announcements here and possibly give more frequent updates as things progress. Follow us there if you prefer.

Important updates and announcements will continue to be made here on the blog.

Finally, thanks to everyone for all the great ideas contributed on the forums. We're exploring many interesting ideas there and you can start to see the glimmers of a fantastic game developing. We'll move away from brainstorming and start defining game elements later in the week, but for now, anything goes and all ideas will be considered.

Progress Update

It's an exciting time for all of us interested in Open City Streets. The new forums (http://opencitystreets.com/forum) already have several interesting discussions. Please post all future comments on game related issues there, rather than on this blog. I will continue to post any important news or announcements here.

For developers, we've nailed down some aspects of the technologies we will use in the new game and are working to finish up with this task so we can start the real work :)

There is still much to be decided in almost every aspect of game play. If you'd like to contribute your thoughts, now is the time. We will start finalizing an initial feature set in the near future.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to share their opinions and ideas, and hope to hear more from you in the future.

Forums online

We now have forums available at:

http://www.opencitystreets.com.

Let's move discussion there where its easier to communicate.

I didn't want to step on any toes by replicating comments, but if you've made comments on this blog please feel free to copy - paste them into the new forums.

Thanks to everyone who has volunteered already, and if you're just joining us and have development experience to contribute, please send a note to opencitystreets@gmail.com

Developer Update

Ok guys, we have several developers interested and a lot of great suggestions already. We're also hopefully going to have a forum available soon so discussion can be easier than this blog allows.

Before we can "dive in", a few choices need to be made. Obviously we must have some sort of storage backend, some server side code, and some client side code. A natural choice for managing all this is one of the MVCish frameworks out there, but which one depends mostly on the language of choice.

So far PHP and Java have been suggested. I personally would lean towards Java given the complexity and security needs of this project, but I'm sure PHP could also be made to work. Luckily most of you who have responded have indicated a wide range of skills and a willingness to work outside of your personal favorite systems, so I think we have the opportunity to chose based on the most suitable framework without upsetting anyone.

Priorities for a framework would be scalability and strong AJAX support. No need to make things hard on ourselves :) Of course that still leaves many options. If everyone could think about the options out there and which they would suggest, we'll make this topic #1 when a forum becomes available.