LDD and ORC Ambiguity

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aspidites
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LDD and ORC Ambiguity

Post by aspidites » Sat Dec 24, 2011 07:37

As mentioned in a comment on the blog, there seems to be (to me at least) some ambiguity surrounding the terms Local Design Document (LDD) and Original Rules Concept (ORC). The names themselves seem intuitive enough to infer that they serve two separate functions, but a few points within the wiki seem to suggest otherwise, apparently using them interchangeably. I'm using this thread to mark those points.

1. http://wtactics.org/wiki/index.php?titl ... r_.26_info, second bullet:
The ORC intends to live up to the General Design Document & the Local design document (ORC).
For me, putting ORC in parentheses suggests that ORC is alternative terminology

2. http://wtactics.org/wiki/index.php?titl ... _%28ORC%29:
Welcome to everything you would want to know about the Original Rules Concept for WTactics, or the ORC as we say in short. The ruleset itself is available at the Quick Rules page on the Wiki. If you're interested in development it would be a benefit if you read this document first, read the ORC aterwards, and then re-visit here. While snowdrop is the maintainer of the ORC and currently the benevolent dictator, the development process is transparent and done in public. You are always welcome to become a part of the ORC team or lead your own development of new and different rule system. Either way, please enrich the community with the grace of your presence and feel invited to register in here as well as on the forum to participate in an ongoing discussion or give birth to a new one.
Even the page's title seems to suggest that the LDD and ORC are one-and-the-same

3. http://wtactics.org/wiki/index.php?titl ... _%28WTB%29:

This page doesn't exist, and seems to be the only other occurrence of Local Design Document in a title within the wiki. In fact, no where else, except the fore-mentioned article does the term Local Design Document show up in the wiki at all, which leads me to believe its a new term. In fact, save for snowdrop's comment on the blog, I'd have assumed that Local Design Document was simply replacing Original Rules Concept. [/list]

BTW, for those that wish not to bother reading the blog, the actual definitions of ORC, LDD, and GDD are as follows:
General Design Document: Outlines the type of games that could be created within the general WT project. Intended for developer teams to figure out if they belong in the project and what is expected.

Local Design Document: Is supposed to outline specific design guidelines and explanations for a specific rule system. Intended for dev teams to make their designing more structured and fill in the details. It is however not really a necessary document and isn’t required by WT, yet, I can’t imagine how anyone would design such a complex game as a CCG without something in the lines of a LDD.

Original Rules Concept: Is just one specific rules system. The rules are what the end user will read/learn and get with the game, to be able to play it. (In contrast, the GDD and LDD are usually documents that are seldom public at all in the game industry).
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snowdrop
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Re: LDD and ORC Ambiguity

Post by snowdrop » Sat Dec 24, 2011 14:03

Much of this is the result of confusion caused by me not using a separate wiki namespace for every ruleset. Since the project was originally intended to host a number of different development teams, all workign on different rulesets, I wanted it to be easy to see which local design document belonged to which ruleset, even in the title. If properly done it would have been in a separate namespace, and it would also be categorized.

As for namespaces, I think I'll hold that off until a MediaWiki properly supports them in next coming version(?) - I know they'll be doing some changes on that front and they will revamp it from the ground up. Rigth now mediawiki supports quasi-namespaces, which I don't think we should bother with. Furthermore, since ORC is really the only dev team around anyways it doesn't matter much.

http://wtactics.org/wiki/index.php?titl ... _%28WTB%29 is a page for another dev team working on another rules system - WTB, as seen in the paranthesis. They have also not produced anything since whenever so I'll delete that one soon.

The text in http://wtactics.org/wiki/index.php?titl ... C%29#Intro has been rewritten now. I hope it's clear enough(?) and agree it was messier before.
aspidites
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Re: LDD and ORC Ambiguity

Post by aspidites » Sat Dec 24, 2011 19:32

snowdrop wrote:Much of this is the result of confusion caused by me not using a separate wiki namespace for every ruleset. Since the project was originally intended to host a number of different development teams, all workign on different rulesets, I wanted it to be easy to see which local design document belonged to which ruleset, even in the title. If properly done it would have been in a separate namespace, and it would also be categorized.
Sound logic. Thanks for the clarification. Namespaces would indeed help. Or at least categories.

snowdrop wrote: http://wtactics.org/wiki/index.php?titl ... _%28WTB%29 is a page for another dev team working on another rules system - WTB, as seen in the paranthesis. They have also not produced anything since whenever so I'll delete that one soon.
I think it would be great if whatever content existed there was recovered, and rather than deleting the other page, create an 'unmaintained' or 'abandoned' template for those pages. That way, if someone likes the concept and wants to fork it, rather than starting from scratch, they can.
snowdrop wrote: The text in http://wtactics.org/wiki/index.php?titl ... C%29#Intro has been rewritten now. I hope it's clear enough(?) and agree it was messier before.
Definitely. I'd say that some of the introduction can be extracted and put into a separate page dedicated to defining the local design document, though. Then, you could keep each ruleset's LDD brief, as it was in the original.

I get off of work in 4 hours, and want to work a bit on my project, but after that, I may start that page for you, since you have more important (read: interesting) things to attend to, wiki wise. That, and I would actually like to contribute more than I have been as of late.

Last thing; Thanks a lot for being so receptive to feeedback, snowdrop. I constantly nitpick at different things, and you, without fail, have always responded with open arms, gave constructive feedback as to why my thoughts are misguided (or outright foolish), or participated in meaningful conversation about the issue, even if a solid solution hadn't been reached.
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Re: LDD and ORC Ambiguity

Post by snowdrop » Sun Dec 25, 2011 14:18

aspidites wrote:Namespaces would indeed help. Or at least categories.
Put it in category ORC, along with a couple of other documents. Also created the "Universal" category for stuff that applies no matter what rules branch one happens to work on.

I think it would be great if whatever content existed there was recovered, and rather than deleting the other page, create an 'unmaintained' or 'abandoned' template for those pages. That way, if someone likes the concept and wants to fork it, rather than starting from scratch, they can.
Agree, and there already is an abandoned work column on the main page. Maybe should create "Abandoned?" category as well, think that would be good. Issue with the page in question is that it never had any content, hence my deletion incentive. Else I wouldn't touch it, would be counter-plenty-of-things. :P
Definitely. I'd say that some of the introduction can be extracted and put into a separate page dedicated to defining the local design document, though. Then, you could keep each ruleset's LDD brief, as it was in the original.
Question is where to put that info. I don't mind having it where it is now, but could also be good to tuck into the GDD maybe, in some sub-section of where structures are explained.
, I may start that page for you, since you have more important (read: interesting) things to attend to, wiki wise. That, and I would actually like to contribute more than I have been as of late.
Fire away. It's nice that you clear stuff first like this so I know what's happening, and better yet - why. :) That way we will ignore both double and unnecessary work that maybe would have been redundant.

I'm not sure what exciting things I have to battle with :P but my main concerns regarding WT is the lists mentioned in latest blog post... there's some heavy lifting to do there and I am still trying to figure out how to even begin doing it...lol..
Last thing; Thanks a lot for being so receptive to feeedback, snowdrop. I constantly nitpick at different things, and you, without fail, have always responded with open arms, gave constructive feedback as to why my thoughts are misguided (or outright foolish), or participated in meaningful conversation about the issue, even if a solid solution hadn't been reached.
Thanks. It's really nice to read that.

I think it's required of any project "leader" to act that way. I personally don't believe that such a person should have that kind of task if he/she can't respond well to constructive criticism, questions and whatnot.

I also think it's a trait that is good to have in an open source project no matter what functions a person has: The of-free-will-nature of participation makes it necessary for all to be able to have honest discussions where ideas are challenged and decisions can be discussed openly. If that climate isn't around people will bail out sooner or later. Why would anyone want to waste time on a project/person(s) that are unreceptive and unwilling to be questioned? I sure wouldn't.

The essential point here is that the only thing that leads to development is constructive criticism. Without it, there is no development, ever. It does not matter from where the constructive criticism comes from as long as it is sound or at least seems to be so enough to warrant it.

Edit: Then there is also the whole issue with projects that get crippled because everything is an endless debate and eternal discussion. While I get that feeling sometimes in here I don't think we really have that problem given I've proclaimed myself to be the dictator of ORC and everyone else is dictator of each specific project.
aspidites
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Re: LDD and ORC Ambiguity

Post by aspidites » Mon Dec 26, 2011 07:31

snowdrop wrote: Question is where to put that info. I don't mind having it where it is now, but could also be good to tuck into the GDD maybe, in some sub-section of where structures are explained.
When I originally replied,, I was thinking there should be a separate artical for Local Design Document, however, seeing as there isn't much to be written about them, that hardly makes sense (maybe if this were wikipedia it might make sense).

That said, it might make sense to tuck it into the GDD page, but I fear it getting lost. Perhaps a "Key Terms"/Glossary article would make sense, or perhaps an article titled "Anatomy of a Project" or similar?

Seems aparent more thought needs to go into the structure before anything can be laid out. Once I have some free time (I'm thinking Wednesday), I'll probably go over the existing documentation and see what can be factored out locally, then post revisions and gather feedback.
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