This morning a question blossomed into my head, prompting me to check out an old game named Planeshift. It is an MMORPG that differentiates itself by asking players to roleplay in character and not break the illusion. They’ve developed a deep and colorful backstory – all taking place inside of a hollowed out stalactite! By elevating story-writing and art as equal importance to coding new features, they’ve built a wonderful alternate universe.

I decided that I’d like to come back to this game, which remains exactly as lovable as I remember 6 years ago when I volunteered 3d models, and contribute in a different way. Publicize it, share it, optimize their Customer Acquisition Funnel and build a pipeline of new players into the game. There are a few hurdles for them to overcome first and as a thought process I will list them out here.

Roadmap

Remove Barriers to Contribution:
Think about how quickly someone can go from hearing about the project, to seeing the code, to submitting a change to fix a typo or comment. This should be minutes.

Unfortunately with Planeshift it is weeks. This is problem is compounded by the fact that active development is happening in a private branch that potential contributors don’t even know exist. This is a big no-no for two reasons. First, it makes the project look dead to outsiders, and second it literally prevents first-time contributions.

Continue reading Roadmap for Planeshift’s Developer Community →