Can't speak to if there's currently any open positions, but given the general complaints we see about GM Bandwidth I'd assume so.

You can submit an application here: https://www.play.net/dr/apply/gmapps/

> Are there currently any open volunteer Dev positions? Ideally I'd like to get into the spellbook system, but I understand that would be side from assigned tasks.

Are there open positions that are allowed to work on what they want to work on? It seems that existing devs are being strong-armed into pushing their pet projects off their plates.

>>Are there open positions that are allowed to work on what they want to work on? It seems that existing devs are being strong-armed into pushing their pet projects off their plates.

Again, no real experience with it here, but the impression I got from the application process and what gets said by GMs here on the board it'd be a lot like any other 'job' where you'd be expected to work on what you've been assigned and would have to take on pet projects in your 'spare' time.

Quotation marks to emphasize that GMing is something our GMs do in their actual spare time outside of their real jobs already.

Personally I got less and less excited about it as I went further into the application forms and withdrew my application after reading a line that stated they'd expect around 80 hours a month from development GMs. YMMV and I wish luck to anyone who still applies. I really get the impression that we need more people doing it.

Thank you for the input. I'll see if I get deep enough into the application process.

So, a certain amount of disbelief is acceptable. For the most part, the only person that puts in 80+ hours a month in DR that I know of is Lyneya, who does it as her full time job. There just isn't enough hours in the day for the rest of us. That said, you can be expected to put in those kind of hours in crunch situations, as well as portions of your early training.

So think of it less as "20 hours a week every week FOREVER" and more "you may be asked and must be able to put in around 20 hours a week in extreme situations." The best way I've ever heard it put, as far as the general time commitment, is by former GM Helena, who told me that the expectation is that GMing would become my primary avocation.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

Avocation
noun; a hobby or minor occupation

Sounds pretty much like GMing to me. Replace "avocation" with hobby, and making it my "primary hobby" was easy, it already was from the player side. The only thing that comes even close to DR for me is reading, and only when I stumble upon a new series that I enjoy and have to go read the entire thing.

The only times I think I've actually spent 20 hours a week on something were 1) initial training, 2) one run of an MT event where I was spearheading the effort, and 3) Hollow Eve, maybe. Aside from that, it's much more relaxed. I'm able to find time to do personally-motivated DR projects, as well as varying levels of interaction with MT/HE.

Javac
That one guy

If you have questions or comments in regard to this post please email me at DR-JAVAC@play.net.

Thank you for the great responses.

I appreciate your input Armifer and Javac. I'm reconsidering re-starting my application based on your posts.

I know this post was initially tailored to Dev GM positions, but I wanted to mention that the 80 hours a month piece is actually very true on the CE side. If you're on CE and you're coming anywhere close to meeting your expected duties, you're probably hitting 80 hours a month without much difficulty.

I, for one, absolutely hit that regularly. I also work full time in a job wherein I can't usually take any time during my workday to do things related to DR.

Crunch times, as Armifer mentioned, can end up with you doing much more than that.

I don't say this to try to scare folks away from applying. I want more folks on CE. We need more folks on CE. I don't want to give anyone the wrong idea, though. It does take up a lot of time, and you aren't likely to enjoy GMing (at least on the CE end) unless you really enjoy putting that kind of time into the game.

-Persida

>>I don't really understand the difference between 1 guy putting in 20 hours a week and 5 guys putting 4 hours a week.

That only makes sense if you work in a situation where you're creating units of Stuff that can be handed off to other people without interruption.

In practice, 20x1 and 4x5 isn't something that's superior to one or the other, but are different types of productivity that work better in different situations. With the Su Helmas project, we had examples of both. I absolutely delegated a lot of stuff and am immensely grateful to the GMs that helped me -- but there was also stuff that I had to do myself, because it would've taken as much time to prepare someone to do that specific job as it would to just do it myself.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

I hate to say it and I'm going to get a ton of pushback for this but I am starting to -believe- (NOT know) -feels like- that the GS PM is just a lot more proactive in his duties than the DR PM. I'm sure the DR PM is doing something but just on a communication level I SWORE I thought Armifer was our PM, like emphatically.

It would be nice if we got updates on a roadmap of what each of the components of the game will be getting down the line. I mean big thematic categories like Guilds, Combat, F2P store, Events, situation with staffing shortage etc.

Yes I knew only recently that you were not, but that was my point. GM Lyna is like an elusive unicorn, I rarely see her post and I rarely see her roll out any new projects or initiatives. Yeah, I know how harsh that sounds, but it needed to be said.

This one's off topic and done.

~Evike