Contributing

Motto

Here are some motto to help make and keep Unvanquished a welcoming place:

🤗️

You can do it Don't be intimidated for trying to contribute something, every contributor is not less than a man. Be bold as a merger It's better to improve iteratively something that is not perfect than to not merge anything. Be patient as a reviewer If you think there is something better to be done, you will have time to do it yourself later. Everything submitted is a gift People come to submit changes to make us a gift, not to be obligated to do something. Don't put excessive weight on someone else's shoulder Never expect from a man an expectation only a god can fulfill, every contributor is not more than a man.

I want to bring a change to ______. What do I need to know?

Anyone can contribute changes! There are separate pages for guidelines for the following:

• Code
• Media

Once your change is ready, it has to be submitted for review then merged, see also:

• Review
• Merge

We recommend to submit changes using Git and doing pull requests. If you cannot, see the Patches page.

I'm skilled at ______. How do I become a developer?

For content creators

Please let us know that you are interested in producing content for the game via chat or the forums and someone will get in touch with you with further instructions.

For programmers

Talk to the team! Just introduce yourself on chat or the forums and get involved in discussion. If you appear to be intelligent and posses the right attitude, you may be made into a contributor without even having contributed any actual code.

How does the project work?

Unvanquished is developed by individuals around the world over the Internet. Individuals involved with the project can be divided into a few different categories:

• Project Leaders, Currently, there are only three of these, they are responsible for:
  • Art lead — Responsible for maintaining quality of all elements of the visual and auditory aspects of the game that are not controlled by code.
  • Programming lead — Responsible for overseeing development of the engine and game code.
  • Meta-project & Public Relations lead — Responsible for public relations (any interactions with our player base and the outside world) as well as recruiting new developers.

  Input from project leads is considered only in some cases to be law, but that doesn't mean that discussion from other individuals will not change what the project leaders do or say. The aim of project leads is to guide, not rule: if a project lead has an unpopular opinion, it will not be enforced in any way. The development team as a whole is responsible for shaping Unvanquished, not a handful of individuals. Developers are not expected to do what they are asked, but if a project lead makes a request, then there is generally a reason for it.

• Developers, These are all those who actively make large contributions (in terms of effort) to the project.
• Contributors, These are those who have made smaller or more infrequent contributions to the project, or who do not wish to get too involved.
• Users, Those who play the game but do not contribute any further than to merely provide discussion fall into this category.

How often is there a release?

The game is currently in Beta.

In the past releases were made once a month but because of most members of the team being busy in their lives, releases are now made at a slower pace (mostly when people are available to sustain a release).

Where does discussion take place?

Unlike many open-source projects, we do not have a mailing list. Instead, discussion occurs in one of two places:

• The forums, where long-form discussion takes place, and
• The chat, where short-form discussion takes place.

Because of the verbose nature of the forums, they are the preferred destination for any serious discussion. Moreover, the forums allow individuals from all timezones the opportunity to contribute to discussion, and discussion generally stays much more on-topic.

Do note that there are two separate forums for discussion:

• "Development", and
• "Community Development".

Development is for the development of official features of the game to be shipped in a future release. It's focused on Media contributions as most of the code discussion happens in GitHub issues.

Community Development is for any development around the game (like mods, new tools, etc.) without any need to be released as a core part of the game and then not requiring the same constraints. Some experiments may be done as community development first then be integrated with the game or as official product.

The Development forum also has a sub-forum named Project Planning that currently requires Contributor or Developer status to be seen.

There are also two other forums that are purposed for artists: Level Design and Map Releases, the first one is for discussions about level design techniques, architecture or inspiration, level design tools, showing off your in progress work, etc. while the second one is dedicated to release threads for your maps, being official or not.