Development:Joining the project

So you want to join this project, but you have little or no idea how to get into? The Mana World development team is not a closed circle like other projects. You needn't apply to anyone or ask for "being taken into the team". You don't have to ask for permission to work on something or wait for someone to assign a task to you. A team member is basically everyone who volunteers to do something for the project.

But keep in mind that we do have a quality standard and will not add game content that isn't good enough in the teams opinion. Also it might be good to ask what is needed and what is being worked on to make sure that you aren't wasting your time.

This page should provide you with the necessary starting points. It can always be rather difficult to know what to start with, especially when you're just jumping in. However, any help is most welcome and with some time you should be able to decide what you want to work on yourself.

General organisation

To know what is currently happening or what could be worked on, we have a few important pages on the wiki. The roadmap provides a planning for upcoming releases, where sometimes tasks are assigned or listed to be picked up by somebody. There is a bugs page holding a list of known problems which are generally free for anybody to look into. Finally there is the suggestions page where anybody can put his wishlist for the game, and where anybody can look for inspiration when looking for something to do.

These pages and others are linked from the organisation section on the main page.

It is very important for you to be available for discussion with other developers on our IRC channels from time to time, as we do most of our discussions there. We also have two important mailing lists, one for development discussion and one that shows all changes made to the source code, that you should subscribe to:

• http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/themanaworld-devel
  The developers mailing list where discussion about the project happens.
• http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/themanaworld-commit
  The commit mailing list, so that you can easily stay up to date about the latest change to the source code.

Finally, although not required, you are invited to visit our forums:

• http://forums.themanaworld.org/

Programmers

Refer to: Bjørn, Crush, ElvenProgrammer

Our current projects include the existing client which is used with eAthena (a Ragnarok Online server emulator), and a new client/server combination which isn't used yet but is being worked on. For the currently used eAthena client, check out tmw/branches/0.0. For the new client/server combination, check out both tmwserv/trunk and tmw/trunk. See our Subversion project page about how to do this. Try to browse the source to see if you can get a bit familiar with them.

When you are searching for something you could do you should check our bug- and task tracking system on http://mantis.themanaworld.org. It lists a lot of small and large problems on many different areas. Just pick one that interests you.

Your first contributions could be in the form of patches submitted to the SourceForge patches tracker or the developer mailing list. Please check the hacking guidelines before writing your patches. If it turns out you like the project and you want to keep contributing for a long period, we'll consider giving you write access to subversion and from then on you can commit your changes to the source yourself.

Artists

Refer to: len, ElvenProgrammer

Our graphic design team can always use help. May it be just an inventory icon, a new monster or a complete Tileset. Improving existing graphics is also always welcome. When you want to do a task, then you should announce it on the Graphic Development Forum, post regular updates there and add yourself to the Assignments Page. But be sure to read our style guidelines first.

You should also hang out on our graphic design channel #tmwart [1]. It is good for a little brainstorming session or for showing small pieces of work you don't want to show to the whole community yet.

Mappers

Refer to: Crush, ElvenProgrammer

Creating maps is a task that does not require much experience but is a great way to add more value to the game. More information about how to map can be found on the article Mapping Tutorial. Be sure to check out our Map development guidelines, too.