Case Study 2 - Team dynamic

Like before, let's jump directly to the problem.
1. Working with people who you are already acquainted with work/project:
Pros:
- This has a huge and undeniable advantage, which is that we people can almost expect(or know) the ability and the dedication of the members as we already experienced working with them in some work or project.
- Also, as the we experienced working with people before, the co-operation can become easier, so that the flow of the project/work is easier to control.
- No risk like working with new people, when we don't have a real understanding of them yet. Anything can happen (although that in CS3216, I don't think there's risk out there working with new people, but in normal life, people we don't know much can be real great and real fit the project, or on the other hand, can be real lazy and don't want to dedicate much, then working with the second people can really contain certain risk. Of course, this can be partly handled by finding more and more information about potential team mates in advance, but I don't think taht it can be completely dealt with, i.e, there can be still risk)

Cons:
- Lose chance to meet new people, in my opinion, one people does not need to have only 'dream team', in fact there can be many dream team out there, and if we keep working with the only 'dream team' we have formed so far, we will lose the great chance to working with new people.
- Life is not as poetry, we can ensure that we will always be able to work with people we know and want to work with, so if working with new people can really enhance and improve our experience and ability to work in a group of new people, which I think is a must-have skill in life.


Conclusion:
- Should work with new people when it's not so necessary to work with acquainted ones, i.e, some minor project, but should work acquainted people when there is an urge to work, i.e, important project (like final project in cs3216). Both working with new and old people are skills that should be learnt and improve in life, the first is to learn, and the second is to enhance.

2. Important trait:
- Frankly, I have no trait inside me. Now that the assignment mentions it, I think seriously I should have at least some things in mind first. Now I only have some characteristics I look for in my team mate (now I only look for and expect). Will fill in and expect more and more later on.
- Firstly, the team member should be hard-working and dedicate hard work for the team project. I think this is the most important thing.
- Secondly, I expect and want to, but not must, work with somewhat same-level people (not greatly different I mean). For example, I don't want to work with damn good people, when all I have to do is sitting there, doing nothing except staring or seeing people working. I don't like it, seriously. I want to do, want to dedicate, and I real feel bad if doing nothing in the project. I'm not the kind wanting free grade. Seriously I can learn from them, by seeing them working or asking question, but I want to do, that's what really matters. Luckily until now I have never work with damn good people (Patrick is almost indeed). First assignment has nothing to explain, indeed I really enjoy working with them and I will work with them again for the final project. Google Wave assignment is a little bit like that, when seriously I did no programming at all, even though I am a programmer. Patrick wrote the code at first (which was very much), and then Xecheng join the programming side, and Google Wave assignment (or my assignment) doesn't require 3 programmers to code, it's not that large I think. So I ended up doing the write-up things, lol, poor me. Indeed I did feel bad, but I think this time it was not that they were too ways high level than me, but it is I who was ways low level than them (can you get it?), and I will become strong later on :), the GW assignment was not the same as the 'damn good people' I described above. Anyway, back to the GW assignment, some how I also enjoyed working with them, it was really nice working Xecheng and Patrick, really, really nice, and if one asks me whether I want to work with them again, then definitely yes, and I will dedicate as well that time, not like before.
- That's all for the second question.

3. lol, I was there looking and asking "what is VC????" (although I can guess), the assignment listed it here while introducing about it later on, haha. Anyway, about the question, I dont really know, the only thing I see by now is that there's two game designer, so there might be some conflict in the game design.

4. Working with talented people or people you like? People I like, definitely. The first reason can be like I described in question 2, when working with really dam good people. Secondly, talented people but I don't like can negatively affect the bond and the co-operation. Thirdly, generally I like not-lazy people and in my opinion, every single person has it own talents, so everyone is talented in some way, the key is that whether they can do their good in the project (i.e, I only mean that there's no talented aspect here). Still don't know how to express, but I really, really like and seriously want to work with people I like, and seriously don't want to work with people I dislike (still can work if must, I will temporarily consider I don't dislike them, or consider this is the chance to stop disliking them) - the second is rare, cos normally and generally I don't dislike people, very few up to now. People I don't like or dislike, still want to work, just that not as 'want' as people I like.



Part 2:
1. recommend a simpler design or encourage keep that completely strange design. I dont know, seriously. I am not a casual gamer, I am a hardcore (partly) gamer. I don't see any special interest in Mafia Wars (the others I haven't seen yet) and I see no point playing it, but a huge amount of people playing it, and I completely don't understand why. And another point prof mention is that no game that requires IQ more than 40 has been successful in fb, also don't really understand, but take it into account, it reflects the target and current users out there that we should concentrate on. In face, redesign as many things as possible is great in my opinion, but the potential risk is also high as well. Still don't know whether to recommend simpler design or encourage keeping like that, frankly. I like the redesign the whole thing, but my instinct tells me that it is damn risky.....
2. If my opinion, if there were a 5th programmer in the team, things would be more smooth, although there are still certain disadvantages. Ken and Gareth can deeply concentrate on the game design without worrying about the programming part, so that it can become better. Han also have people to share the work so the amount of work he carries is not great. But a disadvantage is that at times the programmer do not produce the expected result as the designer want, and if the designer want to change something, he must contact with a programmer, and if the designmer want to experiment different designs, things will become a little trouble some, sometimes he might not want to disturb the programmers so that he refuses to experiment instead.

Enough for now.....