Backup Zone

[ronaldinho]

Can't tell if it's true, but I heard 24 brought clothes for his son with donated money.

[Voth]

Rab is actually right. Why are we still dependent on Priitk to host the shitty server TW runs on? TW staff are powerless to do anything, and the only excuse I've seen as to why we don't control our own zone is money, yet somehow the bot server is paid for without problems. Why can't TW be run on the bot server then? Is 20+ year old 2d game really taking up that much bandwidth?

As for money issues, this is what's shown on the TW site (if it's not updated, that's Staff's fault):

Description	You choose for me	Cash Events	Advertizing	Charity	TW Development	Totals
Amount Donated	$9,1175.56	$1,428.00	$2979.00	$925.00	$1,108.00	$15.615.56
Paypay Fees	$256.12	$35.52	$94.06	$31.08	$1.08	$416.78
Actual $ Donated	$8,919.44	$1,392.48	$2,884.94	$893.92	$1,106.92	$15,198.78
Money Spent	$3,524.07	$1,243.50	$525.00	$187.72	$4329.86
Actual $ Available	$5,395.37	$148.98	$2,359.94	$706.20	$-3,222.94	$5,388.63

There's 'supposedly' $5,000 available, although none of us have seen bank statements (which takes less than 2 minutes to produce in 2019). If you cut out all the bullshit like Advertizing (waste of time/money), Charity (what is being considered 'charity' and why is this even an option?), or Cash Events (completely useless when TW can't even keep a server up), then you could consolidate the money into being realistic and useful, and possibly people like me would donate.

If you set up a TW Server Fund to go along with the TW Dev fund (or whatever pays for the bot server and/or people like qan for his time), and you actually produced bills/bank statements showing where the money is actually going, then I know I'd have no problem paying for it. I do have plenty of issues with how donations are currently set up, because none of us know who controls the bank account, how each dollar is actually spent in detail, or if it's even being managed responsibly. Just as an example (don't take this personally anyone, because I'm not accusing you), if someone on the Dev team takes money as payment for their time/effort in making a website or coding bots, how much are they getting paid exactly? Are they being paid salary or per hour? How much is that, and is it industry standard, below standard, or obvious corruption? With $4000 spent on TW Development, what part goes to paying Devs and what part goes to the bot server? For example, if someone fronted $5000 to a coder/team of coders to create a Subspace clone in 2019, I'm willing to bet it could easily be done. I could go on Fiver and find someone to make a barely functioning TWL website, so where's the rest of the money going? Priitk made a Subspace clone (Continuum) by himself for free, and there have been multiple projects done by volunteers to create one themselves (albiet all were abandoned), so why hasn't anything been done on that front with the funds available? You wasted $1,200 on Cash Events to buy some nerds pizzas or pay them for winning elim games, but then claim there's no money for TW to not be down whenever Priitk fails to pay for the server?

I don't want to sound like there's obvious corruption, but I will say that the donation fund is not transparent at all, and I really don't know why the money has been spent in the ways it has. It looks like obvious mismanagement to me when I hear TW Staff say that hosting a server costs money and there are money issues, yet the bot server is paid for and there's been $15,000 donated already. For that amount of cash, minus the bot server and paying off some Devs (assuming they took a fair fee and actually did the work before buying a television with it, cough cough), we could have had an updated, fully-functioning Subspace clone (and access to our own server) by now. Instead, we rely entirely on Priitk (who is extremely hard to get ahold of) to do everything for us, and the minute he just doesn't pay the bill, TW is gone for good. The server is already a piece of shit, so I highly doubt he's paying top dollar to keep this zone alive. It's not 2002 anymore, so there's literally no excuse left as to why things have remained this way.

There are a lot of valid questions brought up in this post, Exalt. I don't have all the details on the account and how money is allocated, but I'm sure qan will let you know when he has a moment.

One thing I can tell you, though, is that it is my understanding that all of our development staff (qan, BIET, Wirah, AngelGirl, etc..sorry if I'm missing people) do their work for the zone for free and are not paid an hourly wage or any type of salary for their time. If that is not the case, that is news to me, and I'd be very surprised.

[Falconeer]

Except Rab isn't the one to say this first, I was saying this since last year to move TW to AS3 and get your own billing otherwise the next time TW goes down it might not come up again. Said this in nearly to the point of harassment of qan and TW staff.

I was the also first to question the donations needed and ask for transparency there.

[Jessup]

Except Rab isn't the one to say this first, I was saying this since last year to move TW to AS3 and get your own billing otherwise the next time TW goes down it might not come up again. Said this in nearly to the point of harassment of qan and TW staff.

I was the also first to question the donations needed and ask for transparency there.

Ya falc you have been consistent with this, I won't disagree. You are also not alone in attempting to minimize this vulnerability the zone has faced for years. Ever since the last DDOS attack many people including myself have voiced these concerns.

[Grasps]

Was like.. thought this thread was on page 2.. then I remembered.. I have our forum trolls on ignore (jesstard and falconerd).

Anywho. Qan, do you have any ETA on when TW is coming back? You said you was going to update us on what's going on then went radio silent. Just curious. Also, this stuff Exalt brought to light could use some explaining though I am not accusing anyone of anything and believe you guys have been running tw legit. I support you guys and wouldn't even question the matter but it's been brought up and would look good to at least offer up something to quiet those who are concerned. My main concern is tw and being able to play it. Got another new keyboard (2nd in little over a week) and really need to get some playtime with it lol Cheers.

-IxaDor

[bandcampgirl]

play these CLASSICS online for free http://www.free80sarcade.com/all2600games.php

So fun

[Grasps]

If you're too poor like jessup to play games on steam, I'd recommend http://www.snesfun.com/ for flash based games. Been using this site for nearly a decade, it's safe and free of malware/virus's plus has an incredible amount of games. That link is for the super nintendo but on the right side of the webpage is a bar that has links to the atari, neogeo, dos, sega genisis, nes and more. You can also save your progress for any game you invest time in and lots of them support gamepads. Cheers.

[qan]

The donation details haven't been updated in some time, it's true.

If you see the donations page at current, it makes it clear that 100% of all money is going toward (bot/web/database) server costs at present. That's been the case for probably 3-4 years now.

Donation breakdown page should probably be updated to reflect this. (Along with a hundred other pages.) This is what happens with a makeshift dev team. This is nobody's actual job. Amazing we can keep running, tbh.

To make it clear, devs are not paid. It's pretty much all volunteer work. In fact, I once quit my job to live off savings for a few months to develop TW full time. There have been a few instances where we farm out work to those outside the community, such as to make the TW-Chat app, or for certain designs. Other than that, the thousands of hours put in have all been done for the love of the zone.

Re: paying someone to make an SS clone for $5K, you could, but it would be a pile of absolute garbage. Good luck finding one competent developer to work longer than a month or month and a half for $5K. You could pay a college student, but you get what you pay for. Such a clone also wouldn't be able to use any of the bots that run a lot of the functionality of the game.

The logs of the payments made over the years show 24 is not guilty of the accusations of buying monitors, TVs, kids' clothes, etc. It's a TW urban legend at this point.

Finally, the reason the server is down has nothing to do with money, just as a heads up. Fortunately there are a lot of people both on staff and in the playerbase who can help fund it.

Still working on it, though. It's not a quick fix ... the server is from 2003. More info to come. Sorry not to be more forthcoming.

[Exalt]

Finally, the reason the server is down has nothing to do with money, just as a heads up. Fortunately there are a lot of people both on staff and in the playerbase who can help fund it.

Still working on it, though. It's not a quick fix ... the server is from 2003. More info to come. Sorry not to be more forthcoming.

This sounds to me like hardware failure, especially when you say it's nothing to do with money, yet lots of people can 'help pay for it'.

Also, Continuum is essentially a mobile game at this point, minus the micro-transactions. There's no need to hire a writer to create a storyline. The graphics are about as simple as they could possibly get. The bots have already been written, and I'm sure they can be integrated. Much of the code is open source as well. If someone were hypothetically paid to create an SS clone, it isn't like they'd be working from scratch with an idea that's never been done before. Subspace is over 20+ years old, and it isn't even the only game of it's kind. Infantry and the other Sony space game was called was also a thing. There's games like Transcendence which are basically single-player versions of it. There are other games out there on various platforms as well. Simply put, this isn't about reinventing the wheel here. Still, let's say it costs $20-$100k. That's basically a small-potatoes kickstarter, and you already have a community of dedicated adults in their 30s to advertise it to. This is all hypothetical, but the truth is that Subspace will die eventually, regardless of whether the servers are up or not, and there will be nothing new to take it's place. Saying 'it can't be done' is the surest way of ensuring that

This is just my $0.02 though.

[qan]

In order to work with the current bots/servers/etc, the trick is reverse-engineering much of the code. This is what POiD continues to do on QuantumSpace. It's not a trivial thing. Making your own protocol is easier, but if you have to fit an old protocol exactly, and it's not 100% clear how it's always done, it requires a ridiculous amount of detective work. Why do you think nobody's done it up until now? I think there've probably been 10-15 different client replacement projects over the years.

There's also an issue of SS following a largely client-authoritative model. It's very old-fashioned. Basically, the player's client reports various things, and the server believes it as gospel, such as "I died." The server then sends out this info to other clients. On most modern games, the server has the authority, and tells clients when they died. "You died. Start death code." Etc. Client-authoritative games like SS are extremely prone to cheating. Without PriitK's legendary protections, any client-authoritative model is going to be at extreme risk of cheating. (I'm not yet sure how POiD plans to handle this.) Bottom line, there are several problems that don't have easy solutions.

One possible system would be a hybrid that would allow bots to connect with the old protocol, and players to connect only with a newer one, which would be more server-authoritative. However, it wouldn't be butter-smooth like Continuum is. For example, you know how in some multiplayer games, you're traveling along, and then suddenly your position is reset back a bit? This is the server correcting your position -- having authority over you. This would happen in SS with a new protocol. And inevitably people would complain/laugh, and say "LOL these coders so dumb can't even do it as good as they did it more than 20 years ago. ebin fail bra" ... Etc.

Wirah and I did talk at one point about some kind of SS-based startup. Might be a fun project. But, not sure such a thing would ever get off the ground.

[Jessup]

Beta Test is out for Vidiot/Richard Betson's Phoenix USC

Pretty nice graphics and used some continuum mechanics.

[Rab]

If I was going to attempt it I'd start from scratch on a client and server and bots and website, it's easier than dealing with backwards compatibility, and is an opportunity to modernise it all.

The bit I'd have to learn from scratch is how to actually render stuff on the client, make maps, detect collisions, etc.

And there's some tech choices to make. I'm most familiar with C#.NET, but there's a temptation to use JS to make it browser-based, and if anyone else got involved they'd have their own preferences.

I'm happy to actually attempt it and see how easy/hard it turns out to be. I'm just hesitant that it might be a waste of time and money if it's never used, because while SS still works people will continue to use it.

[Falconeer]

We've got people already off doing their own thing with 5+ clients... if you're listening to qan then you'll remember he quit his job in the past to dev what we have here full time. We need people to dev for the game currently, not more people off on their own projects, isolated from each other, and not working together... sigh.

[Bluff]

In order to work with the current bots/servers/etc, the trick is reverse-engineering much of the code. This is what POiD continues to do on QuantumSpace. It's not a trivial thing. Making your own protocol is easier, but if you have to fit an old protocol exactly, and it's not 100% clear how it's always done, it requires a ridiculous amount of detective work. Why do you think nobody's done it up until now? I think there've probably been 10-15 different client replacement projects over the years.

There's also an issue of SS following a largely client-authoritative model. It's very old-fashioned. Basically, the player's client reports various things, and the server believes it as gospel, such as "I died." The server then sends out this info to other clients. On most modern games, the server has the authority, and tells clients when they died. "You died. Start death code." Etc. Client-authoritative games like SS are extremely prone to cheating. Without PriitK's legendary protections, any client-authoritative model is going to be at extreme risk of cheating. (I'm not yet sure how POiD plans to handle this.) Bottom line, there are several problems that don't have easy solutions.

One possible system would be a hybrid that would allow bots to connect with the old protocol, and players to connect only with a newer one, which would be more server-authoritative. However, it wouldn't be butter-smooth like Continuum is. For example, you know how in some multiplayer games, you're traveling along, and then suddenly your position is reset back a bit? This is the server correcting your position -- having authority over you. This would happen in SS with a new protocol. And inevitably people would complain/laugh, and say "LOL these coders so dumb can't even do it as good as they did it more than 20 years ago. ebin fail bra" ... Etc.

Wirah and I did talk at one point about some kind of SS-based startup. Might be a fun project. But, not sure such a thing would ever get off the ground.

I guess we can safely assume that TW will not be returning for quite some time? This ?sounds more serious than it sounds.?

All jokes aside, I think we owe you guys a big thanks for putting forth the effort. It sounds like a hefty project considering all of the obstacles. I hope this doesn?t undo or otherwise damage the stored data for players, squads, etc. Sounds like you all know what you?re doing.

[Rnadom21]

We've got people already off doing their own thing with 5+ clients... if you're listening to qan then you'll remember he quit his job in the past to dev what we have here full time. We need people to dev for the game currently, not more people off on their own projects, isolated from each other, and not working together... sigh.

Couldn't agree more. It might sound appealing to be the hero that saves TW, but the chances are slim that it will work. Where/how is the dev effort coordinated?