New pub money system

[Dexter]

(Can I ask this question to other Dev members, especially the)
....head of Dev !!!!!!!!! if there is one !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

NOCKM, the answer is No, there is no head dev.

Wow..hello everyone! Nice to see you all talking on here.

yeah yeah, amazing participation, at least on forum.

Well, what happened is/was simple: I coded the system and it was ready to go, I was excited and thought everyone would like it.
It was my fault, yes, I should have put it in other arena to "test" and check if everyone would easily adapt to it and enjoy the new gameplay.

Unfortunately, I had no one to back me up. I had no idea it would happen. Totally no idea, since I never worked with public like this, I'm just a programmer and was very excited with the good theories I used into the system, I could see a complex thing I've built and wanted to show everyone it.
Then none was there to say "No dexter, you should put it in other arena to do a "public test" and announce it on forums."
Thats the current situation.
All the well-public-experienced bot developers quit... 2dragons->maverick.
So I had no shoulders to loan on, all I had was a bomb(to you) that I programmed and didn't know it was a "bomb".

Its amazing: I'm not the idea's creator, just someone who coded it. A group X asked me to make the bot work like that, so thats what I did. Then I said:"Done!" and I was allowed to put it online.

BOOM! Everyone was pointing on me around the forums, and not the group X.

Even more amazing to see that just 1 person of the group X posted here, wow!

Its like when you have a problem on your internet connection, then you phone to the service and blame the guy thats giving attention and trying to help you.

To me, it was all tested. I did my own tests to check if the program was working or not. It was working nice, so, like any programmer, I just updated it and had no idea I was offending someone. Sorry.

Anyways, its very simple to add and remove features into it(or at least WAS...)
So, all you had to do is deal with me, asking nicely what could be added and removed. But no, where is the respect here?
...just some constructive comments like Nockm's/Ara's and the rest is crap.

About distension: I didn't know how it worked, since I never played it. All I knew about was that the bot has 14k lines of code: at first time I looked at that, I was afraid and ran away. 14k code on ONE CLASS-FILE. This means I never knew anything about distension and the similarity with it was COINCIDENCE(No, cheese! never asked me to bring it back, so leave him alone.)

What I'm trying to say: Something on TW is messed up and the high staff needs to fix it, this is WHAT HAPPENS when we have a mess. I was "inside" it and no one was there to back me up and show it(Pub Store) in the best way to you.

So a big change should happen and I already suggested it to the sysop before I quit - we need people on their right place and positions.

I loved everyone of you, even the trolling newbies. Thats why all I wanted: to make you all have more fun in a new gameplay. Of course, you all have the right and SHOULD refuse what ever you don't like. But not pointing on someone(me) like this.
Again, saying "He worked hard and thats why they are forcing us to use it" is really a stupid comment to whoever did it. I don't care if I wasted my time, I don't give a shit. All I know is that I had something back: programming experience. Because I tried to do a system with the best computating theories and made it work nicely, so thats what I did and I had a good experience back, was just like a training. If I lost or not my own time, thats not the question. Not showing off saying the "system is nice coded", but trying to show you all that you have the right to say a big NO to the system and should do it if you want.

So this is the situation, the program is still around and can be turned to a good thing if you all help the developers you have left.
Just some 10% left of coding to the perfection, removing items and adding, its very simple to do it.

Anyways, I quit. Thats fine, I don't care.
I just quit because I don't have the time to do voluntary development anymore AND I'm not motivated after it all. So you all can do your party celebrating it! (:

I'm not replying here, I have nothing to do with it anymore: the project is DONE already and whoever is willing to do small changes can feel free.
Good luck to you all, hope you enjoy the zone for the next few years without any fix/update, because the last one that tried was almost burnt out by the players!
Again, say whatever you want, I'm not replying and I won't even have time to read the next posts.
Good bye and thanks to everyone that has done the constructive comments, because if someone maintenances the PubStore, all those posts will help him/her.

Important Post Script: If you are professional enough, don't close this thread and the other one, because this is the only way the players can request changes and complain. There were/are not enough rules to handle the stupid trolling on me/others staffers, so if this has happened already, don't solve this with a "close", because this is the result of a mess.

I didn't want to offend anyone, not the staff and not the players, but the truth should be faced.

Remember: “We build too many walls and not enough bridges.” Isaac Newton
Don't be stupid, you, player. If you want a better game to play, help who ever is trying to help.

Attached: UML Class diagram of the whole project.


ok ok now I'm gone, bye

[Veloce]

Assuming we're arguing over whether or not this new system is a good change for tw publics, I'd say if you took out the posters making personal attacks on cheese along with his responses, and any reference to distension as a weapon of attack (because the new pub money system is not distension), I think you could go as far to say that people are interested and think positively about the new system.

[Ephemeral]

I am pretty sure that history has proven that the 'build it and they will come' is not correct way to make a project successful.
Nor is floating new stuff just because a coder can do something. The path to success is to develop a plan, measure marketability, write the spec, build the product, test it until you can’t stand it anymore, then release it.

I also belong to the 'the best designs are when there is nothing left to remove, not when there is nothing left to add' school. I don't want my browser to do email, manage my contacts, do OCR or voice recognition, and be my MP3 player. In the same way, I don't want TW to be 250 arenas, have 300 different events, and support 10 leagues.

But that’s just me. Time has been, and will be, the judge and jury.
Eph

[Stabwound]

This thread is a perfect example of why everything is going down the tubes.

Dexter is good guy and was one of the few people who are both willing AND able to do programming stuff for the zone. Seriously, someone in this category is about 1/10,000 in this community. The pub money idea is good and can definitely be fun, but yes, it needs tweaking and probably shouldn't have been put into pubs in its current state. This was the only mistake. I will also admit that I had no idea about this system before it was implemented, and as upper staff I probably should have. I'm not entirely sure whose fault that is. There was very little talk about this system that I ever saw, and this is probably a good indicator of the poor communication that exists between different sections of staff.

Having said that, the people of this zone are absolutely pathetic. I can't believe some of the comments here; you come across like spoiled little kids (which I'm sure some actually are) and you have no clue what you're doing by shitting on the people that are the backbone of this game. Also, if you're comparing this to Distention then you've clearly never played Distension. This is simply meant to be an extension of the ?buy system. Some of the ignorant comments in this thread have been pretty telling.

Anyway, I would be willing to tweak the pub money system into something acceptable to the public. There's no reason why this can't be a positive thing for the zone. Judging by some of the feedback I've seen, the biggest issue is that some of the purchasable items should be a lot more expensive. That would be pretty trivial to tweak.

[kthx]

Obviously you missed a majority of the problems with this Stabwound.

Did you know that certain players were coded into the system as "banned" from using the system which basically forced them to at the time play in only ships 1/3/5/7/8 with the capability of players to be able to ban the use of the warbird which limited them even further? But I suppose you knew about this by having no knowledge of it even taking place in the first place.

At first, and what most people complained about was that ship 1 was lockable, ship 2 had to be bought, and ship 6 had to be bought even though ship 1/2 are pretty normal basing ships and should never be locked out of a public arena. Do you not find a problem with upon entering this game changing the selection of ships from 8 to 4/5? I am assuming you didn't since you so much as admitted you had no clue that any of this was happening in the first place.

This is why this was compared to distension which I admit was basically me saying it at first. The comparisons are there, you had to play in a set few ships at first, and as you gained money(exp) you could buy(unlock) other ships to play in that other players couldn't. By hard coding bans to certain players into the system it pretty much evaded following the zones rules and procedures on punishing players and much like distension set up a select few people into becoming a separate staff if you will that wasn't accountable to anyone. I bet you didn't know this since you didn't know that any of this was happening in the first place.

There was also a large issue with dexter himself who coded the change to the public arena actively abusing his knowledge of the system in the public arena when it was first started. I was there when it was running and heard numerous complaints from players who thought he was actually cheating. The systems lock on the amount of items you could buy was broken and he was flying around spamming !buy full charge (or whatever the command was) and basically having super. You would think since it was originally designed to only be able to buy 3 of an item a minute or so that he wouldn't have abused his knowledge of this and instead fixed the mistake. But once again I am sure that you didn't know anything about this Stabwound.

-----

The point is please don't come in here and read Dexter's post, assume that everyone in the thread who had problems with this system are "fucking immature piece of shit assholes" and act like you have any idea of what you are talking about when like I have repeated after every paragraph, you didn't even know this fucking happened until you read about it on the forums. There was plenty of problems with it, and to be fair Dexter fixed a majority of them, and especially the ones that I personally had a problem with such as the hard coded bans to specific players, ship 2 having to be bought despite being a popular ?go base ship, and the ability to disable warbirds. However by the time these problems were fixed the damage was done, the population of TW the vets who talk on these forums and the general population of the pubs at the time that this was implemented overwhelmingly decided that they didn't like this change. So anyways next time you come to the forums and attempt to embarrass people into admitting they were assholes, please do what you suggested that staff should do, and try to get some communication from the players who were playing at the time, and who actually know what they are talking about.

Thanks,
Kthx.

[kthx]

On another note, proper testing in TW would have corrected many of these mistakes before they got introduced to the public as what we at the time thought was a permanent change and the outcry wouldn't have been there. Overall the buying of items and earning money is a great change for the public, and Dexter is a great coder who I think genuinely was trying to help the zone. But things are what they are.

[Stabwound]

Nice long rant, but I was there when it was first put into pub and I personally asked for the jav restriction to be removed, and I also know all about the "bannings" and whatever and spoke about it on the upper staff chat channel. I've been reading this thread since day one. Just because I haven't been posting here doesn't mean I haven't been talking about it with other staff. I said I didn't know about this system until it was implemented and the ?help calls started rolling in- referring to Dexter's point about him having no staff support nor anyone telling him that he should test it outside of pub before implementing it. The zone recycled and the system was just put into effect without him even notifying anyone that it was being done. I think this was all a surprise to almost everyone, including the majority of staff. Nowhere did I say I haven't been following and being involved in this, but no, I did not know about this until it was put into pub.

People in this game are so quick to attack and denigrate the people that put work into it. You were staff for a long time and surely must know what I'm talking about. When people start personally attacking someone that was trying to help improve the game, that's total bullshit. Bot coding and website work is the most thankless job there is, and it's no wonder Dexter quit after the behaviour of some people in reaction to the new money system.

Also, my point still stands that the biggest problem right now is that super and some of the other things you can buy are too cheap/common.

[kthx]

Right but don't you think that during my five years on staff that I had a few dickheads call me out for hosting the thousands of events I hosted? Being thin skinned isn't enough reason for me to be apologetic about something that we have every right to question.

[Xog]

Fyi guys, arobas has been working on some pretty awesome !buy specialties that i helped test a bit. This system isnt finished yet and i think u should wait for the big guns to come out. Some thangs might be changing and more cool tricks are being added.The system u saw before was there for large scale testing

[Nockm]

Fyi guys, arobas has been working on some pretty awesome !buy specialties that i helped test a bit. This system isnt finished yet and i think u should wait for the big guns to come out. Some thangs might be changing and more cool tricks are being added.The system u saw before was there for large scale testing

Thanks for telling us about these big gun ideas and asking for our opinions before rolling them out.

[Jason]

definitely a shame to see dexter get shafted so badly. he's a great guy and yet another victim of the absolute abyss that is tw staff.

agreeing with nockm here, i just don't understand all the secrecy? why aren't these things publicly discussed from day one? if that would have happened in this case, allllll this hullabaloo would've been easily avoided. we'd still have a dedicated and very competent coder on our side. and we would also probably have a fun twist on pub to dick around with from time to time.

organization, responsibility, management, PUBLIC RELATIONS, come on these are not tough concepts, yet they always plague every new project that comes along. dev gets the worst of it all the time, too. i've had some limited interactions with the dev team over the years, and those poor guys are always treated as an afterthought. left out of every loop. why?

[Nockm]

Muppets.

It's as some people haven't soaked in the two main ideas of this thread that, to me were painfully obvious:

1. You have to communicate and, at least let the public feel included in your plans.
2. Cheese's actions have both caused Dexter to quit and the image of TW Dev to be at an all-time low. It's only a matter of time till he causes the next catastrophe. He must be removed immediately.
3. Whoever's in charge: Say something.

[roxxkatt]

Cheese's actions have both caused Dexter to quit

this is why noone listens to you, fyi

[Nockm]

EDIT: Removed a whole bunch of crap...

Well I know when I'm beat. Looks like staff think you're fine, so like I said - I'll leave it at that.
I've not said anything bad about you (Cheese) as a actual developer who creates things. If I said or gave that impression, I retract it since I'm not knowledgeable about you at all. I'll leave that evaluation to the better-informed members of the public.

However what I will say, is that I don't think you're the best-equipped person to speak on behalf of the Dev team. From what I see, you mean well and give up a lot of your time, and hopefully you'll see what I mean one day. Or maybe I'll see what you mean, who knows.


Best regards and carry on making cool stuff!

[Ephemeral]

1. Assigning blame is different than determining root cause. Determining root cause has value, assigning blame does not. Stop using names.

2. Feature creep is common to all development. Recognize it and recognize when developers are doing it. Every developer wants to add crap just because they think it is cool. What a developer thinks is cool is meaningless. What users think is cool has value.

This isn’t rocket science.
eph