current status of the Steam project

[Turban]

umm, to make this clear for the fifteenth time.

when i was appointed as the head sysop of trench wars, my sole responsibilies were to improving the league scene and the events, and help other in-game staff departments by giving them guidance, and more power and control. i was never appointed to help with the steam project, and that stance never changed until May 17th where i officially stated that i will have to start getting more involved with the project, and thus i will be giving a fast, honest attempt to push the project forward. i'm doing this because of the recent player concerns that have arised about the project, and only because of that. i could have kept focusing on doing my job for the last remaining days instead of trying to help.

the people who have been running the steam project since the beginning have become inactive, and have shown zero progress or attempts to push the project forward in the recent months, thus forcing others to start doing their job. unfortunately, i'm not of much use because i can not set up a NPO/LLC and bank account in the US, as i'm not a US citizen, thus all i can do is either taking a direct approach of actually getting the thing moving forward (finding one person), or relying on someone else to do the hard work to go with the second option. we are still open to do both, keep that in mind -- nothing is set in stone. however, this is a race against time, and i'm not going to be around for long thus someone else will have to take over if we go with plan B.

it's that simple. we can go with either path, but as stated above, if you want my help or assistance, things should start moving forward soon or we will get back to square one.

[roxxkatt]

or maybe they werent running anything at all from the beginning

i am not interested in politics, i am interested in results, and as long as you do things correctly, i will do everything in my power to assist you, but if you try a lazy copout i will do everything in my power to stop you

[roxxkatt]

and if you genuinely want to start getting involved with steam, your first, second, and third actions need to be having a conversation with:
1) cycad from eg
2) hallucination from chaos
3) spacehiker from ssc

at a bare minimum, because:
1) trying to make unilateral uninformed decisions is fucking stupid
2) they probably have resources you dont

[Turban]

hey,

if any american person actually wants to go through the effort of actually setting up a NPO or LLC, then setting/linking a bank account to that company/organization, be my guest and we can most definitely go with that approach. it's not too much work, mostly a matter of hours, and then pretty long of a waiting period to get it approved by the government. sadly, i wouldn't be of much use given my lackluster knowledge of the american laws, more specifically the varying state laws. however, i will assist with the final steps with Steam, and we can cover the expenses by using our donation funds. please contact us if you are interested of doing this before doing anything.

it would still be simpler to go with an individual singing the digital contract as it would basically accomplish the exact same thing, but free of charge and with no delay.

@ roxxkatt: why haven't any of these people you have mentioned taken any steps towards actually finishing this project? what exactly are they working on? has anyone claimed the copyright? while i would want them to be involved as well, it's still a race against time for me, and i'm not in the mood of playing subspace politics for few months or another year before anything actually happens, you can get someone else to do that in place of me. i have seen first hand how this game operates, both in SSC and zone level, and it's not fun to watch nor do i have any interest to part-take in it.

of course, if someone can actually set up a meeting with these aforementioned people this weekend, i'm down and will attend.

on a semi-related note, i know that mr ekted wants his name off the client (second programmer, priitk was the lead) if we get on steam, but that's about it.

[Godzero]

someone is checking up the Texas laws and procedures for creating an non-profit LLC or NPO for me, and we may have a lawyer working in the state who might help with it to save some expenses. i haven't talked with the guy in two months, but it's worth a shot.

Yes, It sounds like it would definitely be worth a shot.
If your contact falls through since you haven't talked to him in so long, could we not explore the option of using donation money to hire a lawyer directly?



Turban, I hope you know I am not trying to gang up on you here, I realize you are in a precarious public position that you took-up because others just abandoned it halfway through.
I am just asking questions to get answers. It is the only way I have learned anything about what is going on.

the terms only apply to the client that priit wrote, part of which he probably stole, and not to the protocol and not to the billing servers and not to the directory servers and not to the zone servers

i can have a person of your choosing in contact with the people who actually own the copyrights to the game within the month, during which process you can determine which rights they actually own, and you would know there is a ssc netop who is already set up to host the biller indefinitely

These are very potent implications to say the least. Would staff be willing to review the terms or his SSC contacts?

[Turban]

Yes, It sounds like it would definitely be worth a shot.
If your contact falls through since you haven't talked to him in so long, could we not explore the option of using donation money to hire a lawyer directly?



Turban, I hope you know I am not trying to gang up on you here, I realize you are in a precarious public position that you took-up because others just abandoned it halfway through.
I am just asking questions to get answers. It is the only way I have learned anything about what is going on.

at this point, i'm down to doing anything that gets us forward instead of having to go through this eternal mexican standoff which is likely to never yield any results.

it's apparently rather easy to actually set up a NPO or LLC, granted the fees do vary a lot depending on the state, some even having annual fees up to 800 USD, thus we definitely would want to use one of the cheaper options. however, finding someone to actually do the dirty work (filling the forms, sending it, getting the form notarized, setting up bank accounts, finding additional members if necessary) is easier said than done. it definitely does not help that every upper staff member in trench wars, with the exception of two or three, are european -- something that should change soon, thankfully.

i'm not taking anything to heart. trolls can continue to be trolls, my skin is thick enough to not care about the hate -- it's a wasted effort on their part, truly.

These are very potent implications to say the least. Would staff be willing to review the terms or his SSC contacts?

already stated that it's the client that i'm worried about, and roxxkatt basically said that "they" would want to modify the client to make it compatible with the steam workshop and what not. this is the only thing that i do not want to see happening at any point.

no one honestly should care as much about the biller project, and the other side projects, as they are something that are either never going to happen, or won't finish in at least a couple of months -- most importantly, they are not directly related to the steam project at all. not to forget the fact is that trench wars can not influence the decisions of subspace council as their members hate us with passion, given our long history of conflicts. however, we do hope that they will make an announcement to give us time to prepare (back up data, hopefully find a new server host) if anything were to happen in the future. we already know that spacehiker is possibly going to be hosting the new biller if it ever finishes, granted he doesn't seem have much hope on it ever finishing based on what i have heard from various sources .. but yeah, that is a story for a different time.

if someone of the aforementioned people (spacehiker, cycad, hallucination) can contact me in-game, or respond to this thread with facts, it would be a nice. there is no need or room for secrecy.



alas, our priority is to get this game on steam as soon as possible. other zones can help, and most definitely should help, but sadly most (whether it's upper staff, or sysops of other zones) are not willing to lift a single finger until someone else starts doing something. we can talk always about preparing for the launch and all that, but nothing will happen as it will remain as all talk. the history has proven this true on a number of occasions, and doubt that will ever change. the politics of this game always delay everything by an unreasonable amount of time, and eventually end up cancelling projects that could be useful / helpful for the game. not in the mood for that, as stated above.

if we are using the current client, original images and logos, there is no way we will get in trouble. we can run with the current servers and billers, and see how far we can get. we have a great history, and if some day the servers and biller shut down infinitely, we can at least say we had a great run together. however, if we actually want to jeopardize the future of this game, we can start modifying everything, starting from the clients and graphics, and hope no one notices. this would likely spell doom for this zone given who our host is, as priitk is not as unapproachable as people claim him to be.

anyway, this isn't rocket science. we can either go with what we have, or not do anything for another month or year -- or worst case, don't do anything at all. i would very much prefer knowing which direction we take before getting too committed as i'm not going to be using my limited free time the next two months on something that is not even going to be moving forward.

[roxxkatt]

on a semi-related note, i know that mr ekted wants his name off the client (second programmer, priitk was the lead) if we get on steam, but that's about it.

if we are using the current client, original images and logos, there is no way we will get in trouble.

just know that ekted knows things you dont and wants his name off the client for a reason


and just so you know, when you submit your unmodified client to steam in its current state, it will be 100% owned by priit and brilliant digital entertainment, and all funds including donations will be under their ownership, regardless of the entity you sign up with, and one email from anyone to valve will result in the game being taken off steam permanently.

laziness comes at a price.

[Turban]

it's still way better than waiting several years for anything to happen, and losing our chance. that's my take on this, at least.

[Turban]

just know that ekted knows things you dont and wants his name off the client for a reason


and just so you know, when you submit your unmodified client to steam in its current state, it will be 100% owned by priit and brilliant digital entertainment, and all funds including donations will be under their ownership, regardless of the entity you sign up with, and one email from anyone to valve will result in the game being taken off steam permanently.

laziness comes at a price.

it's a risk worth taking, i'd say.

we can always continue to work on a new biller and client, and see what the future holds. it would likely mean that we would have to make another application to be greenlight, to get the new client on Steam, and then work on some sort of a .. migration process from one game to another. not ideal, sure, but could work. even then, finishing the client and biller is a matter of several months (or years, at this rate), and we can't afford such luxury. we should be still able to contact Steam developers to see what their official stance is in that regard, to see if it's possible for us to modify the game title (client) and everything else once we are on Steam.

[roxxkatt]

and i will remind you that the I in that statement is not a WE

[2pac]

and i will remind you that the I in that statement is not a WE

you got nothing to say roxx get the fuck off this forum you stupid fuck keeps blabbing all day, stupid ass kid can't stfu and sounds like a bitch on her period every fucking day

[roxxkatt]

also, the directory server was done in a week at a casual pace, the billing server was 95% done in a month at a very casual pace, and has not been worked on since because the pace of the steam project has not made it a priority, and can be 100% in a weeks very casual pace

for anyone that cares: the directory server is already in operation, and the billing server has been in operation and has been tested with players and zones attached, and the last 5% of work remaining is just saving things like chats squad messages to and from databases

the new client has been at about 20% since the beginning, as it is more work, far more difficult, and less needed in comparison, and due to the modular nature of the programs, can be accelerated by the completion of the other programs, as code can be reused




and all of this was done by a single developer, imagine what could get done if more than one person gave half a shit about ss

[Turban]

no one sane could possibly think that delaying this project by several months or years could be beneficial for this game, or this zone, unless these people want this game to die without a fight .. which is possible, who knows?

fact is that we can launch on the current title, using an unmodified client and the current biller, and continue to think about the future. we would still need a backup plan if things were to turn sour. this is by far the best option we have right now, at least when the other alternative is to work on some project that might never even finish, or if it ever will it is going to be a matter of several months or years, rather than days or weeks. this game can not afford such a long waiting period, unfortunately. especially when there are no guarantees of it working smoothly.

alas, this game got greenlight under the title Continuum and that is what we should launch as. however it could be possible to actually switch the game title and client with a new installer afterwards, with the help of Steam developers, meaning that should remain as an option. i have seen other legitimate games change their titles on Steam, after all. this could be an alternative path to take in the future, granted all zones should be prepared for the switch and migration period if it ever is going to happen -- and it has to be as painless as possible. the biller switch would hurt the servers hosted by Priit the most, but none of the AS3 zones seem to give one damn about the fate of our zones.

to get straight to the point, we should stick with the present time and grab the fruit that is hanging within our reach right now, rather than deciding to say "fuck it", not grabbing the fruit, and stubbornly planting a new seed which will take forever for it to bear any fruit. not to forget that it's not guaranteed that this tree will ever get to grow to that point.

i'm aware that SSC wants to do a "name wipe" of old names prior to the launch, but that is not needed. every game that launches on steam have already launched on other platforms, most of the time, and none of them go through the effort of clearing names for the new players. we are making a mountain out of a molehill, essentially, as most gamers have their standard, unique name tags that will be always remain available no matter what is done with the current name database. however, i do see the benefits which would be brought by a new biller, along with the new client, and surely other players agree that it would be better when considering the future of this game. however, it's we are talking about a distant future .. rather focus on what we have at hand right now.

anyway, i have spoken with spacehiker, and it was a fairly good chat overall. we share the same beliefs of it being better to launch now and think of the future afterwards, especially if it can be done, rather than waiting another year to actually get things rolling -- even if it ends up upsetting certain individuals in the SSC. keep in mind that there is no reason to stop making progress with the biller or client even if we launch on the current one.

[roxxkatt]

and yet through inaction you have already delayed it by half a year
you speak of "present time" and "right now" and action, but this fact remains
this began in trench wars, and you are the trench wars sysop, and for half a year you said "no im just doing twl things" and waited for 3 afk people to do something

and my point is some actions now will block future actions, especially while making uninformed unilateral decisions that exclude 80% of the playerbase
now you are saying you are willing to forgo due dilligence now because of delays caused by no action
your platform of "no action because i didnt care for 6 months but fuck talking to the other 80% of the people lets do it now" is pretty weak
according to current player counts, trench wars accounts for 80/270=30% of the ss population, assuming similar bots ratios in other zones

most games havnt been online for 20 years with nametraders, and a name wipe can only be done by priit

and if i recall, priit once threatened to block all as3 zones from ssc because he didnt make them and could result in him losing control of things, so it would be very unwise to throw everyone else under the bus to save yourself



additionally, while you were inactive, someone working for you (krynetix) signed himself up as the owner of the game and started changing graphics and icons, which is in direct violation of your unmodified client terms of service, which i will remind you will result in continuum being permanently taken off steam

[2pac]

pritt doesn't care much about ASSS why the fuck would he care about as3 zones?

you seem to know everything about this game yet you weren't a beta tester you never successfully owned a zone with a population so anything you say is garbage to me.