Trench Wars Pub & Zone REVITALIZATION - Need your feedback

[Rasaq]

Any updates on this? Also, is there anything we can do with the emailing system to help with activity?

[Pressure]

Staff, I know you are busy, but TW is really the worst it has ever been atm. Put both the ?go base map and the ?go javduel map into pub with their respective matchbots and watch activity start to increase. Do it tomorrow.

[qan]

Staff, I know you are busy, but TW is really the worst it has ever been atm. Put both the ?go base map and the ?go javduel map into pub with their respective matchbots and watch activity start to increase. Do it tomorrow.

I think most of us are on the same page that this is generally the direction we probably need to go for the future, but at the same time it's really not as simple as just putting the bots in the same arena. Allow me to explain a little bit about how these bots work.

• All game-running bots assume they're the only bot running a game in the arena. (Pub, bwjs, elim, hockey, event bots, etc.) So:
• They assume that every event that occurs relates to them specifically. Events include player deaths, ship changes, locations, etc. So javduel will assume that every death is a death in javduel.
• More importantly, they also generally execute actions as if they're the only bot in the arena. So bwjs will set all players to a certain ship at the start of the round. Pub will warp all players at round start, and will recognize commands from people in a pub wbduel game, such as challenging someone to a duel or buying an item. There are so many special cases that have to be accounted for that don't seem immediately obvious, but become serious issues when you deal with the actual implementation.

This means that pretty much every single line of code in the bots that would run in the same arena has to be examined. In this case the bots are BWJS and PubSystem. Let me break it down. PubSystem is roughly 10000 lines of code. BWJS is about 6500. So someone (that is to say, me) will need to review about 16500 lines of code. And then resolve all conflicts in an intelligent way. Then there will be a few months of bugfixes and exploits to resolve.

I already have a full-time job, and despite that, I still work pretty damn hard at TW. I receive no money for anything, as you know. (I don't want any, but that's sort of beside the point.) I wish it were as simple as "do it tomorrow" but it's really not. You may be beginning to see why I'm a little frustrated that pretty much nobody seems willing to lift a finger to help out on, say, the Steam relaunch, but still expect this kind of stuff done tomorrow. It's demoralizing. There's a simple reality behind a lot of this stuff, which is that we're all volunteers (whether staff or players), and that we all have lives outside spaceships.

Maybe we can get a donation drive going (the server fund's going to run out of money pretty soon anyway) and that would maybe motivate me to tackle this project. Talked to voth about it a little. But you know what would be a lot more motivating? If more people actually took it on themselves to help out rather than expecting everything to be done for them.

[Ricko]

and that we all have lives outside spaceships.

Thix/Pressure doesn't.

Reason for edit: Put Thix's irl first name on here and he cried

[Pressure]

I think most of us are on the same page that this is generally the direction we probably need to go for the future, but at the same time it's really not as simple as just putting the bots in the same arena. Allow me to explain a little bit about how these bots work.

• All game-running bots assume they're the only bot running a game in the arena. (Pub, bwjs, elim, hockey, event bots, etc.) So:
• They assume that every event that occurs relates to them specifically. Events include player deaths, ship changes, locations, etc. So javduel will assume that every death is a death in javduel.
• More importantly, they also generally execute actions as if they're the only bot in the arena. So bwjs will set all players to a certain ship at the start of the round. Pub will warp all players at round start, and will recognize commands from people in a pub wbduel game, such as challenging someone to a duel or buying an item. There are so many special cases that have to be accounted for that don't seem immediately obvious, but become serious issues when you deal with the actual implementation.

This means that pretty much every single line of code in the bots that would run in the same arena has to be examined. In this case the bots are BWJS and PubSystem. Let me break it down. PubSystem is roughly 10000 lines of code. BWJS is about 6500. So someone (that is to say, me) will need to review about 16500 lines of code. And then resolve all conflicts in an intelligent way. Then there will be a few months of bugfixes and exploits to resolve.

I already have a full-time job, and despite that, I still work pretty damn hard at TW. I receive no money for anything, as you know. (I don't want any, but that's sort of beside the point.) I wish it were as simple as "do it tomorrow" but it's really not. You may be beginning to see why I'm a little frustrated that pretty much nobody seems willing to lift a finger to help out on, say, the Steam relaunch, but still expect this kind of stuff done tomorrow. It's demoralizing. There's a simple reality behind a lot of this stuff, which is that we're all volunteers (whether staff or players), and that we all have lives outside spaceships.

Maybe we can get a donation drive going (the server fund's going to run out of money pretty soon anyway) and that would maybe motivate me to tackle this project. Talked to voth about it a little. But you know what would be a lot more motivating? If more people actually took it on themselves to help out rather than expecting everything to be done for them.

Thanks for the reply. I simply don't know how to code nor do I have time myself. Get others on staff to step up. I didn't sign up for staff for a reason, and I only make the suggestions because I'm watching the zone die. I always thought TW would last way longer than EG, but it seems that EG will be the last zone standing at this rate. Not knocking your effort, you're probably the only thing keeping TW together at this point, which is a shame. Perhaps you can advertise for people to help in pub in the zone rather than on forums considering that no one really views these forums and you may get lucky with someone in pub who doesn't post here. Sorry to have expected immediate results despite you having little time and doing this for no pay, but I will say that I voice this idea when staff did have the manpower to get this done, an they blew it off, and now the zone is worse than ever. I hope you find a way to make it work, wish I could help...

[Crescent Seal]

Qan, you and Wirah are literally the only people left still working to maintain and revive this game at this point and much <3 for it. The unfortunate reality however is that people are reluctant to donate or help in any capacity because there is no official communication from upper staff about virtually anything. Majority of the public is kept in the dark and the few of us who happen to check forums see these updates from you alone. This isn't a current trend either, the upper staffers have literally done nothing for years now except for occupying the top positions in staff. Its a combination of incompetence and negligence. It has gotten to a point where we have basically accepted their faggotry and are waiting for the inevitable.

On a second note, we should actually use the donation money and hire a coder or pay the few we have left for these projects.

[forwards]

Staff, I know you are busy, but TW is really the worst it has ever been atm. Put both the ?go base map and the ?go javduel map into pub with their respective matchbots and watch activity start to increase. Do it tomorrow.

This +1

[qan]

Thanks for the reply. I simply don't know how to code nor do I have time myself. Get others on staff to step up. I didn't sign up for staff for a reason, and I only make the suggestions because I'm watching the zone die. I always thought TW would last way longer than EG, but it seems that EG will be the last zone standing at this rate. Not knocking your effort, you're probably the only thing keeping TW together at this point, which is a shame. Perhaps you can advertise for people to help in pub in the zone rather than on forums considering that no one really views these forums and you may get lucky with someone in pub who doesn't post here.

Sorry, didn't mean to go off on you or anything. It's just frustrating. There are no other active bot coders on staff ... just me these days. (EDIT: 24 is actually doing some seriously good work on a very cool project. Mostly I mean in terms of anyone who is working on the existing bots. Also Wirah may still be doing some webdev I think.) There's nobody else to ask. Some people are interested in coding, but lack the ability/motivation to get much work done. What we need are the young kids who will beat their brains against the wall over and over again to try to learn it because they really want to make something happen.

I hope you find a way to make it work, wish I could help...

There are ways that anyone can help. I've been trying to get people to help on the Steam forum. You're right that a lot of people don't check forums, need to switch it up a bit, some zoners or the like.

One that really got to me is the key configuration for Steam. It's one of those things that anyone could do. Did anyone even try? No. It fell to me again. So while I could have been working on something that only I can do, such as something like this project (I'm still thinking of ways I could make it easier to implement), I've got to spend time doing something anyone could do, but that still nobody is willing to do. And even after all that, I have to put up with people saying I don't do enough.

However, there's some stuff that I actually can't do myself:
- Doing fresh Steam installs on a variety of operating systems, with and without administrator privileges. This is gonna be really important before relaunch. Will make a big push for it soon, once a lot of things are finalized.
- Usability tests with friends, family, etc. Have them install and try to figure out the game, report back results. Hell, have your mom try the game. Made a thread for it, nobody gives a damn enough to help yet, but maybe with some regular zoners in the game people will actually step up
- Writing Steam reviews. Could always use more to bolster our rating.

[qan]

[QUOTE=Crescent Seal;903438]Qan, you and Wirah are literally the only people left still working to maintain and revive this game at this point and much

[qan]

Qan, you and Wirah are literally the only people left still working to maintain and revive this game at this point and much for it. The unfortunate reality however is that people are reluctant to donate or help in any capacity because there is no official communication from upper staff about virtually anything. Majority of the public is kept in the dark and the few of us who happen to check forums see these updates from you alone. This isn't a current trend either, the upper staffers have literally done nothing for years now except for occupying the top positions in staff. Its a combination of incompetence and negligence. It has gotten to a point where we have basically accepted their faggotry and are waiting for the inevitable.

Damnit, forums ate my post. Hahahh. Jesus that sucks ... the rare time I don't select all-copy before I post on a forum.


You're right, we should communicate more. I need to start doing zoners linking to forum posts at the very least. The short of it, though, is just doing the work is a lot of effort.


The reason upper staff is so disorganized is that it's a volunteer system. People have lives and those lives get crazy. When you lose your job, someone in the family dies, you get a divorce, you have a baby, you get married, start a new job, etc., you often leave off working on the spaceship game. Staff in general, as a volunteer system, is extremely chaotic. It's hard to keep it remotely organized. So I accept the charges that we're incompetent and negligent, but I say... yeah, so? How do you expect it to work? If someone's wife dies they take 2 weeks bereavement leave. But they come back after because they need to work to survive. But they don't come back to their volunteer job as Spaceship Game Coordinator. And then we're left scrambling to find someone to fill their shoes. Lucky to keep someone in an upper staff position for 6 months. Sometimes they just disappear, and can't pass on their knowledge to the next guy. So, yes, incompetence and negligence, sure, but it's a volunteer team. So allow me to add, on the non-staff community side, ignorance of how the system works. Not really sure what you can expect out of a free game that has survived literally by the effort of the community alone. Just about every other game has a staff. We don't. We have players.

On a second note, we should actually use the donation money and hire a coder or pay the few we have left for these projects.

Donation details stopped updating, but allow me to say, aside from one issue with a small server being bought and then not used for its intended purpose, all donation money has been used to keep the zone going. The bot/web/forum server costs $100 a month, and basically that's what donations have been used for for years. (Thanks to everyone who has pitched in over the years.) Now we actually have less than a year left of server costs in the account and will have to do a donation drive pretty soon.


The idea of hiring a coder's been brought up a lot. I think it might be a smart move. It's just whether or not we can get maybe $10K to hire a very smart but desperate college kid, and whether or not said college kid would be reliable enough to be worth our while. I'm not interested in getting Indian coders in. Someone else can look at that if they want to. Way too expensive though.

[Crescent Seal]

Given their track record, it seems like upper staff face a personal calamity like you mentioned on a daily basis LOL. If people cannot do their jobs (yes even volunteer ones) due to incompetence, no time, personal issues, etc. then they should simply quit their positions. Remaining absolutely useless just so you have the ability to alias check from time to time does this game no good. Anyways, we have simply reached a stage where all we can do is be disgruntled about the atrocious staff infrastructure.

[qan]

Given their track record, it seems like upper staff face a personal calamity like you mentioned on a daily basis LOL. If people cannot do their jobs (yes even volunteer ones) due to incompetence, no time, personal issues, etc. then they should simply quit their positions. Remaining absolutely useless just so you have the ability to alias check from time to time does this game no good. Anyways, we have simply reached a stage where all we can do is be disgruntled about the atrocious staff infrastructure.

That's exactly what happens. They quit or are fired. But if you think that a person who suddenly has a huge amount of free time and incredible motivation just magically replaces them, you're living outside the bounds of reality. To do most upper staff jobs properly you need to put in several hours a day and much of your weekends. Every single day of every single week, without fail. No breaks. Not even a paying job demands you come to work every day.


So considering there's no pay, you have to work every day, almost nobody will thank you for your work, and meanwhile most people in the community will tell you that you're doing a terrible job regardless of how much effort you put in or how much it's actually your fault, the candidate pool is ... pretty limited. I'm amazed anyone does it at all. Imagining there are hundreds of masochistic martyrs waiting in the wings to step up and Make Trench Wars Great Again is delusional. Imagining there ever have been is delusional. I've quit staff I don't know how many times in frustration over the political garbage. I've tried on two different occasions to implement some kind of a democratic system. But it's never worked out. It's just too volatile to be anything but a very loose organization, with all the flaws you'd expect. I've come to believe, after seeing it work and not work something like 12 years now, that most of it really can't be helped. And because I've been able to accept that, I can quit bitching about it, take a deep breath, and try to do something productive, despite the flaws.


Also, to add, alias checking without a reason has been off-limits for years. And it's all logged. This applies to everyone. People ask me who someone is and I can't tell them not just because it's considered abuse to share the info (it naturally is; please report anyone who is sharing alias info to me or Beasty), but because I don't actually know unless I've had to investigate them for some reason.

[qan]

Thinking of ways to do the OP idea still... It's a little nuts but theoretically we could create a second, specialized version of the way the bots see the arena. So a player can use a command to one bot and join its arena, and the other bots forget about you as a player entirely, don't recognize you as a player in the arena.

Some stuff to work out like how to handle receiving PMs when the bot doesn't have a record of you as a player, but theoretically, it might work, and could let us run pub, bwjs and even elim all in one place. Anything dealing with non-pub would probably need to send freq messages instead of arenas, except for when advertising a game.

[San Tokie]

Is there any way to even out the frequencies when it's 5v2 or similar?

[Jones]

That's exactly what happens. They quit or are fired. But if you think that a person who suddenly has a huge amount of free time and incredible motivation just magically replaces them, you're living outside the bounds of reality. To do most upper staff jobs properly you need to put in several hours a day and much of your weekends. Every single day of every single week, without fail. No breaks. Not even a paying job demands you come to work every day.

You have seen what upper-staffers do. you have quit before because of things I really don't know about. what I do know about is that several great staffers have either quit or been fired because of the terrible decisions (or lack thereof) by upper-staffers. i mean how do you make people like ph or turban quit because of terrible upper-management?

Reckless was also a highly-motivated person to do a thankless job and now he hates tw staff as the plague.

love the work you do, though. xoxo