Question?

[Weaver]

Is TWD worse since Shadowmere has taken over? We just challenged to a 2v2 that we couldnt !ready?? Why is this possible? This isn't the first of several unusual hiccups I've seen since you've been in charge.

It seems to me that changes are being made with very little forethought. TWD is a fragile ecosystem and I can't help but feel that it has been upset. TWD has been a pillar of TW and I see more players unhappy with TWD than I have ever seen. Why is this?

Sorry Shadow, you are a nice guy, but unfortunately I don't think you have what it takes to be leader. TWD has been running smoothly for years, so just leave it the fuck alone.

Edit: I try to avoid commenting on often on staff matters these days, but TW needs TWD and I don't like the direction things are going.

[qan]

Hmmm... well, anything having to do with the bots is much more likely to be on dev than as a result of any policy change. I understand you're frustrated. But I'm also a bit surprised that your gut reaction is to go after Shad as if it's a policy change rather than some bot malfunction. Approaching it like a bug is more productive. What were the conditions where they challenged you? (What command did they use?) Do you have a log or screenshot, anything that might help track down the source of the issue?


There have been some changes to the rating system lately, and in order to test them I've occasionally had to switch TWD to allow 1v1 temporarily (my desktop vs my laptop). There's really no other good way to test it, short of mimicking TW on my own network, which would be a bit of a feat. It's possible that somehow a configuration file was cached to allow more than 2v2 and didn't update properly when I switched it back. Sorry for any problems it causes. I'm doing my best to not disrupt things. This ratings change has been something like 5 years in the works with various developers, and finally we were able to carry it through. (So, I guess you could say, there's the foresight? As far as implementation goes, though, that's anyone's guess... Everyone does the best they can.) The hope is that when it's finally finished it'll make TWD a good bit more meaningful, providing some kind of satisfaction ... a wish to be the best inside a team, but still being better recognized on a personal level.


Maybe it's not worth the risk modifying TWD and disrupting the fragile ecosystem. I dunno. I added the K/D counters above radar a few years ago and I think it was worth the risk. Most people consider that an unequivocally positive change. Automated watches, etc, too, among many other things. Few people will touch MatchBot because it's really convoluted and old-fashioned in its coding style, and yeah, things can go wrong. Here's how I've seen changes to major systems go in the past, in terms of community response. Basically, if it works properly the first time and doesn't disrupt things, it was clearly worth the risk, and let's praise this great advancement, but if instead something goes wrong, you're a bad person for trying and I hope your family dies, etc etc etc. I dunno. I do agree changes can be too ambitious at times, and I try not to take any unnecessary risks, but sometimes this is how it goes. If things get too dodgy there's always the comfort in knowing it's not too hard to revert changes. But I'd like to think we can deal with a little bit of disruption from time to time in the name of what's hopefully a greater good.

[Ricko]

2v2 twd is a thing now?!

[kthx]

Welcome to ten years ago weaver geez lol.

Shadowmere is a fucking cuck though.

These twd changes arent very nimble.

[Crescent Seal]

shadowmere is possibly the worst selection ever for the last few years remaining on this game

[Turban]

I would like to say that several of the changes have been great for the league, but from a players perspective I can't help but to feel that some of the changes have been done haphazardly with very little planning.

I do not know how frequently the development team and league staff are sharing information with one another, but the fact is that there has been a severe lack of communication between the players and staff in regards to some of the recent changes which is something that tends to annoy the community. It is the responsibility of Shadowmere to ensure that the players are on the same page to minimize the amount of upset players.

As a recent example I can not name a single player who was happy with the end result of trying out the new rating system on a Sunday which resulted in the entire league being down for a period of over 24 hours. It was a high risk decision with very minimal return had it worked out as the rating system could have easily been tested during the weekdays to minimize the amount of damage. I am always in favor of trying out new innovative things for the league, but the players do deserve to know in advance before anything is changed to give them time to prepare should something go wrong with the tests.

[qan]

As a recent example I can not name a single player who was happy with the end result of trying out the new rating system on a Sunday which resulted in the entire league being down for a period of over 24 hours. It was a high risk decision with very minimal return had it worked out as the rating system could have easily been tested during the weekdays to minimize the amount of damage. I am always in favor of trying out new innovative things for the league, but the players do deserve to know in advance before anything is changed to give them time to prepare should something go wrong with the tests.

Yeah, unfortunately that was on me. I needed to be able to be around while people were actively playing TWD games. This is basically impossible for me except on weekends due to my work schedule and time differences. (During the week, the only time I can be on is during the dead time, basically.) I was able to devise a way to test using 1v1, though, and have been able to do that a bit during off-times.


As far as keeping people in the loop about testing, I'd love to be able to, but life just doesn't work out that way most of the time. My schedule is not so spaceship-centric that I can say a week in advance that I will definitely be able to work for several hours on a TW test during X time. I'll be a bit of a jerk and say I'm unwilling to do it that way. It's just how it is. The other option is to have me not develop anything. If we were paid full-time employees it would be entirely different. Then again, even major games with a staff of hundreds still sometimes report expected outages only 1 day in advance. The answer isn't that nice, but what I'm saying is, I'm sorry it caused you distress, but I'm also not going to do anything to change how it's done in the future. It's just not worth it to me; this game is not my life. I love it but it's not the most important thing I have going. Callous as all hell, but I'm just being honest here.

2v2 twd is a thing now?!

Nope, that was a bug. Again, if anyone has any concrete information related to this (or any other) bug, a report is very much appreciated. I basically can't do anything without some info. Well, I mean, I could spend hours vetting code every time someone mentions something. But again. I'm not going to. Gotta meet me halfway.

[Turban]

fair enough.

[Crescent Seal]

lol qan, stop taking the bullet for shadowmere on everything. you are one of the best bot devs we have had and no one is vsing you.

[kthx]

Yeah, lots of staff falling on the sword for shadowmeres fuck ups here. We all respect you qan.

[Fork]

Idk, i'd give shadowmere more time in charge since most of the problems are bug related and not entirely his fault (he didn't plan 2 vs 2 bug or 24 hrs of TWD downtime).

[kthx]

God fork you are such a cuck. Im not saying hes responsible for the bug im saying that he shows no idea of how to see the big picture. Starting this shit on twl sunday for instance. Back when distension was killing the zone we stopped that shit from happening, now we have a staffer who has no idea what hes doing.

[Weaver]

Hmmm... well, anything having to do with the bots is much more likely to be on dev than as a result of any policy change. I understand you're frustrated. But I'm also a bit surprised that your gut reaction is to go after Shad as if it's a policy change rather than some bot malfunction. Approaching it like a bug is more productive. What were the conditions where they challenged you? (What command did they use?) Do you have a log or screenshot, anything that might help track down the source of the issue?


There have been some changes to the rating system lately, and in order to test them I've occasionally had to switch TWD to allow 1v1 temporarily (my desktop vs my laptop). There's really no other good way to test it, short of mimicking TW on my own network, which would be a bit of a feat. It's possible that somehow a configuration file was cached to allow more than 2v2 and didn't update properly when I switched it back. Sorry for any problems it causes. I'm doing my best to not disrupt things. This ratings change has been something like 5 years in the works with various developers, and finally we were able to carry it through. (So, I guess you could say, there's the foresight? As far as implementation goes, though, that's anyone's guess... Everyone does the best they can.) The hope is that when it's finally finished it'll make TWD a good bit more meaningful, providing some kind of satisfaction ... a wish to be the best inside a team, but still being better recognized on a personal level.


Maybe it's not worth the risk modifying TWD and disrupting the fragile ecosystem. I dunno. I added the K/D counters above radar a few years ago and I think it was worth the risk. Most people consider that an unequivocally positive change. Automated watches, etc, too, among many other things. Few people will touch MatchBot because it's really convoluted and old-fashioned in its coding style, and yeah, things can go wrong. Here's how I've seen changes to major systems go in the past, in terms of community response. Basically, if it works properly the first time and doesn't disrupt things, it was clearly worth the risk, and let's praise this great advancement, but if instead something goes wrong, you're a bad person for trying and I hope your family dies, etc etc etc. I dunno. I do agree changes can be too ambitious at times, and I try not to take any unnecessary risks, but sometimes this is how it goes. If things get too dodgy there's always the comfort in knowing it's not too hard to revert changes. But I'd like to think we can deal with a little bit of disruption from time to time in the name of what's hopefully a greater good.

Not upset about the bugs, those happen. I'm upset about the decisions I see being made, this is almost entirely about policies and nothing to do with dev. IS TWD anymore popular or active now? How many more players have been attracted by the changes? How many have left? You can include me in the second column, I haven't retired but I don't really want to login and watch the TW Staff show anymore so I find myself logging in less and less.

[zidane]

lol ignore weaver boys, he's the type of person to leave a squad if someone says hes playing bad.

he's just salty atm that dice booted him off twl roster 5 mins before hard lock and now he wants to cry about TWD :laugh:

[qan]

I don't make it a habit of falling on swords, no matter how drunk you get me, Bruce.

Shad and I don't always see eye to eye. For example, I tried for quite awhile to get him to change the vote for TWD res limit removal to be either keeping limits or reversing what they currently are, allowing for limits in twdd3 if people wanted to play with res limits there. Seemed reasonable (provide a choice, even as a sort of transition option) but for a nebulous reason that maybe only he can explain, he wouldn't consider it. He's a stubborn bastard and I get pretty frustrated with him sometimes as a result. Same with the roster cap. The goal was admirable enough, attempting to get a bit more squad activity going by forcing new squads to be created, but policy changes have to be based on effect, not noble ideals. Eventually after observing awhile he did reverse it. But I think perhaps this could have been avoided by a bit more open discussion. He certainly didn't consult me. That's his prerogative as TWD Head. But even as a head sysop I try to consult as many people as possible before I make a decision, because I think that results in a better result, even if it's much more of a pain that way.

So all that said, again, it was still my decision to test on a TWL weekend. It may have been bad policy, but I didn't think I had another way to get it tested due to living in Japan and only being able to see TWD population online on the weekends. The problem was a *really* strange one, too, which is still something I don't quite understand, even if I now know the source. So I kept trying to troubleshoot it for quite awhile, looked at code for hours and hours, before giving up and going back to old working code. I was sure I could figure it out and fix it, turn it around quickly. I wasn't able to.

That's when I thought of creating my own two test squads and reducing the number of players needed to just 1v1 during off hours, but that was after the damage was done. Sure, Shad signed off on the decision to test on the weekend, but we've been working together pretty closely on this for months now. Maybe he should have had the foresight to realize that I could test with 1s during the week rather than using real players. But he didn't, and neither did I. Fortunately, somehow I think nobody killed themselves because they couldn't jd for a day, and somehow we will all get through this, together, holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Though I think I have to give up trying to take the rightful blame for it ... it's just not working ... so I'll get on with it, join the popular narrative and go on record saying that this is all Shadowmere's fault, as usual. Hang 'im!