The official server flamewar topic

[o11c]

That said and very possibly completely off-topic, I must admit that I always felt the decision to continue using/developing the eAthena server and the apparent delay (abandonment?) of the idea to transition to an ‘action-based’ system, more closely related to that of Secret of Mana, was preventing the game from fulfilling its true potential; inhibiting the realization of the original vision and intent upon which the project was apparently founded. I realize that may be an egregious oversimplification, or even a total misunderstanding of the facts, surrounding various design and technical decisions. I promise that I intend no offense by expressing that opinion. To put it simply, ‘TMW-eA’ always seemed to me like a crutch in dire need of kicking.

At the risk of turning this flamewar into a productive discussion:

There are three issues in choosing between the servers, in order of increasing importance to me:

1. ManaServ was "cleaner" than TMWA was before I started working on TMWA, and still is in many ways. Of course, that's largely tied to #2.
2. ManaServ only supports a small subset of the features that we use in TMWA.
3. ManaServ does not really match what we are looking for in a game (I know, they've said the same about TMWA).

Point 3 is really huge. Points 1 and 2 can be addressed by changing the code, but ManaServ doesn't even support the *paradigm*. It would be a completely different game, it would not be TMW at all. And all of our *existing* content would have to be thrown away. I know I despair of ever fixing balance without some sort of wipe, but it is possible that we can do *something* (or more likely just procrastinate and never achieve balance).

[Ablu]

To get a view of what a world with just Manaserv, Bjorn, and Elven would look like (without Platyna and an eAthena live server), head on over to Bjorn's Source of Tales webpage:

http://www.sourceoftales.org/news.html

It used to be called Lurking Patrol Comrades, and it won the Liberated Pixel Cup! But it's kind of dead. No community. No forums. No discussions such as these.

We are anything but dead. We currently write a new client and we fixed up the server with the issues we found during the lpc. See the commit messages: https://github.com/tales/tales-client and https://github.com/mana/manaserv.
We only did not work on content too much because we first wanted to clean up the server a bit and have a client to work with.

If you want to checkout the client feel free to clone the git and compile it and test. It still has a few rough edges, but should be enough to test and provide feedback.

EDIT: We btw also started on implementing a more action based combat system.

At the risk of turning this flamewar into a productive discussion:

There are three issues in choosing between the servers, in order of increasing importance to me:

1. ManaServ was "cleaner" than TMWA was before I started working on TMWA, and still is in many ways. Of course, that's largely tied to #2.
2. ManaServ only supports a small subset of the features that we use in TMWA.
3. ManaServ does not really match what we are looking for in a game (I know, they've said the same about TMWA).

Point 3 is really huge. Points 1 and 2 can be addressed by changing the code, but ManaServ doesn't even support the *paradigm*. It would be a completely different game, it would not be TMW at all. And all of our *existing* content would have to be thrown away. I know I despair of ever fixing balance without some sort of wipe, but it is possible that we can do *something* (or more likely just procrastinate and never achieve balance).

This is interesting... At 2) What do you mean by that? We support a lot of TMW stuff. And our scripting engine allows to script a lot more than TMWs does... I doubt that the mana server only covers a small subset of the features of TMWA... Maybe it misses a few details in some corner cases... But overall you can do a lot more with the mana server already. Only thing i imagine is that you cannot do magic via chat... Which is not required since we have an actual implementation for magic/abilities. (In manaplus nobody types the spells anyway but simply hits a button). Though I would not be against providing a script callback to react on user chat...

Regards,
Ablu

[blackrazor]

Hi Ablu,

I did not mean to offend, and I should clarify. I did not mean to imply that the ManaServ project is abandoned. I'm sure the developers are hard at work, tinkering, adding, modifying, testing, etc.

But how many players do you have on your live server? Zero.
How many players do you have on your live forums? Zero.
Do you have a live server, easily accessible to the world of players out there? No.
Do you have a live forums, easily accessible to the world of players out there? No.

This is what I meant. Without Platyna insisting on a live eAthena server and live forums, this would likely have been TMW's fate as well. A very interesting place for a few developers to gather and tinker, but zero players actually playing, no live server, no live forums. In short, no community in the form typical of a live MMO. Sure there would be a small vibrant community of developers, but that is not what I meant. I am a player first, and I was coming at this from a player's perspective. Is there currently a place for players to play on the live community server and to interact on the live community forums in Bjorn's ManaServ game? No.

And all of this is the difference between any game (whatever its merits, I'm not debating those) that exists only on a repository like Github and IRC for the developers to chat, versus an actual running community with a live maintained 24/7 server (with a commitment to keep it running, 24/7, indefinitely), and the same for a community forums. It's a big difference.

And if Platyna is taking some credit for the transition from former to latter, for TMW, years ago, she may well have a valid point regarding that. And if you now find her despicable, when it's convenient and safe to do so, that does not erase her past contributions to TMW, in helping to assure that we had a live eAthena server and live forums, for this community to grow into what is it today.

[AnonDuck]

Awesome to hear SoT is still under active development. I've played it and it's very polished; I think with the right marketing it will eventually develop it's own community. Hopefully as not as weird as this one

[Crush]

Awesome to hear SoT is still under active development. I've played it and it's very polished; I think with the right marketing it will eventually develop it's own community. Hopefully as not as weird as this one

That's the problem. Popularity = quality * marketing. The people at Manasource created a really nice product, but they suck at marketing it. Marketing would also include to cater to the needs of the community, like having a forum. But unfortunately the Manasource team is quite anti-forum.

There are also lots of other things you need to do to market an independent game nowadays, but TMW is neglecting those just as much

[blackrazor]

It's not marketing. Why do you pretend that? It's the exact same thing as what worked here for TMW; a LOT of grunt work.

Someone has to host it, 24/7, indefinitely, reliably, and securely.

Someone has to ensure client versions of it are available in many of the various flavours of Linux, Windows, MacOS.

The server has to be maintained, updated, policed.

Events, holidays, content needs to be done regularly.

A forum needs to be set up, hosted, maintained, policed.

And whomever does all this work, they have to be convinced that they won't be dumped (fired? backstabbed?) due to their personality flaws, the moment it actually catches on, becomes a bit popular and desirable, and then is filled with people that want to do these tasks because there is already a community there to appreciate it.

Personally, I'd want to see Madcamel and Crush do it; they have previous experience from here. Not Platyna, since many harbour ill will against her, and so she already knows what will happen to her if it ever catches on and staffing alternatives become available due to its popularity.

[Ablu]

We host a kind of reliable test server. However we do no marketing since we do not consider the game 100% ready... The client still needs a bit of love. The content still needs love. It would not make sense to start marketing with an in our eyes not finished client. So we prefer to wait until we have something which is worth to be announced aloud in public. However feel free to test already. But expect bugs / unfinished stuff. For eg. the client is currently mainly focused on mobile platforms. So stuff like shortcuts to attack are missing. Not that those are hard to add... but they are not added yet.

So we prefer to polish some stuff up on our side before starting "marketing"

Regards,
Ablu

[Crush]

Personally, I'd want to see Madcamel and Crush do it;

How much would you pay me for the job?

[WildX]

Personally, I'd want to see Madcamel and Crush do it;

How much would you pay me for the job?

I thought you were already being held hostage and forced to work for TMWC

[blackrazor]

Personally, I'd want to see Madcamel and Crush do it;

How much would you pay me for the job?

I'll pay you double what you are being paid to work at TMW !

[Platyna]

[...] When you want influence, you have to earn it.

You think you can do better than the existing TMWC members? Then do better. Acquire some skills which are needed for the development or maintainance of TMW, volunteer, and show the other TMWC members how they should do it.

This is absolutely false. Many contributors acquired knowledge and volunteered without gaining any influence. Many among them were even discouraged by the attitude of a few existing pseudo leaders who believe that their opinion is of higher importance than the one of the smallest player and are deaf, thus dumb. This already existed when TMW was on Platinum, and apparently, they only got worse since the move, since I never saw so many high contributors of any kind (devs, admins, GMs) leave in a so short period. If this fact doesn't make TMWC members question themselves, then the project and the game have no future.

Now I will not thank Frost and Jenalya for their work here because I already did it on in public and in private many occasions. I will just tell my anger to them because they are leaving barely only 10 months after taking a decision that already put a mess in player and contributors "community", I think this is an irresponsible attitude. Note that I think the same about some active supporters of the move that have already left whether they are GMs or just wiki admin. And more when they leave the game and the project submitted to the actions of some persons who have neither the skills, the imagination nor the intelligence to lead this project even if they are able to perform administration tasks; I am not speaking about wushin or Tux... The contributors who do only what they want and take no care of the general interest of the project have to be fired . Frost and Jenalya have to stay, be consistent with their past decision and do the job they wanted to do.
I am glad trhat Freeyorp comes back as an admin but my opinion is that TMW needs Freeyorp and Frost, not or.

TMWC shows now it's lack of efficiency, just as it did in the past (and GHP as well). This project doesn't need a new administrator, even if a new one can lighten the boring tasks, this project needs project leader (s). And a project leader is definitely not a coder nor necessarily an administrator. A project leader has to be aware of computer and development things, but also of project management, communication, advertizing, law, human relations... he or they also have to be able to take decisions when conflicts occur, including firing an admin.

Frost, Jenalya if you leave now, the balance is broken, and it sounds like the beginning of the end.

My TMWC (let me dream a bit):
Frost: Project leader.
Jenalya+wushin: content lead
Tux: Mapping lead
4144: server and client development; general game/player interface
MadCamel: security
Crush, Fother: Graphic leaders (doesn't mean they do all the Job)
Forum: Crush, Frost
web site:? wiki:Freeyorp?
V0id, Freeyorp, Platyna (yes!),(optional: cody (?)) (maybe bertram, bjorn, elven if they still have an interest and are active): advisors (have right to vote).
One GM representant, one player representant.
and that's all. Other people may be developers or even admins, It doesn't mean that they are able to manage a project.

Frost who were threatening me (he popped with it out of thin air) that he will sue me for a DDoS when his network crashed and then when I told him that if he will keep insulting me he will deeply regret, took it out of context and was moaning around that I have threatened him, and then plotted against me? A project leader should be a person which is fair, objective and mentally stable and with good opinion.

MadCamel - for a security person? A spammer and a botter?

o11c, players are hostile for you? Uh oh. Too bad... When I logged in game they were all cool and nice.

Regards.

[Platyna]

So 2011 was kind of the "golden age" of TMW...

This only proves that the most efficient TMW structure was set by me - at least everyone knew his role and his place and no one had absolute powers.

Regards.

[Platyna]

I'm not too happy about that fight either, nor am I impressed with how TMWC functions, to be honest. I think it could do a lot better and in many areas it leaves a lot to be desired.

My time here also predates TMWC. But I've also seen the internal discussions of the ex-GHP (thanks to my position as a member of TMWC) and I can tell you that Platyna's appearances are not pretty.

I can see other things too. I can take a step back and see that TMWC is trying, where Platyna didn't. I know, I know, good intentions and roads to Hell. But an organisation like this is going to make a lot of fumbles. It's still new, it's trying to run a project that was never really a democracy, and everyone is used to not having a democracy. I think it'll take time and hopefully it'll improve.

Maybe TMWC will be replaced by something else, maybe it won't. I do hope that whatever happens will be for the better of the game.

My reply to Platyna was my personal reply, it had nothing to do with TMWC. Maybe it's my mistake that I don't have two forum accounts, one for my personal posts, I apologise for that. I was merely talking about my personal interactions here.

I don't really care whether TMWC stays or falls. I care about the game and its players. Sometimes, feedback like yours leaves me jaded about trying to fight for the players, but I bounce back eventually. I think we would all do better if the players showed more interest, but no one really cares about how the game is run, as long as it is run.

I'm sorry if my post in any way offended you or made you angry, blackrazor, but like I said, I was talking to Platyna, as melkior, not TMWC. Maybe it should've been a PM... Anyway, thank you for caring enough to offer critique.

This project was too weak and (at least for me) too precious for stupid experiments. Someone said that 2011 was the golden age - this is a year when final and stable TMW GHP structure was formed after I divided my powers further more for the good for the project.

Interesting how the history is rewriten that I was "fired" - if you work in someone's company and then you kill your boss or you trick him and take over his/her company it is a bit differently called than firing.

Regards.

[Platyna]

Awesome to hear SoT is still under active development. I've played it and it's very polished; I think with the right marketing it will eventually develop it's own community. Hopefully as not as weird as this one :lol:

That's the problem. Popularity = quality * marketing. The people at Manasource created a really nice product, but they suck at marketing it. Marketing would also include to cater to the needs of the community, like having a forum. But unfortunately the Manasource team is quite anti-forum.

There are also lots of other things you need to do to market an independent game nowadays, but TMW is neglecting those just as much :)

Bullshit. We never marketed TMW in any way than adding it to game download sites. Also you want to market what? You can even have a commercial during Super Bowl in USA and still you will get exactly 0 people - because there are no way for them to interact - and we are just humans - we use human interface. I spent hours, days and months and years to explain this to Bjorn and Elven.

Games are to be played by players. If you want to code just for a sake of coding then do yourself some coding book or coding school or, for christ sake, code some single player game for Android (there are comments in Google store, but you don't have to bother reading them).

Regards.

[prsm]

*sighs*

Sorry Platyna, sorry you feel so much hatred and anger.
Its obvious you didn't see the intent of the move or firing (pick the one you like better).
I wont even try and say something witty.

I can say we have been DDos free since the move, and i can also say as a GM that I hear very few lag complaints anymore. That is a good thing. We also havent one single roll back either.

I can also say the move didn't go perfectly, there was some fighting and disputes.

I did say and will say again, Thanks for hosting for 7 years.

Its just a game, the ruler of it is not the supreme leader of the universe, the game doesn't define us, we define the game.

to conclude, Sorry! But it needed to be done.


Prsm