Platyna has left the building.

[Platyna]

No, it doesn't come "handy" responsibility for community is not "handy" stuff.

And for this "handy" stuff you will:
- Get rid of an old and loyal friend.
- Make your server admin, a GM and content manager to leave.
- Not listen to respected members of the community, who agrees for me (even people such as Jarvellis who were always critical towards my actions).
- Hell you will even move to a different (what, if I may ask?) host because admin installed by the project owner disagrees with your silliness.
Yes, I was told by Bjorn he will resign from my server (2xQuad Core Xeon, with reduntant power supplies and 100 Mbit uplinks, that could even host TMW when it grows into a very large project) if I will touch the server's GM config.
- Most likely will split the project, since already three of TMW developers (and five of those who left TMW) told me, they want to fork.

Now anyone can tell me if this is how a caring project admin acts?

I bet peavey and Crush are very happy, how much TMW will pay for their level 80.

Oh not to tell I never caused any developer to leave the project and Crush did. ;)

And when I told a person that making people online killable is abuse, I was insulting, but when Crush on graphics section were contantly calling other people's work "rpgmakerish", it is ok. Because of such brilliant comments we have alot of unfinished and dead content. Huhu.

Regards.

[Crush]

Peavey, Crush, you have shown to the whole community here - that you have no dignity and no honour, and all you care is power

...what a bullshit.

[z0ro]

Why can't we make this simple:

Platyna and Bjorn run servers (are they a GM too? if so, with powers)
Developers develop/code the game with no powers (If they want to test stuff, they should have their own server, local server (localhost) to test their stuff)
GM's watch the community and make sure nobody is breaking the rules and has the powers
Artists make pixel arts (hats, monsters, etc) with no powers (Same with dev's, if they want to try out their arts, have localhost server running and test it over there)
Players play the game

That's how it should be.

[Platyna]

Cool idea z0ro, it was like exactly how I have imagined our team, unfortunetely my dreams had been broken like a stone breaks the window pane. :>

Regards.

[Turmfalke]

I am somewhat bored from all that bullshit here -.-
as an addition to z0ro proposal I don't see any problem with allow devs to warp over the world, at this way they are always able to see anything(like when a player reported a bug) and save there time for development.
A suddenly appearing and then disappearing dev won't harm any player.

[Platyna]

A bug that can be seen can be reported as a bug with screenshot on forums - alot more comfortable since there is an archive and more than one developer can look into it when they come online. :S We also have bugtracker, also made to excercise aforementioned advantages.

Regards.

[Turmfalke]

I think something like that should work:

player level 0:
time: 0
date: 0
server_date: 0
serverdate: 0
server_time: 0
servertime: 0
die: 0
email: 0


dev level 20:
where: 20
jumpto: 20
goto: 20
warpto: 20
mapmove: 20
jump: 20
warp: 20
disablenpc: 20
gat: 20


gm level 50:
charstats: 50
broadcast: 50
heal: 50
hide: 50
return: 50
load: 50
itemreset: 50
killmonster2: 50
save: 50
charitemlist: 50
killable: 50
charkillable: 50
charmodel: 50
lvup: 50
charchangesex: 50
chardelitem: 50
charsave: 50
kill: 50
killer: 50
recall: 50
revive: 50
charwarp: 50
block: 50
charblock: 50
unblock: 50
charunblock: 50
ban: 50
banish: 50
charban: 50
charbanish: 50
unban: 50
unbanish: 50
charunban: 50
charunbanish: 50
raisemap: 50

admin level 99:
spawn: 99
charbaselvl: 99
charskpoint: 99
charzeny: 99
idsearch: 99
doom: 99
doommap: 99
recallall: 99
raise: 99
item: 99
killmonster: 99
enablenpc: 99
npcmove: 99
kickall: 99
mapexit: 99
reloaditemdb: 99
reloadmobdb: 99
reloadskilldb: 99
reloadscript: 99
reloadgmdb: 99
refreshonline: 99

[Platyna]

That would even work. So many good suggestions, one Bjorn.

Regards.

[fate]

Platyna,

I do hope that this will be my only post in this flame-fest.

Indeed. Test and official game servers should be separated. It's all about it.

Well, I'm sure everybody will agree with you there. And as far as I know Crush, Fate and Jaxad0127 are all already running their own servers in order to test the content changes before they are applied to the official server.

Of course it is moot, they want power, and I don't want them to have this power, and many respectect community members agreed with me.

It seems to me that we see here the crux of the matter: a lack of trust. All those discussions about who-should-have-which-privileges and who-broke-the-server are superficial in comparison to that.

Peavey, Crush, you have shown to the whole community here - that you have no dignity and no honour, and all you care is power, even for the price of splitting the people who, for long years, were very well working with each other.

With a statement such as this, it is hard to see how either side could possibly trust the other. Of course, this is very late in the discussion, but still... I have yet to see any evidence of Crush or Peavey (or yourself, of course) using their `power' for any reason other than to help the community at large, by the way.

While I have seen them criticise technical decisions, I have never seen Crush or Peavey perform such a personal attack in public. I don't understand; what do you expect to achieve by telling people that they `have no dignity and no honour' and that `all [they] care [sic] is power'? The only thing personal abuses achieve is to make people distrust and dislike each other. I have no idea how that is supposed to help the game.

Free online games are not about items and levels, they are about the community and the team, the one which you attempt to destroy to have level 80.

Very well said, except for the unjustified personal attack. (Peavey's character is quite a bit beyond level 90 by the way, without any form of GM privilege abuse.)

The recent argument with peavey wasn't because he had those rights, which I know he would be ready to give up, but it was because Platyna accused him of abusing his rights. [...] This was really insulting, and ultimately why I asked Platyna to no longer get involved, because peavey wasn't the first one encountering this kind of personal abuse from Platyna.

To the best of my knowledge, Peavey used his `GM powers' in an administrative act to deal with a troll, after several complaints from players. Would it have been appropriate to ignore this as an isolated incident in which the rules and current GM availability were insufficient and a developer showed initiative in a way that helped the community in the long run without unfair damage to an individual? Possibly, depends on the details and on the general policy. Would it have been appropriate to criticise his concrete act, analyse any permanent damange that had been done (none, as far as I know) and review the rules (to see whether they need to be extended) and clarify with everyone involved how such issues should be handled in the future? Absolutely, that would be a reasonable thing. My second-hand knowledge of the incident (backed up by this forum discussion), however, is that this is not what happened, and that instead he was attacked as a person and accused of being power-hungry (despite him not having gained any personal benefit during this process). Could you please clarify whether or not that was really what happened? Perhaps the public chat transcript would help here.

It is disgusting. I have maintained the server for years, I have maintained the forums, and now you jump in and make random people enpowered over my work without my consent. If you will after years treat all your co-workers in this project like that, then good riddance Bjorn.

Have you tried to analyse the reasons he might have had for that decision?

My current understanding of the matter is as follows: (a) Everyone involved is trying to make the game `as good as they can'. (b) There is a rift between several people who do not trust each other, because they believe that the other people are more interested in power/personal benefit than in making the game as good as possible. Point (b) is exclusively a lack-of-trust issue, because I have seen absolutely no evidence that any particular person or group is more interested in power and personal benefit than in the benefit of the game and the community at large. Of course it's a good idea not to blindly trust everyone, but in our case this lack of trust manifests in personal abuse that has made it very hard and at times impossible for the people in question to collaborate. Thus, necessary technical improvements (such as changing the configuration file structure to exploit includes to reduce the risk of new content not being included in updates) were needlessly delayed and almost blocked altogether for no technical reason (or, at least, for no technical reason that was ever brought up).

Judging from what I know, there have been many attempts at healing this rift (which has caused minor and major earthquakes during the time I was following development), none of them successful. Bjorn thus decided to make an administrative decision to remove one person from the project to allow the necessary trust to be re-asserted and personal abuse to be reduced, to increase overall productivity.

It's unfortunate that a `personnel decision' was necessary here, but considering the ferocity of the unjustified personal attacks we have seen in this thread (note that I object only to the personal attacks, not to the attacks on technical decisions, which definitely are things that can be argued about) I can understand his decision.

-- fate

[celso]

Why can't we make this simple:

Platyna and Bjorn run servers (are they a GM too? if so, with powers)
Developers develop/code the game with no powers (If they want to test stuff, they should have their own server, local server (localhost) to test their stuff)
GM's watch the community and make sure nobody is breaking the rules and has the powers
Artists make pixel arts (hats, monsters, etc) with no powers (Same with dev's, if they want to try out their arts, have localhost server running and test it over there)
Players play the game

That's how it should be.

you read my mind

[i]

Bjorn thus decided to make an administrative decision to remove one person from the project to allow the necessary trust to be re-asserted and personal abuse to be reduced, to increase overall productivity.

I don't see how this decision could improve productivity. But I remember about some decisions from past which actually decreased productivity... and dev team morale.

[Platyna]

Fate, I trusted and respected these people, before they started to demand powers, depreciate me and argue with me about every single little thingie (such as sever files order). Now they act badly I am not going to say it is otherwise, for me such beaviour is, what I have written - lack of dignity and ambition.

However the "do not make developers gms" was not related to trust stuff, freedom of speech, opensourceness and anything those people tried to impose to keep their privileges. It was about order, division of power, coherence of the team and clear responsibility, not telling about the bad experience of tensions among the team and problems lack of such rules were causing.

I see b_lindeijer denies the normal people, has ambitions, has their personal pride, they like powers, they are getting envy, they argue. As we are now such a small team, it cannot be seen, but the aim isn't to be a small team, and when bad things happens they are irreversible.

And as you could recon, I have never said a bad word about you, why? Because you was able to state your resoning without trying to fight me or make me angry, you would more or less follow my suggestions, it was possible to speak with you if we disagreed, and you wasn't making hell from small things (such as when peavey and Jaxad raised hell when I wanted to see the changes before they go to SVN).

It then could bring impression you care only to contribute to the game without expecting any rewards. You were representing the quality of a developer I would prefer. And I wanted to give you responsibility to become a development section moderator (bjorn disagreed, and I have respected his decision).

Regards.

[Jaxad0127]

(such as when peavey and Jaxad raised hell when I wanted to see the changes before they go to SVN)

Source (date and time please)?

[Platyna]

You remember very well the discussion about this, and loud objections.

Regards.

[Rotonen]

Why can't we make this simple:

Platyna and Bjorn run servers (are they a GM too? if so, with powers)
Developers develop/code the game with no powers (If they want to test stuff, they should have their own server, local server (localhost) to test their stuff)
GM's watch the community and make sure nobody is breaking the rules and has the powers
Artists make pixel arts (hats, monsters, etc) with no powers (Same with dev's, if they want to try out their arts, have localhost server running and test it over there)
Players play the game

That's how it should be.

you read my mind

Seconded here too.

Messing around and crashing the live production environment is not good practice.