I remember a small but vocal minority originally declaring their inclusion effectively marked the end of the project and they wouldn’t be playing any more. So 6+ months later…
You’re literally quoting things from 3 years ago.[/quote]
That was the point, really. These were all considered terrible ideas three years ago by everyone except Kevin - if you click the quotes and read through, that becomes pretty evident.
So, either
- Something changed and they’re somehow not terrible ideas anymore,
or
- They are still terrible ideas, and the change has been that over the last three years, this has stopped being a community developed game when the other “originators” of the DDA mod went inactive, and started being Kevin’s game.
I’ll give the exception to mags, which do work pretty well. But, if you read that thread, more of the devs than just Granade thought it was good too.
I could have quoted some things direct from the design document, but I’m under the impression that was more KA101’s ideas for the game rather than a summation of everyone’s.
That’s kinda also the point. They were vetoed by others, but Kevin liked them. Now they are things, despite many people and some of the devs not liking them. I don’t know how the dev team works - maybe it is Kevin’s game 100% and he has final say, but if that’s the case, I sincerely hope someone forks it before it becomes more tedious.
Not really in this case, but if it was, it’s a poor paradigm shift.
Which thread because there were a number? A handful of posters provided 95%+ of the ‘feedback’. Most of those posters have now moved onto other issues. Will history repeat itself?
Yes.
I’m meaning the one I quoted. I didn’t bother looking at recent stuff.
You poor, naive soul. If Kevin decides he really wants filthy clothes to be in mainline, then he’ll likely re-mainline it no matter what player feedback and common sense says. In his own words, the project is not a democracy.
Thats a good thing. The community usualy wants things that are poorly thought through. It is better if the devs decide what is good for the project.
The community should only serve as inspiration and feedback . It should not have any deciding power.
This is not a good thing if the devs (more importantly, any of them with merge permissions) latch onto ideas that are sound and sensible only to them. We would not have 14 pages of this thread otherwise.
I’d say that depends entirely on how “optional” the opposed feature is. People protested Filthy Clothes loudly and constantly from the moment they were introduced til the moment that they were removed because it wasn’t something they could turn off. I guarantee you that if you removed the option to disable Meter Management Hell (vitamins) the people that opposed it during it’s inception would return in force to protest it even more loudly and constantly than Filthy Clothes. Also magazines are small potatoes compared to (Make Sure These 10 Meters Stay High But Not Too High Or You’ll Suffer Crippling Consequences) and (If You Didn’t Take An Automotive Class In Highschool Then This Game Definitely Isn’t For You).
With those on the horizon I can’t in good consciousness blame anyone for dropping their vendetta against magazines and “moving on to other issues”.
Having bad devs is bad yes.
But can you come up with another remedy for this then gaining better devs?
This.
They say that the community doesn’t always know what’s best for them. If the community–i.e., most of the players–thinks something is bad, then it’s a bad feature. If the community puts in something stupid, then if most of the players agree that it’s stupid, they should be able to take it back out. It’s not like the players need babysitters. ‘Tyranny of the majority’ doesn’t really apply in this case, frankly, because this is a video game, not real life.
Having bad devs is bad yes.
But can you come up with another remedy for this then gaining better devs?[/quote]
Having a “team leader” is who is not actively hostile to other devs and members of the playerbase that disagree with him might be a good start.
Similarly, having one who doesn’t insist that a game (or in this case a mod of a game) that he’s not even responsible for creating is subject to his personal whims might be another.
Having bad devs is bad yes.
But can you come up with another remedy for this then gaining better devs?[/quote]
Having a “team leader” is who is not actively hostile to other devs and members of the playerbase that disagree with him might be a good start.
Similarly, having one who doesn’t insist that a game (or in this case a mod of a game) that he’s not even responsible for creating is subject to his personal whims might be another.[/quote]
This. 100%
[quote=“ApatheticExcuse, post:212, topic:12504”]Having a “team leader” is who is not actively hostile to other devs and members of the playerbase that disagree with him might be a good start.
Similarly, having one who doesn’t insist that a game (or in this case a mod of a game) that he’s not even responsible for creating is subject to his personal whims might be another.[/quote]
Hell, put Coolthulhu in charge instead. He/she/squid(?) generally has their head screwed on straight.
So it is not Kevins fork?
That unfortunately is the problem. Kevin is as much a keystone of the project as Whales or KA101 used to be. Granted, I have no personal experience with those two.
From my understanding, it’s Darkling Wolf’s mod originally, though to be fair, I don’t know how much of the content he created vs. how much Kevin and others have since then. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t remember the details all that well, but from what I recall, it was his first, then Kevin signed on.
It’s Kevin’s now, either way, and in re-reading that, I think I worded it poorly because it really shouldn’t matter who “owns” it at this point.
KA had some ideas about running the forum that didn’t jive too well with some of us, but you can’t deny his contributions to the game and ability as a dev.
Who it “belongs” to is entirely semantic at this point. There was a time when Granade did an overwhelming majority of the development personally. At that point it was very definitely “his fork”. Nowadays he VERY occasionally cleans up code (which is appreciated) and mostly just vetoes reasonable suggestions and antagonizes people he doesn’t agree with (which is less appreciated). Contrary to what american television may try to tell you, abrasiveness is actually a horrible quality for an administrator to have. He’s not bad at his job, but he’s also nowhere near talented enough at it to justify the “insufferable genius” archetype that he looks to be trying portray himself as.
Basically this. Best case scenario, you have sane devs like Rivet or Coolthulhu dealing with his attitude. Otherwise you have:
-
Less capable contributors getting brow-beaten into going along with his ideas.
-
Assholes like me that are just as bad with people as Kevin is, and thus friction ensues.
With the latter, it’s even worse if the other people isn’t able to own up to their attitude problems. At least I have readily owned up to my half of the drama between Kevin and I.
The point I was originally trying to make before I got sidetracked by my own opinions (It appears that I am in fact not perfect. Shame.) was that his actual power over the project now isn’t really backed by anything tangible. Back when he was one of the most active developers he was indispensable. If he’d left, Cataclysm would have withered and died. That isn’t the case now. Coolthulu, Rivet, Mugling, Soywieser, Tho Ki, codemime and many others contribute tons of work to the project every day. It would continue living even if Granade was out of the picture. In that sense he doesn’t really “own” it any more. You’d have to find somebody else to foot the server bills before anything like that happened though.