6+ months of agonizing "realism" nerfs have ruined this game

[gamejunky]

@mugling

[quote=“Random_dragon, post:206, topic:12504”]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.

Well he’s correct it isn’t a democracy and I’m not aware of him having said it’s an autocracy either. In open source projects those who contribute the most inevitably get the greatest say in the projects direction. Kevin has contributed a lot so his opinion remains relevant. I wouldn’t necessarily agree with all of his viewpoints but panning someone who isn’t present to defend themselves is unfair.

@ApatheticExcuse

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.

The dev team avoids open confrontation between it’s members to reduce this risk. Only an active developer with irreconcilable differences is likely to fork and that would be for their own reasons - not to champion ideas they read on a forum.

[quote=“Valpo, post:207, topic:12504”]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.[/quote]

Magazines is a good example. <5% of posters aggressively opposed this and claimed to represent 100% of the players whilst doing so. Now almost everybody is in favor of it. As a result anyone who claims to both represent the entire playerbase and to reliably predict the future has no influence on the developers at all.[/quote]

It’s not Kevin’s game. By that logic is it Whale’s game who actually has more understanding of the spirit and ethics of open source to ever make such an assertion even though he’s the original developer of what this game is a fork of. And I can see what Whale’s gripe is with this project. It’s the double-standard of it.

[Shopkeeper]

@Alec White

I come back to check on news about a new stable release(as I’m still playing Cooper), and check the lastest stable for almost two years now, althou I barely played 0.B and most of my playing is with 0.C.

The main thing with this is that the really work intensive projects (the biggest offender being the implementation of Z-levels) have to be by and far done with a certain level of polish to boot, before work towards a stable 0.D release can even begin. You should try a recent experimental, two years of development is crammed into them and it really does show.

@Alec White

Gotta say that it looks like contributors don’t coordinate among themselves, and whoever people has power to accept a PR doesn’t seem to communicate with the others. And in my opinion, a lot of stuff seems to happen on GitHub, between the whoever small group of contributors that are active at the time. Thing likes “The Drawing Board - Suggestions, Comments, and Future Plans” are underutilized by the active contributors at the time, making once again, that one contributor does X and another does X by doing XY and having some conflicting PRs, or discussions about core mechanics being in GitHub by just a handful of the active contributors instead of discussing, exterminating and evaluating it in the forum, where it would remain archive for everyone to re-examine, instead of diving through the GitHub issues.

Eh, all the actual work that gets done with the code is on Github though. CDDA isn’t a democracy, it’s a game whose development is community driven. That community isn’t the forum-goers here, it’s the people who actually go onto Github and work with the code to add or change what they or other coders want. We can give all the ideas and helpful suggestions we want here, it doesn’t matter if nobody actually helps put in the work to implement them.

[Litppunk]

Eh, all the actual work that gets done with the code is on Github though. CDDA isn't a democracy, it's a game whose development is community driven. That community isn't the forum-goers here, it's the people who actually go onto Github and work with the code to add or change what they or other coders want. We can give all the ideas and helpful suggestions we want here, it doesn't matter if nobody actually helps put in the work to implement them.

Well… I think that might actually be undermining the Forum side of the community a bit too much, but most of the important stuff actually happens on Git.

[Shopkeeper]

Is it really though? Most of us that post here don’t contribute and ideas are a dime a dozen.

I don’t really like Mugling’s seeming stick it in a mod mentality for instance. But I know as basically a non-contributor my word on the forum here amounts to jack in the long term when all the actual work gets done on Github.

[Pthalocy]

Stick-it-in-a-mod is the solution in some cases. I don’t think it’s the solution in all cases, and we really ought to be looking back to the game design outline doc to help decide what solutions reach that intended design best.

That doc is so under-used on account of the rather open approach to various individuals contributing new material. It’s a case of too many cooks in some ways, and not enough dialogue in others.

[mugling]

@Shopkeeper

Is it really though? Most of us that post here don’t contribute and ideas are a dime a dozen.

We have three types of issue:

[ul][li]Technical, no known solution (string_id::NULL_ID isn't always initialized in time · Issue #17197 · CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA · GitHub)[/li]
[li]Technical, known solution but difficult implementation (Canned ingredients aren't detected when crafting food · Issue #17401 · CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA · GitHub)[/li]
[li]Balance - subjective opinion[/li][/ul]

The linked technical issues are critical bugs for 0.D (please don’t spam github unless you want to work on a solution). We don’t need more ideas men but we do definitely need more developers.

@Shopkeeper

Eh, all the actual work that gets done with the code is on Github though. CDDA isn’t a democracy, it’s a game whose development is community driven. That community isn’t the forum-goers here, it’s the people who actually go onto Github and work with the code to add or change what they or other coders want. We can give all the ideas and helpful suggestions we want here, it doesn’t matter if nobody actually helps put in the work to implement them.

Correct. Open source projects can never be democratic for this reason. Nobody would ever work on the first two types of issue and the project would stall. I don’t disagree you have a community on the forums nor that such a thing is important. However a minority like to use the word ‘community’ to suggest they have either an authority or power they simply don’t posses. Sometimes we do take ideas from the forum and implement them but nobody should expect an automatic right to have someone else work on their suggestion.

@Shopkeeper

I don’t really like Mugling’s seeming stick it in a mod mentality for instance.

@Pthalocy

Stick-it-in-a-mod is the solution in some cases

The developers have to deal with everyone and you all have different and often opposing views. Additionally a lot of PR’s are written by beginner programmers who are unfamiliar with the codebase. Whilst we spend a lot of time trying to resolve those issues nobody should expect to be entitled to merge whatever they like and have the developers support it for them. Unfortunately statistics are better than half of those new contributors won’t stay around to finish or maintain their ideas.

@Shopkeeper

But I know as basically a non-contributor my word on the forum here amounts to jack in the long term when all the actual work gets done on Github.

It counts somewhat more given you show some understanding of how development actually takes place. When compared to the OP for this thread its quite clear who it’s going to be more productive discussing something with.

[Litppunk]

Well said mugling.

[BeerBeer]

@mugling

[quote=“BeerBeer, post:234, topic:12504”]Bit like people who go on a hunger strike or set themselves on fire

Throwing your toys out has nothing to do with self-sacrifice and in any case this is a game so have some sense of proportionality!

@BeerBeer

It tries to convey the message that “This will not stand, and I will be the first to go, and others might turn away as well, and I want you to be aware of this emerging trend, so that you have a chance of changing your ways before things escalate too far.”

Another prophecy of doom if we don’t acquiesce to your viewpoint. You’ve done this before - magazines would be a good example. Bonus marks for going for maximum offense when starting this thread.

@BeerBeer

And after a disappointed person is gone, he starts trash-talking the game to any other gamer whom he might come across in the future, or perhaps even worse, he says nothing, and in doing so he does his small part to make sure the game gets forgotten.

I suppose it depends on the individual - I’m sure most people are good natured and would just move on instead.

@BeerBeer

Moving on. The thing about democracy vs. autocracy/dictatorship. What if we had two development lines of CDDA? One with Kevin’s dictatorship and one with democratic approach?

Why are we back to this - it looks like you want to make a land grab? Asking who owns an open source project is kind of missing the point.[/quote]
-A game that happens to be a lot of fun, or even mindblowing. No need to take my metaphors so literally.

-You are right that I didn’t like the magazine change much but eventually I got used to it. And now we have the mod to disable it, making it an entirely different thing. There was no talk about having a “no mag mod” back then, not at first. Noise had to be raised. And by “this thread” do you mean ‘a’ or ‘the’ magazine thread? I didn’t start this current thread though. And I don’t remember starting a thread about magazine discussion, although it is quite possible.

-Good-natured vs. passionate. Good-natured, when taken far and wide enough, isn’t a good thing. Separate discussion. And for example, why are you criticizing me now? Is it because you want to defend your work? Why don’t you just quit and move on to another game? See? That’s why.

-It’s not about ownership. It’s about management, management styles and experimenting with different management styles, just to see what would happen. And there’s nothing to stop from having the mugling line of CDDA, for example, and assuming you’d be willing to manage your own line.

[Litppunk]

-A game that happens to be a lot of fun, or even mindblowing. No need to take my metaphors so literally.

I am confused as to what is trying to be accomplished here. I think you want someone else to manage CDDA? Not sure why you feel that, its an open source project so you can add to it as you like, but you seem to be happy with where the game is... so maybe he hasn't done such a bad job so far?

-You are right that I didn't like the magazine change much but eventually I got used to it. And now we have the mod to disable it, making it an entirely different thing. There was no talk about having a "no mag mod" back then, not at first. Noise had to be raised. And by "this thread" do you mean 'a' or 'the' magazine thread? I didn't start this current thread though. And I don't remember starting a thread about magazine discussion, although it is quite possible.

this thread seems self explanatory... the one we are currently discussing whithin, but ok we'll jump over to discussing magazines thread instead. I think Magazines might have been handled better if you look at it from a short term perspective. Long term... same difference. The devs knew they would end up with a functional magazine system, they also knew there would be growing pains. That known they could have implemented the no mags mod first and then started working on implementing magazines. That said, you do realize you are playing the experimentals right? So you are a crash test dummy. Sometimes we don't walk away so pretty before problems get solved.

So, it could have been handled better. But at the same time, it never should have become as big of an issue as it did. There was never any ACTUAL reason to raise a fuss over it, other than to go WOAH guys. This is REALLY broken right now, please implement a no mags mod, or just work on it more before you start implementing.

Anything that can be raged about, can better be solved with calm collected minds trying to solve the underlying issues and addressing them.

-Good-natured vs. passionate. Good-natured, when taken far and wide enough, isn't a good thing. Separate discussion.

Um… I think you got that backwards. Good-natured would mean being kind, sensitive, and helpful. Passion is what you can have too much of. Passion is a great thing that drives all of human invention and innovation, but too much blinds people to anything in their way. The rest of your argument in this paragraph seems to support this idea… in that you may be getting too much passion.

And for example, why are you criticizing me now? Is it because you want to defend your work? Why don't you just quit and move on to another game? See? That's why.

Im not sure criticize is the right word. Debate seems more accurate to me, or arguing with. Yes, I would say thats probably part of the reason… but also probably less than you seem to think, I imagine (sorry if im speaking out your mouth mugling…) he is doing the devs OTHER job and communicating with the forum people… thus trying to resolve that communication issue that was talked about earlier. Thus he is trying to correct any misconceptions you may have, as well as pull any valid arguments you may have out of your upset rantings. Something that would be easier done with calm heads.

-It's not about ownership. It's about management, management styles and experimenting with different management styles, just to see what would happen. And there's nothing to stop from having the mugling line of CDDA, for example, and assuming you'd be willing to manage your own line.

WOW. Ok… SOO much a no. I can’t say it hard enough. 1st off “lets just see what would happen” I think I can hear CDDA crashing already. Bad plan, as there is no plan mentioned here. “lets wing it” is a terrible plan that will spaghettify any project as large as CDDA. If you think we should replace Kevin then fine, make that argument for the case, and have a valid executable plan for doing so. But MANY countries have fallen into ruin because a charismatic person stood up and replaced a person with a plan, only to not have any executable plan once they took the place, other than “we will Change things” or “we’ll find a solution” This is the kind of issues that many an OVERZELOUS union has caused as well, which may be a better example in this case.

Anyways… On to the other stuff mentioned here. There is nothing wrong with you trying to make your own version of the game, or your own branch if that is what you want to do. But don’t use it as a threat… If you think you know a better management style. Then say so… and then actually follow through with what it might be. Or lead by example.

I am not sure whats up with you Beer beer, but I thought you more reasonable than this. What I am seeing here, frankly terrifies me. Its manipulative, underhanded, trickery. Not only that, but it reeks of the kind of “I CRAVE to be a leader no matter the cost” mindset that destroys good things. Do not take that path.

[StopSignal]

I think the issue is the community being a little left out of stuff, basically having to have someone bring the news from github so then we discuss them here, and then no one actually giving importance to what we say, and in the case it gets too big a developer may come down in ultra defensive mode to basically tell us why we are wrong, and then not be willing to see if there is a better way about things. And just then, if we are loud enough, they may realize when they do a fudgeup.

I’m not saying that developers should do only what the player base wants, but maybe telling us a bit about stuff and being more open minded about opinions instead of getting defensive that theirs is The One True Way would be a good idea.
Filthy clothes would have been so good if cleaning them wouldn’t be so unrealistic, for example. And it was discussed, but eventually it just became two sides throwing poop at each other.

I have been playing for more than three years, and i know about people that have been playing way more. And in a community as small as this one that’s actually quite valuable, as people here know a lot about how the game goes and try to have the most fun in it, and lots have been playing for so long they know what would work and what wouldn’t. But no one really cares apparently.

Another problem might be having too many developers working on small things that don’t interconnect leading to the tedious feature creep that is slowly taking over the game, as opposed to a more focused development. It’s understandable, though, as I guess most just don’t want to work in the big things like z levels or simply not have the talent for now. I’m starting to learn to code and I can tell how hard can it be with a project like this.
And having to also listen to us being annoying in the forum might be too much, but I swear we all want the same thing here, to have fun with the game.

I do think devs should really at least check out here more often, and give a little more importance to what we say, because we too know how the game works.
The forum is important. It’s the people that are the most invested in the game. They make tilesets, mods, sound packs, art, stories, etc, and they have been playing for a couple years already. It matters a lot.

[Litppunk]

^ Although the forum has been a bit hotheaded recently getting upset about things that should be discussed instead.

[StopSignal]

That’s true. It’s a bit of antagonizing some people around here and as well as some arguments that got way out of hand, but I do think there are people here that do discuss things the right way. I don’t think I do, but there are indeed.

It’s also a bit of frustration I guess, considering the arguments of the past we had. I’m sorry if I threw a bit of poop to anyone in those, so yeah kinda my fault as well.

But I do believe we can discuss things. We all just want to have fun with the game, after all!

It just takes devs and experienced players working together.

[Litppunk]

volunteers + management FTW!

[mugling]

@StopSignal

I do think devs should really at least check out here more often

You need to make doing so more productive then. Don’t suggest it’s a two way thing either - the development team is plenty productive whereas ‘discussions’ on the forum often aren’t.

@StopSignal

I’m sorry if I threw a bit of poop to anyone in those, so yeah kinda my fault as well.

You have the right (on the forum at least) to say what you like but don’t presume that right extends to requiring to others to listen to you. The two main options for influencing direction are to write code or convince a developer to listen to your idea. The moment it turns aggressive the latter is out of the question.

@StopSignal

I have been playing for more than three years, and i know about people that have been playing way more. And in a community as small as this one that’s actually quite valuable

@StopSignal

It just takes devs and experienced players working together.

Experienced? Less with the king-making. There’s a lot of posturing going on in this thread by those who don’t contribute to the project but want special status. Development might not be democratic but the forum definitely is - everyone’s ideas should have equal weight and nobody should be claiming to represent anyone else.

[Coolthulhu]

@mugling

[quote=“StopSignal, post:252, topic:12504”]It just takes devs and experienced players working together.

Experienced? Less with the king-making. There’s a lot of posturing going on in this thread by those who don’t contribute to the project but want special status. Development might not be democratic but the forum definitely is - everyone’s ideas should have equal weight and nobody should be claiming to represent anyone else.[/quote]

I disagree.
It is often pretty clear when opinion comes from an experienced player who actually considers the problems and from a newb who votes for what sounds cool.

Criticism coming from someone who enumerates actual problems with the game, none of the imagined problems, doesn’t contain any false fixes or pseudo-criticism (“I like the idea but not the implementation” followed either by a horrible idea or pretending that there is an implementation that is good but being unable to formulate it) instantly deserves more attention than an average post, even if it also contains hostility.

It doesn’t mean we should ignore someone for saying something stupid once or always listen to someone who said something smart, but when many people are throwing random ideas without justification, opinions of “game designers” is far more valuable than those of “idea guys”.

We, as devs, have implemented some ideas that sucked. Nobody is perfect and nobody can predict how good all the ideas are.
Having more points of view from people who are known to actually watch and not just sit there "what if"ing helps to avoid own biases.

[BeerBeer]

[quote=“Litppunk, post:249, topic:12504”]this thread seems self explanatory… the one we are currently discussing whithin, but ok we’ll jump over to discussing magazines thread instead. I think Magazines might have been handled better if you look at it from a short term perspective. Long term… same difference. The devs knew they would end up with a functional magazine system, they also knew there would be growing pains. That known they could have implemented the no mags mod first and then started working on implementing magazines. That said, you do realize you are playing the experimentals right? So you are a crash test dummy. Sometimes we don’t walk away so pretty before problems get solved.

So, it could have been handled better. But at the same time, it never should have become as big of an issue as it did. There was never any ACTUAL reason to raise a fuss over it, other than to go WOAH guys. This is REALLY broken right now, please implement a no mags mod, or just work on it more before you start implementing.

Anything that can be raged about, can better be solved with calm collected minds trying to solve the underlying issues and addressing them.[/quote]

• When he said “this thread” it was no self-explanatory. To me, he either (A) stated a false fact that I started this thread, which I didn’t, or (B) stated that I started a magazine update thread somewhere, of which I have no recollection of.
• We as players cannot know how long an update or a feature addition will take. For all we know, it might take months, and all through that time we’d be forced to deal with the broken ill-matured mechanic. I happen to be a sceptic and a pessimist to some degree, meaning that I wasn’t entirely sure the end result would be pleasing anyway.
• I am not a crash test dummy. I am a human being. I have feelings. (said beerbeer with a cold empty stare in his eyes)
• I can’t remember but I think there were few polite attempts to introduce a “no mags mod”, which were either ignored or countered.
• And YES, maybe the update could’ve been handled better, but it wasn’t a disaster. It just looked like one at first. Nothing will ever change that first perception.
• Hoping for a calm or an emotionless debate is an unreasonable wish. First come the calm polite requests, then the volume will be raised, if the subject is important. In the end, moderators can switfly boot out any loud-mouthed maniacs… hopefully after a warning shot. So there has always been a safeguard against raging maniacs.

@Litppunk

Um… I think you got that backwards. Good-natured would mean being kind, sensitive, and helpful. Passion is what you can have too much of. Passion is a great thing that drives all of human invention and innovation, but too much blinds people to anything in their way. The rest of your argument in this paragraph seems to support this idea… in that you may be getting too much passion.

I so much hate to say this but WW2 era Germans were good-natured people. They liked to ignore and move on too, and pretend to be blind. That is what I’m getting at here. I have some amount of passion, that much I admit. I absolutely detest the notion that “you should just move on”, no matter who says it. Why on earth would anyone give up on a good thing without a verbal fight? One should just leave his country if it takes the first wrong step? One should just disown his parents for the first bad thing they say? One should just walk away from a great game for the first bad feature it sustains? “Shush. Just quietly accept the changes. Just let it happen.”

Never. I will speak up.

@Litppunk

If you think we should replace Kevin

No. I’m saying anyone could create a new branch, and hence become a branch manager. The branches would be isolated (obviously). Any code contributions would only go to specific branches. Obviously some or most code might be compatible with one or more branches. I can’t tell what the consequences would be, but I think 20 years from now it might look like Linux and its copious distros… Is that a good thing or something terrifying? Also, CDDA being less complex than Linux, at most there might be maybe 5 CDDA branches, compared to nine-eleventeen-thousand-too-damn-many Linux distros that exist today.

@Litppunk

I am not sure whats up with you Beer beer, but I thought you more reasonable than this. What I am seeing here, frankly terrifies me. Its manipulative, underhanded, trickery. Not only that, but it reeks of the kind of “I CRAVE to be a leader no matter the cost” mindset that destroys good things. Do not take that path.

What is this talk about leadership? I’m a player. Not a coder. I say the things that I say, and if people choose to follow them, or reject them, so be it. In fact, I question your reading comprehension, or the amount of focus you apply. I am sorry if I irk you out, but at the same time it’s kind of funny. Now bow before me.

[Litppunk]

I never said, “don’t speak up” more… this isn’t the right way to do this.

If branching is what your after, I can’t say I am comfortable with that, as it would split development several ways and the branches would become increasingly independent and isolated from each other. Not dissimilar from the USbipartisan party that is now becoming increasingly extreme on either side thanks to gerrymandering. With noticable ill effects.

[Pthalocy]

I must imagine the difficulty for a dev browsing the forums for feedback, is that meaningful discussion about project management or feature inclusion/removal must be sifted out of threads like this one. Yikes.

Problem: non-contributors are unfamiliar with body of game code to suggest meaningful design choices to devs.
Problem: devs not frequenting the forums are not always able to simplify design or code hurdles in a meaningful way so that non-contributors can provide more meaningful feedback on user-end issues.
Problem: who’s job is it to make code problems relatable to non-coders, and find information from forum-problems that is useful to devs?

Am I suggesting such a role? Theoretically yes, but it sounds like an awful job given how intermixed forum-side issues get with game-design related ones.
My point is, this is why StopSignal suggested those who’ve been around long enough to know game structure and userbase well are an asset. People with familiarity with both user-end and dev-side dynamics can help solve communication problems.

And yes, it’s a communication problem if we have non-contributors feeling ignored, voicing this complaint, voicing complaints with features implemented, while the primary dev being mentioned here is not even present.

It is a communication problem if Kevin comes here has to spend more time defending against a ton of discussion for and against him before he can even begin digging through discussion for and against the feature-creep problem ("“realism” nerfs") that OP began with. He’s not here to do that. He’s here to work on the game project’s insides as far as I am aware.

Tl;dr this communication gap is why threads like this don’t feel any closer to modifying CDDA’s design direction in a way that pleases people/devs. Not without way more work than is needed.

[Litppunk]

I volunteer as tribute. Is it suicide, yes. Yes it is, Why? Do I have Any REAL coding experience? No. I am doomed to fail. But I get the gists well enough. DOOOOOOOOOOOMED

[pisskop]

You dont need ‘experience coding’ so much as a willingness to look at the code, the ability to (try to) understand it, and have enough ingame experience to know roughly what an otherwise abstract number means.

:o

and I think you do.