EiR:R Development and Progress

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[Groundfire]

But it's also more than that, more than just a simple dissenting post on a fourm.

If the coders do not have creative control, as if they are micro managed on every change from everyone else that would not like this change, then you also get coder burn out.

This is incredibly taxing especially while creating a doctrine and it's not that they are not open to suggestions, but if the amount of changes requested requires a complete redo (or another doctrine redo) then that is literally a dozen or 2 dozen man hours wasted on the account of accommodation to people who would micro manage the work of the coder. After spending 2 solid days of working on one thing that is dictated by others for no pay, Im sure you would say "Fuck it" as well.

This very exact thing happened with last cycle Luftwaffe as well as this cycle Luftwaffe and I want this fourm to know that everyone is to blame for it as a specific example. (that is unless you liked the doctrine and spoke well of it, which no one really did)

Thats not saying that it didnt warrant some constructive criticism, but as I said before, it all stacks anyways, especially if the people who are to play with the doctrine dont accept the methodology behind the design.

[tank130]

Uh Oh, you brought up a specific doctrine........ Thread derail eminent.

[Groundfire]

I refered to Luftwaffe as a specific context pretaining to the premise of the thread. Bob was micromanaged so hard while he made luftwaffe.


Oh and i think that last post stating my post would derail the thread was actually the starting post of derailing the thread.

I got my Delete button ready, should we start now?

[TheWindCriesMary]

Tank, while everyone else in this thread was able to answer in a calm and friendly manner, you pretty much act like the people you say are so horrible.

 I have to say this is the truest thing to come out of this thread.


You mean well Tank, but the way you come off is identical to the way you believe I come off when I make arguments. It's a shitty fact to come to terms with, and I don't envy you, but it's the truth. Welcome to the world of people getting pissed off at you and getting all buttheart just because you strongly believe you're right about something and defend it passionately.


Again, your intentions in this thread are good. But you're 4 degrees off the mark (which isn't bad out of 360).

The truth of the matter is that this mod has a right to be pissed off at times. They have a right to speak up when they are pissed off, and the dev/balance team has an obligation to get over themselves when they do without throwing in the towel. For this  thread, you just can't rage at people for voicing their opinions on something that they invest time in.  You can't force people to just go along all nice and quiet like while sloppy practices and a lack of transparency (EiRMod not included) harm something they care about. You can be mad at the people who contribute nothing and who have no stake in EiR, but you don't have the right to get all high and mighty on the rest of us.

The best thing a mod like this can have is a community that cares enough about it to give a damn when they see things being done to harm it. If people feel they have no voice in something, they leave.

Youre shut up and enjoy it or GTFO philosophy, despite being one that not even you follow (see the quote from you earlier in the thread), is completely irrational, illogical and flies in the face of any kind of reason. It belies an apathetic and docile community - one without passion or investment. Not to mention it would mean absolutely NO pressure on the dev/balance team to stay honest. When your on a dev team or in any closed circle of power you're inevitably going to lose touch with how things actually are on the ground level -- you need a vocal community to force you to stay current. When you no longer are, you need to be replaced.

If you want to make your position one that is arguing against people who are endlessly negative and contribute nothing, then good on you.

Anything more, and you're shit out of luck.

-Wind

[Groundfire]

Were you any less vicious one month ago, Wind?

Your little rebellion was the nail in the coffin. Im telling you that straight up.

We cannot keep on cycling through coders like this. CoH is a dying game, there are no new people coming into it. The modding community by comparison has about 2 dozen people left in it capable of the type of skills needed to finish up our mod.

You think you may be protecting what you can argue is rightfully yours, but I dont think you understand.

We cannot replace these people

As such, it becomes prudent to maintain their interest in coding or the mod will die. Now, again must I recite how it is that we can do this?

[roflmao]

@WindCriesMary:
EiR is not a democracy. There aren't any "rights". There isn't a "mod constitution" or a "balance of powers between developers and the community". That does not mean that EIR is run by a dictator either. In fact there is no politics whatsoever, so let me state this in one simple statement:

The people who work on the mod get the final word on what they are working on.

That means that if EIRRMod spends 300 hours working on the warmap, EiRRMod is the one that gets to decide the mechanics of the warmap. Not me. Not you. Not Groundfire nor any other developer. EiRRMod.

If I spend 20 hours working on a forum skin, I'm the one that ultimately gets to decide the details of the skin. Not Akranadas. Not you. Me.

Now that does not mean that the input of others doesn't matter and that we just do 'whatever the fuck we want' and do not listen at all to other people. Input is very important and does influence our decision making. That is the reason we take so long to release changes, because we try to implement what the majority wants.

If you think however that you have any sort of input on the way EIR "should be run" or that there should be a "change of management" or that the "process needs some updating" and that you can start some sort of revolution then you simply do not understand the nature of what a small 3rd party mod is and the way it works. If you really are interested in seeing some radical changes, then go learn how to code SCAR and spend 100 hours implementing features and balance changes and then your opinion will have a lot of weight. Otherwise, just voice your opinion and leave it at that.

You see, just because I have a shiny developer tag under my name and work on the mod does not mean I have any input on the moderation of the forums because I don't work on moderating the forums. If I were in charge of the forums trust me, things would be run quite differently (a lot more strict). Sure, I make the occasional suggestion here and there but ultimately if Akranadas or EliteGren or another moderator who spends time moderating the forums disagrees with me, I shut up and let them do what they want. I have input on what I work on and that's about that.

You say you've spent hundreds of hours playing the mod. Cool! That means you are the one who decides exactly how you want to spend your manpower and fuel and munitions and how many rifle squads or volksgrenadiers you want.

You say you've done shoutcasts. Great! You get to decide the format of your shoutcasts, the replays you choose, the video editing program you use, the website you upload them to, etc etc, because it is your work.

That does not mean in any way that just because you do shoutcasts you suddenly have "rights" to decide what the general direction of the mod is. There is no "general direction". EIR's general direction is a compilation of the work of individuals who have different opinions on all sorts of things.

[Scotzmen]

EiR is not a democracy.

ITS A DICTATORSHIP!  IT!... IS!... HITLER!

[Groundfire]

Rofl, if I ever meet you in real life, im buying you a beer.

[TheWindCriesMary]

@Rofl:

What you have done here is create a scarecrow to argue against.

If (Wind's Argument) = EiR is a democracy then difficulty of defeating said argument is set to 0. Solution: insert cliche and completely obvious argument that EiR is not a democracy.



Reality Check: Next time save your self the hassle of writing out a long post by actually reading what I said:

Which is, drumroll please...

EiR players who contribute to the mod are a thousand percent justified to voice their opinions.


The key word is here, we are JUSTIFIED in voicing our opinions. Not that we A) have a role in making decisions, or B) That EiR is a democracy. Tank in this thread asserted that people shouldn't voice their opinions about something they care about. That is wrong. That is illogical. That is plain stupid.


Now just so there is no confusion on that, because god knows some people want to believe this argument is some simpleton belief that can easily be shut down by a tired and obvious cliche, lets go over it again:

Those who contribute time, effort, and resources to the mod are completely justified when it comes to voicing their opinions - ESPECIALLY when areas of that mod's decision making by its volunteer staff is lacking.

Get it? Got it? Good.


I don't personally care if our opinions are never implemented or even considered. I'm of the opinion that if a mod gets to a point where it is no longer worth my time, and the dev/balance team's pride is too badly hurt by people questioning their choices to make it better, then I can leave any time I want.

But as long as I have a shred of hope that it could be as great as I know it can be, then I'm going to stick around. And I'm going to do everything I can to keep those who should be responsible for helping it reach that goal honest.

Now we all know, as you so obviously (and needlessly) pointed out, we don't make the decision. But we can sure as hell make sure those who do hear our voices. You know why? Because at the end of the day the reason this mod is made is so that people will play it.

Ignore them long enough, and you will discover the very biggest motivator for a dev team losing interest: no playerbase.


We will make our voices heard. Whether or not they are listened to isn't our problem.

-Wind

[TheWindCriesMary]

Were you any less vicious one month ago, Wind?

Your little rebellion was the nail in the coffin. Im telling you that straight up.

No one said a word in my "rebellion" about coders. Lumping my crusade against lazy, inactive and completely unreliable and unqualified balance team members in with Bob's departure (which happened well before) is as disingenuous a connection as could ever be made.

The people on the balance team didn't have the manhood to man up to the fact that they got called out on having a completely bogus methodology - I can live with them leaving. This community is full of people who could do ten times better jobs then them, so losing them was no loss.

They can be replaced.

As to coders, I actually liked Bob. But as is so often the case with EiR's last string of coders, they come into EiR and use the position to make EiR's doctrine their own personal science lab to test out all these cool things they've always dreamed of even though those things are completely ludicris and ruin EiR's game play (case in point: Gamesguy). Then the mod gets bogus looney tunes units and abillities and people get pissed off. Then the coder gets hurt feelings because no one is appreciating their sacrifice, which really became more about them losing all sense of touch with the actual game and how their fantasies would manifest in the real metagame.

So they leave.

If EiR get's one coder who is more concerned with just giving EiR a basic and solid set of doctrines instead of successive cartoon comic book doctrines that sway from overpowered to useless like a pendelum... they would find it alot easier to keep the community from getting pissed off.

You can't do a volunteer job completely to the beat of your own drum and then feel depressed when the people you were supposed to be doing it for aren't happy with it.

You either

1)do it your own way and don't give a damn what people think,

 or

2) You care what people think and do it with them in mind

or option 3

3) you do it your own way but care what people think, and inevitably get worn out when they don't like your divine vision

-Wind

[Demon767]

+1 Wind

[chefarzt]

Now that was a nice speech Wind . U might be a prick but ur right on that.

[roflmao]

I think you're missing the point by making sweeping generalizations. There is no "the community" and "the developers". The community is just as divided on balance issues as the developers. You seem to be under the impression that all the members of the balance team share the same opinions on balance and the same methodology. If you think we don't listen to the 'community' then you're just simply wrong. The community is not one entity that thinks alike.

The bottom line is that no matter what the developers do, there is always going to be significant opposition.
-------

Sure you can voice your opinion as long as you comply to the guidelines, but your communist-esque "the voice of the people WILL be heard!" hyperbole isn't an effective opinion.

Just step back a bit. This is a game. Once you realize that EIR balance is not going to determine your future in life then you'll rapidly notice that the idealistic and harsh tone of voice is just silly. Shout off the top of your lungs all day, but if you actually want to be heard then voice your opinion in a matter-of-fact way with a smile, not by talking about what is "justified" and about just how pissed off you are.

Last but not least, each time you make a post please remember that it is easier to criticize than to create. You'd have to be very arrogant to think that you could do any better than the "cartoon comic book doctrines" you hate. Do you really think that all that is needed is a "sensible" people in the balance team and that that would somehow fix all of EIR's balance problems? That's naive. A lot of thought were put in those doctrines and it is hard to think about all the problems that can arise from certain balance changes.

We try our best, and when something doesn't work out, instead of posting angrily, just state why you think the changes didn't work out, once again with a smile . I guarantee you if you do this, the chances of your posts being heard will increase ten fold.

[roflmao]

Look,

No one said a word in my "rebellion" about coders. Lumping my crusade against lazy, inactive and completely unreliable and unqualified balance team members in with Bob's departure (which happened well before) is as disingenuous a innaccurate connection ascould ever be made.

The people on the balance team didn't have the manhood to man up to didn't recognize the fact that they got called out on having a completely bogus bad methodology - I can live with them leaving. This community is full of people who could do ten times better jobs then them, so losing them was no loss.

They can be replaced.

As to coders, I actually liked Bob. But as is so often the case with EiR's last string of coders, they come into EiR and use the position to make EiR's doctrine their own personal science lab to test out all these cool things they've always dreamed of even though those things are completely ludicris and ruin EiR's game play the mod to try out unrealistic things (case in point: Gamesguy). Then the mod gets bogus looney tunes units and abillities slightly over the top abilities and people get pissed off mad. Then the coder gets hurt feelings because no one is appreciating their sacrifice loses motivation, which really became more about them losing all sense of touch with the actual game and how their fantasies would manifest in the real metagame.

So they leave.

If EiR get's one coder who is more concerned with just giving EiR a basic and solid set of doctrines instead of successive cartoon comic book doctrines that sway from overpowered to useless like a pendelum... over the top doctrines they would find it alot easier to keep the community from getting pissed off. mad.

You can't do a volunteer job completely to the beat of your own drum and then feel depressed when the people you were supposed to be doing it for aren't happy with it.

You either

1)do it your own way and don't give a damn what people think don't listen to the community,

 or

2) You care what people think and do it with them in mind

or option 3

3) you do it your own way but care what people think, and inevitably get worn out when they don't like your divine vision plan

-Wind

If you just removed all the hyperbole, we would be a lot more willing to listen to your voice.

On the other hand, if you continue on posting posts as over the top as your last post, I'll just ignore your voice (and the other dev members probably will as well).

[Demon767]

Roflmao this is only directed at you. Why is this issue being brought up now after all this time? What makes the now different then the past?

[roflmao]

Nothing has really changed, hehe. It's just that tank started a thread about this issue and we're now talking about it publicly .

Also:
Since we do this all in our free time, development cycles are very uneven. EIR development is constantly going through boom and bust cycles. Development is currently in a lull because EIRRMod has been busy (you know, with the chch earthquake and all) and he is the one driving the warmap. I've been meaning to do a bunch of website improvements but I've been working long hours getting a timesheet app for my business up and running as well as a website for a texas charity organization. Development will pick up eventually.

One more clarification:
With the exception of the awesome alienware donation by tank, all donations go to keeping the servers running, that's it.

[Demon767]

And i congratulate you on a successful furom skin.

Ok good clarification Roflmao.

Good now i understand what i need. Thats what i like to highlight that if it was such a terrible problem back then as it is now, and i want to say this in the most sincere possible way, developers should have taken action, Or was it that much of a problem back then than it is now? or in actual fact, has anything really changed? are we just looking for others to blame?

Frankly, anyone here, all vets here love the mod, i love the mod, there is no question about it. This thread is specifically focused on the vets, and we know how passionate we get because we want the best for the mod like the developers want to see their dream of a successful multiplayer mod. There maybe some that can go off the rails abit because they become so passionate, and some thought prior to posting may be in order. but what im trying to get at is there should be no Witch hunt to those who have  so called guided EIRR into this "depression". because you would be punishing those vets who are the ones that care for the mod, even possibly more then developers. What i know is that, if EIRRmod made his own thread and discussed his own concerns to HIS people, Us, the people who make this community, that he is worried about the communities direction and attitude and that he wishes for members of the community to please have some sympathy. i know, anyone worth a ounce in this community respects EIRRmod above all in this community.

EIRRmod i wish you did voice your concerns about this yourself sooner.

Im sorry Tank but how you attempted to explain the same thing is hard to take in, as your equal to the community  and you attempted to assert your dominance asif you are higher then us or that we respect your word.

[Sachaztan]

Now for a post a little less bathed in sarcasm:

It has been amusing to see people debate "across" each other, in other words they think they are arguing about the same thing when they are in fact talking about two different issues. It has been warming my old veteran troll heart to see completely genuine posts that if posted by me would have using a clever tactic of mine to make people as angry as possible without the risk of being exposed as the troll I am. An excellent example of this would be tanks first post which has all the hallmarks of this tactic, a tactic which holds these criteria:

1.It has to have a genuine, decent point. If it doesn't people will either not take it seriously or recognise it as the troll it is.
2.It should keep blatant inflammatory words to a bare minimum and when present should not be something that you are actually saying, instead being examples, paraphrasing or quotes.
3.And most importantly there has to have something that is bound to make readers angry, irritated, mad, annoyed etc. The more this works on a subconscious level instead of a conscious the better as it will be harder for readers to pinpoint exactly what makes them all riled up!

Tanks first post has all three criteria. When it comes to #3 it makes use of humans instinctive distaste for arrogance and the gnawing sensation "is he referring to me?" that many would feel. It is sublime. It is perfect.
Alas, tank is not here to troll you and this made the mischievous bastard inside me supremely happy.



I could write an essay on the issues that has been brought up so far and discussion about them, but I will settle with tanks original one (which btw isn't really discussed by you guys now, you are talking about other issues and I wonder if you even realise this).

This is the internet, and behaviour that you are referring to will always exist. Most of the people that behave the way you describe will most likely not listen to anyone, they maybe wont even read this thread at all. You have zero influence on this. The people that you should be trying to change is the MODERATORS OF THE FORUM. They are the only ones able to keep those inflammatory posts away from the sensitive eyes of the developers so that they can focus on what's really important, such as developing the game and listening to the community. In fact, I can't really wrap my head around it that they haven't done so already since that is a rather obvious part of moderating a forum! And there obviously are active admins, as I have had several of my posts deleted for having too much sarcasm in them. And whatever admin is doing that, what about you do what you are supposed to do and keep the REAL inflammatory posts away from the forum instead of a crusade against sarcasm and irony?

Also this goes without saying, I take tanks word for it that these posts exists since there seems to be some kind of general consensus around it (I haven't seen any myself).

Finally I keep trolling on this forum to a bare minimum, and then pretty much only in the general discussion thread. Why? Because I care about this mod and try my best to keep my urges at bay.

[cloud234]

The people who work on the mod get the final word on what they are working on.

So... you're saying its "my way or the high way"? Meaning we should move on and play other games?

[cloud234]

Just step back a bit. This is a game. Once you realize that EIR balance is not going to determine your future in life then you'll rapidly notice that the idealistic and harsh tone of voice is just silly.

I hate to put it this way, it is probably not what you intend, but your "indirect" message is... "Stop playing eirr if u don't like it. I don't care about what you think and its just a game anyway. There are better things to do in your life right?"