Character
Rules
Events
Map
RP Points
Proplimits
Statistics
Steam Group
Members
Hall of Fame
Team
Bans
Blacklists
Warnings
Changelog
Content
07-21-2020, 01:57 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-01-2022, 01:08 AM by Fearless Community. Edited 3 times in total.
Edit Reason: Checked Encoding
)
Sure, I might be a bit biased having been part of the dev team, but that is due to a different understanding of FL development than most of the players. First off, I would like to appreciate these new discussion threads, Falcon. I think there can never be anything wrong with talking about what is going on with the community, even if it reverts back to unfortunately old, but still existing, issues. With that being said, I personally cannot blame the devs too harshly.
We currently have a very strong team that is diverse in skills and we have never had a better development process than now (assuming it hasnt changed from when i resigned :p). Yes, it isn't really motivating to see players constantly bash the hard work put into the updates, but I can also agree that the dev team should be (and trust me, it is) able to take criticism. However, for a long time the tone of said "criticism" has been going against the devs personally rather than an objective look of what can be improved. Personal harassment or plain insults are not going to keep anyone motivated to do what they currently do. However, as you already said, pointing out what could be improved is an integral part to developing on anything, really. And the devs do appreciate constructive criticism. Just please refrain from bullshitting others. Remember, they all do this for free whilst having job or going to uni/school. Sure they could be paid, but that would probably hurt the creativity as now devs can go out for what they can get paid the most.
Anyhow, the key issue is not the devs or the development process, it is the underlying foundation: The gamemode.
I have said it multiple times and I can only repeat myself. The gamemode is horrible to work with. There exists no documentation on how it works or what functions do, which global vars exists, which systems can do what. Every dev has to learn that for themselves. Yes, some can pass down knowledge to others, but even that is not guaranteed to be working. Devs in the past just added on top of this pile in whatever way they saw fit, not having code simplicity, readibility or any kind of documentation in general in the mind. The gamemode has gotten so complex, that even if you just wanna change the color of a job (which should be a one-liner), chances are you will break something else along with it.
Let me make this more clear: NOBODY KNOWS HOW THE GAMEMODE WORKS! IT JUST WORKS!
There is no structure at all and blindly adding updates on top of it will not make it better. It will make it even harder to develop in the future, it will become unmaintable, unstable, crash more often, have FPS issues due to bottlenecks that can't be found and all kinds of technical horror scenarios. The team first needs to restructure this from scratch. However, that will bring a lot of changes that the team and not even the players can fully agree on, when asked. It will also take a lot of time to develop something comparable to what we have now. The devs are afraid of pissing too many players of because in the end you, the players, are the ones playing whatever the devs coded. They do want to keep your opinion in mind, but not everything can be decided that way (either due to technical limitations or because it would make the game unbalanced). I believe at this point they should just go with whatever they find most beneficial and not care about the players too much. Don't shy away from drastic changes and keep a neutral eye on the gamemode. Don't do changes (or not do changes) because you think you will not like the outcome, when it infact can be very beneficial to the gamemode (I'm looking at you, temporary inventory <.<).
How the team sorts this mess out has been the top priority for a couple months and it probably will still be. Unfortunately it will not be a fancy big update, but they have to fix the errors that were made in the past. Not by this dev team, but by previous developers.
To the dev team itself: I do not think a bit of transparency will hurt. I really liked the idea of the roadmap. It kept a vague deadline to things to make sure the project won't vanish into oblivion. It also gave the players a feel of what they can expect. You could also be a bit more active on the teasers, but then again: What is there to tease on backend changes for non-tech-savvy people? Then there is the changelog. Please keep in mind that, even though you might not see a lot of changes, there are hidden entries for devs/admins-only due to security concerns. Also the team has vastly different areas of development which can only be satisfied by some, but never all devs.
Awestruck: Fair enough, do not actually know what he is up to :p
Broccoli: Working on his own, to create updates to keep you entertained while the rest sort out the gamemode issues
Codeknight: Great web dev. Has been revamping the infrastructure of the website to current standards. Much needed
Conn: Does not do much coding, but is the only superdev. He single-handedly has to coordinate the entire dev team and make sure they are not going off-topic with their ideas too much. Much needed since Divey, Tomo and Fultz do not have a sufficient knowledge of development.
DarkN00b: Only modeller we have. Is not much needed recently because most problems (if not all) are code-based. Can;t afford to lose him though in the case we need fresh models.
Edned: Same as Codeknight.
Rylund: Working hard at the backend side of things. Practically manages the new GM project (don't know the team's current progress)
Tomo: Same as Broccoli.
I hope I will not get flamed by the team for this type of "transparency". Keep in mind, I currently do not know what they are up to, I can only tell stories from back when I was a dev. Though I hope it will make it easier for people to understand what the dev team means to FL and why it is needed.
Megapost off
TL;DR: Don't give devs too much shit. They do the best they can, but have to fix many backend errors that were made by previous devs in the past, hence no shiny new updates.
We currently have a very strong team that is diverse in skills and we have never had a better development process than now (assuming it hasnt changed from when i resigned :p). Yes, it isn't really motivating to see players constantly bash the hard work put into the updates, but I can also agree that the dev team should be (and trust me, it is) able to take criticism. However, for a long time the tone of said "criticism" has been going against the devs personally rather than an objective look of what can be improved. Personal harassment or plain insults are not going to keep anyone motivated to do what they currently do. However, as you already said, pointing out what could be improved is an integral part to developing on anything, really. And the devs do appreciate constructive criticism. Just please refrain from bullshitting others. Remember, they all do this for free whilst having job or going to uni/school. Sure they could be paid, but that would probably hurt the creativity as now devs can go out for what they can get paid the most.
Anyhow, the key issue is not the devs or the development process, it is the underlying foundation: The gamemode.
I have said it multiple times and I can only repeat myself. The gamemode is horrible to work with. There exists no documentation on how it works or what functions do, which global vars exists, which systems can do what. Every dev has to learn that for themselves. Yes, some can pass down knowledge to others, but even that is not guaranteed to be working. Devs in the past just added on top of this pile in whatever way they saw fit, not having code simplicity, readibility or any kind of documentation in general in the mind. The gamemode has gotten so complex, that even if you just wanna change the color of a job (which should be a one-liner), chances are you will break something else along with it.
Let me make this more clear: NOBODY KNOWS HOW THE GAMEMODE WORKS! IT JUST WORKS!
There is no structure at all and blindly adding updates on top of it will not make it better. It will make it even harder to develop in the future, it will become unmaintable, unstable, crash more often, have FPS issues due to bottlenecks that can't be found and all kinds of technical horror scenarios. The team first needs to restructure this from scratch. However, that will bring a lot of changes that the team and not even the players can fully agree on, when asked. It will also take a lot of time to develop something comparable to what we have now. The devs are afraid of pissing too many players of because in the end you, the players, are the ones playing whatever the devs coded. They do want to keep your opinion in mind, but not everything can be decided that way (either due to technical limitations or because it would make the game unbalanced). I believe at this point they should just go with whatever they find most beneficial and not care about the players too much. Don't shy away from drastic changes and keep a neutral eye on the gamemode. Don't do changes (or not do changes) because you think you will not like the outcome, when it infact can be very beneficial to the gamemode (I'm looking at you, temporary inventory <.<).
How the team sorts this mess out has been the top priority for a couple months and it probably will still be. Unfortunately it will not be a fancy big update, but they have to fix the errors that were made in the past. Not by this dev team, but by previous developers.
To the dev team itself: I do not think a bit of transparency will hurt. I really liked the idea of the roadmap. It kept a vague deadline to things to make sure the project won't vanish into oblivion. It also gave the players a feel of what they can expect. You could also be a bit more active on the teasers, but then again: What is there to tease on backend changes for non-tech-savvy people? Then there is the changelog. Please keep in mind that, even though you might not see a lot of changes, there are hidden entries for devs/admins-only due to security concerns. Also the team has vastly different areas of development which can only be satisfied by some, but never all devs.
Awestruck: Fair enough, do not actually know what he is up to :p
Broccoli: Working on his own, to create updates to keep you entertained while the rest sort out the gamemode issues
Codeknight: Great web dev. Has been revamping the infrastructure of the website to current standards. Much needed
Conn: Does not do much coding, but is the only superdev. He single-handedly has to coordinate the entire dev team and make sure they are not going off-topic with their ideas too much. Much needed since Divey, Tomo and Fultz do not have a sufficient knowledge of development.
DarkN00b: Only modeller we have. Is not much needed recently because most problems (if not all) are code-based. Can;t afford to lose him though in the case we need fresh models.
Edned: Same as Codeknight.
Rylund: Working hard at the backend side of things. Practically manages the new GM project (don't know the team's current progress)
Tomo: Same as Broccoli.
I hope I will not get flamed by the team for this type of "transparency". Keep in mind, I currently do not know what they are up to, I can only tell stories from back when I was a dev. Though I hope it will make it easier for people to understand what the dev team means to FL and why it is needed.
Megapost off
TL;DR: Don't give devs too much shit. They do the best they can, but have to fix many backend errors that were made by previous devs in the past, hence no shiny new updates.