Why* are** all the** marginal** clans dying?*

[jamz]

This thread has now gone off-topic, but I suppose it won't hurt to try to address Dade's points.

...lack of important features - such as decide how much time you want a map to be played...

Currently in the process of being implemented. It's been discussed, RR said it had been committed, but I've just looked and I couldn't see it.

...warm up time for cm...

This is the first time I've seen this request, that I can remember. I'm not a competitive player, but when I've played matches I don't remember ever having a problem deciding when to start playing properly. Is this really a big issue?

...a real/official AC regular competition...

This is really something that should be coming from the clans. Lucas and aerkefiend are the closest the dev team have to clan players and they're not active enough to dedicate time to organise competitions. If a competition looks like it's well-organised and presented, there's nothing stopping discussion between the dev team and the organiser to get it an 'official' tag.

...fresh ideas are taken more as an attack to AC than, at least, a test to see if they are good or bad ideas

This simply isn't true. Most of the 'fresh' ideas presented are simply re-workings of ideas that are currently implemented in other FPSes. These features probably existed at the time AC was conceived and if they weren't included then, it's probably because they weren't wanted (IDK for certain - I wasn't around). As the development team has progressed, its ideals have remained much the same as the original game goal - to produce a simple, unbloated, arcade style FPS in a quasi-realistic setting. The two most important factors in that, for me, have always been 'simple' (not too many weapons, not too many features), and 'arcade style' (easy controls,drop in, play, drop out - no levelling).

Not all ideas are going to be good for the game but, specially in the case of an OpenSource game as AC, they should at least be implemented to see 'what if' instead of not giving them a chance.

The big problem here is how we go about testing the new ideas. We could keep it in SVN, but then we struggle to get the numbers for testing as not everyone can, or wants to, use the SVN files. Or we could push a new, minor release every few weeks, but then you either have different clients playing in the same server, or you have to force everyone to update, possibly needlessly, with a protocol change.
It's not as if no new features ever get implemented. I'm always receptive if someone has a real need for something and suggest it to the coders when I see them. I leave the implementation up to someone who knows what they're doing, and the coders do what they do in their spare time, not to any schedule.

...I've recently tried to give an help to the AC Project ...benefits of more than 100 euros monthly ... and I've got very surprised when I received an answer stating "none of these are worth the work required to action them".

This is not, and never has been, a money-making excercise. I'm sure that if that were the goal of the project, the orignal team members would certainly have gone about things in a different way.
I'm still, slowly, learning about the details of hosting this project, but as long as the donations and ad-revenue cover my costs, that's enough for me. In fact, I'd rather get rid of ads if the donations covered it completely. So, please don't be offended by a rejection in this case; the site is here for the good of the people who want to use it, not the good of the people who run it.

...there is - at least apparently - too much confrontation between dev team (and inside dev team itself) and the overall community.

Sometimes it appears this way to me too. Sometimes I'm the one being confrontational, but I also consider myself to be a very fair person and will always give time to someone who is (and always has been) fair with me. I hope I'm making myself clear here ;) .

Probably - this is a very personal opinion - due to a lack of communication and leadership from the dev team...

That may be the crux of the situation; there is no leadership. The dev team is currently in limbo as far as this goes. flowtron, long-time contributor and most-recent de facto project leader, is stepping away from the project; I've taken over the hosting, but I'm not a leader (personality-wise) and I'm not a coder and I believe the person at the top should have both these qualities. The rest of the development team have their input, to a certain degree, but their time is precious to them and there's only so much time that they can afford to spend on this project. Hell, when it's 10pm and I've had a hard day at work, I'd much rather be fragging than checking logs or fixing glitches - I do that for a job. I'm sure this is true for everyone.

...kick out any member of the dev team that is not doing/able-to-do their job in the crew...

This needs a defninition for "not doing/able-to-do their job". Those appointed to the development team are more than capable, but if you expect them to be putting in 2-3 hours a day, you are expecting too much.

Give stability to the project. Aka give a near-to-definitive balance to weapons...

This *is* being worked on, but it's a (very?) slow process for the reasons stated above.

Reach FPS industry standard features.

Why? Because it's 'standard'? What if we want to be different? What if people like AC because it's different?

...Team Damage on/off...

No. I haven't talked to other devs before posting this, but I think team damage should stay, permanantly. As Habluka says, it's an AC feature.

...dedicated server package...

I've seen this discussed, and, whilst it should be available, I don't believe it's a major priority. Firstly, as explained, coding time is limited. Secondly, we have, on average, one server for every AC player on-line (obviously this fluctuates through the day); we're not short of servers.

...server administration tools...

More specifically...? I never had a problem administering a server.

...more user-friendly UI...

I agree, but I'm not a coder or a designer and I have no idea a) how this would be implemented or b) how much the package-size would be increased. Download size is a big part of AC, since it's engine is designed to accomodate low bandwidth connections. Also, it sounds like something which would require dedicated time, something the coding devs don't have.

...box to type password for private servers...

Absolutely! I've seen a script for this (but I don't have it to hand) so I know it's something that could be done easily. In fact, it wouldn't suprise me if it already has been...

...and a big large etc.

Hmm. Your English is excellent, but you've used 'large' as a noun here. A big large what?

...extend this part to 'Reach FPS eSports features standards', f.e. warm up, auto time based side switch, shoutcast view, FPS limits, and another large etc.

I think this is beyond my experience as an extremely casual gamer.

Build a PR (Public Relations) Department

This seems like a good idea, but maybe for a bigger game. We have a maximum of c.350 players on-line at once and for a lot of the day it's < 100.

Make a huge opinion poll...

On the face of it, this seems like a good idea, but this sort of public opinion poll always seems to degenerate into the public mud-slinging you talked about earlier, whether it be between dev team and everyone else, or between players with different ideas.

...for example, make a blog section dedicated to clans...

I don't get this. What's wrong with the 'Clans & Wars' forum? Or are you talking about some kind of live feed?

Ease accessibility to the site. As multi-language interface seems to be considered as a taboo subject, I'd ask to enable Facebook Connect as soon as possible

I'm not the best person to comment on this, being an English-speaking Englishman. I don't think it would make sense to have sub-forums for each major AC language, with much duplication, but I don't get to see the other perspective - the one where everything is impenetrable. As for Facebook, I'm not a user, but I understand we have a presence there, and that FB is a well-populated service :P; aerke is the man to talk to about that.

...more visits (and time in the site) means more incomes...

As stated, this is not a project objective.

I hope I've helped answer some of your questions Dade. This is not a busy project; it's a hobby thing for the people involved, something we do for fun. Some of the devs have very limited hours in which they can contribute. I'm lucky that I sit in front of a computer screen for the majority of the day. It's taken me ages to write all this.
tl;dr stop being lazy and read it.