So, that's it then, apparently.

[stef]

Just to make that clear: what I tried to accomplish here, did actually work. After a long decline where the playerbase went from 300 online to 30 online and almost all contributors had left the game, the forum was slowly coming around. Insults and destructive behaviour on the forum were on a record-low, some small useful discussions emerged undisturbed - the need for moderation was actually declining. Also, my attempts to build up new testers began to work (of course not among the usual bigmouths... no surprise here) and several old and competent former contributors started showing interest in the game again. Things were looking good. My attempt to treat forum members as responsible people did work. The rules for moderation were clear: no insults and offtopic only in "Offtopic". Most of the forum users had no problem with that. You make an error, you get a reasonable punishment. I got two warning points myself - and it did not hurt me. Go ahead, compare discussions of April and May to older threads - or to this one. It went downhill quite quickly, now that it is clear, that there won't be any moderation anymore, won't you say?

All I can say is that XRD won't have to worry about community members giving him shit, since he actually respects them.

Yes. According to xrd, forum members are "sheep" who "need guidance" (direct quote!). Stupid of me to think, that forum members were responsible enough to be able tell right and wrong and to understand, that insults will have consequences. Apparently, xrd was right, you are actually sheep, who don't know better. And xrd respects sheep.

The "no insults and no offtopic outside 'offtopic'" was what xrd agreed on - it was a team decision, IIRC. I did strictly nothing else than enforce that. What was agreed upon, by everyone. But, of course, xrd suddenly felt, that getting a single warning point was unbearable for Marti and so he revoked /all/ warning points that I issued during the last weeks (which were two single point warnings... so much for "you nearly insta ban people for single posts that aren't even that bad"). I have no idea, why xrd acts like he does - but one thing was very clear: he only had problems with warnings when I was the target of the insult.

I tend to ignore the fact, that some players and forum members are still little kids. Most should know better - but prefer to act like little kids. In the real world, it is common knowledge, that there is exactly one person that can be called hitler - and he died exactly 70 years ago. If you do not know that, then I feel truly sorry for you. For you, your school and your teachers and your parents. For everyone, who ever tried to educate you and failed miserably. Ask your grandmother about this. Vanquish, please feel free to explain, how you think, it is acceptable to compare me with a man who is responsible for over 50 million deaths? I would really like your reasoning on this. From what I recall, I moved a few posts of you to "Offtopic" because they were just that: off topic where you posted them. I moved the whole sub-thread, so you could continue your "discussion" where it was more appropriate. I agree, you may compare me to someone who killed two or three people for that - but 50 million? really? And just so you know: xrd said, I should have deleted offtopic posts completely - and issue warnings, if they are reposted. What would you have called him? hitler^3? I'm serious: what is your beef with me? According to xrd, you are a member of the dev team: why did you attack me?

Undead, I won't go into details about licenses again. You should stick to stuff like your highly sophisticated "guide to mid skill". That's what you're good at and what your followers love. The law is clearly not your area if you can't understand, that the laws of your country can not be applied to a worldwide game like AC. TBH, the law is also not my area - which is why I talked to actual lawyers about it. AC has many players of many areas...
And I "censored" your internet-folklore point-of-view, because a) it was completely wrong and b) it was also really immature advice to give to others. IMHO you should even ask the creator of media files that you want to use if the law doesn't require you to. It's just common courtesy to do so. Probably another area, where you're no expert in, no?

And the hitler thing again didn't even happen on the forum. 6 points for that is silly.

A few minutes later it was already copied to the forum - and when I deleted it, it was reposted immediately. You did not delete that repost. You did not issue warning points for anyone - even though, you keep claiming, that you do moderate the forum. If "6 points" was the right number? You insisted, that 0 points were the only possible way. Zero. Nothing. No consequences at all. Not for the one who said it. Not for the one who spread the word about it. And not for anyone who cheered about it. Nothing. I think, that raises another question... what is your beef with me? What did I do to you? Or is this just your "true colors of friendliness"?

You used the hidden forums fine, what was wrong with that?

Of course this worked fine. But the dev team is mostly inactive, so what good is a safe space for discussions, if only three people use it? I wanted the community to get involved in the work again. AC is a team effort of players and devs - and you really want to claim, that it's okay to leave the forum to the mob (sry, "sheep") because the hidden part still works fine? Didn't you see the forum members repeatedly say, that they want to be involved? How this is an "open source" game? You say, that it is more important, that a few can freely insult who they want and scare away contributors than to have a forum where all interested parties can come together and work towards a common goal? Would you please look up the word "forum"?

Your speaking out against broken servers idea was to ban most of them from the MS.

Banning is the only option that the current MS offers. Mostly, because you couldn't be bothered to invest ten minutes to recompile and restart it. But it's just adequate, that you argue in favour of unmaintained servers - given that it's the same approach you take on moderating the forum. At least your behaviour is consistent.

G1gantuan, you /intentionally/ flooded the forum with offtopic nonsense posts and didn't stop after being warned several times - so you got suspended. And after a while you were allowed to post again. How is any of that my fault? Why do you blame others for your errors? It was your actions that provoked a reaction. You had more than enough warning and were given another chance. That is exactly, how responsible people get treated. If you instead want to be treated as an irresponsible little child: this forum may not be the right place for you, don't you think? After all, the main topic is a game about shooting others. Not really the best environment for a little kid, no?

ExodusS, you are still trying to argue in favour of people who don't give a damn about their servers. If the next release would trash your harddisk, because the devs didn't bother to test it before release - would you also think, that this is ok? Right now, if anyone actually manages to install the game and he really manages to get the server list, once he installs the newest version over the one he got from the packet manager or he manages to change the default from "broken XP mode" to "actually working from your home dir mode" - what will his next experience be with this game? On more than half of the servers, he will start in a bright white room and will immediately be killed from someone who hides in a wall - or he will start in another white room, where mute players shoot at the ground, trying to jump up that white wall? And if one of those players falls down, he will disappear and re-appear at the start. If that new player will try to shoot at one of those, he will be auto-kicked by the modified server. When he then finally stumbles into a real match, others will call him noob and will vote to kick him for shooting at the first player he saw - not knowing that this was supposed to be his team mate (hmm - can xrd get kicked for teamkilling me?). There are also chances, that during the loading of the map, a lot of errors will show up - and all players will walk over invisible bridges on a weirdly grey map with "missing content" written all over it. And anyone wonders, that no new players join this game? And your best opinion on this topic is to argue with the single dev team member who would at least improve that situation a little bit, by getting server owners to fix their content (by simply running a script that they go WITH THE GAME)? Sry, but I can't take you seriously, if you act like that...

ExodusS, I knew very well, that I never had any actual power. That is because I never wanted power over the game. All I wanted to do, was to work on the game as a member of the team. I did care about the feedback, that I got on the forum. If you think, I ignored feedback, you are wrong. But not everyone can get every wish granted - or do you think, I could just make any change that I wanted? What do you think, how far I would have gotten with that? A little over a year ago, I started three threads to ask the forum community for their opinions and, of course, I read all of them. I was those threads who got me involved in AC development again. I used that feedback to plot a course to the next release. It was me, who said, that it's not enough to discuss the next release in a hidden forum just among a small circle. I used that hidden forum as well - but only to discuss topics that would have harmed the game when discussed in the open. Or simple yes or no questions about development details. I wanted the forum to be usable enough for the interesting and important discussions.


And let me tell you my view on this game's future:
This thread, and what it brought to light so far, shows clearly, that most of the real contributors have long left. Those, who are still here, have no idea, how a community game is built. For you, all that there is to this game, is a forum to goof around - and once in a while, a new release "just happens". That's how it has always been, why would that ever change. Well - I have news for you: this game has no active developer left, who can actually work unsupervised on the code core. You may not have been aware of this, but in the past, drian, flowtron and brahma, all had eihrul to proof-read their code and iron out their bugs. When I stumbled onto stuff, that felt weird to me, I also asked eihrul. And last time we talked, he made it quite clear, that he won't be fixing bugs on this engine anymore. And, to be blunt, with eihrul gone and me gone, this game is finished. Sure, it may be possible to find other coders who will put up with this situation for a while - but to really take over development? Where are these people? Wouldn't they by now have showed themselves? Do you really think, you will find new workers, who will invest hundreds and thousands of hours in a dying game?

Sure, you can find someone, who will tweak the weapons once more (after all, that's just changing a few numbers in a table) and adjust the pickup timings once more and make a whole new release of it. You can also include my work, that I've done so far - even though only half of it is already on github. After all, I'm almost halfway through with the work for the next release. But after that? Who will continue to actually develop things?
The one, who introduced the sound bug, couldn't find it himself. Who knows, how to fix the servers, so they can't be used to attack the master server anymore? Who found a solution, that would allow to ban the cheaters without having to blacklist whole countries? Who understands the protocol well enough to fix the unnecessary lag issues that plagued the game since 1.1? Now? No one.

I may add: it was no team decision, to leave me standing in the rain. X-Ray_Dog decided that all by himself. The shepherd of the forum flock.