/tg/Station 13

Bottom post of the previous page:

Cheridan wrote:For another example? Try THIS WHOLE THREAD. Most of these angry replies are in response to HG's reply on page 1. It's better for us if we never interact with the community at all, because everything we say is going to get picked apart and used as more ammo in the CODERS SUCK war. This is coming from someone who used to be one of the most pro-community devs around. I haven't interacted with the forums as much lately, and why? Because these days, doing so makes me want to die.

This is a misrepresentation of the thread. There is plenty of genuine feedback here that is neither angry nor "ammo in the CODERS SUCK war." I know because I have provided some of it and read the replies to it. And I am sorry that you do not enjoy reading the forums, but on the hand, that is literally the definition of disconnecting yourself from the community, including things like what is actually said in threads.

Cheridan wrote:The best method is the current method. My changeling update wasn't very well received. Eventually, it was changed by someone else to incorporate more 'oldling' features. Ergovisavi's mining update was the same way. Over time, things got ironed out and improved to a level to make everyone happy. But this shit HAPPENS OVER TIME, if we just fully reverted everything that everyone didn't like immediately then we would have lost the improvements that those updates added.

Some people would disagree, arguing that such incremental adjustments to major features are less a way to fine-tune it and more a way to take something broken and tweak and break little things until it is both broken and unrecognizable. Mining happened to be a case where it worked. A lot of people would argue, given the consistent unpopularity of changeling rounds, that changeling (much like cult) is a case where it didn't.

What I find annoying is when people say "No one like feature X when it was first implemented, yet now everyone likes it!". That statement is false, most big changes of that calibre had good community support (50/50) and were never universally panned.

The stun overhaul and the speed changes, while contraversial, had good support from the community. Same for things like the AI Satellite, Brig Overhaul and other similar changes.

When a feature can be as panned as it can be, such as
Goonchem having massive opposition to it, you have to step back and say "maybe this is not a good idea after all",

Cheridan wrote:For another example? Try THIS WHOLE THREAD. Most of these angry replies are in response to HG's reply on page 1. It's better for us if we never interact with the community at all, because everything we say is going to get picked apart and used as more ammo in the CODERS SUCK war. This is coming from someone who used to be one of the most pro-community devs around. I haven't interacted with the forums as much lately, and why? Because these days, doing so makes me want to die.

1) His statement was very clear, very clearly inflamatory, and very clearly misguided. It is getting the proper treatment for something of its sort. I'm sorry you find saying such things and expecting roses and candy to be some sort of natural result.
2) I'm also sorry to hear that the concept of being told that something you did, or something you like, is not liked "makes you want to die." That seems a bit pointlessly dramatic and I think we're both above that sort of thing.
3) More than one person has been scared off from participating in coding by how insular and needlessly antagonistic the bus is to players as well. What are they really to expect when even the players catch shit from the coders for providing feedback on changes?

Cheridan wrote:The best method is the current method. My changeling update wasn't very well received. Eventually, it was changed by someone else to incorporate more 'oldling' features. Ergovisavi's mining update was the same way. Over time, things got ironed out and improved to a level to make everyone happy. But this shit HAPPENS OVER TIME, if we just fully reverted everything that everyone didn't like immediately then we would have lost the improvements that those updates added.

You mean the current method where PRs get merged untested and often unwanted and then you "tweak" that thing that wasn't wanted and wasn't tested until outcry finally either fizzles or twists somebody's arm hard enough to force a revert? Yeah, lets not. This a symptom of the problem. Too many coders go into everything they write a PR for and think "This is really great I can't wait." and just have it merged as soon as the code passes Travis. Then when players tell them how much they dislike the addiiton, they take it as a personal attack or an attack against their baby. No no we can't revert that ~I~ put to much work into it so it stays. This happens over and over. The community gets more and more upset because somehow this keeps happening every time without fail. I don't know how the conditioned reaction is now the fault of the reactant and not the repeated cause. There's entirely too much ego behind a lot of these changes and entirely too much wagon circling around those changes when players come out and say they don't want them. Surprise surprise, players dislike things. We like things too. We'll tell you which is which. Its not our job to just eat whatever you put in front of us just because it took you a long time to write it or whatever. That's not our problem and you don't get the luxury of making it our problem just because. As stated, players need the bus less than the bus needs us.

Cheridan wrote:

cedarbridge wrote: revert PRs were instantly closed for daring to be revert PRs.

ALL REVERTS ARE TO BE DISCUSSED BEFOREHAND. Any kneejerk revert made just to spite the work of the original coder is going to be closed immediately. They're just digital middle-fingers to the whole group.

>the whole group
I'm not sure what you're trying to imply here but I'm getting that 1) Having your unwanted change reverted is a personal insult and a "middle finger" to the coder in question and 2) insulting one coder is an insult to all coders (somehow) and this is important for unstated reasons. Shocking to nobody else, those revert PRs were discussed (for over half a dozen pages of forum back and forth) and the PR was still closed within 15 minutes. Unless you meant not discussed ~with you~ to which I would respond that no player owes you personally anything for not wanting to play something broken or unwanted. If you expect every revert to start with the players coming to you on bent-knee, you're entirely out of touch. As it stands now, its 100% easier to add something poorly thought out and broken than it is to have that same thing removed unless you're the original creator of whatever trainwreck. And that's the point, the system extists to protect sacred cows that are bred constantly.

spoiler: picking apart my post only adds more validity to my statement.

You believe that coders deserve the abuse that we get because reasons.

I believe that I shouldn't have to put up with it.

Thankfully, I do not have to.

Watching all this arguing makes me sad and diminishes the hope I might have for any positive change resulting from this.

On one side you have players who can't relate disappointment or dissatisfaction with changes without resorting to personal attacks. There's a lot of background to this but that's it in a nutshell.

On the other side you have coders who have recieved so much vitriol in the past that they either clam up completely or mimic the same kind of behavior. And there is just as much background to this, but it's an apt summary.

We're repeating a really horrible cycle here and both sides are saying the other started it.

"We swear and yell real loud because it's the only way they listen!" ...and it's true.

"We can't stand listening to complaints because all they do is swear and yell!" ...and it's justified.

How in the hell can we start this over again and get it right? There's got to be some way for us to make peace over this and make this something that invigorates and inspires people instead of causing anxiety attacks and such.

Can we talk about the things we would want without naming names or pointing fingers at eachother? We've covered a lot of ground that spells out how unhappy a lot of people are on all sides of this arrangement. Okay. Can we talk about what would make us happier without attacking eachother and steering this back into the shit?


My summarized perspective on this thus far:

I.
There is a major lack in quality of communication and reception between the playerbase and coderbus. I would heap a lot of the blame for that on the playerbase, but it's mutual at this point. It is perpetuating itself at this point as new players come into the fold and see themselves turned away and get bitter about it, just as new coders show off their new things and receive the same negativity and become bitter about it.

Perhaps a stopgap solution would be enforcing more stringent policies regarding tone on both sides. Players who can't conduct themselves in a constructive manner will lose their voice or potentially their ability to play here at all. Perhaps telling people that, if they can't talk to the people who build the toys without some decency, then they don't get to play with them anymore may bring some end to that ridiculousness. Similarly an expectation that coders who cannot maintain that same civility in return will face the same punishment. If you cannot take criticism with some amount of civility, you should be made to stop doing things.

II.
There is a lack of perception and transparency into the workings of coderbus. This results in the notion that coderbus does not react to feedback, which is frankly untrue. Cheridan gave a pretty solid example of how they do respond to negative feedback and make changes to things when he mentioned his work on changelings. There has to be some understanding on the part of people making criticisms that things take time to work on, but perhaps some kind of "developer diary" getting posted regularly as a start might make more people aware of things that are being done for the future, that action is being taken on tons of things at any given moment. This isn't even something a coder would need to put together, just someone in the community who could head up making semi-regular (weekly?) blog-type digested commits and summaries of #coderbus discussions. To put it all bluntly, clubbing people over the head with the volume of things getting worked on and that are going to be worked on would probably alleviate a lot of stress. When something gets a negative reaction, being able to say what the next step is in a public place outside of a discussion at least give everyone knowledge of what people's intent is.

I'm not talking about a verbose changelog but rather a forecast of what's coming up. "In response to this feedback we are doing X. Also this guy is coding this cool new thing people should like."

Rather than a dev diary, which isnt a bad idea, how about just asking coders to post large changes on the coding board(or make a new "Upcoming Features" board) BEFORE its merged? Obviously it would only be used for something with an actual PR on github, not ideas.

I think moving discussion away from IRC would help somewhat. As i said, its not a good place for archives or anyone who just wants to get a summary of the changes. Many players do not go there, and at this point i doubt that will change.

Blatant insults should be moderated. This is a no-brainer. However i will say again that coders shouldnt be the ones deleting the comments. Only because it looks bad.

Whenever I've planned to, or are working on, a change to the game, such as the ERT, Brig Overhaul, Sprite Changes, Robotics Overhaul, White Ship, AI Satellite, etc, I've always made a thread about it and asked for feedback, not only that but I always promptly respond to any suggestions, criticism or questions people ask about my proposed change.

I think if more coders/mappers do that with their changes, it would create a more approachable atmosphere. Or at the very least offer a more visable location to showcase changes.

Alex Crimson wrote:Rather than a dev diary, which isnt a bad idea, how about just asking coders to post large changes on the coding board(or make a new "Upcoming Features" board) BEFORE its merged?

Isn't that what PRs are for?

What's the difference between keeping an eye on PRs or some "diary" thread, except that the latter requires more useless work for the dev?

You people want to have an input. So have an input. Participate. Don't expect to be able to affect anything by pressing a button that says "no it sux revert" in some useless forum poll. Be prepared to actually explain your point of view. Be prepared to see what changes are coming.

Just don't become mad when somebody who put work into something he thinks is right doesn't immediately decide to abandon all that because someone on the internet thinks that "no it sux revert".

I was thinking bigger changes, like Goonchem or Dismemberment. Rather than something like Goonchem going from PR to merged to the old chem system being removed in a very short amount of time, which obviously upset the playerbase and resulted in some bugs/balance issues. If it had been a discussion topic on the forums beforehand, then maybe some of the balance issues couldve been worked out, and the playerbase wouldve adjusted better.

As for player feedback. You cannot expect everyone to give high quality feedback like that. You also cannot judge the entire non-coder playerbase by the actions of a handful of overly aggressive people. If you are going to view polls as useless, then make that known and remove the option to make poll topics on the feedback/ideas forums.

Cheridan wrote:spoiler: picking apart my post only adds more validity to my statement.

You believe that coders deserve the abuse that we get because reasons.

I believe that I shouldn't have to put up with it.

Thankfully, I do not have to.

>trying to respond to me when I'm having a personal dramatic moment just proves my point
Yeah, ok.

An0n3 wrote:II.
There is a lack of perception and transparency into the workings of coderbus. This results in the notion that coderbus does not react to feedback, which is frankly untrue. Cheridan gave a pretty solid example of how they do respond to negative feedback and make changes to things when he mentioned his work on changelings. There has to be some understanding on the part of people making criticisms that things take time to work on, but perhaps some kind of "developer diary" getting posted regularly as a start might make more people aware of things that are being done for the future, that action is being taken on tons of things at any given moment. This isn't even something a coder would need to put together, just someone in the community who could head up making semi-regular (weekly?) blog-type digested commits and summaries of #coderbus discussions. To put it all bluntly, clubbing people over the head with the volume of things getting worked on and that are going to be worked on would probably alleviate a lot of stress. When something gets a negative reaction, being able to say what the next step is in a public place outside of a discussion at least give everyone knowledge of what people's intent is.

I'm not talking about a verbose changelog but rather a forecast of what's coming up. "In response to this feedback we are doing X. Also this guy is coding this cool new thing people should like."

Its almost never the case that a large change (or even many of the smaller ones) gets merged without somebody noticing. That's why there are so many feedback threads about PRs that aren't even merged yet. Irregardless of the feedback and sentiments in those threads, controversial and generally unwanted "features" and "fixes" (occasionally one masked as the other) get merged anyway. This is what is pissing off players. Its not that they don't know the unwanted things are coming. Its that no matter what is said, it is probably getting merged anyway.

Cheridan wrote: For another example? Try THIS WHOLE THREAD. Most of these angry replies are in response to HG's reply on page 1. It's better for us if we never interact with the community at all, because everything we say is going to get picked apart and used as more ammo in the CODERS SUCK war. This is coming from someone who used to be one of the most pro-community devs around. I haven't interacted with the forums as much lately, and why? Because these days, doing so makes me want to die.

>I said something stupid and retarded but nobody should pick up on this and complain about it else you're the big fat meanie here.
Here's a thing, how about you teach your headcoders and coders and whatever the fuck you call people in your clubhouse some PR skills instead of them acting all high and mighty and then complaining that they're getting shat on by people who deconstruct what they say.
Because this would wholly be solved if they weren't so socially retarded as to not understand that perhaps maybe acting arrogant and big headed isn't the best way to make friends.

I elect steelpoint to be your social consoler he can have a perfectly normal conversation with the community and accept feedback without going on a massive rant as to why the community is treating him badly. Treat people how you expect to be treated yada yada yada.

Yeah frankly your PR skills are, as I said in what was essentially the first round of this thread, deplorable and cause major issues. You don't need to be a PR expert to have someone write you up PR practices. Do you think any other code team working on games are expected to be PR experts? Fuck no. But they are smart enough to understand that acting like jackasses bites them in the ass and figure out what exactly you are supposed to do, either by taking on someone as the PR manager or outsourcing.

When you are utterly unable to interface with what is essentially your clients, even though for some reason the coders in a super fucked up way don't see the server in that respect, you need to fucking make changes and get savy on PR. That is the long and short of it. This would not have happened if coderbus knew how to manage itself on any level, including just making sure they put off a friendly face. The fact you don't care how people see you at all shows there is a huge problem and disconect in values.

What is funny is that a lot of this shit that is getting flung at you? You are asking for it. HG's response on page 1 for example was about the worst way to go about crisis communication. "Nothing is wrong. Fuck you. I refuse to listen to anything you have to say." Anyone who has taken any sort of marketing or PR class would slap their face and at this point explain the Tylenol standard. Insisting a problem in PR doesn't exist and refusing to engage people who bring it up is inherently self defeating because it proves that there is, in fact, a PR problem just because people want to talk to you about shit you refuse to talk about. The very manner in which you went about trying to refute the issues proves that you have them.

Here is the real secret though, the one absolutely anyone with any sort of experience in the field understands, are you ready for it?

It doesn't even matter why people think poorly of you. What matters is that they do. It doesn't matter if the reason they think poorly of you is wrong. That doesn't change the problem.

It doesn't matter if the community picks a fight with you, unlike you the playerbase doesn't have an organized structure and thus is inherently more reactionary. If you pick a fight back you are downing a bottle of stupid pills and just escelating the situation. It doesn't change the fact that the standards coders hold themselves too are bad, a downright joke to anyone who actually has any familiarity with real world design practices, just because you feel like the feedback is salty.

Should people be raging idiots? Of course not. But that doesn't mean you suddenly can be an asshole to what are essentially your customers, or worse, if you think about SoS as your customer, your customer's customers. Employees who pick fights with protestors get fired. CEOs who say "Fuck you" to people complaining about their company are replaced, and so on.

The TL;DR: Coderbus is an orginization, the playerbase are a collective of random people. The standards of behavior are not only very different, but in the real world other people's behavior does not change yours.

An0n3 wrote:Watching all this arguing makes me sad and diminishes the hope I might have for any positive change resulting from this.

Here is the ultimate issue I think you missed An0n3. This conflict was always going to be an ugly one.

In the very first page of this thread, in no uncertain terms, the community was told that all their worst fears about coderbus were true, and they can fuck right off. You are not going to see a conciliatory result come out of this at this point. Both sides have stated what they want. One side wants any ammount of accountibility and respect, the other refuses to grant any at all. The terms are laid out, and the only person who can really resolve this is SoS. He needs to answer the ultimate question of what the server's relationship to the code is, because the code team made very clear what they want their relationship to the players to be. SoS has the power to forcibly change this dynamic at pretty much any time he wants. It is pretty obvious this is what the roundtable is going to be about.

Cheridan wrote:spoiler: picking apart my post only adds more validity to my statement.

You believe that coders deserve the abuse that we get because reasons.

I believe that I shouldn't have to put up with it.

Thankfully, I do not have to.

Please point out anywhere I said that "coders deserve abuse." I'd be very interested to hear about my holding this opinion. I don't see most of what happened in this thread as "abuse," though, and so I guess we have to agree to disagree there. I also think it goes both ways -- I think dezzmont, for instance, has said some lucid and/or useful things (buried in walls of text, but whatever), and to have that dismissed without even engaging with it, like, "I'm not reading dezzmont platitudes" is discouraging to see.

As for "picking apart my post" I just have nothing to say about some parts of it, either positive or negative -- I have no experience with revert PRs, for instance, so why would I quote it just to shitpost?

cedarbridge wrote:

An0n3 wrote:II.
There is a lack of perception and transparency into the workings of coderbus. This results in the notion that coderbus does not react to feedback, which is frankly untrue. Cheridan gave a pretty solid example of how they do respond to negative feedback and make changes to things when he mentioned his work on changelings. There has to be some understanding on the part of people making criticisms that things take time to work on, but perhaps some kind of "developer diary" getting posted regularly as a start might make more people aware of things that are being done for the future, that action is being taken on tons of things at any given moment. This isn't even something a coder would need to put together, just someone in the community who could head up making semi-regular (weekly?) blog-type digested commits and summaries of #coderbus discussions. To put it all bluntly, clubbing people over the head with the volume of things getting worked on and that are going to be worked on would probably alleviate a lot of stress. When something gets a negative reaction, being able to say what the next step is in a public place outside of a discussion at least give everyone knowledge of what people's intent is.

I'm not talking about a verbose changelog but rather a forecast of what's coming up. "In response to this feedback we are doing X. Also this guy is coding this cool new thing people should like."

Its almost never the case that a large change (or even many of the smaller ones) gets merged without somebody noticing. That's why there are so many feedback threads about PRs that aren't even merged yet. Irregardless of the feedback and sentiments in those threads, controversial and generally unwanted "features" and "fixes" (occasionally one masked as the other) get merged anyway. This is what is pissing off players. Its not that they don't know the unwanted things are coming. Its that no matter what is said, it is probably getting merged anyway.

Closing someone else's pull request is a good way to get hated. There isn't even a standard for when it's supposed to be done or even whose allowed to, barring obviously stupid shit. So it doesn't surprise me that most maintainers are gun-shy about closing pull requests.

Cheridan wrote:spoiler: picking apart my post only adds more validity to my statement.

You believe that coders deserve the abuse that we get because reasons.

I believe that I shouldn't have to put up with it.

Thankfully, I do not have to.

It's not abuse to tell you when he believes you're wrong, which cedarbridge did so in a rather rational manner. It would be easy and appreciable for us to have someone in a position of importance as a coder, perhaps the one he was talking to, stand up and respond to his post with an equal amount of rational debate in mind, as that would perpetuate a more positive cycle as opposed to the idea that arguing is the same as abusing you. Triggered.

If, as Anon says, it's a perpetual cycle of 'getting loud to get your attention' and 'I can't respond to all the screaming and fecal matter flying', then please do respond to the reasonably put together posts, as those would then defy your reasons not to respond.

Note that cedar got less responsive and prone to offering a valid exchange of ideas after you decided not to propose your own statements on his issues, Cheridan, instead dismissing what he said altogether without any kind of discourse.

MisterPerson wrote:
Closing someone else's pull request is a good way to get hated. There isn't even a standard for when it's supposed to be done or even whose allowed to, barring obviously stupid shit. So it doesn't surprise me that most maintainers are gun-shy about closing pull requests.

I actually fully agree with this. It isn't how pretty much any creative team works, it is something the code leadership needs to be willing to do.

It is in fact why I said once in a that this was something that didn't happen, and when you said that it was fully allowed I was flabbergasted that it was used as a serious defense, because when it plays out it doesn't actually work as a method of undoing change. People either don't do it just as a "see no evil" thing where you don't want to rock the boat or else you yourself will get rocked, or it causes a wheel war where one person commits, the other reverts, and they just repeatedly undo what the other did. You need a higher up designer to intervene to undo stuff that people are attached to because otherwise nothing ever gets undone.

So basically everything that Urist has been saying about coderbus these days.

MisterPerson wrote:

cedarbridge wrote:

An0n3 wrote:snip

Its almost never the case that a large change (or even many of the smaller ones) gets merged without somebody noticing. That's why there are so many feedback threads about PRs that aren't even merged yet. Irregardless of the feedback and sentiments in those threads, controversial and generally unwanted "features" and "fixes" (occasionally one masked as the other) get merged anyway. This is what is pissing off players. Its not that they don't know the unwanted things are coming. Its that no matter what is said, it is probably getting merged anyway.

Closing someone else's pull request is a good way to get hated. There isn't even a standard for when it's supposed to be done or even whose allowed to, barring obviously stupid shit. So it doesn't surprise me that most maintainers are gun-shy about closing pull requests.

How about this.

We create a position similar to maintainer, but said person is NOT a coder. Hell, it could just be an admin who makes a simple fix from time to time, or just knows how to read code. Their job is to survey player feedback on changes. Depending on the feedback, they get in touch with the relevant coder and work out ways to improve the feature, or it's just best to revert it. If a feature is hated enough, or if a satisfactory fix can't be decided on, it gets reverted until such a fix can be made.

Basically, a community liason between players and coders, who's job is to keep turds out of the feature sandwich. Maintainers make sure the code doesn't break other code, the liason makes sure the code doesn't break the player's keyboards.

Gee I'd love it if one faggot ruled all the code that sounds like a great idea

Alternatively just nut up and join the codebase?

Cheridan wrote:spoiler: picking apart my post only adds more validity to my statement.

That's usually how people debate and argue though? By deconstructing each others points and attempting to refute them.

Also CA please

You have a real boner against the coders and I don't really know why

what can i say i hate retarded people call me ableist and call the cops

paprika wrote: Alternatively just nut up and join the codebase?

Why do you need to know how to code to contribue feedback at all? I mean we have a feedback forum for a reason, unless you are saying you only want feedback on the level of "It sucks" and "It is good." Which you clearly don't, I mean HG just out and said that negative feedback would not be accepted. So apparently feedback is only for "It is awesome I love it" which would explain why coderbus feels like the quality of feedback is generally low when anyone with eyes can see that it isn't. The dirtstation thread alone had some pretty high level discussion you just up and fucking ignored because you didn't like people shitting all over your design. You know that. I know that. Everyone onlooking saw that and people point it out all the time, so it really becomes a question of if your ego is really worth knowingly making the game worse for people playing it.

And to be very blunt, coding and design are two entirely different skill sets. The fact you can string together code doesn't make you any better at coming up with good gameplay ideas and shouldn't grant you as much sway over the game's design as it does.

Like for real: Why is the feedback forum here? HG outright stated that the playerbase can get fucked if they don't like something, and people constantly say both that the forums somehow don't represent enough players but that the even smaller sample size of coderbus is special. What do you actually want out of it? Why is Github a better medium to discuss changes for no logical reason? Because objectively Github is worse at that sort of thing because it is only for discussing code changes, not actual gameplay systems build on multiple PRs.

paprika wrote:Gee I'd love it if one faggot ruled all the code that sounds like a great idea

Alternatively just nut up and join the codebase?

That's exactly how professional coding works. You have a boss to report to, who coordinates people and makes sure everything runs smooth, making sure rat poison doesn't end up in the product. IN THEORY the headcoder should be the one doing this.

Coders>Maintainers>Headcoder>Host>Customer(aka players, who make any of it possible, no one's going to host or code if no one plays)

Snakebutt wrote:

paprika wrote:Gee I'd love it if one faggot ruled all the code that sounds like a great idea

Alternatively just nut up and join the codebase?

That's exactly how professional coding works. You have a boss to report to, who coordinates people and makes sure everything runs smooth, making sure rat poison doesn't end up in the product. IN THEORY the headcoder should be the one doing this.

Coders>Maintainers>Headcoder>Host>Customer(aka players, who make any of it possible, no one's going to host or code if no one plays)

I agree that it is fucking hillarious that Paprika doesn't understand how real projects are set up but the way you want to impliment it wouldn't be that good and risks design by democracy.

We know that many good changes are controversial. Coders like to pretend we pan everything that comes through the pipe universally but that is hillariously not true. But the fact remains that unless the blowback is absolutely massive people not liking something at first isn't really a good way to do things.

It frankly comes down to right now the headcoders and project managers not really... being a thing. Like being a headcoder theoretically gives you power but I have never seen in my multiple years of being part of SS13 them actually taking charge of the project in a meaningful way. They seem to consistently take their mandate of head coder to be one of protecting the code team at all costs from anything rather than actually doing their job of giving the code direction and maintaining quality.

dezzmont wrote:

Snakebutt wrote:

paprika wrote:Gee I'd love it if one faggot ruled all the code that sounds like a great idea

Alternatively just nut up and join the codebase?

That's exactly how professional coding works. You have a boss to report to, who coordinates people and makes sure everything runs smooth, making sure rat poison doesn't end up in the product. IN THEORY the headcoder should be the one doing this.

Coders>Maintainers>Headcoder>Host>Customer(aka players, who make any of it possible, no one's going to host or code if no one plays)

I agree that it is fucking hillarious that Paprika doesn't understand how real projects are set up but the way you want to impliment it wouldn't be that good and risks design by democracy.

We know that many good changes are controversial. Coders like to pretend we pan everything that comes through the pipe universally but that is hillariously not true. But the fact remains that unless the blowback is absolutely massive people not liking something at first isn't really a good way to do things.

It frankly comes down to right now the headcoders and project managers not really... being a thing. Like being a headcoder theoretically gives you power but I have never seen in my multiple years of being part of SS13 them actually taking charge of the project in a meaningful way. They seem to consistently take their mandate of head coder to be one of protecting the code team at all costs from anything rather than actually doing their job of giving the code direction and maintaining quality.

Actually it was before the code split startoad and goofball and one or two others did get kicked out because their code was so bad whenever they made a pr.

Code quality has been quite good for the past year, but that's not even the issue here.

the issue of the day is that cheridan quite literally pulled a tumblr and just stuck his fingers in his ears saying "la la la triggered" when someone attempted to rationally discuss with him why they disagree with the things he said.
if disagreeing with someone is a form of abuse to coders (which actually explains a whole lot) then what are the players supposed to do when they see something they dont like? suck it up, get fucked, and eat shit?
im entirely surprised that cheridan, one of the more prominent coders that i had assumed was community-friendly, now refuses to communicate due to backlash against his changes
a revert pr is not a middle finger to anyone. its a middle finger to the poor idea that someone had. the amount of effort put into something does not make it good. if a coder spent 10 hours a day for 2 weeks making the most extensive erp system known to man, it still wouldnt be accepted because the idea and the product itself is shit. that's an intrinsic value of ideas and products. accept that and move on - not every codebaby will mature to adulthood and become the model codecitizen with a codewife and child. it just wont.
for the sake of the players, its better to abort those codechildren before they become coderejects that bring down the codesociety.

Huh... why did discussion just go to a freeze here?

what else is there to say really?
some people are upset but the people who they need to influence don't care and have no intention of changing anything about their method of operation

nobody's managed to either threaten or diplomacy their way into changing anyone's mind so things just died out when people got tired of shouting at each other
(or rather, shouting into the void as the coders decided to just stop responding, which was a smart move)

The coderbase stonewalling and the Goonchem catastrophe... I'd just like to assert that I've not forgotten about these (and the majority vote for the revert on Goonchem) and that I'll be angry forever.

The view I now have for the coderbase in general, and coderbus in particular, is the same I have for UKIP.

AnonymousNow wrote:The coderbase stonewalling and the Goonchem catastrophe... I'd just like to assert that I've not forgotten about these (and the majority vote for the revert on Goonchem) and that I'll be angry forever.

The view I now have for the coderbase in general, and coderbus in particular, is the same I have for UKIP.

It's a good reminder and an example that another sever that runs /tg/ code added in goonchem well before /tg/ did and removed it based on player feedback and how it over complicated the game. Why doesn't /tg/ do that?

Because that other server allegedly is Hippiestation.

Bombadil wrote:Huh... why did discussion just go to a freeze here?

Because everything we needed to hear was said on page 1. The coders think they're something apart from /tg/ in the same way fingers think they are apart from a hand. The only thing that will change their mind is when SoS stops using their product and the project dries on the vine.

hopefully we come to the part where we discuss the Hows and the ways that our inputs and feedbacks can be processed

Convince SoS to fork the code base and get some people that actually play the game and care enough about the players to administrate it, thats the solution.

NT failed because the playerbase was still on the tg station code base, so most people didn't feel like coding for a non-existent audience or coding twice.

forking the codebase will Not Work(tm).

We tried it.

it was fun as hell.

Results are in: The codebase on the less-popular server will die.

Exactly why I said SOS would have to use that forked codebase entirely

yeah i mean the players said that all coders are literally hitler and that they want us all to go fuck off in a hole on page 1 so what else is there to discuss right

Miauw wrote:yeah i mean the players said that all coders are literally hitler and that they want us all to go fuck off in a hole on page 1 so what else is there to discuss right

To be fair Miauw the fourth then eighth post in this thread was from HG saying that the Codebase and Playerbase are separate and nothing we say can change that.

So what did we expect people to say after that?

i just prefer people not to put words into my mouth.

Not-Dorsidarf wrote:forking the codebase will Not Work(tm).

We tried it.

it was fun as hell.

Results are in: The codebase on the less-popular server will die.

Forking to run two different codebases again was never suggested. IIRC Hippie runs off a private fork of an older version of /tg/ code. They depend on the bus as much as /vg/ does.

I think a lot of people misinterpreted what HG said and instead of applying their thought process to it, got really butthurt because it confirmed what a lot of coders (namely me) have been saying all this time (which a lot of morons called a 'scapegoat' we were hiding behind)

It's not like HG is saying that /tg/ isn't the primary server that runs the /tg/station codebase. This will literally never not be the case. What HG is saying is that the player feedback of /tg/ station does not necessitate code changes at all. /tg/ coders do not work for you, we all do it for free, we code what we want, we do it as a hobby to improve the game. Nobody actively makes code changes and thinks 'hey, this will kill the server' or 'hey, this will upset the players'. This isn't the primary motivation in mind for ANY coder. Dissonance between the players in feedback forum and some coders' vision for the game does not necessitate change. Your best chance for getting changes you want are either a) doing them yourself or b) asking a coder nicely.

Why would you go to someone who volunteers their time to improve the game, act as volatile as most feedback is in this forum, and then expect any sort of change? I didn't come out of the gate swinging and neither does any coder. We don't come to feedback and go FUCK YOU PLAYERS LOL HERE'S OUR FEATURE, you guys leave shitty feedback and we respond in turn. Coderbus has standards about etiquette and tone in regards to holding some bit of professionalism, but outside of that, it's the wild west.

What I'm trying to say here is that we aren't Bioware, you didn't pay for our product and we're actively shafting you despite that. You aren't our customers, we don't have an obligation to listen to you, you're a tool for us to use to change our code should we decide to use it. But that tool needs to actually be effective at helping the progress of code and game balance instead of yelling at us for literally everything.

the fact of the matter is that if you want to code for fun you shouldnt do it for a large group of people because you are inevitably going to piss them off with something you do
or if you do, you listen to them
"he does it for free" is not an excuse for anything and has never been an excuse for anything, not on 4chan and not here. you shouldnt have to be paid before you will listen to your consumerbase. and that IS what it is, a consumerbase. acting blase and claiming you have no requirement to do anything for the people who play the game you help create is the exact opposite of how game design works. you need a reality check so you can realize that yes, you do have a responsibility to these people at least to some extent. if the players did not play on servers using your codebase, your code would all be for naught.
the reason people yell at you for literally everything is because they feel like you listen to literally nothing. its a symbiotic relationship. you are blaming the "tool" for your own mistakes. and it's not like you can easily replace that tool.
no, you don't have to bend over and become an input-output machine of ideas and code. but just listen when people are upset; there is a reason for it and it's probably not only because players whine about everything.

Paprika " i could revert goonchem, but i have too much resistance from #coderbus. a lot of people are shilling that it's better than what we used to have, and they're right"

The coder council has spoken. The plebians do not know what is best for them

Bombadil wrote:Paprika " i could revert goonchem, but i have too much resistance from #coderbus.

Because a little bit of chafe from a group of people has stopped him before, right?

Saegrimr if it's so easy why don't you take the time out of your day and the 3 hours it would take the meticulously replace every chem goonchem has replaced and readd old chems/remove new chems as well as the OD systems, etc

When the group of people giving me 'chafe' is LITERALLY ALL THE OTHER CODERS, and the HEAD CODERS AND MAINTAINERS, it's just a little hard to do this

Goof's chem is here to stay. That being said, it's a good system. Goon chem is interesting, more realistic, and fun.

The IMPLEMENTATION here is what's the problem. I'm glad goof tries to shake things up with chemistry and cooking. Some things need to be shook once in a while. But there's a difference between shaking something's shoulder to wake it up and slapping it in the face.

Bombadil wrote:The plebians do not know what is best for them

Players don't like to see their power-gaming get fixed.

Deantwo wrote: Players don't like to see their power-gaming get fixed.

Your insinuating the entire playerbase only cares about "power-gaming" in relation to goonchem and startrekchem, that is insulting if that's truly what you believe.

paprika wrote:Nonesense

miggles wrote:Goodsense

Deantwo wrote:Fursense

"I do it for free" only flies for a game that you are making for yourself by yourself for yourself.

No one can complain when Toady makes a change for dwarf fortress because its a game he wants to make in his own vision, and its the type of game that he and his brother wanted to play. The fact that a lot of people also wanted to play that type of game and that they enjoy whats already there is just a fantastic bonus.
DF is Toady's game and will always be Toady's game, we play DF because we want to play Toady's game


That does not apply to SS13 because its an established game, with established communities, with established rulesets, with established playstyles, with established game mechanics.
You coming in and changing whatever you feel like only because its what you want without consulting and seeking approval beyond an incredibly small subset of people is going against the grain of the community, and thats why people get pissed off with coderbus and you - because you've got it in your head that just because you can type code that somehow makes you experts on game design and that your vision for the game is the correct one - thats called delusions of grandeur.
SS13 is not your game and it will never be your game, it belongs to the communities. We play SS13 because we want to play SS13, we don't want to play Paprika-Station or Cheridan-Station or MrPerson-Station or even Malkevin-Station or Steelpoint-Station (even though those two would be totally bitching).


If you want to do your own thing thats fine, fork the code and make your own codebase.
Whats not fine is forcing yourself on the rest of the community without hashing things out with them first, what you basically are is a leech - a parasite - thats feeding off a larger host body because you need an audience to validate your existence.

Steelpoint wrote:

Deantwo wrote: Players don't like to see their power-gaming get fixed.

Your insinuating the entire playerbase only cares about "power-gaming" in relation to goonchem and startrekchem, that is insulting if that's truly what you believe.

Haven't seen complains about the hardsuit helmet change, so not all power-gaming.
But yeah I do believe it is part of the reason a few people dislike the chemistry changes.

Some of the new chemistry feature were suppose to fix power-gaming as far as I have been told.
Overdose mechanic prevents you from pumping your body full of chemicals, like for example Epinephrine (Inaprovaline) would make able to walk in oxygen-less environments without internals.

Malkevin wrote:Deantwo: Fursense

What.