Niber banned and thread deleted, why?

[kosmiq]

Hi!

I am pretty fresh to the Planeshift community and the game itself, even if Niber have promoted the game and tried to get me to play seriously the last 3 years... :p

However I am aware that he recently created a thread where he pointed out some things he think can be done better in Planeshift. But I noticed that the thread is no longer existing and that niber has been banned.

Why is that? Is he not allowed to express his feelings about the project and give feedback since he has been part of the team and actually done a few things in the game?
Like the shields, the deathrealm and the magicshop (those are the ones I know of atleast).

I am not the one to judge how you run your forums but I find it disturbing that you deleted the thread where he pointed out flaws. Perhaps his ideas and thoughts could\'ve helped Planeshift become better and be developed faster with less bugs?

Because if we look at the project a little objective I find the following things disturbing:
Planeshift has been in development during the past 5 years (or something like that atleast) and the current version of it is 0.3xx. Is that was is done in 5 years?
It seems as if alot of people comes in and goes out to/from the project almost all the time.
It feels as if little is added in the updates. I have however not tried the latest version because lack of interest after the last few ones.

I have on the other hand no idea what your final goals are. But I suspect that you have set them high and are aiming to reach them. However I think that the lack of updates really is making people look for alternatives that gets developed faster.

I think that some of you can prove me wrong on several points here, but this is my personal opinion.

kosmiq, out!

[zanzibar]

They had a major update a little while back.... they added dozens upon dozens of new items, and a new weapons hierarchy.  They\'re doing this for free and for fun, so the fact that progress is slow shouldn\'t be surprising.

Do you know why your friend got banned?  There are plenty of people here that don\'t like having their \"authority\" challenged, and that may have been a factor, but you didn\'t give enough information in your post.  The way you worded it, he was banned simply for making suggestions which aren\'t at all controversial.  There must be more to the story.

[Keyaz]

http://planeshift.oodlz.com/wbboard/search.php?boardid=0&searchid=2&showposts=1


Niber is still healthily unbanned.

[zanzibar]

\"No results were found for this search.\"

[Moogie]

Constructive critisism and serious solutions to \'problems\' are wholeheartedly welcome. However, it is the opinion of Talad that Niber\'s post was not much more than a series of attacks, veiled lightly under the false pretenses that he was trying to offer \'good advice\'.

Things stand as such: Planeshift is a hobby project. The fact that it has been in constant development for over 5 years proves that we have the staying power, and this is by far not the first small bump that has crossed its path. Developers of Planeshift are not obligated in any way, shape, or form to complete their work any faster than free time and motivation permit, and that we most certainly can\'t compare to multi-million dollar commercial products such as WoW or EQ doesn\'t matter at all to any of us. We develop Planeshift for us, for fun, for free.

Niber, like many, has his own view of \"how things should be done\". Good for him. Talad is also an individual with a different idea about Planeshift\'s development. But Talad is not as stubborn as you may be lead to believe. He infact does listen to reason, to constructive critisism, but NOT when it is worded with aggression and insultive comments. Niber\'s post was interpreted as an attempt to belittle the development team, and indeed the project as a whole, and was therefore dealt with. Whether banning him was fair or not, who is to decide but the admin, Talad himself? These are ultimately his forums after all, and we are all guests here.

Unfortunately I need to close this, as discussion on the matter would lead to arguments and become generally out of hand. Everyone has different opinions, after all. The matter has been dealt with, meaning the topic is no longer valid for discussion here.

[Edit: Oh, he\'s not banned? That\'s good. One less thing for people to fret over. ]


Thanks.

[Vengeance]

kosmiq,

To answer your questions about timing, rather than your questions about Niber, I can add a post with some thoughts.

It would be interesting to know some updated numbers, but a couple of years ago it was published that the average MMORPG has between 30-50 developers.  WoW had over 200.  EQ2 and SWG had over 300.  These are full-time, experienced professional people working long hours with very expensive tools and networks, motion capture systems, voice actors, etc.  MMORPG development costs somewhere in the $20million range, to start.

Even with these budgets and staffs, the average development time from concept to launch for these commercial games is about 4 years.

PS has a budget of $0.  We have about 3 or 4 core coding developers, 3 or 4 artists, a couple of writers and a couple of sound guys--all of whom work in their spare time.  Many are students and not professionals.  All are talented but it takes more than talent.  We have 1/10th the staff with 1/10th the experience and 1/5th the time.

Therefore, after 4 years PS should be about 1/500th of WoW, and I think we are exceeding that.

From the outside looking in, every project is slow--pro or open source.  But the same way that having a test tomorrow affects your playing time, having a test tomorrow affects our development time.  I know your impatience is actually a compliment, so I want you to understand the monumental task we have chosen to take on and to sympathize with us rather than point fingers and view our slow progress as evidence of any problem.

Thanks,
Vengeance
Server Team Leader