My Critique To PlaneShift

[Shaman]

We have heard all of this before, join the team, break the cycle.

If you have heard it all before isn't your job to break the cycle Xillix? Or a better question should be if you have heard it all before why haven't you done anything about it?

Post of the day.

[Kaerli]

The problem is just "joining the team" isn't enough to fix some of the deep-seated problems.  The fact that PS is a "chimera" (part-open, part-closed) project is one of the main ones, along with the fact that PS is written in a very old dialect of C++ (c'mon...is there a reason why we have to reinvent wheels that Boost provides for any sane C++ project? + CS has just gotten namespace aware and PS still isn't good with 'em + we use crap like csArray all over the place where the stdlib provides better!).

We need to A) loosen up on art at least somewhat (not accepting art that has internal polygons makes very little sense UNLESS CS can't render such models).  B) Write up a comprehensive PS Coding Style guide and C) dispose of csArray, csString, csHashTable, and friends.  Using Boost to provide such things as string algorithms, threading, signal/slot support, and the likes would be helpful too...

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Do it better, please, I welcome your infinite wisdom, all of you.

[freeharte]

The official testing team members have their own subsection of the forums, much like the dev, moderating, and GM teams do.  They are free to post what ever info they feel they need to in order to fulfill their rolls as official game testers, which includes spoiler information, in that section and only them and the devs and the global moderators can view it. 

Consider it wish granted.

   LOL!  Yeah, I'm obviously a newbie here.

When I've had a chance to run through my fill of the quests, I'll probably volunteer to help with something.  In the short time I've been here, I'm impressed with the community and the direction Planeshift seems to be going.  I like the in-character emphasis, and the preservation of a sense of mystery. 

[Draklar]

Sangwa should cut out the backseat driving and take the wheel.

Sorry for being my usual self, but I believe Sangwa's guild leadership prohibits him from becoming anyone beyond a dev prospect.
And correct me if this changed, but prospects don't quite "hold the wheel"

Also, Mathy ftw.

[Mythryndel]

The only valid point i see in the original rant... is that communication should be better between the player/testers and the devs. I know that certain people, Xillix, Caarrie and Xordan for example, have done quite a bit lately, IMHO, towards fixing this. On the topic of communication...

1. Is there a way to use the "news box" on these forums for something like the following:
   a. Server status, similar to laanx.fragnetics.com
   b. Update/version information, similar to planeshift.it
   c. Prominent bugs that need more information/attention, like the map boundary/change bug and the attacking bug

2. Is there a more efficient way to run the "wish list"? I have seen both new requests marked as duplicates and old threads being used where someone got admonished for bumping an ancient thread with new tweaks/concepts.

3. Can we as, a community, stop being so caustic? This post, at least in my mind, is nothing more than an attempt to rant and rave about the perceived injustice of Y'liakum because the random comments in other threads just didn't get enough attention.

4. Just so everyone knows, there has been quite a bit of work towards making it easier for people to submit bug reports. It still requires, yet another, login, but Caarrie was working on a guide (don't have the link handy), and there have been some changes made to the bug tracker also. I am not a Dev, but if anyone has a problem with writing a bug report, PM me and I will do what I can to help make it dev-friendly.

Well... flame on... this is my 2 Trias...

[EDIT] Point 1 is to say that right now I have to go to three different sources to get information. Why can they not be consolidated into 1? The two recent updates were not mentioned in the forums, only on www.planeshift.it. The server status has tons of threads here about how it is down, and links to laanx.fragnetics.com...

[Under the moon]

How is that reunion going, Mathy? Leadership treating you good? You got all the help you needed to make it come true, right? Everything fell in your lap as expected? Good, good.

PS is 100 times harder than that.

why haven't you done anything about it

This makes me want to go right to your house and slap you in the face. You have NO idea what Xillix has done in the last two years. None. Xillix himself has turned the rusty and empty Settings Department into a working machine. He has helped push forward features that players have been asking for for years. He is the only reason I and most others in Settings are on the team. He is the reason there are close to 300 quests in the game, the BF area exists, more rewards are given in quests and for loot, more Settings themed events go on on a large scale, more books are ingame (and MANY more on the way), and many many more things I don't know about.

You have no idea, and your statement shows what kind of person you really are. Frankly, it is not someone I would want to know.

[Caarrie]

[EDIT] Point 1 is to say that right now I have to go to three different sources to get information. Why can they not be consolidated into 1? The two recent updates were not mentioned in the forums, only on www.planeshift.it. The server status has tons of threads here about how it is down, and links to laanx.fragnetics.com...

Different servers, Different people with access, Different people with time to update resources, Also some people dont want info in all those places.

[Shaman]

How is that reunion going, Mathy? Leadership treating you good? You got all the help you needed to make it come true, right? Everything fell in your lap as expected? Good, good.

PS is 100 times harder than that.

why haven't you done anything about it

This makes me want to go right to your house and slap you in the face. You have NO idea what Xillix has done in the last two years. None. Xillix himself has turned the rusty and empty Settings Department into a working machine. He has helped push forward features that players have been asking for for years. He is the only reason I and most others in Settings are on the team. He is the reason there are close to 300 quests in the game, the BF area exists, more rewards are given in quests and for loot, more Settings themed events go on on a large scale, more books are ingame (and MANY more on the way), and many many more things I don't know about.

You have no idea, and your statement shows what kind of person you really are. Frankly, it is not someone I would want to know.

Xillix did his job, as would someone else in the same position. However, since this game is available to us, the public, we have to do our job as testers, the people who actually play the game, and report back what could be fixed/improved. How is it then, that we can't do our job unless we're a part of the team? What are we if nothing we say/do is accounted for?

[Parallo]

Useless.

Unless you use the bug tracker whenever the chance to do so arises.

[Paldorin]

We have heard all of this before, join the team, break the cycle.

If you have heard it all before isn't your job to break the cycle Xillix? Or a better question should be if you have heard it all before why haven't you done anything about it?

Thats pretty lame Mathy XilliX has done a lot for the game. He works hard on breaking the circle, is a driving force in settings, recruits , makes event and so on. Accusing XilliX having done nothing about it while doing nothing at all for the game is lame.

[Under the moon]

I'd like to say there are a lot of good points in this thread that are being worked towards. Those points are not being discounted. That being said, I consider some others to have no grounds to stand on, and bring nothing constructive to the table.

[neko kyouran]

That being said,    ......   bring nothing constructive to the table.

On that note, http://dgworkwear.co.uk/dgworkwear/images/FR%20AS.jpg for all.

[Kaerli]

The FUNDAMENTAL problem with PS is the fact that it's a "chimera" (part-open, part-closed) project.  What we are seeing is a combination of 2 factors:
1) closed parts (art mainly) don't keep up with open parts (the state of the art within CS) which prevents PS from exploiting the latest technology CS has to offer (animesh, Bullet for CD and Physics, full use of shaders, the rendermanager)...
2) open parts (much of the PS code) is held back to keep up with closed parts (art, DB) causing frustrations for all.


Add the 5+ year old heaps of cruft and bit-rot to the picture, and things just get worse on both fronts.  What makes matters worse is that our coders seem to INSIST on NOT leveraging the C++ state-of-the-art... (expression-template-progression-scripts that can be written either in text or directly in C++, anyone?  I think it's doable...) (look at the fact that we have csArray and csString ALL OVER OUR CODEBASE!  /me beats Jorrit thoroughly with a bound copy of the C++ standard)

[Draklar]

Thats pretty lame Mathy XilliX has done a lot for the game. He works hard on breaking the circle, is a driving force in settings, recruits , makes event and so on. Accusing XilliX having done nothing about it while doing nothing at all for the game is lame.

We have heard

If you have heard

"You" can be a plural pronoun and logically, so was it in this sentence.
Therefore logically, unless Xillix equals the dev team, or for some reason refers to himself as "We", Mathy's post shouldn't be treated as an accusation towards Xillix alone, but instead a question why is it that everytime a player wishes to see something changed, they are told to join the team (while apparently the wish alone isn't enough to trigger a change within the game mechanics).

One could answer
"to speed up the development"
or
"to show it's not so easy to make changes"
or probably Xil's choice
"to give the proposed idea more support in Planeshift's almost democratic dev environment"

But sure, there's also the old good and totally unlame "OMG! Xillix works hard. You suck!" and going to #PS to tell people to slap the troll.