PS SkunkWorks Project 01 - derailed part

[confused]

So I started asking around, in hope of getting some insight in what the team is like. I came to have a discussion with Eckar shortly after, who told me of the dictatorial and spiteful bullying that took place within the team, by Weltall especially if I am not mistaken. That was long ago however, and it soon came to be forgotten.

For starters, what the hell does Eckar know about the development team and the going on that takes place when she is not even a developer in the first place. Weltall being dictator and spiteful, that got to be a bloody joke. He is the one that at least does his best to prevent major screw ups taking place by other developers, with main culprit being Talad himself. If you want to know who the dictator is, it is simply Talad himself. He is also the sole reason I not contributing to the project. I just end up in many fights with him when he fails in the common sense department, due to dictator style corporate leadership he uses.

Eckar is the idiot here, the mentally screwed up player. Someone, one should never take seriously, someone who actually knows nothing much about PS.

[confused]

Go do something productive and develop something that isn't your putrid smelling opinion, Weltall. Saying these things directly about somebody who played this game and left it on their own free will doesn't deserve to be indirectly harassed like this. The things you say, like this for a good example, only cause you to make yourself look like very unprofessional, and furthermore, personal attacks against another person makes you look like...um...what's the word for it...a troll!

Geoni, you must be on serious drugs, to come with such crap. I was there to witness plenty of the trouble making caused by Eckar. She is a bad player, and very instable in real life. Cause of many good role players from leaving PS due to her real life issues and personality.

[Jacula]

A was stating what I was told, not notions derived from my own perception. I don't know Weltall, so I don't have an opinion on him.

[Minks]

Talad, I think Getoran raised a very good point in the beginning of the thread:

There are probably good reasons speaking for keeping the dev channel/irc dev meetings/discussions/plans/whatever secret, but there are some serious drawbacks:

• Secrecy makes you suspicious. People are paranoid, they will always assume the worst. Information is the best weapon against conspiracy theories.
• Secrecy also creates a big bias in the information that is "leaked" to the public. And there will always be leaks. But nobody will ever pastebin the logs of a quiet productive meeting. The only thing we (the players) ever read are the occasions when someone lost their cool. So, according to the human nature, many will assume that it always goes like this, no matter how much it is denied.

In my opinion, some kind of public access to the dev meetings would be a good counter attack and to provide a more realistic picture of the development process. Maybe log the irc channel or allow muted spectators in there. This would hopefully create a mass of positive and neutral information to balance the few extremely negative examples you can find right now by using a search engine.

[Talad]

Minks, I think yours is a very interesting comment. Finally some constructive feedback!

Surely the issue is that few people can make a lot of noise in forums based on rumors and false information, while we are so focused in working on the game, we just forget to counteract those false rumors.

There are plenty of reasons on not opening our developer channel to public, including the fact we post login, passwords, links to internal material, we discuss about private life events of the devs at times, legal stuff when needed, we decide on new members, we decide on promotions, bans and such. There is a lot which cannot just be pasted and provided as it is, and I guess filtering will be a long process.

On the other side I think more work can be done on posting regular updates of what we do and results of meetings and progress. That's surely a lack we have today, and it's mainly caused by lack of time, not lack of will.

I think we can take two actions here:
1) at the end of every dev meeting (which is held on sunday)we decide which elements are interesting enough to be published and we post this on the dev blogs.
2) we organize an event in game every two weeks to meet the devs, where players can interact with them and ask questions. If possible a transcript of the discussion will be posted on the dev blogs as well.

Both will require time and work, but I think those are valuable efforts.

@Confused: didn't you hear also that I'm willing to take over the world pretty soon, and put everyone into slavery? I think it's a pretty solid information.

[Mekora]

Those are good ideas I think. It would be very nice to see more dev blogs, things like how amendenier is going, or what might be implemented next. Also, try not to care too much when people make these criticisms, because I've found many times that over the internet, something you mean to just state, or say for constructive criticism can be taken the wrong way. But at the same time, people can be simply inconsiderate, so for those people, just try to look at the whole situation here. The devs make this game for us.

[verden]

Bear in mind that it takes as much effort more or less to write, illustrate and post updates as it does to do any other work on the project.

[lilura]

I think we can take two actions here:
1) at the end of every dev meeting (which is held on sunday)we decide which elements are interesting enough to be published and we post this on the dev blogs.
2) we organize an event in game every two weeks to meet the devs, where players can interact with them and ask questions. If possible a transcript of the discussion will be posted on the dev blogs as well.

Both will require time and work, but I think those are valuable efforts.

These sound like good ideas

A suggestion on the second one: use gossip channel for the question asking and stay invisible or go on EZPC and find an area like a tavern to meet and discuss/ask questions

I look forward to seeing/reading these!

[Earowo]

2) she put in a bad situation a gm like tazen which i think a lot of people liked here while he was around.

I was around when Taz was around, me and him, were real chums, best buds ya know? Weltall knows im sure
Anyways, I have not had any contact with him since 4.03, i cant get him on msn, in game, ect, what 'exactly' did that chick do to tazen? Pm me if you feel like telling me otherwise i'll have to keep trying to find out myself..

Geoni, your insults are unacceptable, you are banned from this forums and the game. Weltall is an honorable member of our team, who works harder on PS that you may even imagine. He is the reason why 0.5 exists and your comments are just unrespectful of his work. I see you don't like the game, so stay away from it.

\o/ one less forum troll
no offense geoni >.>

[Vakachehk]

Just so people know I'm not taking any sides.

... I'm open to listen to complains ...

You are??? How many people have told you to fix up the lack of RP, did you listen to that? No you locked the thread instead... 

Geoni, your insults are unacceptable, you are banned from this forums and the game. Weltall is an honorable member of our team, who works harder on PS that you may even imagine. He is the reason why 0.5 exists and your comments are just unrespectful of his work. I see you don't like the game, so stay away from it.

I believe you just broke a rule in PlaneShift, discussion of bans are not to be discussed in public threads. You make the rules Talad I think you really need to show a good example, and not break them yourself.

[Candy]

Well, even though he was banned for saying it (or at the very least the way he said it), Geoni is right in that a specific player - particularly one that a) clearly has something deeper than mere internet drama going on in real life, and b) isn't even around to defend herself any more - shouldn't be singled out and have such things revealed about her. It's all ancient history anyway, isn't it? She's the one taking the brunt of the insult here, and probably doesn't even know it.

Picking on your players isn't going to get you more devs, and with behavior like that, leaked IRC logs are hardly necessary to damage the team's reputation.

[Mekora]

Well, even though he was banned for saying it (or at the very least the way he said it), Geoni is right in that a specific player - particularly one that a) clearly has something deeper than mere internet drama going on in real life, and b) isn't even around to defend herself any more - shouldn't be singled out and have such things revealed about her. It's all ancient history anyway, isn't it? She's the one taking the brunt of the insult here, and probably doesn't even know it.

This may sound foolish, but she really did hurt a lot of people. I can name several that she made leave planeshift, more then just Tazen. And made many other people feel incredibly hurt too. I think people should at the very least know what she did. But I don't think we should attack her, because, as you said, she isn't here to defend herself. She doesn't play any longer.

[novacadian]

Picking on your players isn't going to get you more devs, and with behavior like that, leaked IRC logs are hardly necessary to damage the team's reputation.

Personally, and there is an interest to contribute to development if the opportunity arose; it is the present state of the software in production that seems the greatest recommendation to me. That is because when one looks at it through that light one is not just talking about the present active girls and boys of the dev team; but that long vista of those come, gone and still remaining. Considering the time that development has been continuing over the long length of time which it has been doing so... then the continuity is to be marvelled instead of seen as a negative to the developmental team's reputation in any way.

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,".  - Kipling

- Nova

[Chucki]

Well, even though he was banned for saying it (or at the very least the way he said it), Geoni is right in that a specific player - particularly one that a) clearly has something deeper than mere internet drama going on in real life, and b) isn't even around to defend herself any more - shouldn't be singled out and have such things revealed about her. It's all ancient history anyway, isn't it? She's the one taking the brunt of the insult here, and probably doesn't even know it.

Picking on your players isn't going to get you more devs, and with behavior like that, leaked IRC logs are hardly necessary to damage the team's reputation.

Well, when people come into a thread saying "YOU MISTREATED ECKAR" you should expect to get the other side of the story.

Also, in my experience, while Talad can be heavy handed in banning etc., he's usually fairly right in his notions. Take XilliX for example. Recently in a public channel, he mentioned that he had "spent months fighting Talad's influence in PS before being fired". Compare that with Talad's publicised reasons for firing him... and the pent up frustration of not getting any updates from XilliX from the settings team... it put the leaked logs in a whole new light to me. Just remember, no one is an angel, we're all mortal men.

And if Illysia and her friends want to throw stones at leaders, there's only themselves to blame for bans. Being civil with Talad can get you a long way. And don't be afraid to PM him with a good idea rather than simply leaving it in one of the many hundreds of threads.

[Earowo]

And remember, throw a rock at a god, and he will send a flaming boulder back in return