Does Anyone Understand The “Worth Of Consistency”?

[dragonflythecat]

Do you understand the difference between a first rate game and a second rate game? A first rate game costs you money and a second rate game doesn’t.

Has any of the current Game Developers served in an active Military, led men into battle, ordered men to their deaths, lived with countless nightmares of battles re-lived?

Of course none of you have, what was I thinking? It is plain to see that you need something that professional game developers have: A Military Advisor.

It is pretty plain that you boys haven’t got a clue when you are doing re-balancing changes as to how military hardware actually works – the perception of 10 to 15 years olds, doesn’t cut it.

If you were professional programmers, you wouldn’t be wasting your time with re-balancing changes, when there is so many other problems associated with this game that re-balancing changes should be the least of your concerns.

But if you should wish to do re-balancing changes they should all be done at the same time so you could maintain the consistency of the game rather than piece meal.

You obviously, from the posts I read today, can’t put out a Beta version without screwing up something else.

“Well, we changed this, so we had to go back and change that, but then once we changed that and this we had to go back and re-change that other thing, then there was that other one that needed to be changed because we had changed this and that so that other thing would work well with this.”

Do you think this shows?

1. Unprofessional Gamer Developers in action
2. A chicken running around a barnyard with its head cut off
3. Just a dog chasing his own tail

Lets take a look at the Builder’s Queue, why do the modules for the power, research and factories, appear in the Builder’s Queue if you can’t build them?

When I upgrade my truck, tanks, cyborgs, VTOL, or turrets why do lesser units remain in the Builder’s Queue? Shouldn't they be removed? I'm not going to waste time building lesser when I should only be building greater. All that stuff in just in the way.

You want to change things, change that.

This game will always be just second rate until issues involving consistency have been worked out – right now it is a good game for 10 to 15 year-olds who have no concept of consistency or its worth. Right Kuky?

Dragonfly The Cat

[cybersphinx]

Has any of the current Game Developers served in an active Military, led men into battle, ordered men to their deaths, lived with countless nightmares of battles re-lived?

While I find the notion of a game that shows the unpleasantness of war interesting, it would fail its purpose - to entertain.

If you were professional programmers,

... we probably wouldn't want to spend our free time on convoluted spaghetti code as well.

you wouldn’t be wasting your time with re-balancing changes,

It's funny how you always seem to target Zarel, don't we others give the impression of being young enough to be intimidated by you?

when there is so many other problems associated with this game that re-balancing changes should be the least of your concerns.

You should occasionally look beyond the forum.

You obviously, from the posts I read today, can’t put out a Beta version without screwing up something else.

You obviously, from reading your diatribes, have no idea on how to keep an open-source project going. While I don't agree with all decisions made, this is the only project working on the Warzone source that has produced tangible results for over five years.

Do you understand the difference between a first rate game and a second rate game? A first rate game costs you money and a second rate game doesn’t.
[...]
This game will always be just second rate until issues involving consistency have been worked out

Let me quote your thread title here: "Does Anyone Understand The “Worth Of Consistency”?"

Cruel, aren't I?

[Carme Taika]

Umm okay..

Worthless post (Original Poster)

... Moving on.

[3drts]

It is pretty plain that you boys haven’t got a clue when you are doing re-balancing changes as to how military hardware actually works – the perception of 10 to 15 years olds, doesn’t cut it.

Right... because 1 shot kill cannons, and tanks completely immune to 7.62 mm machine guns.... is good for gameplay....
Lets add fuel and ammunition requirements....
And hey, you can't make a tank out of just oil, now we need mines for metal ore, refineries, etc.

Its a GAME

Balance is important, not realism.


And what men have you ordered to their deaths, oh big military badass?
Did you order men to storm the beaches of normandy?
Did you order your men to hold the line as the chinese advanced down the korean peninsula in the Korean war?

Were you at Khe-San in Vietnam?

Or did you sit around in a hot desert, and occasionally order men on patrols, where a bomb occasionally went off?
No, I doubt you even did that...
Crawl back in your hole.

[Per]

A true comedian.

[stiv]

Dude, it's a game! The setting is the year 2100 which is still a couple years off so realism is not a strict requirement. If you want more of an actual military simulation, go play something like TacOps, Harpoon or maybe Steel Panthers. Neither chess nor Go are realistic combat simulations, but they still provide interesting gameplay.

As for 'obsolete' units remaining available, look at it as a quantity vs quality issue. You can delete the designs you don't want to see.

The Beta process *is* a little out of control, no argument there. Tightening up the development process would help but remember that everyone working on the project is a volunteer. Note that the game is still under active development and has an active community in spite of being a decade old. This is good.

Speaking as a professional programmer, the difficulty of getting a new version out the door is not solely a project management problem, but also a sign that the code is becoming old and brittle. It has become hard to change something without breaking something else. Think of it as an old machine where patching one weak part puts stress on another one which then breaks. The solution for this is 'refactoring' - re-writing entire subsystems like the networking code or path-finding. This is happening. You don't see it because it takes place under the surface and mainly in the svn trunk branch, but it is happening.

[lav_coyote25]

and - if your so gung ho - what exactly are YOUR qualifications. what can you provide...coding? scripting? modeling? what??? also are you going to dedicate your real life time to helping whenever it is needed - if you have been paying attention all here as has been stated are volunteers. we do this for the love of the game. if your one that can classify yourself as that - then by all means grab something and start doing. if your suggesting we need an administrator ... we have gotten through 10 years now without one. every time some one steps up to take the big kahuna position - the community dissolves into nothing but time wasting discussions about who is to do what and when it needs to be completed... which is fine for big companies with unlimited budgets ... not here. okthnksbai. xD

[Zarax]

There is a simple solution to the problem: make your own mod to showcase your concept.

If you cannot do that, at least try to address specific issues in details and you might be more successful than with a widespread and non constructive critic like the one in the OP.

You may or may not get what you're looking for but your chances will be far better than by pissing off the very same people that are supposed to do the work to make it happen.

[Rman Virgil]

.

Been actively involved with the game and community since the retail beta over 10 years ago.

I can speak to most of what has been raised here from extensive first hand experience. Does that make me the voice of authority ? No. Does it mean I have a corner on the truth ? No. What it may mean is that what I say could constitute insight of some constructive value.

FIRST ~ I do not believe in demonizing anyone. Such is the basis of mob think and mob think is the root of most atrocities in recorded history including genocide.

SECOND ~ I subscribe to De Bono's "Six Hat" thinking protocol of which "Black Hat" thinking is but one of the 6. When an individual can only offer "Black Hat" thinking the value of what they have to say is of very limited practical utility.

The 2 quotes at the end of my post cover most of the salient ground in response to the thread's question. I could add more in the way of supporting, factual, evidence but I think the posters have done well in capturing the essence and my additions are not necessary. There are other crux nuances I could get into but at this point I think it unnecessary.

So... what I will instead speak to briefly is the matter of input from Military Personnel - from all the major armed forces, officers, vets of front line combat, etc..

Since day one over 10 years ago in retail development, clear through the present development team, WZ 2100 has benefited directly from the input of military personnel who were also big fans of the game. There are many concrete examples of this over the years, not the least of which was the Cyborg Transport which was added to the game after retail as a direct result of a female officer in the Chopper Cavalry of the US Army who was a big fan along with her officer hubby. There are other examples. And I know Zarel's balancing efforts do take into account RL military tech within the scope of WZ being an RTS game entertainment and NOT a combat simulator for RL military training (among other unavoidable constraints touched upon by stive & Zarax).

I for one think WZ GPMs can be expanded in FUN ways (as analogous to the rich diversity of winning strats & tacs of a classic strategy game like Chess - including the deeply satisfying Queens Gambit) that are also directly inspired by RL Military Multi-Vectored, Velocity Maneuver & Asymmetric conflicts of the 21st century. These can be achieved as Map-Mods right now and will be even further facilitated by this project's own development road map (I'm thinking Beta Widget/LUA).

I thought about speaking to matters of effective leadership (but I've already done so elsewhere), Professional Cathedral vis-a-vis FOSS Bazaar project philosophies and pragmatics (had an extensive, civil, amiable and instructive discussion with EG, aka Freddy, one of the developers, some years back on the topic - nothing to add to that), the choice 5+ years ago to go the route of a central cross-platform development commitment (which I supported and still think was the best course even though it came at a price vis-a-vis the most optimal manner in which to deal with the aging, gnarly, spaghetti source code)...... but I'll just leave it at this.

If anyone would like me to expand on any of the foregoing - just give a holler.

The following 2 quotes, assessed & referenced earlier in my post, merit re-reading by the thread's creator:

Dude, it's a game! The setting is the year 2100 which is still a couple years off so realism is not a strict requirement. If you want more of an actual military simulation, go play something like TacOps, Harpoon or maybe Steel Panthers. Neither chess nor Go are realistic combat simulations, but they still provide interesting gameplay.

As for 'obsolete' units remaining available, look at it as a quantity vs quality issue. You can delete the designs you don't want to see.

The Beta process *is* a little out of control, no argument there. Tightening up the development process would help but remember that everyone working on the project is a volunteer. Note that the game is still under active development and has an active community in spite of being a decade old. This is good.

Speaking as a professional programmer, the difficulty of getting a new version out the door is not solely a project management problem, but also a sign that the code is becoming old and brittle. It has become hard to change something without breaking something else. Think of it as an old machine where patching one weak part puts stress on another one which then breaks. The solution for this is 'refactoring' - re-writing entire subsystems like the networking code or path-finding. This is happening. You don't see it because it takes place under the surface and mainly in the svn trunk branch, but it is happening.

There is a simple solution to the problem: make your own mod to showcase your concept.

If you cannot do that, at least try to address specific issues in details and you might be more successful than with a widespread and non constructive critic like the one in the OP.

You may or may not get what you're looking for but your chances will be far better than by pissing off the very same people that are supposed to do the work to make it happen.

Regards, RV

.

[Sekmeton]

Stop saying "It's just a game"... the last time that someone said that, (like 3 months ago) I saw a forum-war...

Btw: I'm one of the "It's just a game" side xD

@dragonflythecat

Dude... wth?... If you can do """"""""""""""""""Better"""""""""""""""""" then do it! stop bringin' your s*** here, our only problems (and I'm talking about the whole comunity) are about simple discussions. We're all happy with the version relases.
If you have ideas -> "Create new topic"
If you want realism -> Take an M16 and the rest is up to you...

Sékmeton

(Excuse my english)

[crux]

dragonflythecat, you make some valid complaints and some silly ones.
warzone was never a sim and those who crave that, have access to the source to make it however you want it.
from my readings in the forums they seem to be slowly understanding things better but at times they do screwy things themselves.

it is a learning process for everyone involved.

they just need to listen to people about sync issues and not delete posts about this issue to hide the fact that beta 10 was better than beta 11a.

[Black Project]

Warzone 2100 is not Project Reality (Battlefield 2 Realism Mod)

It's just a RTS game, not a war simulation dude

[Olrox]

I can't understand - Mr. joined last month, 17 post-Greenhorn, most posts in a single topic=2, comes here and start criticizing everything, thinking that the dev team is stupid or something. Go play the retail versions, before those guys started working when the source code was released! Or at least earn some kudos before attacking anybody.

I'm going to be harsh as I never was - if you are so fussy about everything, go make your own project and stop whining. Nobody here will probably miss you, I definetely won't. If you are so plain *right*, go for a politics career and stop wasting our times.

I do not say that because of this topic. I say that because almost every post you've wrote since you've joined is about the same thing: throwing stones at those who are working for free and with good will. I didn't even read Rman's entire post because I'm sure there's a lot more sense on it than in any other and we think alike most frequently - and I know what he's bringing forth in it. If there was a single respectable member that shared the same attitude and frustration as yours, you could at least not be the only one, but you are.

This is by far the most receptive forums I've ever seen, with the most caring community, and utmost seriousness from the development team regarding to work. Everything is carefully thought and errors are unfortunately impossible to avoid - every game has errors and I've seen many commercial games, made by great companies, that have more errors than warzone. I'm not saying that things couldn't be better, that would be plain stupid. I'm saying that things are getting better, even if sometimes it may seem like they are getting better in a slow rate, but progress never stopped here and I can say that a thousand times and I bet my left eye that I'll be right for the next dozens of years at least - This is the most consistent open-source game development project I've ever seen.

Go make something yourself if you want to point at other peoples' work. Are you up to make a better work? Know someone who could? There's a lot of things to improve, how you like to point out and declare in dramatic ways.

Your opinion has the same weight as of any other regular member of the community, and you can't expect to be taken too seriously after all this drama you seem to bring forth since you've discovered the "New Topic" button.

~Olrox

[Dylan Hsu]

Tough military men don't choose "dragonflythecat" as their handle.

[psychopompos]

^ woudnt try to troll with tldr posts either.