Why FAF has been progressing slowly (renamed)

[Downlord]

In response to viewtopic.php?f=39&t=4577&p=156075&hilit=call+for+a+web+based#p156075

First of all you have any idea of how many people give up working with you guys? How many good will you discourage?

I have a pretty good idea, yes. Not many.

How much you guys miss a leader and a big picture vision?

Since ZeP left there is no real leader anymore, it's more of a democracy now. That's partly a good, partly a bad thing. Good because the opinion of multiple people are considered, bad because this slows down progress.

How it just looks like some kids coding their own little project and not giving a shit about what is really needed and about the players.

I know you know our Feedback Forum. Let's have a look at the top 10 most voted issues.

1. Fix connectivity issues - we've been working on ICE which brings the de-facto standard solution to this problem to FAF. In contrast, Dstojkov's VPN solution is NOT a step ahead solving this issue, even if he thinks so (just ask yourself why that's not the standard solution within the game industry. The reasons are there.)
2. Galactic War - we're actively working on it
3. Team Matchmaker - not yet being worked on, but work will start soon
4. Fix desync/corrupted/not-uploaded replays - That's quite a beast. Someone started working on it, but this person then disappeared.
5. Improved replay vault - That's actively being worked on, but it requires changes to the Database, API and finally the client. Have a look at my client and you'll see that it's been improved a lot already.
6. Naval Anti-Nule - Very controversial, not sure if it will ever be implemented
7. Add a way to poke AFK players from within the lobby - Requires game, server and client changes, no work done so far. We added the "Game Full" notification, however (released in my client, in progress in the classic client)
8. Council of Setons - AFAIK, that's done and needs to be closed
9. Replay reviews - Implemented and available in my client
10. Change global rating - Has been discussed multiple times, no consent yet.

So tell me again, how are we "not giving a shit about what's really needed and about the players"?

Why would anyone want to waste their time and code on a dying project...

What indicates that FAF is dying? If I look at the number of players online I see that we repeatedly hit the 1k mark. I remember seeing the same thing last year, and the year before. To me, that's consistent, not dying.

... that have more regress than improve since Sheoo's coup d’état (2 or 3 years ago if my memory is good...) And who end up with visionik spending his money to allow everyone to keep playing on Zep work.

If I look at the game's issue tracker, I see about 125 closed issue in 2017 alone.
If I look at what mess the database used to be when we took FAF over from ZeP, I see that today we have a database that has almost all inconsistencies eliminated (like, there are no entries anymore of players who played a game that doesn't exist), is in a much better structure and allows for much faster queries than before. All of which is needed to fix problems and add features (replay vault, anyone?)
If I look at the mess that the server was, making it very difficult to make changes without breaking something, it's in a much better condition today.
If I look at how much a stable FAF costs then and now, the price went down a lot
If I look at how clean and easy it has become to add features to FAF, I see that it has been improved a lot

The only improvement i can see is coop by Speed and server stability. All the rest was working same or better on Zep time.

If ZeP was a chef and had a restaurant, he was going nuts in his kitchen to provide food for everyone. He created his first menu, then a second, third, fourth, fifth. People got their food and variety, they were happy. Sometimes the meals took long or were missing one or the other ingredient, but it's ok, people were tolerant because the menus were for free.

Then ZeP left and we took over. What we found was a kitchen that was covered in dirt, cockroaches everywhere, most of the devices were broken and glued together somehow so that at least they could be used to create exactly those 5 meals on the menu, but nothing more.
People then started to demand more meals. Oh, and make the existing ones come faster, and complete, and delicious. We saw no way of being able to do that in the state of that kitchen, so we started working hard, cleaned out all the dirt, replacing devices, killing cockroaches - and keep cooking at the same time to keep the customers happy. Also, we started listening to what menus the customers would like instead of just dictating the ones we thought were good.

Meanwhile, the customers started complaining. "Why are there still only 5 menus? Why is the quality of the meals still so bad? What the F are you doing in there? The old chef created 5 menus out of nothing, in no time! You only created 1 ever since!"

So yes, you're right. You don't see much improvement. But I hope that by now you understand why and that you believe me when I say; we are close to the point where the improvements are coming in at a faster rate. Just wait for the Beta of my client to be released

So tell me concretely what have you guys build that was really usefull to the player? What real decisions have been taken to make faf expend and not regress?

So far, very little. But I hope you prefer to eat in restaurants where there is no hair in your soup, no moldy ingredients, no cockroaches. Because we made the decision to first clean up the kitchen instead of trying to expand our business with the kitchen we took over.

if we had to wait for a rebuild from scratch like it was about to happen without Visionik help, we will probably all be playing on dstojkov lobby

You mean the lobby which took 4 years of development to get its first multiplayer game up and running? That still has no 1v1 ladder to this date? The one, that is not even close yet to the state where FAF had been 2 years ago?

Not to boast, but as a comparison, here's what I did (with some contributions of others) for FAF within the 2.5 years since I joined:

• Built a client from scratch that is more modern and has way more features than the classic one
• Re-implemented map and mod upload
• Fixed bugs in the game
• Fixed bugs in the existing server
• Added quite some features to the shaky API we had
• Re-Implemented the API from scratch so we now have a clean and stable API with many more features
• Re-implemented the complete FAF Server from scratch which is faster, more stable, more structured, has more features and fewer bugs than the current server
• Cleaned up a LOT in the existing database
• Added achievements to FAF
• Moved and cleaned up the server where all FAF 20+ services are running on

This alone is a complete FAF minus replay server, website, game development. That's more than Dstojkov has achieved in 4 years. So no, even if there was no FAF, we would not be playing on Dstojkov's lobby because it's progressing way to slow. I hope you see why I think his efforts are wasted.

His persistence and good will to make an alternative deserve at least respect, specialy from someone in charge ...

Well, I did start my post with "Respect for your never-ending efforts", didn't I?

To finish, you say to him that he is welcome to work with you to join the "team" but that posting his work here is pitiful...

He's doing an ego-thing, not working in any team. As far as I am concerned, he also has 0 contributors.

Like always faf "leaders" knows how to speak to people and discourage them spending time for faf ...

That's the point, he's NOT spending time for FAF. He's doing his own thing, completely isolated from FAF. All he does is using FAF to advertise it.

[jackherer]

Thats a lot to read

Ill try to find time tonight/tomorrow

[dstojkov]

In response to viewtopic.php?f=39&t=4577&p=156075&hilit=call+for+a+web+based#p156075

First of all you have any idea of how many people give up working with you guys? How many good will you discourage?

I have a pretty good idea, yes. Not many.

How much you guys miss a leader and a big picture vision?

Since ZeP left there is no real leader anymore, it's more of a democracy now. That's partly a good, partly a bad thing. Good because the opinion of multiple people are considered, bad because this slows down progress.

How it just looks like some kids coding their own little project and not giving a shit about what is really needed and about the players.

I know you know our Feedback Forum. Let's have a look at the top 10 most voted issues.

1. Fix connectivity issues - we've been working on ICE which brings the de-facto standard solution to this problem to FAF. In contrast, Dstojkov's VPN solution is NOT a step ahead solving this issue, even if he thinks so (just ask yourself why that's not the standard solution within the game industry. The reasons are there.)
2. Galactic War - we're actively working on it
3. Team Matchmaker - not yet being worked on, but work will start soon
4. Fix desync/corrupted/not-uploaded replays - That's quite a beast. Someone started working on it, but this person then disappeared.
5. Improved replay vault - That's actively being worked on, but it requires changes to the Database, API and finally the client. Have a look at my client and you'll see that it's been improved a lot already.
6. Naval Anti-Nule - Very controversial, not sure if it will ever be implemented
7. Add a way to poke AFK players from within the lobby - Requires game, server and client changes, no work done so far. We added the "Game Full" notification, however (released in my client, in progress in the classic client)
8. Council of Setons - AFAIK, that's done and needs to be closed
9. Replay reviews - Implemented and available in my client
10. Change global rating - Has been discussed multiple times, no consent yet.

So tell me again, how are we "not giving a shit about what's really needed and about the players"?

Why would anyone want to waste their time and code on a dying project...

What indicates that FAF is dying? If I look at the number of players online I see that we repeatedly hit the 1k mark. I remember seeing the same thing last year, and the year before. To me, that's consistent, not dying.

... that have more regress than improve since Sheoo's coup d’état (2 or 3 years ago if my memory is good...) And who end up with visionik spending his money to allow everyone to keep playing on Zep work.

If I look at the [url]game's issue tracker[/url], I see about 125 closed issue in 2017 alone.
If I look at what mess the database used to be when we took FAF over from ZeP, I see that today we have a database that has almost all inconsistencies eliminated (like, there are no entries anymore of players who played a game that doesn't exist), is in a much better structure and allows for much faster queries than before. All of which is needed to fix problems and add features (replay vault, anyone?)
If I look at the mess that the server was, making it very difficult to make changes without breaking something, it's in a much better condition today.
If I look at how much a stable FAF costs then and now, the price went down a lot
If I look at how clean and easy it has become to add features to FAF, I see that it has been improved a lot

The only improvement i can see is coop by Speed and server stability. All the rest was working same or better on Zep time.

If ZeP was a chef and had a restaurant, he was going nuts in his kitchen to provide food for everyone. He created his first menu, then a second, third, fourth, fifth. People got their food, they were happy. Sometimes the meals took long or were missing one or the other ingredient, but it's ok, people are patient.
Then he left and we took over. What we found was a kitchen that was covered in dirt, cockroaches everywhere, most of the devices were broken and glued together somehow so that at least they could be used to create exactly those 5 meals on the menu, but nothing more.
People then started to demand more meals. Oh, and make the existing ones come faster, and complete, and delicious. We saw no way of being able to do that in the state of that kitchen, so we started working hard, cleaned out all the dirt, replacing devices, killing cockroaches - and keep cooking at the same time to keep the customers happy. Also, we started listening to what menus the customers would like instead of just dictating the ones we thought were good.

Meanwhile, the customers started complaining. "Why are there still only 5 menus? Why is the quality of the meals still so bad? What the F are you doing in there? The old chef created 5 menus out of nothing, in no time! You only created 1 ever since!"

I hope the analogy is clear to everyone.

So tell me concretely what have you guys build that was really usefull to the player? What real decisions have been taken to make faf expend and not regress?

So far, very little. But I hope you prefer to eat in restaurants where there is no hair in your soup, no moldy ingredients, no cockroaches. Because we made the decision to first clean up the kitchen instead of trying to expand our business with the kitchen we took over.

if we had to wait for a rebuild from scratch like it was about to happen without Visionik help, we will probably all be playing on dstojkov lobby

You mean the lobby which took 4 years of development to get its first multiplayer game up and running? That still has no 1v1 ladder to this date? The one, that is not even close yet to the state where FAF had been 2 years ago?

Not to boast, but as a comparison, here's what I did (with some contributions of others) for FAF within the 2.5 years since I joined:

• Built a client from scratch that is more modern and has way more features than the classic one
• Re-implemented map and mod upload
• Fixed bugs in the game
• Fixed bugs in the existing server
• Added quite some features to the shaky API we had
• Re-Implemented the API from scratch so we now have a clean and stable API with many more features
• Re-implemented the complete FAF Server from scratch which is faster, more stable, more structured, has more features and fewer bugs than the current server
• Cleaned up a LOT in the existing database
• Added achievements to FAF
• Moved and cleaned up the server where all FAF 20+ services are running on

This alone is a complete FAF minus replay server, website, game development. That's more than Dstojkov has achieved in 4 years. So no, even if there was no FAF, we would not be playing on Dstojkov's lobby because it's progressing way to slow. I hope you see why I think his efforts are wasted.

His persistence and good will to make an alternative deserve at least respect, specialy from someone in charge ...

Well, I did start my post with "Respect for your never-ending efforts", didn't I?

To finish, you say to him that he is welcome to work with you to join the "team" but that posting his work here is pitiful...

He's doing an ego-thing, not working in any team. As far as I am concerned, he also has 0 contributors.

Like always faf "leaders" knows how to speak to people and discourage them spending time for faf ...

That's the point, he's NOT spending time for FAF. He's doing his own thing, completely isolated from FAF. All he does is using FAF to advertise it.

Hahaha seriously you made me laught thx for that !
I don t really think I have an ego issue ...

But again

Implement first a multi ffa ladders like I did years ago then you can tell you are far ahead

Even in your client I can not host gameS and join gameS at the same time.. seriously .. ahead of what ?

[TheKoopa]

What indicates that FAF is dying? If I look at the number of players online I see that we repeatedly hit the 1k mark. I remember seeing the same thing last year, and the year before. To me, that's consistent, not dying

Getting any games in the pure 1.5k+ bracket that's not a 2v2 has gotten so absolutely ridiculous that when you get a game it's a nice surprise to come to after 2 hours playing something else. Sad part is, this is neither sarcastic nor ironic.

TVG got more high level games than faf did for the past year (EDIT: tho tbh this is more related to current balance than broken features like ladder)

[biass]

Why write this paragraph after paragraph long ass-blasted post about this topic time and time again?
Who actually cares if dsto makes his thing or not, at least he is not out here trying to shit on others for not joining one giant pit of radiation of a "dev team" and working on something he personally doesn't like?
Plenty of people promote things outside of FAF that they made, their music, artwork, etc etc, this cancer "my thing is better then urs" isn't needed
like jesus christ dude, if i ever tried learning to code i hope i don't have someone like you around to try and take a dump on my efforts..
I'm personally glad dsto is able to take all this flak like a champ, even if im not personally interested in his client, i wish him all of the best.

also please stop @'ing me about "muh modern client" because it is also a bit of a UI mess

also, china called

[Wesmania]

one giant pit of radiation of a "dev team"

What do you mean by this?

[Downlord]

@biass

It started with me suggesting Dstojkov to contribute to FAF instead of working on his own thing. Then Jackherer came up with many wrong claims about FAF, to which I was replying to in this post. This post isn't as much about Dstojkov's lobby rather than it is to explain to jackherer why things in FAF are like they are, and that it is not as bad as he (and various other people) thinks it is. I should've chosen a different title, I guess.

It's not about "my thing is better then urs". It just makes me sad to see someone with programming skills and his endurance working for 4 years on a project only so that nobody has any interest in it, and probably will never have (at least, far from a critical mass of people). If that effort was put into FAF instead, he could've contributed a lot by now and we could progress faster. Where would we be if we had 10 developers, each one working on their own isolated system? We are too small, and thus need to work together. Every man counts.

@TheKoopa a new system won't fix the skill problem, either.

[TheKoopa]

@TheKoopa a new system won't fix the skill problem, either.

Maybe or maybe not, but the fact is that high level players have been leaving regularly and no one has been replacing them, leading to inflated ratings for those who are significantly worse than the people they replace at the same rating, and less population for the bracket overall.

I'm not too extremely sure on the stats for population but I'm pretty sure out of the people who join faf (the growth we are seeing) either:

1) play only coop
2) play only vs ai
3) never get above 500 rating
4) never log back on after the 1st day

With an insane low amount making it past 500 and even fewer past 1000.

You can point to the population growth stat all you want but in reality the solid playerbase FAF uses is evaporating

[surtsan]

Woh that was interesting to read, thanks for it.

EDIT : I am also so impressed by Dstojkov work, sad that he is working on another lobby instead of helping the current lobby but that's his choice.

Really impressed because I heard him talked about his lobby a few years ago and seeing him still working on it.

[tatsu]

I don't understand how people keep completely forgetting that the people pouring rivers of their own blood to keep faf afloat and improve it (even if that's "slightly" or "impercetibly" in your own humble opinion) are doing this for free, basically giving money (cause time is money), and yes there are donations but no they are not enough to turn this into a job that pays the bills, let alone enough to justify the time spent.

how people like biass and jackherer and so many others (this isn't ad hominem, I'm just too lazy to draw up the list to make it obvious it isn't) can address them in this way when they've brought literally zilch to the table other than heated and derogatory forum posts.

the mind just boggles.

If one wanted examples of shooting oneself in the foot one need look no further than faf forums.

people need to realize that the situation with faf is at an all time high favorable.

we now have full open source and free setup. no owners no threat of shutdowns resting in the palms of any single person

no single person can make threats to the well being of faf.

There are less bugs and networking issues then ever before

the return of many GPG-era features such as achievements

the return of meany endearing FAF staples : nomads, GW (soon)

countless recent enhancements : co-op, auto mass cap, auto OC, true vet, area commands, better formations, lobby quality of life (should come as a surprise we still get new ones on this since one would assume xinnony was the only one who could do this), tutorials (soon), shared armies (soon)

I personally can seen were you guys are coming from although, at the same time I feel like you all are tunnel-visioning and probably missing the bigger picture and given a couple more months all the puzzle pieces will fall into place making faf into whatever you feel like you've lost in it.