Ok so...

[Shoozza]

What I wanted to tell is that the same thing like last time when we jumped from 1.4.2 to 1.5.0 seems to happen again.

I agree that breaking compatibility with old scripts is a huge change.
But that's a serverside change and not clientside (which ofc doesn't make it less frustrating).
If it would be a clientside change I would name it Soldat 1.6.0 and not 1.5.1.

[Dusty]

I guess he takes it as criticism and therefore dislikes what I write.

Takes it as criticism, dislikes it and becomes very defensive.

What I wanted to tell is that the same thing like last time when we jumped from 1.4.2 to 1.5.0 seems to happen again.

Oh, well that's more than true.

[Mittsu]

@Shoozza: Yeah, you're correct about it taking more than just a couple of days, yet it shouldn't take years. I just don't understand why EnEsCe doesn't do what is best for pretty much everyone in the community, including himself. Release bugfix before new stuff - gain respect.

i guess its just more fun for him to code some fancy features than to fix bugs

[F4||3N]

But whats the point of releasing bugfixes AND THEN new features.

When that will cause more bugs.

He needs to make the next version completely bugless. I mean completely.
And than work on all the awesome ideas for the next couple of months.

Mainly more options in weapon.ini
Since thats not exactly hard. (from what i know of)

[Shoozza]

But whats the point of releasing bugfixes AND THEN new features.

See when you have a version which has very few bugs (version A) and you have the sourcecode for it.
You can easily compare the version with new features (version B) with your old version A (which has less bugs).
If a bug is in version B and not in version A you know that it's in the new stuff you added in version B (so possible a new feature bug).

This way you can find bugs easier. That's why I like to use Version Control you can compare and go back if something went really wrong.

When that will cause more bugs.

There are bugs everywhere (not only in nature). Even in the well tested NASA code you find one bug every 1000 loc (lines of code).

He needs to make the next version completely bugless. I mean completely.
And than work on all the awesome ideas for the next couple of months.

Mainly more options in weapon.ini
Since thats not exactly hard. (from what i know of)

Completely bugless is impossible because then he would have to find all unknown bugs people will find in future.
But I totally agree that it makes more scene to fix all known bugs first before starting to add new features which will cause more bugs.

I recently found out that setting an option in soldat.ini to 0 causes division by zero errors (just another example how easy bugs can be created only by adding an option to the soldat.ini).

Reading an option from the ini file is no problem. It actually depends what the option changes.
If it's just changing the default value of a variable and if this variable has no side effects when changed to some value it may be easy.
If however the option requires code changes or creates side-effects you might agree that it's not that easy.

[Illuminatus]

...and NOW I want to hear EnEsCe's opinion about this topic, here and in detail!
Come'on, this is your chance!

[Illuminatus]

Ohmagad!
EnEsCe's still crying:
1.5.1 was meant to be bug fixes only, originally I fully intended it to be that way, but when the Soldat Forums decided to be dickfaces towards me for many weeks (and probably still going on), things changed.

Doublepost to bump topic.

[Mittsu]

And yes, 1.5.1 was meant to be bug fixes only, originally I fully intended it to be that way, but when the Soldat Forums decided to be dickfaces towards me for many weeks (and probably still going on), things changed. Could you sit for 5+ hours every day, only fixing bugs, knowing that the people you do it all for are just bitching about you behind your back? No, you’d go and do something fun, explore ideas and possibilities to create new features.

what kind of twisted logic is that ?

[Dusty]

Heh, he saved my day.

[Eagles_Arrows]

Maybe if he fixed the bugs, we wouldn't be bitching anymore?

Although he said he's working on them now...

[croat1gamer]

His twisted logic is somehow logical.
Why should he just fix the bugs when a decent part of the SF community rants: "OMG PING FRAUD, GIEF SHOOZZA DEV, REMOVE EC FROM DEV TEAM!!!" if he can also try to add some stuff which will get some new players and might be the reason for some old ones to return?

But there is the possibility to stop developing soldat, but then Shoozza would become a dev, what eC doesnt want.

[Dusty]

The community started bitching about the ping "fraud" because E nEsCe himself failed to co-operate. Instead of telling people the facts, he started to ban people in blind rage, as he used to call it.

No, new features will not bring the old players back.  The old peeps left because of them in the first place.

It's not very good for the game, nor the developer to exactly the opposite of community's wishes. Add crap like this on top of all, and you're good to go.

[Shoozza]

And yes, 1.5.1 was meant to be bug fixes only, originally I fully intended it to be that way, but when the Soldat Forums decided to be dickfaces towards me for many weeks (and probably still going on), things changed. Could you sit for 5+ hours every day, only fixing bugs, knowing that the people you do it all for are just b***hing about you behind your back? No, you’d go and do something fun, explore ideas and possibilities to create new features.

what kind of twisted logic is that ?

Sounds like he wants to punish the Community. But I don't see the benefit for EnEsCe when he is not deving for the Community.

My opinion on that is:

Not listen to stuff people say behind you back It's not your problem. But also don't distance yourself from the community. They play the game you are coding. They like it (more or less) and they are worried about it. I think they should be heard.

By doing stuff for them less people will be "dickfaces" towards you (using less vulgar words could help).
In my opinion It's not always the fault of other people maybe your actions make them respond like that. I would try to take a different view on these things.

The community gives you feedback and when they flame it's no invitation to get mad, join the flame or just run away and leave them alone, but to reduce it to the facts and work on what you learned out of it.
Staying polite in such situations is a benefit.

If you want to act like a boss of the game who is slaving the community and has full control on everything you will not get much happy faces here.
But giving the community the feeling they are respected and included in the development process will give you more positive feedback and could make the 5+ hours of bugfixing a smaller annoyance.

The fact that you are "attacked by people" maybe come from your position as sole dev of Soldat. I don't say you should share responsibility but being the only one who actively works on the game makes it easy for people to determine the person who is responsible for a certain issue in the game.
When you can accept and still stay open to anyone who "criticizes" you, you will see much better opinions here.

At last that is what I think.

But now the good stuff:

I like the fact that you remove unnecessary/not used stuff like the Soldat chat and save resources that way.

I'm happy to hear that you work a lot on Soldat. More then 5 hours every day is a lot.

I also enjoy to hear about fixed bugs in Soldat even when I don't hear a lot about it. I know you are trying to hunt them down.

I think it was a good decision to continue with making open betas for Soldat. There just needs to be more feedback from the players. Maybe you already thought about how to make it easier for them to give feedback.

It's good to see you fighting about problems the game has (like the cheats).

Exploring new ideas and possibilities is also necessary to make Soldat stay fresh. I guess you keep a special surprise for the players. A reward for waiting for the new version maybe?

You have fun with developing Soldat don't let you get down! Working on code on a bad day just makes regret it later so your way is the right one.


Hopefully this post helps EnEsCe finding a way to get more in touch with the community.


I'm looking forward to the next version of Soldat. And I think EnEsCe will do a good job.
I don't believe he wants to proof me wrong (that he will do a good job).

Side-note:
I actually played Driver 2 for PSX only because of the funny bugs it had. Yeah bugs can be fun.
But still Soldat doesn't offer many of them. Time to add some (yeah just kidding).

[xurich]

Excellent post, Shoozza. I agree with everything that you said. Consider posting it as a response to his blog entry so that he'll actually see it since he doesn't visit us here. Maybe it'll make him think about how juvenile he's being and he'll grow up a bit (we can hope ).

[L[0ne]R]

Excellent post, Shoozza. I agree with everything that you said. Consider posting it as a response to his blog entry so that he'll actually see it since he doesn't visit us here. Maybe it'll make him think about how juvenile he's being and he'll grow up a bit (we can hope ).

[Ouchek]

another proof of maturity from NSC im glad hes deving the game still after reading his blog

[Clawbug]

Be respectful and earn the respect, or gtfo. He choose the latter. Frankly I kind of like it this way.

[Mittsu]

wow, enesce removed my comment, he is avoiding this forum and when i move my ass to his silly blog he removes any words of criticism there... this situation is sick

[Dusty]

You cannot remove something you haven't added. He doesn't publish the negative comments.

[Ouchek]

thanks captain obvious at the end of the day, the result is the same but thanks for sharing again...
If you guys have any technical questions, feel free to ask dusty I'm sure he'll be glad to answer...my god what would one do for a high post number jeez'

Anyways, back to le topic, clawbug I agree with you, it's better now that hes out of the community however it's dumb to dev a game if you're against the community...meh I guess everyone got my point now im done (Hopefully MM will read those posts and decide to give the source code to Shoozza or any other competent person only mentioned Shoozza as hes the only guy ive heard about)