by Erthome » Wed Dec 18, 2013 23:20
I am much too new here to even consider helping core developers directly, and frankly I am not much good at doctoring existing code...my guess is that nearly everyone already involved is probably better than I would be in that area...if I have anything to contribute in the development arena it will likely be of the quality control, process design variety...and that tends to be an area where people with years invested are least open to input from johnny-come-lately folks like me...
I'm here to play, offer useful ideas when I think I have them, give feedback on discussions in progress...
(To be perfectly honest, I have been planning a project for years which amounts to using a macro assembler to produce a cross platform assembly-code based high performance thin-interface client, and hybrid distributed server application environment to interface with a family of proprietary, firmware-based applications support modules, ultimately designed to run in concert with a state-logic based RDBMS and universal transaction model library and custom OS that I designed then prototyped using old 1MH ASIC technology in 1990. Blah blah blah...but among my reasons for being here, I am always on the lookout for people who have done hard time in such places as unruly open source environments, GET the point of public owned software, can put up with me, and want to be part of an industry revolution LOL but THAT is largely off-topic...)
SO, apart from all that, I am here to learn, and occasionally share what may seem like off the wall input because it isn't likely to come from elsewhere and might actually be interesting or useful for other folks from time to time.
One quick subject I'd like to throw in a couple cents on, based on some of the disconcert that I've seeing in others posts, we might want to start/resume distinguishing between end-users/server operators and beta-testers. It is really cool to have a short dev to user cycle when the users are all co-developers and testers, but that is an entirely different matter from trying to grow the player community...AND if everyone becomes a developer then the player base will soon become very scant. What's more, if there is any interest at all in nurturing a more immersive evolution of the product to include RPG or other storyline and theming capability into the public-facing server realm the server operators NEED some degree of backward world and client compatibility.
I don't mean this in a mean way, BUT the current environment here is very insular and almost secret clubbish...a new-comer is not going to be intimately familiar with the code or culture for a good while--the publicly available overviews of the code and other documentation are woefully un-useful, and as it stands I believe we are scaring off a lot of would be contributors...I have been mostly quietly but closely watching the community at work for a good 8 months now, and daresay I have a LOT of in game time for a relative newcomer...I have brought a dozen IRL friends and relatives to the servers and watched their reactions closely.
This all leads me to believe that the single greatest asset in this community is the community itself, even more so than the game--though without the game the community would vaporize, so they are symbiotic, and need to be recognized and provided for in that vein and light.
