Open is finally dead.

[2cwldys]

Even with that we came up with a differnt way to make it happen that let you have your cake and eat it to, a new community contributions route.

Devs should not be promising you things beyond their authority without talking to me, we can certainly agree on that. I don't it is fair to blame me that other people have promised you things they are unable to deliver. Still I bend over backwards to try and help you to avoid disappointment and because I dont want you to have wasted money on your python script. I like what you have done and if you would take a breath and stop thinking of me as some evil monster who wants to destroy your work you mind find that I am trying to help you get it out to people even though you have spent the past evening accusing me of doing and being god knows what.

It's not even about wasted money, it's about underappreciated work and wasted talent. You accuse me of abusing "infrastructure" and "bandwidth", when I have done nothing of the sort. Honestly I was told about the CC pack week ago, and was given a deadline to reach before the next patch. I finish the work and I'm told things different every time. "Actually, no, blah blah. Well we need you to do this, etc etc."

What I think seriously needs to happen is people quit treating me and my project with the carrot over the stick approach, and give me reasonable answers. I'm not afraid to go a third party route, and due to how things have been mishandled all around, I'm already having things set in motion.

We should discuss CC pack licensing and not permissing anyone to modify works without their explicit permission, outside of blatant copyright infractions or inquiries, and trusting them to remove it theirselves. The topic of ports have been extreme with my project, when I have literally miniscule copyright to worry about compared to things like Powerbattles, which is a mashup of copyright infringement galore. I tire of the hypocrisy. I want to know if people who apply Creative Commons, CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0, for example, applied to the work; and how it would be reasonably handled by not only mine but other innovative projects of this size. Like MaceMadunsus said, "No FA authors should join the team." So you have this huge team of FA/Legends contributors, there needs to be clear policy on how the CC pack will be handled, who can touch what, and who's allowed to do what. I think people who give to the CC pack should explicitly have a word in it's handling, removal, or modifications by anything and anyone.

Yes, you're right, about people promising things and people pulling me left, right, and whichever way. It's really awakened me that things are this bad for simply just wanting to give back to the game. In all things endeavored to having a game left, I think these problems should be solved now and soon.

 

[n00b]

No. Nor would I let someone who is really good at flushing a toilet do it.

Thank you, that’s all.
Good luck.

 

[Defiant]

It's not even about wasted money, it's about underappreciated work and wasted talent. You accuse me of abusing "infrastructure" and "bandwidth", when I have done nothing of the sort. Honestly I was told about the CC pack week ago, and was given a deadline to reach before the next patch. I finish the work and I'm told things different every time. "Actually, no, blah blah. Well we need you to do this, etc etc."

Someone obviously jumped the gun from something that was at an idea stage rather than a concrete finished plan. I don't recall accusing you of abusing either bandwidth or infrastructure. I don't know if this something that has been misunderstood either directly or because you keep hearing things through the grapevine. We were certainly not at the point to insist on a dead line, infact as a community contribution the only dead lines would be one imposed on yourself. The idea is that it would be a monthly patch that you submit your work to. There would be some basic guidelines it would have to adhere to like it must be your own work kinda thing. I think we are hoping to get a patch out soon and if you wanted it to go with that it would have to have been done before that point because we are not quite at the point we can do quick regular patches easily yet.

I think seriously needs to happen is people quit treating me and my project with the carrot over the stick approach, and give me reasonable answers. I'm not afraid to go a third party route, and due to how things have been mishandled all around, I'm already having things set in motion.

Again I am sorry people have been promising you things that are beyond their ability to deliver. I don't think I personally have told you anything will happen that cannot, with certainty be made to happen. I am willing to continue engaging with you about this one on one if you wish.

We should discuss CC pack licensing and not permissing anyone to modify works without their explicit permission, outside of blatant copyright infractions or inquiries, and trusting them to remove it theirselves. The topic of ports have been extreme with my project, when I have literally miniscule copyright to worry about compared to things like Powerbattles, which is a mashup of copyright infringement galore. I tire of the hypocrisy. I want to know if people who apply Creative Commons, CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0, for example, applied to the work; and how it would be reasonably handled by not only mine but other innovative projects of this size. Like MaceMadunsus said, "No FA authors should join the team." So you have this huge team of FA/Legends contributors, there needs to be clear policy on how the CC pack will be handled, who can touch what, and who's allowed to do what. I think people who give to the CC pack should explicitly have a word in it's handling, removal, or modifications by anything and anyone.

Yes. This is part of what needs to be drawn up. There and legalities around copy right we need to look at, and decide on what level of checking is neccesarry. I think broadly the only requirement will be that you have the legal right to distribute and if neccisary that you can pass that right onto us to do it on your behalf. Surrender of source material would not be required - that was only for the full integration you were offered.

Yes, you're right, about people promising things and people pulling me left, right, and whichever way. It's really awakened me that things are this bad for simply just wanting to give back to the game. In all things endeavored to having a game left, I think these problems should be solved now and soon

I'm working on it, but ultimately it's up to people to understand who can promise what. It's always been the case something like this would need to be greenlit at the project level.

 

[Yesletterz]

Requirements to be a TOP player-

Complete knowledge of the games mechanics

Ability to understand and implement said mechanics to thier fullest potential

The ability to adapt on the spot to unpredictable strategies by fully utilizing the game mechanics

Understand win conditions.
( understand how to play the game)


Requirements to balance the game-

Organization skills


It's undeniable that this person's input and contributions would be more impactful than someone with less experience but more (organization skills). To say that thier input would be invalid just doesn't make sense. I'd rather trust the expert that is actually able to demonstrate that they fully understand what's going on...........

 

[MaceMadunusus]

Please don't shoot the messenger, just trying to cool things down a bit - after going through the last few pages, I think Defiant & Mace were mostly arguing that being really good/skilful, or even perfectly knowledgeable, doesn't mean you'll automatically provide good suggestions for balance or gameplay additions.

Correct. Its a different skillset that requires problem solving, critical thinking, and pattern recognition skills (beyond just feeling like something is off). Many discussions I've had with the skillful players in MB2 often get blindsided by emotions, because they're venting frustrations. Which often makes it hard to drill things down to the core/root of the issue.

After 15+ years playing this and observing the forums from the sidelines, it's still pretty obvious that the feedback and suggestions of some well-respected veterans has been continuously ignored for bad reasons, though - and some of them didn't make it all that easy either, to be perfectly fair.
It's a no brainer - really, please put egos aside and like, just listen to SeV about sabering before he's gone, as a painfully obvious example.

Personally, I think based on probably about a decade of having balance discussions with Sev, I think he is one of the ones that often falls into the pitfall of having design opinions that mostly benefit his style of play which can be at the detriment of others. And I also think his characterization of Tempest not listening to him for saber stuff is wildly out of place. I witnessed Tempest listening to him and discussing things with him a lot. Now as things got closer to release he may not have, which is true based on what I saw, but that is because in my opinion Sev has been an unreliable source for gameplay feedback, and because Sev didn't attend test sessions when Tempest specifically asked for saber testers in the beta channel.

Would you let a random unqualified person fix/advice you on your plumbing issues?

You're literally talking to someone, who isn't a mechanic, but learned how to disassemble, restore, and reassemble a car in a home garage. One that is my daily driver. I figure out shit on my own. Often you can't tell if someone is unqualified until you know/test them multiple times. There are many people who are licensed plumbers or "master mechanics" who don't know shit. I've had master mechanics who have been doing things for 40 years tell me something on my car that was flat out wrong, and when I challenged them on it they got all offended. Yet, I fixed the issue myself for thousands cheaper than they wanted to do it, and I've driven 4,000 miles even through harsh winter on things I installed myself and my car is performing better than any time a professional mechanic has seen it in the last 10 years.

 

[2cwldys]

What you would like to do, is to take advantage of our infrastructure, and bandwidth and not allow other MBII Servers parity, even with the offer of allowing you keeping your advantage in the short to medium term - this could be a timespan measured in years.

I don't recall accusing you of abusing either bandwidth or infrastructure.

Wild.

Again I am sorry people have been promising you things that are beyond their ability to deliver. I don't think I personally have told you anything will happen that cannot, with certainty be made to happen. I am willing to continue engaging with you about this one on one if you wish.

I am trying to prevent handing this over to people that are actively allowing this game to decay. The original creator of anything they give to this game should have a clear say in what happens to it. I think that should be common practice from here on out and how you abridge licensing to accomodate the CC pack.

Yes. This is part of what needs to be drawn up. There and legalities around copy right we need to look at, and decide on what level of checking is neccesarry. I think broadly the only requirement will be that you have the legal right to distribute and if neccisary that you can pass that right onto us to do it on your behalf. Surrender of source material would not be required - that was only for the full integration you were offered.

OK perfect. Else I would do a third party implementation, but I'm glad you are coming to common sense.

I'm working on it, but ultimately it's up to people to understand who can promise what. It's always been the case something like this would need to be greenlit at the project level.

I've already been greenlit as far as I'm concerned, and I find it funny the MBII team will greenlight projects and then proceed to handle them in the way they have been, towards integration. This is a lesson that can be learned then, for all, and future integrations of contributions.

 

[Defiant]

Wild.

I didn't say abuse. I said take advantage of - as in use.

I am trying to prevent handing this over to people that are actively allowing this game to decay. The original creator of anything they give to this game should have a clear say in what happens to it. I think that should be common practice from here on out and how you abridge licensing to accomodate the CC pack.

For something unofficial that is the case. If it is official then some control needs to be lost as it must be supported if someone disappears. Community contributions are obviously unofficial.

OK perfect. Else I would do a third party implementation, but I'm glad you are coming to common sense

This has always been my position. I feel as though the lack of direct communication is causing these problems. I accept that is largely because I didn't get back to you about your original message sometme ago.

I've already been greenlit as far as I'm concerned, and I find it funny the MBII team will greenlight projects and then proceed to handle them in the way they have been, towards integration. This is a lesson that can be learned then, for all, and future integrations of contributions.

Sometimes there is background work that needs to be done. I'm this case the code for a new patcher for launcher which will enable regular and semi-automated release needs to tested and released. We could handle one or two projects like yours with the current patcher but to roll it out for everyone more work needs to be done.

Also we have to think about things like out of band patching - for instance if a community contribution has a critical bug.

 

[Bigpenisduelist]

it's mad how this guy would rather spend the entire day defending his pride on the forums than try to understand why people are so visibly upset and pull himself together lol. With leadership like this the mod is more than doomed.

 

[Defiant]

it's mad how this guy would rather spend the entire day defending his pride on the forums than try to understand why people are so visibly upset and pull himself together lol. With leadership like this the mod is more than doomed.

I'm literally here as I said to listen, answer questions and explain. That doesnt mean I am going to sit back and not correct information which is not true, has been presented out of context or is a misconception. I would submit that people who are approaching this discussion as a foregone conclusion are the ones who are being unproductive. If you bother to talk and seriously engage you will find that I am quite happy to explain and consider your feedback wether it be on a personal level or with regards to the mod as a whole. I feel like 2cwldys and I have come to a closer understanding of each others positions through tonight, whilst it has not always been a wholey warm conversation, I do feel like I understand his point of view better and hopefully we can work together in the future on this.

As you say, I have come to the forums, understood why someone is so visibly upset, and tried to explain and find a way forward with him on a personal level. If you would care to engage constructivly with me the same could happen to you, but if you are going to dismiss our point of view without consideration then we really have nothing to discuss.

 

[Bigpenisduelist]

As you say, I have come to the forums, understood why someone is so visibly upset, and tried to explain and find a way forward with him on a personal level. If you would care to engage constructivly with me the same could happen to you, but if you are going to dismiss our point of view without consideration then we really have nothing to discuss.

talking about someone dismissing your point of view after this entire thread... how ironic lol. Everything you've done today was dismiss other people and push your agenda (which is utterly retarded and wrong may i add)... Medaroh, for example, brought up many valid points and you basically told him to fuck off in 19 words which had nothing to do with his message, how hypocritical mate... and then comparing mb2s best and most loyal players' knowledge and opinion to flushing a toilet... not a good look mate can't lie.

 

[Lindsey]

comparing mb2s best and most loyal players' knowledge and opinion to flushing a toilet...

He was saying someone who can flush a toilet well can't necessarily fix a toilet...

 

[Defiant]

talking about someone dismissing your point of view after this entire thread... how ironic lol. Everything you've done today was dismiss other people and push your agenda (which is utterly retarded and wrong may i add)... Medaroh, for example, brought up many valid points and you basically told him to fuck off in 19 words which had nothing to do with his message, how hypocritical mate... and then comparing mb2s best and most loyal players' knowledge and opinion to flushing a toilet... not a good look mate can't lie.

I assume you are referencing this post: Open is finally dead.

Actually I agree with you. I believe I intended to quote a small section of his post and not the whole thing. Given I did it in the early hours of the morning I dint really remember whamich parts I was specifically replying to at the time. Sufficed to say some parts of his post are a fair and accurate representation, other parts are not.

 

[LanceOfLonginus]

Open has been steadily declining for years, between nerfs and removal of fun things it’s become pretty barebones under the current system.

Legends has had more additions and improvements in a year and a half than open in a decade. It’s a great proving ground for content too.

Right away easy fixes I can see to help open is adding some of the content into open.

We can take the shotguns, carbines, various nades, det pack, and trip mine with minimal issue except figuring which classes they should be slotted into.

If they turn out to be imba in anyway number tweaks for damage etc should be easy to do, unlike say redoing the saber system again.

As it stands gun gameplay is same as it was 5 years ago and saber v gun gameplay has become a simple game of draining and maintaining fp. It’s a flat system that has become the only one in play for that aspect of the game.

We used to have stuff to make it more interesting. Draining fp was AN OPTION for killing saberists, you could also outplay them with secondary nades or just shoot them when they swing, before swingblock made that essentially free

 

[Defiant]

Open has been steadily declining for years, between nerfs and removal of fun things it’s become pretty barebones under the current system.

Legends has had more additions and improvements in a year and a half than open in a decade. It’s a great proving ground for content too.

Right away easy fixes I can see to help open is adding some of the content into open.

We can take the shotguns, carbines, various nades, det pack, and trip mine with minimal issue except figuring which classes they should be slotted into.

If they turn out to be imba in anyway number tweaks for damage etc should be easy to do, unlike say redoing the saber system again.

As it stands gun gameplay is same as it was 5 years ago and saber v gun gameplay has become a simple game of draining and maintaining fp. It’s a flat system that has become the only one in play for that aspect of the game.

We used to have stuff to make it more interesting. Draining fp was AN OPTION for killing saberists, you could also outplay them with secondary nades or just shoot them when they swing, before swingblock made that essentially free

I think this is fair and accurate and I can get behind all of it - except I do t think shotguns should be in open.

 

[2cwldys]

Do a community poll of things that people want to see in Open from Legends to ground it more as a popular mode?

 

[MaceMadunusus]

I think this is fair and accurate and I can get behind all of it - except I do t think shotguns should be in open.

I personally think det packs and trip mines are a bit more dangerous to put in open, since a person can place those in places without really exposing themselves. More of an easy i-win button without nerfing them to being near useless.

However, I did start a class design based on republic commando trandoshans that I think makes shotguns quite a bit less problematic. Since theyre all hitscan based weapons, with relatively low damages in comparison to other weapons, it wouldn't have the lag effects and be less of a corner camping nightmare.

Still, we have even carbine weapons on the list of things to do for years now, and still not done. And we can't even get to the point where I feel like fully fleshing out the class design for a trandoshan class until the backlog of new classes we currently have is even partially done.

Do a community poll of things that people want to see in Open from Legends to ground it more as a popular mode?

Not needed, we have a huge list (and I posted a picture) of stuff that can be added to both legends and open mode that are less just partially balanced basejka stuff being shoved in, and more stuff specifically designed for our usecase.

 

[Bully]

Just chiming in on a more serious note. MBII's player base has been declining for years (if not decades) now. Hell, even when I was hosting an open server and active during 2020 to 2023 it was only really possible to populate an open server after work hours. I think the reality of MBII being an ancient game by modern standards are starting to set in. What surprises me is that this is lost on most people in the thread, do people really think a perfect saber patch would've done much to the player count?

To be clear I by no means think the patch is perfect or even good. I played ~10 hours of the new build and I did see some changes I think were unnecessary or detract from the gameplay (Force Attune, Keybind Changes), but I would be hard pressed to say that it killed open. If anything I think the open formula has gotten a bit stale and is in dire need of some major new ways to play, even during my time Shottyz legends server was more popular in the end because he was able to push through weekly changes and new characters.

Now, I think what's the real silent killer is the fact that there's so little new blood streaming into the community, that it is slowly running out of those 1 in a 1000 players that contribute their skills to the development of the mod. Words on forums are fun, and dreaming up new features is exciting, but how many programmers are there left active in the team? Dropping a bad or unpopular patch happens, but shouldn't be an issue as long as you aren't stuck with the problems for longer than a month.

If anything I would criticize the MBII Team for not advertising enough.

ps. for those interested I collated the average concurrent players per month of the past 5 years if you are interested in that: check out this google sheet
It does show a dip in October but it bounced back, it's hard to say if this has to do with the gameplay changes in the patch, the fact there were crippling CTDs for JAMP players or something completely unrelated.

 

[MaceMadunusus]

(Force Attune, Keybind Changes)

The keybind changes were pretty needed to free up space for things coming in the future. There wasn't the space to add some of the new abilities on our current list without doing stupid things like the "use" modifier we use on occasion. Freeing up some of those keys and moving things around will be more apparent when more things get added. Worth the small cost imo.

 

[Bully]

The keybind changes were pretty needed to free up space for things coming in the future. There wasn't the space to add some of the new abilities on our current list without doing stupid things like the "use" modifier we use on occasion. Freeing up some of those keys and moving things around will be more apparent when more things get added. Worth the small cost imo.

As a programmer I'm sympathetic to the technical needs, but as an end user it was jarring to have things rebound, and then having to bind or sometimes double bind some keys to keep the same functionality. It will probably pay off in the long term but it definitely doesn't help first impressions

 

[MaceMadunusus]

As a programmer I'm sympathetic to the technical needs, but as an end user it was jarring to have things rebound, and then having to bind or sometimes double bind some keys to keep the same functionality. It will probably pay off in the long term but it definitely doesn't help first impressions

In a new game we would likely have some startup script to migrate some binds, allow double binds to be possible in menu, and give people a popup for rebinding things that couldn't be adjusted. I know how to do something like that in unreal engine pretty easily... this engine though and the UI engine being a pain in the ass as-is... not sure how it could have been done any better tbh.