EVIL_ED

I've heard a few times now that 'listening to the community is bad game design.' Sense the last post was locked before I could comment on that, I will do that here. Software design is the design of the tool for the user. Devs, when doing their job properly, live in service of the community that use their tools. If the devs feel that it's their job to dictate to the community what the community should want, especially in a Free Software project, they really should stop being devs and go find something else to do. This is a difficult enough mindset to fight in 'proprietary land.' But, as was noted in the previous post, at least there people can vote with their wallets and cause a project or company that ignores its community to go bankrupt if a critical mass doesn't like the direction of the project. Sadly, Free Software projects doesn't give the users that ability to defend themselves from the whims of the devs. The main saving grace that Free Software has that proprietary doesn't is forking. People faced a similar situation with GNOME 3. Everyone hated GNOME 3. They tried reasoning with the devs. They tried begging the devs. They tried bending GNOME 3 over backwards with community made extensions to try to add back in functionality that the wayward devs of GNOME 3 kept stripping out. Finally, when the devs of GNOME 3 proved totally not open to reason, they forked the project into MATE. Major distros that used to use GNOME 3 eventually dropped it for other options because of how badly it sucks. It became the laughing stock of graphic desktops; all because it refused to fallow user design. I had it out with them for some time in their forums before I eventually switched to KDE Plasma to finally get away from the insanity of a project that absolutely refused to listen to its users. I really don't see a game as any different than a tool or any other project in that regard.

That's an interesting stretch of an attack. You gotta be pretty desperate to bring up a completely separate issue from a completely separate thread just to have something 'useful' to say. While my preference would be for an anarchy server, how is that remotely relevant to the topic of game mechanic reworks?

In the past, yes. But, consider my post above as a 'general' good bye post. The care I showed before was when I still thought there was hope for this game going forward. These is no hope. I started another thread on a tech question, like I just said I might. But, I don't plan on discussing game issues here going forward because I don't plan on playing on wizard servers in any large way going forward. I mostly posted the tech question I did because I don't think Space Station Multiverse has a forum and I'm assuming that the compile from source code instructions for the SS14 Launcher will be the same because the new launcher is a fork of this one.

Usually programs have a list of dependencies and a step by step guide on what commands to run to compile a program. But, I can't find any such guide in the launcher repository. I'm assuming I'm supposed to be running ./publish_linux.sh It creates some files, but I don't know what to do with them and nothing seems to launch the game like the pre-downloaded binary does. I think I'm missing a step or two, but I see no written instructions. So, I don't know. If anyone knows, please let me know. Thank you ahead of time.

Firstly, I wouldn't say that I'm upset at this point. Upset assumes that I care anymore. It's more at the level of I'm just over this game. Secondly, thank you for the honest answer. The rest of this reply is largely at this community in general, not specifically to just you. It's truly and deeply a disingenuous argument to keep saying 'game is early access so why do you not expect us to keep gutting and reworking everything?' My responses to this are. 1: Because the game's basic mechanics have been mostly stable for about the last year or two so it's perfectly reasonable to assume that they were going to stay this way forever and that what we would be getting is more content; not more reworks. 2: 'Early access' is a really convenient shield to hide behind, because this game (like many others) hide behind it forever. It's been years. There is an old saying that says 'crap or get off the pot.' Five or ten years from now is the game still going to be gutting and reworking everything; hiding behind the shield of 'early access, so get over it?' It's truly a pretty lame excuse. 3: Not everyone likes the direction that the reworks are going in. 4: The discussions that decide what is being reworked and what direction the reworks are going in seem to be held among the people making the game and not with the community in general who actually play the game. This often ends up with the event, like the inventory rework, where a giant rework that nobody asked for and nobody wanted that changes how we play the game drastically at a fundamental level gets dropped on us out of nowhere. Then we get a bunch of sycophantic boot lickers dog pile on anyone who doesn't like the rework they didn't want or ask for with statements like 'we should be grateful for the devs who are working on the game, thanks so much devs!' And anyone tied with the game circles back and dog piles with 'game in early access, everything's going to change, get over it.' For a Free Software project, it really is a striking situation of the tail wagging the dog where the developers steer the project with no real regard with what a large chunk of the users actually want. To the point where they don't even ask what we want. I do not plan to play regularly on wizard servers anymore. Nor do I plan to have much of a presence on this message board or in this community anymore. I also have no plans to donate here moving forward anymore. Outside of general tech questions / maybe rule clarifications, I plan to basically stay away. It's clear to me now that the direction wizard is taking this game is too far from what I want this game to be. Any further expenditure of my time here on these issues is useless, because they've made it clear that they really just plain don't care. It's like getting a divorce. As some point you realize that the other person isn't listening and doesn't care and that the relationship is broken completely beyond any hope of repair. If anyone knows a good way for me to contact Delta V to see what their plans are regarding the Chem Rework, please let me know. Maybe private message me a contact e-mail or something. They didn't apply the horrible Inventory Rework. So, maybe they also plan on not applying the horrible Chem Rework either. If I can get assurance that they don't plan on applying the horrible Chem Rework, maybe I'll go play and donate over there. I know I speak freely. People might think I am upset. Upset, again, isn't the right word. Resignation would be a better word. Like turning in a notice to an employer that I'm quitting. I'm trying to jump ship at this point. Because, I realize that this ship is sinking and isn't salvageable. Jump ship either from SS14 to Delta V. Or, depending on how they answers the Chem Rework question; possibly jumping ship from all versions of this game entirely and just moving onto other games. I really do appreciate your honest answer here. Because it allows me to stop living on false hope that this game is ever going to go back to being what is was for the last twoish years and that it really is set on going in a direction that I absolutely want no part of. It allows me to chart my gaming future and realize that this game has no place in it.

If anyone can confirm for me this is happening, please let me know. I have been hearing murmurs about it under people's breathes for a while now. Then, last night, this one Chemist on SS14 drilled into me that he 'knew' with 'absolute certainty' that this was happening and coming 'soon.' He forced me to store Chems in the Freezer because 'Soon they will start going bad if I don't and it's best to get used to the new best practices.' He then went on to describe how Chems will no longer be infinite and how the Chem Dispenser is going away. I am trying to see if there is any real proof to confirm or deny what he said. But, he literally stood there and argued with me for several minutes about how this was 'for sure going to happen' and that it's happening 'soon.'

I do, because from my personal experience, people don't work together. If they did, I wouldn't mind this change. But, the reality is, they don't. It's why I hate playing Chemist on Detroit and don't play Chemist anymore when I'm on Detroit. Without the Chem Dispenser, I spent the first 20+ minutes of my shift begging idiots to give me the pieces to build one while a crap ton of people were dying in Medical. Science sent me to Supplies. Supplies sent me to Science. Lord knows begging for anything from supplies is a nightmare. You might, MIGHT, get what you desperately need right now this second in about 20 minutes if the idiot desk clerk remembers to A: order it and B: let you know it arrived. This is going to be hilariously bad for the entire station because it would take that disaster of a round and make every round like that. 'Run out of Chems to make Meds with? Don't worry! Just go ask Cargo for it and wait 20-30 minutes while 20+ people die in the examination room.' Cargo does NOT prioritize Medical. They treat our requests as equally important as everyone else's. But, the difference being, if Science doesn't get their request ASAP, they are slightly slowed on performing non-vital work. If Med doesn't get their request ASAP, about 10+ people die in like 5 minutes. The time it takes a person from going crit to dying is very fast. We have a very short window to defib and inject with the meds we need. There is no room for error. It's already a significant challenge to manage this in the current system if the Chemist is an idiot and doesn't keep the basic meds stocked at all times. Could you imagine the carnage if the Chemist is stopped in his work because he ran out of Chems? All it takes is one bombing happening at the wrong time and you'll have 15-20 people dead before Supplies even bothers to let Chemist know they decided to start moving on his order for the Meds he needed 10 minutes ago. I hope if they really plan to do this they at least have the common sense to at least triple the size of the morgue so that we have places to dump all the dead bodies.

From what I can tell it's really just the taste of the people in charge of SS14. They really want to dig in far harder into the RPG mechanics side of things than I care to go. Grid inventory with only one window open at a time forces inventory management, an RPG mechanic element. Finite Chems forces Chem management, another RPG mechanic element. RPG games are full of artificial scarcity and purposefully cumbersome user interfaces to force 'realistic' game play. 'You only have two hands, so it's more realistic that you can only have one inventory window open at a time.' It's a design philosophy that I deeply, deeply, deeply hate. It's what makes most RPG games an absolute slog to play and it is specifically why I don't play most RPG games. I fell in love with SS14 largely because it didn't have all of this intentionally overly cumbersome bull crap that adds nothing to the game except making it more difficult to play so that people can feel like it's a 'legitimate RPG game now.' The further the team takes SS14 in this direction, the further they drive me away from the game.

I'm not the best at navigating discord as I hate using it and hardly do. But, from what little I could piece together, it does look like the Chemist I talked with in SS14 was right about a Chem Rework in the works that would get rid of Infinite Chems and the Chem Dispenser 'as we know it.' I've already unlocked Chemist on Delta V and I'm trying to find a way to reach out to them over this issue in the hopes of convincing them to keep the current Chem System if this happens on SS14. I think keeping the old inventory has done well for boosting Delta V's player base because they are catching the overflow of people who left SS14 over this major change. I think they could catch even more if they also preserve the current Chem System. I can't get their discord link to work and I don't see an e-mail on their site. Does anyone know a good way to contact the people in charge of Delta V?

I think that's because Delta V is essentially catching the overflow of disgruntled SS14 players, like myself, who left over the inventory rework. I too have noticed that there are a crap ton of interns right now. But, I just hit the ground running in Med and already unlocked Doctor and Chemist; my two favorite jobs. It just took me, I think one or two days. You basically have to dedicate an entire day to just pounding out your favorite department. That said, sense the rounds are longer, it's really not that hard to chew through the hours. Especially sense most things are locked to 'department hours' instead of 'specific roles' hours. Meaning, any time spent in Medical, for instance, is basically going towards unlocking almost everything. The only role specific unlock in Medical is CMO needs some Chemist time and that's not hard at all for me sense Chemist is my favorite Job. I don't know if Delta V plans on implementing the awful Chemical Rework that's coming that will get rid of Infinite Chems and the Chem Dispenser as we currently know it. If Delta V does plan to preserve the current, better system, I'd also suspect they'll pick up even more disgruntled players from SS14. If so, and if your favorite department is Med like mine, it might be a good idea to knock out unlocking Med before the influx of SS14 players hit Delta V even harder in the 'soonish' future. I've also noticed that a large amount of us Interns in Med are CMO level, like myself, on SS14. I keep seeing people ask interns "How new are you?" And the response being they are CMO on SS14. That's another way that I know that Delta V is catching the overflow of SS14 players. Because a crap ton of the 'interns' are actually experienced players like myself jumping ship from SS14.

I have been enjoying Delta, actually. It seems to better preserve the game in its better state from about a month ago. Already unlocked the jobs I like on it.

Is it true that we're getting a Chem Rework that is going to ruin Chem by getting rid of the Chem Dispensers and thus the infinite chemicals? Some Chemist told me that and now I'm wondering. Because Chem is my favorite Job and I HATE mixing in the Chem Master.

I actually turned back a recommendation in progress because of this game's current state. I was about to guide someone into how to set up the game and play. This was right before everything was shattered. After what was rolled out, I actually decided to just not bring the game up to him anymore and hope he just didn't press me about it. Then, he did. So, I had to explain how bad things just turned on a dime and that I don't think it's a good idea to get started playing right now. I rarely play myself anymore right now. I hop on the game everyone once in a while. Mostly to read the patch notes to see if anything got any better. Once in a while I hop into a game. I usually leave after a couple minutes. I don't plan on donating anything more for the easily foreseeable future. I've already donated $60.00 and right now I feel that's already far more than the game is worth in its current condition. A far cry from the $300.00 I had planned to donate. But, at this point, I'm just done. The game is too unstable to feel confident about it for longer than a 2-4 weeks at a time. I keep getting told 'It's still in early development so expect huge sweeping changes all the time.' My best response to that is, fine, let's wait about a year or two to see if the game ever settles out and then maybe I'll donate. As far as I can tell, from another thread, all (or at least most) of the money goes to keeping the Wizard Servers up anyway. And, I've already expressed how I feel about Wizard. I might donate to a Server if I find a not Wizard one that I like. Because of what you have pointed out to me in many threads, and what I have seen myself first hand many times, I also plan to basically never compliment anything I do like about this game again. Trying to be even handed and nice is just too much of a social liability in this community. Because, then it gets thrown back into my face if I have issues with other things later on. If I have anything negative to post, I'll do that. I really no longer care about this community or game enough to care what most of you people think about me anyway. Though, frankly, I've lost so much interest in this game that I'm spending more time at this point complaining about it on the forum than I am playing it. This is a bad sign because I've been here with other games before and that basically means I'm about to just leave. Because eventually after the game goes bad the complaining also gets boring when I realize the people in charge have no intentions of fixing anything they break. At that point, I usually just leave games like that and their communities to their echo chamber. I've also basically run out of things to say right now. If things break more I'll have more to complain about. But, for now, I've made my views about this game, Wizard, and this community known in great detail. It's sad to see a game I sunk so many hundreds of hours into become a game I can barely stand to play for five minutes.

Not bad suggestions. Ideally, though, anything financial basically comes down to me not really wanting to spend the money to either launch a server that nobody plays on or donate to a server nobody plays on. Running a server is not cheap and I don't really want to go that far for no results. The question I am trying to gauge is whether or not there is enough interest. I would assume Minecraft Anarchy servers are in the minority. Yet, there are at least two that are highly populated. 2b2t and MineTexas. A point you bring up, that I have also mentioned, is the frustration that the community for SS14 in general just might be too small right now to be able to support an Anarchy server. "I also think that the people in the ban section are less of a Survival of the Robustest and more of a Rules for Thee, but not for Me type of crowd." Really, that is the entire crux of what I am trying to gauge. If a large enough number of them would legitimately play on an Anarchy server regularly, it would easily reach a respectable population. But, if they really are just "Rules for Thee, but not for Me type of crowd." then we loop back to the problem that SS14 just isn't big enough in general to have the numbers needed to have enough people to support an Anarchy server. As one can imagine, it's kind of difficult to ask banned people how they feel. Because, well, they're banned. So, trying to gauge how many of them would be viable players on an Anarchy server becomes a difficult guessing game on my part.

In fairness, I made that post right before the inventory rework and removal of Senior Roles happened. That seems to be my dilemma with this game in general. I can flow chart it at this point. 1: Game is in a good place. 2: I announce that I love the game. 3: I start donating to show financial support to the game. 4: Huge sweeping changes to how the game works get published about 2 seconds after I turn on funding and posted praise on the forums. 5: I switch off funding. 6: I make a public post about my dislike of the current situation. 7: Almost everyone dog piles me for daring to express a dissenting opinion publicly. "There is no war in Ba Sing Se." 8: I get depressed about the entire situation of a game that just changed dramatically and a community deeply resistant to public criticism. 9: Many updates happen over the span of about 2-3 months to fix the brokenness of the new changes to make the game finally playable again. (Having to suffer the unplayable nature of the game throughout that time.) 10: I re-instate my praise and funding. Even going so far as to say I love the game and consider it to be my favorite game. 11: The game stays like this for maybe 1-2 weeks. 12: Huge sweeping changes are made that break everything again 2 seconds after I post publicly about liking the game again. Lather, rinse, repeat. I'm at a place where it feels difficult to ever say anything positive and nice about this game because the moment I do this game gives me whiplash. I think the weather outside is only slightly less consistent than this game. So, I don't know what everyone wants from me. God forbid I ever say something nice about the game and it goes up in smoke instantly after. God forbid I ever criticize changes I don't like. Playing this game and being a part of its community is literally a lose, lose situation.

Welp, you got your wish. lol

I have made a lot of posts recently about my desire for an anarchy server and my desire for either multiple windows to return or a unified backpack/bet inventory. These things, I admit, are a matter of taste and preference. I think the deletion of the Senior Roles goes beyond personal taste and preference because the game has a horrible learning curve and the Senior Roles were the only bone thrown to new players to give them a chance. What were Seniors replaced with? Oh, that's right, absolutely nothing. The health of this game, even on wizard servers under 'intended play' desperately needed the Senior Roles.

Department heads DO NOT see it as their obligation to teach and you really don't have the spare time as a department head to waste time teaching. I know as a CMO I never had the spare time to fool with teaching. Yet, nothing really teaches you how to go beyond being a simple Doctor or Sec Officer on its own. The Seniors were designed specifically to fill that gap. A player who has a lot of experience, who isn't under the pressure of being a department head, who thusly had the free time to specifically teach.

Please read. It's fundamental. I object to the one window limit and the removal of the Senior roles. I don't personally object to the slots themselves. Though, to be fair, a huge amount of people hate the new system (including the slots) and are actively voicing their views on that matter. That said, I would rather revert everything to get multiple windows back than to deal with the current system; given a binary between the two. Though, I personally would just as easily be fine with the new system if it either allowed multiple windows or created at the very least a unified inventory window that included both the backpack and the belt/bags. I really have absolutely no idea why Seniors were removed. Seniors were good and just plain need to come back. This game is not in any way, shape, or form at all self-explanatory and a role specifically designed to teach was crucially needed to onboard new players to roles beyond the entry level department roles. With their deletion; new players are left with nothing.

Personally, I don't even mind the slots themselves and think the idea is kind of cute / cool. But, I've read enough posts from people who hate playing 'inventory tetris' to fill this entire page easily.

Yes it would, given the reason that most of the players don't like it. Go to the discord or Liltenhead's videos mentioning it. You'll see about 1 person liking it for about every 10 people who hate it. Should I provide examples? They are ample.

Can I start by submitting a pull request to revert the utter rampage he was raged against this game in the last two weeks? That'd be the first place I would start.

If the inventory rework and the one window open a time limitation wasn't enough, we now have a new 'feature' of being able to drag items out of the inventory windows and drop them on the ground. I honestly almost made a joke about this back when the slot rework first came in; because it seemed like this stunted and awful way of performing inventory management by kicking things out to the ground is what EmoGarbage404 actually intended. But, I couldn't imagine such an awful idea would actually be the intent. So, I bit my tongue until I saw this feature and realized; Yup, the real reason we're not allowed to have more than one window open at a time is because we're SUPPOSED to slow ass kick things out to the ground to manage our inventory. I am literally in a state of both hilarious laughter and utter bewilderment. Then he just removed the Senior Roles which I had previously praised as a step in the right direction because nothing about this game teaches anyone how to play this game and the Senior roles were, at least on paper, a good idea for trying to teach new people how to play the game beyond the entry level roles. Welp, that's been chucked into the fire now too. In the last couple of weeks there have been many horrible changes to the game and they all come directly from EmoGarbage404. EmoGarbage404, why do you hate me and this game?

I might have come in a bit hot because I've been suppressing these views for about a year and a half. This is a forum, the very place where ideas are meant to be discussed. I also think I'll feel a lot better for being honest than repressing. As I mentioned, and maybe I was a bit harsh because I did come in hot, I don't hate wizard themselves. I just do see the potential of this game as a top down shooter, action, sandbox as far more interesting than I see it's role-play potential. I've spent a lot of time with the game and have had some fun with 'intended play.' But, there is always this little 'Devil' on my shoulder that whispers, 'Wouldn't it be fun to do X, Y, Z? Oh well, you can't, because this is ran as a role play game instead of being gloves off as an action sandbox and if you do any of that fun stuff you'll instantly get banned.' To me, it would be nice to have at least one decently populated anarchy server where it was allowed and encouraged to push the engine and game in whatever direction the players wanted; rules be damned because there are no rules. A sort of steam release valve where people who get strung out playing by the rules could hop over to this server and just play without them. Personally, I think that would be healthier all ways around. Because then you could experience and enjoy the game in both formats. When I play sandbox games, I like to see how far I can push things and what I can get away with. I want to see how many rules I can break; it's a personal challenge. But, the most popular servers don't allow that sort of play. Instead, I have to 'stay in character' and 'not mess up anyone else's experience.' It's very constructing and constraining because I spend the whole shift thinking of all the fun things I could do and constantly having to tell myself, 'Nope, can't do this. Can't do that. Can't slip people, steal their ID's, and take over bridge. Can't be Atmos and flood the Station with plasma. Can't get a weapon from under a tree and go on a rampage. Can't get even with the person who wronged you, then Sec ignored you, but then you got A-Helped because you took the matter into your on hands.' My entire shift is full of me constantly having to reign in my fun and creative ideas to fit into the rigid and often times to me boring template of 'intended play.' The last one also annoys me a lot. If Sec is going to be do-nothing Sec (which is typical) I'd much rather have the freedom to handle the situation myself. I had one shift where I walked onto the Station as a Musician right off of the shuttle and an idiot Mime slipped me and stole and smashed my guitar for no reason at all. I talked with Sec, and got ignored and told to wait until Mime smashed another instrument before they'd take it seriously. So, as any logical person would do, I grabbed a crow bar and tried to beat the Mime to death for being a (nice word here) idiot. As you can well guess, I got A-Helped by the Mime and had to explain to an Admin why I was in the right and the Mime was in the wrong. Which, of course, should be common sense to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. But, yet again, I found myself in a situation of explaining my self pointlessly to administration over an issue I would much rather have had the freedom to handle myself. If Mime is going to have the freedom to take and destroy my property for no reason and Sec ignores me; then I am far more than well within my rights to beat the Mime to death. This is the natural and proper way to handle things. But, not on wizard. On wizard you get A-Helped for that.