Discovery Gaming Community

As it has been two years since I became lead developer, I thought it might be fun to run an AMA.

The concept is pretty simple, but there are a few caveats. You may of course ask me anything, however I will answer with a "nope" or be vague if you ask about specific details on future storyline developments or inRL stuff. Examples of such queries are asking if or when the Kempeitai will succeed in capturing Planet Stuttgart from the Gaians instead of destroying it, or for my home address.

Additionally, since timezones are weird and so are everybody's schedules, this thread will probably be kept open for a number of days. Perhaps until midnight after Friday? We'll see. Also if there are a lot of questions, it may take me a while to answer. If it gets too crazy, I might do what Alley did years ago and set up a Google Form for further question taking. The fact that I'm not doing so to begin with may warrant questions to my sanity.

Due to the nature of forums and QuoteWars™, please make a note alongside your questions if you would prefer that I reply with a post of my own, or edit my response into yours. The former works better for protracted conversations; the latter if you just want a simple answer. If you do not comment your preference, I will choose.

Finally, as the thread gets longer, please read through other questions and answers in case what you're looking to say might have already been gotten to.

EDIT: I will be responding in posts with my old UC purple, rather than Dev gold, as they are personal statements and opinions rather than some kind of edict.

Begin!

When did you first dev Freelancer, how did you start, why?

Summer 2014. A bunch of Gallic faction leaders (GRN, C, UC, EFL, IDF, GMS) got together to fix Gallia's system bloat. I ended up creating a spreadsheet to contain all of the suggested changes, and was the driving force to track those ideas. I then chatted with about them, who pointed me in the direction of . He liked my plans, then had me start working on one for Kusari in a chat with their leaders. By May 2015 I was officially his assistant, and we got a bunch of work done that coming summer. With much assistance from , we moved across Sirius one region at a time. Rheinland, Omicrons, Omegas, Bretonia, then Liberty. Just shy of a year working with Echo, he became inactive along with Alley and Blodo. That's the tl;dr of how I got here.

Why didn't you let me replace yourself yet? Or atleast lemme get Story Dev!

I have a task I can give you if you want. It involves spreadsheets and stuff!

Will you ever cyber in your disco life?

Goodness gracious no. Admins read that stuff, and has innocent eyes.

Why does the dev team refuse to do anything to help new people enjoy and learn the game since forever?

I do plenty of work to assist new players, directly and indirectly. I was saddened to see the Angles derelict and removed. Most of the decisions that affect the experience of new players are rules/Admin related, however.

REPLY EDIT:
I wasn't asking about you personally in your non-dev related activities, but about the dev team in their dev activities.

I was referring to my dev related activities. Those are primarily story, systems design, and infocards-related, however. If you are referring to something else such as PvP Balance, I must refer you to . As lead developer, I retain oversight and accountability for all of the departments, but as general operations are concerned, I do not micromanage.

Regardless, we are open to productive suggestions.

EDIT REPLY 2:

And what story, systems design, and infocards-related things has the dev team done to make the mod more enjoyable for new people? I can think of 1 "getting started item" which directs them into the detrimentally boring and frustrating mine-till-you-can-get-a-cap-then-blow-up-and-leave route, and 2 not very well written rules and history items. Which is is basically a 60 minute job to make all 3, in almost 10 year mod history. That's less time and effort than you put into this thread.

To make things more comfy for vets you have:
-balanced PvP so any number of noobs have absolutely no chance against any number of vets
-put restarts for every faction which take away the exploring and repping, handing everything immediately in exchange for only one thing: credits. And making credits is a boring grind best done in windowed mode avoiding others as well as possible.
-made rep-hacks which eliminate the mission aspect, which was a somewhat exciting aspect of the game for noobs
-balanced factions so people need to make 20 characters so they can get the best mining/trading/pvp-permissions, which makes it harder for people to recognize and make new friends, and which destroys the make-one-char-you-grow-attached-to play style which makes new people also get attached to the game.
-completely removed the gear gathering/searching aspect of the game with the can-buy-anything-everywhere sale layout and the overly restrictive technerf,

I know why all of these were done, and there were good reasons for them when they were done, and there were more than enough noobs when they were done.

Those reasons were valid when there were too many players, too many noobs, too many rule violation reports, and too much activity in certain factions/regions.

But now the situation is different, and has been different for like... 5+ years.

There needs to finally be a fundamental paradigm shift in what the devs (and admins) prioritize.

You need to stop running after select entitled faction leaders and super-aces who feel their personal gratification in every aspect is the most important thing, and to start thinking about how you're going to grow activity.

An activity rise isn't going to come by fulfilling the wishes of faction/group leaders whose goal is to see their own official faction win and own the maximum number of times and their enemies lose. That may have been a viable strategy when the server was maxed out every evening, but its not anymore.

And it's going to take guts, convincing, and responsibility to show some backbone against entitled vets. Something I must admit I found somewhat lacking when you just listed your vast general responsibilities to dodge the question I asked, and when you dodged responsibility and referred me to Ezrie for the fundamentally important direction PvP balance is taking.

As for suggestions, I believe you've already seen quite a number of them already.

But instead of only being "open", how about you... you know... DO something?

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=154638
https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=153468
https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid1935905
https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=154678

There are many more things that I've listed elsewhere, but there's no point in repeating them again if you can't even get simple copy-paste jobs on unambiguously beneficial and necessary things done.

What kind is manpower the dev team currently craving? Are you lacking people in a particular field or every field?

(edit over this text no u)

We are often looking for skilled contributors across our departments. Effects work is particularly low on people right now, as are models and FLHook. For these fields, most people need some sort of training. This is complicated as it requires trust, determination, willingness to improve, and ability to improve. And often it can be a job in and of itself to train people, distracting from dev workloads. Inverse "chicken and egg" problem? Anyhow, there also exists a rational fear that people trained won't be able to produce quality work, or will run into real life problems and disappear (the fate of a majority of our best developers). I realize that this is a bit more than you had initially asked for, so [/rant]

What do you have in mind for the Munich System in the future?

Edit: Please answer by edit. I don't want to have to search quote wars to find it. Can do, sir.

Planning for Munich is a challenge since there aren't any notes (at least none that I have access to) left by the predecessors of my predecessor as to what they had planned. The dark matter clouds will probably gradually recede over time, and the living conditions on Nuremburg are a driving force for Rheinland to explore and colonize other planets. This is a big reason for their interest in Saigon and Saarbrucken, especially as Hammersee is a tad uncomfortable to live on.

will BAF get california ZOI?

ZoI/IDs/Rules are Admin territory, although I do advise them on updates. My advice here would be "no".

Please no.

I beg of ye. Don't do that.

What are the important factors and guidelines you care for when designing systems and their connections?

Great question. I have a thread for this in the dev section, but I'll paraphrase.

Paramount are the three primary system attributes. Destination is the property wherein someone travels to that system with a purpose, such as buying goods, equipment, or mining. Transit is for systems between destinations, which may vary from simple trade lanes to dangerous runs through a minefield or radiation cloud. Interaction is where opposing players ideally encounter one another, which can be along a transit route or at a destination. These three qualities are more abstract than they are concrete, but help with the flow and positioning of systems nonetheless. A good system has two of these on an adequate level, a poor system has one. Some have all three, and that's neat.

As for connections, I firmly believe that each system should have three non-redundant links. There are a few systems that presently have two, but they're exceptions to the rule. A redundant link would be, for example, if the system "Oklahoma" only connected to Colorado, New York, and Texas. The system is then effectively worthless for Transit, and doesn't provide much to the landscape of the universe map.

Systems should contain bases belonging to different factions, preferably ones not allied to each other and unfriendly or hostile if I can. Obviously there are a number which don't have this, primarily due to that not goal being feasible for all. The reason being that conflict and risk of loss promotes both roleplay and combat; activity is good. Security leads to stagnation, which is bad.

I avoid placing bases too close to mining fields, jump points, or in/close to the middle of trade lanes. Those can harm chances for piracy or policing. Bases should also be within +/-20k of the plane. If they're all on the plane or in excess of 20k away from it, it's going to be either too dull or too spread out.

Lastly, something we're still working on: not every field/cloud should have a base or jump point inside of it. It's far too cliche. We're adding more empty fields to make places worth exploring.

Also, how often do you play the game and what do you do ingame?

I make sure that I fly at least once a week. It's honestly hard when there's the obligation to Skypelancer instead of Freelancer because of all the dev work I must do. I often meander around on trade ships carrying random cargo since I have a billion stored up and not much use for it. All the battleships I flew (which was rare) in the old days were shared, and I only ever owned three different gunboats. I usually fly for my primary faction, the Unione Corse. Which you should all join because it's neat [/shameless advertisement]

(Answer by edit or whatever you prefer. Don't tell me what to do. You're not my real mom!)

As head dev, you surely have a lot of things to keep track of. How do you keep organized? How do you determine what is most urgent to address?

(edit over this text)

Google Sheets is my hero, and Post-It Notes are a quality support. I also have a decent memory to rely upon, and I'm thankful for everyone who helps me out on the dev team.

More on Google Sheets: they've stored all of our change logs since the 4.88.1 Gallia Update, completed August 2014 (a year before the modifications were completed). Ask , , and for ideas on their complexity.