ElwynEternity: State of the Community Address

[gravypod]

ElwynEternity: State of the Community Address

By Joshua D. Katz


As some of the players of Starmade already know I am the owner of the Starmade server “ElwynEternity” and am writing this to put forward my opinion on the status of the various vectors of communication and information provided by the Starmade development team as well as to comment on the status of the game itself.


Firstly I would like to state that at the time of writing this, I have been running my Starmade server for about 1 year. The server has been -one of- the highest ranked and more popular servers during this time. This endless uphill battle with the stability, and overall management of starmade has cultivated feelings of malice within me. I would like to make one thing evident before I continue: This document is filled with my opinions and is merely my outlook on the status of the Starmade community.


Over the life of this game the community has repeatedly and continuously asked for continuity and stability across updates. Thinking back, I have memories of updates which brought with higher uptimes and more functionality - while others came with crippling bugs and memory leaks. Each update is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get. I will admit the latest build at the time of writing (0.157) has been the best update in some time, however this does not compare to older builds of the game. There was once a time when ElwynEternity had an average player count over 37 and was running on a small Virtual Private Server with 4 gigs of ram and 4 CPU cores. In contrast to our current hardware this is small potatoes (http://i.imgur.com/4Odkde0.png). Aside from improved uptimes there have not been many changes to the server-side of Starmade. I know every few updates schema claims he has made a reduction of CPU usage by the “~factor 20x”, but that is just not the case. I would not go so far as to claim that Starmade has not been improving, however it has not been improving an acceptable rate.


Here is a list of things which have not been added or changed that are imperative to stable server functionality:

1. A finished/functional UDP networking mode. (http://gafferongames.com/networking-for-game-programmers/udp-vs-tcp/)
   
   
2. An official server list where you cannot pay to have your up time reset. (This seems self evident)
   
   
3. General changes to the methods of administering the servers. (IE: Admin commands and utilities)
   
   
4. More community involvement in balancing (The latest thruster “balance”).
   
   
5. And finally: an API (More on this later)

Everyone seems to agree that #1-3 are valid concerns but there seems to be some resistance on #5, which I cannot understand. I am sure everyone here knows my stance on the issue: adding an API would not only benefit the community but also the core game code even if it is a server side only change. When adding an API into something, it is my experience that the overall stability and functionality of the application improves. Programming with the preservation of functionality in mind is an important motivator in improving the design and functionality of your code. This is from my personal experience as a software developer.


The community, as it stands, is an exciting and close knit group of people who have, unfortunately, given up on acknowledging fact that starmade is broken and as been for some time and instead skewed itself towards an illogical path of blindly embracing the fallacy that starmade's development has never been better. Blindly accepting inaccurate benchmarks and shooting down any community oversight for the development of the game we all love and support. My personal arguments to persuade schema to refine the bug reporting process, hire developers who can improve the functionality of the game, and all together queries in the status of the work being done have all been rejected based on the opinion that this is in some way “Bashing” schema although I simply am speaking the truth as I see it.

 

[x2006charger]

I'd like to add a few things to this, such as some of the major bugs that keep cropping up, and have been issues for months. One of those being the 'waiting for pong' issue which can cripple the server.

Other long-standing bugs include random AI derps ( whatever causes it to spam 'cast class exception') ( I'm not a programmer so I have no idea what that means)

I really want to like this game... but each of these updates is making it very hard to stay invested.

 

[BDLS]

whatever causes it to spam 'cast class exception'

Any word if this one has been squashed in v.158?

edit: sorry for semi-offtopic
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Good writeup about your issues, gravypod. Running a starmade server can be pretty rough. I kinda see both sides to it. People are over-eager to rush to the defense of schema and X dev(s), although trying to run a stable server on a game in alpha is pretty masochistic too.

 

[Klaeljanus]

The bugs are most important, since the settings are there for a server to completely customize pretty much everything balance wise to their own preferences.

Balance can take months to get right, and honestly leaving it to the community in other games I've played just ensured that there was an agenda that gave the older players a serious and massive advantage to one playstyle to the detriment of all others(in the case of starmade, it'll come down to a fight between fighter/bomber ships and massive turret ships.)

I have the experience to simply say that leaving something as crucial as game balance in the hands of the community simply does not work. Most people just don't understand how difficult proper balance is, all they want to do is have their preferred playstyle(the one they see as the "dominant" one, be forever the dominant one.)

 

[Deadlis]

The bugs are most important, since the settings are there for a server to completely customize pretty much everything balance wise to their own preferences.

Balance can take months to get right, and honestly leaving it to the community in other games I've played just ensured that there was an agenda that gave the older players a serious and massive advantage to one playstyle to the detriment of all others(in the case of starmade, it'll come down to a fight between fighter/bomber ships and massive turret ships.)

Or at the very least, for the Community Manager who is in charge of the default balancing, to actually do his job and consult the community on decisions that will effect the community. At least give us a heads up before we just get smashed in the head with a crippling nerf/buff, followed by a slew of new bugs to make the bitter taste in your mouth even worse.

 

[gravypod]

Or at the very least, for the Community Manager who is in charge of the default balancing, to actually do his job and consult the community on decisions that will effect the community. At least give us a heads up before we just get smashed in the head with a crippling nerf/buff, followed by a slew of new bugs to make the bitter taste in your mouth even worse.

I agree. This was a big change that I feel few wanted.

 

[DukeofRealms]

I can't really help or put any opinions in here that would be useful, except for one point.

An official server list where you cannot pay to have your up time reset. (This seems self evident)

Interesting to note that third party server lists are doing this, and that is a major concern for the server community environment. An official server list has been on our minds for a long time now, and i'm glad you brought it up, because sadly I was sidetracked from getting back to it.

I'll get back into looking into this, and making sure there is enough need for a list. As well as investigating the situation with other server lists.

 

[gravypod]

I have approximated that Red-Shift (AKA Rebel Alliance) has used this 2 times at least. Brierie abused this the same way I abuse tic-tacs. I am proud to say I have never used this feature.

 

[Keptick]

to actually do his job and consult the community on decisions that will effect the community. At least give us a heads up before we just get smashed in the head with a crippling nerf/buff.

*cough* screwing with thrust back to back 3 times in 2 major updates without any heads up or actual changelog *cough*

 

[ToyotaSupra]

There are many posts like this recently. It seems cracks are beginning to show in the community.

Yes of course you could handwave most of these off as 'hurr alpha' but it would be nice if we were warned when something fundamental was going to change such as the new shield system or thrusters. Also, hiring a full team would likely mean much higher costs, therefore the game would no longer be FTP.

I've seen worse games (Naming no names) charge upwards of £25 for alpha access so this community needs to appreciate this free game and get dev builds to test the game.

 

[Dragon2000]

i like elwin allot its a good server with good people on it (and it is the main base of starfleet) but with all the new nerfs to all key systems its a lot harder to have any fun so maybe some of the devs could try to make it a bit more fun since i do like star made i know its still an alpha but its just a bit frustrating when your ship become useless

 

[max stripe]

i like elwin allot its a good server with good people on it (and it is the main base of starfleet) but with all the new nerfs to all key systems its a lot harder to have any fun so maybe some of the devs could try to make it a bit more fun since i do like star made i know its still an alpha but its just a bit frustrating when your ship become useless

screw useless the refits are a pain
someone give me the stats for an update 3 years from today so i can fix my ship now so i dont have to do it later

 

[NeonSturm]

Dragon2000, Jun 27, 2014


Maybe the month should be bigger and red if the post is older than a week?

 

[max stripe]

Dragon2000, Jun 27, 2014


Maybe the month should be bigger and red if the post is older than a week?

lol somehow i keep missing the date of the post
yup make it big and red

 

[JimmyJamba]

Since this topic IS revived, any news on an official starmade server list @DukeofRealms?

I know the server I currently play on has voiced concerns over point #2.

 

[max stripe]

Since this topic IS revived, any news on an official starmade server list @DukeofRealms?

I know the server I currently play on has voiced concerns over point #2.

we can always let the thread die again you know

 

[Dragon2000]

Dragon2000, Jun 27, 2014


Maybe the month should be bigger and red if the post is older than a week?

what do you mean since you have done nothing but confuse me why is there not a confusing thing that you can rate

 

[Creeper__God]

what do you mean since you have done nothing but confuse me why is there not a confusing thing that you can rate

you made the most recent post before @max stripe "necro posted" and revieved the thread

 

[DukeofRealms]

Since this topic IS revived, any news on an official starmade server list @DukeofRealms?

I know the server I currently play on has voiced concerns over point #2.

Yes, you should see it in the next release.

 

[Ithirahad]

Dragon2000, Jun 27, 2014


Maybe the month should be bigger and red if the post is older than a week?

Some points raised here still stand... Not sure about the state of servers, as a non-server-owner, but some things people have said are still worth being thought about in the future, even if the particular issues at hand with game balance have been at least brought back to an acceptable state.