Motivation...

[French_Touch]

I don't know anything about what's happening "behind" Allegiance, but even if I rarely play Allegiance (I really like this game and I just want to have fun by playing it when I have time), I noticed tensions between people. I'm sure the situation is more complex than it appears to us, but I do not think it's a good idea to put this kind of discussion in "general". After all, that's the part of the forum that is seen the most... by everybody.

And I remember reading a post about "How to keep the newbies" or "what new players may not be staying" recently and what happens here also happens during the game sometimes. What kind of impression does it make?

Allegiance is a great game but played by a few people. This game doesn't need to face another problem than a lack of players.

[Jimen]

QUOTE (Tigereye @ Aug 24 2010, 10:42 AM) When I was given the 'job' the community already had a bottleneck. The first thing I did was create the ZL structure so that responsibility was distributed over a set of people instead of one.
I also created a set of tools for those ZLs to use which gave them the ability to do the things Pook used to do around here without requiring "one man."
Then when Thalgor told me he would no longer be hosting ASGS, I migrated the entire system over to my server which required a lot of little changes to get it to work right. (There is no "ASGS Installer" or other simple tool to put things where they need to be. It's a custom system which requires specific knowledge).
After the migration and the training I received from Pook, I realized how specialized the knowledge was, and how necessary it is in order to keep things running the way they are today. So I then worked to separate everything that ASGS does into one standalone virtual machine image so that future moves would be drastically simplified: shut down a VM, copy it to the new server, then start it up.

Now I realize that none of this is "special" and I didn't "create the keys" and that some of you feel I'm hindering progress more than I'm helping, but I want you to look at my actions since I became admin here. Every step along the way I have made the conscious effort to distribute the responsibility and access to other people so the community could be more self sufficient and would not rely on one man.
As long as Allegiance has existed there has been some form of bottleneck at the top. Before me there was Pook, before Pook there was the collective KGJV/Vencain, and before them was Microsoft. Complaining about these "bottlenecks" is nothing new and is frankly a waste of energy and time. If you look at *ANY* organizational structure from corporations to charities to countries you will see the same issues we have here.

blah blah blah

excuses excuses excuses

ASGS ASGS ASGS

etc etc etc

Everybody realizes that. I think people might possibly be suggesting, your highness, that there NOT be a bottleneck. You know, that little thing called "change". Why are we even talking about ASGS? Yes, herr Tigereye, I hear you about how complicated and specialized ASGS is and how none of the many technically skilled people in this community could ever possibly handle it, but I haven't seen anyone asking for a brief history of What TE Has Done For ASGS And Why Only He Could Have Done It. But CSS is gonna be done in Two Weeks (how many years have changes been held up with the excuse of "just wait for CSS"?).

I'm going to tell you this right now - don't write up a mission statement. It's a waste of your time. Why? Because there's three types of people in this thread: the bootlicking sycophants who'll ignore your mission statement and praise you unconditionally, the trolls who'll smell bull@#(! at the mere MENTION of a "mission statement" and will troll you regardless of the contents, and the people who'll ignore your mission statement because they have specific grievances with how things are being done and won't appreciate your attempt to distract them. "One day" we'll have a full-fledged ASGS replacement? The CSS team says they're starting up closed beta very soon, so this might be a good time to address the long-held complaints of the longtime dedicated developers and determine how to organize things under the new system (otherwise, you'll just run CSS the same way you ran ASGS) instead of wasting precious manhours on your public manifesto.

You're the administrator. You don't have a "mission", you have a "job" or possibly a "position": to keep @#(! running. And since you've resisted any movement to spread out that responsibility or ensure redundancy, no point in complaining about all the RESPONSIBILITY you have. Yes, yes, I know business and I know IT, so I know all about the flowery language and the doublespeak and @#(!. THIS IS ALLEGIANCE. CUT IT OUT. And most of all, don't write an essay about it. The devteam seems to have the perception that you're trying to play popular dictator and turn these periodic dramafests into personal ego-trips rather than actually addressing the problem, and you're not disabusing them of that notion when you say "well forget about all your very specific and clearly stated issues, let me instead write A GLORIOUS MISSION STATEMENT FOR THE PUBLIC".

Don't you dare delete this post. If I'm seeming a bit offensive, that's because I have a real nose for bull@#(! and I HATE THE $#@!ING SMELL. So go ahead. I'll give you super special awesome permission to edit out all the curse words and personal attacks (I'll keep a copy so I can correct y'all if you "accidentally" delete something important or relevant). But nothing kills the community's sense of participation like realizing that nothing of value can ever happen in these public threads about what goes on behind the curtain, because SO MUCH of the "opposing" side gets deleted. I haven't even been around all that long and I'm still pretty sure I'd need to use two hands to count the number of times I've seen this kind of thread brought up with the exact same issues as always, and nothing ever happens because all the relevant info gets deleted, all the really sick burns get deleted, and the weak burns simply get ignored because the crew behind the curtains doesn't care. Has Tigereye EVER taken a community suggestion or a dev suggestion? I don't know, because his forum posting typically amounts to closing his eyes, covering his ears, and singing self-composed ballads about how great he is and about all the things he's done for Allegiance because he is the only contributor who matters in the areas he gives a crap about.

[carbon]

Oh man, the glass on the drama-o-meter is cracking

[Orion]

QUOTE (Tigereye @ Aug 24 2010, 09:42 AM) When I was given the 'job' the community already had a bottleneck. The first thing I did was create the ZL structure so that responsibility was distributed over a set of people instead of one.
I also created a set of tools for those ZLs to use which gave them the ability to do the things Pook used to do around here without requiring "one man."
Then when Thalgor told me he would no longer be hosting ASGS, I migrated the entire system over to my server which required a lot of little changes to get it to work right. (There is no "ASGS Installer" or other simple tool to put things where they need to be. It's a custom system which requires specific knowledge).
After the migration and the training I received from Pook, I realized how specialized the knowledge was, and how necessary it is in order to keep things running the way they are today. So I then worked to separate everything that ASGS does into one standalone virtual machine image so that future moves would be drastically simplified: shut down a VM, copy it to the new server, then start it up.

Good points, delegation has improved things (but still has a long way to go)

QUOTE (Tigereye @ Aug 24 2010, 09:42 AM) As we exist today, with the auth system we use, there cannot be any more ASGS administrators. I can't just share the keys with anyone that asks due to code licensing issues. It's Pook's code, we don't have access to it, and there are valid reasons for it. It's a closed system, and our community has been like this since day one with Microsoft. This isn't a bad thing: there's an entire principle of security dedicated to this fact: the principle of Least Privilege. It loosely states that by minimizing access, you minimize risks of problems. I'd like to ask you to consider what any corporation/group/community would be like if everyone had full access to its resources. I'm sure you can see that such a model may sound ideal in theory, but in practice it would be a nightmare.

Nobody is asking for this, it's a contrived argument. I'm not suggesting "everybody" be given "the keys", I'm suggesting we remove ownership of this community from a single individual, and instead the server(s) be owned by a collective/co-op. Currently one person has the ability to say "I own & run these servers, you're here by my good graces". Nobody should be able to say that.

[SP4WN]

QUOTE (Jimen @ Aug 24 2010, 08:06 PM) useless rant

Maybe if you read what TE actually wrote instead of jumping on which ever bandwagon you see fit this week you wouldnt post a huge paragraph completely missing a key $#@!ing point.

TE did not say he did not want change, nor did he say he would not give keys to anyone else. now il put this bit in big bold caps for you HE SAID HE COULDNT BECAUSE OF LICENSING ISSUE YOU $#@!ING RETARD. Now you have that through your thick ass skull, you might REALISE that there HAS TO BE a bottleneck AT THE TOP?

Lastly before you try a weak attempt at trolling me about having my head up the admins ass's and making yourself look like a dip@#(! again, go speak to the DevTeam

Good boy.

[zombywoof]

QUOTE (Jimen @ Aug 24 2010, 12:06 PM) But CSS is gonna be done in Two Weeks (how many years have changes been held up with the excuse of "just wait for CSS"?).

I could be very wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the CSS project only started in earnest when YP hacked ASGS and released an ASGS Black version which required Pook to come out of the woodwork for just long enough to give us an updated ASGS. From what I understand, since that time (which I feel like was about a year ago, maybe a year and a half looking at the forum for it) it's been trucking along in the background, something that you can watch here.

Not only can you see that Fuzz is a total $#@!ing moron with a huge sense of entitlement but also that we have a working build of CSS and from conversations I've had with TB on my own time I believe the original beta release date was sometime in october. That was a timeline he quoted me at back in may/june, iirc, if not earlier.

[link120]

[Tigereye]

Jimen,

please reread my post. I think you skipped over the main points because you are arguing that I do the exact things my post said I'm doing.
You say I don't have a mission, I have a "job" to keep @#(! running.
As you can see, that is my #1 priority.

I guess - thanks for the support. I look forward to working together.

You say I've resisted spreading out any responsibility.
I encourage you to reread my post and re-visit my posts within the last 3 years for proof that I have.

You asked if I have EVER taken a community suggestion and implemented, then said "I don't know"
You are correct that you don't know, because it seems you haven't seen the many suggestions that I have implemented.

Most importantly, I agree with French Touch's words. This discussion really shouldn't be here.
I understand that one person started a train, and curious onlookers jumped aboard mid-trip to see just how fast the train was going and see if they could use the train to get somewhere. That's fine - bandwagons are fun to join, and pitchforks are fun to brandish sometimes. Unfortunately those actions do nothing else than bring the community down as a whole. While all of you guys fight facts with opinions, lots of work isn't getting complete.

Finally - I rarely delete posts, ever. I only delete posts that are against the board's rules (porn, spam, etc) or posts that clearly have been made by alternate accounts in order to "game the system." Think of it like removing the 10 costumes from someone's bag when they're trying to steer an open debate into a one-sided argument. Those people can make those posts from their own account just fine - they're not banned.
I'm kind of surprised you'd even pre-accuse me of such a thing, as if it's my regular course of action. It's clear you're not judging me by either my actions OR my words. I guess that makes me feel better about how you've judged me.

See you ingame,

--TE

[TheBored]

QUOTE (Jimen @ Aug 24 2010, 03:06 PM) (how many years have changes been held up with the excuse of "just wait for CSS"?)

One? It started last summer. The first code was submitted around the end of August 2009.

A very odd rant indeed. Especially the part about TE deleting your post

TB

[link120]

QUOTE See you ingame,[/quote]

both of you dont play