Feedback & Discussion for: Open source upon closure

[Maziel]

I moved the moderated posts off this thread into the Moderation forum.

Okay, so take two.

Trying to make this a 'staff sucks' thing is unnecessary.

Everything has consistently been in the context of seeking productive, open conversation.

I'll let quotes speak for themselves in the sequence they're used rather than interpreting or summarizing anything. Make your own comparisons and draw your own conclusions.

If the past coders contributed their code to the game on a volunteer basis and did not expect to retain any rights in the code, it may be possible for the producer to make the code open source without their permission.

If the game closed, the code would not become open source.  The end.

How many times have you or a predecessor had some variant of this conversation, moderated or no, generally speaking?

With the outcome that you're not interested in what the community that you represent has to say, and are more-so interested in the feedback/narrative that you provide for yourself (disagreeing is different than not even being open to the possibility of any feedback).

Here are the very first exchanges I ever had with Delerak when I was a <20 for comparison:

I'm interested in obtaining the SwordQuest codebase, but it is no longer available on the website of the original author. I was wondering if you still had a copy lying around? I've been an Armageddon player for years, and I'm interested in setting up a small MUD for playing around with (probably will never be public). I have a lot of areas mapped out from Zalanthas, so I may even just copy over the room descriptions just for fun. Normally I'd ask the author of SwordQuest first, but I thought I'd check with you since it looks like you're the most recent person to use it. Will DarkSunKings ever be brought back online? If not, have you considered releasing the code for it? If you're looking for staff, I'd be willing to help if you're willing to give me a shot . Otherwise, I'd be grateful for any assistance you're willing to provide.

Hey man. I do have my old DS codebase. I think I may have the SwordQuest codebase as well I'll have to look around a bit to find it but if I do I will send it. I have no plans to reopen my old mud, just too busy with real life and I am running my own business now. I will think about releasing everything I have, I would love to see someone take it over and have it be successful. There were over 15,000 unique rooms built and lots of time put into it so there isn't much that needs to be done for it to open. I was a perfectionist and never got past Alpha because of it.

Give me some time to find the stuff and I'll let you know.

Hit me up on aim if you get time. My handle is Delerak.

I'm definitely all about open sourcing it if I release it. I think that is the best way to develop a game world is by letting the players influence it as much as possible. In the end though muds are driven by the staff (aka dungeon masters in my opinion).

We'll chat more about it for sure. I will see about putting all the data I have on my server and making a website for downloading each iteration of it.

[Kialae]

How about, instead, we all just keep the game going?

[Maziel]

How about, instead, we all just keep the game going?

Hey Kialae 

I am not advocating for shutting down Armageddon.

[jalden]

How about, instead, we all just keep the game going?

Open sourcing the game could actually help keep the game going. There is a devout community here, and a lot great documentation. Even if other flavors of Armageddon popped up, this would still the place where majority of the players play. Dated example: Ubuntu has a primary OS and whole bunch of different offshoots. One of these offshoots had changes that allowed Ubuntu to boot up faster. This improvement was implemented into the main operating system.

If Armageddon were open sourced and programmers were free to tinker with it, some of the changes that would arise would probably be garbage. But any changes that looked good could be easily incorporated into the main game. I think that because Armageddon cannot pay programmers, open sourcing really makes sense.

[DesertT]

How about, instead, we all just keep the game going?

Open sourcing the game could actually help keep the game going. There is a devout community here, and a lot great documentation. Even if other flavors of Armageddon popped up, this would still the place where majority of the players play. Dated example: Ubuntu has a primary OS and whole bunch of different offshoots. One of these offshoots had changes that allowed Ubuntu to boot up faster. This improvement was implemented into the main operating system.

If Armageddon were open sourced and programmers were free to tinker with it, some of the changes that would arise would probably be garbage. But any changes that looked good could be easily incorporated into the main game. I think that because Armageddon cannot pay programmers, open sourcing really makes sense.

Sorry Jalden, but I think this is a utopian view. 

Besides, it's already been plainly stated that it won't be happening, so I'm not even sure why this conversation is on-going.   

[jalden]

How about, instead, we all just keep the game going?

Open sourcing the game could actually help keep the game going. There is a devout community here, and a lot great documentation. Even if other flavors of Armageddon popped up, this would still the place where majority of the players play. Dated example: Ubuntu has a primary OS and whole bunch of different offshoots. One of these offshoots had changes that allowed Ubuntu to boot up faster. This improvement was implemented into the main operating system.

If Armageddon were open sourced and programmers were free to tinker with it, some of the changes that would arise would probably be garbage. But any changes that looked good could be easily incorporated into the main game. I think that because Armageddon cannot pay programmers, open sourcing really makes sense.

Sorry Jalden, but I think this is a utopian view. 

Besides, it's already been plainly stated that it won't be happening, so I'm not even sure why this conversation is on-going.   

I don't think open sourcing it would have much impact to be honest, but it could spur some innovation. It also seems doubtful to me that anyone involved in creating this completely free game in 1991 would care if it were open sourced. But out of respect, that is something that would need to be verified. But yeah, i agree that this is beating a dead horse.

[Delirium]

I doubt Naath or Morgenes would be against it, but if Halaster is, case closed, so there it is.

Frankly I wish Halaster had remained a coder and not been sucked into staffing duties since he was clearly happier just coding, and he would not have to deal with the request tool and player-staff drama that ultimately broke his will to remain, but the current (past?) structure rarely allowed for single-focus roles.

Something to think about when restructuring. Let single-focus roles be a thing.

Reduce request tool overwhelm. It turned into a way to police and red-tape and add paperwork when the original purpose was to add a means of archiving and streamlining staff-player communication.

Less control seems scary but it's healthier for the game. Focus on collaborating not policing.

Single warning then zero tolerance for verified/logged creepy or abusive behavior for ANYONE, player or staff.

If you make a healthy community people will join it. If you allow bad actors to remain out of fear of "but our playerbase is low we can't afford losses" you're dooming yourself to a slow death in a tarpit of yuck.

Your playerbase is low because you allowed cheating and abuse to remain and tried to cover it up.

God, why am I still making suggestions. I guess because I don't want obvious things being overlooked in all the noise. I can't NOT try to help or something. It's simple guys. It's not easy or pleasant but it's simple.

As someone said elsewhere:

Is it more important to justify feeling "right" or
Is it more important to do the right thing?

[Halaster]

I doubt Naath or Morgenes would be against it, but if Halaster is, case closed, so there it is.

There's tons of coders over the years that have touched it by this point, heh, at least 16 that I can think of off hand. 

[Maziel]

Contributions are a good point.

Players contribute too.

[Armaddict]

I'd say no for these, for various reasons but largely because I don't believe anyone who shits on people laboring to make improvements for decades should be able to take that work they've been shitting on.  You can disagree, that's fine, that's just my standpoint on it.  I'm sure there would be great contributors in an open source format, but maybe that should be looked at as a goal: a path to code contributions from those who want to do so.  But other than that, I see no reason to distribute code or allow it to be distributed, even in the case of the game closing down.

[jalden]

a path to code contributions from those who want to do so. 

That's essentially what open sourcing would be. It does open up the possibility of people creating alternate armageddon muds. But... that already happened. So there isn't much downside.

[Yam]

game aside, how about open sourcing the gdb. or rather letting it be read again, even in a read only format. there were shitloads of good threads that did not need to be removed.

im not sure how complete archived versions of the gdb are but c'mon. why did everything get hidden? or did someone delete it?

[jalden]

game aside, how about open sourcing the gdb. or rather letting it be read again, even in a read only format. there were shitloads of good threads that did not need to be removed.

im not sure how complete archived versions of the gdb are but c'mon. why did everything get hidden? or did someone delete it?

This!

[kakkarot]

This fucking mud is great, period. Fuck a closure, just punish creeps and lets play, people

[Synthesis]

This fucking mud is great, period. Fuck a closure, just punish creeps and lets play, people

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