RSF takeover

[lesossies]

Buhmann would be ready to give the hand, If I good understood.

We can discuss about it and try to find the best solution to hold RSF alived.

My first ideas:
The guy or group should have enough knowledge with database/MySQL, PHP, javascript and some other IT- tools.

[Pokemon Club]

Is there someone here with this kind of knowledge ?

[Robyklebt]

leso!!!

What does takevoer mean though? Ownership and everything or just managing/developing the game or just helping (resp. doing most of it)?

If it's ownership and everything.... Mr Buh should really take his time thinking about it. As much as it sucks that he has no more time, and as bad as that sprint he implemented is, generally the Buh-RSF has been very good.

Of course the Buhmann and leso do all, mostly leso now, must be hard for you too, but give all away? Donkey as you probably noticed by now clearly is for another 10 years of Buh/leso. With some helpers... (of course they should not just be there to do maintenance and implement what you tell them to do, some freedom of innovation etc too, but Donks likes Buh/leso to have their say too, good experiences generally!

[Chense]

Well the donkey in some points pretty much expressed my thoughts so no more need for me to wait longer.

I love RSF and I would really appreciate it if it develops again to the next level, as much as I would love it to have more new players and not such a bug thingy then the last days. Really Really take your time about giving it all away and most likely don´t do it. I am a member since 6 years here sometimes riding more sometimes riding less sometimes really feeling bad about things like the sprint system but all in all I always liked your way to handle things and you two are some part of the heart and soul of RSF as guys like the Donkey and others in here are. Some of those guys left due to several reason - So don´t you leave us alone too as RSF would clearly loose something.

So if I were you I would search for some honorably guys with knowledge and give them specific rights e.g. like changing the calendar, insight into the source code. If I would give them the full possibility to change it themselves? Well I dont know better give them some playground to test things like in the test races and you are the one to implement. On the other hand they might need those rights to correct bugs.

Unfortunately I am neither honorably nor I have the knowledge or time to help you in some things I would still give you my help if needed and if its just about some small things as for example I mentioned in a PM to leso already. Translating News or important threads into english (as i presume my english is quite nice and might be more easy to understand then Buhs ) helping a bit in the advertising campaign. Take part in discussions or at least give some advice about it then.

So all in all lets go for a short and simple summary:

Stay - Search yourself 2-3 guys for the calendar, 2-3 for bugfixing and 5-7 (not all of them necessarily programmers) experienced guys for a task force discussing the things that some users wanted to change like years ago.

P.S: Maybe some idea about new things to implement (Thats what ogame did in their early phase before it became commercial): Every user was asked to give ideas that were not totally perfect but overthought - Make those 5-7 guys discuss about it for some days and then give a thumbs up or no for further discussion -
If the answer is yes give the user a little reward for his thoughts like some license days - Take this user into your discussion group present Buh the idea - If he says yes he likes it and yes its possible to implement it with the help of the new guys make a poll under the users if they like it.
If the majority of the users says yes: Program it - If needed implement it for test races and also for some (then free to play) real races - Test it until it is perfect - Implement it finally for the hole game - The user that invented the idea will get some bigger reward like 1 Year of license and the "Saver of RSF" Award

More to come when the discussion is grown further!

[Alkworld]

I already read some good ideas here. My two cents:
1) A test environment would certainly be needed, if more programmers join. But even that could somehow be automatized with scripts again.
@leso: Do you already have one? Or doing everything on the live system?
2) Coordination would have to be thought of, when more than one programmer can work on the same thing. As long as it's strictly separated, it remains easy.
3) I guess some admin tasks could be improved to no longer require DB and programming skills, such as the already mentioned calendar (assuming now leso does it with some SQL scripts etc.). Both worked well with NC and FPC.

I could offer sufficient PHP, mySQL skills and a little JS. So rather back end development than front end (little clue of that).

[lesossies]

leso!!!

What does takevoer mean though? Ownership and everything or just managing/developing the game or just helping (resp. doing most of it)?

The end is open, but the most important ( longtime ?) goal should be that RSF works without Buh or me.

It can be a friendly (or not) takeover or a change to a benefit/community game or I dont know what .

Write your ideas and propositions.
Buhmann will probably say his meaning and at the end, he will take the decisions.

[Rasmussen]

leso!!!

What does takevoer mean though? Ownership and everything or just managing/developing the game or just helping (resp. doing most of it)?

If it's ownership and everything.... Mr Buh should really take his time thinking about it. As much as it sucks that he has no more time, and as bad as that sprint he implemented is, generally the Buh-RSF has been very good.

Of course the Buhmann and leso do all, mostly leso now, must be hard for you too, but give all away? Donkey as you probably noticed by now clearly is for another 10 years of Buh/leso. With some helpers... (of course they should not just be there to do maintenance and implement what you tell them to do, some freedom of innovation etc too, but Donks likes Buh/leso to have their say too, good experiences generally!

That's also my opinion! Buh & Leso forever or as long as possible. But as Roby said maybe adding some helpers (for calender also possible that somebody helps you? ).

[Team Kazi Blocks]

I can programming on my calculator, but for games on pc I havent experience. I dont know if i could help or not.

[Hunsrueck]

leso!!!

What does takevoer mean though? Ownership and everything or just managing/developing the game or just helping (resp. doing most of it)?

If it's ownership and everything.... Mr Buh should really take his time thinking about it. As much as it sucks that he has no more time, and as bad as that sprint he implemented is, generally the Buh-RSF has been very good.

Of course the Buhmann and leso do all, mostly leso now, must be hard for you too, but give all away? Donkey as you probably noticed by now clearly is for another 10 years of Buh/leso. With some helpers... (of course they should not just be there to do maintenance and implement what you tell them to do, some freedom of innovation etc too, but Donks likes Buh/leso to have their say too, good experiences generally!

+1

Give some helpers more rights and look what happened.

For the racecalender, FPC, NC and so on...

Leso and Buh should then focus on the important things and are relieved with the other stuff.

[RainerT]

i can't add much more. transforming rsf in a community-driven game would be good. what i think is also necessary is an active kommitee that obeyes rules not that easily to operationalize: eg. unrealistic riding. the sprint system is a technical problem. unrealistic riding, tempo without reason, pulling other teams to help them without benefit for the own team etc. is another problem that has to be faced IMHO! its directly concerning quality of teams and quality of races.

[Pokemon Club]

unrealistic riding, tempo without reason, pulling other teams to help them without benefit for the own team etc. is another problem that has to be faced IMHO! its directly concerning quality of teams and quality of races.

There is nothing unrealistic to ride against someone else if it isn't the most beautiful, intelligent or benefit things to do.

Anyway, one step to keep the game alive and maybe see it expand is to stop to use flash and migrate to htlm5. For a lot of people who can be interest to test rsf to have a flash game is a big argue which keep them far of it.

[lesossies]

[quote="Idéfix]
Does Buh has a deadline in mind?

Leso, when you say "goal should be that RSF works without Buh or me", maybe a way can be found to make the game working without you (someone or several guys doing everyday job + solving main bugs), while you/Buh remain top bosses? ("Donkey as you probably noticed by now clearly is for another 10 years of Buh/leso." => Idéfix Dogs too). In the meantime, a "new RSF" could be built, without ugly flash, with more easy delegations (built with a group of us, Alk, me, others...), and only after that, transfer the game and possibly a takeover.
(I don't know if that last section is clear, I hope you understand, for me it would be a nice way).
[/quote]

That´s a direction I could go.
No, he has no deadline in mind.

[luques]

In general agree with many good points here.

Clearly it depends on Leso and Buh will, but agree that they kept the game running nicely all these years.

In general I always supported the idea to delegate much more to the community.

My idea of structure was more or less this one, as I always thought that Leso couldn't continue working full time on every aspect of the game.

- Leso and Buh on top, they decide on big things, give guidelines, relax and play.

- A work coordinator, more or less what is doing leso now, requires lot of time, he should be able of doing pretty anything or at least have knowledge to control a bit everything (programming / calendar and races / FPK - NK / bugs and so on), he is actually the responsible to make the game running nicely, if races are missing he draws it, there are bugs he reports them to programmers, new technical things he posts on the forum and so on (pretty similar to what is doing leso now, just a bit less heavy).

- 2 (max 3) back end developers, who should implement technically features and fix bugs, they should have time clearly, I wouldn't ask for too many, if Buh was able to run the game alone, guess that 2 are enough.

- 1 front end developer, making the interface, once he has done it the first time, visually there would be not many differences, just keep the site updated, speed optimized and mobile friendly.

As for tools and groups to help:

- FPK, the one we get works well, but it could be improved, more messages/direct communication with team involved, integrated tool to find multis and cheaters, just for example.

- NK, as FPK, should remain and be optimized, don't know how much work they have / they left behind, but pretty sure that the work there is pretty much, ideally there should be a guy for every nationality, someone who can fastly judge names of his nation and help with the others.

- Calendar Group, something new that we already spoke about, also here I would say a couple of race designers, much active and with time, who take the responsability to organize the calendar, draw it (or organize who draws), put online races. It would be nice to organize everything before the change of the month.

After that a plus would be I think to have also someone managing the social part and a couple of community manager for the forum (or moderators a bit active).

Another point, the forum should be better integrated with the game, more or less a 20% of the total players of the game post frequently in the forum, if we want this game to be driven also by the community, we need to ensure community partecipation.

More or less this I think should be the structure if you want a game driven (well) by the community, clearly numbers can change depending on time that everybody can give.

As for me I can help with front end (Html5, CSS, JS), back end (PHP + MySql), SEO if needed and obviously as I did all these years in drawing races.

[NicoVanarlo]

Bah we all talk like if buhman will continue... but nobody knows actually. Maybe he just want to stop his work in rsf. Would be nice to know...

[cataracs]

because of the migration to flash many many players quited the game and the percentage of new players decreased (just a point).
I agree with luques on most points, though I can't offer much help on the technical part but if there will be an orginised "calendar group" I will help in drawing races proprely and intime.

[Buhmann]

Hi guys...I try to join the discussion now.

I woudl like to develop with some other guys on RSF. The main problem I see here, is that is it developed just for me. Means: Nto very good readable at the end and in many points not very well (in kind of "nice") programmed.
Switching to HMTL5 would be of course a good thing. But it is not few work. If we do it, we should comboine it with some other changes in terms of graphic or/and playing. Otherwise it is not very motivating just translate it. But for this I could think about a team who is developing this together. Just an idea.

Luques, do you have experience with (or would like to learn) AngularJS? I use it in my job and it is very cool.

[Chense]

Hey Buh,

first thank you very much for your statement. Second big big thanks for all the work you have done about that game - I just enjoy playing everyday even if I may curse you sometimes for bugs or something.
Third as i stated before I am not capable of programming and I dont have very much time. But still I could offer you to help wherever I can in terms of translations, moderation etc. just feel free to ask and I will tell you if I can help.

[luques]

Hi guys...I try to join the discussion now.

I woudl like to develop with some other guys on RSF. The main problem I see here, is that is it developed just for me. Means: Nto very good readable at the end and in many points not very well (in kind of "nice") programmed.
Switching to HMTL5 would be of course a good thing. But it is not few work. If we do it, we should comboine it with some other changes in terms of graphic or/and playing. Otherwise it is not very motivating just translate it. But for this I could think about a team who is developing this together. Just an idea.

Luques, do you have experience with (or would like to learn) AngularJS? I use it in my job and it is very cool.

Hi Buh, I know a bit AngularJS, never used for big projects but studied some examples, and would be interesting to use it. I was more or less thinking the same, HTML5/CSS and a JS Framework.
The good news is that from 1st November I will have a lot of free hours during the day, so I can dedicate lot of hours and the development can go pretty fast.

[Buhmann]

The question for me is: Just switch the front end technology or doing something more? So any change or new feature in addition?
For the detailed software developing part we can discuss it anywhere else. But one thing is clear: developing a new Frontend will take time. Much time. And at the end there is something similar to what we already have. Flash is dying, yes probably. But without going too much in detail, I am not sure if it the same for Adobe Air applications, which would be more or less the same but not in a browser.
I should also refactor the readness of the backend code (like the race itself) so that it would be easier to add or change something for other guys than me...Something like an open source project would be cool but probably unrealistic.

But regarding the HTML5 switch, what I think we need:
- a general concept. Means a drawing of all the pages without implement it. For the best usability. The community can help here a lot
- how can it be enlarged with some animations or graphics, so that we could really call the game "up to date". who could help with such( graphics things?

To make clear: I am really happy about your help. And I am not scared to give RSF in other hands. It would be great if with that way, the game is still running and will be improved. So thank you very much for everything you already did.

[luques]

Well I think that as we change the front end, there is the opportunity to add some features. One thing that comes in my mind is for example making more simple the form setting.
Switching to HTML5, in my opinion can be good because it opens the way to other technologies (as AngularJS), it is easy to mantain and I was thinking to make it responsive, so that people can play it from tablet/smartphone if the app is not available (like in this moment for iOS and Windows Phone).

For the backend having experience of how the game works helps a lot, it can be divided in small modules that are more easy to mantain but for these things maybe better speak later or in private.

For the HTML5 switch: I can prepare some mockups so that we have some feedback from the community, for animations I can do something but in general I am not that good. I work with a couple of designers anyway that could help me, I don't think that we will need very complex or heavy animations.

[Buhmann]

Sounds good with the mockups!

Due to the re-implementation we should think about new things like "drag and drop", new context menu, what ever. So think about new ideas. We don´t need to reimplement things, the user not really like. We shoudl try then to improve everything if usefull.

[sgumgub]

Is it possible to get any updates here?
What has been decided?
Will there be a new design?
If yes, when will we see it? And is it flash based? *hopes not*

Greetz,
peeti

[luques]

Is it possible to get any updates here?
What has been decided?
Will there be a new design?
If yes, when will we see it? And is it flash based? *hopes not*

Greetz,
peeti

I am working on it. No won't be flash based, but just a simple web site. The design will not change drastically, but will be responsive, so that you can play it without downloading an app from your phone or tablet.

[sgumgub]

Is it possible to get any updates here?
What has been decided?
Will there be a new design?
If yes, when will we see it? And is it flash based? *hopes not*

Greetz,
peeti

I am working on it. No won't be flash based, but just a simple web site. The design will not change drastically, but will be responsive, so that you can play it without downloading an app from your phone or tablet.

The last words almost caused a bowner

Thanks for that answer man, but may I go even further and ask when you plan to roll it out? If its one year, then its one year. Just an educated guess would be nice