Admins, gamemasters, gamerunners, mandates etc

[Robyklebt]

Wrong part of the forum I think, sorry. But none of the other options made sense either.

And had no clue about the title either.

What I want to ask Alive And Dead, Alkworld and Gipfelstuermer is simple:

How do you view your role at this point?

What we know is that you have a direct mandate to convert flash to react, where you have made great progress and I presume spent a huge amount of time.
But in the past on some topics you mentioned that you didn't feel comfortable doing something, since you didn't have a direct mandate from Luques. How is the situation now, how do you view your role? Easy question, maybe the answer is difficult, but would be nice to hear how the whole situation is developing. A while ago Alk mentioned that you only got sporadic answers from Luques, so either nothing or then lots at once (something like that), maybe you got more direct mandates, maybe you come to a different conclusion without direct mandates....

Just a update on how you view your role now.

[Alkworld]

Wrong part of the forum I think, sorry. But none of the other options made sense either.

And had no clue about the title either.

What I want to ask Alive And Dead, Alkworld and Gipfelstuermer is simple:

How do you view your role at this point?

What we know is that you have a direct mandate to convert flash to react, where you have made great progress and I presume spent a huge amount of time.
But in the past on some topics you mentioned that you didn't feel comfortable doing something, since you didn't have a direct mandate from Luques. How is the situation now, how do you view your role? Easy question, maybe the answer is difficult, but would be nice to hear how the whole situation is developing. A while ago Alk mentioned that you only got sporadic answers from Luques, so either nothing or then lots at once (something like that), maybe you got more direct mandates, maybe you come to a different conclusion without direct mandates....

Just a update on how you view your role now.

Very well hidden in plain sight, found it now. First of all the general situation:
Luques basically never reacts unless something goes badly wrong and only he can do something about it. E.g. payments failed once and the server was shut down. Such problems shouldn't happen that much any longer, as we have full access to the game server and account at the internet provider by now. On the old server (forum and old editor), we now have some access, but I don't even know who owns it. I asked about it, but neither Luques nor Buhmann answered specifically. But anyway, with the new editor, the old server became less important for the game, only the forum remains there.

My impression: Luques is happy that the game is running and developing, while he doesn't have any time whatsoever. He's practically still owning the server account. Creators of the code are meanwhile Buhmann, Leso, Luques, Gipfel and myself.

Now regarding my role:
- bugfixing
- ongoing development, many of it with own ideas, gameplay-relevant parts ideally with community agreement
- technical admin (solving issues (cleaning data after bugs), assigning user roles like FPC (based on community agreement) etc)

Not sure how much promoting the game belongs to it, there we basically only wrote emails to former players. But in some way, I guess anybody can promote the game, Gipfel and myself just had the technical means (user data) to send the emails.

[Gipfelstuermer]

Fair question from Roby as the three of us (Alkworld, AAD, me) have been volunteering as admins of the game for a while now.

I add my view (some of it just to confirm what Alk already wrote).

Facts first: All three of us have access to the database and the code. In terms of coding experience and skills, knowledge of the existing code and time spent developing the new version, it is fair to say that we have three very different levels and also different areas of expertise.

Server owners: As mentioned by Alk only sporadic answers from the server owner(s), but those have nonetheless been helpful to some degree and the sporadic nature has not stopped us from volunteering as admins and will also not stop us from continuing the development.

Code owners: More and more of the running code has been developed by us. To be precise a large share from Alk and a small share from me. This is true for the whole React version and also for backend changes which had become necessary because of the PHP update and also just to improve the backend.

Epics: We have completed "Make new C4F playable", we have almost completed "Make new C4F as good as old C4F" and we have started with "Make new C4F great". More advanced epics in the pipeline are "Make C4F responsive", "In-Game Communication", "New Features", "Gameplay Improvements" and there are many more we can think of.

Principles: I'd like to continue developing the game with the goal to grow the community, while keeping the spirit of a fair and balanced play-to-win online game.
Fair means that the game encourages behavior according to its rules and creates a friendly community in which players enjoy to volunteer. Balanced means that the game has mechanics which help new players to reach the level of existing teams in reasonable time. Play-to-win (as opposed to pay-to-win games) means that all features critical for a team's performance remain for free, with a reasonable limit on play time (currently 1 race per day) to acknowledge time constraints of players.

Vision: We can imagine many improvements and new features, and as more and more of the code comes from us, over time we can hopefully implement some of that. It's not necessarily a bad thing that it will take quite some time because too many new developments at the same time could also be problematic. For new developments we will take into account players' feedback and seek a consensus in the community where possible.

[flockmastoR]

I have access to the database and try to help to keep the game alive. That included mostly to rapidly fix finance issues of the transfer market (caused by bugs), manually fix profile issues (caused by -3* bugs) and so on. I planned to help developing the game, but my time management is just bad. Therefore it's Alkworld and Gipfelstuermer who are doing the development part.

[team fl]

Thanks for your answers. Maybe we can have a list ingame with the responsible players and their main tasks in the manual? For example:

Game Admins:
- Alive And Dead (bugfixes)
- Alkworld (game development)
- Gipfelstuermer (game development)

Fairplay Comittee:
- ...

...

In know, FPC is already there in the fairplay part, but to have an overview could be nice in my eyes.

[flockmastoR]

Bugfixes means fixing a dripping faucet, I put a bucket under it and pour it out regularly until Alkworld or Gipfelstuermer fix it

[Robyklebt]

Ok, got answers after all, and a buzzword manifesto too, thanks. Was already worried a bit...

Now regarding my role:
- bugfixing
- ongoing development, many of it with own ideas, gameplay-relevant parts ideally with community agreement
- technical admin (solving issues (cleaning data after bugs), assigning user roles like FPC (based on community agreement) etc)

Not sure how much promoting the game belongs to it, there we basically only wrote emails to former players. But in some way, I guess anybody can promote the game, Gipfel and myself just had the technical means (user data) to send the emails.

OK, jsut to confirm, do I get it right?


Basically you see yourself (you personnally, you as group, for the moment I don't make a distinction) as Buhmann/Luques regarding development. So not only small things (like youth riders D6+, ask FL for details) but also bigger things (new sprint system, crosswind echelons, etc) are possible to be changed. The following is Donkeypinion: A bit worried about the "community agreement" part... I hope you don't plan to subject us to endless votes... And I'm sure you're aware how discussions will work once we have let's say 200 players. 1 idea, 30 different opinions by 30 players. 10 of those opinions are on another topic really or just dumb. Long endless discussion (I look forward to that!!!) at some point somebody has to make a decision, and that is you (see above) Like Buhmann, Luques, in the end if you find something good, even against the vocal opposition of the Donkey, you want to implement you do it. Opposite true as well, brilliant idea by FL (might happen one day), lots of users argue for it, but you don't like it, your decision. Of course once an implementation of something is decided another 10 people will come out of the woodwork and lament that it's the end of c4f (abolishing the gain of eternal points at GPMs was the end of the game too) and whine on. That's the way it will go regardless of what kind of "community agreement" you seek really... How exactly you deal with the community of course is up to you, implementation without consultation wouldn't make me happy, (and be bad for the game actually, more people see more solutions and problems) implementation without announcement even less... but IMO it should be made clear (and you sort of did now, finally) that you are the bosses.

But you are not too sure about the marketing/financial part. That means possible future license payments, (that probably was the main reason numbers started to decline), marketing, which costs money (Buh used to buy ads before the TdF once he stopped, new players became less too he said), a general business plan (FL unsuccessfully tried to offer his help to Buhmann on that one) etc, you don't feel too confident about your exact rights/roles in that regard for the moment.

More or less correct? (ok, on the development topic I ended up writing my opinion after a while, short while, marked it now.)