Stepping Back

[Etaew]

As you've noticed lately I've had less and less to do with DOL. I've tried my best to rekindle the open source community, as you could see with my last announcement I was getting angry about the lack of assistance the DB team was receiving, and development I was receiving. While other offshoot projects such as Uthgard and the instant crap servers about benefited much more.

Not having done anything for a while, I have zero motivation to do anything further, the lack of benefits that come from investing so much time in the project is evident.

I will try my best not to continue making this mistake, and continue to not waste my time as I've been happily doing the past few weeks.

If you need me for anything important, most of you know how to get me, but I'm afraid my involvement in the project feels like it has come to an end.

When I joined this project, I had no real knowledge of programming, heh, looking at my first posts this is evident, but through the project have I learnt and become adept enough to hold my on in C#, which I am thankful for.

When the other developers and project admin stepped back because of various issues, I remained out of a sense of loyalty, and I tried my best to keep things running, but I have indeed run out of steam now, I believe I have contributed enough to bow out respectfully now.

Please use this topic to discuss within yourselves as a community, however broken, selfish, hoarding and competitive you are, the future of the project. If something decisive emerges contact me and I will attempt to facilitate it.

There are a number of changes that could be made, but I don't have the energy to push them through, some include changing the license which ignores the license the project is currently released under which was the mistake but we are tied down to it right now. Completing our takeover of DAoC Portal and listing only a few servers that are associated with the project etc.

This does indeed leave a gap for people to fill for the various positions within the project, if your interested, let me know.

I've made a number of friends here, and some enemies, but the slate I feel can now be wiped clean. Thanks for the company on this journey my friends.

[Overdriven]

Mmmm.. Not coming to exactly as a surprise to me. (Mainly because you told me about 3 minutes before posting this and because I speak to you online most of the time)

Gonna be sad to see you leave the project, even though I'll still harass the crap out of you (See! Me trying to harass you when I first started DOL, through Purga has paid off! Muwahahaha)

Sad to see you leave the project

[Sumy]

I know you don't like the I50 rofl Servers but I'm sorry that you have to go thanks for all help you gave me at the beginning and have fun in the real world !

[IStandAloneToo]

Good luck man.

[Biceps]

Good bye Tom, and thanks for all the effort and time you've spent on this project. You will be missed.

I might still come visit you when I hit England this winter, if you'd want.

[Dinberg]

Wish you luck wherever you end up, and hope that all from here on out goes well for you.

Take it easy Et, it's been a pleasure to meet you.

[Tolakram]

Good luck Etaew, I really appreciate all the hard work you've put in over the year or so I've been playing round with the software. It's unfortunate the community this game attracts is so unappreciative of all the hard work you and others have put into it.

Good luck, hope to see you around the boards from time to time.

Mark

[alex_speed]

Thanks for all the work and good luck.

[IStandAloneToo]

I agree with but have a response to:

yourselves as a community, however broken, selfish, hoarding and competitive you are

Yes, I have noticed that the DOL community can be quite this way. However, I don't believe that it is the fault of the community, rather the leadership within DOL. When I first arrived here, I did not feel like any of the developers/admins cared much about the community. Let me explain, from an outsider's viewpoint, of you, the developers (a lot of them, but not all), of DOL.

To put it bluntly, you guys are ass holes. You believe that since you put in time and effort into a project that you deserve respect and that you have some special rights in how you talk to other people. However, you don't deserve a small amount of respect because you expect it. I really don't care how much time and effort you put in, if you're an ass, you don't deserve respect.

Let me give you an example. It was mentioned that Uthgard has received significantly more support than DOL. I compared their forums with these and I found the developers/admins at Uthgard to be much more welcoming and inviting for people to help out with the project. When a person said a request or asked a question, they weren't hit by a flame of "Wow, go read the forums.. wtf you can't use the search button." Why did Uthgard receive more help? Because their developers/admins actually deserved to be helped.

Also, it appears that most of you work on the project for your own glorification. What happened to just programming (including DB management too) for fun? If you don't enjoy programming, then why are you a part of an OpenSource project? You should make DB changes, fix bugs, and implement new code because you find it enjoyable.

Like I said before, when I first arrived here I didn't feel like you were welcoming at all. You had no basis for any of the comments that were made by a few of you. I program professionally, I know how to program a product that is sold to hundreds of thousands of businesses. I don't need some smart ass developer giving me crap about coding.

Bottom line: We need to change the outlook of the entire DOL community, especially the developers, in order to have more people interested in actually helping with the project. One thing that may be good to do is remove the DOL source code from being downloaded for a while. By doing this, we may be able to flush the community. Those who are serious about helping DOL will stick around and keep modifying their personal copies and sending it to the developers for insertion inside the project.

Lastly, everyone needs to just chill. Who cares how stupid someone is when they ask a question, just answer the stupid question without being an ass.

Hopefully by making some internal changes, it will start to show on the outside of DOL.

[Etaew]

Sure I agree, and perhaps it is all my fault, I never wanted to be in any position of responsibility yet it was thrust upon me, no-one else would take this, so I won't take any of that blame. You seemed to have entered the scene as I was losing interest anyway, you will understand if I comment on your timing for this.

Calling us assholes doesn't help, yes we put in a lot of work, and yes we would hope that people give us a certain amount of respect, without that, what is the point of us evening having a presence here. I attempted to create a dedicated support team, but as with everything the ideas were not grasped.

With an open source community motivation is paramount, sure, call this self gratification, but who would do something for nothing? I lost that desire well over a year ago. Fun hasn't cut it for a long time, as others feel this, ever wonder why Uthgard went closed source? for the exact same reason as people are angry. I don't blame them, I just stayed the course for longer than them.

[IStandAloneToo]

I'm not pointing my finger at anyone and not blaming you for anything. That doesn't help anything at all. I want the DOL community to survive and be able to provide the best possible OpenSource DAoC emulator. People can take what I said however they want to. They know if it was for them or if it wasn't. However, that is one thing that must change.

Obviously, you deserve the amount of respect correlating to the amount of time you put in, granted that you truly deserve respect according to your actions. Let me point out a few people that I've noticed. From what I've seen, Dragonfire and Deer Hunter have put in enormous amounts of time editing the official database to try and keep it updated. I respect those two for the amazing amount of work that they have done and I am truly in their debt.

Etaew, you have put in an amazing amount of time and effort into DOL and you deserve respect for that.

Edit: You shouldn't do something, especially OpenSource, for the expectation that you will get something in return. That just makes you seem/act selfish. As you probably have noticed, if you do put in some time and effort just for the satisfaction of seeing your code work, you will get a lot more from other people.

[Overdriven]

Dragonfire and Deer Hunter have put in enormous amounts of time editing the official database to try and keep it updated.

Before you start mentioning specific names (This has annoyed me, as you've forgotten some of my other staff members) please be aware of who's done what and when they've done it.

Dragonfire's work has been adding Auralite merchants (Unless I've missed something else) which was greatly appriicated, but he's done nothing to the levels of my other staff:
Deer_Hunter has been working with Mobs for a long time (before I came around) which I can't say how much it's helped us.
Mico (Absent) for the constant work on general DB work.
Tired (Absent) for the all around database work over the last year (My job aswell) and being one of the only two (including myself) for a good part of a year who made sure the database was up to date and working.
Ulung (Absent) for all the item work.
Minimal for the stupid amount of crafting work (more than I'd ever do in regarding to crafting) and other DB work.

So, please don't assume. Just because some of us are inactive/burnt out - doesn't mean we don't help

[IStandAloneToo]

Hehe, you missed my point. My intention was not to get people defensive, hence I didn't mention people's names. I just used Dragonfire and Deer Hunter as names that I have seen recently. It would take hours to write everyone who has put in significant amounts of time. I made no assumptions that you hadn't done a lot of work, I was merely just giving two examples .

However, I stand by my original post. I feel that if DOL is to survive, we need to be more welcoming to new comers. Possibly have small projects for new people to get used to the DOL server and actually be able to help out. Tackling something like redoing the DB is not for new people.

[Overdriven]

Nah, wasn't that. Was just I'm not a fan of specific people being mentioned. As, for the same reason as you said alot of people have done alot and haven't been mentioned ^^ In unfair for then.

Well, Etaew HAS got a task list in his sig which people can do. Parts of really old patch notes which still hasn't been finished etc. New people complain there's nothing to do, when there's a lot that needs to be done.


Also, I agree. New people working on DBs is bad idea, unlike (Which is why I like) Drago, who actually asked if he could do it, and no one was So his work was used and added in (Today actually)

[Batlas]

Sry to see yah go Et. I know you've busted your ass on this project and helped me with a lot of issues in the past. Needless to say your leaving won't go unnoticed. I hope you still come around otherwise I might end up being the eldest person in the project (In terms of length of time spent around DOL)! All kidding aside I'll still hit you up from time to time on MSN, and maybe after a couple months of vacation you might be interested in coming back and dabbling in some code.