Current State of DDNet

[laxa]

Hi, I have just read what people are saying quickly and will react to deen's post, I'll then try to give my personal opinion that you may like/dislike to offer ddnet a perspective of future.

Here's what we have with DDNet today:

1. Hatred from the Teeworlds community against DDNet, for example:
   - Chileans asking me to shut down DDNet Chile as it destroyed the Chilean Teeworlds community
   Keep in mind that people being on forums and talking to you represent the minority of the cummunity. Most people never come on the website/forum.
   So that might not actually be the case. My opinion ? Make a strawpoll or something for the chileans and broadcast it for chile only, that might be the best thing to maybe have a more relative view of this part of DDNet.
   And after thinking, I'd like to understand how DDNet is destroying Chilean community ? Those guys complaining have their server now empty cause of it ?
   Deen, I respect you for what you did and what you do, but sometimes, I think you take things too personally, I guess that's the worst part of the internet : full of haters no matter what. Just listen and believe in yourself I guess.
2. Hatred from inside our community against DDNet and parts of it, for example:
   - Constant fights on the forum
   - Aoe calls it HitlerNet, threatens to sue me personally to remove his maps from DDNet
   Well, internet problem again, people fight and flame.
   But, having ingame moderators is hard, clearing the forum from all this things isn't so much of a problem and time consuming thing.
3. DDoS attacks make for a terrible playing experience and increase server costs, for example:
   - GER servers under constant attacks for years
   - Brazil and Chile down for weeks
   - No hoster accepts us anymore in Iran
   - At this moment GER, GER2, USA, RUS, Chile, Brazil and South Africa are getting DDoSed
   Sadly, I don't think there is something to do about that, not without money and time, and ddnet has none of those right now.
   You did already a great job trying and switching between hosts.
4. No leadership for the servers after nearly all admins left, for example:
   - No tournaments or other special events, compare to the great stuff KoG does at Christmas
   - No fixes when a server is down or something breaks
   - No one talks to the community and has any idea of what's going on
   Well, everyone has it's ups and downs. I guess DDNet is more in a down now.
   DDNet isn't a commercial product. I understand that you take it badly if some server is more popular or anything and you'd wish to improve it then.
   But problem is : No suitable person was found with enough time for this job.
   So, this is what I would do :
   - Make decisions to reduce time / costs / people resource needs
   - Remove all ingame moderators and admins => Less complain about staff. My vision is something like that : either ddnet has the human resources to impose and have a really strict moderation, either no moderation at all.
   - Have moderation only on the forum to remove all hatred etc...
   - Make servers run alone and taking ddos into accounts : from my own experience being admin on ddracemax, we rarely needed to contact noother, we spent actually little to no time dealing with : moderations/server problems.
   => Make sure a server will come back online alone if hoster take it down of ddos OR just remove this server
   => Make sure some people can put new maps online (Already the case ?)
   Overall, just make ddnet runs alone without any need beside people to test/release maps.
5. No more development of DDNet client and server, for example:
   - No client and server releases
   - No Steam release even though we were accepted
   Well, that's a shame, but ddrace overall has been like this before you, ddrace never died. I don't see this as a major problem. The sun comes after the dark moments right ?
6. Community has become inactive and uninterested in DDNet, for example:
   - F3aR DDRace server is more popular than DDNet GER
   - DDNet has only 12 map releases in a month
   I talked about your first point 2 paragraphs before.
   Number of release is not that important. You have your point of view about your project of course. But to me, the most important thing is just to keep the servers running as long as you have people playing on them. Anyway, if DDNet has no staff, I don't see how you could improve the number of releases...
7. No more money to run DDNet beyond December 2015, for example:
   - 14 € donated in the last 3 months with 235 € server costs for the same time
   - I made 450 € loss for DDNet servers so far

I read that you should put a bar for 2016. I can understand that people don't wanna give money when they see such a thread.

My conclusion is to shut down DDNet in the next few days. If you're a server admin and want to run your own DDRace servers, now's a good time to start.

I don't like this conclusion.
My overall point of view about this whole situation is the same as when you announced you were retiring from DDNet:
Make the server runs alone without any events/updates or so.
People will still play on ddnet.
DDNet was driven by you for a long time, but it can run alone. DDRacemaX is an example, it ran successfully so many years with very little time, all servers ran like that. DDNet was an exception. But having no more time doesn't mean the death of it.
I completely understand that you have your point of view on your own project, I understand that you want to see it active or something.
I am just saying that it's not needed to let the server live.

laxa.

[Forris]

I dont know if im the only one, but i guess not.
In the last months, I lost my motivation for playing on DDRaceNetwork.
That has many reasons, not only the problems with the administration we had the last months.
Compared to the last year, everything went worse, I'm talking about maps, which just became stupidly faily, so
if you fail at 80% you have to do everything again..
All the people I used to play with everyday quitted DDNet or they are just inactive.

I personally miss the DDRace times from 2012, where I started. Everything was just perfect there.

Everything has an end, so my way of playing DDRace or DDraceNetwork itself, so to shut it down might be harmful to new players, but
to be honest the most pros dont really care anymore

EDIT:
I agree with laxa in the point of no moderation

[[A] Awesome]

I'm talking about maps, which just became stupidly faily, so
if you fail at 80% you have to do everything again..

I have the same feeling about 90% of the brutal maps.
It just feels like they are only on a brutal level because they have tons of spikes or you fall down and die.
Thats why i think grandpa is hyped the map is very faily but the good thing is that its almost always possible to save one in a big team - i wish more brutal maps would be like that.

[RayB.]

SpoilerShow

The most brutal maps arent based for big groups like the Aimmaps but you can beat them with big teams when you are skilled enough for Hammerhit and hammerfly. (Imo its lame to play them in big teams)

@Awesome go and play Genericore or 4s. Amol mapped bunch of maps which are really creative funny and faily for big groups and they arent hard.

In the current state it doesnt make fun to play on DDnet because you know it will die. Im also one who played alot DDnet but actually i only play like twice time a week. The latest maps are really not based for groups and thats sad. Grandpa is the best latest map on DDnet but we need more easier maps. Its like nobody enjoy mapping a novice & moderate or easy solo map..

[Welf]

If you want better maps, just play them. There are some cool rarely finished brutal maps, just look them up. That's your fault, if you are too lazy to search for the maps you like. If people hype these maps, mappers will more likely make such maps.

I mostly agree with laxa, he got some good points there!

[[A] Awesome]

If people hype these maps, mappers will more likely make such maps.

If???
They do. Look up the most finished brutal maps.
All of these maps are very good playable in big groups except skychase which is a dummy map.
No of these maps contain "deadly" parts (spikes or similar first try parts)
All of these maps have either unfaily parts or faily parts which are easy in big groups.
Still mappers dont often make maps like this, im working on a map like this but it will take some time till i finish it as i am a very slow mapper.

[Ryozuki]

If you want better maps, just play them. There are some cool rarely finished brutal maps, just look them up. That's your fault, if you are too lazy to search for the maps you like. If people hype these maps, mappers will more likely make such maps.

I mostly agree with laxa, he got some good points there!

i also agree with laxa!

[Frr]

I'm talking about maps, which just became stupidly faily, so
if you fail at 80% you have to do everything again..

I have the same feeling about 90% of the brutal maps.
It just feels like they are only on a brutal level because they have tons of spikes or you fall down and die.
Thats why i think grandpa is hyped the map is very faily but the good thing is that its almost always possible to save one in a big team - i wish more brutal maps would be like that.

Finally, what im talked about since 2 years understood so well.
Yes. Most of us dont need those "creative" maps, which creative is only lies at "tuning something physics left to right". There are no creative when author cant produce good map with standart physics. Who's only can be "creative" with "fake hardeness" and "physics changing". It is obviously uncreative. Obvious for every pro/semi-pro but not to those "creative" mappers.
Fake hardeness doesnt make map more hard. Its just like playing 100 kg pawns doesn't make chess more hard.

And that what im speaking about.
Only 5% of brutal maps rly playable-replayable.

Grandpa is the best latest map on DDnet but we need more easier maps.

Totally agree.
Its only one good map for last 5 months at brutal.
May be Memories, but it have huge parts which consists "fake hardeness".

[Welf]

@Awesome:
I was talking about other maps. Underplayed brutal maps with cool parts (e.g. dif x.y, External 2, HellCore)

@Frr: stop talking bs about map quality. There is no difference between fake hardness and real hardness. Changed physics can make the gameplay more interesting for experienced players, who are bored by the known parts. Even your liked maps (Naufrages) have "fake hardeness" so don't use that word if you talk about maps you dislike...

[Frr]

Welf, why i might not be able to speak about map quality and u may?
Im not againts physics tuned maps. Im against to call physics tuning as creative. Cuz it's obviously wrong.
That speech is not about like or dislike, it's about wrong term definitions. Physics tuning are not even near "creativity".