Wow. What a week - or was it two? There's something spooky and synchronous in this ALUK/RPUK universe, I'm sure. Wilco posts a few things on FB (about Brexit, as it happens) which turn up on my FB feed and make me laugh out loud, and which make me realise how much I miss this community (and him, but don't tell him that). So I wander back on to the ALUK gameservers and have a bit of surreptitious play as my old character, for old time's sake. Still good fun. Still love it. OK, in the meantime, my TS tags have all gone due to a server wipe ages ago (and fair enough - I've been too busy with RL over the last year to be here at all - though I have continued to watch at a distance and be proud of what is happening to this community I helped to establish so long ago). But it's still the same place - some new faces, but more importantly plenty of old ones. People I've really missed. A great sign that this community is built on a bedrock of the good and the great. People who matter. It feels nice to be 'home' - even if home is basically Kavala on a Saturday night, a lot of the time!
I meet noms for the first time, and hear great things about him. Seems like a nice enough guy, and we even have a great night bouncing gameplay and code ideas off each other and come up with some neat little systems (which will still eventually make it in, even if I have to do them myself now!) At this point, I'm still just a player, not a dev again, and still just here for the fun and games and bit of meet-and-greet and reunion. Then I have to take a trip to London for a few days over the weekend with the family (the RL thing that has kept me busy this last year, mainly) and still feel drawn back to RPUK towards the latter half of last week... and I discover with shock and horror that noms has 'done a runner'. Fuck. No. Fuckno. OMG.
History repeating itself, sadly. We see this from time to time. Picking good devs - who are good at their code as well as good, trustworthy people - is often hard. Even harder when they are just a voice on TS and some interviews and 'evidence' of past work. We've had a couple of runners before, long ago. Usually they run after a few weeks when they realise they are not bigger than the project they're working on, and find that they can't immediately become King-of-the-Hill, Star-of-the-World overnight and instead have to fit in with an evolving plan, build things that maybe they didn't want to build, or didn't want to build in a particular way. It's safe to say that all devs want to bring great things to the community, but some are, shall we say, more seeking of limelight than others. Yet more realise they've bitten off more than they can chew, and simply run the fuck away - sometimes without warning. Timing is always a nightmare, and in this case, it's the worst.
Shit happens. We have no option but to simply suck it up and carry on.
The point is, we've learned some new things over the last few days, as well as having reminders on some old things.
One - the work that noms did is still there, still ours, and still for the taking, and will still make it into the Tanoa Life game in due course (if it's good enough - and if it isn't, it will be improved). At the moment, it is all heavily 'woven' into the ArmaLife 4.4 framework though - and will need some careful surgery to detach it from that, and re-bond it to ours. It's not something we can easily or safely do in three days (which is all the notice that Ciaran and I have had, really). But it will happen.
Two - the work that noms originated was (by his own admission) set for him by the management and dev-team anyway, so it's not like it's stuff we're unfamiliar with (in terms of its concepts, functions and goals). Much of it was prepared and planned by Ciaran anyway, and simply implemented by noms - so it's not like we're having to reverse-engineer Swahili, or learn some magical Harry Potter incantation that we've never seen before... it's just that we'll need to unravel, rewind, rebuild - and that takes time we hadn't planned for. Meh - but we'll do it.
Three - noms' departure has meant that Ciaran has had to take stock at short notice, and it's brought to light something that has been troubling him (and lately me too) about the ArmaLife 4.4 core. The original plan to base Tanoa Life on ArmaLife 4.4 was presumably taken (by noms, mainly, it seems) out of what seemed like sensible expediency at the time. Perhaps this decision was influenced by a desire to ensure that if noms did a runner, he could take 'his shit' and tack it back on to the ArmaLife 4.4 core (which is public) without any comeback from RPUK (who own the core we're using now). Maybe he was that 'premeditated'; maybe he wasn't - I have no idea, and don't really care - but the point is, all his work was done as bolt-ons to that ArmaLife 4.4 engine, not ours, for whatever reason. However, it's become obvious that ArmaLife 4.4 is really a sheep in wolf's clothing in some areas. Speciflcally security. It has way less security (in terms of preventing global hacks that might destabilise the entire server, and in terms of people running scripts that give them hidden, unfair advantages, equipment and money) than our existing ALUK framework, which was built and evolved over many years by basically two people - me and Ciaran (though Ciaran rightfully must take by far the larger chunk of credit for his truly solid work, imho). Ciaran also needs to be granted some serious kudos for being able to analyse and detect the weaknesses in ArmaLife 4.4's codebase whilst at the same time building and implementing a farming system design, developing an XP system, and doing a bunch of other stuff all at the same time. He puts noms to shame, imho.
So, come last Thursday/Friday (it's all a fucking blur now, tbh - I really can't remember which evening it was - or even if it was evening), and I'm faced with this OMG moment. Noms has split the gig, and we're at a cross-roads. I say 'we' - because I'm already on the slippery slope and can feel myself getting sucked back in already. Work is unfinished, time is a-losing, and the 4.4 core codebase is looking like it's not really in the best interests of one-and-all after all. Ciaran posits that it's probably better to simply focus on evolving the existing ALUK core and I have to agree. You can't build castles safely on sand. Even if this means a last-minute change of direction, a shitload of work, and being personally dragged into this boilling sea unexpectedly without even intending to come here as a developer again. Why didn't I just stay in my foxhole? Why did I have to risk touching the bomb again?
But this community means too much to me - and Ciaran - and Rath - and plenty of others and you all know who - have worked too bloody hard for nothing but love - to sit back and watch it get ballkicked by the likes of noms at the eleventh hour. Fuck you, haters. Fuck you, noms. So, I'm rolling up my sleeves and mucking in. It's a daunting prospect for me (I have forgotten so much about coding for ARMA3, and had my head filled with Elite Dangerous stuff lately, which I will now have to put on hold, empty my brain, and refill it with ARMA3 script 'trix' again) - but I'm happy to help, if I can. We can do this. It will be hard. It will involve lots of hiccups, no doubt, and some database-wipes, some occasional lost player-progress, and some whining and carping from all sides at various times, I expect. But who cares? RP Everything, yes? The roleplay here is better than anywhere else, and the community is the biggest and best of the lot. We eat this kind of hiccup for breakfast, and shit gold for tea. If anyone can sort this out, it will be Ciaran, Rath and me, with the help of the massive band of skinners, staffers, community leaders and players egging us on and providing the testing and ideas.
I think it would be stupid to say "it will all be done by X day", because that makes the assumption that the feature-evolution and improvements might actually stop - and I hope that won't be the case. We'll have something playable for the majority of people this week (tbh, we actually have that now, but it is not polished and the economy is unbalanced, and the XP system incomplete, and the map is still undergoing its conversion from the ArmaLife 4.4 version back to one that works with ours - so we may not make all that public just yet). But it is there, growing, and very much still alive. Over the coming days we'll be busting our not-insignificant balls to get in all the other things; the farming, the multi-stage processing, the new HUDs, all the so-called 'hype' that in truth, only noms really hyped-up on his Twitch channel, while the rest of the team just got on and built their corner of the forthcoming world. Nothing is lost. It's just in different boxes and needs unpacking and replanting. Give us time. Keep the faith. In return, we'll take you on a journey in a new land, with so many new things to play with, both physical and mental, that you'll wonder what's roleplay and what's real-life. Expect pain. Expect craziness. Expect fun.
Now... I better fuck off and get coding. I have a bunch of bananas to build a post-Brexit re-straightening factory for...
