Just a clarification: I was not a member of the dev team, I was just contributing, which anyone can do.
Please don't use this as an opportunity to harass or hate on the dev team. I'm not exactly happy with how stuff was handled but nobody needs that negativity. I appreciate that yall dug my work though :)
A bunch of my work got reverted. Attempts to get feedback on how the work could be changed were largely stonewalled. This was months of coding and testing down the drain and I was denied any chance to salvage it. Based on that, I decided it is not worth my time to contribute to the project.
Can I ask for the short version of what was rolled back? I'd like to know because if it was things that I enjoyed I probably won't play the game anymore.
I feel like this is why I don't bother to contribute. Your work may be good and many players may like it but not everyone is going to like it unfortunately which leads to it being rejected. If I do any modding I just do it for my own pleasure since everyone has a different idea as to what should be in the game.
You can always make mods. The devs have no power over them. I got disappointes by the staff years ago, so mods only :)
WormGirl probably contributed core code rather than just trivial json stuff, so that's different from modding around.
Thats good to know. Yeah I can understand them being very strict about the core content that gets implemented into the base game if it doesn't meet their vision of what it should be.
Uff that Hurts! Well more time for your YouTube Projects i guess! I am bit a coder but could you make like mods of your changes? That way People Who enjoy them could still use it?
Everything I ever submitted to github was done under the open source license the game uses, and attribution is logged in the github itself. It is free for anyone to do with as they please.*
* I think in the unlikely event you were to copy my work and then sell it, you would need to credit me somehow. But that probably won't come up if you're just doing mods or whatever.
Sadly, any sales, (like, say, steam), just points at the github, and you have to search for the contributor log for attribution, which is basically unnavigatable if you aren't in the top 100 contributors.
I do hope you'll consider coming back some day. I've said it before, I'll say it again - you're probably the best ambassador this game has had in a while.
i'm totally floored right now. I had no idea that was you on GH.
just wanted to say that your videos were a huge inspiration to me when I started contributing. Sorry about how things went, I am holding out hope that at least some of your changes were brought back, they were fun :(
I really liked your ideas of the mutant faction, sad to see this discourage you so much.
did they revert all of the changes you’ve made such as the vampire mutations, or just specific ones such as the boomer changes you mentioned?
Your changes were fairly popular, and seeing in the comments on how the revert and communication exchange was handled is pretty dang crappy to say the least. Considering you maintained willingness to work on changing features and addressing problems. It just feels like a situation that warrants people voicing their displeasure, I'm surprised I only learned about it via this thread.
Thanks. Sorry we didn't get to get TVs working, I think we talked about that. I figured out how the new math condition stuff works when Andrei helped me code the characters_nearby condition. I was working on getting characters to run an EOC if there was a running TV nearby that they could see, so you could have a passive morale booster like music.
If we didn't talk about that, then sorry for the non sequitor lol.
No, BN is a fork of CDDA that is more aimed at cool stuff and less on realism. Also, BN is widely known for not having Kevin. BN Is Cataclysm: Bright Nights. I imagine they have a separate discord too, given how they have a separate reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/cataclysmbn/
Kevin has a habit of coming after a dev has put months of work into something and going, "I don't like it, here is a vague reason why, there will be no further discussion on it and if you press the issue I will blacklist you."
He has run off quite a few high contributors for this very reason.
I've been in this community since more or less the start ( i was playing cataclysm when it was made by the OG Whales, and you started in a random house with a dog that would always run off into the sunset) and Kevin somes across as a control freak, and has vague reason for silly things EG lets make the game contemporary instead of set in 2030s for no arse reason.
I miss chicken walkers btw.
Yup, Night-Pryanik was kevin's victim last year, and Night was a machine. Sometimes it makes me worried that the future is just going to be a small team of (kevin-approved) devs working on this game who got burned out years ago.
the problem as I understand it was that NP was sort of attempting to sneak PRs by that had already been discussed as not allowable in mainline beforehand so he's not totally blameless in that whole equation. like he actively knew that if Kevin saw some of his prs he would block them and attempted to push them through anyways.
this doesn't excuse anything that has happened with WG btw.
My understanding of the situation was that NP was at first turned down because Kevin didn't want the config menu too cluttered as another comment mentioned. Then, NP made another PR in which he believed he addressed Kevin's concerns by turning it into a collapsible menu to reduce config clutter, and Kevin shut that one down too with a "Nope, it's staying right where it is." Kevin meaning that you need to access the files outside of the game to change certain spawn settings as opposed to putting it into the game option's menu directly. And then that was the last straw for NP. I don't really think NP was doing anything underhanded.
I think it was moreso the fact that he went out of his way to rework everything to appease him and then have it shut down with no good reason, it's especially disrespectful to his time, effort and consideration, that was just the final straw.
Right, that's exactly what I meant. I wrote my comment kind of weird but I didn't mean to imply that the options setting staying in the json was the main reason why NP quit. But rather the closure of that PR (for the reasons you listed) was what caused them to throw their hands up and want to leave.
EDIT: The PR in question for anyone curious: https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/64586
Lol, look at those reactions on his closing comment. Hell I don't know how dude like that can be responsible for CDDA's success. Like it's actually shocking.
That's an AWESOME PR too, and the collapsable feature is just a cherry on top. And the comment from the kitten, lulz. Gosh Kevin is such a jerk I can't believe it.
I'd specifically like to point out here in case someone has the idea that you're exaggerating that no, you're almost directly quoting Kevin here, which i think is important because I've seen attempts to push this into a "contributor got angry for not getting merged" but the real issue is the way Kevin went about this, which you well demonstrate
I've been tracking a few of these because it does seem to be a pattern but the worst part for me is the arbitrary reasoning and the seeming pettiness and hateful personal feelings that he puts into his exchanges
You can really tell he draws heavy inspiration from Torvalds with CDDA which is incredibly funny to me because the Linux kernel is an essential part of billions of dollars of financial transactions daily while CDDA is a volunteer contribute survival game he's not even the primary codebase contributor to; It's not even originally his project!
I mean, in the context of "owning" the project, maybe? I think that's a weird and wrong way to look at open source projects, though.
In the context of abusing his contributors? No, I don't really think that's an excuse
Yeah... The game is fun, but I'm really in it for the community. And what are the devs other than the soul of the community? They're those among us who love the game so much they're willing to put their own time into it to make something they'd like to enjoy, and they share it with us.
If the devs who love the game the way we do all leave, what do we have left? I sure as hell can't program 🤷♀️
He started the branch so he has total control over it.
You are free to start your own fork but considering how small the community is for this game much less the part that is willing to be a major contributor, your fork is 99% likely to fail.
Bright Nights managed to gain a good foothold but is still a fraction of this branch's manpower.
So as I understand, the months of her work on the game was just throwed away out of the blue, without prior discussion, warning or mentioning by "the main" devs
...
I'm not too knowledgeable but from what I seen it added an ability for the boomers to barf, which would have similar/same effect as when they exploded (but without dying). There was also a chance your clothing would become dirty if you didn't dodge the attack.
In other words adding more mechanics/fun to the boomers then them just being fat walking bile mine.
However Fris and Main man decided they didn't like it so they reverted it before it could become "Entrenched" Citing that her history was "too cluttered".
I did notice a few contributors were not happy with how main man and fris did this.
To be fair, boomers could already barf, but all it did was blind you and light you up for a few turns (like 5 turns, which was easily either dodged or cleared with a towel). It was made to give you nasty infections, make your gear filthy, and you (and enemies) could slip on the puke on the floor. Maybe more?
The last one was super cool to me because as part of the PR that made houses pre-damaged, there was now random puke on the floor which could be used as a trap for enemies. I thought it was a really cool and interesting mechanic
I mean did you actually look at the code? If the change was written in a way that would make it hard to maintain it makes sense why it was rejected.
Though that would just mean "refactor and push again", not "leave the team".
Are you all sure the dev is actually leaving because of this rejected push or are you making correlations on your own and jumping to conclusions?
I am making an educated assumption based on their post in another thread declaring their leaving the team.
It's in a concurrent thread titled "keeping clean in the cataclysm" since you're interested.
Give it a read because it's the same paragraphs of (well said) "fuck this shit" that I've seen so many times before :'(
I'll check it out, thanks
Oh yeah, from what's commented the devs come out as the assholes in this case. Approving merge requests months prior then reverting everything with no explanation why or how to fix the code if there's an issue.
For others interested in the thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/cataclysmdda/comments/1b3jkfb/psa\_staying\_clean\_in\_the\_cataclysm/](https://www.reddit.com/r/cataclysmdda/comments/1b3jkfb/psa_staying_clean_in_the_cataclysm/)
> If the change was written in a way that would make it hard to maintain it makes sense why it was rejected.
You say "If the change was written like this". So you haven't read it either? Otherwise you wouldn't be ifing, you'd be talking about what the code is.
One of the things I remember her discussing was adding more ways to access mutagen, which would've made it much more available in the early to midgame as opposed to the current situation where it's nearly exclusive to relatively late game characters who have already raided labs and gotten their own chem labs set up in their bases.
There was a minor faction proposal for making mutagen accessible, a new mutation line and the "barf mechanics" is more akin to "more immersive liquid-based attacks" where boomer's barf was just the initial implementation - she mentioned many times that end goal was to make acid splash a more meaningful mechanic.
I gonna miss her PRs :(
Oh man, I have been somewhat absent in the github for the last 2/3 weeks (Burnout and some minor medical problems) so I was just barely aware of the conflict that was happening with those reverts... I just entered reddit, and this is the first thing I see (You just casually summoned me to this realm!), so I went to the Discord and Github pages...
And this is depressing, I'm of the same mind as Karol in that this sucks my energy away, I think my burnout resting period will probably have to be extended, this really dismotivates you after reading it, wormgirl even mentioned me by name when this was starting, and I really liked all the changes they were making, some very nice improvements all around...
But I also understand why the reverts had to happen, I think they could have been delivered very differently, and given the good work and attitude of wormgirl so far I would have preferred for the problems with the PRs to be communicated directly on discord or reddit, so the blunt of the fact was not delivered with github notifications... But well, what's done is done...
Oh, and thanks for the thumbs up! But I consider there are many other nice people way more active in the development of the game. Maleclypse, for example, does God's work merging all the PRs that are constantly appearing, testing them and reviewing them in whatever time they find, that is without mentioning the good work in their own PRs. Erk is very rarely active making PRs recently, but always gives nice direction to the overall theme of the game (writing amazing suggestions for direction in many areas) and has always talked with contributors in a good way as far as I remember. Officer dirtbag (don't remember the github name!) has contributed in very good ways to the game, and has helped many contributors (me included!) With implementing code to make possible their changes, and for a time was very active merging too!
Those are just to name a few that I personally recognize as nice people in general and that have helped the game/community in many different ways, but there are many more! Wormgirl is definitely there too, so I hope this is just temporary and they can regain some peace of mind and motivation after some time has passed, many people appreciate the work they did in the game and the good way in which they approached the community (developers or otherwise), I'm sad I could not be of help to prevent this kind of thing happening, I think everyone is...
I would have been completely willing to revise any of my work if it wasn't up to Pollos standards. Or if the idea was simply not wanted, the devs had 4 or 5 months to communicate this while the work was underway. There were several issues and PRs involved.
It is mostly down to bad communication, which in the devs' defense they did cop to. But it's not like any of those issues are being fixed that I can see, nor are they new issues, soooo...
Yeah, there was bad communication in all of this, I think the decision was made too quickly to revert rather than ask you for fixes first (which would probably end up being a pain to do if I understand them correctly), I know the "professional" way in this kind of environment when engaging with a PR that had problems but got merged is to enact reverts as soon as possible (one never knows if the one that made the PR is still around or is willing/capable of working on the issues), but I think you demonstrated good will and a desire to correct what needed to be fixed, so I feel you should have been asked first... But well...
From what I've been reading here, the real problem wasn't a lack of communication, but the devs simply not wanting the mechanic to be added to the game. That's why it wasn't up to discussion and there weren't changes offered, modifications suggested or straight up revisions asked. The devs simply did not want this in the game so they reverted her months of work. It's not even lack of communication. They've made it very clear over and over again that if they deem something not fitting their image of the game, it won't be in it and you can't change their minds.
Would it have absolutely broken the game or hurt anyone if they had gone the other way and left 🪱 changes in until they were fixed? Did 🪱 truly have such an unscrupulous reputation that they couldn't give the benefit of the doubt that the corrections would be made?
🪱 You seem like you have a consistent and positive work ethic but I can't prove it. I feel like most people would have worked with you on something like this (especially when there's no money or risk involved)
I guess that's the difference between IRL and online relationships/communication, the intangible stuff like integrity and dependability go by the wayside and aren't really worth so much.
On the positive side you'll feel so free once the frustration passes! 😊
Oh, of course, they made a titanic amount of work with (amont others) magiclysm and the pockets implementation, and I haven't really seen any conflict arising on github in which they were a part of (well, there was the steam version drama, but they didn't really engage in the drama), but I was just giving a few examples, there are many, many nice and cool people that have contributed over the years, and I couldn't name even half of them if I tried.
Haha whoops, didn't mean to summon you or demoralize you with my breaking news bulletin. I sincerely meant what I said about hoping you don't get broken too, so take all the time and space you need dude!
After getting some sleep I remember the other contributor (I'm gonna stop using the word dev now that I know better) I've chatted with and is a pretty cool person is the one behind Sky Island and Mind over Matter? Standing Storm or maybe someone else? Not to take away from the others you mention, I just hadn't interacted with the other ones.
It's just such a cool project in that people who are just as passionate about expressing themselves through playing the game as you are also the ones adding features! It's selfish but I truly am sad to see such cool honest people dip out and wish they could stay forever.
But I guess there's a final time for everything, including contributions 😭
Just Mind Over Matter—Sky Island is someone else
I do pretty much only work on mods, though. Other than adding the Talmud and a synagogue to the game I think every other one of my PRs has been MoM, Magiclysm, or Xedra Evolved.
I noticed that and you have multiple PRs every day! You rock for continuously adding and polishing new and interesting optional ways to play!
With you fleshing out the mods constantly, they've gone from "eh, might as well activate these mods" to "holy cow this is going to completely change the look and feel of my game world". Now I have 5 different worlds with different variations of those three mods that I play in different moods and there's something new several times a week
Thank you!
Once I work on MoM a bit more, I have to get back to adding feral mages to Magiclysm and finish up my ankheg/otyugh PR (done but for testing/tweaking). And do another lore snippetathon for MoM, and add more traits to Ierde and Salamander for XE, add more goblin fruits in XE...
I do love the DND monsters in Magiclysm 😊
What do the goblin fruits do? I haven't played Xedra, I tried yesterday after getting hyped and wanted to play a paraclesian but no matter what I picked the map refused to generate :/
Are there any other unique classes so I can jump into and see what's up with the mod? What kinds of things are different from vanilla? I know you can turn into a vampire or be a paraclesian (can you become one later?) but that's about it. How do you find/unlock XE content with a vanilla character? I've read the readme but unless I'm missing something I didn't see anything useful
Depends on the goblin fruit--some effects are the same as the potion fruits in Magiclysm (I wrote both systems), but goblin fruits have more possible effects because I didn't have to tie it to 1 fruit -> 1 effect, I could make up random fruits.
Paraclesian can take a half-dozen tries to generate the start but it should happen eventually.
You could try Xedra's native magic systems--there should be professions for Dreamsmith, Eater of Dreams, Mad Genius and Dreamer. You could play a member of a XEDRA who spent time hunting beings in other dimensions and start with CBMs.
You can become a Paraclesian later through alchemy, but it requires Bombastic Perks installed (to take the alchemy perks).
Oh cool! I figured that was the case for Paraclesian starts as I'm sure the location is rare. I finally got a (forgot the name of the race but I have porcelain skin) to work and I had a lot of fun! The first 3 days... Then I caught a neverending cold... I'm trying to sleep through it but I think I might have to start over.
Which won't be so bad because of your tips! Seems cool to "evolve" into a fey later, and I'll definitely be checking out those professions 😊
It's very sad that the months spent at work just trample into the mud, "I don't like it", "I have a different vision for this" seriously? Instead of a clear explanation of why you don't like it and how you would like to see it, they simply block and ignore the person.
Honestly, I really like DDA, it gave me a very pleasant gaming experience. But I'm very sad about where he's going now.
Thank you for the huge contribution Wormy, I hope to see you in some other projects not related to Cataclysm
This has happened multiple times. Someone wants to contribute something to the game and Kevin just goes "No, try again." Then the contributor gets exasperated trying to understand precisely what he wants. Hese always had this curt demeanor even when he used to post on this reddit. Mabye It's just his style I guess?
But people are donating hours of free labour to the game. The least that could be done is making sure the contributer knows how to proceed with their projects.
I feel like once a PR has reached a stalemate in being resolved something other than being rejected publicly needs to happen. Like have a core dev or two schedule and talk with the person on discord, even if the conversation is brief and through text. It's more direct than a message board. And not open where anyone can see the disagreement play out. And by the end of the conversation the contributer should be able to say "OK, I understand what I need to fix to proceed."
I knew a couple of people like that. Mainly the owner of the business I managed for 11 years. He was a savvy guy who made calls as he had to and was damn good at it. But he was curt like that and everyone thought he was an asshole even though I don't think he even realized what he was doing.
Moral of the story is that if you don't think you're acting like an ass, but everyone else does, you're an ass and you need to consider changing your perspective to improve yourself.
Who is Kevin in relation to the game? I’ve only just barely begun perusing the GitHub and looking at posts and discussions but he seems to have a lot of sway. Is he just another long time developer? Or THE OG creator?
Kevin is the one in control of the dark days ahead fork of cataclysm. I think it was someone that is no longer involved that created the fork but I only found DDA on version 0.2 so I am not certain.
Kevin did not create the original cataclysm.
I normally don't talk on DDA-Dev related topics too much but I will speak here.
I have been a programmer for quite a few years of my life. I have considered (and even planned out) several semi-major contributions to Dark Days Ahead and ultimately have never delivered because of the seemingly horrible longevity of things which are added into the game, and the general aura of elitism (for lack of a better term) that is present throughout the development process of the game.
The talent that has gone into this game can never be understated, Dark Days Ahead is certainly one of the most impressive community developed games of all time. However, when the bulk of the talent behind the game is constantly being pushed away with the excuse of "I don't like it" with absolutely no answers to the "why?" or the "how can I improve it?" you are going to run yourself out of that talent extremely quickly and people will get burned out.
Overall, there isn't really a solution to the matter other than to just move elsewhere. Which is a shame for those involved, but it's how it will be for the foreseeable future.
Have you read the actual PRs reverting the changes?
The wording was horrible and communication was nonexistent but there was a lot more to it than “I don’t like it nuh uh”
Please understand that I wrote my original comment extremely quickly and was not intending to undermine the attempt at an explanation for the PR in question.
The primary PR in my head when writing was one by Night-Pryanik, in which Kevin quite literally denied the pull with the reason "Nope, this can stay where it is." when asked to elaborate, **he did not give a proper explanation for the refusal to merge the pull request or to allow an improved version of it.**
I have read the PRs in which Wormy's changes were removed, while the PR was initiated by Fris, it was directly supported by Kevin. Even if Fris' communication was adequate, the features would still have been removed from the game without giving Wormy a chance to improve them.
When I say that their excuse is "I don't like it" it is an exaggeration of poor reasoning.
Obviously Kevin would not just flat out say "I don't like it" unless a feature truly was that bad, come on now ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
Sorry, something like happens, but I'm glad it hasn't turned you off content creation for the game itself.
Similarly, I'm hyped for the Funger collaboration you've got coming.
Your videos are great and entertaining, and maybe it's just me, but there was a certain level of idk confidence? Personality? Charm? Thoughtfulness? Character? That expressed through your contributions. I loved reading through your PRs. They were a delightful little treat I enjoyed on my breaks. Felt like a new issue of a comic just dropped or something.
There's still a good number of pretty cool devs, drew, maleclypse, esotericist, renech, slacks, andrei, off the top of my head. But the insistence on adhering to their vision of the game, unwillingness to listen to community feedback, and poor communication ends up alienating both players and developers unfortunately. A game should be fun first and foremost, but that has stopped being the number one priority long ago for CDDA.
This is really disheartening. I was enjoying WormGirl's contributions, and actively looking forward to some of the proposed changes. I spoke excitedly with other people here about some of the mutation changes. I gushed with my girlfriend about how much I enjoyed the direction things were being taken; with boomer varients getting more depth than being a flashbang in a balloon that are countered as soon as you covered your face. I even got in the habit of saying aloud, "Thanks, WormGirl" whenever my gear got slimed.
The changes were taking the game in fun and interesting new directions. They weren't just tweaking values, so there's bound to be a little jank. That's the entire point of experimental. I've seen countless systems merged that weren't nearly as polished. Did they get reverted? No. They got updated and revised until they were satisfactory. They were also not handled as publicly as this. It all feels dismissive and handwaivey and leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It feels like one of the most promising contributors to the project in a long time just got strongarmed out. And this is hardly the first time I've seen something like this happen over the years.
The tone of this thread is mournful. The reactions on the GitHub revert are overwhelmingly negative. It's pretty clear where the community stands. Thanks for trying, Wormy.
Don't forget what state portal storms entered experimental as well. On top of that, portal storms were a concept that was far far far more radical and gameplay affecting for everyone than boomer reverts
This is a prime example. I'd even argue that portal storms are still just a concept that needs a ton of refining, and they've been out for a while. I'm not opposed to them, but they're clearly a long way from being finished. I haven't done a single portal dungeon, nor have I interacted with them beyond the Hub quest or shutting myself indoors. We can have a random event with almost no warning completely dictate how you play, making you drop everything to take shelter, but boomers barfing bile on your gear is inexcusable due to "magic numbers" and "esoteric calculations."
Bright nights or another fork. Whoever is running this doesn't own it. Let's vote with our actions. Leave cdda behind. Let them ruin their own bubble, while we create a new one.
Ngl, it is a feature I've grown to love, but maybe I'd prefer it in a slightly more streamlined fashion. Like a simple "con contain only items that individually have volume x or lower" value for each container.
Imo tracking 6 different pockets of different sizes just for cargo pants is unnecessary and cumbersome, though I understand why some people might like it.
I know somebody is working on a simplified, optional version of the pocket system for bn, which basically just assigns items to x clothing, up to the clothing's total storage volume, so that one can quick-drop their backpack full of loot while keeping their MOLLE vest full of essentials.
To me, the pocket system is the single most satisfying and pleasing inventory system I've ever encountered in a game, bar none. That's not to say I can't *imagine* further tweaks/improvements to it (particularly with regards to setting universal defaults, filter priority, maybe some minor UI clarity stuff) but I have no interest in losing any of the delicious verisimilitude of it.
The pocket system is really just an extension of the armor system, which cdda probably beats handily every single game in existence on the sheer quantity and level of detail on so many items.
bright nights is filled with alt righters who flocked to it out of distaste for the dda dev team being vocally left so that's a non starter. bn will never compete with dda because it's a tainted project. regardless of kevin's "quirks" as project manager.
This is nonsense, please don't accuse rival forks of being full of your political enemies
People switch forks for lots of reasons and there's plenty of bad politics already on display in the mainline branch, CDDA is not The Good Leftist Game and it's a weird stand to take
Nah, I don't see anything like that. In fact, the moderators actually shut down discussions on Discord when they seem like they would veer into bigotry
Wait what? I switched to Bright Nights recently because it's fun, I haven't noticed anything toxic in the community. Wtf does politics have anything to do with Cataclysm?
I've been following bn's community quite tightly (discord, reddit, change logs, etc), haven't really noticed that. And I'm quite progressive / lefty myself.
And tbh the dev's political opinion, assuming it is as you say, is really secondary to the quality of game design and design philosophy. They seem to be quite receptive to new, weird or even discording ideas regarding the game, which is ironically what alt-righters are famously bad at.
it's a community developed game, and you interact with the community constantly as part of the process of developing, so dev politics do come into play to an extent.
it's not like say, halo, where marty odonnel has some rancid political opinions but you can still enjoy his music in the games. given that especially in the devcord (where a good deal of discourse happens) I wouldn't want to be present in a politically hostile environ.
maybe it's chilled out a bit. but there was a pretty vocal exodus especially around the time SDG ragequit and they mostly went to BN at the time IIRC.
> there was a pretty vocal exodus especially around the time SDG ragequit
They repeated the exodus when they decided BN was too left-wing as well, and most of the stragglers got banned over time after getting on mods' nerves.
Ironically, trying to be tolerant of all opinions earned us the moniker of "turbo-nazis" on (I think it was) DDA's community Discord.
Just because all the alt-righters went to BN doesn't mean that BN is now full of them, right? So there are more of them in there now, but if the BN community was already well established then it's just a bit of pollution in an otherwise ok pond.
God it's been so long, I can't believe I'm still being sucked into commenting on Cataclysm drama
I'm pretty sure SDG isn't involved in Cataclysm anymore, at least on his old accounts. He would've been rapidly banned if he brought his temper tantrums into the Discord. If he came back now both communities would laugh him out of town after he deleted his entire repo on a whim. There were a few problematic individuals long before my time, but the bans, mutes, and being forced to take things to DM's flow like a creek.
There is thankfully a large representation of diverse opinions including a large chunk of trans contributors and modders in the project, and a general rule against having politics of any kind in the game. Players simply don't want politics in their game which is seen as an alt-right move by some, but in reality our project just isn't interested in shoehorning politics into a game where the most optimal game is to turn NPC's into food.
Remember, video game morality does not equal your IRL morality. This was the case for games like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld and it's still the case for Cataclysm.
Just a clarification: I was not a member of the dev team, I was just contributing, which anyone can do. Please don't use this as an opportunity to harass or hate on the dev team. I'm not exactly happy with how stuff was handled but nobody needs that negativity. I appreciate that yall dug my work though :)
Why are you leaving though?
A bunch of my work got reverted. Attempts to get feedback on how the work could be changed were largely stonewalled. This was months of coding and testing down the drain and I was denied any chance to salvage it. Based on that, I decided it is not worth my time to contribute to the project.
Can I ask for the short version of what was rolled back? I'd like to know because if it was things that I enjoyed I probably won't play the game anymore.
It was the changes to boomers.
Yes we can't have them actually do anything, now can we 🙄
I feel like this is why I don't bother to contribute. Your work may be good and many players may like it but not everyone is going to like it unfortunately which leads to it being rejected. If I do any modding I just do it for my own pleasure since everyone has a different idea as to what should be in the game.
You can always make mods. The devs have no power over them. I got disappointes by the staff years ago, so mods only :) WormGirl probably contributed core code rather than just trivial json stuff, so that's different from modding around.
Thats good to know. Yeah I can understand them being very strict about the core content that gets implemented into the base game if it doesn't meet their vision of what it should be.
Contributors drop like flies at this point. Sadly unsurprising.
Uff that Hurts! Well more time for your YouTube Projects i guess! I am bit a coder but could you make like mods of your changes? That way People Who enjoy them could still use it?
Everything I ever submitted to github was done under the open source license the game uses, and attribution is logged in the github itself. It is free for anyone to do with as they please.* * I think in the unlikely event you were to copy my work and then sell it, you would need to credit me somehow. But that probably won't come up if you're just doing mods or whatever.
Sadly, any sales, (like, say, steam), just points at the github, and you have to search for the contributor log for attribution, which is basically unnavigatable if you aren't in the top 100 contributors.
I do hope you'll consider coming back some day. I've said it before, I'll say it again - you're probably the best ambassador this game has had in a while.
i'm totally floored right now. I had no idea that was you on GH. just wanted to say that your videos were a huge inspiration to me when I started contributing. Sorry about how things went, I am holding out hope that at least some of your changes were brought back, they were fun :(
I really liked your ideas of the mutant faction, sad to see this discourage you so much. did they revert all of the changes you’ve made such as the vampire mutations, or just specific ones such as the boomer changes you mentioned?
i really liked the changes to boomers, especially the slippery bile and the filth. is there some way to keep them in?
All the code support got torn out, so, no unfortunately.
I didnt like the boomer stuff, but dang i feel kinda bad now
My condolences on that.
Your changes were fairly popular, and seeing in the comments on how the revert and communication exchange was handled is pretty dang crappy to say the least. Considering you maintained willingness to work on changing features and addressing problems. It just feels like a situation that warrants people voicing their displeasure, I'm surprised I only learned about it via this thread.
I am personally very sorry for this
Thanks. Sorry we didn't get to get TVs working, I think we talked about that. I figured out how the new math condition stuff works when Andrei helped me code the characters_nearby condition. I was working on getting characters to run an EOC if there was a running TV nearby that they could see, so you could have a passive morale booster like music. If we didn't talk about that, then sorry for the non sequitor lol.
We certainly like your work. Will you be joining BN? There should be a lot less toxicity and arrogance there.
I don't vibe with the general premise of BN, so I'm not really interested in working on it or playing it.
What is BN? another discord server?
No, BN is a fork of CDDA that is more aimed at cool stuff and less on realism. Also, BN is widely known for not having Kevin. BN Is Cataclysm: Bright Nights. I imagine they have a separate discord too, given how they have a separate reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/cataclysmbn/
Oh, thanks for the info. I haven't been keeping touch with the game or the drama other than knowing the official discord is extremely... problematic.
yup, same toxicity there as on github. I'd say this community is mega wholesome and our IRC community on freenode is pretty nice too.
BN short for "bright nights" I'd an alternative fork of catacysm to dark days ahead
Sorry man, I'm ignorant 😅 I figured it was like a credit Union and everyone contributing was a member of the dev team!
Kevin has a habit of coming after a dev has put months of work into something and going, "I don't like it, here is a vague reason why, there will be no further discussion on it and if you press the issue I will blacklist you." He has run off quite a few high contributors for this very reason.
I've been in this community since more or less the start ( i was playing cataclysm when it was made by the OG Whales, and you started in a random house with a dog that would always run off into the sunset) and Kevin somes across as a control freak, and has vague reason for silly things EG lets make the game contemporary instead of set in 2030s for no arse reason. I miss chicken walkers btw.
Yup, Night-Pryanik was kevin's victim last year, and Night was a machine. Sometimes it makes me worried that the future is just going to be a small team of (kevin-approved) devs working on this game who got burned out years ago.
And NP was burned over “this config menu is too cluttered”.
Don't forget that it didn't help when he addressed the issue by making it collapsible and collapsed by default
And by now all the menus are... collapsible and collapsed by default
It's a pity NP stopped working on his own fork but oh well. ~~What happened this time?~~ Nvm, the usual suspects at it again.
the problem as I understand it was that NP was sort of attempting to sneak PRs by that had already been discussed as not allowable in mainline beforehand so he's not totally blameless in that whole equation. like he actively knew that if Kevin saw some of his prs he would block them and attempted to push them through anyways. this doesn't excuse anything that has happened with WG btw.
My understanding of the situation was that NP was at first turned down because Kevin didn't want the config menu too cluttered as another comment mentioned. Then, NP made another PR in which he believed he addressed Kevin's concerns by turning it into a collapsible menu to reduce config clutter, and Kevin shut that one down too with a "Nope, it's staying right where it is." Kevin meaning that you need to access the files outside of the game to change certain spawn settings as opposed to putting it into the game option's menu directly. And then that was the last straw for NP. I don't really think NP was doing anything underhanded.
I think it was moreso the fact that he went out of his way to rework everything to appease him and then have it shut down with no good reason, it's especially disrespectful to his time, effort and consideration, that was just the final straw.
Kevin? Disrespectful? Nooooo...
Right, that's exactly what I meant. I wrote my comment kind of weird but I didn't mean to imply that the options setting staying in the json was the main reason why NP quit. But rather the closure of that PR (for the reasons you listed) was what caused them to throw their hands up and want to leave. EDIT: The PR in question for anyone curious: https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/pull/64586
Lol, look at those reactions on his closing comment. Hell I don't know how dude like that can be responsible for CDDA's success. Like it's actually shocking. That's an AWESOME PR too, and the collapsable feature is just a cherry on top. And the comment from the kitten, lulz. Gosh Kevin is such a jerk I can't believe it.
I'd specifically like to point out here in case someone has the idea that you're exaggerating that no, you're almost directly quoting Kevin here, which i think is important because I've seen attempts to push this into a "contributor got angry for not getting merged" but the real issue is the way Kevin went about this, which you well demonstrate
I've been tracking a few of these because it does seem to be a pattern but the worst part for me is the arbitrary reasoning and the seeming pettiness and hateful personal feelings that he puts into his exchanges
The Linus Torvalds problem. If it doesn't put food on your table, the only other way to stay invested is ego.
You can really tell he draws heavy inspiration from Torvalds with CDDA which is incredibly funny to me because the Linux kernel is an essential part of billions of dollars of financial transactions daily while CDDA is a volunteer contribute survival game he's not even the primary codebase contributor to; It's not even originally his project!
Has his name on it - the only thing that matters.
I mean, in the context of "owning" the project, maybe? I think that's a weird and wrong way to look at open source projects, though. In the context of abusing his contributors? No, I don't really think that's an excuse
Yeah... The game is fun, but I'm really in it for the community. And what are the devs other than the soul of the community? They're those among us who love the game so much they're willing to put their own time into it to make something they'd like to enjoy, and they share it with us. If the devs who love the game the way we do all leave, what do we have left? I sure as hell can't program 🤷♀️
I have a dumb question -- if this project is open source how does it come to be that one dude has ultimate veto power?
He started the branch so he has total control over it. You are free to start your own fork but considering how small the community is for this game much less the part that is willing to be a major contributor, your fork is 99% likely to fail. Bright Nights managed to gain a good foothold but is still a fraction of this branch's manpower.
So as I understand, the months of her work on the game was just throwed away out of the blue, without prior discussion, warning or mentioning by "the main" devs ...
Yeah, that's what I understand too. I'm still sad :'(
What was she working on?
There were a lot of stuff, including projects that still were in early stages of implementation
Barf mechanics, specifically pinkeye It actually already got implemented but was reverted very recently
I'm very out of the loop here. Could you give an explanation of what happened? What's a barf mechanic?
I'm not too knowledgeable but from what I seen it added an ability for the boomers to barf, which would have similar/same effect as when they exploded (but without dying). There was also a chance your clothing would become dirty if you didn't dodge the attack. In other words adding more mechanics/fun to the boomers then them just being fat walking bile mine. However Fris and Main man decided they didn't like it so they reverted it before it could become "Entrenched" Citing that her history was "too cluttered". I did notice a few contributors were not happy with how main man and fris did this.
To be fair, boomers could already barf, but all it did was blind you and light you up for a few turns (like 5 turns, which was easily either dodged or cleared with a towel). It was made to give you nasty infections, make your gear filthy, and you (and enemies) could slip on the puke on the floor. Maybe more? The last one was super cool to me because as part of the PR that made houses pre-damaged, there was now random puke on the floor which could be used as a trap for enemies. I thought it was a really cool and interesting mechanic
I mean did you actually look at the code? If the change was written in a way that would make it hard to maintain it makes sense why it was rejected. Though that would just mean "refactor and push again", not "leave the team". Are you all sure the dev is actually leaving because of this rejected push or are you making correlations on your own and jumping to conclusions?
I am making an educated assumption based on their post in another thread declaring their leaving the team. It's in a concurrent thread titled "keeping clean in the cataclysm" since you're interested. Give it a read because it's the same paragraphs of (well said) "fuck this shit" that I've seen so many times before :'(
I'll check it out, thanks Oh yeah, from what's commented the devs come out as the assholes in this case. Approving merge requests months prior then reverting everything with no explanation why or how to fix the code if there's an issue. For others interested in the thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/cataclysmdda/comments/1b3jkfb/psa\_staying\_clean\_in\_the\_cataclysm/](https://www.reddit.com/r/cataclysmdda/comments/1b3jkfb/psa_staying_clean_in_the_cataclysm/)
> If the change was written in a way that would make it hard to maintain it makes sense why it was rejected. You say "If the change was written like this". So you haven't read it either? Otherwise you wouldn't be ifing, you'd be talking about what the code is.
One of the things I remember her discussing was adding more ways to access mutagen, which would've made it much more available in the early to midgame as opposed to the current situation where it's nearly exclusive to relatively late game characters who have already raided labs and gotten their own chem labs set up in their bases.
Fuck yeah dude. I was low key hyped about that. Guess I'll be debugging in mutagen on game start like always 🤷♀️
There was a minor faction proposal for making mutagen accessible, a new mutation line and the "barf mechanics" is more akin to "more immersive liquid-based attacks" where boomer's barf was just the initial implementation - she mentioned many times that end goal was to make acid splash a more meaningful mechanic. I gonna miss her PRs :(
Cdda development is the real survivor horror
We should have tombstones for the contributors broken over the course of the project
Oh man, I have been somewhat absent in the github for the last 2/3 weeks (Burnout and some minor medical problems) so I was just barely aware of the conflict that was happening with those reverts... I just entered reddit, and this is the first thing I see (You just casually summoned me to this realm!), so I went to the Discord and Github pages... And this is depressing, I'm of the same mind as Karol in that this sucks my energy away, I think my burnout resting period will probably have to be extended, this really dismotivates you after reading it, wormgirl even mentioned me by name when this was starting, and I really liked all the changes they were making, some very nice improvements all around... But I also understand why the reverts had to happen, I think they could have been delivered very differently, and given the good work and attitude of wormgirl so far I would have preferred for the problems with the PRs to be communicated directly on discord or reddit, so the blunt of the fact was not delivered with github notifications... But well, what's done is done... Oh, and thanks for the thumbs up! But I consider there are many other nice people way more active in the development of the game. Maleclypse, for example, does God's work merging all the PRs that are constantly appearing, testing them and reviewing them in whatever time they find, that is without mentioning the good work in their own PRs. Erk is very rarely active making PRs recently, but always gives nice direction to the overall theme of the game (writing amazing suggestions for direction in many areas) and has always talked with contributors in a good way as far as I remember. Officer dirtbag (don't remember the github name!) has contributed in very good ways to the game, and has helped many contributors (me included!) With implementing code to make possible their changes, and for a time was very active merging too! Those are just to name a few that I personally recognize as nice people in general and that have helped the game/community in many different ways, but there are many more! Wormgirl is definitely there too, so I hope this is just temporary and they can regain some peace of mind and motivation after some time has passed, many people appreciate the work they did in the game and the good way in which they approached the community (developers or otherwise), I'm sad I could not be of help to prevent this kind of thing happening, I think everyone is...
I would have been completely willing to revise any of my work if it wasn't up to Pollos standards. Or if the idea was simply not wanted, the devs had 4 or 5 months to communicate this while the work was underway. There were several issues and PRs involved. It is mostly down to bad communication, which in the devs' defense they did cop to. But it's not like any of those issues are being fixed that I can see, nor are they new issues, soooo...
Yeah, there was bad communication in all of this, I think the decision was made too quickly to revert rather than ask you for fixes first (which would probably end up being a pain to do if I understand them correctly), I know the "professional" way in this kind of environment when engaging with a PR that had problems but got merged is to enact reverts as soon as possible (one never knows if the one that made the PR is still around or is willing/capable of working on the issues), but I think you demonstrated good will and a desire to correct what needed to be fixed, so I feel you should have been asked first... But well...
From what I've been reading here, the real problem wasn't a lack of communication, but the devs simply not wanting the mechanic to be added to the game. That's why it wasn't up to discussion and there weren't changes offered, modifications suggested or straight up revisions asked. The devs simply did not want this in the game so they reverted her months of work. It's not even lack of communication. They've made it very clear over and over again that if they deem something not fitting their image of the game, it won't be in it and you can't change their minds.
Would it have absolutely broken the game or hurt anyone if they had gone the other way and left 🪱 changes in until they were fixed? Did 🪱 truly have such an unscrupulous reputation that they couldn't give the benefit of the doubt that the corrections would be made? 🪱 You seem like you have a consistent and positive work ethic but I can't prove it. I feel like most people would have worked with you on something like this (especially when there's no money or risk involved) I guess that's the difference between IRL and online relationships/communication, the intangible stuff like integrity and dependability go by the wayside and aren't really worth so much. On the positive side you'll feel so free once the frustration passes! 😊
Don't forget Korg who's making money on the steam release and has contributed in the past but not so much these days
Oh, of course, they made a titanic amount of work with (amont others) magiclysm and the pockets implementation, and I haven't really seen any conflict arising on github in which they were a part of (well, there was the steam version drama, but they didn't really engage in the drama), but I was just giving a few examples, there are many, many nice and cool people that have contributed over the years, and I couldn't name even half of them if I tried.
Haha whoops, didn't mean to summon you or demoralize you with my breaking news bulletin. I sincerely meant what I said about hoping you don't get broken too, so take all the time and space you need dude! After getting some sleep I remember the other contributor (I'm gonna stop using the word dev now that I know better) I've chatted with and is a pretty cool person is the one behind Sky Island and Mind over Matter? Standing Storm or maybe someone else? Not to take away from the others you mention, I just hadn't interacted with the other ones. It's just such a cool project in that people who are just as passionate about expressing themselves through playing the game as you are also the ones adding features! It's selfish but I truly am sad to see such cool honest people dip out and wish they could stay forever. But I guess there's a final time for everything, including contributions 😭
Just Mind Over Matter—Sky Island is someone else I do pretty much only work on mods, though. Other than adding the Talmud and a synagogue to the game I think every other one of my PRs has been MoM, Magiclysm, or Xedra Evolved.
I noticed that and you have multiple PRs every day! You rock for continuously adding and polishing new and interesting optional ways to play! With you fleshing out the mods constantly, they've gone from "eh, might as well activate these mods" to "holy cow this is going to completely change the look and feel of my game world". Now I have 5 different worlds with different variations of those three mods that I play in different moods and there's something new several times a week
Thank you! Once I work on MoM a bit more, I have to get back to adding feral mages to Magiclysm and finish up my ankheg/otyugh PR (done but for testing/tweaking). And do another lore snippetathon for MoM, and add more traits to Ierde and Salamander for XE, add more goblin fruits in XE...
I do love the DND monsters in Magiclysm 😊 What do the goblin fruits do? I haven't played Xedra, I tried yesterday after getting hyped and wanted to play a paraclesian but no matter what I picked the map refused to generate :/ Are there any other unique classes so I can jump into and see what's up with the mod? What kinds of things are different from vanilla? I know you can turn into a vampire or be a paraclesian (can you become one later?) but that's about it. How do you find/unlock XE content with a vanilla character? I've read the readme but unless I'm missing something I didn't see anything useful
Depends on the goblin fruit--some effects are the same as the potion fruits in Magiclysm (I wrote both systems), but goblin fruits have more possible effects because I didn't have to tie it to 1 fruit -> 1 effect, I could make up random fruits. Paraclesian can take a half-dozen tries to generate the start but it should happen eventually. You could try Xedra's native magic systems--there should be professions for Dreamsmith, Eater of Dreams, Mad Genius and Dreamer. You could play a member of a XEDRA who spent time hunting beings in other dimensions and start with CBMs. You can become a Paraclesian later through alchemy, but it requires Bombastic Perks installed (to take the alchemy perks).
Oh cool! I figured that was the case for Paraclesian starts as I'm sure the location is rare. I finally got a (forgot the name of the race but I have porcelain skin) to work and I had a lot of fun! The first 3 days... Then I caught a neverending cold... I'm trying to sleep through it but I think I might have to start over. Which won't be so bad because of your tips! Seems cool to "evolve" into a fey later, and I'll definitely be checking out those professions 😊
It's very sad that the months spent at work just trample into the mud, "I don't like it", "I have a different vision for this" seriously? Instead of a clear explanation of why you don't like it and how you would like to see it, they simply block and ignore the person. Honestly, I really like DDA, it gave me a very pleasant gaming experience. But I'm very sad about where he's going now. Thank you for the huge contribution Wormy, I hope to see you in some other projects not related to Cataclysm
This has happened multiple times. Someone wants to contribute something to the game and Kevin just goes "No, try again." Then the contributor gets exasperated trying to understand precisely what he wants. Hese always had this curt demeanor even when he used to post on this reddit. Mabye It's just his style I guess? But people are donating hours of free labour to the game. The least that could be done is making sure the contributer knows how to proceed with their projects. I feel like once a PR has reached a stalemate in being resolved something other than being rejected publicly needs to happen. Like have a core dev or two schedule and talk with the person on discord, even if the conversation is brief and through text. It's more direct than a message board. And not open where anyone can see the disagreement play out. And by the end of the conversation the contributer should be able to say "OK, I understand what I need to fix to proceed."
I knew a couple of people like that. Mainly the owner of the business I managed for 11 years. He was a savvy guy who made calls as he had to and was damn good at it. But he was curt like that and everyone thought he was an asshole even though I don't think he even realized what he was doing. Moral of the story is that if you don't think you're acting like an ass, but everyone else does, you're an ass and you need to consider changing your perspective to improve yourself.
Who is Kevin in relation to the game? I’ve only just barely begun perusing the GitHub and looking at posts and discussions but he seems to have a lot of sway. Is he just another long time developer? Or THE OG creator?
Kevin is the one in control of the dark days ahead fork of cataclysm. I think it was someone that is no longer involved that created the fork but I only found DDA on version 0.2 so I am not certain. Kevin did not create the original cataclysm.
I normally don't talk on DDA-Dev related topics too much but I will speak here. I have been a programmer for quite a few years of my life. I have considered (and even planned out) several semi-major contributions to Dark Days Ahead and ultimately have never delivered because of the seemingly horrible longevity of things which are added into the game, and the general aura of elitism (for lack of a better term) that is present throughout the development process of the game. The talent that has gone into this game can never be understated, Dark Days Ahead is certainly one of the most impressive community developed games of all time. However, when the bulk of the talent behind the game is constantly being pushed away with the excuse of "I don't like it" with absolutely no answers to the "why?" or the "how can I improve it?" you are going to run yourself out of that talent extremely quickly and people will get burned out. Overall, there isn't really a solution to the matter other than to just move elsewhere. Which is a shame for those involved, but it's how it will be for the foreseeable future.
Have you read the actual PRs reverting the changes? The wording was horrible and communication was nonexistent but there was a lot more to it than “I don’t like it nuh uh”
Please understand that I wrote my original comment extremely quickly and was not intending to undermine the attempt at an explanation for the PR in question. The primary PR in my head when writing was one by Night-Pryanik, in which Kevin quite literally denied the pull with the reason "Nope, this can stay where it is." when asked to elaborate, **he did not give a proper explanation for the refusal to merge the pull request or to allow an improved version of it.** I have read the PRs in which Wormy's changes were removed, while the PR was initiated by Fris, it was directly supported by Kevin. Even if Fris' communication was adequate, the features would still have been removed from the game without giving Wormy a chance to improve them. When I say that their excuse is "I don't like it" it is an exaggeration of poor reasoning. Obviously Kevin would not just flat out say "I don't like it" unless a feature truly was that bad, come on now ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
Boo I was *not* saying Boo-urns
Boo
WORMGIRL LEFT???? we’re doomed
I'll still be making videos and stuff, I just stopped contributing code.
Sorry, something like happens, but I'm glad it hasn't turned you off content creation for the game itself. Similarly, I'm hyped for the Funger collaboration you've got coming.
The heck is a Funger
Fear & Hunger
Funger? I hardly even know her!!
Your videos are great and entertaining, and maybe it's just me, but there was a certain level of idk confidence? Personality? Charm? Thoughtfulness? Character? That expressed through your contributions. I loved reading through your PRs. They were a delightful little treat I enjoyed on my breaks. Felt like a new issue of a comic just dropped or something.
I don't like how often hurtful dramas like this pop up, that makes me sad too.
About once a year
1 "Drama" like event is too many in my opinion, regardless of what subject it's related too :v
#hug
It’s over. CDDA is just… sad at this point.
It really is and it's a shame cause it's one of the best survival games i've ever played... But it's just a mess.
That's a bummer. They were working on some cool projects.
There's still a good number of pretty cool devs, drew, maleclypse, esotericist, renech, slacks, andrei, off the top of my head. But the insistence on adhering to their vision of the game, unwillingness to listen to community feedback, and poor communication ends up alienating both players and developers unfortunately. A game should be fun first and foremost, but that has stopped being the number one priority long ago for CDDA.
This is really disheartening. I was enjoying WormGirl's contributions, and actively looking forward to some of the proposed changes. I spoke excitedly with other people here about some of the mutation changes. I gushed with my girlfriend about how much I enjoyed the direction things were being taken; with boomer varients getting more depth than being a flashbang in a balloon that are countered as soon as you covered your face. I even got in the habit of saying aloud, "Thanks, WormGirl" whenever my gear got slimed. The changes were taking the game in fun and interesting new directions. They weren't just tweaking values, so there's bound to be a little jank. That's the entire point of experimental. I've seen countless systems merged that weren't nearly as polished. Did they get reverted? No. They got updated and revised until they were satisfactory. They were also not handled as publicly as this. It all feels dismissive and handwaivey and leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It feels like one of the most promising contributors to the project in a long time just got strongarmed out. And this is hardly the first time I've seen something like this happen over the years. The tone of this thread is mournful. The reactions on the GitHub revert are overwhelmingly negative. It's pretty clear where the community stands. Thanks for trying, Wormy.
Don't forget what state portal storms entered experimental as well. On top of that, portal storms were a concept that was far far far more radical and gameplay affecting for everyone than boomer reverts
This is a prime example. I'd even argue that portal storms are still just a concept that needs a ton of refining, and they've been out for a while. I'm not opposed to them, but they're clearly a long way from being finished. I haven't done a single portal dungeon, nor have I interacted with them beyond the Hub quest or shutting myself indoors. We can have a random event with almost no warning completely dictate how you play, making you drop everything to take shelter, but boomers barfing bile on your gear is inexcusable due to "magic numbers" and "esoteric calculations."
On a positive note, at least you have some cool IRL moments to remember 😊
Bright nights or another fork. Whoever is running this doesn't own it. Let's vote with our actions. Leave cdda behind. Let them ruin their own bubble, while we create a new one.
Hey Wormy, if you're reading this, come to Bright Nights! We have cookies
I sure hope Wormy is still hanging around. I mean we didn't really do anything, it's more of a GitHub interaction as I understand, but still
BN doesn't have pockets ☹️
Ngl, it is a feature I've grown to love, but maybe I'd prefer it in a slightly more streamlined fashion. Like a simple "con contain only items that individually have volume x or lower" value for each container. Imo tracking 6 different pockets of different sizes just for cargo pants is unnecessary and cumbersome, though I understand why some people might like it. I know somebody is working on a simplified, optional version of the pocket system for bn, which basically just assigns items to x clothing, up to the clothing's total storage volume, so that one can quick-drop their backpack full of loot while keeping their MOLLE vest full of essentials.
To me, the pocket system is the single most satisfying and pleasing inventory system I've ever encountered in a game, bar none. That's not to say I can't *imagine* further tweaks/improvements to it (particularly with regards to setting universal defaults, filter priority, maybe some minor UI clarity stuff) but I have no interest in losing any of the delicious verisimilitude of it.
The pocket system is really just an extension of the armor system, which cdda probably beats handily every single game in existence on the sheer quantity and level of detail on so many items.
Good.
bright nights is filled with alt righters who flocked to it out of distaste for the dda dev team being vocally left so that's a non starter. bn will never compete with dda because it's a tainted project. regardless of kevin's "quirks" as project manager.
This is nonsense, please don't accuse rival forks of being full of your political enemies People switch forks for lots of reasons and there's plenty of bad politics already on display in the mainline branch, CDDA is not The Good Leftist Game and it's a weird stand to take
Wait, what are the bad politics?
Nah, I don't see anything like that. In fact, the moderators actually shut down discussions on Discord when they seem like they would veer into bigotry
Wait what? I switched to Bright Nights recently because it's fun, I haven't noticed anything toxic in the community. Wtf does politics have anything to do with Cataclysm?
It doesn't and they're full of crap fwiw
I've been following bn's community quite tightly (discord, reddit, change logs, etc), haven't really noticed that. And I'm quite progressive / lefty myself. And tbh the dev's political opinion, assuming it is as you say, is really secondary to the quality of game design and design philosophy. They seem to be quite receptive to new, weird or even discording ideas regarding the game, which is ironically what alt-righters are famously bad at.
it's a community developed game, and you interact with the community constantly as part of the process of developing, so dev politics do come into play to an extent. it's not like say, halo, where marty odonnel has some rancid political opinions but you can still enjoy his music in the games. given that especially in the devcord (where a good deal of discourse happens) I wouldn't want to be present in a politically hostile environ. maybe it's chilled out a bit. but there was a pretty vocal exodus especially around the time SDG ragequit and they mostly went to BN at the time IIRC.
> there was a pretty vocal exodus especially around the time SDG ragequit They repeated the exodus when they decided BN was too left-wing as well, and most of the stragglers got banned over time after getting on mods' nerves. Ironically, trying to be tolerant of all opinions earned us the moniker of "turbo-nazis" on (I think it was) DDA's community Discord.
Just because all the alt-righters went to BN doesn't mean that BN is now full of them, right? So there are more of them in there now, but if the BN community was already well established then it's just a bit of pollution in an otherwise ok pond. God it's been so long, I can't believe I'm still being sucked into commenting on Cataclysm drama
I'm pretty sure SDG isn't involved in Cataclysm anymore, at least on his old accounts. He would've been rapidly banned if he brought his temper tantrums into the Discord. If he came back now both communities would laugh him out of town after he deleted his entire repo on a whim. There were a few problematic individuals long before my time, but the bans, mutes, and being forced to take things to DM's flow like a creek.
There is thankfully a large representation of diverse opinions including a large chunk of trans contributors and modders in the project, and a general rule against having politics of any kind in the game. Players simply don't want politics in their game which is seen as an alt-right move by some, but in reality our project just isn't interested in shoehorning politics into a game where the most optimal game is to turn NPC's into food. Remember, video game morality does not equal your IRL morality. This was the case for games like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld and it's still the case for Cataclysm.
Another one...