The Energon Pub

Posted: **Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:32 pm**

Sadly, this is not the sort of news we were hoping to give you all about HMW2.

Whilst we are unaware of the exact details, Omega Sentinel has decided that he hasn't got the free time to dedicate to creating HMW2 and has stepped down from the role of HMW Admin, effective immediately.

This is not good news for those of you awaiting V2. We do not yet know if the half created game is useable, we do not have anyone lined up to replace him and we do not know what will happen next.

All we do know is that Ryan isnt going to let HMW go away and the game will be staying in some form or another, so stick with us and when he have a scooby whats going on, we'll tell you.

I know this is bad news and no one here will be happy about this, but the staff are in exactly the same position as you guys, this came out of the blue for us as well and it will take us time to work out a next step, which we have already started to do although it will not be quick, so please be patient with us.
Thanks guys n gals,
Psychout.

Posted: **Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:05 pm**

can't say i didn't see this coming. i thought he was bein aweful silent.

Wanted:

1 software developer/programmer with no life. pay sucks, gratitude somewhat.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 3:26 am**

That's unfortunate. It would have been rather nice to rekindle my HMW skills and help out the Autobots.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:32 am**

Well I've been silent for awhile and was really hoping to get back into the game come V2, but I'm not sure if that will EVER happen.

I don't think the idea of V2 is cursed, but I think the organization of getting it done has been repeating the same pattern: create ideas, get a programmer, ask programmer to do it for free in their spare time, not oversee programmer, programmer burns out and leaves...multiple times. This has happened now with three different programmers (and repeated twice now with the last two). If Ryan is truly committed to HMW then its time he puts his money where his mouth is...literally.

I myself would step up to program the game, but I have a family to care for, and doing a job this big for free I simply cannot justify. Most would agree. Others have noted about the freelancer sites out there, and I agree, its time to get another pro in here and PAY him to do it. OR, get a few different programmers willing to work for nothing but bragging rights, assign someone as project lead, carve out HMW into smaller projects for each programmer, and get 'em done. I think we have seen that this project is just too big for one person to accomplish without help and/or compensation, at least not without resulting in severe burnout.

I have tried, but I no longer can carry the party line that Seibertron.com is "committed" to HMW. I feel between absorbing Transtopia, increasing the news and galleries, and overseeing the boards, HMW is no longer important to the site and/or the time is not there to make it important. Which is truly a shame, when sites like ogame.org has thousands of players and if this site truly invested the time and resources, could be just as successful, and bring in a lot more traffic to Seibs as a whole; heck HMW is how I got introduced to the rest of the site! (Yes I know Ogame has a group of dev's working on it, but I'm just using an example.)

Now I understand and believe that no one including Ryan knew OS was going to bail - again - however I truly feel this could have been prevented, or at least mitigated. We keep wanting to build our ivory castle, however we keep skipping over the foundation. And what is even worse is this time I think we really had the right idea, and we were slowly getting it going, but in the end it still fell apart.

We have the base code OS did, now what's the solution to pick up the baton and finish the race? Or, is it time to say this is a crap-shoot and walk away?

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:46 am**

Well bugger me, never saw that coming.... oh wait. I did.

This game's been dieing on it's ass for ages, and OS has been no where to be seen, I think a lot of us had already asumed he'd given up.

Can I make a heartfelt plee to Ryan, to save a game that, whilst I too have gotten utterly fed up with in it's current state, I still love to play.

Do not, for the love of god, do what you do everytime you lose/sack/piss off the programmer. Because you do the same thing everytime, and the same thing happens everytime.

Firstly, give up with the rediculous idea of ONE programmer. Nothing thesedays gets done by one sole programmer. You simply cannot get what you expect for HMW if you insiste on only one programmer. Sure, have a programmer in charge, with 2 or 3 subordinates, but give up on this pathetic one programmer for HMW nonsence.

Secondly, programmer =/= good admin. OS was on half the game's hate list before he'd had a chance to prove himself becuase he was such a god aweful admin. And if you are really serious about wanting a new game, the last thing you want is you *only* programmer, wasting time/pissing people off as an admin. I honestly apreciated most of what OS did on the programming side of the game (even if most of it was lost thanks to bad weather), but I clashed whith him all the time becuase of his absolutly and utterly disgraceful behaviour whilst acting as an admin.

EDIT:
Does this mean we can go about our subfaction business with out being persecuted again too? Cuase those priest holes are neither comfortable nor spacious.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 12:31 pm**

There are a few good points brought up. It might be an idea to explore having a few programmers - at least 2, just to see if more can get done (like in parts). Granted, there will be conflicts, but hopefully it will be limited. Is it possible? Probably not, but it could be worth a shot.

I agree that programmers should not be given the same powers as admins because it creates too much power and too much to do in one person. Let them program and give someone else the power to keep things under control and fix issues. I am in full support of getting a HMW admin who can fix issues that someone like OS didn't have time to do/shouldn't have to do. Basically what happens is the game becomes demanding and a single person cannot put all of their time into the game, site responsibilities, and their life.

When it comes to paying a programmer, I don't think that is a great idea. While it might actually be necessary to get the new game in place, we don't pay to play and we shouldn't expect Seibs to pay out of pocket more than he does or should have to. I don't even like the idea of paying for extras, like a gold membership. Plus, we start to dive into a lot of legal issue if we charge people.

So to summarize:
Less responsibilities for the programmer not relating to coding and explore the option of more than one programmer without having to pay/potentially place Seibs in violation of any laws.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 12:48 pm**

No, I dont see paying people as the way forward. No more than I expected paying for the xp games when I did em (less work I know, but still a solid chunk out of the day).

With 3 or 4 people devoting some of their spare time to it each week, and a realistic expectation of a date for an end result, you shouldnt need to pay anybody to do it. I do, however, think some form of basic deadlines should be inplimented, becuase a project with no deadline never gets completed.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 1:09 pm**

First off, my relationship with Omega Sentinel is sound. He's a great guy. His priorities have just changed, that's all. I didn't piss him off and please do not blame any of this situation on me. Omega Sentinel was having a lot of fun with this but he just ended up not having the time to work on it. He might have bit off a little more than he could chew. I appreciate him contacting me to let me know that he doesn't have the time to work on HMW so that we can figure out how to move forward as a community.

I've known this was basically coming down the pipes for the past 6 to 12 months. I just kept hoping that OS would figure out how to have more time to work with the game. Didn't happen and that's OK. Omega Sentinel's top priorities in life are his family and his career, not HMW.

Please do NOT make any assumptions about myself, Omega Sentinel, HMW or anything else pertaining to this situation.

HMW is not that complex of a game. It's just a matter of having enough time to work on it.

Ninjaburn wrote:I don't think the idea of V2 is cursed, but I think the organization of getting it done has been repeating the same pattern: create ideas, get a programmer, ask programmer to do it for free in their spare time, not oversee programmer, programmer burns out and leaves...multiple times. This has happened now with three different programmers (and repeated twice now with the last two). If Ryan is truly committed to HMW then its time he puts his money where his mouth is...literally.

That's a great idea if all of you agree to paying an annual membership fee. I don't think any of you want that, I know I don't want that, and I also don't think I want to get involved with the legal ramifications of charging people for memberships.

The position of the HMW programmer is the same level of a volunteer staff member as the news admins and forum admin position. You do it because you love this hobby and want to support this site.

HMW should be free, just like it's my goal to always keep Seibertron.com free (unless, of course, the ISPs start imposing some network tax, fee, or something crazy that changes the entire face of the Internet as we know it ... i.e. the Internet is no longer "free").

Ninjaburn wrote:I myself would step up to program the game, but I have a family to care for, and doing a job this big for free I simply cannot justify. Most would agree. Others have noted about the freelancer sites out there, and I agree, its time to get another pro in here and PAY him to do it. OR, get a few different programmers willing to work for nothing but bragging rights, assign someone as project lead, carve out HMW into smaller projects for each programmer, and get 'em done. I think we have seen that this project is just too big for one person to accomplish without help and/or compensation, at least not without resulting in severe burnout.

I appreciate your comments, but let's put a stop to this train of thought right here. Thanks. HWM is not that big of a game. I'm not sure how people started thinking that it was a massive game with tons and tons of programming required. It's not. It's a relatively simple text based game that's not made up of many files and doesn't use that many database tables. It is a resource hog because of how popular a feature it is on Seibertron.com.

Ninjaburn wrote:I have tried, but I no longer can carry the party line that Seibertron.com is "committed" to HMW. I feel between absorbing Transtopia, increasing the news and galleries, and overseeing the boards, HMW is no longer important to the site and/or the time is not there to make it important. Which is truly a shame, when sites like ogame.org has thousands of players and if this site truly invested the time and resources, could be just as successful, and bring in a lot more traffic to Seibs as a whole; heck HMW is how I got introduced to the rest of the site! (Yes I know Ogame has a group of dev's working on it, but I'm just using an example.)

Kind of out-of-my-control with what's happened with the last two programmers. HMW still brings traffic to the site and if anything, HMW will stay how it is but it will still be here. I don't have enough time as it is to work on all of the parts of the site that need my attention. I'm stretched thin and that's without worrying about HMW.

Ninjaburn wrote:Now I understand and believe that no one including Ryan knew OS was going to bail - again - however I truly feel this could have been prevented, or at least mitigated.

Omega Sentinel is swamped at work. Please don't assume anything about this situation or his situation. He doesn't need to explain to anyone about the things that are going on in his private life that have taken away his time to work on HMW.

Ninjaburn wrote:We keep wanting to build our ivory castle, however we keep skipping over the foundation. And what is even worse is this time I think we really had the right idea, and we were slowly getting it going, but in the end it still fell apart.

We have the base code OS did, now what's the solution to pick up the baton and finish the race? Or, is it time to say this is a crap-shoot and walk away?

My quick thoughts on this ... I'd like to see a new programmer come along that basically throws out everything that's been done. Within 1 to 3 months of programming, a new version of HMW could be up and running. From there, new modifications and additions could be made to the game to keep everyone enticed and excited about the game. It doesn't take a year to build something like HMW. It should only take a couple of months at most. HMW should be a work-in-progress and should never be 100% complete, just like Seibertron.com is. If you try to make it 100% complete, it will never get done because there just isn't enough time.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 1:17 pm**

Redimus GTS wrote:Do not, for the love of god, do what you do everytime you lose/sack/piss off the programmer. Because you do the same thing everytime, and the same thing happens everytime.

Not sure where this negativity toward me has come from. Please stop with the negative comments immediately. This situation does not warrant such bitter comments.[/quote]

Redimus GTS wrote:Firstly, give up with the rediculous idea of ONE programmer. Nothing thesedays gets done by one sole programmer. You simply cannot get what you expect for HMW if you insiste on only one programmer. Sure, have a programmer in charge, with 2 or 3 subordinates, but give up on this pathetic one programmer for HMW nonsence.

That is a completely unfounded statement. Of course you can get things done with ONE programmer and get it done in a reasonable time frame. It's ludicrous to think that you can't. I program Seibertron.com by myself, with the exception of HMW which is just one small part of the Seibertron.com machine. I program all of the projects I work on at work by myself, as I have for the past 9 years. HMW doesn't need more than one programmer. It's not that big of a game. If you guys are thinking HMW somehow needs more than one programmer, then you guys must be thinking that somehow HMW is going to become a much different game than it is, which it's not. The concept of HMW will always remain the same. I have no desire to spawn off HMW into a game that's bigger than Seibertron.com. It will always be a part of Seibertron.com.

Redimus GTS wrote:Secondly, programmer =/= good admin. OS was on half the game's hate list before he'd had a chance to prove himself becuase he was such a god aweful admin. And if you are really serious about wanting a new game, the last thing you want is you *only* programmer, wasting time/pissing people off as an admin. I honestly apreciated most of what OS did on the programming side of the game (even if most of it was lost thanks to bad weather), but I clashed whith him all the time becuase of his absolutly and utterly disgraceful behaviour whilst acting as an admin.

Please refrain from the negative comments about Omega Sentinel. He's a great guy and he doesn't need people such as yourself making statements like the ones above just because he's stepped down as the HMW programmer. OS did a great job as the programmer and as an HMW forum admin.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 1:28 pm**

Someone above mentioned deadlines for the HMW project. I think if I've done anything wrong with this is not lay down my expectations for how long this project should take and have trusted the programmers with their ideas about deadlines. But when I'm told a deadline by one of the HMW programmers, and it's not met time after time after time, what am I to do?

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 1:37 pm**

What I think the reasoning behind having more than one programmers was that we were under the impression that HMW2 was going to be this larger more complex game than its predecessor was, or at least I was. I mean we had beta testers and it seemed that it was taking a long time to complete. Only you and a few select other know the complexity of this version and the one that was being worked on.

If HMW is as simple as you state it is, why not try to fix this version of it if your plan is to scrap what has been worked on? If there a vision that is different from this version of HMW?If not, I think that this version can be fixed properly and then when it is, it lays a good foundation to build things off of.

I, for one, am happy that there is still "front office" commitment to HMW. My question is where do we go from here now that OS's HMW2 is probably being set aside.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 1:52 pm**

what if you took my idea, (i posted it in the post about HMW2 that got locked)
You could jump on over to www.getafreelancer.com post a link to the page here, post your expectations for what you require a programmer to do, and post a time frame, and ALSO (and most importantly you can post your price range).

As for the price you can put as little as 20 bucks or something up to 100 or 200, whatever ya want to, the programmers on the site will then "bid" for the job and tell you how much they would be willing to pay within your price range, and you can pick the lowest bidder or the best person for the job based on their resume and portfolio. and from there once the main part of the game is completed and it is finished in your time frame you can hand it over to someone on the boards here to keep updated for free.

because if the building of the game is the hard part why not sub-contract THAT part out and then once you have that in hand...(er on hard disk at home,...whatever) then find someone on here who is tech savvy enough and has the drive to keep it updated and fresh :-)

but ...of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 2:00 pm**

vaporretarder wrote:... (and most importantly you can post your price range). ...

It all goes back to this being a free game and a free website. We, the members, and Seibs, the owner, is not obligated to pay, nor should be, to hire a programmer. If Seibs wants to pay out of his pocket to get someone to do the game that is one thing, but it is usually best to keep things free, programming and membership/site wise. It would also be horrible if a free lancer was paid and couldn't finish the job or couldn't produce a fully working product that ends up costing more to fix.

While it might be nice to have a deadline and someone who can work on the game without having to worry about real life/job, it will always influence how even a free lancer will perform. Best to try to keep everything free.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 2:09 pm**

Seibertron wrote:That's a great idea if all of you agree to paying an annual membership fee. I don't think any of you want that, I know I don't want that, and I also don't think I want to get involved with the legal ramifications of charging people for memberships.

The position of the HMW programmer is the same level of a volunteer staff member as the news admins and forum admin position. You do it because you love this hobby and want to support this site.

HMW should be free, just like it's my goal to always keep Seibertron.com free (unless, of course, the ISPs start imposing some network tax, fee, or something crazy that changes the entire face of the Internet as we know it ... i.e. the Internet is no longer "free").

That's not true. There are free games online that don't charge monthly memberships. True that some charge for certain ingame content or items, but you don't need those to play the game or enjoy them. Most of the game advertisements on this site are for free games that pay their programmers. There's no reason HMW couldn't be among the same, it would just take some devotion to the game and building it up. If done well, HMW would easily make money over whatever was paid to any programmers. It's how games and sites like Maplestory and Gaia work.

I think the misnomer is that if you hire a programmer, you have to pay them premium rates; this isn't true. There are programmers on this site who would do it for free readily I'm sure, and most programmers already have a steady job. However, offering them a few bucks on the side for working on the game, and issuing deadlines to get work done.

But, if you're devoted to volunteer work, I suggest putting together a small team of people who will work on it. Not all need to be programmers, but perhaps a writer or two, a couple of graphic artists, and someone who can handle laying out the pages for the new game, and someone to keep them all on the same page, as well as getting another programmer to tweak the current game so there's content beyond level 4 for us.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 2:21 pm**

No freelancers, no third parties, no paying anyone. Seibertron.com isn't how I make my living, I'm not about to start paying people to help me with the site. It needs to be from the community. A person that we can trust, that gets Seibertron.com, that gets HMW and most importantly ... someone who gets Transformers.

One of the biggest perks that you get as the programmer of HMW? You get to put this on your resume ... which is a pretty big thing for programmers. Getting to say that you programmed a game for Seibertron.com, which is in the top 20,000 websites on the Internet that has over 30,000 to 50,000+ people a day that visit the site. That looks pretty good on a resume.

Please cease the conversations about paying anyone to work on any part of this site. It's not going to happen. Seibertron.com is a labor of love that costs me a lot of money and time. If we can't find a programmer from within our community that is willing to donate his or her time to our community, then it's up to me and me alone to figure out whether or not I want to invest my time into the game, keep it going as-is, or put it to rest.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 2:28 pm**

Absolute Zero wrote:That's not true. There are free games online that don't charge monthly memberships. True that some charge for certain ingame content or items, but you don't need those to play the game or enjoy them. Most of the game advertisements on this site are for free games that pay their programmers. There's no reason HMW couldn't be among the same, it would just take some devotion to the game and building it up. If done well, HMW would easily make money over whatever was paid to any programmers. It's how games and sites like Maplestory and Gaia work.

Gaiaonline.com is one of the top 1,000 sites in the entire world. They can afford to pay people.

Not sure what you were stating wasn't true. If I have to pay a programmer to work on the game, then I'll charge a membership fee for the game. I don't want that. You guys don't want that. Let's end this part of the conversation.

Absolute Zero wrote:I think the misnomer is that if you hire a programmer, you have to pay them premium rates; this isn't true. There are programmers on this site who would do it for free readily I'm sure, and most programmers already have a steady job. However, offering them a few bucks on the side for working on the game, and issuing deadlines to get work done.

Please read my above statements. I'm not paying anyone a dime to work on HMW. And that is my last response regarding any comments involving anything about paying a programmer.

Absolute Zero wrote:But, if you're devoted to volunteer work, I suggest putting together a small team of people who will work on it. Not all need to be programmers, but perhaps a writer or two, a couple of graphic artists, and someone who can handle laying out the pages for the new game, and someone to keep them all on the same page, as well as getting another programmer to tweak the current game so there's content beyond level 4 for us.

I don't mind having a graphic talented person helping out the programmer. I don't mind a few people working on it together, but as far as the programming goes ... we only need one. Just one that's dedicated to getting this thing going and enjoys working with the community regarding features.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 2:58 pm**

Seibertron wrote:
Redimus GTS wrote:Firstly, give up with the rediculous idea of ONE programmer. Nothing thesedays gets done by one sole programmer. You simply cannot get what you expect for HMW if you insiste on only one programmer. Sure, have a programmer in charge, with 2 or 3 subordinates, but give up on this pathetic one programmer for HMW nonsence.

That is a completely unfounded statement. Of course you can get things done with ONE programmer and get it done in a reasonable time frame. It's ludicrous to think that you can't. I program Seibertron.com by myself, with the exception of HMW which is just one small part of the Seibertron.com machine. I program all of the projects I work on at work by myself, as I have for the past 9 years. HMW doesn't need more than one programmer. It's not that big of a game. If you guys are thinking HMW somehow needs more than one programmer, then you guys must be thinking that somehow HMW is going to become a much different game than it is, which it's not. The concept of HMW will always remain the same. I have no desire to spawn off HMW into a game that's bigger than Seibertron.com. It will always be a part of Seibertron.com.

With all due respect, seibertron is your baby, it's what you've done in your spare time for years. And Im sure you'll admit to having lost virtully all of it to this site in the past. You cannot expect this from another programmer. And where have we gotten the idea that HMW is too big and complex for someone to develop fulling in their own time? Erm, 3 or so years and 2 programmers worth of 'coming soon' messages. It probably is a simple game, and it probably could be done in a couple of months, but only if you can find someone who has the programming skills without the complete lack of spare time most really good programmers seem to have. Even a really easy to program peice of software takes for ever if you never have enough time to do it.

As I understand the current game's code layout, it's all one page right now, no seperate moduels for different functions, a generaly very difficult peice of code to easily debug and add to. So naturaly you want a more moduler design for the next version. So why not have one prgrammer (the 'main programmer'), who decides the basic data flow and does all the psudo code and whatnot for it (becuase it might as well be planned properly), then asigns tasks to himself and 2 or 3 other programmers to spread the job a bit. Go to one of the programmers and say, I want a module that takes peice of data A, in this format, and returns peice of data B in that format. As long as you have a module that runs effciently, accepts the data, handles it in the planned fasion, and spits out the correct format data at the other end, the 'main' programmer need not worry about its writing, and just worry about getting the rest of the game to handle said data. This is all basic stuff I learnt at uni, and would make the programming of the game (if you can find a small handful of compitent enough programmers) a lot easier and quicker, and (hopefully) allow for a flexible game that easily be added to as the years go by.

Seibertron wrote:
Redimus GTS wrote:Secondly, programmer =/= good admin. OS was on half the game's hate list before he'd had a chance to prove himself becuase he was such a god aweful admin. And if you are really serious about wanting a new game, the last thing you want is you *only* programmer, wasting time/pissing people off as an admin. I honestly apreciated most of what OS did on the programming side of the game (even if most of it was lost thanks to bad weather), but I clashed whith him all the time becuase of his absolutly and utterly disgraceful behaviour whilst acting as an admin.

Please refrain from the negative comments about Omega Sentinel. He's a great guy and he doesn't need people such as yourself making statements like the ones above just because he's stepped down as the HMW programmer. OS did a great job as the programmer and as an HMW forum admin.

OK, I admit, perhaps not the best peice of internet etiquet you'll ever see, but my basic point's valid. I dont think it's a good idea to have the HMW prgamer (or prgrammers) as board admin as well. It's another task that detracts from their main task. It also inevitably will lead, from time to time, with bad blood between the posters and the programmer due to isues that have no connection to the programming of the game. And that, I suspect, dosnt help anybody.

And for the record, I think he did the right thing stepping down, as it was obvious he didnt have the time to do what he needed to do. And I had spoken a bit with him before he became the programmer, and gotten on well enough with him. My comments were entirly down to his methods of admining/modding/whatever the HMW GD.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 3:43 pm**

Ryan, can I suggest we make a global announcement on this?

You are after someone who has particular programming experience and knows Transformers and Seibertron.com. There are also many HMW players past and present who read the site but dont necessarily look in here, widening the scope of the search may help?

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 3:47 pm**

Seibs wrote:I'd like to see a new programmer come along that basically throws out everything that's been done. Within 1 to 3 months of programming, a new version of HMW could be up and running. From there, new modifications and additions could be made to the game to keep everyone enticed and excited about the game. It doesn't take a year to build something like HMW. It should only take a couple of months at most. HMW should be a work-in-progress and should never be 100% complete, just like Seibertron.com is. If you try to make it 100% complete, it will never get done because there just isn't enough time.

Uhm, wasn't that the plan 2.5 years ago?

I understand there were setbacks and all, but given that you're not willing to pay someone to program the game (which I'm fine with) then at best you're going to get someone that'll do this as time permits, I think you're timeline is optimistic at best... especially if you want something like OS was already doing without using anything he did.

He did leave the code when he left didn't he?

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:14 pm**

To be perfectly honest throwing out what OS left behind would be a good thing.

He had his vision for HMW2, no one else knew what it was or where it was going, we all just had to sit in the back seat and enjoy the ride. Wasn't something I particulary liked because i'm of the misguided belief those of us who were in on the testing should have been working as a team to design the structure of the game, but that's not how it was going to be.

We could get by with one programmer easily enough, as long as that person has the support crew to help them with ideas, and even the graphics (which we did have).

Like always, sit back and enjoy the ride.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:29 pm**

Seibertron wrote:Omega Sentinel is swamped at work. Please don't assume anything about this situation or his situation. He doesn't need to explain to anyone about the things that are going on in his private life that have taken away his time to work on HMW.

I just want to go on record that I don't blame OS for leaving, and I'm with Red that he at least had the respect to step down when he realized he couldn't handle it.

As for everything else:

Payment: I think what I and several others were suggesting when tossing the idea of payment for a programmer is that incentives go a long way to getting a project done, even one done by volunteers. Though I respect your decision to keep it on a volunteer basis (hell look at all the community-built games out there), there are tons of free, ad-supported games out there, and they make it work; we just want this one to work as well, b/c it is unique in it delivers Transformers, a hobby we all enjoy. It was simply one suggestion to get the project going, nothing more.

One Programmer: If they are volunteers, I'm not sure what the difference is b/w one programmer and five? You don't need to give them ALL admin priv's, and you can set up the others as a support team, similar to what was already going on. I think some of us were assuming on the complexity of the game, and since it was taking so long to do a recode, I myself assumed there had to be something very ugly lying underneath this game. Something that was perhaps too big for one person to tackle in their spare time.

I think some of the comments all simply stem from a frustration about what we have heard and seen month after month since the very idea of 'HMW V2' was brought up over two years ago. And though we understand the issues, clearly the status quo isn't working, and some sort of change is necessary in the implementation of this idea.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:44 pm**

What I believe HMW needs is its own "support" group. A group of dedicated people for devoloping and implementing HMW. This goes beyond the admins and mods. This branches out to programmers and testers.

You have your lead programmer. He is the head honcho behind HMW. He implements the idea brought forth from the HMW community and sets up the programming for HMW upgrades and fixes. He delegates certain rolls to his support staff. He answers directly to Seibs and is ultimately responsible for HMW gameplay.

The lead programmers support staff includes secondary programmers and testers. The secondary programmers get their assignments from the lead programmer. They assist the lead programmer in writing code. The testers test the code that is written, just like those that were testing HMW2 previously. They find the bugs in the game and report that to the programming team.

I think you could have one lead programmer as Seibs would like and 2-3 secondary programmers with a host of testers (something small but reasonably big enough to get testing done fairly rapidly). Then of course comes the mods and admin. I am going to have to disagree with Redimus on the lead programmer also being the admin, as long as he has the support staff to take away the extra burden from him. The lead programmer is going to be the most intimately involved in the HMW processes and thus should be the admin for HMW.

With a decent sized team of support staff, HMW could be run fairly smoothly.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:45 pm**

Ninjaburn wrote:I think some of the comments all simply stem from a frustration about what we have heard and seen month after month since the very idea of 'HMW V2' was brought up over two years ago. And though we understand the issues, clearly the status quo isn't working, and some sort of change is necessary in the implementation of this idea.

I think I coined the term "hmw 2.0" 5 years ago, actually. I think before Glyph even came onboard, when I really wanted to push the idea of a color-coded map of Cybertron that included interactive areas that users/groups could battle over to gain control/dominance over the planet Cybertron. If one particular group such as the Decepticons won full control over the planet. The game would reset and we would enter the next phase of the game ala "The Matrix" film trilogy where there were multiple versions of the Matrix. I thought this concept could lead to leaders within the community emerging and constantly keep the game fresh since the users were truly driving the global scale of HMW, instead of it being so individually based. Of course, we would still maintain the arena battles and perhaps the old-style missions side-by-side with the new style Cybertron missions.

FYI ... not a fan of the Maximals and Predacons concept currently. It overly complicates the game, unless it's good vs evil and you can choose your "good" allegiance (i.e. Maximals/Autobots) or your "evil" allegiance (i.e. Predacons/Decepticons) which would allow Maximals to battle Decepticons, etc.

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:50 pm**

I could be talked into multiple developers, though I think it's extremely unnecessary, assuming that the lead developer could orchestrate an environment where they share a common codebase via SVN or something.

My biggest concern about multiple developers is this: the more people I've got working on the site, the more the problems will arise exponentially. I also am not a fan of letting people have access to all of my hard work, not to mention all of our data in the database. I have some ideas about how to address this going forward, but it concerns me greatly about having too many chefs in the kitchen.

FYI ... I have a lead from within the HMW community, and the staff, of someone who might be willing to help us out. This staff member and I have to have a lot of conversations first before anything official can happen. I've got to figure out how to do this right this time around. 3rd time's a charm, right?

Posted: **Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:55 pm**

I floated the idea of a "Support staff" years ago and Glyph actually implemented it and it was working well, we'd put ideas forth and he'd start working out how to implement them.

That was thrown out however.

If it was brought back I wouldn't see a need for multiple programmers, one could do that as long as s/he has the right support backing him/her up with ideas and a direction for the game.

And trust me, we have the people who could easily work for support, probably too many in fact!

And Ryan, i'm fairly certain you came up with HMW2.0 a few weeks after the game was initially launched! :lol:

The Energon Pub

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