Administrator
Game Development
10,263
Aug 5th 2011, 16:54:01
GeneralEarl: oddly enough, I do check the mysql & apache logs every month or so, just to make sure nothing fluffy is going on.
Obviously I'm an admin, so I'm somewhat biased; but I think playing the game is what keeps us interested; I wanted to keep playing Earth and keep Evolution and evolution2025.com going, those are two of the main reasons I decided to start this with pang.
And, as others have said, I think it was Earth:2025's downfall that the game admins didn't play, because they didn't care anymore, plus they had *no clue* about the game. For example, I don't play express, and I really don't have a good feel for the strat balance &etc; but Slagpit does, so he's been able to make really positive changes for that server, and likewise FFA.
If I were to stop playing and think like mehul was probably starting to, I'd look at the top 100 scores from last reset, see that a netgaining government - Republic - didn't show up at all in the top 50, and conclude that it needs strengthening. Or other such arguments.
WOW programmers play WOW; other game programmers play their games... with the main idea that you want them to be interested in their game.
As for the "cheating &etc" stuff; if we cheat, then we only screw ourselves, as we ruin the experience for everybody. That's the accusations we've heard from Mars2025 as well, and we clearly don't want those sorts of things happening here.
I don't know for sure, but Pang I think also wanted a good place for boxcar to be useful...
And furthermore, we all know why E2025 failed; a combination of bad mismanagement/maintenance at the end, the cheating more generally over the last decade, and stagnation - all of which, imho, are partially due to the admins being out of touch.
So yea... basically we have too much invested in this to screw it up via cheating, imho, and it's better for the game if we know wtf is going on...
Finally did the signature thing.