Lag with AI players (split from "new scenario map - malta island")

[AtlasMapper]

@niektb: again, about your config, I don't think you have 8Ghz of CPU, so you probably talk about 8x512 = 4 GB of ram. So we have a very similar resources amount. But you experience lags without crashes, and I don't. So it is something different from the config (again).

@feneur:

On 01/04/2016 at 9:40 PM, feneur said:

Just because suggestions are offered doesn't mean that people think that there can't be another issue, just that there can be more than one thing to think about.

Well it might be an usual way of managing things here, it might be obvious for long-term users. But from my recent user experience, it is not so clear. How can I see the difference from a speculative suggestion from a random forum user (sometimes I do such speculative posts), and the confirmation that the bug is really taken into account ? It appears that neither the number of posts, nor the different user tags (wfg staff, or forum users) is indicative at all. So if you're new and don't know the people answering, it is not clear. I think I now start to understand the role of people answering me here, but it is not so easy and still speculative. Moreover, if "you just have a low config" is the only answer for some days, how can I understand the problem is still taken into account and other people thinking about it ? All of this is blurry for me.

On 09/03/2016 at 3:26 PM, feneur said:

You can report errors either here or on our bug tracker

I think this is actually the origin of this problem. First, it has been told to me on irc that almost no devs are actually using the forum. So the forum is probably not the best way to catch the dev attention on a specific problem. Secondly, I never used the trac system before, I just saw some tickets: maybe there is some way to see more clearly that the problem is officialy taken into account, even if nobody answers with a message. I don't know if I am clear, but I believe it would be more simple to understand after reporting a bug in this way. And finally, every other time I suggested some bug or any kind of issue, I have a similar answer "just report it on trac, see link..". So for all these reasons, I think it would be more productive to directly suggest to newcomers to report bugs on trac, and not on the forum at all. And you need another account to report on trac, so if unregistered people see they should go ahead on trac directly, it would be easier for them. But it is just a little feedback from an unexperienced user.

On 01/04/2016 at 9:40 PM, feneur said:

Also, I don't think anyone of the people who have replied in this thread have English as their first language, so things are most likely not expressed as well as they should and it can be easy to misunderstand. You might think of something else

Yes you're right, I was thinking of something else than on this thread. It was certainly not a good thing to mix things, I didn't wanted to reject the help on any other post on this thread. So let's be transparent and clarify things: I was talking about @niektb, @elexis and @leper.

Spoiler

Let's start with niektb. I'm a newcommer as you know, and from the start, the only messages I have from him are negative, or even sarcastic. Not necessarily on this thread (even if "do you even read the post ??", or telling me that minimum config are not accurate is suggesting I am stupid), but that was especially true when I asked for some help for the creation of maps. Each time someone did make a positive thing on my map, he did take some time to reply like "yes, I can do the same..." (see crete). Instead of answering clearly, he barely suggested things, and ever gave me an example with subtile mistakes, in sort the scripts can't work at all (but I have been able to figure out myself there was errors, so I couldn't be accidental from him) (see aeolian). You can say he don't speak a good english, I saw some other messages of him when he started to contribute here, and he can be very very nice when he wants. I want to be clear: it is really not much important for me, I just wanted to ignore him. It was just a bit disapointing, he was like "maping is my own territory, you're not welcome here". But is it ok I just wanted to do my stuff on my side and don't bother anybody with it, neither take the place of anybody (anyway can't compete). But he kept leaving messages on my post again and again... Then, after some recommendations from sanderd17 who really insisted about it, I went on irc to ask about he procedure to contribute to the main game with some of my maps (if in the end they could become interesting). You can see it easily in 0ad and 0ad-dev logs, I've been there only once. leper and elexis were very unfriendly, and started to make fun of me just because I naively asked how things would work, if there could be any comitee that look at submited maps or so. Then it was the same: they quickly had a sight on some old screens on some of my map, and enumerated all the defects, without much care, and they finished by stating my maps have no artistic value nor any gameplay potential, by contrast to Niektb's maps. Meanwhile, look at the kind of comment elexis could make on a map of one of his good old friend : never seen such beautifull hills.. (sorry @scythetwirler, don't want to tell unpleasant things about your map or catch you in all of this, but I find elexis comments disproportionate) See the constant texturing and the placement of towers ? Then see the screenshot of one of the map they seen while on irc(especially cyprus: the screenshots are old, and they could already have seen the map in a much better state when I was at irc as I uploaded a better map, but just compare the old screenshots and the one that elexis like so much: was it really necessary to mock me and to state my map has no potential at all ? Moreover they stated niektb is a kind of major reviewer of anybody's map here. So it was crystal-clear for me: maping is the exclusive niektb territory, and I am not welcome here. Again, I want you to understand me: if things works this way, well, it's ok for me. I can admit I am not welcome and I never did want to insist. I leaved the chat politely, and just wanted to stay on my side. But still more messages of niektb, and he even started to send to me some copies of his "private" messages by including me in the receiver list.. I did underline it and he replied it was intentional from him to send me these unwanted messages (he actually did never talk to me in these unwanted messages, but he just wanted to show he was developing things for others). You can still invoke some lack of english skills, but it is only a behavior comportment, and there is a word for it: this is harassment. You are an admin, you can have access to my pm, please have a look at them to check I am telling the truth. I also want to underline the fact that I am not looking for positive comments only when I post some maps. I believe one can only get better when people underline your mistakes. But niektb elexis and leper never wanted to help me to do better maps, but rather simply reject my possible contribution.

So if I can resume all of this (sorry for the long explanation, but now I am clearer): when you're a newcomer to this game/project, things are not easy at all. I tried to point it out several times, and again in the top of this post. The project lacks some good tutorial and explanations too. So one should be very motivated. But then, when you have to face repeated negative comments, unfriendly behavior (like "this is my territory"), mocking on irc because you're a newcomer, and even harassment, there are no chance on would really contribute to this work. So I will repeat what I did say:
"It seems that it is easier for a few devs/contributors to deny, reject or mock any attempt of newcomers to make the game better rather than listening, trying to understand and eventually cheer up any positive initiative (even if unperfected). I think you're doing a huge error by acting this way. Especially for an open-source, collaborative project. The most valuable thing for such project is the man power."
Everybody is not like this here. I should finish by talking about @sanderd17, this guy is like a bottomless well of science never afraid to see any new bucket. Almost all the things I wasn't able to figure out by myself, I learn from him. But he can't take care of every single newcomers here. Some retired wfg guys were incredible too, and very friendly. But some other people are really spoiling this project. As a team manager, I really think you should tell them to change their way of managing potential new contributor, even if what they suggest is not yet ready for the project. A newcomer could become a major contributor at some point. Or maybe you think the team is good in this current state and don't want anymore people, it is possible. So just state it. But again, it is just a suggestion from my personal experience.
Sorry for having mixing things in my previous post.

[feneur]

As for what niektb might have said in PMs I can't have any comment as I don't have access to them.

As for IRC, I did see what you wrote and got in reply in http://irclogs.wildfiregames.com/2016-03-27-QuakeNet-%230ad-dev.log. The only thing that looks a bit rude is leper's comment about committees, but that is only because we have had bad experiences with committees not working in the past. I don't expect you to know that, but it's an example of how things can easily be interpreted as worse than they actually are. The "meh" that follows your question isn't polite I give you that, but it's followed by helpful advice, so it doesn't dismiss you as a map maker.

Apart from that all I see are comments for how to improve your maps and similar. If you are not prepared for criticism then I don't see why you are interested in having them in the game. And all they said was that since niektb has got experience with making maps his opinion is valued, not that no one else can create maps.

About reporting bugs on the forums or Trac: Trac is certainly the best way, but we want to keep the possibility to report things on the forums as well as Trac might be a bit intimidating for new people. I understand that this can make things a bit confusing, but hope that the benefits outweigh the downsides.

Quote

How can I see the difference from a speculative suggestion from a random forum user (sometimes I do such speculative posts), and the confirmation that the bug is really taken into account ? It appears that neither the number of posts, nor the different user tags (wfg staff, or forum users) is indicative at all. So if you're new and don't know the people answering, it is not clear. I think I now start to understand the role of people answering me here, but it is not so easy and still speculative. Moreover, if "you just have a low config" is the only answer for some days, how can I understand the problem is still taken into account and other people thinking about it ? All of this is blurry for me.

I don't see what the problem is with not seeing the difference in this case, a suggestion is a suggestion regardless. It's not as if an official team member automatically knows the answer to all issues, so sometimes looking at an issue from different directions is needed. "The game lags" is an issue, but it's not a specific bug that can be fixed in one specific way. To be able to fix the issue you need to find the exact cause to determine what you can do about it. Once the exact cause has been defined it can be tracked and hopefully fixed, but until that it can't really be taken into account. We don't have access to your computer, so we can't know if it's an issue with the game, the settings, the operating system, the hardware, or something else. We need all the help we can get in figuring it out, even if that help sometimes comes via people who are just repeating something they've seen in another thread or something from their own experience.

 

There certainly can (and should) be more documentation, so as you learn you are definitely welcome to help out in that regard. We do have the wiki editable by anyone who has registered, and if one doesn't want to post things there one can post a tutorial or something in the forums. If it's useful and well-written enough it can be given more attention by being pinned at the top of the appropriate forum etc.

[niektb]

@AtlasMapper: Ah, sorry about the confusion. I thought you meant your OS, drivers and settings with config. What I wanted to point out with my computer specs (which are btw 4x4.5GHz and 8GB RAM) is that lag is fairly common (to a certain extend). (which you probably understood)

I see that you're using a Intel chipset with Mesa drivers, could there be a (part of the) issue? (on my laptop with an HD4000 I have some graphics issues, like flickering shadows, on linux and Windows with an NVidia GTS450 I have no such problems at all) (Yet again, I don't have enough knowledge about such driver issues but I can imagine that something could go wrong there)

Out of curiosity, do these crashes still happen with Alpha 20? (or isn't that one available yet for your OS)

 

[AtlasMapper]

2 hours ago, feneur said:

There certainly can (and should) be more documentation,

@feneur: Don't misinterpret what I tried to say: I just wanted to point out that in its current state, it is not so easy to use contribute to the game, especially in my case to use Atlas. It already requires lots of efforts. So if atop of it you have to face a continuous flow of negative comments, hostility and "private jokes" of long-term users and even harassment, it is really discourage many people. You can always say it is just a problem of interpretation from me, but the recent post of @Lion.Kanzen illustrate how rude historical contributors can be with newcomers. I understand some of you contributed since years to this project, but that doesn't mean there is no place for other people.

2 hours ago, feneur said:

If you are not prepared for criticism then I don't see why you are interested in having them in the game.

You can always tell wrong things, you won't make them get true. And it is not the point, as I previously said:

13 hours ago, AtlasMapper said:

I also want to underline the fact that I am not looking for positive comments only when I post some maps. I believe one can only get better when people underline your mistakes. But niektb elexis and leper never wanted to help me to do better maps, but rather simply reject my possible contribution.

But anyway, I am not asking you to justify others people behavior, nor asking you if I am right or not to feel rejected by the historical contributor. I was just pointing out the fact that it is not easy to (try) to contribute to the game for many reasons. So it would be better if people here would cheer newcomers rather than making fun of them, reject and deny any attempt to help. Seriously, I have been actively engaged in a few other open-source, collaborative projects, and more serious than this one (I want to be clear, what I mean by "serious" is the final goal of the project, not that this game isn't made in a serious way. I mean projects that fits technical objectives) and I always loved the atmosphere in open-source projects. But here it is very different, but it is a game, I was expecting something even more relax and benevolent, we are all here to have fun! In the end, what any new contributor would have to gain to help this project ? A nickname listed in the credit page ? If I wanted to eventually help this game, it is just because I like it. It was something positive from me, no need to reject it because the territory is already occupied.

Anyway, I believe it could be an endless loop. I believe we should stop this useless conversation. As I started with it, I leave you the opportunity to leave the last message, and then close this topic.

[feneur]

Quote

Don't misinterpret what I tried to say: I just wanted to point out that in its current state, it is not so easy to use contribute to the game, especially in my case to use Atlas.

Yes, you said it is not easy, I mentioned one way to improve it for the future. (Though considering that you have been able to create a fair amount of new maps in short time, it either can't be that difficult or you are skilled. If it's not that difficult then anyone can create documentation for Atlas, if you are skilled then you hopefully would have a lot of useful tips and tricks to share.).

 @Lion.Kanzen's comments were rude, but he was immediately told off by another forum member, so why take one comment as representative for the entire community? I'll go ahead and delete all the irrelevant comments from that thread, but I generally don't want to censor things which is why I was a bit reluctant to do it in the first place.

 

My priority is not to defend, but at the moment rather to try and figure out what it was they did that caused this reaction from you. Especially since no one has said anywhere (if I'm wrong please point me directly to what was said and where) that your contributions would not be appreciated, just that we naturally listen to those with previous experience when making decisions. We are not all expert map makers, or map makers at all, so we need to get the help we can in figuring out how to make sure that what gets put into the game is as good as possible.

44 minutes ago, AtlasMapper said:

even more relax

If anything we might be a bit too relaxed for you it seems, you might have preferred if we were more formal. I mean, people are offering suggestions by mentioning them without any surrounding "if you would allow me to point out a way in which you could improve" or similar.

[AtlasMapper]

@feneur: Ok, I think everything has been told now. About Lion's post, I did not asked to delete it, but instead just move it in another place (like the split from the original topic of this message). I agree, there is no need to censor it by deleting it. But maybe make in sort newcomers won't be afraid about it. It was a suggestion.

I just don't understand your last comment:

2 hours ago, feneur said:

If anything we might be a bit too relaxed for you it seems, you might have preferred if we were more formal. I mean, people are offering suggestions by mentioning them without any surrounding "if you would allow me to point out a way in which you could improve" or similar.

But this is because I can't translate it properly. If the relax word is because of it, please forget it. Maybe it wasn't clear, keep benevolent, and you can put "kindly" in place of relax, but I'm not sure to be able to explain it more sharply.

Thanks for the exchanges of point of view.

[feneur]

54 minutes ago, AtlasMapper said:

I just don't understand your last comment:

But this is because I can't translate it properly. If the relax word is because of it, please forget it. Maybe it wasn't clear, keep benevolent, and you can put "kindly" in place of relax, but I'm not sure to be able to explain it more sharply.

Well, my main point was mostly that it might be common around here to say things more directly than it seems like you are used to. I.e. instead of trying to be nice and polite and sugar coat everything someone might just say directly that "this could be improved" or "that is not as good as it could be, do that instead".

 

(And yes, you did not ask for the comments to be deleted, but I didn't feel like keeping them would improve anything, but rather be at risk of causing more unnecessary drama.)

[Stan`]

Here's the ticket http://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/3054