The Flexibility of Exile

[AustInhale 2]

I would like to write an appeal to the devs of the Exile mod. I love this mod, it is everything you need for a good pvp and pve sandbox experience in Arma 3. I feel like you (the devs) are going down the wrong path. I like some of your new changes, but I feel you are forcing things upon players. Physical poptabs, removal of Thermals from the UAV/Mk30s, back when you wanted to add keys. These are all features that people would like to see on their servers, but that does not mean everybody does. There is a solution, it may not be the easiest, but it would still make the lives of us server admins much easier. Make features like the optional. the transition to physical poptabs is going to be harsh, I don't know how you plan to do it but there is no way telling how many people I am going to have to compensate or explain things to about this. You have also based this change off of a extremely small portion of the exile community, less than 1% of the people who get on our server a month. Every week I deal with countless players, from kids under 10 years old to adults double my age, and most of them don't even know that these forums exist (even with a link on the lobby). The life of an exile admin is not easy, as I am sure you guys have found with your new server; players are great, but they can also be the biggest dickheads you have ever met. These changes that are forced upon us only make things harder, they may be cool, they may seem like good ideas to you, but I feel you need to go around to the communities that are large, the ones everyone knows about, and ASK the admins there about the features. You can't just wait for feedback to come to you, you need to go find it sometimes, and if you don't you get angry admins like me.  Exile's flexibility is what makes it an amazing mod to play, every server is different and I want to keep it that way.

[Mezo 1264]

Seriously? People are getting bored of reading these now... At least wait until all of this stuff is actually live. You never know, you may enjoy having to actually think about what you're doing in the game.

[Eichi 4505]

17 minutes ago, AustInhale said:

removal of Thermals from the UAV/Mk30s

This already is a config setting?

17 minutes ago, AustInhale said:

you have also based this change off of a extremely small portion of the exile community

How do you know to how many communities we spoke to? Not even I have counted that  It seems more like you have not been a part of the guys we have talked to, sorry.

19 minutes ago, AustInhale said:

back when you wanted to add keys

We have asked for it and had a poll. We decided to take what the community wanted and added a compromise between PIN codes and keys. What is wrong with that?

21 minutes ago, AustInhale said:

There is a solution, it may not be the easiest, but it would still make the lives of us server admins much easier. Make features like the optional.

Essential parts of the mod, like the money handling, cannot be made configurable. It affects the database scheme, saving, loading, updating, removing, buying items, selling items, purchasing vehicle skins, selling vehicles and its cargo, buying territory flags, paying protection money and a lot of other things.

Some things are not configurable. I am sorry, but we really cannot invent an engine that runs with both gasoline or diesel depending on the user config.

[ElDubya 93]

[FluffyBunnyFee 99]

Edited April 28, 2016 by FluffyBunnyFee

[AustInhale 2]

Thanks for the quick reply Eichi, I really like how you rip me apart with your replies, it hurts, and the way you do it feels bad, but you explain yourself very well. I guess I am just a bit angry about some of these changes, as are some of my co-admins in the spearhead community. We run the most popular hardcore community and we feel like we get overlooked duing these changes. To the others who replied, this is a constructive criticism thread, dont be an ass like that, I just wanted some answers about some stuff. I would like to talk to you Eichi about some of these config options because I think we just can't find them. As I said, the best part of your mod is the flexibility and I would love to work with you guys on adding even more customization. I also have alot of questions about how the transition to physical poptabs will work. Will it require database wipes or is there a way to work around that. We get over 5000 people every map cycle we run (3-4 months) and carrying over that amount of data could be near impossible. Maybe this thread should be moved to another part of the forums if the subject is going to go this way. I would be very grateful if you or someone in your team would come talk to us about these things in TS or Discord. Find us on spearheadgaming.net look for me in ts under the same name. I have too many questions to ask here, and this isn't the board to do this in anyway

[GamersRoost 265]

1 hour ago, AustInhale said:

Thanks for the quick reply Eichi, I really like how you rip me apart with your replies, it hurts, and the way you do it feels bad, but you explain yourself very well. I guess I am just a bit angry about some of these changes, as are some of my co-admins in the spearhead community. We run the most popular hardcore community and we feel like we get overlooked duing these changes. To the others who replied, this is a constructive criticism thread, dont be an ass like that, I just wanted some answers about some stuff. I would like to talk to you Eichi about some of these config options because I think we just can't find them. As I said, the best part of your mod is the flexibility and I would love to work with you guys on adding even more customization. I also have alot of questions about how the transition to physical poptabs will work. Will it require database wipes or is there a way to work around that. We get over 5000 people every map cycle we run (3-4 months) and carrying over that amount of data could be near impossible. Maybe this thread should be moved to another part of the forums if the subject is going to go this way. I would be very grateful if you or someone in your team would come talk to us about these things in TS or Discord. Find us on spearheadgaming.net look for me in ts under the same name. I have too many questions to ask here, and this isn't the board to do this in anyway

I'm curious, what does this mean ? "We run the most popular hardcore community". In your words, what is "Hardcore" gaming?

 

[AustInhale 2]

7 minutes ago, GamersRoost said:

I'm curious, what does this mean ? "We run the most popular hardcore community". In your words, what is "Hardcore" gaming?

 

1st person play only, hardest AI only. Hate and desperation turned up to maximum.

[WolfkillArcadia 758]

2 hours ago, AustInhale said:

I would like to talk to you Eichi about some of these config options because I think we just can't find them.

All of your config options are in either exile_server_config\config.cpp or exile.map_name\config.cpp. The thermals is on the server config near the bottom. If you are a server owner and HAVEN'T looked through these configs thoroughly, I feel bad for you, man. 

2 hours ago, AustInhale said:

We run the most popular hardcore community and we feel like we get overlooked duing these changes.

Are you saying the developers should come to your community and tailor their mod for you? It's not the developers job to reach out to your community for ideas. If you want to be a part of how Exile is shaped, spend some time on this forum. 

2 hours ago, AustInhale said:

I really like how you rip me apart with your replies, it hurts, and the way you do it feels bad, but you explain yourself very well.

It's called honesty, something that this world needs more of. It's also what this reply is full of. 

2 hours ago, AustInhale said:

We get over 5000 people every map cycle we run (3-4 months) and carrying over that amount of data could be near impossible.

Not really. Plenty of big communities do it all the time. In fact, most business's databases are 5x that size, and they have no issues doing it if need be. Also, if you are cycling maps, you have to wipe your construction, container, territory and vehicle tables out of your database. So that leaves you with account, player, and player_history. So, assuming your "5000 people every map" is correct and not over-exaggerated to try to prove your point, you are looking at about 15,000 entries? In all honesty, you could get rid of player_history and not even be affected, so 10,000? Just to prove my point more, I generated a 5 column, 10,000 row mySQL database and the final size? 1.5MB. 

2 hours ago, AustInhale said:

I would be very grateful if you or someone in your team would come talk to us about these things in TS or Discord.

Again, why do they need to come to talk to you? You don't call Walmart and ask for the manager to drive all the way over to your house so you can suggest that Aisle 2 needs to be cleaned and re-stocked with Cold Medicine. They have a lovely TS (ts.exile.majormittens.co.uk) that they are normally on and available to talk. 

2 hours ago, AustInhale said:

I have too many questions to ask here, and this isn't the board to do this in anyway

You are right, there are plenty of other places on this forums to be asking questions. Or in fact, maybe the question has already been asked? Have you tried the search box? I heard it's quite nice and will normally tell you something new.

2 hours ago, AustInhale said:

To the others who replied, this is a constructive criticism thread, dont be an ass like that, I just wanted some answers about some stuff.

These questions that you have asked, some of them relevant to the current update, have been brought up, talked about, pissed on, yelled at, as well as, started world war 3 AND 4. Finally, when the fire goes out, someone asks the same exact question or brings it up again, so it starts the whole process over again. It's annoying, pointless, and a waste of time and energy. Hence why you got such a bad response and, hence, my response to this stuff as well. 

3 hours ago, AustInhale said:

You can't just wait for feedback to come to you, you need to go find it sometimes, and if you don't you get angry admins like me.

Again, not their job. As server owners and admins, it's your job to stay up to date and active in the mod that you run. If Exile played baby sitter with all of the communities out there, trying to shape this mod to be what every community, even just the large ones, it would be shit in my opinion. Absolute shit. Because community A wants feature B, but community B hates feature B and hope it dies in a fire. 

2 hours ago, AustInhale said:

most popular hardcore community

You might want to redefine your community if you think that these features that are being "forced" are bad. These features can make the game harder, so I don't understand why that's an issue. I thought hardcore is what your community was offering?

 

To sum up, it's fine to have an opinion and I'm not hating you or trying to piss you off by saying these things above. We all understand that it's difficult to tailor to every need of your players, but put yourself in the Exile developers shoes, running a community is nothing compared to building a mod. 

They have a game plan, an idea of what they want THEIR mod to be. I feel like people get so focused on what's inside the box, instead of looking outside it. Exile could've been locked down so much that the only thing you could do was eat what was being served. But instead they thought of you guys, the communities, the people hosting the servers and made it so Exile was as open as can be. My point is that, you can tailor Exile to be what you want it to be, vs expecting the developers to try to make the blandest, most boring, kid-friendly ArmA 3 mod out there. So here, be productive, below are some links for you.  

Scripting Commands ArmA 3
KKid's website

Those are two great websites for learning SQF. Read up, because now you have the power to learn how to understand what Exile is doing from a coding perspective and change it to make your diapers feel snug. 

If you feel like Exile is making a mistake, let them. This is a part of making a mod, it's a learning experience. Exactly the same with hosting a server.

Edited April 29, 2016 by WolfkillArcadia

[GamersRoost 265]

Gotcha. Thanks. That is also my definition. I was reading some of the comments on your website and it seemed that your community is complaining about the same things mine have for months. We are the "little guys", but it seems we all face the same rash of "kids" and "trolls".

Appreciate the answer.