Who has contributed the most?

[Juba]

Ok, thanks for the information. It's always nice to know something about the history of KaM-community and the founder guys.

I just remebered that the forum has been created at 2005 or something like that. Since the beginning it has been down and the whole data has been lost at least once? (If I have intepreted some refers while reading old posts.) I guess his account was lost too and he soured too much for ingrate people who didn't appreciate his work.

Sometimes I wish I had a chance to use internet at 2000 or even just like two years earlier so I wouldn't have missed so many things (I've had an ADSL connection for 4 four years now).

[merchant_992]

It is a shame that some stuff is lost, but most of it is still somewhere. I also came into the community too late. But I learned a lot the last 4 years. Those old stories and programs give me an archive of over 1 GB.

But the TB story almost deserves a special.
Sometimes I wish that he still was here. I would like to know what exactly happened that days. So many questions remain...

[Litude]

...Wait, I don't think The Barbarian ever posted at this forum. He used to post a few times at KnightsandMerchants.DE mainly to get feedback for his tools and such, but he wasn't that active of a community member (as in posting at forums). I think he was from the Netherlands or Belgium but I'm not completely sure, still I don't think he visited the Dutch forums either.

He had quite big plans for what he wanted to do for the game, other than just the Terrain Editor and the Mission Editor he had announced, he also planned for a Mission Installer and a Campaign Installer. In my honest opinion, I think he had a bit too big plans for the game. The purpose of having those installers was to make sure the missions would have been uneditable and be in a format only readable by the installer itself. Now I have no idea how he then intended to pass on the data to the game as if he just put the DAT into the game mission directory during runtime, any idiot would have been capable of getting the mission source.

The announcement at KnightsandMerchants.DE of him retiring from the community cited personal reasons he didn't want to disclose, but from some e-mails he sent me he clearly expressed his displeasure with certain community members (mainly me and Qage).

He didn't like the map editor Qage nade, not a bit. When Qage was developing it, (and having a bunch of problems, I heard) someone (I think I know whom, but I'll leave it unmentioned) sent Qage The Barbarian's private MAP file decoding document (without his permission, which he undoubtedly didn't want to happen as he had no plans to release any information whatsoever).

Now this coupled with the map graphics Qage extracted with the Graphics Editor made The Barbarian real angry (he even went as far as to say "...It was my STUPID mistake to release GR."). Apparently, the reason he made the Graphics Reader in the first place was to allow his editor to read the game graphic files directly. The Barbarian obviously wanted to get the credit of developing the first editor for KaM and Qage stole the scene from him. And you can't really blame him, having your document sent to someone else without your acknowledgment and I'm not even sure if Qage gave TB any credit for his work.

As for his problems with me, The Barbarian never really liked the concept of having information openly accessible, so he quite strongly opposed the idea of having a decoding section with accessible information available on my website. He said he didn't want the information to be available because it allowed a lot of potential for cheating and cheap hacks made to the game. I tried to convince him that the community was too small for cheating and hacking to become a problem, but oh well.

Here we are in 2009 (probably 3 years after the decoding section opened), and I've yet to hear of anyone getting abused by a cheater during a multiplayer game... :roll:

[merchant_992]

Quage mentione TB in the readme of his editor. He wouldn't be able to make his probram without TB's graphics he says.
I never heard about the MAP decoding stuff of TB that was mailed to Qage. But that was not the final reason he quitted.

Probably this community is really too small for real cheating. I've never seen it before too, or all the lag must just be some big cheat:P

[Litude]

I never heard about the MAP decoding stuff of TB that was mailed to Qage.

The document by The Barbarian is still being offered on the other fansites and I think it might have been Qage who started distributing the document further after he had finished his work on the editor (or possibly he gave it to someone else who then posted it to the public).
Personally, I respect the wishes of authors which is why I don't want that document to end up here.

But that was not the final reason he quitted.

Well no, but it was a major contributor to why he quit (he wrote this in an e-mail to me). He just got tired of the community who tried to "destroy the game" by revealing "secrets" about the file formats and because he really felt like he got ripped off by what Qage did, making him lose a lot of motivation to develop his editor(s).

[The Dark Lord]

But without all this stuff being decoded and distributed, all K&M forums would've been dead long ago.
And what always has been a miracle to me: how can you create graphic editors, map editors and mission editors, yet still being afraid for cheaters/hackers? If you have no permission to create these tools, then who is the real hacker?
If I would play a multiplayer game, and I'd like to cheat, a private map file wouldn't prevent me from doing so. When we're playing on my map, I am the only one who can edit it, right? Same with the .dat file. I'll give myself a huge army et voil?. I can tell what would happen next: no one would trust each other any longer, and multiplayer games would become history.
It's okay as it is.

[harold]

Hm I got that document from Qage, but I'm almost certain that I wasn't the only (or even the first) person to get it

[Ben]

From what I was reading, the Brbarian seems to be the one who did most, but I'm unsure of what everyone has done so I can't vote... I also kinda have a grudge against him since he wanted all of his projects to be "Private" Why? Why couldn't he just release them? It's not like multiplay ever worked in KaM anyway...

I love how everyone on the poll is so humble, it makes me happy to see such nice people on the forum.

[merchant_992]

Someday multiplayer really worked. When Kam was released there was a server on wich you could play. I never played at it, but it once worked. TB probably comes from that time.

[Litude]

Someday multiplayer really worked. When Kam was released there was a server on wich you could play. I never played at it, but it once worked. TB probably comes from that time.

You weren't around before The Barbarian quit? He quit quite a long time after the Net-Games server was taken offline. Besides, multiplayer games over there also had the possibility of desynching just like the games played over TCP/IP.

But you have to remember that all tools which work for TPR will also work for TSK in which multiplayer is considerably more stable.

[merchant_992]

I was probably only active at the old dutch forum at that time. But i was too noob to know stuff back then. I don't know for sure if TB was still active back then. I think he was, but I have never had contact with him.