Hello, I'm 501warhead; Then and Now.

[501warhead 1796]

Greetings folks!

 

So, a little nervous I saw that there was a lot of confusion thrown about at my recent (and somewhat unknown) promotion (you can read the post and comments here). I tried to answer the concerns directly there but I know a lot of folks won't view responses nearly as much as a whole thread, so I'll take this time to simply answer two questions;

 

1. Who am I?

2. Why me?

 

Who am I?

 

• Then

 

So, roughly... it's been a long time, it would be 2 years now? Late 2014 I was promoted to Moderator by Firespirit44, and before then I had been (Man, trying to think of myself pre-staff is so awkward, was I really that edgy?) relatively "unknown". I worked as an ET Builder (with literally 0 work ethic) and then got promoted to GM, where I... did... something. For a while. I think I made some event structures, some command block stuff, and a lot of voxel work - not a lot of modreqs, and kind of went inactive towards the end of my time as a moderator, preferring to remain off duty and roleplay rather than actually do work. The team lead at the time didn't seem to mind but it kind of bugged me, but - at the time - I really enjoyed the power trip of being a moderator and didn't want to give it up. I'll just be open and honest about that - no secrets here!

 

At that time I was technically in my computer science degree but I had no drive or passion for it, floating through with literally 0 interest in the program and about to switch majors. I had never touched Java, had failed a semester of school, and decided - ah fuck it, what do I have to lose? I badgered Kowaman for a test plugin schematic so I could apply to Sporadic, who was always this cool developer who was always mysterious and non-chalant (it seemed) but did a ton of work - I was terrified to approach him, so I got the test plugin from Kowaman and coded it so that when I contacted Sporadic I'd be able to code something and join the team. When sporadic & Telanir left I was kind of worried and Kowaman kind of went on the fritz from having to do the 1.8 update all on how own (I did NOT and still do not envy him, it took Forge like a year to update - LotC was no small feat for one developer) I eventually got Kowaman to give me a full trial and add me as a coder.

 

So what did I do as a coder? I did what all coders do! I code a magic plugin! I spent months on this "magic plugin", so eager to get it out (making staves with gems and staves, enchanting them with a rune forge! Making awesome magic spells to shoot and fling!). I had literally almost no idea what I was doing, I pretty much coded the most spaghetti code you could, and I kept adding more, and more, and more, and more features to it until eventually I, being the novice coder I was, buckled under the weight of it all and realized my dream required more time than I could put into it, and I got to a point that I hated every line I coded - I saw what I made that I had coded a month before and, now having learned more, realized that so much novice mistakes were made that fixing them would take just as much time as I put in. I gave up.

 

And then, in a teamspeak channel as I was talking to Kowaman after the 1.8 update he dropped a bomb without any form of prelude: He had left. No, not was leaving. As in he suddenly after a long brief of silence said "Aaand enter. Alright Kalen, you're the dev team lead now." "...What?" "Ya, you're the dev team lead. I quit." "Kowaman no. Kowa no, you know I can't do this." "Too late!"

 

I value Kowaman as a friend, but this obviously put me in a pretty shitty spot. This was around when Telanir came into the picture, and he came back at a little of mine, Kowaman, and Tythus' request when I was really needed some help - but it didn't change the position I was in, lead dev with little experience.

 

The rest of the time really goes by in a flash, I spent pretty much months working through the smallest bugs which I didn't have the skill to understand, such as NPCs not turning their heads when they looked at you, that one alone took a few weeks of frustration. The stress rapidly built up under my own, personal expectations and pitched me rapidly into a place of being... well, an ass. Combined with my jaded personality from being a moderator (It really takes it all out of you) and the stress I became, inside of staff chats, an arrogant, power-demanding individual who often talked behind peoples backs. 

 

Man, what a way to open right? "Hey guys, I'm 501warhead and I'm a pretty bad dude!" - however, this is an introspective topic that I've had a few months to reflect on and decided I'd share that reflection with you. I'm happy to be open about these things as I feel like it will help understand me a bit better. So, around when 5.0 came out things weren't looking great. I was totally burnt out, Kowaman had come back and I had whipped him into helping me asked him to help me out as I was totally burned out. I didn't want to give up lead dev but decided to do the 1.9 update (the timelines are a little hazy, this happened sooner or later but im not sure if kowa was actually around for this).

 

So, a little bit about me - I'm a bit of a "Minecraft Purist". That is to say, I love this game! I'm really passionate about minecraft, enjoy building, enjoy picking apart it's code, love playing both vanilla and mods. So when I saw the changes to combat, I was excited! I was really happy about the changes because I loved seeing new things from Mojang and as soon as I saw the community reaction... I got upset. I was mad at the community, mad at the players - why don't you enjoy minecraft? They're going to make it better probably, it's unreasonable to not update (and this is true, but my response was, as ill explain, uncalled for). So, in one of the worst decisions I've ever made - I decided, in my head, that I was right and everyone else was wrong. I brute forced the update, cranked it out under high stress, never wrote patchnotes because my blood pressure rose each time I opened the forums.

 

LotC was not healthy for me. I had fought the community, fought the very players of the game we loved - I was wrong and deep inside I knew it, but I didn't want to admit it. Eventually however as 5.0 approached it became all too much - I stepped down from the position and apologized, even if it was semi-tongue and cheek riddled with sarcasm (can be found here) and went to focus on... well the rest of my life. I started my semester strong, started classes I was excited for, got a job, and still balanced fun (Played and still kind of do play the fuck out of World of Warcraft, no I will not link my battle.net because im afraid of you hardcore players but I think I did pretty well getting to ilvl 876 and clearing heroic) with life.

 

• Now

 

As I progressed in my courses I got a burning desire to test out some of the advanced stuff I learned during my major, to stretch my legs a bit. I had been wanting to do a big overhaul on our back end data storage for sometime (it is a mess) to speed up searches and to make persona data more secure and I contacted Kowaman at the end of September to help out. Pretty much from the start I acknowledged I wasn't a great lead dev and made sure to stay away from balance related topics, while I had been against racial Player Vs Player benefits from being revoked and pro-1.9 PvP I stepped down and let the developers develop, I was perfectly alright and even supported their decisions - I had come to grips with an important concept which has driven me to applying and now obtaining the administrator rank;

 

Put the community first, your own ideals come second.

 

This isn't to say that I have literally no ideas which I won't compromise on, but the most important thing that I realized was best for the community was doing what was in the communities interest, not my own. That often times how the community perceives something is a big deal. (Puts me in a hard spot saying this! What if you guys don't want me? But... kind of almost breaking my own rule, I want to stick it out to let you guys decide if I work for you or not.) This realization kind of put me in a place that I felt good about my ideas, that the big picture was that everyone should be happy and we shouldn't shrug off opinions just because they might not agree with our own ideals. 

 

Anyway, I've been basically working in the background for several months working on a few large plugins and systems hopefully soon to be a reality and I hope you'll enjoy them, but I obviously come somewhat out of the blue. I'm very vocal inside of private chats but other than that I was relatively unknown that I was even around before the announcement (Even to the moderators, sorry guys :(. I'm bad at using Skype, <3 discord) but I'm upping the ante here soon with my communication and you should see me all over the place in the coming weeks, hopefully saying some things most of you are excited to hear!

 

• Why me?

 

So, while I cannot speak for those who chose me I will try to explain a little bit about what was going on and what happened. So, while I had been back I was attending several meetings and focusing on a lot of points for the future - As we talked about our direction I spoke in length about the fact that what the community wants is important, spoke about the state of several failing systems on the server, and am advocating for clearer plugins and less silence. Outside of that I have been also pushing several large reforms which should be coming soon - often times even spending all nights arguing with the administration for a better server! Now, am I right? Are my ideals the correct ideals for the server? Only time, and you, will tell - but I hope after all of this you have a bit more of an idea about who I was and who I am.

 

• Ask me whatever you want!

 

I'm an open book, it's late so I might have to answer some questions tomorrow but I'm sure there are many. I'll be as open as I can be without spoiling upcoming plans, I still do feel like surprises are better than spoilers!

[FORƎST 1312]

i remember seeing you on the "will never get gm" list

[Hiebe 2493]

Just now, LIMƎ said:

i remember seeing you on the "will never get gm" list

I bet Im on that list too

 

 

Welcome back man glad to see it

[Space 2335]

really interesting read +1 haha xd

[Harri 4815]

when can i repeatedly click my minecraft sword and hit a maximum damage hit every time on the premium roleplay server

 

 

 

How are you today/tonight?

[El Ricktador 1394]

give us pvp back

[ryno2 1285]

seriously though, different servers in version 1.10 increased attack speed to replicate 1.8 combat and it isnt really too different from old times, please work toward that

[501warhead 1796]

7 minutes ago, LIMƎ said:

i remember seeing you on the "will never get gm" list

 

Lol, but you spawned us in warping doors all around anthos and spawned a few double chests of sand (you filthy corrupt gm)! I never did anything of the sort. Shows what you all know! And I worked hard around that time on the maps :(

 

Just now, HB_ said:

when can i repeatedly click my minecraft sword and hit a maximum damage hit every time on the premium roleplay server

 

 

 

How are you today/tonight?

 

Good!

 

Just now, El Ricktador said:

give us pvp back

 

Just now, ryno2 said:

seriously though, different servers in version 1.10 increased attack speed to replicate 1.8 combat and it isnt really too different from old times, please work toward that

 

I'm afraid another dev is working on it - stepping on toes leads to brawls! You can ruin a lot of peoples code if you try "fixing" their code and then they already had a fix, it makes everyones life hell. It'll get done, these things take time! Dev cycles aren't fast, and I know it can feel like forever but we are working on it, we're just a bunch of college students.

[Rammer 388]

Good that you swallowed your pride and admitted that "Yeah guys I ****** up" not a lot of people can do that so good on you man. 

 

 

[Taketheshot 3834]

1.8 pls 

[501warhead 1796]

Just now, Rammer said:

Good that you swallowed your pride and admitted that "Yeah guys I fucked up" not a lot of people can do that so good on you man. 

 

 

 

Ya, pride and ego are the bane of progress (Although nostalgia is also up there with those two!) and I like progress!

 

Just now, Taketheshot said:

1.8 pls 

 

Well, as much as I would like to give you good news (I dont like just saying "No, won't happen") I'm afraid I cannot on this topic - We cannot, reasonably, downgrade at this point. To understand why (So you aren't just scratching your head) all of our plugins (~20 pieces of work) are 2 versions of MC ahead, we've rewritten a good bulk of our plugins to only be compatible on 1.10+, and all the blocks suddenly disappearing out of the world might give our server a heart attack and periodic seizures. While these wouldn't be impossible to deal with (we could  do it, it would take a lot of time, months even, but it would be "possible", just as much as rewriting minecraft is "possible") the time we spent on it could just as easily be spent making 1.10+ better for you guys and making swing timers very much 1.8-like.

[Archbishop 1784]

Did you take Dohvi's role, with stuff like charters/regions?

[Taketheshot 3834]

Just now, 501warhead said:

 

Ya, pride and ego are the bane of progress (Although nostalgia is also up there with those two!) and I like progress!

 

 

Well, as much as I would like to give you good news (I dont like just saying "No, won't happen") I'm afraid I cannot on this topic - We cannot, reasonably, downgrade at this point. To understand why (So you aren't just scratching your head) all of our plugins (~20 pieces of work) are 2 versions of MC ahead, we've rewritten a good bulk of our plugins to only be compatible on 1.10+, and all the blocks suddenly disappearing out of the world might give our server a heart attack and periodic seizures. While these wouldn't be impossible to deal with (we could  do it, it would take a lot of time, months even, but it would be "possible", just as much as rewriting minecraft is "possible") the time we spent on it could just as easily be spent making 1.10+ better for you guys and making swing timers very much 1.8-like.

Okay........remove swing timers

[501warhead 1796]

Just now, A Moongazer said:

Did you take Dohvi's role, with stuff like charters/regions?

 

I have not! Roles have not been discussed yet

 

Just now, Taketheshot said:

Okay........remove swing timers

 

As stated before, it is certainly being worked on! The problem is that with the removal of swing timers (as an optional combat style) all of the weapon damage needs to change and weapon %s need to scale around, it's actually not just as simple as going to the player and saying "ok you hit like you're Sylvester Stallone, have fun" - we have to balance all of these so axes don't suddenly feel like someone picked up a truck and is swinging it like a stick.

[Guest]

Took your advice again to try and speak to Thomas. I was unsucccessful. Any further recommendations?