Give people something to do

[Kloopy]

As for the point of noone taking the blame... I think you'll find its the collective "fault" of a lot of people. I agree its absolutely inexcusable and extremely stupid in this day and age of Gigabytes of cheap drive space available. But, whoever's fault it was, what ever the reasons, what ever anyone says, it has gone and it won't be coming back. Believe me, PATeam spent a whole night trying to work out the best way to get it back, even talking to people outside the team to see if they had any ideas. But, alas, nothing can be done.

So, its time to move on and drop all our emotions and hard feelings about the death of Classic PA. It's time to look to the future and be optimistic about the development of round eleven and the proporus times it brings.

Also, I'm sure some smartarse will disagree, but I believe PHP is an easier language to develop quickly in. I'm a coder myself, in both languages, but I still think it will be better to develop a new game from scratch. As Mit pointed out, there are far many more people who know PHP in the team than who know perl, so it makes logical sense to use PHP. Thus, if any coder(s) unfortunately leave, then there is someone left who understands the code and can take things forward, rather than being stuck in the situation the team finds themselves now.

Over the past few days, it really is coming to light that the NDA is the only step in the way of a speedy development now. Apparantly the restructured NDA has some important differences, and it's not possible to continue development of the new round until a final non disclosure agreement wording has been reached and agreed on by both PATeam and Jolt.

[Zeus]

Hopefully Spinner wont have to wait to sign a new NDA as well, will he?

And welcome back my old friend

[Kloopy]

I hope so too. But I have a sneaky suspicion that he might have to. I'm sure someone from the team could just clarify this either way to let our minds settle.

[Blazde]

What's to disclose if the old source is lost, and the new source won't be used? (Regarding round 11 development I mean, not speedgames).

[Bashar]

Originally Posted by Blazde

What's to disclose if the old source is lost, and the new source won't be used? (Regarding round 11 development I mean, not speedgames).

Jolt don't want the team giving away PA secrets or any details that jolt feel are 'sensitive'.

Basically, the purpose of the NDA is that Jolt want to be able to control the PAteam and the flow of information from PAteam to the community. But at the same time, they can't be arsed with any sort of active involvement, so the solution? Come up wth a contract that restricts what PAteam can and cannot say to the community (AKA NDA).

The NDA is an ongoing problem that has been around since Jolt took over PA. When they first did, they told PAteam they all had to sign it, PAteam unanimously told them to shove it. I have no idea what the situation with it is now, but I am somewhat surprised that it hasn't been resolved in the time we have had.

[Kloopy]

Ideas. And PATeam don't want to get in trouble. They have a set of strict rules in place due to the NDAs. But I believe its mainly ideas. They don't want to give trade secrets, new concepts and ideas away, etc. r11 small details should remain secret for a while yet. But still, thats not to say we couldn't be given a nice taster of whats to come.

Then theres also the fact that a lot of things haven't been decided. Like launch date, that can't be sorted until the game is nearing completion. Things like stats can't be decided until the game's done and betas have been run.

There is little information to give at the moment, and I think PATeam would get in trouble from Jolt for giving any of that info away.

Kloopy

[Bashar]

The long and short is that Jolt are imposing restrictions on what PAteam can and can't do despite the fact they are out of touch with the community. They have no idea that a balance is needed between risking game secrets leaking (helping competitors) and keeping people playing. They think that letting secrets out will help competitors, which is true, but they don't see the other half of the problem which is that nop information means that the secrets won't be worth keeping as there will be nobody to use them.

I would HOPE that this is the issue that PAteam are battling with them about.

[Karmulian]

On the note of old Source Code,

Fudge is the only person with the non compiled (Readable version), and unfortunatly due to the way oracle works you have to make the db and tables before putting the data in.
This would be a very very long and drawn out job, and as fudge no longer works for PA and has a job of his own, he isn't going to spend the time doing it

hence pre rndX is lost

[SYMM]

If you can get the non-compiled source (which until this post was gone, gone forever), then all the info you'd need to make the tables yourself is surely contained in it?

[Blazde]

Perhaps nobody in pateam know's C++ either :/

[Leshy]

Reading around in various threads, I'd like to say respect for Kloopy and Bashar.

They're currently doing exactly what PA Team should be doing - informing people of what's going on, why there is a waiting period, generally being optimistic about the future, and doing it in a polite way. Kudos to the both of you

[NEWSBOT3]

the key point in all these discussions is the answer to one simple question

whats the average age of a pa-team person ?

[Bashar]

Originally Posted by NEWSBOT3

the key point in all these discussions is the answer to one simple question

whats the average age of a pa-team person ?

A2 = 21
Mit = 19/20(?)
Karmulian is a little older
Others I dunno, but I think that Mit may well be the youngest. It is certainly not being run by children anyway.

[Bashar]

Originally Posted by Leshy

Reading around in various threads, I'd like to say respect for Kloopy and Bashar.

They're currently doing exactly what PA Team should be doing - informing people of what's going on, why there is a waiting period, generally being optimistic about the future, and doing it in a polite way. Kudos to the both of you

Thankyou for the kind words, but I don't think what either of us are doing is anything more than what any member of the community should do. I think PAteam should go a step further personally, and make sure the information is there to find already.

[Mit]

Bash : 20, 21 in just over a week.

[Bashar]

Originally Posted by Mit

Bash : 20, 21 in just over a week.

Oh right, for some reason I thought you were Kloopy's age. Dunno why.

[A2]

Incidentally and completely because I was interested I worked out the average age atm.

The average age is 21.5 years
(although this does allow for rounding up of the people who have birthdays within the next two weeks [Mit, Azrael & Karmulian])

(As an aside, Mushroom is the youngest, and Ice-Lady is the oldest, (no I'm not giving ages because I'd get beaten up quite severely) and I am pretty well dead on average at 21 and 4 ot 5 months) The majority of PA Team are either coming up to, or shortly after their 21st birthdays.

[Leshy]

1. It's considered impolite to ask a lady her age, let alone spread it publically
2. She isn't yet.

[Leshy]

First you make a claim about a lady's age. Then you say it was a guess, which means that the previous post was completely useless, and that no one should believe you. Then you seem to ask why a woman would mind being called "mid 30's" if she was in her "20's". And then you make some vague resemblance to a sexist comment.

You must be a true hit with the ladies!

[Ice-Lady]

I'm 32 and not ashamed of it.
Oh, and for your information women reach their sexual peak / prime in their 30's, men in their late teens/early twenties. I think you'll find women only get "loose" as you put it once they have had children, seeing as I have not had any, there isn't your so called problem.

Not that this has anything to do with the topic of this thread.

[Blazde]

Reading this nonsense gives me 'something to do' so it could be argued it's relevant to the thread topic.

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

the last statement was a true, scientific research..

Could you please link me to the relevant report? Because I've seen a lot of 'scientific research' that turned out to be bull.

Additionally, it was a guess, and a guess that MUST be true

I'n that case, I'm guessing that you are 12 years old. Remember, if you deny it, we'll be discussing it, and it'll be true!

Originally Posted by Ice-Lady

I'm 32 and not ashamed of it.

Early 30's, not mid 30's yet for at least two or three more years

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by SYMM

If you can get the non-compiled source (which until this post was gone, gone forever), then all the info you'd need to make the tables yourself is surely contained in it?

Unless stored procedures where used in the database and the setup/creation scripts dont exist anymore.

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by Qdeathstar

the last statement was a true, scientific research..there is research to back what i said up. .

Your post before this, was surely a new land breaking mark in rudeness.

You can either erase it and apologise, claim that your 11 year old brother took over your account, that you where insanely drunk which didnt blend well with your medication or just make yourself a complete moron "defending" it as if we where on a medical research forum.

That was totally out of order and would earn you heaps of well deserved *Plonks* on newsgroups.

[SYMM]

Originally Posted by Ramihyn

Unless stored procedures where used in the database and the setup/creation scripts dont exist anymore.

I'm pretty sure the time taken to re-create the database, and add any tweaks would take a hell of a lot less than coding a game from scratch.

[Mit]

Originally Posted by SYMM

I'm pretty sure the time taken to re-create the database, and add any tweaks would take a hell of a lot less than coding a game from scratch.

All well and good, but, even if we had the database, we still don't have the source code thus old pa would be just that, old pa and wouldn't evolve, so we'd be back to having to write a new game in a round or so anyway.

[SYMM]

Originally Posted by Karmulian

On the note of old Source Code,

Fudge is the only person with the non compiled (Readable version), and unfortunatly due to the way oracle works you have to make the db and tables before putting the data in.
This would be a very very long and drawn out job, and as fudge no longer works for PA and has a job of his own, he isn't going to spend the time doing it

hence pre rndX is lost

Originally Posted by Mit

All well and good, but, even if we had the database, we still don't have the source code thus old pa would be just that, old pa and wouldn't evolve, so we'd be back to having to write a new game in a round or so anyway.

So noone has the source, but Fudge does?
Is he refusing to let you have it or something? (Karm seems to imply that Fudge is the only person who could do the job, surely not!) Or are you (at least one of you) talking bollocks?

[Qdeathstar]

:-(.. sigh.. ok, i admit it i was an ass. I wasnt makeing a sexest comment however.

[Qdeathstar]

when i said loose, i ment better. but anyway.. it doesnt matter, and i appologize..

[Ramihyn]

Originally Posted by Mit

All well and good, but, even if we had the database, we still don't have the source code thus old pa would be just that, old pa and wouldn't evolve, so we'd be back to having to write a new game in a round or so anyway.

If the DB (including the stored procedures) and the binary FCGs existed and a round would run with that setup, you could start re-implementing single pages and then adding new stuff to them

You could even re-implement and replace piece by piece with PHP written code - you would just be bound to the old DB and its setup till you have re-implemented most/all code. That would be the simplest form of development possible - like drawing-by-numbers

[Bashar]

Originally Posted by Mit

All well and good, but, even if we had the database, we still don't have the source code thus old pa would be just that, old pa and wouldn't evolve, so we'd be back to having to write a new game in a round or so anyway.

Evolve is usually an improvement. Hence I think evolution would be returning to old PA. That's just my view though.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by Bashar

Evolve is usually an improvement. Hence I think evolution would be returning to old PA. That's just my view though.

No, it's just become 'more fit to its environment', which would DEFINITELY be a return to old PA.