An open letter to Andi

[DrOz]

Hey there Andi,

It's your old pal, Mark. Before you delete this, please take a moment to read what I have to say before you delete this.

First up, I want to apologise for all the trouble I caused. Call it youthful arrogance, call it maliciousness, call it being ginger. I was in the wrong at least 95% of the time. Some say I've mellowed and changed a lot, I'm inclined to agree. I was only 12 years old when I first started playing this game. I'm now 21. Hell I just found out Myck's kid is 6 now, do you remember when Candy was pregnant? That's an insane amount of time. I'm sure you have similar fun memories.

I write this to you today to ask you to please dedicate some time to it. I fear in the past I have put you off of ever doing anything to this game just because some asshole (me) might come along and ruin it. However this game holds a very special place in my heart. It was where I made a ton of friends, became part of a community, and developed my love for coding. When I think back, if it hadn't been for this game, I wouldn't be where I am in life right now. I miss the times I'd stay up late with all the americans, webcamming, dancing like a teapot and having fun. The best part of this game has always been the community, never the game play.

I understand the pressures of real life. However I feel with just an hour or two here and there you could do something amazing. The web has come a long way in the last 10 years. In a few hours recently I banged out this - https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B71QmOL ... RYV2plYVE/ - while trying some of that tech. (If you care it was built with Flask on the backend, with LESS for the styling, and on the frontend some custom JS to enable websockets+pjax communication. Postgresql for the DB). Can't you imagine what *you* could do with this game? I've offered coding help before but I'm 100% sure you won't take it. As you've been closed to letting other developers help you before (Smuggs). However I know you alone could do something with this game more than a few small changes + bug fixes. What I'm asking for is a few things:

- Dedicate some time to it, whether it's an hour a week, or an hour a month. If possible motivate Smuggs or fellow friend developers to help you out. Is PaPPy still alive?
- Have some fun with it, try out things. Like pointed out above, I use the games concept when I try new things. For me it's genuinely enjoyable to just mess around on something that has no serious real life consequences.
- Create a public roadmap, let the community see what you're working on. Let them vote on it, and help you shape it, as it is their game too.
- Start the codebase from scratch, we all know how bad the current one is. I know you aren't a bad coder, it's years of bloat. Build it with something that will make you happy, and enable you to do the best you can with it.
- Try not to let assholes push your buttons. I've done it many times, I've seen others do it too. It's just stupid people on the internet. Take everything with a pinch of salt.

All I can offer you is that I will not intentionally break things, or drive you away from developing it. I can also offer the following things which I'm sure you don't want nor need:
- Coding Assistance
- Design Assistance
- Security Testing

If you want to discuss anything with me, I'm open to talking to you in replies below, email, skype, hell a google hangouts broadcast. I'm sure the initial response is to ban me and/or delete this post. I was a pain, and I've gone back on my word too many times, so feel free to do as you please in regards to that. Do please take into consideration some of the things I've said, and consider them at least.

Regards,
Mark

[PelicanBay]

I would welcome anyone who is willing to do work on the site, I've recently forsaken several other online games to come back to CW. I totally agree that the allure of the game was always 90% community and 10% game, but without the game being actively maintained the community falls apart.

I hope that Andi does give you a chance to redeem yourself Marky, everyone grows up eventually and you sound like you've done a bit of growing up and maturing. Let's all work together to try and improve this game and get it back to it's former glory.

[DrOz]

Hey Pelican,

I hope my post didn't give the wrong impression. While I would gladly volunteer time to help out, what I am really asking for is for Andi to donate a bit more of his. And if possible to find some way which will motivate him to get back into it.

I am fairly sure he isn't ready to trust me again, and if I was in his shoes I certainly wouldn't either.

[[OSX]FenixDown]

I seriously hope things turn out for the better. I love this game and want to see it thriving again xD

[VanHelsing]

Andale

-- Sat, 13 Sep 2014 05:10:57 +0000 --

Andale

[Puppet Master]

Hey Pelican,

I hope my post didn't give the wrong impression. While I would gladly volunteer time to help out, what I am really asking for is for Andi to donate a bit more of his. And if possible to find some way which will motivate him to get back into it.

I am fairly sure he isn't ready to trust me again, and if I was in his shoes I certainly wouldn't either.

This does show that everyone has grown in their own time.

The site does need care from people who can program given the time. Some use their skills for wrongdoing of which they can turn that around and give their skills to others to help them.
Remeber those who have broken a code are often times able to fix it faster then those who's goal is to protect it and make it better without breaking it.

You have skills. I would love to see you use them and show us your capability at coding.

If Andi does't let you well atleast you tried and that is what counts.

Also Welcome back.