By better for the scene, I meant less drama if a feature is formerly announced, than if some guys shouts "BUSTED!" in the middle of a season and risks alienating a group of people (server developers/admins) who rightly or wrongly have a significant influence on the scene. Personally my viewpoint was that it should be publicised so that it could be properly investigated by a wider group, but I respected the views of others who were directly involved with communications with the admins etc.

If you think my public silence on the matter was a deliberate ploy of dishonesty, then you are severely mistaken. If I'd wanted to go down that route, I'd be on here saying "OMG WHAT A SHOCK!!!", not admitting to any knowledge of it.

sneaky

Hi Driz, BesMella Lan in 5 weeks. You in?

I don't understand your reasoning. Certainly we don't need people who deliberately cheat the whole scene, spoil one season of eql and ownage, for their own amusement. You'd rather pander to their feelings and cover up the truth from the scene?

qqshka said that he would not disable antilag in ktx and would not add the possibility to do this for players by elect.
if somebody modify ktx code he will roll back this modification in main trunk.

So what ever you say means nothing for him He has decided that antilag is the better for qw let's that be like this.

#74 I agree that annoying bugs should be fixed unless we have become accustomed to them and use them in the way we play.

Im not sure what i think about antilag at the moment. This matters the most in duels anyway? I dont play that so...

How about faster rockets too? Too much "lag" when shooting rockets ;P

I played one 4on4 yesterday and since you know there is antilag, you can really own with sg. I have tried to predict player moves all the time but now just wait and wait and boom! I think you have to use different aiming method with sg and lg... So that what makes it really unfair if you dont know there is antilag enabled :/ -Feels like its possible to get 80% sg with it and I dont know if thats a good thing to make this too easy

Also played duels yesterday without antilag with even ping. So I had to use 51ms too, the opponent used to be hard last days was easy as hell. Usually I had better ping. Cause his best weapon lg (50%) was gone and I just was fast enough for his rockets. So this seasons ownage is kind of try of antilag in my opinnion...

Highly more impact on 4on4 than duels. Imagine being rushed by 4x antilaged boomsticks compared to the same individuals with 25-38 ms without antilag. The lg part might have a bit bigger impact on duels than in 4on4 though, since its only DM3 of tb3 that got lg anyway.

#98
would they aim better with 12ms and no antilag or 25-38ms with antilag?
thats the real question, did anyone test this?

According to medar, nope. As I've understood it, antilag can't make your aim better for you than it would be on 12ms due to the way an the server works. I think hes right about this. Some old tests blaze did while pov'ing, he also said he didn''t notice any diffrence from 12ms antilag on or off. Don't think there has been any tests yet that could scientifically prove that there is no difference though.

edit: Misread your question. but I think it kinda answers what you're asking for anyway; 25-> ms and antilag ON will give a very similar feeling to 12 ms, but it won't make it easier to hit than on 12 ms.

I definitely agree that anyone who knew about this and didn't say was cheating (albeit in a very minor way). But you are being a bit over dramatic stating it has spoilt EQL and Ownage. TVS and Milton are still most likely going to win both events, you think they would be undeserving champions? Maybe it turned around two or three maps in duelmania, but the best <13ms lpbs are still there in the final rounds.

We tested lgs in pov with maga when antilag was originally brought up, and back then, we were unable to notice a difference at 12ms. But it was the different, client side implementation that we tested.

It's about the integrity of the competition, not the what-ifs. Unfair is unfair regardless of the results.

No matter how good this feature might be, it wasn't worth all the bad blood.

Let's just say I'd totally understand if Avenger would want a rematch against Bulat on a normal server. Surely there has been other games with higher ping where one player's lg has been deadly compared to what one can expect on a normal server. Even if just a couple of games had been affected, the whole tournament could have unfolded in a different way. It's not just about who wins, but someone might have had a personal goal to make it into top-10 for example and now he didn't because someone was shafting with an lg that should not normally be possible with his ping.

Some people seem to dislike the ability to dodge if they play against players who have high ping and are getting shafted, the lg beam is somewhere else than it should be in their eyes (I haven't played against high pingers myself). Well anyways, started thinking about that the antilag idea ain't bad at all imo (read "the idea". But if it seems to have some flaws with high pingers, isn't possible to code it so it wouldn't make it 12ms.. How about if it filters out 33% of the ping or something as prediction with the hitscan weapons. Then there would ofc need to be some code that would "read the ping" every now and then to check out how much it should "smoothen" the whole situation. Just an idea, don't even know how possible/realistic this is...

I don't see why he has to? It's possible for the server admin to disable antilag in the server configs, there is no need to make it electable by the players.

How the hell can something like this happen!

I feel so naive.. and I agree with blAze on a lot of stuff. Why did everyone keep his mouth shut and exploit this knowledge to their advantage, when they obviously knew most others didn't know about it.

IMO a lot of EQL and Ownage outcomes can't be trusted.

Two points:

1) I 'knew' about it in the sense that I talked with some other players and ran some tests. I've never spoken to the people that implemented it so basically any assumptions I made were based on hearsay and personal experience (no different from what any other player should be doing when optimising their game based on what they find to be effective in practice) rather than facts that I knew for certain. I've lost every official game I've played since having the knowledge so I've hardly profited greatly from the 'cheating' in any case

2) Simply having the knowledge (or rather, limited assumptions) about antilag is no more a cheat than any other knowledge people have about how the game dynamics (say, different servers that had certain bugs fixed and others didn't - more of an issue in years goneby than it is now). By this logic, IMO any team which doesn't openly declare before the game whether they are using mm3 or not are cheating because that can effect how you will play against them. I'm sure some might disagree, citing top mm2 communication and tp understanding, but for me, it makes a difference against some teams in terms of how likely I think it is that I will get flooded, whether any 'tricks' I use will be reported to teammates e.g. doubling back, approaching from strange direction etc. Then how about players who don't publish their configs, surely that it cheating by knowledge concealment? Or how about the spawnmodels, players used to exploit their knowledge about them without openly publicising their views.

As for blAze's comment about pandering to feelings, on that front it was more a case of pandering to the feelings of people I respect who I'd made an agreement with, than with someone I've never spoken to and disagree with on several issues.

The very fact we're having this type of debate illustrates why some people thought it would be better to have such a thing be put forward in a formal manner by those responsible rather than in this type of exposure scenario than can only lead to bad feeling and finger-pointing.

In hindsight I can see how it might look bad but having seen the huge negative reaction to the issue of antilag last time it was raised I'm perhaps not surprised Renzo decided to go down this route - some people never even gave it a chance to be tested so he probably thought an 'under the radar' test was the way forward, letting bugs come out in genuine game situations (bad for leagues, almost unforgivably in my view, but no doubt good for research which was presumably his goal). Take that random rocket damage thing, it was done sneakily but for some reason it seems to be accepted now after a very inconclusive forum debate beforehand.

Responsible of implementing in secret, and/or telling to some people but not to the whole community

I've only read 3/5 of the opinions on here (which might already disqualify my opinion for some) but it seems certain developers have (ab)used their power to a too great extent, no matter what impact it has on the game.

(I'm quite surprised to see 100 replies in one day tho, thought it was some old thread that had been dug up)

Again, no developers were involved.

Qqshka implemented sv_antilag in December with default off and announced it in code commit log. This log is announced by a bot on #qw-dev and can be found on qw-dev.net site very easily. It was added with a comment "no idea is it working or not." It's not a big surprise no one went to write news about something that maybe works or maybe does not.

JohnNy_cz was told that antilag is enabled on wargamez around January. He was also informed that it was turned off for some official game in that month. After that JohnNy_cz didn't give a damn what's going on on that or other servers. Believe it or not, JohnNy_cz's brain decided the info "antilag is enabled on wargamez" is so insignificant that it got removed from his limited memory and replaced with something more useful for life. For example this is my last year in school.

As I got it for some of you knowing that antilag is on or off is matter of life and death or something, for me it was just one of million things that are going on in QW and I just completely forgot about it.

Medar already described here how (and since when) he knew about it.

There is no other developer that I know of who knew that antilag is (was) enabled on some servers.

Before you start accusing someone, please do bother to get your facts straight. This was initiative of single server admin.

I'm asking WHO, i'm not pointing my finger. I asked if MAYBE qqshaka and Renzo, but only because i heard it around, and because i'm not sure, i ask. Now i know who's fault

I'm skipping the previous implementation details, since it didn't work out so well.

In early december, Qqshka implemented serverside antilag to MVDSV, from Spike's code for FTE. This feature does NOT default to enabled like I have already stated, it has to be enabled via server cfg intentionally.

Qqshka asked me to test it, so I played a lot of rounds testing it, and left it enabled on some ports (as I stated earlier, to make sure there will be a difference to be noticed) to see if people would catch bugs or whatever in it, and report them to us . This is called blind testing, and this way people don't specifically try to find some bug that isn't there and let the placebo do the rest. The rest of this story is history, some people knew about the feature and some didn't, I was to make some sort of announcement about it, but much like junior_cz above, I have had a lot of more important things to do in my life than to think QW during the past year.


As for the QW-projects part, like MVDSV. You do realize you do NOT own the projects, right? It is us, the project people, who dedicate our time for making them better for free, who have the right to make the decisions about what will be in the projects and what not. We have not made a release since antilag was added. People who use SVN builds on their servers, it's their decision, much like enabling some features or not. Besides, all of the features so far have had a toggle, so you can really change the settings if you want to. The latest official releases are MVDSV 0.29 and KTX 1.36, released in summer 2009.


As for the server part, same thing goes. It is the person running server who has the right to choose settings for his server, the mod to run, the amount of ports or whatever. As I'm part of the MVDSV, KTX, QWFwd and QTV projects, I will choose to run SVN code on the servers. I also test a lot of features on those servers, and I think I have mentioned this back in 2006 or 2007. So if for some reason you are not happy about some particular server or it's settings, you can always go to another server, or even better, run one of your own with your own settings.


I won't deny the fact that playing league games on such server is a good idea, or having antilag enabled for so long either because people play their tournament games on certain servers.


The game is NOT magically ruined by the fact that unreleased server software has some feature, which is tested on what, 2 servers in the world (later on 4, and around the same time 6 if you count pangela and pgru). Just use the servers running release version and everything is good.

Usually people pariticipate in testing, blind testing included, willingly. If you wanted people to have a choice, you would have informed them. What you did was intentional and unethical. You used players as guinea pigs.

It was not possible to toggle antilag, the command was locked. If you are referring to some other commands, it's completely irrelevant to this topic.

Vast majority of games were played on those servers. That's what's important, not the amount of servers. (Yes, it's unfortunate that you have your hands on so many of the most popular servers.)

The game is not ruined, but the gameS that were played on such servers without the players knowing about it are, including but not limited to most of EQL and Ownage games.

Ok Renzo, as software users we have the right to tell our opinion about it and suggest/valore changes in it (freedom of expression).
You say you wanted to test this feature, why? Most players hates it, there are wrong things with it, but you still implement it? Why did you wanted to test? You're going to implement it either if it works or not.
As admin, you have the right to test stuff, of course. This is totally truem you have all the world's right. But think about WE, the players, the comminity. Most games are played in your servers, mixes and official games included so you have a big responsability. Making secret changes withouth even telling to tournament's admins, and making lie-software saying 'Antilag: OFF' when it is on is moral? You have power over most servers, people is not going to change the servers they play in just because you wanted to test something. Some of us aren't that lucky of having a uber-connection, nor money to pay servers. If you like qw community, and if you made your servers for people to have fun, you have to heard their ideas and put in their place sometimes.

If you're making software, at least make trustworthy software. If your servers says Antilag: Off when in fact is on, then they are maybe installing backdoors in my PC, who knows!

Yeah, I guess I did. Nothing is going to heal the wounds they suffered. Or make the dead come back.

There is always a choice. None of the people who knew asked me to turn the feature off on some of the servers. I was actually asked to enable it on more servers, and so I did. Noone has asked me to turn that feature off even today at this moment, even if "you all" have known about it for what, two days now?


Yes, it was not possible to toggle antilag, the command that is locked, because it affects the old broken version. The sv_antilag path does not have a command at all, only a variable that can be set in the config or using rcon. Whether there is ever going to be one, remains to be decided in the future.


Unfortunate in a way, that if I didn't have my hands on those servers, maybe only 1 or 2 of them existed at all anymore, running ancient buggy software.

Of course you have! That is why we have our project site with forum and bug/feature request trackers. Not only that, we have people here answering possible questions and so on. You can reach us on quakenet too, if you wanted.


Why wouldn't I want to test it? To see if it works, and to see if it can be done properly. I have always said that I want to give players the best possible software we can make, to make the experience most enjoyable. Just search for my replies if you want.

The thing that actually annoys me the most, is the fact that people take servers and development for granted. The developers and admins, however, do NOT get paid for it. It's only loss of their time, and possibly money. It's like "ye ye anyone can do that", well, let's see who's really up to that.


If you do not really want this feature enabled, it can be turned off, heck, it even defaults to off in the sourcecode. Noone is forcing you to play with this. That being said, I will still keep SOME ports having this feature on, even if it's disabled on other ports.



I already said what I wanted to say about this above:


That was one of the most idiotic thing left there actually, it should have been removed, I agree. The whole "ktx antilag" is already removed from the code, and MVDSV reports the current antilag implementation during countdown, I just need to update servers first.

Wow. Just wow.

The amount of games I've played on Renzoworld servers the past couple of months can probably be counted on a single hand with fingers to spare, which I'm kind of happy about in hindsight. I don't see how anyone can justify playing QW games, much less official ones, on Renzoworld servers anymore. I know I won't be, at least.

While Renzo pulling something like this isn't entirely unexpected, it's still amazing how well he's managed to shoot himself in the foot once again. Well done.


Ah, it's good to see that you're continuing the long Eztradition of taking other people's work and claiming it as your own.


Translation: I'm skipping the previous implementation details, since it is hugely embarassing for us, the Ezguys.


Translation: Qqshka did some quick hack that barely worked and was horribly flawed on multiple levels. Anyone who dared criticising it was promptly flamed and ignored. As usual some outsider had to fix up the mess left behind by the Ezguys.


Translation: I was so hellbent on forcing this unwanted 'feature' on people that I decided to force-enable it on several servers and only tell me friends about it, so they could have an advantage over those who didn't realise that they were being guinea pigs. This is called being an egomaniac arse.


No, it's the people who write the code, which it seems is mostly not you. But as an Ezguy, you have to continue the long tradition of taking other people's work and passing it off as being your own. Well done.


Please allow me to vomit.


You mean Eztv, right? I thankfully haven't seen you have anything to do with QTV.


Mmm, Freudian slips...


I guess most people are smart enough not to waste their time on asking benevolent dictators to do something.


See above.


Translation: Feel free to tell us what you think and be promptly ignored and/or flamed if you're actually right about some technical issue.


That's a good joke. So far the only Ezguy I've talked to on Quakenet who was actually _reachable_ has been Tonik. Specifically Qqshka is completely unreachable and trying to talk to Johnny_cz makes about as much sense as trying to talk to a brick wall.


You've repeatedly been told about several issues by people with a clue. To noone's surprise, you've also repeatedly ignored any fact that didn't fit into your own personal world view.


Thanks for this very practical example of saying one thing but doing something else.


Please allow me to vomit again.


What, after flaming and ignoring anyone who dared claim that the code was, uhm, suboptimal, it is now removed?! I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!

BTW, Renzo, don't bother removing this comment. I've of course saved it and will repost it if you still think censorship of opposing ideas is the way to go.

good someone translated that thrash talk becouse that explanations was just pathetic .