hi im alive - ama (ask me anything)

[InfamousNoone]

Originally Posted by KraHen

I have been in a similar situation (taking a job while in university) a year ago, while I was in my first semester in the first year of college. I have taken the role of a gameplay/graphics developer at a rather large studio, basically achieved what I wanted to achieve through college. I am still attending it, but it's rather difficult, since I'm working 40 hours a week (so that often means that I have to cover hours in the weekends, or working till 10-11 PM a day). A question came to my mind, which I don't know if came to yours, but if it did, I'd like to hear your input on it.

If you can get the job you want without the degree, you didn't really need that degree in the first place, did you?

Indeed! I'm still currently enrolled in classes, although I've switched to part time (which is only 2 courses a semester). Depending on how this year goes I may consider postponing finishing the degree, or not bothering with it at all.

[CptSky]

Originally Posted by KraHen

I have been in a similar situation (taking a job while in university) a year ago, while I was in my first semester in the first year of college. I have taken the role of a gameplay/graphics developer at a rather large studio, basically achieved what I wanted to achieve through college. I am still attending it, but it's rather difficult, since I'm working 40 hours a week (so that often means that I have to cover hours in the weekends, or working till 10-11 PM a day). A question came to my mind, which I don't know if came to yours, but if it did, I'd like to hear your input on it.

If you can get the job you want without the degree, you didn't really need that degree in the first place, did you?

I'm not Hybrid, but will give you my opinion anyway

If you have the competencies, you can always get a job without the degree, but the day you want / have to change job, a degree might be required and it won't be the time to do it. Not all companies are flexible around degrees, and generally a lot less with higher positions. That's personally why I'm doing my degree, although I already had a good job. Plus, I need one to do a MBA. I don't think I'm loosing so much by doing a degree now.

[InfamousNoone]

Originally Posted by turk55

Do you like weed?





But let's say that you didn't like that company or you lacked the knowledge and the kicked you out. You would basically have to start from 0 but instead you can rely on those few extra years and get your degree.

Yeah, I'm down to smoke a joint or a bowl whenever. I'm pretty much down to try anything as long as I'm not the one paying for it, or if I am, I'd only do so at a recreational event (i.e. a vacation or something). Funny you ask that, because there was a discussion between myself and my current contractor about whether I think get addicted to heroin or not just yesterday, lol. I'm pretty confident that I'd never get addicted to any drug as long as in the long run I'm the one that has to pay to feed the addiction -- now if you told me you had an endless stash of [insert something here] that I could use for free, we might have a problem...

In regards to leaving a company, no, this is not true at all. Even after getting kicked out or quitting you have the experience you've gained working there which only adds more to your portfolio. When I look to hire someone I'm not looking at whether you've finished school, or had a 4.0 GPA, I want to see your past projects, SVNs, GITs, etc. I know a plethora of people who've graduated with their CS degree and don't know their head from their *** when it comes to CS.

With that said, I have zero intention of ever working a job that requires me to be in specific location, or specific hours (i.e. 7-3pm). I enjoy my work flexibility which is why I've been able to travel so much this year.

[KraHen]

Originally Posted by InfamousNoone

With that said, I have zero intention of ever working a job that requires me to be in specific location, or specific hours (i.e. 7-3pm). I enjoy my work flexibility which is why I've been able to travel so much this year.

I've seen both ends, I've worked flexible, I've worked with my own hours, worked 9 to 5 and worked remotely whenever I wanted. I can safely say that all of them have their ups and downs. Fixed hours are something that are never ever actually done in an IT company for developers (at least, our city is basically the Silicon Valley of my country, we have IT company after IT company here, and nobody has ever said that their 9 to 5 is always 9 to 5, hell, most devs I know get up at 11-12).

Working in an office, you kind of schedule these hours with your team, the time spent working face-to-face, while it may not seem as a such a big deal, is a LOT more productive. Especially after getting to know your coworkers, maybe even becoming friends. I remember last summer we had lots of crunch, basically a month went by like this : wake up at 11AM, get to work, work until 8-9 PM, go to beers with the team, drink until 2-3 AM, repeat. It was an amazing time, then again, you need a good group of people with shared interests.

Working remotely, you don't really get to know your team on a personal level, you have the ultimate flexibility, hell I even worked on a train once. Compared to the situation mentioned above, it can get really lonely. Then again, if your office experience wouldn't be as great as mine was, for instance, you would be surrounded with close-minded, sarcastic people with their heads up in their ass, this would feel like paradise.

All in all, I'd say never say never.

Originally Posted by CptSky

If you have the competencies, you can always get a job without the degree, but the day you want / have to change job, a degree might be required and it won't be the time to do it. Not all companies are flexible around degrees, and generally a lot less with higher positions. That's personally why I'm doing my degree, although I already had a good job. Plus, I need one to do a MBA. I don't think I'm loosing so much by doing a degree now.

Personally, I've known 5 team leads, 2 tech leads, and a shitton of developers. 3, yes, 3 of these people (1 tech lead, 1 team lead and 1 senior dev) had their degrees and most of them are in the industry with 5/10+ years experience.

Usually project managers have their degrees, and to my experience, they are the worst of the squad, I've never met one who didn't cause 80% of the fuckups in the project (okay, maybe 1-2, but they were producers, which is a different thing, sort of).

[InfamousNoone]

Originally Posted by KraHen

I've seen both ends, I've worked flexible, I've worked with my own hours, worked 9 to 5 and worked remotely whenever I wanted. I can safely say that all of them have their ups and downs. Fixed hours are something that are never ever actually done in an IT company for developers (at least, our city is basically the Silicon Valley of my country, we have IT company after IT company here, and nobody has ever said that their 9 to 5 is always 9 to 5, hell, most devs I know get up at 11-12).

Working in an office, you kind of schedule these hours with your team, the time spent working face-to-face, while it may not seem as a such a big deal, is a LOT more productive. Especially after getting to know your coworkers, maybe even becoming friends. I remember last summer we had lots of crunch, basically a month went by like this : wake up at 11AM, get to work, work until 8-9 PM, go to beers with the team, drink until 2-3 AM, repeat. It was an amazing time, then again, you need a good group of people with shared interests.

Working remotely, you don't really get to know your team on a personal level, you have the ultimate flexibility, hell I even worked on a train once. Compared to the situation mentioned above, it can get really lonely. Then again, if your office experience wouldn't be as great as mine was, for instance, you would be surrounded with close-minded, sarcastic people with their heads up in their ass, this would feel like paradise.

All in all, I'd say never say never.



Personally, I've known 5 team leads, 2 tech leads, and a shitton of developers. 3, yes, 3 of these people (1 tech lead, 1 team lead and 1 senior dev) had their degrees and most of them are in the industry with 5/10+ years experience.

Usually project managers have their degrees, and to my experience, they are the worst of the squad, I've never met one who didn't cause 80% of the fuckups in the project (okay, maybe 1-2, but they were producers, which is a different thing, sort of).

Without going into too much detail there just isn't an appeal for me to work a standard job in terms of freedom, and in terms of how much I make. I know my co-workers pretty well, lol, more than I'd say most people would know theirs at an actual job. Boss came out to Vegas when I was down there brought weed and coke, if that's not an awesome boss not sure what is.

[-Sensei-]

How old are you? do you have kids?

[phize]

What was your approximate salary at the peak of COAI/COFarmer?

Edit:
And how did you come to an agreement with the payment?

[InfamousNoone]

Originally Posted by -Sensei-

How old are you? do you have kids?

21, no I don't have any kids yet in fact I'm currently single, lol. I'm looking to be in that phase of my life at around 30.

Originally Posted by phize

What was your approximate salary at the peak of COAI/COFarmer?

Edit:
And how did you come to an agreement with the payment?

I can't give you a quote due to some past agreements but I can explain how the money was divided up. We split every week, 10% was put towards "the project," this included rent for server(s), additional costs, as well as paying our "figure head." That is, we always had for example the PayPal account in someone's name, and that person would receive a small cut of the profits for acting as a "shield" between us and TQ. John took 50% (and got raped by taxes), and I took 40% (no taxes).

Over all, this seemed fair to me after we factored in how much of a hit he took due to taxes.

[turk55]

Originally Posted by InfamousNoone

Yeah, I'm down to smoke a joint or a bowl whenever. I'm pretty much down to try anything as long as I'm not the one paying for it, or if I am, I'd only do so at a recreational event (i.e. a vacation or something). Funny you ask that, because there was a discussion between myself and my current contractor about whether I think get addicted to heroin or not just yesterday, lol. I'm pretty confident that I'd never get addicted to any drug as long as in the long run I'm the one that has to pay to feed the addiction -- now if you told me you had an endless stash of [insert something here] that I could use for free, we might have a problem...

Well, you will probably laugh... but.. Pranay mentioned it a few years ago so I was curious if you were still liking it lol.

And I feel that I haven't accomplished enough compared to you (and our 1 year age difference (you are older)) which makes me a little sad right now ;(

[InfamousNoone]

Originally Posted by turk55

Well, you will probably laugh... but.. Pranay mentioned it a few years ago so I was curious if you were still liking it lol.

And I feel that I haven't accomplished enough compared to you (and our 1 year age difference (you are older)) which makes me a little sad right now ;(

You have plenty of time to accomplish whatever it is you want, you're still young, as am I.

[Kiyono]

If you were allowed to go back in time would you choose Conquer Online again to spend years of your time on? If not, what other game would you have chosen?

[InfamousNoone]

Originally Posted by Kiyono

If you were allowed to go back in time would you choose Conquer Online again to spend years of your time on? If not, what other game would you have chosen?

Yes, and no. Yes, I'd still should CO. It's the whole reason I got involved into programming in the first place. I played QO from pretty early on (when it was in pre-alpha) and enjoyed it as a pretty big part of my day. When QO switched to a leveling-based server, I quit looking for something similar I came across Ultimation's server. However, due to its instability, I couldn't enjoy it in the same way. I asked Ultimation if I could watch him code as a means of learning how to go about about this and he agreed. Occasionally, I threw questions out there as when I wasn't watching him, I was learning the language he was using (Delphi).

Eventually, I wrote my own server and that would eventually be known as HybridCO.

The "no" aspect refers to "spend years on it." One of my greatest regrets is not being more committed to work on the project and get it right. I had a great server and I threw it all away for nothing. It could've been the best server to this day had I never stopped working on it. I had the talent, I just lacked the motivation and guidance.

---

Common question I seem to get is "Why did [the first] AcidCO [not HybridCO] shut down?"

So Acid CO (the first version, not any of the post-collabs or servers Ultimation ran with this name) was running on the source now known as CSV2. There was a few people that had access to the SVN for this source, such as Saint (tao4229). Saint notorious had/has a bad habit of using the same password for a lot of things that he tends to give out, and Justin (now using the forum account lostsolder05) gained access to the repo. Once I learned of this, I realized there was 3 possibilities that were most likely to occur: 1, I'd be black mailed into keeping him silent for $; 2, I'd have to compete against a server running the exact source I was and develop against my own work; 3, it would be released publicly.

At the risk of 3, I decided that if I was going to go out, I'd rather not go out in a shameful way, so I released CSV2 publicly and broke off from the Acid CO project.

tl;dr saint's a retard and justin's shady

but this is all in the past, I could care less about it now

[tanelipe]

So question for you and pro4never. I've played on servers by infamousnoone a lot in the past and they have all been fun upto a point. After this everyone just seems to quit as everything gets boring (see your latest COPS for example). I haven't yet looked through the Apex server but do you think it's going to last and is there enough stuff to keep people playing it and keep them interested in the server?

Also is there currently any anti-cheat system in place?

[pro4never]

Ok so I'll start with Apex as it's my creation and not something that infamous was part of (old source, old server lol)

I'm always worried about players running out of things to do with a classic server like Apex because all there really is to do is grind and reborn characters to try to make 2 sock items. We have 2 hourly events (moving to 4 hourly events alternating between EU and NA interserver in the next week or so) as well as ongoing content updates but it's always a concern.

The interserver is a HUGE part of what I feel will help the server be a long term success as it allows our daily player base to fluctuate without destroying the core competitiveness of the server. As long as we are partnered with other servers and their players are active there will be someone for you to fight and have fun with.


The new source is also a huge part of the long term sustainability plan. Eventually we will be able to migrate all existing Apex player data to the new source while maintaining the classic content which opens up a lot of new possibilities in terms of content.


In terms of anti cheat, yah we have some stuff in place but it's nothing super fancy. Server side checks have proven rather solid in terms of item dupes and exploits and our client protection is designed to cover most common easy methods of hacking. I'm not delusional though, anyone who really wants in will break it quite quickly lol.

[InfamousNoone]

Originally Posted by tanelipe

So question for you and pro4never. I've played on servers by infamousnoone a lot in the past and they have all been fun upto a point. After this everyone just seems to quit as everything gets boring (see your latest COPS for example). I haven't yet looked through the Apex server but do you think it's going to last and is there enough stuff to keep people playing it and keep them interested in the server?

Also is there currently any anti-cheat system in place?

COPS died for for 2 reasons, we tried to change too much (people want a regular CO server with new content, not a new game) and tons of internal conflicts. I'm sure you saw early on I was shitting content out of my ass with a new boss, events, etc. every week and then it just stopped. This was vastly due to me getting fed up with the way things were working out. Due to all the disagreements and the lack of anyone else within out team willing to take sides (and even if they did, it's likely the other party wouldn't have cared) none of it was resolved and it just led to bad blood and tensions. Eventually when they said fuck it, so did I. I made my best effort to cope but I wasn't about to go out of my way to motivate them to continue working on the project. Another huge conflict of interest was one party was working on things for "fun" as opposed to "whats important to work on for the server" -- this was a pretty huge piss off since this was the same party that I constantly has arguments with.

So far working with pro4never has been enjoyable. We've had a few disagreements about certain things but we easily always come to compromises that both of us are satisfied with. Granted Apex has an existing fairly decent player base (and the additional player bases from the inter server project), this is a very motivating project as oppose to COPS which seemed to be going no where.

Apex has security afaik -- none of which I've worked on.

I realize I said the same shit with COPS when I first started working on it, so I really hope this project doesn't go down that road. I really want to finally get a server done properly and COPS should've been that. Sadly, it wasn't.