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[Greiger]

Yea Kevin did do something that at least shows he still has a tiny amount of respectfulness left in him. 

When he got into an argument with people in a mod thread over why something will not be mainlined, instead of straight up deleting the posts (which he could have easily done, and likely would not have gotten much flak for) he just moved the discussion to another thread.

[George_Chickens]

Wow, the 'drama' is real, huh? Kevin's clearly been... like this... for quite a while, seemingly going against what the community wants for the sake of his ego. Oh well, DDA is his project, but I think the time for a fork is due.  Essentially, Kevin's vision involves 'realism' over what some might consider 'fun' or 'balance', which obviously does appeal to some gamers.  But it seems clear enough that a lot (maybe even most) players would prefer fun and balance over 'realism', so maybe it's time for the "Cataclysm: Less Tedium Ahead" branch.

What did I miss? Kevin's attitude to criticism at times really drove me off of the forum. I saw well thought out criticism dismissed with what was basically a "heh just make a mod kiddo"

I really hope that it turns into a full fork or split, because Kevin has basically decided that the code that Whales intended for all the community to modify is his private property where he gets the final say in all matters.

Project organization things:
We should vote on this: Nope
The project isn't a democracy, no number of "me too"s or votes is going to change something we've decided on.

The method for users to influence development is via debate. This is intentional, not due to laziness.
Debate sidesteps all the nasty problems around deciding who gets to vote and enforcing that everyone gets the right amount of voting power etc. and validates that people actually know what they're asking for.

A good reason to make a change has more impact than any number of votes.  A lot of the issues in this thread are good examples of this

The project is run by me ("owns" the project, final say on features)

[Descan]

I mean, something to be said about one vision making a project run better.

Except when that "one vision" is a seemingly jerkwad who doesn't *actually* take into consideration others views, just paying lip service, and either doesn't understand simple explanations or pretends to not so he doesn't need to approve it.

[Azated]

Kevin's just a straight up dick. Do we need to say much else?

It isn't his project. If he wants to own it, he should file a copyright, or privatise the code, or do something. Otherwise, he's just on a massive power trip. Until he does something other than bitch and moan at people throwing their own skittles into the pile, it's a pointless conversation either way.

[pisskop]

Until others do something, its a pointless conversation.

lol

[Random_Dragon]

Not like I can do anything. I can't code worth shit, so... :V

[Gatleos]

I contributed a bit to the project... years ago now, and remember Kevin being a bit of a hardass about pull requests, but I never thought it was like this. I do remember a Google Doc being drafted by the forum to sort of lay down the canon tone and gameplay philosophy. Was it just sort of disregarded, or did it get the game into this state to begin with?

[n9103]

Well, project manager doesn't have to be able to code, per se.
They would need to have a familiarity with the nature of the code, and it's overall structure, and they would need people they could trust that can deal with the code itself.

They would just manage the actual requests and overall flow of the project as a whole, rather than the code the requests are contributing.
It's not likely to be a feasible situation due to the gratis nature of Cataclysm, but it's a possible one, assuming project control is passed, or a fork becomes self-sustaining.

That's actually something I would be somewhat comfortable taking on, if I knew the community better and were more of a people person.

[pisskop]

Its on the forum and there are various hints ingame, but largely the lore is diluted (as it should be) by the devastation of the apocalypse.

[Akura]

Spoiler: I'll summarize the plot, assuming it hasn't changed in past months since I've played (click to show/hide)

In the 2030's, tensions between the US and China start to rise. Before hostilities can erupt, the government takes over several mines throughout the country, to keep a lid on the strange faults discovered inside. At the same time(possibly a result what they found in the mines), scientists begin playing with teleportation technology, by pushing objects through the "lower planes". This weakens the boundaries between this world and the lower planes, and demons begin to slip through. One of the entities that pass through is the blobs. The blobs begin infecting lifeforms, altering them in different ways. For example, in large mammals(including humans), they lie dormant until the host dies, then reanimate them as a zombie. Human zombies sometimes mutate into more powerful zombies. The only way to remove the blob infection is to repeatedly teleport the host, but this also lets more demons in.

Needless to say, the blobs escape and spread across the world. As people begin to die from mundane things, they start to zombify, and everything snowballs. The military tries to contain it, but fails. Government propaganda referring to the zombies(especially zombified US troops) as Chinese super-soldiers only increases the panic. As a last-ditch attempt to save humanity, they move everyone they can onto whatever aircraft carriers and other ships they can, and set off into the Atlantic.

Also, alien plants attack. Then, alien fungus attacks. And also, human survivors are bags of dicks.

[Tellemurius]

dont forget pest control now requires copious amounts of explosives

[Random_Dragon]

Arcana and Cata++ also add some amusing side-stories of sorts to the lore. :V

And...yeah, if we could organize a fork, I'd be all over that if others are accepting of it. Well, maybe. Honestly I'm not 100% sure I'd want to contribute again.

[duckman]

If this were to happen, it would probably be a good idea to keep multiple people in charge of the project. Even if someone leaves, someone else should be able to move up to take their position and keep what basically happened to leave Kevin as the only one with any authority from happening again.

[Azated]

Spoiler: I'll summarize the plot, assuming it hasn't changed in past months since I've played (click to show/hide)

In the 2030's, tensions between the US and China start to rise. Before hostilities can erupt, the government takes over several mines throughout the country, to keep a lid on the strange faults discovered inside. At the same time(possibly a result what they found in the mines), scientists begin playing with teleportation technology, by pushing objects through the "lower planes". This weakens the boundaries between this world and the lower planes, and demons begin to slip through. One of the entities that pass through is the blobs. The blobs begin infecting lifeforms, altering them in different ways. For example, in large mammals(including humans), they lie dormant until the host dies, then reanimate them as a zombie. Human zombies sometimes mutate into more powerful zombies. The only way to remove the blob infection is to repeatedly teleport the host, but this also lets more demons in.

Needless to say, the blobs escape and spread across the world. As people begin to die from mundane things, they start to zombify, and everything snowballs. The military tries to contain it, but fails. Government propaganda referring to the zombies(especially zombified US troops) as Chinese super-soldiers only increases the panic. As a last-ditch attempt to save humanity, they move everyone they can onto whatever aircraft carriers and other ships they can, and set off into the Atlantic.

Also, alien plants attack. Then, alien fungus attacks. And also, human survivors are bags of dicks.

TL;DR: World goes to shit, then it gets diarrhea, then it contracts full blown dysentery and dies fording a river. You are the surviving intestinal bacteria. Now build a tank-car-house and die fording a river too.

If this were to happen, it would probably be a good idea to keep multiple people in charge of the project. Even if someone leaves, someone else should be able to move up to take their position and keep what basically happened to leave Kevin as the only one with any authority from happening again.

I totally agree. That said, I can't help but make the parallel of deposing a dictator and rebuilding the government from the ground up with power checks in place to stop anyone else monopolizing power. It's very American Civil War-ish.

[Damiac]

Kevin's just a straight up .... Do we need to say much else?

It isn't his project. If he wants to own it, he should file a copyright, or privatise the code, or do something. Otherwise, he's just on a massive power trip. Until he does something other than bitch and moan at people throwing their own skittles into the pile, it's a pointless conversation either way.

To be fair to Kevin, he has not in any way made it unavailable, and anyone at anytime is free to copy the entire project to a new fork and do what they want, so it's not like he's taken ownership of Cata, just Cata DDA, which as I understand is his fork (as in, he started it).
I understand being irritated at his behavior, but it's not as if he just swooped out of the blue and stole the project from someone. 

It would be best either way to try to keep things civil, even if there are two diverging codebases at some point it would be nice to have  friendly enough relations to share good ideas back and forth.  And It would probably help Kevin out as well, since the people most dissatisfied with the way he's running the project could then leave, taking their ideas to the new fork where they'll be more accepted (or not).  And then the people who stay behind are choosing to continue working with him, so I'd think that would make things less stressful for him as well.

Keep in mind, Kevin hasn't charged anyone a cent, nor has he gained any actual assets from this project.  He's doing this for his own reasons, so he's certainly got the right to tell people to go fork themselves, so to speak .  As much fun as internet drama may be, let's not be too hard on the guy, he hasn't stolen from anyone.  We could all make a fork right now and call it Cataclysm: No Kevins Club if we felt like it.  And if we did, we'd have the benefit of all the work Kevin has done (and of course everyone else who's contributed!) 

Just the small discussions I've seen about how to manage such a fork, how to control who has power, and all that seems to illustrate some of the more thankless aspects Kevin's taken on himself.