A few hours ago, while I was searching the server code for any ping modifications resembling a sample that was emailed to me; I came across this line of code:
{*/*} if (PingTicks > 5) then PingTicks := PingTicks – 3;
So yes, that confirms that my servers did have a “fake” ping. That code is leftover debug junk from a bug that was affecting Soldat approximately 2 years ago, referred to as “laser bullets”. Remember when players with medium ping were getting ridiculously large bullet trails? This was put in as an attempt to temporarily fix that. It was only found on my servers because that code is only in the development version of the server, which I have always run on my servers. All servers run off a symbolic link. It being left in is an accident. As some of you know, [almost] every time I have released a dedicated server there has been some debug stuff that I forgot to remove upon release (Most notably lines in console). Ultimately, this is an accident by me, I never intentionally wanted to use this to my advantage. Just because it appears as an advantage, does not mean I intended it to be so. I know deleting the topic was wrong and I acted in blind rage, nobody is perfect. As for why I have not been actively participating in any forum discussion about this, as I said a week ago on my Twitter and previous news post, before any of this arose: I would be too busy for approximately a week thus not being able to follow any discussion. I don’t expect this to cool down anytime soon, but I hope most of you will at least drop the biased assimilation and stop making up false quotes.
I sincerely apologize to everyone involved in this issue.
I have applied a hotfix to all customer servers in both regions to fix this issue, effective once their server restarts. To further amend the situation I am offering full refunds to any active customer who does not have an invoice already due. Submit a support ticket and we can discuss it.
Since I wanted to catch up with all thats been going on while I was preoccupied, Shoozza has performed an interview with me to fill the gap as quickly as possible; to ensure everyone knows my side of the story.
Shoozza: Thank you EnEsCe that I finally can chat about the issue with you personally. I have prepared a few questions which I would like you to answer to find out the truth behind the whole case I hope this will bring ligth in the case.
Shoozza: We actually skipped a night for that so to do this amazing interview for you all – so enjoy! :D
Shoozza: Why you said that hackers (me) possibly hacked the binary and come up with this?
EnEsCe: That was my first thought when I was informed that someone had posted a modified binary. I could not think of any other reason at the time, since you have provided modified binaries in the past. I was unable to read any of the posts made in the original topic, it was deleted (by me) by the time I had a chance to sit down and read it all.
Shoozza: Why you said different stuff which maked you look like you have lied?
EnEsCe: I was asked if mafioza is a hacker, and I responded saying I do not know him. Meaning I do not know him that well enough to answer that, if he would be a hacker or not. SpiltCoffee then asked me about if I was in a partnership with him, which prompted me to remember where that name comes from. I quite simply do not remember every random person I meet on the internet, I’m not a robot :P
Shoozza: Why you deleted the threads and banned people continuesely which looked like censorship?
EnEsCe: I was acting in blind rage, and yes I know it was wrong. I would never have done it normally, I can’t remember what exactly was going through my mind at the time. I most likely thought it would stop people harassing me on IRC; and people I trusted echoing confidential conversations etc, I also felt the other admins were all against me already. I acknowledge that it was stupid and I abused my admin privileges by doing so. Fair enough. I would have liked to read it all eventually. I apologize to the other forum admins for the trouble I caused, they did the right thing.
Shoozza: Why you said ping is clientside while people were able to change it serverside?
EnEsCe: I wrote it in brackets, saying “I am pretty sure”, I was implying that I do not know for certain. I knew the server could control what ping one player sees OTHER players pings as, but not their own. That should be calculated clientside like that lobby list ping is.
Shoozza: What do the bullettrails have to do with ping decrease?
EnEsCe: I said ATTEMPTED fix, this code did not actually fix the problem. Bullet trail length is controlled by ping, so it was added while I was attempting to figure out a cause and way to fix the bullet trails.I haven’t been comitting my code to the SVN often, and since there was thousands of lines changed it caused conflicts (such as the readme overwrite FliesLikeABrick mentioned)
Shoozza: Why you threatened FLAB and Jrgp?
EnEsCe: I didn’t really threaten FliesLikeABrick, I only said that he should have waited for me to comment before causing friction between us two. It was never intended as a threat; I have utmost respect for FliesLikeABrick. Yeah I did threaten jrgp, I felt provoked since he was undoing things behind my back. At the time I thought it was what needed to be done to get some peace. I didn’t really think clearly, and as mentioned above I acknowledge this was not the right thing to do.
Shoozza: Why you took the servers of SCTFL down?
EnEsCe: Their sponsorship was removed because they were posting malicious comments about me without hearing my side of the story.
Shoozza: What do you say about the log where you chatted with mafioso? There are few lines that could make people get scared away.
EnEsCe: Haha, that whole conversation was nothing more than two nerds comparing ePenis size. It was full of sarcasm, I mean, rootkits? DDoS? Bot nets? Not likely to do such large-scale/illegal things over a computer game.
Shoozza: Why the servers suddenly had the same ping again?
EnEsCe: As I said, I applied a hotfix to all servers to restore the correct pings once I found my fault.
Shoozza: What you will do to ensure such a thing will never happen again?
EnEsCe: I am willing to permanently resign as Soldat developer. Personally, I do not want that to happen as I have thoroughly enjoyed maintaining Soldat these past years, and have some very nice plans for the future; and I never intentionally left that code in. Michal Marcinkowski will decide which people he wants to weave the future of Soldat from this point on.
UPDATE: Michal Marcinkowski has posted confirming this was an accident, and that I will continue to be Soldat’s developer. His words are final, so I am going to continue working on Soldat and will not be phased by any continuing attack attempts. Read MM’s post here
Shoozza: Thanks for the Interview.
EnEsCe: np, lets hope the Drama Llama can get some rest now :P
End of File
18 Responses to “Statement regarding “Ping” controversy”
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I’d like to see at least one of you haters not breaking down under such pressure. This whole thing is just ridiculous, im glad you still haven’t resigned, Nick. Let’s hope the people get over this, but i guess the majority of the crowd just enjoys bashing other people blindly, without thinking about what might be going on in other people’s lives. Horrible.
Enesce I can’t believe how many, even administrators hate you for no reason. Infact it should be the oposite, you have given so much. Pleasy don’t hate ALL of the comunity, there are still guys who can see though the BULLSHIT and trust you.
You are perfect and you know it :P
I had a nice post written up but comment submission got screwed up and it all got delorted.
Anyway. I also would like to say Enesce, I appreciate all the hard work you’ve put into Soldat. Also, please don’t ever ever conider again to resign, just because a bunch of pissy demanding NON-REGISTERED NON-PAYING, PLAYING SOLDAT FOR FREE noobs get angry at you. Let them bitch till they’re blue in the face and die from bitching. They know not and cannot appreciate your dedication.
Enesce you are best .. finally someone pwned this demented soldat community!
I pretty much have to agree with Mittsu. If your prone to sudden backlashes on the community then are you really helping us or hurting us? You don’t have to resign, but if thats the case then Soldat would be better off with more than one developer.
Just take a moment and think about this, EnEsCe. You want to help Soldat right? You know that you being the sole developer is not helping Soldat very much, correct? So then you should seriously consider either being replaced or convincing MM to hire other qualified devs.
Don’t try to say “The decision is over, get over it already” because we know otherwise.
Now’s the time for a SMART decision to be made.
I’ll second Mittsu’s point about that “it’s NOT just about the game”. But if community is as useless as you say, perhaps forum needs to be cleaned up a bit? Lets say, leave nothing but “news” and “technical support” sections?
Back to the point though. If community says something – they say it for a reason. And the reason isnt necessarily “we didnt like your face”. I hope you do understand that and do care about points of view other than yours.
p.s. I understand your point about cooperation between multiple developers, and I aggree with you on that. Then again, community isn’t something to be ignored.
“I don’t care what you say about me, as long as you spell my name right!”
:P
I didn’t say “you have to” but “you should”. MM doesn’t make decision what is honourable and what’s not, and that’s what we’re talking about here. You lost a moral right to take care of this game. This only leads to conficts. And the game isn’t all that matters, because the it is nothing without the community. Maybe you just want to have fun working on codes, but the game’s developer should make the game for the community. And the community doesn’t want you to develop it because you’ve just lost rests of trust and respect.
you still should resign, basing your decision on MM’s post is just poor, that post was nothing but “i dont care about it”. But others do care. Soldat developer should be trusted, and you aren’t.
It is based on internal discussion with MM, not the post he made. That was just for the community. His post was simply to confirm that what I said was true, that it is an accident and the line was there from a previous bug fix attempt. And that’s exactly what he did. Now everybody is just refusing to accept the truth that it was an accident. Disrespecting MM wont help either, everybody is obfuscating his words now, saying he doesn’t care about the game. That is completely false. The only thing he doesn’t care about is the how the community acts and how the public perceives the developers. I envy him for that; I got too attached to the community and it has degraded my productivity and personal enjoyment of the game. I brought the Community and the Game together by listening to improvement suggestions, bug reports, etc. Prior to that, it was just the beta testers that got a word in. But now, the community and the developers are two fragmented entities, which is only going to be bad for one side. I recently redid the Beta Team with the hopes of great teamwork, organization, and cooperation between us. I didn’t rename it on the forum from ‘Beta Testers’ to ‘Beta Team’ for no reason. Now the Beta “Team” is null and void.
Soldat belongs to MM, not the community; so his decision is final and will not be changed by any amount of whine. People can continue to flame, bash, whine, beg, eat strawberries, fling poop, whatever; the decision has been made and everybody needs to simply like it or lump it. As much as people might love the idea of another developer in the scene, just sit down for a minute and try simulate how you see the cooperation. Being introduced on such hostile grounds will only incite further chaos internally and externally. The community might love this, but it will be bad for the game itself. And as Michal said, “The game is all that matters in the end and never forget about that.”. Viva la Soldat.
Sorry for my mistakes…plus i add. I kinda hope you stay a dev.You “did” a good job didnt you?
I still think this is wrong..going all gore and Deleting posts about this without a reason,Banning people that posts this without a reason,threatened jrgp,Shuttin down servers…this is too dumb..
I realy thing you got problems in your actions in times like this..Dont fail because you are a dev and people should respect you…
buizness man :d
Nice to read this. Even though it only has been a few days, I’m kind of sick of all this drama. :P
He had and will have a quite difficult time until everything gets to normal again. It didn’t went the way I thought and if I would have been in such a situation I would possibly leave the people alone like i left Soldat alone just because of a similar reason which fits here too. Sadly staying objective is something that needs to be learned .
Hmmm, good to read both sides of the story. No matter what has happened, people still appreciate what youve done for soldat.
Well, it’s better late than never…
first :D
hi mom