The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M"
Thursday, January 31st, 2008 9:15PM CST
Category: Site NewsPosted by: Bed Bugs Views: 23,272
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Many of you have been wondering what has been going on lately, and here it is in a nutshell, as posted by our New Heavy Metal War Administrator, Mkall!
It's official. As of yesterday evening Omega Sentinel has tendered his resignation as programmer of HMW. It is a very sad time as he did more for this game in the 9 months as programmer as anyone has done in the past 5 years of its existence.
OS left for two reasons. The first was real life work has him working 60-80 hours a week and add on HMW coding, he found it difficult to spend time with his wife and friends. The other reason was that he wasn't used to the community here, and the drama that can be generated on here from time to time killed the fun that he saw in this game. We are sad to see you leave OS, but you're always welcome to come back.
But like everything, life goes on. HMW isn't in a state where it can be left to be self-sufficient, so I've volunteered to pick up the code and Ryan has agreed to do so. So as of tonight, I'll be the new HMW programmer.
First off, my qualifications: I have a Bachelor of Computer Science and am familiar with several computer languages: Pascal, Java, C, UNIX Shell, C++ and VisualBasic.NET. At this point, I'm just beginning to learn PHP, but it seems that it's very similar to Java so I should pick that up all right. I'm not a programmer by trade, and have picked this up out of a) a desire to further contribute, b) a chance to learn and c) out of necessity. I don't want v2 to be a pipe dream; I want it to be a reality.
My life isn't as hectic as Glyph's or OS's. I work on a 4 day on/4 day off schedule, which means that every 8 days, I should have some progress made. After I finally get into the swing of things, I'll most likely start a blog on site somewhere so you guys aren't kept in the dark as to what's going on.
As for various things that I'm going to do:
--For the most part, I'll be keeping OS's vision of v2; a warmap with 4 factions fighting for dominance. There are some details that I'll change, but for the most part things will be as OS intended.
--First thing I want to do is give love to the maximals and predacons. This means setting them up with missions, altmodes and give new players the ability to choose those factions upon startup
--Get the HMW admin panel fully finished and functional, and then figure out how to outsource parts of it to other non-staff members (mission creation, mini games, front page advertising etc.)
--Minicons will return, as will Quintessons and maybe some other NPC missions.
--I didn't like the idea of robot modes boosting stats. I'll work on restoring them, but there will be no benefit to them at this time. They'll be purely eye candy.
--Subfactions: I'm not keen of turning HMW into a purely clan-based game, but I'm not going to marginalize those that exist either. I'm not sure yet what I want to do, but I'll think of something, after getting input from all subfactions of course. Naturally I'll make sure that your forums will actually work in phpbv3.
--I want to add features right: Triplechangers for example should allow a player to choose between two of ANY altmodes that they have available, not be set in stone as previously previewed. Yes this means that they may take some time to figure out but I would hope that the results will be worth it.
--Sure, I'll bring back Goribus, just as soon as I get access and figure out how.
--I like Glyph's idea of victory points, and will look into adding Lucky's and Glyph's Ranks/Awards. Of course this means I'll have to find someone willing to make some for the Maxs/Preds, but that'll come in time.
Since I'm just starting out, I will be ignoring most of the PMs that come in requesting side changes, extra xp, etc. If there's a real glitch with your team, I'll check it out. Please don't pester me on MSN/YIM/email about them either as the end result will be the same. The more of my time you waste tending to your personal wants, the less time I'll have working towards the betterment of the game as a whole.
The bottom line is this: I'm not leaving. I won't be as fast as OS so please don't expect change to come overnight. Rest assured that I want v2 here as much as every one of you so it will come.
To discuss this news, click here to view the original thread.
It's official. As of yesterday evening Omega Sentinel has tendered his resignation as programmer of HMW. It is a very sad time as he did more for this game in the 9 months as programmer as anyone has done in the past 5 years of its existence.
OS left for two reasons. The first was real life work has him working 60-80 hours a week and add on HMW coding, he found it difficult to spend time with his wife and friends. The other reason was that he wasn't used to the community here, and the drama that can be generated on here from time to time killed the fun that he saw in this game. We are sad to see you leave OS, but you're always welcome to come back.
But like everything, life goes on. HMW isn't in a state where it can be left to be self-sufficient, so I've volunteered to pick up the code and Ryan has agreed to do so. So as of tonight, I'll be the new HMW programmer.
First off, my qualifications: I have a Bachelor of Computer Science and am familiar with several computer languages: Pascal, Java, C, UNIX Shell, C++ and VisualBasic.NET. At this point, I'm just beginning to learn PHP, but it seems that it's very similar to Java so I should pick that up all right. I'm not a programmer by trade, and have picked this up out of a) a desire to further contribute, b) a chance to learn and c) out of necessity. I don't want v2 to be a pipe dream; I want it to be a reality.
My life isn't as hectic as Glyph's or OS's. I work on a 4 day on/4 day off schedule, which means that every 8 days, I should have some progress made. After I finally get into the swing of things, I'll most likely start a blog on site somewhere so you guys aren't kept in the dark as to what's going on.
As for various things that I'm going to do:
--For the most part, I'll be keeping OS's vision of v2; a warmap with 4 factions fighting for dominance. There are some details that I'll change, but for the most part things will be as OS intended.
--First thing I want to do is give love to the maximals and predacons. This means setting them up with missions, altmodes and give new players the ability to choose those factions upon startup
--Get the HMW admin panel fully finished and functional, and then figure out how to outsource parts of it to other non-staff members (mission creation, mini games, front page advertising etc.)
--Minicons will return, as will Quintessons and maybe some other NPC missions.
--I didn't like the idea of robot modes boosting stats. I'll work on restoring them, but there will be no benefit to them at this time. They'll be purely eye candy.
--Subfactions: I'm not keen of turning HMW into a purely clan-based game, but I'm not going to marginalize those that exist either. I'm not sure yet what I want to do, but I'll think of something, after getting input from all subfactions of course. Naturally I'll make sure that your forums will actually work in phpbv3.
--I want to add features right: Triplechangers for example should allow a player to choose between two of ANY altmodes that they have available, not be set in stone as previously previewed. Yes this means that they may take some time to figure out but I would hope that the results will be worth it.
--Sure, I'll bring back Goribus, just as soon as I get access and figure out how.
--I like Glyph's idea of victory points, and will look into adding Lucky's and Glyph's Ranks/Awards. Of course this means I'll have to find someone willing to make some for the Maxs/Preds, but that'll come in time.
Since I'm just starting out, I will be ignoring most of the PMs that come in requesting side changes, extra xp, etc. If there's a real glitch with your team, I'll check it out. Please don't pester me on MSN/YIM/email about them either as the end result will be the same. The more of my time you waste tending to your personal wants, the less time I'll have working towards the betterment of the game as a whole.
The bottom line is this: I'm not leaving. I won't be as fast as OS so please don't expect change to come overnight. Rest assured that I want v2 here as much as every one of you so it will come.
To discuss this news, click here to view the original thread.
Credit(s): Mkall
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Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (619816)
Posted by Prowl Pants on January 31st, 2008 @ 9:34pm CST
Posted by Prowl Pants on January 31st, 2008 @ 9:34pm CST
Good Luck Mkall!!!!!!!!
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (619842)
Posted by UltraPrimal on January 31st, 2008 @ 10:24pm CST
Posted by UltraPrimal on January 31st, 2008 @ 10:24pm CST
Yeah, good luck. I haven't played HMW in a long time, but with all these new updates, I may have to start playing again.
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (619857)
Posted by Windracer on January 31st, 2008 @ 10:53pm CST
Posted by Windracer on January 31st, 2008 @ 10:53pm CST
Wow, I turn my back for a day and this happens. 
Sad to see you go, OS, but you did so many great things for this game and I know I'm sure as heck thankful for that.
As for Mkall... Good luck, and congrats on becoming the head programmer! I know the game will be in great hands with you.
Sad to see you go, OS, but you did so many great things for this game and I know I'm sure as heck thankful for that.
As for Mkall... Good luck, and congrats on becoming the head programmer! I know the game will be in great hands with you.
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (619908)
Posted by Mechabreaker on February 1st, 2008 @ 12:19am CST
Posted by Mechabreaker on February 1st, 2008 @ 12:19am CST
Wow, it's sad to see OS go, but at least we have someone just as good take his place! I hope to see v2 up and running sometime soon ,sounds like it will be a blasty blast!
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (619958)
Posted by zemper on February 1st, 2008 @ 2:41am CST
Posted by zemper on February 1st, 2008 @ 2:41am CST
wow. sad to see OS go. in the short time i've been been playing HMW, there's been lotsa good changes and i attribute it to his persistence and hard work. hope you could return in a less stressful situation someday OS.
and best of wishes to Mkall! bring on V2 dagnabbit! 
and best of wishes to Mkall! bring on V2 dagnabbit!
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (619988)
Posted by Blackstreak on February 1st, 2008 @ 4:39am CST
Posted by Blackstreak on February 1st, 2008 @ 4:39am CST
Good luck Mkall! Its sad to see OS leave but I understand the reasons. I'd get burned out w/ all the griping, whining, and whatever else that goes on. And then again, if things in real life kept me from my family (if I had one of my own) I'd ditch too because thats more important.
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (619989)
Posted by Sabrblade on February 1st, 2008 @ 4:46am CST
Posted by Sabrblade on February 1st, 2008 @ 4:46am CST
I never even got to play HMW. Could somebody please describe to me what it was like? Was it really a game? What kind of game was it? How was it played? What happened in the game? What characters were playable? Etc.
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620000)
Posted by Overloaded on February 1st, 2008 @ 5:08am CST
Posted by Overloaded on February 1st, 2008 @ 5:08am CST
Good luck Mkall
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620002)
Posted by Burn on February 1st, 2008 @ 5:11am CST
You could always just play the game yourself and find out ....
Posted by Burn on February 1st, 2008 @ 5:11am CST
Sabrblade wrote:I never even got to play HMW. Could somebody please describe to me what it was like? Was it really a game? What kind of game was it? How was it played? What happened in the game? What characters were playable? Etc.
You could always just play the game yourself and find out ....
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620003)
Posted by Venomous Prime on February 1st, 2008 @ 5:12am CST
Posted by Venomous Prime on February 1st, 2008 @ 5:12am CST
All hail the Great Mkhali
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620044)
Posted by Archanubis on February 1st, 2008 @ 6:26am CST
Posted by Archanubis on February 1st, 2008 @ 6:26am CST
Good luck with your new position, Mkall
God knows you're gonna need it :p
God knows you're gonna need it :p
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620064)
Posted by Tammuz on February 1st, 2008 @ 6:53am CST
Posted by Tammuz on February 1st, 2008 @ 6:53am CST
i might be being dyslexic again but where's the bit about balancing what we have now?
a third of the people who bothered to post what they wanted most in the game wanted what we have at the moment balanced over new stuff, that twice as many as other single thing wanted.
and it's probably the easiest thing to do as well as it doesn't require any real programming just the adjusting a few values.
let your inner DM through mkall!
the HMW wish list wrote:Balancing the game(9)
additional staff who can do stuff(4)
multiple-sided battles(2)
Increased Roster limits(2)
Gestalts!!(2)
Clan System
More Tactics
alt stealing
Wierd minicon effects
Gimmicks
Dual weilding
Comprehensive mission lists for all factions
Multi team member missions
a third of the people who bothered to post what they wanted most in the game wanted what we have at the moment balanced over new stuff, that twice as many as other single thing wanted.
and it's probably the easiest thing to do as well as it doesn't require any real programming just the adjusting a few values.
let your inner DM through mkall!
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620079)
Posted by imotron on February 1st, 2008 @ 7:16am CST
Posted by imotron on February 1st, 2008 @ 7:16am CST
Interesting, indeed
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620105)
Posted by City Commander on February 1st, 2008 @ 7:49am CST
Posted by City Commander on February 1st, 2008 @ 7:49am CST
Mkall, I am behind you every step of the way. Good luck!
It's sad to see OS go, but I can see how the drama could've drained his enthusiasm. It was awfully messy indeed.
And yays to Gor! He'll be happy to hear that I am sure.
Saberblade- It'll draw you in. Getting playing. Be a con. We're wicked-cool
But don't just play the game. The heavy metal war is also fought in the forums!
It's sad to see OS go, but I can see how the drama could've drained his enthusiasm. It was awfully messy indeed.
And yays to Gor! He'll be happy to hear that I am sure.
Saberblade- It'll draw you in. Getting playing. Be a con. We're wicked-cool
But don't just play the game. The heavy metal war is also fought in the forums!
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620144)
Posted by Jeep? on February 1st, 2008 @ 8:28am CST
Posted by Jeep? on February 1st, 2008 @ 8:28am CST
Congrats on the new post, big guy!
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620165)
Posted by Cheetron on February 1st, 2008 @ 8:51am CST
Posted by Cheetron on February 1st, 2008 @ 8:51am CST
Congrats and good luck.
Not to speak ill of the departed but if OS couldn't take the people on here, why was he here at all? I mean it's like this on most sites on the internet. It's probably just me.
Not to speak ill of the departed but if OS couldn't take the people on here, why was he here at all? I mean it's like this on most sites on the internet. It's probably just me.
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620173)
Posted by Ultra Magnus on February 1st, 2008 @ 9:15am CST
Posted by Ultra Magnus on February 1st, 2008 @ 9:15am CST
Mkall, Thanks for your dedication. I am not a programmer at all, and it's nice to see that someone with skills is picking up the pieces. Much Love from Alpha Team, Mkall! 
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620197)
Posted by cocuutje on February 1st, 2008 @ 10:22am CST
great to hear Mkall is continuing HMW.... Now let's hope it will be up and running soon (again 
)
Posted by cocuutje on February 1st, 2008 @ 10:22am CST
great to hear Mkall is continuing HMW.... Now let's hope it will be up and running soon (again )
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620277)
Posted by megatenoh on February 1st, 2008 @ 11:24am CST
Posted by megatenoh on February 1st, 2008 @ 11:24am CST
It's one of those times when i wish i would have been wrong,like the others i am sad to see OS go,hope he will be back when his life gets a bit easier in that respect.
As for Mkall,a good choice in my opinion and capable one, which also knows the crowd here.I wish him luck and cant wait to see what he cooks up in here.I see he was already at work when i first wanted to post this the site went down and now only games is down so he sure is willing and started on this.My hat is off to that!
Like Wrath said,hopefully he will on our side so Cons can rule the Cybertron!
As for Mkall,a good choice in my opinion and capable one, which also knows the crowd here.I wish him luck and cant wait to see what he cooks up in here.I see he was already at work when i first wanted to post this the site went down and now only games is down so he sure is willing and started on this.My hat is off to that!
Like Wrath said,hopefully he will on our side so Cons can rule the Cybertron!
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620298)
Posted by Talon523 on February 1st, 2008 @ 11:38am CST
Posted by Talon523 on February 1st, 2008 @ 11:38am CST
Sounds good to me! I quit playin V1 since I thought V2 was close. I guess I can wait longer. There is no need to rush out something that will crash or have many bugs.
Good Luck and I hope V2 is a great success.
Good Luck and I hope V2 is a great success.
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620442)
Posted by Dr. Caelus on February 1st, 2008 @ 2:05pm CST
He was here as a game programmer. AFAIK, no one told him that being able to tolerate ungrateful/hostile malcontents and fanatics was a prerquisite for writing a computer program, or at least, if they did, he thought they were kidding.
And also, Seibertron has always struck me as being a bit better than "most sites on the internet".
But I guess regression toward the mean is hard to fight in the end.
Posted by Dr. Caelus on February 1st, 2008 @ 2:05pm CST
Cheetron wrote:Not to speak ill of the departed but if OS couldn't take the people on here, why was he here at all? I mean it's like this on most sites on the internet. It's probably just me.
He was here as a game programmer. AFAIK, no one told him that being able to tolerate ungrateful/hostile malcontents and fanatics was a prerquisite for writing a computer program, or at least, if they did, he thought they were kidding.
And also, Seibertron has always struck me as being a bit better than "most sites on the internet".
But I guess regression toward the mean is hard to fight in the end.
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620447)
Posted by City Commander on February 1st, 2008 @ 2:13pm CST
hehe, yeah...
You sure do get more than you bargain for with Seibertron.com
Posted by City Commander on February 1st, 2008 @ 2:13pm CST
Caelus wrote:Cheetron wrote:Not to speak ill of the departed but if OS couldn't take the people on here, why was he here at all? I mean it's like this on most sites on the internet. It's probably just me.
He was here as a game programmer. AFAIK, no one told him that being able to tolerate ungrateful/hostile malcontents and fanatics was a prerquisite for writing a computer program, or at least, if they did, he thought they were kidding.
And also, Seibertron has always struck me as being a bit better than "most sites on the internet".
But I guess regression toward the mean is hard to fight in the end.
hehe, yeah...
You sure do get more than you bargain for with Seibertron.com
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620460)
Posted by Luzac on February 1st, 2008 @ 2:25pm CST
Posted by Luzac on February 1st, 2008 @ 2:25pm CST
Does I have understand that the "New M Order" has blocked my ability to post in the Predacon forum without the moderator approvment 
Good Luck Mkall! Hope that first changes happen as quick as possible.
Good Luck Mkall! Hope that first changes happen as quick as possible.
Re: The future of Heavy Metal War starts with an "M" (620481)
Posted by City Commander on February 1st, 2008 @ 3:00pm CST
Posted by City Commander on February 1st, 2008 @ 3:00pm CST
Post approval? Nah, that's a kink from the upgrade. So far the only fix seems to be uploading a backup version of the forum, and deleting the current one.
