LadyWYT

Eh...polls can be useful, but they're also very easy to skew. A Reddit poll is going to rely on people going to Reddit to vote, and will possibly require them to have a Reddit account to vote. It's very easy for one person to create multiple Reddit accounts, if they wish. And I think it's also fair to say that users with strong opinions tend to be the ones more inclined to vote, while users who don't really feel strongly one way or the other(or just don't wish to voice an opinion) are likely to sit it out. At best, all the poll really shows is that the community is split about 50/50 on whether or not users believe Maltiez should be fired, with those who aren't firmly in the "fire" camp seemingly having a wider variety of opinion. What the future holds for Anego is unknown. It's very easy to speculate, but only time will tell what the actual outcome will be.

That is pretty lucky! I think the only way it would be luckier is if they were tin bronze tools, and a pickaxe and falx instead of just two falxs.

I'm disappointed in that too, but I can also understand that it may have fallen to the wayside in the wake of the Reddit/Discord meltdowns. It's definitely not the end of the world, but it's something that I would like to see remedied in the future.

Kind of? As far as I'm aware, it's a case of Maltiez took matters into his own hands, added code to his mods to mess with the cheaters without being open about what he was doing(either with fellow players or Anego Studios). The cheaters apparently did give up on trying to maintain their cheats, but Maltiez's code was also catching innocent mods(like Caves N Caverns) in the crossfire simply due to how the "anti-cheat" worked(ie, it looked for a certain percentage of obfuscated code in loaded mods and then caused the game client to crash if it found one). The "anti-cheat" was added prior to Maltiez's involvement with Anego Studios. Anego themselves doesn't seem to have been aware of what was going on, aside from a few suspicious remarks from Maltiez that should have been questioned in hindsight. As far as the full extent of Maltiez's intentions, I'm not entirely sure. He's certainly been accused of a lot of bad behavior by several people. Apparently he himself remarked that it wasn't exclusively about stopping the cheats. However, saying something doesn't necessarily make it true, and it's sometimes hard to maintain clarity in tense situations when emotions are running high. My general take on the matter is that I'm glad the cheaters were stopped, and I daresay most players would probably agree on that note. However, that doesn't mean that the methods used were appropriate, even if they were effective, and I think most players would probably agree on that note as well. Regarding Anego Studios, unfortunately they get stuck in a no-win situation, given that they're going to get blamed for it by association, and there's no option they can pick that won't upset part of the community.

Eh...it's to be expected. People have good reasons to be upset about what happened, and have a right to politely voice those concerns. That's not to say that everyone has expressed their thoughts in that fashions, but anyway... When stuff like this happens, tensions are going to run high, and there's not really a condition where everyone "wins". There's always going to be a section of the playerbase that just will not accept ANY kind of apology and walk away as a result. There's always going to be a section that feels the solution chosen wasn't the best one, and be upset about that. And the studio associated with the mess, regardless of whether or not the studio was ever actually at fault, is going to be left holding the bag and have to rebuild trust with their playerbase, because even the satisfied players are going to be a little skeptical of things going forward. As far as drama goes it's the worst I can recall seeing in the VS community, but not the worst that I've ever seen on an online forum. That award still goes to what I can only dub as the "Great Intercontinental Roleplaying War" that happened on the WoW forums several years ago.

If thermals were in the game, I could see the glider turning into something like the hangglider from Pilot Wings 64. If you manage to cruise to one, you could circle around and gain some altitude, albeit slowly. How much altitude and how fast would depend on how big the thermal is. In Pilot Wings, the big thermals were easy to stay in, but didn't provide much altitude and were fairly slow. Small thermals provided more altitude at a somewhat faster rate, but were harder to stay in due to the tight radius. But you'd also need a way to detect the thermals, in a fashion that doesn't make them stick out like a sore thumb. Air currents aren't exactly visible, as much as their effects are. This is the type of scenario where birds would be rather useful though. Buzzards and other birds of prey like to cruise around in thermals since that's an energy-efficient way to stay in the sky, and would be an immersive way to indicate thermals as well as provide realistic world ambience(both viewed from the ground and sky).

That's pretty much what I was wondering out loud about earlier. It's really easy to point fingers at Anego and say it's all their fault and they should have handled X in Z fashion instead of Y. But just thinking back on my own experience with troubleshooting...there's been many times where I've crashed the game and had to go figure out what was causing said crash, because the crash log isn't always the most useful thing. I remove the offending mod and then happily go back to whatever I was doing, never giving it a second thought or bothering to go dig through the mod's code to see what the problem could be, question why it would be a problem, or otherwise report the problem to the mod author so it can be fixed. Because I mean...why would I? It takes time to do that, and technically it's not my problem to fix(aside from removing the defective mod from my mod list). On the other hand, if problems were reported more diligently, they could be fixed faster. Taking a few minutes of time to look at the mod's code itself could add more information to those bug reports, or allow discovery of potentially questionable code much sooner than just brushing it off. And of course, if the mod author is ignoring the bug reports and genuine concerns, that would be a pretty good reason to consider using the report feature on the modDB or otherwise sending a moderator a polite DM with your concerns.

Well, that's also why I suggest that when a mod starts causing issues with a lot of other things and there's not an obvious why beyond "it just doesn't work and removing the mod fixes the problem", it might not be a bad idea for some of the more technically adept members of the community to have a peek at the code if they have time to do so. Fishy code could potentially be caught a bit faster and reported, while at worst the mod author in question gets some extra help trouble-shooting the issue. It's definitely not a foolproof plan, but it seems a proactive way for the community itself to grow stronger. And it seems a little less invasive than trying to tighten the modDB rules. Mind you, I'm not saying the modDB rules shouldn't be looked at, but additional rules aren't guaranteed to prevent future problems either, and rules that are too strict can certainly hurt a community more than they help.

That seems a pretty safe bet. One thing that just crossed my mind though, regarding users blaming ConfigLib for their crashes. Do we have any kind of community guide when it comes to troubleshooting issues with mods? I know several of us are experienced enough with modding that troubleshooting is second nature at this point, but there's also a decent chunk of the community that's not nearly as familiar with the technical side of things. It seems a pretty good idea to have some sort of guide that players can refer to when they have trouble, as well as have some of the more technically adept community members inspect mods that seem to be a common denominator when it comes to crashes(especially if the crash reason isn't obvious). To be fair, this could be wishful thinking on my part, but it seems like at best issues like ConfigLib could be found and dealt with much sooner, and at worst mod authors get some additional help when it comes to fixing their own code.

Is that really necessary though? I mean it is one solution, but I'm not sure that becoming cold and distant from the community is a very healthy way to handle it. A better option, I think, is to perhaps re-assess whatever process is used to vet potential hires, and have some better documentation/training regarding public communications. Which it sounds like Anego Studios is looking into the training part. It's probably also a good idea to carefully consider the personality of who you're hiring as well. Several users say Maltiez is a jerk. I'm not sure how accurate those claims are, since I'm not familiar with the guy's personality to say to what extent that's true. Pretty much anyone can come across as a jerk if you catch them on the wrong day or otherwise talk to the right people, and being a massive jerk doesn't mean that you aren't capable of good work. However, an abrasive personality is also difficult to work with, and a liability when it comes to public relations, so more oversight is probably advisable when it comes to individuals like that so that problems can be caught and fixed before they spiral out of control.

I'm guessing this is total downloads, and not unique downloads? I'm not even sure there's a way to get the total unique download number, outside of being on Anego's end of things, but I do feel it's an important distinction to make. Ten people downloading the mod once is a lot broader scope than one guy who downloaded it ten different times for whatever reason. I do feel this is a pretty safe guesstimate though.

It was crashing other legitimate mods(like Caves N Caverns), while(as I understand it, anyway) hiding the cause of the crash. Those crashes weren't intentional, but they happened due to the way the "anti-cheat" worked--causing the game client to crash if there was a mod present that contained a certain percentage of obfuscated code(I think I've got the correct term here). As far as I'm aware, Maltiez had added this code to his mods(ConfibLib being the main culprit) before his involvement with Anego Studios, and doesn't seem to have been honest regarding how he was going about his "anti-cheat" endeavor. And that's why most people are upset--he took matters into his own hands and caused collateral damage when going after the cheat mod. I don't recall anyone being upset about the cheaters being dealt with(apparently they quit maintaining their cheat mod because they couldn't figure out the crashes), but that doesn't mean that people are okay with how Maltiez went about the whole business. That's also why there's a lot of infighting in the community right now--some are satisfied(or satisfied enough anyway) by Tyron's official remarks on the matter, and others are upset because they disagree with how Tyron's chosen to handle it.

I wasn't trying to debate word definitions Just idly noting that citing Wikipedia usually doesn't make for the strongest position when it comes to debate and it can get you dismissed entirely depending on the context, especially if there are more credible sources in play. That being said, I do agree that the Wikipedia mention probably wasn't why you were getting brushed off in those circumstances. Debate is difficult, especially on the internet, and it's not unusual at all for internet denizens to completely ignore cited sources regardless of their quality.

In all fairness, Wikipedia isn't a particularly trustworthy source of information since anyone has edit access. Or at the very least, it was banned as a relevant source of research material for papers when I was in college for that reason and others. It can be an okay starting point to find a general overview of a subject, and other sources about that subject, but it's not really something you want to be citing as the sole source of information.

Even if there is no refund...why would one keep playing if they don't trust the developers or the game itself anymore? At that point it makes more sense to just walk away and don't use the services that the company offers.

ModDB has nothing to do with it; bad actors can come from anywhere. That doesn't mean that you need to run around paranoid about everything, it just means use some common sense and your best judgment to evaluate situations and determine what is an appropriate risk level for you and what isn't, and then act accordingly. When it comes to game development, I think it's safe to say that after a situation like this, being part of the modding community doesn't exclude you from a chance to work for Anego if they're hiring. What it does mean, most likely, is that new hires are going to be screened more thoroughly, and more paperwork and supervision when it comes to keeping track of who did what and when.

To be frank, if Anego Studios had canned Maltiez(and potentially whomever else was remotely involved) before the facts were public knowledge, all to attempt to avoid public outcry and go along with what seemed to be popular public opinion...that would concern me a lot more. Because at that point, there's no actual leadership aside from mob rule, and public opinion is a fickle beast. That's a very easy situation for bad actors to take advantage of, and that's also how innocent parties get caught in the crossfire and have their lives and reputations ruined. That doesn't mean that what Maltiez did was right and that there shouldn't be consequences, or that Tyron and co. have handled everything with the upmost grace and wisdom(as I said in a previous post, time will tell how his decisions pan out, and I can't honestly say that I wouldn't have made the same/better decisions in his shoes). And it's okay to be upset about the situation and politely express as much. But I do think there are several that are insistent on blowing things way out of proportion because they want heads to roll and will settle for nothing less.

I'm pretty sure this is how 99% of software development works, unless it's like...one guy working on the entire project.

Welcome to the forums! To be honest, I didn't think I would be this happy to see another berry bush topic quite so soon. Nice find though! This is either an older world, or the devs just haven't gotten around to updating the village berries yet.

Don't forget wooden paths. But yeah, the expense is a bit of an issue. I think the bigger balancing factor is just putting a bulky hitbox on the cart and making it fairly slow compared to other means of travel. That way the player can still carry a lot of stuff, but they're not going to have the convenience of fast travel, and are going to have more limited options when it comes to handling different types of terrain.

You said you're able to harvest animals when you join your friend's vanilla game. In that case, I recommend disabling your modlist and making sure your vanilla game is working properly. If it is, then you can re-enable your mods one-by-one and test as you do so. When the problem reappears, you'll have found your problem mod. You could also provide your modlist here, and someone else may be able to spot the problem mod. Otherwise without a list, it's tough to really say which mod could be causing the problem.

I've seen several people running around insisting that's the case, but I've not found any evidence to really support those claims. Not saying the claims are false either, just that I myself don't place much stock in them.

My general impression is that when it comes to scooping up mod authors to assist with development, it's generally a temporary contract for a specific update rather than a permanent position on the team. The individual in question may only be there to offer advice and not actually write the code or make assets themselves.

Was the mod ever used on the world? Not all mods can be removed mid-playthrough.

I think various ideas have been floated for such, but the main hurdle, I think, is figuring out how to animate a cart and not have it look exceptionally goofy when navigating a blocky world. One solution that has crossed my mind regarding that--make carts very slow when not moving on roads, and thus require the player to build infrastructure if they want to use anything bigger than a handcart. Carts are large vehicles and require a lot of space to move, so they aren't going to be able to move through forests and brushland without a clear trail. Sand, gravel, and soft dirt will hinder wheels. Rocks will make for a bumpy ride, if not break the wheels. Hills and mountains are going to be incredibly difficult for a cart to traverse, if not impossible without infrastructure. And of course, there's not really anyone around to build such infrastructure aside from the player, so...