Where's Jason?, Stormtrooper = Jason Options

[Stormtrooper]

Hello Folks!

I'm seeing more and more questions from people asking where Stormtrooper is (that's me; Jason!). I'm alive and well. I've just been busier in my personal life and took a step back from the development of the Psychostats software. It's much harder these days to devote a lot of development time to a piece of software that I make no money off of (and remember; I pay a monthly fee for this server too). As much as I like developing "free" software for the gaming community, getting nothing back but frustration and complaints from people can get on your nerves after awhile.

Right now it's unclear if I'll pick-up the development of Psychostats any further. I don't want it to die, but the economy is tough right now and I have to do what's best for me. I made a lot of progress on PS4, But a lot more still needed to be done before it was ready to be released to the public as a viable software package. For now, I'm not saying Psychostats is dead, but definitely on hiatus and stale.

I may be pursuing new development projects too. I just have to see what opportunities come my way.

[RX1983]

Stormtrooper death !!! lol

vamo ajudar esse doido a fazer o psichostats 4.0
vou depositar 200 reais na conta dele, que equivale a 100 dolares $$
brincadeira....

I perceive that the forum this without moderator,
of moderarador the member of the forum, to improve the administration.

[R4to0.exe]

It's good to see you back Stormtrooper!

[Procyon]

I'd like say on behalf of our tf2 gaming community that your work with PsychoStats has been much appreciated. We especially like how the plugin system has enabled us to modify the stats interface to our liking. Thank you and merry christmas.

[lachesis]

don't tell us a bullsh*t! heroes don't die
now enough to cry! we all here the same people, and have much problems in our life, but still have time to compose free music, build free servers, crack and make free torrent releases, carry old people for free, building animal reservations, developing free sound\video\3d editors, feeding homeless dogs, defeating aliens etc etc etc. so get your ass up and make people happy again as you always did!

[d4fseeker]

I didn't answer to this immediatly because I simply didn't know how to write it.

It's been great years with the community and of course you, so it makes me sad to see it come to an end. Well not exactly an end is it? It's only a halt in time and eventually this great work will be carried on.
However, even if some people might not agree with me, I fully understand your choice of laying down the development of Psychostats. It is, after all, a very time- and nerve-consuming job you have volunteerly and very successfully built up over years.
How many hours could you have spent on paying jobs, on family events, on drinking a beer with friends but which you choose to sit in front of a computer to write a set of files and write support answers, making a buch of name- and faceless online-gaming geeks happy?

Usually getting busier in life means being successful, so I hope that was, is and will be the case with you. In the light of these it's logic and understandable
that you have to concentrate on what actually earns you a living, only a fool would tell you the contrary.

One of the points that has to be stressed out is that even if you lay down you weapon of choice (keyboard) for a while, the software you provided is opensource,
meaning that everyone with the interest, energy and knowledge to work on it, fork it, transform it, continue it or rebuild it is free to do so.
So Psychostats will only die if the community dies. And everyone, that is a choice of a community.
Speaking for me, I won't give up Psychostats as long as anyone's out there still tracking his players with it.
From what I know there's a bunch of PHP- and PERL-geeks out there, so any problem can be tackled.
This however, I'd like to stress it out again, does not mean I wouldn't like seeing you take up the development again when you feel like having some breathing space and become interested in stats-crunshing once again.

These things said, a few questions remain on my mind;
~ What happens to Psychostats.com while you're unavailable?
~ Would you need or want the cost of the psychostats.com-server partially or fully taken off your shoulders?
~ What were the planned features for Psychostats 4 or later?

I trust this not to be your final goodbye from the community, we <3 you way too much

Daniel

[quark]

We know that you can't leave PS more that a couple of month. So we'll just wait...

Oh... and Merry Christmas!

[Drek]

Yes Stormtrooper, you do have to do what is right for you. I personally hope you can come back and finish Psychostats 4, however, if you don't manage to do that, you should be proud of what you have accomplished. You've added a lot of fun and enjoyment for an awful lot of people over the past years.

I also hope that you have gained something useful out of all this, even if it wasn't money. I'm not sure what you do professionally, but if you work with code, hopefully what you have learnt working on Psychostats has served you well there. At the very least I am sure it has helped keep your brain fit and active. I don't know how old you are, but as you get older, that will become increasingly important, believe me.

Anyway, all the best in whatever you decide to do, and many thanks for what you have done. May the coming year bring you many adventures, and a good measure of prosperity and happiness.

[mtxd]

A lot of useless words. Just give a cent for every word you wrote. If everyone do it, he would be happy and continue his work on this project.

[Stormtrooper]

Thanks for the comments, guys.

Let me answer a couple of questions here. First, I'm not going to retire the psychostats.com domain name. I will continue to hold and pay for the name. However, I do not know what I'll do about the server that psychostats.com resides on. It's a cost that I don't really need right now but at the same time its hard for me to just let go and drop the server that I've had for many years. d4fseeker, maybe we can discuss some options if you're willing to help me in this area by possibly hosting the domain for me. I'm not currently in a rush for this yet, so we'll see.

drek, I've definitely learned a lot in the last 10+ years working on Psychostats. A lot of what I've developed from a "hobbyist" point of view has translated into my work-life. I also do development at work (PHP and Perl) and I've even re-used components from Psychostats 3 in some projects at work. BTW, I'm 35, So I'm old =).

quark, you're generally right about my ability to not leave PS development for more than a couple of months at a time, but in this case I haven't touched any PS4 code since the beginning of 2009 (since the house fire in Feb; so roughly 10 months ago). The house fire made me re-evaluate some things in my life so my priorities have changed a bit. I'm trying to motivate myself to do more freelance type work, and I'm in a new relationship that is great so I simply do not develop at home much anymore. I'm simply trying to live life more. But maybe there's a balance somewhere in there that I will eventually find to allow me to do it all.

d4fseeker, most of the planned features for PS4 were never really a secret so there isn't much to tell that's new. For example, we all knew "real-time" stats were now possible via true UDP support (even with multiple servers and different games at the same time). The frontend was recoded using CodeIngiter as the framework (MVC model). The backend was also recoded to be more manageable and faster (for instance, if I add a new plr stat (or remove an old one) the DB will automatically update the next time stats.pl is run). The DB schema was changed to allow multiple games and/or mods in the same installation but this feature was never fully developed in the front-end so I never fully knew if it would actually work in a way that wanted. I never got around to figuring out how to redo the "awards" (which I considered on changing to "achievements" since everyone is more familiar with that term and is more inline with how Steam/Valve does things). Heatmaps were never redone. The "PS Live" feature was dropped until a Flash based UI for it could be created (which I never got around to).

An ambitious feature I wanted to implement was "Global stats" which would be compiled automatically. Basically, any server that used Psychostats would automatically send stats information to a central server periodically (only a small subset of your player stats would be sent; like top 100). This sort of stats tracking wouldn't have a normal "skill value" so the question remained; how to rank players? So this feature was never ironed out yet. Other features like "Forum Sigs" and more custom clan customizations were going to be implemented as well.

You might ask "How far along was PS4 from being released?"
The backend was essentially completed and ready for use. But support for various games still had to be implemented (only CS and TF2 were mostly done at this time). But its (theoretically) easier now to add support for other games compared to PS3 (but still not documented). The front-end was no way near ready. I have a basic interface working but I never got started on the Admin Control Panel (ACP). If I had completed that then it would mostly be done. But again, support for various games still had not been done.

All this talk about PS4 is making me want to load up Komodo and work on it. Dang it.

[Drek]

Shoulda known there was a woman behind this somewhere...

My only advice is, don't burn any bridges. Don't throw anything out, in terms of code and if you have some ideas that you haven't written down anywhere, write them down somewhere where you will be able to find them if you want to look at them at some point in the future. Make sure all your PS stuff is backed up in at least two places, hopefully in two separate physical locations. As you well know now, anything can happen, and it is always good to have important documents and data in separate physical locations (even something as simple as your house, and a family member's, or trusted friend's house). After the dust has settled and you have found a comfort zone, in your life, and in your relationship, you may find you have some time and space to spend on PS again.

And I've got you by almost ten years, and I am the youngest of seven children in my family, so issues surrounding ageing are front and centre in my life right now...

[Stormtrooper]

Well... I couldn't help myself, so I loaded up my IDE and started working on the front-end again. Who knows, if I get motivated enough I'll actually make some progress. I'm working on the ACP interface.

[Drek]

[k1ller]

[OptimuS]

we will all help you with donations. don`t worry about.

Glad to be back on project

[[*BGF*]Storm]

Jason

When finished PS4 why not sell it for a nominal fee. With so many people using it, a small fee from a large number of people will make a nice little windfall.

Just a thought, I for one would purchase a copy, I bet I'm not the only one.

Chris.

[OptimuS]

1 to 10 euros per license would be a nice revenue from your side stormtrooper.

[Stormtrooper]

While I would love to be able to produce software that I could actually make money off of, I can't foresee actually charging for Psychostats. First, its open-source, and second it kind of goes against my upbringing. I would love to be able to pay off some debt I have. But I just don't see that happening with Psychostats. =)

[Drek]

There are a lot of complications with selling a product. There is setting up a secure website with methods of payment, taxes, insurance, and protecting the source code. It's easily as much effort as creating the product in the first place, if not more. I'm not saying it's not possible, obviously it is, and millions do it, but it isn't as simple as deciding you are going to charge a "small fee" for something you have been working on.

[Juggy]

Jason,

With regards to server for phsyco stats what you need or is it the hosting side?

I am new to this forum and i am looking at adding it to my current 4 CSS servers

I can see your looking for donations

Send me a message and i can see what i can do to help you with costs i.e. Free webhosting and depending what the "Server" u need

Regards

Juggy