So one of the first things I did today was move posts to individual files and create an index file for my blog. I just like things organized this way. I'm somewhat excited for the day despite my mundane data entry job occupying most of it, because it's Friday, and the first weekend I'm going to have during this new approach of "boredom is okay" and trying to stick largely to the "smol internet".
On a side note, one of my current projects is an open source RuneScape private server software suite, which has been in the works for quite a while. Open source is a fickle thing in the RSPS community. Lots of the people in that community are exceptionally greedy and only care about themselves. As a result, my project is among only a very small handful of other open source projects. I had a previous server I largely developed alone as well [1], though I'm not too proud of its codebase. I quit that project because it became an overwhelming emotional burden to deal with a large community and such a buggy codebase on my own. I'm happy to say, however, that I believe I left the project in good hands. I spent 2 years tirelessly lifting the project up onto my shoulders to get it to a point where it could sustain itself and I believe I succeeded.
2009Scape, my previous project.
One might ask, "why waste your time creating these when Oldschool RuneScape exists?"
That's quite a lot like asking why waste your time restoring a 70's Dodge Charger when modern Dodge Chargers exist. Oldschool RuneScape has nothing in common with the version it's based off of (2007) other than graphics. The gameplay itself, and new content, and overall challenge is heavily designed for the new generation of players and it shows. And it's just not my cup of tea. RuneScape was a very dearly loved childhood game for me and as things with MMOs usually go, if no one makes the effort to preserve it (consequentially writing the server software from scratch and reimplementing all the content yourself), then it simply won't get preserved. That's actually something that pisses me off quite a lot with the RSPS community. None of them (aside from a very select few, the same select few which are open source) give a damn about preservation. They're all trying to make a quick buck off of it. Now you might find yourself asking "do people really make money from RSPS?"
The answer is yes. Quit a lot of it.
Some servers that have existed in the past (such as SoulSplit) have made millions in annual revenue. These projects exploit what one might call "cashcows." The same kinds of people that spend fortunes on Gacha games and the like. It's a disgusting part of the RSPS community, and it's the grand majority of it. In my general experience people from the RSPS community are some of the most low-down, scummy business men you could ever meet. People not getting paid for their work, large fallouts and threats of lawsuits, etc. Hell, I've caught red-handed several people lifting my AGPL'd code for 2009scape and trying to make a quick buck off of turning it into a closed source money generator. At least 11 individual groups of people. Yes. 11. It's kind of funny, one of those times I caught someone, a few hours later some new player joined the server I hosted for my project, and PM'd me ingame saying "What the fuck, it's literally the exact same." These people really don't give a shit, they don't respect licenses, hell, they don't even care if they blatantly rip off other's work for their own gain. 2009Scape and my current project, as stated before, were made largely out of necessity, but secondarily out of spite for these people. One of the core principals of the 2009scape project is that no donations of any kind are ever accepted under any circumstance, just to prove a point. I've turned down thousands of dollars in donations.
As for my new project, I don't consider it quite ready yet for a public release, though when I do release it, it'll be under the AGPL the same as 2009scape. Perhaps I will write gemlogs here detailing what goes into it, sort of like a development log. That could be an interesting series, I think. As for this post, I'm going to stop consuming your bandwidth with kilobytes of rambling now. I appreciate it if you've read this far, have a nice day :).
P.S. if you want to stare into the gaping maw of the abyss, check out Rune-Server[2]. It's where most of the scum coagulates. For what it's worth, the moderators of the site are actually awesome and have stepped in to defend 2009scape on several occasions. It's the users that suck.
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