I was be drowned out dev team by ppy,think about wrting something,first is memories,and broke the news about inside story of osu team.

You'll see 3 kinds of things here :
1.Code
2.management
3.Ban account and anit-cheat

Just talk about code first,please forgive me that I wrote the code to join dev team,so put it at the first.
Codes of osu! just abpit 50,000 lines,is a small program,from 2007.09 till today,ppy was submit over 10,000 times codes to github,in fact,my contribution is lower 5%,it also means not too much contribution.

Today,the core code osu! you see,70% was wrote in the first month,almost no change,including editor,music select,something about play..etc..Because ppy made the mistake about structure when the year he was young,still exist till now.

What mistakes .. ? core code of editor,I never understand it,ppy said that he still can understand it now,but he just understand it,no idea about modifying.
So when I want to change functions of editor,I must use too much effort,carefully to avoid any codes can use normally,to write new idea.More often,even can't add anything.

Such developing efficiency is too low,but mania editor is almost the new codes rewrite,so it is too fast,finish writing in 2 days.

I ever thought a more convenient editor,has any auto helping and error warning,but to make such thing,it is impossible to do except rewrite.

So I asked ppy whether rewriting editor or not,ppy rejected,reason is editor can using normally,why have to rewrite ?

His this opinion is not only is about editor,also use to all osu!,When I asked that osu! if have a version which is 0 to 2.0 someday,structure is more reasonable,function is more powerful,ppy said no vehemently,he is willing to modify on this code of basic forever.

Because is you're a player,so how we feel about using editor is no relation with you,then..stability of game you mustn't stay out,a game program in 60fps is still feel laggy,it has a problem on itself,refresh rate of monitor just 60Hz.
To solve this problem,need to separate drawing logic and game logic,use 2 threads to run.
That is be possible that rebuild osu! to make it come true too.

And let talk about how is dev team running,the person who has code compile and release right is only ppy,the codes I write,ever lines he must to look.
Before 2013.09,my codes are in the independent branch,about all bugs,I can fix and submit it fast,and then ppy merge again periodically,and then release.
Before that,our cooperation is successful,after that,I have to according to ppy's mandate,everytime I modify,and create a new branch,independent submission.

Just don't say that will gain how many jobs,after that has a phenomenon is ppy can choose not to merger somewhere I changed(Because I only a branch before,he must to merger)
For example some bug has been fixed,but ppy thinks it shouldn't be fix by that,so keep putting.
More often,he putting my some change for no reason,just putting and don't care about it.
For example:HR mod of mania,finished in October already,but place till now.

After that,my develop feeling is become subtle in dev team,seems like as I'm devote offerings to ppy,ppy accepts offerings happily,I don't have reward,unhappy,scold me directly.

So,I don't want to modify gradually.

After that,recently ppy is still continue to writing his function,probably is think that whether have me or not,he still is the same,so I'm the excess.

And about bug,only the bugs ppy cares are bugs,the bugs he doesn't attach importance to,that won't fix.

As a player,all we knoe too many bugs are appear while playing,and ppy who doesn't play that won't find these problems absolutely.A developer who doesn't play a game to develop a game,if that is in a standard game company,such staff member with get fire.
But ppy is boss,that is different.

Similar problems are also have Internet connection,what should us do if can't submit map result ? ppy is always connect to server directly,so he never has this problem,so this problem is not exist.

Overall,osu! can manager for such long time,still has closed relation with overall codes that basic stability,but if change to a person to write same code,how it will going,probably not worse.

=====To be continued=====

I am just complaining in that post
It's not objective enough
And the root (of our conflict)
Lies in our lack of communication

Being kicked out of dev team by ppy yesterday, I would like to post something about both my experience in osu! dev team and some uncovered truth in osu team.

You may expect to see the following things in my post:
1. Things related to coding osu
2. Things related to managing osu
3. Things related to ban cheating players and anti-third party program involving in cheating

Let’s talk about code first. Please forgive me for talking about this first, since coding for mania is the reason for me to join the dev team.

70% core code of osu! which are functioning today were written in the very first month of osu! development, and until now most of them are still serving without remarkable changes, such as code relate to editor, song choosing, playing ect. [have no big difference in framework compare to the code written in the beginning], and structural blemishes in the early days, too, inherit to present.

How awful those “structural blemishes in the early days” are? For example [about the editor], I have never understood the core codes of editor, and although ppy claimed he understand those codes well, even he himself cannot handle [make significant improvement on] those codes anyway. So whenever I come up with any ideas about improving the editor, I have to pay extra attention to those outdated codes, trying not to interfere with core codes [which are written long time ago with flaws and] still functioning [so that I won’t damage the editor’s routine working which is based on codes with flaws] and are forced to use new logic to write my code in order to achieve my goal. But more often the situation is I just can do nothing to the editor [due to those codes are broken at the beginning].

And of course this results in a very low efficiency in coding. In the contrary, mania editor is totally new to osu! and every code is completely based on nothing, so the development of mania editor is extremely quick [compare to the improvement of osu editor], which only took me two day to finish.

I once considered reconstructing the editor totally with various feature such as auto-check and error reminder.

I went to ppy for approval, and receive an instant denial. The rhetoric is “nowdays editor is working well, what’s the reason for reconstruction?”

And he implements this logic not only on editor but also the whole osu! development. When I ask for a future plan about the construction of a 2.0 version osu! with better framework and more powerful functions, he rejected furiously, claiming he will stick on old core codes forever.

(richardfeder: Here woc2006 is starting another example about the necessity of rewriting the core codes)Even if you are a common player who has nothing to do with editor, you are still deeply involved in other elements relate to the stability of this game. For instant if a game [osu!] is even lagging in a fps of 60 while monitor is refreshing in a rate of barely 60Hz, then there must be something wrong with the game itself, and resolving this problem can be achieved by [把底层的绘图逻辑和游戏逻辑分离，用两个线程来跑 sorry I have no idea how to translate this I not familiar with CS sorry! T.T], which also need a totally reconstruction on osu! framework [which is rejected by ppy].

Let’s shift our focus to how the [dev] team is running. Ppy is the only person who has the power to edit and publish any codes, and every code I wrote and submitted has to be checked by him sentence by sentence. Before 9/2013 my codes were all submitted by a single branch and for any bugs emerged in osu! I can fix and submit my codes quickly into that single branch, while ppy gathered and published them from that branch constantly. Our corporation went pretty well at that period of time. However after a short while ppy ordered me to submit any new update to a new branch, hand in my codes independently.

Besides increasing my workload in huge extent, this action allows ppy to not include my updates into his game (since I only handed in one branch before, ppy has to converge my branch into the whole code system anyway). For example if I would like to fix a bug while ppy disliked my ways of fixing, he could just ignore the branch [containing my codes he didn’t like], and most of the time he even refuse to provide any explanations for why he dismissed my update. One example is the case of HR mod of mania which is completed by me at October but released much later [due to his ignore].

Since then the atmosphere in dev team was slowly changing. I feel that I was paying tribute to ppy and if he accepted gladly, there won’t be rewards for me. If not he will just yell at me badly.

That’s why I became more and more unwilling to update at that time.

And later ppy just kept his update as usual, seeming my existence is totally needless.

For ppy, a bug will never be fixed if he doesn’t recognize that bug as a “bug”.

It obviously to players all that most bugs appear randomly during plays, and for ppy who never play the game himself it is just impossible for him to detect [and recognize] those bugs. In any formal game company a dev team employee who never plays the game will absolutely be fired, but truth is that ppy is employer [so he will never realize those problems].

Same situation also happen in submitting scores. Ppy directly links to serves so he never find out this problem, and thus for him this problem never exist.

Overall the long live of osu! is inextricable with stable core codes(the code written long time ago by ppy), but I believe if the core code of osu! had written by another person, that code would be no worse compare to today’s core code.


ppy knows the fact that many people have a number of ways to copy osu!, but he is not worry about this since he believe those people who are trying to copy his program have no deep understanding about game management. And indeed none of those copiers succeed in the end. Then what’s ppy’s point of view on the game management?

We all know that osu! largely rely on the mutualism among players and mappers. Mappers come from common players, and by mapping mappers keep old players and attract more to join the game. Osu! has a rapidly growing group of players is pretty much the result of new maps keep getting ranked. A game can attract new players to join only by keeping developing itself, and if new comers saw the latest ranked beatmap was ranked in 2012, they would surely leave.

Ppy rely on BATs to get maps ranked. In his eyes BATs are elite mappers and they have the responsibility to pick good maps and get them ranked, and for mappers, if they are going to map then they should follow certain rules and instruction of BATs, because BATs are elites.

And here comes the trouble. Mapping becomes a pure devotion for most mappers and because of their love for certain songs, they are willing to suffer endless modding and endure hypercritical BATs. But after their maps get ranked, they receive pride and nothing else, even remaining unknown to players.

And BATs have enough power to determinate the fate of any beatmaps while involving their subjective points of view into their decisions, and besides communication within BATs, there is no other ways to supervise how they bubble and rank beatmaps.

And this is just a small problem on the dimension of modding system, and although this is not perfect, at least it is running.

However ppy always considers BATs are checking maps on a volunteer-basis so when he is constructing modding v2, he places BATs at a position even more volunteer. BATs now have nothing to do with getting any maps ranked, they just need to be the “defenders of justice [quality]” and unranked any unqualified maps.

ppy has a tendency to do things he harbor great interest only, having a fancy dream about his ideas which keep encouraging him to accomplish his goals. That’s how he created osu!, and of course the case of modding v2 is the same. The result [of modding v2] is that nearly every BATs agree on disagree with ppy, since although being a good BAT can still be awarded nothing, at least they don’t need to waste their time playing the game of “defenders of justice [quality]” with ppy.

ppy doesn’t compromised anyway at last, so does modding v2. In the contrary he would like to reconstruct the official website (that’s why ppy can bare core codes of osu! but he can’t bare codes of website since indeed codes of official website are even more unbearable) which will also contain his modding v2. The situation now is that ppy hires people to build up this official website, slowly.

That’s his attitude towards BATs, and of course his attitude towards players is even worse.

Ppy regards osu! as a competitive game, but when this idea comes to players, ppy prefer players open up everything [beatmaps provide] while playing such as storyboard, thinking if not then why mappers pay so much effort in making these things. This idea seems satisfy both players and mappers, but in fact either is satisfied.

Obviously competitive players dislike storyboard with effects like halation, meanwhile ppy refused to set up a function to disable storyboard, causing everybody deleted storyboard, a behavior dissatisfied mappers.

So the function to disable storyboard now is actually merely a disguise. Seemingly allowing you to disable SB, ppy is actually regarding the behaviors of dimming background and disabling SB as a kind of cheat, recording them and saving as documents. From his heart he does not endorse this kind of behavior [such as disabling SB and dimming background] and although he is not acting now, he might make this kind of behavior affect pp system any day in the future.

About pp [system], I have to say that ppy really doesn’t understand players. Within two years one of the three biggest (stupidest) things ppy has done was replacing score with pp. About the virtue or vice of pp, Tom has already proved if this [pp] system is [a] good [standard] for players who focus on skill [to rank their performances], but this has nothing to do with ppy. Besides, abandoning score is a hardly understandable decision, just like we abandon RMB (richardfeder: nowadays currency in Chinese) one day in the future and shift to another currency.

I have no idea how can ppy had the courage to deny countless efforts for years in one night, pushing another ranking system to replace ranking system at the time, with a reliability unknown.

It’s the incident of score makes me notice that ppy is just a developer who has little connection with players. that’s why no matter what he does it always has nothing to do with common players. He is just doing business he loves.

After that pp system experienced several changes, ppv2 emerged and always [remains in the stage of] beta, nobody knows when it will be finalized. I can say, tormenting players like that, [ppy] is not a good operator.
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Finally, I will talk about the cheats. It is the things that players pay much attention to. Some players will be mentioned, but those players don't play osu now. So maybe it doesn't matter for mentioning.

The first topic I took with Peppy is how to ban snowreborn and hatsune miku.banning hatsune mikuthe is the ambition of nano, and what happened on hatsune miku is the hotest topic at that time .

as a result, peppy got the proof that hatsune miku cheated, but he still don't ban him. The reason is that the osu comunnity will be a mess .please remember what peppy said .it will be once again mentioned at the following.

But why ban him, i think peppy have a good spirit that day.

There are two kind of the cheats in osu in peppy's opinion. One can be checked. The other can't be checked. The one who use the cheat that can be checked is bound to ban.but peppy never ban it as soon as possible. In peppy's opinion, ban the cheater quickly will result in a fall into the battle with the cheaters. He hasn’t got enough time to catch all the cheaters and ban them. So delaying ban cheaters will maybe make the cheaters quit this game.

the logic I won't to talk(吐槽不知如何翻译 sad) more. Refer to other online games. You will know how unreasonable that way to deal with those who cheated
what's more ,the cheaters that can't be checked is just use the physical things like using multi-screen.but there are still some ways to find the behavior. The method is created by nano. We find someone to test, we can find out that he or she have used the multi-screen. I have submitted the core of that program. But peppy denied it because it will disturb players. So it wasn't accpted and nothing happened in the future.

i also have the ways not disturbing the players. It is behavior model. According to the The game behavior modeling,i think it is the strongest way, whatever cheats won't escape from the model's analysis. And this plan was still not acceped by peppy. Because he can't understand it.

For next best things, analyzing reply file can also find out many cheaters, according to the things like the stabilization of hitting. But peppy still didn't accept it. The reason is that the server's operational capability is limited

So we can know. peppy's attitude to against cheats is that he will deal with it as he can possibly manage. Otherwise he will find an excuse not to deal with it.

In my opinion, if you feel it worth overcoming it, all the excuse is not excuse. so peppy think it is not worthy to against cheats .

Peppy contribute to find the multi-account.because it doesn't have any cost.and when ban it, there is a special sense of achievement. Ban the thousands of multi-account every month.but the number of players showing on the webset of osu included these multi-account. it is ridiculous to do such a thing .

In the end, it is necessary to mention cookiezi

many people who work in game company know the concept of famous players(I don't know how to translate the 节点玩家.because I never heard it xDDD)which means a really awesome players can influence thousands of players who play this game. This kind of players' leaving will do damage the business of the game company

cookiezi is this kind of player

In that case, peppy don't apologize to cookiezi and didn't tell the related people to make an apology.this make cookiezi angry. a player work off his angry on cheating. it is easy to know that there is no other ways to do it. Generally,the Operators help to clear the scores , give some compensation and placate him. After that they will do some internal reorganisation in order not to let this takes place again.

But in the end, peppy ban cookiezi without thinking.

Do you still remeber the peppy's attitude to hatsune miku. What he do it for cookiezi is just hit on his own face (means against his own opinion). Originally, the influence of cookiezi in the community is not as big as hatsune miku. 23333(means laugh)

So I find nothing can be recall. I have done whatever I could do. The rest is not I can change.

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At last I want to talk about the key issues that make me quit osu dev.

Actually I always consider myself as almost a 抖M(a joking way of expressing “masochist” in Chinese) . Although ppy and osu have lots of imperfections, I thought it’s my responsibility to put all my efforts into it, and to do as much as I can to maintain the current situation.

But the issue in regard to the hitsound of o!m for the first time made me wanna quit.

It was when Loctav wrote a long post for peppy, and peppy ordered that mania MUST have keysound. (Kemo: here the keysound refers to the HITsound like that in standard mode, not like the traditional Keysound that makes up a part of the music. In other mania-like games, the beatmaps are either without any hitsound or filled with customized keysound that makes you feel like you are playing a musical instrument.) When I said I thought Loctav was right, ppy deemed my opinion as connivance, and he harshly criticized: “If you wanna deprive mania of hitsound, you can get out of here and make your own game. Hitsound is osu, osu is hitsound, I won’t make any concession.”

I translated word by word what he said. At that time I was like “WTF”, “Are you crazy”. If you say that hitsound to osu is just like pornographic to Japan (just joking, no offensive), that would be understandable. But in fact none of the players consider the hitsound as the distinguishing feature of osu. And to me his dogmatism to hitsound is unreasonable.

And by the way his tone is really provoking at that time, almost make me go ballistic.

Yet I did not really go ballistic. Instead I spent one entire week and finished my RC project (Kemo: a ranking platform for all beatmaps, rank and unranked, based on the replays uploaded by players).

The second conflict is still related to keysound, but a different problem. One day peppy annotated one of my key paragraphs of code and let me deal with the mute bug of keysounded mania maps.

Yet two days later, ppy began to delete my code, and this time for no reason. For the last time of being a masochist, I asked: Could you plz tell me the reason why you delete my code?

There’s no answer.

All right. The time of being a masochist is over. The next day, after I deleted all my code on github, which peppy aren’t “satisfied” with, I left.

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To sum up, the reason why players choose osu, is really because there is no other rhythm game which has so many songs to play. Rhythm game player is really a small group. In China, QQ Rhythm Master claimed to have a million users. I believe that number represents almost more than 50% of people across China who are willing to play such kind of games. And the number of people who play “real” rhythm games are even less than 1% of that number.

The reason why I joined osu dev is because I want to do something for the community and make players happier while playing. That motivation is still with me, so I will still continue to contribute to the osu community.


End.


Part 1:richardfeder
Part 2:victorica_db
Part 3 and Ending:Kemo