Programmers run the world

Well, this is as any good a time as another to make an entry. I guess we can kick it off with a topic that has had somewhat of an influence on my life. In the Q2 scene, there's a coder named R1CH who is doing a couple of things to strengthen the game and the community. Specifically, he has coded r1q2, which provides a stable and secure client and server. He has created the anticheat .dll which protects servers from anyone who attempts to cheat. He is also currently working on OpenTDM, an open sourced server-side mod that will help provide quick and easy modifications. This is opposed to closed-source tourney OSP mod. Heh, r1ch also has somewhat of a reputation of being a nazi coder for his work on the Q2 mod Gloom.

But, let's put r1ch and his accomplishments aside for now. No, I'm more focused about a coder named Zaltekk. According to his MySpace page, he's a month younger than me. Despite that, he has a wide range of technical knowledge that far exceeds my own. Heh, well I guess I shouldn't be surprised about that. I still have doubts about my currently chosen field. There's a lot to learn, and I feel like I have to struggle a little more than the average person on any given programming concept or technical whatnot.

At any rate, Zaltekk has been on both sides of the Q2 cheating scene, so to speak. I've read some of his forum posts aiding Bryce, the author of the now defunct NoCheat client, with security and code tips. But he has also been involved in the creation of cheats, including his own release of a Digital Paintball client hack. He has helped r1ch with a few things, but he also talks to zeb0r, one of the more seedy members of the Q2 community, if you will. I'm wondering what his intentions are, whether he's just playing mind games to screw with everyone or just looking for coding challenges in different areas.

Whether it's right or not for Zaltekk to screw around like this is not an issue. He can do as he pleases and I wish him luck regardless. What is surprising to me, though, is how much influence a coder can have on a community. I always see coders like r1ch and arQon (well, maybe not arQon, heh) getting a whole lot of respect for what they're doing. Rarely do I see an artist getting the same reputation as a programmer, but then again maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. I don't know, though...would a person who, compared to someone who has mastery over how a game works, have the same amount of respect in the community for being able to design custom textures, models and levels?

Not to mention that coders can easily help or hinder you, depending on their intentions. That reminds me of a little stunt that zeb0r pulled off against r1ch. He wrote a little piece at www.zeb0r.net/r1ch, but it seems to be inaccessible right now. It was probably pulled off 'cause people were debunking his lies, it seems. Whatever the case, he provided a couple of false IRC logs that painted r1ch as a malicious coder that was trying to use his status as the sole anticheat/r1q2 coder to get in a better financial position. There was even a code snippet that supposedly showed commands that r1ch could use to more or less screw with your system (I couldn't understand it, it's too low-level for me, and I barely understand anything low-level).

Whether it's true or not, and I highly doubt that it is, it just goes to show you that coders can easily write 'bad' or 'good' code. And it's not the code's fault; lines of code are just a set of instructions. It does not differentiate between helpful or harmful intentions. It just does what it is told, pretty much. There seems to be a lot of power to be attained as a coder, or someone with technical knowledge. And just like the saying that Mr. Parker likes to cite, great power comes with great responsibility. I hope coders are willing to take responsibility for their work, whether they release a hotfix or a hack. Well, that's enough of those ramblings.

So! Week 4 of the Shooting Game Tournament 2007 on shmups.com has come to an end. I did what I could, but it's obviously not good enough. I couldn't clear the first loop, and I didn't hit 10 million points. I only started to use my red bombs efficiently on my last couple of runs. Heh...is there anything that I did right? I sort of gave up on the last day, not being able to get past level 7 consistently. The stage is just full of enemies and projectiles, and the boss will cause problems if you don't have a red bomb handy.

Omega Fighter Special just wasn't my game, but then again, what is? I await the final week of this tournament. I'm gonna do my best to make the top 20. I'm a little unsure of my chances, though. The final week's theme is 'Famous Maniac.' The famous keyword tells me that a bunch of people have played it, and the maniac part tells me it's gonna be hard. Nevertheless, I'll do my best.