Conquer Club

Open the code to everyone so that we can fix issues/ improve the site


Specifics/Details:
Make the code of the different parts of the system open so everyone can improve it.
Chose the license that fits best for the owner.
Create a process of testing and selecting the improvements


How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:
There are a bunch of programmers playing in this site. By making the code available to everyone, a lot of issues would be fixed quickly and a lot of improvements would be made.
There's no need to fear people stealing the code and making their own site, there are different types of licenses.

I guarantee that in no time, people will start improving the code. And a democratic process would naturally select what the best options are.

nietzsche wrote: And a democratic process would naturally select what the best options are.

mrswdk is on her way.

-1 It would also provide the website's coding to (potential) competitors.

waauw wrote:-1 It would also provide the website's coding to (potential) competitors.

This is a very naïve understanding of how things work. There is a lot more to starting a successful business than just having access to website code.

waauw wrote:-1 It would also provide the website's coding to (potential) competitors.

No doubt BasementGuy, age 21, would try to start his own risk site, offering things like 10 dls a year membership, but his excitment would last 3 days.

Then this other guy, GoodWithComputers, would have it running in no time, he would even hire a cheap hosting site, and he would be making a lot of accounts here to advertise his new site. Most likely though, his star wars theme with black background and all would deter normal people from joining, and it would scream credit card fraud.


There's a big community here, I like to think this is the most valuable aspect of the site. And there are different open source license variants, I bet there's one that woudl fit for CC. If some of the attempts ever get serious, a threat with lawyer words and done.

demonfork wrote:

waauw wrote:-1 It would also provide the website's coding to (potential) competitors.

This is a very naïve understanding of how things work. There is a lot more to starting a successful business than just having access to website code.

I know that very well. I've got a degree in SME-management. However open sourcing the code could facilitate any potential market entrant by providing a starting platform, making the market even more competitive and difficult to survive in. It could additionally aid existing competitors in facilitating their improvements if their code is sufficiently similar.

Observing the gaming-trend of mods, plug-ins and private servers in multiple games already; copying has become highly common. A great example is the 'minecraft' platform, where private servers constantly compete with each other to make themselves better than the rest.

nietzsche wrote:

waauw wrote:-1 It would also provide the website's coding to (potential) competitors.

No doubt BasementGuy, age 21, would try to start his own risk site, offering things like 10 dls a year membership, but his excitment would last 3 days.

Then this other guy, GoodWithComputers, would have it running in no time, he would even hire a cheap hosting site, and he would be making a lot of accounts here to advertise his new site. Most likely though, his star wars theme with black background and all would deter normal people from joining, and it would scream credit card fraud.


There's a big community here, I like to think this is the most valuable aspect of the site. And there are different open source license variants, I bet there's one that woudl fit for CC. If some of the attempts ever get serious, a threat with lawyer words and done.

Not a very easy thing to check when you're talking about a market of highly similar products.

waauw wrote:

nietzsche wrote:

waauw wrote:-1 It would also provide the website's coding to (potential) competitors.

No doubt BasementGuy, age 21, would try to start his own risk site, offering things like 10 dls a year membership, but his excitment would last 3 days.

Then this other guy, GoodWithComputers, would have it running in no time, he would even hire a cheap hosting site, and he would be making a lot of accounts here to advertise his new site. Most likely though, his star wars theme with black background and all would deter normal people from joining, and it would scream credit card fraud.


There's a big community here, I like to think this is the most valuable aspect of the site. And there are different open source license variants, I bet there's one that woudl fit for CC. If some of the attempts ever get serious, a threat with lawyer words and done.

Not a very easy thing to check when you're talking about a market of highly similar products.

The idea is not brilliant. Nothing super hard to think of. The value of the code is that it's already written and works to a certain degree of reliability. Modifying the code in little parts to try to hide the copy paste would not be enough to fool any programmer really. There are certain coding practices that can be easily identified. There are specialized judges I believe, that work in these matters. Not that CC would like it to come to that, but I honestly think it's not a serious risk.

The con is simply that you'd give other people a general idea of how things can be done. But if they're not good enough to figure it out themselves, I don't think they'll have a lot of future as a game programmer/designer.

Then the Pros are much more interesting. Different ideas implemented, things we/they never thought of, could benefit the site greatly.

The current coders (blake and bW as I understand) would focus more on testing the ideas implemented, thinking of possible problems, specific ideas they have for the site, etc etc.

nietzsche wrote:

waauw wrote:

nietzsche wrote:

waauw wrote:-1 It would also provide the website's coding to (potential) competitors.

No doubt BasementGuy, age 21, would try to start his own risk site, offering things like 10 dls a year membership, but his excitment would last 3 days.

Then this other guy, GoodWithComputers, would have it running in no time, he would even hire a cheap hosting site, and he would be making a lot of accounts here to advertise his new site. Most likely though, his star wars theme with black background and all would deter normal people from joining, and it would scream credit card fraud.


There's a big community here, I like to think this is the most valuable aspect of the site. And there are different open source license variants, I bet there's one that woudl fit for CC. If some of the attempts ever get serious, a threat with lawyer words and done.

Not a very easy thing to check when you're talking about a market of highly similar products.

The idea is not brilliant. Nothing super hard to think of. The value of the code is that it's already written and works to a certain degree of reliability. Modifying the code in little parts to try to hide the copy paste would not be enough to fool any programmer really. There are certain coding practices that can be easily identified. There are specialized judges I believe, that work in these matters. Not that CC would like it to come to that, but I honestly think it's not a serious risk.

The con is simply that you'd give other people a general idea of how things can be done. But if they're not good enough to figure it out themselves, I don't think they'll have a lot of future as a game programmer/designer.

Then the Pros are much more interesting. Different ideas implemented, things we/they never thought of, could benefit the site greatly.

The current coders (blake and bW as I understand) would focus more on testing the ideas implemented, thinking of possible problems, specific ideas they have for the site, etc etc.

I agree that it does have an upside potential, but from a marketing perspective this seems like a gamble at best. You don't know to what extent this digital crowdsourcing will benefit the website.
Considering the low number of people that are both willing and capable of contributing, it would be much more beneficial to just offer them (more prominent) positions within website staff.

The downward trend of this site is not recovering.

Add-ons are highly limited in scope, except for advanced users and people that has been here for a lot of time.

Just think of the greats add-ons people have coded over the years, like the original Clickies, BOB and Map Rank. There are excellent programmers out there that would fix and add things just for the sake of doing it and a little recognition.

I think the improvements and new ideas would completely change the site.



If this was a stable, growing site, I'd agree with you. But the way things are going, I think is a good idea.

2 cents:

anyone thinking of investing time, money and effort into launching a competitor site on the back of CC code being open source would, at this point in time, be thoroughly dissuaded from doing so by a perfunctory amount of market research.

khazalid wrote:2 cents:

anyone thinking of investing time, money and effort into launching a competitor site on the back of CC code being open source would, at this point in time, be thoroughly dissuaded from doing so by a perfunctory amount of market research.

Not sure what kind of point you're trying to make there.

that the argument re: would-be-competitors is largely moot.

nietzsche wrote:Open the code to everyone so that we can fix issues/ improve the site


Specifics/Details:
Make the code of the different parts of the system open so everyone can improve it.
Chose the license that fits best for the owner.
Create a process of testing and selecting the improvements


How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:
There are a bunch of programmers playing in this site. By making the code available to everyone, a lot of issues would be fixed quickly and a lot of improvements would be made.
There's no need to fear people stealing the code and making their own site, there are different types of licenses.

I guarantee that in no time, people will start improving the code. And a democratic process would naturally select what the best options are.

Making the code open source(now available as you say it) wont change anything to good, not a single thing. It might change things to bad tho.

demonfork wrote:

waauw wrote:-1 It would also provide the website's coding to (potential) competitors.

This is a very naïve understanding of how things work. There is a lot more to starting a successful business than just having access to website code.

You are the naive one.

GoranZ wrote:

nietzsche wrote:Open the code to everyone so that we can fix issues/ improve the site


Specifics/Details:
Make the code of the different parts of the system open so everyone can improve it.
Chose the license that fits best for the owner.
Create a process of testing and selecting the improvements


How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:
There are a bunch of programmers playing in this site. By making the code available to everyone, a lot of issues would be fixed quickly and a lot of improvements would be made.
There's no need to fear people stealing the code and making their own site, there are different types of licenses.

I guarantee that in no time, people will start improving the code. And a democratic process would naturally select what the best options are.

Making the code open source(now available as you say it) wont change anything to good, not a single thing. It might change things to bad tho.

Care to elaborate?

at the very least they need to make the front end design open source. I'm sure there are some web devs who are throwing up at the sight of the layout and color scheme

Army of GOD wrote:at the very least they need to make the front end design open source. I'm sure there are some web devs who are throwing up at the sight of the layout and color scheme

but that IS open source.

no it's not shut up

waauw wrote:

demonfork wrote:

waauw wrote:-1 It would also provide the website's coding to (potential) competitors.

A great example is the 'minecraft' platform, where private servers constantly compete with each other to make themselves better than the rest.

That's true! Minecraft has lost millions in sales because of this!! Oh, wait.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110303/02203613336/minecraft-creator-says-no-such-thing-as-lost-sale.shtml

If anything, a site with less publicity but deeper roots would benefit from knock-offs.

"Hey, I found a free Risk in-browser game -- Trounce Team."
"Yeah, I saw that. Their support sucks and it's buggy as hell. You know it's just a knock off of Conquer Club?"

"I'm so glad I found Surmount Squad. This game is awesome."
"Yeah, but all my friends quit for Conquer Club." Because it had better support, community, price, whatever.

The only reason to worry about competition the way you're suggesting is if Conquer Club would lose market share to new entrants. Why exactly would it? The reasons for this are more imperative than the side effect of making teh code public. If Conquer Club isn't able to handle competition, then it's probably already losing members faster than it should, and I suggest you post your specific concerns about its weaknesses and threats in a separate thread (don't forget strengths and opportunities). If Conquer Club is already in this position, then it's more relevant than what to do with the code going forward (although in that thread, I would support opensource as a means to increase its popularity and cement it as the standard, not vice versa).

You don't know to what extent this digital crowdsourcing will benefit the website.

And you don't seem to have a clue.

Considering the low number of people that are both willing and capable of contributing, it would be much more beneficial to just offer them (more prominent) positions within website staff.

I don't know anything about you, so I'm going out on a limb, but I don't think you have any idea how many people would be willing and capable.

Are you familiar with teh recent Skyrim mod fiasco? (If you're commenting on this, you should be). Taking power from teh modders has ruined Valve's and Bethesda's reputation in many dedicated gamers' minds, even after the fact. People are f*cking passionate about their mods. Modding communities around games are IMPORTANT. It isn't just a matter of how many CCers who know how to code; it would draw new players, hardcore and invested ones. If you find yourself underestimating the value of player modding for improving an existing game, learn about DayZ for Arma 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DayZ_(mod)

In essence, opening the code to players would breathe new life into the community, both through new members themselves and through the solutions they presented for others to test -- and not just debate over.

CC is already losing market. It has been losing market for years now. Conversely several competitors have been flourishing and some time ago, for the first time ever CC has actually been surpassed in popularity by a competitor.


CC was present during all 4 stages of the 'online risk' market. As far as I know CC was the first and thus the eldest. Google trends suggests the market is now in its final phase, the decline(I posted about this somewhere several months ago). Generally it is possible to revive a product life cycle, but considering the heavy competition of indirect competitors I highly doubt it. Typically over the following years competitors should start dieing off, competing against each other. This is usually not the type of environment new programmers are attracted to. The easiest indicator would be the foundry. Less and less players are interested in creating new maps when everything is in decline anyway. This conclusion is imo transferable to programming as it originates in basic human psychology. So I really doubt open sourcing the website code will be succesful.



CC's market environment has its customers and suppliers closely related. They are sometimes interchangeable. This is proven by the fact that most of the competitors, if not all, are former CC-players. I know of a player who even now still plays CC and will be trying to do the same in the future.

Porters' five forces:

• substitute products: insurmountable threat as mentioned before
• new competitors: it has been one of the greatest threats for several years now and CC should keep a close eye on this one
• Customers and suppliers: They are almost interchangeable in the contemporary internet environment. What CC needs to do is try and hold on to its core players the ones who keep the forums running, the ones who keep tournaments running, the ones who keep clans running, the ones who just open massive number of games etc. They are the foundation of this website and keep up the appareance of vigorousness. Most and foremost what people seek is a community to be part of. If it was merely about the game itself there would be no such thing as clans and there would be no need for a forum. The social contribution can not be underestimated.

Your benchmark with the Skyrim mod fiasco is btw irrelevant. CC is incomparable with the makers of Skyrim, and more comparable with the modders themselves. CC did not invent this game, but merely created its own USP's. Nor can CC become a product with multiple platforms or mods due to that declining market and because CC-population is too low anyway. Modding, depending on the way its executed, would fragment an already small community.

waauw wrote: What CC needs to do is try and hold on to its core players the ones who keep the forums running, the ones who keep tournaments running, the ones who keep clans running, the ones who just open massive number of games etc. They are the foundation of this website

I couldn't agree more. Oh, look. I think I found one! Username:nietzsche Rank:Brigadier BrigadierScore:3006 (Range: 1833-3146)Games:10180 completed, 4824 (47%) won and he's asking to open the source code.

Thanks for the other info since I haven't analyzed CC. But if you're aware that competitors are already an issue, and the community is declining, how exactly do you imagine it would be too risky to increase interest in this way? If you know the strongest asset is the community, and that CC's community is diminishing, how is increasing community involvement not the solution?

Of course, how you execute any plan matters. The assumption is that the execution will not completely fail. What specific pitfalls are you worried about that you're not stating?

I wasn't saying the CC platform has anything to do with Skyrim's, but that the platform doesn't matter so much -- creative license matters, personal investment and emotional connection to the product and company matters; those ideas transfer and are fairly independent of the size of the companies involved or the technology being used.

The problem with answering any of your questions is that preceding any marketing strategy decent market research needs to be done. This means an indepth analysis of competitors and a quantitative market inquiry of current customers.

Opening the websites code is like opening a box with unknown contents. You can make educated guesses as to what is inside, but it's always possible to get surprised. Both in the negative and in the positive sense. Personally I don't like the idea of the unknown, when there is potential for investigation.

waauw wrote:preceding any marketing strategy decent market research needs to be done.

Agreed. As I stated initially, this is a serious and separate concern that should be posted elsewhere. I look forward to seeing it.

waauw wrote:Personally I don't like the idea of the unknown, when there is potential for investigation.

Yes, the unknown is very scary. But if the known is that CC is losing market share, or whatever, then something needs to be done to improve the vitality of the community -- for instance, opening up the code to modding. Whether or not this is something the community would like to see is what this post is about. The aside you keep mentioning, market research, is the responsibility of the owner, who is incidentally also the only one whose irrational fears about the future are relevant to this sort of decision.

nietzsche wrote:There's no need to fear people stealing the code and making their own site, there are different types of licenses.

This is absolutely correct. The MPAA posts a very stern copyright notice on Hollywood movies, reminding people they can be sued for lots of money if they steal movies, and this has been very effective in combating piracy.