ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
...Bottom line, the devs (you and Don) ...
I see that you, like others beforehand, has fallen for the "fake news" that decourcy2 is an AE dev. Just because he name drops real AE devs into almost every post of his does not make him one. You should take with a grain of salt every assertion he makes.
I first became suspicious of him when he asserted in a post that only Don Bowen "knew" how the AE air code worked. This was in the midst of other posts which emphasised how central his role was in developing the AE air component even though the final published product carried too many "air" errors because it somehow had not incorporated his work. Yes, no mention of theElf, michaelm or timtom ever having been involved in developing the AE air component; in fact their names have never been dropped in decourcy2's posts.
This constant dropping of Don Bowen's name (with the very occasional dropping of jwilkerson's name too) to lend credibility to his assertion's reminds me greatly of el Cid's assertions re AE knowledge. You will recall just how vehemently several real AE devs constantly set the record straight re el Cid's being neither an AE dev nor someone with inside knowledge.
It is a pity that the real AE devs no longer post as I am certain that they would have put the record straight regarding what role, if any, decourcy2 had with the creation of AE. In their absence I will step in and provide a few inconvenient facts which point to decourcy2 not being a central actor in the development of AE.
1. There are zero posts from decourcy2 in classical WITP. Not really surprising as decourcy2 only joined the forum on 29 Jan 2015. Yet rather significant in that all the AE devs were drawn from regular posters to classical WITP, many of them having collaborated together to produce the CHS mods in the 2005-2008 time period.
2. As "decourcy2" only enters the Matrix public record five and a half years after the release of AE and he has only in the last couple of months, some 8 years after the release of AE, actually posted on this forum, it is obvious that under that name, he could not have been an AE dev. Particularly when one remembers just how active were all the real AE devs in answering queries before its release and up to about 2013 (and in the case of Symon and michaelm well after 2013). This silence alone should trigger flashing red lights.
3. On the chance that "decourcy2" is not his original forum name, I then checked to see if there had been previously a "decourcy" and yes there is such a forumite with 65 posts, the last post dated 19 Dec 2004 coincidentally on the classical WITP forum. Both forum names point to a common individual, more so when one actually reads the contents of their posts. Whilst decourcy's last post is dated 19 Dec 2004 this followed 8 months of silence there. In reality his active but limited participation in the classical WITP forum ended in April 2004. All this predates the development of CHS. Certainly there is no indication in his own posts (or anyone else's that I can find) that he was participating in CHS development, although one can find in his posts there a common theme reprised in decourcy2's AE posts of just how "inaccurate" the game is. Again the silence on not disclosing any CHS development association, particularly in the light of his AE self promotion, should be a flashing red lights moment.
4. Don't just take my comments alone, lets see what jwilkerson the man in overall charge of the development of AE has to say about "decourcy" or "decourcy2" being part of the AE development team. Answer is zilch, nothing, nada, zero. Not only does his name not appear on the published list of credits which after including testers and special thanks totals about 36 named individuals, he doesn't appear in any of the several posts where jwilkerson explained who was doing what and how the development team came into existence. Let's look at just three relevant occasions.
(a) 9 Dec 2007, jwilkerson listed all the significant AE team members. No mention of decourcy/2
(b) 28 Feb 2009, jwilkerson provided an updated list of the significant AE team members. Again no mention of decourcy/2
(c) 23 July 2009, with the end of AE development (of course 6 official patches were still to come plus michaelm's beta work), jwilkerson provided an expansive post on the genesis (including identifying the key movers and shakers)and how work proceeded on the development of AE. I summarise below the key relevant points made by jwilkerson
(c1) The idea for developing AE took concrete shape in August 2005 with a meeting between Eric Rutins and jwilkerson and subsequent meetings between Eric and David Heath (Matrix) and jwilkerson and Don Bowen (devs)whereby Matrix accepted the 3 stage approach presented by jwilkerson. The first stage was to finish the patching work on classical WITP then being undertaken. This was critical as the patching team would be core AE devs. Not stated so but this 3 stage proposal gave Matrix opportunities to pull the plug on AE development if the promised performance was not forthcoming.
(c2) The AE project really started
work (my emphasis) in May 2006 when they started to whittle down the 400 player requests for new features/enhancements/"fixing" into a development list of goals for AE. The key plank AE devs who started then were:
assembled from the key CHS contributors
Don Bowen
Andrew Brown
Kereguelen
Treespider
theElf
jwilkerson
assembled from WPO
Tankerace
Terminus
assembled from the classical WITP patch team
Nikademus
michaelm
It is very significant that in this July 2009 post jwilkerson stated "we actually have every one of the core contributors we started off with". Over the three years of the project some of the original core devs had gone to attend to RL issues but they had returned. Other core devs such as wdolson andd JWE/Symon had joined the team after May 2006 but their involvement had been acknowledged in previous and post jwilkerson forum posts.
It is impossible to believe that over all his many posts (not just the three above I have specifically mentioned) over so many years, that jwilkerson would have forgotten to identify and record their contribution to the development of AE of any significant individual. It is possible that someone who merely bought the morning coffee and donuts might have skipped jwilkerson's memory, but not someone with significant input. Certainly not someone who presents himself as being on such close working terms with Don Bowen and jwilkerson.
5. Other than certain individuals being involved in both, there is no connection between AE development work and CHS development work. If, and I have found no evidence to support it, decourcy/2 had some limited input into CHS development, that does not make him an AE dev. It might explain his choice of names to drop and why he quite erroneously believes that Don Bowen did the AE air component completely air brushing out of the historical record the men (theElf, michaelm and timtom) who both did the air component and answered the detailed air queries which Don Bowen always left alone.
6. There are no decourcy/2 posts in the private AE developers forum. It beggers belief that a significant AE dev would not have made a single post there.
It is unfortunate that over all these years so many people denigrate the efforts of the AE devs. Or take unjustified credit for their own endeavours. It is always extremely insulting and discourteous to the real AE devs. Made worse when some blown in who has absolutely no hesitation in blowing his own trumpet wants the rest of us to believe that for more than 10 years on this sole point of being a significant AE dev, he could remain silent and not blow his own trumpet.
Alfred