It's been suggested I should do an AMA, like Amok & Ivan used to do. I thought "sure, why not", so here we are!
As the title says, feel free to ask anything, including (or especially) non-game related stuff.
Ready.... go!
(Completed) Dave here, ask me anything
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Kommentaarid: 158
Külastatud: 712 users
I think banning may be a bit extreme, but there should be some sort of punishment. Maybe they should lose SP or something.
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Conservative. I'm a registered Republican but really a Libertarian at heart (i.e. fiscally conservative, socially more liberal).
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Some questions: How did you find AtWar and how did you come to the conclusion that you want to become its new owner? Do you still have contact with Amok and Ivan? Did you invest in bitcoin? If so, did you use the profit to buy atwar?
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I first found atWar on a site where people post websites & apps for sale. I started playing the game and found it to be really fun. So I decided to buy it because I thought 1) it has a lot of potential for growth, and 2) if nothing else at least I can keep it alive just to keep playing.
I've talked with them but only a couple of times on Skype. They seem like genuinely good people, so I wish I was better at keeping in contact more often.
Funny that you mention that. Yes I dabble in bitcoin, and yes I did buy atWar with bitcoins 
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Does atWar discriminate against people with a malfunctioning cerebral cortex?
---- Happiness = reality - expectations
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I'm nonprem so I don't really know the editor actual state but from what I heard from mapmakers (I'm a sucker for new scenarios so I'm always testing new ones and giving my honest advices to mapmakers) some important functions that , while not usen on WorldMap, were in Silverlight are still unavaliable in the HTML5 Editor (and several minor issues) like the neutral events or the ability to caplock unit production (Only being able to produce the units from your original country). This info might be outdated since I'm not prem and I never used the editor.
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Can you stop banning the proxy IPs that i use example the ones whose reason of ban is "juggy alt" i use ultra surf proxy most of time and you ban some of the IPs it provide and has even prevented me from logging in today due to some bug.. also in 2013 i did translate using google translate to get 1500protocoins and ill pay that off when i travel from syria since i dont have payment methods in syria, and im sorry but i had to do this because i couldnt buy premium as 13year old with sanctions on my country since 2011 :C
---- Our next Moments are Tomorrows Memories
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I have not read everything they have written to you, but one of the curiosities and a request Have you recovered the money from the purchase of atwat? Does it make you think? Since I can only play for 24 or 48 hours and there are always players who come in and then to abandon the game and take 1 point more in the statistics let time go by, you could put an option maybe to those who are premium to block access to the game with a certain percentage of abandonments? Reading on the forum the editor still has several problems and I also found some of them especially on the invisible borders are you working on it?
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Ah I see. To be honest I haven't even touched the map editor, so I'd have to defer to Clovis on this one.
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I don't remember, what did I agree to?
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No, not yet.
I usually play 24/48 hour games also, and I have the same problem. I've been thinking about doing something similar to what you suggested. Just haven't had the time to do it yet.
No, I'm not working on it. Clovis is in charge of the map editor.
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No not really. If someone made a serious offer to buy it I would have to consider it, but so far that hasn't happened. That's just as well, because I prefer to keep it.
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Hi Dave, While I agree something should be done about it, if we are going to use the Game Abandoned %, I think it should be tweaked in some ways, because it seems broken for me. Mine is 54% (!), and if i recall properly, I never abandoned a single game in 6 years. Maybe, maybe once. (I did surrender a few ... that doesn't count, right?) Also, if I recall properly, I have never timed out. Could it have anything to do with the fact that I played hundreds of solo games on the map I created, for testing purposes? Or; Could it have anything to do with the fact that I often test expansions solo before all my games? I know it says I can't surrender, so I have no other choice than abandoning. [Also, I am probably missing something ... why would anyone abandon and lose all their SPs, when surrendering gives you half of them??] This being said, I support the idea of some kind of incentive / penalty for abandoning games. On another note ... is the turn 0 for Casual games on your 2020 agenda? I know, timelines are hard, so let me reformulate: is it a priority?
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Huh, you're right, Games Abandoned % must be broken. I never noticed it before but on my Dave profile it says games abandoned 57%! I've never abandoned a real game even once, but I have done a lot of solo games for testing purposes, so it must be counting that. So, I'll have to fix that. (Yay another thing for my list!)
I guess the answer is "no" since I can't remember what this is about. If we discussed it before please forgive me, but what is the issue with turn 0?
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Hey, thanks for the quick reply  Here is what I mean by turn 0: The possibility to start a game with a "phase" lasting one full turn (say 48h), where players could join and pick a country, all of this before turn 1 (hence the "Turn 0" designation). That would allow all players to reinforce on turn 1 without the need to enter the game lobby with all other players simultaneously. This is a minimal condition for having Casual CWs, let alone fair non-CW games. It has been mentioned in many threads of suggestions / improvements, notably this one: https://atwar-game.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=40095 (second suggestion from the top of the list). I am obviously biased, because I play casual games only, but I would dare to say the following: it is arguably the most important fix that the casual community is waiting for (not sure if the rest of the casual community would agree or not). Thanks, looking forward to not knowing I am playing with you in a casual game 
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Is there a plan for iOS app .. I think that would help make the game much more popular! like big time ... and if there is a plan ... do you have a timeline? thanks P.S. I just dont understand why cant I scroll down the list of units in a city on a mobile browser 
---- Meso  
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But that's my favorite part about hosting a casual game, that I get to massively expand before everyone else joins!  Seriously though, right now it seems to be on the honor system that people don't expand t1, which sometimes happens, sometimes doesn't. At least that's what I've noticed. So I guess what you're suggesting would be to make it a formal part of the game, which I suppose would be fair. I've put it on my list as of now... but it will probably be a while since I've got other things I want to work on first.
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Yup. When I say I'm working on the mobile version I mean for both iOS and Android. This is probably the #1 thing people ask me for, so I think it will really help getting more people to play. I don't have any timeline... just depends how much free time I have.
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The exact number is confidential, sorry. Let's just say.... a lot.
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Where do you see AtWar in 5 years? How do you see the slowing of growth that's occurred since 2014 and how do we fix it? Compared to your other business ventures, where does AtWar stack up? Do you think it's going to be more profitable in the long run? Have you worked out anything else to give value to Protocoins? Is there anything you want to change about moderators or supporters (how they're run, standards, leniency etc.)? Do you have any plans for more customization? Like being able to edit or add more things to our profile or clan page? Have you considered changing the name of protocoins to anything like Dave Doubloons?
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No I don't, thankfully. But that is a serious concern for us programmers, staring at computer screens all day.
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Are neutral events ever coming back to the scenario editor? Also, how easy would it be to implement this mechanism? https://atwar-game.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=21083 As a person who's dabbled in mapmaking before and has also observed the development process of many of Aetius and Pyrrhus' maps (being their clanmate for a while), I can tell you it'd revolutionise mapmaking and make a huge ton of mechanism currently impossible possible, Tunder seems to imply in his thread that the existence of "ports" that allow players to make naval units would mean implementing this is relatively easy, but I'd like to hear a programmer's mind on the matter
---- Someone Better Than You
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I expect we'll be on multiple platforms by then (web, mobile, maybe a desktop/Steam version, maybe other platforms). This will open us up to new influxes of users, which will help in so many ways. Hopefully by then all our legacy code will be updated and/or replaced, making future development work much easier. But the most important thing is, AtWar will still be here. I want to keep playing it too, just like everyone else. Like I said to Amok & Ivan when they sold the game, it's not my intention to come in and radically change everything. Sure we'll fix things or add things to keep it interesting (like new strategies or units or maps), but the gameplay 5 years from now won't be much different at all from what it is now.
I think the biggest factor is just an overall shift in how people play games... Browser games are a dying thing. Not for me because personally I prefer doing everything on a desktop, but I'm old. Aside from hardcore PC-gamers, almost everyone else is on mobile now. AtWar as it is today isn't very mobile-browser friendly. But once we have a native mobile app, I think we'll see things turn around.
By revenue, atWar is the smallest of my business ventures. But in terms of headaches it is probably the most. I think it will be more profitable in the long run, but I don't expect it to ever make millions of dollars. That would be nice but I don't expect it. It would just be nice if it got to a point where we could afford some paid staff. (Your check's in the mail Sid)
We've got the 1-day and 1-week premium passes, and the 3x SP Boost right now, and these all seem to be popular. Next will probably be allowing non-prems to start custom map games for a few PCs. I'd love to see ways to wager PC on games... I'm looking into the legality of this. Other than that there are a lot of good ideas I've collected from the community, but no definite plans yet.
Overall I'm happy with how things stand now, although it took us a lot of work over the last year to get here (especially with rebuilding the supporters team). If I changed anything in the future I would say we could be a little more strict with moderation... atWar is still a pretty lenient place, to be honest. But I guess it makes sense right now given the small community, we tend to be lenient with all but the worst offenders. It's a good thing that Brian is in charge of the mod team instead of me, because he has a lot more patience than me.
I've collected a lot of ideas from the community, but I don't have any definite plans yet. You should remind me about this from time to time, as they would probably be small, easy changes to make.
that's so awesome, I want to change the name right now 
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Yup, mobile app is on the way. ^^^ see some of my other answers above for more details
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I'd have to defer to Clovis on this one. If he wants to do it then I support 
In a "normal" situation that wouldn't be hard to do. In the current atWar code it could take a lot more doing. Personally I don't want to put that much effort making something work within the current code... I'd rather wait until we've replaced the legacy code and things become a lot easier to work on. But that's just my opinion... if Clovis wants to tackle it then I'd support.
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What would you prefer? To speak and understand all existing languages or know how to speak to animals?
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Oooh, that's a tough one. If I had to choose one, I'd choose understanding all existing languages. I love languages, a lot. Of course it would be super cool if I could speak to animals.... but I feel like understanding languages would be more useful on a day-to-day basis. Except for my dog I don't interact with any other animals very much. So yeah, languages.
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So you play with another account? as on "Dave" there are only hourly games
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The reasons for abandonment that I have seen are these: One reason is because they don't want to see defeat on the match summary Another reason is related to those who cheat, being the abandonment not visible in previous games makes it more difficult to see if it is a double account, once I found one that out of a game of 10 players held 6 A solution to these 2 problems could be that if you leave for expired time it is marked as defeated or abandoned in the match summary A solution to the percentage of abandonment linked to the tests could be another button which, for the maps of which the player is the owner, launches a game as a test by not increasing any statistics and not marking any victory, defeat, abandonment.
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I play with a top-secret alt. I only use my "Dave" account for official things and for testing.
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I know your alt 
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Let's say you hypothetically get 20 million dollars but you have to spend all of it in a week, how would spend all of the money
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Would it be possible to pick another color for either naval or air stealth unit detection circles? as they are both slightly different shades of blue ... I dont know how can I upload an image with this comment to make my question clear!
---- Meso
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That's a great question. There are a lot of things I could do with that kind of money, although the 1 week timeline limits the options. Probably I would buy: - Real estate. A nice house or maybe a ranch, somewhere the hell out of California. Would be tough to get this done in 1 week, but if paying cash I think it's possible. This would 1) achieve my long-time goal of getting out of California and 2) give me an asset I could borrow against later if needed. Or - Existing businesses. For example, I know of a profitable software business I could buy right now today for only 70K. There is another business I know of, the owner of which has been talking about retiring... it would probably cost around 2 million, but it would be worth every penny... if I could convince her to sell within 1 week. If I looked around, there are probably other profitable businesses I could buy within that timeframe. In any case, this would give me something that makes me an income for years to come. Also I would make one splurge purchase... I'd buy a monopoly-man top hat from Lock & Co.
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I hope Dave can answer thus another questions: a) Will we get custom icons in the future? (or another icons, i already used Galleon, Camel and Cavalry icons in my scenarios) b) We need punishment for leavers! IE i start a casual scenario and some guys randomly leaves in the next turn, ruining all the scenario for the other players. c) I'm an engineer with interest in business process and financial management IRL Did you make financial calculations when u bought ATWAR? (Internal rate of return, return of investment, etc? d) I have many ideas that would boost the comunity but lets be clear: the old player "competitive" scenario have been always so rude and so reticent to don't have competitive playing like CW in another maps or scenarios aside form the default one (sometimes very few clans did CW's in scenarios or other maps,so they're very few), i know some supporter must have this idea, but we need to encourage players to get competitive in other mapas aside the default one.
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How much did you purchase AtWar for?
---- I am Fear. I am a good player. I think. I don't actually do anything useful but I am a good player. I am also cool. Love me. Please. Thank You. I am not high while writing this.
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Hey Dave 1)What's your favorite movie? 2)What's your favorite game besides atWar? 3)Would you consider yourself successful in life? Like, if you died right now, would you be content with what you've done? 4)If you could own any gaming company, which would it be? 5)What's your favorite food? 6) Have any of your team members been on atwar or made accounts? 7)What's your go to pickup line? 8)What's the best thing you've seen on atwar? 9)Is it possible we can have a glimpse at your list? 10)What do you think is the biggest thing stunting atWar's growth right now? Thanks for answering Dave, love you <3
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Have you had previous vascular, spinal or joint replacement surgery? Are you on any medications? Have you had any significant traumas? When was your last visit to a doctor? Has any of your family members passed away before the age of 50? Are you experiencing any current bladder or bowel problems? Have you had any recent infections?
---- Happiness = reality - expectations
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I'm 35. Currently I'm working as a "full stack developer" for a company, plus simultaneously running my own business. That's basically two full-time jobs at the same time. 
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