I'm not trying to be a jerk, but the game has been up for a year now... and we've had a pretty good response. I really doubt that, We're going to recode it in another language, seeing as we've done 50,000 lines of code in Java.

However,

1: We do plan on upgrading the GUI over time... we realize a nicer look would be good, and Cam learned a lot working on it early on.
2: We are trying to emphasize the fact that you don't need to program to play Hack Wars... I think you're totally right that we need to work on making the learning curve easier early on... although I think more tutorials is a good bet.

With all these issues though, man hours add up. We do this mainly as a hobby ;) This isn't to say we don't plan on continuing to improve things.

Cheers,

Johnny.

Oxcorp,

The game's great the way it is. Considering, like thahacker said, there's only 2-3 developers on this game for fun (FUN! not "Let's make a ton of money!") the game's great the way it is. The game is more "underground" and I hope it stays that way. Want to know what pisses most of us Hack Wars' players off? People like you and people whose mommies and daddies buy shit from people like you. Great games are ruined in such greedy ways and by going full-blown money-glutton profiteering style, it's asking for a lot if retardation from the masses among the internet.

A lot of players here play this game on the side of other things. Some (like me) play it because they got tired of the same mundane bullshit that other games offer. I wonder how many former World of Warcraft players are here? Anyone here who has played WoW for more than 5-10 minutes realizes their IQ is at least double what most of the player-base for WoW is. Dealing with the stupidity of the "General Population" while letting your brain get bombarded by "Intelligence Drain (Rank 9000)" from games like WoW makes us look for something more and we found Hack Wars. I, for one, specifically chose Hack Wars not only for the fact that it is a one-of-a-kind game but, the people who play regularly have a higher understanding than the "i r epic PVPer and raider sinse i haz no lyf and lyk to look at perty ex...BOOMs on me screen" type of game.

Keep your entire "make a profit" shit to yourself. I normally keep away from the "social" aspect of anything on the internet keeping everything as far from "personal" as possible. I have to admit that I'm not ashamed of making some great friends via Hack Wars. Nearly every player here is great; personable and intelligent; my kind of people.

Your greedy little ass can go blow a goat in a whore-house.

Thanks for a list of things that need fixing, looks a lot like the list the developers (all 2 or 3 of them) already have....

Actually ... I think that this game is one of the best ... I have absolutely no complaints with the "complexity", I feel that is what makes the game so great: You actually need to think (and that doesn't mean be able to program) to enjoy the game. yes, there are a few details that could use fixing, but I am happy with the game as it is. And, speaking of "younger-friendlyish strategy" -- I know a 7th Grader who is in the top 25 ... you don't have to be "old" to succeed; not to mention that my 8 year old brother can play this game ...

You think that's "flaming"? I call it a frustrated counter to all of the crap you said in your initial post, which I have done before from people like you. "People like you" refers to the people that think it's all about the money; people that think they can just pop in out of nowhere and claim they "know what's best".

"And I disagree with your philosophy about your IQ and WoW, 99% of the time when a person gets addicted to WoW, they stop doing chores, cut down on work and become more lazy and stop hanging out with their real-world friends, I've seen it happen too many time, I personally don't enjoy playing WoW, because the entire time you're grinding, or doing quests that hide the fact that it's grinding even though it really is, the game doesn't have enough 'fun' in it, as it does 'work'."
^^ Sentence? Paragraph? Sentegraph.... ^^
1) It was an over-exaggeration to prove a point.
2) Whether they are addicted or brain-dead...how are we suppose to know the difference?
3) FINALLY! "...the game doesn't have enough 'fun' in it, as it does 'work'." -- This portion of your statement I agree completely with.

"...yet you still play WoW which charges a whopping $15 a month."
^^ Who says I still play? ^^
When I said, "Some (like me) play it (Hack Wars) because they got tired of the same mundane bullshit that other games offer. I wonder how many former World of Warcraft players are here?" I was attempting to imply that I QUIT playing WoW.

In case of any confusion, I QUIT PLAYING WORLD OF CHORECRAFT.

And as far as the "flaming" goes, you can bet your ass I'm going to be pissed about your "high-and-mighty" attitude towards a game you have barely played; especially when some of us players have already "exiled" others like you.

Yes, the game is developed extremely slowly in comparison to other games but, I'm sure it's already more than enough for 2 developers to handle as it is.

warning: this is a very long post. I didn't intended it being that long.

Alright, I've come up with a list, that if you're willing to improve, can make your game become REALLY famous and popular, then you can forget about donations and add monthly costs...

And like ABJ told: some would quit HackWars. I know It costs real money to run the server for that game but I started this game because it is free and even games like slavehack are free. There are other ways than to charge the gamers

*I would advise recreating this game in a different source other than Java, that can handle functions like these much easier

There might be programming languages which handle functions like these much easier but what about independence of the OS?
And thats only one reeason against some programming languages. The devs probably had other reasons too why they decided to use java.

*Create a whole new UI, [...]

New code and a new UI... Why don't you ask for a new game!?

*Make the game more 'Simple' and not so complex, where as soon as you join, you're expected to know how to program, all the interface, and how the game works, this does NOT mean more tutorials! (Althrough tutorials would also be nice, but don't just slap some tutorials on, that will teach people to program in 5 minutes)

This game is a beta. The interface and the game mechanics might change. We already have the problem that some help files aren't up to date to the actual game.
You arent expected to be a programming genius. Don't knowing anything about programming is a disadvantage. Knowing the basics of a programming language is very useful (what you can learn in one week will probably enough). You need more creativity than knowlegde of any real programming language to be succesful. Peek others code to get some good ideas.

*By simple, I mean, create a more younger-friendlyish strategy and the whole works. Instead of expecting users to type in all of their scripts, you could expand on the 'functions', and make a box that comes up to create new scripts, where you can select what you want to happen, other events, etc... but still be advanced enough so that an 8-year-old couldn't start playing the game and make some epic script that will destroy the world...

Sorry but that sounds like clicking your own programme. One step easier and all what is left that you buy a programme like in Uplink and probably in slavehack. And what you suggest limits the possible codes to an countable number. And if you say: "But you can write the better and epic scripts by hand." then you would have still to learn Hackscript API. If you want powerful scripts or code snippets then peek others code or be useful and you will get some nice scripts or whatever you ask for.

*Stuff to add to the interface and remove: I would suggest removing a lot of unneeded scripting functions, you don't need the abs();

Beware of what you suggest! Some functions which might look useless to you are useless to anybody - until it becomes an important part of somebody's script.

and both getInputInt and getInputString...

...and replace them with getInput? Not every programming language supports same names for different functions - and not every programming language supports a type which is a number, a string and whatever you want at the same time.

you could combine the two, so it only need 1 thing for numbers and words, where as the AI could determine whether to combine words together or add numbers.

Ok and now I want to combine - NOT add- two numbers as strings which you would make impossible.

You could also add a console, or a test-dummy, where users could create scripts and truly see their functions, so they don't have to spend $1200 on compiling a script that's useless.

As long as we dont have any active debugger:
dont put in the high cost functions from the start.
Make sure they will get correct parameters. SendMessage() is your friend for this task.
Try your functions as challenges. I run mine as challenge 15. Of course I dont finish the challenge but I'm only interessted in the setOutput-functions. And remember that not every function works as challenge!
Don't cry over $1200. Although I used my tips I burned $20k because of a stupid "," or something like that. I would have burned $60k or more without my tips.

*Make profiles more customizable, and personal websites easier to create, and more "fun" looking, than having to write it all in HTML

Did you know that you can use javascript in HTML?
You can use an external website creator and import its html-code. Probably you will still have to fix some parts.
It's not a bad idea but it's hardly no new play content to the game too. Dont expect that to be changed soon.

*Separate websites(stores) from the person's IP address, make them pay $10,000 or something to buy their own website, not charge real life cash for it.

It should be possible with one website and different dns'es to do something like(!) seperate Websites (that would require some testing).
Diefferent shops? I see no reason. We have the tabs already to have some sorting.
Are you the same you was talking about paying a monthly cost in the beginning?

*Upgrade the friend list, it hardly even works right, all it does is save names of people who may or may not exist

Same like the website editor. Dont expect that to be changed soon. There are problems with that list for weeks and probably for months.

*Upgrade the in-game web browser...face it, it's not great and could use some improving, make it more realistic: Have it save favourite websites and stuff.

I dont see any advantage in browser who litter my hd with their cache, suck my ram and have security holes and patches against them. Or are you talking about semi-realistic ones? ;)
And again: dont expect that to be changed soon. Didn't changed for weeks.

*Unique challenges, don't have 16 or so default ones that can be solved with a quick guide, put some randomness into there, it proves who can program and who can just copy+paste

Look closer on these challenges. They contain limited randomness and still we have scripts for them. And if they increase the number of challenges then we will increase our number of solutions for the challenges.

ing...it's not the easiest thing to hack an npc's IP and re-route their paycheck, half the time you're not sure if it worked even, and you never know who has it next...add some personal tracking, and some personal NPC's, where it gets harder and harder by their levels to hack successfully, but once you hack them, you get their paycheck...permenatley, but every person has their own list of NPC's which go from easiest to hardest.

Ok we have almost 5000 players in the database and you suggest that at least 15000 npcs will be added(easy, medium, hard)? with ips nobody will/can hack because only 500 players are active. That might be an idea if inactive players would be deleted but then again: you can make more money by hacking the right npcs a few times.
To track down your hacked https: use a list or use a petty watch.

I know there's a lot of work to be done, some stuff you may ignore, other's you may take into consideration. But if you want to start making your own salary from this game, I'd advise you to re-read this several times, and ask any questions you may have after this. This game has a LOT of potential...don't waste it.

I hope the devs will listen to your last sentence.

And about the simplicitity you are asking: I get a little bit bored of HW because in the higher levels there is almost nothing new. I wish it would be more complex.

But HW has one advantage: We can script on our own - and sometimes create effects which were unintended by the devs. In games like slavehack it would probably be just a bug but in HW it can happen clearly within the rules - until they are changed.

"Ok we have almost 5000 players in the database and you suggest that at least 15000 npcs will be added(easy, medium, hard)? with ips nobody will/can hack because only 500 players are active. That might be an idea if inactive players would be deleted but then again: you can make more money by hacking the right npcs a few times.
To track down your hacked https: use a list or use a petty watch."

You missed what I was saying completely. In every game with money and NPCs along with daily pay (not many, but there are some) the higher level you get, the more money you make per hour/day, I'm saying, after every few levels, we get an email from a mysterious man who's trying to get us good enough to work for him or something, and he gives us an IP of a new NPC (This NPC is not available to everyone, nor is it actually on the internet, but on our own PC, so it's non-existent to everyone else) and after we hack the NPC, we get their daily pay, which increases our current one, so we have a constant thing, not fluctuating due to other people attacking the 100 available NPCs.

Firstly, there's more than 100 NPCs. The Root Network alone has 129 "standard" NPCs plus the $1k's (Diki, Canuck, Space Agency, Codebreakers).

Secondly, if it was something constant, it wouldn't be as fun. Before the "Inactivity" status was put into effect on old accounts, it was actually kind of fun having to try and figure out which of your HTTPs was hacked, rehack it and make any attempts possible to track it.

As for more NPCs though, I agree with you on that. Even with how many there are, the same ones are getting boring. I just don't think that new NPCs should be specific for any one player.