Who has contributed the most?

[Lewin]

I am starting this topic to find out who you think has done the most for the Knights and Merchants community.

You may NOT vote for yourself!!!!

I hope I don't offend anybody by not including them or not stating all the things they did. It's not because I hate you, it's just that I forgot. (or you were not not one of the top ten)

Please post and tell us why you think that person has helped the most.

My vote is for The Knight, as he kind of started the whole online community and without him I doubt that it really would have taken off online.
Lewin.
P.S. I had to delete lots of people from the poll, apparently I had too many. (I had nearly 20, but 10 is the limit :evil:)

[harold]

The Barbarian for me - if it weren't for his documentation and graphics reader I never would have started doing anything with KAM other than play it
That counts as "most" to me - but it's a bit subjective

Lately Krom has been decoding a real lot, but it seems like he has a habit of keeping it silent unless someone asks him to explain something about some file.. but if it weren't for him, I probably wouldn't even have tried to decode .rx files - and otherwise would have taken a very long while

I guess Quage and Kranendonk (or however you spell his name) and the person who decoded the missions didn't fit in the poll? IMO they've done more than me.. (what have I really done? write a few useless tools and work on a project that is far from finished? not a lot..)

[Lewin]

The Barbarian for me - if it weren't for his documentation and graphics reader I never would have started doing anything with KAM other than play it

Yes, he did a lot but the map documentation was not meant to be publicly released, it was leaked. So if you don't count that (as we really should thank Qage for sending the file on) then all he made was the graphics reader. Yes, it's good but your one is almost as good. (you show offsets, extremely useful to me, but TB does show fonts, pallets, tiles, etc. I suppose)

I guess Quage and Kranendonk (or however you spell his name) and the person who decoded the missions didn't fit in the poll? IMO they've done more than me.. (what have I really done? write a few useless tools and work on a project that is far from finished? not a lot..)

No, they were in the ones I had to delete. :evil: In the end I just left all the current people. (with the exception of TB) The people you listed did the hard work (decoding) and left us to do the fun bit. (making tools, remakes, etc.) If any of them were still around today they might have made it to the poll. I just wish I could have added everyone that I wanted to...

Harold, your tools are far from useless. Without your graphics reader the latest version of my editor wouldn't have been possible, I used it for the offsets. I like your layout more too as it has thumbnails. And if TKE is ever released then it will be wonderful. Just by starting TKE you have proved to people that remakes are possible. Krom may never have started his if it wasn't for TKE. You also helped me when I was stuck with stuff and made suggestions. I think you're just as worthy as they are, and even better, you're still here today!!
Lewin.

[harold]

Haha thanks (*selfesteem++*) I wasn't exactly happy with the way the thumbnails are resized though, and I have some ideas to make it better - but as you can probably imagine that's not very high on my list atm. and I could have it decode guimain correctly, but only with ugly hardcoded data.. still, I think I may do that, someday..
However, let's not ignore the fact that your Mission Editor and Krom's map editor are infinitely more useful than a simple graphics reader (which also has the ability to change the pictures and offsets and is therefore probably thought of as 'hacking tool' by The Knight - even though it's a piece of cake to do with a hex editor too)

[JBSnorro]

and I could have it decode guimain correctly, but only with ugly hardcoded data..

ugly harcoded data ? :S You only need to store 32 hardcoded bytes(indexes of which file's palette to use), that's not a lot if you ask me.

Anyway ontopic: I've never spoken to TB, nor did I use his Graphics Reader(for what purpose if I also have the RX files? ).
Recently Krom has helped me through a great deal of issues, so he's got my vote.
If I could vote twice I would vote for The Dark Lord secondly since I really enjoyed his campaign! I was nice to have some diversity in levels etc.

[Litude]

My vote went for The Knight. I think he has just done a great deed to the Knights and Merchants community as a whole. I'm pretty positive that if I hadn't stumbled across his website this page would not exist. He has been an incredible help for me whilst creating the page, excluding certain disagreements regarding publishing of decoding information Even today quite a lot of information is taken straight out from his website and translated into English
The Knight is also partially to be thanked for all the patches and tools The Barbarian created.

[Merchator]

What? Im in this poll, too :shock:
I also helped to decode the mission.dat (AI), if you look to the Map-Forum. So, no worries

Hmm...I voted for The Knight. Why?
He's running the german fanpage since 2002, now has about 2500 posts (sure, german forum is more active, it's just a fact), as lewin said he helped Litude with his homepage. He did so much. At the moment I can't remember everything. I guess without The Knight things would be different right now. (I just found this forum trough a link at the german fanpage).

Unfortunately I can only vote one time. I think everyone in this poll contributed to KaM. Lewin made it possible to share missions, Krom made the only useful Terraineditor (blame me for this words), TDL made his campagin (witch was much fun to play!). If I read my text I'm wondering why I AM in this poll. Sure, I did something, too. But not that much. Hmm...Maybe I made the first fully custom mission (own map+script) with Quages Editor and my decoder. Maybe I should upload it to Lewin (if I find it again)...oh well, I'm telling too much. I could mention positive things about everybody, but no negative things.

Good work, community

[Lewin]

ugly harcoded data ? :S You only need to store 32 hardcoded bytes(indexes of which file's palette to use), that's not a lot if you ask me..

I agree. As long as it is always the same between languages and TSK/TPR then I don't think that is a problem. You should add that to the graphics reader.
Lewin.

[harold]

Ok have it your way then, as of today my graphics editor will load guimain correctly
BUT very likely not save correctly, so be warned
http://www.freewebs.com/knightsandmerchants/downloads/GraphicsEditor.zip

[The Dark Lord]

My vote goes to Lucbach.
Even if nothing had been decoded, he would find a way to keep KaM (and KaM-forums) interesting. The Polish forum is the most active one, thanks to him. He organizes many contests with real prizes (like MP3-players or a new mouse) and it seems like he is an inexhaustible source of ideas.

Thanks for placing me second, JBSnorro.

[Lewin]

Yes, Lucbach has done a great job. He designs great websites, (including mine!) I can't wait to see the new mission center.
I think part of the reason his site is so good is because he updates the news many times a week. I don't know how he finds so many stories to post! And he's a great help translating tools for everybody. Sometimes I wonder if he has time for his real life.
Lewin.

[The Dark Lord]

Sometimes I wonder if he has time for his real life.

He has, but I won't tell you anything about it!
I guess that's private - and if not, you could ask him.

I think Krom gets the second place, for his editor (the only one that is easy to use), and his remake, if it will ever be finished. Or should I give Harold the second place, for he is the one who made the .dat editors which are responsible for the scripts of TNL (although I guess he made those programs in an hour ), and TKE + other tools?
I don't know.
They should do Rock, Paper, Scissors.

[Juba]

-Necropost!-

Well, I wanted to bump this topic to ask who actually The Barbarian is? There's no forum account named by that or any e.g. to his website.

If he's part of the German community I understand that one community can be enough (unfortunately I understand Germany only a bit so I haven't dragged myself to there).


(I've always somehow wanted to bring forward this, dunno why )
Btw: I have actually read every single topic and post in this forum. I was just reading forums by the first week after registration.

And how this relates to the Barbarian? Well, I've spotted so many mentios of him at the main site and then I had a flashback about this topic.
So, back to the question: Who is he?

[Siegfried]

The Barbarian had an account on knightsandmerchants.de and was mainly contacted by The Knight. But as far as I remember he only spoke english, so he never really was part of the German community.

I think he was the guy who started decoding the graphics, maps and other files and documented that. So much of the work done in recent times relates to his work.

[merchant_992]

TB is a long story. Only a few know exactly what happened with him. I only know parts of the story, and some parts I don't know if i am allowed to post them.

He was one of the first real decoders of the KaM community. He decoded many stuff, but most of it never got public. He made the graphics reader and the style editor. That is the stuff of him that we can see. He also decoded some stuff for other guys. I know that Qage used some of his stuf, ans also in several later programs including Lewin's editor's his documentation is still used.

But after all that work he started a Terrain & Mission editor. That was way beond anything what we knew at that time. But after a while all of that work died. TB didn't get enough recognition for his work so he stopped and never came back to the community. This is the "official" explanation that once was given at a forum. There is more behind it, but I can't tell it. I don't know everything, but i do know more that I can tell here.

A possibility is that he is still here, but nobody knows.