i wanted and demanded wfa source from acrid and static, but mostly because of all the time i poured into support and listened to clan leaders about "Shit that was just Fucked Up", but i understood why code-wise. i didn't want to change their "vision", but after a time i realized that the inbalances with matches were due to something new i never experienced:
"pride with coders"
there are so many simple bugs that if they were fixed, so many clan matches, so many pub games would be different. some things so simple, just a line or two of code, that noone wanted to fix because they didn't understand the impact of the problems.
I would tend to disagree with your conclusion there. I don't think I've commented on any of this stuff publically before so I'll make some comments.
First, not all bugs are created equal. There are obvious bugs that need fixing like exploits... ways to get 20 lasers deployed at once, ways to get unlimited ammo, etc. Those definately need to be fixed (if you can track em down... not always an easy task.)
Then there are bugs that are cosmetic or aesthetic. These bugs tend to go on the back burner and get fixed occasionally with no set timeline because there are other more pressing bugs to fix. They tend to be ignored so long that when you finally fix them, people complain and want the old versions back :p.
Then there are the REALLY hard bugs. The bugs like the grapple sling and the sentry gun's aiming problems that are both simple, and yet VERY far reaching in the effects their solution will have on the game. Fixing a bug that has become a feature is VERY difficult and even the contemplation of fixing it forces a lot of balance questions that have to be addressed first. Balancing a game is no easy task and ultimately you have to resign yourself to the fact that when your game is perfect, EVERYONE will be complaining about something. A perfect game is when everyone is complaining about something different :) If everyone is complaining about the same thing, there is probably a genuine problem. So what does that ultimately say about game players? They are never happy ;) Or at the very least, something will always give them cause to complain. After 4 years that finally got to me and I quit.
Not releasing the source code was done for a few reasons. I'll spell them out so that it is obvious.
1st, Acrid didn't give me permission... in fact he was very much against sharing the code. As co-creator that was his right and even if there were no other reasons not to release it, I still wouldn't have. I also don't want to release it but this still one of the reasons why I didn't.
2nd, Neither Acrid nor I wanted to see a bunch of splinter versions of WFA. With an already dwindling user base we wanted what was left to have a unified version to play under.
3rd, The code is a mess. Neither I nor Acrid are professional coders. Although my personal ability got much better during the course of the project the hodgepodge that is WFA is like bandaides over masking tape over string over a bleeding artery. I am not blaming Acrid for that either... some of my own early code is not too pretty and there was never an effort to fix it. My menuing system is a good example of that. To look at the code for that would make any grown man puke. Without having the full engine code we had to make so many bizarre workarounds that the whole big thing is practically one huge workaround. A workaround by amateurs. That it worked at all is a testiment to our iron willpower not to give up :p
4th, Cheating. Without having the ENTIRE engine source there is no way to make sure someone doesn't build themselves a cheat client (which would be massively easy) and use it online. You could get around pure if it were on the server and if you named it correctly it would be pretty hard to recognize from a pk list unless you were REALLY looking for it.
5th, I felt that WFA had reached it's logical conclusion. I played around with some beta stuff (and some folks helped me with some testing) but it didn't feel right... it felt like I was adding chit just for the sake of having something to add. At that point, it is time to stop and just "ok this is pretty much done"
All that said, I think what SS is doing with WFF is awesome. And I also personally plan to do a q4wf and I'm hoping that SS and I will be able to find a common vision and work together on it... I've always liked SS and he has developed himself in to a very respectable mod coder. We will see what the future brings. :)