Scorespy Shutdown (Archived)

Original text no longer exists (both site and server were shutdown)
Shutdown date: 2021-10-07 (?)

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ScoreSpy went public almost a year ago now, but before its release, it had a long a rocky development cycle, formerly known as ScoreHero (yes I know NOW that's a conflicting name but at the time I did not know), during its early life I was onboarded onto the CloneHero development team and the project was abandoned, a while after I decided to rebuilt the project (known publicly as Aki) which was partnered with another community, the project was abandoned when we no longer saw eye to eye on what we wanted and things getting increasingly more complicated relationship-wise with the community (project killed 2 times now).

some time has passed and I was becoming more and more frustrated at what I had sat idle on my drive so I decided this time... THIS TIME it was going to happen.. dusted off the drive and began working on Aki again. Aki was not in a good shape, going through 2 rebrands and visions of what it was supposed to be I decided it was time to start again, ScoreSpy was born.

ScoreSpy took almost a year to develop, lots of ups, lots of downs, lots of joy, lots and lots of shouting (sorry :Yikes: )

I had a vision of what I wanted, I wanted full game integration, I wanted a leaderboard everyone could consider fair, user profiles, customization. you can look above for all the features I had planned.

We launched public beta status 11/11/2020 (Private beta lasted approx 2 months prior), and launch went.. reasonably well, it was obvious ScoreSpy was not in demand like we thought it was and this was only the start of our issues, Very quickly we encountered very very hateful people, cheaters, people trying to game the system and even people using offensive images on profiles, I would be a fool to think this kind of issue would not exist but I was surprised how quickly it took hold and how much, We had DDoS attacks, people trying to hack the site, injecting malware and you name it we had it but ScoreSpy was built from scratch and nothing succeeded, I take security very... very seriously

Overall I was proud of ScoreSpy all be it a bit burned out from its rough development but we did it, I was proud of it, I single-handedly did this, we did this.

I just want to take this moment to thank every single one of our supporters and users before things start getting sour, you guys rock, and to the haters, eh... fuck you :smug:

Addressing some of the hate let's go through the list

ScoreSpy was a cash grab: we never made money, like at all... it was commonplace for me to go without eating, or without heating, etc to help cover the bills and keep the lights on, No I did not make a public issue out of this I saw ScoreSpy as my project and my responsibility, we had no adverts, we did not sell your data, we had NO features behind paywalls, etc, etc, etc. The bottom line is we lost more money than I care to think of

ScoreSpy took NoteTrackers money and ran: a lot of above addressed this concern. The majority of money from the NT deal was put towards legal fee's and then any remainder went into the server hosting

ScoreSpy killed NT: This one is not so much my place to talk about, Ultimately we reached out to help NT and try to keep things alive, I'm a believer competition is good and I would have liked to see NT reach maturity myself so no, We did not kill NT

Now it's time to address the final days.

ScoreSpy's situation was getting worse, my income was near non-existent due to losing what little income I had left thanks to covid, I had been taking out loans and borrowing money to help keep things online, I had even been homeless and STILL did everything I could to keep its lights on.

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[02:04] Ahriana (no more discord for me): The straw that broke the camel's back, PTB score saving.

This is a very very demanded feature and I am going to be honest, I personally do not feel TESTING builds should have score saving, opinion aside, ScoreSpy was not ready for it, period. I had been working on the new (now not launching) CH Launcher v2, ScoreSpy, a new CH feature, a secret ScoreSpy side project (which I may release, we will see).

I am going to prefix this and say DO NOT send hate towards anyone in any capacity over this, this is just an account of what happened and is water under the bridge now, Harassing members will only make the situation worse and close doors for future possibilities.

Time, Time is never on my side, not enough hours in the day, not enough days in the year, I am sure some of you know how that feels. With ScoreSpy in its half-baked situation it was in would not have been able to cope with the introduction of score saving, Potentially a single upload could corrupt the entire site. Not to mention I personally do not feel comfortable allowing scores / submissions onto the site from a development build of the game, To make changes to ScoreSpy after the server move which was a cost-reduction measure is beyond complicated I had hoped we would have been back on our feet by this point and development on the site could have resumed however this is simply just not how it happened.

When talks of score saving were introduced I expressed my concern on multiple occasions and I had a lot of IRL things going on which I do not want to dive into (personal privacy TY) so time and stress were a massive factor, Ideas was pitched which realistically would not have changed the outcome of anything it was apparent this was going to happen, I spent the next few weeks pulling double-time to try to get everything ready, my priority was getting CH Launcher v2 in a finished state, one of the claimed reasons for needed it was that the downgrade function for the v1 launcher to v.23 was not working (which it was not) then move onto ScoreSpy with what I hoped would have been time bought from working on the launcher.

A deadline was set, Score saving (after I expressed concerns) was given a release date far sooner than I hoped but I again tried to crunch get things done, The Launcher is just 2 small features away now from completion, I needed more time...

It was now that I essentially gave an ultimatum, I need more time so I can finish up the launcher and get ScoreSpy prepped, I gave an ultimatum, Give me more time or I have to shutdown ScoreSpy there was no way around it for me anymore, I had been going flat out for weeks now trying to get everything ready, Not eating, Not sleeping, etc. You get the picture.

If score saving is released, ScoreSpy will HAVE to shut down and I will likely call it there for CH development, Given ScoreSpy's history, Its struggles, and that I had long since burned out on working on CH projects I did not see myself being able to recover and I could not justify taking in donations for a platform that is not even online. My time is worth more than what I feel I was respected, I feel kinda pushed to the side honestly.

I gave the ultimatum and I got an answer, Not the one I wanted but that is just how it goes sometimes.

ScoreSpy shut down due to all of its past issues, lack of support, lack of activity, my own personal burnout, and then this final issue, I have also left the CH development team.
[02:04] Ahriana (no more discord for me): --

To everyone who was with us, From the start or the end a personal thank you for supporting us and being here. I will be around to answer questions as long as the dialog stays civil, No bad blood, please. To the hundreds of you blowing up my DM's sending hate, Kindly go fuck yourselves.

This is not the end, Even if we do not come back, If we do not find a way to co-exist in a self-sustainable manner, Someone else will. Maybe I was not right for the project, Afterall I'm just a dev (and some say a bad one), But I tried... I gave you all everything I had and then some

The ScoreSpy Discord server will not be locked, it will remain open for dialog, future goings, and transparency. If plans come up in the future I will announce them.

I love u all
- Ahriana

P.S: Its likely there is a bunch of things missing, I'm 1500 words into this and this is the most i have typed human code in years i am quite rusty at it so i may tag things on for clarification in the future too