A year in review

by Mauk

Hello, everyone!

As I was writing a post-mortem on the Easter Competition, a realization caught me off-guard: DoctorN is turning 1!

That's right. It was released on May 12th, 2016, you bunch of elders.

As planned, there will be a review of the competition and the past year on this post, but first...

The KICKASS party

I usually don't care much for birthday parties, but a lot has happened and I couldn't just let this one go without some epic celebration.

You've all been extremely generous to me since the release, donating just over $500M for Doc. With that in mind, here's the plan: I'll match those donations and we'll have a huge $1,000,000,000 giveaway party on DoctorN's Discord server. Let's trash that place! (but, please, use the table coasters)

Edit: We received a very generous $1b donation, doubling our budget to $2b! HYPE!

Current total: $2,171,299,919!

We're aiming for Friday, 12th May, but that date is not set in stone, yet. We might need to move it to the weekend due to all the preparation work involved. Check back during the week!

Update: It'll be on Saturday, 13th May, as that's when most people helping us will be available. Expect more details soon!

If you are feeling generous and want to chip in, I'm sure everyone would be stoked by your donations. They are all going to my pocke- I mean, the pot!

Lastly, I'd appreciate anyone willing to sell items for cheap or at cost. This would help us maximize the budget value, and you wouldn't technically be on the red. xD

That's it for the exciting news. Now, if you're interested in a bit of history, strap in, because this is going to be a year-looong review.

The first year

It was wonderfully busy for us! I've marked a few important events and stable releases on the graph at the beggining of this post. By the numbers:

• We went from 0 to 3,000 daily active users. That's about 8 new users per day.
• In total, there have been 67 releases: 23 stable versions and 44 beta builds.

Check out this eye-candy visualization of the development, depicting each change made to the project's files:

If we pay close attention, we can see the increased activity before each of the releases! Furthermore, the dry period without any stable releases could seem surprisingly active, but it makes sense once you know that's when I was working on the Firefox port.

But I'd say all the hard work paid off. We now have a tool that improves (no matter how little) the lives of thousands of people everyday. And it shows! The DoctorN community currently accounts for ~17% of active Torn users, and we're still on our way to total domination!

Let's see how we got here.

Getting chatty over at Discord

Our Discord server was created on 18th May, 2016. Since then, it's become my de facto communication channel on Torn. I've made most of my friends (and got most of my nudes) there.

Over the past month, 279 people chatted with us, and we always have around 50 people connected.

Join us! We're not as bad as Global. Yet.

Travel Hub introduction

v5.8 "Hit the Road", released on 4th July, 2016, was the first major update to DoctorN, with the introduction of Travel Hub. It was also the first controversial update, because TH was seen as a privacy violation.

For the first time, I considered giving up on development, hugely because of two incidents:

• I accidentally published a blacklist that didn't let someone use DoctorN.

  One day, a Torn user was concerned about the legality of the extension and joined our discussion in the official thread. While they did have valid concerns, we already had received direct approval by Clansdancer (a then Torn admin). They weren't satisfied with my answers (which were admittedly short and to the point, as they took an aggressive stance) and decided to chat me on Torn.

  The chat conversation wasn't going much better. As I was typing, they decided to block me, mid-sentence. Like a keyboard-wielding knight, I immediately created a blacklist so that said player wouldn't be able to use my free, hard work. Say what you will, I still stand by my right to do that (as much as it's everyone's right to block me from answering them).

  Time passed, emotions calmed down and I never intended to actually publish the blacklist. And as they believed doc wasn't supposed to be legal, they weren't even using it, anyway, right?!... Until I published the release with the blacklist accidentally in, and all hell broke loose.

  In the one day it took me to get back online, dozens of people had already message me about the user who had an unknown problem. Staff had been called in to try to solve a possible API bug; I was being called immoral; the whole thing was an act of discrimination; I was awful as a human being and an even worse programmer; etc. My mistake had cost hours of other people's time.

  I removed the blacklist and apologized to the user, admitting it was totally my fault. But to this day, it still gets brought up by people telling me how awful I am. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  On the bright side, I have a large amount of respect for the user now. We've talked a few times since, and I really regret we had to meet that way.

• I was accused of stealing users' data.

  Shortly after the blacklist incident, a couple of other users were complaining about Travel Hub. Sending the countries data to my server? To them, it was unnaceptable and I had the obligation to do better.

  It was then that one of them posted convincing evidence that I was stealing users' cookies (I was still figuring out how to get the milk through airport security). What followed was the worst week in my TC life. *tears*

  These users were posting left and right about how despicable I was. Meanwhile, I was struggling to find the problem, fearing I might have actually had a bug that was sending sensitive information out — even if I wasn't listening for it.

  After pages of insults and hours of research, I found the problem! That player had used a broken software to capture requests that were never made. I had to spend hours collecting evidence and writing a detailed step-by-step on how to verify DoctorN with 4 other tools and how to verify the actual bug in Live HTTP Headers' source-code, the broken software they had used (which is now deleted, by the way).

  Later, the user who posted raged at me around 7 times in a couple of hours? Never showed up again. The only acknowledgement of my post from the naysayers was a couple of upvotes and a quietly dropped subject. By then, fear had already taken over, and I had to answer about the incident for the next week.

  I wouldn't hear from them until said player's next crusade, of course (what, did you think they'd stop using it just because I was a thief and the worst person ever?). ;)

Thankfully, both times some very supportive players stood by me. Some programmers even showed up with their own analyses of Doc's source-code, for which I'll always be grateful. For all the stress we sometimes go through, doc's amazing users and the friends I made through it are the reason I got back to (and stayed in!) Torn.

It wasn't all bad news, though. Travel Hub went on to become one of our most important features, being integrated to both our Discord server and Doc's website. Thanks to all of you, we always have up-to-date information on the other countries stock levels, saving runners hours of wasted flight everyday! o/

The time I broke Torn

Remember when Torn started lagging to a crawl at random times and the forums had to be closed off almost daily for a while? Around August 2016? That was kindly brought to you by me! xP

Back then, DoctorN had a bug no one had noticed yet: if you selected an update rate (for the API or forums features) of more than 596.5 hours, an integer overflow (blah techie blah) would happen and Doc would make requests as fast as possible... Can anyone guess what happened?

Someone set their forums update rate to 86,000 hours, resulting in 1 requests/second being sent to Torn. Everytime his computer was on, Torn's servers gave up.

I had no knowledge of this until Ched figured out the load was not from real users and tracked the user down. If Ched already disliked scripts, this is probably the day he started hating me. D:

It was an easy fix, but I was asked to remove the forums feature (sad trombone).

The new scripting rules

On 10th March, 2017, Chedburn announced new scripting rules were being added to the game on the 17th.

On 15th March, v5.16 "Handicapped" was released. In compliance with the new rules, the Casino and Museum automation features were removed. No longer could doc users let their slots auto-spinning or exchange thousands of museum sets while reading a book or doing other constructive things with their hands.

Interestingly, this update actually caused a bump in usage. Why? I have no idea, you bunch of weirdos. But take a look at the negative effects it had on uninstalls in the next section's graph.

And finally, the Easter Hunt Competition

Congratulations, winners!

Against all intuitions, Chedburn allowed the use of scripts that aided players to see the Easter Eggs, noting their use would cause the eggs' spawn rate to be lowered, so as to make it worth not using scripts.

What followed was pretty interesting. In the first 3-4 days of hunting, people found insane amount of eggs. Enough to get them in the top 10 of last year's competition... When, suddenly, eggs stopped spawning.

"I found an egg!" reports were gone. If you read the forums, they weren't there. If you read the chat, they weren't there. If you read IRC, they weren't there (high five if you got the reference). We can't know this for sure, but I believe they actually turned the spawns off for a while.

When eggs started spawning again, we noticed Torn had in fact implemented easter scripts detection. Players obviously got scared, and I had to remove every piece of DoctorN custom interface from it, because Torn's code was explicitly looking for them (regardless of the easter feature being on or off).

What does users getting scared looks like?

Unfortunately for them, keeping the extension installed turned out to be a good decision for tons of people. At the end of April, I spammed asked our users to let me know if they thought Doc helped them get a good placement in the competition. The end result?

This awesome memento!

I'm incredibly grateful for the amazing response I got from the community. Someone might say I was just begging for compliments, and while that was not the reason for the message, it turns out this experience did make me feel good as if everyone was rubbing my tummy (what's your reference score by now?).

A bunch of you got in touch with me with amazing messages — and now I'm pumped about doc's future. We might even have a surpr...

Dude, my head hurts!

Sorry! Let's wrap this up.

I'll leave you with some of the quotes I've gotten in these past few days and a complete list of donations made until today. For the giveaway, I'll start a separate donations list.

As always, I'm open for any kind of feedback. If you have questions, issues or suggestions, feel free to get in touch with me via mail or Discord. This also includes our big party — I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, as we want everyone to enjoy it.

Thank you so much for the great year and expect even greater things in the future,
Mauk.

Quotes: Doc saves lives

L4suicide [15699]
I was once in the middle of a presentation to my department when DrN popped up 'You are no longer on drugs'. Thanks Doc.

Dolfwagos [1900418]
When i installed it i got free nudes from harley cuz he was like woah thats pretty sick.

Quotes: The Easter Hunt Competition

You were sent $1,000,000 from CatHead [1581564] with the message: I came 134th in the easteregg competition using exclusively DoctorN.

You were sent a Brown Easter Egg from perjee [120997] with the message: Thanks for helping. Now I know who is the brain behind DoctorN.

Kurugaya [1992378] - 860th place
I didn't finish in the top 50 but DoctorN helped me get the honor bar and that means a lot to me! XD

Mandiza [1979307] - 15th place
Super helpful.
Definitely helped me catch those eggs I was about to miss. Thanks.

Erbalicous [2013988] - 702nd place
Hello,
I didn't finish in the top 50, but I will say that the notice of an egg on the screen saved my eyes from constantly searching each screen. Thanks.

I came in 702nd which was good for the 10 tokens. Would have finished much lower without the help.

Tobias_Fate [1984138]
Thanks for the add-on, helped me find 4 white eggs and complete the set. Friend showed it to me a while back and I've been hooked ever since.

DarkTinman [2011421] - 4,657th place
Helped a ton! Thank you for all the work you put in to help us. I never realized how much I wasn't being notified until after your integration!

Daedelus [592914] - around 1,804th place
Thanx for a great help in the ester comp! Excelent job!

I think I ended up in something like 1804th place, which may not sound all that great but it beats the heck out of my usual 3-5k position. Thanx again. =)

LamboLimo [2043772] - 171st place
Thanks so much I would have never been able to find 17 eggs and get 171st place without doctorn :)

Madame_Tussaud [191408] - 564th place
DocN helped me get 10 tokens as about a quarter of my eggs were found using DocN. Thanks Mauk. :)

JussiJernkuuk [1874922], 10th place
Probably, but I have always done good in that comp because of lots of nolifing. :p
It did make it much less stressful though.

Exclusiv [959075] - 106th place
Thank you for DoctorN!

Corv [1154752] - 7th place
Hey there, got top 7 in the easter egg competition. Would've definitely missed a couple near the end without DoctorN :)

PabloSkywalkin [1558160] - 1,389th place
No, but it was for sure the main reason I found most eggs. Helped a lot.

ANONYMOUS - 26th place
It did help. I came 26th!
And I missed 3!

DangerGirly [1733199] - 605th place
I didn't finish in the top 50, but I love DocTorn and all it's special little benefits.
So, thanks for being brilliant and sharing this wonder with all of us.

Minimoose [2024140] - 1,644th place
DoctorN worked like a charm! Nicely done!

Jimmy007 [135825] - 27th place
Got 27th place with 20 eggs!
Got DoctorN when I was on 11 eggs cause everyone in my faction was talking about it.

ZoopyJuice [2044530] - 737th place
Hey,
Just to let you know with DocT enabled I finished 97%, the eggs did seem to slow down in the last week or so though, I was 99%!

Thanks for the help!!

Avslogan [290335]
I had limited time to be online during the competition so I was able to maximize my searching and not have to spend hours each day looking for the damn eggs. I was able to find 3 and that was way more than I hoped for.

Complete list of donations to date

• You were sent $100,000,001 from Punch_Drunk [573947] with the message: Amazing! Best UI of any script I've used, very intuitive design! <3 Hell of a chainer too!
• You were sent $100,000,000 from Muckamuck [1884573] with the message: I've gotten a lot of use out of DoctorN. Thank you
• You were sent $25,000,000 from Mat-Senpai [952164] with the message: DoctorN (for still supporting it)
• You were sent $25,000,000 from Ohadik [424017] with the message: I've been using DoctorN for a couple months now. It is truly a great piece of work. Hopefully this small donation will help you in torn and keep you motivated to keep updating it.
• You were sent $20,500,000 from EKA [1740814] with the message: finally, firefox version. yay! city find good, bars good, travelagency's table works but ugly :D still thanks for this addon.
• You were sent $20,000,000 from Waj [1583589] with the message: Thanks for DoctorN, it really is amazing. Keep it up!
• You were sent $15,000,000 from DevilSoldier [1731252] with the message: For making DocN, Nice to see someone making a script that doesn't involve WSSB cheating ;)
• You were sent $10,420,000 from Everwood [62912] with the message: i should send more.. but thanks for the script.. first one ive really appreciated.. the new update for amount of $bet on slots was awesome.. thanks again.
• You were sent $10,000,000 from TIGRRRRRR [132684] with the message: Thanks for sharing DoctorN. Im a big fan.
• You were sent $10,000,000 from DisabledKitten [1968984].
• You were sent $10,000,000 from T-Rex [2726] with the message: DoctorN donation
• You were sent $10,000,000 from smurf [1159897] with the message: Tempest referred me to your Chrome PugIn. Its sweet thanks for making it!
• You were sent $6,969,696 from DoinYaMom [1554256] with the message: Sorry I did your mom. Oh and btw I like DoctorN!
• You were sent $5,000,000 from someone.
• You were sent $1,500,000 from themainman [1629262] with the message: dont spend it all at once now XD
• You were sent $1,000,000 from someone.
• You were sent $1,000,000 from CatHead [1581564] with the message: I came 134th in the easteregg competition using exclusively DoctorN.
• You were sent $999,999 from Subah [1465084] with the message: You are a funny man. Thanks for the forum laughs and DoctorN
• You were sent $100,000 from someone.
• You were sent $10,000 from someone.
• You were sent $1,000 from someone.
• You were sent $100 from someone.
• You were sent $1 from themainman [1629262] with the message: for that useless script you've given us

• You were sent a Donator Pack from Punch_Drunk [573947]
• You were sent a Donator Pack from Linhdapanda [1991178] with the message: Keep up with DoctorN. And happy Thanksgiving ^___^
• You were sent a Donator Pack from Jobby [1640111] with the message: Thought it was about time I sent something as a thanks for DrN
• You were sent a Six Pack of Energy Drink from DangerGirly [1733199] with the message: A token of appreciation. :)
• You were sent a Feathery Hotel Coupon from bogie [148747] with the message: Ty for getting me that infernal high low merit with DrN
• You were sent a Feathery Hotel Coupon from hustl3r [496570] with the message: found this thanks to DocTorn. wouldn't have found it otherwise. Thanks!
• You were sent a Feathery Hotel Coupon from Gholden [1786423] with the message: This is better than the $5 I sent themainman. Thanks for making DoctorN
• You were sent a Feathery Hotel Coupon from Billiken [1315845] with the message: doctorn got me my hi/low merit tanks and good work
• You were sent a Can of Tourine Elite from John [1933955] with the message: thank you for the egg update! i absolutely hate this event with my poor vision, youre a lifesaver
• You were sent a Can of Tourine Elite from Mania [1958969] with the message: Thanks for DoctorN, I'm using it for a while and quite happy about it. A small gift to appreciate your work.
• You were sent an Erotic DVD from Eya [1772932] with the message: Why you gotta make my TC life so much easier, meester Kishi? D: But thank you.... I guess. >.>
• You were sent a Can of Red Cow from Ruby [1260826] with the message: DoctorN just got me my High Low honor! 100-150 casino tokens spent over a couple days. Cheers!
• You were sent a Lottery Voucher from O-O [2049099] with the message: Thank you for DoctorN firefox extension!
• You were sent some Xanax from Kendi [1137566] with the message: Have a train on me for great app :)
• You were sent some Xanax from Rodeobull [1372107] with the message: Supporting DoctorN
• You were sent some Xanax from daub [1869454] with the message: little ty for DoctorN
• You were sent a Brown Easter Egg from perjee [120997] with the message: thanks for helping. Now I know who is the brain behind DocterN
• You were sent a Green Easter Egg from AlithAnnar [1885549]
• You were sent a Yellow Easter Egg from AlithAnnar [1885549]
• You were sent an Orange Easter Egg from AlithAnnar [1885549]
• You were sent 24x Bottle of Beer from EL21 [1997433] with the message: Have a nice day.
• You were sent a Six Pack of Alcohol from Len [1868488] with the message: A small thank you for doctorn..it is amazing,many thanks :)
• You were sent a Lollipop from Celica [1962961]

Money donations: $372,500,797
Item donations: $161,398,600
Total donations: $533,899,397

tl;dr

DoctorN is 1 year-old next Friday. Huge 1b giveaway anniversary party. Graphs and numbers, from 0 to 3k daily and 6k monthly users in a year. I made a mess. I made a mess again. I made another mess. I didn't make a mess and we celebrate competition winners. I become spam. But it was all Harley's fault.