Chocobo during Queue - "Difficult"

[Enepttastic]

No, I wouldn't consider it difficult(as in hard to do), at all. Time consuming, perhaps, but that's going to be due to the lack of common sense shown when developing to begin with.

[Themis]

No, I wouldn't consider it difficult(as in hard to do), at all. Time consuming, perhaps, but that's going to be due to the lack of common sense shown when developing to begin with.

If you think that, you should apply to work for SE.

It's not hard to do, if you design the system to work that way in the first place. You have to remember that the party system, the companion system and the duty finder system are 3 different systems, and interfacing effectively between them isn't a simple "just do it" task. Can it be done? Of course. But unless you have even the smallest idea of what their design decisions and their code base is like, don't assume you know better than they do. They aren't incompetent, and solutions don't fall out of the sky.

But evidently, the way it has been design doesn't allow for a simple change by adding in a couple of variables. The reason they don't want to just start hacking away at the code is because it would detract time away from other, more important areas of the game, like new content. Considering how many people seem to complain that there's nothing to do, this seems like a bad choice.

[Alacor]

It's not hard to do, if you design the system to work that way in the first place. You have to remember that the party system, the companion system and the duty finder system are 3 different systems, and interfacing effectively between them isn't a simple "just do it" task.

Exactly. I don't know how they do things in game development studios when it comes to programming, but I'd imagine they have multiple people working on multiple systems when building the game. That means integrating features that interact with multiple systems requires complete knowledge of how each involved system works, otherwise something could go horribly wrong that you never even thought could/would happen. So when you see odd bugs in games that seemingly make no sense as to why it would happen, just remember most things are working in tandem with something else.

[Yukiko]

i think the problem they have is the messed up code:
Lets say they have to deal with local variables, but they need global variables now because DF cluster wise...

[Enepttastic]

<snip>

Note that I said it would be time-consuming to do it now, since there was a distinct lack of common sense when developing the companion system. Being able to queue while one's chocobo is out is something that should have come up during the design phase and either decided for/against. Two out of three possibilities(didn't come up, decided against) show poor usage of common sense during the design phase, similar to how chocobos weren't originally able to be ridden while summoned.

As for it "evidently" not allowing for a fix, there's no proof of that. Merely proof that, as of the moment, it's considered enough of a non-issue to warrant spending the man-power to either figure out a solution or to code it in.

Admittedly, I'd have to have a first-hand look at the logic behind the coding before I could say, for a fact, how time-consuming it would be to implement, but considering that in just a couple of minutes, I have several different ideas(many utilizing logic that's ALREADY EXISTING in the game) so no, I don't believe for a fact that it would be difficult at all, merely time consuming and the fault for that lays directly upon those involved in the design process.

To be clear, this does not make them bad programmers, it's something that happens all the time especially on evolving projects like MMOs. Imagine you are building a Car, and you build a Ferarri sports car, then someone comes in and says "Ok, now make it seat 5 people." It's impossible. Yes you can make a car seat 5 people, but you can't make that car seat 5 people.

Except that programming does allow for going back and tweaking previous work to facilitate the new concepts. While not impossible, it's a little harder to do changes like that for physical items without making previous work wasted. That said, I'm going to repeat this: I doubt this is a problem the programmers caused, the issue was created during the design phase for chocobo companions and should have been considered/planned for then.

Yes let's do this and Game breaking bugs gets introduced me.

So, updates as normal then eh?

[Hulan]

Except that programming does allow for going back and tweaking previous work to facilitate the new concepts. While not impossible, it's a little harder to do changes like that for physical items without making previous work wasted. That said, I'm going to repeat this: I doubt this is a problem the programmers caused, the issue was created during the design phase for chocobo companions and should have been considered/planned for then.

It was a metaphor. One that I thought at the time was quite clever, but clearly not. I am - in fact - a professional developer (though I will grant those who claim as much are a dime a dozen around here); and while I do not claim to be perfect at my job, I am very good at it. You can, of course, go back and change old code, but doing so carries its fair share of risks. What you say has merit, but you cannot plan for everything, and what is done is done. Saying that they should have seen the need for companions to not conflict with the duty finder system is all well and good, but they did not, and I find it quite believable that it is now in a state where changing it would take fundamental reconstruction of at least one subsystem to accomplish.

Making something "right" the first time requires a complete understanding of the final product. Unfortunately, MMOs do not have a final product; they continue to evolve and change. One lack of foresight early on can have rippling effects for years. I am not so quick to forgive people for slipshod code, but I also understand the magnitude of the undertaking an MMO represents. Getting everything right is nigh on impossible, and even a seemingly good design decision can have unexpected consequences. Does that exempt them from the culpability of not foreseeing this issue? Maybe, probably not. But that wasn't the question. The question was, "Is it really that hard?". And the answer to that is: almost certainly. This issue involves a lot more than just "Is the chocobo in the party?" It touches on fundamental server architecture questions that we don't even know the question to find the answer to.