Server Issues and Limitations

[captainpicard]

Perhaps SE folks did the art work, and outsourced the rest of it to a North Korean or Chinese developer. If you have ever worked in project management, with complex vendor relationships, its very easy for the vendor to start dropping the ball, or leave you completely screwed. Perhaps the vendor fulfilled the contractual obligations with SE, and the result was the game we received at launch. Perhaps the vendor deferred or deleted any number of requirements from the project due to failure to deliver, and so what we got was half a product that barely works. Now the SE staff has scrambled to actually try and 1) understand the vendor code 2) begin to try and modify it to improve upon things.

It may sound far fetched, but we are dealing with this very scenario on one of the projects at my employer.

It would explain a lot. If it were true, it explains a whole lot about why the game launched like it did. i.e. - we poured X dollars into the vendor relationship, at minimum lets recoup what we can on boxed sales.

Meanwhile, stubbornly, rather than just kill it, they have endeavored to keep it on life support, with the far fetched hope that it may be profitable one day, IF they can get it into a better place with as few resources as possible. If they had a real solid number of people working on this project, it would be much further along, and thats a fact. I think they are throwing as few resources at it as possible in the hopes that they can push it out again on PS3 (boxed sales - more revenue recoupment) charge a monthly fee to a small audience that is just enough to cover the costs that went into getting it to that state, and cross their fingers that due to HOW BAD IT IS, people will say HOW FAR ITS COME and be blind to the reality that this sucker plays like its 1999.

That said I don't hate the game, but its in a woefully precarious place.

[Delsus]

Perhaps SE folks did the art work, and outsourced the rest of it to a North Korean or Chinese developer. If you have ever worked in project management, with complex vendor relationships, its very easy for the vendor to start dropping the ball, or leave you completely screwed. Perhaps the vendor fulfilled the contractual obligations with SE, and the result was the game we received at launch. Perhaps the vendor deferred or deleted any number of requirements from the project due to failure to deliver, and so what we got was half a product that barely works. Now the SE staff has scrambled to actually try and 1) understand the vendor code 2) begin to try and modify it to improve upon things.

It may sound far fetched, but we are dealing with this very scenario on one of the projects at my employer.

It would explain a lot. If it were true, it explains a whole lot about why the game launched like it did. i.e. - we poured X dollars into the vendor relationship, at minimum lets recoup what we can on boxed sales.

Meanwhile, stubbornly, rather than just kill it, they have endeavored to keep it on life support, with the far fetched hope that it may be profitable one day, IF they can get it into a better place with as few resources as possible. If they had a real solid number of people working on this project, it would be much further along, and thats a fact. I think they are throwing as few resources at it as possible in the hopes that they can push it out again on PS3 (boxed sales - more revenue recoupment) charge a monthly fee to a small audience that is just enough to cover the costs that went into getting it to that state, and cross their fingers that due to HOW BAD IT IS, people will say HOW FAR ITS COME and be blind to the reality that this sucker plays like its 1999.

That said I don't hate the game, but its in a woefully precarious place.

SE would never outsource a MMO that will be constantly updated for its life, which they want to be as long as possible, if they outsource the server builds, the servers are not SE's property and cant touch them, only buy new ones, there are plenty of companies with servers that just arent plugged in because they cant touch them and the vendors did not collect them after relationships broke down, there are also servers that are running and the company doesnt want to switch them off because they could be important.

Also with the software builds outsourcing them is just plain stupid for a games manufacturer, you know people who make games.

It is impossible to speculate what goes on behind the scenes because the possibilities are endless. Yes there are programming problems and network/server problems but these can be hard to find without starting from scratch, and poor programming makes it alot harder, if the programming is really bad it can take a team of 5 people twice as long as one person using good code to do one thing.

The problem is not the amount of staff its the quality of the origanal progamming which makes everyones life harder. If they want to work on the core programming they will need to pull people from other projects to keep pushing content and features out, so they will probably do that a bit later because it is needed.

[captainpicard]

SE would never outsource a MMO that will be constantly updated for its life, which they want to be as long as possible, if they outsource the server builds, the servers are not SE's property and cant touch them, only buy new ones, there are plenty of companies with servers that just arent plugged in because they cant touch them and the vendors did not collect them after relationships broke down, there are also servers that are running and the company doesnt want to switch them off because they could be important.

Also with the software builds outsourcing them is just plain stupid for a games manufacturer, you know people who make games.

It is impossible to speculate what goes on behind the scenes because the possibilities are endless. Yes there are programming problems and network/server problems but these can be hard to find without starting from scratch, and poor programming makes it alot harder, if the programming is really bad it can take a team of 5 people twice as long as one person using good code to do one thing.

The problem is not the amount of staff its the quality of the origanal progamming which makes everyones life harder. If they want to work on the core programming they will need to pull people from other projects to keep pushing content and features out, so they will probably do that a bit later because it is needed.

I think you make a lot of valid points here and it fairly kills my idea that they outsourced the code.

I just can't get past the actual changes they have made in the game. When I look at whats really been changed, it seems like very small pieces of code. Lets evaluate a few examples with the understanding that in my opinion, these are not major coding feats that should take the kind of time we are talking about:

1. Adding NM to the various zones = add a mob with a hidden level that drops a new item and has a unique name
2. Change skill point calculation from random to predictable = delete randomizer, tie player level to mob level, create base sp modifer, add group bonus
3. Simplify recipes = add new simple recipes with same outcome as more complex recipes, delete complex reciples from db later
4. Make hotbar not disappear = "hotbar.disappear = false;"
5. Change hotbar graphics = draw new icons, replace old icons with new ones
6. Speed up (if you call it that) retainer interactions = delete line of code that was requesting server confirmation every time the user moused over an item
7. Events = cut and paste, new skins, new text
8. Delete Stamina Bar = /* comment stamina bar code */ add timers to each skill

You see where I am going with this. The change we have seen over the past year since release, when evaluated honestly, is not at least from the outsider looking in standpoint, major code changes. If this was your C# program, then you know how easy these things would be to accomplish in very little time.

The fact that simple things like kick user from linkshell, or mounts, or airships, and so forth have not been added as of the date of this posting tells me either

1. There is next to no staff working on this project
2. The staff working on this project doesn't understand the code
3. The staff working on this project are very, very bad coders
4. All of the above

Take your pick. I mean really there is no explainable reason for the lack of overall sweeping change. That is what led me to speculate on this games development having been partly outsourced.

When you look at the quality of some of SE's none MMO titles, it looks as if a completely different company developed them.

I also seem to recall an announcement around the time of launch that there would be Chinese servers and the game would be served up by a Chinese company, and modified to suit that audience appropriately, which also makes me wonder if said company didn't actually author the game itself or have a hand in some of the code we see in effect today.

We have gotten incremental change. You typically give incremental change when you don't want to inadvertently take down critical systems. Baby steps. They have already stated that player retention is not a goal at this time, and they are not charging for the game, so this is the time to make those changes that could take down the system. What do they have to lose?

I am just stumped.

[Delsus]

I think you make a lot of valid points here and it fairly kills my idea that they outsourced the code.

I just can't get past the actual changes they have made in the game. When I look at whats really been changed, it seems like very small pieces of code. Lets evaluate a few examples with the understanding that in my opinion, these are not major coding feats that should take the kind of time we are talking about:

1. Adding NM to the various zones = add a mob with a hidden level that drops a new item and has a unique name
2. Change skill point calculation from random to predictable = delete randomizer, tie player level to mob level, create base sp modifer, add group bonus
3. Simplify recipes = add new simple recipes with same outcome as more complex recipes, delete complex reciples from db later
4. Make hotbar not disappear = "hotbar.disappear = false;"
5. Change hotbar graphics = draw new icons, replace old icons with new ones
6. Speed up (if you call it that) retainer interactions = delete line of code that was requesting server confirmation every time the user moused over an item
7. Events = cut and paste, new skins, new text
8. Delete Stamina Bar = /* comment stamina bar code */ add timers to each skill

You see where I am going with this. The change we have seen over the past year since release, when evaluated honestly, is not at least from the outsider looking in standpoint, major code changes. If this was your C# program, then you know how easy these things would be to accomplish in very little time.

The fact that simple things like kick user from linkshell, or mounts, or airships, and so forth have not been added as of the date of this posting tells me either

1. There is next to no staff working on this project
2. The staff working on this project doesn't understand the code
3. The staff working on this project are very, very bad coders
4. All of the above

Take your pick. I mean really there is no explainable reason for the lack of overall sweeping change. That is what led me to speculate on this games development having been partly outsourced.

When you look at the quality of some of SE's none MMO titles, it looks as if a completely different company developed them.

I also seem to recall an announcement around the time of launch that there would be Chinese servers and the game would be served up by a Chinese company, and modified to suit that audience appropriately, which also makes me wonder if said company didn't actually author the game itself or have a hand in some of the code we see in effect today.

We have gotten incremental change. You typically give incremental change when you don't want to inadvertently take down critical systems. Baby steps. They have already stated that player retention is not a goal at this time, and they are not charging for the game, so this is the time to make those changes that could take down the system. What do they have to lose?

I am just stumped.

They were doing those small things because people wanted content, and this was the fastest way to give it to us, and for NMs the only thing that is the same as other mobs of the same type is the look, everything else is differant, darkhold and totorak are not copy and paste they are completly new areas, you make it all sound like you could do it in a day, but if you are a programmer you will know about changes having unforseen problems later on like the recent ffxi cure bug.

For people that dont know that was when cures would do 99,999 to any undead mob regardless of resistance when cure was not touched in the update, this is why they spend a long time testing updates to ensure as few of these game breaking bugs go into the game.

You also failed to mention the animation changes for auto attack, which meant taking a trip to the motion capture room.

All the changes take time because they need to plan, code, test, recode, test etc before they go into the game.