Is it maybe time for a full infrastructure rebuild? (Re: Database and netcode issues)

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I don't think this is feasible without going through 6 months + of no new content. They would basically have to halt content production and refocus everyone on porting to a new engine, new design, new everything. Game would die.

[RichardButte]

I don't think this is feasible without going through 6 months + of no new content. They would basically have to halt content production and refocus everyone on porting to a new engine, new design, new everything. Game would die.

I mean, no offense, buuuut....

If there's literally one game in the entire history of gaming that has proven it can survive a change like that...

And it's only going to get worse as they continue on the current infrastructure. A stitch in time saves nine, as they say.

It'll be less expensive in the long run to make these changes sooner rather than later, especially when every new system they add to the game between now and the inevitable change will need to be revamped to fit the new infrastructure as well.

[Alleo]

I mean, no offense, buuuut....

If there's literally one game in the entire history of gaming that has proven it can survive a change like that...

And it's only going to get worse as they continue on the current infrastructure. A stitch in time saves nine, as they say.

It'll be less expensive in the long run to make these changes sooner rather than later, especially when every new system they add to the game between now and the inevitable change will need to be revamped to fit the new infrastructure as well.

Sadly SE seems to favor the short time changes..like putting band aids on things. (Housing, glamour..) There will be a time where people have enough of this and might go and when that day comes they wont be able to change it fast enough..So yes I agree with you, they need to start working on this now. I am no expert on this field so maybe I am wrong with this, but shouldnt it be just fine if they work on this in smaller steps?

Anyway I also find it really sad how technical side of this game is used in so many arguments..and I really fear that nothing will ever change with that. SE will just milk it as long as possible with the lowest cost and drop it after that..

[Krotoan]

I am no expert on this field so maybe I am wrong with this, but shouldnt it be just fine if they work on this in smaller steps?


Anyway I also find it really sad how technical side of this game is used in so many arguments..and I really fear that nothing will ever change with that. SE will just milk it as long as possible with the lowest cost and drop it after that.

You're asking for the equivalent of rebuilding a house by pulling out the foundation and replacing it and expecting people to be able to live in it at the same time.

The technical side is the problem. Would you rather they lie? If you think they're lying about the technical side do you think they're just lazy? How many people who work on this game do you think look at it and go.. "eh.. it's good enough. Milk it for money and let it die when people get sick of the lies".

[Alleo]

You're asking for the equivalent of rebuilding a house by pulling out the foundation and replacing it and expecting people to be able to live in it at the same time.

The technical side is the problem. Would you rather they lie? If you think they're lying about the technical side do you think they're just lazy? How many people who work on this game do you think look at it and go.. "eh.. it's good enough. Milk it for money and let it die when people get sick of the lies".

The big descisions are probably not done by those that are programming and writing the codes. There is a high chance that they already explained to SE that it need changes but the one in charge for the budgets and stuff like that probably just dont want to put more money into this. So no I dont fault the ones working on this but SE as a whole..Its kinda obvious that they put a lot of the money FF14 earns into other project and Yoshida himself said that he needs more people and a higher budget but does not get it. So yes the ones that are deciding about this are the ones that probably just want to milk it with the lowest amount of costs.

[rainichan]

IIRC they updated parts when SB hit. They're actively trying to get out of the crap infrastructure that they were left with on 1.0 that they couldn't toss going from 1.2x to 2.0 because it would have taken more time.


That said, I'm also wondering if it's because of the multiple OS it has to run on? While yes, at the 2016 FanFest they said "please upgrade from Win32bit to Win64bit" not everyone can afford to. I'm not a programmer though so that's a wild guess. Anyone who is a programmer around to confirm/deny that? The most I know is that they're different in how things are run, but any programming for a Win32 or Win64 is beyond me.

Lastly, I remember when we had a delay on some of the smaller in-between patches after Heavensward came out because the dev team was taking a much needed vacation after pounding out not only 2.0 and its releases, but up to 3.0 with no breaks in-between. The amount of salt and people on the OF screaming about HOW DARE THEY BE LATE FOR THESE YOU WANT TO WATCH YOUR GAME CRASH AND BURN SHUN THE NON-BELIEVERS leads me to believe that while some are totally down for no content for a bit while they fix infrastructure, there will be more people screaming about how there's no content how dare they want to fix their game they're using it as an excuse to take a long vacation etc etc.

Yeah, I'd love for them to do it all in one go, but I don't see that happening. They'll update the way they did with SB and probably some unnamed patches. My guess is that's where the saddlebags are coming from is a small update on a part of the old infrastructure.

[Tridus]

That said, I'm also wondering if it's because of the multiple OS it has to run on? While yes, at the 2016 FanFest they said "please upgrade from Win32bit to Win64bit" not everyone can afford to. I'm not a programmer though so that's a wild guess. Anyone who is a programmer around to confirm/deny that? The most I know is that they're different in how things are run, but any programming for a Win32 or Win64 is beyond me.

For a game, the principal difference is access to RAM. Win32 programs are limited to 2GB of memory, unless they use tricks like the 3GB compilation flag, PAE and such that allow more memory access at the cost of performance. Win64 compiled versions have access to a memory space far larger than anybody is going to have in a home PC. There's some other stuff as well, but memory is the most important part. 2GB isn't limiting when your other platform is the 512MB equipped PS3, but much more limiting when you want to do 4k graphics and your other platform is the 8GB PS4.

Even running a Win32 compiled program (like the same version of the game) on Win64 gives you 4GB to work with, because due to how the virtual memory system works it can allocate the entire 4GB address space to the game instead of needing some of it for the OS and hardware. With the PS3 gone, Win32 PCs are now their least common denominator platform. People started shifting to 64 years ago and it's fairly common now, to the point that among Steam users, Win32 is ~2% usage. Could be higher amongst FFXIV users, but you pretty much can't buy a Win32 PC anymore unless you're an enterprise level customer.

Yeah, I'd love for them to do it all in one go, but I don't see that happening. They'll update the way they did with SB and probably some unnamed patches. My guess is that's where the saddlebags are coming from is a small update on a part of the old infrastructure.

The saddlebags are interesting because they've cited data transfer of character information between the world server and the instance servers as a reason for not having larger inventory multiple times. The saddlebag inventory is specifically not available when you're in an instance, which suggests to me they're adding that instead of more inventory because it lets them avoid the extra memory required on the instance server (in a dungeon you simply don't have access to that inventory so that server doesn't need to know what's in it).

The glamour closet is the same thing in that it's also only available in specific locations and thus doesn't load the other servers at all.

(I am a programmer, although I don't know what their backend looks like so some of this is speculation. )

[Vstarstruck]

I don't think this is feasible without going through 6 months + of no new content. They would basically have to halt content production and refocus everyone on porting to a new engine, new design, new everything. Game would die.

no it wouldn't, and this is going to be needed at some point since the wall seems to be getting bigger and bigger because of these issues.
Semi related:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-bigger-budget
might be another reason why they havn't yet

[Tridus]

I don't think this is feasible without going through 6 months + of no new content. They would basically have to halt content production and refocus everyone on porting to a new engine, new design, new everything. Game would die.

While you'd see less content, you wouldn't see no content. People working on art, music, level design, and even encounter design are usually not the same ones who work on server netcode and backend infrastructure. Whatever issue causes them to have to limit the glamour closet to 200 items instead of a WoW style "every item that's ever existed" one, it isn't going to be fixed by the same person that is animating the next tier of raid weapon drops.

Don't get me wrong: there's a cost to doing this kind of overhaul and everything else will have resources taken away because of it. But this is a big enough operation that it's not just 3 people working on it. Some of this stuff absolutely needs dealing with at some point, because the amount of stuff in the game isn't going down. I mean, my crafter & gatherer logs manage to track every single item I've made just fine. Do that, except for worn equipment. No need to overcomplicate it.

[Lord_Zlatan]

snip

I dont really know anything about data and coding, but I am pretty sure that a list that shows the stuff thats been made or worn has to be less intense on the system than having to actually carry the item, or have it stored on a retainer... I agree. It doesnt need to be overcomplicated at all