Friday with Means - July 8th, 2011 - IDs Please

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Originally Posted by Madgeneral

Dont fool yourself by thinking that Fc is doing you a favor for keeping servers open, is that how low you think of your hard earned cash.
I dont really care if the game crashed and game deleted itself.
Like someone said we are not a family at least not with FC they suply a paid service.
I didnt plan to pay for more then 1 year but i did who cares about that?
In reply to the fact that you keep telling us that this game was designed for 4 years, well escuse me i am playng this game for more then 4 years please escuse me.
What i gotta pay cash and kiss ... too?
The ID thing was their folt to start with ,the customer dont give a cookie.

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I think you misunderstand the whole "4 years" thing.

When AO started in 2001, it was built by the original dev team with a 4 year story and timeline. The concept was that it's essentially be kind of a "Choose your own adventure" where the actions of the players in game would effect the storyline.

However, that idea didn't last long.

Around mid to late 2002 (I think) the original storyline developer left (was fired, I think) when FC decided to develop the "Shadowlands" expansion. At that point, the 4 year concept was dropped and work was made to keep AO a constantly sustainable MMORPG.

The problem is, that means the inital development of the game, and the actual result are two different things. So stuff like mission and corpse IDs, which were "shortcutted" by the original Development Team now have to be addressed as we are over twice the original intended lifespan of the game.

It's like you plan for a vacation, in which you add take a months worth of necessities, more than enough you think as you're only supposed to be there for two weeks. Only hey, look, civil war broke out in the country your in, the borders are closed, and you can't leave! Now it's been two months (almost three) and you're out of your necessities - you need to acquire more.

That's essentially the type of situation. Funcom never planned the game to run this long. The code is past twice it's lifespan and is showing it's age

I suspect we can expect to see a lot of these issues cropping up as the game gets even older.

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Originally Posted by Siahanor

Nah, Omegas' brain melts at low temperatures.

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Like chocolate?

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Originally Posted by Namiru

I think you misunderstand the whole "4 years" thing.

When AO started in 2001, it was built by the original dev team with a 4 year story and timeline. The concept was that it's essentially be kind of a "Choose your own adventure" where the actions of the players in game would effect the storyline.

However, that idea didn't last long.

Around mid to late 2002 (I think) the original storyline developer left (was fired, I think) when FC decided to develop the "Shadowlands" expansion. At that point, the 4 year concept was dropped and work was made to keep AO a constantly sustainable MMORPG.

The problem is, that means the inital development of the game, and the actual result are two different things. So stuff like mission and corpse IDs, which were "shortcutted" by the original Development Team now have to be addressed as we are over twice the original intended lifespan of the game.

It's like you plan for a vacation, in which you add take a months worth of necessities, more than enough you think as you're only supposed to be there for two weeks. Only hey, look, civil war broke out in the country your in, the borders are closed, and you can't leave! Now it's been two months (almost three) and you're out of your necessities - you need to acquire more.

That's essentially the type of situation. Funcom never planned the game to run this long. The code is past twice it's lifespan and is showing it's age

I suspect we can expect to see a lot of these issues cropping up as the game gets even older.

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While this may be true, but if you have any idea of stuff in the IT/computer world in general, 4.4 billion items was a lot back then. SSDD most likely happened with this just like many other things in the realm of computers. Perfect example is IP addresses. At one point in time they thought IP V4 would not run out but we have IP v6 now. My concern is that no one caught this preemptively.

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Originally Posted by masterful1

While this may be true, but if you have any idea of stuff in the IT/computer world in general, 4.4 billion items was a lot back then. SSDD most likely happened with this just like many other things in the realm of computers. Perfect example is IP addresses. At one point in time they thought IP V4 would not run out but we have IP v6 now. My concern is that no one caught this preemptively.

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I absolutely agree with you. At the very least when name IDs ran out n 2006 ot 07 this should have been looked at, but really, it should have been dealt with when the transition from "5 Year Mission" to "Ongoing Mission" was made.

But, as I have stated time and time again, AO Development mentality has always been "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Which is a shame.

And Yes, I know plenty about the IT industry. I've been in IT since before AO Develpment had even started.

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Originally Posted by Namiru

But, as I have stated time and time again, AO Development mentality has always been "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Which is a shame.

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In the end this may come from the business direction and policy - there is always some money attached to changes. If the business view and planning is not long time and/or there is a shortage of money to allocate from the business side, then anything that is not an immediate issue will get lower priority.

AO development is likely in a situation that they do not get any additional funding besides what the subscriptions bring in, which likely limits what they can do in practice.

Funcom would need something that is a safe cash producer more than they have now - they make a profit overall I believe, but not huge amounts.

Excessively fitting XKCD (even has nanobots in it :) )

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Originally Posted by masterful1

While this may be true, but if you have any idea of stuff in the IT/computer world in general, 4.4 billion items was a lot back then. SSDD most likely happened with this just like many other things in the realm of computers. Perfect example is IP addresses. At one point in time they thought IP V4 would not run out but we have IP v6 now. My concern is that no one caught this preemptively.

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One distinct quote comes to mind:
640K ought to be enough for anybody
- Bill Gates, 1981
(Bill Gates has denied ever said that later though)

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Originally Posted by Sente

In the end this may come from the business direction and policy - there is always some money attached to changes. If the business view and planning is not long time and/or there is a shortage of money to allocate from the business side, then anything that is not an immediate issue will get lower priority.

AO development is likely in a situation that they do not get any additional funding besides what the subscriptions bring in, which likely limits what they can do in practice.

Funcom would need something that is a safe cash producer more than they have now - they make a profit overall I believe, but not huge amounts.

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Yes, but (and this an ongoing issue I have with the whole IT business) a little pre-emptive thinking can save a lot of money in the long run. I wonder how much overtime went into fixing this bug on such short notice? Overtime that could have been avoided by just have someone spend 2 hours a week over a year looking the code and pointing out what would need to be addressed for the long run.

But like I said, this isn't just FunCom, it's a problem in the whole field. Remember Y2K? How the corporations, who knew this was coming for years, waited until the last minute, then hired programmers as consultants at obscene rates to fix their legacy code? Same issue.

Companies need to realize that spending a little NOW can save a lot LATER on.

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Originally Posted by Namiru

Yes, but (and this an ongoing issue I have with the whole IT business) a little pre-emptive thinking can save a lot of money in the long run. I wonder how much overtime went into fixing this bug on such short notice? Overtime that could have been avoided by just have someone spend 2 hours a week over a year looking the code and pointing out what would need to be addressed for the long run.

But like I said, this isn't just FunCom, it's a problem in the whole field. Remember Y2K? How the corporations, who knew this was coming for years, waited until the last minute, then hired programmers as consultants at obscene rates to fix their legacy code? Same issue.

Companies need to realize that spending a little NOW can save a lot LATER on.

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Exept 2hours wouldn't do. They touch something and it expolodes horrificly ;D

Was wasn't talking about altering the code, I'm talking looking at it, interpreting it and going "Okay, that'll be a problem....that'll be an issue" and so forth. That way, if something breaks or get's close to breaking, they already have a formed plan to throw on test.

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Originally Posted by Maofex

One distinct quote comes to mind:
640K ought to be enough for anybody
- Bill Gates, 1981
(Bill Gates has denied ever said that later though)

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"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
- Popular Mechanics, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of DEC

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Originally Posted by Namiru

Was wasn't talking about altering the code, I'm talking looking at it

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Looking at AO's code can break it. AO is coded via Heisenberg Uncertainty Lolcode. The code will work as long as no one observes it, as soon as someone observes the code it gets converted directly to Lolcode.

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Originally Posted by klinical

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of DEC

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Considering the computers he was likely referring to, which would be larger than the truck outside my home, he was probably right at the time :)

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Originally Posted by Technogen

Looking at AO's code can break it. AO is coded via Heisenberg Uncertainty Lolcode. The code will work as long as no one observes it, as soon as someone observes the code it gets converted directly to Lolcode.

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I firmly believe AO runs entirely on hopes and dreams.

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Originally Posted by Means

Monday July 18th.

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So Anniversary content removed first thing in the morning (GMT) Monday July 18th ... or Monday is the last day we can hunt for stuff?

Colrain

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Originally Posted by Colrain

So Anniversary content removed first thing in the morning (GMT) Monday July 18th ... or Monday is the last day we can hunt for stuff?

Colrain

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Time to roll alts of every profession and grab the free jetpack I guess. Just in case one ever wants to make a new character.

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Originally Posted by Namiru

... just have someone spend 2 hours a week over a year looking the code and pointing out what would need to be addressed for the long run.
...

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That's the thing - you cannot do it for 2 hours a week. They only way is to do it for several days straight. When you look at one chunk of the code, you need to figure out how it will work with the rest of the code, and that means remembering what the rest of the code looks like. And a week is plenty of time for forget what you learned in 2 hours.

IMHO, the corpse/mob ID's should have been reset during each downtime. That's maybe why some games have weekly or daily downtimes.

And to continue the 640K analogies, my line of work makes me notice how AO ran out of ID at the just about the same time as US gov't has hit its debt ceiling. :)

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Originally Posted by Namiru

I absolutely agree with you. At the very least when name IDs ran out n 2006 ot 07 this should have been looked at, but really, it should have been dealt with when the transition from "5 Year Mission" to "Ongoing Mission" was made.

But, as I have stated time and time again, AO Development mentality has always been "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Which is a shame.

And Yes, I know plenty about the IT industry. I've been in IT since before AO Develpment had even started.

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Man youre ancient

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Originally Posted by Namiru

Yes, but (and this an ongoing issue I have with the whole IT business) a little pre-emptive thinking can save a lot of money in the long run. I wonder how much overtime went into fixing this bug on such short notice? Overtime that could have been avoided by just have someone spend 2 hours a week over a year looking the code and pointing out what would need to be addressed for the long run.

But like I said, this isn't just FunCom, it's a problem in the whole field. Remember Y2K? How the corporations, who knew this was coming for years, waited until the last minute, then hired programmers as consultants at obscene rates to fix their legacy code? Same issue.

Companies need to realize that spending a little NOW can save a lot LATER on.

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./agreed

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Originally Posted by Namiru

Yes, but (and this an ongoing issue I have with the whole IT business) a little pre-emptive thinking can save a lot of money in the long run. I wonder how much overtime went into fixing this bug on such short notice? Overtime that could have been avoided by just have someone spend 2 hours a week over a year looking the code and pointing out what would need to be addressed for the long run.

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Absolutely, although I would say it requires a bit more dedicated effort than an extra few hours every week. And not every problem is so easy to spot if you do not know what kind of trouble you might be looking for or have a good and systematic approach to it.
But in the end you also still need to convince the people with the money that it is the right thing to do.

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Originally Posted by Namiru

Remember Y2K? How the corporations, who knew this was coming for years, waited until the last minute, then hired programmers as consultants at obscene rates to fix their legacy code? Same issue.

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A number of companies spent a lot of effort on the Y2K problem years before the end of the previous millenium. This was primarily analysis to figure out what software and systems they had which could be affected by this and the likelyhood for a problem to occur, plus what the impact would be if there was a problem.

Thus a number of systems in such a risk/impact analysis were not considered a justified cost to fix all of them ahead of time, just as a complete analysis of every system was not considered cost justified either.

So while there certainly may have been cases where the problem was simply ignored there were also a number of cases where not doing anything was a conscious decision and may still have been the cheaper overall option even if they had to get people to fix things when the millenium changed.

For the most part Y2K went by without any major disruptions.

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Originally Posted by Namiru

Companies need to realize that spending a little NOW can save a lot LATER on.

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But you need to identify the issues and do the risk/impact analysis before you get to the point that you can say that to the business side. And that effort in itself is something you need to convince the business side is the right thing to do.