Monthly Development Update – Dec 3rd 2012

[Utopian]

I had a response ready - and then just deleted because I figured "why bother". But Jill's comments hit the nail on the head. Its the failure of good, professional communication.

So, today is 18th of December and you are just now responding? Should have been weeks ago, as Christmas and the New Year were always coming (unless you believe the dooms day calendar) and you had to know the vacation schedules of staff.

Going into technical reasons is all-well-and-good, but truly irrelevant to the fact that no communication was given. I work in the field and the folks don't care about the "why" for the most part, they just want it to work correctly on the date given. If I miss date, they want good communication/notice and a new date. I would have thought that aspect of the prior GD/Producer failures would have been obvious and not continued by the current team.

You could easily have avoided a lot of the issues if you had just announced what you did today a few weeks ago. We would have laughed and flamed a bit, but really we know we are lemmings and we would have moved on to other things.

[Liwa]

First of all, unpacking the blob is an important part of the character transfer process.
We need to read, parse, re-sequence and then store all character related data.

This re-sequencing part is the important part as there is a lot of data associated with your character that may collide with data from a different dimension.
The blob itself exists as a performance optimization for data where there is no obvious benefit to having stored as relational data in a database.
For the most part, the data will be repacked as a blob and stored in the latest version of that specific blob format.
(As a bonus, we just eliminated a lot of legacy formats the server had to be able to read for old characters that haven't been logged on in many years)

The inventory is the main thing that now has been converted to no longer exists in the blob.
This will greatly improve the way we deal with inventory data from out of game sources like customer service tools and the ability to track down specific items more easily.

Removing the inventory from the blob has no immediate benefit with 18.6, but we've went ahead with doing this anyways as this was a great opportunity to run this conversion without a large downtime or run-time conversion code on the server.

Over time we can look into different ways of interacting with the inventory with features such as 'inventory search' no longer being held back by 'the blob'.
Even out of game interaction would now be in the realm of possibilities building forward.

In a nutshell, it's a change that opens up some interesting opportunities in the future.

Thank you for the information Vhab and Ilaliya ...
I was going to ask a similar question ... not sure if it is related or not.

Will this change to take inventory items out of the Blob make a change to what is stored at the Client level? Like backpack names, etc. that are saved in our preference folders?

We all, or many of us plan to copy a back-up of our preference items into our new character ID folders after the migration to avoid having to reset all of them manually. Will we still be able to do this ... with the changes to take inventory/bank out of Blob's?

Thanks,

Kinnik

[Vhab]

You could easily have avoided a lot of the issues if you had just announced what you did today a few weeks ago. We would have laughed and flamed a bit, but really we know we are lemmings and we would have moved on to other things.

Honestly, I disagree. An inherited risk of our jobs involves receiving flames regardless.
We couldn't have announced it a few weeks ago. If the QA results came back clean a few weeks ago 18.6.0 would have been on TestLive right now.

We aimed for this year, we narrowly didn't make it and we notified you of that fact before the year is over.
It's one of these cases where we're "damned if we do, damned if we don't".

If we stay vague in our announcements regarding dates we'll get a storm of "just give us the deadlines!".
If we give our best estimates at the time, we get a storm of flames if the date changes.


Instead, we use our best judgement on informing those who care at times when the information we provide is most accurate to us at the time it is provided.
This indeed means we get flamed by the regular bunch and possibly cause a few people to get their panties in a twist.

In this particular case, we broke out of our "once a month" update schedule to update all of you on the change in expected release for 18.6.0.

But don't worry, we're a sturdy bunch and the sea of flames is nothing new, or something we can't handle.

I'd be more worried if there wasn't a thread on fire for some reason at any given moment.

[MachSchau]

Oh please, every troll on this forum knows that come December, people at FC go on vacation until sometime in January and it is run by a skeleton crew till then. It has been like this for years. If the proposed and hypothetical time wasn't met in November, obviously it would be pushed back till Q1 of 2013. It is simply obvious. If it isn't, than maybe spend less time bashing AO and more time reading between the lines.

I dont think it is a lack of communication at all. I find that it is a constant expectation for players to get every sort of little detail when it becomes available. It would be like, "Ok so you fixed X? Ok, let me let the player base know we fixed it." 20 minutes later... "Ok I just got done telling the players you fixed it, oh whats that? It is broke again? Ok let me go tell the players its broke again." This sort of mentality is a rather childish way of thinking.

Granted, a time frame in the November news letter said, "it will be this year" for server merge however, it was also stated that if all the tests go accordingly. Server merge, to me, is a pretty big thing, bigger than the engine or re-balance. I dont want my characters destroyed, augmented, lost, lose items etc. I dont care how long it takes them as long as it is done right. With Ilaliya's most recent post it seems it was pushed back a few weeks because it would be foolish to release it over Christmas, this extended time allows for more comprehensive testing.

To compare communication in the past to now. Every week Mean's posted something and it really kept the player base interested but a lot of expectations, improvements and time frames were iterated in those posts. Now, with once a month updates we get a summation of what was completed/worked on and what projects are going to be going on the following month.

Hiccups in development happen, especially with this stone age game. In this instance, a hiccup happened and it was brought to our attention when they could have simply not told anyone until the January newsletter.

[Mako]

So wait a second...all we have to do is post almost 20 pages of moans and complaints to get detailed info?

Why don't you guys post that kind of stuff (Ilaliya's and Vhab's last posts) the first time instead of "Hy guys, no merge this year! Lol, bye!", us nerd-raging, then you finally telling us whats going on to shut us up or prove a point.

You guys need a new PR person. The communication has improved, but only in the form of more useless/empty statements. Its OKAY if things are delayed...we get it, its hard work...just help us *feel* like you're doing your best and nobody will have anything negative to say about the process. Normally it comes off as devs not giving two sh*ts how we feel about the development of a product we pay for.

[Traderjill]

Granted, a time frame in the November news letter said, "it will be this year" for server merge however, it was also stated that if all the tests go accordingly.

That's not what I read in the November post.. you might want to read it again. The "shooting for this month" piece was in regards to it being done by November, not by the end of the year.

I'm not trying to be rude to the AO Team but this whole "damned if we do, damned if we don't" type of thinking expressed by Vhab doesn't make sense to me. Why keep giving the playerbase dates (end of the year = by 12/31/2012) if you don't know for a fact (with the exception of natural disasters and such) that it can happen? Furthermore, if we as players read their announcement and didn't think it reasonable then why doesn't the dev team have the same foresight that we have? They do you say? Well then why give us a bad date in the first place.

You shouldn't have to read between the lines. When the game producer says something will be done by a certain time, as customers, we should be able to take him for his word. People should've been able to resub up their accounts and get things prepped ahead of time for the server merge because the game producer stated it would happen by year's end. And I'm sorry, but I do read the posts coming from AO's staff.. they're not a bunch of idiots by any means. So do you think that they didn't realize that saying "by the end of the year" meant that people would start resubbing accounts and getting prepared? I knew it, you knew it, anyone playing AO knew what would start to happen. Did the money of their customers not mean enough for them to be more precise and professional with their communications? Apparently not.

[Leetlover]

imo, servermerge isn't a cure... altho it's welcome

No, at this point I'd almost not even care if my characters and gear all got mixed up as long as there was a larger population to play with.

It is actually enough players to play with as now.

The issue is spreading, players are spread all over the place due to new content/expansions just being patched carelessly into the game (resulting in the game being a incohesive experience of several seperate grinds), and due to developement focused around soloing (dailies).

[Liwa]

I personally commend Vhab and Ilalyia for being honest and forthcoming with us. They didn't delay telling us they could not make the "end of the year" promise/expectation ... they told us as soon as it was "known". They didn't sit on the information and wait until there were 15+ pages of comments, it was only just determined there wasn't enough time left to properly send 18.6 to Test-Live before year end.

It is not as if they are saying 18.6 won't be out until April or May ... it's release to Test-Live is only delayed into the 2nd week of January.

Kinnik

[Contra]

wanna bet we won't see merge for at least 3 more months?

[MachSchau]

That's not what I read in the November post.. you might want to read it again. The "shooting for this month" piece was in regards to it being done by November, not by the end of the year.

I'm not trying to be rude to the AO Team but this whole "damned if we do, damned if we don't" type of thinking expressed by Vhab doesn't make sense to me. Why keep giving the playerbase dates (end of the year = by 12/31/2012) if you don't know for a fact (with the exception of natural disasters and such) that it can happen? Furthermore, if we as players read their announcement and didn't think it reasonable then why doesn't the dev team have the same foresight that we have? They do you say? Well then why give us a bad date in the first place.

You shouldn't have to read between the lines. When the game producer says something will be done by a certain time, as customers, we should be able to take him for his word. People should've been able to resub up their accounts and get things prepped ahead of time for the server merge because the game producer stated it would happen by year's end. And I'm sorry, but I do read the posts coming from AO's staff.. they're not a bunch of idiots by any means. So do you think that they didn't realize that saying "by the end of the year" meant that people would start resubbing accounts and getting prepared? I knew it, you knew it, anyone playing AO knew what would start to happen. Did the money of their customers not mean enough for them to be more precise and professional with their communications? Apparently not.

Verbatim from the November newsletter,

"I can’t give you a set date, but it will be this year. We’re shooting for end of this month, but that’s assuming that our very rigorous internal tests all pass without incident. Believe me when I say this isn’t something you want us to rush. We have to get it right the first time."

To add on to what I said earlier, December is vacation month at FC. Imagine that a majority of your staff is out on holiday and the big man upstairs says, "Bring the big shiny patch online" and the big shiny patch needs more testing because there are some game-breaking bugs, but you do it anyways cause hes the boss. All of a sudden the sky is falling. Now people need to be called in away from their time off, call in reinforcements, call the other staff to ask them how XYZ works to fix something that could have easily been avoided if they waited a little bit longer.

Vhab's expression makes perfect sense. The player base will be "damned" if they push it out without further tweeking it and they end up breaking something because they didn't take the time to test it when they should have. The AO staff will be "damned" because they hinted at a release by the end of this year and didn't deliver.

From what I have gathered in my reading of posts by the developers over the past few years is that AO's code is difficult, nothing goes accordingly, fix one thing they break another etc etc. There are multiple things that need to be completed before something gets the green light. Sometimes those things never come to fruition and are put on the back burner because something more important has come up. Exact dates on something in development have never, ever been given until that thing is nearly completed. Sure, there has been speculation on when it may come out, but never an exact date. You want to know why? For the reasons I listed above, there are too many checks along the development road and hiccups to give a precise time. It isn't as simple as you would like to think and if you dont think it is simple well then you make it sound like it is.

Your statement on people resubbing because of what some dev said in a forum post is far fetched. Not everyone reads the forums, the handful of people who do read the forums who aren't subscribed at the moment will obviously take the statement for face value. What I know and what I do are two different things. What I did do was resub for this month because I felt like playing AO, am I going to re-new it? No because I have had my fill. What I know is that there will be free time offered once merge hits live. I know because it makes perfect sense that a big change like this involving characters would warrant some free time coupled with the fact that earlier this year they said that free time would be given out at some point (this was back in June) so I am just putting two and two together. I could be right, I could be wrong, but this is what I choose to believe. Everyone not subscribed will be contacted by email with a quip on what is new on AO and to take the free time given to check it out. That is when they will make the decision to resubscribe, not because of some forum they dont read, visit or care about.

I have grown comfortable with the fact that time frames for a release on something dont get met. That is why I make up my own so I can feel disappointed in myself and get mad at only me. I think they said engine beta was end of Q1 or some time around Q2, not to me. More like this time next year. Re-balance, who knows? But to me, 2 years from now.

[MachSchau]

I read that too. Under the heading "The Engine" it says it will be released in beta Q1 or Q2 right here: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...20&postcount=1

My reply to that is simply: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfi8fT9oHkQ

I meant Q1 or Q2 of 2013 silly.

[Dumonde]

Everyone of you should know that such things take their time in AO and they always come later then they are promised. Nothing new, nothing to wonder about, it always have been that way.

[Kahava]

But even if the dry runs are all flawless, there's still an off-chance we missed something.

You did miss something.
Just remember the old and well-known formula:
"The number of bugs in any given piece of code is n+1 where n is a random, positive integer."

[Contra]

And instead of protesting the lies, we encourage it by saying "it's always been like this". The "coming this year" thing was a marketing technique meant to make people resub, and it was successful. So, either there is no merge and no new engine and they are just milking us for more money untill the eventual shut down, OR there is an engine and there is a merge but they know they can be prolongued to milk us a bit more before release.
To me, this is just an insult. I rather they stfu about the whole thing and just deliver it when it's available then to lie about it just so they can make some sorry slobs to resub.

[cheolis]

If i was a cunning person id think u anounced merge to happen this year to get more subs out of december via returning vets.

But im not. So "ty for not rushing it and trying to make it right"

[Ekarona]

Vets should really know better by now. They only got themselves to blame at this point ;D

[Ophiuchus]

Thank you for the information Vhab and Ilaliya ...
I was going to ask a similar question ... not sure if it is related or not.

Will this change to take inventory items out of the Blob make a change to what is stored at the Client level? Like backpack names, etc. that are saved in our preference folders?

We all, or many of us plan to copy a back-up of our preference items into our new character ID folders after the migration to avoid having to reset all of them manually. Will we still be able to do this ... with the changes to take inventory/bank out of Blob's?

Thanks,

Kinnik

I have the same question too. A while back it was stated that we'd probably just be able to copy our old preferences into the new charID folder and away we go - did that answer take into account the changes to the blob structure having the inventory excised? (Why yes, I do have far too many alts with huge inventories and banks: the thought of having to redo them all might possssibly be giving me some minor palpitations...)

[Darkripper]

I'd be more worried if there wasn't a thread on fire for some reason at any given moment.

I would be more worried if you all lose your jobs because the players stopped playing the game and the project is not financially viable anymore. And that's not just to blame on FC for not putting more staff working on AO but also the team's incompetence failing keep up to the promisses.
Lucky for you we're all stupid enough to keep paying for this game so you can have your paycheck every month.

Now make sure you keep up to the promise you've made of putting an engine beta version live on the first quarter of 2013.

[cheolis]

Just assume they ment 2013 as "this year" for the merge and in the first 3 quarters of 2014 for the engine beta. And think of rebalance like its gonna be done before ps5 comes out. So we'll have time to enjoy gta6.

[Misat0]

[...]
Did you find the face aggro variable? ^^

Fixed that typo for you. We all know it exists.