Worlds Unavailable: Thursday, September 22nd

[Sqrlmonger]

It's becoming clear that they went home to get some sleep.

I don't take issue with that, people need sleep and there is a point where it is actually counterproductive to have tired people keep working.

But given that the last update stated "We are continuing to work on reopening the game worlds..." ... well....

I'll just say I'm glad I was pessimistic and got a full night's sleep. I would hate to be one of the people who were here believing updates like this one and wasted hours refreshing the page.

[thegreatcthulhu]

For someone who has to work way too much and has limited time to play this downtime hits hard. i am with the majority of players who are asking for some type of offer to say "thanks for being patient,". But also I hope the developers will consider offering the otto's boxes and double points for sale in the store for the weekend. I don't mind spending money on this game to help keep it going. The boxes help me in that I can make up for not having enough real life time to devote to the game I love. Still so much I want to do and accomplish in the game.

I'll admit I'm in the same ship... I can't help it, when I see the double points, I always take advantage of it.

[cmecu]

The Reincarnation Cache has caused problems for players for years, wasting untold hours of game time just emptying the damned thing. Now it seems it's also causing problems for the Devs so, simple(r) solution, get rid of it.

This would require the Coin Lords and House K favor rewards be replaced with something else.

It would also require everybody's inventory space and bank space be increasing by 40 each and a requirement that you can only begin the TR process when naked.
All items would remain where they were so no need for any code at all.

Players would benefit by no longer having to waste hours of gametime with bank management prior to a TR and Devs would benefit by being able to go home at night after their shift ends. Seems like a win-win.

Edit: Forgot about House K.

Thats what I was suggesting too some where in here. This would be a lot of IF's If, they would make every item in game just bound to account, then we could just have 1 bank, and that be a shared bank.. Default capacity like , well someone would need to figure up how many items in game Just say 6000 pieces of gear in the game. Make initial bank capacity like 3000. You can make all kinds of tabs to categorize all your stuff There still will be the crafting bank. You would have to be naked to TR so everything into shared bank. If this were possible, you could eliminate TR cache lag and server load, you could reduce the amount of data needed that saves everyones mules full of gear, it would reduce people logging in and out in and out to go grab something from a mule, or looking on different mules to find something.. all that logging in and out has to be putting some kind of stress on something.

This is only going to get worse and does get worse with every expansion or any kind of release that has new gear, items with it.. we just have no place to put stuff any more. I dunno about anyone else but I have , I think 23 slots for characters 19 of them are mules. That is just ridiculous and that is with getting rid of most junk items, or items I would never use. Of course I could widdle that down even more, but I still have have atleast 15 mules.. You figure, if you dont do rep runs to get extra bank space inventory space with them, then your only getting what. 80 slots for gear? Not really a lot considering how many items are in the game.

The other issue is trying to do new and improved things with a very old game and code and not having enough time to just restructure it. Anytime you touch something it breaks 5 other things. Too much a headache.

[TPICKRELL]

Again. It's just really sad for me to see all the hatred towards DDO and SSG in this thread.
Come on, everyone. Please! They are just people. And the game is kinda old.
I always try to imagine me as one of the developers reading comments like
"Omg can't they do anything right?" or "You guys are a joke!" - You know...
It would feel quite disheartening
...

I for one do not blame the DEV's for any of the coding issues. Coding issues happen, especially in old code, that you did not write.

However, I do blame SSG as a whole for the complete, utter lack of testing the code BEFORE releasing it. I was a DEV and it was completely unacceptable to my team, my company, my customers that any major new feature or changed feature be released if its basic features did not work as advertised.

For example, the new bank involves Shared Bank, Personal Bank, Inventory, TR Cache storages. A MINIMUM of testing would be that someone actually log on to the new build and manually move things between ALL OF THESE and make sure the items move properly, are not lost, are not damaged. Then make sure its still possible to TR after these changes, and all items remain intact. This testing should be repeated with each build until the code changes in this area settle down and dev focus moves on to another area of the code. They know they are changing this specific part of the code, and they should be able to do minimum functional testing in a matter of an hour or two of someone's time.

There will still be issues that slip out, but it should be niche issues like the shadow blade. And once the shadow blade issue surfaced, it should be added to the test protocol until the dev's move out of this area of the code.

This is where I place blame on all of SSG. Its unacceptable to me that they don't spend the very few hours of simple testing to insure that the basic changed functionality works before releasing it.

[Halciet]

You don't need to be a car mechanic to diagnose when your car is on fire.

[Ladius]

How is the game you produce doing?

Nice straw man. You're almost ready for the season!

[DungeonGamer]

The game servers are all down for me...so are they still down?

[DungeonGamer]

I for one do not blame the DEV's for any of the coding issues. Coding issues happen, especially in old code, that you did not write.

However, I do blame SSG as a whole for the complete, utter lack of testing the code BEFORE releasing it. I was a DEV and it was completely unacceptable to my team, my company, my customers that any major new feature or changed feature be released if its basic features did not work as advertised.

For example, the new bank involves Shared Bank, Personal Bank, Inventory, TR Cache storages. A MINIMUM of testing would be that someone actually log on to the new build and manually move things between ALL OF THESE and make sure the items move properly, are not lost, are not damaged. Then make sure its still possible to TR after these changes, and all items remain intact. This testing should be repeated with each build until the code changes in this area settle down and dev focus moves on to another area of the code. They know they are changing this specific part of the code, and they should be able to do minimum functional testing in a matter of an hour or two of someone's time.

There will still be issues that slip out, but it should be niche issues like the shadow blade. And once the shadow blade issue surfaced, it should be added to the test protocol until the dev's move out of this area of the code.

This is where I place blame on all of SSG. Its unacceptable to me that they don't spend the very few hours of simple testing to insure that the basic changed functionality works before releasing it.

Isn't that the purpose of lammania? to test new code before being released?

[TPICKRELL]

Isn't that the purpose of lammania? to test new code before being released?

No, some of it may be a side effect of lammania. But lammania is a Preview server, not a test server.

They put stuff on lammania for us to react to the way they are implementing something. Its about the macro stuff not the micro stuff. And they often don't fix the micro stuff that gets reported on Lammania.

Also only major stuff goes through a lammania cycle. Basic minimal functional testing needs to happen on every release build, every hotfix, every patch.

[ForumQua]

How is the game you produce doing?

I produce accounting, and medical/scientific software. I work to much higher standards than these guys.
I find it irksome that they do not run the show like a proper business.
There's no way we could switch off the hospital software for two days and just shrug it off.
People would die.
If SSG was run like a proper business there would be so much more customer satisfaction and that would translate into revenue.
But as long as everyone subs up and keeps saying "it's just a game, it doesn't matter" then I guess it's just a game and it doesn't matter.

I am one of those players that would like to see the existing (and longstanding) issues in-game fixed, and I don't care about new toys, so I'm not seeing any benefit from these endlesss patches. Just problems and unnecessary downtime.

[DungeonGamer]

You don't need to be a car mechanic to diagnose when your car is on fire.

I've never seen a computer onfire, I suspect with all the compounds inside it would be impressive. And code generally never burns

[Seydlitz]

I for one do not blame the DEV's for any of the coding issues. Coding issues happen, especially in old code, that you did not write.

However, I do blame SSG as a whole for the complete, utter lack of testing the code BEFORE releasing it. I was a DEV and it was completely unacceptable to my team, my company, my customers that any major new feature or changed feature be released if its basic features did not work as advertised.

For example, the new bank involves Shared Bank, Personal Bank, Inventory, TR Cache storages. A MINIMUM of testing would be that someone actually log on to the new build and manually move things between ALL OF THESE and make sure the items move properly, are not lost, are not damaged. Then make sure its still possible to TR after these changes, and all items remain intact. This testing should be repeated with each build until the code changes in this area settle down and dev focus moves on to another area of the code. They know they are changing this specific part of the code, and they should be able to do minimum functional testing in a matter of an hour or two of someone's time.

There will still be issues that slip out, but it should be niche issues like the shadow blade. And once the shadow blade issue surfaced, it should be added to the test protocol until the dev's move out of this area of the code.

This is where I place blame on all of SSG. Its unacceptable to me that they don't spend the very few hours of simple testing to insure that the basic changed functionality works before releasing it.

Completely agree! I would also add that it is truly reprehensible to completely ignore the feedback received from the Lammania Server. Everyone there knew this was coming, told the dev's, and were ignored (as usual!). I get all the "old, bad code blah-blah", I even get the "Fan-boy rah-rah". But at some point the development team and all the other staff members have to stand up, acknowlege, and accept that their current methodology is a total farce. The long standing idea that the player base will continue to embrace new content (seriously? yet ANOTHER crafting system?) piled on top of a crumbling foundation of **** simply has to change. Nobody wants this game to survive more than I do, but ****... this nonsense is making it hard to continue. For God's sake, try actually FIXING something that's broken for a change instead of dumping some ill-conceived new garbage onto the heap!

[montresor9]

I am not going to project any understanding of the inner workings of what is currently happening at SSG. Merely, it would be nice to know a couple of things that the updates don't address.

First and foremost, when is the game going to be up and why would that be so?
Second, some idea of why this process takes so long. I can understand the need to be patient, but I need them to understand our need to plan. For many of us this is a major form of recreation and if it will be off this weekend, it would be good to know now.
Third, otherwise, I feel the updates are just jerking my chain and getting me to check if the game is up yet repeatedly.

I doubt it is just me.

[cmecu]

I for one do not blame the DEV's for any of the coding issues. Coding issues happen, especially in old code, that you did not write.

However, I do blame SSG as a whole for the complete, utter lack of testing the code BEFORE releasing it. I was a DEV and it was completely unacceptable to my team, my company, my customers that any major new feature or changed feature be released if its basic features did not work as advertised.

For example, the new bank involves Shared Bank, Personal Bank, Inventory, TR Cache storages. A MINIMUM of testing would be that someone actually log on to the new build and manually move things between ALL OF THESE and make sure the items move properly, are not lost, are not damaged. Then make sure its still possible to TR after these changes, and all items remain intact. This testing should be repeated with each build until the code changes in this area settle down and dev focus moves on to another area of the code. They know they are changing this specific part of the code, and they should be able to do minimum functional testing in a matter of an hour or two of someone's time.

There will still be issues that slip out, but it should be niche issues like the shadow blade. And once the shadow blade issue surfaced, it should be added to the test protocol until the dev's move out of this area of the code.

This is where I place blame on all of SSG. Its unacceptable to me that they don't spend the very few hours of simple testing to insure that the basic changed functionality works before releasing it.

I made a video of that on my twitch stream and did post it on the Lammania forums when we tested it. I showed exactly how to duplicate it. Only person that responded was Cordovan. So like whats the point of testing, if they dont listen to what we are telling them.

[DungeonGamer]

I for one do not blame the DEV's for any of the coding issues. Coding issues happen, especially in old code, that you did not write.

However, I do blame SSG as a whole for the complete, utter lack of testing the code BEFORE releasing it. I was a DEV and it was completely unacceptable to my team, my company, my customers that any major new feature or changed feature be released if its basic features did not work as advertised.

For example, the new bank involves Shared Bank, Personal Bank, Inventory, TR Cache storages. A MINIMUM of testing would be that someone actually log on to the new build and manually move things between ALL OF THESE and make sure the items move properly, are not lost, are not damaged. Then make sure its still possible to TR after these changes, and all items remain intact. This testing should be repeated with each build until the code changes in this area settle down and dev focus moves on to another area of the code. They know they are changing this specific part of the code, and they should be able to do minimum functional testing in a matter of an hour or two of someone's time.

There will still be issues that slip out, but it should be niche issues like the shadow blade. And once the shadow blade issue surfaced, it should be added to the test protocol until the dev's move out of this area of the code.

This is where I place blame on all of SSG. Its unacceptable to me that they don't spend the very few hours of simple testing to insure that the basic changed functionality works before releasing it.

The planning of each release is a catastrophe. SSG should start a process of piecemeal releases so specific game-areas are released in each update. Thus a changed to the way storage works should be in a seperate release to a change in enchancement trees etc

[tankhealer]

Appears that someone grabbed an rare loot O.o

yeah I got a sword of shadows yesterday actually so I'm going to be ****ed if they do a rollback. Not to mention gaining like 7 epic levels.

[Tanky]

We apologize for the downtime.

Demonstrate, don't explicate.

The time has come for a super XP bonus weekend.

[NemesisAlien]

I've never seen a computer onfire, I suspect with all the compounds inside it would be impressive. And code generally never burns

[Ladius]

I made a video of that on my twitch stream and did post it on the Lammania forums when we tested it. I showed exactly how to duplicate it. Only person that responded was Cordovan. So like whats the point of testing, if they dont listen to what we are telling them.

I don't think it's jumping to conclusions to assume that there has been a certain culture created at SSG in dealing with the development of this game as a whole. What I've observed since I've been back seems to be a focus on the low hanging fruit of new content to drive sales, with a back burner approach to substantial rectification of known issues. I'm sure they've mathed it out and determined that it's more profitable to do things the way they're doing them, but for how long? Kind of disappointing really, when there is a fairly obvious and vocal grouping of players who have made it clear that fixing existing content is more important to them than new content.

[helpfulguy1234]

How is the game you produce doing?

The flight planning software on the Navy and Air Force jets I produce is doing fine, as evidenced by the fact that jets are not raining down out of the sky and crashing on your house currently.