William Gates
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Posted - 2003.09.19 09:06:00 -
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Being a professional software developer I invented, designed, created, implemented and maintained a massive online game in the past. A stockgame to be precise, not as complicated as EVE but nevertheless a system that was used by thousands of people. We had our problems at first but with every single patch or update things got better and better until it ran smoothly 24/7 for years, at least 3000+ users online at the same time, countless transactions and loggins.... and no need for reboot but we did restart the server once a week just to make sure we had a fresh windows NT start.
Why i'm a saying all this? So that you know that I know what i'm talking about when i say the following:
The patch to 1215/1217 is a complete disaster, clearly it has NOT been tested by anyone, not even alpha tested by the programmers. Normally a patch is meant to fix bugs not to introduce them. The fact that this patch introduced more problems than it solved is a very disturbing sign. It gives me the impression that CCP's programmers are lost in there own code. Or the leadprogrammer left for a holliday without documenting a single procedure or function, and a bunch of less experienced coders hacked and tweaked into his code trying to fix something, using a "trail and error" kind of method. "I have no idea what i'm doing and where i'm doing it but just lets see if something changes when i do.. this.....".
Do not get me wrong, i think EVE is the best game i have ever seen and i'm really impressed because i know how much work it takes to make something on a scale of this and to have it stable, well most of the time. But releasing a patch that half-fixes 2 bugs, introduces 10+ new ones and adds 1.5 new functions is just ridiculous.
CCP: please forget about new functions, items or whatever you have planned for us. Give us a real patch that actually fixes bugs. When the system is stable, then you can add new features. Why are you trying to add new functionality to a partly flawed system? Its like putting a brand new flag on a ship and not fixing the hole in its hull, that does not get you anywere. Its pointless and counter-productive to work like this, and in time it will be more difficult to fix the real bugs if you pile it up with new functions that 'depend' on them.
As for me, the most anoying bugs are:
- The newly introduced UI refesh/reload/paint bug.
- The newly introduced eve-mail screen, i have to click on every name in the list (30+) to find my new message and then only to discover that i cannot read it because of the UI bug.
- Cargo containers, specially the huge and giant. You tried to fix the update/refresh bug several times and everytime you say "now its really fixed, really!". Negative. And with the introduction of "anchoring" containers it is now really screwed up, really. Anchoring a container only makes sure nobody (including yourself) can put something IN. Anyone can take something OUT. I tested this and what's even more shocking: if i take something from a anchored container (tested with a non-corp/non-gang person) and that person unanchores/scoops it and warps away... i can still take from it! Its really amazing when you warp away and discover that the scordite in your can is taken one by one by the person you warped away from. At least the refresh-update worked well in this case. Could be a nice exploit to transport goods like this from one side of the galaxy to the other in a split seconds without any risk. I haven't tried this though.
- Stuck problems. Fix it or at least give us a temporary way out. You should be able to auto-detect when a ship is stuck and relocate them automatically after a certain time elapsed. This will release some (a lot!) tension off your customer service and developers. If i understand your systemsetup correctly you are using game-location dedicated servers. This may seem like a good idea from a technical/database perspective but its not. Each server should be able to act like any solarsystem and each player should be (load-balanced) allocated to a server from log-in. This way you do not have to jump from server to server when jumping or docking and when a server goes down you can just ignore it until its rebooted and up again. This will eliminate the stuck problem (asuming that's the reason but i'm pretty sure about it) and as a bonus a (almost) unlimited number of players can be at the same spot without much lag. Ofcourse you have to implement a lot more server-to-server synchonization but that can be fast and stable, its 100 times better than server-to-client-to-server synchronization.
Oh well i could go on all day but i'm not writing a book here. I will still enjoy playing EVE until it becomes unplayable. Lets hope that will never happen. CCP: please please please TEST a patch before you release it next time. And it would also be a good idea to have better communication about the exact changes/fixes in a patch instead of letting people guess if some behavi
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