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Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 12 post(s)

CCP Fallout	Posted - 2008.10.16 13:32:00 - [1] "The who," you may ask. The EVE Performance Group is our crack team of researchers and investigators who spend a considerable amount of time working on making EVE Online run better, faster and smarter. You can learn a great deal about them by reading Tanis.'s new dev blog. Fallout Associate Community Manager CCP Hf, EVE Online

Kappas. Galaxy Punks	Posted - 2008.10.16 13:35:00 - [2] Glad to see moar work is being done on this __________________

Chribba Otherworld Enterprises Otherworld Empire	Posted - 2008.10.16 13:43:00 - [3] Secure 3rd party service ■ Veldspar

Letouk Mernel	Posted - 2008.10.16 13:48:00 - [4] Sounds very interesting, and it sounds like you're doing a very good job. I don't know if it's possible, but you guys should also look at reducing lag by manipulating the interface so that WE interact with it in a more efficient way. Don't know if it's possible, but stuff like reducing the need for us to move items so much, or letting us configure contract list filters before loading the whole thing, alarms on market orders that would reduce the need to refresh the market window every 2 seconds to see if you've been .01'd, etc.
DaDutchDude Minmatar Sebiestor tribe	Posted - 2008.10.16 13:53:00 - [5] Edited by: DaDutchDude on 16/10/2008 13:53:13 Excellent blog regarding performance, showing it as a many-headed beast instead of just one monster to slay. Keep these blogs coming. I'm especially curious about the weapon grouping. My imagination tells me that it'll probably mean firing and reloading weapons as a group instead of on a turret by turret basis, making one call to the DB per group instead of one per turret required, which would offer great tactical opportunities in-game for players and reduce load significantly .... which sounds all yummy! YAY!
Onyx Asablot M. Corp Mostly Harmless	Posted - 2008.10.16 14:02:00 - [6] IMHO the 'need for speed' initiative is the singularly most important development that CCP is involved with in EVE. Thanks for your hard work, and I look forward to seeing smoother fleet fights in future. The NEW M.Corp Data Hub - Check it out!
Batolemaeus Caldari Athanasius Inc.	Posted - 2008.10.16 14:19:00 - [7] On the Npc changes: Of course, reducing rof for npcs is easier for you guys, just run a script that reduces rof and increases damage. <insert one-line-of-code joke here> But please also poke the mission design team about it. I'm pretty sure reducing the numbers of those npc, and increasing their damage potential, will free up a lot more ressources. ---------------------------------------------- Originally by: CCP Prism X In New Eden, EVE wins you.

CCP Ytterbium	Posted - 2008.10.16 14:39:00 - [8] Originally by: Batolemaeus On the Npc changes: Of course, reducing rof for npcs is easier for you guys, just run a script that reduces rof and increases damage. <insert one-line-of-code joke here> But please also poke the mission design team about it. I'm pretty sure reducing the numbers of those npc, and increasing their damage potential, will free up a lot more ressources. We are aware of this situation and you bring up a good point here. The problem remains it is far less easy than it sounds to change, since reducing NPC numbers means balancing bounties/loot to keep rewards on the same level. Also, plain increase in damage is not the best way to go since a mission that may be easy for a veteran pilot with skills and experience may turn horribly difficult for a relatively new character.

Batolemaeus Caldari Athanasius Inc.	Posted - 2008.10.16 14:46:00 - [9] Sure that isn't just one line of code. But as you said it, if you do it, do it right. I'm waiting for the total PvE revamp-roundhousekick (Congrats on fixing lag by the way) ---------------------------------------------- Originally by: CCP Prism X In New Eden, EVE wins you.
Andy Rogerson	Posted - 2008.10.16 14:50:00 - [10] Originally by: CCP Tanis. One in particular that we've worked on is a procedure handling corporation faction standings. We found that the procedure was taking up far more time than we were comfortable with and that prompted not just a refactoring of the code, but a change in the way that corporation faction standings are calculated to be much more efficient. The system used to update standings slowly, over time, based on the standings of all a corps members plus a large number of other factors. What we've done is to simplify that greatly. The new system will calculate standings based only on the average of all members who have been a part of the corporation for 7 days or more without factoring in anything else. Not only is the new way much easier for the server to handle, but it is also much easier to verify that it's working correctly. Isn't this something you felt you should announce or at least think about a little bit? A non-announced change to a mechanic that certain players rely on in the game? Talk about a nerf -- those people selling their services as "standings-raisers" are SOL. No longer will they just be able to join a corp that the owner has left a 0-standings alt in, run a storyline and wait a couple of days -- they're completely unable to do their job unless their client completely leaves the corp (as the 0-standings alt will apparently count in the standings now), which means that they now have to build up trust where previously game mechanics protected their client (the standings-raiser needed no rights under the old system, and now has to be basically the only character in the corp). Any other game mechanics that are being changed without bothering to tell us in the name of "performance"? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but being mentioned as a specific example in a performance blog isn't exactly an announcment...

Chaos Incarnate Faceless Logistics	Posted - 2008.10.16 15:01:00 - [11] Yeah, I'd have to question about the corp standings changes - are characters with 0 standings not going to be counted still, and is there any possibility of reducing the timer for standings changes to two or three days in-corp? __________ Sig by Neth'Rae Cannot read from face Abort, Retry, Fail? FFFFFF
Chaos Incarnate Faceless Logistics	Posted - 2008.10.16 15:03:00 - [12] Also, who nerfed my face? Fixitfixitfixit! __________ Sig by Neth'Rae Cannot read from face Abort, Retry, Fail? FFFFFF

CCP Lingorm C C P	Posted - 2008.10.16 15:12:00 - [13] Originally by: Andy Rogerson Isn't this something you felt you should announce or at least think about a little bit? A non-announced change to a mechanic that certain players rely on in the game? Talk about a nerf -- those people selling their services as "standings-raisers" are SOL. No longer will they just be able to join a corp that the owner has left a 0-standings alt in, run a storyline and wait a couple of days -- they're completely unable to do their job unless their client completely leaves the corp (as the 0-standings alt will apparently count in the standings now), which means that they now have to build up trust where previously game mechanics protected their client (the standings-raiser needed no rights under the old system, and now has to be basically the only character in the corp). Any other game mechanics that are being changed without bothering to tell us in the name of "performance"? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but being mentioned as a specific example in a performance blog isn't exactly an announcment... I will double check, but 0 standings characters are not counted in the calculation. And this will make it quicker for the Standings Merc, as after 7 days the increase will be applied completely rather than slowly, taking up to 14 days with the previous trending. The calculation goes like this ... get me all the none 0 standings of all members of the corp that have been in the corp 7 days or more. Now calculate the average and set the corp standing to this. Hope this makes it clearer. CCP Lingorm CCP Quality Assurance QA Engineering Team Leader Originally by: Lord Fitz Eve is to WoW as Wow is to an 8 player game of Unreal Tournament.


CCP Lingorm C C P	Posted - 2008.10.16 15:12:00 - [14] Originally by: Chaos Incarnate Also, who nerfed my face? Fixitfixitfixit! Buwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha CCP Lingorm CCP Quality Assurance QA Engineering Team Leader Originally by: Lord Fitz Eve is to WoW as Wow is to an 8 player game of Unreal Tournament.

Reptzo Channel 4 News Team	Posted - 2008.10.16 15:13:00 - [15] So, are these changes going to be rolled out as they are ready? or wait for a big patch? Awesome blog.
Grainsalt Free-Corp Foundation Liberty Alliance	Posted - 2008.10.16 15:29:00 - [16] Originally by: CCP Lingorm Originally by: Andy Rogerson Isn't this something you felt you should announce or at least think about a little bit? A non-announced change to a mechanic that certain players rely on in the game? Talk about a nerf -- those people selling their services as "standings-raisers" are SOL. No longer will they just be able to join a corp that the owner has left a 0-standings alt in, run a storyline and wait a couple of days -- they're completely unable to do their job unless their client completely leaves the corp (as the 0-standings alt will apparently count in the standings now), which means that they now have to build up trust where previously game mechanics protected their client (the standings-raiser needed no rights under the old system, and now has to be basically the only character in the corp). Any other game mechanics that are being changed without bothering to tell us in the name of "performance"? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but being mentioned as a specific example in a performance blog isn't exactly an announcment... I will double check, but 0 standings characters are not counted in the calculation. And this will make it quicker for the Standings Merc, as after 7 days the increase will be applied completely rather than slowly, taking up to 14 days with the previous trending. The calculation goes like this ... get me all the none 0 standings of all members of the corp that have been in the corp 7 days or more. Now calculate the average and set the corp standing to this. Hope this makes it clearer. Becuase if it ain't you have a rather large sh*t storm flying your way .. Bye Bye Empire POS's ---
Chaos Incarnate Faceless Logistics	Posted - 2008.10.16 16:02:00 - [17] Originally by: CCP Lingorm Originally by: Chaos Incarnate Also, who nerfed my face? Fixitfixitfixit! Buwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha Lingorm has no shame Booooooooooo __________ Originally by: Tortun Nahme nah, that is the true badge of a forum warrior, to draw the humorous ire of the devs
Thebro Nobrunder Schrodinger's Renegades	Posted - 2008.10.16 16:28:00 - [18] Originally by: CCP Ytterbium We are aware of this situation and you bring up a good point here. The problem remains it is far less easy than it sounds to change, since reducing NPC numbers means balancing bounties/loot to keep rewards on the same level. Also, plain increase in damage is not the best way to go since a mission that may be easy for a veteran pilot with skills and experience may turn horribly difficult for a relatively new character. I would very much like to see fewer stronger npc's in missions. Fighting tons of frigates in a lvl 4 missions is a pain in the but... also trivial.
Weirda Minmatar Queens of the Stone Age	Posted - 2008.10.16 16:33:00 - [19] Weirda like blog! Also know it difficult to get proper resource and time to 'improve existing process' vs 'add new feature'. glad that CCP focus on how important this is! __ weirda
EyeCeeYou	Posted - 2008.10.16 16:44:00 - [20] Someone posted this concern in a different thread, but I'll repeat it here since this thread seems to have some Dev attention -- With weapon linking, does the server calculate all linked weapons as a hit or miss together? If so, please consider the effect of this on current interceptor tactics, which often times means orbiting with fingers crossed and breaking and running after 2-3-4 hits. If the alpha strike now will be, for example, 7 turrets at once, that could be instapop, right? Combined with lowered speed (and consequently increased tracking), have intys gone the way of the dodo???

DrAtomic Atomic Heroes	Posted - 2008.10.16 16:45:00 - [21] Originally by: Reptzo So, are these changes going to be rolled out as they are ready? or wait for a big patch? Awesome blog. ffs... retyping responses for the loose... hate these forums sometimes... here goes again: They are rolled out continously if possible of during regular dt as far as i have been able to get from random notes here and there. So lots of these changes are allready live and others still in development/analyses. Also it sounds that the eve code was one big undocumented mess which they spend heaps of time getting through and documenting what does what and then analysing it and improve if need be. Good stuff. - - - Originally by: CCP Wrangler If you can understand our goal, disagree with our solution and offer a solution that is equal or better your opinion has a better chance of being heard...
DrAtomic Atomic Heroes	Posted - 2008.10.16 16:48:00 - [22] Edited by: DrAtomic on 16/10/2008 16:50:57 Originally by: EyeCeeYou Someone posted this concern in a different thread, but I'll repeat it here since this thread seems to have some Dev attention -- With weapon linking, does the server calculate all linked weapons as a hit or miss together? If so, please consider the effect of this on current interceptor tactics, which often times means orbiting with fingers crossed and breaking and running after 2-3-4 hits. If the alpha strike now will be, for example, 7 turrets at once, that could be instapop, right? Combined with lowered speed (and consequently increased tracking), have intys gone the way of the dodo??? There is a dev response out there on a thread that was in general, basicly the new system will do an average calculation total determine damage modifier(5 times normal+1 wrecking+1miss)ammoskilletc=damage done, thus doing one big calculation instead of the 7 separate ones it would have done in the current system). At least that is what I understood from it. - - - Originally by:* CCP Wrangler If you can understand our goal, disagree with our solution and offer a solution that is equal or better your opinion has a better chance of being heard...
Altaree Red Frog Investments Blue Sky Consortium	Posted - 2008.10.16 17:04:00 - [23] Edited by: Altaree on 16/10/2008 17:16:01 If you want to fix motsu, you need to put more level 4 quality 20 agents in 0.5 systems around the game. There are VERY few of these. And most are caldari! Please take the time to map out where the high sec l4q20 agents are. Until this is fixed you won't fix these l4 missions hubs. Also, please look into how research is done on POS's and how mutitple manufacturing jobs are setup. This is a painfully slow process. Even worse, if you are doing POS research from a station, the interface doesn't remember the radius of the last search so for every opening of the research interface there are two queries to see what facilities you can use. And the first of those queries is garbage. On a final note, Good Blog! Great developer ****! Blue Sky

CCP Tanis.	Posted - 2008.10.16 17:29:00 - [24] Originally by: Andy Rogerson Originally by: CCP Tanis. One in particular that we've worked on is a procedure handling corporation faction standings. We found that the procedure was taking up far more time than we were comfortable with and that prompted not just a refactoring of the code, but a change in the way that corporation faction standings are calculated to be much more efficient. The system used to update standings slowly, over time, based on the standings of all a corps members plus a large number of other factors. What we've done is to simplify that greatly. The new system will calculate standings based only on the average of all members who have been a part of the corporation for 7 days or more without factoring in anything else. Not only is the new way much easier for the server to handle, but it is also much easier to verify that it's working correctly. Isn't this something you felt you should announce or at least think about a little bit? A non-announced change to a mechanic that certain players rely on in the game? Talk about a nerf -- those people selling their services as "standings-raisers" are SOL. No longer will they just be able to join a corp that the owner has left a 0-standings alt in, run a storyline and wait a couple of days -- they're completely unable to do their job unless their client completely leaves the corp (as the 0-standings alt will apparently count in the standings now), which means that they now have to build up trust where previously game mechanics protected their client (the standings-raiser needed no rights under the old system, and now has to be basically the only character in the corp). Any other game mechanics that are being changed without bothering to tell us in the name of "performance"? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but being mentioned as a specific example in a performance blog isn't exactly an announcment... Rest assured that characters with neutral (zero) standings will NOT factor into the mix. The formula is still counting the same members it was counting before, we've just cut out a lot of fluff. If you were to think of your corporation standings like a bucket of water the old system filled that bucket one cup at a time where as the new system fills it all in one go. Example: You have a corporation with 1 member, who is neutral to everyone. You then have someone join who is at +9 to Caldari state. Old system: Your corporations standings would update slowly, after 1 week and 1 day they might be +1, after another day +1.5, then +2, and so on until it finally catches up with what the average value actually is. New system: After the new member has been in corp for 7 days or more your corporation standings would now be +9 for caldari state. NOTE: In either case it takes 7 days before any new members standings are counted into the average, but with the new system you get the full benefit immediately after the 7 days is up rather than it slowly trickling in over a long period of time. ____________________________ I break things. Tanis. Testing Lead EVE Online CCP Games "GM Voodoo > That plan really straddles the fine line between genius and idiocy." "CCP Tanis. > And that differs from everything else I do how?"

Andy Rogerson	Posted - 2008.10.16 17:55:00 - [25] Originally by: CCP Tanis. [snip] Rest assured that characters with neutral (zero) standings will NOT factor into the mix. The formula is still counting the same members it was counting before, we've just cut out a lot of fluff. If you were to think of your corporation standings like a bucket of water the old system filled that bucket one cup at a time where as the new system fills it all in one go. [snip] I hope this alleviates any worries you guys may have had. Yep -- it'll take a bit longer for a contractor to do their thing if you're anchoring in 0.5, but perhaps a bit less in 0.7. Regardless, it's definately an easier system to understand than the old way (too much math). I guess I was just trying to use this as an example to suggest that changes in game mechanics (even if it seems like a minor thing and a big performance boost) should at least be mentioned in patch notes or the like. Or maybe I'm just feeling that way because I got chewed out by a user this morning over a bug that we fixed on our website that he was relying on :)
Eraggan Sadarr Phoenix Tribe	Posted - 2008.10.16 17:59:00 - [26] Very nice to have these blogs about what really happens in the need for speed initiative. Keep up the good work Eve Market Scanner
Imhothar Xarodit Minmatar Wolverine Solutions	Posted - 2008.10.16 18:43:00 - [27] I'm glad you finally took a look at the item handling. But I'm sad it took so long. It was so obvious that it is an issue when you move large batches of items. Too much traffic invovled. Client freezes for minutes or more (if it's really lots of items), refining is the same. The fact the client really freezes up and becomes totally unresponsive (market reload, moving items, refining items, warping into busy grid, populating long GUI lists/tables etc) is something that should be on the top list as well. Honestly, a client freezing as soon as there is much I/O traffic is a serious issue and I hope your performance task force is also looking at client performance. More multithreading, or if Python makes problems (like the GIL), use coroutines or stepwise executable functions, etc. Be creative, there is lots of possibilities Next issue that I would like to mention to show an example: Drag & drop items from container A to container B onto a different stack. Currently the server moves the item into the new container and stacks them AFTERWARDS, resulting in an unnecessary network call that would be handled faster on the sever's side, you can't do anything with the "temporary" item anyway. The morale: if you find call patterns that are always executed in the same order and are composed of already existing calls (like the example of move -> stack), combine them in one single, new call. I hope the guys in that team are educated system optimizers with deep knowledge of the software system. Another thing I was wondering: You can call C API's by Python. And I think most people will agree that native compiled machine code is way faster then any bytecode interpreter can ever be. Do you store frequently used and intensively tested Python code pieces into compiled C code? I assume so, but just in case (really just in case) you don't, any specific reasons?
Jaala Creed Minmatar Eve University Ivy League	Posted - 2008.10.16 19:19:00 - [28] Is the Eve Performance Group also working on InfiniBand? Or is that a different developer group? To continue on that, how is InfiniBand developing? We haven't heard from that for a while and its a VERY promising technology.. Please toss us some bones from that? Thanks, Jaala
adriaans Amarr Ankaa.	Posted - 2008.10.16 19:27:00 - [29] cool blog, keep whipping those hamsters btw, whats the weapon grouping i keep hearing about? -sig- Support the introduction of Blaze M crystals for Amarr!
Tara Yang	Posted - 2008.10.16 19:34:00 - [30] Didn't read the blog yet, and might be a bit of topic altough according to the infamous blog it does have to do with performance. It amazes me that while the infamous ghost training blog thread got ignored by almost everyone from CCP and no comments from CCP's side this thread already has more comments by CCP members then I can Count (well probebly could count it but i'm lazy). Hope this reply doesn't get delete (or gets lost any other wat)

TornSoul BIG Libertas Fidelitas	Posted - 2008.10.16 19:44:00 - [31] Quote: We want to make it handle things in batches rather than as single items. Basically if you move items from one place to another, trade items, etc. the system moves these objects one at a time and makes a call to the server, then back to the client for each item. It is, of course, more efficient to move those items in batches so that the number of calls between the server and client is reduced Identifying those areas of the game and getting it batched up, will easily be the one largest improvement area you can find. We had similar issues with the application I work with at work. Going from single item to batched calls, gave us a ~50 times (5000%) improvement on those particular (DB) operations (also using MS SQL). So start digging for those where ever you can find them! BIG Lottery
IR Scoutar Caldari State War Academy	Posted - 2008.10.16 20:38:00 - [32] hmmm my view interesting blog improvement to code etc is an ongoing thing and a must anyways so no special praise just a good job IF it works on tq
Franga NQX Innovations	Posted - 2008.10.16 20:53:00 - [33] This is some tasty crap. I don't understand all of it (/me would love to have more of a technical understanding of things), but nevertheless, always interesting stuff. ----------
Trebor Daehdoow Gallente LEAP Corp Ursa Stellar Initiative	Posted - 2008.10.16 21:27:00 - [34] If I might make a humble suggestion, why not post a list of the top 10 or 20 areas where you are looking for better algorithms to improve performance. Given the number of programmers who play EVE, the chances are good that someone's run into a similar problem and might have an insight that would be really helpful. Sure, 99% of the time, the suggestions will be things you've thought of, or that aren't applicable to your particular environment, but every so often, you'll find a diamond in the turds. There's a ton of bizarre algorithms out there, most of them invented in the '60s and now buried somewhere deep in one of the early volumes of Knuth, that you'll never know about unless someone points you at them. If you've got an order n*2 bottleneck and someone knows an obscure tape-sorting algorithm that can be adapted to make it order n log n, or even linear, that's a huge win. World Domination - It's fun for the entire family!* EViE - The iPhone / iPod Touch Skill Training Monitor
Dmian Gallente The Scope	Posted - 2008.10.16 21:28:00 - [35] Great blog and incredible work by you guys! ---- Eve Alpha - The font of Eve - Get it here
Haradgrim Tyrell Corp INTERDICTION	Posted - 2008.10.16 21:34:00 - [36] So....does this have anything to do with Tanis. dropping sov in the Jove region? -- Originally by: CCP Oveur ...every forum whine feels like a baby pony is getting killed
WachinDaGame DrinkinABud	Posted - 2008.10.17 02:34:00 - [37] If we could sort out loot by META LEVEL then we could reprocess all our loot in one operation rather than picking them out individually. Combine this with batch operations and you have efficiency.

CCP Tanis.	Posted - 2008.10.17 09:01:00 - [38] Originally by: Andy Rogerson Originally by: CCP Tanis. [snip] Rest assured that characters with neutral (zero) standings will NOT factor into the mix. The formula is still counting the same members it was counting before, we've just cut out a lot of fluff. If you were to think of your corporation standings like a bucket of water the old system filled that bucket one cup at a time where as the new system fills it all in one go. [snip] I hope this alleviates any worries you guys may have had. Yep -- it'll take a bit longer for a contractor to do their thing if you're anchoring in 0.5, but perhaps a bit less in 0.7. Regardless, it's definately an easier system to understand than the old way (too much math). I guess I was just trying to use this as an example to suggest that changes in game mechanics (even if it seems like a minor thing and a big performance boost) should at least be mentioned in patch notes or the like. Or maybe I'm just feeling that way because I got chewed out by a user this morning over a bug that we fixed on our website that he was relying on :) Changes to mechanics generally are in teh patch notes; however the patch notes for the next expansion haven't even been released yet. ____________________________ I break things. Tanis. Testing Lead EVE Online CCP Games "GM Voodoo > That plan really straddles the fine line between genius and idiocy." "CCP Tanis. > And that differs from everything else I do how?"

Eldar Boon	Posted - 2008.10.17 09:05:00 - [39] The Dev Blog mentions that NPC will have a greater alpha strike while maintaining the DPS. This, in theory, sounds fine, but often in missions large numbers of NPCs will spawn and open fire similtainiously. This could result in a ship, that could normally absorb the DPS, unable to deal with the alpha strike of a spawning mob. I can understand that CCP don't want to change the balance of missions, but a rebalancing of missions seems long over due? By their very nature, missions create lag, as players flock to the most popular systems. Would a simple change, like increasing the number of systems a player has to travel for a mission eleviate the problem? If batching of calls to the DB has a dramatic effect on lag, will CCP be looking at altering game mechanics to enable batching? One example could be the jumping of fleets through a jumpgate.

CCP Tanis.	Posted - 2008.10.17 09:49:00 - [40] Originally by: Eldar Boon Edited by: Eldar Boon on 17/10/2008 09:09:59 The Dev Blog mentions that NPC will have a greater alpha strike while maintaining the DPS. This, in theory, sounds fine, but often in missions large numbers of NPCs will spawn and open fire similtainiously. This could result in a ship, that could normally absorb the DPS, unable to deal with the alpha strike of a spawning mob. I can understand that CCP don't want to change the balance of missions, but a rebalancing of missions does seem long overdue. By their very nature, missions create lag, as players flock to the most popular systems. Would a simple change, like increasing the number of systems a player has to travel for a mission eleviate the problem? If batching of calls to the DB has a dramatic effect on lag, will CCP be looking at altering game mechanics to enable batching? One example could be the jumping of fleets through a jumpgate. Perhaps even a jump queue where a busy jumpgate batches players jumping through. As I'd mentioned in my blog, for the NPC ROF changes we're carefully testing the changes to ensure that the missions and encounter sites will still not suddenly be claiming more ships than they should. We've pulled in our mission testing expert just for this because we wanted to be sure we're not throwing off the balance. We would not likely be changing the number of jumps to get to the missions as that would have a lot of negative effects; missions would take longer, mission running would become less profitable, bonus times would go out of whack, etc. This is a perfect example for why we spend so much time researching and investigating a variety of possible solutions then test them to be sure that what we end up putting out will do what we want it to without any really nasty side-effects. ____________________________ I break things. Tanis. Testing Lead EVE Online CCP Games "GM Voodoo > That plan really straddles the fine line between genius and idiocy." "CCP Tanis. > And that differs from everything else I do how?"


Daan Sai Polytrope	Posted - 2008.10.17 10:35:00 - [41] Awesome work folks! Maybe when you get some DB access bandwidth freed up we might be able to look at the whole BPO/BPC facorting and normalisation, so we can oneday telll them apart in the client UI.
Eldar Boon	Posted - 2008.10.17 11:07:00 - [42] Originally by: CCP Tanis. As I'd mentioned in my blog, for the NPC ROF changes we're carefully testing the changes to ensure that the missions and encounter sites will still not suddenly be claiming more ships than they should. We've pulled in our mission testing expert just for this because we wanted to be sure we're not throwing off the balance. We would not likely be changing the number of jumps to get to the missions as that would have a lot of negative effects; missions would take longer, mission running would become less profitable, bonus times would go out of whack, etc. This is a perfect example for why we spend so much time researching and investigating a variety of possible solutions then test them to be sure that what we end up putting out will do what we want it to without any really nasty side-effects. Thanks for the response. Small changes can have dramatic effect as the infamous "butterfly effect" would suggest; so it's great that so much time is invested in testing to making sure these performance improvements have no nasty side-effects. I was wondering about performance improvements that would have a beneficial side-effect to the way the game is played, like weapon grouping for example. Surely a more holistic approach where changes could be made to the way the game is played, in tandem with performance improvements, would see far greater benefits. I used mission running as an example because I see any game mechanic that encourages players to flock to a single point (where the network effect is not beneficial, due to missioning being a largely solo occupation) as a bad thing. In this case, performance improvements may alleviate the lag, but they don't resolve the underlying problem. Is this something that can be discussed with your mission testing experts?
Jufi Wekior Arachnid Logistics Fate Weavers	Posted - 2008.10.17 11:16:00 - [43] Originally by: CCP Tanis. Originally by: Eldar Boon ... As I'd mentioned in my blog, for the NPC ROF changes we're carefully testing the changes to ensure that the missions and encounter sites will still not suddenly be claiming more ships than they should. We've pulled in our mission testing expert just for this because we wanted to be sure we're not throwing off the balance. We would not likely be changing the number of jumps to get to the missions as that would have a lot of negative effects; missions would take longer, mission running would become less profitable, bonus times would go out of whack, etc. This is a perfect example for why we spend so much time researching and investigating a variety of possible solutions then test them to be sure that what we end up putting out will do what we want it to without any really nasty side-effects. Has there been any consideration on making NPC's stronger but less numerous in missions, such as halving the number of NPC's but each NPC being worth twice they were previously? It has always irked me that a capsuleer can take on half a dozen NPC BS's(and support) at once and not break a sweat. Capsuleers are powerfull but such a humongous difference is unrealistic to me. After all why would the NPC's still bother fighting with capsuleers lined up to take potshots at them for monies if they lose bs by the dozen per mission? Not to mention that supposedly not all systems on a capsule-fitted bs are directly controlled by the pilot but still have crew operating them.
Kody Apollo Eve University Ivy League	Posted - 2008.10.17 11:39:00 - [44] Originally by: CCP Tanis. New system: * ALL members who have non-neutral standings are counted After the new member has been in corp for 7 days or more your corporation standings would now be +9 for Caldari state. When you say non-neutral do you mean that anyone with corp standing over 0.5 standing? I've noticed there's quite a few people that have less than 0.1 standing with various corps. I'm curious whether you're planning on doing it by true neutral standing or just standings listed as "neutral". This will effect whether it's possible to get jump clones for some of the larger alliances with many members often with 0.01 standing with various corps. I imagine the calculations may be a little bit less if you ignore standings that are fairly close to 0, since many people tend to run a single mission with a corp then never return.

CCP Ytterbium	Posted - 2008.10.17 11:48:00 - [45] Originally by: Jufi Wekior Has there been any consideration on making NPC's stronger but less numerous in missions, such as halving the number of NPC's but each NPC being worth twice they were previously? It has always irked me that a capsuleer can take on half a dozen NPC BS's(and support) at once and not break a sweat. Capsuleers are powerfull but such a humongous difference is unrealistic to me. After all why would the NPC's still bother fighting with capsuleers lined up to take potshots at them for monies if they lose bs by the dozen per mission? Not to mention that supposedly not all systems on a capsule-fitted bs are directly controlled by the pilot but still have crew operating them. Of couse there has been, but as I said in my previous reply on that thread, such a change is not that easy to come up with. We know quite well that NPCs in general are too predictable in their behavior and would like to change that in the future. Just reducing their number and increasing their flat DPS is not the way to go since it does not solve the core problem. Examples on making NPCs less predictable would be to have them focus on player logistic ships first, sensor boost/repair each other, call for reinforcements, try to escape if outnumbered or change ammunition type to exploit a player tank weak resist hole. But again, this is a very delicate mechanism to tamper with since a NPC which may be entertaining for you may prove to be impossible to come up with for other pilots with different skills or experience. It all matters on where and how you meet the NPC in question (mission, asteroid encounter, exploration complex...) and what is the overall difficulty supposed to be for that encounter.

Viilaa Caldari OH Corp	Posted - 2008.10.17 11:50:00 - [46] Originally by: Kody Apollo When you say non-neutral do you mean that anyone with corp standing over 0.5 standing? Non-neutral... anyone with a standing that is not 0 - whether positive or negative. And to reply to someone who posted earlier - I believe Corp Standings will be calculated daily at DT just like they are now, but they will only count characters with non-0 standings and that have been in the corp 7 days. So standing will still change daily, but new members joining the corp will not effect the standings for a week. Viilaa

CCP Tanis.	Posted - 2008.10.17 11:59:00 - [47] I'll answer your questions in turn... Originally by: Jufi Wekior Has there been any consideration on making NPC's stronger but less numerous in missions, such as halving the number of NPC's but each NPC being worth twice they were previously? It has always irked me that a capsuleer can take on half a dozen NPC BS's(and support) at once and not break a sweat. Capsuleers are powerfull but such a humongous difference is unrealistic to me. After all why would the NPC's still bother fighting with capsuleers lined up to take potshots at them for monies if they lose bs by the dozen per mission? Not to mention that supposedly not all systems on a capsule-fitted bs are directly controlled by the pilot but still have crew operating them. We've looked into it, yes; however, in order to reduce the number of NPCs we would have to re-balance every mission in game for damage, alpha strike, bounties, payout, time to complete the mission, etc. which is an obscenely massive undertaking. We know that we can get "more bang for our buck", eg. more performance boost, if we focus our efforts on other types of changes. we would have to re-balance every mission in game for damage, alpha strike, bounties, payout, time to complete the mission, etc. which is an obscenely massive undertaking. We know that we can get "more bang for our buck", eg. more performance boost, if we focus our efforts on other types of changes. Originally by: Eldar Boon Thanks for the response. Small changes can have dramatic effect as the infamous "butterfly effect" would suggest; so it's great that so much time is invested in testing to making sure these performance improvements have no nasty side-effects. I was wondering about performance improvements that would have a beneficial side-effect to the way the game is played, like weapon grouping for example. Surely a more holistic approach where changes could be made to the way the game is played, in tandem with performance improvements, would see far greater benefits. I used mission running as an example because I see any game mechanic that encourages players to flock to a single point (where the network effect is not beneficial, due to missioning being a largely solo occupation) as a bad thing. In this case, performance improvements may alleviate the lag, but they don't resolve the underlying problem. Is this something that can be discussed with your mission testing experts? That is exactly what we are already doing with regard to issues like with mission-hubs. We know that there are a number of factors that cause people to "herd" into these areas and as a result we must find a solution that addresses many of these factors well enough to achieve our desired results. Unfortunately identifying and understanding all of those factors takes time and a lot of investigating so it can be very time consuming to find a solution, much less a good solution. In order to best attack these kinds of problems; we are making changes in iterations, or stages. This approach allows us to make more frequent but smaller changes which would have less chances of negative side-effects and then continue building upon things until we've gotten to where we are happy with things. ____________________________ I break things. Tanis. Testing Lead EVE Online CCP Games "GM Voodoo > That plan really straddles the fine line between genius and idiocy." "CCP Tanis. > And that differs from everything else I do how?"


CCP Tanis.	Posted - 2008.10.17 12:01:00 - [48] Bah, silly character limit has pwned my reply :( Originally by: Kody Apollo When you say non-neutral do you mean that anyone with corp standing over 0.5 standing? I've noticed there's quite a few people that have less than 0.1 standing with various corps. I'm curious whether you're planning on doing it by true neutral standing or just standings listed as "neutral". This will effect whether it's possible to get jump clones for some of the larger alliances with many members often with 0.01 standing with various corps. I imagine the calculations may be a little bit less if you ignore standings that are fairly close to 0, since many people tend to run a single mission with a corp then never return. By "non-neutral" I mean anyone who has a standing that NOT equal to zero. Basically 0.1 -> 10.0 as well as -10.0 -> -0.1. So any standing that has changed from the default value. ____________________________ I break things. Tanis. Testing Lead EVE Online CCP Games "GM Voodoo > That plan really straddles the fine line between genius and idiocy." "CCP Tanis. > And that differs from everything else I do how?"

Dee Carson Caldari Eve University Ivy League	Posted - 2008.10.17 12:52:00 - [49] Originally by: CCP Lingorm The calculation goes like this ... get me all the none 0 standings of all members of the corp that have been in the corp 7 days or more. Now calculate the average and set the corp standing to this. Here's our specific situation that I'd like to use as a frame for clarification: Some time in the past, a student of Eve University ran a lot of missions for an NPC corp in a sparsely populated area. He was the only person running missions for this NPC corp. His standings crossed over the magic number to allow him jump clone access. Eve University's corp standing toward this NPC corp followed his personal standing rise until the entire student body had access to these jump clones. The student in question subsequently left Eve University. We put the NPC corp on a "do not mission" list, preserving access to these jump clones (no one running missions = no dilution of the NPC corp standings). In this context then: - Under the proposed changes, do existing Corp standings figure into the calculation at all? - If so, please indicate how. - If not, confirm that in the instance described above, our Corp standing to the NPC corp will go to zero. - Please confirm that your scope for the query to calculate standings is all current members of a corp who have been a member for more than 7 days with non-neutral standings. Regards, Dee Carson Director of Operations Eve University Join channel: "Eve University" for more info.
Hon Kovell Gallente Neh'bu Kau Beh'Hude Ushra'Khan	Posted - 2008.10.17 12:53:00 - [50] What is the problem caused by NPC load? It seems that it would be spread evenly throughout the day rather than having any big spikes. Are you aiming to reduce that constant load or are there situations where the load peaks and causes a problem itself? More generally, do you have a focus on constant or peak load and tools to see the difference (other than servers dying)? Oh, and do you have tools to find related processes causing problems? i.e. no single process is a problem but there's a group that will happen at the same time and together cause problems. You would have to be careful with that last one. It might lead to reducing load by automatically combining processes like activating stargate, destroying ship, moving player to clone bay and activating new pod.

M1AU Gallente	Posted - 2008.10.17 14:36:00 - [51] Another technical dev-blog and AGAIN nothing new about the long time promised Linux and MacOSX client dev-blog. >:(
Earthican	Posted - 2008.10.17 16:22:00 - [52] Originally by: WachinDaGame DrinkinABud If we could sort out loot by META LEVEL then we could reprocess all our loot in one operation rather than picking them out individually. Combine this with batch operations and you have efficiency. Devs please respond to this awesome suggestion. It would also improve gameplay when it comes to sorting through tonnes of crap items while fitting ships.
Dakisha D00M. Triumvirate.	Posted - 2008.10.17 17:18:00 - [53] Originally by: Jaala Creed Is the Eve Performance Group also working on InfiniBand? Or is that a different developer group? To continue on that, how is InfiniBand developing? We haven't heard from that for a while and its a VERY promising technology.. Please toss us some bones from that? Thanks, Jaala

CCP Tanis.	Posted - 2008.10.17 19:21:00 - [54] Originally by: Dee Carson ... Here's our specific situation that I'd like to use as a frame for clarification: Some time in the past, a student of Eve University ran a lot of missions for an NPC corp in a sparsely populated area. He was the only person running missions for this NPC corp. His standings crossed over the magic number to allow him jump clone access. Eve University's corp standing toward this NPC corp followed his personal standing rise until the entire student body had access to these jump clones. The student in question subsequently left Eve University. We put the NPC corp on a "do not mission" list, preserving access to these jump clones (no one running missions = no dilution of the NPC corp standings). In this context then: - Under the proposed changes, do existing Corp standings figure into the calculation at all? - If so, please indicate how. - If not, confirm that in the instance described above, our Corp standing to the NPC corp will go to zero. - Please confirm that your scope for the query to calculate standings is all current members of a corp who have been a member for more than 7 days with non-neutral standings. Because the corporation standings would always follow the average of it's current members' standings; once a pilot leaves the corporation, the corporation's standings would be lowered if his standings were higher than the average. This may prove an annoyance for some of the smaller corporations; however it gives a pretty significant edge to folks who sell their services to boost a corp's standings making a persons standings a more valuable commodity both to the pilots and the corporations who could benefit from their services. In the end, we feel it is a much better solution. ____________________________ I break things. Tanis. Testing Lead EVE Online CCP Games "GM Voodoo > That plan really straddles the fine line between genius and idiocy." "CCP Tanis. > And that differs from everything else I do how?"

Dee Carson Caldari Eve University Ivy League	Posted - 2008.10.17 19:47:00 - [55] Originally by: CCP Tanis. Because the corporation standings would always follow the average of it's current members' standings; once a pilot leaves the corporation, the corporation's standings would be lowered if his standings were higher than the average. Just so I'm 100% clear. You are saying that existing Corp standings are no longer included in the calculation at all? THX DC Join channel: "Eve University" for more info.
Hon Kovell Gallente Neh'bu Kau Beh'Hude Ushra'Khan	Posted - 2008.10.18 02:26:00 - [56] Originally by: CCP Tanis. Because the bulk of the issue was when NPCs were engaged in combat and the fact that NPCs only spawn when players are in a system, to save on load; this issue would become more severe as more players log in to the server by simple virtue of more people being around to kill them or cause them to spawn in the first place. I did assume that the load would change like that. I was thinking that it was spread across Eve in thousands of locations spread through the day (peaking as players cause them to spawn) as opposed to all spiking in the one spot or at the same time. You answered me anyway with the rest of your response, though, thank you. Originally by: CCP Tanis. We use a wide variety of tools in our investigation. Because the problems we are tackling almost always have several contributing factors; we must look at a wide variety of information to get the best picture we can about the problem. Our tools cover the entire field from hardware monitors to specialized pieces of code injected into the server or client code, for testing, to trace an issue. We may or may not focus on a particular system or peak/off-peak behavior depending on the situation. We create a list of "top issues" based on petitions, bug reports, player feedback, monitoring data, server trends, and a myriad of other sources. We then begin prioritizing and researching the issues to determine what is most critical and also which issues are affecting the most people. Thank you for your reply.
Chainsaw Plankton IDLE GUNS IDLE EMPIRE	Posted - 2008.10.18 08:10:00 - [57] Originally by: CCP Ytterbium Originally by: Batolemaeus On the Npc changes: Of course, reducing rof for npcs is easier for you guys, just run a script that reduces rof and increases damage. <insert one-line-of-code joke here> But please also poke the mission design team about it. I'm pretty sure reducing the numbers of those npc, and increasing their damage potential, will free up a lot more ressources. We are aware of this situation and you bring up a good point here. The problem remains it is far less easy than it sounds to change, since reducing NPC numbers means balancing bounties/loot to keep rewards on the same level. Also, plain increase in damage is not the best way to go since a mission that may be easy for a veteran pilot with skills and experience may turn horribly difficult for a relatively new character. 5 rats doing 100 dps each, total 500 dps 2 rats doing 250 dps each, total 500 dps less server calculations, less red blinky craping out older computers. I don't see how this could bone noobs. npc loot tables are messed up anyways, Might as well make a broad sweeping change to npc mechanics (it seems to work for the nano nerf) miner I's from battleship rats, and 1mn microwarp drives. and at the same time 5 or so 1.2mil bs rats can be tanked no problem with 1 rep and 4 hardeners. (empire versions the 0.0 version would be the 1.8 mil bs) of course you can't just up damage if you want to keep missions of the same difficulty. (well probably you should as level 4 missions are ludicrously easy (if nano speeds are ludicrously fast missions are like 10x ludicrous easy)) people saying you only need like 300 dps tanked in eft to do level 4s? seriously?
Chainsaw Plankton IDLE GUNS IDLE EMPIRE	Posted - 2008.10.18 08:29:00 - [58] Originally by: CCP Tanis. Originally by: Eldar Boon Thanks for the response. Small changes can have dramatic effect as the infamous "butterfly effect" would suggest; so it's great that so much time is invested in testing to making sure these performance improvements have no nasty side-effects. I was wondering about performance improvements that would have a beneficial side-effect to the way the game is played, like weapon grouping for example. Surely a more holistic approach where changes could be made to the way the game is played, in tandem with performance improvements, would see far greater benefits. I used mission running as an example because I see any game mechanic that encourages players to flock to a single point (where the network effect is not beneficial, due to missioning being a largely solo occupation) as a bad thing. In this case, performance improvements may alleviate the lag, but they don't resolve the underlying problem. Is this something that can be discussed with your mission testing experts? That is exactly what we are already doing with regard to issues like with mission-hubs. We know that there are a number of factors that cause people to "herd" into these areas and as a result we must find a solution that addresses many of these factors well enough to achieve our desired results. Unfortunately identifying and understanding all of those factors takes time and a lot of investigating so it can be very time consuming to find a solution, much less a good solution. In order to best attack these kinds of problems; we are making changes in iterations, or stages. This approach allows us to make more frequent but smaller changes which would have less chances of negative side-effects and then continue building upon things until we've gotten to where we are happy with things. quality 18 level 4 agent + sec 0.5 -> mission hub given that 1.0-0.5 all has concord intervention that risk does not scale anywhere near the way rewards scale for the change in sec status. that and the agents are supposed to give out missions from the same pool. I did a lower quality agent in a higher sec system and the lp drop was just not worth the decrease in lag (which wasn't that noticeable, occasionally yes I have some problems like it takes 2 seconds to change mods rather than 1) if the agent is near lowsec forget it. If I have to turn down a mission every few missions that makes the agent worthless. and if it is with a desirable corp oh god the people there caldari navy anyone? (why so many people choose cn I have no idea) normalizing agent rewards and boosting rewards based on sec range (sec >= .5, .4>=sec>=.1, sec<= 0.0) rather than sec (1.0 , .9, ... , .1, 0.0) agent quality is just confusing and I see many noobs going well I hvae a q20 agent I should be getting nothing but worlds collide/blockade right? but I keep getting crappy courier missions and 100k bounty missions, wtf?
mr dragothur	Posted - 2008.10.18 10:18:00 - [59] i wonder if you guys switch to newly advanced 64bit stuf you know about the direct x 10 problems and all the older harwareissues it might give? old stuf dont work well with new stuf allso shaders will cause allot of problems i think and 1 more thing is will someone with a slow connection slow the whole deal on this cluster or doesnt it affexct the overall preformance? i got a rly fast computer and i notice that the market must have allot of issues in it cus when i start market my whole screeen freeze about 3 sec to fetch info that cant be right well i mean i can understand why a node would crash if allot would do that sugest to remove market when you fly and only usable when docked naa thats an excuse i think the market is rly a uge problem well at least to me. duno why i write this but i wasa reading the logs hehe just expressing my thoughts good luck on youre amazing works
Clansworth Burning Sky Labs Libertas Fidelitas	Posted - 2008.10.18 16:50:00 - [60] Regarding the Faction -> Corp standings changes: I understand that a new member will have to wait 7 days before his standings are counted towards the average, but what about existing member's leaving? As i understand it, that would take effect immediately (well, next DT)? For instance, A corp has a couple guys with +7 or greater faction standing, they want to anchor a POS in 0.6. All corp members who DON'T have the base standings >6 leave the corp. After Downtime, the corp standings would already be high enough to anchor. This would actually allow corps to anchor high-sec POS's in 2 days in most cases (24hr role removal, then wait or next DT for new calculation), instead of the 10-11 days as before. POS Personal Storage

Clansworth Burning Sky Labs Libertas Fidelitas	Posted - 2008.10.18 16:51:00 - [61] Originally by: mr dragothur i wonder if you guys switch to newly advanced 64bit stuf you know about the direct x 10 problems and all the older harwareissues it might give? old stuf dont work well with new stuf allso shaders will cause allot of problems i think... As far as I know, they are working on putting 64-bit on the server, not the client. And there are no shaders/directx on the server... POS Personal Storage

CCP Tanis.	Posted - 2008.10.19 10:49:00 - [62] Originally by: Clansworth Originally by: mr dragothur i wonder if you guys switch to newly advanced 64bit stuf you know about the direct x 10 problems and all the older harwareissues it might give? old stuf dont work well with new stuf allso shaders will cause allot of problems i think... As far as I know, they are working on putting 64-bit on the server, not the client. And there are no shaders/directx on the server... That is correct. The change to 64bit was a server-side only change so anything in the client would remain unchanged. Currently our graphics engine, even the premium version is compatible with Direct X 9c rather than DX 10, so DX 10 compatibility issues would not affect EVE unless it is also an issue with DX9. As for your previous question about corp standings.. yes a corp's standings would decrease the during the DT immediately after a person leaves your corp. If you think about it, when the person who caused the standings to be a certain way leaves, the standings would need to adjust as a result. This works both ways too, meaning that when people with negative standing leave, it updates after the next DT, otherwise a corporation would be getting a unfair boost or hit to their standings. ____________________________ I break things. Tanis. Testing Lead EVE Online CCP Games "GM Voodoo > That plan really straddles the fine line between genius and idiocy." "CCP Tanis. > And that differs from everything else I do how?"

Clansworth Burning Sky Labs Libertas Fidelitas	Posted - 2008.10.19 16:59:00 - [63] Originally by: CCP Tanis. If you think about it, when the person who caused the standings to be a certain way leaves, the standings would need to adjust as a result. This works both ways too, meaning that when people with negative standing leave, it updates after the next DT, otherwise a corporation would be getting a unfair boost or hit to their standings. I was just verifying that tha is how the new scheme will work (as the old one, the standings would still have to do the slow adjust over time thing). Basically, now, bad standing corp members only have to be out of the corp for a single downtime, and the corp would have 7 days to anchor the towers they want? Bad characters leave on Day 1, Day 2 DT corp standings reflect those that remain, bad standing characters can rejoin, and the corp standings will not reflect their rejoining for 7 days, giving plenty of time to anchor towers, without the need to keep people out of the corp. Convenient, though, IMO, too easy. POS Personal Storage
Bahagan The Underpants Gnomes Deep Space Engineering	Posted - 2008.10.19 23:49:00 - [64] Originally by: CCP Tanis. Edited by: CCP Tanis. on 17/10/2008 11:36:33 [Edit:Updated info below] Rest assured that characters with neutral (zero) standings will NOT factor into the mix. The formula is still counting the same members it was counting before, we've just cut out a lot of fluff. If you were to think of your corporation standings like a bucket of water the old system filled that bucket one cup at a time where as the new system fills it all in one go. Example: You have a corporation with 1 member, who is neutral to everyone. You then have someone join who is at +9 to Caldari state. Old system: * Only standings that have changed within the last ten days are counted Your corporations standings would update slowly, after 1 week and 1 day they might be +1, after another day +1.5, then +2, and so on until it finally catches up with what the average value actually is. New system: * ALL non-neutral standings are counted (This might be changed back) After the new member has been in corp for 7 days or more your corporation standings would now be +9 for Caldari state. As you can see; with the new system you get the full benefits of your standings immediately after the waiting period rather than it slowly changing over a long period of time as it does on TQ right now. Hopefully you guys share our opinion that the new way is clearly better. NOTE: In either case it takes 7 days before any new members standings are counted into the average, but with the new system you get the full benefit immediately after the 7 days is up rather than it slowly trickling in over a long period of time. I hope this alleviates any worries you guys may have had. In the old way, the higher your standings are, the faster they move. I know for a fact that with 9.2 faction standing, a 7 to the corp is acheived in 4 days. So the new way is going to take almost twice as long. From our FAQ about standings, they generally follow this word problem; Q: How are a player corporation's standings towards a given faction determined? A: A corporation's standings towards a given faction will trend towards the average of all corp members standings to that faction. At each downtime, if the corp's current standing to said faction is not equal to the member's average standing, it will drift by an amount equal to 25% of the difference between the current and destination standing. One exception to this is if the corp has a neutral standing toward said faction at downtime then the standing will do a one-time jump of 44%. Each downtime after that will be the usual 25% drift. Also note that corp members who have truly neutral faction standings have no effect on a corp's faction standings. The new change will make it to where there is no reason to raise faction standings in order to make corps faster. We will all be limited to 1 a week, no matter what the desired standing is. The nerf bat hurts. Amarr/Caldari Corp Standings by The Underpants Gnomes
Bahagan The Underpants Gnomes Deep Space Engineering	Posted - 2008.10.20 01:41:00 - [65] Had another thought, and why the tweaking to faction standing gains? I was under the impression that they changed at downtime. The changes do nothing for lag or speed of play. Will downtime be shorter from this change? I'm still trying to find the benefit. Now it seems there is no competition, and the playing feild is leveled - from a supplier's standpoint. And from a buyer's standpoint, the 4+ standings that could be had in 1 day(downtime) for a relatively cheap price will now take 7 days(downtimes), and price... who knows what the day rate will be now. Now, your note at the end of that quote, Quote: "NOTE: In either case it takes 7 days before any new members standings are counted into the average, but with the new system you get the full benefit immediately after the 7 days is up rather than it slowly trickling in over a long period of time." , makes more sense changing it to the "old" (but wrong) system. 7 days for the standings to start to take effect, but working off the same timers keeps the market alive. Less corps with high sec access will be produced each month, keeping the entry into high sec pos production high, and might even drive more people to low sec POSs out of convience. One more comparison, you might as well take level 5 skills out of the game, and after anyone trains up to have the level 1 in the skill, they have access to all the benefits of the skill immediately. Or, even better, take all the levels out and everybody just trains at the level 5 training times. That will cut down on all those short skills that are sure to create lag when they finish. Sorry to bust your balls CCP, I'll keep playing even if you do mess up my buisness, but I won't be very happy. Amarr/Caldari Corp Standings by The Underpants Gnomes
Lazuran Gallente Aliastra	Posted - 2008.10.20 14:49:00 - [66] Edited by: Lazuran on 20/10/2008 14:49:05 Nice, but a little late. Seems like the "EVE Performance Group" was started or became effective after about 2 years of screaming that lag was unbearable. Let's hope it continues to be more than just some meaningless meme like "need for speed".
Bahagan The Underpants Gnomes Deep Space Engineering	Posted - 2008.10.20 17:47:00 - [67] The standing trickle could possibly be from the bug about looking at your own standings. This bug does indeed make it look like it takes forever for the standings to raise. The work around is too look at the standings with another character outside the corporation being built. We'd be happy to help answer any other faction standing questions, and would even be willing to create a corporation at a special CCP rate. Just let us know. Amarr/Caldari Corp Standings by The Underpants Gnomes
Miscellaneous Agent Caldari	Posted - 2008.10.21 06:49:00 - [68] Edited by: Miscellaneous Agent on 21/10/2008 06:53:22 Originally by: CCP Tanis. Edited by: CCP Tanis. on 17/10/2008 11:36:33 [Edit:Updated info below] Isn't this something you felt you should announce or at least think about a little bit? A non-announced change to a mechanic that certain players rely on in the game? Talk about a nerf -- those people selling their services as "standings-raisers" are SOL. No longer will they just be able to join a corp that the owner has left a 0-standings alt in, run a storyline and wait a couple of days -- they're completely unable to do their job unless their client completely leaves the corp (as the 0-standings alt will apparently count in the standings now), which means that they now have to build up trust where previously game mechanics protected their client (the standings-raiser needed no rights under the old system, and now has to be basically the only character in the corp). Any other game mechanics that are being changed without bothering to tell us in the name of "performance"? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but being mentioned as a specific example in a performance blog isn't exactly an announcment... Rest assured that characters with neutral (zero) standings will NOT factor into the mix. The formula is still counting the same members it was counting before, we've just cut out a lot of fluff. If you were to think of your corporation standings like a bucket of water the old system filled that bucket one cup at a time where as the new system fills it all in one go. Example: You have a corporation with 1 member, who is neutral to everyone. You then have someone join who is at +9 to Caldari state. Old system: * Only standings that have changed within the last ten days are counted Your corporations standings would update slowly, after 1 week and 1 day they might be +1, after another day +1.5, then +2, and so on until it finally catches up with what the average value actually is. New system: * ALL non-neutral standings are counted (This might be changed back) After the new member has been in corp for 7 days or more your corporation standings would now be +9 for Caldari state. As you can see; with the new system you get the full benefits of your standings immediately after the waiting period rather than it slowly changing over a long period of time as it does on TQ right now. Hopefully you guys share our opinion that the new way is clearly better. NOTE: In either case it takes 7 days before any new members standings are counted into the average, but with the new system you get the full benefit immediately after the 7 days is up rather than it slowly trickling in over a long period of time. I hope this alleviates any worries you guys may have had. CCP Tanis and CCP Lingorm, I'm afraid I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with your reasoning. I am one of those who make a living in Eve by offering my services to increase corp standings. I've worked quite hard on my standings and can enable a corp to anchor a POS in .5 space in 2 days, .6 in 3 days and .7 in 4 days. You can't anchor a POS in .8 or higher space, so in your example, how is it useful for a Corp CEO to have standings of 9+? I fail to see how "the new way is clearly better" for people in my industry, or people hiring us to perform this task. Regards, Miscellaneous Agent (sorry about the yellow text, the quote somehow got messed up and I wanted to separate my comments from others)
Cowboy Spurs	Posted - 2008.10.21 06:59:00 - [69] This may be the wrong place, but I have a few suggestions on things that seem to lag the game. * Better item storage so less item loading needed at stations. This hopefully will put less strain on the server. * Graphics option to disable display picture generation. This lags the client. Displaying inventory at stations probably puts load on the server whenever someone docks and they have 600+ items not in cans. Either they're mission runners, traders or industrialists. I think all those items don't need to be loaded if there was better item storage solutions. One solution is to provide multiple item tabs in stations. Then default the display to the first item tab. Players will probably put the majority of the items in the 2nd or 3rd item tab which won't get loaded most of the time since it's mainly storage. Now when players dock it will only load 20 items rather than 600+. Adding station containers without locking and an audit log will encourage players to use them. The item locking is a painful feature. Items will sometimes randomly lock when you put them into the container too fast even when the container is set to not lock items. Once I accidentally forgot to turn locking off and had to spend 10 minutes unlocking 600+ items. Also the audit log of station containers prevents you from repackaging/trashing the container which is an annoying feature. Having station containers without audit logs/locking won't solve the problem of remote sellers being unable to sell items from containers. Another thing is having to open containers before being able to drop items in. Regularly I have to open the container wait 5 seconds for the container to load then drop items in then close it. Adding the ability to drop items in a container (or item tab if implemented) without opening it will reduce the need to load all the items. There's a client side lag issue with display portraits. My client will lock up for a few seconds when generating character/agent portraits. Also it will lock up sometimes when generating the display pictures of ships or wrecks. It would be much appreciated if there was an option to disable those display pictures in the graphic settings. When running multiple clients the game works better when setting cache size to low. However, there's more display picture regeneration that occurs with a small cache. For the people that go to the effort of having multiple accounts being able to run more of them with less client lag would be appreciated and hopefully will encourage people to keep more accounts. Thanks for listening.
Clansworth Burning Sky Labs Libertas Fidelitas	Posted - 2008.10.21 08:07:00 - [70] Originally by: Miscellaneous Agent CCP Tanis and CCP Lingorm, I'm afraid I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with your reasoning. I am one of those who make a living in Eve by offering my services to increase corp standings. I've worked quite hard on my standings and can enable a corp to anchor a POS in .5 space in 2 days, .6 in 3 days and .7 in 4 days. You can't anchor a POS in .8 or higher space, so in your example, how is it useful for a Corp CEO to have standings of 9+? I fail to see how "the new way is clearly better" for people in my industry, or people hiring us to perform this task. Regards, Miscellaneous Agent (sorry about the yellow text, the quote somehow got messed up and I wanted to separate my comments from others) I'm sorry that your profession has been hurt by this upcoming change, but I still feel this is a good change. It makes it easier for a corp to take care of it's own standings, as a single REAL corp member can get just high enough standings for what they need for the system they want to anchor in, and then the others just have to leave the corp for just over a day. My guess is, CCP, as well as myself, believe that there are too many empire POS's. They engineered the standings requirement system as a method of making it harder to anchor the things, and the current player driven solution is not what they had in mind. That doesn't invalidate your profession, just that you have to realize that depending on providing a work-around is not going to yield long-term benefits. POS Personal Storage

Katana Seiko Gallente	Posted - 2008.10.21 11:17:00 - [71] I like the need for speed - as long as it doesn't break game mechanics... You should add a few team members to assure that whatever you change doesn't need a patch to patch the patch that patched a patch. So far I can tell that your Need for Speed thingy broke the adress book (Group windows are not updating anymore)... More to be uncovered soonÖ. --- "Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign for a diseased mind." -Terry Pratchett
Bahagan The Underpants Gnomes Deep Space Engineering	Posted - 2008.10.21 12:03:00 - [72] Since standing change happens at downtime, where is the improvement to game play? This just seems like change just to change, not change to fix anything. Also this could end up with more empire POSs since it will be possible to easily cycle out active characters to keep the standing high enough to be able to anchor indefinately. There is nothing keeping one character in a corporation from doing his own corporation's standings - he just needs to get everyone to leave - just like he'll have to do in the new way. Brilliant! People love to make their employment history long. Amarr/Caldari Corp Standings by The Underpants Gnomes
Clansworth Burning Sky Labs Libertas Fidelitas	Posted - 2008.10.21 21:19:00 - [73] Originally by: Bahagan Since standing change happens at downtime, where is the improvement to game play? This just seems like change just to change, not change to fix anything. Also this could end up with more empire POSs since it will be possible to easily cycle out active characters to keep the standing high enough to be able to anchor indefinately. There is nothing keeping one character in a corporation from doing his own corporation's standings - he just needs to get everyone to leave - just like he'll have to do in the new way. Brilliant! People love to make their employment history long. This may be true, but I feel it at leat makes more sense to have the standing kept in house, so at least SOMEONE in the corp has to earn the standings. Ultimately, what would make me happy (though I imagine I'm in a minority), would be to punish tower holders that don't maintain the standings required. Perhaps a penalty on fuel usage, or charter usage to keep the tower online. POS Personal Storage
Androvar Drake	Posted - 2008.10.21 22:16:00 - [74] Edited by: Androvar Drake on 21/10/2008 22:18:22 Originally by: CCP Tanis. * ALL non-neutral standings are counted Originally by: CCP Tanis. Because the corporation standings would always follow the average of it's current members' standings; once a pilot leaves the corporation, the corporation's standings would be lowered if his standings were higher than the average. My biggest concern with this right now is the effect this will have on a corp in which: ALL it's members have neutral standings across the board. The corp's standings are currently high (6+) with a faction due to the services of a standings-boosting pilot used in the past (and that pilot has long since left the corp). Since none of the members have done anything to affect their personal standings, keeping them all neutral, the corp's standings are still 6+. In this case, will this change to the standings calculation result in the 6+ standings dropping to 0? To put it another way: You've said that the average standing is only based on corp members that have NON-neutral standings. In the case I've stated above, none of this corp's pilots would be included in the average. With no non-neutral pilots to calculate the average from, would the standings default to 0, or do the corp standings maintain their previous values? Thanks -Androvar Drake
Clansworth Burning Sky Labs Libertas Fidelitas	Posted - 2008.10.22 00:25:00 - [75] Originally by: Androvar Drake My biggest concern with this right now is the effect this will have on a corp in which: ALL it's members have neutral standings across the board. The corp's standings are currently high (6+) with a faction due to the services of a standings-boosting pilot used in the past (and that pilot has long since left the corp). Since none of the members have done anything to affect their personal standings, keeping them all neutral, the corp's standings are still 6+. In this case, will this change to the standings calculation result in the 6+ standings dropping to 0? To put it another way: You've said that the average standing is only based on corp members that have NON-neutral standings. In the case I've stated above, none of this corp's pilots would be included in the average. With no non-neutral pilots to calculate the average from, would the standings default to 0, or do the corp standings maintain their previous values? It would seem that a corp with all 0 standing members, would have a 0 standing itself, regardless of whatever their previous standing WAS due to someone who is no longer there. This is the way that it makes sense to work anyways, isn't it? Originally by: Amarr License Office Well, to be perfectly honest, I don't know anything about ANYONE in your corporation to make a decision on your anchoring rights... however, records show that you did have a guy working with you for about 11 days, over a year and a half ago, and he was an upstanding chap, so I'll just stamp this here permit approved. Really doesn't make a lot of sense to me. POS Personal Storage
Bahagan The Underpants Gnomes Deep Space Engineering	Posted - 2008.10.22 19:01:00 - [76] That's called a grandfather clause. It's why my classic car doesn't need to pass emissions, or more relevant, it's why the guardian vexor can field so many drones. Amarr/Caldari Corp Standings by The Underpants Gnomes
Furion Riddick	Posted - 2008.10.22 21:35:00 - [77] As an Oracle Database expert, you may want to consider using a RAC Oracle database with the configuration of SAN that you have. With a RAC system you'll be able to handle around 20k concurrent connectsion with transactions around 450m+ and adding nodes will increase scalability and access time.
Mikal Drey Minmatar ORIGIN SYSTEMS Atlas Alliance	Posted - 2008.11.02 10:20:00 - [78] hey hey I read somewhere that you guys have been looking at the way items are stacked and coded into the DB and the way the server handles them. out of interest have you looked into ship fitting ? if i have a stack of 8 425mm II's and want to fit them to my ship. i have to right click fit to ship for each turret slot :/ if there was an option to "fit all to ship" would this be helpfull in reducing server loads ?
Vorte X	Posted - 2008.11.02 11:30:00 - [79] Originally by: CCP Lingorm I will double check, but 0 standings characters are not counted in the calculation. And this will make it quicker for the Standings Merc, as after 7 days the increase will be applied completely rather than slowly, taking up to 14 days with the previous trending. The calculation goes like this ... get me all the none 0 standings of all members of the corp that have been in the corp 7 days or more. Now calculate the average and set the corp standing to this. Hope this makes it clearer. I personally agree with some other comments on this thread, it is possible to raise standings for a corp under the current process within 4 DTs (for those who have earned their high faction standings in order to provide this service). This means high standings are rewarded in some way. The current method helps to distinguish the service providers by high standings and hence by the time it takes to deliver. I also fail to see how the proposed changes speed things up, as it seems calculations and checks (for who is included and not included) still occur daily (maybe i am wrong or missing something). Therefore if we had a vote on this i would vote against this particular change. Is there a measure for how things will be better? Statisitics etc. At this stage I am considering most comments as conjecture. My2c
Lawbringer Qtzr	Posted - 2008.11.08 00:38:00 - [80] Edited by: Lawbringer Qtzr on 08/11/2008 00:40:08 Originally by: Vorte X I personally agree with some other comments on this thread, it is possible to raise standings for a corp under the current process within 4 DTs (for those who have earned their high faction standings in order to provide this service). This means high standings are rewarded in some way. The current method helps to distinguish the service providers by high standings and hence by the time it takes to deliver. I also fail to see how the proposed changes speed things up, as it seems calculations and checks (for who is included and not included) still occur daily (maybe i am wrong or missing something). Therefore if we had a vote on this i would vote against this particular change. Is there a measure for how things will be better? Statisitics etc. At this stage I am considering most comments as conjecture. My2c Ill have to agree as well. I know for a fact that 7+ standings can be achieved in 4 days as I provide and have provided such services to multiple clients. This change is going to cripple this industry. Not to mention screw over those of us who have worked hard to get up standings up very high. I also don't see how this has anything to do with server load as the changes don't post tillafter downtime. Which I would then have to deduce that the calculations are done during downtime.

jatkot Caldari North Star Networks Executive Outcomes	Posted - 2008.11.12 12:52:00 - [81] Originally by: CCP Tanis. Originally by: Clansworth Originally by: mr dragothur i wonder if you guys switch to newly advanced 64bit stuf you know about the direct x 10 problems and all the older harwareissues it might give? old stuf dont work well with new stuf allso shaders will cause allot of problems i think... As far as I know, they are working on putting 64-bit on the server, not the client. And there are no shaders/directx on the server... That is correct. The change to 64bit was a server-side only change so anything in the client would remain unchanged. Currently our graphics engine, even the premium version is compatible with Direct X 9c rather than DX 10, so DX 10 compatibility issues would not affect EVE unless it is also an issue with DX9. As for your previous question about corp standings.. yes a corp's standings would decrease the during the DT immediately after a person leaves your corp. If you think about it, when the person who caused the standings to be a certain way leaves, the standings would need to adjust as a result. This works both ways too, meaning that when people with negative standing leave, it updates after the next DT, otherwise a corporation would be getting a unfair boost or hit to their standings. Are you thinking of making a 64-bit client? who can spread the threads on more than one cpu? That would give us more "need for speed".
Braaage Ministry of Craft	Posted - 2008.11.16 13:52:00 - [82] Edited by: Braaage on 16/11/2008 13:52:49 Tanis is this implemented in Quantum Rise as I cannot find anything in the patch notes about it and second question is do you still need to do a storyline mission for the standings to go in after 7 days? Edit - actually is this it? Quote: Various database improvements have been added to allow for optimization of the game engine. These improvements will allow the client to provide a smoother gaming experience for players. This includes changes to Corporation standings which are calculated during downtime.
BATMorpheous Caldari The Bat Empire	Posted - 2008.11.18 16:34:00 - [83] the 'new' standings system is worse than the old one i have personal standings of 7.34 to amarr under the old system i would of been ready to plant pos on saturday (just gone) in a 0.5 system but now after the patch the standings have updated to 2.81 to amarr and have refused to budge since, no matter what i do. the new system is a fail imo put it back how it was at least then we didnt have to wait 7 days to see any progress and im now getting greif from the corp that employed me to do this thank you ccp for making my pleasurable gaming life into a now living nightmare : /
Reemai	Posted - 2008.11.18 20:15:00 - [84] I have the exact same problem. My standings with Gallente: 6.75 My new one man corp standings with Gallente after 9 days: 2.70 Here is the answer from Support: Hello Reemai, In Quantum Rise there were changes made in the game engine, which includes Corporation standings, which are calculated during downtime. You may see a change in how your corporation's standings update, as well as a delay, but they should update after a few days. The corporation's standings will still end up being the average of all corporation member base standings with that NPC. Currently there is an issue with the standings updating properly that is being worked on at this time. I apologize for the inconvenience. Best regards,
Genji Ancient	Posted - 2008.11.19 02:49:00 - [85] Even after 7,8,9 days the standings for the corp are not adjusting. I've done storylines also. I've confirmed with other characters who are knowledgeable about standings and they are experiencing the same result. There's nothing funny: 1 char in a corp for more than 7 days and the standings are not changing. I've petitioned this with no response or result. So: Can you tell me when it will work as the blog stated or will it work as the blog stated?
Mik Nostrebor Minmatar CEO Alliance Reserve Bank 24 Coalition of the ExtraOrdinary	Posted - 2008.11.19 06:12:00 - [86] Ditto to what Genji said. Can we have acknowledgement that there is an issue and, if possible, some indication of when it will be rectified. I have taken deposits from a couple of people who are getting concerned that I have ripped them off! My character's reputation is at stake. A statement from you guys would be really helpful! Thanks, Mik Minmatar/Gallente POS Anchoring Service
Vorte X	Posted - 2008.11.19 12:12:00 - [87] Well I thought i should comment here to say after this DT I found that my clients corp standings had adjusted.
Reemai	Posted - 2008.11.19 13:37:00 - [88] Solved here as well :)
Mik Nostrebor Minmatar CEO Alliance Reserve Bank 24	Posted - 2008.11.20 00:38:00 - [89] I got this reply from the BugHunters. Quote: Thank you for your bugreport - ID:65538 Title: Corp Standing Raise is not working since recent update This problem has already been fixed on internal CCP test servers. When this fix will reach Tranquility is dependant on whether it can be hotfixed, or requires a larger patch.Your bugreport has been filtered. The BugHunter Team They must have done something as the standings havce raised on my current corp! --------------------------------------------------- Minmatar/Gallente POS Anchoring Standing Raise Service
Fergus Runkle Minmatar Truth and Reconciliation Council	Posted - 2008.11.24 14:52:00 - [90] My corps standings have altered today. And try as I might I am unable to work out just what values are being used in the new calculation. The old system was easy "average of all members standings", however the new system doesn't seem to be including any long term inactive characters. If I average those that have logged in sometime in the last seven days then I can match the numbers I see in game. Anyone else noticing something like this ?

grolch	Posted - 2008.11.30 00:47:00 - [91] why after all of the upgrades and patches is the performance of the eve system worse than before. is it me or id everyone think that the new system is more laggy than it was before? I have sat through 3 magor upgrades and non of them seemed to make the system better. Are you guys at ccp just bull****ting us or what.
8Z 6	Posted - 2008.11.30 01:50:00 - [92] im glad im not the only that has noticed this.
Genji Ancient	Posted - 2008.12.28 16:34:00 - [93] Thank you for your bug report. Your report ID is 67911 I have two examples: 1 which works as described and 1 which does not work as described. 1 case a char is in the corp 7 days and corp standings update 1 case a char is in the corp 7 days and corp standings DID NOT UPDATE. example 1 picture http://eve-files.com/dl/182507 example 2 picture http://eve-files.com/dl/182508 Can I get an answer from CCP on what is different b/c I fully expected the 2nd corp to update?
WheatGrass Gallente Aliastra	Posted - 2008.12.31 15:26:00 - [94] If possible, perhaps being able to put an entire weapon group offline while in space would increase performance.


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