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This Beta Needs A Post-Beta Beta


Samedi

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So we're at the end of the beta, there are a whole bunch of changes going into the game just before release, and a lot of people aren't playing because they know there's a reset coming.

 

My first fear at this point is that the servers are going to fall apart of the day of release (when was the last time they were solidly stress tested by us all trying to log in at once?).

 

Once we get over that, my main fear is that the economy will once again go south because things like the industry changes will turn out to be unbalanced or not to work as planned. This will only become apparent when everyone starts playing again, and that's not going to happen until launch.

 

This, it has to be said, is not an ideal way to run a software project. It's almost as if we need another beta...

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Actually I've been playing a few times this week for the first time in about 6 months.  I'm seeing other players around too, which is more than I was during the whole 'wipe abiguity' period.  I wonder if the server load is higher now than it was before not lower?

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Well they've already had 2 previous releases, approaching 4k logged in players in the early months of beta with relative stability, so there shouldn't be anything catastrophic, but I'd expect a few days of occasional reboots and hotfixes at least.

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Well they've already had 2 previous releases, approaching 4k logged in players in the early months of beta with relative stability, so there shouldn't be anything catastrophic

 

If only software development worked like this! A lot has changed since those days. In theory of course the important fixes should still be there. In reality a tiny and seemingly inconsequential change somewhere could have completely screwed everything but only show up under heavy load.

 

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Has there been any MMO launch that didn't have server nightmares?

 

Yeah, fair point! I guess maybe I shouldn't worry about that and just accept it as a fact of life :)

 

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Actually I've been playing a few times this week for the first time in about 6 months.  I'm seeing other players around too, which is more than I was during the whole 'wipe abiguity' period.  I wonder if the server load is higher now than it was before not lower?

 

Yeah, I've been playing a bit - though mostly writing lua and not actually doing much in-game.

 

I still find it hard to believe that the industry changes (and effect on the economy) will get properly tested in time. I'm certainly not going to rebuild my factory (yet again) knowing that it'll all be wiped in a few weeks.

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4 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

I'm seeing other players around too, which is more than I was during the whole 'wipe abiguity' period.

(old-geezer-voice)Back in my day even the worst market on Alioth had 3-5 players moving about.  I remember the constant roar of the engines like it was yesterday.(/old-geezer-voice)

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23 hours ago, Haunty said:

Well they've already had 2 previous releases, approaching 4k logged in players in the early months of beta with relative stability, so there shouldn't be anything catastrophic, but I'd expect a few days of occasional reboots and hotfixes at least.

I think you may have a very different concept of "relative stability" from others - because what I recall is people being unable to log in and unable to finish the tutorial because of the crippling lag...

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