Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-12-05T17:15:14+02:00

Don't mean to revive a dead thread, but I feel it's my due diligence to state I never got around to doing this because RL happened.

I really think FAF needs someone to take the lead on organizing and pushing the "right" fixes, not just the convenient ones. I want to be that person, but I don't have the bandwidth right now.

So, here's offering it to whoever does.

Statistics: Posted by codepants — 05 Dec 2016, 17:15

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-10-04T11:17:10+02:00

Follow development progress: http://faforeverdevblog.tumblr.com/

Statistics: Posted by Downlord — 04 Oct 2016, 11:17

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-10-01T14:06:56+02:00

Exotic_Retard wrote:
well in short the new server simply didnt have map upload at all.

because

i bet you its going to be one of those stories like A was blocking B and they needed B released so they released A even though it wasn't 100% yet ... but if they didn't do it now then nothing would ever happen, so they accepted part of A would be busted for a while

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 01 Oct 2016, 14:06

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-10-01T13:43:33+02:00

well in short the new server simply didnt have map upload at all.

downlord then started fixing it, took one look at the old code, thought it was bad and then decided to use it anyway so he had to do less work. then after doing some work it became apparent that wouldnt work anyway, so he had to start from scratch pretty much and rewrite the whole thing, and also clean the db while he was at it since it had lots of weird shit.

and on the way of all that unexpected stuff kept popping up like broken ranked map detection, ect that he fixed as well.

or at least thats the impression i got, he did lots of streams of him coding it, i understood like 10% of them but thats the story i got out of it.

tldr: what looked like a quick integration of old code escalated into a full rewrite cos of bugs every 2 lines of code

Statistics: Posted by Exotic_Retard — 01 Oct 2016, 13:43

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-10-01T10:35:49+02:00

That in no way explains why it had to be broken until the rewrite was finished

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 01 Oct 2016, 10:35

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-10-01T10:26:04+02:00

It's not so much fixing as rewriting it

Statistics: Posted by Blodir — 01 Oct 2016, 10:26

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-10-01T10:21:02+02:00

right well sounds like there is more to the story than surface value then. still would like to hear the story

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 01 Oct 2016, 10:21

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-10-01T10:16:25+02:00

Iirc map vault took 60+ hours to fix and that was just on the server, downlord could tell you more

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 01 Oct 2016, 10:16

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-10-01T10:11:14+02:00

speed2 wrote:
With the amount testers we have if we hide broken or buggy feature you can say goodbye to it. Since you expect those few people who are fixing it to spend hours and hours of testing it as well.

I don't expect them to spend lots of time testing it. I just ask that when its found that something is broken in half - either roll back until its fixed, or fix it quickly and get another release out.

Eg:

What happened: we broke the mod vault. We left it broken for months. It's still broken.

What should have happened: if we knew it was going to break the mod vault, dont release yet. Wait until mod vault is fixed. If we didn't know, and we found out the hard way, roll back or roll out a fix.

Like honestly... how long does it really take to fix it? Couple of hours?

And how many times do we repeat this pattern?

I'm sure there's a reason why it's like this... what's the reason?

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 01 Oct 2016, 10:11

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-10-01T08:46:23+02:00

With the amount testers we have if we hide broken or buggy feature you can say goodbye to it. Since you expect those few people who are fixing it to spend hours and hours of testing it as well.

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 01 Oct 2016, 08:46

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-10-01T05:43:53+02:00

visionik wrote:
At the same time, we are not bringing in new players as fast as we are loosing old players; mostly because our web site isn't good, the client is a awkward for new users, we are not promoting the game, and we are not massively embracing of "newbs" in general. Two of these things are changing: The new web site is pretty much ready, and the Downlord client will be a big improvement in usability.

I think our biggest problem is we release buggy code. When I do that at work, we roll it back, fix it, and roll it out again.

I understand working on such a project is really hard to get right ... everything is fragile ... fixing one thing breaks another. That means we should be conservative and constrain the things we work on to what we can actually achieve.

At the very least we should hide broken parts of the system. Hide coop until it is working. Hide featured mods if they are not working. Etc. But really what I would like to see is a policy where we don't release broken things. If we accidentally do it, we roll back.

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 01 Oct 2016, 05:43

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-10-01T05:23:18+02:00

visionik wrote:
I think our biggest problem is that the game came out nine years ago and the players are getting older, getting serious girlfriends/boyfriends, getting jobs, and even buying houses and having kids... and they just don't have as much time for FAF anymore. Could I be wrong? Yes, I could be.

At the same time, we are not bringing in new players as fast as we are loosing old players; mostly because our web site isn't good, the client is a awkward for new users, we are not promoting the game, and we are not massively embracing of "newbs" in general. Two of these things are changing: The new web site is pretty much ready, and the Downlord client will be a big improvement in usability.

-Visionik

In addition, a general attitude of "I don't like change" and ease of use developments like area commands still not in the base game doesn't help.

Statistics: Posted by SpoCk0nd0pe — 01 Oct 2016, 05:23

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-09-28T23:42:03+02:00

Sheeo wrote:
codepants wrote:I agree with everything stated since my latest post -- we're still where we were before:
- People besides V need to put in money
- We need a realistic goal for $$ to raise
- We need a list bugs we want fixed to substantiate that goal

Do we have a bug list? Like a git or something? Or should I just start a document on Google Drive?
(SirTobi60, I see yours, wondering if we have something more central than a forum thread)

If you haven't seen the issue list(s), I guess you haven't seen the actual repos and the activity going on there. I suggest you take a look at the github org and our individual repositories, that should help you get into the loop a little.

Aight thanks, and thanks jagged for the gits.

Zep, noted moving to ipv6 as a must-do.

Noting also that this all hinges on V giving this person access and more or less free reign.

Statistics: Posted by codepants — 28 Sep 2016, 23:42

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-09-18T15:19:41+02:00

codepants wrote:
I agree with everything stated since my latest post -- we're still where we were before:
- People besides V need to put in money
- We need a realistic goal for $$ to raise
- We need a list bugs we want fixed to substantiate that goal

Do we have a bug list? Like a git or something? Or should I just start a document on Google Drive?
(SirTobi60, I see yours, wondering if we have something more central than a forum thread)

If you haven't seen the issue list(s), I guess you haven't seen the actual repos and the activity going on there. I suggest you take a look at the github org and our individual repositories, that should help you get into the loop a little.

Statistics: Posted by Sheeo — 18 Sep 2016, 15:19

Re: Reboot FAF: The Kickstarter

2016-09-18T14:57:41+02:00

SirTobi60 wrote:
The server change on the other hand actually didnt reduce these issues but created new problems (especially this individual disconnections) which made the game nearly unplayable.

The server is most likely not the cause of the problems.

As I've said two years ago when giving the keys to visionik, as FA rely on ipv4 (v6 is not supported at all), and as many providers are dropping ipv4 (and hopefully for FA, not as fast as it should), connection problems will increase over time if no function in FAF is implemented to encapsulated FA protocol into a ipv6 one.

No idea what work was done in that area, but if it's not done (or partially done, ie. a bad encapsulation system), you can bet it will only increase over time, and they are most likely the cause of many problems.

Statistics: Posted by Ze_PilOt — 18 Sep 2016, 14:57