Proper 2.5 Update - 6/15/15

Taryth

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah it's been awhile. Thanks jumbers for letting people know we weren't dead. :)

We have been as busy as I think we ever have been. Internally, I've begun referring to the project as "2.75" or "2.9" now since we've made far, far more changes than originally thought, and we're actually getting pretty damn close to a full on 3.0.

We've engaged the help of some of the EQEmu folks, who have been amazing at hammering out what we consider to be the last roadblocks. I *think* (don't hold me to this) the AA rewrite, which is nearly complete, is our last hurdle. Raids and groups are re-done. We think we've solved the memory leak from hell. Zones and pathing appear to be fixed. Great stuff.

Along the way, we played around with some things that will just make it easier to maintain the game. Without getting into specifics, we have a caching layer that has been the bane of our existence for a long time. We incrementally improved this by getting to where EQEmu was. I have now taken it a step further by implementing an enterprise-grade cache used by little guys like Facebook and Google. This weekend I committed those changes. While they still need to be tested, zones boot up and the cache looks good. This will give us the ability to update many more things on the fly without requiring a patch as is currently the case.

We're also transitioning to be able to run on Linux, which is far more efficient and easy to maintain. This is already done in fact - we were able to do that when I swapped out our cache layer, and I have become the first player in SoD history to load a character into a Linux server running our code. Very cool stuff.

Once I get the new cache properly tested this week and we get AA changes committed, we will hopefully be open for full beta business again. Assuming no more catastrophic memory leaks or the like, my hope is that we will have solved all the major impediments toward production release.

Now one thing to caution - just because the server is ready doesn't mean we are. We still have a pretty big list of things to set up to bring it into full production, including updating our tools, converting characters, etc. The process, I predict, is going to be bumpy. That said, I feel like we're at least, for real, done after this. At least I hope so. I'd like to actually play again some day. :)

-t
 
You guys are giants amongst men. (Not to be confused with dragons amongst men, because giant faction is by far superior.)
 
Maybe instead of an "opt-in" beta... force everyone to 2.5 for the duration of beta once exp bonus is over? It sounds like you're near release, making that feasible. I believe that would give you a lot more real data and feedback. Just a thought.
 
Forcing everyone is a recipe for disaster. Data loss and exploitation are real possibilities; I'd much rather come up with ways to encourage more people to do it.
 
Forcing everyone is a recipe for disaster. Data loss and exploitation are real possibilities; I'd much rather come up with ways to encourage more people to do it.
Not sure any of these are useful, but the following come to mind off the top of my head: fame or some sort of useful but not game breaking items - (maybe SOW, lev, invis clickies...), perhaps some sort of token, or maybe have some small part of the new Ikisith 2.0 quests roll out early on the beta and let flags carry over to one's live character (nothing else would stay - it would just be a flag to copy). Food for thought.
 
hi, are there any really really boring sort of manual tedious code updates that a person who computers pretty well can do to help with this without needing a ton of outside knowledge.
 
When you say 2.9 like that, does this mean this update Will put us in the eqemu server listing? Cause that would just be out freaking standing
 
Our intent is to seek listing there, yes.
How are our account names going to be merged with EQEmu? There must be at least some overlap between SoD and existing EQEmu accounts. Will existing SoD account names be given a one-character prefix or suffix, such as an exclamation point or asterisk? EQ imposes a 15-character limit to account names, too, which means that accounts with names that are already that long won't have room for any additions.

Maybe the whole thing is already sorted out and it's much simpler than I imagine, or maybe it's a non-issue altogether. Just curious.
 
I thought that the reason SoD wasn't listed on EQEmu server list was because it had too much original content and wasn't similar enough to live.
 
How are our account names going to be merged with EQEmu? There must be at least some overlap between SoD and existing EQEmu accounts. Will existing SoD account names be given a one-character prefix or suffix, such as an exclamation point or asterisk? EQ imposes a 15-character limit to account names, too, which means that accounts with names that are already that long won't have room for any additions.

Maybe the whole thing is already sorted out and it's much simpler than I imagine, or maybe it's a non-issue altogether. Just curious.

We would not give up our login database or any of its passwords. Assuming we can get it set up and working, we would have a dual login system where you could either connect via the EQEmu login server or our login server.

Last I checked, EQEmu doesn't allow you to recover your password if you forget it and they don't have any sort of PoA functionality either. Lose access and you're screwed.

I thought that the reason SoD wasn't listed on EQEmu server list was because it had too much original content and wasn't similar enough to live.
More like Wiz went off and did his own thing and left EQEmu behind. There are plenty of EQEmu servers on the list with custom content.
 
Just an update, the caching system did not work as well as planned. So we rolled it back, which is the awesome thing about version control, even though git and I have mutual hate for each other.

AA rewrite is done pending some tedious mapping (!), which doesn't sound too bad. I have some testing to do this week while I travel, and then I need to work with jumbers to finalize the production (beta) move to Linux. But I think we're just about ready to re-open. I've got a prototype database mover sort of kinda working, but that needs some refining prior to going live.

I'd like to reiterate...this is going to be rough. Please be patient - it's highly unlikely we'll flat-out lose anything, but it may take a bit to get stuff hashed out. Hopefully most of that rears its head in beta.
 
We believe in you Taryth

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I've very proud to see all of the work that has gone into this. Migrating to linux will be a huge plus, as always I'm looking forward to trying to break things in beta as I always have. Best of luck, and remember to blink sometimes so the code doesn't all merge together.
 
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