Server Merges postponed... A legacy of fumbles!

arkady09 · December 2008

With the announced start of the server merge process not quite having gone as planned I wanted to take the time today to speak to you all explain where we are at with the merge process and what the schedule looks like.

Basically, on Wednesday when we came to do the first live merges we encountered an issue with the structure of our data that we hadn’t found or experienced during testing. This issue caused there to be a risk, on some servers, under specific circumstances, of items having non-unique identifiers in our database. This in turn might have lead to some cases of player’s items not surviving the merge. It didn’t happen at all during our testing, and may have been (in the scale of all players and all items in the game) a possibly rare occurrence. However this was not an area where the team and I were willing to take any risks with whatsoever.

This is also exactly why we decided not to announce all the merge schedules in advance and to ensure we could do them in a live environment first before we went ahead with all the merges. While it is never ‘nice’ to have your contingency plans called into action, this approach has meant we caught a potential issue before it could possibly affect people’s actual game experience.

I found this in an arcane ANTI AOC website... Wait no I didnt - I found the above RIGHT HERE on MMORPG.

So I wonder where is Avery on this issue?

Post only the good stuff? Propaganda anyone?

xpiher · December 2008

Ah no, the trolls hopped on this before Avery had a chance too. Anyways, something like what happened with the AoC database is fairly common whenever people merge any data base. The difference is that AoC decided to try to fix the issue instead of just saying forget it and deal like most MMO compaines do.

arkady09 · December 2008

Really, after all thats happened with this compay, lying, charging cards, promising PVP in the launch and only 5 months later adding a PVP system that is, essentially, laughable, exploitable, consequenceless(gaurd exploit), that they would choose do the right thing? Imagine that!

At what point does this company just become a sad, tragic example of the greed of developers outwighing the drive to develop a good game for customers?

Lieven · December 2008

Well, shit happens, but I gotta say it's kinda weird that they didn't find this out before they let that merged server go live.

SinReaper · December 2008

Originally posted by xpiher

Ah no, the trolls hopped on this before Avery had a chance too. Anyways, something like what happened with the AoC database is fairly common whenever people merge any data base. The difference is that AoC decided to try to fix the issue instead of just saying forget it and deal like most MMO compaines do.

I'm curious about those highlighted sections. Which high profile MMO companies in the 2-3 last years had to postpone their planned server merges due to unforeseen technical issues in their own code or items having non-unique identifiers from one server to another?

I can't immediately recall any, so I'd like to know if I missed anything out of the ordinary on this topic. I'm also open to examples or equivalents in attempt, scale, scope and impact specific to datebases so that I can correlate that to what occured with Funcom.

If we're instead speaking in generalities about the fallibility of human endeavors despite our best intentions; then I think the original poster illustrates that item in his/her original post. It happened, it is significant and interesting news; with positive and negative reactions.

That being said, I don't think it needed its own topic as the letter and the reactions thus far have been posted in this thread already: www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/214469.

xpiher · December 2008

You are right, compaines don't usually postpoine the mergers ; however, they aso don't care if a person loses their items because of it. LOTRO, EQ, EQ2, and a few others had the same issue AoC faced and toald their customer base to just deal since it was a very rare occourance 1/1000 or so. FC is taking the other route, which IMO is better.

Your right tho this topic is a dead horse

Crashloop · December 2008

Originally posted by arkady09

With the announced start of the server merge process not quite having gone as planned I wanted to take the time today to speak to you all explain where we are at with the merge process and what the schedule looks like.
Basically, on Wednesday when we came to do the first live merges we encountered an issue with the structure of our data that we hadn’t found or experienced during testing. This issue caused there to be a risk, on some servers, under specific circumstances, of items having non-unique identifiers in our database. This in turn might have lead to some cases of player’s items not surviving the merge. It didn’t happen at all during our testing, and may have been (in the scale of all players and all items in the game) a possibly rare occurrence. However this was not an area where the team and I were willing to take any risks with whatsoever.
This is also exactly why we decided not to announce all the merge schedules in advance and to ensure we could do them in a live environment first before we went ahead with all the merges. While it is never ‘nice’ to have your contingency plans called into action, this approach has meant we caught a potential issue before it could possibly affect people’s actual game experience.

I found this in an arcane ANTI AOC website... Wait no I didnt - I found the above RIGHT HERE on MMORPG.
So I wonder where is Avery on this issue?

Post only the good stuff? Propaganda anyone?

The fact that you failed to see that Avery has posted this before is quite funny. And as normal the "doomsayers" of AoC tries to turn this into something really bad is amusing me. We have heard from these doomsayers that funcom lies and cannot be trusted. Here they actually explains to us why they postpone the merges and what the issue is. and now that is suddenly wrong? I bet you are one of those person that if Funcom had merged the servers and a few players had ended up missing items that would have also been posted as something big right?

Things can happen whenyou merge several databases, this doesn't only apply for MMO's but all kind of databases. Funcom saw there was a problem and decided they want to fix it rather then let people log on and find that gear is missing. Because that would cause a lot of negativity from certain people and the only way Funcom can correct the image people have of them is by doing things the right way. It will take time, but by doing it the right way they will also be able to re earn the lost reputation.

BearShammy · December 2008

Originally posted by Crashloop

Originally posted by arkady09

With the announced start of the server merge process not quite having gone as planned I wanted to take the time today to speak to you all explain where we are at with the merge process and what the schedule looks like.
Basically, on Wednesday when we came to do the first live merges we encountered an issue with the structure of our data that we hadn’t found or experienced during testing. This issue caused there to be a risk, on some servers, under specific circumstances, of items having non-unique identifiers in our database. This in turn might have lead to some cases of player’s items not surviving the merge. It didn’t happen at all during our testing, and may have been (in the scale of all players and all items in the game) a possibly rare occurrence. However this was not an area where the team and I were willing to take any risks with whatsoever.
This is also exactly why we decided not to announce all the merge schedules in advance and to ensure we could do them in a live environment first before we went ahead with all the merges. While it is never ‘nice’ to have your contingency plans called into action, this approach has meant we caught a potential issue before it could possibly affect people’s actual game experience.

I found this in an arcane ANTI AOC website... Wait no I didnt - I found the above RIGHT HERE on MMORPG.
So I wonder where is Avery on this issue?

Post only the good stuff? Propaganda anyone?

The fact that you failed to see that Avery has posted this before is quite funny. And as normal the "doomsayers" of AoC tries to turn this into something really bad is amusing me. We have heard from these doomsayers that funcom lies and cannot be trusted. Here they actually explains to us why they postpone the merges and what the issue is. and now that is suddenly wrong? I bet you are one of those person that if Funcom had merged the servers and a few players had ended up missing items that would have also been posted as something big right?

Things can happen whenyou merge several databases, this doesn't only apply for MMO's but all kind of databases. Funcom saw there was a problem and decided they want to fix it rather then let people log on and find that gear is missing. Because that would cause a lot of negativity from certain people and the only way Funcom can correct the image people have of them is by doing things the right way. It will take time, but by doing it the right way they will also be able to re earn the lost reputation.

It's not a coinsidence. Just read post history.

OriginalForm · December 2008

As long as it's done right without the loss of characters/items I don't care.

Azrile · December 2008

Warhammer beat AOC to the punch, they've been merging servers for about a month now. As far as I've heard, no problems.

And again.. EVERY SINGLE software company can delay a product and say " we want to make sure it is perfect for our customers". That is a standard PR line that means nothing. After all the bugged patches that Funcom has already released, do you really think them delaying the patch a month means there won't be serious bugs with it? When Blizzard says this, you believe them. They release, solid and polished games. A company with Funcoms history is just so laughable when they say they want things to be done right. It's just the usual inept company using a standard PR line to make an excuse for their inability to release something on time.

Crashloop · December 2008

Originally posted by Azrile

Warhammer beat AOC to the punch, they've been merging servers for about a month now. As far as I've heard, no problems.
And again.. EVERY SINGLE software company can delay a product and say " we want to make sure it is perfect for our customers". That is a standard PR line that means nothing. After all the bugged patches that Funcom has already released, do you really think them delaying the patch a month means there won't be serious bugs with it? When Blizzard says this, you believe them. They release, solid and polished games. A company with Funcoms history is just so laughable when they say they want things to be done right. It's just the usual inept company using a standard PR line to make an excuse for their inability to release something on time.

Trolls amaze me, and they will always do. They will spend every living hour chasing down something they can say negative about the products/companies they don't like. So what if funcom had a crap start filled with broken promises and lies, the people in charge at that time does not work there anymore. This leaves the New GD and funcom as it is today to have to clean up the mess from the previous. Just like any american president have to clean up the mess the last one did. Does that mean you do not trust Obama due to Bush not doing his job properly? Funcom has been open and from what I can see so far honest in their communication. They haven't tried to cover up the bad launch in intervies after the new GD took over, they have admitted things didn't go very well. And it's funny you bring up WAR as an example here. Lets look at the publishing company for WAR. Electronics Arts, hated and loved for many reasons. EA actually had to go out publically and apologize for how they had treated customers and stuff like that some years ago. Their reputation as a game producer and publisher had hit a low when they kept promising and never fulfilling. Yet today they are amongst the biggest in the industry, they managed to shake off most of the negativity by focusing on quality rather then just pushing out half arsed titles.

The delay of the patch is done openly, they have said since september they will not release patches to the test live unless they feel it's ready for it. so if it's not out on the testlive yet it most likely means they have encountered bugs that they want to fix first. The server merge we have gotten a understanding on why didn't work, and yes when merging databases things can happen. They choose to do it the safe way, not risking anything. WAR has already done a lot of server merges, so why haven't Funcom managed that already? Can it be the fact that WAR's databases and Funcom's databases most likely are quite different from eachother? I would love to see the test live servers get the patch asap, but I rather prefer them to make it right before sending it out. Funcom atm needs to show the mmo gamers that they are actually able to improve the game and deliver what they promised. They won't do so by rushing out patches just to keep deadlines. The latest patch have had bugs for sure, like the pvp exploit that was a serious one, but other then that there hasn't really been any serious bugs. The patches have been working and improving the game a lot. Even blizzard's patches contains bugs at times, it's not something you can 100% avoid no matter testing done.

All trolls know that deep inside, but facts and trolls doesn't always compute. Ignorance however is mighty strong in a lot of trolls, they find 1 thing and push for it. the more negativity they can create about it the better, when proven wrong they change topic. They know in many cases that what they try to promote isn't really true, it's just a creative way of bending the truth.

Elsabolts · December 2008

Does this really surprise anyone i doubt it, even if they fix the problem now there still gonna have other problems and everyone knows it. It will not be long before there will be a meeting in the parking lot.

Bodeus · December 2008

Originally posted by arkady09
With the announced start of the server merge process not quite having gone as planned I wanted to take the time today to speak to you all explain where we are at with the merge process and what the schedule looks like.
Basically, on Wednesday when we came to do the first live merges we encountered an issue with the structure of our data that we hadnt found or experienced during testing. This issue caused there to be a risk, on some servers, under specific circumstances, of items having non-unique identifiers in our database. This in turn might have lead to some cases of players items not surviving the merge. It didnt happen at all during our testing, and may have been (in the scale of all players and all items in the game) a possibly rare occurrence. However this was not an area where the team and I were willing to take any risks with whatsoever.
This is also exactly why we decided not to announce all the merge schedules in advance and to ensure we could do them in a live environment first before we went ahead with all the merges. While it is never nice to have your contingency plans called into action, this approach has meant we caught a potential issue before it could possibly affect peoples actual game experience.

I found this in an arcane ANTI AOC website... Wait no I didnt - I found the above RIGHT HERE on MMORPG.
So I wonder where is Avery on this issue?

Post only the good stuff? Propaganda anyone?

Avery Posted on this 4 day ago, sorry try again.

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/214469

Azrile · December 2008

Originally posted by zymurgeist

Originally posted by Azrile

Warhammer beat AOC to the punch, they've been merging servers for about a month now. As far as I've heard, no problems.
And again.. EVERY SINGLE software company can delay a product and say " we want to make sure it is perfect for our customers". That is a standard PR line that means nothing. After all the bugged patches that Funcom has already released, do you really think them delaying the patch a month means there won't be serious bugs with it? When Blizzard says this, you believe them. They release, solid and polished games. A company with Funcoms history is just so laughable when they say they want things to be done right. It's just the usual inept company using a standard PR line to make an excuse for their inability to release something on time.

So they should just go ahead and trash the databases with a known bug and that would be ok? Or should they do the only thing they can do and delay merging servers while they fix the problem they know about. You're just pointlessly bitching.

No, they should get it right on time. I'm more posting about the fanboys who are praising Funcom for taking the time to do it right. Delaying a product because you failed to get it done on time is nothing to be praised for, especially coming from a company with a history of bad production.

And again, this all goes back to when someone said " who cares if QA has been layed off, it really won't effect things". This could be one of those issues that was caught back months ago by a QA team, but instead wasn't discovered until they tried to do the first live merge last wednesday. Like I posted a few weeks ago, expect every patch from now on to basically be pulled at the last minute because it is not being tested internally and things only are going to show up when it hits live servers.

Hamrtime2 · December 2008

The three stooges could have done a better job. When are all you fans of Funcom gonna wake up and see that Funcom is the laughing stock of the gaming industry. If you place a pile of poop near the Funcom hq's every single person walking out of that building will step in it.

If this problem suprises anyone then I feel sorry for yah. Even after the delay I bet the merge will still be a total disaster. In Funcoms world, if something can go wrong it will.

Crashloop · December 2008

Originally posted by Hamrtime2

The three stooges could have done a better job. When are all you fans of Funcom gonna wake up and see that Funcom is the laughing stock of the gaming industry. If you place a pile of poop near the Funcom hq's every single person walking out of that building will step in it.
If this problem suprises anyone then I feel sorry for yah. Even after the delay I bet the merge will still be a total disaster. In Funcoms world, if something can go wrong it will.

I Have been seen as a fanboi of Funcom several times, but I'm not. I do however like to discuss and beat down on people that posts crap about stuff. I would even do so about WoW even tho my personal opinion about WoW is that it sucks more then a 60 year old whore without teeths. Trolls and fanbois are annoying, both sides share the same thing, they are blind to the truth, they see what they want to see and for them that is the full and only truth. Even if the truth jumps up from the ground and smacks them in the face repeatdly they fail to see the truth.

Yes Funcom made a crap launch, yes they ruined a lot of their reputation by lying and not fulfilling promises, but the important part Funcom did something against it. The person that in the end is responsible for the game realized how much he had messed up and took his hat and left, either by free will or being told to do so by the main stock owners. Because the board in a company can kick the manager without a problem, they just need a valid reason. They hired a new GD that has a good reputation for being the one person that managed to turn around the disaster AO was in and make it into something a lot of people say are one of the better MMO's out there. He not only have to Save AoC, but also restore the ruined reputation of Funcom, Funcom does have a lot of skilled developers, they didn't go for the safe way when making AoC they did go for high quality graphic, a new combat system MMO wise and they tried to break out of the mold that most MMO companies have tried to use after WoW got popular. Restoring a broken reputation isn't done easy, EA spent a lot of money and energy on restoring theirs and while it still isn't really good, they are known to deliver quality products since they started focusing on that part. Can Funcom restore their reputation? Yes absolutley, but it will take time, it will take hard work, and it will take a lot of effort. First and foremost they have to make sure AoC is a game that gets as perfect as it can get. Then people will know that Funcom is able to deliver quality, they they have to work on making sure future releases isn't rushed and keeps a high quality.

Hamrtime2 · December 2008

Originally posted by Crashloop
Originally posted by Hamrtime2 The three stooges could have done a better job. When are all you fans of Funcom gonna wake up and see that Funcom is the laughing stock of the gaming industry. If you place a pile of poop near the Funcom hq's every single person walking out of that building will step in it.
If this problem suprises anyone then I feel sorry for yah. Even after the delay I bet the merge will still be a total disaster. In Funcoms world, if something can go wrong it will.

I Have been seen as a fanboi of Funcom several times, but I'm not. I do however like to discuss and beat down on people that posts crap about stuff. I would even do so about WoW even tho my personal opinion about WoW is that it sucks more then a 60 year old whore without teeths. Trolls and fanbois are annoying, both sides share the same thing, they are blind to the truth, they see what they want to see and for them that is the full and only truth. Even if the truth jumps up from the ground and smacks them in the face repeatdly they fail to see the truth.
Yes Funcom made a crap launch, yes they ruined a lot of their reputation by lying and not fulfilling promises, but the important part Funcom did something against it. The person that in the end is responsible for the game realized how much he had messed up and took his hat and left, either by free will or being told to do so by the main stock owners. Because the board in a company can kick the manager without a problem, they just need a valid reason. They hired a new GD that has a good reputation for being the one person that managed to turn around the disaster AO was in and make it into something a lot of people say are one of the better MMO's out there. He not only have to Save AoC, but also restore the ruined reputation of Funcom, Funcom does have a lot of skilled developers, they didn't go for the safe way when making AoC they did go for high quality graphic, a new combat system MMO wise and they tried to break out of the mold that most MMO companies have tried to use after WoW got popular. Restoring a broken reputation isn't done easy, EA spent a lot of money and energy on restoring theirs and while it still isn't really good, they are known to deliver quality products since they started focusing on that part. Can Funcom restore their reputation? Yes absolutley, but it will take time, it will take hard work, and it will take a lot of effort. First and foremost they have to make sure AoC is a game that gets as perfect as it can get. Then people will know that Funcom is able to deliver quality, they they have to work on making sure future releases isn't rushed and keeps a high quality.

If you think that all those problems are to blame on 1 person you are being very nieve. Funcom is a bad company and bad companies dont stay in business. I was once a huge fan of AoC and Funcom. But once I saw what was going on (some mentioned in your above post) I new I had been "funconed". IMO AoC can be a great mmo. There are alot of things that it has going for it but as long as Funcom is running it, it wont be a tenth of what it can be. Funcom should get out of the gaming industry and open its own circus.

taus01 · December 2008

This is either really bad database design or just an excuse to delay the merges further. The beautifull thing about SQL and databases is that they can be converted, merged, split, re-organized without any effort.

Duplicate Keys? Uhm, sounds like someone forgot to put constraints on the main keys. That is just bad design, no actually, that is unprofessional and you learn things like that in the first hour of any SQL course.

AmazingAvery · December 2008

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/214469

Howdy, Stranger!

Server Merges postponed... A legacy of fumbles!

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

Server Merges postponed... A legacy of fumbles!

Comments