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Learned how to code it
kaibigan34
Member Posts: 1,508
The post title "learned how to code it" in regards to SWG getting proper weapon damage made me think. There might be more truth to this then just an idle comment.
We know for certain that the original developers have long since gone to other games or other jobs. SOE loves to move around programmers. A bad business tactic if you ask me. I believe the development team has changed no less then three times so far. So what you have is a team that know obsolutely zip about the code or the engine. I am willing to bet even the team that designed the NGE knew next to nothing about the code or the engine.
Even Smedley hinted to this in one of his posts when he said they didnt know how to fix the game. So what does all this mean????
Perhaps its true that the developers are having to learn as they go. Think about it. You have a game in dire straights and your using a bunch of amatuers to fix it...... This is akin to having a heliocoptor pilot fly a cessna. Or worse a cessna pilot fly a 747.
They have to figure things out as they try to fix the game. And adding new content? Wow I feel for these guys.
Kai
Comments
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
And in other news, Mercedes-Benz would like to apologize for their S550 falling apart after driving 200m. They are still training their mechanics on how to assemble a car.
And Boeing apologizes for 8/9 of their planes crashing on the first flight. Their aviation specialists failed at high-school math and are taking evening classes now, so that they can do a better job.
And Google also apologizes, for being unable to deliver anything useful, since they are having hard time getting coders. They'll have some people trained in 7-8 years, so that they'll be able to be competitive again. Microsoft, IBM, Sun, and other companies are being asked to wait till then before starting up with competition. Customers are also asked to stay put, and not search for anything else, except for simple words, consisting out of no more than 4 letters.
I remember on NGE launch that all specials from several different classes did the same damage -- it was totally level based. They just now figured out how to make the weapon damage factor in? Er, wasn't it working just fine pre-CU (with tweaks needed, naturally)? And wasn't it even working post-CU, although the formulas had no variance (shot X always did Y damage divided by mitigation)?
I had suspected they totally broke it on the server side then, but I wasn't sure.
-- xpaladin
[MMOz]
AC1/2, AO, DAoC, EQ1/2, SoR, SWG, UO, WAR, WoW
EnB Exiles
GuardiansOfOrion.com
hehe yeah the rotor torque's a bitch.
The problem is SOE insists on making their own engines. It's the root of the problem. Now I have no problem with companies making their own MMO engines but when it's SOE I do. I've never been impressed with SOE's engines.. ever. They are bloated and clunky. Plus it's obvious that the documentation on the engine and the database are crap or the Devs wouldn't have such problems.
There is software out there as complex if not more complex that SWG with Devs who've never seen the code before get hired and after reading proper documention hop right in and start fixing bugs or adding features.
SWG is no different.
I realize that MMOs are very complex creatures but it's no excuse.
I feel for any Dev working for SOE. It's a job and SOE actively recruits in a lot of places. Many don't know what they are getting into when signing up. So yes, I feel sorry for these programmers, artists, content creators.
The real problem is management. Lowsy management = lowsy company.
The problem is SOE insists on making their own engines. It's the root of the problem. Now I have no problem with companies making their own MMO engines but when it's SOE I do. I've never been impressed with SOE's engines.. ever. They are bloated and clunky. Plus it's obvious that the documentation on the engine and the database are crap or the Devs wouldn't have such problems.
There is software out there as complex if not more complex that SWG with Devs who've never seen the code before get hired and after reading proper documention hop right in and start fixing bugs or adding features.
SWG is no different.
I realize that MMOs are very complex creatures but it's no excuse.
I feel for any Dev working for SOE. It's a job and SOE actively recruits in a lot of places. Many don't know what they are getting into when signing up. So yes, I feel sorry for these programmers, artists, content creators.
The real problem is management. Lowsy management = lowsy company.
They didnt code the SWG engine. Its a hand me down from UO2. And the database comes from Oracle. Put them together and throw in star wars and you got a mell of a hess.
Kai
According to here and here they designed it.
There was a conversation on this forum and SWG a while back. There were links to what some of the devs were saying and I beleive it was Helios( I could be wrong) who was telling everyone about the coding and how much of a mess it is. Basically when SWG first came out they coded "by the seat of their pants", meaning there was no book to tell others how they were doing this or doing that.
As the game progressed and as Devs came and went it became increasingly harder to code stuff into the game, being they needed to "train" the dev on how they were doing, what affected what, and so on. The NGE was supposedly the latest code that had the abilities built in to make changes easier and faster. It also supposedly created a more stable platform to code from, and the learning curve was a lot smaller than the origional.
I am not a coder, and have no experience with it.. This is jsut the basics of the conversations that were goin on.
To put it plainly it reminds me of the Story on how Police Departments come up with policies. You take the monkey's, lock em in a cage, make the policies. You dangle the policies from the top of the cage, and whenever 1 monkey touches it in roder to change something, all the monkey's recieve a shock. Eventually as time goes on, all the older monkey's die, leaving all the youngers ones. The younger ones know they arent suppose to touch the policies, they just dont know why.
Xcathdra
Having access to a billion $ IP - Billions of dollars..
Having access to a massive fan base of said IP - Even more Billons...
Singly handedly alienating them due to stupidity - Priceless.
If they made the server core for SWG or not "ALL" programs have :
//comments or todo lists in them - this is the most basic of things a programmer can do
If SWG core does not have comments or documentation for its code like helios states then i wonder where the developers actual got there qualifications - if you walk into a class for programming you make a HELLO world program then on paper document how this is done - if you cant document your program on paper you fail 50% of the class.
(EDit) i understand why the NGE was done - because the devs dont understand how to fix the old bugs so removed the code causing it - what realy eats me is SOE tried to convince me it was an upgrade before i quit.