Rollback???? Not acceptable.

[lupine04]

I dont need to be a chef to know a steak is burnt
I dont need to be a mechanic to realize my cares brakes dont work
I dont need to be a policeman to tell an armed robbery is going on

Get the picture?

I'm pretty sure I get it, but let's see..

You believe:
1. Anticipating and preventing all the myriad actions, random or intentional, of potentially hundreds or thousands of people using your software - before they happen - is as easy as tasting a steak.
2. Digging through potentially 100s of thousands of lines of code and finding all possible loopholes, bugs and exploits - before they take place - is as effortless as testing your car brakes.
3. Learning of, locating the cause and resolving any issues that might arise once people are playing is on par with simply witnessing a robbery.

Sure.. I get your picture perfectly fine. And my original sentiment stands.

[noback]

If your computer goes no-post no-boot, it is obvious even to the newest computer user that there is something wrong and what the end result of the problem is. However, it may take a technician to fully diagnose the problem. On the other hand, it may be a simple thing, like the power is out(no, you would not believe how many times that is the case) which is or should be easy enough for even the most rookie non-technical user to diagnose. Point is, while those providing input may not have a doctorate in computer science and know little about the process or code, you should not dismiss the input out of hand. Sometimes it is the simplest things that get overlooked, and the most technically knowledgeable person will spend hours combing the code when a simple fix will do the trick, but the information at hand does not narrow down the problem sufficiently at first to provide that solution.

[aelvana]

I dont need to be a chef to know a steak is burnt
I dont need to be a mechanic to realize my cares brakes dont work
I dont need to be a policeman to tell an armed robbery is going on

Get the picture?

The whole point is that medium-rare steaks don't exist.

Point is, while those providing input may not have a doctorate in computer science and know little about the process or code, you should not dismiss the input out of hand.

I think actual ideas on how to prevent or handle things would be helpful, absolutely. What we're dismissing though is people attacking the devs, furiously stamping their feet and demanding the impossible. There's nothing at all constructive about that, it just produces nasty threads and a whole lot of bad attitude.

The devs also won't be as likely to communicate if we act like this. The reason most companies give you minimal information and communication is because customers can and will use any information they can to try to bite the company in the ass. I know this having worked for a couple tech support companies.

EDIT: In another thread here, someone took a Euro GM explaining the bug out of context, and claimed he said the rollback was an accident, which meant that the US GMs must have LIED! This is a perfect example of what I said in my last paragraph.

[balmore]

Devs, Thank you for being honest!

[ayne31]

EDIT: In another thread here, someone took a Euro GM explaining the bug out of context, and claimed he said the rollback was an accident, which meant that the US GMs must have LIED! This is a perfect example of what I said in my last paragraph.

I rather wonder if the GMs have been maybe given differing information through their appropriate channels. Such things happen and the question is of course not if someone lied but which information is the most advanced.

A question which of two differing pieces of information is the most accurate must be legitimate.

[bobturke]

Guess this is a pretty good incentive to report an exploit as soon as you find it?

Better then someone else finding it a few days later and losing yours and other honest players work.

[silverio]

Here's a veteran's stance (long time gamer and programmer, network admin work as well) that was prolly misinterpreted:

Software basically NEVER comes out bug free. Every console game has bugs and exploits. In console games, they don't matter much -- they get printed in Nintendo Power and that's that.

In MMORPGs, often you have to remedy these bugs/issues or they'll screw everything up. You have live servers that you have to take down etc to fix things. And new features getting patched in means more new code to interact with your old code in unexpected ways. You can't avoid getting bugs.

Being experienced in a LOT of what has to come together to make an MMORPG work, I know full well that I have two options if I want to play them:

A) Play a game that will come down from time to time and have some issues, trusting the devs are working their hardest

B) Don't play this type of game

The problem here IMO is that people fail to realize that option C, an evolving and updated piece of software that's bug free, does not exist.

Above opinion is one i can agree 100%, rollback was better then having to get in issue with ton op people this dappers get or used. if the issue was only fey hours that is nothing in one game you will play for some months, some people lost more that is true but still i belive developers have done all in their hands to do it in best way. As note it is better to haave rollback then to wait 1 day until they hunt in database all people who gained used etc money and manualy fix database for every one of them.

I lost some levels in harvesting and some hundreds of supreme materials that i was hoarding in ast hours but also it saved me from one fail on supreme materials ql 80 armour with HP bonus lol ... still i dont see this as issue IF this not repeat soon. I like a game and think we have to give it a chance to get better there is ton of good promises in it and i will support some bugs until i see there is regulat patces fixing them and i see some comunication what is comming next from developers.

So Rollback IS acceptable if it is extreme solution and not regular one, server downtime IS acceptable if it is for bug fixing and improving a game.

One solution for many of this things will be to have one FREE server for testing proposes where everyone will be able to advance to lv 50 and see if he like game and where paying customers can play up to unlimited level where all such issues can be tested on all levels of game play. from entry levels to high level players that will build some foortune even on that type of world.

Please all to be MATURE and try to understand problems that developers have in front from financial to quality to support ...

[ayne31]

. As note it is better to haave rollback then to wait 1 day until they hunt in database all people who gained used etc money and manualy fix database for every one of them....

According to the engish board there where problems with character save that did lead to an exploit. According to this there would have been a loss of 30 min to 2.5 hours anyway due to technical problems.

These losses of playing time are NOT caused by an exploit - read it yourself:

All servers are now available again. We have implemented a row fixes, which should improve overall server performance and decrease the amount of "stalls" and client disconnections. We will be monitoring the servers closely to check for any remaining performance issues.

During today's patch, our team had to perform a database rollback in order to deal with character save problems, which occured close before we took the servers down for the patch. The rollback varies between 30 minutes and 2.5 hours for characters, who were logged in to the game before the patch. The character saving system has been revised with today's patch (which is why we had to leave the servers down longer than previously announced) to prevent this from happening in the future.

Sorry for the mess guys. I can assure you that all responsible programmers have been group-slapped adequately. They would like you to know they're truly sorry for the inconvenience this has caused.

aus diesem thread: http://www.ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2130

Some characters didn't save, while others did. That was the problem we had. Of course a side-effect of this problem was that some things could be exploited. Quite an ugly side-effect indeed... but as previously stated, the character save system has been revised to make sure it won't happen again.

aus diesem thread: http://ryzom.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2343

[usinuk]

strongly /agree with silv's post on the testing server.

COH's problem with theirs was that there was simply little incentive to grind up and later, to copy over chars to test anything but new powers.

I think the population of the game is so low at this point that the test server has got to be a desert. Some sort of incentive needs to be provided to get people over testing patches if we don't want more rollbacks in the future.

That said, having lived through hyperinflation in the early days of SWG can't say I don't mind duping catches early on. Destroyed the game for many of us on the early servers.

[aelvana]

I rather wonder if the GMs have been maybe given differing information through their appropriate channels. Such things happen and the question is of course not if someone lied but which information is the most advanced.

A question which of two differing pieces of information is the most accurate must be legitimate.

They weren't conflicting in the least. The person I was talking about misinterpreted one of the statements.

Nevrox isn't lying to us, everything they've said has been dead on from a programming/CS perspective. Everything the experienced programmers have said in these threads is true. It should all fall into place and make perfect obvious sense, if you take what we say to be true. It's simple as can be. Why is everyone still creating conspiracy theories full of assumptions?