End of Summer Update

[El'layn]

SWGEmu End of Summer Special - 8/22/2010

Table of Contents

Object Restructure News
Current State of the OR
Web Development
Mantis Bug Tracker Update
Staff Restructure
Staff Changes
Quick Stats
Staff Round-Tables
Closing


Greetings and welcome to the SWGEmu End of Summer update. Things have been relatively quiet from the SWGEmu Team since the Object Restructure (OR) began over a year ago, but we are pleased to announce that things are moving forward and will be back in full testing mode soon.

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Object Restructure News

For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the term, the OR is a comprehensive standardization of all of the code for SWGEmu. Over the years, many different developers have all worked together to submit code to the project. While this has allowed the Developer team to make great progress in recreating the Pre-CU experience as a whole, it has made submitting and integrating new code difficult. You can think of the old code base as a huge, overstuffed filing cabinet. All of the information is in there somewhere, but everyone who put things into the cabinet used a different filing system. The OR has taken everything out of the filing cabinet, pruned files, reorganized the folders, and attached new legible labels to everything. Ramsey wrote an excellent, more technical description here.


During the OR, in addition to standardizing the code base, a decision was made to switch from MySQL to BerkeleyDB in order to both reduce CPU usage and help us achieve our goal of eliminating crash-based rollbacks. Code standards have now been set, which will significantly reduce the amount of time it will take to commit code changes to the official, public test center (TC: Nova).

Beginning in August, the OR code has been released to TC: Nova during semi-regular intervals (Please see this post: Daily OR Tests for further information about server uptimes). We are very pleased to move this code out of internal testing and onto TC: Nova. Hopefully you are just as excited to test the new, more stable code base.

We know that everyone is getting geared up for the inevitable old TC: Nova code database wipe and we are targeting some time in early September. We do not know the exact date it will be ready, but we will be pushing the OR code to TC: Nova on a permanent basis once a few more key systems are in place. You can track the progress of these changes on the SWGEmu Assembla Timeline.

Please be aware that major fixes and additions to the OR code once on TC: Nova can require database wipes. We may also have to wipe the database to “reset” the test center characters for specific testing purposes. We will do our best to give advance notice if there is one coming, but please be prepared for frequent database wipes.

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Current Features of the OR

There are a lot of features already working within the OR code, with a lot more to come. Here is a brief overview of the current state, keeping in mind that some features may not be fully functional yet:

Basic Features:

Zone Basic Creature AI User Interface Dueling Banking Bazaar Lairs Groups Chat Travel Vehicles Resources Badges Teaching

HAM Planetary Map Admin Commands Cloning Trading Experience Doctor Buffs Blue Frogs Trainers Armor Weapons DoT's Food and Drink Spices

Professions:

The following professions are coded into the OR and are ready for testing. Some of the skills are not currently working, but will be soon. As a small reminder, note that entertainers are not working in the OR code yet.

• Artisan
• Brawler
• Medic
• Marksman
• Weaponsmith
• Armorsmith
• Architect
• Tailor
• Teras Kasi Artist
• Fencer
• Swordsman
• Pikeman
• Rifleman
• Pistoleer
• Carbineer
• Doctor
• Combat Medic
• Squad Leader

Buildings:

Here is an overview of the buildings and building-related features currently. In addition to the deeds for structures, there is a variety of furniture available on the Blue Frogs to help test placement. All of the city structures, including garages to repair the Swoop in your Datapad, should be working.

• Housing
• Garages
• Installations / Harvesters
• Height Placement
• No Build Zones
• Factories
• City Gardens
• Player Banks
• Player Shuttleports
• City Hall Distance Restrictions
• Working Elevators in Guild Halls
• Faction Base Placement

Missions:

Both combat and artisan missions are in game. You can locate mission terminals via your overhead maps.

Crafting:

With the addition of harvesters and other installations, factory crates are now working. The list of working schematics is constantly growing, and you can watch the progress on assembla. Vehicles are found in your datapad, and spices are located on the frogs. We will let you know as soon as they can be crafted.

In other exciting news, fishing makes its debut on Nova. If your fishing skills are a little rusty, check out a few of these guides to refresh your memory:

Fish and Fishing Guide:
Pictorial Guide to Fish

• Artisan Crafting
• Armor Crafting
• Weapon Crafting
• Architect Crafting
• Sampling
• Surveying
• Fishing
• Factory Crates

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Web Development


Our newest department, headed by Kaiegos, is the Web Development team. Currently, we have SWGEmu information scattered across several different sites and services. Some of these include Mantis, SWGEmu.com, SWGEmu wiki, IRC and the Events page. In the next month or so, we will be attempting to link all of the separate portions of our web presence into a single login system.

The Web Development team is currently testing the latest versions of our software along with some new pieces in a separate test bed environment. All of the SWGEmu services will be brought together under a single registration web page that will create all of your logins automatically. The goal is to consolidate your experience and logins for this project to make it more enjoyable and easier to manage by the Staff.

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Mantis Bug Tracker Update

As of this weekend, the Mantis bug tracking site is now working again. One of the side effects of the old system going down was the loss of all the login information. Luckily, the database is intact, so all of the TC: Nova bugs have been closed and archived. Please report only OR bugs from now on.

Since the Web development team is working towards creating a centralized user registration system for one login to all services, please take this opportunity to re-register on the Mantis site with the same account name and password combination that you use on the forums. This will streamline the process, and eliminate any chance of you being locked out of the bug reporting system after the credentials are combined.

If you are still having issues with Mantis, please contact TAfirehawk on the forums or at tafirehawk@swgemu.com.

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Staff Restructure

While the Object Restructure was underway, the SWGEmu Staff was also restructured. All of the staff positions were placed into one of two large branches: Test Center Operations and Development. If you would like to take a look at the new staff structure, an overview of the current structure can be found here.

Test Center Operations:

Odwill is the current Test Center Director, supervising this branch of the staff, with Kellina as the Support Manager, supervising the GMs and Moderators, and Max managing the Communications and Event Coordination departments. While Max is taking a short leave of absence, please feel free to contact the acting Communications Manager, El’layn.

Any and all ingame problems can be reported either using support@swgemu.com or joining #swgemusupport on irc. Please direct requests for two accounts from the same IP address to the support@swgemu.com address. If you have password or other account issues, please email community@swgemu.com.

Development:

Oru is the Development director. The Core3 Manager, TheAnswer, supervises both the Core3 Coding and Client Developer teams. TAfirehawk is the Quality Assurance (QA) manager, and Kaigeos manages the new Web Development team.

Any and all issues relating to testing can be directed to quality@swgemu.com or reported on Mantis.

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Staff Changes

There have been quite a few staff changes since our last update. Please help us welcome all our new staff members, and join us in wishing our retired members all the best. A full list of current staff members can be found here.

The Support Team has welcomed KarlDeux and Tygaar (known as Ssasha ingame) to the team, both of whom had been helping out in #swgemusupport previously. Serpentkaa, Inyri, Jer, Webbwbb, Tolbat, Vashman and MrBlonde have chosen to step down from their GM positions. Ellyssia and Ilipah, both experienced GMs, have been moved up to the new Tier 2 support level.

Apex_ and IX have both joined the moderation team, while Ekaika, Guano, Kronik and Liceri have retired.

The new Event Coordination team consists of Kreen, Renala and Shotter. Tow’lin has chosen to retire, and El’layn is currently serving as Acting Communications Manager, while Dame has moved from support over to Communications

The new Website Development team consists of Kaigeos, Courtesan and Polonel. Elvaron has joined the developers, and Valkyra has retired from the Client Developer group.

The Quality Assurance Team would like to welcome Jear, Tigerfang (known as Tiger in #swgemusupport) and Tyler Durden to the team. Our new Community Tester Team consists of Jlane, PwnedByRyan, jacoo, and Winn. Tek, Lorrianna, Webbwbb, Vorta, Areonic11, Thrin, Malthol, Smoki, Rovalis, Sirius, Karas, Acau, BigEvil, and Namdas have all retired from the QA Team.

A huge thank you to all our retired members - we hope to see you again soon!

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Quick Stats 07/22/10 - 08/22/10

Developer Code Commits: 156

Average Web/Forum Daily Hits: 6,095
Total Page Views: 1,976,551
Total Web/Forum Hits: 170,651
Total Users who used the Website: 35,000

Average TC Daily Logins: 8,291
Total TC Logins: 232,138
Total Users who used the TC: 19,570
Total TC Character Count: 114,247

[Dame]

Staff Round-Table

Originally Posted by Kyle, President

It's been a wild year. We have been working hard, but there hasn't really been anything "interesting" to show for it. We are finally at a point where the work of the last year is really starting to take shape in the form of real feature updates. We hope you have enjoyed the TC for the last year, and realize that we put it up so that the members of our community didn't have to twiddle their thumbs for a year. Now it is time to get back to testing, updates, and development business as usual. Thanks for the patience and understanding and helping us towards our goal of 1.0.

Originally Posted by Odwill, Test Center Director

Hello again folks. As you all can now hopefully see, there has been an enormous amount of work taking place behind the scenes in nearly every facet of the SWGEmu project. I know it may not seem like it at times but we truly are working our tails off around here to bring back what was once lost to us all. In the past quarter aside from development continuing with the Object Restructure; the Community Team has been undergoing it's own 'OR' of sorts. We took a hard look at how the staffing was put together for the entire SWGEmu project to discover what could be improved upon. We worked hard to streamline and organize departments to increase coverage and efficacy. Our end goal is provide all of you with the highest level of support and community possible in a 100% volunteer project. I'd like to thank our great community for your continued support of the SWGEmu project. We are all in this together. Keep your eyes and ears open in the months ahead for new community and support features.

Originally Posted by TheAnswer, Core3 Manager

As you all can see (http://trac2.assembla.com/swgemu/timeline) for the past weeks the developers have been working a lot trying to prepare the new codebase for public testing.
A lot of systems have been upgraded and new ones introduced that required a lot of
work on core3.

Thanks to the "old" NOVA codebase we learned what we did wrong and what
we can improve to gain more stability and consistency. A lot of time has been spent
reversing the designs that SOE has used in the client, that gave us a lot of insight of
what the server needs to archieve a fluent not only protocol communication, but at a higher
level, object interaction with the client.
New designs, database backends, concurrent techniques have been introduced and still being
tested and investigated.

We feel that we reached a point where a lot of the systems need a more serious stress testing, and we are
working as hard and fast as we can to implement a reasonably playable server so you can have
some "fun" too while we polish the gameplay. We are all excited about the upcoming updates and
hope you enjoy them too.
A big thanks to everyone helping with the daily OR testing.

Originally Posted by TAfirehawk, Quality Assurance Manager

The Quality Assurance Department is very busy testing the OR. The department did go through a long "vacation" period waiting for the Internal Test Center, ITC, to be loaded with the OR but now the vacation is over, back to work! We have brought in some new Staff as well as a new team called the Community Tester Team ( http://www.swgemu.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68676 ). The CTT is made up of non-staff volunteers that have special access to testing the OR as well as a private forum to interact with Staff.

This is a very exciting and busy time for the QA Team. I would like to thank all of those helping test and reporting their findings.

Originally Posted by Kaigeos, Website Development Manager

With the Web Development Team being so new I feel it's only appropriate telling you a little bit about myself. I'm a 2004 graduate of the Pittsburgh International Academy of Design and Technology with an Associates Degree in Specialized Business having a Major in Computer Information Management. For those of you who don't know. That boils down to some Programming basic primers in visual basic and c++ using the .net framework, java script, assembler, COBOL, Ada and Unix shell scripting. Also a good deal of Computer Hardware and Networking including Active Directory again just a primer. I would also like to thank all of those who have applied to the Web Development team and express my gratitude to the members of the team for all their hard work.

Originally Posted by cRush, Core3 Developer

I got a promotion at work and the love of my life is moving in with me soon =] Oh ... and I have a ton of time to code the OR again hehe. Life is good. Look for exciting changes around here as we move towards 1.0!

Originally Posted by Dannuic, Core3 Developer

I just wanted to say that I'm back for quite a while and working my way back into the code with missions. At this very moment, I am getting deliver missions to work and laying out the structure for the rest of the mission types. I should pick up some steam as soon as I get comfortable again and I'll be adding in all the types of missions functionally. If you want to know why I wsa gone for so long, then just know that ISPs generally don't like it when you can't pay for their services.

Originally Posted by Ilipah, Tier 2 Support Staff

The amount of AFK Camping of Spawns and Mobs on TC:Nova has drastically been reduced and we thank everyone for observing our policy on this. However, a few are still camping Spawns and then going AFK. Just a reminder that the camping of Spawns and Mobs are violations to our Rules and Policies. Overall, the community has been great on TC:Nova and your Support Team appreciates your continued help in making SWGEmu the best that it can be.

Originally Posted by Leodextrin, Forum Moderator

I've been cruising the forums and I can't help but say that I'm a bit disappointed in what I've seen. There's been quite a bit of forum PvP going on of late and although I appreciate healthy competition and rivalry, I'd like to remind everyone to tone it down a bit to keep from incurring penalties on your account. I'm pretty laid back when it comes to this stuff, but lets try to keep it somewhat civil. That means no over the top name calling, no trolling, basic stuff really. Lets keep this community friendly and helpful for all.

Originally Posted by IX-, Moderator

Maintain patience; keep the game, forums, and IRC clean and it'll help the development team to do what they do, which is the end-goal we're all looking for. The community plays a gigantic role in this whole process, and the more that you actively do to help, the faster we can all see the game we knew and loved resurrected into it's previous glory once again.

Originally Posted by Aceblade, Quality Assurance

All of the QA staff have done an amazing job so far! As you can see by the list posted we still have a lot of things going on behind the scenes and will be working quickly, yet diligently, to get things ready for testers on Nova to squash bugs once the OR hits. As the structures leader I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see structures where they are now. Structures, in my opinion, are one of the things that make SWG worth it all the more! Can't wait till everyone gets a chance settle down in a house. Hope you have a spot picked out!

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Closing

There is no way to overstate how much we appreciate your patience and support during the Object Restructure process. Every community member, past and present, has helped bring us to where we are today. Thank you, from each of the staff members, for your continued donations, patience and support. It is all of you that make this project as great as it is.

Until next time!

The SWGEmu Team

[odwill]

Great job! Thanks to El'layn, Dame and the rest of the team for putting this update together!

[Barber]

Great news

[khamsinvera]

csb

[roodypooh]

just curious but with the new housing and structure placement is there goin to be a limit on city building set into the code once OR is actually live 24/7 on TC or is it goin to be like it is now where you can spam city halls all over the planet and create a huge mess on planets?

Just askin cause it can get pretty silly having 500 cities on each planet from people creating 12 toons dropping city halls to talk crap to others in the community....

[Kaigeos]

Great update, and awesome job everyone.

Originally Posted by roodypooh

just curious but with the new housing and structure placement is there goin to be a limit on city building set into the code once OR is actually live 24/7 on TC or is it goin to be like it is now where you can spam city halls all over the planet and create a huge mess on planets?

Just askin cause it can get pretty silly having 500 cities on each planet from people creating 12 toons dropping city halls to talk crap to others in the community....

This should be reportable. I had more than one little kid following me around while I tried to place buildings talking ****.

Any word on this. It got so annoying that I quit testing and just logged out.

[TAfirehawk]

Great update Comms Team.

Now everybody back to work on the OR

[PreCU_or_JarJar_Gets_it]

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

[Aslad]

Awesome. Can't wait to start seeing the content being updated again and become more accurate. Wipe and go!

[Gray Mouser]

I was about to announce a huge swoop race on Tatooine for like 20 sets of chitin/ubese and all kinds of composite and resources as the prizes and participation fees even, but now nobody will think I'm cool for doing it, so what's the point. :P

[Gray Mouser]

Originally Posted by Gray Mouser

I was about to announce a huge swoop race on Tatooine for like 20 sets of chitin/ubese and all kinds of composite and resources as the prizes and participation fees even, but now nobody will think I'm cool for doing it, so what's the point. :P

Participation prizes that is, not fees. lol

Anyway looking forward to seeing everyone on the new code!!

Slave out.

[Mahonra]

Yes there need be a limit on the number of cities per planet.

Plus will there be faction bases?

And will guild wars be functioning?

[TAfirehawk]

Originally Posted by Mahonra

Yes there need be a limit on the number of cities per planet.

Plus will there be faction bases?

And will guild wars be functioning?

Well for the launch of OR on TC: Nova those things might not be fully ready. But remember that these things will be fixed as the OR progresses.


Current status as of TODAY:

Planet restrictions on city size are not in.

Faction bases are just placeable, not usable yet.

Guilds are not it yet.