Bi-Weekly Update for 3/15/2009

[Max]

1) Update Overview (TOC):

• All New Server Hardware
• Fleshing out the Bug System
• More Developer Improvements
• New Website!
• DevChat Saturday 14 March
• Travel System
• Band Flourish
• QA Applications and CSR Team Progress
• Rubber Banding
• Phase Testing Results (This Week)

2) Body:

All New Server Hardware

Exciting news! We are expanding our service network, and adding a whole new dedicated server to our current SWGEmu Network! In the process, we are upgrading the Test Centre to a much more powerful machine, and upgrading our Web and Database servers.

Here is a summary of what is happening (warning: its a little bit like musical chairs...)

1. The Nova Test Centre is being moved to a new machine in Denver, Colorado
2. The SWGEmu Website, Forum and SWGEmu Database are all being moved to the current Test Centre machine in Chicago, Illinois
3. Our current web/database host service is being terminated permanently
4. The IRC server will remain as is

These changes mean a number of things. Firstly, our Test Centre performance will improve due to much faster hardware. This may not be noticeable at first, however in the long run it will make a difference. Rubber banding and the effects of our debugging software will be decreased substantially.
Secondly, many people have contacted us regarding the frequent (often daily) cut outs of our Forum and other SWGEmu websites. This is caused by an error on our current shared web host, which we can't control. We feel that we are large enough now to warrant a more powerful dedicated host.

TC:Nova will experience a short period of downtime (24 hours max) next week. We will make a proper announcement before this occurs. The downtime will allow us to move the Test Centre to the new server in Denver and have it tested and ready. Await news in the Community Service Announcements forum.

We're excited! Hope you are too!
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Fleshing out the Bug System

Firstly we'd like to say "THANK YOU" to everyone who's made reports. The effort has been phenomenal. In the two weeks since we opened the new Bug Tracker, 324 bug reports have been made, which have resulted in over 90 resolutions. This is a fantastic effort. Thank you to all who applied, and everyone who's been reporting.
Let people on TC and IRC know that using the @bugs command will open the bug tracker, and after signing up they will be ready and set to begin the most important contribution they can make to SWGEmu.

We will be adding numerous expansions to the default Mantis bug tracker to make it easier to use with SWGEmu. First, we will be linking the Bug Tracker accounts with the SWGEmu Account database, so the same account you use on the Test Centre and Forums can also be used there. We will start looking at that very soon.

New Phase Testing tasks will be posted later tomorrow for the next week, so be prepared, and remember to check www.swgemu.com/tasks regularly, as well as @tasks on TC.
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More Developer Improvements

Since we proposed our plans for improving how SWGEmu is run two weeks ago, the SWGEmu Developers have been working on drafting a set of Standards and Expectations to help get the Dev team in to top shape. Devs are now required to make weekly "Scrum Reports" a feature of our Assembla project site. These are public reports which outline what the developer has done this week, what they will do next week, and anything they need to make it happen. Ramsey and Kyle have been working really hard to raise the bar in terms of Dev team communication and tasking, and it's beginning to pay off.

Another major point this week has been how we hire developers. The following was decided:

A. Recruitment Path
If you would like to become an active developer you must:
-Be familiar with the overall flow of Core3
-Demonstrate your ability to handle the Developer's workflow by being up to date on Mantis & Assembla (even without write permissions) & IRC (#opendev)
-Submit quality code patches on trac
-Be flexible and easy to work with....a TEAM PLAYER

Your background in the industry does not matter - we care about what you can produce. If you would like to become an active, registered developer, contact Ramsey or Kyle ASAP.

We are always looking for new developers. Make sure you get onto Ramsey or Kyle if you are interested in working with us.

The whole Standards and Expectations can be read in our Open Source forums, or on our Assembla Project site (http://public.swgemu.com)
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New Website!

The New SWGEmu website we have been giving sneak previews of for the last few bi-weeklies is nearing completion. We are currently working on synchronizing the website with our user database, as well as finalizing written content.

If you one day log onto swgemu.com to find a smooth blue face staring back at you, don't panic. Watch for news in Announcements through the week.
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DevChat Saturday 14 March

Our monthly Developer Chat was held yesterday, on Saturday 14th. It was another informative chat, with cRush, Kyle, Ramsey and others fielding questions for over an hour. Luckily the ChatBot was back in action, which made the whole event run a lot easier.
Read the log from the DevChat here: http://www.swgemu.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20383
You can learn a lot about what's going on around SWGEmu, and about what's coming up soon!
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The Curious Tale of Benjamin Buildings and Trevor Travel

cRush set out two weeks ago to, from the ground up, redesign the current travel system so that bugs like being dropped randomly on Rori or not being able to travel to Talus are finally fixed, and wrapped up in a nice clean system. cRush, being a neat freak, discovered that to make the changes he needed, he also would need to fix an issue with starport buildings. He followed the bread crumbs, and before he knew it he'd fixed a whole stack of bugs in the Buildings, Installations and Harvesters, had improved the code efficiency massively, and allowed the system to be considerably more expandable for the future. Hi Five cRush, for solving the Curious Tale of Benjamin Buildings and Trevor Travel.
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Band Flourish

Anakis has worked to implement one of the final pieces of entertainer on TC; band flourishes! They were a part of this week's phase testing regiment, and will probably carry over to next week also. Band Flourishes have revealed the need to entertainer systems to be slightly tweaked and improved, and we will be seeing that in the coming month. Issues like how Band Flourish affects the HAM and experience of other band members and the band leader are on the table right now - jump on our Bug Tracker or in the Entertainer forums to share your knowledge and experiences. Most of all though, get out there with a band and have fun!
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QA Applications and CSR Team Progress

Remember that the QA team still has its applications open to anyone who wishes to apply. Visit www.swgemu.com/jobs and follow the prompts to apply. It's a great way to get in the team doing something large and rewarding, and working with some great people. The new CSRs and ECs are also here and there and everywhere! Look out for them on TC, CSRs should have their (CSR) tags restored above their heads. The ECs have already started planning a cool event, be watching the events forum this week.
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Rubber Banding

We have noticed that "Rubber Banding" has affected many players over the last few months. Not many people know what rubber banding is, however.
People experience rubber banding when they are moving around in game, and seem to be "rubber banded" backwards a few metres. In effect, it is another form of lag. When the latency is high due to debugging software or certain other actions, the server can only update your position sporadically, meaning the server can seem to lose track of where you are. It reloads your last updated position, and you are warped backwards.

We know this is very frustrating. To combat rubber banding, we are upgrading our TC hardware significantly, as mentioned above. The new more powerful server should make rubber banding and other debugger side effects much less noticeable.
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Phase Testing Results (This Week)

• Combat - Dagger as Unarmed Weapon rather than One Handed (Thoop)
• Crafting - Shortsleeve Jacket can't use Firberplast Panel as an resource (Thoop)
• Crafting - Leather Gloves - Unequipable (Thoop)
• A whole bunch of Combat Medic and Medic fixes (MrTopas)
• Brawler fixes (Kellina)
• 10 Creature and spawn fixes around the galaxy (Kellina)
• Numerous Scout Trap fixes (MrTopas)
• Slicing Menu Crash Fix (Ramsey)
• Grenade fix and Harvesting Creature Fix (MrTopas)

Statistics For This Week

Reports Made: 235
Reports Resolved: 83
Reports which resulted in immediate fixes: 27
Most Popular Categories: Professions, Crafting and Combat
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3) Developer Perspective ("Round Table"):

Originally Posted by cRush

I am working on a cleaning up BuildingObject, Player Housing, and structure placement with deeds. This process will both organize, and minimize the code that is currently in place in these classes, as well as improve on the expandability and future application for the classes. The end result is to have improved building functionality on a scale that we can start making enterable buildings active (Medial Facility, Cantina, Shuttleports) as well as lay the ground work for player city implementation.

Originally Posted by Kyle

The last few weeks I have been whittling away at my crafting updates and trading / armor / clothing revamp. It is very slow going because I am working 14 hour day. I have also been reading a number of documents on storage technologies and berkeley databases... I have 7-8 more weeks on my internship which should free up a lot more time.

Originally Posted by Max

Here's what I've been up to this week:

• Writing content and templates for the new website
• Assisting Ramsey, Ultyma, Tek and Kellina finalize the new server machine
• Getting the phase tasks to the community, via forums, tc and irc
• Writing this update
• Forum housekeeping; revising and posting IRC rules, Dev docs, Mission statement, swgemu.com/rules

Next Week:

• More website work
• FAQ porting
• Whatever else comes up

What I need:
More time in the day to do what I have to do, and then maybe an hour to get something done at SWGEmu. More hours, please.

Originally Posted by Ramsey

I've been doing a lot of work with the server UI stuff these past 2 weeks. The new system makes it incredibly easy to for the Server to send the client custom UI. I just finished doing some UI stuff for cRush's permission list, used in Player Housing (coming up!).

Over the next few weeks, I will continue to do work on the Mission system as well as accept as many bug reports as I can handle.

Thank you for all the bug reports! It makes it easier for the team to get a feel of what to focus our attention on. I encourage everyone to get on the TC as often as possible and tackle the tasks we post every week. Each fixed report gets us close to a playable game. I can't wait to alias and discover PreCU like some of you on a fresh server (like SC). Hang in there

Remember that developers will be posting weekly scrum reports at http://public.swgemu.com if you want to check on what they've been up to at any time.

4) Closing:

I peruse the forums a little, and I'd like to note some threads worthy of your eye: Time, what is it? (General), An SWGEMU Epiphany (SWGEmu)

There are lots of things to look for this week; Next week's phase tasks will be up on Monday, TC downtime with our new server, possible news on our new website....
We may also have some extremely exciting news coming next week too... possibly involving..... naa I won't tell you. Let's just say its really really really cool.

The end of another sizable update. I hope you enjoyed it, and continue to enjoy the things happening now over the next short while

--Team SWGEmu

The Next Bi-Weekly Will be on: Monday March 30

[Andewa]

Exciting times ahead!

Great Work guys!

[KroniK]

WooWho. Great work as usually Emu team, and keep looking for those bugs everyone else.

[Yolagon]

nice

[djolovicl]

Great news, thanks!!!!

[Ekowraith]

Kind of cool, I guess. I'm probably expecting more from these updates than I should, but progress seems to be slower than before.

[Shoryuu]

Originally Posted by Ekowraith

Kind of cool, I guess. I'm probably expecting more from these updates than I should, but progress seems to be slower than before.

If you notice not only in this post but around the forum, most of the developers have other things going on in their lives. This update doesn't include the massive amount of bugs that have been fixed over these last two weeks.

[Ramsey]

Originally Posted by Ekowraith

Kind of cool, I guess. I'm probably expecting more from these updates than I should, but progress seems to be slower than before.

http://trac2.assembla.com/swgemu/timeline
http://www.assembla.com/spaces/swgemu/milestones
http://www.swgemu.com/bugs/view_all_...hide_status=80
http://www.swgemu.com/bugs/view_all_...hp?filter=1168

[StormZ]

Great work, keep it up!

[Xiox]

Originally Posted by Ekowraith

Kind of cool, I guess. I'm probably expecting more from these updates than I should, but progress seems to be slower than before.

Exactly what I was thinking. I kinda thought this one was pointless (last one too)

[mujadaddy]

Cool news, boysn'girls. Maybe I can get a leet Denver ping now

Originally Posted by Xiox

Exactly what I was thinking. I kinda thought this one was pointless (last one too)

And how much testing did you do since these last two updates, much less development. Some people just complain about everything.

[Max]

Originally Posted by Xiox

Exactly what I was thinking. I kinda thought this one was pointless (last one too)

Sorry to disappoint, wouldn't want to improve our service by upgrading all our hardware... and I mean I understand you don't really like the fact the developers are making themselves 10x more organized and productive... definitely a negative.

Thanks again for your support.

[Dialgo]

yay, keep up the good work!

[Ekaika]

Major structural and procedural progress guys. Love it.

[lunatec]

kickin' arse and takin' names....great work all!!!