February 5, 2010 Update

[Ekaika]

Community Update - 2/5/10

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Introduction

Greetings followers of Emu! As you may have noticed, this update comes later than our intended twice a month submission. Why? We didn't forget about you! Times have changed, and our updates must change as well. Because development is not linear, there will be weeks when we have nothing new to offer you all. Thankfully, this is not one of those weeks! As the focus has moved beyond TC:Nova Bi-Weekly content updates, and to a 100% focus on the Object Restructure, we will be halting the Bi-Weekly Update model.

As you know we're well into the process of perfecting the 225,000 lines of code we have to ensure a stable play experience, and the potential for easily adapted future content. What this has meant for you lately is less info, and we know that's frustrating. Fear not! Things are moving steadily forward and quickly. Good things are on the way

We will now move to Announcements focused on the OR. Please understand that the OR isn't progress that's qualitatively valuable to the non-developer. We may not be able to provide strict updates on a weekly or bi-weekly schedule. However, as our developers get back in gear after the holidays, we will attempt to form a structure that ensures you stay informed. Hang in there with us. We're here. Motivated and dedicated.. see the information below....

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Features

• Recent Announcements
• OR News!
• Project Perspective
• Closing Words

Recent Announcements

We are still looking for a few Volunteer Support Helpers to assist their peers in #swgemusupport. Currently our biggest need is late afternoons to late night (6PM-2AM EST). Please email Odwill@swgemu.com with the following information if you are interested in helping out!

Forum Name:
Character Names in Game:
Times available to help in IRC: (including timezone)
Days usually available:

Additionally, as always, we're open to hearing from new Developers, please don't hesitate to contact us if you feel up to challenge! Contact: Ramsey@swgemu.com

Harvesters were implemented on TC:Nova, To read up on harvesters including bugs and fixes, check out [Harvesters] Are Implemented

Note: Harvesters are used at your own risk due to bugs

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Crash To Desktop: Some players are experiencing CTD when on Endor and Lok. The following changes to your game set up will often alleviate this issue. Close all instances of the game. Then open LaunchPadEnanced, choose game options, and go to the advanced tab. Disable the the world preloading, file caching, and asynchronous loader. Save and close your LPE. Restart LPE and attempt to load in. If this does not work, it also helps to disable bump mapping, use low detail textures, disable multiple-pass rendering and disable V-sync.

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OR News

Breaking down the OR:

The OR can be divided into 3 main sections for completion.

Part 1 - The engine that runs the game

Part 2 - The core mechanics of the game

Part 3 – The content of the game

The engine (part 1) has been completed leaving only possible bug fixes. The core mechanics of the game (part 2) are getting closer to completion. This will allow for the content of the game (part 3) to be implemented.

Development Update:

The OR now has Zone, Cell movement, Groups, Banks, Water tables, Chat, Item transfer and the ability to spawn buildings into the world. The members of the development team are currently working on a tasks as follows:

Bobius – Currently working on the new player tutorial
Kyle - Currently working on creature AI
Ramsey – Currently refining the login server / process
cRush – Currently working on the combat system
Thoop - Working on commands and resource maps
TheAnswer – Working on the command system and everything else
Oru – Currently working on the IDL and fixing the engine bugs

There has been alot of code cleaning and restructuring that has involved time consuming client reverse engineering. We are now going to be able to use our distributed object system to spread the server between different physical machines. Once the game core has been finished the tasks will be implementing the game content to bring the OR up to the same level as Test Center.

*Information Provided by TheAnswer

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Project Perspective

Below is information regarding the lines of code that make up the game. It also includes how much time and money it would have cost to develop this project commercially. Hopefully this will help give you all an idea of just how massive a project the Emu is and give a little prospective on how much there is to accomplish.

The Current Test Center

Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) = 204,318
Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 53.32 (639.78)
(Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months = 2.4 * (KSLOC**1.05))
Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 2.43 (29.12)
(Basic COCOMO model, Months = 2.5 * (person-months**0.38))
Estimated Average Number of Developers (Effort/Schedule) = 21.97
Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 7,202,174
(average salary = $56,286/year, overhead = 2.40)

SLOCCount, Copyright (C) 2001-2004 David A. Wheeler
SLOCCount is Open Source Software/Free Software, licensed under the GNU GPL.

The Game Engine

Total Physical Source Lines of Code (SLOC) = 19,144
Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 4.44 (53.25)
(Basic COCOMO model, Person-Months = 2.4 * (KSLOC**1.05))
Schedule Estimate, Years (Months) = 0.94 (11.32)
(Basic COCOMO model, Months = 2.5 * (person-months**0.38))
Estimated Average Number of Developers (Effort/Schedule) = 4.70
Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 599,482
(average salary = $56,286/year, overhead = 2.40)

SLOCCount, Copyright (C) 2001-2004 David A. Wheeler
SLOCCount is Open Source Software/Free Software, licensed under the GNU GPL.

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Closing Words

This is a very exciting time for us all. Every day we get one step closer to our goal of a stable and fully playable Pre-CU environment. From the entire SWGEmu Team, thank you all for your continued support! We would like to leave you all with this video from Ultyma. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24W_AjBTyWM Although this was made years ago, and is one of the first video's ever made about SWGEmu, it remains a fantastic reminder to why we are all here. Enjoy.

PS: Thanks to Tovo and Odwill for pushing this forward. Thanks to the Developers for enduring.

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[odwill]

EMU rocks baby!

[maddi]

Thanks for this update !

[Xenomorph]

Nice work

To stop confusion - January 5, 2010 Update - but says 2/5/10?

[Rodd]

Updates like this satisfy me for months! Thanks for the heads up!!

[Ekaika]

Originally Posted by Xenomorph

Nice work

To stop confusion - January 5, 2010 Update - but says 2/5/10?

Doh! Fixed, thanks

[Lamby]

Thank you, keep up the good work!
--Lamby

[r2d2arm]

Thanks for the update. I also noticed some tentative milestones set on the Assembla. Good to see the tasks laid out. Looking forward to future updates!

[Vlada]

Excellent...

[Valkyra]

Looks great, nice update!

I was very happy to hear (first saw on TRAC) that water tables are pretty much finished, which does mean that the swimming state and all that comes with it will be in soon!

I'm also happy to hear that cRush is working on the combat system, I think he's a good canidate for that.

Also, Ramsey told me in IRC PMs (nothing specific) that they are doing a lot of work reverse engineering the TRN/planetary systems and that sounds great to me. My only concern would be to add in some basic code that easily allows for the addition of planets/zones (since client regions seems to be handled by database now.)

But overall, again it's coming along very nicely.

[Ovale]

Excellent update. Thanks!

[Newsound]

Awesome work guys!!! This project just blows me away. Have a question though. The CDT issues with Lok and Endor...will these be addressed with the OR, or is it something that will be worked on Independently?

Thanks for everyones hard work!!

[kaelvin]

OR News!!! this is a hefty good sign the planets are aligning! in 2012, the NGE world will end! and the PreCU BEGINS!!!

[mujadaddy]

We are now going to be able to use our distributed object system to spread the server between different physical machines.

Probably the most exciting news in a long time!

[Metal]

So.... few months more and it's finished