VGOEmu Instability

[John Adams]

[i:sp7qco7u]Echoing this post from the Server Bugs forum so no one misses it:[/i:sp7qco7u]


All (especially other World Admins), please read this message.

There are a few instabilities that are eluding the dev team in our local labs, even when we recreate public connectivity locally. I came close today, but after spending 8 hours trying, I am giving up trying to spare [u:sp7qco7u]you[/u:sp7qco7u] the horror of a crashing New Telon world. So --

[center:sp7qco7u][color=#FF0000:sp7qco7u][b:sp7qco7u]LoginServer and New Telon are now running
an experimental branch of the code and
crashes and lockups are 99% guaranteed![/b:sp7qco7u][/size:sp7qco7u][/color:sp7qco7u][/center:sp7qco7u]
The fact is, we simply need your help, and your patience and understanding during the next few weeks.


We also need your understanding of a few things about what a "[color=#FF0000:sp7qco7u][b:sp7qco7u]pre-alpha[/b:sp7qco7u][/color:sp7qco7u]" stage development cycle is. Here's a mini-FAQ --

[color=#0000FF:sp7qco7u][b:sp7qco7u]What is Pre-Alpha?[/b:sp7qco7u][/size:sp7qco7u][/color:sp7qco7u]
Honestly, I think it's a word I made up. It just means, [u:sp7qco7u][color=#FF0000:sp7qco7u][i:sp7qco7u]absolutely nothing should be expected to work[/i:sp7qco7u][/color:sp7qco7u][/u:sp7qco7u]. The fact any one thing does is a blessing. Our team has worked very hard to bring you back to Telon, though it is merely an echo of the true world. The list of things that do not work is endless.

But, what do you do have is:
[list:sp7qco7u][*:sp7qco7u]the fortunate opportunity to get authenticated via LoginServer, create your character how you want thanks to Scatman[/*sp7qco7u]
[*:sp7qco7u]and enter the world. You can travel the vast world on foot (chunking) or manually .rift somewhere you want to go, instantly. You see NPCs standing around, and get to admire their appearance, all thanks to Xen and Xinux. [/*sp7qco7u]
[*:sp7qco7u]You can Chat with friends, thanks to theFoof.[/*sp7qco7u]
[*:sp7qco7u]You also now can use /who, /camp, and /emotes, thanks to Volt. [/*sp7qco7u]
[*:sp7qco7u]You have Titles you can set and display, thanks to Ratief.[/*sp7qco7u][/list:u:sp7qco7u]
This is HUGE, considering the age of this project and the fragile state of the code which is still in it's infancy.


[color=#0000FF:sp7qco7u][b:sp7qco7u]So, what is a BUG then?[/b:sp7qco7u][/size:sp7qco7u][/color:sp7qco7u]
The [u:sp7qco7u]only[/u:sp7qco7u] thing that is a bug is something [i:sp7qco7u]in the above list[/i:sp7qco7u] that doesn't work the way we have described.

The only case where this is not true is in the case of the services being [color=#900000:sp7qco7u][b:sp7qco7u]DOWN[/b:sp7qco7u][/color:sp7qco7u]. Obviously, if we're down, you cannot play or run a world and we are down A LOT during this phase. This is where your patience comes into play.

If you see this on the main Portal page (top-right next to Welcome):
[attachment=0:sp7qco7u]LoginDown.jpg[/attachment:sp7qco7u]
Our services are [color=#900000:sp7qco7u][b:sp7qco7u]DOWN[/b:sp7qco7u][/color:sp7qco7u], VGClientLauncher should also prohibit you from creating an account, logging in, or clicking Play. Worlds other than New Telon will be unable to connect, thus their characters will not be displayed. [u:sp7qco7u][b:sp7qco7u][color=#FF0000:sp7qco7u]This is not a bug, this is how the services work[/color:sp7qco7u][/b:sp7qco7u][/u:sp7qco7u].


[color=#0000FF:sp7qco7u][b:sp7qco7u]What can I do?[/b:sp7qco7u][/size:sp7qco7u][/color:sp7qco7u]
Any time our services are up and running, log in and run around and chat and test the newest features we announce. When the server crashes, which it will more often than not, you can come to these forums and tell us what it was you were doing at the time. We have logging, but sometimes a player does something unexpected

Server Admins: Those who run Worlds attached to our Login, your patience is even more important because we sometimes get out of sync when we're trying to fix a problem (ie the last 10 days or so). I will [u:sp7qco7u][color=#FF0000:sp7qco7u][b:sp7qco7u]always[/b:sp7qco7u][/color:sp7qco7u][/u:sp7qco7u] post on the forums what SVN Rev you should be at to connect successfully. If you are not on the suggested revision, things cannot be expected to work - period.


With everyone's help and patience, we'll get this worked out as quickly as possible. Thank you again for your continued support and understanding.

[Tagaderm]

Is there anything you specifically would like any coders that aren't actual devs to look at or poke around in the public code to help get some of the smaller stuff taken care of so that you guys can focus on the big stuff??

[John Adams]

[quote="Tagaderm":3s7k0oqa]Is there anything you specifically would like any coders that aren't actual devs to look at or poke around in the public code to help get some of the smaller stuff taken care of so that you guys can focus on the big stuff??[/quote:3s7k0oqa]
Currently there is nothing to do but the big stuff. Until we get the code stable and release 0.1, we are not doing any (more) feature development. Meanwhile it couldn't hurt to look into how packets become data sent to the client (cpsend command, on the wiki) so when feature implementation does start, we could have a greater understanding of things.


[b:3s7k0oqa]Players --[/b:3s7k0oqa]
If anyone is around this morning, please hit New Telon hard again. Testing a theory and need some WAN connections. Thanks.

[John Adams]

Update: Thanks to Dakadin, stability has returned to our world code. With an easy workaround (for now), SVN rev 616 is now demonstrating a stable world again. Thanks to Dakadin and Volt for spending time with me today to troubleshoot the code.


Also thank you to the player community who jumped onto New Telon and rode the storm of crashes until we found where the issues were. More fixes to come, as this is not the end of it, but at least you can enjoy the world again - a bit longer