Why does it take so long for 'maintinence'

[Anonymous]

and why do it on the weekend, the days where most people have the most time to play?  why not wednesday?  or Monday

[sacac]

That last part is because that is when the staff has their free days? and they can't really do it when they work during the week?
I guess it takes a loong time is because they have lots to do and test.

[Angela Christine]

10 hours isn't that long.  Saturday is the day when most staff have time to work.  Be happy, it used to be Saturday and Sunday.


AC

[Anonymous]

No other mud i have ever played ever took this long to add changes

is there a reson this mud is special?

[Bestatte]

Here's my perspective on the "length" of time to get things done on "Imm day"

In a particular massively populated pay-for-play text game (which shall be nameless) there are things incomplete, buggy, and never implemented which have been incomplete, buggy, and never implemented since the game's inception over 15 years ago. They don't ever shut down except when the game crashes due to improvements - which they have to implement while the game is up and HOPE that it doesn't screw everything up.

Trying to make improvements on that game, is like trying to find a specific pair of pink socks in my laundry basket. ALL my socks are pink. It's why hubby won't let me do his laundry. If you happen to be lucky, you'll get an improvement made without much fuss. Usually though, you won't be lucky and it'll either fuck up, or they just won't bother trying and tell their player base "Real Soon Now."

In Armageddon, I've seen things changed SO effectively - SO quickly - and things that aren't just "oh neato, we have a new "snuggle verb!" stuff. Things that make a significant impact on skills, roleplay, commands, playability, "fantasy realism"..to put it bluntly, anyone who complains that 10 hours per week is too much should try PAYING to play that other game for a month. Or hell - just read their forums for free and you'll see that they're STILL saying "Real Soon Now" on stuff that's been broken and dreadfully imbalancing since the first day they rolled out the game.

There's lots of stuff I'd like to see fixed, changed, and/or implemented in Arm. The crim-code is one - the herb/poison/brew system is a personal interest...

But considering that the crim-code already HAS gone through changes, and so has the herb/poison/brew system, prior to my playing and some while I've been playing, I have to say that the way they have it set up now works just fine.

If they had to do everything "live" and never shut down, I'm guessing they'd still be running a hack-n-slash. It's just totally impossible to get anything "important" done when you have people wishing up for animation of NPCs, other people wishing up saying "This guy is trying to kill me what do I do?" bug reps, typo reps, idea reps, death messages, newbie entrance messages, IMM-channel messages, system messages, requests from inexperienced IMMs asking advice on stuff, etc. etc. etc. PUt all that together and you have delay after delay after delay.

Now take out ALL player input.  Then remove ALL system messages involving players, including logons and logouts.

You have a nice clean place in which to do your work. Clutter kills, and it causes people to be distracted and make mistakes.  Plus - with 10 hours on a weekend without Arm, you have the opportunity to do something - else.

Read a book. Watch TV. Have sex with your mate. Have sex with a stranger. Take an extra college class just for fun. Go shopping. Grow a garden. Take a walk, ride a bike, sit in front of the fireplace and veg out. Submit new stuff to the game. Write up your next character's description.

Just like "there's nothing to do in Arm" has no merit and exacts no sympathy from me whatsoever, neither does "There's nothing to do in real life."

[deinol]

Yes, this mud is special. I've played on and off since 1996. I've never seen a mud quite like it.

Have you ever worked on code? I'm a programmer, and I can tell you it can take a lot of work to change a piece of existing code. Particular a large, complex piece of code. Especially when often they add features that were never envisioned. That part of the task alone is difficult.

Not to mention working on new rooms, items, and all of the other maintenance things that occur.

Most muds do not modify the code itself of a mud. Most of them just work on new items, rooms, and another +478 uber god sword. That sort of work can be done without taking down a mud.

I don't know what the staff uses for it's proccess, but I'm betting most of saturday is testing code changes. They can write code during the week, but they have to take it down, compile it, then bring it up for testing. It can take a lot of effort to test just to make certain minor changes don't have unintended consequences.

Once, early on, I thought about making my own mud that was similar to this in rp style, but with a different setting. I downloaded circle mud, and started making changes. There was a lot of stuff that need to be completely re-written to be how I liked it. Have you ever tried to track down a pointer to null in a giant piece of code when you get no indication of what caused your mud to crash, just that you got disconnected and can't get back on? It's tough.

Go take a look at the basic DikuMUD, which ARM was once based upon. Don't bother to look at the code if you are not a programmer, just download it, boot the stock world, and look around. See how different ARM is from that. That is what makes armageddon special.

When I started in 1996, armageddon looked nothing like a DikuMUD. Over the years, there have been many great changes. North and South accents. The Watch command. Adding writen languages. Tattoos and scars. Expanded psionics. Subclasses. All that awesome crafting stuff. Karma. All of that wasn't here when I started, and that's just the stuff I can tell you about without going IC. There's probably a ton of stuff I don't know myself.

Sorry about the rant, but to be honest, I don't care if the immortals use saturday to run around the mud mocking us players and having private tea parties. They put a lot of work into this mud, and it keeps getting better. Sure, sometimes I wish I could play saturday morning. But I'd rather have the watch command. What makes this mud special is how much work is put into improving it, not just by updating rooms and object descriptions/stats in the game, but by upgrading the fundemental ways in which we, as players, can intereact with the world and each other.

[Anonymous]

no you see, no other diku mud needs 10 hours to have shit added
is it because of poor coding?

[mansa]

no you see, no other diku mud needs 10 hours to have shit added
is it because of poor coding?

Read this:

If they had to do everything "live" and never shut down, I'm guessing they'd still be running a hack-n-slash. It's just totally impossible to get anything "important" done when you have people wishing up for animation of NPCs, other people wishing up saying "This guy is trying to kill me what do I do?" bug reps, typo reps, idea reps, death messages, newbie entrance messages, IMM-channel messages, system messages, requests from inexperienced IMMs asking advice on stuff, etc. etc. etc. PUt all that together and you have delay after delay after delay.

Now take out ALL player input. Then remove ALL system messages involving players, including logons and logouts.

You have a nice clean place in which to do your work. Clutter kills, and it causes people to be distracted and make mistakes.

Now, to try and see if you've understood what was said...repeat the 'jist' of it using different words.

[wizturbo]

QQ

[Bogre]

No other mud i have ever played ever took this long to add changes

is there a reson this mud is special?

Changes get added remarkably fast in ARM, just because they take a 10 hour block to do it in.

[EvilRoeSlade]

no you see, no other diku mud needs 10 hours to have shit added
is it because of poor coding?

That's because other muds only add shit.

Brother, we add China White.

[Anonymous]

Evil, that was the most retarded statement I have heard today.
I understand loyalty, but that was just utter and complete supression of all intelligeance.


No other mud takes 10 hours to impliment things.  If they do the coding outside of the mud, then put all changes in at one time, it still makes no sense that it takes 10 hours.  It tkaes no other mud 10 hours.

I am not flaming or complaining.  I am only wondering why it takes so long.

[Cuusardo]

Read the weekly updates, and it will tell you what changes have happened.  

And speaking as someone who has done coding on a mud, it is a LOT of work.  It does not matter how good you are at coding, because some projects are very intricate and complicated and require a lot of concentration.  While the mud is live, chances are there are other things that require IMM attention, and that takes away from coding time.  The mud I work on has absolutely NO downtime whatsoever, so code projects go much slower due to that fact.  So Armageddon is down for a few hours, big deal.  That means that it's a little better each time it comes back.

[mansa]

Tradition!

I think I'm going to go watch Fiddler on the Roof.

[Akaramu]

Evil, that was the most retarded statement I have heard today.
I understand loyalty, but that was just utter and complete supression of all intelligeance.

I am not flaming or complaining. I am only wondering why it takes so long.

You are most definitely flaming, if you were not flaming, why post anonymously?

Others have explained you why it takes so long but you just dont seem to want to accept the answers. I'm not sure what exactly you would like to hear if this does not satisfy you.

[Realedazed]

I don't see what the big deal is.  Go do something in the real world. Or, if you must be on the computer, play a second game.  There's tons of them out there Try a hack and slash for mindless hacking and slashing, or another RPI like SOI or Harshlands for a quick RP hit, or a flash game, anything.

Me, I just chill and sleep off the hangover I got from Friday night and maybe attempt to focus on some homework. That's enough for me.

[Bessienotloggedin]

Okay here's an answer that's sure to satisfy:

The game is down for 10 hours every week because the staff are a bunch of lazy good-for-nothing lowlifes who take pride and pleasure out of making you miserable.

Furthermore, not a one of them can code their way out of a Cracker Jacks box, so they have to import some guy who doesn't speak English all the way from India to code for them, and it takes him a week to get past customs.

The reason they don't do it on Mondays, is because that's when Sanvean plays Cribbage with the old biddies in the Senior Center down the block and robs them of their quarters.

They would've done it on Tuesdays instead, but Brixius goes to the track on Tuesdays. He has a system, you see - and one of these Tuesdays he is sure his horse will come in first.

Wednesdays are out of the question - that's when the East Coast staffers play golf.

Thursdays -fuggedaboudit. Those pesky Australian/New Zealand/British type IMMs play Rugby against the team from Achaea.

Fridays are horrible, because the West Coast staff team spends that day on Big Sur.

Sundays - blech. They're too hung over from the weekly Saturday night orgy, which spans the globe, using the company Lear Jet.

In summary: They take 10 hours to code, every single fucking saturday, because they know it pisses you off.

Happy now?

[Agent_137]

No other mud i have ever played ever took this long to add changes

is there a reson this mud is special?

Find out IC.


(sorry, ask a question in a snide manner, get a snide fucking remark.)


p.s.

Fridays are horrible, because the West Coast staff team spends that day on Big Sur.

Big sur!! hahahahha. Love that book.

[mansa]

You forgot about Halaster, Bestatte.

Halaster runs his cult meetings every day at 8:18 a.m.  Didn't you get the memo?  Oh. That's right.  You're not a member.   Forget it.

[Anonymous]

Bessienotloggedin, Realedazed  What is with you two?  You posted useless, sarcastic trash to a legitimate question.  Wait, maybe it will get you Karma?  It is a legitimate question, and I am curious.  Why does it take 10 hours to maintaince the game.

[Agent_137]

Bessienotloggedin, Realedazed  What is with you two?  You posted useless, sarcastic trash to a legitimate question.  Wait, maybe it will get you Karma?  It is a legitimate question, and I am curious.  Why does it take 10 hours to maintaince the game.

If you want a legitimate answer, as more politely next time. Thanks.

p.s.
If you read up, there were a lot of legitimate answers.

p.s.s.
I don't like you.

[Anonymous]

I ask a question about how the game works, and the playerbase turns on me like I am saying that the game sucks.

Whatever, great boards.

[The Lonely Hunter]

Adding changes to the mud while it is running can cause things to become unstable at the best. Look at the other muds that add/change stuff pretty randomly. I play one other when I am between PCs here and if you use their 'uptime' command you can see that they average around two-three crashes a day. Some days more, some less. Thats not the only mud out there like this.

Then you face lag, crashes, things poofen, people dien, all sorts of nasty stuff. In short, they save most updates and changes to do on a day that seems the majority of the staff can put a few hours in together, meet with each other, test, and imp stuff in a safer manner that keeps the mud and server more stable for the players.

Considering all the crashes that -could- happon during the week, I don't think ten hours one day of the week is too bad. Given Arm does crash on occasion, it seems MUCH more stable then the majority of other muds out there.

[Agent_137]

Evil, that was the most retarded statement I have heard today.
I understand loyalty, but that was just utter and complete supression of all intelligeance.

I am not flaming or complaining. I am only wondering why it takes so long.

You are most definitely flaming, if you were not flaming, why post anonymously?

Others have explained you why it takes so long but you just dont seem to want to accept the answers. I'm not sure what exactly you would like to hear if this does not satisfy you.

[Naephet]

Why does it take 10 hours to maintaince the game.

It takes ten hours because that's how long we've slated the weekend maintenance for, and we stick to that for consistancy's sake.  It isn't a continuous, on-going process; there will be times on Saturdays when there won't be anyone on staff logged in.  But ten hours gives us a long enough stretch of time to accommodate a lot of the different staff members' schedules.

As has been pointed out, several times on this thread, this time gives us a chance to work uninterrupted, make changes to the world, put in code, and fix all kinds of little bugs.

Naephet