Orion: Day 6 - A Tale of A Design

Gammer Took · 01-08-2009, 02:20 AM

Grimbark, once the caretaker of the woodlands surrounding Garth Agarwen in a time now long forgotten, is fallen to corruption. Under the domain of the Red-maid, Grimbark subjugated all manner of life in the Arboretum. Its corruption has lead to a terrible decision, destruction.

It is an ignoble end for a once noble creature, but there may yet be a golden lining. For even though Grimbark is fallen, some of the creatures within the Arboretum are not yet tainted by the same corruption. They are drones and soldiers and know only to obey the commands given them by the great huorn and act in accordance.

If these creatures can be saved and unharmed, perhaps they will one day be responsible for the reclamation of the area now known as Agamaur.

Just a little excerpt from the upcoming quests in the Arboretum. This feels a bit strange, but it serves as a bit of a story background for the Challenge: Grimbark quest available in the space.

I spent most of the day, testing and re-testing the landscape. Making certain that the little pieces of tech that I was working on would function correctly. They do, and they provide a little uniqueness in the area. The new tech that we have for seeing that Challenges are clearer in instances provide us with an added super-secret benefit that I think will welcomed by all players.

It’s strange, today is full of random tidbits of work but nothing seems super consistent. I went back into the space this morning after arriving at work and fired up the instance again. This time I wanted a more qualitative pass on the space. This means testing with an on level character or two to see if the fights work correctly. I am only using one character - despite the fact that I mentioned running two clients, my work machine pales in comparison to my home machine where I dual-box nearly every MMO I have ever played. (OMG Controversy!) I am using a burglar, testing the ability of my character to sneak through the instance.

I make it through without a fight and the re-discovered tech works very well. This is pleasing. I can surmise, by the length of my travels that a group coming here (a 3-man fellowship) will clear this place in under 45 minutes. Actually, looking at the space it might be closer to 30 minutes. Not bad. In fact, a bite-sized chunk that I think many people will find is a sweet spot. As I close in on Grimbark I literally hit a wall. Interesting.

Something in my data saved in an odd state. I have to fire up the worldbuilding tool. I leave my client and server running - not the best practice on my older dev box but this newer beefier one has enough juice to run this type of load. I see the issue, one of my physics barriers slid - odd. I don’t remember touching it, but it is close to one of the re-discovered tidbits so I must have accidentally selected this at some point. Good thing I checked.

My inbox is suddenly flooding. Bug, bug, bug, bug, bug, bug, bug…I look at the first one. NPC is named Hosehead. Quest refers to TBD. This trend continues through about 45 bugs. QA is hammering on the earlier half of my content revisions. I still haven’t replaced the names. Been busy with other things and letting this stuff slide until I am ready to start a final polish pass on the zone. It is Friday, usually a day set aside for bug fixing. Honestly, I really don’t care, my focus is on getting this instance in a state that is ready to test so I can move on the other two locations and get this into QA hands faster. Damn the torpedoes, boys! Full speed ahead. Somewhere around 52 messages they stop. Not all of them are bugs, in fact it is probably equal of responses to the blog posts and new bugs by the end of the run.

I am looking at the generators, resets and other scripting bits that make up the Grimbark fight when I am asked to come to a meeting on Radiance Gear. Being that I wrote a spec on how to deal with the issue, I am being asked for input on the solution. Now, I cannot go into great detail* - because it is still not in implementation and I would rather let Amlug discuss this with all of you; unless of course he asks me to do so. I will say this, the changes are going to be for the better.

The meeting includes Avon, myself, Amlug and Raskolnikov. We banter back and forth, each of us expresses our understanding of the core issues with the system. They have been at it for a while when I come in the room and there is a split on the best course of action to rectify, refit and make an attempt to satisfy the issue. We know that we are dancing on a very thin line. On one hand, we need to do something to rekindle Hope to the casual player base (pun intended) in the other we still need to provide enough bragging rights for acheivers. We continue the discussion until everyone has their say. The solution is on the board with some minor tweaks being added as we draw the meeting to a close and realize that it’s not the elegant solution that we each desire, rather it is an amalgam of what can be done and what we all reason can be accomplish in the time frame we have with the tools and technology at our disposal. The past and the decisions made by those who are not us haunt us ever forward. Still, we have a solution, one that dances on that fine blade and only time, concrete specs, implementation, testing and player feedback will answer if we got the solution right, partly right, mostly right, right enough, nowhere near right or some mix of all of the previous.

If I can convince Amlug to blog about the system or get his leave to explain the solution in the coming weeks I will. For now, know that wheels are in motion and the world is turning, that is the sunlight you feel on your face. We know that this is an issue and are dedicated to doing something about it. Period.

That hour done, I return to my desk and start working on the new quests. I hit another wall. This one is with our tools. The tool is throwing a warning that it cannot save the file that I want to create. Hrm, this tech is in and functioning, I must be doing something wrong. I open a second instantiation of the tool, in this one I check the test files associated with this particular quest tech. A-ha, I see the problem, but that should not be a problem. I consult the engineer who implemented this tech and show him the error and he responds with file a bug on that and I will get it done in a few minutes. Obviously, some folks around here are much better about their bugs than I am. It’s something of a luxury I guess. I am currently carrying over 150 bugs and no one is batting an eye about it. Maybe they should, nah, when I go to squash bugs I do them in groups of 40. Things will be find by the drop dead date.

Ten minutes later, I see that the bug is fixed and I am synching to the new version of the tool and opening it up again to re-write my text and get the functionality of the quest complete. In the meantime, I am looking over the issues that I am seeing in the boss fight. Grimbark is not attacking me at range, silly tree. The beehives disappeared. What the!? The roots still sprung up when they were supposed to, how odd. I go to the location to reset the fight and Grimmy appears in the world, disappears, appears, disappears - uh-oh. I created an infinite loop. Fortunately, I have the worldbuilding tool open and I see the error that I created. I flipped the wrong boolean. Whoopsie.

At this point, I know that I was not really done with the instance. I was just hopeful that I was done. I knew there would be some bugs, but I have uncovered enough to fill the rest of the day. I spend the next couple of hours hammering out the issues that I uncover. I get the fight into a much better state. I have all the quests working and ready for testing. I call the QA team member who I work closest with to see what she will be receiving on Monday and she looks a little surprised that the instance is done already. It’s a revamp though so it goes, much, much faster. No new art, no new animations, the skills I did on my own, so on and so forth. It is much simpler working with older stuff than with new stuff. Were this a new space. I would be working on this for a month at least, on and off. As it stands the entirety of the instance cluster will take nearly that long.

After a final verification pass, qualititatively, I run one last add and verify that there are no errors in the work. Combing through data logs is one of the most difficult things for new designers. Everything is in a half code/half written word style of writing that makes very little sense to untrained. Fortunately, I have been doing this for a long time now and I can tell that the error that is appearing is not related to my work, but someone elses data that got dragged into my last data add. I happily submit and watch as our data repository churns away recollecting my files. The power goes out!

Thunderstorms at that exact moment. Power back on. Expletives fly around the office, mostly from me, I can be a sailor at times. Power back on. Fire my machine back up. Go to verify that the files are checked-in - the power goes out! More expletives! After ten minutes, the power is back and seems stable, thunderstorms are moving away and I can see now that my work is submitted. Another good day.

Time to head home.

I am writing the blog about four hours later and have taken some liberties with the timing of everything, but the content is still whole.

That is all for now, have a great weekend all and I will see you on Monday.

Sorry for rambling a bit in there.

MordecaiWard · 01-08-2009, 08:02 PM

Good post as always.

From Orion's reply to one of the comment on MyLotro:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Orion

Blame is stupid. It accomplishes nothing. Acknowledgment of shortcomings and errors and taking that onto oneself is the important thing. It may seem like philosophic crap to say this, but, I am the project and the project is me. I can choose to embrace the decisions that were made or I can spin my wheels pointing fingers at phantoms. We have a saying around the office; ‘Future me is going to hate this version of me.’

Great comment. If bugs and errors should be measured each developer should be fired. Blame is stupid, only the solutinos counts.

01-08-2009, 02:20 AM	#1 (permalink)
Gammer Took Bard of Michel Delving Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 96	Orion: Day 6 - A Tale of A Design Grimbark, once the caretaker of the woodlands surrounding Garth Agarwen in a time now long forgotten, is fallen to corruption. Under the domain of the Red-maid, Grimbark subjugated all manner of life in the Arboretum. Its corruption has lead to a terrible decision, destruction. It is an ignoble end for a once noble creature, but there may yet be a golden lining. For even though Grimbark is fallen, some of the creatures within the Arboretum are not yet tainted by the same corruption. They are drones and soldiers and know only to obey the commands given them by the great huorn and act in accordance. If these creatures can be saved and unharmed, perhaps they will one day be responsible for the reclamation of the area now known as Agamaur. Just a little excerpt from the upcoming quests in the Arboretum. This feels a bit strange, but it serves as a bit of a story background for the Challenge: Grimbark quest available in the space. I spent most of the day, testing and re-testing the landscape. Making certain that the little pieces of tech that I was working on would function correctly. They do, and they provide a little uniqueness in the area. The new tech that we have for seeing that Challenges are clearer in instances provide us with an added super-secret benefit that I think will welcomed by all players. It’s strange, today is full of random tidbits of work but nothing seems super consistent. I went back into the space this morning after arriving at work and fired up the instance again. This time I wanted a more qualitative pass on the space. This means testing with an on level character or two to see if the fights work correctly. I am only using one character - despite the fact that I mentioned running two clients, my work machine pales in comparison to my home machine where I dual-box nearly every MMO I have ever played. (OMG Controversy!) I am using a burglar, testing the ability of my character to sneak through the instance. I make it through without a fight and the re-discovered tech works very well. This is pleasing. I can surmise, by the length of my travels that a group coming here (a 3-man fellowship) will clear this place in under 45 minutes. Actually, looking at the space it might be closer to 30 minutes. Not bad. In fact, a bite-sized chunk that I think many people will find is a sweet spot. As I close in on Grimbark I literally hit a wall. Interesting. Something in my data saved in an odd state. I have to fire up the worldbuilding tool. I leave my client and server running - not the best practice on my older dev box but this newer beefier one has enough juice to run this type of load. I see the issue, one of my physics barriers slid - odd. I don’t remember touching it, but it is close to one of the re-discovered tidbits so I must have accidentally selected this at some point. Good thing I checked. My inbox is suddenly flooding. Bug, bug, bug, bug, bug, bug, bug…I look at the first one. NPC is named Hosehead. Quest refers to TBD. This trend continues through about 45 bugs. QA is hammering on the earlier half of my content revisions. I still haven’t replaced the names. Been busy with other things and letting this stuff slide until I am ready to start a final polish pass on the zone. It is Friday, usually a day set aside for bug fixing. Honestly, I really don’t care, my focus is on getting this instance in a state that is ready to test so I can move on the other two locations and get this into QA hands faster. Damn the torpedoes, boys! Full speed ahead. Somewhere around 52 messages they stop. Not all of them are bugs, in fact it is probably equal of responses to the blog posts and new bugs by the end of the run. I am looking at the generators, resets and other scripting bits that make up the Grimbark fight when I am asked to come to a meeting on Radiance Gear. Being that I wrote a spec on how to deal with the issue, I am being asked for input on the solution. Now, I cannot go into great detail* - because it is still not in implementation and I would rather let Amlug discuss this with all of you; unless of course he asks me to do so. I will say this, the changes are going to be for the better. The meeting includes Avon, myself, Amlug and Raskolnikov. We banter back and forth, each of us expresses our understanding of the core issues with the system. They have been at it for a while when I come in the room and there is a split on the best course of action to rectify, refit and make an attempt to satisfy the issue. We know that we are dancing on a very thin line. On one hand, we need to do something to rekindle Hope to the casual player base (pun intended) in the other we still need to provide enough bragging rights for acheivers. We continue the discussion until everyone has their say. The solution is on the board with some minor tweaks being added as we draw the meeting to a close and realize that it’s not the elegant solution that we each desire, rather it is an amalgam of what can be done and what we all reason can be accomplish in the time frame we have with the tools and technology at our disposal. The past and the decisions made by those who are not us haunt us ever forward. Still, we have a solution, one that dances on that fine blade and only time, concrete specs, implementation, testing and player feedback will answer if we got the solution right, partly right, mostly right, right enough, nowhere near right or some mix of all of the previous. If I can convince Amlug to blog about the system or get his leave to explain the solution in the coming weeks I will. For now, know that wheels are in motion and the world is turning, that is the sunlight you feel on your face. We know that this is an issue and are dedicated to doing something about it. Period. That hour done, I return to my desk and start working on the new quests. I hit another wall. This one is with our tools. The tool is throwing a warning that it cannot save the file that I want to create. Hrm, this tech is in and functioning, I must be doing something wrong. I open a second instantiation of the tool, in this one I check the test files associated with this particular quest tech. A-ha, I see the problem, but that should not be a problem. I consult the engineer who implemented this tech and show him the error and he responds with file a bug on that and I will get it done in a few minutes. Obviously, some folks around here are much better about their bugs than I am. It’s something of a luxury I guess. I am currently carrying over 150 bugs and no one is batting an eye about it. Maybe they should, nah, when I go to squash bugs I do them in groups of 40. Things will be find by the drop dead date. Ten minutes later, I see that the bug is fixed and I am synching to the new version of the tool and opening it up again to re-write my text and get the functionality of the quest complete. In the meantime, I am looking over the issues that I am seeing in the boss fight. Grimbark is not attacking me at range, silly tree. The beehives disappeared. What the!? The roots still sprung up when they were supposed to, how odd. I go to the location to reset the fight and Grimmy appears in the world, disappears, appears, disappears - uh-oh. I created an infinite loop. Fortunately, I have the worldbuilding tool open and I see the error that I created. I flipped the wrong boolean. Whoopsie. At this point, I know that I was not really done with the instance. I was just hopeful that I was done. I knew there would be some bugs, but I have uncovered enough to fill the rest of the day. I spend the next couple of hours hammering out the issues that I uncover. I get the fight into a much better state. I have all the quests working and ready for testing. I call the QA team member who I work closest with to see what she will be receiving on Monday and she looks a little surprised that the instance is done already. It’s a revamp though so it goes, much, much faster. No new art, no new animations, the skills I did on my own, so on and so forth. It is much simpler working with older stuff than with new stuff. Were this a new space. I would be working on this for a month at least, on and off. As it stands the entirety of the instance cluster will take nearly that long. After a final verification pass, qualititatively, I run one last add and verify that there are no errors in the work. Combing through data logs is one of the most difficult things for new designers. Everything is in a half code/half written word style of writing that makes very little sense to untrained. Fortunately, I have been doing this for a long time now and I can tell that the error that is appearing is not related to my work, but someone elses data that got dragged into my last data add. I happily submit and watch as our data repository churns away recollecting my files. The power goes out! Thunderstorms at that exact moment. Power back on. Expletives fly around the office, mostly from me, I can be a sailor at times. Power back on. Fire my machine back up. Go to verify that the files are checked-in - the power goes out! More expletives! After ten minutes, the power is back and seems stable, thunderstorms are moving away and I can see now that my work is submitted. Another good day. Time to head home. I am writing the blog about four hours later and have taken some liberties with the timing of everything, but the content is still whole. That is all for now, have a great weekend all and I will see you on Monday. Sorry for rambling a bit in there.

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