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390MB update patch... really?
glenntle
Member Posts: 1 Arc User
I seriously doubt that they wrote 4,740,000 lines of new code.
(average line of code being 80 characters)
That would be a major rewrite!
Sadly this is more proof that modern Programming Developing Tools are horrible at revision integration and distribution (updates). The compilers don't know how to make just update the of the new code. I bet the actually code changed is under 100k 1/10 of 1MB, but no we got to waste hours downloading the whole thing all over again.
Not to mention the wasted Server Resources.
STO should use torrents for anything over 10MB.
POINT 2.
The Servers should never go down, the new updated code is uploaded on other servers/virtual servers in the network domain that new logons are required to use.
Existing users are given notice of old server is expiration date, which will require kick at that time. When that user logs on their account data is transferred/migrated while the new update is downloaded.
There are all kind of ways of keeping a server up while implementing updates, just ask Amazon, PayPay, Ebay, any credit card company, not to mention Hospitals and other life of death ops, etc....
I'm sure their doing the best they can with what the know and have, I'm just saying there is better ways to do updates, especially since it seems to be weekly!
(average line of code being 80 characters)
That would be a major rewrite!
Sadly this is more proof that modern Programming Developing Tools are horrible at revision integration and distribution (updates). The compilers don't know how to make just update the of the new code. I bet the actually code changed is under 100k 1/10 of 1MB, but no we got to waste hours downloading the whole thing all over again.
Not to mention the wasted Server Resources.
STO should use torrents for anything over 10MB.
POINT 2.
The Servers should never go down, the new updated code is uploaded on other servers/virtual servers in the network domain that new logons are required to use.
Existing users are given notice of old server is expiration date, which will require kick at that time. When that user logs on their account data is transferred/migrated while the new update is downloaded.
There are all kind of ways of keeping a server up while implementing updates, just ask Amazon, PayPay, Ebay, any credit card company, not to mention Hospitals and other life of death ops, etc....
I'm sure their doing the best they can with what the know and have, I'm just saying there is better ways to do updates, especially since it seems to be weekly!
Post edited by glenntle on
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You are equating a PoS system like Amazon with a much more complex thing like an MMO (which also includes PoS capacity)?
Hospitals similarly can have two system up simultaneously if need be and fall back on the old if something goes wrong with the new system. They can also continue to function if the system is down completely.
Name ANY MMO that never goes down for patches. How do you handle people online mid patch? Middle of combat, oops the rules change on you....
STO servers are also up a whole lot more than many other MMOG's, heck they're up more than diablo 3's.
That's the way it's been since I started looooong ago.
Registered: Oct/2009 , LTS : Feb/2011
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Three years and still no Captain Klaa hair...
Try updating a piece of an image file.
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FYI compilers don't work that way (and if they would, it would actually take more time, than just recompiling the whole pack).
Patches usually include more things than just a tiny bit of code.
This time it includes reworking on Models to fit for the Armitage for example ... taking up more space than
And about server being down: it's normal, it's required (more or less) and it saves up a lot of your precious server resources...
The STO-Updater is quite good at what it does.
And finally let me ask: What has torrent to do with that?
I give an 3 out of 10 ... for trying.
This is also a good point.
Downloading compiled code is much faster than recompiling... not to mention the fact that they do not download source code to our boxes, which is what you'd need to recompile.
The bulk of the code that makes the game work is actually on the server. They don't download that. The only thing that gets downloaded is the client code, and as I said a lot of the larger files are probably image files of some kind. Compilers don't operate on image files.
Patching could involve hex edits of files, true. But that would be even more work for Cryptic to set up properly than just recompiling source into downloadable files.
For the record, I would take a very, very dim view of a game that installed its own compiler on my system.
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Hours downloading? You should be angry at your ISP, not Cryptic. It took me less time to write this post than it did to download the patch.
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Yeah folks love to complain, even on my crappy DSL at home the patch didn't take that long. If anything big patches make me feel better because it makes me feel like the devs are actually working on fixing stuff. Plus who knows how much of the new patch is prep for season 6 updates.
They could probably have a server down time of like 15 mins... if you don't mind stupid issues and crashes. You think they don't white glove it?
At my job whenever we do a release it takes like 5 mins, but we spend about a half hour running "kick the tires" tests. When you process data at nearly $1000 per GB not including hosting for review... it kind of matters that you don't TRIBBLE up and have to do it again or much worse, the client figures out that something is missing or not right. Big contracts can hang in the balance.... same goes here with MMO's, A LOT of money at play.
I am sure after enough five minute releases that turn into 4, 6, 10 hours of down time so they can fix the issue, then repair all the damage by rolling back stuff and running fixup scripts... people would bolt from an MMO
May have been audio as well. The patch notes aren't always a full reflection on what's being changed.
Stop using a 2400 baud modem to play STO. :biggrin: I think it took me 30 seconds to download that patch. :cool:
Fewer than you think, actually. As beloved as EVE is, there are some patch releases CCP has unleashed in the past that blew up in their face BIGTIME. I can remember more than a few extended downtimes and patch rollbacks from my time there. It was aggravating, but I remember very little ragequit chat from the veterans.
Of course, EVE has an hour long downtime every day. But given that its a single shard, uninstanced server, I can imagine it's code undergoes a daily grind that would make STO's code wither and die in less than an hour.
A answer off the top of my head "Guild Wars", handles new builds in a great way. Guild Wars is a great answer to this since both games are heavily instanced. They tell players in game there is a new build, most pvp is disable for people running the old build, and after a length of time they kick people (running the old build) depending on the build this can be from a few hours to days before they kick. Apart from some server maintance this year I can't remember any other time that game was down.
That is definitely the exception then. I wonder how they manage it? There must be a trade off somewhere.... the version control issues must be crazy. How does someone who is patched play with someone who is not?
Or do they just not change the game much... ever?
The irony of that is when I log in at a local McDonalds, the speed caps out at 5k. You can sit there and watch the line in task manager.
And they swear that's high speed.
The first thought that comes to mind though on that is what's getting upgraded. Guild Wars has been around for quite some time. I was to wonder if the game code has been locked and all you;re seeing is just add on additions.
GW works this out via instances, players of same version share same instances, while "newer" versions have their own (with some areas only available for new versions; and in theory some areas shareable where nothing was changed at all).
To avoid version mess, you are forced to update the next time you login, if you stay, you get kicked.
If so, that may have come down during this patch.
Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2. In the 7+ years Guild Wars has been around their servers have been down for 38 hours! I guess it can be done.
Still, this is all part and parcel of MMOs, and increasingly common in non-multiplayer games as well, "massively" or not. 390MB is also on the lighter side of the scale, really. So... get used to it?