For the record, how many of these bugs were reported on Tribble? Maybe Cryptic should fix bugs on their test server before sending the bugs to Holodeck. Yes, I know it's not that simple, there's a fair chunk of code that the two servers don't share, and bugs are like a Hydra. Cut off one head and two more take it's place. :rolleyes:
Back on topic, I've got this idea for a Foundry mission but I can't do anything with it until the Foundy is back online. Can we please get an update on that? Pretty please?
If you want to try out the new foundry.... *points at sig* There IS another way. I've tried it on Tribble and it's AWESOME! My avatar is actually my tribble foundry char.
Laforge: captain I am running a level 1 diagnostic....
Riker: for 20 hours......that is a level of incompetence that you are not capable of.
Enough said
hehe Yeah, I know what you mean. Though I hope you forgive me for this...my inner geek feels the need to correct your quote.
LaForge: I'm RUNNING a Level 1 diagnostic!
Riker: For 30 HOURS?? It would never take you more than 4. You're incapable of that level of incompetence, Mr. LaForge!
(I LOVE this episode [and this scene], so I've seen it many many times; that's why I pretty much know it word for word. hehe )
This ridiculously long down time only goes to show how ridiculously bad their so called "testing" procedures really are. This all should have been taken care of on tribble before season 6 went live.
I think you're oversimplifying the complexity of a DB upgrade, and migration. The Foundry software went through considerable changes in S6, along with new assets being added. Most likely, changes were made to the existing DB schema (database layout) for the added functionality requiring that the missions created using the old schema had to be migrated from the old to the new. I can imagine the upgrade script to be run against the DB to be rather complex.
As far as testing the script goes, it's hard to to that at production scale. Very few companies have the resources to have a testing environment that matches the size and complexity of the live system. It would simply cost too much $$$. So, what you try an do is mitigate risk. You do as much testing as you can using the resources you have, and then weigh the risk of releasing the tested code to production. The "weighing" part is difficult because the are unforeseen things that pop up in a production environment at scale.
My guess is that at this point, they're going through their migration scripts, and attempting to get all the issues resolved that they didn't see on Tribble. You fix one problem, and another pops up. It's like whack-a-mole.
I feel their pain, but am also anxious to get going on the updated Foundry tool.
In a good way. The UI is much easier to work with, and peicing together objectives is a lot easier now.
Cool! I also remember reading somewhere (either in the Holodeck release notes or the Tribble updates) that we could string our missions together (e.g. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, etc.). Do you know if that's accurate?
Cool! I also remember reading somewhere (either in the Holodeck release notes or the Tribble updates) that we could string our missions together (e.g. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, etc.). Do you know if that's accurate?
I don't know anything about that. I didn't try that.
I don't know anything about that. I didn't try that.
No worries; I just thought I'd ask (though, I'll admit, it was kinda for somewhat selfish reasons since I'm planning a 3-part story mission). Thanks for the response, though; glad to hear it's lookin' good!
Cool! I also remember reading somewhere (either in the Holodeck release notes or the Tribble updates) that we could string our missions together (e.g. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, etc.). Do you know if that's accurate?
Brandon is just the public facing guy... its not him an arranged set of snooker cue's need to be inserted into ..... it's the software engineers.... or engineer (singular).. I am not a gold player, so this does not apply to me, but IF I were a gold player, paying money into this, I would expect time frames, estimates for completion, by-daily updates, problem reports....
Lets look at other monthly services: Spotify, Skype, Pandora, all of which are not games, granted, but they still provide a service for money. If the service is interrupted, an email will go out on day one. the fault is then hourly updated on a PUBLICLY viewed ticket where the engineers leave HOURLY updates, if the service is down more then 2 days another email goes out, letting the people who have not been monitoring the site updates, about all updates so far. by day 4 a compensation package is then provided, be it free call credit, a free music download etc....
WE are over 8 DAYS now.... and all we have had is " We're working on it. "
It is now time for a new update Brandon. Again I know this is not your fault , you can only report on what you are told, but seriously... customer care / feedback is not something you want to just leave by the way side and get to them when you feel like it. If there is no update to give, then tell us more details about what is being done, the scale of the job, how many people are working on it, what issues specifically have caused this delay... Its not what is being said, as that's just vauge padding.... its the FREQUENCY that you say it !!
It will be up when its up people, at least you can play the rest of the game, years ago i played a game where it was down for almost an entire month and i didn't see this much whining. I mean yes, i know a lot of people only play sto for the foundry now, and some of the gold members feel its owed to them to have this up yesterday, but, hey, its f2p now, so just cancel for a month or something and do something else, just logging in every now and then to check its status. In the mean time idk, read a good book or something, or if you can't do without star trek do a star trek marathon or something. Basically, the more complaints that are posted the harder it will be to find the announcement that says, yes, its up, and its not like complaining will help it speed up any, i doubt any of the dev teem are even reading this thread.
As much as I'd like the foundry back, I'd rather they fix "Second Wave" first. BEfore season six there was a CHANCE it might not let you finish the mission.
NOW, it will NOT let you finish the mission. The mission never completes. I ran it four times in a row thinking maybe my luck was just horrible. My luck can be bad but not THAT bad.
I agree I want Second Wave fixed as the rumour says you can only get reward if you do it in a group. But also I want the foundry back as I have a good plot that I want to create
NO TO ARC
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I just started playing around with the Foundry in Tribble. With as powerful and easy to use as the tool is, I can see why they're taking their time with it. It's still riddled with bugs and it just needs to be fixed up. I'm looking forward to actually writing real stories that everyone can interact with and enjoy (that's another reason why I joined STO).
Anyway, it's still up on Tribble if you wanna see why it's not up on the Holodeck.
it's still up on Tribble if you wanna see why it's not up on the Holodeck.
Part of me really wants to update Tribble so I can see what improvements they've made to the Foundry, but another part of me doesn't 'cause it's kinda like finding and unwrapping your birthday presents before your birthday...it'll ruin the excitement I feel when the event (i.e. the Foundry going back up on Holodeck) actually does happen.
So despite the posts I've made complaining about it being down, I'll happily wait. It's just that it's nice to have an outlet for my complaints where other people understand how I feel. :cool:
So despite the posts I've made complaining about it being down, I'll happily wait. It's just that it's nice to have an outlet for my complaints where other people understand how I feel. :cool:
That's probably a good idea. Until they work out ALL the bugs (they keep happening with every update, for example, before they updated it this morning, you could add rank and combadges to NPC costumes... now, just uniforms. And I imagine you can edit the name of your NPC ships and add registry numbers 'n all that. If you couldn't before, then there's no change). Anyway, in spit of all of that, I really love how powerful and easy Foundry is.
But yeah, if you're determined to wait it out, that's probably a VERY good idea
I wish they would actually give the truth to us though.... I would much rather have sopmebody admit they do not KNOW (holy TRIBBLE, scary thought huh) rather than giving vague guesses (oh it'll be done at the end of the week) and disappointing every time. So just a little lesson, a great way to do customer support is to answer a question honestly and quickly, even if the answer is 'I don't know'.
I wish they would actually give the truth to us though.... I would much rather have sopmebody admit they do not KNOW (holy TRIBBLE, scary thought huh) rather than giving vague guesses (oh it'll be done at the end of the week) and disappointing every time. So just a little lesson, a great way to do customer support is to answer a question honestly and quickly, even if the answer is 'I don't know'.
If someone makes a statement like "We anticipate something being back at the end of the week." And then between now and the end of the week, something else happens that causes that "something" to not be back at the end of the week; that does not make the first statement untruthful.
I propose that Cryptic has been very truthful with us in regards to the Foundry and that they have kept us fairly up to date on what is going on with it.
I second the last two post, they are keeping us better informed than in times past.
Not to mention what they are doing that is causing the delays, actually checking the system for breaks before publishing, is great! Even if there is some great evil conspiracy they at least chose the right thing to lie about doing. Again, better then any time before.
I'm now biting my nails off yet. Things may not be perfect, but considering everything, this good.
I have a question for Brandon or any dev who is able to answer.
The more this goes on, the more I'm getting the idea that some missions are going to wind up irretrievably lost or scrambled.
In the event that not all missions are retrievable, will anything be done to provide the author(s) in question with some sort of record of what they have done in that mission so that they are not forced to rebuild it from memory?
At the very least, could some sort of text output be given to those authors as an outline of their mission? A list of the objectives, and ESPECIALLY a text file with all of their dialogue.
Also, what is the status of unpublished missions? Will those be salvageable? Can a record be provided of them as well should conversion prove impossible?
I know that in my case, while I would be very upset at the loss of my mission-building progress, my upset could be very much assuaged by at least having a full record of all of the dialogue I've written for my mission--the real heart of it. I hope that Cryptic will strive absolutely as long as possible, of course, for a result where there are no losses, and not decide to cut their losses too soon--but if all else fails, I really want to know what backup plan is in place.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Very good questions! I myself have got an unpublished mission that I'd hate to rebuild and my girlfriend's got a mission that's very dialogue-heavy and I know she'd hate to lose that one.
I'm not a professional programmer, but to my perspective, if a mission became irreversibly broken, it would be a very easy job to write a program whose job it is to cull the dialogue and objective list out of said broken mission and present it in a readable format. It would not require actually RUNNING the mission and causing a crash or other bad error.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
I suspect that unpublished missions will need a few fixes, but not much. it seems that they're using a script to take the old missions and update them to the new system.
Comments
My character Tsin'xing
hehe Yeah, I know what you mean. Though I hope you forgive me for this...my inner geek feels the need to correct your quote.
LaForge: I'm RUNNING a Level 1 diagnostic!
Riker: For 30 HOURS?? It would never take you more than 4. You're incapable of that level of incompetence, Mr. LaForge!
(I LOVE this episode [and this scene], so I've seen it many many times; that's why I pretty much know it word for word. hehe
As far as testing the script goes, it's hard to to that at production scale. Very few companies have the resources to have a testing environment that matches the size and complexity of the live system. It would simply cost too much $$$. So, what you try an do is mitigate risk. You do as much testing as you can using the resources you have, and then weigh the risk of releasing the tested code to production. The "weighing" part is difficult because the are unforeseen things that pop up in a production environment at scale.
My guess is that at this point, they're going through their migration scripts, and attempting to get all the issues resolved that they didn't see on Tribble. You fix one problem, and another pops up. It's like whack-a-mole.
I feel their pain, but am also anxious to get going on the updated Foundry tool.
http://www.stoarchive.com/
The basic code that handles mission objectives was radically altered. The way mission progress works is now fundamentally different.
My character Tsin'xing
Different good, different bad or just different different?
My character Tsin'xing
Cool!
My character Tsin'xing
No worries; I just thought I'd ask (though, I'll admit, it was kinda for somewhat selfish reasons since I'm planning a 3-part story mission).
It's in the long term plans
Foundry Mission Database
Check out my Foundry missions:
Standalone - The Great Escape - The Galaxy's Fair - Purity I: Of Denial - Return to Oblivion
Untitled Series - Duritanium Man - The Improbable Bulk - Commander Rihan
At least now I know. hehe Thanks again for the reply! :cool:
Lets look at other monthly services: Spotify, Skype, Pandora, all of which are not games, granted, but they still provide a service for money. If the service is interrupted, an email will go out on day one. the fault is then hourly updated on a PUBLICLY viewed ticket where the engineers leave HOURLY updates, if the service is down more then 2 days another email goes out, letting the people who have not been monitoring the site updates, about all updates so far. by day 4 a compensation package is then provided, be it free call credit, a free music download etc....
WE are over 8 DAYS now.... and all we have had is " We're working on it. "
It is now time for a new update Brandon. Again I know this is not your fault , you can only report on what you are told, but seriously... customer care / feedback is not something you want to just leave by the way side and get to them when you feel like it. If there is no update to give, then tell us more details about what is being done, the scale of the job, how many people are working on it, what issues specifically have caused this delay... Its not what is being said, as that's just vauge padding.... its the FREQUENCY that you say it !!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Sig updated: 11 days now!
NOW, it will NOT let you finish the mission. The mission never completes. I ran it four times in a row thinking maybe my luck was just horrible. My luck can be bad but not THAT bad.
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Anyway, it's still up on Tribble if you wanna see why it's not up on the Holodeck.
Part of me really wants to update Tribble so I can see what improvements they've made to the Foundry, but another part of me doesn't 'cause it's kinda like finding and unwrapping your birthday presents before your birthday...it'll ruin the excitement I feel when the event (i.e. the Foundry going back up on Holodeck) actually does happen.
So despite the posts I've made complaining about it being down, I'll happily wait. It's just that it's nice to have an outlet for my complaints where other people understand how I feel. :cool:
That's probably a good idea. Until they work out ALL the bugs (they keep happening with every update, for example, before they updated it this morning, you could add rank and combadges to NPC costumes... now, just uniforms. And I imagine you can edit the name of your NPC ships and add registry numbers 'n all that. If you couldn't before, then there's no change). Anyway, in spit of all of that, I really love how powerful and easy Foundry is.
But yeah, if you're determined to wait it out, that's probably a VERY good idea
If someone makes a statement like "We anticipate something being back at the end of the week." And then between now and the end of the week, something else happens that causes that "something" to not be back at the end of the week; that does not make the first statement untruthful.
I propose that Cryptic has been very truthful with us in regards to the Foundry and that they have kept us fairly up to date on what is going on with it.
My character Tsin'xing
Not to mention what they are doing that is causing the delays, actually checking the system for breaks before publishing, is great! Even if there is some great evil conspiracy they at least chose the right thing to lie about doing. Again, better then any time before.
I'm now biting my nails off yet. Things may not be perfect, but considering everything, this good.
The more this goes on, the more I'm getting the idea that some missions are going to wind up irretrievably lost or scrambled.
In the event that not all missions are retrievable, will anything be done to provide the author(s) in question with some sort of record of what they have done in that mission so that they are not forced to rebuild it from memory?
At the very least, could some sort of text output be given to those authors as an outline of their mission? A list of the objectives, and ESPECIALLY a text file with all of their dialogue.
Also, what is the status of unpublished missions? Will those be salvageable? Can a record be provided of them as well should conversion prove impossible?
I know that in my case, while I would be very upset at the loss of my mission-building progress, my upset could be very much assuaged by at least having a full record of all of the dialogue I've written for my mission--the real heart of it. I hope that Cryptic will strive absolutely as long as possible, of course, for a result where there are no losses, and not decide to cut their losses too soon--but if all else fails, I really want to know what backup plan is in place.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
My character Tsin'xing