**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
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Please tell us what you intend to fix and what you do during maintenance and extended maintenance
BossyBuilder
Posts: 137
There is a laundry list of things happening with the game right now and I'm very curious to know what you're focusing on and what exactly happens during extended maintenance.
Do you address player performance issues (lag, unresponsive controls, broken blocks)?
Server (connection) issues?
Are you fixing bugs and known errors (like the black screen issue, autofight coming on randomly, etc.)?
Are you making game updates for content?
Are you changing character attributes?
Thanks!
Do you address player performance issues (lag, unresponsive controls, broken blocks)?
Server (connection) issues?
Are you fixing bugs and known errors (like the black screen issue, autofight coming on randomly, etc.)?
Are you making game updates for content?
Are you changing character attributes?
Thanks!
5
Comments
First of all, server maintenance is not like working on a train, where they take the train out of service and then work on it. All game development happens on development servers, and during maintenance when a new version is ready to go the servers are shut down and the software patched and/or replaced, then the servers are brought back up running the new code. The developers fix things during their development work, but during maintenance the software is swapped for new code. Whatever we get during maintenance is whatever they've been working on and are ready to push since the last maintenance. The developers do not "work" on the live servers directly. As a rule, development teams don't even have any direct access to the operational live systems.
Second, most of the time maintenance takes a similar amount of time, because the work is similar. Upload new software packages and then patch or replace the existing software on the servers, then restart them. But sometimes the changes require more things to happen. For example if the new software requires a completely different database structure (lets say they added more information for the game to track) then the existing databases on the servers need to be converted to the new format. That's not something they can prepackage, they have to convert everything in the live systems after the software is upgraded. That extra step will generally make maintenance take a lot longer.
Additionally, sometimes extended maintenance occurs because there are other infrastructure maintenance work that has to happen that cannot happen while the game is running, and this stuff often takes a lot longer than normal software patching. Perhaps they are rolling out a whole new set of server load balancers that requires major surgery to the hardware infrastructure. Maybe they are virtualizing something, or unvirtualizing something. Maybe they are migrating very large (in terms of data) components to new infrastructure and this can't be done while the system is live due to performance issues, and the large transfer of data takes a lot longer than the normal maintenance window.
In any case, the system operations people actually doing the work during extended maintenance might not be able to answer your question. These things are often scripted and automated, and the people doing the work of applying the upgrades and maintenance work don't always know everything contained within that stuff. The developers might know what the new software does, but the operators loading it don't. Meanwhile the operators might know what additional infrastructure work is happening during extended maintenance but the developers may have no idea (because it is not their job).
There may literally be no single person that could answer your question specifically. That's just the way these things often happen logistically.
I don't think they can do that in only eight hours.
I’ve been wanting to start a thread about this topic but I’m sure it’ll be full of hate or simple misunderstanding
If you don't know what that means, it's probably not worth the time explaining to u either.
"Improve our backend systems" is kind of a catch all phrase for game operators that basically means anything that isn't the normal patching of front end servers. It could be anything from upgrading databases, to migrating data to faster storage, to upgrading hardware (if they are not hosted), to anything else involving the infrastructure that supports the game.
For longish technical reasons I don't think it is likely hardware, and probably not other random infrastructure, so my money is on back end game databases. Maybe some of it is in some way connected to the purchasing systems which could explain why the unit store will be down.
So likely only checking vulnerabilities for the store, and jacking up prices for the Christmas season
why do you even bother posting garbage like this? do you feel better now?
There are probably a lot of different game issues being addressed in the updates, but I think the OP appeared to be asking what kinds of things to be fixed warrant extended maintenance. And in general, no matter what you're fixing in the game or even how many things you're fixing it generally takes the same amount of time, because all the work is done ahead of time and the maintenance window is only used to upload the new software, however many fixes that software contains.
Whether you are fixing one bug or a thousand, it generally takes the same amount of time to apply the fixes, unless that bug requires a complete overhaul of the game infrastructure that cannot be touched except during maintenance downtime.