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WoW had to squish stats solely because boss health was running up against the 32-bit integer limit. Just take that in. They meticulously reduced the numbers on all the gear in the entire game, and all health across every single enemy ever made, purely so they could lower DPS and buy a couple years' time to try and upgrade the integer format used to store boss health. Player health and healing is already back to the exact same levels they were at when they ran up against that 2 billion limit, player damage output is literally the only thing that's still lower. That's how bad their code is. Thunderbro fucked around with this message at 16:27 on May 27, 2015 |
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May 27, 2015 16:25
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that too is not really indicative of BAD ENGINE, maybe a lack of communication between engine guys and design guys which led to runaway stat inflation in cata which they are pretty much repeating anyway i mean really they used a 32 bit integer for monster hp in a packed structure or w/e in 2003? oh woop de doo that engine be so bad hurr durr e: i'm sure wow engine is terrible, however those are all p weak arguments is what im saying
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May 27, 2015 16:28
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cthulhoo posted:that too is not really indicative of BAD ENGINE, maybe a lack of communication between engine guys and design guys which led to runaway stat inflation in cata It was easier to make sweeping numerical changes across their entire database than unravel the spaghetti gently caress mess that would let them change their numbers format. The bunnies thing is also indicative of how impossible it is to change any core structures. Game's code is frankensteinian.
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May 27, 2015 16:32
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i can imagine a possibility where doing what is essentially a mass database update can be easier than unfucking some structures, yes. >The bunnies thing is also indicative of how impossible it is to change any core structures. Game's code is frankensteinian. no idea what this means so idk e: people who made wow server clones could probably share some legit horror stories about wow server/network stuff cthulhoo fucked around with this message at 16:43 on May 27, 2015 |
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May 27, 2015 16:36
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cthulhoo posted:
It's just a really bass-ackwards way of going about programming objectives, and it's impressive that in all the time I played retail WoW I never noticed this under-the-hood system. I can imagine that a lot of 'broken quests' boiled down to the invisible bunnies failing to respawn or something. On a private server I played on some of these invisible mobs could in fact be seen. Although usually they were miniature infernals rather than bunnies.
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May 27, 2015 17:08
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im not sure why game engine using invisible entities to control w/e is somehow intrinsically wrong; i guess "lol bunnies" throws people off or something
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cthulhoo posted:trooper story is bad and dumb anyway The best voice-work in the game is the female Inquisitor. The male comes across as a phoned-in dry wit evil dude, whereas the female sounds like someone who is utterly insane.
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May 27, 2015 17:08
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If it doesn't immediately strike you as super hosed up that they have to jump through those kinds of hoops to do basic things when they have 100% control over their own code base, go read any introductory book on programming. Heck you'll probably get it after only a couple of chapters.
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May 27, 2015 17:08
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Flesh Forge posted:If it doesn't immediately strike you as super hosed up that they have to jump through those kinds of hoops to do basic things when they have 100% control over their own code base, go read any introductory book on programming. Heck you'll probably get it after only a couple of chapters. oh for sure man nvm
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May 27, 2015 17:14
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The protocol is mainly OK, and there is some really nice stuff in there like battle net login stuff being srp6 when it first released in 2004. Since you never see blizzard's source, just the source of some guy who reverse engineered it, it's hard to tell what's bad, but there's definitely some bad smells in some areas. For instance, the zeppelin code in mangos zero will cause Mac clients and only Mac clients to fall of after changing continents. The Mac client will just decide that it's not on the zeppelin anymore, send a message saying, "bye, I'm falling now" and gently caress off. This isn't unique to emulated servers-back in vanilla every couple releases would introduce this bug and blizzard would have to do some server side fuckery to fix it. We just don't know what it is anymore so like rebirth was the first server that had a "fix" for this because I just had the server refuse to accept the client's resignation until they'd moved across the deck (which would make the Mac client snap out of it). Mac users would see themselves glitching the gently caress out until they pressed something, but hey, it worked. Another area was onyxia-she flew, in an expansion where flight was not a thing. You had to trick her into doing a flying animation (she was actually still on the ground the whole time) and if you weren't very careful she'd do a walking animation or a hurt animation which are both on the ground. I got the impression that the system was just as fragile in the original.
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May 27, 2015 17:15
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cthulhoo posted:oh for sure man That's not really picking on you, nobody's born knowing about programming stuff, and I'm not saying it takes years of learning to see what's wrong there, it's literally something that an entry level programming book would give as examples of bad programming design.
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May 27, 2015 17:23
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30.5 Days posted:For instance, the zeppelin code in mangos zero will cause Mac clients and only Mac clients to fall of after changing continents. The Mac client will just decide that it's not on the zeppelin anymore, send a message saying, "bye, I'm falling now" and gently caress off. This isn't unique to emulated servers-back in vanilla every couple releases would introduce this bug and blizzard would have to do some server side fuckery to fix it. I remember back around when the game was new that would happen a lot with ships also, where they'd either just fail to load in after a zone change or something similar to that effect. Whatever the reason, end result was drowning
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May 27, 2015 17:36
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Thunderbro posted:yeah he was an awful dev and he picked his replacements who are all god-tier narcissist retards even beyond him Cutting the stat inflation and button bloat was actually pretty nice.
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May 27, 2015 17:43
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Thunderbro posted:WoW had to squish stats solely because boss health was running up against the 32-bit integer limit. That's not indicative of bad code, but bad mechanics, a hallmark of RPGs since CoC and D&D.
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May 27, 2015 17:51
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Flesh Forge posted:That's not really picking on you, nobody's born knowing about programming stuff, and I'm not saying it takes years of learning to see what's wrong there, it's literally something that an entry level programming book would give as examples of bad programming design. thanks friend i'll be sure to look up this programming stuff one of these days 
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May 27, 2015 17:53
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A better example rather than the stat squish happened in Wrath when they added a bunch of ways for DoT based classes to extend their DoTs but kept the original snap shot. This allowed certain specs to pop potions, all CDs, Bloodlust, and then put up a super dot that would never ever fall off and do crazy damage the whole fight. Their response was very honest when asked if a nerf was incoming. They said that no one actually understood how the DoT system worked anymore and they'd get a fix for it in after someone figured out how the system functioned.
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May 27, 2015 18:06
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Psykmoe posted:This is pretty much verbatim what my brother told me to try and 'sell' me on SWTOR last weekend. "During 12x xp weekends you can ignore all the grinding and MMO missions and play a fairly reasonable KOTOR-type storyline even as a Free player!" I did the full trooper quest line for exactly this reason. All things considered, it is mass effect with a sort-of star wars skin. I hate to say paint by numbers and repetitive meaningless crap. But paint by numbers. And repetitive meaningless crap. What made it particularly weird is that I ended up tapping out before I got leveled to cap. When I came back later to finish the treadmill, I *really* noticed the disruptive influence of MMO quests for quests sake. Like, there was a point somewhere in the middle I remembered where I went to a planet in order to stop a doomsday fleet on its way. When there, I got another quest that hinted at a doomsday weapon that could destroy any fleet! The two things were not related. I ended up stopping both terrifying things in a nick of time. By operating computer consoles or killing a mandalorian with 2 droid henchmen or whatever. Bioware stuff is threadbare, but making it an MMO just undercuts it. I don't know how you play the game more than once. I've tried. I heard good things about the imperial agent and jedi knight. I just can't do it. I go back to the starter zones, or even the first couple planets after you get out of the starter, and all I see is the same old poo poo. I *remember* most of those quests. I tried taking a sith character up a little way, got bored, and tried the other sith. I'm reasonably interested in their personal stories, but then I see the same rear end in a top hat trapped in a temple, or the same jerk who wants to punish runaway slaves. There's a whole big side line where you try to become part of a secret cult that everybody gets to do. It's the MMO problem. But worse, because it's the playstyle of a game designed around pretending that you're actually doing something that matters with a choose-your-own-adventure. Best part of SWTOR, bar none, and still yet to be equalled by any other MMO was the space ship shooter parts. Both the on rails and the newer full freedom one. It's an actual game. I recommend playing just that to level your character. IMO dump the rest of the crap and just keep adding on to that. FF XIV can do a panzer dragoon style thing where you ride an esper, maybe. The secret world would obviously be Shoggoth squadrons strafing Byakhee-summoning portals. Wildstar could just merge with star citizen.
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May 27, 2015 18:13
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But ultimately I just couldn't be arsed. My brother is the bigger Star Wars fan anyway.
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Does anyone know the team structure of games like wow? I know in EQ they have a spell lead, item lead, raid lead, AA lead, etc. It's incredibly stupid because items have spells, AAs are spells, and you have someone else making raids that isn't in involved in making the things that can balance it(items and spells.) You also have the problem of AAs giving you copies of spells that you already have, sometimes in a worse form.
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May 27, 2015 18:20
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wow has a lead guy who screams at other idiots thats pretty much it i think e oh you mean dev structure, nvm im dumb cthulhoo fucked around with this message at 18:59 on May 27, 2015 |
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May 27, 2015 18:26
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darkhand posted:Does anyone know the team structure of games like wow? I know FF14 is basically a bunch of small teams who all answer to the lead designer. So there's a raid team of 4 or so dudes and then the combat class team of 6 or whatever, etc. I don't remember specifics but this is gleaned from stuff they talk about at live events sometimes. All of these little teams send their stuff through the lead designer for final approval. Their music guy ended up having to redo a battle song for a primal fight 2 or 3 times 8 hours before that fight's patch was set to go live. Failboattootoot fucked around with this message at 18:58 on May 27, 2015 |
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May 27, 2015 18:56
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Failboattootoot posted:I know FF14 is basically a bunch of small teams who all answer to the lead designer. So there's a raid team of 4 or so dudes and then the combat class team of 6 or whatever, etc. I don't remember specifics but this is gleaned from stuff they talk about at live events sometimes. All of these little teams send their stuff through the lead designer for final approval. Their music guy ended up having to redo a battle song for a primal fight 2 or 3 times 8 hours before that fight's patch was set to go live. I guess that works. I think EQ took the segregation too far, or the lead designer is just bad and I'll give an example. Necro Epic 2.5 is like 8 years out of era and still the best item in the game. See the epic 2.0 gives you a passive DOT crit rate of +8% which is already extremely good because crit multipliers are upwards of 400%. To get the 2.5 you have to do one of the most heinous dungeons ever made, Demi-Plane and it's nearly impossible to box even almost a decade later. Once you do though your epic is "augmented" to +10%. Sick right? Well if you actually read the spell data, the 8 and 10 stack in a broken way so you get 18%crit. Nobody on the item team can "fix" it because it affects spells. And no one on the spell team can fix it because it's an item. I talked about sterile game play earlier, but stuff like that is funny, in good and bad ways.
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May 27, 2015 19:30
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Thunderbro posted:They meticulously reduced the numbers on all the gear in the entire game, and all health across every single enemy ever made, purely so they could lower DPS and buy a couple years' time to try and upgrade the integer format used to store boss health. Player health and healing is already back to the exact same levels they were at when they ran up against that 2 billion limit, player damage output is literally the only thing that's still lower. That's how bad their code is. It's not quite so dire, since they also floated the idea of just going ahead and rejiggering things to allow numbers to continue to be large and grow, but they decided to squish instead because the human beings playing the game are able to handle smaller numbers better than large numbers (or "mega damage", as they portrayed it).
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May 27, 2015 19:34
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biznatchio posted:It's not quite so dire, since they also floated the idea of just going ahead and rejiggering things to allow numbers to continue to be large and grow, but they decided to squish instead because the human beings playing the game are able to handle smaller numbers better than large numbers (or "mega damage", as they portrayed it). Just change all damage readouts to scientific notation, no problem
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May 27, 2015 19:37
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I always enjoyed Tom Chiltons responses to dumb rear end questions he got asked in the Q&A at blizzcon. He never held any punches.
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May 27, 2015 19:41
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Thunderbro posted:WoW had to squish stats solely because boss health was running up against the 32-bit integer limit. There are other-ways around a 32-bit integer limitation. They just had a meeting like good developers do and decided it was better for all parties. Most people would just be floored how many software "hacks" are in every single software you use. If it works 100% of the time and efficient enough, why does anyone care other then to compare e-penises to other engines and go "OMG YOUR GAME SUCKKKKSSS because look at the ENGINE LOL"? Its not like people in this thread are the ones having to fight the code each new exp.
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May 27, 2015 20:09
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Tormented posted:Most people would just be floored how many software "hacks" are in every single software you use. Yup. Even the "best" software by the most popular companies have mountains of code like this and no one has a clue. This is one of my favorite programming articles of all time and I have yet to meet a seasoned programmer who agrees with any less than 90% of what it says. It is also a hilarious read so enjoy. Programming is Hell
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May 27, 2015 20:14
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Thunderbro posted:WoW had to squish stats solely because boss health was running up against the 32-bit integer limit. The amount of health players have was doubled at some point during beta to ensure longer TTK in pvp. Having much lower player DPS is the important part here, because it means bosses don't need such huge health pools that they run up against the integer limit.
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May 27, 2015 20:26
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Xavier434 posted:Yup. Even the "best" software by the most popular companies have mountains of code like this and no one has a clue. This is one of my favorite programming articles of all time and I have yet to meet a seasoned programmer who agrees with any less than 90% of what it says. It is also a hilarious read so enjoy. Whenever that article says "unicorn", I assume this is what they mean.
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May 27, 2015 20:38
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Thunderbro posted:WoW had to squish stats solely because boss health was running up against the 32-bit integer limit. Why would it matter if player health and healing is back to that level if that wasn't actually the problem to begin with? It was always about player damage (and by extension boss health) and those both ramp up way slower than they used to
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May 27, 2015 20:58
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Also double the size of all numbers in your game does have some real deal possibility of destroying your game especially one that has millions of players sending data back and forth between the server and client.
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May 27, 2015 21:08
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Belzac posted:Also double the size of all numbers in your game does have some real deal possibility of destroying your game especially one that has millions of players sending data back and forth between the server and client. This is literally a problem currently in diablo 3. It might have been fixed but players got stalled at a certain greater rift level because the data xfer limit was lower than the ammount needed to communicate the damage being done.
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May 27, 2015 21:11
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The natural consequence of games whose only "appeal" is making numbers get bigger.
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May 27, 2015 21:13
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Xavier434 posted:Yup. Even the "best" software by the most popular companies have mountains of code like this and no one has a clue. This is one of my favorite programming articles of all time and I have yet to meet a seasoned programmer who agrees with any less than 90% of what it says. It is also a hilarious read so enjoy. It would be awesome if projects were specced out to include programming time that would systemize everything, but ultimately, everyone (even Blizzard) has deadlines and you end up having to work with what you can do with the tools and personnel you have. The quest example is a good one -- it makes sense you'd need kill quests, collect quests, etc. and that's what they systemized. Designers will be designers, however, and inevitably they'll want to do something that doesn't fit in the box the programmers have handed them. In that case, you have three options: 1) stay inside your carefully-crafted box and use the tools you've been given to do this particular thing (and have your end users despair at the lack of variety) ; 2) ask the programmers to add systemized functionality (for something that will be used 2% of the time and be told that doesn't justify the added workload to the project); 3) jury-rig things using the various systems and records you have at your disposal to make it look smooth on the player's end. 3 ends up being the realistic option... which, at times, can result in requests for systemization drying up, since they figure they'll just be told no anyway. Years down the line, this results in the programmers coming to the slow, dawning realization that the game is entirely covered with invisible creatures due to designers being designers. Thinking to correct this problem, they come to the designers and ask them to maybe stop spawning so many invisible creatures. They come with a peace offering: the potential of a new object with lower cost that could serve the same purpose. The designers agree with this in principle but proceed to rattle off two dozen properties of creatures that they use in various triggers. The programmers realize that their simple object would... basically have to have all but one or two of the properties creatures possess (at least in terms of server cost), and resign themselves to invisible creature central. These are the realities of game development. 
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May 27, 2015 21:29
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you're putting way too much effort to explain this poo poo to people who post itt about their proficiencies with ~programming stuff~
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May 27, 2015 21:31
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Cyster posted:It would be awesome if projects were specced out to include programming time that would systemize everything, but ultimately, everyone (even Blizzard) has deadlines and you end up having to work with what you can do with the tools and personnel you have. The quest example is a good one -- it makes sense you'd need kill quests, collect quests, etc. and that's what they systemized. Designers will be designers, however, and inevitably they'll want to do something that doesn't fit in the box the programmers have handed them. In that case, you have three options: 1) stay inside your carefully-crafted box and use the tools you've been given to do this particular thing (and have your end users despair at the lack of variety) ; 2) ask the programmers to add systemized functionality (for something that will be used 2% of the time and be told that doesn't justify the added workload to the project); 3) jury-rig things using the various systems and records you have at your disposal to make it look smooth on the player's end. 3 ends up being the realistic option... which, at times, can result in requests for systemization drying up, since they figure they'll just be told no anyway. these are the lovely excuses bad programmers give themselves "oh its just the industry"
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May 27, 2015 21:33
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I'm drawing a complete blank here. What's an example of a quest that isn't "kill a thing" or "collect a thing" or "talk to a thing"?
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May 27, 2015 21:47
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Madcosby posted:these are the lovely excuses bad programmers give themselves A person's ability to program is mutually exclusive from the resources allocated for a project as well as just about every other decision made about the software other than the source code itself and even then there are sometimes limits strictly due to how a company chooses to run itself. Sure, some bad programmers will use this as a crutch but that doesn't make it any less true about most of the industry.
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May 27, 2015 21:47
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Boris Galerkin posted:I'm drawing a complete blank here. What's an example of a quest that isn't "kill a thing" or "collect a thing" or "talk to a thing"?
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May 27, 2015 21:49
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Games always have the codebase of a 5 year old startup because the industry has a prodigious brain drain due to nobody being willing to pay for anything and the fact that someone willing to work cheap is always around the next corner. At some point game developers convinced themselves that this was charming and/or normal.
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May 27, 2015 21:50
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Asimo posted:An obvious example would be breadcrumb style quests that involve simply reaching a certain location to trigger the next stage of the quest or activate some environment stage. Using an item in an area. Item actually kills closest bunny within x meters.
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May 27, 2015 21:52
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Boris Galerkin posted:I'm drawing a complete blank here. What's an example of a quest that isn't "kill a thing" or "collect a thing" or "talk to a thing"? A few other common ones you see that differ in terms of back-end recognition: "use an ability on a thing," and "go to this place (with optional do a thing.)" The ability will normally have a quest credit effect on it in addition to whatever it does, and going to a place involves defining the triggering space and determining what prerequisites must be met for entering it to give quest credit.
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May 27, 2015 21:53
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