Star Citizen: Death of a Space Thread?

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Hav: Dec 11, 2009; Fun Shoe

EminusSleepus posted:

I don't think their main problem will be database I still think their biggest problem is network.

_traditionally_ the database represents the issue. I touched on it a couple of posts ago, but databases are largely asymmetric in terms that there are more reads than writes, but a spike in writes can gently caress latency on processing. The database has to be a single canonical source.

Each database instance can handle a given number of connections, and usually a connection is bi-directional (this can be tuned, read-slaves are a thing. Write-slaves less so because _replication_ has to take place before the write is confirmed, which increases latency but also increases the number of write connections that can be made). This is why you'd see those messages that mysql hosed off when a site used to get slashdotted...

There's a balancing act between money, latency and reliability where you have to find the sweet spot that works for you, but costs tend towards infinitely as you try to get closer to nirvana.

Delivering packets is trivial and we've been load-balancing for years, but games are unbalanced loads. Nobody stays spread out, and it's dynamically weighted in a way that _looks_ chaotic, but is a meat-mediated positive feedback loop.

I _know_ that they're going to run into trouble with both those issues because they've so far completely mismanaged the patcher to the extent where it flattens the IP stack of the computer running it. That's literally network 101 and QoS is the only thing that stops it killing the bloody platform. Torrents are a great illustration of a scaling problem, and they trip over it immediately.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 17:36

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# ? May 15, 2024 06:22

Beer4TheBeerGod: Aug 23, 2004; Exciting Lemon

Years ago we had a lot of fun theory-crafting how CIG was going to handle instances and players. This was before they went fully open and demonstrated that they could barely handle 20 people in an entire solar system, and instead every encounter would be an instance like a match in Arena Commander. Was an instance going to be player-limited or ship-limited? If it was ship limited, did a player going EVA "count" as a ship? What about NPCs? How would CIG balance the load inside an instance so that one team didn't simply fill it up and the other side would be outnumbered? Unfortunately none of these questions were ever answered, and given CIG's inability to deliver netcode I suspect they never will. The difference between a ship and player-limited instance was pretty critical. If the instance was player limited then it made sense to have everyone be in small ships to maximize individual firepower. On the other hand if the instance was ship limited then throwing a large number of bigger ships with more players made sense. My favorite bit of theory crafting was that, if CIG limited instances by the number of ships, then the easiest way to crash the server would be to take a transport ship full of players and dump them into space.

I miss those days.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 17:41

Ash1138: Sep 29, 2001; Get up, chief. We're just gettin' started.

Hav posted:

_traditionally_ the database represents the issue. I touched on it a couple of posts ago, but databases are largely asymmetric in terms that there are more reads than writes, but a spike in writes can gently caress latency on processing. The database has to be a single canonical source.

Each database instance can handle a given number of connections, and usually a connection is bi-directional (this can be tuned, read-slaves are a thing. Write-slaves less so because _replication_ has to take place before the write is confirmed, which increases latency but also increases the number of write connections that can be made). This is why you'd see those messages that mysql hosed off when a site used to get slashdotted...

There's a balancing act between money, latency and reliability where you have to find the sweet spot that works for you, but costs tend towards infinitely as you try to get closer to nirvana.

Delivering packets is trivial and we've been load-balancing for years, but games are unbalanced loads. Nobody stays spread out, and it's dynamically weighted in a way that _looks_ chaotic, but is a meat-mediated positive feedback loop.

I _know_ that they're going to run into trouble with both those issues because they've so far completely mismanaged the patcher to the extent where it flattens the IP stack of the computer running it. That's literally network 101 and QoS is the only thing that stops it killing the bloody platform. Torrents are a great illustration of a scaling problem, and they trip over it immediately.

i can only sort of follow your posts on this subject, but i still like them a lot

# ? Jan 4, 2017 17:47

Eldragon: Feb 22, 2003

Hav posted:

What are you doing now? Still DBs?

Banks are essentially betting huge amounts of cash on reducing latency, so they throw all those loving overdraft charges at the scaling issues. We have a bunch of HA stuff that runs the backbone, but I'm not a DB guy, I'm a network guy. I know some _very_ good DB guys who I get drunk regularly so they answer my phone calls, though.

Right behind the banks at the moment are the ad buying networks, which are effectively realtime bidding for eyes. The whole system is gamed to gently caress and back, but there are rules around comscore, and this creates more traffic than you'd believe.

AWS' other big issue, apart from shared infrastructure - unless you pay the big bucks, and you're still not sure where your poo poo 'lives' - is that they like to handle internal routing, so load balancing across availability zones is a bitch to the extent where we've had people routing west coast to east coast, then back to west coast after hitting the AWS network.

Lumberyard was intended to lower to bar to entry for people to produce games, 'hopefully' re-creating the desktop publishing publishing model. It doesn't actually _fix_ anything. Now they have to slipstream their changes to take advantage of the development on HEAD after they aligned to a much, much earlier commit.

I was primarily a GUI developer that helped out in the DB/Network area (e.g. fixed bugs) I slowly moved into full stack developer and project lead. So I've got just enough knowledge to completely understand the issues of HA and DB replication, but not enough to do anything novel in the field. A few months ago I quit the banking/retail sector and doing education software.

But yeah, banks and retail are putting a ton of effort into cleaning up and optimizing their infrastructure. Many firms are trying to get rid of running as much of their own datacenters as they can. Its a fun but very un-glamorous field. Except for when I get to go inside the datacenter where literally all your electronic money is stored, that was fun.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 18:20

intardnation: Feb 18, 2016; I'm going to space!

Crazy_BlackParrot posted:

Y U GUYS NO POSTING?!

found kratom now out living my life thanks. plus with my refund I have a nice new hotas to play with in real games and not pretend pew pew in vr like CR did but actually do it.

Thinking of starting a PUA agency and becoming a streamer now that I feel great again!

intardnation fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jan 4, 2017

# ? Jan 4, 2017 18:21

Tijuana Bibliophile: Dec 30, 2008; Scratchmo

# ? Jan 4, 2017 18:32

Tijuana Bibliophile: Dec 30, 2008; Scratchmo

WolfLarsen giving ~~INN~~ Relay.sc some much-needed competition in the transcript department

# ? Jan 4, 2017 18:37

Propagandist: Oct 23, 2007

Tijuana Bibliophile posted:

WolfLarsen giving ~~INN~~ Relay.sc some much-needed competition in the transcript department

No doxxing of the stimperor, tia

# ? Jan 4, 2017 18:44

Colostomy Bag: Jan 11, 2016; C-Bangin' it

It's the worst kind of doxxing.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 18:46

intardnation: Feb 18, 2016; I'm going to space!

Tijuana Bibliophile posted:

WolfLarsen giving ~~INN~~ Relay.sc some much-needed competition in the transcript department

have to make that $

# ? Jan 4, 2017 18:50

Tijuana Bibliophile: Dec 30, 2008; Scratchmo

Also what the gently caress is "director mode"

# ? Jan 4, 2017 18:57

Inkel: Feb 19, 2004; College Slice

Tijuana Bibliophile posted:

Also what the gently caress is "director mode"

It's what Chris thinks in his head every time he looks at the funding tracker, right before ordering another round of reshoots at the Imaginarium.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:03

Lladre: Jun 28, 2011; Soiled Meat

Tijuana Bibliophile posted:

Also what the gently caress is "director mode"

Wavy hands 2.0

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:05

Propagandist: Oct 23, 2007

If Croberts is the Chairman, is Ben the Couchman?

bengetsup.gif

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:05

ewe2: Jul 1, 2009

I was thinking about that reddit thread where Star Citizen members were defined as being part of a cult, and thought it would be an interesting exercise to match with an accepted list. So here is:

Star Citizen according to Cult 101

The TL;DR for impatient readers: there is a core group of Star Citizen players and contributors who exhibit signs of several of the defining characteristics of a cult according to this list.

Cults are generally very controlling organizations, often the higher level members are responsible for policing the group, giving the leadership a level of deniablity for some practices. To the extent of the belief of some Citizens, these cult characteristics do apply. However, the Citizen community can't be said to be a true cult because it is not a physically applicable organization, where all aspects of its members life are controlled. It only displays the superficial aspects of a cult due to the overzealous belief systems of its members.

Aspects which do not fit are generally ones where physical contact would be required. However, should one define "members" as being company employees, there may be cause to revisit some of these points in the future when it is safer for ex-employees to go public.

I am aware of the effect this list would have on certain sensitive citizens, and so would welcome explicit examples for and against each point to add to this document for future reference.

The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.

Clearly some members display these attitudes, or believe in a version they have fantasised for themselves.
Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

Not simply on the RSI forums, they are known to keep records on dissenters and even non-members. For instance, the customer services forum tagging, the following of backers on other forums and sites, and moving any dangerous discussion to a bitbucket known as the "concern" forum.
Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).

This degree of control is impossible for an online connection. However, there is a level of doubt-suppression involved in the fantasty-world of many Citizens that is encouraged by the marketing tactics of RSI/CIG.
The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry�or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).

This degree of control is impossible for an online connection. However, within the bounds of acceptable use policy, there is control, and the degree of control of discussion of the game is strict.
The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and its members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar�or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).

Clearly there are aspects of this involved in the Star Citizen community. Despite known facts to the contrary, Roberts is held to be a blameless visionary and his defects are ignored or explained away. Similarly, Citizens tell each other how special they are, and believe they will be rewarded for their loyalty and contributions.
The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.

This is very clear, given their attempts to victimize dissenters, and all sorts of threats against dissenters have been made. The siege mentality of Citizens is also much in evidence.
The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).

Not tested, certainly members do not accept any suggested wrongdoing.
The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members� participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before they joined the group (for example, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).

Some members obviously believe any action against a dissenter or critic is justified and this behaviour is implied as justifiable by the actions of the company against dissenters and critics. This is not a minor point: actions do speak louder than words.
The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.

No overt methods from the company here, but it has been seen between Citizens.
Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and to radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before they joined the group.

Again, impossible without physical contact. There may well be Citizens who have done this, but as we only have self-reporting to go on, it's a doubtful point.
The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

Yes, Citizens are always prosetylising. There are numerous examples.
The group is preoccupied with making money.

This rather depends on whether you see cult-like characteristics or long con scam characteristics. But money is the prequisite to joining the "higher" levels.
Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.

No, but many do online.
Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.

No, but again many do online.
The most loyal members (the �true believers�) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.

I've no doubt some Citizens feel this way, they are the most vulnerable.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:10

Hav: Dec 11, 2009; Fun Shoe

Eldragon posted:

But yeah, banks and retail are putting a ton of effort into cleaning up and optimizing their infrastructure. Many firms are trying to get rid of running as much of their own datacenters as they can. Its a fun but very un-glamorous field. Except for when I get to go inside the datacenter where literally all your electronic money is stored, that was fun.

This is kinda where I am. We're in the middle of a multi-year move to divest datacenters into AWS (and other cloud services). We sold one of our datacenters for around $20m a couple of years ago. It's less about infrastructure and chasing the 60% utilization for us, at least.

To expand on that; business dev considers is wasteful to have boxes suck up cold air at 0.5% utilization, so it's all microservices and elastic computing. We'll spend twice the money getting there, but the overall feel is that the gains will be made over time.

Now, if we can stop people sending network traffic the wrong way around the globe, we might see that.

Ash1138 posted:

i can only sort of follow your posts on this subject, but i still like them a lot

Thank you. Friends and family try not to mention 'packets' around me. It's vengeance for the number of times they ask me to fix their desktops.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:13

Beet Wagon: Oct 19, 2015

lmao when the "Grabby Hands" module gets implemented as a standalone game called Star Citizen: Loadmaster released exclusively for HTC Vive.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:19

big nipples big life: May 12, 2014

Does anyone who play Euro Truck Sim ever complain about not being able to hand load the trailers in that game? Like is it a popular topic on the forums?

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:23

Sabreseven: Feb 27, 2016

Ol Cactus Dick posted:

Does anyone who play Euro Truck Sim ever complain about not being able to hand load the trailers in that game? Like is it a popular topic on the forums?

I play ETS2 once in a while, I've honestly never wanted to hand load the cargo into the wagons trailer and have never come across a post on their forum asking for that kind of self harm style of gameplay.

Just to add from a real life perspective I have ten full time truck drivers working at my company and none of them have ever expressed any interest in hand loading cargo either, mostly they just look a bit depressed and shrug a bit when they do have to do it.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:32

Tokyo Sexwale: Jul 30, 2003

Beet Wagon posted:

lmao when the "Grabby Hands" module gets implemented as a standalone game called Star Citizen: Loadmaster released exclusively for HTC Vive.

that's coming with the release of Grabby Hands 3.0

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:33

Lladre: Jun 28, 2011; Soiled Meat

Ol Cactus Dick posted:

Does anyone who play Euro Truck Sim ever complain about not being able to hand load the trailers in that game? Like is it a popular topic on the forums?

It is the most contentious debate on that thread. Winner always being that it's a truck driver simulator not a dock worker simulator.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:35

spacetoaster: Feb 10, 2014

Sabreseven posted:

I play ETS2 once in a while, I've honestly never wanted to hand load the cargo into the wagons trailer and have never come across a post on their forum asking for that kind of self harm style of gameplay.

Just to add from a real life perspective I have ten full time truck drivers working at my company and none of them have ever expressed any interest in hand loading cargo either, mostly they just look a bit depressed and shrug a bit when they do have to do it.

Has anyone ever hidden in a box on a truck and then ambushed the driver while he's driving down the interstate?

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:35

Colostomy Bag: Jan 11, 2016; C-Bangin' it

spacetoaster posted:

Has anyone ever hidden in a box on a truck and then ambushed the driver while he's driving down the interstate?

Good idea, interstate piracy along with all the consequences that go with it.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:38

Beet Wagon: Oct 19, 2015

Lladre posted:

It is the most contentious debate on that thread. Winner always being that it's a truck driver simulator not a dock worker simulator.

Yeah I mean most real truckers don't even load/unload their own trailers as far as I know. That's why Home Depot has to hold a class once a month to teach the teenagers that work for them how to drive a forklift lol.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:39

spacetoaster: Feb 10, 2014

Colostomy Bag posted:

Good idea, interstate piracy along with all the consequences that go with it.

The inevitable consequences of trucking.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:39

Lladre: Jun 28, 2011; Soiled Meat

Mass Effect is slated for March 21 release date.
So Chris and Co have what 90 days to release their prelude or be forever boned?

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:41

Sabreseven: Feb 27, 2016

Lladre posted:

It is the most contentious debate on that thread. Winner always being that it's a truck driver simulator not a dock worker simulator.

I must have missed that thread

spacetoaster posted:

Has anyone ever hidden in a box on a truck and then ambushed the driver while he's driving down the interstate?

In my rl job? We did have a driver beat the poo poo out of an illegal imigrant who was trying to get into Britain from Calais that he found stowed away under his trailer, I couldn't fault the driver though because if anything had happened to the migrant en route then the driver would've been in la bastille under murder charges, so the migrant got off lightly

I don't send my drivers through that port since that happened

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:43

Beet Wagon: Oct 19, 2015

June - CIG release standalone cargo loading minigame for Vive and Rift complete with big cartoony floating glove hands.

July - Chris Roberts releases 8 page long coke-fueled manifesto about how by achieving VR support and integration Star Citizen is paving the way for space games of the future. Braben dies of laughter the same day (but police don't establish a link between the two incidents and Cobblers walks free with one more feature checked off his list).

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:45

spacetoaster: Feb 10, 2014

Sabreseven posted:

In my rl job? We did have a driver beat the poo poo out of an illegal imigrant who was trying to get into Britain from Calais that he found stowed away under his trailer, I couldn't fault the driver though because if anything had happened to the migrant en route then the driver would've been in la bastille under murder charges, so the migrant got off lightly I don't send my drivers through that port since that happened

One of my buddies works for the railroad and says they have to remove a body that's been wrapped around an axle just about every month.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:49

ZenMaster: Jan 24, 2006; I Saved PC Gaming

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

4. Jared has two jobs.

what now?

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:53

Sabreseven: Feb 27, 2016

spacetoaster posted:

One of my buddies works for the railroad and says they have to remove a body that's been wrapped around an axle just about every month.

Nasty stuff, does happen a lot though. A mate of mine had a similar thing while driving a bus about 20 years ago, the body wasn't found until the bus had to have an inspection and my mate remembers saying to the mechanic that there had been a funny smell in the bus for a few days, turns out the rotation of the prop had wound the remains around so tight that it looked like a 100ft long strip of streaky bacon when removed. Saddest thing about it was the deceased person was a homeless guy who decided to shelter under the bus at some point and had died in his sleep and then got caught up in the prop the following morning.

Happy New Year thread

Sabreseven fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Jan 4, 2017

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:55

Sarsapariller: Aug 14, 2015; Occasional vampire queen

Beet Wagon posted:

June - CIG release standalone cargo loading minigame for Vive and Rift complete with big cartoony floating glove hands.

July - Chris Roberts releases 8 page long coke-fueled manifesto about how by achieving VR support and integration Star Citizen is paving the way for space games of the future. Braben dies of laughter the same day (but police don't establish a link between the two incidents and Cobblers walks free with one more feature checked off his list).

August- CIG board members appear in 3 hot new commercials for McDonald's (Ben), Restoration Hardware (Sandi), and Whacky Willy's Discount Autos (Chris). Each cross-promotion features a new ship and stirring motivational Letter From The Chairman.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:56

Samizdata: May 14, 2007

Beet Wagon posted:

lmao when the "Grabby Hands" module gets implemented as a standalone game called Star Citizen: Loadmaster released exclusively for HTC Vive.

Forget that. I want the grabby hands in VR for the slaves I keep in my rape crates.

Of course, then it WOULD be Star Citizen: LOADmasters, wouldn't it? :tif:

Samizdata fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Jan 4, 2017

# ? Jan 4, 2017 19:58

Goobs: Jan 30, 2016; Doxcat is watching you PU.

ewok catte

# ? Jan 4, 2017 20:00

Chin: Dec 12, 2005; GET LOST 2013
-RALPH

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

Years ago we had a lot of fun theory-crafting how CIG was going to handle instances and players. This was before they went fully open and demonstrated that they could barely handle 20 people in an entire solar system, and instead every encounter would be an instance like a match in Arena Commander. Was an instance going to be player-limited or ship-limited? If it was ship limited, did a player going EVA "count" as a ship? What about NPCs? How would CIG balance the load inside an instance so that one team didn't simply fill it up and the other side would be outnumbered? Unfortunately none of these questions were ever answered, and given CIG's inability to deliver netcode I suspect they never will. The difference between a ship and player-limited instance was pretty critical. If the instance was player limited then it made sense to have everyone be in small ships to maximize individual firepower. On the other hand if the instance was ship limited then throwing a large number of bigger ships with more players made sense. My favorite bit of theory crafting was that, if CIG limited instances by the number of ships, then the easiest way to crash the server would be to take a transport ship full of players and dump them into space.

I miss those days.

Those heady days before you reached OT8 and realized LRH was a hack.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 20:01

Eldragon: Feb 22, 2003

Hav posted:

This is kinda where I am. We're in the middle of a multi-year move to divest datacenters into AWS (and other cloud services). We sold one of our datacenters for around $20m a couple of years ago. It's less about infrastructure and chasing the 60% utilization for us, at least.

To expand on that; business dev considers is wasteful to have boxes suck up cold air at 0.5% utilization, so it's all microservices and elastic computing. We'll spend twice the money getting there, but the overall feel is that the gains will be made over time.

Now, if we can stop people sending network traffic the wrong way around the globe, we might see that.

Indeed, half the reason I quit my old job was the management behind the predictive analytics and capacity planning product wanted to chase the shrinking datacenter market rather than expand into more cloud focused offerings, or at the very least consult on the transition. Companies would buy our capacity planning product for a discounted 1 year trial plan, use the product to determine where their under-utilization is, then drop the product. Our sales would then be shocked how this turned out every time.

Rolling the convo back to video games, I'd really like to sit down with one of the guys doing HA/Capacity planning for a major MMO just to get their insights.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 20:11

Propagandist: Oct 23, 2007

Goobs posted:

ewok catte

a pristine, immaculate catte

# ? Jan 4, 2017 20:13

Inkel: Feb 19, 2004; College Slice

Goobs posted:

ewok catte

This cat needs a dog in an AT-ST costume.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 20:24

Beer4TheBeerGod: Aug 23, 2004; Exciting Lemon

ZenMaster posted:

what now?

Check his Twitter. A few days ago Jared got stuck in an elevator and, during his rant, he said that he keeps two phones because he has a second job.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 20:38

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# ? May 15, 2024 06:22

Beer4TheBeerGod: Aug 23, 2004; Exciting Lemon

Chin posted:

Those heady days before you reached OT8 and realized LRH was a hack.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if the highest levels of Scientology are where you learn the whole thing is made up and exists as a way to give people a sense of meaning. Then they give you a massive paycheck and you're so conditioned by then that you accept it as for the greater good. Plus the cash.

# ? Jan 4, 2017 20:39

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