New World

so from you guy who hit max in beta or put alot of time into gear etc, something came up and im not gonna be around for the launch, is this one of those MMOs where if you're a week or two late its pretty pointless trying to play catch up? really had my eye on it and wanted to at least be at the start to enjoy the freesh 3-4 months well get before it dies down so now im torn

TecKnoe said:

so from you guy who hit max in beta or put alot of time into gear etc, something came up and im not gonna be around for the launch, is this one of those MMOs where if you're a week or two late its pretty pointless trying to play catch up? really had my eye on it and wanted to at least be at the start to enjoy the freesh 3-4 months well get before it dies down so now im torn

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You can level up relatively solo. You may not find a group to the lvl 25 dungeon at the drop of the hat, but its not like its going to be a barren wasteland. There is no sub cost, so its not like people just wont be doing random shit.

The only thing that concerned me is the rampant botting that went on, even in the short stretch of a week for that beta.

I personally didn't see any botting, but with static spawnpoints for resources I'm sure it was going to happen. Good news is you just train a wolf when they're hitting the node, it switches aggro, then you just finish the node.

Having completely random spawn points for resources would've been cool, but kind of hurts the idea of exploring places and finding the resources within then retaining that in your memory for later.

Something along the lines of just making them spawn in a random area of say 15 meters of the original spawn point would cut down on a lot of the basic scripts and force botters to do a bit more of an invasive injection. Just want them to do something so people can stay on some semblance of a level playing field over the people that will inevitably leave their client up botting all night for rare components. Even a decreased luck modifier after some obviously botting criteria is reached would go a long ways. For example, mine the same node again within 2 cycles causes your luck to drop to -100% and 90% less yield.

No one really paid attention to it cause it was beta. Little to no impact because it was pointless to a degree. But go south of Windsward where there was multiple T1-T4 nodes all within a 2 minute jog to the storehouse and you would have seen it happening quite often.

Daidraco said:

Something along the lines of just making them spawn in a random area of say 15 meters of the original spawn point would cut down on a lot of the basic scripts and force botters to do a bit more of an invasive injection. Just want them to do something so people can stay on some semblance of a level playing field over the people that will inevitably leave their client up botting all night for rare components. Even a decreased luck modifier after some obviously botting criteria is reached would go a long ways. For example, mine the same node again within 2 cycles causes your luck to drop to -100% and 90% less yield.

No one really paid attention to it cause it was beta. Little to no impact because it was pointless to a degree. But go south of Windsward where there was multiple T1-T4 nodes all within a 2 minute jog to the storehouse and you would have seen it happening quite often.

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Not really a reasonable fix since humans can make the same determination and camp as well. And as you are probably keenly aware many of us like the idea of being able to camp. It's how we were introduced to the genre.

Chersk said:

Why is duping always a thing in MMO's? You'd think they'd have this database shit figured out by now so that its either impossible or immediately recognizable and fixed/banned.

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Anything can be tracked and monitored, but you have to way the benefit against the cost. Setting up auditable data for every item in a game can be done, but it would make the database insanely massive and slow down the server to a crawl.

Before long, the server would literally crash because the database got to big.

1. Then you would be writing more code to compensate for the crashes.
2. Then more code to compensate for the slow down.
3. Then more code to compensate for the issues the compensation causes....
4. and so on.. until you have a spaghetti feast of shit code that nobody can understand to save their life.

But hey... At least you kept that one rat ear from being duplicated, so there's that!

Developers have to pick and choose what is important enough to build auditable fail safes around and what isn't. Things like krono in EverQuest is an example of something that SHOULD be audited and tracked. Rat ears aren't.

Pharone said:

Anything can be tracked and monitored, but you have to way the benefit against the cost. Setting up auditable data for every item in a game can be done, but it would make the database insanely massive and slow down the server to a crawl.

Before long, the server would literally crash because the database got to big.

1. Then you would be writing more code to compensate for the crashes.
2. Then more code to compensate for the slow down.
3. Then more code to compensate for the issues the compensation causes....
4. and so on.. until you have a spaghetti feast of shit code that nobody can understand to save their life.

But hey... At least you kept that one rat ear from being duplicated, so there's that!

Developers have to pick and choose what is important enough to build auditable fail safes around and what isn't. Things like krono in EverQuest is an example of something that SHOULD be audited and tracked. Rat ears aren't.

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You don't always need database auditing if the game's code is written correctly to begin with.

Using EQ as an example here: A new item should be added to a character is by one of the 'approved' sources to create a new item. For example, looting a creature, crafting an item, completing a quest, etc. In modern game dev, all of these types of 'item creation points' should be well documented by an engineer when they create the TDD for the feature.

Developers should also watch out for "new" items from stacks - those types of instances should be noted, logged and are a vector for abuse.

For example, if an item class in memory can only be instantiated by a GUID and that GUID is saved in the game world, and that GUID occurs twice for the same character, and the database doesn't allow you to store two of the same GUID in that table, you can assert/log and catch those issues before they're even a problem (excluding stacked items).

The audit will be in design if it's coded properly, and for those instances that cost during design, there is what you're mentioning.

Secrets said:

You don't always need database auditing if the game's code is written correctly to begin with.

Using EQ as an example here: A new item should be added to a character is by one of the 'approved' sources to create a new item. For example, looting a creature, crafting an item, completing a quest, etc. In modern game dev, all of these types of 'item creation points' should be well documented by an engineer when they create the TDD for the feature.

Developers should also watch out for "new" items from stacks - those types of instances should be noted, logged and are a vector for abuse.

For example, if an item class in memory can only be instantiated by a GUID and that GUID is saved in the game world, and that GUID occurs twice for the same character, and the database doesn't allow you to store two of the same GUID in that table, you can assert/log and catch those issues before they're even a problem (excluding stacked items).

The audit will be in design if it's coded properly, and for those instances that cost during design, there is what you're mentioning.

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Not that Im doubting your experience, but if that was a sure fire way to eliminate dupes - then why isnt that common knowlege? Asking for a friend.

Neranja said:

The funny thing is: Now that pre-made game engines have become ubiquitous, the developers of said engines are going to have the same problem: not enough new people are interested how the underlying tech works, so there is going to be a shortage of people that can work and develop those engines.

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This is a huge problem currently, and I cannot understate how important it is to realize the scope of how important this will be moving forward.

Gameplay programmers are dime a dozen. Specialists (ie; I only do C#, don't tell me to do <x> language) will be dime a dozen.

Writing code that works isn't good enough to make money.

Writing code that works, lasts, and is able to sustain itself (without needing to staff too many of the people who 'know how it works without intervention', of course) is what people want from their engineers.

Engineers who can understand and build systems - not just one part of a system - will be ultimately paid the most, and be the most valuable assets to have.

I actually didn't choose to be a generalist. I just picked up too many languages. Before too long, I realized that all programming is basically similar, and the differences are largely in minor functionality and naming / implementation of concepts.

As a generalist engineer, I think more than just about "getting the job done." I care more about "designing a system", and stuff like ACI compliance is something they don't teach you unless you are going for a "Database Architect" degree in college.

Problem is, you're not going to learn this in college as a 'bachelor's gameplay engineer student'. You'll likely hear it in the field from someone who was curious enough to look into it, or from someone whose primary role is "Database Architecture".

In fact, the only engineering knowledge I would ever recommend going to college is for mathematics; specifically, linear algebra.
I've legitimately considered just enrolling locally or reading books about the math I get lost in on my own.

Knowing what the data inside a matrix or vector actually represents is super important and I accidentally taught myself the fundamentals. It wasn't till I embarrassingly asked the CTO of my last company that I filled in the remaining pieces about view frustums and how they related to local or world space and he taught me in about 15 to 30 minutes the remainder of what I needed to know.

In short - you don't hire 'coders' or 'programmers'... you hire 'engineers' that build systems to last. And those people must be self-driven - most have the 'curiosity gene' that makes them want to find the solution.

They should know how to ask the right questions, but also know a path to find a solution for every issue they can think of, especially when there isn't someone to answer a question.

Open beta week is here eh. I suggest at least trying the game if you haven't; there's not a lot of time so i'd suggest getting your feet wet with a lot of basic game play.

• NW OB will use the steam playtest feature
• 7am PST/10am EST this Wednesday you can request access on steam
• 7/10 am start the next morning
  

Ukerric said:

Short-termism is the rule of the game today

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This is exactly what is wrong with -every- industry in 2021. Everything is low quality garbage now and this is why. Mindset is created by monetary inflation IMO, but thats a total derail.

On-topic I think NW is going to be fun for about a month. I plan to gather rocks and chat with my dad and thats about as much as I expect out of the game. If it delivers more than that I'll be pleasantly surprised.

If anybody is playing that played in the last test, could you note any changes? I am curious to see if they did some stuff without any kind of patch notes.

As excited as I am for this game, I cannot understand getting excited for this beta. Especially with how short it is.

They are testing higher population loads than the last CB test so installing the client and logging in helps. Would be badass to end up testing the 3 new weapons but I feel the patch notes will just be bug fixes/qol.

Gravel said:

As excited as I am for this game, I cannot understand getting excited for this beta. Especially with how short it is.

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At this stage, if they want players to truly come back and retest, they need to go ahead and not reset the characters. In short, just open the game and let it start.

I'd do it if I could do the new weapons. But iirc those were stated to be after launch stuff.