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There are a few nice changes in this patch, which I just made live. I’ll probably get a front page post up soon with a summary of these last dev notes, even though it’s not as much as usual due to being mostly backend work.
Before if you wanted to build underground it required you to have a multilevel base because you needed to secure an upper level to prevent people from building stairs down into your lower level base. That is no longer the case – now when you have a floor underground it effectively makes a ‘ceiling’ that will block stairs from being placed. So now you can build completely underground homes and cities, freeing up space above ground. This will make hiding bases a little easier as well. You can still build floors under a stairway after it has been placed, but as a precaution I also made it so escape ropes can no longer rope onto a lower stairway. The max hp of stairs will be set to 10k instead of 1k from now on.
The infamous stuck-on-the-stairs bug should now be fixed. Let me know if you notice any other problems with that. I fixed a bug with /unstuck and an exploit that let people leave newbie village early. Also made rafts stop floating around after so many minutes of nothing happening.
Digging up road and floor tiles has been made more difficult, or more easy, as it depends largely on your digging level now. Also the type of floor or road makes a big difference. If you have a low digging level you may be able to dig up a clay floor before too long, but a stone floor could take several minutes. Stone road is even harder to dig up and it may be worth recruiting someone who has a high digging level to help with big projects – otherwise you could be using a lot of time, and shovels. Will we see a better shovel soon? Maybe! In any case this should reduce the impact of trolls who dig up roads for fun.
In other news I can share what I’ve been doing in the background for a couple months as related to exploits. I developed a tracking system that shows me a lot of data about what certain suspicious individuals are up to – so when I receive a report on potential exploit abuse I can start collecting evidence. I understand some people are frustrated when others are ‘allowed’ to do these tricks in game – but sometimes if the exploits don’t affect balance much it’s better for the game as a whole if I just observe and collect data for a while.
A few people have provided a LOT of data on exploits, and I wanted to wait until they were finished poking around, without spooking them too much. If I just start punishing people right away for finding small exploits then I miss out on them finding bigger exploits as they gain confidence. I’d rather have the help discovering those critical bugs now, than later on when we may have many more players and servers to manage. So I appreciate everyone’s reports and patience during this process, it has been very fruitful for the health of the server code and I hope you can understand why I was trying to stay somewhat quiet about these things for a while.
So now I have enough data and evidence, a lot of exploits have been patched, and in addition to my tracking system I have just finished developing a punishment system as well. In the past when there was just one server there was a tribe who abused some severe exploits, like killing people who were sleeping in their own houses. The specifics of that bug were unknown for quite some time. After I finally had my evidence all in order (which was months after the abuse) I suspended them for weeks. Suspension isn’t always the best tool though as there are ways to get around it. Some people don’t mind making new characters and using new IPs. So now I have another more painful tool that lets me quickly and easily reset an aspect of a character’s progress whether they are online or not. I can easily apply it to alts as well, on any server. These aspects include skill experience(levels), myst, angel dust, upgrades, and even blue stars.
Before I talk about who is receiving this I want to go over the ‘one rule’ again. This is the only in-game rule on the website that gets shared and passed around so people will be well aware of it: If you find an exploit then report it, don’t abuse it. It’s common sense in any online beta. The act of finding exploits is very helpful – and in some cases I’ve even awarded diamonds for receiving specifics on reproducing them (as long as they weren’t abused). If you don’t report those specifics right away though then it is very unhelpful because it wastes my time looking through logs and trying to reproduce things on my test server. Also if you are a friend or tribemate who learns about the exploit abuse (especially if you know anything about how it’s performed) then even if you don’t use it yourself you may get a punishment just for hiding information from the developer. When in doubt send a contact form with what you know.
Some people use simple scripts to perform repeated actions or look up data provided to the client like coordinates – that is generally okay. If you start manipulating network packets or performing a certain action to exploit a bug in the server code that allows you to do something in a way you shouldn’t be able to then that obviously isn’t okay – especially if it affects balance or hurts other players. So basically feel free to find exploits but be sure to report everything about them – otherwise you will eventually be tracked whether you know it or not, and could lose a lot of progress in the future making your efforts wasted.
I still have various people being tracked (some who are not listed below), and I make sure to verify with server logs that they are indeed exploiting or hiding information about exploits from me. The people who were demanding justice right away will at least be comforted to know that the longer these punishments were delayed the more severe they became as it takes time to build these things up. I wont hesitate to repeat or increase these punishments as necessary.
The current players with sufficient evidence against them for abusing or hiding exploits:
Krill and his notable alts: Loss of all levels/skills, myst, upgrades, dust.
Lodni and his notable alts: Loss of all levels/skills, dust.
Therieth, Badboy, Fluffylass: Loss of dust.
Edit: Added Belial: Loss of dust for breaking forum rules repeatedly and circumventing the IP ban (this will become more severe if it continues).This applies across all servers. I hope in the future if another exploit is found I will be receiving reports and possibly even awarding diamonds, instead of handing out punishments. It will be nice not to have to waste time on this so I can focus on other things 🙂
Now back to work on content, features, and bug fixes. By the way, the numbers on the servers have still been pretty awesome compared to last week, the high cpu lag bug hasn’t happened once so I haven’t had to restart at all. There is still 1 rare server crash that I need to fix, which has happened a couple times since my last notes. I’m definitely keeping an eye out for new bugs as a result of the rewrite. Also even though the lag is better since the memory optimization it is only one aspect of the various factors that cause lag so I still have more work to do to reduce lag further. Now go make an underground base and report some exploits! 🙂
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This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by
Admin.
Just a short update to let you guys know I’m still here and working on things. It’s mostly dry and technical so feel free to escape lantern out now.
I did make some progress on Google payments, and was able to get past the issues with 3rd party library I was using. I had started running into some hurdles with payment validation when a higher priority problem came up. So I paused work on the client to debug some potential memory issues in the server code.
I mentioned in my last notes that there was an occasional problem where the cpu would jump up really high and stay there for a while, usually requiring a manual reset to fix the resulting lag. That was a rare issue, until this week where it started happening regularly to the large servers, after 40 or so hours of uptime. This led me to pull apart a lot of my code looking for leaks or potential memory optimizations. I’m not sure that there were any leaks but I’ve been able to clean things up some, optimize memory usage, and even speed up the networking loop so we will see. I’m not ready to make that code live yet but it should be ready soon. Then hopefully the cpu issue will either be gone, reduced, or I can narrow down the problem better. At least until then I’ve set up better automatic notifications when there are cpu issues so I can restart sooner when this happens.
There is also a new noisy neighbor on USTexas recently – the server cluster is stealing some CPU cycles from us again which has been a source of lag in the past for other servers. If it continues much longer or gets worse I’ll put in another support request to the datacenter asking to migrate to a quieter spot. If only there were cheap dedicated servers with multiple locations around the globe..
That’s about it for this week. Sorry I haven’t always been able to reply to support emails due to lack of time. I’m mostly responding to critical issues. Oh I’ve seen some of the new cosmetics that are on the way, that will be nice 🙂
Hello! Here’s what I’ve been dealing with recently, related to development..
Have been working on Google Payments again. Something seems to be wrong with the payment library I’m using for Android so I need to find a way around that.
I fixed a bug with Chaos kills not rewarding assassin experience. Let me know if there is still anything wrong with that.
The datacenter I use has been forcing some downtime on the servers recently due to a weird CPU vulnerability. I’ve been trying to maintain the latest updates on that in the server maintenance thread until everything is resolved. There may be another couple restarts in store for everyone.. nothing I can about that but they are usually fairly quick (10-30 mins).
The population is growing again since the stability updates. We hit a new all time record for unique players online. There are 3 more servers in the pipeline for when things start to get too crowded. USEast and especially Europe have been growing a lot, so there may be new worlds added near those locations.
Keep in mind this game is not like most MMOs where it’s easy to support 200+ players on a server because only chats and simple movements are tracked. ML is unique because, as a sandbox, most of it is alive: grass and plants are growing, animals are breeding, buildings are decaying, the underworld is always changing, and almost every single NPC has a special behavior. There is a cost for simulating this world, so our communities have to be a little smaller compared to larger MMOs – especially on hardware that a free game can run on. I think it’s worth it to have a more dynamic world and no cash shops or pay-to-win elements.
There has been some talk about the decay changes from the last update, though I’m wondering if some of it is psychological. I didn’t actually change anything with the speed of decay, it still evenly targets buildings the same as before. The amount of HP taken off buildings during decay was increased slightly.. but only by about one percent (1.25% exactly). It’s not that much, and it’s been higher before.
The goal is for people to live within their means, not every new person can have their own mansion when they start.. it should take teamwork and effort to maintain a large amount of real estate. Otherwise we start to have a mess. With that said, this was the 7th time decay has been changed and it probably wont be the last. Same goes for repair rates, so you may see some buffs there again. It just always takes some time to see how things settle.
Server crashes are pretty rare these days. They were usually due to memory ceilings before I started doing the upgrades. It’s been nice to see consistently good numbers all across my server panel lately. I’ve identified one rare crash that is not memory related – it’s due to objects being removed during the new optimized loops, and has happened twice so far I believe. It’s rare enough that I haven’t dedicated much time to it just yet.
The other issue I’ve noticed is a rare problem where the garbage collector can get bogged down for a period of time. This doesn’t happen often but it can cause lag for 30-90 minutes before it fixes itself (unless I notice it and force a restart before then). Feel free to send me a contact form submission if it’s happening to your server.
I will revisit lag & stability again at some point, after I’ve finished some other things. Though sometimes lag is just lag – if you have a high ping to the server due to your location or connection then you will get occasional jumps.
A couple new people have sent me reports that they can’t connect to any servers, they just press a world button and it kicks them back out.. On both the website and their phone. This makes me wonder if they have a firewall or port blocked on their network.. I’m not sure what else that would be at this point.
So that’s the state of things this week. Very exciting, I know. Well it is my birthday in a couple days, but don’t worry I’m in my thirties so I wont take the day off or anything 😛 I’ll be working on improving some things on the client when I get a chance and there are some new maps, NPCs, and cosmetics to look forward to.
USEast, our oldest and largest server, is going to be down for a much needed upgrade sometime today/tonight. It’s the first of the servers to be upgraded, doubling it’s memory and therefore increasing stability. This also allows me to run important tests again to work towards improving lag and player capacity across all servers. The extra monthly costs of these upgrades are covered by your generous donations.
The website and game logins will also be going down for a few minutes sometime within the next week for general maintenance. Just a heads up in case you can’t log into the game or view the site for a bit.
Looking forward to a small patch soon. Have a Happy New Year!
Go ahead and try logging again. I think it’s fine even if you don’t have empty spaces it will drop at your feet.
Don’t worry I’m on it – a roll back isn’t necessary as it didn’t affect most people but your items should come back into your inventory on a future login once I fix some things with the database.
Thanks for the report, looks like it only happens for certain people – should be fixed now.
Thanks for putting this info together. When I get a chance I’ll definitely make some adjustments.
Sorry about that. There was a memory/datacenter issue, needed some emergency maintenance. Hopefully everything is running smoothly now.
I’ve been busy working on a client patch so I haven’t had much time to work on server balance but I can say that at least wool will be getting a boost for sure. Thanks for the testing/feedback.
I’ve been busy working on a client update but am keeping track of server issues so thanks for putting this info together.
What I think is happening is that in some rare cases an item can sneak under a counter, like the raw meat I can see the outline of just under one of your counters in the screenshot. This raw meat failed the check as a supporting structure and caused super decay on the nearby counter.
As to how the item got there it’s a little complicated to describe.. but it’s basically a database hiccup relating to an item decaying, a structure being built, and a server reset. It should be somewhat rare so I’m keeping this one on low priority as I try to finish the client patch. If something changes I’ll take another look. Thanks.
Some big changes being tested now, which I will try to summarize until I can get better patch notes together:
Dogs can herd farm animals when following you.
Animal gates now function as a personal gate by default. They can be toggled with /allow to be public. They stay open for 1 minute before closing, or can be closed manually. This is to have time for herding animals. Default hp for new gates increased to 1000. Can still be dragon scaled to increase hp.
Food percentage shows on the info window for animals. Dogs also show the name of their owner.
Level and reincarnations show on the info window for players.Farming now requires some manual upkeep and care for your animals otherwise they will die normally after their 3 day lifespan without breeding.
Farm animals now enter breed mode when they are between 70-90% food. Natural grass gives them some food but not enough to breed. Farm animals prefer to breed on grass and wont breed if there are too many of the same kind of animal nearby. Breeding population cap significantly increased. Milk and wool wont be available if food is under 20%.
You can feed sheep and cows tinder or lettuce to increase their food while outside. Chickens will eat worms on the grass. Additionally, chickens have a chance to molt feathers onto grass when they are between 10-30% food. This may require some manipulation of their food levels, for example using a chicken coop. Molting and breeding status will be indicated in the npc info window.
Eggs that are fertile no longer stack so you will know you have a potential baby chick when you pick up an egg that doesn’t join with the others. Fertile eggs only hatch after a minute on grass, so you can now sell them in shops (or pretend to sell them).
Turtles can drop lettuce seeds. Chicken feather drop rate on death reduced.
Trees now always plant successfully, and have a lifespan of about a week.
Old food now rots away after a second longer expiration period.
Chaos now spawn their own hammer if they don’t find a weapon within 24 hours.
Added some code to prevent item duplication during lag.
Newbie village spawns have been slightly adjusted and will continue being adjusted over time.All the above is subject to balance changes as usual.
A new server is coming very soon to help keep the population growing without too much lag. Please send any critical bugs or concerns through the contact form. Thanks for testing!
+1
Uploaded a patch today with some new changes:
-A skull icon now shows next to your name when you get infamy. It also shows a countdown number on your character when you have 3 seconds left.
-You can no longer squat for a long time in newbie village, it will graduate you to crossroads.I also changed some code to smooth out the CPU load with removing large amounts of objects. I’m probably going to investigate other resource hogs soon to reduce lag with higher populations.
Updates:
A bug was reported this morning: apparently players who never had infamy before wouldn’t get infamy for attacking a player, but would for other cases. This was fixed and updated to the server along with some other changes I’ve added throughout the day. All online player’s infamy was cleared at this time in case they were affected by the bug. I finished adding an infamy cap per kill (1 hr), and reduced gold cost at altars some. Note that if you have infamy yourself then others will not get infamy for attacking you. Let me know if there are any other bugs related to this.
Edit for evening patch: I changed the scaling formula to be way smoother for the speed debuff. Now you will gradually increase up to a medium armor slow(50) for a 1hr penalty, and hit the max heavy armor amount of slow(100) at 2hr+ infamy. This shouldn’t be nearly as noticeable now, especially for small time pvpers.
There was a DDoS attack the other day that was mitigated, but it helped expose a bug with supporter clothes resetting. The bug should be fixed now. There had also been a couple reports of rare inventory problems. This may or may not be fixed now so will keep an eye on it.
A couple rare crashes were discovered and fixed – one related to bellows and another related to escape ropes. There may have been a crash related to the networking library on USWest so I might have to swap that out after all. It’s rare enough that I’ll probably delay it so I can get some other things done. I have also seen some occasional cpu/lag spikes today on West and EU. It may be a certain type of action that’s causing it so I’ll try to do some profiling when I get a chance.
Priorities: Google payments, infamy icon, a new server, and new content!
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This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by
