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A Few Important Notices - UPDATED
04. 17. 2012 23:01
TeamNF_MK2
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Hey guys,
There are a few important developments that you should know of regarding our in-game servers.
The first of which has to do with the new Double EXP Event; for every 1st battle win of the day players will receive twice the amount of EXP. This event will run on both servers and will be applied after this week's scheduled maintenance period. Of special note is that the scheduled maintenance is expected to run longer than usual this week on account of special diagnostics being run on the servers. Please expect the maintenance to last from 11PM PST - 3AM PST.
You are likely already aware of the special 50% EXP, credit, and point boost being added exclusively to the Kaiser server. In addition to this special event, all newly registered accounts are now registered to Kaiser server. Accounts that have never played on Nebraska server before are currently only able to select Kaiser server. In addition, returning players who contact us for account recovery will only have previous account data restored to the Kaiser server through support.
As you can tell, unique preparations are being made on behalf of Kaiser server to help improve game play conditions for Kaiser players. The question on everyone's mind seems to be; "Why don't you just (favorite expletive of your choice) merge the servers!?" This question has been answered on a previous occasion but I'll try to provide details as to why merging the servers is not quite feasible at this time.
Technically, yes, it is possible to merge the servers. It is a very large undertaking, but it has been done before. Doing so will result in too many adverse effects however. Our servers have had to adhere to specific technical limitations which puts a hard cap on the total number of players able to join at any one time. These limits are not a result of a hardware issue so upgrading to some amazing hardware will not make any difference. If it could, we would of course choose to merge without hesitation.
Keeping those limitations in mind, having the servers merged at their current state would undoubtedly result in an increase of lag issues or players being dropped from the server or unable to join at certain times. We experienced a bit of this when we merged from 4 servers to 2. The last thing we need is another round of those conditions.
Ultimately, we really do wish that we could have a single server for all of our players but as with other matters, we have to work with what we have. When the positives outweigh the negatives we will reconsider our stance on this, but for the time being we officially cannot consider it.
For now, we will be running the aforementioned events, welcoming new users to Kaiser server, work on new advertising campaigns with popular websites like Facebook and Reddit, and be open to new ideas to continue improving the game play conditions for all of our players.
We thank you for your understanding on this,
-Randy
*UPDATE 4/18*
After going through your feedback our team agreed that there could be circumstances in which limiting access to Nebraska server would provide a negative impact. As such, we have decided to keep both servers completely open until further notice. We will still be pursuing other measures to help improve conditions and continue to welcome your feedback.
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Re : A Few Important Notices - UPDATED
04. 19. 2012 06:44
Etheryte
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Originally Posted by ljsevern
Could you just either confirm/deny that the only thing stopping a merge is the hard cap for online players on the server, and the worry it would be reached during high activity (weekend events)? Or if this isn't the case, what technical/hardware issues is the case?
Could you also confirm/deny if this software issue is being worked on?
Because hopefully some of the more technically minded server guys in the community could help with a useful suggestion.
If it isn't a hardware issue it's a software issue. Would anyone mind sharing what language Navyfield is programmed in? I looked through some old threads but they were inconclusive. Judging by the short descriptions the code either hits a variable size limit or an array size overflow. Both of these could in short-term be solved by a limiting variable which would stop people from being able to connect to the server once it's at full capacity. A long-term solution would be of course to switch to either a larger data type or if that isn't sufficient, a custom data type. I suppose that's where the developers are struggling, really, implementing a custom data type into someone else's code can be a very difficult task.
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Re : A Few Important Notices - UPDATED
04. 19. 2012 08:03
FcBayern
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If there is still no Win7 patch which u promised to be done by April, server merge is inevitable. Don't expect a population increase, the best u can do is to keep the existing players, but that cannot be done by introducing some useless patches and inbalanced fictional ships.
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Re : A Few Important Notices - UPDATED
04. 19. 2012 15:48
Douglas007
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Originally Posted by FcBayern
If there is still no Win7 patch which u promised to be done by April, server merge is inevitable. Don't expect a population increase, the best u can do is to keep the existing players, but that cannot be done by introducing some useless patches and inbalanced fictional ships.
Are you talking about the US BB6? Or any of the other original ships on NF that never existed?
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Re : A Few Important Notices - UPDATED
04. 19. 2012 16:46
meta17
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wouldnt reaching a server cap be a good thing.. hey look the game is hot ppl play it.. cant wait to log in. hmm positive hype! vs oh look i can log in oh wait no games up lemme log out and find something better to do.
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Re : A Few Important Notices - UPDATED
04. 20. 2012 02:29
mfischer
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Originally Posted by ljsevern
Originally Posted by TeamNF
Thanks for the input guys. You've made some very valid arguments which are currently being reviewed. I'll update this thread if there are amendments to the Kaiser policy.
-Randy
*UPDATE 4/18*
After going through your feedback our team agreed that there could be circumstances in which limiting access to Nebraska server would provide a negative impact. As such, we have decided to keep both servers completely open until further notice. We will still be pursuing other measures to help improve conditions and continue to welcome your feedback.
Could you just either confirm/deny that the only thing stopping a merge is the hard cap for online players on the server, and the worry it would be reached during high activity (weekend events)? Or if this isn't the case, what technical/hardware issues is the case? Could you also confirm/deny if this software issue is being worked on? Because hopefully some of the more technically minded server guys in the community could help with a useful suggestion.
Matey I would post a useful suggestion...but there is a critical airgap at SDE.
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Re : A Few Important Notices - UPDATED
04. 20. 2012 06:19
ljsevern
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Originally Posted by Etheryte
Originally Posted by ljsevern
Could you just either confirm/deny that the only thing stopping a merge is the hard cap for online players on the server, and the worry it would be reached during high activity (weekend events)? Or if this isn't the case, what technical/hardware issues is the case?
Could you also confirm/deny if this software issue is being worked on?
Because hopefully some of the more technically minded server guys in the community could help with a useful suggestion.
If it isn't a hardware issue it's a software issue. Would anyone mind sharing what language Navyfield is programmed in? I looked through some old threads but they were inconclusive. Judging by the short descriptions the code either hits a variable size limit or an array size overflow. Both of these could in short-term be solved by a limiting variable which would stop people from being able to connect to the server once it's at full capacity. A long-term solution would be of course to switch to either a larger data type or if that isn't sufficient, a custom data type. I suppose that's where the developers are struggling, really, implementing a custom data type into someone else's code can be a very difficult task.
Could also be a network issue, which is why I was seeking clarification.
Originally Posted by mfischer
Originally Posted by ljsevern
Originally Posted by TeamNF
Thanks for the input guys. You've made some very valid arguments which are currently being reviewed. I'll update this thread if there are amendments to the Kaiser policy.
-Randy
*UPDATE 4/18*
After going through your feedback our team agreed that there could be circumstances in which limiting access to Nebraska server would provide a negative impact. As such, we have decided to keep both servers completely open until further notice. We will still be pursuing other measures to help improve conditions and continue to welcome your feedback.
Could you just either confirm/deny that the only thing stopping a merge is the hard cap for online players on the server, and the worry it would be reached during high activity (weekend events)? Or if this isn't the case, what technical/hardware issues is the case? Could you also confirm/deny if this software issue is being worked on? Because hopefully some of the more technically minded server guys in the community could help with a useful suggestion.
Matey I would post a useful suggestion...but there is a critical airgap at SDE.
Things have been getting through lately. Especially in the fleet leaders area.
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Re : A Few Important Notices - UPDATED
04. 20. 2012 06:58
replika30
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Originally Posted by Etheryte
Originally Posted by ljsevern
Could you just either confirm/deny that the only thing stopping a merge is the hard cap for online players on the server, and the worry it would be reached during high activity (weekend events)? Or if this isn't the case, what technical/hardware issues is the case?
Could you also confirm/deny if this software issue is being worked on?
Because hopefully some of the more technically minded server guys in the community could help with a useful suggestion.
If it isn't a hardware issue it's a software issue. Would anyone mind sharing what language Navyfield is programmed in? I looked through some old threads but they were inconclusive. Judging by the short descriptions the code either hits a variable size limit or an array size overflow. Both of these could in short-term be solved by a limiting variable which would stop people from being able to connect to the server once it's at full capacity. A long-term solution would be of course to switch to either a larger data type or if that isn't sufficient, a custom data type. I suppose that's where the developers are struggling, really, implementing a custom data type into someone else's code can be a very difficult task.
Google NF server files and you'll find the server source files from KR server. Pick it up from there.
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Re : A Few Important Notices - UPDATED
04. 20. 2012 06:59
Etheryte
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Originally Posted by ljsevern
Could also be a network issue, which is why I was seeking clarification.
That'd still go under either software or hardware issues, but that's just pickery.
I'm wondering why they're secretive about what's the issue.
Looking through old guides as Replika suggested, it appears the NF database is run on the Microsoft SQL Server which means we're limited to a maximum database size of 2^31 objects. That means with very rough estimations per one player we need one field for name, one for password, likely multiple fields per each sailor you have (depends on how it's implemented), for each ship you have (all gun set-ups, scouts, ship name), all general things (which slot what sailor is on) and so on. This means, if written badly, we need a very large amount of database objects per each player.
2^31 might sound like a lot, it's 2.147.483.648, but if we look at the previously mentioned it's easy to see why we might be hitting the limit.
Also, for databases that large SQL will struggle with complex look-ups. I would suggest switching to Oracle databases but as that costs money, I doubt SDE would consider that as an option. Regardless of database provider, they will need to optimize. A good start would be a more agressive apporach on inactive accounts: shorten the time after which an account will be put to sleep, once an account sleeps back its data up to a separate server (or Kaiser server) to open up room on the primary server. Additionaly, find a way to merge database fields and fetch data in a different manner. SQL databases can hold large amounts of data, large sized database would be preferable for us as we're hitting the database objects size limit (as opposed to a disk size limit).
So really, if this is the case, the problem is a game that was originally small growing out of proportions. The code has to deal with sizes it was never planned out for.
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Re : A Few Important Notices - UPDATED
04. 20. 2012 08:48
FalleNStaR
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Originally Posted by Etheryte
I'm wondering why they're secretive about what's the issue.
Pride.
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Re : A Few Important Notices - UPDATED
04. 20. 2012 08:58
Etheryte
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Edited my previous post with some suggestions for the devs, hope someone can forward them to them if the SQL is really the problem.
It would really be good if SDE was open about this, I'm sure I'm far from being the only person here with an IT background.
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