Server Downtime Today for TLP's questioned

I do agree with you there, I suspect much of their development is contracted out overseas as well.

And those practices don't work for every project especially one that is still using 25+ year old code. I don't see how what you are suggesting would add any value to Everquest or allow them to bring up TLP servers before live servers on a patch day. No matter what they do all servers would still be down for the entire patch time and they would not come up any earlier based on what type they are.

Thanks for trying to impart some actual real-world/functional knowledge about code management. And not getting dragged into the but-what-if weeds.

The limiting factor is not the code for the servers, especially for today where there is not a patch, (it is extended maintenance for server merges). The limiting factor, single point of failure, common denominator, whatever you wish to call it is ALL servers share one or more SQL database(s) and while those are crunching data for the merges everyone is intentionally down. It is an architectural design limiting factor.

If I recall they used to only take down the ones affected by the maintenance but it resulted in too much congestion on this single point of failure and caused server instability and crashes so now they just leave them all down during the maintenance.

Those practices work regardless of the age or language the code is written in, it is a process for managing code and releases, nothing more.

The project I referred to earlier predated EQ by at least 10 years, was originally COBOL code for an IBM mainframe financial system. Also thankfully the last time I ever had to touch COBOL code.

They have never taken down a single server when it comes to patching the game. There is a difference between doing some sort of maintenance on a single server and patching the entire game.

And how you develop and maintain briskness software is different then how you develop and maintain a game. There is no reason you should hold both of them to the same expectations.

Back on topic. EQ has 3 clients Test, Beta and Live. TLP servers are included in the live client, therefore will be down the same as the other live servers.

Click the cog in the bottom left corner when you log in and you will see your client is live. TLP client does not exist. Wish it did then changes on TLP would not effect live and Vica Versa.

Todays extended patch is the normal monthly patch update and the merge of a TLP into a Live server.

It's pretty awesome when people post about how a company is just "doing it all wrong" based on their own experiences. Daybreak is hiring, apply and fix it.

Ty, this is what I was looking for all along.

In the TLP community we always talk about Live vs. TLP and differentiating it as well. So when the Dev talks about Live servers my thoughts instantly go to, "why are we down?" Then looking at past patches/releases there are different phrases between a variety of notices.

Daybreak can't afford my salary... and everything I was mentioning are industry best practices....

Actually, you are 100% wrong, "game" and "business software" are what we call problem areas (usually more specific but broadly, let's call these problem areas). As a developer we write code to resolve the problem area, we do not really care what that problem area is, code management best practices also are independent of the problem area. Now the more familiar I am with the problem area the better I can write code to resolve it, but that too ,is to a degree, irrelevant.

Anyway, code management best practices are also transparent to the problem area and yes, we should hold every development studio accountable to industry best practices.

And the briskness requirements are different for financial software and an online game. Simple things such as the amount of allowed downtime and when it can happen are different. A game such as Everquest is going have much more relaxed downtime rules then business software that requires 99%+ uptime.

Do you have coding experience? Yes or no?

I actually do (as I have been a MS SQL Server DBA for over 20 years, along with doing coding for Salesforce projects; which use a Java variant). A game like EQ, with a established subscriber base, can have more relaxed rules on scheduled downtime length then a CRM software such as Salesforce which requires 24/7 uptime.

Now I'm not sure if the server code for the game itself requires SQL as, iirc in the early days, character info was stored in a flat-file format. It was not designed to use a SQL backend though.

If you want to read about using a SQL Server instance as a database for a MMO, go read up on the history of Eve Online using SQL. They have always been at the bleeding edge when it comes to SQL use. CCP picked MS SQL as, at the time, was the only supported db server that did not required serious up front costs (as in Oracle).

I once bought a 500+ page book about learning C++, and I only made it to the point where I could compile a HELLO program. My brain said oww, so I never opened it up again. The book made a great monitor stand until I finally purchased a real stand over a decade ago. I will stick to the dictionary and the thesaurus for my brain twisters.

I can edit Civ 6 XML files.

I can't even imagine what game developers have to deal with regarding server stuff because it isn't something I will ever understand. Go developers! Woo!

So, uptime has very little to do with code management best practices.... maintenance windows are also not part of any uptime metric as it is planned, only unplanned (outages) are part of that metric.

Salesforce is all microservices using Apex, as you mentioned. Salesforce, IMHO, also really needs to read some of the git repository best practices documentation as the methods they use for sit and sandbox environments are ridiculous.

Psst... I think he was asking Waring....

Except you're arrogantly making all of these comments, having zero clue how Daybreak handles things.

And to reply to the OP... the patch today contains updates for both live and TLP:
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...7-11-2023-patch-notes-and-discussions.291686/

And TLP progresses towards "Live" therefore a live patch is for TLP as well.

And for someone else, last weeks maintenance was for a server merge. Today is for the patch.

There are almost certainly several different databases. At least one per server that controls what happens on that server, plus a global database used by the login server, and possibly a second that's used for forum login (though in the past I've seen game and forums loging simultaneously down during a "server outage.") I'm a bit surprised the Forums are up today actually.

The global login DB probably also is tied to, or implements, checking on account paid status, etc.

This is probably why sometimes during a patch the game servers will be up, but locked.

Actually no, the Coirnav merge is today.