Server Downtime Today for TLP's questioned

Ohh, I didn't know that. It explains the extended downtime. They have two reconcile two server databases (toons, items, plat, etc.) into the new server. With their architecture that always seems to take a lot of time.

It does have to do when you are suggesting that they code with the ability to do things such as have the patch that impacts a TLP server and a non TLP server act differently. The way that they have coded it since the beginning has all servers use the exact same code base (outside of test and beta) which means that all servers have the exact same patch window.

It honestly isn't worth the effort to code it so that some servers can come up earlier if the changes don't "impact" them.

Ah, my mistake on that then. I thought it was last week.

I have zero coding knowledge, but only thing I will throw out as a minor correction. The code base is not the same as it was 25 years ago. Sometime after PoP they changed the code. Only reason I know this is I used to play on the Al'Kabor server (which was on the OG code base) and they had to retire that server as only one dev (Hobart) knew how to manage it from a code perspective and he was moving on to work on Planetside. (chatted with him about this at one of the last SoE live events) He didn't mind doing it on the side for a long time, but after P99 players started playing there a ton and causing some issues, he couldn't afford the time to manage it.
I doubt this has much of any relavance to this discussion other than 'maybe' it would change the timeframe for those with DBA skills to see if Sony changing to SQL would have possibly been viable.

That server was run on a different codebase that took different knowledge to run since it was designed for mac and not pc. If I remember right that server got retired due to issues keeping the code current for security reasons.

The same exact code runs on all "Live" servers. The unique rulesets (TLP, Random Loot, Legacy Characters, Free Trade, etc ) are typically controlled via INI files unique to each server. That's the reason we were able to turn the Encounter Lock system on/off on Test even though it's not a TLP and doesn't have that ruleset enabled by default. The code already exists on all servers and just has to be enabled by whatever method is needed for that unique ruleset.

Feature flags, in my production environment? It's more likely than you think.

I was trying to be deceptively simplistic in terms of git as they are both copies of the repository in a sense. The difference to just about everyone here really doesn't matter.

More importantly, the devs confirmed my initial thought as they are using the same code base across their live servers. Again, as a engineer myself, it would be insane to believe they were using separate repos between servers.

They've never disclosed their recent codebase or architecture, so you could never gain that sort of insight from a google search or forum post.

Wouldn't hurt for a developer to give us that insight though. *wink wink*

You do not understand how branches work, this is not a separate repo nor a different code base just a separate object depending on the branch used for the build. I too am old school... but still in the industry, gotta keep up.....

You do understand that separate branches are not designed to run separate versions of the code on production right? You can already say that the devs have 3 "branches" of code based on how the process works.

1. Beta - Which is their internal work and where they test out a new expansion during beta periods
2. Test - The test server used before a live patch
3. Live - All other servers which includes normal servers, special rule servers and all TLP servers

The devs treat all servers the same and run them on the same code base and they are unlikely to run TLP servers on a different "branch" as that would require a separate patcher and exe for it to work.

So what you're saying is Truebox is controlled via an .ini and could easily be turned on/off for a TLP?

When Rizlona launched they had Truebox accidentally enabled. They were able to quickly turn it off.