An update of sorts

It's been quiet here for the last couple of months, but it's not because we haven't been working. My memory isn't all that great unless it involves
assembler mnemonics and hex digits, but I'll try to explain what we've been doing.

First off, yes, I have been working on the new combat revisions. The current server architecture is mostly event driven and it took quite a long time to work out how this new system could even be integrated into the server, since it has almost no events to drive it. I hope to start testing the framework this week to make sure it's going to work and then add on the new parts to it. So it is coming. Push notification is also due for some attention.

Combat isn't the only thing going on however. We've been planning on switching from the mishmash of database software we're using now to MS SQL server. So I bought a new system for my office and loaded up some vm's on it for new development, one of which is a new SQL server that Shane has been working on for the last month. As well, I took a day and drove for six hours so I could spend two hours at the colocation site installing SQL Server on the database machine. I've bought a lot of DB tools in the last two months and spent many hours trying to learn how to use them.

We've had some hardware problems in the last year as most of you know. Dead drives mostly, but the servers themselves are starting to show faults. Both machines RAID cards are throwing errors and the main game server is showing a motherboard fault now. The machines have been in continuous operation since July 2010 without interruption so with that in mind, as well as with our plans for expansion, over the past month I've been scouting new colocation possibilities for more rackspace and also been looking into the Amazon EC2 service. We've run some trials at Amazon, bringing up a game server and having it connect back to the current system and the tests went well, so it's a real possibility that we might move to EC2 when our colo contract runs out in a few months.

Besides the new stuff, I have been continuing to fix bugs and patch servers on a random basis. I was finally able to locate a particularly nasty fleet bug which I think has cured quite a few of the random issues. As well I've been working on the next version of the server codebase. It's a big job and it's going to take a long time since I have plenty of other things that need doing, but it is going to happen. While that process continues, I will still be devoting time to rooting out the more serious bugs in the existing code.

Of course there are all the other non-code things that need doing. Baling hay, fixing things around the farm that have been neglected for the past three years while I concentrated on the game. As I mentioned in a forum post, the 100+ hour weeks from February and March are done with, I'm too old for that now.

For those that have been paying attention, you will notice that we are continuing to extend all subscriptions while we work on the changes to the game.

As for Z, he went to Italy for a nice vacation. :p

Great update.

I know you guys have been around in the background… I know we've had a few exchanges via bug reports. It's good to see an Game Progress Report. :)

I think this game has the making of being one of the best on the iPhone/iPad.

Well tonight I was able to shoot Z's harvesters with my BC, so it's progress.

Good to see you guys are making progress, I'll be trying my darnedest to get all my friends to join in once the next big update comes out. It seems like there are so many great games I'm waiting on, you devs must have some secret organization for torturing your fans that I haven't heard of! (probably because it's secret...)