[MUD-Dev] Server stability (was: Player statistics)

[Bruce]

Tess Snider wrote:

> Well, keep in mind that most text-based MUDs do all of their testing
> on the live server.  That means, you can put in changes, piecemeal,
> and don't need to track much. It provides a great deal of
> flexibility, but you just don't have that luxury on a large,
> complex, pay-for-play system.  Most MMORPGs (and I'm talking out my
> arse here, so feel free to correct me) go through one or more rounds
> of in-house

Yes, Raph already covered the process that he was used to seeing on
the large graphical muds in a previous post in this thread.  That
process is almost identical to what I was used to in a previous
lifetime when I was developing and running a content management system
for Visa's websites.

> testing, and then a round of testing on a public test server, before
> putting anything into production on a live server.  Thus, it makes
> sense to do the changes in large chunks (patches), and even if your
> system allows hot-patching, you certainly don't want people playing
> in the middle of your patch.

What happens in some of the text games in this way (while there are
players online) makes me feel ill.  I'm a strong believer in
integrated content management (and source control) systems, but those
do not in anyway limit the ability to do updates that don't involve
downtime.

Also, if you limit yourself to large patches which require downtime,
you're limiting the ability to do smaller, more piecemeal changes
because you don't want downtime that frequently.

I do recognize that there are some updates that will very likely
require downtime and that the engineering cost to avoid those would
outweight the benefits.  But with some of the trends that are
currently visible in the industry, I wouldn't be surprised to see
smaller updates become more common (and therefore a necessity at the
technology level).

 - Bruce
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