TriadCity Message of the Day
2007-10-28
As previous recent MOTDs have mentioned, server version 0.77.0.0
is a big deal. We've thoroughly reorganized the server code base
with the goal of making it easier to
unit test.
Probably just about every one of the 350,000 lines of code has
been touched in some way or another. The result is greater
robustness, which is a ten-dollar way of saying fewer bugs.
You'll see a multitude of small changes. Well -- you'll see them if
you look closely. Most of the visible differences are minute.
But, we like them.
Here's a partial list:
-
More than 5,100 unit test "runs", consisting of about
38,000 assertions overall, resulting in approximately 23% code
coverage. That's a bunch of techno-blah meaning we went from
0 tests to a whole lot of 'em. We'll post the exact numbers in
the
Code Warriors BBS.
-
Bug fixes for nine or ten reported bugs, and about forty
unreported ones that we caught with our spiffy new tests.
See why this is cool?
-
Improved internal arithmetic resulting in calculations with
greater precision. You'll see this as
very slightly different values for bought and sold items, or
combat results. "Very slightly" means a maximum
difference of exactly one, and only in a very small number
of cases. We told you it was small.
-
Conversion of about 60 "old-style"
Social Commands
to "new style" ones which allow users to provide
their own adverbs or other modifiers.
-
Limitation on the number of items which can be stored in
a Room between server boots, which we've
already
talked about.
-
Lots of speed up. The game runs faster. Some things require
only about one fifth of the time they used to need. Not bad.
-
Addition of new code features which will enable automated QA Bots,
which'll help keep the game world free of errors. We'll post more
info about these in a while.
-
A few gazillion internal improvements which matter only to us.
Now, here's the thing. Although the goal of these changes is to help
to make the server more immune to bugs, it's nevertheless likely that
the sheer scale of change has probably introduced new bugs that will
only be found by players. So, have at 'em. Use the
Bug
command and ratchet-up your bank account.
Here's another reminder that
if you used to have a million items stored in your Inn room or your Player House,
and you find that you're missing certain of them that you decide you want,
they've been sent to the
City Dump. You can fetch them back again, at least until the next server reboot.
The time to do that would be now.
:-)
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