TriadCity Message of the Day
2014-04-05

TriadCity's crackerjack technology team have recently upgraded core components of the server to new technology platforms which, in our geeky kinda way, we're excited about. Let us explain.

- We've migrated part of our Artificial Intelligence infrastructure to the excellent databsae Neo4j. This is what's called a "graph database", responsible for making information about the geography of the game world available to non-player characters. NPCs ask it for directions: how to get from point A to point B. It's central to the achievement of intelligent motion throughout the City. The upgrade replaces our venerable homebrewed mashup with a system offering superior capabilities, including much more detailed control over the routes NPCs take on their way to where they're going. If you're paying very, very close attention you'll find differences in small details: fewer NPCs moving through shops on their way to work, staying to the street instead. Stuff like that.

- And we're in the process of migrating part of our game world database to the equally superlative MongoDB, which excels at persisting objects such as Room, Exit and Item definitions. It's also very good at parsing very large volumes of data, for example, the detailed information we maintain on the results of every chariot race. How likely is a particular charioteer to win when paired with a particular team of horses, starting from a specific gate, and following one race strategy over another? Enquiring wagerers want to know. Watch this space for updates.

Ten points if you spot what they have in common. Yep! - they're both "NoSQL" databases, optimized for storing different kinds of data than the traditional systems we've used until now.

OK we're done being geeky at you.

Just a couple of small footsteps on The Onward March of Progress here at SmartMonsters.

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