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CCP Development Patterns

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Hoshi Sorano
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#101 - 2014-02-21 21:08:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Hoshi Sorano
Themanfromdalmontee wrote:
CCP Explorer wrote:
Hoshi Sorano wrote:
CCP Goliath wrote:
Devblog - As the current facilitator of CCP Reykjavik's Agile Community of Practice, I tabled that we write exactly such a devblog not a month ago!
I just thought I'd step in to point out that this is one of those international communication issues you want to be careful about - the use of expressions that hold different meanings across borders. In the American vernacular, to "table" something is to set it aside to be addressed at a later date, rather than to make it the current topic of discussion. In fact, there is a classic story of a diplomatic conference in which British and American delegates argued for quite some time about whether to "table" a particular topic, and it was eventually discovered that they both wanted the same thing!

My point being that to an American, your statement reads as though you are claiming responsibility for intentionally delaying or avoiding such a devblog, which is probably not the impression you intended to make!
I had not clue what he was saying either, I thought we had *proposed* to write such a devblog Ugh


I guess Americans have to be more global then? :P



"Being more global" would be to say exactly what you mean in the plainest language possible. it doesn't matter which nationality is doing the talking or the listening, as long as you are using figures of speech in an international discussion there will be misunderstandings. Every culture has these little phrases that they use as part of daily communication without giving it a second thought. It takes a bit of effort to realize that words you commonly use can have a drastically different meaning, and it takes a lot of practice to get out of the habit of using them in such situations.
CCP Goliath
C C P
C C P Alliance
#102 - 2014-02-24 12:47:31 UTC
Hoshi Sorano wrote:
Themanfromdalmontee wrote:
CCP Explorer wrote:
Hoshi Sorano wrote:
CCP Goliath wrote:
Devblog - As the current facilitator of CCP Reykjavik's Agile Community of Practice, I tabled that we write exactly such a devblog not a month ago!
I just thought I'd step in to point out that this is one of those international communication issues you want to be careful about - the use of expressions that hold different meanings across borders. In the American vernacular, to "table" something is to set it aside to be addressed at a later date, rather than to make it the current topic of discussion. In fact, there is a classic story of a diplomatic conference in which British and American delegates argued for quite some time about whether to "table" a particular topic, and it was eventually discovered that they both wanted the same thing!

My point being that to an American, your statement reads as though you are claiming responsibility for intentionally delaying or avoiding such a devblog, which is probably not the impression you intended to make!
I had not clue what he was saying either, I thought we had *proposed* to write such a devblog Ugh


I guess Americans have to be more global then? :P



"Being more global" would be to say exactly what you mean in the plainest language possible. it doesn't matter which nationality is doing the talking or the listening, as long as you are using figures of speech in an international discussion there will be misunderstandings. Every culture has these little phrases that they use as part of daily communication without giving it a second thought. It takes a bit of effort to realize that words you commonly use can have a drastically different meaning, and it takes a lot of practice to get out of the habit of using them in such situations.


That's very interesting! As a Brit, table means "to present formally for discussion at a meeting", so yes - you're quite right that I was not intending the American definition of the word! Thanks for bringing this up and I'm glad we could clarify it Big smile

CCP Goliath | QA Director | EVE Illuminati | @CCP_Goliath
Lallante
Blue Republic
RvB - BLUE Republic
#103 - 2014-02-24 14:28:43 UTC
CCP Goliath wrote:
Hoshi Sorano wrote:
Themanfromdalmontee wrote:


I guess Americans have to be more global then? :P



"Being more global" would be to say exactly what you mean in the plainest language possible. it doesn't matter which nationality is doing the talking or the listening, as long as you are using figures of speech in an international discussion there will be misunderstandings. Every culture has these little phrases that they use as part of daily communication without giving it a second thought. It takes a bit of effort to realize that words you commonly use can have a drastically different meaning, and it takes a lot of practice to get out of the habit of using them in such situations.


That's very interesting! As a Brit, table means "to present formally for discussion at a meeting", so yes - you're quite right that I was not intending the American definition of the word! Thanks for bringing this up and I'm glad we could clarify it Big smile



Yep, and the Brit understanding of the idiom makes much more sense given that it links into many other idioms:
"What do you bring to the table?" (e.g. What do you contribute to the group)
"Let's put our cards on the table. " (e.g. Let's reveal our hidden motivations)

In the American version of this idiom, where are these "tabled" discussions being sent? Is there a naughty table in the corner?
Lors Dornick
Kallisti Industries
#104 - 2014-02-24 15:23:17 UTC
Lallante wrote:


Yep, and the Brit understanding of the idiom makes much more sense given that it links into many other idioms:
"What do you bring to the table?" (e.g. What do you contribute to the group)
"Let's put our cards on the table. " (e.g. Let's reveal our hidden motivations)

In the American version of this idiom, where are these "tabled" discussions being sent? Is there a naughty table in the corner?

I was just about to agree when I realised that the Swedish term 'bordlägga' (as in lay on the table) has the same meaning as the American one. To postpone a decision for one reason or another.

I guess that it means to have an issue at hand and put it back on the table.

Or to push it back on the stack to use CS nerd lingo ;)

CCP Greyscale: As to starbases, we agree it's pretty terrible, but we don't want to delay the entire release just for this one factor.
Circumstantial Evidence
#105 - 2014-02-25 00:10:40 UTC
Just to add to the confusion, I hear the phrase "Cyno Down" used interchangeably, when a new cyno field appears... or disappears.What?
Yarda Black
The Black Redemption
#106 - 2014-02-25 00:24:29 UTC
Can some one explain to me why this kind of thing always comes with "we players"? Cos I dont mind people giving their opinion, but I feel I'm being used against my will.

After that, plz tell CCP. I apparently can't do so myself.
DaReaper
Net 7
Cannon.Fodder
#107 - 2014-02-25 18:52:54 UTC
Lallante wrote:
CCP Goliath wrote:
Hoshi Sorano wrote:
Themanfromdalmontee wrote:


I guess Americans have to be more global then? :P



"Being more global" would be to say exactly what you mean in the plainest language possible. it doesn't matter which nationality is doing the talking or the listening, as long as you are using figures of speech in an international discussion there will be misunderstandings. Every culture has these little phrases that they use as part of daily communication without giving it a second thought. It takes a bit of effort to realize that words you commonly use can have a drastically different meaning, and it takes a lot of practice to get out of the habit of using them in such situations.


That's very interesting! As a Brit, table means "to present formally for discussion at a meeting", so yes - you're quite right that I was not intending the American definition of the word! Thanks for bringing this up and I'm glad we could clarify it Big smile



Yep, and the Brit understanding of the idiom makes much more sense given that it links into many other idioms:
"What do you bring to the table?" (e.g. What do you contribute to the group)
"Let's put our cards on the table. " (e.g. Let's reveal our hidden motivations)

In the American version of this idiom, where are these "tabled" discussions being sent? Is there a naughty table in the corner?



My guess is it's like when you read a book and get to a point where you have to stop, you set the book down on the table till you can read it later. But yea in the US 'table something' means to set it aside and deal with it later. "Lets table that for now" i.e. lets set it down and look at it later.

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Themanfromdalmontee
EVE RADIO ARMY
#108 - 2014-02-28 21:08:36 UTC
Lors Dornick wrote:
Lallante wrote:


Yep, and the Brit understanding of the idiom makes much more sense given that it links into many other idioms:
"What do you bring to the table?" (e.g. What do you contribute to the group)
"Let's put our cards on the table. " (e.g. Let's reveal our hidden motivations)

In the American version of this idiom, where are these "tabled" discussions being sent? Is there a naughty table in the corner?

I was just about to agree when I realised that the Swedish term 'bordlägga' (as in lay on the table) has the same meaning as the American one. To postpone a decision for one reason or another.

I guess that it means to have an issue at hand and put it back on the table.

Or to push it back on the stack to use CS nerd lingo ;)


Actually that could be where the american version comes from, considering huge parts of america have lots of Scandinavian ancestries.
BeBopAReBop RhubarbPie
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#109 - 2014-02-28 22:37:27 UTC
Dior Rellik wrote:
How about all you arrogant players give me a list of games with out bugs or never have bugs after an update? Its impossible to guarantee a bug free release even if you tested an update successfully on another server prior to the live server release.

Get a grip guys.

This, seriously. Software quality is always at odds with release dates. In a game I'd much rather see the company have a bug or two in various releases than spend years in between each iteration.

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Dorian Wylde
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#110 - 2014-02-28 23:00:04 UTC
If CCP actually did what the OP suggests, patch cycles would be measured in years. And I use the plural here for the sake of simplicity. If CCP actually did what the OP suggests, the game would die, because players wouldn't wait around for that long.

No computer program is perfect. No computer program will ever be perfect. Particularly ones as large and complex as an MMO. And to the people commenting that there are a lot of software developers that play eve. That doesn't mean they can talk with any authority. Even if they're experts in the programming language EVE runs on, it still means f*ck all if they don't actually work on EVE.

Accept that there will always be bugs. Accept the fact that whining about them does not get them fixed faster, nor does it prevent new ones from cropping up. No amount of testing will ever change that.
Udonor
Doomheim
#111 - 2014-03-05 06:41:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Udonor
Cheekabu Talvanen wrote:
Hope you guys redo sovereignty or something. powerblocs rule the game and would be nice to let other people in 0.0 without some powerbloc pissing all over you in some sov system they dont even use.

Dont even open up more space cause thats just going to get taken by powerblocs and still no room for the little guys.


Power blocs are the reality factor. Small fry got be content to eat Empire 'scrap'...or go pirate! Also no major power blocs currently in worm hole space though its sort of limited in activities to make sure power blocs are not interested.

But basically I am saying that the idea of small corps holding sovereignty lacks realism. Its kindergarten make nice gaming not something fitting EVE style sandbox gaming. EVE has a sandbox so the bullies can throw sand in your eyes. So grow up and either join the bullies, get used to having sand in your face, or find a small dark corner that even dogs don't want puke in and be satisfied with what you can do there.

Frankly not being satisfied to join the power blocs (bullies) is sort of antisocial and only the powerblocs can give you the full range of play up to including Titans and blob warfare.

If you are malcontent like me and can only stand a few like minded individuals -- then your best bet is to find some strong minded types and go pirate. Then you can ambush those rich powerbloc industrial cargoes in high sec. Just be ready to scatter to new corps every once in while :). Of course realistically the few small corp cargoes are usually much easier to safely rob and you can hit them over and over (different corps on different days so its not griefing because you show variety in victims). New victim every 30-45 minutes and you get rich fast.
Udonor
Doomheim
#112 - 2014-03-05 07:12:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Udonor
Cheekabu Talvanen wrote:
Hope you guys redo sovereignty or something. powerblocs rule the game and would be nice to let other people in 0.0 without some powerbloc pissing all over you in some sov system they dont even use.

Dont even open up more space cause thats just going to get taken by powerblocs and still no room for the little guys.



If CCP wanted to be more realistic and solve the overpopulation of high sec...well they would start having Empire NPC corps squeezing tenant player corp in high sec much harder. NPC corps in Empire space have sovereignty but are NOT exerting their rights.

Frankly realism says any player corp not paying 23-50% of ore and loot as tax to NPC corps/alliance(Empire faction) owning that particular system should be getting marked like NPC pirates!!! (Market taxes are totally different.) . Add this in with scaling according to system security (+3% for every .1 increase over 0.1) and CCP would actually push significantly more players into null or wh space. Heh give players some slack (30 days) to pay taxes and then opportunities for a rare windfall profit...and I can see some emergency PLEX buys with RL cash or some very hasty moves to wh or null space...or some "taxes overdue" criminal bounties status.
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#113 - 2014-03-05 07:27:36 UTC
I would like to know how far some poor developer got with developing "light client" regression tests of POSes before "people" decided that fixing POSes wasn't going to happen and that the New Deal was to scrap POSes and intro due a new player-owned structures mechanic.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Josef Djugashvilis
#114 - 2014-03-05 07:29:49 UTC
Udonor wrote:
Cheekabu Talvanen wrote:
Hope you guys redo sovereignty or something. powerblocs rule the game and would be nice to let other people in 0.0 without some powerbloc pissing all over you in some sov system they dont even use.

Dont even open up more space cause thats just going to get taken by powerblocs and still no room for the little guys.



If CCP wanted to be more realistic and solve the overpopulation of high sec...well they would start having Empire NPC corps squeezing tenant player corp in high sec much harder. NPC corps in Empire space have sovereignty but are NOT exerting their rights.

Frankly realism says any player corp not paying 23-50% of ore and loot as tax to NPC corps/alliance(Empire faction) owning that particular system should be getting marked like NPC pirates!!! (Market taxes are totally different.) . Add this in with scaling according to system security (+3% for every .1 increase over 0.1) and CCP would actually push significantly more players into null or wh space. Heh give players some slack (30 days) to pay taxes and then opportunities for a rare windfall profit...and I can see some emergency PLEX buys with RL cash or some very hasty moves to wh or null space...or some "taxes overdue" criminal bounties status.


Why do you think hi-sec is overpopulated?

Whenever it is pointed out to the denizens of lo and null-sec that hi-sec works, using the 'high' population figures as evidence of this, they immediately refute the figures and make wonderful claims about the population density of lo and null.

I have no dog in this fight, my interest is that the game is well populated, where in the game folk choose to spend their time is irrelevant.

This is not a signature.
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#115 - 2014-03-05 07:32:31 UTC  |  Edited by: Mara Rinn
As for anyone who thinks that the standings issue is a major bug worthy of holding back a release, I'd like to point you in the direction of the Mac client, circa 2007-2009. What a steaming pile of crap that was. CCP & Transgaming worked to make it better very quickly, but it was so deep in the "stinking pile of crap" end of the spectrum of software quality that it took them two and a bit years to get it to the point that a Mac user could actually stay online for an entire evening of gameplay.

So you null bears can go whine about standings to someone who actually cares (which won't be your diplomats since they're often resetting standings just for the giggles).

There will always be surprises. EVE is a huge, complex piece of software with no legacy of test driven development. I suspect there are just enough tests in place to make sure that any particular feature change isn't going to cause any problems that CCP have seen happen in the past. The devs are no doubt adding tests as they fix old bugs or introduce new features, but there will always be surprises.

If you disagree that legacy software always has surprises in store for maintenance programmers, you're not really a software engineer and you should be ashamed of claiming to be one in public. In the meantime, go read "Working Effectively With Legacy Code" by Michael C Feathers, or "Refactoring" by Martin Fowler.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Zappity
New Eden Tank Testing Services
#116 - 2014-03-05 07:40:08 UTC
What an interesting thread this turned out to be. CCP is clearly trying to turn the tables on us.

Zappity's Adventures for a taste of lowsec and nullsec.
Remiel Pollard
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#117 - 2014-03-05 08:37:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Remiel Pollard
Mara Rinn wrote:
As for anyone who thinks that the standings issue is a major bug worthy of holding back a release, I'd like to point you in the direction of the Mac client, circa 2007-2009. What a steaming pile of crap that was. CCP & Transgaming worked to make it better very quickly, but it was so deep in the "stinking pile of crap" end of the spectrum of software quality that it took them two and a bit years to get it to the point that a Mac user could actually stay online for an entire evening of gameplay.

So you null bears can go whine about standings to someone who actually cares (which won't be your diplomats since they're often resetting standings just for the giggles).

There will always be surprises. EVE is a huge, complex piece of software with no legacy of test driven development. I suspect there are just enough tests in place to make sure that any particular feature change isn't going to cause any problems that CCP have seen happen in the past. The devs are no doubt adding tests as they fix old bugs or introduce new features, but there will always be surprises.

If you disagree that legacy software always has surprises in store for maintenance programmers, you're not really a software engineer and you should be ashamed of claiming to be one in public. In the meantime, go read "Working Effectively With Legacy Code" by Michael C Feathers, or "Refactoring" by Martin Fowler.


I read through every single post of this thread, and I have decided that CCP needs to start hiring everyone who complains and claims to be a software engineer, and puts them to work to see if they can do it better. If they decline the job, or can't do a better one, then they are publicly discredited on the forums, right here where they first complained.

And if they actually succeed in doing a better job, CCP offers a formal apology and offers the complainer a permanent post.

“Some capsuleers claim that ECM is 'dishonorable' and 'unfair'. Jam those ones first, and kill them last.” - Jirai 'Fatal' Laitanen, Pithum Nullifier Training Manual c. YC104
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#118 - 2014-03-05 09:00:10 UTC
Remiel Pollard wrote:
I read through every single post of this thread, and I have decided that CCP needs to start hiring everyone who complains and claims to be a software engineer, and puts them to work to see if they can do it better. If they decline the job, or can't do a better one, then they are publicly discredited on the forums, right here where they first complained.

And if they actually succeed in doing a better job, CCP offers a formal apology and offers the complainer a permanent post.


Heh … the number of people who've built a web store using PHP & MySQL and claim to be "software engineers" or "developers" …

*shakes head sadly*

*continues patching the remaining 200 of 1000 SQL Injection vulnerabilities in the PHP/MySQL web app*

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Luwc
State War Academy
Caldari State
#119 - 2014-03-05 09:16:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Luwc
CCP Goliath wrote:
Jessica Danikov wrote:


C) Test, test, test. Mirror Tranquillity regularly and deploy the entire final release there (in the software industry, we call this a release candidate). Have a mass test to get people playing around with it. Most of the bugs your players ***** about on day 0 of your new release would be caught on Singularity fairly quickly. Once caught, fix those bugs, roll a new release candidate, mirror Tranquility, mass test again. Keep doing this until it's ready.

D) In-house testers. One of the greatest false economies in the software industry is not to have in-house testers. They're relatively cheap compared to your experienced employees and free up whoever is doing your testing to actually spend their time doing whatever it is they're paid to be doing- testing isn't worth their time until a problem has definitive reproduction steps. QA leads can also keep their eyes peeled for the 1/100 talent that ends up in your tester pool.
...
Again, I don't know how much of this stuff you do, or how well you do it, but obviously there's room for improvement. Maybe a Devblog giving an insight to your development process is long overdue?


Since you took the time to write this, I will give you as frank a response as possible on the subjects that are under my control.

C - We were on Singularity from the 6th January with this release. Familiar as I am with the term release candidate, being in the software industry myself, I can tell you it was deployed on Monday morning to Sisi, as is par for the course with our deployments. This might seem crazily short to you, but our development method allows us to work right up until then because we do not hamper teams with code/feature freezes and have mature teams which practice 'Whole Team Quality' (more on this later) giving them the responsibility and accountability over the quality of the features they ship. This is a process I have seen evolve in my 2.5 years here to really empower teams, and it is one that I think works well. Further than this though, we deploy daily updates to Singularity to ensure users have the latest stable build available. Combine this with the internal QA coming from the teams, and our outsourcers running a full regression suite every 2 weeks, and you're looking at a pretty robust testing process.

D - I assume on this you are referring to a test house of entry level "testers" working for minimum wage with a 50-90% bimonthly churn. This is firstly unfeasible in Iceland, as the pool of potential employees does not cover the churn that these outfits have. Instead of throwing a large amount of un/semi skilled workers at the problem, we use highly trained and experienced outsourcers to handle our regression testing, and assist with processing bug reports, providing focused testing at team request, and performing targeted exploratory testing (the most valuable type of testing, for me). Our current outsourcing partner has been with us for 3 years now, and I travel to them each year to ensure their methods and practices are keeping to the high standard established. We also have a proven conduit of taking talent from them directly into our own workforce. CCPers who have taken this route include Legion, Sledgehammer, Lebowski, Antiquarian, and even my good self!

Devblog - As the current facilitator of CCP Reykjavik's Agile Community of Practice, I tabled that we write exactly such a devblog not a month ago! We do need to get started (I actually wrote part of it around a year ago, but it got tabled at the time) but there is a plan in place and many keen contributors.


or maybe your last 3 expansions were total **** and people are pissed at broken promises ... fixing **** that is not broken and ******** mobile structures nobody really gives a **** about

Not to mention horrible code issues.

http://hugelolcdn.com/i/267520.gif
Josef Djugashvilis
#120 - 2014-03-05 09:32:58 UTC
I would rather CCP released expansions which are well thought out and fully tested say every nine months, as I believe that the current six month cycle is simply too much for CCP to cope with.

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