Play by Play

Posted by Artix on 3/6/2013 11:18 AM

AdventureQuest 3D Alpha was a SUCCESS!!!

CHECK BACK TOMORROW for a full post and review of what happened during testing!

(The button will turn red when testing is back online)

This was Alpha Test #.002 for our new in-browser, 3D, massively multiplayer game... AdventureQuest 3D: Legend of LORE! Follow the "Play by Play" as I give you behind the scenes news and blunders as we lead up to this certainly over-hyped and likely server crashing event! Click read more to get the FULL DETAILS of the Alpha Test.

(50 people per map test... "The lag was glorious")

UPDATE	Thank you to everyone who helped (and tried helping) to test. We collected a log of error data and will be working hard to make the game playable by everyone... solving the pink screen, blue screen, and lag issues. One thing everyone is agreeing on... this test was a huge success and this game has incredible potential!
9:00pm	Server Shutdown with an epic countdown to "BATTLE ON!"
8:00pm	We did not crash the server, but we spiked lag so hard chat & combat actions were delayed over a minute! On a positive note, 50 players held up better on screen. This was an important part of tonight's test. See, thwn 50 people are in the room... you need to send what is happening to all 50 players. So if you swing a sword, all 50 players need to know you are swinging your sword. Imagine in your head, all 50 of those people broadcasting everything their do to each of the other 50 people continiously. As I write this there are over 500,000 messages jammed up on the server. We can solve this -- it is a pretty challenging and fun project. We are going to restart the server at 10 people per room, then leave the ALPHA TEST up until 9pm EST.
7:49pm	100 people per room was WAAAAAAY too much. (using 3.0GB+ of RAM) Dropping it down to 50. Server restarting.
7:38pm	Preparing for the "100 Person per Room" Test! NOTE: Player vs Player combat is enabled... it is going to be a bloodbath. Hope you brought your rubberducky!
6:38pm	Server restart - Applying Patch to fix Monster attacks & Combat
6:10pm	Large number of repeating errors - REPORT BUGS! "INVALID INPUTS" - Your username or pass has characters in it that are not allowed. Please report a bug so we can change our login to allow your name. (like a "-" ) Blue Screen Bug - we are still working on this one Unity Crash - Probably related to the former bug. Laggy - There are two types of lag. Graphics lag and server lag. When reporting bugs, make sure you explain which type it is.
6:01pm	480 players online in the first minute.
6:00pm	AdventureQuest 3D: Legend of LORE Alpha Test .001 is LIVE! AlphaKnights, report in... it is time for you to get to work!
5:47pm	WE HAVE A FIX!!!! Preparing for Alpha Test launch. Upl;oading new engine to CDN. Estimated time to distribute... 15 minutes.
5:30pm	If you have never been part of an Alpha Test before -- you are experiencing it right now. It takes an unusualy large amount of patience and guts. Still have what it takes? The problem escalated, and we are experiencing what is being called "The Blue Screen Bug" and the "Blue Flame Bug" which is likely resulting from something failing to load off the CDN or something in the game loader itself that is failing. The game is failing to load. Due to the severity of this bug we need to give the team time to fix it. We still intend on testing tonight! Check back at 6pm for a detailed update.
5:00pm	Well, there is an issue with the CDN that results in a 90% chance you will blue flame and crash on your first load. But the second load seems to work fine. What do you say we just launch and see what happens? (Minimal and Zhoom are looking at the code and seeing if it is somethign we can fix in 20 minutes. If not -- we will just launch and you will know your duty is to survive the first crash and relog in! GO ALPHA!)
4:50pm	Everything appears to be working... the team is doing a final walkthrough, then after addressing any issues, we will begin ALPHA TEST .002!
4:30pm	We are still waiting on our files to spread around the internet. As soon as everything is loading we will flip the switch and that gray button will turn red! Your mission: Is just to run around and fight stuff. Try to make it to level 2. If you are really ambitious... get some friends and try to go through the cave. The sneakily hidden monster at the end is incredibly powerful now has the Blinding Light of Destiny, and at least 2 other epic looking pieces of gear.
4:00pm	We are almost ready for the AQ3D:Legend of LORE alpha test to begin. The CDN is taking a while to update, so the launch window is somewhere between 4:30pm and 5:30pm. I will be updating you every 15ish minutes on our progress!
3:30pm	Awesome! We are almost set, so Zhoom is moving the files to the CDN. Huh? What is a CDN!? Glad you asked! CDN stands for "Content Delivery Network." Instead of pulling the gigantic 3D files from our servers (which as you may recall, resulted in the entire game network crashing during our LAST test) we place the files on servers scattered across the internet, all over the world. Whenever you go to load the game, it will download the files from a server near you. This means it will be faster for you (and less crashy for us.) That being said, the files are still huge and the limits of your patience and santity will be tested like some cruel cthulian study conducted by H.P. Lovecraft and GlaDOS.
3:15pm	Woah, apparently we actually do have an Artix Entertainment board on Pintrest! For the record, I am dissapointed in how quickly they patched this bug. We should demand Alpha Gansta Hat Style back in as a feature.
3:00pm	About 1 hour and 30 minutes until showtime... on schedule the shower of never ending horrific bugs have begun to pour in. On an unrelated topic, we are turning a helm related bug to a new "feature" direction for the fashion industry. We call it "Alpha Gansta Hat Style" -- we are sure it will catch on and become huge at Macy's, Hot Topic and all of the major MMOs will be doing it by 2014. If you are bored out of your mind waiting, take pictures of yourself wearing your favorite real life head gear Alpha Gansta Hat Style... Beleen! Get your Pintrest board ready!
Taken 5 minutes ago. "Alpha Gansta Hat Style"
2:15pm	The team grouped up and entered the cave with the intent of slaying Rocky BaBoulder... we hope you have better luck than we did! Meanwhile, Minimal added support for the "TAB" key. You can now target nearby enemies with the tab key. Xero updated the skeleton with new art. All of the item drops for this test have been added to the monsters and.. OMG! I forgot to add the descriptions runs off
2:00pm	A lot of people ask, "What is Alpha Testing Like?" It is not like testing a mostly completed game. It is a lot more like this video of Cysero, Samba and I loading in without hair and shooting magical particles from our nether regions and then singing about it.
12:45pm	Johnny G, frmo the TV show "Hulk Hogans Micro Championship Wrestling" stopped by the lab yesterday. He was at the Arnold Classic 2013 and brought us a bunch of T-shirts. As you can see, we have a few left if you want to stop by and claim yours. The Micro Championship Wrestling crew will be putting on shows at the upcoming convention MegaCon in Orlando, FL in two weeks. They will have a ring setup right in the hall! I jokingly asked if I could Wrestle, or manage one of his Wrestlers. Johnny said sure. OMG! Someone get Chairman Platinum to show up!!!!!
12:30pm	We are going to be doing TWO major tests tonight. The first test will allow 10 people in each town. The second test will put... 100 people in each town. Because how are we going to do "100 Man Raids" without 100 people in the map?
12:00pm	So, Bay Area News 9 suddenly appeared in our building. We honestly do not know why. They are taking the elevator to us in a little bit... O_O. Meanwhile, items are being added to monsters. You will initially log in without a weapon, so the first thing you should do is click on the "Alpha Shop" and get the DragonFable sword for 0 gold. For the record, our rock monster, Rocky... HITS HARD! His bigger, tougher, brother, lives in the back of the cave and is rumored to have the Blinding Light of Destiny. (Albiet, it is slowly disintigrating and will crumble to dust just before the next major test release.)
11:30am	Zhoom & Minimal are currently merging the latest code together. Cross your fingers that nothing breaks! Yergen is adding weapon drops to the
11:15am	Roll call! Minimal, Zhoom, Yergen, Xero, Samba, Thyton, Llussion, Tamarann, Swolicus & Artix reporting for duty.
Previously	Minimal was up all night fixing the remaining "known" game-breaking and show stopping bugs! As many of you know, Minimal created the new multiplayer server from scratch. Whilst the artist normally get all of the attention and praise, do not forget to tip your hat/helm to the game designer/programmer who is doing all the work under the hood. He will also be the one fixing all of the bugs and errors you encounter during todays test. Go Minimal, go!