Finally Some News

[rdsrds2120]

2 Weeks today exactly

BMO

are you admitting you lied to us?

Baby don't hurt me, no more. No lies, I said I hoped for a week, or as the OP says:

"a short time to come". It hasn't been too long

BMO

[Jippd]

"Initially, all three of these were to be released tonight, but some last minute testing shown that items 2 & 3 weren't ready for user consumption just yet, and they will be released within the next week or so (could be tomorrow, could be a week! Either way, it will be soon). So, let's break down the first order of business:"

"within the next week or so" is where I think most people are getting the idea of a week. We are definitely in the 'or so' part now.

I think a great way to make members understand the delays is to explain to us what is going on besides. "We are working on some bugs" It will help us to understand the steps and processes that are being taken to improve our gaming experience and what exactly the hold ups are.

[rdsrds2120]

"Initially, all three of these were to be released tonight, but some last minute testing shown that items 2 & 3 weren't ready for user consumption just yet, and they will be released within the next week or so (could be tomorrow, could be a week! Either way, it will be soon). So, let's break down the first order of business:"

"within the next week or so" is where I think most people are getting the idea of a week. We are definitely in the 'or so' part now.

I think a great way to make members understand the delays is to explain to us what is going on besides. "We are working on some bugs" It will help us to understand the steps and processes that are being taken to improve our gaming experience and what exactly the hold ups are.

Sure.

1) There was an error transferring files for the free speed games, and once they had been transferred from the test build, there were some problems that needed to be fixed such as players needing to have restrictions on games joined, not only games created. Another bug was some of the error messages weren't displayed properly, and for the release time to ensure that we don't repeat past mistakes, we are now undergoing far more extensive testing to make the next Free Speed Game update as optimal as possible.

2) Hide Reserved Games
There was little foresight into seeing how this would truly affect tournament games based on user preference, so developing the option for this in place of not being able to choose at all (original) had to be rolled out quickly. We are also now testing a more optimal and fixed version that fixes the other related bugs, since we wanted to roll out the option to hide them or not ASAP, we didn't focus on fixing the actual bugs of how it works right away. That is being worked on now, and to compensate on our hastiness, is undergoing more thorough testing and feedback with the programmer than before.

Neither of those 2 things were expected to happen when I had released the original statement. The other setback was that ConquerClub now has a new test server for us Admins and Tech Team to test things on! The setup for this took a while since it is completely isolated from the live site (as the old one was not, which is what caused one of the downtimes about a month ago). The sudden stack of tasks and bugs has put the less functional medal coding behind, but it is next to-do (pending anything else, such as above!). Still working with a new programmer learning CC, and I'm still learning timing. No secrets here -- trying to get the ball rolling!

BMO

[Dukasaur]

Good job RDS!

Work is continuing, we can understand hiccups along the way, and good honest updates like the one above help make everyone feel they're not being ignored!

Kudos on all the improvements!

[betiko]

thanks for the answer rds! how many programmers are working full time for the site by the way?

[Jippd]

Yes as dukasaur says it helps users feel appreciated. I think it will also go a long way towards making admins/coders feel more appreciated since it is known what is being worked on by you guys.

Keep up the hard work!

[greenoaks]

"Initially, all three of these were to be released tonight, but some last minute testing shown that items 2 & 3 weren't ready for user consumption just yet, and they will be released within the next week or so (could be tomorrow, could be a week! Either way, it will be soon). So, let's break down the first order of business:"

"within the next week or so" is where I think most people are getting the idea of a week. We are definitely in the 'or so' part now.

I think a great way to make members understand the delays is to explain to us what is going on besides. "We are working on some bugs" It will help us to understand the steps and processes that are being taken to improve our gaming experience and what exactly the hold ups are.

Sure.

1) There was an error transferring files for the free speed games, and once they had been transferred from the test build, there were some problems that needed to be fixed such as players needing to have restrictions on games joined, not only games created. Another bug was some of the error messages weren't displayed properly, and for the release time to ensure that we don't repeat past mistakes, we are now undergoing far more extensive testing to make the next Free Speed Game update as optimal as possible.

2) Hide Reserved Games
There was little foresight into seeing how this would truly affect tournament games based on user preference, so developing the option for this in place of not being able to choose at all (original) had to be rolled out quickly. We are also now testing a more optimal and fixed version that fixes the other related bugs, since we wanted to roll out the option to hide them or not ASAP, we didn't focus on fixing the actual bugs of how it works right away. That is being worked on now, and to compensate on our hastiness, is undergoing more thorough testing and feedback with the programmer than before.

Neither of those 2 things were expected to happen when I had released the original statement. The other setback was that ConquerClub now has a new test server for us Admins and Tech Team to test things on! The setup for this took a while since it is completely isolated from the live site (as the old one was not, which is what caused one of the downtimes about a month ago). The sudden stack of tasks and bugs has put the less functional medal coding behind, but it is next to-do (pending anything else, such as above!). Still working with a new programmer learning CC, and I'm still learning timing. No secrets here -- trying to get the ball rolling!

BMO

it's good to hear extra effort is being put into updates to get them right. seeing as the medals update has been delayed, is there any chance there'll be extra effort put into that as well before?

for instance you could plan ahead as though you expect to be around another 20 years or more from now.

show: a plan

[betiko]

sure greenoaks, have an acheivement up to 100 000 uniques when there's an average of 15 000 unique players active on the site since a year looking at the scoreboard. by the way, is it just me, but I kind of remember there were around 40 000 active users on the scoreboard a couple of years ago?

[greenoaks]

sure greenoaks, have an acheivement up to 100 000 uniques when there's an average of 15 000 unique players active on the site since a year looking at the scoreboard. by the way, is it just me, but I kind of remember there were around 40 000 active users on the scoreboard a couple of years ago?

there were a lot more before the pc police started wielding the ban hammer. anyhow the idea is to put an end to the demands for higher levels. the current levels and the idea to bump it up a fraction will just put off the requests for a few months, at best.

the higher levels combined with qwerts great ribbon idea would satisfy every medal hunter - all-rounders & map specialists. as the blurb says it would take a lifetime to achieve. plus the work required to implement in one hit would be far less than the combined effort required to revisit it every 2nd year.

[betiko]

sure greenoaks, have an acheivement up to 100 000 uniques when there's an average of 15 000 unique players active on the site since a year looking at the scoreboard. by the way, is it just me, but I kind of remember there were around 40 000 active users on the scoreboard a couple of years ago?

there were a lot more before the pc police started wielding the ban hammer. anyhow the idea is to put an end to the demands for higher levels. the current levels and the idea to bump it up a fraction will just put off the requests for a few months, at best.

the higher levels combined with qwerts great ribbon idea would satisfy every medal hunter - all-rounders & map specialists. as the blurb says it would take a lifetime to achieve. plus the work required to implement in one hit would be far less than the combined effort required to revisit it every 2nd year.

how many people on the site have full gold? how many years did it take for those people to earn full gold? what % of the cc population does it represent to get full gold? we've tripled the bar here and I'm sure no one will have full diamond before a certain time. Getting new uniques is not exponential, quite the opposite..
anyway, I'm very curious to see what the medal counts will look like for the most hardcore gamers from the site when this gets implemented.

[Leehar]

by the way, is it just me, but I kind of remember there were around 40 000 active users on the scoreboard a couple of years ago?

20 000 is the most I've seen

[Gilligan]

Using the wayback machine it seems like it capped out around 22000. Of course it doesn't have every sampling of the scoreboard but it was generally around there.

[betiko]

oh yeah I remember where I got that from! I used to look at the amount of recipients of the standard acheivement. 40K back then and 46K today; wasn't the active users on the scoreboard!

[rdsrds2120]

thanks for the answer rds! how many programmers are working full time for the site by the way?

1 full-time, 2 with minor things/part time/volunteer code projects. I actually have a giant list of bugs/minor updates that have been fixed that I planned to release with medal updates .

BMO

[Bernoulli]

Don't forget to update the UPGRADE page to include "No More ADS" in membership perks.