Server Release: This way or that?

[Inaubryn]

Okay. Nobody panic! After havin' a chat with a few people and readin' some of Ronan's post, I have some questions to pose to yous guys. It's about how you believe servers for NWN2 should be released in ALFA for Live status. And I love yous guys. So if you could click one of those little circles above, next to those word thingys, and then click the submit button at the bottom, I would like that much. If a particular choice doesn't reflect your views, click none of the above, and feel free to post below and explain.

[Ronan]

I voted for (1). After speaking with quite a few people, I don't think having 7-10 servers in the build pipeline will produce enough live servers quickly enough. I think at the very best and most optimistic, 70% of those teams could make it to live in a reasonable amount of time, with the burnt-out ones stalling the whole process as new proposals take their place in the pipeline. In addition, every server is likely to be about 1/4th the size of our current ones, and outdoor areas may take many times longer to build than NWN1's tiled areas. In all honesty, I don't think it will be possible for ALFA to meet the initial build demand regardless of what we do.

But I also think we are all just daydreaming until we've got a toolset physically in our hands, and the game's bugs are all known to us. Once we know more about how long the build pipeline will be, I think we could make more educated guesses as to how many servers should be approved at once.

I didn't vote (4), because I still think, perhaps niavely so, that encouraged condensation is a better idea all around that enforced density (and we should be getting a population tracker soonish to help with that).

[illialid]

I didn't vote (yet), but I have a question. Has Rick's suggestion for a group starting server (to get ALFA on the Map) been shelved, or does this account for it?

[Blackwill]

I didn't vote (yet), but I have a question. Has Rick's suggestion for a group starting server (to get ALFA on the Map) been shelved, or does this account for it?

I think my vote would go with that one.

[Ronan]

I didn't vote (yet), but I have a question. Has Rick's suggestion for a group starting server (to get ALFA on the Map) been shelved, or does this account for it?

I think my vote would go with that one.

Mayebe I misinterpreted, but I took option 1 to encompass this. If a starting server is approved by standards, it can go live, with no other administration needed.

[MorbidKate]

Voted for Option 1. Easy choice really.

Why handicap ourselves by delaying ALFA2 in the wait for a cluster of servers while ALFA1 sits dead and empty once NWN2 is on sale? Whatever gives our current membership a new home the quickest (Use it as the basemod template for the others) is the smart play. Why take ouselves off-line for 6+ months if we don't need to?

Kate

[illialid]

I didn't vote (yet), but I have a question. Has Rick's suggestion for a group starting server (to get ALFA on the Map) been shelved, or does this account for it?

I think my vote would go with that one.

Mayebe I misinterpreted, but I took option 1 to encompass this. If a starting server is approved by standards, it can go live, with no other administration needed.

That's why I asked. I did not take option 1 this way. If I interpreted Rick's idea correctly, it meant that our focus would be on an initial "Joint" server. Once launched, we would begin on the approved servers. This would not be a starting server as much as a stop gap to keep ALFA alive till the full servers are running.

[Wynna]

Thank you, Inaub, for putting up this informational poll.

I voted #6, although I feel that to be representative of the current guidelines there would have to be a combination of #2 and #6, reading: "After the initial batch of 3-5 Live servers, scheduled servers should come online in batches of two every three months, with server numbers greater than 7 requisite on whether DM and player numbers bear expansion." Ronan's upcoming player population study tool would be used to provide demographic facts to support expansion.

I actually feel that like #2 and #6 split one half of the current guidelines, #1 and #4 also express a duplicate (though oppositional) idea, or does #1 truly mean that there would never be any sort of cap governing server apps at all, no matter what? If so, it would be my greatest regret for ALFA to look into the future and see the past repeating itself all over again. In any case, current personal and past official opinion aside, I feel that the addition of joke choices and the confusion of duplicative choices in the above popular poll makes for a very muddy result, although admin indeed would be obliged to mentally reduce the above to a summary of the opinion of those they represent, when and if another admin vote is taken to supercede the schedule currently in place.

Finally, perhaps we could hear from TDawg about just how many servers Standards can approve, and in what time period? 3-5 servers up front and two servers every three months after was based on advice from TDawg, as Standards head, as to what was exactly feasible to release as fit to go Live. It was not randomly chosen. Whether or not #1 or #5 or the synchronized swimming option win the popular vote, the point will be moot if 'Once approved, and standards have been passed, servers should be released when they are ready for live with no further stipulations' means 3-5 up front and two every three months thereafter.

Thank you. And now back to RL, if Texas may be considered such.

[fluffmonster]

Once you approve a server for development, you've essentially extended a promise that it will be allowed to go live. Or think of it this way...approving a server for development and then forcing it to sit on the shelf would be very bad for morale. Is this option #1?

The way I'm reading the poll, the question is when/whether approved servers can go live. I think the question really needs to be when/whether a server is approved for development in the first place - the choke needs to be at approvals. Note that this has some pretty significant implications in terms of expansion...we won't know until looking at numbers on the initial servers whether subsequent development would be warranted, but then you've got a long lag between deciding more servers are warranted and having them actually developed enough to go live. We could authorize development of up to 8 at the get go, but right now I hardly see it as guaranteed would wouldn't be stretching ourselves thin at just 4 or 5.

[Rumple C]

im still undecided... who is swimming and what are they wearing?

and i love yous too Inaubryn.

(option 1 looks good to me btw allthough im still undecided)

[Inaubryn]

Let me clarify number 1. As it stands right now we have 8 proposals vyin' for starter server live status. That means these people wish to go live when ALFA first goes live with NWN2.

Option 1 states that, once your server proposal has been approved, and you have passed standards, you are cleared for live.

So, say out of the 8 above, 5 proposals are approved by the selection team. Of those 5, 3 pass through the standards testing. One of those can rework the server and based on the standards teams report, be standards compliant within two weeks. We wait that two weeks, the server passes testin' and we go live with 4 servers. Everybody rejoices, things are thrown into the air, guns are fired, people quit their jobs, champagne is consumed and glasses broken followed by exclaiming, "Opa!", women are kissed, children play, dogs... ahem, nevermind. But, it's a glorious time.

A few months later two more servers are prepared to go live and ALFA hasn't self-destructed, and whoever is Lead then is havin' a statue erected in their honor for leading ALFA to such prosperity and virtual bliss. Those server pass standards, and they go live. Two weeks from then more servers are ready for standards testin'. They pass and go live. And so on and so on.

So, after all that entertainin' rhetoric, what I'm sayin' is number one simply says that the only stipulations of obtainin' live status is approval of your proposal and passing the live standards put forth by Dawg and Crew.

Hope that helps. If anybody doesn't understand anything else in this poll, never fear, I'll... uh, write some more nonsense then try and clarify at the end.

[illialid]

*raises hand*

Was the Keep on the Borderlands proposal considered an official server? I'm not trying to be dense (yes playing a dwarf fighter comes naturally), but just trying to figure out if this poll includes that recommendation...

[fluffmonster]

I thought Rick's idea was to pretty much just to just throw something up that alfans could start playing on, separate from a live server.

[AlmightyTDawg]

Finally, perhaps we could hear from TDawg about just how many servers Standards can approve, and in what time period? 3-5 servers up front and two servers every three months after was based on advice from TDawg, as Standards head, as to what was exactly feasible to release as fit to go Live. It was not randomly chosen. Whether or not #1 or #5 or the synchronized swimming option win the popular vote, the point will be moot if 'Once approved, and standards have been passed, servers should be released when they are ready for live with no further stipulations' means 3-5 up front and two every three months thereafter.

Realistically speaking, I am not going to be involved in serious NWN2 Testing. I'm writing up a guideline on how that would work for any who follow me, but my general indication is that there'll have to be a group that follows.

The nature of how specific and critical the testing is will dictate some aspects of the crunch on that step. There are a number of things folks need to consider moving forward:

1. Will Testing include bug checking like doors that lock/unlock appropriately, merchants that spawn, no double spawns on combat, and how serious will that be? Will mob blueprints be examined to gauge drops, adherence to AI standards, and appropriate CR ratings?

Right now, all Standards /has/ to test is that merchants price correctly, and that statics don't overreward. I try to do brief runthroughs, and NickD helps, but simply put we can't cover even a significant portion of the server in a reasonable time, unless we wanted to drop everything else including actually playing ourselves. Using the community for massive Beta testing purposes will cut out a fair chunk of this, but as more servers go Live, your capacity for this dwindles - and there's awlays the unspoken "meta" risk.

2. Will servers be required to send expansion material to Testing, or will Testing have a periodic - maybe quarterly or biannually - auditing requirement on them?

Right now, a server could go Live with 100 zones, add 100 more with inappropriate content, and Testing doesn't have the resources to handle it. Some of it is me overcommitted, but some of it is just lack of personnel. If you combine that with a serious build cycle /while/ requiring new material to be approved or auditing, you're talking serious work.

3. How much "base" material can or will be provided by the Basemod, and how well will builders stick to it? There's such an infinite multitude of magic items that can be created that the best we can do is hit the major highlights, but as soon as people start getting creative (such as the magic merchants on SD) then pricing fidelity becomes an issue.

Right now, every single item in every merchant is examined. The more items in shops and the more errors, the more time it takes to run through a server. The question of standardized mob blueprints running standardized scripts becomes another question - any humanoids with variable class levels are now things that /should/ in principle be scrutinized.

4. Will there ever be an "aesthetic" component to Testing? Or put another way, approving a server's proposal on paper does not necessarily equate with something that looks well-designed or professional, and what extent is the "back end" of that important?

Right now, we've sent servers to Live with massive bugs - poor typos, missing conversations, busted ATs or AT systems, mobs without conversations or any reactions, doors that go nowhere, and so on. If they're gamebreaking - such as mobs spawning on top of ATs, they are clearly squashed, though. We've done so with the understanding that the DMA and the HDMs "sign off" on it, and on the basis that amidst all the other servers, things will improve as the players motivate them to improve. Is that an acceptable mode of operation for NWN2 - initial batch or even a year down the road? If it's not, what kind of system are you going to put in place for Testing to make that call?

On top of all of that, you have the question of what the timelines are, and how many people you have in Testing. Right now, given back and forths and multiple revisions between Testing and builders, servers typically go Live about 10 - 30 days after submission. And that's without serious in-game testing, roughly 5 - 10 manhours - maybe about 20 manhours total of Testing work per server with a lot of things left untested. How much time the testers can dedicate per day, their attention to detail measured against their attention span, how their schedules mesh with the builders, how the work is distributed - there's lots of room for slop time in there that eats up more days than you'd expect. The size you'll want Testing to be is absolutely a function of the answer to all of those questions.

If I were to guess today, I'd say you want five to eight people in a thankless, boring-as-hell job where those people are always gonna be up for attack for their meta knowledge. Tough prospect to start.

As to how you want to structure it, I was somewhere between #1 and #2 so I voted none of the above. I can't see the concept of a group server working unless it bears no real relation to ALFA canon or to Live servers in general; would just be too chaotic. I guess I hold the same opinion of releasing a single server (as soon as available) for Live. You can give ALFAns a home on Beta servers - and even harness them to help the Testing curve - in a reasonably short period of time, say Beta 2 days. And being non-Live-canon, you can kind of let DMs go nuts on them running ad hocs or random things and keep people thoroughly entertained without the seriousness of the "ALFA pillars."

The way I saw it, you'd want to release a minimum of three, hopefully more for "Live" even if it meant holding a couple back for two or three weeks. If for no other reason than to spread players out a little bit at a time that counts as "official." Ronan's concept of redundancy is spot on in that to get three finished in a reasonably brief period of time, you want to shoot scattershot by approving seven or eight for that initial bunch, but I've always believed that if you approve a server and they can build it, you should never tell them "oops, too many servers, sorry about those hundreds of manhours of work but we don't need it." In that sense, any you approve off the bat have the capacity to be ready for the "Live" push, except the server selection process would prioritize which ones get Testing priority.

So I believe in releasing as they come available with a single hold point for ALFA "Live" that makes sure we start with more than just one. That's close to #1, #2, and #3, but not any of them, so I voted none of the above. I believe in a hold point (#1's out), I don't believe that we should hold back approved servers on density numbers (#2's out), and I don't believe we should insert any sort of "stablizing" part into adding more servers (#3's out).

[Inaubryn]

Sorry, Illi. Yes, I considered it in there at first. But, after speaking with you, the way these servers were proposed (surface and underdark counterpart), there'd be no official proposal procedure for them. So, that bein' said, this poll only refers to true live servers that have an official proposal. If we do decide to create official proposals for them, they will then be included in any and all relative options for server release.

Thanks, illi.