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 Plan of attack..

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Wolfen69
Experienced Newbie
Experienced Newbie
Wolfen69


Posts : 15
Join date : 2011-12-30
Age : 54
Location : NY

Plan of attack.. Empty
PostSubject: Plan of attack..   Plan of attack.. EmptyWed 11 Jan - 18:51

Something I am all ways wondering is the plan of attack on a project...

For over a year now I have been gearing up to start my own Mmo. The biggest issue that brought the project to a stand still was the lack of a good game eng that had the networking in place and all the things that was going to be needed for my idea. The year was not wasted I spent it getting the hardware that will be needed, software, models, buildings and development tools. With Multiverse going open source, and finally having all the hardware that I need I feel that I can get started and this is my game plan in order:

1 – Eng Check – First check of the game eng just to make sure that it works.
Done – installed Multiverse on a few VMware servers and got it up and running.

2 – Set up the Hardware. (I am currently at this stage imaging servers right and left the house is a mess) LoL.
Set up 3 identical server networks (Production, Staging and Development). This will allow us to do development and stress testing on the same hardware that is in production to see how it works and handles before it is turned lose on the production environment.
Production – This will be made public and where people will be playing the game. I plan on getting it up and running from the get go, this way players can log on to see the progress we are making on the game and give input before the game is done. Starting out I am going use the fantasy sample world just to give the server something to do and let my kids (5 boys) play around on it.
Staging – This is where we will do the testing and stress testing. If the development work does not pass this stage it will not go live. However during the testing of a push development will not have to stop.
Development – This is where all the work on the code and server updates will take place.

3 – Monitoring and Backups
Backups – I have a 30T NAS to make backups of all the servers. I am going with a weekly full backup with incremental backups on the other days.
Monitoring – I plan on using Nagios to alert me if any thing goes down. There is nothing worse than having players tell you that the log in server has been down for a week and you never knew. Catci for monitoring the server health. This comes in handy not only when you stress test but also to see when you need to had more servers, memory or hard drive space before it becomes and issue.
In house SVN – For the code.

4 - Start of streamlining player experience. - Do a quick clean up of the client install, new account creation and make sure the client updates right. This is just to make the Mmo useable by others that may not be so tech savvy.

5 – Gutting the world. - Remove everything and start out with a nice blank clean world.

6 – There be land – Add the world to the Mmo make it as huge as possible even if I have to ad a few more servers at this point.

7 - Time to start the work.
This is where we start ripping in to the code, setting up model work flows, changing the art, changing the game logic and putting in the pre-built meshes I have. Taking grate care to doc every thing as we go on the dev wiki.

At this point we go into a loop. Wednesdays we decided what we are going to wrap up, and what will be put off till next push. Every Friday do a push, anything on the staging server goes to production, then any thing on the development servers will go to the staging server for testing. This will give a week for development, a week to test the changes, and also give the players updates every week to look forward to.

I know this is a very tight development pace but in the long run I think it will help keep things on the right track even if there are weeks that the update is just a image or something small. If any thing else it will keep me on my toes.

Let me know what you think, and what your plans are I am interested....
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Tristan
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Tristan


Posts : 306
Join date : 2011-08-03
Location : Liverpool, UK

Plan of attack.. Empty
PostSubject: Re: Plan of attack..   Plan of attack.. EmptyThu 12 Jan - 7:52

That all sounds very reasonable to me!

If this particular POA (plan of attack) ends up working well for you, do you reckon you could knock up a guide of some sort? It would be a great piece of literature for the community, especially for those with little experience of project managing an MMO.

I especially like the server network setup. Makes complete sense!

With the player experience streamline, that is something we intend to do with the source code, and is up there in out development priorities list. Any help you could give with that would be appreciated, once you've come up with the optimal install and account creation process.
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Wolfen69
Experienced Newbie
Experienced Newbie
Wolfen69


Posts : 15
Join date : 2011-12-30
Age : 54
Location : NY

Plan of attack.. Empty
PostSubject: Re: Plan of attack..   Plan of attack.. EmptyThu 12 Jan - 9:22

Bad News - I stayed home today because I had to take two sick kids to the doctor...
Good News - Because of this I should have the servers in my rack by the end of today...

I am glad to help in any way I can! Anything to move Multiverse grow. Face it the better Multiverse becomes the better it is for my project.

I am also keeping a log and record on the tandune.com (the MMo Website). Already have a few followers and one said they would already buy the game. LoL (think they where just being nice).
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Delurin
Head of Platform Development
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Posts : 424
Join date : 2011-08-03

Plan of attack.. Empty
PostSubject: Re: Plan of attack..   Plan of attack.. EmptyThu 12 Jan - 10:34

I see that you are using VmWare. Would you be willing to make a vmware image so that people can easily try out the server?
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Wolfen69
Experienced Newbie
Experienced Newbie
Wolfen69


Posts : 15
Join date : 2011-12-30
Age : 54
Location : NY

Plan of attack.. Empty
PostSubject: Re: Plan of attack..   Plan of attack.. EmptyThu 12 Jan - 10:43

Yep it is on my list of things to do, to make a VMware image and a VBox image. I was going to do it so I can had it off to remote coders to fire up and use to test. VMware is grate but the full package cost will kill you. VBox is free and can run on every thing. Would be happy to post instructions once I get to that point.
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