Homecoming player count: a year in review

[seebs]

I'm still having a hard time buying that anyone is holding "thousands" of names. I'd like to see some kind of evidence for this.

[Without_Pause]

7 hours ago, Apogee said:

From what the Devs have said in the past the amount of spaghetti code in the game is enough to make any seasoned programmer blanche.  If there was a simple fix it would have been done already.

As a Sr. Software Engineer who has seen my far share of messes, Global name + Character name can be done. If a volunteer dev team can literally create Issues with a variety of new content and fixes, unique naming is within reason. 

[mechahamham]

1 hour ago, Without_Pause said:

As a Sr. Software Engineer who has seen my far share of messes, Global name + Character name can be done. If a volunteer dev team can literally create Issues with a variety of new content and fixes, unique naming is within reason. 

 

C++ can get very... tangled, especially when written by inexperienced coders. I personally try to stay away from it if at all possible. I'm just not that effective if I'm handling reference pointers.

 

From a 'front end' POV, @Global+Character is fairly straightforward, as are unique ids. The places I can think of where it would need to be touched:

 

• SG memberships and permissions, if they don't already use unique ids. Since we have /altinvite Charactername, that hints that this is already the case.
• Chat windows would have to make it available to the left click team/league invite mechanics. This could be hidden as a text attribute the same way timestamps and chat colors are. If there are two Mechahamhams active at the same time, you want to be able to invite the one you're talking to and not the other.
• '/i Charactername' and '/li charactername' would need to be able to tell you that there are multiple Characternames active, and possibly give you a list like "There are 2 characters using the name 'Charactername', @Global1/Charactername and @Global2/Charactername," that you could then click on to clarify your invitation.
• Not many people use the /sea or 'Looking for Team' board, but it would likely need to be updated as well.
• The team window would likely need to have some sanity checks and possibly some visual indicators included for the rare situation when you have two or more Characternames on the same team. If you drag an inspiration onto your team window, you want it to go to the right person and so on. This could be as simple as assigning each Global/Charactername a color based on the same hash used in chat windows and could be as complex as adding AT icons to the team window. (Imagine a SG full of Startrek Borg- or Dr. Who Cybermen-types who roleplay a collective consciousness!)
• Currently our ignore/friend systems work on @globals rather than character names or @global/characternames. This is personally kind of annoying to me since I want to ignore certain characters, but not necessarily the person behind them. I'd like to see this retouched to give you the option, even if if defaults to @globals.

There may be more, but I think this is a very doable list, even if you had to do something like a few carefully crafted SQL JOINs for each case. Parameterized SQL *usually*, but not always just works once you get it correct. Unparameterized SQL is inviting Little Bobby Tables problems, and we know that the SG Base entry codes have been subject to this same kind of madness.

[Lunar Ronin]

19 minutes ago, mechahamham said:

 

C++ can get very... tangled, especially when written by inexperienced coders. I personally try to stay away from it if at all possible. I'm just not that effective if I'm handling reference pointers.

 

C++?  Oh no.  It's much worse than that.  Try C.  No ++, #, or Carbon.

Edited August 18 by Lunar Ronin

[BurtHutt]

In regards to name release, I'd suggest doing the purge on accounts that have not been active for a year then go from there.

 

A while ago I suggested not giving each account 1000 slots but a HC Dev just dismissed the idea.

 

I play mostly on Excelsior and have been ok with getting names. I also don't play a ton lately so it might be easier. Sure, there are some names I'd really like but I'll live without them.

[Without_Pause]

I wouldn't call the OG devs inexperienced and even they said how messed up it was. To me that felt like a 'You' problem. I converted a C++ CLI Windows service to a .NET one. I honestly need to go back and further update the code since the base was so old, but anytime I work with C++, I'm like, 'Never again.' I don't know when the switch came from the OG devs to what is the HC ones, but the game has been shut down 12 years ago. Painful as it may sound, the database has always been a sore point in the code base. One of the first recommendations I would have asked for as a team would be to overhaul it until it was fixed, and then move on from there. It also honestly makes me wonder if they ever updated the version of the code base. 

[kito]

2 hours ago, seebs said:

I'm still having a hard time buying that anyone is holding "thousands" of names. I'd like to see some kind of evidence for this.

I remember the first week the discord talks. Some guys "locking down " 40-50 names. But it's not just the 50 names is the 50 names and the names that are essentially the same. Like say biclops then .biclops and biclops. Etc it's not that it's 1000 unique names it's a handful of names and then 25 or so that are close enough outher players can't take it.  

 

This was years ago I have sence given up on voice chat and it's not something people type about alot, they could be gone or still playing, they might even be using there 1000 names one for every day of the year over a few years.  

 

I think a one time reset for say LVL 20 or less toon or even a toon who has not played in say 10 years or more could have there named wiped but it's also not a big issue there are alot more free names then taken.

[Triumphant]

Quote

Like say biclops then .biclops and biclops.

 

I mean, they can have that one.  A Biclops would just be a normal person with two eyes.  Kinda redundant.  😝