Stats & Achievements update

[Cerdip]

Stats update:

1. CSR

The Stats Team (that's right, there's more than one programmer involved) have rewritten the code behind the CSR 2.0 stats, fixed several bugs (including one that haunted me personally, reported elsewhere here in this forum), and improved performance in many areas. We've also added some small new features (low hanging fruit). We were in the middle of performance testing when our stats server burned to the ground back in May. We've been in a holding pattern waiting for the infrastructure issues that erupted after that to be resolved. Those tests that

were

completed had passed with flying colours. When we get our server back several things may happen, the sequencing of which is still to be decided:

i.

The CSR testing

might

need to be restarted. New hardware, new back end software installations, new server and routing structures, and so on. The terrain now is non-trivially different from the terrain we were dealing with in March, April & May.

ii.

If

we satisfactorily complete the new testing of CSR, and

if

we put it back on-line it would probably be as CSR 2.1 or CSR 2.2. We deliberately chose not to bump it to 3.0--even though the rewrite was a major rewrite & refactoring. The reasons for this uncertainty around versioning and deployment will become apparent in the next sub-step:

iii:

A design revamp of the entire approach to stats is happening that might make CSR subsidiary to a "Player Landing Page" which could include many things, like reviving the old Gazette, hooking into your account & forums, some hooks into social media, the Live Map that Andrew (AHWULF) is doing, and approaching Stats (and Achievements) from a different direction than has been done in the past.

PLUS

any Steamage Integration Beauty we can accomplish as well (directive from On High). Those are simply ideas that are under consideration. I'm open to other ideas. It's a major undertaking, if we chose to... er... undertake it.

2. Player Landing Page

As I've said, we are waiting for Infrastructure & Back End Goodness to finish emerging, and we do not want to rush the fine people (truly a combined arms operation) that are working their way through that. Doc has explained quite eloquently elsewhere the nature of this work, and not only why it is needed, but why we need to do it right & proper, so to speak. At some point, Good Enough isn't Good Enough, when you are looking towards the future.

And the future is so bright, not only do we have to wear shades, we need need to be able to deal with whatever might happen in the future better than we have been able to handle the future in the past (did I just say that?).

Currently the entire House of The Rising Rat is up on jacks, and a new basement and foundation of high quality concrete is being poured. The old foundation of rotten two-by-fours and wonky footer pads is being, or has already been, torn away--depending on where you look.

So while the above happens, the Stats Team has been designing and prototyping the Player Landing Page project. There are a few tech decisions that still need to be made, which we can test out with the prototype page. We will likely need some new art for this as well. Art priorities at the moment are focused on in-game assets FYI.

3. Under-the-hood Tech

When we are waiting for Infrastructure changes, or decisions & policies to be reached by Higher-Higher, we aren't idle. The same programming team that is currently known as the Stats Team, when not engaged in CSR or Player Landing Page (PLP), have been tasked with improving some under-the-hood client technologies, that will eventually move us into the Jet Pack century, video game-wise. This is still early days for this, but yes, Parachuting Dogs are on the way! Maybe. Too soon to tell yet, really

. Gophur tells me not to promise things...

How much of what is under the hood needs to be ripped out and replaced and how much can simply be improved is not yet a Known Known; it is still lounging in the Known Unknown waiting room.

Achievements

Achievements are going to be revamped in several ways. This is a

Big Thing

- it matters as part of the CSR & PLP design work, as well as the Steamage. Work is only getting started, but I want to get feedback from the player base-- Gen Pop as well as HC. I will start another thread in here called

Achievements Consensus Building

. I know there have been threads in the past around this topic that I've seen, but I can't find them, so the new one is the one I will use. BLOO needs to be a big part of that discussion too.

I would like to be able to, working in conjunction with the HCs, automate as much of their recognition awards system as possible, both the selection of recipients and display of the awards. To that end I will be interacting with them via the HC mailing list. I'm hoping that leads to sunny places.

I intend to work with the Gen Pop of players on revising and reshaping the "standard achievements" using the new

Achievements Consensus Building thread.

More about this in there.

Edited July 22, 2014 by Cerdip

[fox403]

can see this tread getting a lot of hype!

[Cerdip]

Well, I hope not too much! I think (hope) I'm getting a new rifle for my birthday tomorrow, and I intend to spend some time on the range out in the woods with it this week while the good weather lasts...

[OLDZEKE]

http://zeke.4mg.com/music/risingrat.mp3

Ohh and Happy Birthday

Edited July 22, 2014 by OldZeke

[Cerdip]

http://zeke.4mg.com/music/risingrat.mp3

Ohh and Happy Birthday

Oh man Zeke, that's epic! When did you write that? And are there gonna be more verses...?

[OLDZEKE]

Oh man Zeke' date=' that's epic! When did you write that?[/quote']

10 minutes before I posted it. May add to it later

[Cerdip]

10 minutes before I posted it. May add to it later

Yoink!

That's one hella awesome birthday present

[SNIPER62]

this should be posted elsewhere so more people are able to read it...

[jwilly]

...the Stats Team' date=' when not engaged in CSR or Player Landing Page (PLP), have been tasked with improving some under-the-hood client technologies, that will eventually move us into the Jet Pack century, video game-wise. This is still early days for this, but yes, Parachuting Dogs are on the way! Maybe. Too soon to tell yet, really.[/quote']

A dog could be either a Player Character...I don't know if there's been a tactical wargame yet in which players could be either dogs or humans...or a Non Player Character. An NPC capability might provide for dogs that follow closely and "intelligently" when the dog-handler player's attention is elsewhere, and can be ordered to perform actions "intelligently" from a limited menu. Or, it might provide for NPC "human" players who operate similarly, so that the human player becomes a fighting-group leader.

The latter, among many developmental directions, could provide for more visually realistic modeling of crewed weapons and their situational responses. A 50mm/two inch mortar or an RPAT/PIAT could have a crew of two, a 60mm mortar or an LMG a crew of three, a towed cannon a crew of four...all of whom could keep watch and respond with small arms if threatened by a lone Rambo. The modeling of crewed infantry weapons no longer would have to be a design stumbling block. Tanks operating unbuttoned could have more than one visible, active crewman. The crew of a disabled tank could bail and try to get back to friendly cover alive.

NPC dogs would be fun, but I'd much rather have visually realistic crewed infantry weapons on the battlefield.

[maxios]

Very nice update Cerdip !

Keep up the good job!

[OLDZEKE]

Oh man Zeke' date=' that's epic! When did you write that? And are there gonna be more verses...?[/quote']

X-gxLUyCAbg

[delems]

So stats are up?

[Bierbaer]

Very interesting, funny and refreshing read! You should take over the news section of CRS as well

Oh, and happy birthday!

bb

[narg]

I would love to see a rework of the Top tanker stats and how they're calculated, with a weighted k/d ratio that includes infantry kills (although at a steeply discounted rate compared to ATG and Tank kills).

The greatest contributions from tankers in this game come from their ability to suppress enemy infantry, not kill other tanks (although the latter helps with the former).

[slickie1]

Good Update.

]Stats update:

1. CSR

The Stats Team (that's right, there's more than one programmer involved) have rewritten the code behind the CSR 2.0 stats, fixed several bugs (including one that haunted me personally, reported elsewhere here in this forum), and improved performance in many areas. We've also added some small new features (low hanging fruit). We were in the middle of performance testing when our stats server burned to the ground back in May. We've been in a holding pattern waiting for the infrastructure issues that erupted after that to be resolved. Those tests that

were

completed had passed with flying colours. When we get our server back several things may happen, the sequencing of which is still to be decided:

i.

The CSR testing

might

need to be restarted. New hardware, new back end software installations, new server and routing structures, and so on. The terrain now is non-trivially different from the terrain we were dealing with in March, April & May.

ii.

If

we satisfactorily complete the new testing of CSR, and

if

we put it back on-line it would probably be as CSR 2.1 or CSR 2.2. We deliberately chose not to bump it to 3.0--even though the rewrite was a major rewrite & refactoring. The reasons for this uncertainty around versioning and deployment will become apparent in the next sub-step:

iii:

A design revamp of the entire approach to stats is happening that might make CSR subsidiary to a "Player Landing Page" which could include many things, like reviving the old Gazette, hooking into your account & forums, some hooks into social media, the Live Map that Andrew (AHWULF) is doing, and approaching Stats (and Achievements) from a different direction than has been done in the past.

PLUS

any Steamage Integration Beauty we can accomplish as well (directive from On High). Those are simply ideas that are under consideration. I'm open to other ideas. It's a major undertaking, if we chose to... er... undertake it.

2. Player Landing Page

As I've said, we are waiting for Infrastructure & Back End Goodness to finish emerging, and we do not want to rush the fine people (truly a combined arms operation) that are working their way through that. Doc has explained quite eloquently elsewhere the nature of this work, and not only why it is needed, but why we need to do it right & proper, so to speak. At some point, Good Enough isn't Good Enough, when you are looking towards the future.

And the future is so bright, not only do we have to wear shades, we need need to be able to deal with whatever might happen in the future better than we have been able to handle the future in the past (did I just say that?).

Currently the entire House of The Rising Rat is up on jacks, and a new basement and foundation of high quality concrete is being poured. The old foundation of rotten two-by-fours and wonky footer pads is being, or has already been, torn away--depending on where you look.

So while the above happens, the Stats Team has been designing and prototyping the Player Landing Page project. There are a few tech decisions that still need to be made, which we can test out with the prototype page. We will likely need some new art for this as well. Art priorities at the moment are focused on in-game assets FYI.

3. Under-the-hood Tech

When we are waiting for Infrastructure changes, or decisions & policies to be reached by Higher-Higher, we aren't idle. The same programming team that is currently known as the Stats Team, when not engaged in CSR or Player Landing Page (PLP), have been tasked with improving some under-the-hood client technologies, that will eventually move us into the Jet Pack century, video game-wise. This is still early days for this, but yes, Parachuting Dogs are on the way! Maybe. Too soon to tell yet, really

. Gophur tells me not to promise things...

How much of what is under the hood needs to be ripped out and replaced and how much can simply be improved is not yet a Known Known; it is still lounging in the Known Unknown waiting room.

Achievements

Achievements are going to be revamped in several ways. This is a

Big Thing

- it matters as part of the CSR & PLP design work, as well as the Steamage. Work is only getting started, but I want to get feedback from the player base-- Gen Pop as well as HC. I will start another thread in here called

Achievements Consensus Building

. I know there have been threads in the past around this topic that I've seen, but I can't find them, so the new one is the one I will use. BLOO needs to be a big part of that discussion too.

I would like to be able to, working in conjunction with the HCs, automate as much of their recognition awards system as possible, both the selection of recipients and display of the awards. To that end I will be interacting with them via the HC mailing list. I'm hoping that leads to sunny places.

I intend to work with the Gen Pop of players on revising and reshaping the "standard achievements" using the new

Achievements Consensus Building thread.

More about this in there.

[maxios]

Any update ?

[maxios]

bump

[SNIPER62]

anything?