Today , as promised, we did a release. It included maaaany tweaks and fixes, huge bug removals and most of all, 3 big features: Sound (home-taped), Automatic account creation for founders (Acho today was our first supporter that got his account almost immediately!) and Handicap.
Now ranks can spread more accordingly and more interesting games will naturally be played.
Polly and i are exceptionally happy about todays improvements. We had the last minute rushes, looking at last minute bugs, and also checking that we didnt introduce a serious issue. Sound, at the last moment, gave us a lot of trouble, and i believe we are not still 100% sure that our technical solution will work for everyone.
However, the " jewel" (common argentinian expression) of the whole deployment last-minute debugging was "The Bug". Since release, the server was restarted 3 times. Once due to Amazon's malfunction. But twice due to an issue in our own servers. The server didnt crash, but started to get REALLY slow and lagged, ad we werent sure why.
In the past week we spent some time looking into it andi was very close to figuring it out. Today, while explaining my finding to polly and looking that the latest release triggered it severely, we found it. An evil line of code we both saw separately but immediately knew it was the culprit.
When i saw it i said "jesus this code has to be old". It was. Looking at source control, the culprit was from May 2011, at the absolute experimental prototype stage of Kaya. It was code written purely for developer aid, and in a very exploratory and naive manner.
The culprit was causing the server to user an inordinate amount of resources, and once removed, the overthrough server went back to use barely less than 10% of its resources. Let me refresh that our server has 600 megs of memory. Its practically a cellphone with good networking :).
AFter celebrating with some beers, i came back home and played a game, knowing that "The Bug" didnt exist anymore. It is so noticeable . The server is sooo much faster now, and the sound of the stones give it a whole new edge.
I think founders will be very happy to see this release 0.3.0, and hope energetically for the next one, 0.4.0, next friday.
Regards!
I just have tried out the new version. I haven't hear any sound while i was watching a game between Fizmo and Celebrir.
ReplyDeleteI also noticed some major bugs: I do not see new moves without a browser refresh. After a while the clock display also stopped. The clock was running again after a browser refresh.
I am using Windows 7 with IE9.
Kaya.gs Version : 0.3.0 Alpha
P.S. It would be better to make explicit contact option for bug reporting. "Tell us what you think" may be good for a first-time feedback but not for bug-reporting only. E.g. i don't know what system information may be helpful for you when reporting a bug.
Maybe this is what you're searching for: https://kaya.uservoice.com/
ReplyDeleteI had no problems with the sounds in this game by the way.
"Maybe this is what you're searching for: https://kaya.uservoice.com/"
ReplyDeleteIt looks like a place to make new suggestions, but not for reporting a bug. A new contact form would be better so that it is clear what kind of information is needed by the developers to indentify a bug.
Sound is minor problem in my opinion. But it is critical when the moves are not updated while i am watching a game. ;)
Wunderful! Sound is well. But "detach" does not work under Firefox. And where can I find the feature "Handicap"?! A manual is neccessary soon...
ReplyDeleteBTW: It would be nice to take some actual screenshots at your website (project)! It is the best advertising. :-)
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ReplyDeleteI suggest to Gabriel to activate the description field in the profile for us. It doesn´t matter if it erased after every server update. Then we can show our valid rank from other go servers. This information is interesting for many players at Kaya, isn´t it?!
ReplyDelete+1 for Frank idea !
ReplyDeleteIt should be working properly, try it out :)
ReplyDeleteIt's still not working. When i am watching a game it seems that the clock stops running when a player has made a move. Of course i don't hear any sound and the next move i will see only after browser refresh. Maybe that's why i haven't seen a replay bot at work yet?
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ReplyDeleteThanks a lot, Gabriel! Yes, both works now in Firefox, I mean the "detach" issue and the description field. :-) Cool.
ReplyDeleteJust an idea for sounds: record 2 variations of each sound and for captured stones put in the basket record for a single captured, two, three, four, and five for both first capture or with already some stones captured before. This won't take much time nor resources, but subconsciously will make you feel more immersed in the game (:
ReplyDeleteWhat would be the content of 0.4.0?
ReplyDelete