Utopia Developers’ Update 7th October
A bit later today comes the new Blog from Sean. Please comment Here as usual:
Hi Everyone,
Wow, what an eventful week. The beta has been going well, with lots of activity, and the bug count finally beginning to come under control. Those of you playing will have noticed that we put a bit of work into cleaning up the layout. So far the feedback on the changes have been quite positive, which is great.
The real news of the week however is what has happened with the old codebase and the currently running ages of Genesis and WoL. Most of you will have received by now the announcement from Jolt that, as well as Genesis being ended on Thursday as planned, WoL will also be ending in one week’s time. Although we’ve been focusing on the beta code, we’ve also been tangentially aware of what’s been going on with the existing game, and can offer some comment on it. In short, it has been under attack from multiple locations on the internet, causing the site to run extremely slowly and for a lot of different kinds of errors to surface as secondary effects. The folks in Jolt have been doing a huge amount of work trying to keep the game up. Unfortunately, beyond the steps that they have already taken to try to mitigate the attacks, there’s nothing more they can do without a significant investment of time. To make the old codebase secure against these attacks would take a great deal of work, and wouldn’t be possible to complete any time soon. However, as it stands right now, it is unplayable for a lot of people, and at the mercy of unknown assailants. As a result, Jolt have taken the decision to retire the old code early. In our opinion at Front Square, they had no other sensible choice. Perhaps this was the attackers’ intention all along.
The bad news is that the new code isn’t up to a sufficient standard yet to be officially launched. So, next Wednesday when the current WoL age ends, the next WoL age will not be ready to start on the beta server. Instead, we will restart the test age on the beta server at the end of next week, so that people who want to join in now can do so on an even footing. The game will then remain in beta until we think its of sufficient quality to start a real age on it.
When we leave beta, everyone’s accounts, credits and kingdom groupings will be moved over, so that you can access any credits you previously had, and choose to remain with your former kingdom if you like. At this point, everyone will be notified, so if you have just taken a break for a while you’ll know when to come back.
We’re going to continue to think about how to make this transition as easy as possible for everyone, given the less-than-ideal circumstances. Please let us know through the forums any constructive suggestions you have for Brian and I.
Thanks,
Sean