What happened and What is going on right now in the offices of AGS

[TheBlackAbbot]

Disclaimer: This story is made up but 98.2% chances there’s something real in it.

So basically today one developer pressed “Enter” on a button with written
“Compensate Players” on top of it.

In the code was written something like this
for each player, if houses owned >0 GiveCompensation()
the comma and the points are handled differently in every region.
So 300,000 in EU is 300 but in US is actual 300k (or vice-versa idk)
In C# for instance you should use CultureInfo library for these stuff.
Many bugs in the game can be triggered by this in EU or US only. ( Reason why there’s also time-travels etc )

By the way, Developer press click. BOOM. The gates of hell opens.

Meanwhile in our small servers we tought there was a BOT cleaning the Trading Post so everyone rushed to put stuff at crazy expensive price like 1 Big Salmon for 10k. Many of us quit saying: allright guys this is a mistake there will be a roll-back see ya tomorrow. No big deal.

Dev team call for help in top management:
“We made a mess, we accidentaly gave 300k to each player in europe (more or less)”

Top manager late boomer :
“Ok so not big deal give 300k to everyone”
Dev : " But sir like this we disintegrate the game!!! "
Manager : " why? it’s fake money "
Dev : " But Sir the game is based on economy it will causes a disaster with inflation bla bla bla"
Manger : " just give 300k to everyone and shut up"
Devs : " But we cannot do it bla bla bla!!! We should rollback "
Manager : " Guys you made a mistake just give damn fake coins to these kids stop complaining. Rollbacks are out of discussion. We cannot make honest players lose even one bit of progress. "

Devs try to explain boomer that they cannot simply do it
This goes on for 5 hours

Dev : "Sir we have to make a decision ! there’s the entire EU offline "
Manager : " And what is the problem, those kids will go take a bit of fresh air "
Dev : “But we cannot leave our playerbase offline reeeeeee.”
Manager : " Hey guys I have to go! fix the issue. Rollback only transactions but keep the player progress the same bye " — Sound of Lamborghini Engine VROOOOOM

Now Devs trying to code a script with something that reverts the “transactions only” covering all the possible scenarios by using the old backup without a rollback. So probably trying to figure out some mad algorithm, in a super rushed environment that will lead to burnout of many of them.
If they succeed to do it it will be a powerfull tool. Like when they disable the “gathering” of elemental animals by changing something in their servers without doing a patch. Anyway, today I gone out with my partner and we spent a lil bit of time together laughing about this whole situation. You players should do the same for your own mental health.

For the devs I hope they will do this mad algorithm/script wathever. But is not a easy task. Good luck

[Akir]

What if it was this:
Manager: what happened? Didn’t the maintenance period end?
Dev: yeah, we messed up. We launched the servers but compensation was wrongly coded.
Manager: how so?
Dev: about 100x more than it should have.
Manager: won’t that ruin the economy? Just roll back the server to the patch and fix that variable.
Dev: it’s not that simple, we don’t keep backups so we have no safety net. We messed up and now we either find a creative way to fix this or individually correct every player made transaction.
Manager: won’t that take hours?
Dev: yes, several hours.

. . . Etc . . .
Keep the story going if you want.
Don’t pick sides of what you don’t know.
A rollback shouldn’t take this long in my opinion. I am not expert but due to the lack of communication and time spent I would wager we don’t have that “backup” and they are reversing every action individually.

We may even get a bonus solution like this:
“We reversed almost all the actions regarding the wrong reimbursement. From our calculations economy will be fine. Only 2% of the gold give. Is yet to account for”

[a.dvorsky]

that one…
definitely that one…

oh and Congratulations

[Akir]

Goddamn. The congrats cracks me up every time.
I think we should make it the official salute in new world.
Instead of “best regards” we end with Congratulations

[AdolfTiltler]

100% accurate.

[movte123]

Congratulations

[Recksters]

Manager, while playing Fortnite, keeps receiving sms messages about compensation.

Manager to Dev team: “What’s going on?”

Dev team: “We tested the changes before going online but we broke everything and the game was down for 5 hours in the EU Regions.”

Manager: “You tested the changes in the EU PTR?”

Dev: “Huh, no.”

Manager: “You tested the changes with how many thousands of players?”

Dev: “10.”

Manager: “Only 10,000 users!?! Are you nuts?”

Dev: “No, 10 people.”

Manager hangs up, closes Fortnite and drive to the Dev Team leader’s house.

Manager: "Wtf is this bs? We have to compensate the players! Give all 3,000 coins and be done with it. "

Dev: “Ok, will do.”

Manager, back to playing Fortnite, receives a bunch of SMS, of EU players receiving 300k coins.

Manager throws the phone out the window and drives back to the Dev Team Leader’s house.

Manager to Dev: “What the hell is this 300k coins given to EU players?”

Dev: “What 300k? We gave them 3,000 coins sir!”

Manager: “The compensation was tested in the EU PTR?”

Dev: “No. Just 10.”

Manager freaks out.

Manager: “Can I see the code? Where did you put the comma?”

Dev: “Oh. Huh. Well. You see, some countries use commas, others a dot…”

Manager: “And why is it written ‘300,0’ instead of ‘3,000’?”

Dev: “Oh sh… Well… What do we do?”

Manager: “No choice but to give 300k to everyone and be done with it.”

Dev: “But sir, it will unbalance the game!”

Manager: “More than now?”

Dev: “…”

Manager: “Plus, how long will it take for them to waste that 300k? 2 weeks?”

Dev: “Or one week as some companies will increase the taxes to insane levels knowing that everyone got 300k.”

Manager: “There ya go. So, please do that. And TEST IT IN THE PTRs! Can I go back to my game?”

Dev: “Sure thing, see you in NW!”

Manager: “Sure.”

Manager goes back home and goes back into Fortnite.

[Nyel]

They’re on holiday break, the only left trainee is doing his best, don’t make him rush.

[Akir]

If that is true. I am sorry for the dude.
All hate aside, I condemn them as professionals but not as persons. They are probably feeling miserable and even though they don’t reply I am sure they read many comments. And can definitely read the room.
I hope they can pull through but this must understand this situation sucks for us and it has been a constant for far too long

[ApostateProphet]

@TheBlackAbbot Your story was 5/7. Would read again. (as were the others). Hope you and your partner had a wonderful day. You seem to have the right mental attitude. It is just a game. Enjoy the heck out of it, but don’t fret too much of the constant mishaps and bugs of every colour of the rainbow and size and species.

Game’s an unpolished gem. Sound design and environment alone is some decent stuff. Add a few more distinctive biomes, differentiate the regions a bit more, replace the copy-pasta towns with some unique ones, add some quests and PvP and INGAME BUG REPORTING System, and you have a potentially a great game.