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Development Update 3/2 Apologies for the long entry -- tons of stuff to cover, but I've got a cup of green tea and Pandora playing, so let's launch into it: Why All The Quirky Outages? <i>* The sound of silence </i> <i> Flowers from the evil seed </i> <i> Of servers crashing </i> <i>-- best whistled in trinary</i> We've been having a fair amount of really quirky behavior on the site recently, and this immediately raises two questions: a) What is going on, and b) why the heck aren't you guys making announcements about it? The problems in the past week were basically started by one simple thing that led to another and another, like when you go to Starbuck's for a coffee and end up in a chapel with a complete stranger in front of an Elvis impersonator. <i>Fly, you pools! --ops guy to the memcache servers</i> But here's what happened: I've mentioned something called memcache* before, which is a bunch of computers serving as a fast cache -- basically, before we do any queries to the database, we first see if it's in the cache. Memcache is an amazing bit of programming; over 90% of our database queries are handled by memcache, and if any reason memcache is acting up then the sudden 10x increase in demand makes our database servers go down faster than Fannie Mae stock. Anyway, we wanted to upgrade to the latest version of memcache, which provided some neat functionality that we could really use. So we switched memcache, but started getting odd reports almost immediately -- nothing reproducible, really, but definitely strange errors. After much hard work by some devs and ops, we finally discovered that our opcode cache was having problems with the new memcache libraries. (The opcode cache holds the compiled down of our source -- otherwise, PHP has to reinterpret the source every time the page is rendered). So, we swapped the opcode cache (from eAccelerator to APC, if you're interested in the geeky details), and after fixing one or two quirks, it seems to be running pretty smoothly. Nonetheless, this is just one in a string of various hardware and database failures that we've been dealing with in the past month. How Can We Keep You Better Informed? <i>Ignorance is king, and trolls would not prosper by its abdication. --- SF mod</i> Unfortunately, we don't have many degrees of freedom in terms of announcements. Journal entries aren't really read by many, and it's a bit much to expect users to subscribe to 80 developer journals (although bless the users that read the journals and spread the information -- it helps keep the amount of rampant speculation down). Announcements are sort of a nuclear bomb option that isn't really appropriate for a lot of system messages, and announcements are also tied up with sponsorships, so it's a big deal to make one. But, for sure we can get better. So the following things are happening: - in the short term, we're going to start a forum that JUST contains developer updates on different topics. You'll be able to subscribe to any threads that you are particularly interested in. - we're redoing the main landing page in April, and in the process of doing this we're going to be splitting the announcements into several different types. At this point we're not sure what the exact visuals for system announcements -- we're discussing everything from a tab on a module to a little bouncing icon in the footer -- but at any rate we are going to elevate the visibility of system messages, and make them easier for development to use. How Come You Never Work On... Rallies and Towns? <i>Encryption is not necessarily something to be ashamed of — but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. -- Towns coder</i> 8elly8ean pushed out yesterday another round of improvements for rallies / towns. The lag problems should be substantially better -- please let me know in comments if this isn't the case. There are even more changes coming for rally -- since 8elly8ean was in the code anyway, we decided to add some things that improve the interface -- much easier and less scary for new users. How Come You Never Work On... Guilds? <i>Guilds don't do one thing but bring people together. That's why it's a sin to not work on guilds. -- Guilds coder</i> Early next week (hopefully Monday) we're pushing out a first set of changes for guilds, that will allow you to assign keywords to your guild. After that we'll be pushing a hugely improved guilds landing page and then looking at some of the guild infrastructure problems. How Come You Never Work On... Inventory / Customize? <i>It was the best of ship times, it was the worst of ship times -- poor fieryange1, who has to do an early morning push</i> Early next week (hopefully in the wee hours of Monday morning), we'll be pushing improved inventory and customize pages (but not inventory arranger, that is still to be looked at). We'll be metering people in, so you might not be able to get into it immediately. Bugs Fixed This Week - Entering very long description when creating guild crashes browser - Guild front pages are having trouble with codes breaking. - Broken wishlist - Threads with no titles - Autosave causes problems when it comes to granting gold - When an item is added to wishlist for the second time,the message "already added to wishlist" is missing - Aquarium doesn't show up as sig when you post journal entry - Old Arena links takes to white page - Click on delete button to delete your avatar, the url is pointing avatarsave.gaiaonline instead of www - When the profile option is set to no and if you're on his friendlist, you can still view the profile - Drop-down list next to avatar doesn't show up in profile - Bug fixes for modpay rewrite - modpay fix - Previous / Next arrows should always show in Marketplace Inventory - Gold emotes and granting broken for users in towns. - Wordbump fixes Finally Every italicized quote up there is a mucking of a well known quote from a work of fiction, including science fiction and fantasy. Good luck Googling those!

Posted by: Panagrammic Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 09:47am

Read my journal!

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Lady Rat
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Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 11:26am


	woah. i know you get alot of flak from people but they never know how much you guys really have to do to keep this site not only going, but evolving as well.

Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 11:36am


	»ĘмǿЯέжĨç~ÞĨмþ« nooow i understand that whole outages thing sweatdrop as far as i'm concerned, there's nothing but good news here.. my guesses: fly you fools - LOTR best/worst times - a tale of two cities (reading that in class right now actually) I HAS AN AUTO-FORMAT TOO! SEE?

emorexic-pimp
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armadillodreamer
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Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 01:02pm


	Are there really 80 dev journals floating around? I'm one of the crazies that would subscribe to them all. ^_^ Thanks for the Dev Update forum, I'll look forward to it!

Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 02:14pm


	I read about the new information forum you guys are going to create from Narumi Misuhara who's done a wonderful job at keeping the users informed. I can't wait to see the outcome of this forum along with a new landing page. Just please make the entire site uniformed at some point gonk [I prefer the monochromed look you guys were going for the second time around, as apposed to the eggplant color we have now.] And when you get the chance, could you check out my thread on how I wasn't granted my autographed photo from Rubella. Also, this thread about creating a Market Place Pulse. Thanks! x.Cypher, The Cake Pirate☬

Digital Puppetry
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iMadame Twinkle
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Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 03:18pm


	I can't wait for the Inventory changes. whee But I really want the inventory arranger to be fixed ( soon? : D ). >w>; I'm tired of wasting hours on it then it doesn't save changes. gonk

Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 03:20pm


	Thank you for keeping us updated. As for the SF mod - what exactly is the problem with ahem trolls prospering? fluffs tail

Eris_Incognito
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Kamikazi-Cloud
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Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 04:02pm


	What I have shown you is reality... I'm still looking forward to the new inventory! What you remember... that is the illusion.

Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 04:06pm


	Thanks for keeping us updated; this is why I subscribe to this journal, and point others to it when they ask me where I get my info. As for the quotes, I could only recognize the first one: it's from the song "The Sound of Silence", by Simon & Garfunkel. (ack - there I go showing my age again!) ....although one quote could be from The Ship Who... series started by Anne McCaffrey.... but don't quote me on that last. I've read too many Fantasy & SF books to keep them all straight. God/dess Bless America! Draw me if you will - who knows what you may get in return? Just send me a PM with a link to your drawing! and don't forget to tap & grab!

Ketira
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Darien S.
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Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 04:50pm


	Sexy journal update is sexy. Thanks for keeping us informed and I can't wait for a lot of the upcoming change ^____^

Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 04:51pm


	Wow! A lot of glitches fixed! Thank you and keep up the good work. Click my eggs?

Mistress Charlene
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DawnaV
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Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 04:57pm


	Thank You..and I believe more read your journal than you think.. wink

Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 05:22pm


	This may be a bit much to ask, but care to disseminate what some of these fixes are, to those of us who pass around information to others? Is CSR tool 6.13 referring to SSL's Certificate Signing Request? Is modpay fix referring to moderator tools or status grants associated? Is "When the profile option is set to no and if you're on his friendlist, you can still view the profile" referring to a bug in no-show of profile when dealing with friendlist users? Sorry, but it'd make some of our jobs as volunteer information disseminators if we could get some Simple English clarifications.

Kiyoske Dante
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Ungoliath
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Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 05:40pm


	What I loved most was the idea of making the announcements of dev on the landing page. Really.

Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 06:26pm


	You've done an awesome job keeping us informed on all the updates and fixes! Makes me happy to know that things are being worked on 3nodding

asylum lane
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Legend
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Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 07:21pm


	Pandora is awesome! Imeem is great too you can even go back to relisten to songs, save favorites, and listen to them at any time. Hurray for the new inventory update. I do that arranger was fixed though. sweatdrop

Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 07:24pm


	I did the last quotation challenge, so I'll sit this one out. As always, thank you for the fix list and the updates. I had a quick issue for you that I'd just love to see fixed. As it is, Aquariums are great. Booty Grab is a nice way to make gold, the fish are a real sight to see, it's a big improvement over the initial release. I'd still like a way to display fish from the Fishing game, but that's not my real question. I was wondering if we could have a Settings/Preferences option to disable specifically Aquariums from signatures? I often use the site on (slow, slow, SLOWWWWW) work computers, and any time I open a thread with a lot of aquariums in the signatures of its posters, it slows my machine to a crawl. I still like to see signatures when I'm at work, so I can visit threads, vote on arena entries, etc. But it becomes really hard to use the site under these conditions.

Kunai Jones
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PCLong
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Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 07:44pm


	Thanks Pan for the wishlist fix, but can you please fix the "submit" button for the sending comments/emails to gaia form? It's been broken since December or so

Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 07:59pm


	Quote: Announcements are sort of a nuclear bomb option that isn't really appropriate for a lot of system messages, and announcements are also tied up with sponsorships, so it's a big deal to make one. Hey just to let you know. I would want an annoumcement at any time of whats going on and what is important for me, the user, to know whats going on with the site. When it comes down to it. I would like to know why I am getting a whole bunch of gliches in gaia.. Dear lord I got a whole bunch of white page of death attack from the site a few days ago.. I am considering on making that one of my characters attacks. XD

Srintella Tiagara
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Chocobo Princess
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Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 08:17pm


	As ever, you and your team are up to so much good~! Ganbatte~! I am looking forward to the new forum. I'd love to see an updated Devs' Journals thread there; the one in SF is pretty outdated now. Adding species to announcements and allowing users to subscribe only to preferred ones was mentioned some time ago; it sounds like this may be closer to reality with the options for the new system notfication announcements. That'd be great! Keep up the good work! heart Gaia would fall apart without you and your team.

Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 09:31pm


	Quote: But, for sure we can get better. So the following things are happening: - in the short term, we're going to start a forum that JUST contains developer updates on different topics. You'll be able to subscribe to any threads that you are particularly interested in. - we're redoing the main landing page in April, and in the process of doing this we're going to be splitting the announcements into several different types. At this point we're not sure what the exact visuals for system announcements -- we're discussing everything from a tab on a module to a little bouncing icon in the footer -- but at any rate we are going to elevate the visibility of system messages, and make them easier for development to use. I love this idea of the forum that just contains developer updates. This way when people in SF say the staff don't care they don't fix anything we can link them and prove them wrong hehe.

MrsrachaelSnape
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morozco024
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Commented on: Thu Mar 05, 2009 @ 11:25pm


	When the hell are we gonna see a Pan doll as an item?!!! Locke? Lanzer? Pssshhhh...WE WANT PAN! WE WANT PAN!!! Anyways...cough..cough...now that my shameless asskissing is done...great news and thanks for the always complete and informative update... And I actually subscribe to all staff journals (the ones I know exist)...because with the feeds telling you when there's an update it's so convenient...I try to tell people this, but they just don't get it...there's no such thing as "stalking" dev journals anymore...the feeds do all the work! 3nodding

Commented on: Fri Mar 06, 2009 @ 12:10am


	Woo on all the updates to come! Look! Its springtime! Winter for those other sites. Its springtime for us and Gaia!

dreamsk
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Smaddy
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Commented on: Fri Mar 06, 2009 @ 12:44am


	I'll be really happy when the Announcement update comes, they definitely need to be split up. I had assumed the glitches were just site-related, but a few times when clicking on topics or a Marketplace listing, I was redirected to the homepage, and that kind of made me cautious... I wasn't sure if I was being redirected to a scam site or not at first. I'll also be really happy when Inventory/Dress-up get an upgrade. Has any consideration been made for the following: 1. Soulbound/Frozen items shouldn't appear when you go to Sell in the Marketplace, or Trade to another user. I haven't actually tried to Sell or Trade items I know are locked, but it's confusing to tell what's what on the screen. 2. If someone could come up with a way to store/hide our soulbound Aquarium and ZOMG items, I would love them forever. Those combined, I think that's at least 75 items (fish, aquarium decorations, rings, powerups), and when you consider that equippable items get tangled up in that block of items, I've "lost" things in there before.

Commented on: Fri Mar 06, 2009 @ 01:24am


	Thanks for keeping us updated Pan. ^_^ I'm really looking forward to all of the updates you have in store. <3

pH 5
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Tevokkia
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Commented on: Fri Mar 06, 2009 @ 01:53am


	I don't know if anyone has suggested this before, but one way to make it easier for people to find dev journals is to add it to the search on the journal subscription page. Right now, there's a search for "friendslist" "recently updated" and "subscribed", so it shouldn't take a huge bit of coding to add one for "developers/admins". Since there would have to be specific parameters for the search, any of the Gaia staff who absolutely did NOT want their journals included could just be left out of the parameters. The difference between this search and the others would be simply that the parameters would always be the same, rather than user-specific (ie, friendslist or subscriptions), and the only difference in results from one search to the next might be the order of the results (as the newest ones would be first).

Commented on: Fri Mar 06, 2009 @ 02:51am


	A new announcement system with different types of announcements would be tremendous and awesome.

Hybrid
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Naxto
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Commented on: Fri Mar 06, 2009 @ 04:42am


	My wishlist is still fubar'd! I cant delete anything or change the status of anything off my wishlist. crying

Commented on: Fri Mar 06, 2009 @ 06:20am


	Thank you for the update and keep up the great work! smile

Asterisk7
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Cleocatra
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Commented on: Fri Mar 06, 2009 @ 10:51am


	Uh uh uh, um. Sufficiently advanced technology is indistingushable from magic... therefore you guys are magicians :3

Commented on: Fri Mar 06, 2009 @ 02:19pm


	like when you go to Starbuck's for a coffee and end up in a chapel with a complete stranger in front of an Elvis impersonator. That made my day xd Thanks for the info Pana! heart

Akabi Yoru
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OddBird
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Commented on: Fri Mar 06, 2009 @ 08:09pm


	Thanks as always for keeping everyone posted on the hard work you guys are doing in the background, Grammy! wink

Commented on: Sat Mar 07, 2009 @ 02:06am


	I wonder if the memchache issues are why Gaia has been randomly kicking me out lately. That said, I hope it goes away soon. The "sudden 10x increase in demand makes our database servers go down faster than Fannie Mae stock" was a very nice touch by the way. Also when you said you were switching to APC I though you meant the power products company XD Thank God for Google eh? As for the redesigned landing page and all the other improvements to keeps us informed, thanks biggrin I am quite eager to see those changes go out. Now with the inventory changes push at the wee hours of Monday morning, could you define "wee hours"? Finally, just an FYI, when I goto comment, all the formatting is stripped from your entry and instead I'm seeing the formatting code where you had things italicized. I don't mind it though but just thought you should be aware wink EDIT: Also, shouldn't there be a box around quoted parts of your journal in people's comments? I'm seeing it. Nor am I seeing an alert in my feeds you posted a journal update, still (and the setting is set to the second highest it can go)... Thanks for the update, even if it was a longer one ^_^

France Hopper
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SSJ Girl
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Commented on: Sat Mar 07, 2009 @ 10:55am


	Thanks for the entry! It's always intersesting to read these things. I really liked the quotes you used. xD There is just one thing that.. you know, had me break out in convulsive laughter. rofl Quote: Announcements are sort of a nuclear bomb option that isn't really appropriate for a lot of system messages, and announcements are also tied up with sponsorships, so it's a big deal to make one. You're kidding, right? We're being pretty much spammed by announcements these days. I mean... Community Spotlight? <_< Honestly, I'd much rather read these kind of system messages than CS. If you guys are going to divide up the announcements, then also pleeeease make a seperate EI announcement forum. Those things are driving me crazy as well.

Commented on: Sat Mar 07, 2009 @ 01:28pm


	Man, I think I should subscribe. O_O Thanks for all the info. ^_^

DarthDub v2
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France Hopper
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Commented on: Sat Mar 07, 2009 @ 03:29pm


	I just saw the announcement that the new avatars page is just about ready to launch. Is this the inventory and customization code push you were talking about for mondayish? PS: You might want to consider changing what pressing enter after filling in the Captcha does. Right now it cancels, and discards your comment. I just accidentally pushed it expecting it to submit the comment, not throw it out. UPDATE: Well it's now 7:16 AM here and I don't see any notice change with the inventories. I'm guessing I'm either too early or it didn't go out. However, I was randomly logged off at 6:38 when I tried loading up the shop page - and that's not the first time it's happened. Any idea as to what's going on? Update 2: Now it's 10:52 PM and I just loaded up the new inventories and avatar system. The avatar is a little laggy with the sit/stand button but other than that, I can hardly describe how much better the new system is. Please pass on my praise and thanks to anyone who had a part smile

Commented on: Wed Mar 11, 2009 @ 11:50pm


	Thank you so much for the upcoming information updates. heart This new dev forum is the kind of thing I had in mind when I made a thread asking for better communication, and it's nice to know that we'll be able to get all of our information in there. I like how it's easy to keep track of and it's easy for all of the devs to collectively update. 3nodding It's true that we can just subscribe to all journals and new entries pop up in our feeds, but what happens when we want to revisit some information and we can't really remember where we saw it? Which dev, which entry? Yup, back to stalking. gonk With a dev forum, it sounds as though it will be easier to deduce which thread the information is in. Thank you for all of these changes, I'm looking forward to them. smile

Celestial Fireflies
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ffreddd123
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Commented on: Thu Mar 12, 2009 @ 01:07am


	I love the next/previous buttons that loop through your inventory when selling items in the marketplace now; extremely helpful! Keep up the great work!! 3nodding

Commented on: Fri Apr 03, 2009 @ 01:39am


	ok dramallama dramallama dramallama

jollycrazykat11
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