Development Update [Sep 28, 2012]

Hey guys, another development update so you know where things are!

Current Bugs

• Lag:
  Lag should pretty much be "fixed", however there is still some known bugs in Bukkit that causes overall performance degradations. We were VERY aggressive at updating for EVERY SINGLE UPDATE to Bukkit, getting all the fixes and performance improvements we can in.
  
  As of now, Automated reboots have been turned off, and servers are remaining lag free even after days of being on. There is still 1 major bug (not ours) we know of, and when that is fixed, performance will be A LOT better.
  
  The entity limiter system has def helped a ton here, in keeping our entity counts down and identifying problem areas for entity counts.
• Piston/Furnace/etc breaking bug:
  This is sorta fixed... The root cause is still unknown, but an adequate bandaid has been applied that stops the breaking.
  
  Bukkit Devs reached out to me about this issue, so they may be working on figuring out root cause now... But regardless, the band-aid is good enough and won't cause any other side effects.
• Chunk Rollback Issue:
  This is a mojang issue, so not much we can do on this... But I got some ideas I will be toying with as we get to it to reduce the possibility of it. We understand this is the most destructive bug, but its not something that’s happening to everyone so its very hard for Bukkit devs (or us) to track it down....

Current Development

• Periodic Reset Areas:
  The current spawns and outpost are atrocious... We are working on getting the Periodic reset areas reset and to be on an automated monthly schedule.
• Entity Limiter - Enforcement:
  The fluctuations in /entcount has made me hold off on enabling enforcement of the limits, as we don't want to mistakenly kill any ones animals...
  
  I'm currently working very hard on this to figure out the remaining bugs with counting. It's very close though...
• Moderator Tool Improvements:
  Currently working on a lot of improvements to our Square tool and moderator in game commands, to enable mods to do their duties easier and more efficiently.
• Voting Improvements
  Working on the upcoming systems for improving our voting experience.

Upcoming Development
Our current goals is to get EMC stable to start pushing for rebuilding our numbers. Once most of the above tasks are completed, we will go back to new feature development.

• Secret unannounced update!
  This is a requirement for the Dragon Tomb as it will be part of the Dragon Tomb experience, but also be for many other things... Stay tuned Details are not finalized at all yet so be patient!
• Dragon Tomb:
  The next big thing for EMC! The epic Dragon Tomb experience update and initial Dragon Egg feature addition and turn in.

That's all to detail for now.
Please keep up to date on overall roadmap here: http://empireminecraft.com/threads/emc-dev-roadmap-updated-9-12-2012.13616/

Any time you get lag please do /lag and see the TPS report (MY STAPLER!).
Also check entcount to see if a lot of animals in LLO area.

Is it FPS lag or is things like redstone lagged? things where your client stutters and such is FPS lag and has nothing to do with the servers lag.

• Glad auto reboot is off, I couldn't tell how it was helping but apparently it was.

There was a bug in Bukkit that made servers just die off with lag after a few hours and the only solution was to reboot. that was fixed but the fix caused another bug which i mentioned in the post. While the new bug isnt as drastic, its still a MAJOR performance impact.

• I'm sorry to complain about the entity thing but I kinda hate it. I spend all my time locked inside now due to the fact you now get swarmed with mobs and in some places where it's just dim you get them spawning. I've accidentally blown up people's things so many times lately and at the same time the other night it sounded like I was running through a field of landmines because of creeper after creeper. That's how it's been for me because it always feels like they're only out during the night and that days last 2 seconds and night lasts forever. Has the swarming been adjusted? I can't find Kilmannan's thread about it

Well as mentioned in the thread, the spawning in high light conditions is a Mojang bug. We will try to bandaid it, but I was trying to get entity limiter out for the next update.

However I think im going to do a push right now (after this post) of current updates, and well do another update once Entity limiter is ready.

As for spawning overall, we wanted the wild to be a little bit harder to bring some challenge.

I think the current wild is pretty tame for anyone who has armor (which you should when going out into the wild!) If you have encountered outrageous mob densities, please screenshot it and send to me.

We can tweak it more to lower density, but we want the wild to be challenging, especially with all the upcoming wild changes...

Heads up, entity limiter may be done tomorrow as I think I'm really close. That means closer to be back to dragon tomb....