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Posted by Thierry on 22 Feb 2013 /
35 Comments
Feb
22
2013
35Hi everyone!
Germain is out of the office for a little while so I will be handling the blog a for little bit.
This post isn’t going to be as big as the others because, as we explained in the last Dev Blog (http://www.sauropodstudio.com/our-plans-for-the-future/), we aren’t doing a heavy dev blog each week anymore. We’re instead going to be writing smaller posts, but doing so more regularly. I’m planning to, once a month, do a recap of all the little breakthroughs we have had over that time. I also want to thank Kyle (AKA TheBox) who is helping me out with these little blog posts.
Server
We’ve optimized the blog a whole lot. If you remembered last week, the blog went down… hard! Even with the new servers, it seems that we had too many people trying to read the blog at the same time. That was probably due to the fact that we hadn’t posted an update to our Kickstarter for a long while. So, when we did, we had a whole lot more people than expected follow the links. So, we used a system called ‘blitz’ to test how our system could handle the traffic. Here is the result from the first test :
Thankfully, there are a ton of plug-ins to help us out. We found one that cached the page the first time it is seen, then it distributes the cached version for each user for the next half hour before updating the cache again. Using an un-cached version is very heavy on our processors, and that’s why all the servers crashed so hard each time. The cached version is a little heavier on bandwidth, but much lighter on the CPU. This is perfect in our circumstance.
Here are the results from after the change :
You can see that there is huge improvement here, and hopefully the servers won’t crash tonight!
But why take that much time optimizing a blog? Well, fact is, it’s not only for the blog. We’re considering this as research and development. We will use the same system for the main CastleStory site, as well as the back-end, which will be hit much harder. We certainly don’t want to see the login system going down each time the traffic spikes.
Also, it seems that we failed to be clear about a few things from our last blog. So, now we’re going to fix that so everyone knows what’s going on and what to expect moving forward
- Beta backers will be getting access to the prototype, but not right now. We’ll be giving all the beta backers access shortly after the V3 patch, not right when the patch releases. Why you ask? Because we need to test our new environment on a smaller scale before releasing the beast to everyone so we can avoid any crippling bugs, and do a smaller bug fix patch if we need to. We want to make sure that our beta backers, who have been so patient and supportive of us, get something that works and doesn’t have a game crippling crash bug right when they start. It’s will be much easier for us to find and fix the bug if we only have a small group testing the initial release, rather than tons more posting a whole lot of bug reports that we’d have to sort through.
- The steam key are NOT yet available. They will be, but not yet. Expect a news post once we have a firm time line on it.
- https://backers.castlestory.net is only for those who backed us with $50 or more. it is a form used to get the shipping information and the type of t-shirts and/or posters the backers wanted. Basically, it’s only there for backers that are getting physical rewards instead of just the game.
Sound
In one of our recent blogs, we mentioned that the linux version of the sound engine wasn’t available, which was going to make our linux release a huge pain. But now you may rejoice my little penguins! I got on the phone with the company behind our sound engine, and they will likely have a beta of their engine available in april! That’s really good news for us, because we really didn’t want to recode all the sound programming under a different engine just for one platform. But we would have, for you! But now we don’t have to, so yay! More time for the core game!
Speaking of sound, we’ve recently started integrating different sounds depending on what type of terrain the Bricktrons are walking on. Here is a video showing the differences :
The sounds also change depending on the surface when Bricktrons dig mines, cut wood or destroy blocks, wich makes the game a lot more immersive. It’s still a work in progress though, and we’ll fine tune it in the coming weeks. For exemple, we’re still struggling to create good sound attenuation over distance for the footsteps.
Also, we now have some beautiful title music. We’re also in the process of updating all the UI audio, including the new radial menu. We feel like what we have in place now just doesn’t work very well, so we’re fixing that. All of this will be included in the next update.
Sang Froid the game is now available!!!
A little while back we talked about a game called ‘Sang Froid’ from our friends at Artifice Studio. Good news! it is available on steam right now!
You should definitly TRY IT OUT!
Soundtrack of the week?
I personally don’t listen to a whole lot of music outside of sound tracks, I’m more of an OST type of guy… But here is an artist from Québec City that has a great talent. He also produced a very interesting demo track for our game last year.
Thanks for reading!
Team Sauropod
35 Comments for Dev diary number forty : Sounds & Servers
Big_Ben
3 months ago
That looks great! keep up the good work. I’ll sit here patiently waiting for more!
Guipizza
3 months ago
Merci pour tout le travail que vous faîtes!Qu’elle belle amélioration au niveau du son!
Continuez comme ça, vous méritez votre succès! :)
Teknonick
3 months ago
“Thank you for all the work you do! Whether nice improvement in sound!
Keep it up, you deserve your success! :)”
Translated! I think ‘Whether’ was meant to be ‘Rather’.
Ozzy
3 months ago
Make a queue system against the overloads maybe? At least for the login system instead of the crashing it would just make people wait (maybe it’s just my opinion that waiting to login is better than waiting for the servers to come back up and face another possible crash because of all the people trying to login, but still I’m just throwing out ideas here)
Menekis
3 months ago
that’s actually a good idea! I will leave me a note for next week. We will see how it is possible :)
Ethannat
3 months ago
Now, with this cacheing system, does that mean that any updates on a page would not be broadcasted for 30 minutes? Ie: These comments are only updated every half hour?
Menekis
3 months ago
i’m not sure yet. I think the page is recached everytime there is something new.
bones1127
3 months ago
cant wait for the update, but i can wait coz i wont too see what you all can do too make this game great game. good luck, likeing the work your doing.
DavidMM18
3 months ago
Any idea when we will get to enter our credit island names?
Nacon
3 months ago
We already done that, you should have gotten email about it.
DavidMM18
3 months ago
Was this around the time the prototype was released? A lot of people couldn’t complete those forms, kept getting key was in use errors. My brothers form on the second copy went through fine though.
Space Narwhal
3 months ago
YAY!
Paugs
3 months ago
Yay!
Teknonick
3 months ago
YAY!
Wizz
3 months ago
The sound for the grass should be softer. A bit more like actual grass.
MPeti
3 months ago
Yes, it sounds very wet / muddy to me, which doesn’t make much sense for such clean green grass.
RiceKun
3 months ago
The sounds seem pretty good. I like the grass sound, the light dirt sound is okay, the dark dirt sound seems kind of heavy though, and the rock sound seems fine.
Great job on the game guys!
Zaffirus
3 months ago
im sorry,you have a estimated date for the ”beta” prototype release on steam? i cant wait for try it XD
Andrea
3 months ago
PS4 will support indie games. Do you plan to publish this great game on the next-gen console, if Unity supports them?
Jdawgmasta
3 months ago
Great job guys! This is exactly what blog posts should be like.
Menekis
3 months ago
thank you,
was the first time I wrote it too. I don’t have Germain’s touch but I think it was good enough :P
Thingy thing thing
3 months ago
It was very good, the amount of technical details gave an impression of progress, even if i understood nothing of it.
Scipio Xaos
3 months ago
I have a question about the sound system, and perhaps a little bit of a warning as well. What would it sound like if I have thirty bricktrons running around and doing things? Will it scale well or will it suddenly sound very busy and cluttered?
Just something for you to think about as I see you only demoed the sound system using a single bricktron.
Menekis
3 months ago
that’s actually a good question, the sound guy is not near me today but I should ask him what he intent to do about that. I’m sure he already thought about it, he is very skilled and already worked on other games with bigger budget than ours ;)
FX
3 months ago
That’s a good question. There are actually two ways to deal with that. First, there can be a limit to how many footsteps sounds can be triggered at the same time. Second, if, let’s say, 30 bricktrons are running together, it can trigger a “group footsteps” sound instead of 30 individual sounds. We’ll probably use both systems, although the second one will need some time to fine tune.
Scipio Xaos
3 months ago
Ah. That’s good. I had already thought about using a group sound, but I hadn’t thought about limiting the number of single step sounds that could be played at once. Thanks for responding so quickly.
I’m quite interested in the development of the game just as much as, if not more, than actually playing it (though that will be quite fun, too :3 ). I plan on entering game development myself, and reading DevBlogs like these are always enjoyable. They give me a taste of what may be to come.
Teknonick
3 months ago
OMG! I love you guys! These posts are SO SO SO SO SO AWESOME! Wait, I meant Blogs. THE ARE SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO MORE AWESOME!
Anyway… I was planing on getting this for my birthday (January 1) a few months ago, but you guys had stopped taking donations and the kickstarter before then…. I’ve been watching ever closely before and after that, but I haven’t seen anything about when your’ll allow us to buy it again… So! My questions:
1. When will you guys allow us to buy the game/beta/prototype again?
2. Will you allow us to buy the Beta or Prototype, or are we stuck buying the full release?
3. Are you guys awesome? Trick question. Yes either way.
Menekis
3 months ago
1 & 2- only the beta,we are working on a new website . when it is ready to be released the new workflow will make it easier to create an account on our system. When? I would like to see that happen really fast but it’s a enourmous amount of work/test and we are already overloaded by the PAX preparation :)
3- Awesome? no, we are just normal people who got really lucky wih our project. We do our best to stay transparent because that’s in our nature but it is also a good way to stay connected with our public.
Teknonick
2 months ago
Thanks for the reply! That’s one of the things I love about finding such new companies is how they’re able to actually answer the questions we have, even if they answer the third question incorrectly. lol.
Anyway, yo guy’s ARE awesome, although I love the humblism(Not that it’s a word) :3… Your idea is so good and unlike anyone else. You’ve turned Minecraft, a FP run around/no goal game, into a Strategy with unbelievable views and goals. What are those goals we might see in this game? Who knows. It could be just to survive, or defeat the enemies…. or perhaps you plan on people exploring the vast sea’s below? That would be a very interesting story…
Adam
3 months ago
Hi!
Regarding the sound, maybe you should have a look at Black&White game. The sound of footsteps should be produced only in very close distance, otherwise it should be silent. For example I would say that for the distance in the video, the sound is way too loud.
Menekis
3 months ago
yes that’s exactly the point. it’s is the same idea we used for the crickets too.
also B&W is one of my personal favorite game of all time :)
FX
3 months ago
Very good point. That’s exactly what we’re aiming to do, although, as we said in the blog post, we currently have a bug in the “attenuation over distance” system. That’s why footsteps sounds are too loud and don’t fade in the video. We’re working hard to fix that ASAP.
Papachabre
3 months ago
I have been intentionally avoiding Let’s Play videos because I didn’t want to get excited too early about the game, but recently with the announcement that us beta backers will be receiving the prototype in the near future I haven’t been able to help myself. After watching numerous YouTube videos I now cannot wait to get my hands on the game! It looks like so much fun!
Jon Brede
3 months ago
Just a few of suggestions on how to improve the server, I can’t really tell if you know this or not from before or have actually implemented them:
- Turn off .htaccess files, and add the code into the apache config file instead, this will save the server since Apache doesn’t have to check each directory for .htaccess files.
- Apache uses a lot of memory (due to one thread per user), memory will become a problem if there’s an increasing rate of viewers, the only way to dodge that is by buying a bigger server or switch to something more lightweight, there’s tons of options out there but I don’t have any direct and good suggestions since it all depends on the server environment.
- WordPress is probably the heaviest CMS out there, as seen on the graphs, it takes a lot of CPU due to all the code it has to process, that’s what you get for trying to make a really modular and extendible CMS/Blog system. I met the same problem recently, and I just switched it out with Twig and wrote my own CMS, I got a giant performance increase with less problems and being able to change everything I wanted, not everyone can do that though, so the best suggestion I got right now is to actually use a cache system W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache, which I assume you do.
- I didn’t do any background research, just read through the post – so I don’t really know what this server is running with but I suggest porting to a cloud server and/or a CDN so the stress put on the server can be spread more evenly.
Those are just my suggestions from my own experiences and knowledge, just trying to be helpful since it seemed like you guys wanted to take this website even further. Good luck either way.
LD
3 months ago
Take out all sound, I don’t care.
I only use sound on FPS games because … well who plays this games without it? Regardless, I almost never use sound, maybe the first time I play, but for me the sound isn’t importante.
I want to play the game in linux, and not using a virtual ou dual boot.
Tic Tac Tic Tac
Big_Ben
3 months ago
That looks great! keep up the good work. I’ll sit here patiently waiting for more!
Guipizza
3 months ago
Merci pour tout le travail que vous faîtes!Qu’elle belle amélioration au niveau du son!
Continuez comme ça, vous méritez votre succès! :)
Teknonick
3 months ago
“Thank you for all the work you do! Whether nice improvement in sound!
Keep it up, you deserve your success! :)”
Translated! I think ‘Whether’ was meant to be ‘Rather’.
Ozzy
3 months ago
Make a queue system against the overloads maybe? At least for the login system instead of the crashing it would just make people wait (maybe it’s just my opinion that waiting to login is better than waiting for the servers to come back up and face another possible crash because of all the people trying to login, but still I’m just throwing out ideas here)
Menekis
3 months ago
that’s actually a good idea! I will leave me a note for next week. We will see how it is possible :)
Ethannat
3 months ago
Now, with this cacheing system, does that mean that any updates on a page would not be broadcasted for 30 minutes? Ie: These comments are only updated every half hour?
Menekis
3 months ago
i’m not sure yet. I think the page is recached everytime there is something new.
bones1127
3 months ago
cant wait for the update, but i can wait coz i wont too see what you all can do too make this game great game. good luck, likeing the work your doing.
DavidMM18
3 months ago
Any idea when we will get to enter our credit island names?
Nacon
3 months ago
We already done that, you should have gotten email about it.
DavidMM18
3 months ago
Was this around the time the prototype was released? A lot of people couldn’t complete those forms, kept getting key was in use errors. My brothers form on the second copy went through fine though.
Space Narwhal
3 months ago
YAY!
Paugs
3 months ago
Yay!
Teknonick
3 months ago
YAY!
Wizz
3 months ago
The sound for the grass should be softer. A bit more like actual grass.
MPeti
3 months ago
Yes, it sounds very wet / muddy to me, which doesn’t make much sense for such clean green grass.
RiceKun
3 months ago
The sounds seem pretty good. I like the grass sound, the light dirt sound is okay, the dark dirt sound seems kind of heavy though, and the rock sound seems fine.
Great job on the game guys!
Zaffirus
3 months ago
im sorry,you have a estimated date for the ”beta” prototype release on steam? i cant wait for try it XD
Andrea
3 months ago
PS4 will support indie games. Do you plan to publish this great game on the next-gen console, if Unity supports them?
Jdawgmasta
3 months ago
Great job guys! This is exactly what blog posts should be like.
Menekis
3 months ago
thank you,
was the first time I wrote it too. I don’t have Germain’s touch but I think it was good enough :P
Thingy thing thing
3 months ago
It was very good, the amount of technical details gave an impression of progress, even if i understood nothing of it.
Scipio Xaos
3 months ago
I have a question about the sound system, and perhaps a little bit of a warning as well. What would it sound like if I have thirty bricktrons running around and doing things? Will it scale well or will it suddenly sound very busy and cluttered?
Just something for you to think about as I see you only demoed the sound system using a single bricktron.
Menekis
3 months ago
that’s actually a good question, the sound guy is not near me today but I should ask him what he intent to do about that. I’m sure he already thought about it, he is very skilled and already worked on other games with bigger budget than ours ;)
FX
3 months ago
That’s a good question. There are actually two ways to deal with that. First, there can be a limit to how many footsteps sounds can be triggered at the same time. Second, if, let’s say, 30 bricktrons are running together, it can trigger a “group footsteps” sound instead of 30 individual sounds. We’ll probably use both systems, although the second one will need some time to fine tune.
Scipio Xaos
3 months ago
Ah. That’s good. I had already thought about using a group sound, but I hadn’t thought about limiting the number of single step sounds that could be played at once. Thanks for responding so quickly.
I’m quite interested in the development of the game just as much as, if not more, than actually playing it (though that will be quite fun, too :3 ). I plan on entering game development myself, and reading DevBlogs like these are always enjoyable. They give me a taste of what may be to come.
Teknonick
3 months ago
OMG! I love you guys! These posts are SO SO SO SO SO AWESOME! Wait, I meant Blogs. THE ARE SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO MORE AWESOME!
Anyway… I was planing on getting this for my birthday (January 1) a few months ago, but you guys had stopped taking donations and the kickstarter before then…. I’ve been watching ever closely before and after that, but I haven’t seen anything about when your’ll allow us to buy it again… So! My questions:
1. When will you guys allow us to buy the game/beta/prototype again?
2. Will you allow us to buy the Beta or Prototype, or are we stuck buying the full release?
3. Are you guys awesome? Trick question. Yes either way.
Menekis
3 months ago
1 & 2- only the beta,we are working on a new website . when it is ready to be released the new workflow will make it easier to create an account on our system. When? I would like to see that happen really fast but it’s a enourmous amount of work/test and we are already overloaded by the PAX preparation :)
3- Awesome? no, we are just normal people who got really lucky wih our project. We do our best to stay transparent because that’s in our nature but it is also a good way to stay connected with our public.
Teknonick
2 months ago
Thanks for the reply! That’s one of the things I love about finding such new companies is how they’re able to actually answer the questions we have, even if they answer the third question incorrectly. lol.
Anyway, yo guy’s ARE awesome, although I love the humblism(Not that it’s a word) :3… Your idea is so good and unlike anyone else. You’ve turned Minecraft, a FP run around/no goal game, into a Strategy with unbelievable views and goals. What are those goals we might see in this game? Who knows. It could be just to survive, or defeat the enemies…. or perhaps you plan on people exploring the vast sea’s below? That would be a very interesting story…
Adam
3 months ago
Hi!
Regarding the sound, maybe you should have a look at Black&White game. The sound of footsteps should be produced only in very close distance, otherwise it should be silent. For example I would say that for the distance in the video, the sound is way too loud.
Menekis
3 months ago
yes that’s exactly the point. it’s is the same idea we used for the crickets too.
also B&W is one of my personal favorite game of all time :)
FX
3 months ago
Very good point. That’s exactly what we’re aiming to do, although, as we said in the blog post, we currently have a bug in the “attenuation over distance” system. That’s why footsteps sounds are too loud and don’t fade in the video. We’re working hard to fix that ASAP.
Papachabre
3 months ago
I have been intentionally avoiding Let’s Play videos because I didn’t want to get excited too early about the game, but recently with the announcement that us beta backers will be receiving the prototype in the near future I haven’t been able to help myself. After watching numerous YouTube videos I now cannot wait to get my hands on the game! It looks like so much fun!
Jon Brede
3 months ago
Just a few of suggestions on how to improve the server, I can’t really tell if you know this or not from before or have actually implemented them:
- Turn off .htaccess files, and add the code into the apache config file instead, this will save the server since Apache doesn’t have to check each directory for .htaccess files.
- Apache uses a lot of memory (due to one thread per user), memory will become a problem if there’s an increasing rate of viewers, the only way to dodge that is by buying a bigger server or switch to something more lightweight, there’s tons of options out there but I don’t have any direct and good suggestions since it all depends on the server environment.
- WordPress is probably the heaviest CMS out there, as seen on the graphs, it takes a lot of CPU due to all the code it has to process, that’s what you get for trying to make a really modular and extendible CMS/Blog system. I met the same problem recently, and I just switched it out with Twig and wrote my own CMS, I got a giant performance increase with less problems and being able to change everything I wanted, not everyone can do that though, so the best suggestion I got right now is to actually use a cache system W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache, which I assume you do.
- I didn’t do any background research, just read through the post – so I don’t really know what this server is running with but I suggest porting to a cloud server and/or a CDN so the stress put on the server can be spread more evenly.
Those are just my suggestions from my own experiences and knowledge, just trying to be helpful since it seemed like you guys wanted to take this website even further. Good luck either way.
LD
3 months ago
Take out all sound, I don’t care.
I only use sound on FPS games because … well who plays this games without it? Regardless, I almost never use sound, maybe the first time I play, but for me the sound isn’t importante.
I want to play the game in linux, and not using a virtual ou dual boot.
Tic Tac Tic Tac