Any MMO gamer who plays old MMOs or listens to developers (or rogue server developers) talk about keeping those old games alive has probably heard wild tales about spaghetti code and how “fixing” one longstanding bug breaks 10 old “fixes” that nobody who still works in the studio even remembers. If that sounds familiar to you, then you’ll love this: Daybreak’s Alan “Absor” VanCouvering’s dev blog on the official EverQuest forums echoes the difficulties of keeping these old games alive when they’re a pile of 20-year-old spit and band-aids.
Absor explains that he was tasked with fixing the Stalwart Defenders event in Soltaris, and for the players’ benefit he rattles off the entire list of steps he takes to try to patch the event and fix not just bugs associated with level balance but poor design decision in regard to “fail golems” and fail states.
“I have spent a total of about 6 hours to this point, not counting whatever bugs are found that I missed and writing this post,” Absor concludes, having explained his ultimate solution. “By comparison I remember spending nearly a week on issues in Ssra temple that were also presented in a post by a customer as an ‘easy fix’. Also this does not count the time used by others to read over what I did and send ideas or QA’s time. Over all, a simple fix compared to anything I’ve had to touch in Luclin or PoP. Now to spend another hour writing a confluence doc explaining to the next person what I did and how it works for when someone, probably me, has to look at this later.”
Worth remembering the next time you’re wondering why that old bug from a decade ago is still rolling around in your game.
