The PRODUCER'S NOTE is a new format which has the intention to provide some more transparency regarding the development of Shakes & Fidget.
The first issue is about the currently ongoing server migrations. We have seen that this topic is being discussed with great emotions and, thus, we would like to talk a bit about it to let you know why we are doing server migrations and how those will be executed over the coming months.
Migrating from PureBasic to PHP was a technical decision. PHP is more flexible and more modern than PureBasic and it enables us to develop new features more easily and in less time. In addition, the integration of new features in the new architecture can be done smoothly. Also on the plus side – we have access to several server logs which give us enough clues to identify the cause of bugs more quickly.
The list of migrated servers possibly transports the impression that we do pick servers to be migrated at random. But this is not the case. We have defined several criteria (e.g. language, server age, number of active accounts…) and try to migrate servers first on which most of these criteria are different. This will ensure that we will get the best overview about possible errors which may occur. The later we are in the migration process, the higher the chances that we already migrated a server with pretty similar characteristics and previous problems can be eliminated beforehand the next migration.
Although, the server migrations are being monitored and tested very well, it can always happen that the 200k lines of rewritten code may be causing some smaller errors. We are confident that those problems can be fixed easily and within a short time frame. We will analyze all of those issues, eliminate them, and the more migrations we will execute the less errors will occur. In case of high risk migrations, those will be test migrated in advance and tested internally before such migrations will be operated in a live environment. If severe issues occur unexpectedly, we can always roll back server migrations from our server backups.
While we try to migrate all servers as soon as possible we will take our time to get this project done with the greatest care. We do not want to make false promises and, therefore, do not state a date when the migrations will be finished. But if we can keep up the current speed, we are confident that we can finish the last server migration within the cause of this year.
This being said, we would like to inform you that we are aware of the recent server outages on servers with the new backend and some regularly occurring problems in the game. Please be assured that these issues are as annoying to us as to you and we look into these problems with the highest priority.
We would like to thank all of you for your patience and are very grateful for your reports of any issues popping up during a migration. Your contribution is really important to us.