SHORTER POSTS PLEASE.
A log is a file. If its not a file then its not a log. Logs cannot be stored in memory because they are at that point not yet a file.
EQ keeps character information in memory. They would be destroying harddrives left and right in any setting if they cashed your chatacter every 2 seconds on them. Even every minute would fragment their drives to hell and back. Then EQ wont run.
Thats probably why patches take so long too. Defragmenting server data stores so they can keep up.
MQ Dectactable?? Of course it is....
Moderator: MacroQuest Developers
Nah ... patches take so long and are invariably broken because So(B)E fail to test the work done by the developers thoroughly.
As a IT Manager working for a large IT consultantcy I know how important pre-release testing is and without a doubt SO(B)E dont do enough.
The regularity that a patch has to be followed by an emergency patch shows this in all to graphic detail.
EQ is a victim of its own popularity. 110,000 users on any interactive system will cause problems
But what has to be remebered is that every one (well almost every one)
of those 110,000 users is paying to use the system, and paying a sizable sum for it as well.
SO(B)E care little for individuals and show this on an almost daily basis with their lack of effective cusomer support.
Just my 2pennyworth.
Hardarac
As a IT Manager working for a large IT consultantcy I know how important pre-release testing is and without a doubt SO(B)E dont do enough.
The regularity that a patch has to be followed by an emergency patch shows this in all to graphic detail.
EQ is a victim of its own popularity. 110,000 users on any interactive system will cause problems
But what has to be remebered is that every one (well almost every one)
of those 110,000 users is paying to use the system, and paying a sizable sum for it as well.
SO(B)E care little for individuals and show this on an almost daily basis with their lack of effective cusomer support.
Just my 2pennyworth.
Hardarac
Raising a dead cow
Yea... umm... I love bumping 6 month old posts :)
Anyhow. I have no doubt in my mind that SoE uses AS400 (probably higher) machines for all these tasks. Unlimited processors (name your price, which is why each cycle is important to save), and just the as400's at local technical schools hold over 800 TERRAbytes. Yes, they CAN log every single stroke if they wanted.
On the flip-side:
There is a local company in town that uses an AS400 workshop that I know much of. I know that each millisecond of processing cycles saved means 4 cent saved. I think that seems small to most of you. Recently, there was a commercial that came out on tv about ms server 2003... The programmer saved a nickel. Everyone thought he was nuts. At the end of the day however (end of the commercial) an accountant mentioned that it was 5 cent for EVERY transaction, and they have over 5 million transactions a day (i may be off, but it's in the millions). That programmer just earned his paycheck and every paycheck under the whole department by making things save cycles.
In short:
Yes, they CAN log everything, no they WILL NOT log everything, but they will catch random people who give merchants who usually earn the economy 30p a day, and all of a sudden make 50k or more a day. Those are the ones that most likely get caught. Why do you think that almost every one of the devs play in the bazaar, that one zone probably spans across 20 servers, whereas normally 4 empty zones (can) reside on one. If you macro carefully, slowly, and safely, you're fine. If you macro insanely fast in empty zones, you may get caught (again, they'd have to work with sql or a query to see the income on merchants), but if you macro fast, in empty zones, for days or weeks, you midas well pack your bags.
As for actually doing basic grouping functions, noone will get caught unless it's a poorly written macro typo that spams the group chat with /echo $v4 every quarter of a second.
If you get banned, I'm glad, one less moron to get SoE on my ass.
Anyhow. I have no doubt in my mind that SoE uses AS400 (probably higher) machines for all these tasks. Unlimited processors (name your price, which is why each cycle is important to save), and just the as400's at local technical schools hold over 800 TERRAbytes. Yes, they CAN log every single stroke if they wanted.
On the flip-side:
There is a local company in town that uses an AS400 workshop that I know much of. I know that each millisecond of processing cycles saved means 4 cent saved. I think that seems small to most of you. Recently, there was a commercial that came out on tv about ms server 2003... The programmer saved a nickel. Everyone thought he was nuts. At the end of the day however (end of the commercial) an accountant mentioned that it was 5 cent for EVERY transaction, and they have over 5 million transactions a day (i may be off, but it's in the millions). That programmer just earned his paycheck and every paycheck under the whole department by making things save cycles.
In short:
Yes, they CAN log everything, no they WILL NOT log everything, but they will catch random people who give merchants who usually earn the economy 30p a day, and all of a sudden make 50k or more a day. Those are the ones that most likely get caught. Why do you think that almost every one of the devs play in the bazaar, that one zone probably spans across 20 servers, whereas normally 4 empty zones (can) reside on one. If you macro carefully, slowly, and safely, you're fine. If you macro insanely fast in empty zones, you may get caught (again, they'd have to work with sql or a query to see the income on merchants), but if you macro fast, in empty zones, for days or weeks, you midas well pack your bags.
As for actually doing basic grouping functions, noone will get caught unless it's a poorly written macro typo that spams the group chat with /echo $v4 every quarter of a second.
If you get banned, I'm glad, one less moron to get SoE on my ass.
Auth - "If it isn't broke, let VI patch it"
...
what was the point of bringing this up again? 
edit: btw they dont support unlimited processors, they max at 32. they also max at 144TB, not 800, and those are the current iseries servers. a "real" as/400 (before the name change) supports less than that. that said, theres no way the bazaar would need 20 of these to run.
edit: btw they dont support unlimited processors, they max at 32. they also max at 144TB, not 800, and those are the current iseries servers. a "real" as/400 (before the name change) supports less than that. that said, theres no way the bazaar would need 20 of these to run.
Last edited by merkzu on Wed Aug 13, 2003 9:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
oooo, an as400 fan in the house (wonder what version of the software they're using)edit: btw they dont support unlimited processors, they max at 32. they also max at 144TB, not 800, and those are the current iseries servers. a "real" as/400 (before the name change) supports less than that. that said, theres no way the bazaar would need 20 of these to run.
, i'll tread more lightly, i was kinda pounding in the point, but yes, they can log everything, and no, they won't.i guess i put the as400 workshop in only one of my sentences, soe wouldn't use just one as400, they probably have a workshop full of them, and you're right, i don't know the numbers. (Either way, im pretty sure it'd take quite a few to run bazaar's transactions). and you'd think bill gates would use windows server for his msn hotmail, not a bad note that he uses an as400 shop for hotmail.
Auth - "If it isn't broke, let VI patch it"
/help
/equip white dragonscale bp
/equip +255 FR ring
/gmmode on
/echo $gm
[Macroquest] 1
/face exit
DISCLAIMER: THESE ARE ONLY ASSUMPTIONS, PLEASE DONT COME KNOCKING ON MY DOOR WITH A GUN IN HAND LOOKING TO KILL ME FOR OPINIONS THAT I AM TRYING TO TELL THE NEWBIES ABOUT, JUST CALM DOWN.
Nevermind, I was only trying to make the point that they "CAN" log everything, and if bazaar really runs off one server (which people seem to believe) then we're a lot safer than we used to believe. Maybe I'm wrong, but if they're behind a cluster a few servers would show up on one ip address, but I'm not a networking engineer, and I expect 10 flames for that statement too. I just know that behind my firewall I have a router, and my external ip address on both computers are the same, yet inside the network it could be 2-3 different servers working together on one zone, but I don't have all the knowledge and experience to be talking like that. I just know that if they logged everything continuously, it would be hell on sony.
But perhaps when they "modified the servers" to give better zone times and less lag on raids, they actually just turned off some of the flags for logging activity. Either this would have to happen, or the cluster thing in order to improve zone performances. 2 zones may very well be in the same cluster, but I would think one zone is generally empty and just needs a place to sit, if it's behind a big cluster that handles bazaar.
/equip +255 FR ring
/gmmode on
/echo $gm
[Macroquest] 1
/face exit
DISCLAIMER: THESE ARE ONLY ASSUMPTIONS, PLEASE DONT COME KNOCKING ON MY DOOR WITH A GUN IN HAND LOOKING TO KILL ME FOR OPINIONS THAT I AM TRYING TO TELL THE NEWBIES ABOUT, JUST CALM DOWN.
Nevermind, I was only trying to make the point that they "CAN" log everything, and if bazaar really runs off one server (which people seem to believe) then we're a lot safer than we used to believe. Maybe I'm wrong, but if they're behind a cluster a few servers would show up on one ip address, but I'm not a networking engineer, and I expect 10 flames for that statement too. I just know that behind my firewall I have a router, and my external ip address on both computers are the same, yet inside the network it could be 2-3 different servers working together on one zone, but I don't have all the knowledge and experience to be talking like that. I just know that if they logged everything continuously, it would be hell on sony.
But perhaps when they "modified the servers" to give better zone times and less lag on raids, they actually just turned off some of the flags for logging activity. Either this would have to happen, or the cluster thing in order to improve zone performances. 2 zones may very well be in the same cluster, but I would think one zone is generally empty and just needs a place to sit, if it's behind a big cluster that handles bazaar.
Auth - "If it isn't broke, let VI patch it"
Oh, and btw, they do log a lot of information.
I know someone that was involved in a scam when the GM confronted the individual:
GM: Where did you get that XXX?
Player: I traded a YYY for it.
GM: When was that?
Player: On MM/DD/YYYY.
GM: One sec..
GM: I show no record of a YYY being traded on MM/DD/YYYY.
I even saw a chuck of the log that the GM sent regarding the transactions (with certain parts erased, like account names, etc). It was very detailed.
Plus, each item has a unique ID. My Tantor's Tusk is different that your Tantor's Tusk and can be tracked separately.
I know someone that was involved in a scam when the GM confronted the individual:
GM: Where did you get that XXX?
Player: I traded a YYY for it.
GM: When was that?
Player: On MM/DD/YYYY.
GM: One sec..
GM: I show no record of a YYY being traded on MM/DD/YYYY.
I even saw a chuck of the log that the GM sent regarding the transactions (with certain parts erased, like account names, etc). It was very detailed.
Plus, each item has a unique ID. My Tantor's Tusk is different that your Tantor's Tusk and can be tracked separately.
For some reason I never saw this thread the first time around, and since it was bumped, I'll point out the following:
This is false. A GM can /become whatever they want but they cannot actually become an npc. Other games have this ability, such as muds, etc but EQ does not.. Take over any mob/npc in any zone, either partially or fully. That’s to say they can take over a vendor and watch for themselves what is being bought, sold, by whom and how often, this also includes controlling any mob/npc. GM’s do not have to be on-line to do this. Think of MQ’s telnet server.