Easter Update from Rhialto

[Bullfrogz]

Lots of information here to discuss, so I'm just going to copy paste everything.

Bullfrogz:

Hello again,

As Easter rolls around, I was just curious, as well as the rest of the fans, if you have any surprise for us? We would all appreciate a small update on the status of Wyvern returning to us.

Sorry to bug you, and thanks in advance!


Rhialto:
Hi Jeremiah! Thanks for following up.

There is some news: some good, some bad. I was going to wait a few months to try to unveil something cooler than rumors, but since you asked...

The Good News:

1) I have extracted the game source and data from the old server. This was hard, but it's done, and the server is now in a landfill, with Wyvern on a USB drive in my pocket.

2) I am currently checking the Wyvern code into a Google source repository. There are hundreds of thousands of data files, so it's going to take a week or two (they don't want me to slam the repository too hard).

3) I have confirmed that Wyvern will run on a combination of Google App Engine and Google Compute Engine. At least in theory. It may take some work to set everything up, but I will begin this project as soon as the source code is all checked in. I would expect it to be playable sometime during summer.

4) I have more or less official sign-off from my boss to work on Wyvern as an external project, because I will be able to use Wyvern to help improve Google's cloud platform. So I may be spending up to 20% of my time on it going forward. I also have some volunteers at Google who would like to help.

So that's all the good news. There is, of course, not-so-good news as well.

The Not So Good News:

A) It is expensive to run game servers in the cloud. It was expensive before (it cost me a minimum of $200/month), but now it has the potential to be even more expensive, because I will be able to support a lot more players. Thousands of simultaneous players. But it costs money.

B) I don't really want to have to charge people to play, if I can help it. So in the initial launch of Cloud Wyvern, I may only allow connections from mobile clients: iPhones, Android phones, and maybe iPads. Why? Because it dramatically cuts down on server costs, since people move and chat more slowly.

* I will slow down the monsters and balance the game for mobile -- it'll at least be a little easier on people.
* Wizards will still be able to connect via the Web.

C) In order to cut down on abusers, I may require that you have an authentic Real Name account to play the game -- such as Facebook or Google+. It will not be quite as easy to play as it used to be: you will have to tie your Wyvern accounts to real accounts. I have not yet worked out the details of this yet, and it may take me some time (weeks/months) to implement properly.

D) I may need to spend a few months on two key issues: game balance, and game scalability.

For scalability, I envision making Wyvern a bit more like Minecraft, in that I want people to be able to set up their own game servers in the cloud and do whatever they want with it. (Though it may cost money for you to run your own server.)

Even if people don't run their own servers, I still need to run many of them to support thousands of players. I used to only run one server. I need to work through the mechanics of how people move from server to server. There is design and coding involved. If I just turn the game on as-is without solving this problem, then it'll be like Old Wyvern, but you won't necessarily be able to control which group of people you're playing with. I need time to figure out how to partition things -- for instance, I would like player arenas to be on their own servers to cut down on lag.

For game balance, I want to make sure that people can no longer exploit specific balance issues to rocket up the high-score list and make it impossible for everyone else to catch up. This means I need to do some design and coding in the engine, to cap the amount of XP and materials you can make per minute. It also means that I may need to reset the High Score Lists and all the players. It's unfortunate, and I would be willing to give some nice rewards to players who migrated over from Old Wyvern to the new Cloud Wyvern. But it's going to take time to figure all this out.

This all means that it's going to be many months of coding and tweaking before I can really let anyone play the game. If I get lucky, then I may be able to let the Wizards back on during the summer, and they can help me build out content and controls for Cloud Wyvern.

But I do not expect to open the doors to players until sometime in Fall or possibly even Winter. So we're talking a schedule that's not too far out -- it's sort of like The Last of Us or GTA V: a 2013 launch. But it's not likely to happen before late Fall.

I am very pleased that I am getting support from my management chain to work on Wyvern as part my actual day job. And I am also happy that Google's cloud services have finally evolved to the point where they can support a rich system like Wyvern.

But there is a lot of work ahead.

Keep the faith!

- R


Rhialto:
p.s. one more work item I forgot to mention: I will have to port the old mobile client to the Android. This should be easy (maybe 4 weeks) because it's already in Java. Longer term I would like to make an iPhone client, but that requires it to be written in Objective-C, which will take me a little longer. Maybe I can find a volunteer to help, though.


Well there you go, definitely some of the more promising news we've had. Or It could just be an elaborate April fools prank. You decide

[Brionac]

What a good Easter this turned out to be.

Well there you go, definitely some of the more promising news we've had. Or It could just be an elaborate April fools prank. You decide

Don't let him mess with you, I read it first hand.

[Arilou]

Originally Posted by Brionac

Don't let him mess with you, I read it first hand.

Ahahahahahaha!

Okay, now that I've calmed down - That was great, thank you; I laughed for a good solid minute at that. I mean, the person who went on a forum to tell people that he thought all these crazy things about Teshuvah, acting like an authority to be trusted was just too good.

2016 Edit: Sorry, btw, about the forum comment. I confused for Gershore. Still, you as a trusted source remains quite amusing.

[Brionac]

Happy Easter Arilou.

[Morgus]

I don't believe this for a second. I've learned to take Wyvern-related news with a dumpster of salt at this time of the year. A pretty elaborate prank, but a prank nonetheless.

[Dracco]

Originally Posted by Bullfrogz

...(they don't want me to slam the repository too hard).

I burst out laughing at this part.

[Bullfrogz]

I really should of waited until after April 1st to post this.

[Arilou]

Ah, yes, those post April Fools pranks are the best, aren't they? They just got done breathing a sigh of relief, thinking that they are safe for another year and then... BAM! ... you hit them again with a whopper. Good times.

[Morgus]

Originally Posted by Bullfrogz

I really should of waited until after April 1st to post this.

But, see, then the prank would lose it's oomph.

[Brionac]

But it isn't a prank..

[Bullfrogz]

Cullan, with every post you support me, you literally make it worse.

[Jeremytq]

I was just wondering... When the website comes back up is it still gonna be called cabochon?

[Clubbz]

You guys all act like he owes it to us to do anything with the game. The truth of the matter is it's his game, and his alone to do whatever he wants with. You should consider yourselves lucky that after so much time he's even willing to offer any time to give it a second thought.

[Brionac]

Originally Posted by clubbz

You guys all act like he owes it to us to do anything with the game. The truth of the matter is it's his game, and his alone to do whatever he wants with. You should consider yourselves lucky that after so much time he's even willing to offer any time to give it a second thought.

I think Exile's post covers this pretty well.

And if he owes it to anyone, its not the players. He owes it to the people who worked on Wyvern for 10 years without an R around.

[Josiah]

Originally Posted by Clubbz

You guys all act like he owes it to us to do anything with the game. The truth of the matter is it's his game, and his alone to do whatever he wants with. You should consider yourselves lucky that after so much time he's even willing to offer any time to give it a second thought.

Took the words right out of my mouth...... or fingers..... But anyways you guys are really ungrateful towards him just be glad he is trying.

[Dracco]

Originally Posted by Josiah

Took the words right out of my mouth...... or fingers..... But anyways you guys are really ungrateful towards him just be glad he is trying.

"Ungrateful" says the guy who wanted to ripoff Wyvern.

I feel like the people who think we are being ungrateful don't know Rhialto or Wyvern's history very well. Rhialto makes more progress when hounded, not praised as a lord who graces us with his presence.

[Clubbz]

Originally Posted by Dracco

I feel like the people who think we are being ungrateful don't know Rhialto or Wyvern's history very well. Rhialto makes more progress when hounded, not praised as a lord who graces us with his presence.

I'm well aware of Rhialto's work habits and wyvern's history. But at the end of the day, there is no deserved entitlement for the players. If he gets it up, great! If he doesn't, then life goes on. Making comments on what he does isn't the way to do things. Everyone need's leisure. Saying he now gets 20% of his time from google to work on it won't really speed it up that much. The fact that he's now trying make it part of his work at google will also include paperwork and testing. It will be up when it's up, so just have a little patience.

[Dracco]

Originally Posted by Jeremytq

I was just wondering... When the website comes back up is it still gonna be called cabochon?

It's already up and currently at http://wyvern-web.appspot.com/
I don't know if he wants to change the name of it in the future.