Guild Wars 2

Let me just get something straight: To adjust the drop table for monsters, ANet need to update 8 files on the client.

Am I the only person who’s disturbed by this?

ha! It’s not that, it’s just all the changes/fixes they don’t talk about, which seems to be most of them.

Some other game company spoiled us with informative/complete patch notes.

Were you emotionally attached to those 8 files?
What difference does it make if it’s 1 file or 100 – all you have to do is wait for some seconds for the download to complete.

The 8 files that changed on the client were probably not even related to the droprate fixes. Dropped items are surely controlled by the server I would hope.

Not what I was getting at at all.

If they need to update the client to change a drop rate, that implies that the drops are calculated client-side. This is a very bad thing, look at non-league Diablo 2 for why.

If there were other fixes included in there, then they should have at least given us an overview of what they were (even as vauge as “Fixed some botting openings” would be enough), so we aren’t left thinking that their security design is Microsoft98-quality.

I’d love informative and complete patch notes. Because I’m spoiled.

Yeah i was kinda pickled when i read the notes and noticed at how much the update downloaded. I wonder what they actully changed with the update as it seems like it wasn’t just a drop rate fix.

What makes you think it would only be one file needing to be changed to update the drop rate? Perhaps all 8 of those files had to be adjusted for the new drop rate.

/tinfoil hat

edit – as far as the size of the download… typically, even when a small change is made to a file, the whole file is re-downloaded with the changes included.

Yeah but as stated already, drop rates surely aren’t client side and as such should not require big updates (if any at all infact).

MajorMelchett.6042:

Yeah but as stated already, drop rates surely aren’t client side and as such should not require big updates (if any at all infact).

Well, I will just leave this thread since you obviously are very familiar with GW2 file structure and update policies.

Omega Mayhem.7163:

Well, I will just leave this thread since you obviously are very familiar with GW2 file structure and update policies.

Erm what?, i said “drop rates surely aren’t client side and as such should not require big updates”.

It was a question statement not a statement of fact.

I kinda thought the topic of the thread wasn’t if loot-drops are client side, but instead about the typical lack of complete patch notes we get from ANet.

Is it possible the patch contained stuff related to the upcoming event?

Omega Mayhem.7163:

MajorMelchett.6042:

Yeah but as stated already, drop rates surely aren’t client side and as such should not require big updates (if any at all infact).

Well, I will just leave this thread since you obviously are very familiar with GW2 file structure and update policies.

Yes, anet obviously isn’t stupid enough to let the clients control drops. It doesn’t matter how versed we are with their code. It’s an mmo, this isn’t their first game, and they’re not idiots.

It is likely they were preloading content for the next event.

In addition, there are many changes that are not worth telling us about. If they clean up a texture used for rendering ground foliage it would be ridiculous to post patch notes about it but that would definitely require a client patch.

To assume they used a client side drop table just because they are patching files is beyond over thinking things.

Tachenon.5270:

Is it possible the patch contained stuff related to the upcoming event?

I was thinking the same thing, would make sense instead of having one huge download.

They removed the whales, maybe that was part of the change?

They probably changed some stuff around events lots of people gather around to do.
For example, the Modnir event chain in Hirathi Hinterlands was changed so that the chest spawns only after you kill the champion boss in the end. Before you could run in and the chest would be there before the boss or his minions spawned.

All my knowledge comes from my friends who were creating private game servers and emulators. I’ve been also an amateur game modder, both FPS and RPG

The patch was like 25-30 MB heavy, I don’t think those were preparations for upcoming event. Usually such size can contain few updates to database (text files only, they’re tiny), tooltips, UI, minor bug fixes, eventually some minor sounds and textures

Update of drop rate is update of the game server, which contains many of core game files we can never access. When something is changed about drops and we’re getting game client update, it means they’ve implemented whole new items to drop or returned some old items which were removed in previous updates/early development stages

Not sure how modern MMOs are coded but back in the day when I coded MUDs, to add one spell you had to update 4 files. That is with a very simple system and flat files. then recompile the whole mess and away you would go. I’m not saying they didn’t change just the drop rate but from my experience in the past it wouldn’t surprise me

Anet has no qualms about sticking random stuff in patches and just not saying anything. I think it’s a communication break-down between what new stuff is in a build and what info is in the change log.

It has pretty much always been this way. Major stuff they are pretty good at letting us know about, but small things get ninja patched and no one knows until it finally gets noticed.

I am pretty sure the drop rates aren’t controlled client-side. It would be so very easily exploitable. Also, during halloween event, when the original drop rate in Labyrinth was insanely high, ANet changed it in a new build without us needing to download anything. (Atleast I am pretty sure I didn’t download anything). Most likely these are some regular maintainance changes, may be related to some of the minor graphic issues like clipping or something similar. Or these might be initial changes in preparation of the upcoming big patch.

Anti-Farm and Anti-Bot Codes are things they will never put in patch notes.

Massi.1608:

Were you emotionally attached to those 8 files?

As the tech support fora was/is inundated with the hanging bug while 8 files are left to download, yes.
I´m scared like a kitten when I see that number pop up.
And soo happy when it continues.

There were some stealth updates made to Cursed Shore, it seems. Probably to help combat botting/farming.

Zaxares.5419:

There were some stealth updates made to Cursed Shore, it seems. Probably to help combat botting/farming.

Yeah I was going to say the wiki will catch up to the update eventually – “Many undisclosed changes to Cursed Shore” (Not Verified)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2012-11-05

It was like what 20mb?
Does it really take 20mb to do ctrl z?
lol
But yeah.. actual patch notes would be nice

Illiander.8049:

Let me just get something straight: To adjust the drop table for monsters, ANet need to update 8 files on the client.

Am I the only person who’s disturbed by this?

Since you know next to nothing about the source code (OK, drop “next to”), why do you complain? I can’t remember seeing a patch that had less than 40MB and 8 files. Maybe those files contain some information that changes with every build like… build number. I don’t know. More importantly, you don’t know.

I work at a software company myself. We ship source code. One of our mantras is “we don’t explain source code”. We don’t give justifications for why we did things the way we did them. Often, there’s many ways to do things and at the time you develop it, one’s as good as the other. As a developer, you pick one way to do it but you don’t have to defend that decision before the customer. Software ships “as it is”, just as you can read in many EULAs.

After the update my fridge which previously had been making square ice cubes started making round ice cubes,coincidence?I think not.

Kadub.8743:

After the update my fridge which previously had been making square ice cubes started making round ice cubes,coincidence?I think not.

No… that was gremlins.

Or wizards.

Or gremlin wizards.

phooka.4295:

Illiander.8049:

Let me just get something straight: To adjust the drop table for monsters, ANet need to update 8 files on the client.

Am I the only person who’s disturbed by this?

Since you know next to nothing about the source code (OK, drop “next to”), why do you complain? I can’t remember seeing a patch that had less than 40MB and 8 files. Maybe those files contain some information that changes with every build like… build number. I don’t know. More importantly, you don’t know.

I work at a software company myself. We ship source code. One of our mantras is “we don’t explain source code”. We don’t give justifications for why we did things the way we did them. Often, there’s many ways to do things and at the time you develop it, one’s as good as the other. As a developer, you pick one way to do it but you don’t have to defend that decision before the customer. Software ships “as it is”, just as you can read in many EULAs.

Actually, we know quite a bit about the general structure of their server architecture.

Login server, BLTP server, general servers which may or may not have seperate item servers; probably has a seperate process for each zone, and the clients. If the client is handling drops, then there’s a big problem. Updating the drop rates should ideally be done by telling the servers to reload the loot tables (less ideally by a server restart). It should need no updates to the client at all, because the server should simply be telling the client what it got, not asking it what it got. Authoritive clients are a cracker’s wet dream in a server-client architecture where you can’t actually trust the clients. If you know anything, you should see that.

I also work at a software company: we do intricate and complicated simulation. We do have to be able to justify how we do things, because we need our software to be certified for some of its uses. Also, the process of explaining how something works normaly exposes a good few flaws in your methods. No, we don’t explain every line of code, but we do give an overview of the maths and physics we’re using. It’s called “Good Customer Relations”.

EULAs are rediculous, and mostly unenforcable anyway. Software Engineers are the only Engineers who even try to say “What I do is not fit for any purpose whatsoever”.

Illiander.8049:

Actually, we know quite a bit about the general structure of their server architecture.

Login server, BLTP server, general servers which may or may not have seperate item servers; probably has a seperate process for each zone, and the clients. If the client is handling drops, then there’s a big problem.

Sure. And if all communication is unencrypted or servers are running on backup-free laptops, we also have a problem.

However, you completely ignored the most important thing I wrote:

We have no idea what’s been changed in those 8 files. It may or may not be related to the changes they advertised in their patchnotes. It may even be something that happens automatically like an embedded version-number used to ensure that only up-to-date clients connect to the game. It could literally be anything. It could be unnecessary or unavoidable that some files change with every patch. It could be horribly stupid to code this way or fabulously ingenious. It could simply be the result of the build-process.

We don’t know!

So, what I criticise is that you first make an unfounded assumption: The changes to those 8 files are needed for the implementation of the feature advertised in the patchnotes. Since this assumption is rooted in no knowledge, data or facts, it’s basically a strawman. Then you proceed to attack this strawman as if it was a given that your completely unfounded assumption is correct.

Even if you add a qualifier like “if they do it that way” such a speculation is always containing the veiled assumption that it’s actually true. That’s misleading argumentation. Bad rethorical means to substantiate an invalid position. Please drop it.

Again, we have no indication that anything you’re seemingly worried about hold true, in any way.

What’s worse, we have strong indication that they’re not doing loottables on the client. What indication? Bots. If you could manipulate loottables on the client, do you honestly think there’d still be bots killing mobs? They’d kill a moa in queensdale and grab their manipulated 1 million gold plaus countless exotics.

OK? Are your worries alleviated now?

phooka.4295:

OK? Are your worries alleviated now?

Oh you and your dirty server talk .. now we know!

:)

Not sure if it was this patch or earlier but some map glitches fixed in CM.
Which leads me to believe all kind of funny stuff may happen without we even knowing.