Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Hey guys,

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things, so I'm taking a little time off tonight to write an update!

New Item Type: Revisited

In my last update several weeks ago I alluded to a new item type that I would be creating. Much to my (and everyone else here's) surprise, I create 2 new item types:

Choice Items
These are items (like a number of items in the "Fortune Egg" chain and the "Copper Twopence" wink that allow us to customize the options and grants from those options when using a particular item. It also allows item creators (artists, typically) to really create unique and fun items. In spite of the whole "Soulbound Oni" controversy (and again - I am not the person to talk to about that) it was a huge success with users. Hopefully I'll get to make use of it as an event prize at some point - though don't expect it for X-Mas... almost done with that.

I made a few test items, which hopefully at some point will get released. They're absolutely nothing like the items you've already seen, and have a totally different flavor to 'em. It opens up a lot of doors for us, so expect to see new things being done as time goes on.

Package Items
Known better to users as "bundles", these item types package other items together into a single item - allowing you to "open" them, granting you the items within. Right now it's being used to sell items in Cash Shop at a discount (finally!) but there's no reason in the future it can't be used to sell entire outfits from an item release in a single box.

More...?
After creating those two new popular item types, some other suggestions have come from around the office. Hopefully I get a chance to implement them in the not-too-distant future. Now that I sorta understand the way the Inventory interface and backend works, it makes it much easier for me to have fun with it twisted

Workin' on the X-Mas Event
Yes, it is coming! We're scrambling to get the X-Mas event done right now. Unfortunately, times being lean as they are, extra resources being gobbled up by zOMG, and us trying to finish up a ton of other projects, it's not going to be the type of event that I tend to like best (e.g., BIG, NEW, and WAY TOO MUCH WORK!). Instead, it will be a regular ol' fun event with tons of prizes and a good sense of humor, with good manga and storyline.

The only hint I can really give is that we'll have a few users saying "finally!" rofl

Expect an announcement soon.

Boring Stuff Fleep Does
Another thing that I find really exciting, but is likely extremely boring for 96.3% of people who read this journal, is that I've learned some great techniques for creating reusable systems on Gaia.

For example!

Simple Granting

There has always been a need at various points, whether for an event or sponsor, to grant an item when a user clicks a link. There is always a ruleset of some kind, e.g., they can only click the link 3 times, it's only available during the campaign period, they have to have completed a task, etc. etc.

Each time we did this, we had to create new database tables for tracking the data, new data models for validating it all, blah blah. Basically, we had to redo the work over and over again, and it was a major pain in the a**. So, instead of doing it yet again I built a system that allows developers to plug-n-play this functionality without having to write or push any code whatsoever. It means the cost of doing something like this goes down from 5 hours of work, to 15 minutes of work. You can take those savings home to the bank -- the money bank.

The other great thing is, it provides multiple interfaces to the backend, so Flash developers, PHP Developers, and non-Developers can use it eek

Normalized Sigs

Another turnkey system I'm in the middle of building is a new Normalized Sig system that handles any sig you can "subscribe" to. This includes sigs like Autos sigs, Driver's License sigs, Aquarium, and any other ones we may add in the future. It provides a lot of the reusability and customization mentioned above, but on top of that, it will actually REDUCE existing load on the forums.

WHY AREN'T YOU WORKING ON THINGS WE ACTUALLY WANT? *CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP*

Hey, stop biting my hand! Oh my fine friends, these are things you do want. Here's why:

• It saves developers time on tasks they're going to do anyway, allowing them to deliver on projects faster, freeing up more time to work on fixes, features, and other good jazz.
  
• Having single, well-optimized codesets for common tasks allows a Senior Developer to finely-tune the systems to optimal performance, while allowing more junior devs to utilize them. A big benefit of this is that as opposed to having Junior Devs re-code these things over and over, possibly less efficiently, using these systems reduces load -- meaning Gaia will lose less money on server costs! In a place like forums, which makes up a huge chunk of our server load, savings there make a huge difference!
  
• A lot of the time, when the site crashes, is because simple mistake that could have been avoided was missed in a new piece of code. By creating reusable tools like the ones mentioned above, we can ensure best-practices whenever we roll-out functionality that performs certain common high-load tasks.
  

All of these were major benefits of another famous infrastructure project: Item Norm. Where before managing inventories was kind of an experience akin to removing your eyeballs with salted corkscrews, it's now a breeze thanks to the devs who created the Item Norm interfaces.

To the Haters
Something I regularly hear from users who complain about our revenue-efforts is this:

"Gaia wouldn't need to spend so much money on servers if they took down features we didn't want in the first place!"

Let me points out a few things -

1. A feature doesn't generate server load if nobody uses it

I think that sort of explains itself.

2. The things that have always caused the most load on Gaia are core features that users love

Here are a list of the features that generate the vast majority of the load on Gaia:

- Avatar compiling
- Forums
- Marketplace
- PMs

3. The #1 cause of growing load on Gaia is a growing user base

Since most of the load is caused by the above features, every new active user that joins on the site increases the load in those features crying

So...

So I guess, I'm just trying to point out that it's not as simple as taking down features you don't like!