I'll try to give you a picture of what occurred with housing.Vega/Delo wrote:2 cents in the Jar.
Housing issues happened twice, once was the smalls at the bank locations etc. Second was the trip tower (bridging has been gone for over two years). Yes I understand Test has been trying out new placement checks....but how or why would that effect the actual server. I may not no shit about coding or anything other pew pewing, but is this the case or nah?
The first time that Anarcho and I attempted to introduce the new housing mechanics was part of the May 2014 patch. The intent of that patch was to correctly implement the housing mechanics that Derrick had attempted to implement some time in 2013.
If you recall, before the May patch, any house that was placed had a check on the tiles surrounding the house foundation and steps that required the land to be exactly flat. This check was an incorrectly placed check that was intended to fix the first problem found when the changes were first implemented in 2013, which was that houses could be placed where the steps could not be accessed from several tiles, and in some cases from all tiles. The first check that was implemented in 2013 was supposed to ensure that the land surrounding the steps was flat, but incorrectly checked the land surrounding the entire house. As a result, we had the housing mechanics from the first patch in 2013, until the May 2014 patch.
So, the May 2014 patch was intended to fix the issue surrounding the flat land check, but when it was implemented, it was discovered that house steps were still inaccessible from many or all tiles, which required us to pull the patch out. What the patch did do correctly was pull the requirement for the flat land check surrounding the border of the house. This allowed the Ocllo house to be placed, which had the entire land under the steps and foundation on flat land, and also had flat land surrounding the steps as well. What it didn't have was a single tile of flat land sitting next to the NE corner of the house. As a result, until our implementation of the patch in May 2014, that house was effectively unplaceable. This was the first instance of housing problems.
The second instance came when Vega alerted us to the fact that the May 2014 housing mechanics were re-introduced to the server. I don't know the specifics of why, but this was an unintended change, and once we were aware of it, a previous patch was committed to the live server.
The third issue arises directly from the second issue. When the unintended re-introduction of the May 2014 housing patch was pulled, the patch that was reverted to was accidentally set to a late 2012 patch, which was before Derrick introduced the fixes for tower wings that prevented them from being placed directly next to other towers. The issue was reported by a player who showed us the new bridged towers, and the patch was properly placed at the 2013 housing patch. This brings us to today.
As of now, what we currently have on test center is what should be the correct set of mechanics that Derrick attempted to implement in 2013, with the proper checks in place for steps. Thus far, we have had very promising results, and have found that would indicate some problem, including inaccessibility of the steps from multiple or all tiles. Of course, the changes are staying on test center far longer than previous changes, given the fact that we don't want to make another mistake, so please feel free to test the changes.