RuneScape TL;DW 361 - Tech QA Q&A

TL;DW 361 - Tech QA Q&A
Judgement Day
nice
Add a beam to Meilyr potion recipes in dungeoneering
Could we get a modern shortcut addition here?
Confession: I've been playing this game for 10 years and still don't know what these rooms are for
Just slaying some grapefruit...
PVP is just... outdated and gross.
The Tengu in player owned ports looks like squidward from spongebob
Reminder that all tier 87 weapons (Annihilation - Melee, Decimation - Ranged, Obliteration - Magic) are still missing from the respective skill guides.
Raid fc
Locked out of my account for "suspicious act" during a Telos Streak.... Died because of the lock...
(Ninja Request) Make using Bladed Dive on a player in a non-PvP zone target the tile they're standing on.
This guys keeps crashing me and kill stealing, flame him reddit
This is what peak RNG looks like.
Brains pet at Kree
4547 kills later. (Jagex pls allow the override)
Low effort meme, sorry
Demon Slayer Perk at Kril. Can we get a definite answer to this please?
PSA: Free purple rarity item on today's advent calendar
It's a christmas miracle! <3
When it's Christmas holiday but you can't pvm properly because the closest server is 7000 km away and having problems
The Elven Grimoire still says the "Zaros" spellbook, even though Seren spells were added over two years ago. This annoys me far too much than it should.
Could auras show cooldown on tooltip?
Long time goal achieved! ()=() Legio

Posted: 21 Dec 2017 01:29 PM PST

Data/Game Questions

Questions	Answers
How big is a player's save file? And what format is it in?	Player saves are around 1 kB we really don't go lower than that, but it can go up to 40 kB. It's a .sav file, which is a custom file.
For numbers stored not maxed at 2.14b, how are they stored?	They are stored as integers, which for Java is stored at 2.14b. We also store them as 16 bits is what 60k is (65,535).
Any special reasons for using "prestige" system for kill counts?	Probably to be done with space, perhaps it would have been better to use 32 bits hindsight.
Can anything be done to combat reduced FPS in an area with a lot of things going on by players?	New animation system (MIRA) should help a lot. Currently that's where a lot of processing power goes, and it causes it to slow down. We will fix this before we launch mobile and will constantly improve this issue as time goes on.
Can we rollback updates	We can and have before, but there are lots of complications. If things rely on a particular update it would cause issues. Therefore it's easier to fix something than to remove it and have to deal with those issues.
How feasible is it to increase the maximum player capacity of worlds?	This is likely a server limitation. It wouldn't be feasible as it's balanced for 2000 people maximum. It isn't our area of expertise.
How difficult would it be to completely rework the tick system, or to reduce the time per tick slightly?	It would be easier to remake the game. Otherwise we'd spend more time trying to fix various problems that pop up.
How much of the game logic takes place client-side?	Hardly any. Anything you can look at and not touch is the client. Everything else is a server update.
How long would it take to rewrite the whole RS Code to make it up to today's standards?	It would take everyone at Jagex working on it 3-4 years to do. That's just a ballpark guess.

NXT Client/Mobile

Future Improvements

Released within the next 6 months (rough ETA)

New Animation System
MIRA - 3D software used for animations. It will help us making more fluid animations and use motion capture.
Mobile Optimizaitons
Upscaling - You will be able to upscale your resolution to 4K.
Interface Scaling

Animation is the slowest thing in all of game development unless you do motion capture.

Mobile's impact on NTX Improvements

Managed to get Volumetric lighting to work on Intel as we fixed an issue with Adreno.
We will also be able to remove comapp?? when mobile is released.
- We have a lot of plugs in Runescape to the HTML5 code where comapp?? helps the interactions with banks/chats/etc...
- Once we remove it these features will improve.
Slow laptop with a bad GPU and an okay CPU most likely use angle mode which is a software mode.
- This hasn't been updated for 3 years since we still support XP/Vista, and any updates would break them.
- With mobile we will be able to update it.

NXT Focused Questions

Questions	Answers
Is there any ETA, or even a remote possible guess or 'idea' as to when support for the Java client will be discontinued?	Even if there was 100% NXT usage we still wouldn't swap over as there are still many things we need to do before we take that leap. It's nice to have a 2nd client as a back-up. Maybe a few months after mobile's release we will begin to consider removing the Java client. Currently, it takes twice the time to test updates due to the 2 clients.
What is the current estimate, the percentage of people who transferred over to NXT.	84% player population uses NXT.
Why have you stopped work on the NXT client?	We still work on it, we have not stopped! Mobile is providing a lot of improvements to NXT. If it's not being fixed it may not be urgent.

Mobile Focused Questions

Questions	Answers
Will there be TestFlight invites sent out to iOS users?	I expect so. We won't launch without a beta. We have the option to provide it to 10,000 people. As IOS devices, there aren't that many that people have. Andriod devices are a large number in comparison. We will have one in the future especially to get feedback.
How do you feel about mobile overall? was it the right decision without considering all the social cues and such?	Anyone who played mobile plays for hours. Average playtime is 45 minutes compared to 10 minutes for most mobile games.
Can you please give us a ballpark on the minimum phone reqs?	At the moment we really don't have a min spec and would need to do more testing. But I would recommend, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 with Adreno 540. That's like the S8 or the 1+5, the new 5 chip phones.

Bugs/Debugging

Awaiting Bug Fix - Blackscreen issue

It's ready to be deployed but won't be due to Christmas.
If a major issue were to come up wouldn't be able to fix it until after the break.

Debugging Tools

Animation Debugger - Easily automates all animations so we can check if anything is broken.
- Bosses are important to test to make sure animations are synced up correctly.
Allows us to see specific issues with certain features.
May go over this in detail in the future.

Interesting Bugs

Bug - Demon Rotation - Character orientation in a certain direction would create multiple animations.
Time Travel Particles - On Macs, time goes backwards sometimes and our particle system relies on time.
- If time goes backwards it under-flows, and everything freezes.
Animation swapping

Common Bug Reports:

Currently: World Hopping screen freeze.
Past: Woodcutting in citadels.

Favorite Tool - Map Square Checker

Dolan created it.
It teleports my character to every map square, takes a screenshot, and stitches them together.
Then it does an image comparison -
- If it's more than a certain % of difference from the previous version it will flag it for us to look into.

Testing

Questions	Answers
How does the QA process start for specific content?	QA are involved in everything, but how much depends on the size of what's being done. If it's only going to affect 1 interface piece, it won't take long at all. If it's a refactor it could take multiple days. Content has a timeplan, but we are doing it in real-time and have to be very reactive.
Do you follow a test plans?	We don't most of the time because we are testing new features. It's difficult to come up with test plans for one unique case. Otherwise we do, esspecially for interfaces/animations. We are still looking to improve that system such as improving the amount we can capture in a single test.
How do you know when its the best time to stop a test?	It's a complete gut feeling. Something that has so much code and so large it's difficult to find something. You have to be confident that what you've tested are key impact points, is it possible for these two pieces to interact/touch. We also need to be efficient and spend most time on things people interact with the most.
Any programs we use for QA?	We use AHK (testing only), Ashampoo (video capture software), various calculators for balancing/quests, In-house programs such as Recon, for test plans.
How often do you get to create tools for your work?	They get created as they are needed.
How far downstream does QA look?	We go up the river until we can't look upstream anymore or there is too much resistance.

Other

Personal questions

Questions	Answers
What's your next hair colour, Mod Dolan?	It was either going to let it grow out, or half head with gray blue.
Have you ever made bad decisions in testing?	Dolan: While in MTX I made the bad decision to launch something before it was ready. Thankfully it was caught an hour after released and fixed, but it could have been bug abused.
How did you deal with the consequences?	Dolan: If you beat yourself up for making a mistake you won't learn from it. Stick to schedules, and if it's not ready it's not going out. It's either fixed or it misses it's launch date. It's nice to be in an environment with people who trust each other.
What is the process from school to a company.	Flaym: I went to uni and got a computer science degree, and then worked QA in a different sector until I ended up at Jagex. If you want to work for a company like Jagex, aim and shoot for it. Prove you can do it.
"	Dolan: I applied for a few game companies, and I was accepted for Jagex. I had 10 years experience, and the QA trials and I worked my way up from there. It's also not about the pay for us, it's about doing something you love doing.

Jagex/Company Related Questions

Questions	Answers
Are you using Perforce or TortoiseSVN? Or are you using a SubVersion Network at all?	We use Perforce for all of our files.
What is the ratio of SDE (Coder) to QA?	It's about 3 to 1. It feels nice to have that many people help you.
How often do you get to create content that make it in game?	Every TAPP day.

Other

Questions	Answers
What is ~htfi?	Hide the F-ing interface.
Would it ever be possible to create a RS themed solo game?	I would like it personally, but I don't know if we would do it.
Regardless of what your job requires, what's your favourite programming language, and why?	Python because it is easy and powerful.
Vim or Emacs?	NetBeans

submitted by /u/ImRubic
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Judgement Day

Posted: 22 Dec 2017 03:33 AM PST

submitted by /u/prezleek
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nice

Posted: 21 Dec 2017 04:54 PM PST

submitted by /u/usernamesalltakenrip
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Add a beam to Meilyr potion recipes in dungeoneering

Posted: 22 Dec 2017 06:53 AM PST

submitted by /u/TzHaar-Ket
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Could we get a modern shortcut addition here?

Posted: 21 Dec 2017 05:38 PM PST

submitted by /u/Daxivarga
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Confession: I've been playing this game for 10 years and still don't know what these rooms are for

Posted: 21 Dec 2017 09:06 PM PST

submitted by /u/o029
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Just slaying some grapefruit...

Posted: 22 Dec 2017 12:09 AM PST

submitted by /u/CivilChaos
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PVP is just... outdated and gross.

Posted: 22 Dec 2017 12:08 AM PST

only 1%~ of players so far who took the survey (so far) give a crap about it... It's broken, nearly impossible to get into, barely alive, etc etc etc. Every addition as of late has been half-assed at best and just a pale mimic of osrs. I think Jagex needs to decide if it's something decently healthy to the game and if we need to continue to spend resources on the persuit of it. OR if we should cut our losses and abandon it. I Don't like pking because it's all toxic and messy with EOC. But if I'm indifferent to whatever decision occurs. I'd just like to see some actual resolution, not just "eh, pking, bones throw here and there... maybe a bug fix... meh" Right? Or is it just me...

submitted by /u/Grimbebo
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The Tengu in player owned ports looks like squidward from spongebob

Posted: 21 Dec 2017 04:16 PM PST

submitted by /u/Poor_And_Needy
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Reminder that all tier 87 weapons (Annihilation - Melee, Decimation - Ranged, Obliteration - Magic) are still missing from the respective skill guides.

Posted: 21 Dec 2017 09:27 PM PST

Not a huge priority, but it's an easy fix that has been missing for months, and based on how many times I'm asked "what's that weapon you have?" I'm sure a lot of people don't even know the existence of these weapons, perfect for high lvl PvMers on a budget

submitted by /u/zaino60
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Raid fc

Posted: 21 Dec 2017 07:08 PM PST

submitted by /u/hikkene
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Locked out of my account for "suspicious act" during a Telos Streak.... Died because of the lock...

Posted: 22 Dec 2017 04:25 AM PST

submitted by /u/Gehnerate
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(Ninja Request) Make using Bladed Dive on a player in a non-PvP zone target the tile they're standing on.

Posted: 21 Dec 2017 11:18 PM PST

At the moment missclicking on a player or their familiar using Bladed Dive simply gives the message "You can only attack players in a player versus player area" and the ability is not triggered. Obviously this is kind of annoying in group PvM scenarios where mobility is key, so in non-PvP zones Bladed Dive should instead target the tile the player/familiar is standing on instead of trying to target the player themselves.

submitted by /u/A_Vitalis_RS
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This guys keeps crashing me and kill stealing, flame him reddit

Posted: 21 Dec 2017 02:20 PM PST