Official Everybody Edits Forums

Heya fantabulous peeps, Satanya, your favourite demonic overlord, checking in!!

It's finally time for my debut as a fake reporter by presenting to you all the first ever interview in this interview series!!!

▼The Full Interview with Fixel!

Let’s begin with the most burning question the community has. Where is the programming up to now in terms of progress on the game?
Out of five initially planned milestones, four are completed.

Can you give me an example of a milestone? What was your first one?
Oh, god. [He pulls up a virtual document.] Game state server was our first one.

And when did programming start?
If by programming you mean actually writing the code, then it was the end of February. If you mean initial design meetings, January. If you mean previous code documentation, January, February, and March.

Our next question is: how did you handle coding over aspects from classic Everybody Edits to this new version?
From scratch. Everything is from scratch.

So, when you say everything is from scratch, does that include our engine?
Yes. When I say everything, I mean everything.

Alright, alright, let’s see... [Giggle] is the game better optimised than its Flash days?
You bet. That was one of our main initial goals when starting work.

Are there any exciting features players should look forward to?
I don’t know which is most exciting.

Well, which excites you personally?
For me? Low latency of the server is the most exciting.

So, you’re more excited for the technical aspects?
Yeah, the technical aspects excite me the most. I really want to know how many people it’ll take to fill our server capacity to 60% and how often that’ll be.

So just how scalable are the servers?
It’s automatically scaled, with certain limitations in place. So it depends on how much we invest into server infrastructure. You can write in parentheses, EC2. Currently, the server doesn’t sweat with 10,000 robot monkeys. Well, truth be told, we have 12,000 in place.

Alright, here’s some questions from our community members. Let’s see… Let’s start with this one: what’s your favourite small feature or quality of life change that you’ve done for the game?
The UI. I can’t stand the previous one.

Previous, as in, Flash?
No, I mean Everybody Edits Universe.

Aha. What do you think is the largest, and most impactful, change?
As I said before, the game is a complete rewrite. So, there is not a single change, everything is changed. I cannot pinpoint a single important change.

Oh, this one I saw coming. What language will the bot API be available in?
Bot API? We’ll see. I’ll just give the API, any language you choose. The initial API bindings will be for C++, Node JS, and Python. It is trivial to access from any other language.

Someone asked this. Why did you choose C++ over Rust? Is it because you don’t know Rust?
I do know Rust and I use it for projects that require it. I chose C++ because unlike Rust, it has a well optimised standard library, and if I’m not satisfied with the performance of a standard library, I can quickly come up with my own that’s enough for this project. On another hand, Rust’s standard libraries are not as optimised and are heavily dependent on a compiler’s ability to generate optimal code. While I can influence the code generation of C++ almost directly, Rust is not as flexible in controlling the code generation. A good example would be the web sockets library that I’ve coded for this project. I can easily serialise and pass the states from connection handling code to the game room code and be sure that it will not be re-serialised in the process, while external libraries for Rust will require an additional step of serialisation.

Are physics simulated server-side?
Yes.

How do they work?
I can't divulge any details. It's a custom proprietary engine, which may be used for more GGRiD projects in the future.

Last question from the community members. How does the game scale to large world sizes, and how did you manage it?
Think about it this way: every server is preconfigured up to a certain world size. The matchmaking server selects the game server based on the world being joined and the location of the player. For example, initially there will be three hundred by hundred servers, one one fifty by one fifty server, and one two hundred by two hundred server. Obviously, any size world you throw at it won't make it choke. So, it’s really up to the matchmaking to select the best available based on the current load on each, and distance to the player. The world in the game can exist on more than one server at once.

So based on your answer, can a world be bigger than 200 by 200?
It can even be 100,000 by 100,000. The only difference is cost.

How would the game handle the biggest world that was available in Flash, the 600x400 one?
Just like any other world. There’s really no difference, from a server point of view. They can all handle it, it just gets loaded and processed. That will be supported initially.

So with our scalability with world maps, can I create an accurate, 1:1 replica of the alps with several thousand players?
You can. The information you get is from viewport-- you have four channels of connections. One is for changes, one is for large transfers, one is for chat, and one is for controls. You see the initial view port, then changes, and then from large transfers you get the entire world, and that’s all. From there, you just see changes. All the channels transmit information in parallel.

So if I join that world, will I be bombarded with several gigabytes of data?
The worlds are really small -- tell me a size.

Let’s say 100,000 by 100,000.
Okay, a hundred thousand by a hundred thousand. [He launches console.] Then it’ll be about 4.5gb for the entire world. So the browser puts a limit, and you’ll just see four times more than the viewport. And as you move, it just downloads what’s essential.

How about 600 by 400?
[He types.] About 250kb.

So the world sizes are more compact than Flash.
That’s right. They are compressed using GZ and RLE. The browser has a limit, so I know if I can upload the entire world, or if I have to divide it by 4x viewports.

What feature are you proudest of?
State server. It takes about three milliseconds from the initial connection request to being in the game room.

So the loading times when connecting to a world of any size is near instant?
The viewport takes nearly instantly to appear, depending on your connection latency.

The viewport renders first?
Yep. You’re already in the game when the viewport loads. From there it loads the world.

That's really neat. About that 100,000x100,000 world, there's anoooother question from a community member that might be prudent to know!! How would switches work in such a system? Or how about teleporting back and forth across that world? Well... I guess it's a bit too situational. How do action blocks and switches work? Given that we have viewports, how would teleporting interact with it?
Switches and other action blocks are treated very similar to the cellular automata, like the one in Conway's Game of Life. Action blocks give you the ability to create a Turing complete machine. Add a little pride flag in front of Turing.
When you teleport back and forth, you have two viewports. So what's your viewport? It's configured to be 50 blocks squared, plus a certain percentage. That's a few kilobytes. When you teleport to another end of the map, that original viewport is marked for garbage collection, and, after a set amount of time, it will be deleted. But if you go back and forth, and unless the two places changed substantially, you'll only be getting diff data.

Now even I’m excited for the technical aspects, and I don’t even get a thing about them. Let’s ask some stuff about you. What got you interested in coding?
[He is stuck in thought.] Intel 8008.

Why?
[Chuckles] Why? Predictability of finite state machine and code execution.

What is your proudest achievement so far?
It’s under NDA. [Laugh] I can’t. I really can’t.

Something that’s not under NDA? My reputation as a faux reporter is at stake here!
[He is in thought again for a minute.] Reverse engineering 3DO’s DSP.

And everything else is under NDA?
Most of it, yes. [He smiles and points to the sky.]

Okay, I lied. One more Everybody Edits! related question. Cumulatively, how many hours did you and the other programmers put in?
Around 600. Maybe more. I need to check.

So much for not doing anything these last four months. Anyways, thank you for your time! Glad we got to do this interview.
Any time. Just not too often.

This interview is mostly for those technical people among you!! As for the rest, like me, here's a little outline of future plans:

-> Replace the everybodyedits.com website with one that has a presentable and friendly design in the near future, which will include more information
-> Produce a few more interviews between the graphics artists, musicians, and PR team!
-> Some surprises...

tl;dr interesting interview, redesigned website in the near future, look forward to more news

Kthxbye!!!
Anna~

ILikeTofuuJoe wrote:

Anatoly wrote:

ILikeTofuuJoe wrote:

Awesome Algoodo wrote:

More like MASTER1 IS A BIG DUMB!
I do not dislike you, master1. I Hate you.
And anyone who says georges a big frick and dumb, get lost.

going crazy against a game staff might not be the best idea

No, why? We went crazy against Zoey and she’s no longer forum mod

Master1 is innocent Kira made a joke thread it's not like he did something extremely awful. Also Awesome Algodoo is clerly noob he doesn't even understand what a joke is

Nice way to kill the joke!

So recently me and my good friend Georges were chilling in Master1s level.

https://image.prntscr.com/image/V0BnVwg … IZuOKg.png

Life was quiet, everyone lived happily.

- Until this happened -

https://image.prntscr.com/image/OTg2DzM … emzPVQ.png

https://image.prntscr.com/image/FIrnbfP … U--clw.png

https://image.prntscr.com/image/MLSeBlV … 9NvfOg.png

https://image.prntscr.com/image/RVA0kgc … fr1tIw.png

https://image.prntscr.com/image/S3DH2ux … 3X3kwg.png

As you can clearly see on this following picture:

https://image.prntscr.com/image/DQJK5IP … 2GEEEw.png

It is total abuse. My friend Georges and I have known each other for years, if not centuries. One pathetic human by the name of Master1 is claiming he's going to entirely erase my friend, my soul friend. I'll get this straight, I don't want Georges to leave. So many memories, happy and sad moments into dust.

I'm not letting this happening. I need your help, YOU, the EE community can help me. Alone I am weak, but TOGETHER, WE, ARE, STRONG. WE can fight abuse and this is exactly what we are going to do.

1 Woot = Support

#HelpGeorges
#FightAbuse
#Geogesrights
#CondemnAbuse
#Master1Abuse

Georges thank you for your support and precious cooperation.

https://image.prntscr.com/image/tvyvmWf … aevVTA.png

https://image.prntscr.com/image/dtHxdOb … KgSFwA.png

UPDATE! THE EE COMMUNITY HAS GANGED UP TOGETHER TO FIGHT INJUSTICE!