Why so slow?

[Woodruff]

Why does it take so long to load the map? I'm confused by this, as it seems to me that it should be a very simple data load. I've not seen this length of time being necessary on several other similar sites.

 

[Evan]

Why does it take so long to load the map? I'm confused by this, as it seems to me that it should be a very simple data load. I've not seen this length of time being necessary on several other similar sites.

Tell me which other sites, and I will point out why there's is fast.

Having said that, there is no doubt that we have some work to do to optimize load times.

 

[Tree-of-Souls]

Tell me which other sites, and I will point out why there's is fast.

Having said that, there is no doubt that we have some work to do to optimize load times.

The load time is slightly annoying at times, but once it's loaded then everything is extremely quick which definitely makes up for it.

 

[edsdad]

I usually do other things while the games load (check mail,calender)Watching the games load is like waiting for a pot of water to boil,if you do something in the meantime seems to go quicker.

 

[ORBOTRON]

the games only take 5-15 seconds to load for me, there might be something going wrong if it's taking a long time for you guys. Are you on dial-up or something?

 

[warneke]

The only thing that seems to run slow for me is the reinforcement on the largest world map, but that seems to be a known issue. The games themselves load faster for me than any games on facebook, msn or yahoo. Remember back when you had to wait 5 mins for applets on yahoo to load so you could play Spades?

Either you need to figure out how to wait 10 seconds once in a while or you need to ask your computer what else it is thinking about because it is plotting against your ability to enjoy the internet.

 

[Woodruff]

No. I've been trying to avoid what might be perceived as advertising other sites, however for instance ConquerClub takes no time to load - I presume because it's web-based, though I don't know. The map comes up instantaneously. no loading time at all.

And no, the problem definitely isn't my computer or it's connection and while you may think it's no problem to wait while the map loads, I tend to play in the 50s and 60s of games at a time (on other sites, once I've decided the site is worth upgrading to premium). Those wait times add up in an extreme way. And no, I'm frankly not really interested in wasting all of that time.

 

[Evan]

I've been trying to avoid what might be perceived as advertising other sites, however for instance ConquerClub takes no time to load - I presume because it's web-based, though I don't know. The map comes up instantaneously. no loading time at all.

I (nor is MC as a whole) am not threatened be mentions of other sites, so don't sweat it. We're not gonna lock the thread and ban you, like they would on other similar sites.

So, you said "several other similar sites". I am happy to tell you "why" (which is what you asked), on a case-by-case basis, they are faster to load.

You have given one example. And so I will answer your question based on this one example:

Why are the games slower to load at MC than at konk? (note that this is based on no extra enhancements such as BOB or clicky's, as I've used neither)
1) MC's maps are vastly superior
2) MC uses a graphic for each individual region (territory), allowing for some enhanced game-play features
3) MC uses a dynamic rule engine for game processing, which has many technical advantages beyond scope of this convo
4) MC updates in real-time, even if just watching another person take his turns
5) The client you all use to play MC is flash-based, which is slow at some of the things we do (#6 might help). Other clients are planned.
6) MC is still in beta and needs to be optimized in some areas
7) MC maps are interactive

 

[Badorties]

Indeed more awesome = more load time. Under current conditions maybe 50-60 games is not a good fit for MC, however as Evan said, we have ways to go in optimizing load times.

Also, eventually Moores Law should take care of your load times... but it sure as hell won't introduce more awesome into anything.

 

[mark]

The only time I have load problems is when running in ChromeOS. Otherwise the maps load within 5-15 seconds and the actions occur almost instantenously.

But in ChromeOS the browser crashes A LOT when moving between actions. Not MCs problem....just something I've noticed about that OS.

 

[Woodruff]

I (nor is MC as a whole) am not threatened be mentions of other sites, so don't sweat it. We're not gonna lock the thread and ban you, like they would on other similar sites.

I didn't honestly think anyone would lock the thread or ban me for mentioning another site. Quite frankly, it simply seems disrespectful in my view to use a site and at the same time, advertise for another site.

Why are the games slower to load at MC than at konk? (note that this is based on no extra enhancements such as BOB or clicky's, as I've used neither)
1) MC's maps are vastly superior

Not in my personal opinion. I don't mean that to sound disparaging...your maps are quite nice. They compare, but not in any way would I consider them to be "vastly superior". Nor do I understand why a nicer-looking map would equate to slower load-times.

2) MC uses a graphic for each individual region (territory), allowing for some enhanced game-play features

I presume this refers to the ability to click on the individual territories when deploying, attacking, and so forth...so if I'm wrong about that, please clue me in. If that is the case, then ConquerClub uses the same thing with their "clickies" and yet a similar lengthy load-time does not exist.

3) MC uses a dynamic rule engine for game processing, which has many technical advantages beyond scope of this convo

As a computer programmer (though not at all flash-oriented...give me assembly or give me death), I'm interested. Please...explain.

4) MC updates in real-time, even if just watching another person take his turns

This is nice, and I'm sure certain players love it for their game-types, but not worth the load-time for me personally. I don't care for real-time games, though by that I am referring to "everyone playing at the same time"...I like sequential play, personally. So that doesn't really add much for me.

5) The client you all use to play MC is flash-based, which is slow at some of the things we do (#6 might help). Other clients are planned.

Fair enough. I'm pretty ignorant of the flash-driven thing, but I'm certainly willing to be patient if other possibilities will be in the offing eventually (though I may whine from time to time while I'm...ahem..."being patient". <smile>

6) MC is still in beta and needs to be optimized in some areas

Of course. And this is no problem for me at all.

7) MC maps are interactive

Maybe I misunderstood #2 above (or maybe this ties in directly with it). So see my response to #2 here also.

Please don't take my statements the wrong way. I do think your site is very nice, and I am absolutely willing to be patient for a beta-site that is working on things. As some of my fellow Conquer-ites will tell you, I'm rather...uh...opinionated and not afraid to speak up. That's a plus for a beta-site, in my view...but it's also a pain in the ass for a beta-site. <laughing> And in the end, as with all users, I will make my decision of go-stay based on what the site does for ME (me, me, me...) while the site will (and should) make their implementation decisions based on what the majority of their users want. I'll still yell about ME though.

Indeed more awesome = more load time. Under current conditions maybe 50-60 games is not a good fit for MC

I do honestly hate to hear that. I rather enjoy tending toward a high-volume. My main draw in coming here was because of the relationship I've developed with some of your users on that other site and wanted to continue it (I've sadly decided that the management of that site no longer warranted my money or my time in developing tournaments).

Also, eventually Moores Law should take care of your load times... but it sure as hell won't introduce more awesome into anything.

I suppose. But my complaints are really in relation to other sites (ConquerClub simply being the one I'm most familiar with), rather than "actual speed". In other words, if everyone was slow, I suppose I wouldn't complain. Because I wouldn't know how quick it could be.

 

[Tree-of-Souls]

Not in my personal opinion. I don't mean that to sound disparaging...your maps are quite nice. They compare, but not in any way would I consider them to be "vastly superior". Nor do I understand why a nicer-looking map would equate to slower load-times.

That's not what he's saying... You're taking his wording of "vastly superior" and simplifying it into terms of graphics ONLY. I've seen a couple of maps to come and I can tell you that they are both graphically excellent, but the game-play is also diverse and more complex than most of the maps on CC. I think Evan is also considering the potential of the game engine and maps to come.

I presume this refers to the ability to click on the individual territories when deploying, attacking, and so forth...so if I'm wrong about that, please clue me in. If that is the case, then ConquerClub uses the same thing with their "clickies" and yet a similar lengthy load-time does not exist.

When you select the regions here, the whole territory graphic is shown in a selection and its borders are also highlighted. CC does not have this. Also, you've taken this point and singled it out with the last sentence in a way which implies that this is a major contributor to the 10 second load time - I don't know if this is true or not and neither do you. I know it's kind of picky to comment on the phrasing of a sentence... but I'm just going off your implications.

This is nice, and I'm sure certain players love it for their game-types, but not worth the load-time for me personally. I don't care for real-time games, though by that I am referring to "everyone playing at the same time"...I like sequential play, personally. So that doesn't really add much for me.

Good point - perhaps there could be an option in-game or in our personal game settings to turn off the real time updates if it is non-essential and if it'd help load times?

I do honestly hate to hear that. I rather enjoy tending toward a high-volume.

Definitely a draw for me. Although for some reason, on this website I feel more comfortable playing a smaller amount of games and take my decisions more strategically. I'm really pleased with this website so far in terms of excellent game-play, maps available, capacity to have more awesome maps than ever, and of course the small but balanced and growing community

 

[Restrepo]

Ive played on CC and may I say that in comparisson to this, that site looks like drawings in a cave. I was little uncertain at first but I realised that I would take better quality before effective any day, it's different for different people, plus this site totally obliterates their "if it ain't broke don't fix it" vibe they've got going on.

 

[Badorties]

Ive played on CC and may I say that in comparisson to this, that site looks like drawings in a cave. I was little uncertain at first but I realised that I would take better quality before effective any day, it's different for different people, plus this site totally obliterates their "if it ain't broke don't fix it" vibe they've got going on.

Thanks. I can say with confidence that we accomplish in a month what conk can dribble out in a year.

 

[Tree-of-Souls]

Thanks. I can say with confidence that we accomplish in a month what conk can dribble out in a year.

took em five years to implement clickable maps. I think your post is very modest...

 

[Woodruff]

This quoting system...it doesn't retain the previous quotes, only the most recent? Egad. Anyway...

That's not what he's saying... You're taking his wording of "vastly superior" and simplifying it into terms of graphics ONLY. I've seen a couple of maps to come and I can tell you that they are both graphically excellent, but the game-play is also diverse and more complex than most of the maps on CC. I think Evan is also considering the potential of the game engine and maps to come.

Well, obviously I can't speak to "maps to come" since I can't access them. As well, I definitely don't agree that the gameplay on the maps I currently see is more diverse than those on ConquerClub...in fact, I would say it's "vastly superior" in that regard in the OPPOSITE direction...again, not speaking of maps that are in the works.

When you select the regions here, the whole territory graphic is shown in a selection and its borders are also highlighted. CC does not have this. Also, you've taken this point and singled it out with the last sentence in a way which implies that this is a major contributor to the 10 second load time - I don't know if this is true or not and neither do you. I know it's kind of picky to comment on the phrasing of a sentence... but I'm just going off your implications.

I'm not the one that made the implication, actually...it was posited as one of the reasons for the delay by someone else (Evan, if I recall correctly). I simply responded to that implication by him as it stood. As to the ability to have the whole territory highlight...<shrug>...personally, that's not particularly useful unless the territory sizes are incredibly small (making selecting them more difficult).

Good point - perhaps there could be an option in-game or in our personal game settings to turn off the real time updates if it is non-essential and if it'd help load times?

Good idea - I'll suggest it. Don't know how workable it might be, of course.

Definitely a draw for me. Although for some reason, on this website I feel more comfortable playing a smaller amount of games and take my decisions more strategically. I'm really pleased with this website so far in terms of excellent game-play, maps available, capacity to have more awesome maps than ever, and of course the small but balanced and growing community

You've hit on one of the frustrating things about this site for me (off-topic though)...the small community. However, I do recognize that it's a brand new site, so I have no problem at all biding my time for the growth in that regard. But I do so like to yap, and not being able to display my vast incredible intelligence (some would substitute "arrogance" <smile>) does get on my nerves.

Ive played on CC and may I say that in comparisson to this, that site looks like drawings in a cave.

Honestly, I find this a stunning statement. Certainly, CC has some maps that are of an exceptionally low quality, no argument. But they also have some absolutely gorgeous maps.

I was little uncertain at first but I realised that I would take better quality before effective any day, it's different for different people, plus this site totally obliterates their "if it ain't broke don't fix it" vibe they've got going on.

Certainly, they are excessively slow with updates...no argument on that front, and something that I voiced my opinion on many times.

Thanks. I can say with confidence that we accomplish in a month what conk can dribble out in a year.

While true...being a very new site, I would expect that as opposed to a very established site. Not to excuse them at all (because it was a big frustration for me there), but that does sort of go with the territory. They also have to concern themselves with keeping a larger userbase satisfied with the site as opposed to the smaller base you have here (meaning changes can be made with a smaller number of users desiring it).

took em five years to implement clickable maps. I think your post is very modest...

Yes and no. It took them that long to implement it as an actual part of the site...however, a large part of that delay was because it had already been implmented as an add-on to the site. Surely you can see why it would have a lower priority of implementation in such a scenario.

 

[Evan]

Hey guys this doesn't need to be a ridiculous argument. I am not offended at all. And if anyone would be, it would be me.

Woodruff, please don't take my replies as defensive at all. I am frustrated with load times and I want them to be faster. period. I am not offended at all and do not mind your speaking up.

With regard to CC Clickies, I am GUESSING that you have to click on the troop container, and not anywhere in the territory. Is that correct? please let me know as it will help me explain why ours would take time vs. theirs and also some of the other questions you asked.

As far as our dynamic engine, and this is getting off on a technical tangent so forgive me everyone who isn't a programmer:
The architecture we use is such that it is blatantly unaware of what it is doing. It does not inherently know anything about strategy gaming or how to play the game of Major Command. What it does know how to do, is construct a model of players who are a part of a generic game. It then knows how to pass that model off to a rule-engine who may or may not operate on that model before spitting it back. The rule-engine is basically a plugin system that allows a game, based on map setup and user choices, to run. Each plugin handles some function of the game.

The passing around and operations on the model itself is not the fastest thing in the world. But it isn't only that itself, it is some of the things we did to elegantly achieve that solution. namely:
fully-relational database with row-level locking and strict referential integrity
using static classes and dynamically instantiated classes (both for the implementation factory pattern) (these are slow in PHP).

Another factor in our speed in general that I didn't mention, because a non-programmer wouldn't get it (hell, most programmers wouldn't get it , is that we also do application level locking to prevent data corruption due to asynchronous processing. But the affect of this is probably not that big.

So, all of this stuff together adds up to affect game load time. There are other factors too. at the end of the day though we just need to optimize.

My personal development style is such that I always focus on clean design maintainability first and speed-optimization second (the two often do not go hand-in-hand).

NOTE: i did not read every single reply above as I don't have time so forgive me if this was answered already.

 

[Woodruff]

With regard to CC Clickies, I am GUESSING that you have to click on the troop container, and not anywhere in the territory. Is that correct? please let me know as it will help me explain why ours would take time vs. theirs and also some of the other questions you asked.

No, it's not necessary to click on the "troop container" (which actually isn't a clickable item as far as I am aware).

As far as our dynamic engine, and this is getting off on a technical tangent so forgive me everyone who isn't a programmer:
The architecture we use is such that it is blatantly unaware of what it is doing. It does not inherently know anything about strategy gaming or how to play the game of Major Command. What it does know how to do, is construct a model of players who are a part of a generic game. It then knows how to pass that model off to a rule-engine who may or may not operate on that model before spitting it back. The rule-engine is basically a plugin system that allows a game, based on map setup and user choices, to run. Each plugin handles some function of the game.

The passing around and operations on the model itself is not the fastest thing in the world. But it isn't only that itself, it is some of the things we did to elegantly achieve that solution. namely:
fully-relational database with row-level locking and strict referential integrity
using static classes and dynamically instantiated classes (both for the implementation factory pattern) (these are slow in PHP).

Another factor in our speed in general that I didn't mention, because a non-programmer wouldn't get it (hell, most programmers wouldn't get it , is that we also do application level locking to prevent data corruption due to asynchronous processing. But the affect of this is probably not that big.

So, all of this stuff together adds up to affect game load time. There are other factors too. at the end of the day though we just need to optimize.

My personal development style is such that I always focus on clean design maintainability first and speed-optimization second (the two often do not go hand-in-hand).

NOTE: i did not read every single reply above as I don't have time so forgive me if this was answered already.

Good stuff there (of the stuff I had time to look into). For what it's worth, I absolutely agree with you that design maintenance capability comes before speed optimization. If you can't maintain your site, it doesn't matter if it's fast.

I also agree that application-level locking is very important, as I understand the concept (remember, I come from an old-school background of assembly programming, so I had to do some research on it).

I can see why you've set up your architecture in that fashion, and I don't see a problem with that per se. I presume that it's set up in a compartmentalized fashion so that variables are passed off between modules without concern for "where they're going" and brought back into the module "regardless of what happened to them". That makes things much easier to maintain and update, though it can potentially add a bit of bloat.

I haven't had much opportunity to look into the rest of it yet.

 

[Evan]

I admit I am pretty surprised to hear that you do not need to click on the troop container. I will checkout what/how they're doing what they're doing and report back. Actually, I might be lying. I might not find the time. But if I do, I will def. report back here as to why.

 

[Evan]

I read some of the back-and-forth above:

The fact that we highlight different colors upon hover/click absolutely has a big impact on this entire conversation. It is what I was referring to in one of my original replies about being "interactive" (#6 on my list iirc).

And what you guys do not know, is that they do not necessarily just highlight. As you will learn with upcoming maps, the map maker has some control over what happens when a region is hovered/clicked. And, without getting into too much more detail, we use (compressed) bitmap data for a lot of that, which is often not tiny in terms of data load.