in this week's developer update we want to talk about the progress we made last week and what you can expect this week.
Last week Dec 5th - Dec 11th
Our team focussed on implementing and testing the client update, which concentrates on matchmaking. The clients will get more time to process matchmaking requests and therefore they should be more reliable. We tested the changes on all the platforms we offer Catan Universe on. We also added multiple fixes to the backend that are also focused on matchmaking itself.
Our team also started to work on improvements for the matches themselves. We saw them being slow, unresponsive, and overall lacking performance causing to often display a “reconnecting” message.
This week Dec 12th - Dec 18th
The builds for the clients have been submitted to the stores but unfortunately, the GooglePlay Store hasn´t approved the version yet.
In our effort to make a noticeable change for all of our Catanians, we will have to wait until the CU client was approved by Google before moving forward with the release. We will let you know once the clients are ready to download.
Our team on the other hand finished their work on the backend improvements for the matches we mentioned above. These changes will be published today on Dec13th. We will monitor the changes closely throughout the rest of the week.
Please note that when we publish these backend changes your running match might restart.
here is the most recent developer update on the tasks we tackled last week and what we are doing this week.
Nov 28th to Dec 4th
Last week we focussed on providing further fixes to the cloud code in preparation for the client update we are working on this week.
We focused on the matchmaking as well as schedulers for the online games. We resolved an issue which caused the matchmaker to completely fail after it encountered an issue. It will now restart if it should encounter an issue. We also moved some part of the matchmaking systems into the cloud code and out of the clients to make them run more efficiently in the future. This change will come into full effect once we released the client update next week. Our team had been able to finish it work on the client last week allowing us to test it this week.
You might have noticed that the map error pop up disappeared. This was the matchmaking failing and not recovering properly.
We also investigated the MacOS graphical issues. So far we haven´t been able to pinpoint down what it causing it but we will keep on working on it.
Our team also worked on resolving rarely occurring migration issues. We have been able to introduce 2 more fixes for those.
If you haven´t been able to migrate yet, please try again now.
Dec 5th to Dec 11th
This week we are focussing on 3 main tasks.
Testing the Client update, further optimizing the cloud code where it is possible and resolving the Mac OS graphical issue.
As mentioned above, the client update will focus on making the matchmaking much more robust. The changes we will introduce to the client, will result in longer waiting times for you. But we are confident, that our Catanians rather wait a little longer in a loading screen than not being able to play multiplayer at all.
Yesterday we introduced multiple smaller updates to the cloud code with extensive logging to narrow down further areas for improving our queries.
It is our goal to make the game enjoyable again for you with the client updates on Dec 13th. But this won´t be the end of the journey. We are fully committed to improve on Catan Universe beyond that and we do have plans for that already.
We want to inform you about some changes in the way we will communicate with you about what we are working on. We saw that our daily updates on Discord did not have the intended effect of you feeling well-informed. Presenting you with smaller pieces of info and letting you know about every fix (as little as it might have been) did lead to more frustration than it did any good.
We will now try our best to paint a bigger picture in our announcements and let you know on a weekly bases, what we are working on and how last week's changes affect this week's work, and the situation in the multiplayer. This will allow you to get all the info you need in just one weekly post.
We will post every Tuesday.
Last Week 21st - 27th Nov:
We worked on further changes to our cloud code to make it more stable. Our team has thoroughly analyzed the release from last Thursday to plan this week's tasks.
Unfortunately, we saw issues with the introduced changes which subsequently did lead to a roll-back on Friday. We fixed those issues in the last days and prepared a release for this week.
This Week 28th Nov - 4th Dec :
Our team will update the servers again with the fixed changes from last week. We have one release on the servers planned for Tuesday 29th and another one for Wednesday the 30th. Both of those changes are in preparation for a client update we started to work on. All these changes are focussing on the matchmaking process which is still causing most of the issues in the game.
We will also tackle the known graphical issue with Macs using M1 (or newer chips).
We are planning to release this client update in the week of Dec 12th. More on that in next week's announcement.
Our team is committed to improving the current situation with online multiplayer. We thank you very much for your patience.
we just released a fix that should make custom matches way more reliable to initiate properly. Please note that this might also have an effect on the overall performance of the servers since this process turned out to be very ineffective.
As a next step, we will tackle the Automatch matchmaking process which was heavily affected by the bad performance as well. With our systems less stressed, we should be able to get a clearer picture on what to tackle there. A few things we already have analyzed and working on solutions for. Most prominently the issues with the Error message about the map.
We also have been able to whitelist our automated emails with yahoo as well as t.online. For t.online it might take another 24 hours for the whitelisting to actually take effect but after that, you can reset your password via the password forgot option on the login screen and then log in. Please note that your new password needs to be 8 characters long. The same goes of course for yahoo users.
All existing accounts will be moved to our new server structure upon login. If you have a non-registered account click on "Play without login" to log in and migrate.
Please note that your friends list and your guild may appear empty after your account has moved. However, as soon as your friends and guild members have also moved, they will be automatically added to your list and guild.
our team pushed hard for a release today but unfortunately, we have to delay the release of the client until tomorrow Nov 4th.
We want to give you some info about what was happening in the past few days and where we are right now:
On Monday night the servers of our old provider went offline and they started to back up the user database.
We received a compressed form of this backup on Tuesday which we had to download and unpack. This step alone (creating the backup, downloading, and unpacking it) took more than 24 hours due to the millions of accounts we have in Catan Universe. We knew before this will take as long as it did because we tested it already a few times.
On Wednesday we started prepping the database we received to allow for the migration to our new server and backend provider. This is an automated process that unfortunately is taking way longer than we anticipated and tested.
The preparation of the database for the migration is a crucial step to make sure the actual migration of your accounts works as intended.
Since we are running out of time today to orderly release one platform after the other, we made the decision to postpone those releases until tomorrow. This will allow us to monitor the migration throughout the day. Please keep in mind that we are working in the CET timezone so for you this might be during the night or in the early morning. But as we stated before, all you need to do is download the new client once it's available. Everything else will be explained in the game.
We are truly sorry about the delays but we do not see any point in rushing into a release of the game clients if the database is not ready yet and especially if at some point our team wouldn´t be available to monitor the process due to it getting too late in the day.
Due to the planned migration to our new backend and server provider, Catan Universe will be offline from November 1st to November 3rd. This means that you will not be able to play.
Our team will use this time to prepare everything so that you can migrate your account on November 3rd with the 2.2.10 update.
Please inform other members of the community if they may not have seen this message.
as many of you have already noticed, there were problems with the 2.2.10 release. This update is to migrate all your user accounts to a new infrastructure, as the old one will unfortunately be shut down. More about this in the previous update news.
During our tests on the current infrastructure, we found out that we have to keep the servers offline much longer than planned. This is the only way we can ensure that your purchases, friend lists, guilds, and most importantly your ELO, etc. will move with you.
We will therefore now follow our Plan B.
On Monday 31st Oct the servers will be shut down at midnight [CET]. This means that from the 1st of November it will not be possible to play anymore. The servers will remain offline until November 3rd. This gives us enough time to save your data and prepare for the migration. On November 3, during the course of the day, each platform will receive updates that will allow you to access the new servers and migrate your accounts.
So please note that you won't be able to play on November 1 and 2. You will be able to play again during the 3rd of November.
We apologize for this circumstance and we hope for your understanding.
servers will go into maintenance mode today (OCT 26th) at 11 am [CEST]. Please note that you won't be able to play during the maintenance. It is our goal to release update 2.2.10 and with it allow you to migrate to our new servers. We will let you know about the latest developments here.
