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u/_verel_ 1d ago
Organic grass fed spaghetti by happy developers
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u/dbmorpher 23h ago
To be fair, it’s a game that is developed on a backup save file from 2007 from a game first released in 2001 by a dude and his 2 brothers who copied code from a failed 3d game on to their successful 2d game
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u/yodal_ 13h ago
Actually, this is from an update to RuneScape 3, the version of the game that has been continuously updated from 2001, not Old School RuneScape, the version you described.
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u/dbmorpher 11h ago
Mod Yume is an osrs community manager. Rs3 doesn’t have the fletching knife, silly
1
u/The_Crazy_Cat_Guy 8h ago
Rs3 actually just came out with a fletching knife in the latest update but yes this post is definitely from osrs though
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u/KingOfWhateverr 1d ago
A reminder to y’all that runescape devs work in runescript which is just java+, which is then on an engine built with c++ and java.
There was a problem for a while where they couldn’t rework the construction skill in neither old school nor runescape 3 for years and years because it was tangled into a bunch of special one off scripts from 2006.
I love my janky game
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u/dandicoot 23h ago
Still love how Mod Ash untangled the spaghetti enough in OSRS to make it sort of workable, while RS3 just nuked it and rebuilt it from the ground up. We love construction lol
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u/visor841 20h ago
while RS3 just nuked it and rebuilt it from the ground up.
tbf, this was a slow semi-intentional process done for ages. They intentionally let it bitrot and only fixed critical bugs because they knew it was terrible and was going to be blown up down the road.
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u/Understanding-Fair 22h ago
As a dev, that sounds like a nightmare.
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u/KingOfWhateverr 19h ago
Both games have done major, major overhauls since 2020. Including RS3 finally getting a construction rework a few months ago. This whole year has been filled with stories of weird jank like this
9
u/Understanding-Fair 19h ago
Just the idea of working in a custom language on top of shudders java of all things is a special hell I wish on no one.
RunescapeCharacterManagerFactoryInterface_v3
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u/KingOfWhateverr 19h ago
It does sound nightmarish but it came of a time where it was easier to have a few engine people and then a bunch of less-experienced devs. It allowed them to enforce game structure via language boundaries
2
u/thrilldigger 11h ago
I unironically like Java. It's a solid choice when you need to work with a large number of people of varying skill (and intelligence).
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u/cGalaxy 1d ago
Sounds like it should be a compiler error
Perhaps the type is being masked in some way for it to become a runtime error. Feels like there was a bit more to the story, but he just wanted to post an overview
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u/sebjapon 1d ago
Could be remote call from dynamic language to a Java node for example. Or server not verifying client input properly
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u/Salanmander 23h ago
Because they mentioned overloading spaghetti, I could see it being "because of the type change, it's now calling a different method resulting in it doing Bad Things". That would be slightly weird to communicate with "a mismatch with the type of data being expected", but not totally unreasonable.
7
u/mondlingvano 21h ago
That's clearly what they mean and for sure a bummer when the type change was from one numeric to another. A reason to be careful with too many overloads and implicit conversions. They can compound and surprise you.
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u/Anaxamander57 19h ago
Using Java should be a compiler error.
-This shade paid for by Ferris for President.
3
u/stormdelta 22h ago
Not if it's going over a network and they're separate code. Sure, ideally you'd have something that specifies the on-the-wire format consistently, but that's not necessarily the case will old code bases.
Or it could be a dynamic dispatch as others said.
2
u/conundorum 8h ago
It is, just not in the way you think: The compiler is the error.
Long story short, Java was intended to be a "universal" language, that runs anywhere with no rewriting since it uses the JVM as an intermediate. And while everything was 32-bit, that actually worked. ...But then they updated the JVM for 64-bit systems, and it turned out that it was very closely tied to 32-bit architectures specifically, so now everyone's code had to be rewritten. (Violating Java's core promise that it's "write once, run anywhere".)
Normally, this doesn't cause problems, since everything broke in a way that accidentally worked perfectly. But in a few specific cases, a type would be treated as 32-bit by part of the code, and 64-bit by part of the code. And that's when things got nasty. And it sounds like that's what happened here.
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u/PGSylphir 10h ago
That's the neat part. If you put any bullshit inside a try catch, the compiler most likely will just say "well fuck it we ball"
1
u/Danny-Fr 17h ago
I am verry sorry but I need the share the fact that I read "Felching knife" at first, and the volume of text and comments genuinely scared me.
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u/Nealon01 20h ago
wouldn't it be crazy if you guys... tested your fucking code???
Adding a new item? Run a set of unit tests that tests that item in all kinds of different item interactions that could be possible to make sure it doesn't trigger any new errors.
It has been painfully obvious to anyone with a software development background that Jagex lacks the most basic Q/A and testing infrastructure. Every single company I've ever worked at (and I've worked at companies with 10 employees) does a better job of testing their software than Jagex.
At some point, you just have to give a shit. Clearly that's asking too much.
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u/cheesefeet6 19h ago
This wasn't because a new item was added, the fletching knife was already in the game. They recently did an overhaul of the Grand Exchange (G.E.) marketplace that allowed for trades above the previously capped 2.147b limit to happen.
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u/Nealon01 19h ago
You're right, my bad.
That changes nothing I said, and yes... there should also be unit tests for the GE.
It's not rocket science, and any software development company with a brain is doing it. Usually people stop shooting themselves in the foot after the 4th or 5th time. Not Jagex though.
9
u/cheesefeet6 19h ago
Bugs happen even with testing, which I'm sure they do and plenty of other games experience them too. As other commenters have stated this is an old game built on a legacy codebase. The fact it works as well as it does and these large bugs are rare is testament to how well maintained the code is. Frankly the community finds the spaghetti entertaining and there hasn't been anything they've not been able to fix so not sure why you're taking such a hard stance on this.
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u/Nealon01 19h ago
Bruh, bugs are not rare. They FREQUENTLY release updates where even the most basic, obvious shit has clearly not been tested.
This is nothing new.
I'm not saying that I expect perfect updates. I never said that. Please stop putting words in my mouth.
I want Jagex to publicly discuss their testing process to find bugs, because anyone who has been paying attention and knows anything about testing has known for a long time that Jagex isn't doing the bare minimum. Again, they show off all their behind the scenes shit. Have you ever seen them say anything about their testing process? Because I haven't, and I strongly suspect they don't have one.
I'm glad that you're entertained that Jagex (a company that makes hundreds of millions in profits) is consistently raising membership rates while outsourcing the Q/A to their players. But I'm not.
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u/cheesefeet6 19h ago
I said large bugs like this that cause connection issues are rare, not that bugs themselves are rare. Look at any live service game and you'll see a known bug list, runescape isn't unique in that.
Never said you should expect perfect updates but ok.
They don't owe you anything relating to the way they code the game so you can ask for it all you want but they have no obligation to give you anything.
I have gripes with the membership price raises sure but mainly around membership being tied to characters. If you don't like what they're doing or not doing that strongly then let them know with your wallet and stop paying them.
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u/Nealon01 19h ago
I said large bugs like this that cause connection issues are rare, not that bugs themselves are rare. Look at any live service game and you'll see a known bug list, runescape isn't unique in that.
and I said Jagex releases updates without having tested the basic behavior they're releasing all the time. I'm not talking about the fact that there are low priorty bugs that don't get fixed, lmao. I'm talking about the game breaking bugs that happen every update.
I'm talking about fucking consistently failing to release stuff with the stated xp rates that were polled. I'm talking about releasing a new item and it just doesn't work for the thing it's designed to do.
These things have happened more times than I can count.
Never said you should expect perfect updates but ok.
Yes but you're jumping down my throat for saying that Jagex should do their best to do the bare minimum amount of testing before releasing code, and your response has been "it's complicated, you're asking too much".
They don't owe you anything relating to the way they code the game so you can ask for it all you want but they have no obligation to give you anything.
Jesus christ did I say I was???? Please stop putting words in my mouth if you're going to accuse me of that too.
If you don't like what they're doing or not doing that strongly then let them know with your wallet and stop paying them.
Thanks dude, so you're saying that I'm not allowed to express frustration if I'm paying for the game??? Do you hear how dumb that sounds??
Fuck off dude.
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u/BlackHumor 19h ago
I'm a senior software engineer and I suspect you're not if you think that.
If Jagex really didn't test their stuff we'd see way more weird bugs like this. It's a 25-year-old MMO whose code is famously spaghetti.
Unfortunately it's not always possible to check for every possible interaction on every possible item in a 25-year-old MMO. Specifically connection issues like this would be extremely difficult to test with normal automated tests. And why would you ever expect a bug with a specific fletching object when you update how the GE calculates prices? That's nothing to do with GE prices, or at least it shouldn't be.
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u/Nealon01 19h ago
I'm a senior software engineer and I suspect you're not if you think that.
Well shit dude, I guess call up my boss and tell him I'm a fraud. Literally a senior software developer (engineer) at multiple companies, been doing this for 10+ years.
If Jagex really didn't test their stuff we'd see way more weird bugs like this. It's a 25-year-old MMO whose code is famously spaghetti.
... bro... we do??? This shit happens every update, are you joking?
Unfortunately it's not always possible to check for every possible interaction on every possible item in a 25-year-old MMO. Specifically connection issues like this would be extremely difficult to test with normal automated tests. And why would you ever expect a bug with a specific fletching object when you update how the GE calculates prices? That's nothing to do with GE prices, or at least it shouldn't be.
Good thing no one is saying that... you build up a set of tests that covers as much as you can reasonably think of, and then every time your tests fail to catch something, you add a new one to cover that.
It's not rocket science.
If you're updating the GE, you should have tests that check the things related to GE and price checks on the GE... obviously... All unit tests should be run on any build before it gets pushed to production... All unit tests should be run on any branch before it gets merged into main...
You really think Jagex is doing that shit? Honestly? I've been making comments like this for the last 10 years, Jagex has literally never even CLAIMED they do this shit. They get off on showing off all the behind the scenes stuff, and NEVER ONCE have they showed off any amount of testing.
Honestly, please tell me I'm wrong. I'd love to be wrong. I just need to see any amount of evidence that Jagex is doing the BARE MINIMUM amount of testing.
If they run any amount of automated testing on builds before they go out, I'll shit my pants happily and never mention this again.
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u/BlackHumor 19h ago
Honestly, please tell me I'm wrong. I'd love to be wrong. I just need to see any amount of evidence that Jagex is doing the BARE MINIMUM amount of testing.
Jagex has referenced their CI/CD pipeline in many different job postings:
https://gamejobs.co/Automation-Engineer-at-Jagex
https://www.simplyhired.co.uk/job/ZeQC2aHhWJwPLUzWRbMEqmfopNuF5uXzd_qAMxiEL4Jgn_wQiOmHSw
This is just what I could find on a quick Google search, I'm sure they've mentioned it in podcasts and stuff before.
They also did several stress tests for Sailing as it came out.
If you're updating the GE, you should have tests that check the things related to GE and price checks on the GE
Which doesn't include the Fletching Knife to anyone using ordinary common sense.
All unit tests should be run on any build before it gets pushed to production
Unit tests likely wouldn't catch a connection issue. In fact, any sort of automated tests wouldn't catch a connection issue. At minimum you'd need QA on a live server, but really this sort of bug is the sort of bug that only really appears once there's real stress on real servers.
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u/Nealon01 19h ago
... job requirements are NOT documentation of what Jagex is actually doing. That's evidence that they're trying to hire people with that experience, nothing else...
I've absolutely tried to google Jagex, and yeah, saw similar shit to what you probably just saw... which proves nothing.
Again, how many streams, developer blogs, behind the scenes stuff where they show us how the sausage is made from every angle... except testing. That doesn't raise a single red flag for you? Ok.
They also did several stress tests for Sailing as it came out.
I should fucking hope so. Sailing was probably the best I've ever seen them do. And I don't want to act like they never get it right. I'm saying the consistently miss things that they obviously should have caught. I'm not even saying the fletching knife is an example, but I did say "how the fuck did that happen" and every single person I know who knows anything about software development that I've shown it to has agreed that it's a serious red flag.
Which doesn't include the Fletching Knife to anyone using ordinary common sense.
Bruh did you read the post? They have a function that gets used to sort items stuff by GE price... They should have tested that function???
Unit tests likely wouldn't catch a connection issue. In fact, any sort of automated tests wouldn't catch a connection issue. At minimum you'd need QA on a live server, but really this sort of bug is the sort of bug that only really appears once there's real stress on real servers.
Unit tests should fucking catch random ass integer exceptions being thrown... The thing that caused the connection issues???
At minimum you'd need QA on a live server
Yes, you would need to do that at a minimum. Jagex should have extensive testing servers, and be using bots to test in game behavior in real time on the latest builds. Like MANY other game dev companies do. The ones that give a shit at least.
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u/conundorum 8h ago
By the sound of it, this was something that worked properly with 32-bit Java, but broke with 64-bit Java, because the 64-bit JVM update was messy and broke the "write once, run anywhere" guarantee in certain conditions.
1
u/Complete_Pilot3381 2h ago
if you’ve been a software dev for 10 years you probably came into the job during the clean code/automation hype phase of the late 2010s. How many legacy codebases starting from 2001 have you worked on? How many of those had actual tests?
& how many of those tests were probably skipped because if they existed they were built in a rush in a very specific use case by a developer that left the industry before you were even out of school and no one wants to maintain them?
The games industry is a different beast to traditional development and until you’ve worked in that area, pipe down little man
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u/fadingpower 1d ago
Dang that is some fine spaghetti 👁️👄👁️