[翻譯] 兩個人做一個多人連線遊戲，Growtopia 的開發經驗
原文：
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/SethRobinson/20130619/194666/Two_guys_made_an_MMO_The_Growtopia_Postmortem.php
翻譯網誌：https://wp.me/pBAPd-Au
遊戲安卓商城：
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rtsoft.growtopia
遊戲蘋果商城：
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/growtopia/id590495115?mt=8
譯案：Growtopia 是我目前負責維護的遊戲．這個遊戲僅僅開發了五到六個月就上市，而
且兩位作者在地球兩端開發當時從未親自見過面．在雙平台上都是百萬下載的成績且穩定
獲利，自 2017 被 Ubisoft 買下，營收可以供應一個中型公司營運．
閱讀他們的開發經驗給予我很多啟發．
Two guys made an MMO: The Growtopia Postmortem
by Seth Robinson on 06/19/13 10:26:00 pm Featured Blogs
兩個人做一個多人連線遊戲，Growtopia 的開發經驗
（2013 年年中 Seth Robinson 撰寫他們 2013 年初上市作品 Growtopia）
So, being the master of game marketing that I am, I've carefully been totally
silent here on my blog about my latest game, despite being released five
months ago.
作為遊戲行銷的專家，我一直沒有談論我在五個月前釋出的作品．
The game now regularly hits 3,000 players online at once and has been
financially a huge success. (At least by my humble standards!) It's been a
top 1000 grossing US App Store game for the past four months and doing
similarly well on Android - all without being featured and zero paid
advertising.
這款目前容納三千名玩家上線的作品得到了我認為財務上的成功．在持續四個月中進入蘋
果及安卓商城上全美排行千名之內，而且沒有被推薦也沒有投注廣告．
11-9-2014 Update: We've grown! We now regularly hit 40,000+ players online,
have 5+ million users and around 300K daily active users. 80+ million worlds
have been created by users.
2014 年的更新：現在已經成長到四萬人可以同時上線，五百萬個帳戶而且每日三十萬活
躍用戶．累積有八千萬個使用者創造的世界．
Today I'm finally sitting down to document how this project took shape as
well as the trials and tribulations.
現在我終於可以坐下來撰寫關於這個專案如何產生中的試誤過程．
September 8th, 2012: Six pictures
2012 年的九月，六張概念圖
After my highly competitive multiplayer online game Tanked was more or less
finished, I began thinking aboutduct a new game. Something that would
capitalize on the networking client/server experience I'd gained but apply it
to a fresh idea with simpler controls that would be more accessible.
在我上一個多人競爭的線上遊戲 Tanked 之後，我開始思考一個新遊戲，這從我撰寫連線
機制的經驗而生，想把它擴展到一個更簡單操控的點子上．
Despite Tanked being 3D, I decided to do the game in 2D - faster development
and we could target even very crappy mobile devices.
儘管前一個作品 Tanked 是三維，這次我決定做二維遊戲．這樣開發速度更快，而且可以
讓更多普通手機遊玩．
With Tanked, I felt my fatigue in "doing it all, alone" was the cause of my
non-existent marketing efforts (I've STILL never done a youtube video for
Tanked? REALLY?!?!), as well as reluctance to add the final layers of
polish. I needed a partner, someone to provide a mutual motivation as well
as handle the artistic needs of the project.
在做 Tanked 的時候我發覺自己做又沒有市場營銷幫忙令人疲倦（記得 Tanked 似乎沒有
一個官方釋出的影片）．尤其是在開發過程中的最後打磨階段．我需要一個能夠互相砥礪
又能提供美術素材的夥伴．
So with that in mind, I presented six mock-up screenshots to long-time IRC
pal and fellow indie, Mike Hommel, aka Hamumu to entice him to come aboard.
因此我把這六張概念圖發給了我的朋友 Mike Hommel 也就是 Hamumu．並邀請他加入．
Here are the original shots (created using stolen sprite rips mostly) for
your viewing displeasure (I'm no artist!):
這就是這六張概念圖．
[圖左上：遊戲大廳入口]
[圖右上：遊戲主要遊玩區域包含地板，障礙物，及入口]
[圖左中：遊戲主要遊玩的方式包含建造，交談，以及擁有權的概念]
[圖左中：遊戲介面提示的方式包含建造範圍，以及鎖定範圍]
[圖左下：種植並給予玩家新物品的流程]
[圖右下：玩家間互動甚至 PVP 的方式]
We changed and improved the ideas represented in these mockups over time, but
stayed focused on the general goals.
我們花了點時間改進了這些概念圖的點子，但是仍堅持主要的目標．
He agreed to give it a shot. Like so many indie collaborations, I suspect he
was worried we'd never reach beta. Hell, me too!
他同意入夥，就像眾多的獨立夥伴一樣，我猜他當時可能懷疑我們能不能做完．我其實也
有相同的擔憂．
I think I predicted 4-6 months to finish it. This is usually where I would
chuckle at my foolish naivety and admit it took years longer than expected
but... not this time?!
我那時預測了四到六個月的開發期，以往的經驗告訴我通常這樣預估都會終結於超過一年
，但這次竟然沒發生這種事情．
The reason things went so smoothly? Well, I guess probably because we had
very few "unknowns".
這次如此順利的原因在於：開發中我們沒有太多未知需要研究的地方．
In the past, we'd both already made 2d tile based platformers, collision
code, networked games, mysql based projects and websites, and done cross
platform development. Using my Proton SDK insured we could run on eight
platforms (nearly) out of the box.
在這之前，我們都已經做過二維平台遊戲，也有了碰撞，網路，資料庫，專案，網站，以
及跨平台的開發經驗．使用 Proton 的函式庫，我們能夠釋出幾乎八個平台．
We figured the only real unknown was what our max player limit would be and
how things would scale up. I had guessed conservatively, 600 players online
would be our max. Luckily, I was wrong, the original server actually was
able to handle much more.
我們知道唯一的未知性來自於伺服器能承載玩家同時上線的能力．我那時保守地猜大概六
百人是極限，幸運地，我猜錯了．一開始的伺服器可以承載更多人．
The above shot shows four instances running around in the same world. All
graphics are just DrawRects for now. The collision is incredibly simple and
as a result gives us very few problems later as we tweak it for special tiles
and items later. The game is written in C++ with GL/GLES.
上圖是針對相同地圖產生四個客戶端的繪圖結果，透過方格計算，碰撞其實無比簡單，因
此省下了之後的很多麻煩．遊戲是用 C++ 及 GL/GLES 寫的．
I think one reason this project went so fast is I was able to fight the urge
to go overboard on everything like I usually do. There are no fancy 2d
physics. I mean hey, we're not making Limbo here. It would be overkill. I
think it helps that I had already done the box2d physics platformer thing in
a previous project so I didn't really feel like I had something to prove, if
that makes sense.
我認為能夠這麼快速釋出的原因在於我急切地在任何方面拋棄掉負擔．沒有複雜的二維物
理．因為我們不是在做 Limbo 這種產品．那種碰撞對我們就是過度設計．我在之前專案
就已經把平台遊戲方塊碰撞的物理程式寫好了．我不需要在這個專案證明甚麼．
I've never actually met Mike in person, he's in California and I'm in Japan.
But if anything, that probably helped - we work on the code base (he programs
too!) in (roughly) day/night shifts which help avoid svn code conflicts.
我從未面對面見過 Mike 本人，他人在加州，我在日本．但如果要找出一件加速效率的事
情的話，我猜是時差，因為兩個人不會同時改程式，這樣可以避免程式碼版本控制的衝突
．
We use IRC and Google Docs to communicate - spreadsheets for tracking hours
and financial stuff, and the drawing board to share screenshots and ideas.
The best part is we have a full history of everything we've done, that's
where I'm getting most of the screenshots for this article!
我們使用即時通訊軟體跟 Google 文件溝通．用試算表紀錄財務，用繪圖板來分享截圖跟
點子．最棒的是我們紀錄了整個開發歷史，所以我才能現在給你們看這些截圖．
[介面概念圖：對話視窗，道具欄，基礎控制]
介面開始於 Hamumu 的概念圖
[介面截圖：門，標示，對話，道具欄，以及鎖定功能]
In roughly five weeks, the game looks pretty similar to its current form.
在五周後，遊戲看起來已經很類似釋出的結果．
November 30th, 2012: The game is stealth-released on Android as a free beta
after three months of development
在 2012 年十一月底：這個遊戲經過開發數個月祕密地在安卓上外測．
We were unable to use the original name we wanted (Buildo) as someone else
was sort of already using it. After a VERY painful few days we finally agree
on Growtopia. I really couldn't get anything done during that period,
strange that stress of finding a game name could grind everything to a halt
like that. I was never totally satisfied with the name, but it's very
searchable so that's a perk. The domain name was taken so we had to live
with growtopiagame.com.
我們本打算用 Buildo 這個名稱，但是這名稱已經被用了．在一段非常痛苦的幾天後我們
同意釋出的名稱就叫 Growtopia．那段時間我幾乎無法做任何事，選個好名字讓我們暫停
了所有開發．我並不完全滿意於這個名字，但是在搜尋上有優勢．所以網站的名稱就決定
了．
IAP is disabled initially as we expected to reset the universe a few times.
(We ended up never having to do that)
開始外測的時候儲值是暫時關閉的，因為我們認為應該伺服器會重置好幾次．但結果一次
也沒有．
There were no "World Locks" yet, so people tended to clump together in little
towns, locking their areas with the smaller lock types.
那時還沒有世界全鎖的概念，所以人們擠在世界裡面用小鎖保護他們區域內的資產．
Despite the total stealth release (I didn't even mention the beta on my
website) the player base quickly grows. It's the perfect design for PR
slackers like us, very viral in nature due to the social aspects.
儘管在外測，玩家數目成長很快．這遊戲因為社交的本質讓我們在社交平台上宣傳的很有
效．
January 9th, 2013: The game is released on iOS, and the word beta is removed
from the Google Play description
2013 年一月，遊戲取消外測的字眼，然後同時發布在蘋果商城．
The release! We get a boost from Touch Arcade, Pocket Gamer and IndieGames
who all post our teaser video. (we sent it to them and a few other sites,
that was pretty much it for our marketing campaign)
正式釋出，Touch Arcade，Pocket Gamer，以及 IndieGames 都貼出我們寄出的的試玩影
片，正如我們的行銷計畫．
We stress out as we watch the users online grow. 200 users, 300 users.. 600
users online at once! Will the server die? We upgrade our server three
times in two weeks to handle the increase, wondering if after the initial
surge we'll need to go back to the cheaper one. Servint, our data center,
did a great job of quickly migrating us from server to server as needed.
我們擔心的伺服器承載上線隨著玩家數目兩百，三百，六百上升．我們在兩周內升級了伺
服器三次，伺服器供應商協助我們快速地移轉資料．
Life after release, where we are now
發布之後，目前的狀況
Like a newborn, we found the game screaming for our non-stop attention. We
find ourselves constantly putting out fires and dealing with issues. 600
hundred forum posts a day to read, hundreds of daily support emails.
就如同每一個新生，我們的遊戲不斷地在我們認為有必要時調整，必須常常處理線上問題
．每天有六萬個論壇文章要讀，每天幾百封客戶服務郵件．
There is no finish line, there is no "done" - we've basically worked full
time on the game since its release.
沒有任何做完的跡象，釋出後這遊戲耗盡了我們所有的時間．
Our game has an extremely sensitive virtual economy that could be decimated
in only hours by a rampant bug.
我們的遊戲有敏感的虛擬經濟，錯誤持續幾個小時都可能摧毀它．
A single server crash can cause an hour of lost work per player online. A
single day roll-back on a busy day now would mean instantly vaporizing SEVEN
HUMAN YEARS worth of effort.
伺服器的當機，就會可能導致一個小時的紀錄遺失．回溯則有可能會遺失六個人年的玩家
紀錄．
These things weighed very heavily on me in the beginning. I had trouble
sleeping and would check the server throughout the night to make sure it was
still running correctly. After a while though, you sort of reach a certain
level of numbness/comfort with it all.
這些事情給我非常大的壓力．甚至睡不著覺，熬夜查伺服器．一段時間後才達到麻木或平
衡．
I guess I'll forgo the usual "what went right/wrong" and just illuminate the
most important/damaging events and how we dealt with them.
我猜我做的就是不要搞清楚每件事，試著只思考如何處理最重要的事．
Our first penis
玩家用地圖畫出我們遊戲中的第一個老二
Well, we knew it had to happen. I appeared in their world and gave them five
minutes to remove it, but secretly I was sort of proud, it's sort of a
developer achievement to have someone miss-use your creative tools like this.
我早知道這一天會來，我跑去他們的地圖叫他們五分鐘之內清掉．但私底下我還蠻開心的
．玩家惡搞自己的遊戲這是一種開發者的成就．
As our player count grew, we found our player discipline tools inadequate.
Over time we beefed them up.
玩家數目成長時，我發覺我們用來監控玩家紀律的工具明顯不足，才在後來補上．
The problem with tape
遊戲中的膠帶這項功能
Instead of simply muting people, we thought it would be much cooler to
visually duct-tape their mouth shut. When they attempt to speak, only
muffled noises come out.
與其單純的禁言，我們認為用一個膠帶把玩家貼住更酷．當他們發言傳訊的時候，遊戲還
會發出雜音．
The end result wasn't what we expected. Being duct-taped quickly became the
goal. When players saw us, they'd mob us yelling obscenities, hoping to be
taped. We had to make a new rule: "If you try to get taped on purpose, we'll
just ban you" to keep it under control.
結果出乎預料，被禁言變成一項榮耀．當玩家看見開發者，他們會使盡全力謾罵，就是為
了希望被貼膠帶．我們不得不立下規矩：如果有人故意被禁言，帳號會被停權．
The item duping
物品複製
Due to a bug a patch introduced, it became possible to log on with two
instances of the same player for a short while if you did it at EXACTLY the
perfect time. Within hours a group of Asian players had figured it out and
were duping like mad. I remember using google translate on Growtopia related
Korean message boards trying to figure out the method used.
在某一次更新的臭蟲，透過一個準確的時間差，登入時可能會在短時間內產生兩個人物的
實體．幾個小時內，一群亞洲玩家就搞懂了怎麼用，然後瘋狂複製道具．我記得我還用了
翻譯軟體到韓國的討論區搞懂他們到底是怎麼做到的．
Knowing it was happening, but not understanding the modus operandi was VERY
stressful, we had to spy and watch them doing it. We figured it out and
patched the server. We hand deleted the ill-gotten gains as best we could
(we didn't want to roll back!), but it quickly becomes impossible to track as
items are traded. For a while, we had the server report anyone with > 100
world locks and we'd just assume they were holding duped items and punish the
account. Nowadays that wouldn't work because many legitimate players have
earned that much wealth through normal gameplay.
看著事情發生卻不知道準確的步驟是壓力山大，我們必須偷窺玩家怎麼使用．當搞清楚之
後我們就更新伺服器補上了這個漏洞．那些非法複製的道具都必須盡力刪除（否則就要回
溯）．但是才發現追蹤物件是一項不可能的任務．我們以前認為一個玩家擁有超過一百個
世界鎖就是有問題的，但是現在有很多合法玩家已經擁有這種身價．
The bedrock bug
基石的臭蟲
One day fairly early in Growtopia's lifetime (I think it was still in the
wide beta on android) we made a horrible mistake with user security levels
which let anybody destroy bedrock and white doors. (Normally a player can't
destroy these tiles, as means player can fall out of the world at the bottom,
and can't enter worlds the normal way)
在早期（甚至還是外測的時候）我們犯了一個讓玩家可以打壞基石（地圖下方邊界）及入
口的錯誤．因為玩家可能會掉到地圖邊界下面無法正常回到地圖．
Twenty minutes had passed before I'd noticed the frenzied broadcasts that
excitedly shared the bug - not only were people destroying normally
impenetrable blocks, those blocks were giving seeds, which would grow into
trees that would eventually yield more of the forbidden blocks, letting the
user place them!
二十分鐘後，他們就已經瘋狂地分享這個臭蟲，臭蟲不只讓玩家摧毀這些地圖塊，這些地
圖塊被摧毀的時候還給予了不該被給予的種子，就可以產生那些玩家不被允許擁有及使用
的道具．
This bug really didn't cause too much damage, but we were running around
fixing holes in levels and replacing missing entrance doors for weeks. We
also added a filter that would remove those items from peoples inventories..
but I wouldn't be surprised if there is still a bedrock tree growing
somewhere out there and you do still see the occasional bedrock piece missing
from older worlds.
這個臭蟲沒有造成太大的傷害，但是我們還是用了幾個禮拜來補洞補回那些被毀掉的世界
入口．但是如果任何一個世界還存在那些不應該存在的"基石樹"及散落的"基石"物件，我
並不十分意外．
The IAP hackers - "Someone is giving away world locks"
內購駭客，有人在散發世界鎖
Like most developers, I've grown used to the idea knowing that people are
pirating my games. I don't stress too much, it doesn't ruin the experience
of others for the most part.
跟眾多開發者一樣，我知道很多駭客會破解抄襲重置遊戲，我沒有太大壓力，因為這並不
影響遊戲的體驗．
But if thousands of dollars worth of gems are stolen via fraudulent means, it
has a real impact on us as it is pumped into the game economy.
但是假如價值千萬的道具被破解散布，就會對遊戲經濟造成重大打擊．
We'd watch would-be thieves dump their contraband in remote locations. We'd
wait (invisibly) and see who came to pick it up, track down the persons main
hideout and ban them all. Eventually we upgraded our server to do full IAP
receipt checking, but life had a certain cops 'n robbers taste to it for a
while.
我們在他們散布道具的地方盯哨，等待那些來交易的人，追蹤那些人去哪裡然後把他們的
帳號停權．最後把檢查內購收據的地方修正．感覺跟真實世界警察在做的事情一樣．
We still have issues with stolen credit cards and chargebacks, but it's now
at manageable levels for the most part.
我們還有信用卡被盜刷跟退款的問題，但是都在可控制的範圍內．
The Tapjoy hack
Tapjoy 漏洞
Tapjoy is a great way to let players watch a 20 second commercial, to buy
gems using their time, and only if they choose to. (They get 90 gems, we get
5 cents, or whatever) However, due to me using it wrong (similar to IAP, I
was using my code from previous single player games I worked on rather than
custom stuff with full server verification) it was very vulnerable to client
hacks, as illustrated in the image.
Tapjoy 是讓玩家看廣告，然後拿道具的方法．（玩家看二十秒，拿九十個寶石，開發者
分五分錢）然而因為使用方法的不正確（跟內購的問題差不多，沒有伺服器檢驗），這個
問題變成嚴重的客戶端漏洞．
I wasted a lot of time writing code to detect hacks and such, when I should
have just re-implemented Tapjoy the correct way, which I eventually did
anyway. It now runs flawlessly.
我花了很多時間來偵測這些駭客行為，我應該直接把 Tapjoy 的部分重寫才對，因為最後
還是真的重寫了．現在終於運行正常．
Scamtopia
詐騙邦
The virtual economy made item trading and bartering very important. The
original release had no secure way to trade, only "drop trading". Naturally
scamming was prevalent. We told people "Never drop trade with people you
don't know!"
虛擬經濟讓交易跟以物易物變得無比重要，最初的版本沒有安全交易，就只是丟在地上交
換．自然詐騙叢生，我們必須教育玩家，不要跟不認識的玩家用丟棄物品的功能來交易．
We introduced a robust trading system as quick as we could.
然後馬上我們就盡速補上了一個交易系統．
The blueberry hack
藍莓道具漏洞
Due to a server vulnerability, it was possible to hack a client to give you
unlimited blueberries. (Basically, when using it to eat, a special case
happened where it didn't check if you actually had any left)
因為伺服器的緣故，曾經可以造成拿到無限制的藍莓（基本上這道具用來吃的，我沒檢查
道具存量為零還可以使用）
We were perplexed why a certain group of players had so many blueberries, it
didn't make sense... someone eventually emailed us and explained the trick
and we quickly patched it. Thanks, sir.
我們那時很困惑為什麼玩家有這麼多的藍莓，這太不合理，最終有人寄信告訴我們這招怎
麼用．感謝您．
The wall hack
牆壁漏洞
It turns out the first thing that people do in a game like this is use a
memory scanning utility (a "trainer") to locate important memory addresses
(speed, X/Y position, etc) and modify them. We realized wall hacking would
be possible, but didn't think it was a big deal due to our lock/ownership
systems. (If someone gets into your locked area, it doesn't really matter,
the server wouldn't let them take anything)
玩家試圖用那些記憶體破解工具來解析記憶體位置，然後修改遊戲．我們一開始曾想到牆
壁的碰撞可能被破解，但沒想到會嚴重掉影響到所有權的問題（玩家可以進入那些被其他
玩家鎖定的區域）
However, players liked to drop items around their worlds, which presented
juicy targets for wall hackers. We quickly combated this with clever server
+ client hacks which worked pretty well, but in the end we removed all doubt
by adding full A* path finding on every single player movement. (this wasn't
possible for speed reasons until the V2 server upgrade.. more on that later)
因為玩家喜歡把東西丟在自己被鎖定的世界裡，導致穿牆這項漏洞變得值得攻擊．我們趕
緊透過客戶端及伺服器端的更新補上這個漏洞，最終我們必須對玩家的移動加上搜尋演算
法，來確保玩家的移動是合法的．（不只是計算玩家速度的向量）
The black day - the rollback
最終還是得回溯
But it wasn't the hackers or credit card fraud that did the worst damage. It
was us!
信用卡漏洞並不是最嚴重的錯誤，回溯的錯誤是我們自己造成．
On February 23th our worst nightmare became a reality. We'd inadvertently
made some changes that caused certain very cheap items to give out a high
number of gems when "recycled", this created an infinite money loop. As
soon as it was noticed, someone "broadcasted" it which meant every single
person online knew how to earn unlimited gems. The entire economy was
trashed in only minutes.
二月時最嚴重的惡夢成真．我們不正確的做了某些改變導致某些便宜道具在回收的過程中
產出過多的寶石．這就造成了一個無限循環．一有人發現這個問題並廣播出去，全世界就
知道了，直到每個線上玩家都知道怎麼拿有無限的寶石．整個經濟馬上在幾分鐘內崩潰．
We had to roll back almost 24 hours worth. (We do automated backups daily..
and sometimes I do extra backups before a serious patch, but today I didn't
for some reason)
我們不得不回溯二十四小時．（我們有自動備份機制，有時候更新前還會有額外的備份，
但是那天我剛好沒做）
That weekend was dubbed "Apology Weekend" and we worked quickly to add perks
and gems bonuses to try to make it up to the players. If you ever see a
"Rollback Plaque", it was earned by someone on that weekend. We wrote a
program to restore all gem purchases that had been wiped, with double the
gems.
所以那個周末變成道歉周，我們還為此加上了回溯專用的特色及獎勵來補償玩家．假如你
看到玩家擁有"回溯瘟疫"這項地圖塊，就代表某人曾經參與過這個事件．當天消費的玩家
獲得雙倍寶石退還．
This was a wake-up call to more seriously test things before patching. It's
tough trying to surprise your audience with something new (we're very
secretive) and yet wanting to properly test it. We now do have a fully
functional beta test server that we can route normal players into.
這件事情提醒我們在更新前做更仔細的測試．每次更新都要帶來新東西又不能出問題實在
不簡單．我們甚至因此架了一個外測伺服器．
That day was easily the absolute worst for me personally. I'm happy to say
we haven't had another roll-back yet.
那一天是我個人最糟糕的一天，幸好沒有再發生一次．
Too many users
承載上限
In mid April we hit 2,000 concurrent users on weekends and our server began
to buckle. Round trip to punch something could take a full second and people
were constantly being disconnected. We added live profiling support and
narrowed down the slow down to world creation and enet packet sorting.
四月中，我們達到兩千人同時在線，伺服器開始延遲．打擊封包需要一秒才有回應．玩家
一直斷線．那時加上了線上的效能測量機制，減緩了創造世界的速度，以及網路封包的排
序．
We decided I would write a "V2 server" upgrade in a separate svn branch that
would take advantage of multiple cores; it made no sense that our hardware
had 16 cores and 32 threads but our entire Growtopia server process was run
in a single thread.
那時我們已開始寫第二版的伺服器，讓我們可以使用多核，硬體能夠跑十六核及三十二執
行序，沒道理伺服器只能跑在一個執行序上．
Meanwhile, Mike would handle running active game and adding items and
preparing to move them over to the new server.
同時 Mike 會負責處理線上的問題，準備搬移伺服器．
We had a lot riding on the V2 server, would it really solve our problems or
fail miserably? It's very difficult to fake 2,000 users, so we released a
client upgrade that could smoothly switch between the old server and the new
beta one.
第二版的伺服器有很多風險，是否能真正的解決承載上限的問題？或變成一場災難．為了
不要混淆使用者，我們釋出了一個新版的客戶端來區分伺服器．
When things looked good, we just pushed a button and switched the real
database over to the new server, if it died, we could just switch them back.
Anyway, it worked beautifully and we haven't outgrown it yet.
結果很完美，按個按鈕資料資料庫資料就轉移到新伺服器上．如果失敗我們還能夠退回．
Here's how I explained it to users on our Facebook page: (it was actually
only a software change, we didn't change hardware. But this was the result
as far as latency and gameplay)
我在臉書上分享我們更換了伺服器的圖，但是實際上我們只有做軟體更新，而不是硬體．
The freemium dilemma
免費遊戲的困境
After railing against slimy abuses of the freemium model myself, I vowed to
do it 'right'. Here is what we did:
在對自己的免費模型檢討（連結： https://www.codedojo.com/?p=1251 ）之後，我傾向
做正確的事，以下就是我們的作法：
Only one soft currency, that can be earned in the game.
只有一個軟性貨幣，而且可以在遊戲中賺取．
No paywalls, you really can get every single thing in the game without buying
stuff. But more than that, the game is fun and works fine without paying - no
slogging along at a snail's pace and grinding required to do stuff.
沒有一定得付錢的門檻，所有的東西都可以不用錢從遊戲內拿到．這個遊戲不用付錢就可
以玩得很開心．不需要極度農．
$10 is the biggest IAP.
最大的內購是十元美金
$30 limit per day limit to help situations like "my kid bought $500 of stuff
accidentally", as far as I know, no major mobile freemium companies do this,
but really, they all should! Actually, Apple should probably send a "ARE YOU
SURE? Click OK to allow more IAP in this game" type email after anybody
spends too much in a game to verify it wasn't a mistake or a kid.
每天三十美金上限來協助解決小孩子瘋狂花家長的錢的問題．就我所知沒有大公司做這件
事．他們應該都效仿，實際上蘋果公司應該寄送通知信給花太多錢的帳戶，來辨識是否事
誤刷或非成年人的消費．
No annoying push messages, spamming, email sharing, etc
沒有推播通知，垃圾信，分享要求．
No popups asking you to buy stuff. No pressure selling. Don't buy stuff, you
really don't have to.
沒有跳出買東西訊息，沒有壓力．玩這遊戲根本不需要內購．
The expensive status/vanity items don't have any special powers as compared
to the cheap items, they just look different, which in a situation with
hundreds of thousands of players to compare items with, is a real value, of
sorts. The rarity creates the value.
高價物品沒有甚麼太過分的特殊能力，就是外觀不同．價值來自於玩家互相比較．稀有度
產生價值．
We don't want whales, we want schools of tiny fish who will pop in a few
bucks now and then. If a customer ends up spending 5 cents an hour that
would be great, and I think a decent value.
薄利多銷，一個小時一個玩家只付五分錢也很好．
We want to make enough to continue working on the game and adding
content/events instead of the normal "release and forget" model.
我只想要收穫到能讓我繼續營運改版這個遊戲，而不是以往釋出後就可以不管了的經驗．
A few times we saw someone making daily purchases that seemed strangely high
and emailed their Google purchasing account email directly to verify that
everything was ok. (We thought it might be a kid using a parents' device) I
don't think we ever got a reply. I think Apple and Google should be doing
the emailing really, they have more and better information than we do. We
will disable IAP on any account by request. (the option won't even show up in
the store in that case)
有幾次我看到玩家有異常購買的情況我都會寄信問 Google 的購物帳戶確認是否有問題．
（我們以為是未成年人誤刷）而從未獲得回應．我真的認為 Apple 與 Google 應該這樣
做，他們有比我們更多的資訊．如果有這樣的情況我們可以關閉遊戲內的內購．（這個選
項在後台根本不存在）
I think overall we "did it fairly right", but I still have moral reservations
about this model and know that we're exploiting certain kinds of vulnerable
individuals due to the nature of open-ended purchases, even if you don't need
them. In a single player game I don't think it would ever be justified to
extract $100 in IAP, but in an MMO where we have players with 1,000+ hours
logged and who purchase presents for others, I think it isn't totally
unreasonable for an informed adult to spend that much.
整體上來說我們做得完全正確，在內購上我仍有一些道德的界線，我知道這個消費模型是
利用人的"購物"慾望，即使消費者並不需要那些東西．在單人遊戲我不認為自玩家取得一
百美金是合理的．但是線上遊戲的玩家可能會遊玩超過一千小時，甚至會幫別人買東西，
我認為成年人只要知道自己花這麼多錢，確實是可能的．
But what is the line?
界線在哪裡
This is game where a kid can do a /broadcast and instantly be visited by
fifty or more REAL people hanging on his every word because a prize is going
to be given away. He or she can run any kind of game within Growtopia and
have complete control over these guests, ordering them around and banning at
will. I'm proud we created mechanics that allow something this amazing but
also humbled by the damage this power could do to someone vulnerable. My own
son (he's nine) has spent $40 of his own money in Growtopia over the 200+
hours he's played. He's given most of it away to his "friends".
這個遊戲是讓小孩子能夠廣播，拜訪其他世界及真實朋友的世界來獲取獎勵．在
Growtopia 中有各種可以遊玩的遊戲．可以掌控對自己世界的所有權．我很自豪於創造了
這樣的機制，讓人可以在不傷害其他人的自由下遊玩．我自己的小孩也花了他自己的零用
錢四十美金以及兩百小時在這個遊戲上．大部分都是跟他的朋友互動．
If he's learned a real friend doesn't require a World Lock, maybe it was a
worthy investment.
假如他學到真實的朋友並不需要一個世界鎖來保護，那麼這就是一個很值得的投資．
Giving away too much
還有更多要學習
A problem with our single currency is you can make around $3 of IAP per hour
farming in the game. Our richest player has never spent a dime, and has
$1000 usd worth of gems. I'm sort of proud of that on one hand, it
illustrates our game is REALLY free and not a trick. But on the other hand,
I don't know what he should spend his 1,000,000+ gems on. If we add a
100,000 gem "Vanity item" in the store, eight year olds are also going to be
pressured to use IAP to buy that essentially worthless item to keep up with
the Jones'. (Worthless as far as functionality, but .. well, the value as
trading power due to the rarity and cost is very real in a multiplayer
society like this one)
我們的單一貨幣（寶石）產生的問題是，每個小時可以農出三塊美金等值的內購貨幣．我
們最有錢的玩家已經消費一千元等值的寶石但卻未曾消費．我對此感到自豪．這代表這個
遊戲可以是一個真正沒有詭計的免費遊戲．另一個角度來看，我不知道他要怎麼花這一百
萬個寶石．假如我們新增了一個高等物件值十萬寶石，八歲小孩就會希望這個物件能夠用
內購來買，來趕上他們的朋友進度．這些東西不存在功能性，只是因為稀有在多人遊戲中
就產生價值．
It will be a challenge to figure all this out.
搞清楚這些事情就是一個挑戰
Email support system woes
客戶服務系統
Originally we handled support emails by replying and bcc'ing eachother. This
.. doesn't scale up very well. Eventually we setup with desk.com and now we
can give much better service. When a customer forgets to tell us his GrowID,
we can just look through his history and grab it.
一開始我們用郵件來做客戶服務．在遊戲變大的時候表現的不是很好．最後我們架設了
desk.com 來提供更佳的服務．客戶回信忘記寫帳戶名稱的時候我們還是能夠從歷史紀錄
中取得．
The future
未來
It's not yet written, John!
未來還有無限可能．
All I know for sure is I chose the perfect person to collaborate with and our
combined efforts have definitely resulted in superpowers. Llike when spandex
wearing heroes stand close together they can shoot larger balls of
lightning. It's like that but totally different.
我所已知的部份是我選了一個最佳的夥伴來合作，我們的互補效果最好．就像故事中英雄
角色互相支持一樣．
In the five months since Growtopia's release we've had 3.5 million+ worlds
created by nearly 400,000 users. Last Saturday we set the record with
65,000+ hours logged in a single day.
在這五個月隨著 Growtopia 的釋出，我們有了超過三百五十萬個世界，四十萬個玩家帳
戶．上個週六登入的玩家有六萬五千人．
I don't see any shortage of ways to improve the heart of Growtopia, which is
about giving useful tools to the player to let him or her be creative with
both strangers and friends; but each addition and tweak is now taking
increasingly long to test and safely deploy due to the size and scope of the
existing user base. We can't make any mistakes now, especially with huge
additions going in this weekend. No rollbacks.
我目前不知道擴充這個核心有甚麼缺陷，可能是給玩家更方便的工具來管理他的世界及訪
客．但每個調整都會逐步增加測試及安全性的困難．一點容錯空間都沒有．特別是這個周
末又加了一堆東西．不要再回溯了．
-Seth
Growtopia was created by Seth A. Robinson and Mike Hommel.