Having read some of their server code, I can understand why. They used a very technically interesting and efficient, and therefore difficult to understand and modify, code architecture. On top of that, all the smartest engineers at the company from 2006-13 were working on it, which means it's incomprehensible to the blue hairs still working there.
Unfortunately not, I had source access because I was working at Blizzard at the time on the Heroes servers (RIP in pepperoni).
The code was actually really cool and interesting, you just needed a Master's level of understanding in C++ and software engineeering to read it. I apologize for bragging, but I was one of very few people left at the company who had that when I quit.
Both. I was specifically reading the skill rating update code. They had a bespoke algorithm, and their code was all architected with ECS (Entity-Component-System). The guy who wrote the algorithm was almost as insane as I am. It took me a full week to piece together the actual calculations it was doing to update each player's skill rating after each round.
Having read some of their server code, I can understand why. They used a very technically interesting and efficient, and therefore difficult to understand and modify, code architecture. On top of that, all the smartest engineers at the company from 2006-13 were working on it, which means it's incomprehensible to the blue hairs still working there.
Unfortunately not, I had source access because I was working at Blizzard at the time on the Heroes servers (RIP in pepperoni).
The code was actually really cool and interesting, you just needed a Master's level of understanding in C++ and software engineeering to read it. I apologize for bragging, but I was one of very few people left at the company who had that when I quit.
Was the code not commented properly or was it just structurally a labyrinth?
Both. I was specifically reading the skill rating update code. They had a bespoke algorithm, and their code was all architected with ECS (Entity-Component-System). The guy who wrote the algorithm was almost as insane as I am. It took me a full week to piece together the actual calculations it was doing to update each player's skill rating after each round.
Man, I wasn't that good, but I loved Heroes. Rexxar!
Dude, that bear. He killed so many of my vikings.