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Programming IT Technology Entertainment Games

Case Study of Bungie.Net 75

Posted by Zonk from the lots-and-lots-of-files dept.
nmb3000 writes "MSDN recently put up a case study of Bungie.Net (much more detailed than a previous one), the homepage for the creators of the Halo series, and its transition from Perl to .NET and ASP. From the study: 'The Bungie.net site is the online companion to the wildly successful Halo 2 video game for Xbox, released in November 2004 by Microsoft. The site also acts as the community hub for all things related to Bungie games. Built with the Microsoft .NET Framework, Bungie.net serves up more than 4 million pages per day, accumulating 300 gigabytes of online game statistics per month from more than 1 million games played daily.' This is an interesting look into the creation and integration of the very large and interactive website which was voted 'Most Innovative Design' by IGN Entertainment in 2004."
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Case Study of Bungie.Net More

Case Study of Bungie.Net

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  • "Most Innovative Design" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LostCauz ( 121686 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @09:25AM (#12812635)
    I guess it's innovative to not render properly in Firefox.

    • It's rendered fine for me in Firefox since 1.0.2 when I started visiting the site (it may have worked before that).

      Of course, regardless of whether I use IE or Firefox, it seems really, really sluggish. And by that, I mean the client side rendering, not the server side code, so this isn't a diss on ASP.NET.

      • Re:Works for me (Score:5, Informative)

        by delus10n0 ( 524126 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @09:49AM (#12812948)
        Blame FireFox-- it's the one rendering it slowly. These bugs have been known about for quite some time:

        Fixed background makes scrolling painfully slow
        https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=90198 [mozilla.org]

        slow scrolling in pages with position:fixed elements
        https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20130 7 [mozilla.org]

        Yay!
        • Blame FireFox-- it's the one rendering it slowly. These bugs have been known about for quite some time
          Uhmm... if they have been known for some time, why does a web site under active development get caught in them? Who should be blamed?

          Sounds like a design to the bugs, rather then going round them.

          Like someone borrowing the car of someone they don't like and making sure to hit all potholes at speed... :-)

          • Re:Works for me (Score:4, Insightful)

            by delus10n0 ( 524126 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @11:08AM (#12813968)
            Your logic doesn't make any sense-- they're perfectly valid HTML/CSS commands. Internet Explorer doesn't choke on them (and it happens to be the most popular browser right now, and has been for quite some time..)

            FireFox should fix this soon, as it isn't just bungie.net that is affected.
            • Your logic doesn't make any sense
              It doesn't make sense to try to avoid well known bugs in common browsers?
              • If you are a Microsoft company...and the bugs are in an open source browser...

                No, it doesn't make any sense at all.

                Have you read a CSS book lately? Every book (6 or 7) I have read in the past few months spends at least 10% of its pages complaining about Internet Explorer and the way it displays CSS (boxes are the favorite subject). Then each author recommends that you jump ahead with 'compliant' code- screw Internet Explorer!

                Well this time it is the same thing in reverse...do you really think that Micr

                • do you really think that Microsoft is going to pass up a chance to make Firefox look bad?

                  I'm arguing against a comment that claimed this was an expected result -- since Firefox had a known bug.

                  Neither the original poster's answer nor your own was relevant. I assume the problem is my verbal talent.

                  (I am now wondering what moderators moded the non-relevant answer from the original poster up? They have an application that collect mod points on Ms campus for mod:ing "correct" opinions!? :-)

                  • No...we understand that it is the 'expected result' (the Firefox bugs).

                    But there are two ways of thinking on that:

                    1- programming for/around these bugs is stupid. Program it the right way, and wait for the browsers to fix themselves. For instance, when Netscape 6.0 came out, I did not modify all of my pages to display in that piece of crap. Because 6.0 really was a piece of crap...Like the rest of the world, I realized that Netscape Navigator was a totally marginalized piece of software, and it was thei
                    • But they can't say "they designed it to the standards". Its not even close. Heck the body tag has some crazy ms_positioning="FlowLayout". How the heck is firefox supposed to know what that is?
                    • OK, there is a point here which I think people have missed. Or maybe my analogy is wrong.

                      There is a bonus to port your programs to different architectures (or at least use different compilers).

                      There should be a similar win to use different browsers? You iron out more bugs and get more standard compliant that way.

                      We are talking about a professional support team, here. They sell to Xbox mainly, so the people browsing might use different OS and browsers.

                      Or am I assuming too much?

                    • A browser should actually ignore the property/tag if it doesn't understand it.

                      Does that answer your question?

                      P.S. - The FlowLayout tag is a property for Visual Studio, not the web. I'd argue they should have removed the Visual Studio-specific code before putting it live, but it doesn't hurt anything. Certainly not FireFox's rendering..
                    • I know a browser should ignore a tag if it doesn't understand it. However that does not make it well-formed, as it is not. Why does a property tag for Visual Studio show up on the web. Isn't there enough information in the page and style sheets for it to edit the page?
                    • I think you are assuming the wrong things.

                      Microsoft's strength is in their homogenous platform. They want you to use a Microsoft operating system, a Microsoft Office suite, and a Microsoft browser.

                      Since they own at least 75% of the browser market, then they only need to design sites for their own browser.

                      Let's say User Joe uses Firefox- not for any particular reason, only because his brother in law told him to. Then he goes to the Bungie site, which performs poorly in Firefox. Well, there is a very go
                    • Yes, yes. It is standard monopolist tactics to not be compatible. Of course. That is not what I meant.

                      My analogy was that if you really test your application on different compilers and architectures, you have e.g. a better chance of being compatible with the next version of the OS. That is a win-win, too.

              • Define "common browsers" -- Internet Explorer still has the majority of the market :)

                My original point still stands. It's valid CSS/HTML, and there's no reason for IE, Safari, FireFox, etc. to be choking on it.

                Don't get me wrong, I love FireFox and use it as my main browser, but it's not without it's issues.
            • what the fu is ms_positioning="FlowLayout" in the body tag?
            • they're perfectly valid HTML/CSS commands.

              It usually helps to run the HTML Validator [w3.org] before claiming that HTML is "perfectly valid".

              • I never claimed the entire HTML/CSS is valid. I'm saying the CSS/HTML definitions they're using (to accomplish the fixed background) are perfectly valid CSS/HTML definitions to use. Another responder was arguing that they shouldn't be using them because of FireFox having issue with them. My point is that _FireFox_ is to blame for the poor rendering, not Bungie or Microsoft. Those two bugs I linked to show it's a common problem/known bug, that hasn't been fixed in years (and should be.)
          • Why is it that when we discover rendering bugs in Firefox we say "Oh, well let's code around them". When it happens to Internet Explorer (mainly its CSS), there is so much complaining about "HOLY SHIT IE IS NOT STANDARDS COMPLIANT M$ IS SCREWING US AGAIN BURN BURN BURN!".

            Don't get me wrong, I stopped using IE a long time ago for other reasons (Opera suits my browsing needs far better), but I think that the double standard being applied here borders on laughable.

        • The website is not standards compliant. In fact it just as broken if not moreso than Slashdot:

          * There is no DOCTYPE--it just starts with an HTML tag

          * There are UPPERCASE tags mixed with lowercase tags. This is bad practise and strictly speaking all tags in HTML4 and XHTML are supposed to be lowercase.

          * There are proprietary attributes in the document (ms_positioning)

          Besides spweing forth really crappy HTML, the techniques the authors used to do the layout are exteremely poor. The site is the exact OP
      • I ended up creating a fairly crude greasemonkey script to get rid of all of those elements.

        Of course, with it, you can't log into Passport and therefore can't get your stats, or use any of the navigation content - but the only reason I've been going to bungie.net lately is to read their weekly updates anyway.. so it works.

        http://www.morgontech.com/greasemonkey/bungie-hove r-remover.user.js [morgontech.com]
    • the case study doesn't even show up correctly in safari.
    • works in Opera 7
    • I'm using Deer Park Alpha 1 and bungie.net now scrolls nicely.

      -Ben

    • I love the logic! "Firefox stinks at rendering X so X must be no good." I'm glad somebody finally established that profound truth.
    • In Safari, the page renders with some text past the right edge of the window. Resizing the window doesn't help either.

      A little unfortunate, when it's a case study of a web site.

  • Why? (Score:1)

    by krinsh ( 94283 )
    I mean, Microsoft's very own Hotmail is on FreeBSD servers (or at least was at one point). I am not a flaming-sword wielding OS (either kind) zealot; but why fix something if it ain't broke? Strikes me as more of a publicity stunt than an attempt to improve functionality...
    • Its simple, really. This is monumental news because it shows that the whole .NET framework can operate a website that gets more than 4 hits a day. What they don't tell you, however, is that it runs on a server farm with 3,402 .NET Server B0x3n.
      • 8 web servers, actually, to give us ample room to grow. And the Firefox rendering bug is unfortunate. We tried to code around it, but I believe it broke a few other things in IE and Safari that we didn't want to break instead(if I remember correctly).

        Although I doubt you'll believe me since this is Slashdot, there is nothing nefarious going on with regards to browser support. We code (and test) to make sure IE, Firefox, and Safari can see our stuff. It is a primary design goal of the site - we still hav
    • They bought hotmail and switched to MS server tech. Bought bungie and... hey I am sensing a pattern here! I trust anything this article says as much as I trust a MS advert.

  • Not a bad study..... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bloodredsun ( 826017 ) <<martin> <at> <bloodredsun.com>> on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @09:36AM (#12812772) Journal
    For once something has come out of msdn that doesn't read like a blatant advertisement. This study is open about the amount of time that it took to create this site, although the forum development and security testing was not included as it was outsourced to other companies. As a non-MS developer I'm naturally wary of studies like this but seems like a competent piece of work although I thought it was spoilt with the simpering hero-grams at the end... "Without the ease of .NET we wouldn't have even started"...ick!

  • That's nice (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Trepalium ( 109107 )
    How about we do a study on the gotdotnet workspaces, and how much better sourceforge is in terms of reliability, availablity and usability? How many sites have moved to SF because Microsoft's version were far too unreliable? Why do you suppose that all of Microsoft's "Open Source" projects (WiX, FlexWiki, etc) are located on sourceforge instead of gotdotnet?

    Let's be honest. Although the insinuation within the case study is that perl was not capable of handling the task of getting so much traffic, and AS

    • This is a good point. Even within the case study, I thought they were fairly open that it was a general redesign to improve performance, and .NET was only part of the picture. They probably could have done much the same thing in other environments (such as Java ;)
    • "Why do you suppose that all of Microsoft's "Open Source" projects (WiX, FlexWiki, etc) are located on sourceforge instead of gotdotnet?"

      how the hell is WiX or FlexWiki a Microsoft sponsored initiative? And who the fuck cares what open source system they use. Sourceforge is more popular, maybe thats why they use it. This article is about Bungie.net anyways, not source control systems.

  • Poor site design (Score:3, Informative)

    by xeaxes ( 554292 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @10:04AM (#12813137)

    The site is designed very poorly. The website is no where near W3 compliant HTML/X-HTML/CSS. It runs extremely poorly in Firefox. They don't even serve up a proper DOCTYPE, and for that alone I would not hire their front-end developers for any website design.

    Honestly, for all the back-end work, they should have gotten a GOOD front-end developer who understood design and standards.

    • You said it, Chewie.

      Has to be one of the worst designed sites on the net right now, insanely slow scrolling performance in Firefox.
    • Compatability is one thing, but firefox is still the newcommer to the scene. Firefox dev's should be more concerned with making their browser capable of properly reading all ie based content before creating their own little scheme. Not so sorry to say this, but IE still and will continue to hold the majority of the market. On anouther not, does the website work in safari?
      • Firefox dev's should be more concerned with making their browser capable of properly reading all ie based content

        Are you talking about non-portable single-platform technologies like ActiveX and vbscript, or how ie will render pages with blatently invalid html?

        before creating their own little scheme.

        Agreed, anyone who uses the w3c standards is a chump.

        Its not hard to make a site that works in almost every browser - just follow the standards. There's no good reason to make a site that only works in IE

    • Re:Poor site design (Score:5, Informative)

      by xeaxes ( 554292 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @11:00AM (#12813857)

      I'm disappointed that I was moderated as a Troll, when I was not trolling.

      Although I was too brief before, let me expand on other reasons on why the front-end design is poor:

      • The fixed navigation panels on the left side and right side do not function properly when a browser does not have a large amount of available vertical space. The menus become in-accessible.
      • Inconsistent menus. The menus change depending on the section of the site AND the individual story.
      • Does not work properly in all browsers. There are rendering errors all over the place, especially in Firefox.
      • Poorly performing DHTML.
      • Poor color selection. The site will be hard for visually impaired users. Especially the blue on slightly darker blue.
      • The improper use of table elements, and overall ignoring of web standards.
      • The lack of a DOCTYPE is a glaring omission.

      The design isn't god-awful, but it could use a lot of work. It was clearly designed initially with flash over function, and that hurts the it in the end.

  • Still Perl? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Winterblink ( 575267 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @10:13AM (#12813246) Homepage
    Description: Focused on the reimplementation of most of the existing Perl based site on the .NET Framework. Some features, however, were left as Perl implementations.

    I'm curious, which features, and why? And are they still Perl, or have they been subsequently ported to .NET? If not, why not?
    • There are great Perl modules for addressing all their design goals. Mason for templating and cacheing dynamic content, Catalyst for the MVC controller, etc... I wonder if they switched because Perl modules generally aren't tested as well on Windows and can be troublesome to maintain sometimes. God forbid they switch to Linux.
    • I beileve there is a component that will allow you to access perl modules in .NET.

      So, if it connects just fine, there is no need to rewrite it.
  • mostly alt tags and & instead of &amp; in uris

    This page is not Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional! [w3.org]

  • I would just like to say that Halo is^H^H 2 is still the pinacle and greatest shining example of what first person shooters strive to be. It is a work or surpassing excellence, unmatched in brilliance. I give thanks daily for it's creation, knowing that without it my life would not have been worth living. Playing on Xbox live is the most immesive and rewarding.... ...Oh... this is about just Bungie?

    Ummmm... ummmmm.....
  • They start out by saying that Myth was an RPG. If you can't tell the difference between a RPG and an RTS game that's just sad.

    Myth and Myth 2 are two of my favorite RTS games ever, great play out of the box and tons of cool mods.
    • I don't like RPGs so I defintely would agree that the Myth series was not an RPG. Loved all 3. Yes, 3 as well.
    • It's like the MS writers just glanced, saw that there were dwarves listed among the unit types, and decided it must be a fantasy RPG. The games predate the MS buyout of Bungie, but you'd expect PR writers to at least make themselves familiar with the Web presences those games had. C'mon -- Myth and Myth II had Bungie.net communities that were superb for their times... based on the old Perl site.

      Oh, wait, I think I just figured out why they didn't pay attention to those. Cognitive dissonance.

  • Only on slashdot can you take an extensive and educational article about architecture, performance, scalability, etc. and boil it down to "it doesn't render properly on firefox" and dismiss it. Hilarious.

  • I dont know about you guys. (Score:3, Funny)

    by hobotron ( 891379 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2005 @08:45PM (#12819846)

    But I would be pretty wary of a website voted "most innovative design" by IGN

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