Zone Recovery Code!!!

Feedback, bugs, and general gameplay related discussion.
Tasop/Glandriel
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Zone Recovery Code!!!

Postby Tasop/Glandriel » Sat Jul 22, 2006 10:25 pm

Many times now, 4 hrs into a zone, sometimes more, and then the mud crashes.
I for one am becoming sick of dedicating many hours to a zone, to have a crash and loose everything worked hard to obtain.

Last time was after all scorps, started seers, 1/2 way thro seers and crash...
Pitty the decent items are at the end huh, so all that fk all

Now, tonight, new zone, golem forge, just killed Jarl, got his head and yup, u guessed it...
Crashed again...

FFS, design some sort of crash recovery code

I'm sure i'm not the only one thinking, why the fk zone for so many hours when if it crashes u get nothing anyway...

Zones like Spob, scorps/seers, seelie and basically any zone that takes more than a few hours to do should have some sort of recovery.

So close to evils first run on GF....

Stupid really...

Tssa
Yeh, i think i havea corpse there too....
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Re: Zone Recovery Code!!!

Postby Tasan » Sun Jul 23, 2006 12:44 am

Welcome to Torilmud, been here long?

This is the game, you win some you lose some. Crashes benefit some at different times than others. Taking an extremely bad attitude towards it isn't going to help anything. Crash recovery causes as many problems as it supposedly fixes.
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Postby Malia » Sun Jul 23, 2006 1:21 pm

I do understand your pain. Unfortunately your talkin about 2 smaller zones, both Scorps/Seers and Golem forge dont take 4-5 hours, both are around 2hrs, 3hrs tops. That is and always will be part of Toril.

You wanna feel pain, try having the best run ever on Bel, we 2ran him and got him to Prety hurt and it crashed(still have my doubts). No reimbursement.

Just the way the cookie crumbles really. My advice is to quicken the pace, and take stronger groups. So, instead of taking 4-5 hours, the zone only takes the intended 2hrs. Lot less chance of a crash inside 2hrs, then it is for 5hrs.
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Postby Naled » Sun Jul 23, 2006 2:19 pm

Crashes are not a feature of the game I'd say. And the fact that this was never adressed isn't hardly a good argument to do nothing about it. I agree with Tassie that there should be a solution for this, if possible. We don't have much of a pbase left, and we hardly zone at all. Crashes at the end of zones isn't going to help this place much.

Like it or not, the evils pbase currently is the most active part of the game. They might not have the experience yet to roll zones in the minimal amount of time needed, but at least they zone. Would be a shame if that got stopped by a bug in the game.
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Postby Ambar » Sun Jul 23, 2006 3:03 pm

I feel the pain, but it IS part of the game .. we know this, we still play .. can't always determine a crash, mud burps, internet outages .. etc

yes our pbase is lower, but the more we *dumb* the game up, the less the hardcore players want to play, it becomes no challenge at all if everything is given to us, even in a crash

was long ago said that crash restores would be done on a case by case basis .. for EPIC zones .. here you have (had) a group in BC (pre rentable items) that got hosed on the LAST fight .. and they werent restored .. how easy is it to run to GF and start over?
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Postby Lilira » Sun Jul 23, 2006 4:06 pm

I agree that the "evils" have been very active lately, but the "goodies" have been averaging well for zones as well. (Yes I hate using the titles.. it so reminds me of RL "racial" issues.) Our pbase is small, but has anyone but me been noticing the slight increase during peak hours? Not to mention a few of the old players who have been poking their heads back in and leveling up chars?

How often do people complain about long boots? Crashes happen. They've ALWAYS happened. Its not like its something new that's been added to the game. We USED to pick up, suck it up and either return to the zone (yay, more goodies for the split pot!!) or split what we had and call it a night. Perhaps distributing good stuff throughout a zone instead of just the end might help.

One thing I definately agree on. If a zone takes longer than the two/three hours of a normal one (basically an EPIC zone, not one where things have gone badly), I believe the zone should at least be set back to what it was prior to crash (keys etc). Since gear itself can be kept by the gleader no reimbursements should be made unless you have to quest pieces to get the loot. (Like the gems in SPOB.)

Crashes don't even happen too often these days. I remember when they were averaging once a day for a bit. Its kudos for code stability! sarcasm on: Oh but wait... with 90 hour boots its too stable!!! *whine* Crash already pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease! /sarcasm

The good side to crashes.. invasions can load, quest mobs refresh, zones are reset.
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Postby Tasan » Sun Jul 23, 2006 5:29 pm

Naled wrote:Crashes are not a feature of the game I'd say. And the fact that this was never adressed isn't hardly a good argument to do nothing about it. I agree with Tassie that there should be a solution for this, if possible.


It's not a matter of it never being addressed. If you don't understand the simple mechanics of the game, then no I guess you have no basis for knowing what kind of undertaking "fixing" this would be. The simple fact is, the evil pbase(new players) are learning about one of the oldest things in the game. We go literally days without a crash, so complaining that it crashed while you were doing a zone is mind-bogglingly annoying to me.

Naled wrote:Like it or not, the evils pbase currently is the most active part of the game. They might not have the experience yet to roll zones in the minimal amount of time needed, but at least they zone. Would be a shame if that got stopped by a bug in the game.


The evils pbase is the most active? According to whom? As far as I know Ross has been leading a zone nearly every night for the goodies, and participates actively on the evil side as well. I don't think this is an issue of "let's appease the whiny new evil pbase just because they are the only ones who play". I think this is baseless whining by someone who's apt to whine. We've seen it before and the tone is always "why me".

Lilira wrote:...like the gems in SPOB


Totally disagree. You do SPOB or any other zone for that matter completely knowing the risks involved with a) how long it takes to do, and b) the rewards that could come from that. SPOB is a completely different zone if you know you are going to be reimbursed if it crashes whenever you do it.
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Postby Lilira » Sun Jul 23, 2006 8:52 pm

Tasan...

I was using the SPOB gems as a reference, not SPOB itself. Merely in that you have to do the whole zone before you turn in the gems for the shinies at the end. *shrug* It was the first one that popped into my head, though I'm sure there's a couple others out there like that. Most other zones you get shinies throughout the zone so if it crashes you can split what you have.

SPOB is one of those 2-3 hours zones that shouldn't be reset, as its not an EPIC zone. Since I myself don't go to runs involving Epic zones, I'm uncertain how the keys/etc work.
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Postby Arilin Nydelahar » Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:17 pm

I think the point really is, in the state of the mud as it is now, there is only one "epic" zone, and that's Tiamat. If that crashes(from what i've seen thus far) it gets reset. If you're in another zone, and it crashes, tough luck. Deal with it and do it again. They don't need to hold our hands for everything, this mud has ALWAYS been this way. Hell, be glad they give Tia resets. Last I checked that used to not happen either.
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Postby Lilira » Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:52 pm

Some people toss Magma up on that scale too, as well as BC. :-)
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Postby Arilin Nydelahar » Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:57 pm

Lilira wrote:Some people toss Magma up on that scale too, as well as BC. :-)



BC is annoying, not epic :P Magma I won't comment on as I've never bothered to do it.
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Postby Lathander » Sun Jul 23, 2006 11:24 pm

I'd go farther than Arilin. Any area builder has the ability to put in a crash recovery system in their zone with just a little bit of work. The real problem with that is that it makes your zone easier. Think about, a crash is one way to slow the gear coming out of your zone. If you make a crash recovery system, your zone is now easier and the gear is likely to get a downgrade. The real question is would folks prefer an easier/more certainty to get gear zone with downgraded items?

Lath
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Postby Sarvis » Mon Jul 24, 2006 1:10 am

Are you saying that system failure should be considered part of the basic gameplay?

Do you happen to work for Microsoft? ;)
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Postby Minofagal » Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:28 am

if you wanna bitch about something, bitch about how hard the staff worked to eliminate numerous bugs where if you knew where and what to do you could crash on purpose. it's a lot more rare than it used to be.
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Postby Lahgen » Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:50 am

Because we all know, whining is worse than computer errors.
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Postby Botef » Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:25 am

I'm rather ify on the issue. It can be very discouraging, partiularly currently, to spend 4 hours zoning and come out with nothing -especially when its the one out of two or three times in a week you zone, and probably the only time a group is capable of doing said zone. I really dislike the argument that a 'crash', an unpredictable and unintended aspect, should be 'planned' for. I don't think I should have to plan for double the amount of zoning time if it crashs due to something unreleated to our zone group.

On the flip side, its not much different then zoning for several hours only to lose your bids and come away with nothing -just displaced across the entire group. In the case of golem forge, at least 7-8 people are going to go away with nothing anyways...There are not many zones where the majority of EQ gains are not till the end...BC, Meilech, SPOB, etc. Scorps/Seers doens't count exactly IMO...There is some decent eq to be hand from Scorps, and seers only takes about 45 minutes.

The ONE and ONLY aspect of crashs I am really torn on is corpse recovery. It really rubs me the wrong way that a group can spend 5-6 hours doing a high-end zone like SPOB or BC only to have it crash, come away with nothing eq wise and then be told "Tough luck, hope you have another X# of hours to CR your corpses in teh next 18 hours". While most of those cases are empty corpses, which is "just xp", its still a significant time sink passed onto the players as punishment for an unforseable and unrelated happening to their zoning encounter. As much as I dislike this though, I can live with it......But not all players feel this way, and losing 50% xp because of a crash we should supposdly have planned for just seems like a crooked way of adding 'challenege'...In this respect, if crashs should be 'planned' for, shouldn't they also be factored into the challenge of a zone and the rewards? Perhaps they are.

In the case of eq'd corpses stuck in a zone like BC or Seers where quested entry is required, while I don't think a god CR is appropriate (As a group could give up and wait till a crash, etc), I do think there should be some sort of intervention say in the form of a 3-4 day pres on the corpse. To be honest though, I cant recall any cases of someone losing an eq'd corpse to crash in a high encounter zone like BC anytime in the last 3+ years. I don't think a pbase this small can honestly support a fully eq'd corpse lost as the result of a crash...that just leads to players quiting.

In sumation, crashs suck balls and the 'you should have planned for it' excuse bites the big one...But when only rewards are lost, not that big of deal. When XP is lost, yea that sucks but its still managable. EQ lost, well thats a big void of 'gray area'. BC is one zone I think some kind of policy should be in play, if nothing else to assure corpses will be preserved for an adequate amount of time for a group to reattempt the zone (keep in mind the players who get trapped have to find time to go back, because of an unforseen and unpreventable crash). Just about any other zone recovery isn't that impeded...Seers is one case I do understand, but again unless the corpses have EQ its a icky 'gray area' that is really really open to debate.

Zone recovery on the whole doesnt seem nessecary save for Tiamat, but there should be something in place for situations where EQ'd corpses are unrecoverable without the zone being done again only in the form of some sort of corpses preservation, and only for high-end, quested entry zones ala BC.

Wow...now thats a long post.
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Postby Lathander » Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:43 am

Actually Sarvis, yes, a crash could be considered part of gameplay. We all know that if the mud is acting buggy, you don't do big stuff. Same thing for weapons you are wielding, if the game is acting goofy, we all tend to wield our cursed weapons. The longer the zone, the greater the opportunity for a crash during that time. This is one of the reasons why longer zones tend to have better stuff.

Ultimately, the area writer makes the decision on if they want to allow or create a "save" position for their zone. Most simply do not put one in for the reasons I stated earlier.

I agree crashes are a bummer. I can't tell you how many Jot Invasions crashed before Loki I have experienced. We all also know that most crashes are not big deals. The same gear loads up most of the time, so it is just a matter of time until you get it. For the past decade, there has only been one exception, and Tiamat has always been the big exception to every rule.

Finally, in terms of CR's after a crash, some of those I remember as some of the most fun when we would have to marshall together a group to go save people.
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Postby Lahgen » Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:56 am

Lathander wrote:I'd go farther than Arilin. Any area builder has the ability to put in a crash recovery system in their zone with just a little bit of work. The real problem with that is that it makes your zone easier. Think about, a crash is one way to slow the gear coming out of your zone. If you make a crash recovery system, your zone is now easier and the gear is likely to get a downgrade. The real question is would folks prefer an easier/more certainty to get gear zone with downgraded items?

Lath


I also have to take issue with this.

It's the imm's free will to rob gear of its stats. Despite the fact that people like to act as though something that they personally do has no personal aspect to it.

Take for instance, "he got in trouble because he was late for work." It would be more honest to say "I punished him for being late for work." That way, it doesn't minimize the fact that a person used their free will to perform an act.

Also, where is there a place where error is considered an integral part of a functioning system? I'm sure that perhaps there is something like that, I just want to hear you say it.
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Postby Lathander » Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:09 am

Actually, I believe every system has some "error" built in. It is called different things, but personally I prefer the word "risk" for it. Another phrase might be "standard deviation". Quite simply, the greater the reward generally you will have greater risk or standard deviation to make up for that. If a system or even a zone has too much risk, then folks will simply not use that zone. In other to coax them back to that zone, you have to have some reward that in their opinion is worth it. If the risk/reward ratio is correct, then players will go to the zone.

I don't know about the late for work example. If the understood rule is you get in trouble for being late, and you chose to be late, then I don't see much of a decision process needed, personally.
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Postby teflor the ranger » Mon Jul 24, 2006 5:40 am

Lathander wrote:Think about, a crash is one way to slow the gear coming out of your zone.


Crashes are a good way to slow new people from joining the mud, old people from playing the mud, and everybody from liking the mud.

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Postby Gruy » Mon Jul 24, 2006 7:22 am

hmm, lath your throwing me way off with this tid bit of info.. so now besides dying and losing hours of mindless boring xp in a zone you now have the "risk" of crashing as part of gameplay? now does this risk factor in to the gear as well for risk vs reward? not sure where your going with this but it has to be one of silliest things ive ever heard.. and id agree teflor... mabye its the way your approaching it.. shrugs.

as far as the whole topic here.. i was on that run it was first evil run i came in after they half spanked or something which is the reason it took so long i believe. shrugs.

also i tend to agree that crashes do happen.. didint know they were a part of gameplay but generally i dont see any point in complaining about it unless it were something like tiamat or one of the 4+ hour zones..

granted that some of the 4+ hours zones arent epic it still takes 4+ hours out of your day to then realize wow that was a waste of time hehe. shrugs if that happens to someone commonly i would assume they would start to think that even playing here is a waste as well..

dont know where exactly i stand on this but i know how id feel if i did 5-6 zones over a weeks time and 3-4 of them resulted in a crash.. not saying it does just making a point of how crashes could push ppl away.

was lookin so foreward to seeing all the wierd gear ppl are talking about to:(
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Postby Gruy » Mon Jul 24, 2006 7:54 am

Tasan wrote:It's not a matter of it never being addressed. If you don't understand the simple mechanics of the game, then no I guess you have no basis for knowing what kind of undertaking "fixing" this would be. The simple fact is, the evil pbase(new players) are learning about one of the oldest things in the game. We go literally days without a crash, so complaining that it crashed while you were doing a zone is mind-bogglingly annoying to me.

The evils pbase is the most active? According to whom? As far as I know Ross has been leading a zone nearly every night for the goodies, and participates actively on the evil side as well. I don't think this is an issue of "let's appease the whiny new evil pbase just because they are the only ones who play". I think this is baseless whining by someone who's apt to whine. We've seen it before and the tone is always "why me".


not sure if your implying that tssassop is a new player? far and many years from it..

and most the evil pbase currently is goodies who went evil or play both types so alot of them are not new either..

as for tssassop whining about the crashes.. perhaps he jumped the gun and was a little pissed when he posted this but he did just spend 4 hours in a zone to get to the end for a crash hehe.

as for evils being more active than goods.. for awhile it was that way.. and teba was leading alot.. leading evils hehe. granted teba was trying to do goodie side zoning but i believe was spedning 2-3 hours trying to form for goodie zones and there just wasent anyone around.

also before tssassop went evil there really was no evil pbase or zoning for that matter on evil side.. shrugs from what ive seen tssassop single handedly pumped life back in to the evil races. shrugs mabye im wrong.
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Postby Ambar » Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:10 am

One question

How do you PLAN a crash? (Other than exploit a bug or find a new one)

Come on guys get real :) Is this why people sue the other party when we get in car wrecks?? Or when hot coffee accidently spills on them :) I know my answer is a tad excessive... but .. :P

I don't see crashes as built in, but they are part of the risk we take when playing a free game on that new fangled thing called *the internet* :P
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Postby Lahgen » Mon Jul 24, 2006 12:18 pm

The "late for work" thing was just an example of how someone might intentionally choose to inflict their power on someone, and then try to act depersonalized about it by saying "he got in trouble" rather than "I punished him." In this case, to less depersonalize it would be to say "We decided to inflict downgrades upon your gear" rather than "the gear is likely to get downgraded." I don't know if that makes any sense or not, but eh.

As to the system thing, I want a specific example of a specific system where crashes/errors is an integral part of the expected system performance rather than seen as an error to be improved on. Forgive my lack of clarity before, but I want specific examples.
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Postby Vigis » Mon Jul 24, 2006 12:30 pm

I don't understand the folks saying that crashes will keep people from coming to the game or staying here if they have already been. Back during our hey day, crashes were almost daily and we had over 300 players on at a time.

A crash basically breathes new life into the game, what is everybody doing when the mud has been up for 90 hours?

Crashes have always been part of the risk vs reward equation IMO. You know that if you are doing a longer zone, you have a better chance for a crash than if you are storming through IC Vault. Spob is probably the best example of a crash being factored into risk vs reward. What can you lose in Spob? xp. You go in naked, so gear loss isn't an issue, you could ress throughout, so xp loss really isn't an issue, but you can't get out to get the gear until the zone is completely finished. That is basically your only risk.

If anybody wants to see a zone recovery option, just write up the zone. It has already been stated that it could be added.
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Postby Latreg » Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:54 pm

teflor the ranger wrote:Crashes are a good way to slow new people from joining the mud, old people from playing the mud, and everybody from liking the mud.

Bad software is not a strategy, and Ignorance is not a point of view.


Totally agree, you invest what time you have to do a zone, mud crashes, you get nothing and generally no one has the time or desire to redo it. Tons of posts about people not having time etc.

Lathander wrote:Think about, a crash is one way to slow the gear coming out of your zone.


Is there so much zoning now that we need to slow things down? It's too late to slow down the influx of gear, people already have huge amounts in storage, look at the stuff on auction and what is given away. You couldn't even give the dwarven scalemail away these days, when it use to be nice newbie stuff.
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Postby flib » Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:06 pm

Ambar wrote: how easy is it to run to GF and start over?


ya. ive played here a dang long time. so ya I get the whole toril "the game crashes sometimes, deal with it" standpoint.. but this has happened to me twice both times some mishap happened and it caused the group to go over by a bunch once in spob.. in the way back.. couple years ago I think.. and this one.. so ya. it's a major pain in the ass. to get 14 other people re interested into starting something that they had been 4 or so hours into and almost finished..? (seriously. we were about done.. had one more fight left.) ya that's not easy. actually. sorry. it's impossible. and why would they want to? for the possibility of the exact damn same thing happening again? where's the fun in that? there's none. we spanked once, cuz we didnt really know how the fight worked and cr took a good bit. somewhere like an hour or so. and restarted we didnt like do it crappy we were goin really smooth and pretty decently fast i'd say besides the one spank. so ya. it's a huge dissapointment and a big let down when you just about get to the end of a zone that evils have never succesfully finished themselves and wipe out by no fault of yer own. only to be told by other people. tough shit. life sucks. to me sorry to say that's a buncha bullshit. how does that make sense though? you're going along inside this fantasy world (you can sort of describe it as reading a book I guess) yer in the middle of it and you drop your book on the floor. oh shit! I dropped the book! who f'in starts from the first page? I know I don't I start where I left off.. shit don't make sense. bleh.
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Postby Dalar » Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:48 pm

Lathander wrote:I'd go farther than Arilin. Any area builder has the ability to put in a crash recovery system in their zone with just a little bit of work. The real problem with that is that it makes your zone easier. Think about, a crash is one way to slow the gear coming out of your zone. If you make a crash recovery system, your zone is now easier and the gear is likely to get a downgrade. The real question is would folks prefer an easier/more certainty to get gear zone with downgraded items?

Lath



The real question is, do the creators of this game remember what it was like to not have immortal access? Immortal corruption on both Toril and Homeland existed; players and immortals crashed the game to cockblock people out of loot. Does it happen still? Doesn't matter. It can still happen. Will people be punished? Probably not.

This thread can spiral downard in a time vs reward retarded thread with Gurns popping in with his infinite knowledge on the topic. Save us some time and listen to all your veteran players and hear them say that it's stupid that they have to fight the "unreasonable" tactics in certain zones while hoping some immortal who is having a bad day doesn't crash the MUD or some disgruntled player crashing the game and not getting caught.

Add a random variable to the equipment stats where the rewards are worse when there's less people on, coders are less drunk/bored/offline, and Gormal is leading.
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Postby Sarvis » Tue Jul 25, 2006 1:11 am

Vigis wrote:A crash basically breathes new life into the game, what is everybody doing when the mud has been up for 90 hours?


That shouldn't be necessary though, it's actually another sign of bad design. Players sitting around bored because a crash hasn't happened recently is actually worse than losing gear in a crash... both ends need to be examined and fixed.
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Postby Tasan » Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:10 am

Ok for everyone bitching and whining about how they've had the game crash 2 seconds before finishing something, stow it. Everyone who's played this game has had an incident where a crash affected them in a negative way. And nearly everyone here I'm sure has benefitted in some way from one as well.

Sarvis, you say that it's a flaw in overall game design that detracts from the playability. Well I'm sure there are plenty of folks who will agree with you. I for one will not.

Crashes are for the most part random. The instances where immortals have caused a crash have been reduced to basically nothing(cockblocking aside :p). What would you have instead of crashes to refuel the game? Zones that repop spontaneously? Mobs that always have a chance to spawn eq? Planned reboots for random times so we don't screw over the Aussies or the Euros or even the Americans?

Maybe the playerbase has just shifted so much from people having fun from zoning itself to people only having fun when they obtain an item from a zone. I mean, most of the bitching seems to involve supposedly "wasting time" in a zone because you didn't get eq. There are only a couple zones that only give rewards at the end, and most take that very fact into account to allow for better stats on the items you receive. If most of the people playing now think that they should receive a set amount of reward for a set amount of time put in, then what's the point? Give Corth every item in the game for his ptime and let's all go play parcheesi.

Crashes were the reason you wanted to get better at your job and better at knowing a zone so that it didn't take too long. If there was a system of recovery, I would hope it would also include some sort of negative impact if you couldn't do a zone in a set amount of time. I guess I can see where people who don't really care about learning to play well can bitch and whine because they can't obtain things those that worked hard did. Yes, makes sense to me.

The rate of eq coming into the game if every zone was always successful will far outstrip the amount of time it takes to plan, create and implement new zones. With a "no-wipe" attitude, equipment will continue to devalue as more of it is brought in. The more band-aids to gameplay we introduce, the worse off the skill level required to play becomes and the easier the game is, and we can all agree no one likes to play a game that's childishly easy.

I'm not even going to get into the RvR discussion.

Gruy: I said evil pbase(new players) i.e. new players that started as evils. I know exactly who Tssa is, and I don't think he was the "sole reason evils came back". You are entitled to your own opinion of course.

Tef: New people aren't affected nearly as much by crashes. Lower level players probably benefit more often than not, since they can find gear more quickly over several boots than they can over 1 long one. As far as I know, none of the people I am friends with that have "quit" ever mentioned crashing as being the reason.

Oh and Lahgen, you have de-railed.
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Postby Sarell » Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:52 am

Thinking of crashes as part of the gameplay to me is kind of a cop-out. OMG world suddenly ended, I have to kill all the monsters I already killed to get my gear back and have no loot. Sounds like a crap game to me.

Spob would be an easy zone to 'fix' using areas as Lathander suggested, because you can't take anything out of the zone. You would have to make keys rentable, and break upon use in a few instances to fix it. However this would in many other instances be prone to people renting, or idling with keys for a variety of reasons.

Dalar makes a good point of the ability for a corrupt god to crash zones. I don't remember them doing that, but I remember a few players who would crash the mud when someone they didn't like got halfway through a zone.

You could keep crashing the mud, or waiting for crashes until the right item you wanted came up on locate in some cases.

I agree with Lathander that it should be in the areas realm to work out some nifty solutions to begin with, and see if that works for those zones perhaps. To have a code solution you would have to log the state of every mob in the game, that can't be a good option can it? Perhaps, as each mob in a zone dies, it's number / room is recorded, as a zone pops that is appended, if the mud crashes, it resets those mobs. If the END MOB is dead, it could wipe the log. But that would still be prone to everything, and would most likely need admin at some point, which creates headache for players and staff. Go with area stuff.

Here's an idea for spob I gave before. Sit a !kill spectral dragon at the start with a quest, word it how you like. If you give it yig keystone for example, it taps into some secret power and kills everything on the top grid and tendrils. Thus resetting your progress slightly.

The mud doesn't crash much anymore your right. Only when you are doing a hard zone usually.
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Postby teflor the ranger » Tue Jul 25, 2006 10:59 am

Tasan wrote:Tef: New people aren't affected nearly as much by crashes. Lower level players probably benefit more often than not, since they can find gear more quickly over several boots than they can over 1 long one. As far as I know, none of the people I am friends with that have "quit" ever mentioned crashing as being the reason.


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Counting on a mud to crash in order to repop equipment is bad design. Frequent crashes prevent new players from ever getting the mud by chasing away the old ones.
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Postby Latreg » Tue Jul 25, 2006 1:56 pm

Tasan wrote:Maybe the playerbase has just shifted so much from people having fun from zoning itself to people only having fun when they obtain an item from a zone. I mean, most of the bitching seems to involve supposedly "wasting time" in a zone because you didn't get eq.


Um yeah it is a waste of time. Killing for no equipment is called exp-ing. If you want to zone just to see the pretty colors drop some acid. The equipment represents more than just stats to a lot of people, it's a trophy, it's something that says I accomplished something, the zone was completed. I keep lots of stuff because it has sentimental value and reminds me of when I landed a full heal on someone who was morted etc. things like that. You make too many assumptions on why people get upset about crashes.
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Postby Dlur » Tue Jul 25, 2006 2:55 pm

I remember when the game crashed/rebooted every day, sometimes multiple times within the span of an hour because the code was so unstable. Now we go what 50-70 hours on average before a crash or reboot? Eili fixes most crash bugs within a day or two. Wow that's terrible. They sky is falling!

I also remember when people did zones because they were fun to do, and if you got a little EQ at the end that was just a bonus. When's the last time you 3 or 4 manned Jot just because you could? What ever happened to the duck pond?

Certainly I remember people whining just as much then as they do now. Certainly I remember things changing and evolving with the ebb and flow of players and staff over the years regardless and sometimes in spite of the whining that goes on.

As far as crashes being a flaw in the code, of course they are at the lowest fundamental level. Toril is at the lowest level a computer program, and any program that crashes has some problems. However, Toril is more than just a computer program, much more. It is people, it is memories, it is bad grades in college, it is rough mornings in the office after a particularly late night, it is stories, it is conversation, it is saying an emote like “nog” out loud to people who have no clue what a MUD is. It is part of your life, whether you like it or not, and we are all a part of Toril’s life (for better or worse).

Sure, we could eschew everything that Shevy has been working on for the last couple years with the 2.0 changes, whatever they may be, and completely redesign the entire areas/game process so that there is a completely persistent world and that every state is saved from where you where at when/if the game crashed to the mobs you killed. That would surely be better to have it so that whoever finished Jot the first time was the only one to ever finish it, because after that all the giants are dead so nobody else has the joy of doing that zone again. Certainly that would be best! Sure we could have random spawning of items on random spawning mobs, just like UO, EQ, or any of the other MMORPGs that have come out since. We could have random spawns to the point of forgoing any attempt at immersive story telling through the zone process to the point of every zone being a mundane repetitive slaughter fest, killing the same spawn over and over again until it loads whatever you shiny item you are led to believe is worth your 8 straight hours of smiting that same spawn to get. To me, at least, this would make Toril as boring, tedious, and un-awe-inspiring as these bells-and-whistles graphical games that everyone bores of over time and eventually comes back home to Toril from, the same ones that I have never left Toril or its kin for.

You can argue game design, coding flaws, balance, risk versus reward, and cock-blocking until you’re blue in the face, but when it comes down to it the only thing that really matters is whether the game is fun and enjoyment is derived from it. I’m pretty sure that any game that remains interesting, immersive, and most importantly fun to someone for well over 10 years (myself included) must be doing something right. I look forward to another 10 years with my friends on Toril and the game I love.

(P.S. In case you didn’t notice, I’m against resetting zones in the event of a crash with the exception of Tiamat.)
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Postby Latreg » Tue Jul 25, 2006 3:33 pm

Dlur wrote:You can argue game design, coding flaws, balance, risk versus reward, and cock-blocking until you’re blue in the face, but when it comes down to it the only thing that really matters is whether the game is fun and enjoyment is derived from it. I’m pretty sure that any game that remains interesting, immersive, and most importantly fun to someone for well over 10 years (myself included) must be doing something right. I look forward to another 10 years with my friends on Toril and the game I love.

(P.S. In case you didn’t notice, I’m against resetting zones in the event of a crash with the exception of Tiamat.)


Fun is the name of the game, you are totally correct. I think what I and probably others are trying to say, is that putting in 4+ hours, having a crash and only option is to start from the beginning is NO fun. For this reason people don't and won't zone because they can't commit that kind of time, especially when the zones are !tele, once you are in you can't leave. I still don't see the harm in a crash recovery system, if you don't like it don't use it.
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Postby Dalar » Tue Jul 25, 2006 3:44 pm

I just skimmed through the responses, but getting 15 people to do an exp zone is a waste of time. Look how often KT is done.
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Postby Lilira » Tue Jul 25, 2006 4:17 pm

But you still have that four hours of fun. If it isn't fun, then you're going to the zone for the wrong reason.
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Postby Sarvis » Tue Jul 25, 2006 4:35 pm

Tasan wrote: What would you have instead of crashes to refuel the game? Zones that repop spontaneously? Mobs that always have a chance to spawn eq? Planned reboots for random times so we don't screw over the Aussies or the Euros or even the Americans?


So what you're saying is that we should allow crashes to refresh the world in order to save the imms from designing a proper way to control the influx of eq into the world?


Let me see, you're worried too much eq would come into the world if a zone respawned every time? Then what about a bad crash day where the zone respawns completely several times? It could potentially give even more of an eq influx!

In some cases the actual worst part is players doing nothing at all because there hasn't been a crash/reboot in over a week. It's ok to say that the imms should then make the game reboot, but why a manual step that sometimes doesn't come when it's really needed?


We should look into alternatives. How do MMORPGs deal with these issues? Certainly something like City of Heroes doesn't depend on game crashes to repopulate their world!

Perhaps zones could have timers, or percentage based chances of reloading which reflect their item qualities. So Tia might be gauranteed to load after 6 hours, or have a 5% chance of respawning every respawn tick after being completed. This would be flexible, and far more rewarding than bumming around hoping some imm feels like rebooting or, worse yet, hoping that the codebase is so poorly written that it crashes! (Especially with new version coming in which will likely be even more stable.)
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Postby Lahgen » Tue Jul 25, 2006 4:56 pm

Sarvis wrote:So what you're saying is that we should allow crashes to refresh the world in order to save the imms from designing a proper way to control the influx of eq into the world?


Or maybe there should be no control of the influx at all.
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Postby Sarvis » Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:07 pm

Dlur wrote:Sure, we could eschew everything that Shevy has been working on for the last couple years with the 2.0 changes,


Why would the be necessary again? Having changes go in does not preclude the possibility of other changes!

That would surely be better to have it so that whoever finished Jot the first time was the only one to ever finish it, because after that all the giants are dead so nobody else has the joy of doing that zone again.


This is actually a flaw with the current system! No one can do jot for weeks after the first group if no crashes/reboots happen.

Certainly that would be best! Sure we could have random spawning of items on random spawning mobs, just like UO, EQ, or any of the other MMORPGs that have come out since. We could have random spawns to the point of forgoing any attempt at immersive story telling through the zone process to the point of every zone being a mundane repetitive slaughter fest, killing the same spawn over and over again until it loads whatever you shiny item you are led to believe is worth your 8 straight hours of smiting that same spawn to get. To me, at least, this would make Toril as boring, tedious, and un-awe-inspiring as these bells-and-whistles graphical games that everyone bores of over time and eventually comes back home to Toril from, the same ones that I have never left Toril or its kin for.


The bells and whistles games that have all but decimated the MUD population. Yeah, they must be doing everything wrong. :roll:

I look forward to another 10 years with my friends on Toril and the game I love.


And how many of your friends are still around?
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Postby Latreg » Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:06 pm

Lilira wrote:But you still have that four hours of fun. If it isn't fun, then you're going to the zone for the wrong reason.


even though I'm quoting you, you are not the only one who has said this. With all due respect you can't tell me I'm going to a zone for the wrong reason, it's like telling someone their opinion and or belief is wrong. There are tons of different reasons people go, sometimes it is about the gear, sometimes it's about a quest or to help someone.

Hey how about this, someone doing Erlans or some other long ass quest, right before you get the times mud crashes! Oh well just start over again I guess.
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Postby Lilira » Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:26 pm

Actually there have been instances where quest steps on the "epic" quests have been reimbursed when lost due to crashes, so its a matter of requesting the fight.

The only thing I was trying to point out is that there should be an element of fun in a zone no matter what. If you're going to help someone, then there's the fun of helping a friend etc. That's a reward even if there's a crash. Wasn't trying to start a session of psychobabble or anything.
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Postby Ambar » Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:41 pm

I'm just curious if the graphicals reimburse for crashes Ie: server craps .. Maybe for the vbig instances but not for the *small stuff*

I just cant believe we hold people accountable for the inevitable burps and sneezes of computer programming and a possible server poop out on the mud box's end. If it was code related, or if a PERSON was responsible for it and they could figure out exaclty what happened, sure.

For ourtages, net burps, sneezes and hiccups, thats simply preposterous :P Thats like you calling your ISP to complain cause you were offline for a few hours, weeks, days cause of a hurricane :P

For those who mud in general for anything less than fun, there is help out there for you:P

Get a life, move on .. start the damn zone over and stop whining!!!

O for the record ... Erlans and other similar quests are EPIC and qualify as such along with Tia :P
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Postby Tasan » Tue Jul 25, 2006 7:00 pm

Latreg wrote:Hey how about this, someone doing Erlans or some other long ass quest, right before you get the times mud crashes! Oh well just start over again I guess.


How long have you played here? Erlan's and Kern's have ALWAYS been reimbursed if there was a crash.

Latreg wrote:Fun is the name of the game, you are totally correct. I think what I and probably others are trying to say, is that putting in 4+ hours, having a crash and only option is to start from the beginning is NO fun. For this reason people don't and won't zone because they can't commit that kind of time, especially when the zones are !tele, once you are in you can't leave. I still don't see the harm in a crash recovery system, if you don't like it don't use it.


It's no fun for you, because you derive all your pleasure from gaining eq. If everyone here worked that way, you'd never ever have a chance to do half the stuff left to do because the older players are still going back to zones to do them FOR FUN. They don't need stuff from zones, they still derive pleasure from doing 2nd gate, or from braxats etc. If zoning is just XP to you with an eq reward, then I'd say go play another class or find something to make zoning w/o eq fun. But there are plenty of people that will only zone for a tangible reward, so whatever.

And I don't understand this "if you don't like it, don't use it". If crash recovery were put in, it wouldn't be an option to use or not.

Sarvis wrote:We should look into alternatives. How do MMORPGs deal with these issues? Certainly something like City of Heroes doesn't depend on game crashes to repopulate their world!


Sarvis, I asked you if you had real solutions to the problem, and you come up with the same shit that MMORPG's came up with. Well guess what, this isn't an MMO. This game wasn't built from the ground up with the idea of a persistant world. The code and areas would need a serious overhaul to create this recovery code. And at what cost? People started calling it Evercamp for a reason. Many people have stated the same problems we have here with WoW. I don't see an overwhelmingly perfect game out there designed to make everyone happy.

So what if the mud crashed several times in 1 day? You all are saying you won't play a game that crashes, so there's less zoning going on and less eq coming into the game. There's a reason crashing and RvR go hand in hand.

Taking away the possibility of a crash makes zones that are supposedly long and difficult become something you don't even worry about. Less and less people are needed for a zone since a small group of players can take their time and do it themselves. More whining comes from this because the rest of the mud gets bored because those same small group people are the ones that usually lead the rest around. So we're back at your argument for why this place is boring.

Jot not being done for weeks? Jot doesn't get done for weeks _now_ because so much jot(and better) equipment flooded the game that there hasn't been a need to go back for anything but rares.

Comparing this game to graphical MMO's is comparing apple's to elephants. Even you should be ashamed of that analogy. We don't have the marketing and we don't have the administration, we aren't necessarily on the coding frontier as far as computer games go. For anyone to come in and take a look at this game and try to compare it to a genre spawned from the genre this game came from is mind-boggling.

Btw when's the last time you actually played? Oh right. Well it shows. We've never had an uptime of over 80 hours let alone a week, Eil has seen to it to make sure that we hardly get beyond 40 hours anymore(except on weekends). The world is plenty large and there is plenty to do.

Dartan: KT would be done if we could enter it.

Lahgen wrote:Or maybe there should be no control of the influx at all.


Now you've gone beyond de-railed.

Teflor wrote:Frequent crashes prevent new players from ever getting the mud by chasing away the old ones.


What? Sarvis says the mud never reboots, you say it frequently crashes... so which is it? And I'm confused by this statement... I already stated that most of the people I know that have moved on didn't do it because of crashing. Face it, saying crashes drive people away is a cop-out as well. If someone doesn't like an aspect of the game, yes they are going to leave. I wouldn't dream of this game appeasing everyone who tried it.
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Postby Shevarash » Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:28 pm

This MUD is easily the most stable its been in the years I've been around, and that is because we've strived to correct the crash bugs.

So how about we just keep on doing that and provide the most stable game we can.

And as for intentional crashing, I can assure you that we check the cause of every crash that happens, and anyone - immortal or mortal - caught crashing the game on purpose would face serious consequences.
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Postby Latreg » Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:33 pm

Tasan wrote:And I don't understand this "if you don't like it, don't use it". If crash recovery were put in, it wouldn't be an option to use or not.


what don't you understand? why wouldn't it be an option, leave zone start again, seems pretty simple to me. Ditch whatever keys you may have etc.
Tasan you need to re-read the posts including your own. You last posts states that Jot is only checked for rares now, which is true, so I guess all you people who "zone for fun" and don't care about the equipment have become a minority. Just like when Evils use to hand down something after they won a bid. The player base and the game it self has changed, you people are the ones who need to deal with it. How many people do you know have said let's do Jot even thought it's already been done? How many times has that EVER happend? People still 2 man and 4 man stuff, they call it twinking, they do it because they can and only do what they want (the good stuff) Tiny golden earring get done first thing after a boot/crash? what about Jenna's? The point is things have changed yet some of you are still living in the past. If you want activity and people to stay you sometimes have to make concessions. You think the mud can take a loss of 5-10 active long term players? They are getting old, many don't have the time to invest that they use to. Either make some accomidations to keep them or don't and maybe have them quit. Which do you want? Read the thread on shorter zones, people don't have the time they use to, crash recovery will accomidate those that don't have the time. Honestly I don't see where you people who are against this are coming from. If you do the work to get from point a to point b all anyone is asking is that we start and point b and continue,(same thing that people are wanting for Tia) having already done the first part. Seems to me more zoning is better for the mud on a whole and things that keep people zoning help the mud as well.
Vigis
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Postby Vigis » Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:50 pm

Shevarash wrote:And as for intentional crashing, I can assure you that we check the cause of every crash that happens.


Based on my experiences with crashing the mud, Shev is telling the truth :)

Somebody always responds to my petition any time I have caused a crash :)

Eilistrae responds to your petition 'What wand did you use and what did you use it on?' or 'What attack did you use to start that fight with Kramel?'

And every time I give an honest answer, the response is the same.... 'Don't do that again!' :P
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Latreg
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Postby Latreg » Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:59 pm

Ambar wrote:I just cant believe we hold people accountable for the inevitable burps and sneezes of computer programming and a possible server poop out on the mud box's end. If it was code related, or if a PERSON was responsible for it and they could figure out exaclty what happened, sure.

For ourtages, net burps, sneezes and hiccups, thats simply preposterous :P Thats like you calling your ISP to complain cause you were offline for a few hours, weeks, days cause of a hurricane :P

For those who mud in general for anything less than fun, there is help out there for you:P

Get a life, move on .. start the damn zone over and stop whining!!!



I've changed isp's because of outages and problems and have been happy I've done so. The mud is so much better than it was in the past, crash wise, we use to say ok of the mud is down we'll meet on duris, I'll be soandso.....I don't think you can blame (and what good does it do) anyone about the things you listed that causes outtages.
I can whine all I want, people have died so I can do so, You above all other people, I would have thought you would have supported that fact. I'll bet NO good changes have been made in the mud because someone has "whined" huh.
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Postby Lahgen » Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:08 pm

<I>I can whine all I want, people have died so I can do so, You above all other people, I would have thought you would have supported that fact. I'll bet NO good changes have been made in the mud because someone has "whined" huh.</I>

You have the right to whine, but you don't have the right to be taken seriously by your betters unless they approve of the content AND the attitude of your plea. After all, who are you to dispute the way things are in life, eh?
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Postby Tasan » Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:15 pm

Latreg wrote:what don't you understand? why wouldn't it be an option, leave zone start again, seems pretty simple to me. Ditch whatever keys you may have etc.


Oh but you see, you just stated, people don't have time to restart after a crash so, why would they restart the zone completely?

Latreg wrote:Tasan you need to re-read the posts including your own. You last posts states that Jot is only checked for rares now, which is true, so I guess all you people who "zone for fun" and don't care about the equipment have become a minority.


Wrong. People like me still go back to jot. Kost was done w/ a 4 man group last week, by OLD players. What I was referring to is entire 15 person groups who go there to check rares, much like what the evils have done recently.

Latreg wrote:Just like when Evils use to hand down something after they won a bid. The player base and the game it self has changed, you people are the ones who need to deal with it. How many people do you know have said let's do Jot even thought it's already been done? How many times has that EVER happend? People still 2 man and 4 man stuff, they call it twinking, they do it because they can and only do what they want (the good stuff) Tiny golden earring get done first thing after a boot/crash? what about Jenna's? The point is things have changed yet some of you are still living in the past. If you want activity and people to stay you sometimes have to make concessions. You think the mud can take a loss of 5-10 active long term players? They are getting old, many don't have the time to invest that they use to. Either make some accomidations to keep them or don't and maybe have them quit. Which do you want?


So which is it? People don't have time to play the game so we dumb it down to the point where those who do get bored and leave? People are going to leave regardless. You do everything there is to do, get bored and go play some MMO because it overs new shiny crap to get. There are plenty of older people still playing for exactly the reasons I've stated. They enjoy going back to zones and helping others obtain things that they themselves don't need.

Time investment(i.e. how much time you have once you sit down to play) is an entirely separate issue here. If you can't zone(i.e. participate in a zone, realizing there could be a crash, or a spank or some other time-consuming issue), then you can't zone. Dumbing down the time it takes to obtain rewards would dilute those rewards worth, and soon everyone would be bored. You are basically removing one of the difficulties of the game, which is to become good enough at playing that you avoid spanks/crashes etc.

Latreg wrote:Read the thread on shorter zones, people don't have the time they use to, crash recovery will accomidate those that don't have the time. Honestly I don't see where you people who are against this are coming from. If you do the work to get from point a to point b all anyone is asking is that we start and point b and continue,(same thing that people are wanting for Tia) having already done the first part. Seems to me more zoning is better for the mud on a whole and things that keep people zoning help the mud as well.


This is the main point I'm making. You don't see the end result of being here for years and seeing more and more eq flood into the game and watch the dwindling value of it, or the effects that would be caused by zones always repopping etc.

Most of the people pining for shorter zones are talking about Magma, BC and Tiamat. These zones have for the most part epic rewards for epic effort/time spent. The RvR issue here is what you just aren't looking at, or can't comprehend.
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