Crashes Crashes and oh wait..more CrasheS!

Feedback, bugs, and general gameplay related discussion.
Gura
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Crashes Crashes and oh wait..more CrasheS!

Postby Gura » Sun Jul 10, 2005 2:58 am

Its become a common thing that the mud crash near the end of a long zone...today it was after 8ish hours in magma i think? i wasnt there so i couldnt say for sure...but from what i heard they got no sort of compensation for the work they did put into the zone. Its happened in BC at least 2x now also very recently. The comments made today by a staff member were something along the lines of the bug was related to a group member..but not to the zone...so there isnt anything they can do. Well look....whether it was a bug with magma...or a bug with pods...there was a bug...it crashed the mud...and the people that happened to be in that zone for 7 hours got shafted bigtime for it. the mud crashed regardless of the reason. some sort of compensation should be offered...and im not talking every zone...if it crashes in et big whoop...but zones like soul prison and bc where you dont get rewards until the very end should be flagged for some kind of review if it crashes especially if you're on the last fight when it happens. i mean seroiusly...why have zones that take a long time if its not worth doing them because the mud crashes everytime? do you think if this new improved tia is supposed to take 12hours people are gonna want to do it if its constantly crashing on them and you say sucks to be you? its bad for the players, the staff and the mud image altogether. I'm not telling you how to do your jobs...and im not saying you should be all lovey dovey sympathetic for every tiny thing...but things like this are above and beyond meeting qualifications for an exception to these policies. now how is that for run on sentences.
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Postby auslyx » Sun Jul 10, 2005 4:40 am

couldn't agree more. reminds me of buying a car. you spend your money (time in the zone in the mud) and you know you have a car. You have nothing to show on mud when it chronically crashes or in zone that is last fight is only thing that matters. Let alone ALL the corpses.
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Postby Maedor » Sun Jul 10, 2005 8:25 am

..as our cries fall on deaf ears.

The BC group from last week deserves Bel's eq, as does this magma group.'
'
3 crashes in the middle or end of 3 big zones within a week. Seriously.

Not to point fingers or anything, but bugs are the coders fault...why the hell does it matter if you wrote bad code for the zone or bad code related to a player? Either way, you made a mistake, and the pbase gets to suffer. That being said, I'm not expecting perfection at all, I just don't think our dwindling player base needs to take further losses due to things beyond players control...that are correctable by the staff :)

You guys do a good job-this is just one area that needs some work.
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Postby Naled » Sun Jul 10, 2005 11:28 am

Well I was in the magma group last night. We spent 8 hours working our way to the last fight, and started it. It's a damn hard zone by all standard and we had racked up about 50-60 corpses by then. And then it crashed. No eq, since all eq loads on the final mob, 8 hours down the drain and a lot of xp-ing to recover the xp loss.

And then we hear, well too bad for you, the crash didn't have anything to do with the zone directly. Well one of us crashed the zone appearantly, though the admin in charge would not say how or who.

I think the way admins handle these things is ridiculous. This main goal of this game is to have fun. Or at least I think so. Working 8 hours and then getting nothing in return because of a crash is no fun for me. I can't think of any reason that justifies this policy. Bottom line is this takes the fun out of the game. For me and I think for most people.

The effect of this is that magma won't be done ever again. At least I won't until something is done about this. Is that what the admins want?

Fun>Rules.

And if rules are in the way of fun, then the rules need to go.

Naled.
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Postby Eilistraee » Sun Jul 10, 2005 3:31 pm

The crash last night was not the result of a problem with the actual zone, nor a problem caused an a staff member doing something that resulted in a crash. Those are the circumstances under which we restore a zone currently. The actual event is not something we're going to detail, we've never told people at large what they do that crashes the mud. So far as I know, we never will.

Crashes are the coder's fault, certainly. We take the time to actually try to develop the game, and cannot forsee everything. However recent crashes have not been a direct result of new code added into the game; they MAY have resulted from some peripheral issues that have arisen due to the new work. This is unfortunate, and is the price of progress. If you would rather never have any new development, then we will still have the risk of crashes without any new material. I'd rather keep working at improving matters, dealing with whatever causes the crashes as they occur, and soldiering onward.

Crashes suck, no doubt. They suck when you're in the midst of a long zone and it crashes, they suck when you've just fumbled a weapon, they suck an awful lot of the time. And I've already told several of the people who have petitioned up regarding the crash reimbursement policy that I will bring it up at our next meeting.

No, I don't believe that it will be rescinded or changed to a full reimbursement policy. Despite my best efforts, there ISN'T always an immortal on at a crash who can reset things anyways. But the dialogue from brining up the policy at a meeting may result in some specialized exceptions to the rule. But until then, the policy as is stands.
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Postby Naled » Sun Jul 10, 2005 4:16 pm

Thanks for the response Eili.

Nobody is blaming you (or any other coder) for crashes. It's inherent to writing software, and everybody knows that. So crashes happen. And so will bad things that come with these. The ideal solution would be to save the state of the mud regularly, and even that won't solve fumbles etc.

The big issue I and others have with this is the immense time investment lost on crashes. If we were doing an ET run last night we would have muttered somewhat and retried. But you can't simply do that on the larger zones. I have to plan ahead to be able to mud a full day. It usually will be weeks or even months later before i can try again. I think you should see the policy in that light. Think what you would feel if you had been waiting for Christmas for weeks, and just when you started to open your presents, Life(tm) would crash and when you'd restart Christmas was over and you got no presents :P

I think we need to define a number of stages in the larger zones, and when completed they will be restored on a crash. You could even automate it if you want. A lot of the smaller zones would be one stage.

Crashes will still suck that way, but it will at least prevent the loss of effort people have put it. That's all I'm asking for.
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Postby Ambar » Sun Jul 10, 2005 4:26 pm

the immorts are and were players first :P Sometimes we forget that.

How can we chose areas where it is *more importnat* for the rules to be relaxed on? I am QUITE sure that exceptionas are made, corpse transports and on occasion immort ress's happen. For me, it may be TTF that I can never get back to. Fore some it is BC and/or Magma .. good thing about planar death is the ability to *fish* for corpses if they arent god transed to begin with.

Years ago this discussion would not have even happened. IIRC it is in the help files about crashes, isnt it? Why do we want things ever increasingly made easier for us? We are getting lazy!!!
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Postby Pril » Sun Jul 10, 2005 4:46 pm

Ok i feel like i shoudl weigh in ont he situation as i was leading the magma group. Yeah the crash sucked a LOT but since it wasn't a god related crash or a zone bug crash i can deal with it as much as it pains me to say it. The one annoying thing is someone in the group did something to cras the mud and noone (except gods) knows what it was. I understand why gods won't tell us, and their logic behind it, and I was assured that it was an abscure chance that it would happen. I guess what got me most concerned is it's clearly not obscure enough to never happen since a group sitting around can do it. And while it sucked in magma, it'll suck even more if it happens in Tia when that comes back in. Shrug i guess just venting still but i do undersand Eil's desision and reasoning for not reseting the zone and not telling us what caused the crash, just sucks that is couldn't be done.

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Postby Maedor » Sun Jul 10, 2005 6:16 pm

We went...We died...It crashed...

We need tshirts
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Postby teflor the ranger » Sun Jul 10, 2005 6:40 pm

While I am ok with the current zone reimbursement policy, (as long as my urinal bottle isn't full. just kidding.) I do think this is a good opportunity to suggest a code feature to assist in crash restoration.

We could apply a certain crash restoration procedure upon only certain zones that would at least partly restore a zone group in the event of a crash.

For instance, the mud could autonomously record the players in a group that enters zones such as Magma, SPOB, otherlongasszone, etc, and track the group's progress at certain points, much like a save point would work in most console based RPGs.

For instance, when you get to the Bel fight in BC, that would be a status marker. If the zone should crash while the group is in the Bel fight, autonomous code would redeposit the group members right outside Bel, and clear commonly cleared mobs before that fight.

No more mess, no more tears.
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Postby Lathander » Sun Jul 10, 2005 6:43 pm

I have to admit to being a little boggled. It has always been understood that a mud crash is a risk to doing zones just as it is a risk to dropping weapons. When the mud is unstable, you do zones which are smaller and easy to cr if there is a spank and crash. Whenever there is new code, you have to expect some instability. Before new code came in, I remember seeing folks complain about 70 and 80 hour uptimes. When the mud is stable is what you go smite the big, epic zones.

I remember tiamat runs where it would crash on tiamat or draco-lich and it was tough luck. Occasionally, you could get the staff to clear astral for you for the sitter, but that was not a given at all. Also, jot invasion where you would clear up to Loki just to have the mud crash. That’s part of the risk in doing zones; it is what creates some uncertainty to doing zones. Correct me if I’m wrong, but should a good going into a zone give them a 100% chance of getting the eq from there? Crashes add a bit of uncertainty, but if you really think about it, they really are only most prevalent when new stuff comes in.

Hell, as a player, I always liked new code even if it created short term instability. First, for rares hunters, it is heaven. Second, new stuff is good. It adds new features and variety to the game. Once the code has had time to season, the mud gets back to a stable environment and folks can complain when there are 60 to 90 hour uptimes.

Lath

PS I have a ton of “Mud crashed on Tiamat” shirts that are too small for me now if anyone wants one.
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Postby Naled » Sun Jul 10, 2005 7:28 pm

Ambar,

You are totally missing the point here. This isn't about the CR or difficulty. Saying we want it more easy is an easy answer and totally ignores what I was talking. Magma is a hard zone. And that is fine with me. Í don't care about cr's. I just don't like it when i spend hours in a long zone and it crashes in the last part. You can tell long stories about how great it all way in the day and stuff, but forget easily that we all had more time back then.

Oh btw, Lathander the mud wasn't unstable. It was up for a while, and we were in 8 hours. According to Eili it was a rather unlikely combination of events that crashed us.

And I'm not bashing the particular decision. There were rules, and the admin in charge just followed them. No problem with that. I just question the rule. I don't think we should be given any eq, or anything like that. I just think we should be able to complete the zone in case of a crash. I think I (and Teflor) have given an idea of how this can be done.

Times changes, we all have changed, and so should the rules. Otherwise make us all play on pentium I's with 1400 baud modems for the real chalenge.
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Postby fotex » Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:49 am

Ambar wrote:Years ago this discussion would not have even happened. IIRC it is in the help files about crashes, isnt it? Why do we want things ever increasingly made easier for us? We are getting lazy!!!


Boot camp just isn't what it used to be. :P
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Postby Lathander » Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:54 am

Indeed, we used to have to walk to school uphill in the snow everyday. Both ways!

Lath
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Postby Ashiwi » Mon Jul 11, 2005 3:37 am

I think it would be a great idea to rig some way to reset zones and stuff for groups almost done with the zone....

As long as more risks of loss were instituted into the game. We have plenty of gear influx already; most high end players are close to completely kitted out, if they don't have several characters completely kitted out already. Can assured gain really help the mud when there's no chance of losing anything at all? When everybody but a small handful of new players has everything they could possibly use, what then?
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Postby Botef » Mon Jul 11, 2005 3:43 am

teflor the ranger wrote:While I am ok with the current zone reimbursement policy, (as long as my urinal bottle isn't full. just kidding.) I do think this is a good opportunity to suggest a code feature to assist in crash restoration.

We could apply a certain crash restoration procedure upon only certain zones that would at least partly restore a zone group in the event of a crash.

For instance, the mud could autonomously record the players in a group that enters zones such as Magma, SPOB, otherlongasszone, etc, and track the group's progress at certain points, much like a save point would work in most console based RPGs.

For instance, when you get to the Bel fight in BC, that would be a status marker. If the zone should crash while the group is in the Bel fight, autonomous code would redeposit the group members right outside Bel, and clear commonly cleared mobs before that fight.

No more mess, no more tears.


I like this and I agree that zones in which all the rewards are from the last fight should have some kind of policy for time reimbursment. The last evil spob trip took over 12 hours. Had it crashed towards the end and some kind of reimbursment not given for that time I would have been more than a little ticked off. What I specifcally like about this idea however is that groups cannot wuss out on doing a zone in which your trapped by waiting for a crash so they can escape, and would have to continue after a crash from the zone's last reached marker. Adds a little credibility to zones your not supposed to be able to escape without completing.
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Postby Gura » Mon Jul 11, 2005 4:15 am

Lathander wrote:I have to admit to being a little boggled. It has always been understood that a mud crash is a risk to doing zones just as it is a risk to dropping weapons. When the mud is unstable, you do zones which are smaller and easy to cr if there is a spank and crash. Whenever there is new code, you have to expect some instability. Before new code came in, I remember seeing folks complain about 70 and 80 hour uptimes. When the mud is stable is what you go smite the big, epic zones.

I remember tiamat runs where it would crash on tiamat or draco-lich and it was tough luck. Occasionally, you could get the staff to clear astral for you for the sitter, but that was not a given at all. Also, jot invasion where you would clear up to Loki just to have the mud crash. That’s part of the risk in doing zones; it is what creates some uncertainty to doing zones. Correct me if I’m wrong, but should a good going into a zone give them a 100% chance of getting the eq from there? Crashes add a bit of uncertainty, but if you really think about it, they really are only most prevalent when new stuff comes in.

Hell, as a player, I always liked new code even if it created short term instability. First, for rares hunters, it is heaven. Second, new stuff is good. It adds new features and variety to the game. Once the code has had time to season, the mud gets back to a stable environment and folks can complain when there are 60 to 90 hour uptimes.

Lath

PS I have a ton of “Mud crashed on Tiamat” shirts that are too small for me now if anyone wants one.


that was also a time where there was enough people on all the time to tell you and your group to piss off and not come back that the mud wouldnt feel it.
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Postby Pril » Mon Jul 11, 2005 1:53 pm

Lathander wrote:Indeed, we used to have to walk to school uphill in the snow everyday. Both ways!

Lath


Dude you had legs?!?!?!??

Pril
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seriosly.

Postby Lohrandelarien » Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:27 pm

Well, whats annoying nowdays, isnt that the mud tend to crash "sometimes", lately its been crashing a whole lot and people are no longer surprised. Thats a huge difference to if it crashed here and there in the past in hard zones. Out of the 5-6 BC runs ive done, it has crashed 3 of them, thats about 50%.... thats ridicilous.
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Postby kiryan » Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:41 pm

So.... it seems to me the real question should be...

What are the reasons for the current policy not to restore zones?

If there aren't any good reasons, perhaps a policy change should be considered seriously.
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Postby Lahgen » Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:45 pm

Or you could, I don't know, do BC and such during times when there is not lots of new code going in.
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Postby Pril » Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:58 pm

Lahgen wrote:Or you could, I don't know, do BC and such during times when there is not lots of new code going in.


Lahgen part of the problem is some zones get planned weeks in advance and people set aside time for them. I know that a lot of the people on my magma run who have families or jobs or whatever had to set aside an 8 hr block of time for it. So when they log on for the zone if gods choose to implement code that day there's not too much they can do. On the same note is there any way the coders could possibly not implement new code 2-3 days before a major zone is planned if they are notified? Eil/Shev etc would love yer input on that request.

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Postby Gura » Mon Jul 11, 2005 7:50 pm

Lahgen wrote:Or you could, I don't know, do BC and such during times when there is not lots of new code going in.


which is anytime we want anyway?
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Postby Corth » Mon Jul 11, 2005 9:56 pm

rofl
Having said all that, the situation has been handled, so this thread is pretty much at an end. -Kossuth

Goddamned slippery mage.
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Postby Lathander » Tue Jul 12, 2005 12:42 am

I'm just speaking from experience years ago. If we had tiamat planned and the mud was unstable, we would go do something like Astral all at once or something. There are always little zones you can roll even if things are not stable enough for an epic zone.

This is just from experience and a personal opinion, but doing zone reimbursements as a matter of course would be extremely difficult and demanding of the staff. Manually, I just don't see it as a real possiblity to do it all the time. Also, it would become subjective as to how far one had to get. What do you do if a group does half of an invasion and it crashes? Reload invasion and clear it for the group up to the point they were?

Some folks have talked about a save position or some way to record automatically where you are in a zone. Sounds like a tall order from a coding perspective. I don't want to talk for code, but I would think players have alot more on their "Want" list than something that is going to make zones easier. Easier zones, ie no crash potential, lead to eq inflation and downgrades which people hate.

Think of crashes as part of the equation of whether a group can finish a zone or not. As I said earlier, is a group guaranteed the zone's eq just because they are in a zone? I like to think of it as adding some possiblity of failure.
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Postby Ashiwi » Tue Jul 12, 2005 2:44 am

And just think... with the levels of complaining and cries of 'favoritism' we have now... what would it be like when staff start giving out resets like that? Even with hardcore rules surrounding them, there are still going to be plenty of players who find fault, argue, cry, or interpret the rules however they want, then cry 'foul' when the answer doesn't fit how they think it should be.

I'd love to see resets for zones that have eight hours of work put into them before a crash, honestly, but it seems like it would end up being one big nightmare if they did.
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Postby Gura » Tue Jul 12, 2005 2:58 am

I'm not talking about invasions, they take like 0 time to do....2 hours(if that) to doesnt compare to 4, 5 or 8 hours and im more or less talking about zones that all of or the majority of the eq is on the final fight. I'm not saying do this for every zone because you shouldnt but when a group plans a zone, the mud has been fairly stable that day, it crashes after 8 hours and they're on the last fight maybe u should offer some sort of compensation. same with BC...group spends 4+ hours and only has Bel left, meaning all his lackys dead, and it crashes. what makes them not deserve something for that? oh wait...they got a bracelet and some crap chainmail.
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Postby Maedor » Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:27 am

< 416h/416H 127v/127V >
< T: spirit TC: pretty hurt E: general EC: pretty hurt P: std >
Aralesh Tandar, Defender of Arvandor starts casting a spell.
Aralesh Tandar, Defender of Arvandor completes his spell...
Aralesh Tandar, Defender of Arvandor utters the words, 'xafe ay candusqarr'
Aralesh Tandar, Defender of Arvandor utters a single word and disappears.


CRASH

Sorry you wasted a year trying to quest Kern's Xolan.

3 BC crashes, a magma crash, sots ashentoris quest crash, kerns crash...see a common theme?

I'm all for new code, but this new code is really fux0ring the playability of the game imo

i hope the staff reimb you, aaron. You put a lot of time and effort into that epic quest, and we had aralesh seconds from death.
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Postby Sarell » Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:28 pm

I don't like it crashing, I didn't like the last 4/5 BC trips of mine when it crashed when we were near done.

I really like new code tho, and new code will have bugs, even by some of the best software dev teams in the world.

Ultimately I like new code, more than I dislike crashes. I still enjoy smiting.

At the moment the mud does seem a bit overly crashy and it isn't doing any favours to the high end game and playerbase.

I think an admin policy on resetting zones would be a complete and utter disaster with bickering over who got what who needs a reset etc.

The solution is in coding zones so they are crash proof. E.g. Makes the keys for spob devourer rentable, however to open the door you need to break them. Make it so that if it crashes you can give the keys to a big ass death dragon and it goes around and stomps on all the mobs on first 2 grids.
Make key to bel's door just a big shiny key instead of seals, or make the amulet a wand that opens door and doesn't break, and make it rentable, however you need to hand it in to deva to get items. Little user friendly things like that would help the crash problems heaps. Could put secret paths and keys / portals to rooms in a zone where you can only get to if you were at that point and it crashed.. shrug.

The cost of an ever evolving game is a bit of unstability.
And yeh, I think even more code is the solution! *touch*
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Postby Llaaldara » Tue Jul 12, 2005 11:03 pm

Hey, atleast you know how to crash the mud now! :)
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Postby Salen » Wed Jul 13, 2005 4:53 am

Maedor wrote:
Aralesh Tandar, Defender of Arvandor utters a single word and disappears.


CRASH

Sorry you wasted a year trying to quest Kern's Xolan.


They aren't reimbursing Kern's? I coulda sworn that'd been done many a time in the past.
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Postby Eilistraee » Wed Jul 13, 2005 5:28 am

He was reimbursed, it's a standing policy about as old as Greycloak is.
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Postby Salen » Wed Jul 13, 2005 8:53 am

Just checking. Thanks.
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Postby kiryan » Wed Jul 13, 2005 7:03 pm

We reimburse quests but not zones...

there could very easily be 2x as much effort in one of the longer zones than there is in pretty much any quest... if you measure players time...

15 * zone time + resses * .5 hours + un-ress deaths * 2

I'm sure the distinction is that you can always log back on and start most zones over again... but can you really start a 5 hour one over after "wasting" 4.5 hours?
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Postby Lenefir » Wed Jul 13, 2005 9:07 pm

Hmm... So at what point do you believe zones should be reimbursed? If it takes more than 2 hours? 3 hours? 4? 5? More? And like some said... Zones that takes 5 hours now, might take 4 hours or less if people figure out things to speed it up, or just get more familiar with the mobs and know what to expect, or more powerful in terms of equipment or spells. Or the other way, with a lot of bad luck, zones that normally takes an hour or two might take 8-9 or more.

So what should the magic time limit be? Or should it just be limited to a couple of zones? Who decides those? And if so, what criterias should be set for a zone to be selected like one? Do the admin have to pay attention all the time to verify at which point you were in case of crash? Should (s)he just trust the players? Check logs? And what happens if an admin with the power to reimburse isn't on in case of a crash? And at what time, if at all, would the zone be considered too "easy" to no longer be one you could be reimbursed in?

Hmm... *ponders*
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Maedor
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Postby Maedor » Thu Jul 14, 2005 8:16 pm

It'd be nice to start a reimbursement policy somewhere. I'd suggest BC and magma for starters. See how it works-feel out the process. based on how it goes, add other zones.

I'm glad Xolan got reimbursed, but I agree with Kiryan in that more effort was lost in 3x bc crashes + magma crash + seelie crash than any quest..yet the quest gets reimbursed. Doesn't make sense!

I'm all for new code/features. I just like to see the inevitable mistakes not put a damper on the game.
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Postby Ashiwi » Thu Jul 14, 2005 8:38 pm

It makes sense to me to reimburse a quest over a zone. People can go back to a zone the very next day, but nobody's going to finish an epic quest in one day unless they're given the pieces to do it. I don't mind losing eight hours out of my day, but three or more months of working on one quest, actual man-hours be damned, lost to a crash is just brutal.
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Postby Pril » Thu Jul 14, 2005 8:38 pm

We did bc last night with no crashes and no problems. I say it's all sarell's fault that it crashed before! :p

*pet Pat*

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Postby Maedor » Thu Jul 14, 2005 11:39 pm

Ashiwi wrote:It makes sense to me to reimburse a quest over a zone. People can go back to a zone the very next day, but nobody's going to finish an epic quest in one day unless they're given the pieces to do it. I don't mind losing eight hours out of my day, but three or more months of working on one quest, actual man-hours be damned, lost to a crash is just brutal.


Time lost is time lost-who's to say what type of time is more valuable than another?

Kern's may take months to do...but it's months of checking GC a few times a day..which takes 15seconds. There's no way I've spent anywhere near 60hours gathering the kerns stuff..shrug
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Postby kiryan » Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:17 am

Lenefir...

in my ideological view all effort lost to crash should be reimbursed. crashes are not design features they are design flaws and players should not be put out because of design flaws. lost arrows, fumbled weapons, mid quest, mid zone, lost necromancer pets, lost totem spirits, having walked from wd to zk, ect...

obviously at some point reimbursing every last bit of effort becomes an undue burden on the administration and comical to say the least. But I dont understand why we can't apply 80/20 rule. Get the majority of it, use some discretion and quit saying "im really sorry but your screwed". I bet our current policy is born from the logic that since we can't get to everything and be above reproach we won't do anything in order to avoid any politics.

I hope that the staff can grow and mature the current policy. It'd be nice if you could be blameless all the time and just be "following the rules" but if thats all they are going to be allowed to do, might as well demote them all to level 51 and outsource their jobs to Japan.
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Postby Lathander » Fri Jul 15, 2005 3:24 am

Sometimes, life just happens. A good example is when you are just driving along, and you get a flat tire. Man, that's a bummer. Or when you are out at dinner, and you drop some spagetti sauce on your shirt. Man, I hate that.

Crashes are a fact of life. They are not a design flaw as such, but they do not just occur, but they have to be expected. This is not a critical mission application that has 0 fault tolerance. Instead, when new code comes in, one must anticipate some bumps along the road like crashes. To expect otherwise is just not to pay attention to reality.

Crashes are a risk that is associated with the game. It is why we curse our weapons and one of the reasons why !drop weapons are valued higher than regular ones. There are plenty of ways to mitigate the influence of crashes. When walking long distances, when you are tired, take the time to camp out on the road. This works great to preserve your spot.

I’m sure we all appreciate your point of view, but a policy of reimbursing everything associated from crashes would simply be impossible. There is not enough manpower to do this; much less the resources to check things to make sure players are telling the absolute correct information associated with a reimbursement. If it is impossible to do the majority of things, we must prioritize the things that are possible. Compared to the policies years ago, I think it is awesome that quest stuff is reimbursed.

Remember, area writers are capable of making a zone so that players can recover from a crash. Some folks have mentioned rentable keys, rooms which are open to transportation spells and other means of getting back to a particular stage of a zone. The simple thing is that to add things like that makes a zone easier, and most area writers have little interest in making their zones easier. Easier zones = downgrades to eq. As I said earlier, a crash is an unlucky failure to complete a zone, but it does serve a purpose of making eq rarer. It sucks when it happens, but so does the nail in the tire when you are driving 60 miles an hour through a construction zone.

Lath
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Postby Lahgen » Fri Jul 15, 2005 3:43 am

The only failiure in a zone should be from lack of skill or the mobs being too tough.

The whole "crashes are alright because they make things harder" thing is just a cop-out.

Sure, there's no need to reimburse, and sure it isn't a mission critical server, but that should not be an excuse to not take every pain to make the system as perfect as possible.
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teflor the ranger
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Postby teflor the ranger » Fri Jul 15, 2005 3:58 am

Cough. Charge $5 a month or $25/year.

Free three month trial.




Hey, before you complain, you already spent $25 on that zMUD thing :P
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Postby Arilin Nydelahar » Fri Jul 15, 2005 4:10 am

If you want to spend more cash, go find a game that already charges. Really. If we paid, we'd only be more pissed at lack of things going on, them making 25$ a year off every player isn't going to offset their normal yearly salary to work on the game fulltime.

Worst idea, ever.

And yes, I spent 25$ on that zmud thing sometime in the mid 90's. I haven't spent that money since. Your point?
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teflor the ranger
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Postby teflor the ranger » Fri Jul 15, 2005 4:34 am

If you have to ask, you're better off keeping your finger off that reply button there sparky.
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Postby Gura » Fri Jul 15, 2005 8:58 am

Lathander wrote:I’m sure we all appreciate your point of view, but a policy of reimbursing everything associated from crashes would simply be impossible. There is not enough manpower to do this; much less the resources to check things to make sure players are telling the absolute correct information associated with a reimbursement. If it is impossible to do the majority of things, we must prioritize the things that are possible. Compared to the policies years ago, I think it is awesome that quest stuff is reimbursed.


im not saying reimburse everything associated with a crash and in no way is that even remotely reasonable but the bigger things like when a group just spent 8 hours doing a zone to get to the last fight and it crashes well...they deserve something.
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Postby Arilin Nydelahar » Fri Jul 15, 2005 10:27 am

teflor the ranger wrote:If you have to ask, you're better off keeping your finger off that reply button there sparky.


Way to reply, you got me. Thanks for addressing my post so thoughtfully. Back to talking about crashes.
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Postby teflor the ranger » Fri Jul 15, 2005 1:55 pm

Arilin Nydelahar wrote:Way to reply, you got me. Thanks for addressing my post so thoughtfully. Back to talking about crashes.


Why did you leave it?
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Postby Llaaldara » Fri Jul 15, 2005 7:32 pm

First lemme be clear. I do not agree with Reimbursing players. That is, I do not believe players should ever be given any equipment beyond specific keys to allow them to advance to the approx spot they were before in the zone previous to a crash.

I do believe there should be designed ways to save Zone Progress. To pick up from where you left off before (more or less) in the event of a crash.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Lathander wrote:Sometimes, life just happens. A good example is when you are just driving along, and you get a flat tire. Man, that's a bummer. Or when you are out at dinner, and you drop some spagetti sauce on your shirt. Man, I hate that.


That's why we have jack and a spare in the trunk.
That's why we put napkins in our laps, or in our collars when we eat.

Mudding on Toril has become that 8 hour drive 'doing 60 miles an hour through a construction zone' with no spare or donut in the trunk. Not even Fix-A-Flat foam. Not even AAA service to call.

Mudding on Toril has become eating spaghetti with your hands, and using the table clothe as your napkin.

Who does that?

Lathander wrote:Crashes are a fact of life. They are not a design flaw as such, but they do not just occur, but they have to be expected. This is not a critical mission application that has 0 fault tolerance. Instead, when new code comes in, one must anticipate some bumps along the road like crashes. To expect otherwise is just not to pay attention to reality.


If crashes are such a known factor of mudding, why would an areas writer produce a zone that only rewards players at the very end of the zone after numerous hours, and all productivity can be completely lost in the event of a crash?

Why would someone in their right mind create a zone with this obvious, from the get-go, drawback OTHER THEN someone intending to use mud crashing as a way to increase zone difficulty? Please explain because I was under the impression that zone design and intent had to be approved before zone creation began.

Lathander wrote:Crashes are a risk that is associated with the game. It is why we curse our weapons and one of the reasons why !drop weapons are valued higher than regular ones. There are plenty of ways to mitigate the influence of crashes. When walking long distances, when you are tired, take the time to camp out on the road. This works great to preserve your spot.


We aren't allowed to camp in EQ zones. See Help Rules #10. Are you also unaware of the time out room?

Lathander wrote:I’m sure we all appreciate your point of view, but a policy of reimbursing everything associated from crashes would simply be impossible. There is not enough manpower to do this; much less the resources to check things to make sure players are telling the absolute correct information associated with a reimbursement. If it is impossible to do the majority of things, we must prioritize the things that are possible. Compared to the policies years ago, I think it is awesome that quest stuff is reimbursed.


I couldn't agree with you more. There is no way to reimburse players on that scale. Instead, why doesn't the areas staff consider making all future zones, and modifying any currently existing ones, that are greater then a specific time to do, require ways players can save their progress in the zone in the event of a crash. I speak specifically of ways to help remove mobiles from the zone (including mobs with equipment already received), and not handing equipment (beyond required keys to get back to where they were) to the players.

Ways to save Zone Progress.

Lathander wrote:Remember, area writers are capable of making a zone so that players can recover from a crash. Some folks have mentioned rentable keys, rooms which are open to transportation spells and other means of getting back to a particular stage of a zone. The simple thing is that to add things like that makes a zone easier, and most area writers have little interest in making their zones easier. Easier zones = downgrades to eq. As I said earlier, a crash is an unlucky failure to complete a zone, but it does serve a purpose of making eq rarer. It sucks when it happens, but so does the nail in the tire when you are driving 60 miles an hour through a construction zone.

Lath


Now you've contradicted yourself. First you point out that areas staff do not use crashes in consideration of zone design, now you are saying they do for the intent of 'making eq rarer.'

Making items rarer or a zone more difficult because of crashes does NOT increase player appreciation of the zone or the mud. It does the complete opposite. It makes players upset at the code. It makes players upset at the areas person who would create an 4-8 hour zone where you can loose all the way up to 7 hours and 59 mins of work because of the instability of the mud code and bad design of the zone.

I believe the mud as a whole would benefit greatly if the areas staff looked at ways to save zone progress on our longer harder zones (+3hrs I'd suggest).

Don't you?
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Postby kiryan » Sat Jul 16, 2005 3:48 am

Hmm perhaps design flaw is not the best choice of words... I don't really mean the game is designed poorly... I mean crashes are not a design feature, they happen unintentionally and in an idealistic sense any investment lost due to a unintended situation should be reimbursed.

I agree that reimbursing all effort lost would be impossible, however, the current policy doesn't allow for any discretion on the part of staff. if it crashes and its not a bug in the zone that you were in, your just sol. How many times have the gods said to a group 'gee that really realyl sucks but there is nothign i can do'. lets remove the 'nothing I can do' part of that statement and give them some discretion in righting wrongs.

I also find that the we can't trust players thing funny. you ask us to take a larger role by asking people to turn in people they suspect are botting, but don't trust us anymore when it comes to stating where we are in a zone? You have all sorts of log files, but you can't verify player statements? Lets say that its all true... if we can agree that a more liberal reimbursement policy is desired couldn't we develop the tools / logs / zones to make it possible?

All i'm really driving at for right now is an acknowledgement that we players and gods would like a more liberal reimbursement policy If we can agree on that then we can figure out how to keep players from lieing to the gods about current progress and how to streamline the actual work of restoring a zone... Theres still going to be cases of sucks to be you (like when no gods are online) but IT DOESN'T ALWAYS HAVE TO BE sucks to be you.

yes its going to be political accusations are going to fly, but isn't that just par for the course? if you can't handle politics and criticism, you really shouldn't be a god. if a particular god doesn't want to take the political risks they can also decline be involved.

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