i have had enough of this, i just lost a whole bunch of my stuff in the last crash, there has got to be something done about this, i lost a whole bunch of stuff it took days to gather in my leather bags, then i pick them up, CRASH, and they are all gone, just like that.
Clearly,
Something. Must. Be. Done.
*drumroll*
The EfU server is really very stable, a more common complaint is "it's been up days, please reset it so we can quest." Crashes are irritating, but the way to avoid them is to not leave valuable stuff on the floor, just in case it does happen. Or you could donate the server a huge sum of money so Howland can shift it into a climate controlled double redundant data centre.
This is the suggestions forum. Unless you've got an actual suggestion to improve server stability, you're just raging at having lost some gear to a crash. Yeah it sucks, but a rant without offering a solution is unproductive.
my char Von is basically a pack mule, he can't carry around all of that stuff and move around, he has to drop it in the room, and since the chest in the rooms can't store bags, i have to drop em on the floor
I will make a suggestion then. If your PC has so much stuff he can't move, your best method is to organise a clearout. Sell off anything that people want but takes up space (i.e. potions). Dump any items you don't use and can't easily sell. Von uses a greataxe, great, that means you can trash most other weapons you have. Keep a hammer or something with +1AB vs undead, and a +1 AB vs Shapechager weapon. Sling the rest. Check for anything you don't need. Sure a ring is 0.1 lb but it stacks up A medium aror greatweapon PC with good STR shouldn't easily be encumbered.
Anything you can find regularly in a trashpile probably isn't worth having in your pack to try and sell. Try to avoid encumbrance as it can get your PC killed if they lose a STR buff and can't run.
a lot of that stuff was herbs for herbalism, some merchandise, and my main inventory is packed with healing items and herbal recipes
I remember the days where crashes occurred every six hours and every major event resulted in a spectacular crash...or a mass death incident.
Bobby, your grief is felt, it has happened to me before. But there is nothing we can do to prevent the crashes, aside from keeping the server clean. Instead of laying out items, have people ask you what wares you have, and they should be specific.
Pure merchant characters don't lay out items for a reason. These crashes hurt those PCs, a lot.
Quote from: Thomas_Not_very_wise;188617I remember the days where crashes occurred every six hours and every major event resulted in a spectacular crash...or a mass death incident.
Totally never happened on EfU.
Okay, I exaggerated. but the server is far more stable now (Or has that changed?) than it used to be.
Hey Thomas, remember that time we did 3 trogs runs in the UD and every time it crashed before we ended the quest? Those were the days. :P
Definitely.
Has the server really been crashing?
Servers only ever crashed twice in the near 5 months I've been here.
Also, protip: Leaving tons of items on the floor can encourage lag and/or crashing.
let me restate what i was saying, my character carries bags of things to keep his inventory uncluttered and be able to carry everything, this makes him encumbered, so i got a room to safely drop my stuff in. I got back and picked up all of my bags, a min. later the server crashed, so why did they disappear, they were in my inventory at the time. If the chests could hold bags i could have avoided this, but they will not.
If you put something on the ground you're taking the risk that a crash could happen.
Quote from: Bobbybrown;188662I got back and picked up all of my bags, a min. later the server crashed, so why did they disappear, they were in my inventory at the time.
The server does not save (your inventory) at the time of its crashing. Your character (and inventory) saves when you log out, when the server is manually reset by a DM, or when the server experiences one of its regular saving cycle (approximately once every 10-15 minutes).
There's nothing that can be done about the server not saving when it crashes, unplanned server malfunctions is what makes a crash a crash.
If you want, every time you pick up all of your equipment, you could log off than log back in to save your character and inventory.
Or, to make it Easy, go to the menu and press save character. It takes à sec or so. I always use it when I get a load of DM loot to carry or anything.
I am pretty sure that only saves the character to your computer, not the server vault.
Yes, it's local vault. Not server. If you wanna save your char, relog.
How about we place an actual suggestion on this thread?
/c save command. Saves your character in the Module vault.
As much as I see the point here, relog does the job already. Also, even if crash happens, these days the jump back is not very far usually. It still won't save one from losing things that are on the ground even if we have save command, which can already be achieved by swiftly relogging.
For concurrency issues, players will not be allowed to initiate server side saves.
We do indeed do daily backups though, so if you truly lost a lot of stuff, sometimes it is possible to find a DM who is willing to go through the recover process with you. This is not always a guarantee though. It is done on a case by case basis and is left to the DM to decide.
There has got to be something done about this.
As someone who's had a crash happen while dead in the fugue which resulted in a TOTAL loss including equipped gear, I can say crashes are painful and really infuriating at times. Its risky to play on semi-private (non-WoW/CoH/EQ) servers like this one.
Using server side saves probably works similar to how the 'Save Character' option works where your character becomes 'Character Name (1)' and 'Character Name (2)' in the server vault, creating vastly unnecessary copies and likely exponential drive space used.
Relogging is currently the only safe way to make sure that you have the most recent data for your character saved outside of the 10-15 autosave on the server side of things.
The autosave is a far cry better than it was four years ago when I joined and there was NOTHING in place.
From the client side of things, I do not see a viable alternative to relogging. On-demand server side saves would bog the server down and create duplicity thats not needed for each and every character.
[COLOR="DarkOrange"]AN IDEA![/COLOR]
One suggestion that might help (at least with questing) is that perhaps an additional script could be tagged onto the quest completion/boss slaying scripts. Losing quest xp and loot can be costly especially if you had to use lots of supplies.
Here's how the idea works:
When you begin a quest, the same system that adds people to the quest also triggers a backup (similar to a relog) to each character added to a quest.
Similarly, when the boss is defeated, the journal update scripts are piggy backed with the same backup-of-character script used when the quest was accepted.
And finally, when the quest is closed (either by success or failure), the backup once again takes place.
This might alleviate some stress of mid-quest crashes.
This could be adapted to DM-quests by simply tying save character script to the transition of @areas.
The idea above, increase the regularity outside of standard scheduled server backups (which include setting changes too, right?) but dont overly burden the server.
Is any of what I described possible/realistic?
nice dj, i hope they can do it, once i get Von back up and running as a merchant this might help a bit. That way i can just drop the bags inside the quest area and not worry about them if the game crashes. The issue is if its possible, and when and if they can get the time to do this. I am also glad even howland recognizes this as an issue.
[Thumbs up to Djspectre]
During my time in the Underdark, I lost everything while in the fugue on more than 5 occasions, or was it 6, maybe 7?
Consider it a server mugging and get on with it. You are going to lose a few bags because you put them down and the rare crash when you should not put them down at all. The fact that you are a merchant, who carries a ton of things, but probably does not have much strength, the only thing I can suggest is not to quest with a full cartload of sell-able items. If you want to be able to carry many things, make a PC with higher strength.
Sorry if I appear to be unsympathetic, I am usually tend to be more kind, empathetic, and generous with my opinions. :(
i brought this up cause it is happening more often now, before this one i could ignore it, but now it affected my char and i know others felt it too.
Quote from: Bobbybrown;189198nice dj, i hope they can do it, once i get Von back up and running as a merchant this might help a bit. [COLOR="DarkOrange"]That way i can just drop the bags inside the quest area and not worry about them if the game crashes.[/COLOR] The issue is if its possible, and when and if they can get the time to do this. I am also glad even howland recognizes this as an issue.
My suggestion does not fix the problem in bold. As you state, you drop your bags on the ground (packs are not persistent through resets as you probably noticed). They are no longer part of your character and thus are susceptible to being lost in a server crash, if the crash happens between your last backup and the next.
What I suggested simply gave people an crude ad-hoc way to back up their character to the server outside of the standard 15-minute interval thats currently in place and without re-logging.
There is no easy/possible way (that I know of) to save someones inventory 'on-the-fly' while you're making changes to it (leaving items on the ground, gathering quest loot, etc).
There will always be a (albeit small) risk of losing anything you put down on the ground for any reason. The game has no way of knowing that you intend to retrieve it or that random-item-#2744-laying-on-the-ground is even related to your character.
QuoteI am also glad even howland recognizes this as an issue.
No, actually, I
do not recognize this as an issue. I just found your outrage to be funny to me.
Crashes are extremely rare, maybe we have one crash once a month? If that?
And you really should NOT be leaving bags of stuff around anyway with the expectation that they will be safe. For one thing, doing so is believed to contribute towards lag for the whole server.
well actually, there were 3 crashes in one week
Well lets say that within last year there have been quite few in all to all number on crashes, especially when we speak of a server that one man pays from his own pocket.
Donate for more uber servers, that's one solution, but we are going quite good. Crashes are very rare in general. Any that happens, are usually caused by a DM or someone with a clitch/bug in system at some point, and those cannot be helped.
You can reduce lag though, by not leaving things to lie on the ground. Every item in ground is a bit to be send to everyone at that area = more stress for the server.
http://www.escapefromunderdark.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15
Hands In Pockets, Bitches. XD
Actually, I think the main issue with donations is that it's so easy to overlook them. I forget where the link is until something actually makes me think "Throw Howl money, feed the server". I suggested a Donate Paypal link right at the top of the page, where the Info/EFUSL/Forums icons were a while back. Nothing too obtrusive, but just something that's always there and reminds people it would be nice to put some money in the pot.
Quote from: Paha Poika;189240Any [crash] that happens, are usually caused by a DM
Excellent suggestion.
Quote from: Howland;189185There has got to be something done about this.
Are you trying to put me out of a job, sir?
No, PP is. If most crashes are caused by DMs, all we need to do is get rid of you server-crashing parasites and everything will be happy and OK, amirite?
Giving players a Save Character option is simple and unabusable. Just like the data is saved automatically every 15 minutes (or whatever it is) and just like it's saved on relog, it can be saved with a simple click of a button. I think almost every other server I've played had the option.
Well... it's probably simple.
Quote from: Howland;189227No, actually, I do not recognize this as an issue. I just found your outrage to be funny to me.
Crashes are extremely rare, maybe we have one crash once a month? If that?
And you really should NOT be leaving bags of stuff around anyway with the expectation that they will be safe. [COLOR="DarkOrange"]For one thing, doing so is believed to contribute towards lag for the whole server.[/COLOR]
Speaking of that, is there a way to perhaps timeout things like orcs teeth and animal sinews to alleviate loose-item-based lag? I think its a great ambiance to have those things and they're key for herbalism/alchemy/etc, but maybe after they've been laying around for 2 hours or so have them deleted? This would be similar to how the animal corpses have a delay before turning into remains items.
On a similar vein, please PLEASE stop making Nightrisers always drop a Skeleton knuckle, it makes Longest Night a corpse filled lag pit of fail.
i like skeleton knuckles.
Lord Naga will tell you the 1gp Skeleton Knuckles are worth it.
Thouse who know of alchemy will want as many knuckles as they can too.
Never even realized lag was that much of a major problem anymore, especially compared to earlier times. You folks will complain about anything.
It's just that quest really Derf. Since it has a huge number of mobs and npcs, and all the mobs drop bodies, it goes crazy even on a good connection and modern PC. As someone who knew an amazing recipe with knuckles in and also often collects them for gold, still have to say, not worth the trouble of every basic Riser dropping one.