Curse

ByTEsPaWn · Apr 07, 2006, 06:01 PM // 18:01

Hello everyone, this is my first post on Guild Wars Guru, although I have been playing Guild Wars for a long time. I just wanted to share an idea I have had in my head for some months now, and I find it very hard to believe no one has thought about it before. But actually I'm quite sure a lot of people have.

There is a problem that has been bothering me since the beginning I played Guild Wars, it is feared by many, hated by almost everyone! It has had such a strong effect on me I named my Mesmer after it; ofcourse I'm talking about Net Error Seven.

. BUT: it is not the only thing that has been bothering me: there are numerous other errors that cause players to be unable to continue their glorious questing or savage butchering of Aatxes and Stone Summit. To start with, there's the silly error message, that allows you to send a report to Anet 'to help prevent this problem in the future'. Although I have sent over 50 reports like this to Anet, nothing has changed in the meanwhile. But I do not blame Anet, the chances are immense that this is a pc related issue. Next to that error you have things like automatic shutdown of your PC, or just Guild Wars itself, there are pc freezes, electricity going out for one second, even accidentally pressing the x button on the top right of your screen, people who tell you to press alt-f4 to get extra loot, your children messing around with the reset button, and probably even more! While searching on this forum whether there isn't a similar thread like this one, i've seen a thread with most unwanted moments to get a net error seven.

The most stupid thing is: There's nothing you can do about it! But what if Arenanet would just implement a simple system into Guild Wars that allows players to log back in to their last known location (all non-outpost locations). People simply go offline for one of the above-said reasons and they can log back in to play further together with their former parties. Would it require a lot of programming? Personally I don't think so. Would it allow several scams to be created? I wouldn't know, but I haven't found any while thinking about it. It could work a bit like this: you accidentally log out during a mission, and when you log back in, the game displays the following message: "Your last known location while playing was in an explorable area, do you wish to: a) return to your last known location and your team, b) return to your last known location and with henchmen, c) Don't return to your last known location." Ofcourse, should your team have left (like completed the mission already, or died during FoW) you can't pick option a. If your party has moved from one explorable area to another, without going through an outpost, you can select option a or b and you simply move to the entrance of the new area, like if you were afk all the time. This would work even better if the rest of the team can see how their partymember left, is he still online, did he press exit, or was it an external reason? (Although this isn't a waterproof thing to determine ofcourse). This could result in the party waiting for their member to come back online, rather then simply going on with lesser strength.

Maybe you could even temporary replace the playere who has gone offline with a henchmen of the same profession, although not the same skills, as this could lead to abuse, like someone who needs a team with special skills simply calls on some guildmates who leave two minutes afterwards so he has a team full of henchmen with the right skills.

Anyway, I want to know your opinions on the matter, I haven't found anything similar in the sticky thread, and I wouldn't know what search terms to use for this thing, since only basic Guild wars terms are used to describe this idea. Sorry if I'm simply saying what's been said a lot before. Please tell me if you think it's a good idea, why (not), are there any scams possible, do you see any solutions for them, have you got a better idea to cover these problems, etc...

Greetings

Mordakai · Apr 07, 2006, 06:14 PM // 18:14

The biggest thing I can think of is Death Penalty. Unless the game remembers the Death Penalty of every player at every moment of the game...

No, I think there's a reason that we spawn back at cities after restarting.

Vilaptca · Apr 07, 2006, 06:14 PM // 18:14

They are already working on a way to reconnect.

From the sound of it though, it won't be available with the release of Factions, but it sounds like it should definately be before chapter 3.

ByTEsPaWn · Apr 07, 2006, 06:21 PM // 18:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordakai

The biggest thing I can think of is Death Penalty. Unless the game remembers the Death Penalty of every player at every moment of the game...

No, I think there's a reason that we spawn back at cities after restarting.

Death Penalty is remembered on servers, just like all your items, ofcourse. However, I think the servers currently use the system that you lose all the information about DP's or boosts as soon as you log out. But I think it won't be a problem to alter that, since the server is currently also able to remember your last known outpost, even if you log out accidentally, or items you picked up two seconds before logging out. DP's shouldn't be a problem, I therefore assume.

If you are right, Vilaptca, that would be a great relief to me, and probably a lot of other players!

Ishmaeel · Apr 07, 2006, 07:15 PM // 19:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by ByTEsPaWn

...people who tell you to press alt-f4 to get extra loot...

...There's nothing you can do about it!...

Heh. That's a nice one. You surely do not fall for this every time? (just kidding)

I suspect the current software has very big limitations related to game/character state in missions/explorables and DP is just a part of it fathomable by us mere mortals. Also, there are loads of non-technical issues (such as abuse potential) to consider. I think that's why it's taking ArenaNet this long to solve this, but yes - they officially promised they are working on a solution and apparently it will arrive after the release of Factions BUT before the release of Miners and Traders (

). I suspect we'll see a second big update right after that too, to solve the bugs that I suspect will be introduced with the reconnect solution and then everything will be good and nothing will hurt.

ByTEsPaWn · Apr 07, 2006, 08:13 PM // 20:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ishmaeel

Heh. That's a nice one. You surely do not fall for this every time? (just kidding)

No I've personally never fallen for it, but I've head a story on a forum about a guy waiting in -what used to be- Tombs Of Primeval Kings. Someone said, press alt-F4 for detailed instructions on how to win during the battle, and then apparantly 2 members of the party left... Although the real value of that story was extremely questionable, I thought it was a funny one, so I put it in the first post.

That reminds me of a lesser known trick in an online browsergame called Robotrage, there were duels of two players fighting eachother and often someone said: press ctrl-r to activate cheats, a lesser known key-combination for refreshing, which resulted in redirecting to the game's main page so the person who tricked the other won the match. The good thing about this tricking is that it can only happen to you once, and you learn a new keycombo in the process.

. When someone said it to me I asked him what kind of 'cheats' you could activate, and while he was typing and making up stuff, I started attacking. Ah the times I had.

But to get back on topic (

) I'd still like people to give possible difficulties/scams/exploits this solution may bring.

Lampshade · Apr 07, 2006, 08:15 PM // 20:15

I think I remember Gaile saying they were working on a re-connect feature.
Not 100% sure but it's most likely true because thats the number one thing that pisses me off in GvG. Right above the theif/gate being glitched.

LifeInfusion · Apr 07, 2006, 10:07 PM // 22:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vilaptca

They are already working on a way to reconnect.

From the sound of it though, it won't be available with the release of Factions, but it sounds like it should definately be before chapter 3.

I would love Arenanet even more.

Tarun · Apr 08, 2006, 12:32 AM // 00:32

It would be nice, because I have several members in my guild who will have their Internet disconnect once a day for a matter of seconds, and it drops them from the group. If they sign back in within x amount of minutes perhaps, they should be allowed to rejoin the group. Especially if out in the field.

/signed

Replicant · Apr 08, 2006, 04:05 AM // 04:05

would really love to see an option to reconnect to your last current game if your internet droped out.

/signed