Official: Reim Lag

[bunnymustdie]

From official forums:


Hey everyone, the lag from Reim has been getting worse. Tonight (2/4/2021), I see over 50 people in the area and the game is just grinding to a halt often.

We've made a lot of changes to try to accommodate the larger group hunts. We've worked on the room window and how the engine handles updates. We've updated how group contributions are handled, as well as how AoE spells are limited to help on how the messaging can create exponential strain on the game. We've talked with the groups who run Reim to try to limit their size. But it all hasn't been enough and the group size is bigger than ever. Moving forward, we're going to need to take more drastic measures, whether it's changing the mechanics of Reim or limiting group size. We've spent a lot of time and we've tried to work these issues out, but we can't allow this to cause issues with the game as a whole anymore.

If we're unable to come up with something fairly quick, we'll be temporarily closing down the area until we can complete it.


Wyrom, PM

...further down in same thread...


From Wyrom on discord.
We've worked things out with those running the hunt and I think we're all on the same page. We really don't want to discourage groups. We have put a ton of effort with trying to get this handled. It's not just Reim. It's the command queue, which is why guild night saw it. We also updated how the room window (StormFront) handles things, which was a big help. The game can clearly handle big groups, it's just when messaging is happening it gets exponential bad when group size grows too high.

[Taernath]

It was pretty bad last night. At least they're acknowledging that Reim nights are causing issues.

[Tgo01]

Why is guild night so bad? How many people show up for that?

I have 80 people at a table all flinging spells at people and I’m pretty sure that doesn’t cause lag. At least not that I have noticed, but maybe I’m biased.

[Avaia]

I was almost hopeful for a minute and then I saw this -


We've worked things out with those running the hunt and I think we're all on the same page.

I guess we'll see. :crutches:

[Methais]

I was almost hopeful for a minute and then I saw this -



I guess we'll see. :crutches:

It'll probably be the same bullshit next run.

Maybe the threat of shutting it down got to them though. Otherwise, I would think Wyrom would have learned after this part:


We've talked with the groups who run Reim to try to limit their size. But it all hasn't been enough and the group size is bigger than ever.

I had to just log out last night because shit was literally unplayable. Took like 10 minutes just to get my gems over to my bard and start purifying.

[caelric]

Is there a large MA group fucking things up? if so, how large?

[Fryinhades]

Supposedly like 50 people running it last night.

And dreaven i think the difference with your groups is that they arent changing rooms or looking multiple times to see the changes. Where as in reim there is multiple movements and people reviewing to ensure that all the mobs are dead constantly. But who really knows.

[Avaia]

It'll probably be the same bullshit next run.

I requested clarification on the Officials and this was the reply -

I talked with the organizer of the hunt and we came up with a number for how large the group can be. They are, in good faith, going to keep it to that size so we don't have to temporarily close it down. On our end, we are going to work on the mechanics to make sure that we do not go over that number anymore. If that works, perfect. If we're still experiencing issues, we'll have to find a number where it isn't a concern anymore.

Wyrom, PM

So fingers crossed that the new rules are followed and enforced/strengthened if need be. ::fingers::

[Viekn]

So fingers crossed that the new rules are followed and enforced/strengthened if need be. ::fingers::

Now that Wyrom has put himself out there as actively addressing this, it would be hard to imagine ongoing enforcement doesn't happen.

[GSIV Rogue]

Just posted:
Hey Everyone, effective immediately I've put in a some changes to Reim. Groups with over 20 players will no longer receive spawns. If the lag continues, this number will continue to be worked lower.

Retser, SGM

[Velfi]

Just posted:

I'm not a Reimer, but if say a group of 40 people was causing the problem, if they just split into 2 groups of 20 won't that still have the same effect?

[GSIV Rogue]

I'm not a Reimer, but if say a group of 40 people was causing the problem, if they just split into 2 groups of 20 won't that still have the same effect?

I'm sure that's why they put that last part in about working things lower if what they've already implemented doesn't correct the issue.

[Ewayn]

I'm not a Reimer, but if say a group of 40 people was causing the problem, if they just split into 2 groups of 20 won't that still have the same effect?

They’ve clarified on Discord that due to the way the game engine works, 50 people in one room is worse than 25 in 2 rooms, which is worse than 12/13 people in 4 rooms.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Drew]

I'm not a Reimer, but if say a group of 40 people was causing the problem, if they just split into 2 groups of 20 won't that still have the same effect?

The amount of info you have to send goes up by a square so it quickly gets out of hand. Each new person increases the load a non-linear amount.

[Velfi]

They’ve clarified on Discord that due to the way the game engine works, 50 people in one room is worse than 25 in 2 rooms, which is worse than 12/13 people in 4 rooms.


The amount of info you have to send goes up by a square so it quickly gets out of hand. Each new person increases the load a non-linear amount.

Ah, interesting. I was assuming it was more linear, I guess.

[MotleyCrew]

Same as the old days of Ebon Gate, when there was one entrance in The Landing and hundreds of people would be there fucking around before it opened. It crashed several times, every year. Making entrances in each town wasn't just about convenience for players but it 'spread the weight out', so to say.

Same reason during invasions there is sometimes 'weather' or crashes but that has also gotten better as they spread out creature attacks.

[AnOrdim]

I was right the whole time. Fuck the HOA bitches.

[Timjirdos]

This game never dealt with crowds well. I used to think it was a lot worse on AOL, especially when I was on dial up. I didn't exactly blame hoa, I blamed the staff member who put all that kludge into the game engine.

[drauz]

The last few nights, we've been noticing lag, which has primarily been related to large groups at a table receiving spellups. These groups are getting over 125 people in size, which is way too much. We put some efforts in place tonight to see if that solves it, but it's likely going to need a lot more fine tuning and possibly limits on how many people can be at a table. Please plan accordingly.


Wyrom, PM

https://media1.tenor.com/images/263bf8b70f6ef345c403c230ef1e4081/tenor.gif?itemid=5482488

[Tgo01]

Funny how Dreavenings haven't been a problem for over a year now but suddenly with DR going on they're the cause of the problem.

Doubly funny because I was noticing a lot of lag even while I wasn't doing a Dreavening.

[drauz]

Funny how Dreavenings haven't been a problem for over a year now but suddenly with DR going on they're the cause of the problem.

Doubly funny because I was noticing a lot of lag even while I wasn't doing a Dreavening.

Well it certainly wasn't Reim since it's not run during DR by the usual group.

[Tgo01]

Well it certainly wasn't Reim since it's not run during DR by the usual group.

Maybe it's DR. But we can't blame it on the cash cow of course.


Tonight's lag is purely Dreavenings. There are over 150 getting spellups pretty constantly. With the added load of people in Duskruin, the command queue is seeing a bump, which alone isn't an issue.

"Pretty constantly." I have done a whole ONE Dreavening so far tonight. Also I only spell 70 people up at a time, I don't do 150 at a time.

[Alastir]

Maybe it's DR. But we can't blame it on the cash cow of course.



"Pretty constantly." I have done a whole ONE Dreavening so far tonight. Also I only spell 70 people up at a time, I don't do 150 at a time.


He mentioned something about talking and conversations contributing. Because each line has to read out to however many people are at a table.

I'm guessing table limits are coming soon. No more than 20 at a table.

[Tgo01]

I'm guessing table limits are coming soon. No more than 20 at a table.

Yeah I see you pushing for that on Discord.

[bunnymustdie]

Maybe it's DR. But we can't blame it on the cash cow of course.

I'm sure DR contributes some, too. I've noticed more lag once it started this time around in general, with or without dreavenings going on. Overall I notice more lag in game nowadays than when I first started several years ago. I think the game's old engine can handle only so many things. They've steadily added more features and contents over the years (OSA, Reim, loads more scripted items & whatever) that probably all take away bits and pieces of the game engine's ability to process stuff until it reached a point where just a little bit more strain and the game starts to lag. Even the DRs from a couple of years ago did not lag the game like this.

The increased player base probably contributes, too. I saw 900+ characters online last night.

[bunnymustdie]

Just to note, any update we make probably wouldn't just be limited to tables, since you then could just leave the table to avoid any restriction. At the same time, the last time this was a significant problem (in 2019), we had asked the responsible party to limit groups to 30 characters at at time and they had agreed to that number then, but continue to disregard it now. We probably going to also have to address this issue via POLICY 5 and POLICY 18. This isn't something we want to do, but at the same time, it's not fair to ask the other 800 or so characters in the game during prime time to endure the lag to promote automated third party promotions.

GameMaster Estild

Post on officials just now as response to the new thread.

[Tgo01]

Post on officials just now as response to the new thread.

Absolutely insane.

[Tgo01]

"We're going to make it against POLICY to have too many people in the same room together in a text based RPG! Simply unacceptable! Now get back to farming DR!"

[Skeletor]

I guess it'll just take longer to do dreavenings. Maybe three seperate tables.

I like how they're treating HoA with kit gloves as presumably they are all in a simucoin area.

[Taernath]

I still have never noticed lag during dreavenings.

Estild is a dip.

[Tgo01]

I just realized Estilid referred to Dreavenings as "automated third party promotions."

What the hell does that even mean? How the hell is a paying customer using their service to do something within game a "third party" promotion?

"Yes you can cast spells and yes you can socialize, but if you do it in ways we don't approve of we will consider that a 'third party promotion' and will be forced to shut it down."

Man I thought people were just being facetious when they said the GMs are pissed I have a Patreon for this, but now I'm wondering.

[GSIV Rogue]

'Now get back to farming DR!"

https://gregwolford.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/img_4758.jpg

[drauz]

I still have never noticed lag during dreavenings.

Estild is a dip.

Probably way more people getting it during DR. Unless 100+ is the norm.

[drauz]

I just realized Estilid referred to Dreavenings as "automated third party promotions."

What the hell does that even mean? How the hell is a paying customer using their service to do something within game a "third party" promotion?

"Yes you can cast spells and yes you can socialize, but if you do it in ways we don't approve of we will consider that a 'third party promotion' and will be forced to shut it down."

Man I thought people were just being facetious when they said the GMs are pissed I have a Patreon for this, but now I'm wondering.

Probably referencing the fact that you are paid to do dreavenings thru patreon and you have a financial incentive to get as many people on board. Also that you are afk scripting it.

[Tgo01]

Probably way more people getting it during DR. Unless 100+ is the norm.

100+ people is the norm for prime time. I think last night we had 160 people which is rare but not unheard of. I would say 130ish is quite normal for prime time and now Wyrom has changed his "150" people being a problem to "125" people being a problem, even though it hasn't been a problem in over a year.

[Tgo01]

Probably referencing the fact that you are paid to do dreavenings thru patreon and you have a financial incentive to get as many people on board. Also that you are afk scripting it.

I'm not "paid" to do Dreavenings, I have been doing Dreavenings for about 6 years now with and without donations via Patreon.

[Taernath]

Probably way more people getting it during DR. Unless 100+ is the norm.

If his groups are 70 people and he usually does 2 groups, then yeah. It would be easy to tell if it were due to dreavenings since the entire process lasts 30ish minutes and happens every 3 hours (though I think he's been doing them a lot less recently).

[Tgo01]

Wyrom: "As I'm typing this message, we had to run a test which did push some lag out in the game for about 15 minutes. Unfortunately, the tools to measure lag cause lag."

Of course!

People seeing 6-7+ second lag when a Dreavening isn't happening?
GMs: "Oh that was us! Our bad!"

"We ran some tests and found out that you were causing lag, Dreaven. Oh by the way, the tools we use to measure lag also cause lag."

You can't even make this shit up.

[drauz]

If his groups are 70 people and he usually does 2 groups, then yeah. It would be easy to tell if it were due to dreavenings since the entire process lasts 30ish minutes and happens every 3 hours (though I think he's been doing them a lot less recently).


As I stated in my post, we put in some fixes to try to address the issue, but if they aren't enough, we'll have to do something more. No one is blaming just Dreaven or the spellups as the cause of all lag. Nor did anyone say that. But at that time, it was the sole responsible factor that caused some slow downs at 7:45pm ET the day I posted. We're also seeing some issues with people gathering in a few areas of the game right now.

These are all the events that caused some lag, some before Duskruin, some after.

There are 115 players in room [Bleeding Heart Table].
There are 127 players in room [Bleeding Heart Table].
There are 143 players in room [Bleeding Heart Table].
There are 133 players in room [Knotted Kerria Table].
There are 145 players in room [Knotted Kerria Table].
There are 152 players in room [Knotted Kerria Table].
There are 168 players in room [Knotted Kerria Table].

The game is never going to be equipped to deal with these sorts of crowds. There is nothing we can do to solve that. That's why we put in silencing, but that shuts off the ability to cast spells. We try not to get areas over 50, but absolutely have to shut things down at 125 (that's why I used that number). We've also put in a lot of work into solving the lag issues. We've had game engine updates as well. Everyday gameplay has been a lot better across the board since 2019.

Crowded areas are pretty much the major reason for lag in our game today. Once gatherings hit a certain point, it gets compounded. We started at 20 people with the Reim group because of the type of messaging firing off (combat). Duskruin doesn't have crowded areas in combat areas, and I know there are many pointing the finger there. If Duskruin started seeing 150+ in a room, we'd have to do something. The game WOULD silence those areas though, where we do not silence tables. So keeping the numbers down on your end will help. Having 600, or 700, or 1000 people in game isn't going to make much of a difference to this. It's all about where those people are. It's the same issue why we crash. When too many people are in a room the game grinds to a halt. Happens a lot at events where we can't silence an area. Anyone who has been to a Mania knows I try really hard to keep everyone quiet so we can do things there.

As I'm typing this message, we had to run a test which did push some lag out in the game for about 15 minutes. Unfortunately, the tools to measure lag cause lag..

[Tgo01]

Yeah so it sounds like the problem isn't even with the part where spells are being cast at everyone, unlike what Estilid claimed.

The problem according to Wyrom's post seems to be when everyone is gathering at the main table waiting for spells. You know when not much is going on at all.

Which I still call bullshit on because sure the 152 and 168 is probably new, but 115 people at the table? That's a rather common occurrence and yet it didn't become a problem until the day after DR opened.

[drauz]

>>Because none of those table situations you posted are when people are actually receiving spells which is why I ask.

What's happening during those times? When we look, it's our spell displays and room updater. The problem is, the game is equipped to make a decision once a room is at 125 people. But it can't at a table. The numbers basically are 20, 50, and 125. I'd shy away from 125 since the problem was already present at 115. I know Estild and you talked and came up with a number of 30, but you've been doing 70 because no news was good news.

Onsite had run the tests tonight, so I'll have a better idea of what we're looking at on Tuesday. Offsite GMs cannot run those tests. I wouldn't have run that test right now had I known they planned to..

[Viekn]

Yeah so it sounds like the problem isn't even with the part where spells are being cast at everyone, unlike what Estilid claimed.

The problem according to Wyrom's post seems to be when everyone is gathering at the main table waiting for spells. You know when not much is going on at all.

Which I still call bullshit on because sure the 152 and 168 is probably new, but 115 people at the table? That's a rather common occurrence and yet it didn't become a problem until the day after DR opened.

Yeah, literally there was zero problem with Dreavenings and lag over the past 12+ months, then all of a sudden Dreavenings are now the main cause of the increased lag? I don't think so. Listen, I get profit margins, but if the game can't handle this, Stillfront/Simu needs to up the ante a bit.

[drauz]

Yeah, literally there was zero problem with Dreavenings and lag over the past 12+ months, then all of a sudden Dreavenings are now the main cause of the increased lag? I don't think so. Listen, I get profit margins, but if the game can't handle this, Stillfront/Simu needs to up the ante a bit.


The game is never going to be equipped to deal with these sorts of crowds. There is nothing we can do to solve that. That's why we put in silencing, but that shuts off the ability to cast spells.

Is 150+ the norm for regular dreavenings?

[Tgo01]

Is 150+ the norm for regular dreavenings?

It has happened before but I wouldn't say it's normal. 120-130? That happens quite often yes.

[Viekn]

Dreavenings are great. But depending on what happens, maybe capping it at 2 total groups and lowering the group participant max is a feasible compromise? Much like a player has to make strategic decisions during the game as far as stance dancing, timing of attacks, hide/ambush, combat maneuvers; if Dreavenings become more limited because of lag issues (although hardware/software wise they should really be accommodated anyway), then that just becomes part of the way we plan our hunting, etc. While I appreciate Dreavenings and definitely take advantage of them, we all still enjoyed the game without them for 20+ years.

[Tgo01]

Looks like onsite might have run a few tests all day (I was out, so I don't know).

I love it.

Saturday:
GMs: Dreaven is causing all the lag. Blame him.

Sunday, no Dreavenings after 8AM.

Really big lag at 11ish PM:
GMs: Oh that was us! We were uh...doing tests! Yeah yeah. That's it.
People: Yeah but it's been lagging all day.
GMs: Oh wouldn't you know it? Looks like we've been conducting tests all day.

[Tgo01]

Dreavenings are great. But depending on what happens, maybe capping it at 2 total groups and lowering the group participant max is a feasible compromise? Much like a player has to make strategic decisions during the game as far as stance dancing, timing of attacks, hide/ambush, combat maneuvers; if Dreavenings become more limited because of lag issues (although hardware/software wise they should really be accommodated anyway), then that just becomes part of the way we plan our hunting, etc. While I appreciate Dreavenings and definitely take advantage of them, we all still enjoyed the game without them for 20+ years.

You're going to continue to go to Dreavenings and you're gonna like it!

!!!!!!

[Viekn]

The game is never going to be equipped to deal with these sorts of crowds. There is nothing we can do to solve that. That's why we put in silencing, but that shuts off the ability to cast spells.

I obviously can't see the coding of the game, but I wonder if there's a way to distinguish speech vs. spell casting? Spell casting doesn't involve "say" or an apostrophe to activate, so I wonder if they could update the silence function to distinguish between the two and mitigate lag that way.

[drauz]

I obviously can't see the coding of the game, but I wonder if there's a way to distinguish speech vs. spell casting? Spell casting doesn't involve "say" or an apostrophe to activate, so I wonder if they could update the silence function to distinguish between the two and mitigate lag that way.

I think its probably something to do with any action that can be seen by people (casting, talking, emotes, etc) has to be done for each person in the room. You get that many people doing stuff and the ambient fluff messaging alone probably can cause lag, not to mention everyone talking and such.

[Gizmo]

If they put some money into this game that was used for Gallahad Dev...and seeing what can be done to update the core coding/servers/whatever it may take to fix the fact a 30+ year old game can't run on today's technology, I'd be satisfied.

The fact you can't play a game with 800 people in it, that is all text (Granted I get the amount of updates that occur per second is high), in 2021 where MMOs with crazy shit exists, is beyond me

[Viekn]

I think its probably something to do with any action that can be seen by people (casting, talking, emotes, etc) has to be done for each person in the room. You get that many people doing stuff and the ambient fluff messaging alone probably can cause lag, not to mention everyone talking and such.

If that's the case, then there should probably be a separate back end (i.e. not player controlled) flag coded to suppress all ambient messaging. Then once you get started on that road, seems like you should code spells, ambients, emotes, talking completely separately that way you have more control over each function without having to interfere with the related functions. But I imagine the reality is Wyrom and Co. see that and are like no way we could ever do that, unfortunately.

[bunnymustdie]

Absolutely insane.

Estild seem upset about you raising the group size limit above 30 after doing it for a couple of days. This is a long shot, but if you still have logs available from 2019, maybe find the part where a GM told you it's ok to raise the numbers again and post it there. It might help resolve this one misunderstanding as it looks like it might be a case where one GM gave you the ok and didn't inform the others about it, resulting in some of the uninformed ones stewing over the situation for the past year.

In the future, it might help to take screen shots AND save logs anytime you speak to them over policy related stuff about your services, just to cover yourself and have the info handy in case it's needed down the road.

[Taernath]

we had asked the responsible party to limit groups to 30 characters at at time and they had agreed to that number then, but continue to disregard it now. We probably going to also have to address this issue via POLICY 5 and POLICY 18.


I know Estild and you talked and came up with a number of 30, but you've been doing 70 because no news was good news.


Yeah he asked me to cut down to 30 and I did for like a day then he said the GMs made some changes that helped a lot and I could go back to 70 which I did and everything has been supposedly fine this entire time.

If what Tgo is saying is true, Estild was the one who gave him the go ahead to go back to groups of 70, so it's absolutely wild that Estild would later come back acting like Tgo decided to do it on his own.

[Skeletor]

If they put some money into this game that was used for Gallahad Dev...and seeing what can be done to update the core coding/servers/whatever it may take to fix the fact a 30+ year old game can't run on today's technology, I'd be satisfied.

The fact you can't play a game with 800 people in it, that is all text (Granted I get the amount of updates that occur per second is high), in 2021 where MMOs with crazy shit exists, is beyond me

To be fair though, the game owners probably did'nt think the game would last this long and gradually fade out much less expect this massive renaissance.

The amount of cash they are getting they most definitely *should* invest in new on-site equipment but Simu greed will always stop them from doing something to help the actual game.

My suggesstion to you guys is to directly WRITE TO STILLFRONT. The devs here are all contracted off-site employees with minimal skin in the game (even Wyrom).

If all of us on GSplayers (probably pushing 100 players) write or sign onto a letter that details how the hardware inadequacies of the game is hampering growth, StillFront may do something about it. Honestly, it's probably not even a 25k investment in hardware... that's one set of Rift boots.

[caelric]

so it's absolutely wild that Estild would later come back acting like Tgo decided to do it on his own.

It would neither be the first, nor the last time that a GM lied and/or made up shit to justify some decision.

[Taernath]

It would neither be the first, nor the last time that a GM lied and/or made up shit to justify some decision.

AGMAB

[Skeletor]

Telling you guys, write, write, write to StillFront.

Remember how fast and hard the hammer went down went that one dude cut through all the Simu bullshit and went straight up to StillFront.

And that was for some Discord crap, this is much bigger.

https://i.imgflip.com/4y4y4a.gif

[drauz]

To be fair though, the game owners probably did'nt think the game would last this long and gradually fade out much less expect this massive renaissance.

The amount of cash they are getting they most definitely *should* invest in new on-site equipment but Simu greed will always stop them from doing something to help the actual game.

My suggesstion to you guys is to directly WRITE TO STILLFRONT. The devs here are all contracted off-site employees with minimal skin in the game (even Wyrom).

If all of us on GSplayers (probably pushing 100 players) write or sign onto a letter that details how the hardware inadequacies of the game is hampering growth, StillFront may do something about it. Honestly, it's probably not even a 25k investment in hardware... that's one set of Rift boots.

They just use this game to fund their shitty FPS mech shooter that'll flop within 6 months.

[drumpel]

My understanding is they have a dated game engine that's not coded for multicore (or maybe it is, but it's poorly coded) processors.
Then they keep adding more and more scripts.
Then they keep adjusting spells and skills to require more and more checks.
Then they know mass gatherings can cause problems with lag, yet they're hard at pushing for cash grab systems that draw in large crowds.
Then they create a hunting area (Reim) that resolves a big issue with lack of proper undead at a few levels and allowed massive groups of people to participate.
Then they create more and more scripted items to push at cash grab systems (DR, I'm looking at you) and they say Dreavenings are the problem.

In the AOL days you were looking at 2400+ people in a smaller world of Gemstone III. Sure, I remember lag during these times....not always that bad and this is when the game population was nearly 3x what we see it peak at now.

They need to overhaul the game code/engine to handle executions better to alleviate the lag problem that they're creating. Constant addition of more and more scripted items means more and more actions/checks are being handled all the time.

4-5 years ago when the population peaked at 600, there wasn't lag. Fast forward 4-5 years with so many DRs having been ran (not to mention other cash grab events) that add in so many scripted items, we start experiencing lag from time to time. Now adding an extra, upwards of 300+ people in the game to put the peak population around 900-1k, the lag is horrific.

Wyrom needs to suck it up, admit that they're the problem and the only real resolution is an overhaul of the game engine.

[Alastir]

To be fair though, the game owners probably did'nt think the game would last this long and gradually fade out much less expect this massive renaissance.

The amount of cash they are getting they most definitely *should* invest in new on-site equipment but Simu greed will always stop them from doing something to help the actual game.

My suggesstion to you guys is to directly WRITE TO STILLFRONT. The devs here are all contracted off-site employees with minimal skin in the game (even Wyrom).

If all of us on GSplayers (probably pushing 100 players) write or sign onto a letter that details how the hardware inadequacies of the game is hampering growth, StillFront may do something about it. Honestly, it's probably not even a 25k investment in hardware... that's one set of Rift boots.

AFAIK it's not a hardware issue, it's a code issue.


Every command is processed individually because of the way the core is designed. We need multi-threading, we have single-threading. It would require onsite to do a rewrite of code they don't want to touch because it's ancient.

[Skeletor]

Its a heck of a lot easier to blame it on someone who can't defend himself and helps make characters powerful for free like Dreaven than blaming it on all their complex scripted up the a-hole P2W creations over the years.

[Archigeek]

All this talk about how it's the dated game engine... it's really more the evolution of scripted items and spells that resolve in a more complex way (like grasp from the grave). 10 years ago things were running pretty smoothly, but now every item is scripted practically, including ambient scripts that fire on their own. If you put 150 people in a room, with all the items and pets etc firing off, there's going to be lag.

If it were me, I'd just make it policy to limit spell up groups to 20, and then I'd change the spells to limit how many people in a group can benefit. But I'm kind of a draconian solutions guy, so maybe someone else has a softer solution.

Also, this has nothing to do with pay to win. PTW item scripts aren't lagging the game. Practically EVERYTHING has a script nowadays, half the population has some sort of pet, and a lot of spells have become more complicated.

[Methais]

Telling you guys, write, write, write to StillFront.

Remember how fast and hard the hammer went down went that one dude cut through all the Simu bullshit and went straight up to StillFront.

And that was for some Discord crap, this is much bigger.

https://i.imgflip.com/4y4y4a.gif

This is correct.

Going through any Simu channels these days is useless. Dev does pretty much whatever they want, and I don't see that changing anytime in the near future. As much as I like Wyrom, he's long overdue to put his foot down with these dev retards, but I just don't see it happening.

[Tgo01]

Estild seem upset about you raising the group size limit above 30 after doing it for a couple of days. This is a long shot, but if you still have logs available from 2019, maybe find the part where a GM told you it's ok to raise the numbers again and post it there. It might help resolve this one misunderstanding as it looks like it might be a case where one GM gave you the ok and didn't inform the others about it, resulting in some of the uninformed ones stewing over the situation for the past year.

In the future, it might help to take screen shots AND save logs anytime you speak to them over policy related stuff about your services, just to cover yourself and have the info handy in case it's needed down the road.

It was Estild who came to me about the limit size and the one who said they made some changes and I could go back to 70 player group sizes again. Unfortunately there is no way I still have the logs, I don't keep logs this long. From now on you bet I'll be keeping logs and screenshots.

I was hoping this part of the discussion happened on Discord but it doesn't look like it did.

If I were to guess though it happened between 3/21/2019 and 3/25/2019 based on these Discord chats:

Dreaven on 3/21/2019:
There are two things I'm gonna quote so don't get excited until I paste them both over.
The first is a request. We would like to ask you to limit your "Dreavening" group size to 16 players. It's been identified as one of the sources of lag during prime time hours.
"Let's try 30. But do know that if it doesn't help, we may have to further limit it."

This is where I was doing Dreavenings on the 30 player limit they asked.

Dreaven on 3/25/2019:
Thank you for changing this back the way it was. I noticed something was wrong a couple of hours ago but no one was talking about it so I thought it was just on my end somehow. Glad to know I'm not going crazy.
If there is anything on my end that I can do for the Dreavenings to help out with the lag let me know and I can make some changes.

The GMs are discussing the changes they made prior to this message from me which are the changes they made when they said I could go back to my 70 player group limit. Also at this point I am asking if there is anything I can do to help with the lag on my end which to me means Dreavenings are back to normal which is why I'm asking if there is anymore I can do to still help.

Thinking more on it now I suppose it might have been Wyrom who told me I could go back to 70, I know I talked to them both during all of that 30 group limit nonsense.

[drauz]

EstildToday at 6:50 PM
Not likely today. I've been spending a considerable amount of time on spell casting logic that's causing lag.

Looks like hes putting in some effort to do more on their end.

[drumpel]

All this talk about how it's the dated game engine... it's really more the evolution of scripted items and spells that resolve in a more complex way (like grasp from the grave). 10 years ago things were running pretty smoothly, but now every item is scripted practically, including ambient scripts that fire on their own. If you put 150 people in a room, with all the items and pets etc firing off, there's going to be lag.

If it were me, I'd just make it policy to limit spell up groups to 20, and then I'd change the spells to limit how many people in a group can benefit. But I'm kind of a draconian solutions guy, so maybe someone else has a softer solution.

Also, this has nothing to do with pay to win. PTW item scripts aren't lagging the game. Practically EVERYTHING has a script nowadays, half the population has some sort of pet, and a lot of spells have become more complicated.

You can't just keep putting a band-aid on it.

They need to fix their engine to work properly with multithreading, otherwise the game is going to turn into a place where no more than 20 people will be allowed in any room at any given time due to the game engine limitations.



[Town Square, West]
Here in the midst of the town stretches the cobblestoned main bazaar, its lamplit lanes abuzz with traders and vendors hawking their wares at any hour of the day or night. Groups of citizens, discussing the day's events or preparing for nighttime hunts, gather around the doors of the merchants whose shops border the square. The gilded but peeling stone facade of the First Elanith Bank dominates this side of the square.
Obvious paths: north, east, south, west

>e

**There are already 20 people occupying the room in that direction, please try again later**

[Tgo01]

Apparently I quoted the GM who said I could go back to my normal 60 group limit when this was being discussed on the PC in March of 2019:

http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?119787-GMs-want-me-to-scale-back-Dreavenings&p=2093024#post2093024


We spent the night and morning push through some updates to see if they will improve the game performance for how spells work. It won't cut down on the messaging (which is one of the issues), but it should help out some some of the choking that is going on. We might need to continue to make tweaks to the system. As of right now, there shouldn't be any noticeable difference to you, the players. If you do notice something, please BUG it in game.

At this point, going back to casting for up to 60 people should be fine. If this changes, we'll make an announcement about it.

>>Can we get some clarifications as to what triggers would run afoul of Policy 18?

We are going to be discussing POLICY 18 and spell botting at our next senior staff meeting, which will be next week. We will post any changes/clarifications in the policy topic when we're ready for that.

But I can't recall where I quoted this from. It looks like I quoted it from the officials.

[bunnymustdie]

But I can't recall where I quoted this from. It looks like I quoted it from the officials.

I hate that you made me go dig it up. 3/22/2019, from Wyrom. The "GM's trying to shut down dreavenings" thread from the suggestions forums on the official. Image linked below, trying to make it display properly.

https://imgur.com/a/rufKcae

https://i.imgur.com/ppAw65L.jpeg

[Tgo01]

Apparently I quoted the GM who said I could go back to my normal 60 group limit when this was being discussed on the PC in March of 2019:

http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?119787-GMs-want-me-to-scale-back-Dreavenings&p=2093024#post2093024



But I can't recall where I quoted this from. It looks like I quoted it from the officials.

Ha! I actually found the post on the officials, and it was Wyrom who said I could go back to 60 people groups.

http://forums.play.net/forums/GemStone%20IV/General%20GemStone%20IV%20Discussion/Suggestions/view/320


We spent the night and morning to push through some updates to see if they will improve the game performance for how spells work. It won't cut down on the messaging (which is one of the issues), but it should help out some some of the choking that is going on. We might need to continue to make tweaks to the system. As of right now, there shouldn't be any noticeable difference to you, the players. If you do notice something, please BUG it in game.

At this point, going back to casting for up to 60 people should be fine. If this changes, we'll make an announcement about it.

>>Can we get some clarifications as to what triggers would run afoul of Policy 18?

We are going to be discussing POLICY 18 and spell botting at our next senior staff meeting, which will be next week. We will post any changes/clarifications in the policy topic when we're ready for that.


Wyrom, PM

[Tgo01]

Holy shit! Wyrom also posted on the officials that my pre-Dreavening services were okay too because of how limited they are in nature (only 15 minutes at a time, because I'm not doing it afk, etc etc.) This all happened two years ago so I remembered wrong but I thought he told me that in game in private.

Glad to know this is was all recorded on the officials no less.

http://forums.play.net/forums/GemStone%20IV/General%20GemStone%20IV%20Discussion/Suggestions/view/358




Reply Reply
>>This is honestly infuriating at this point. I have laid out my argument several times, explained why the policy doesn't work and offered suggestions to make it work that still wouldn't allow people to abuse bots, and all you took away from that is I'm either asking for special treatment or to allow botting altogether?

My post is a general understanding of POLICY 18 as it is written today. I didn't write the policy, I've edited it a few times, but that has been there for quite some time. What I am saying, very clearly here, is that it is one of those three things as it currently stands. This is not aimed at you, but all scripting activity. It's been this way for over a decade.

>>I ask you to just comment on this one thing that I mentioned in my last post:

>>Me casting 902 at everyone in the room is perfectly allowed and doesn't violate policy 18 or any policy that I'm aware of. Sure maybe you could hit me with being "disruptive" if I do it at TC, but certainly not at a private table that I invited people to.

>>But 411, which is a very similar spell in function, I can't do this with because it requires my caster to hold the weapon to cast 411 at it, thus someone GIVING me their weapon is considered a trigger and thus isn't allowed?

If you're casting 902 because you typed something to cast 902 at everyone, you are correct, it does not violate policy. If something initiates casting 902 other than you, it would likely fall into botting.

If someone hands you a weapon, and you automatically accept it and cast 411 without initiating it, that is botting. If you don't automate that process, then it's perfectly fine.

In both cases, if you're doing these things as a mass group thing while you are there playing the game, you're likely 100% fine. If you're leaving your spellcaster running all day long at some remote location (like a table, private home, hidden spot, etc) then that is the botting activity we typically shut down.

Hopefully that gives you a better understand. Nothing here is intended to infuriate you. We are just discussing what is currently in POLICY 18.

The important part which I later quoted and responded to:


If you're casting 902 because you typed something to cast 902 at everyone, you are correct, it does not violate policy. If something initiates casting 902 other than you, it would likely fall into botting.

If someone hands you a weapon, and you automatically accept it and cast 411 without initiating it, that is botting. If you don't automate that process, then it's perfectly fine.

In both cases, if you're doing these things as a mass group thing while you are there playing the game, you're likely 100% fine. If you're leaving your spellcaster running all day long at some remote location (like a table, private home, hidden spot, etc) then that is the botting activity we typically shut down.

In BOTH cases, both the non-botting action and the botting action, it's fine as long as I'm doing it as part of a mass spell up and I'm there playing the game then it's fine. The GMs just don't want someone sitting at a table all day acting as a bot.

[Taernath]

fukken shrekt

https://i.imgur.com/O588cxJ.jpg

[bunnymustdie]

Holy shit! Wyrom also posted on the officials that my pre-Dreavening services were okay too because of how limited they are in nature (only 15 minutes at a time, because I'm not doing it afk, etc etc.) This all happened two years ago so I remembered wrong but I thought he told me that in game in private.

Glad to know this is was all recorded on the officials no less.



Screenshot everything relevant, if you haven't already. Giving everybody the benefit of the doubt, I think one can guess that Estild never saw the posts Wyrom made in that thread and maybe ended up unhappy over you going over 30 people per group again (but why not just bring it up to you or Wyrom?). Perhaps Wyrom simply forgot what he posted on the forums close to 2 years ago. Even assuming all of these though, they still did you wrong the way they did in the recent thread, where they made you out to be someone who didn't cooperate and sneakily went above whatever limit they placed on you.

[Tgo01]

fukken shrekt

https://i.imgur.com/O588cxJ.jpg

Yup. And I don't recall seeing any announcements saying Dreavenings were causing issues again, and if they were they probably should have sent me a private message on Discord or something because I don't really keep up with official announcements.

[Tgo01]

Even assuming all of these though, they still did you wrong the way they did in the recent thread, where they made you out to be someone who didn't cooperate and sneakily went above whatever limit they placed on you.

That's what upset me the most. They didn't contact me this time around to give me a heads up and give me a chance to change some things like they did back in 2019, they just posted it on Discord and the officials and placed the blame directly on me. Then rather than getting my side of the story both Estild and Wyrom claim they asked me to limit my group sizes to 30 then I completely thumbed my noses at them and continued to do whatever I wanted, when in fact I DID follow their 30 person limit up until Wyrom made that announcement which clearly gave me the go ahead to go back to 60. And I'll admit sometimes the final group is 70ish so if they really want to split hairs I can lower the final group limit as well, but I can't imagine that's really the issue that is causing trouble lately.

[Tgo01]

I feel better now knowing I'm not going crazy. I got the details wrong of who told me and where, but I knew for a fact a GM told me I was good to go as normal and I haven't just been ignoring the GMs for 2 years.

[Taernath]

Even assuming all of these though, they still did you wrong the way they did in the recent thread, where they made you out to be someone who didn't cooperate and sneakily went above whatever limit they placed on you.

That's the thing that sticks out to me about all this. It's been going on for years. Some of the staff are outright hostile to dreavenings (Estild) while Wyrom, in my opinion, just says what he thinks other people want to hear which results in a lot of confusion and mixed messaging.

[caelric]

Need to link those posts from Wyrom onto the officials. With screens hots, in case someone decides to get delete happy.

[Tgo01]

Need to link those posts from Wyrom onto the officials. With screens hots, in case someone decides to get delete happy.

Got both all nice and screenshotted.

[bunnymustdie]

Need to link those posts from Wyrom onto the officials. With screens hots, in case someone decides to get delete happy.

For future reference: "60 man group ok" screen shot:

https://imgur.com/a/rufKcae

link to official forum post:

http://forums.play.net/forums/GemStone%20IV/General%20GemStone%20IV%20Discussion/Suggestions/view/320

[Tgo01]

I hate that you made me go dig it up. 3/22/2019, from Wyrom. The "GM's trying to shut down dreavenings" thread from the suggestions forums on the official. Image linked below, trying to make it display properly.

https://imgur.com/a/rufKcae

https://i.imgur.com/ppAw65L.jpeg

I just realized you posted this 3 minutes before I did :O

[bunnymustdie]

I just realized you posted this 3 minutes before I did :O

I vaguely remembered you getting the ok for bigger groups and Estild's post on the officials felt off. I don't like the idea of someone being accused or punished for something they didn't do.

[caelric]

I vaguely remembered you getting the ok for bigger groups and Estild's post on the officials felt off. I don't like the idea of someone being accused or punished for something they didn't do.

Some GMs are asses.

[Skeletor]

You guys are getting confused/contradictory info/GM doublespeak bcause you still aren't seeing the root of the matter.

They don't like Dreavenings. They never have.

And especially hated by "perfectly balanced" Thanos Estild.

If you keep that in mind all of a sudden all the dust-up becomes crystal clear.

[Tgo01]

They don't like Dreavenings. They never have.

Sure is making me wonder lately. I would think they would love the idea of a player driven event that attracts upwards of a hundred people on a regular basis and doesn't require any help from the GMs at all to pull off. But I guess I'm the crazy one for thinking that.

[Skeletor]

Sure is making me wonder lately. I would think they would love the idea of a player driven event that attracts upwards of a hundred people on a regular basis and doesn't require any help from the GMs at all to pull off. But I guess I'm the crazy one for thinking that.

Because the job of pretty much the entire dev team is to sell shit to players directly through events and simucoins.

The biggest and best-selling is of course mechanical power and you are giving away said mechanical power for free every 4 hours.

You'r basically a rival drug dealer elbowing in on another drug dealer's turf.

[Fortybox]

Need to link those posts from Wyrom onto the officials. With screens hots, in case someone decides to get delete happy.

Alastir isn't a GM

[Methais]

Because the job of pretty much the entire dev team is to sell shit to players directly through events and simucoins.

This is why the game is so fucked and why Estild & co. are cancer. Having P2W GMs also be in charge of the core game is a huge conflict of interest and is pretty much the most retarded thing in the history of text while Wyrom just watches Estild and Naijin torch the game.

Don't worry though, loot caps will fix everything.

[caelric]

Alastir isn't a GM

Estill is, and I wouldn't put it past him to delete posts that make him look bad.

[Tgo01]

Estild on Discord today:

Not likely today. I've been spending a considerable amount of time on spell casting logic that's causing lag.
Defensive spell logic, that involves large groups of characters...

Right. I've been doing Dreavenings between 1AM and 8AM the past couple of nights when not many people are on and they still wanna blame everything on Dreavenings.

Just "defensive spells" that "involves a large group of characters" are causing lag. What a joke.

[Orthin]

Sure is making me wonder lately. I would think they would love the idea of a player driven event that attracts upwards of a hundred people on a regular basis and doesn't require any help from the GMs at all to pull off. But I guess I'm the crazy one for thinking that.

Please dear god turn Dreavening's into an MHO. You would hit your requisite events limit in no time! Maybe that's all they want, is you to go "legit"

[Tgo01]

Maybe that's all they want, is you to go "legit"

Never! Fight the power!

[Methais]

Estild on Discord today:

Not likely today. I've been spending a considerable amount of time on spell casting logic that's causing lag.
Defensive spell logic, that involves large groups of characters...

Right. I've been doing Dreavenings between 1AM and 8AM the past couple of nights when not many people are on and they still wanna blame everything on Dreavenings.

Just "defensive spells" that "involves a large group of characters" are causing lag. What a joke.

Estild is cancer.

Naijin too.

[drauz]

Sure is making me wonder lately. I would think they would love the idea of a player driven event that attracts upwards of a hundred people on a regular basis and doesn't require any help from the GMs at all to pull off. But I guess I'm the crazy one for thinking that.

I can see from a GM perspective how dreavenings trivialize large swathes of the game. It sounds like a nightmare to balance around.

That being said they need to stop trying to call out "culprits". They could have easily just DM'd Dreaven and told the community they are looking into the recent lag.

[drauz]

Estild is cancer.

Naijin too.

https://media.tenor.com/images/7d6f34d6ac1a72ec1da19c448ce69042/tenor.gif

[Taernath]

I can see from a GM perspective how dreavenings trivialize large swathes of the game. It sounds like a nightmare to balance around.

That being said they need to stop trying to call out "culprits". They could have easily just DM'd Dreaven and told the community they are looking into the recent lag.

Balance can't exist in a game with paid SK items. Until they start cracking down on those, I don't believe for a second balance is something that really comes into the equation.

[drauz]

Balance can't exist in a game with paid SK items. Until they start cracking down on those, I don't believe for a second balance is something that really comes into the equation.

Yeah for cap sure, I mean like 1-50. Maybe even past that. Extra like 100-200 DS at level 10-20, you're basically invincible.

[Taernath]

Yeah for cap sure, I mean like 1-50. Maybe even past that. Extra like 100-200 DS at level 10-20, you're basically invincible.

You've been able to get full spellups since the dawn of the game, all Tgo did was make them more accessible. The GMs have tools at their disposal to counter full spellups like spellburst, dispels, and maneuver attacks.

[caelric]

You've been able to get full spellups since the dawn of the game, all Tgo did was make them more accessible.

Many people MA for the specific purposes of spellups. Dreavenings have likely reduced the number of people that do this, thus directly reducing Simu revenue. That's really the heart of the problem.

[Methais]

Many people MA for the specific purposes of spellups. Dreavenings have likely reduced the number of people that do this, thus directly reducing Simu revenue. That's really the heart of the problem.

Their ultimate goal is to completely destroy the secondary market, and make all professions equally mediocre. Because they think that will make them more money. Except it won't, more people will quit, and Stillfront will hopefully be like "wtf are you idiots doing?"

[drauz]

You've been able to get full spellups since the dawn of the game, all Tgo did was make them more accessible. The GMs have tools at their disposal to counter full spellups like spellburst, dispels, and maneuver attacks.

Way more accessible.

People say they can't hunt without their dreavening. Even though they could just ask those same professions for the spells.

[Methais]

Way more accessible.

People say they can't hunt without their dreavening. Even though they could just ask those same professions for the spells.

Those people are probably the people who take 22 years to reach level 37 and they should feel bad.

[Skeletor]

Their ultimate goal is to completely destroy the secondary market, and make all professions equally mediocre. Because they think that will make them more money. Except it won't, more people will quit, and Stillfront will hopefully be like "wtf are you idiots doing?"

^This.

And that's what all these CMAN changes are about. After phase III, AS/DS even CS will become meaningless abstractions compared to what will be killing us 99.9999999999999999% of the time, which are CMANs.

This is what Devs do when you link X sales of your DR items = Y dollars on next month's paycheck.

[bunnymustdie]

Looking at the thread on the official forums, I think it's pretty unfortunate that there aren't any responses from the GMs after Dreaven posted the link to the official forum post where Wyrom ok'd the 60 character group sizes and his pre-dreavening services.

A simple "our mistake, sorry about that, we'll keep working on the lag issues so please continue to cooperate with us" would have been perfectly fine and professional. Now after accusing Dreaven publicly of something he did not do & threatening punishment which subsequently incited a mob of the native specimens of the official forums to dog pile on him, both the GMs and the happy pitchfork crowd suddenly goes silent after that link got posted.

Mistakes happen with all individuals and businesses, but how you respond and recover from them is where your true worth lie.

[Methais]

^This.

And that's what all these CMAN changes are about. After phase III, AS/DS even CS will become meaningless abstractions compared to what will be killing us 99.9999999999999999% of the time, which are CMANs.

This is what Devs do when you link X sales of your DR items = Y dollars on next month's paycheck.

Yep. Then they'll try to sell you back some of the "power" that they took away when they nerfed your profession for cash.

I don't know if Naijin is just coding stuff or if all this shit has been his idea from the start, but GS has gotten nerfed harder just this year than it has in the 20 years before it.

The locksmith pool was one of the best additions ever. Since the loot cap though, the pool seems to run out of boxes at least somewhat frequently now. Because Simu logic.

That loot cap is going to be catastrophic in the long run, imo. The underlying motivator for MMOs is loot, whether it's gear, gems, or whatever. It's not going to "fix" the economy, and the negative effects are going to far outweigh any potential positive effects, of which I can't think of any.

Even taking farmers out of the equation, that's a disastrous nerf and one day Wyrom is going to wish he put his foot down with these dev retards instead of just letting them run wild with no accountability all the time. I'm pretty sure even he realizes there's some shadiness going on.

I'm starting to think Coase may have been the gatekeeper of sanity with this game, because shit has been fucking nuts ever since Wyrom fired him.

Some random dumb shit from Discord:

Naijin Yesterday at 5:33 AM
On the flip side of that: players sometimes have difficulty thinking outside the box and are very tunnel visioned on what they currently have and what they want.

Estild12/11/2020
There's no reason we can't aim for similar TTK metrics and maintain profession diversity and uniqueness. No one profession is unique because of their TTK, and if they are, that's the issue.

^ Translation, probably: Instead of raising the floor, we're going to make everyone equally slow as fuck killing things, and ignore the glass cannon concept so things can be equally tedious for everyone.

Naijin Yesterday at 5:36 AM
Paying for items in games is like spending money on a car: the second you pay for it the value drops. Banking on making money in a game is like throwing money into $GME and hoping for that sweet squeeze.

Naijin Yesterday at 5:38 AM
Okay, fine, bad analogy. Don't spend money in games that you aren't willing to lose. Games are a hobby, not an investment.

Apparently they also implemented 1205 as Glamour (trading boost) only to sell it as SK 1205 at the Aug DR (I think) and then turn around and put a loot cap so it's worthless and useless now anyway. According to Naijin logic, players should be ok with things like this happening. :lol:

Good job Simu.

[Taernath]

Their ultimate goal is to completely destroy the secondary market

They don't want to destroy the secondary market, they just want a cut. That's why there's alt currency and items that can only be bought/earned through paid events but can still be transferred between accounts. Every BS, seashell, whatever originated from Simu. If they wanted to kill the secondary market overnight all they have to do is make stuff character/account attuned.

[caelric]

incited a mob of the native specimens of the official forums to dog pile on him, both the GMs and the happy pitchfork crowd suddenly goes silent after that link got posted.


As bad as the PC gets, there are some seriously toxic fucktards on the officials.

[bunnymustdie]

I think Discord in general have a bigger negative impact on game dev than people give it credit for. The pace of conversation there is fast, so instead of forum posts with well thought out logic behind them, arguments gets made & won based on which side has more people screaming for it or who can type out an insubstantial witty one liner retort quickest. There are also times when the discord mechanic channel seem like a mini echo-chamber where the dev GMs end up being surrounded by large numbers of yes-man for long periods of time, which probably is not good for proper game balance.

[bunnymustdie]

As bad as the PC gets, there are some seriously toxic fucktards on the officials.

I saw the response you got when you mentioned you'd like pures to get some access for the new stuff in the PSM3 doc. You seemed to have treated the words feats, abilities & specializations as all interchangeable phrases for the same thing and mentioned something like wanting partial access to feats, and someone else went nerd rage on you for that. In fact, the whole "war pures don't count and don't get to speak" attitude in that thread was weird as hell.

[caelric]

I saw the response you got when you mentioned you'd like pures to get some access for the new stuff in the PSM3 doc. You seemed to have treated the words feats, abilities & specializations as all interchangeable phrases for the same thing and mentioned something like wanting partial access to feats, and someone else went nerd rage on you for that. In fact, the whole "war pures don't count and don't get to speak" attitude in that thread was weird as hell.

Like I said, there are some seriously toxic fucktards on the officials.

[Methais]

They don't want to destroy the secondary market, they just want a cut. That's why there's alt currency and items that can only be bought/earned through paid events but can still be transferred between accounts. Every BS, seashell, whatever originated from Simu. If they wanted to kill the secondary market overnight all they have to do is make stuff character/account attuned.

They're already testing the waters with that for this run of DR. You can get a 25% discount on certain items, but they become account attuned. I expect to see a lot more of that going forward. This applies to flare stuff too...buy a cert at a discount and use it on your item...that item is now attuned to your account.


As bad as the PC gets, there are some seriously toxic fucktards on the officials.

This x9487324032742. And they get to hide behind the retarded forum rules over there, so properly calling them out on their stupidity usually isn't even worth the bother.


I think Discord in general have a bigger negative impact on game dev than people give it credit for. The pace of conversation there is fast, so instead of forum posts with well thought out logic behind them, arguments gets made & won based on which side has more people screaming for it or who can type out an insubstantial witty one liner retort quickest. There are also times when the discord mechanic channel seem like a mini echo-chamber where the dev GMs end up being surrounded by large numbers of yes-man for long periods of time, which probably is not good for proper game balance.

Discord is basically the officials in real time, but with H2U and FFNG telling you why you're wrong about everything instead of Doug and Krakii. For all I know, they might be Doug and Krakii. :lol:

Simu also seems to think Discord is the place to make announcements about in game changes. You weren't on Discord on Thursday at 3:38am? Good luck knowing about what changed or got nerfed that day.

[caelric]

Doug and Krakii. Two of the biggest idiots on the forums. And discord. Well, at least Doug is on Discord. not sure if Krakii is.

[Methais]

Doug and Krakii. Two of the biggest idiots on the forums. And discord. Well, at least Doug is on Discord. not sure if Krakii is.

I'm gonna assume that he isn't, because if he was, you would hear every single day about what GS was like back in 1992 in response to everything anyone says about anything.

[Skeletor]

You have to start wondering where the game is heading if the PC becomes the voice of reason and sanity.

[Taernath]

They're already testing the waters with that for this run of DR. You can get a 25% discount on certain items, but they become account attuned. I expect to see a lot more of that going forward. This applies to flare stuff too...buy a cert at a discount and use it on your item...that item is now attuned to your account.

I think that's more to do with the insane amount of BS inflation, such that more and more people (who aren't script farmers) get priced out of stuff they would otherwise buy.

[bunnymustdie]

I'm gonna assume that he isn't, because if he was, you would hear every single day about what GS was like back in 1992 in response to everything anyone says about anything.

I like krakii the most out of that list of people, because he actually managed to tone that behavior of his way down after being called out on it. He's capable of changing based on new info and feedback received, which doesn't seem to be the case with most of those other guys. I once came across a blog post from like, 2009 from Virilneus complaining about Doug basically doing the same things he does today.

[Methais]

I like krakii the most out of that list of people, because he actually managed to tone that behavior of his way down after being called out on it. He's capable of changing based on new info and feedback received, which doesn't seem to be the case with most of those other guys. I once came across a blog post from like, 2009 from Virilneus complaining about Doug basically doing the same things he does today.

He's overall a nice and mostly reasonable guy, and is a good sport about being trolled for his GS2 obsession and all that. I don't dislike him.

[Skeletor]

I think that's more to do with the insane amount of BS inflation, such that more and more people get priced out of stuff they would otherwise buy.

I'm also going to run with this excuse ... for now.

But, if by next DR these account attunes still exist and prices haven't come down any. It's a ploy to get people to bind their super "forever" items. If what you're saying is true with each successive DR, prices should gradually come down to accomodate for less "inflation".

But I doubt this is the case, prices are kept high to dangle that carrot over that moron so he has to use just a few hundred bucks more out of his stimulus check which was reserved for little Catelyn's braces.

But again, we'll see.

[Methais]

I'm also going to run with this excuse ... for now.

But, if by next DR these account attunes still exist and prices haven't come down any. It's a ploy to get people to bind their super "forever" items. If what you're saying is true with each successive DR, prices should gradually come down to accomodate for less "inflation".

But I doubt this is the case, prices are kept high to dangle that carrot over that moron so he has to use just a few hundred bucks more out of his stimulus check which was reserved for little Catelyn's braces.

But again, we'll see.

Catelyn before DR:

https://www.memesmonkey.com/images/memesmonkey/0f/0ff4c6330d911a7c4bcfea2750e438b1.jpeg





Catelyn after DR:

https://www.memesmonkey.com/images/memesmonkey/0f/0ff4c6330d911a7c4bcfea2750e438b1.jpeg

[drauz]

He's overall a nice and mostly reasonable guy, and is a good sport about being trolled for his GS2 obsession and all that. I don't dislike him.

Krakkii giving advise though...

https://i.imgur.com/JJxAHd0.gif

[Methais]

Krakkii giving advise though...

https://i.imgur.com/JJxAHd0.gif

This is correct x99999999999999999999999

You should also post this in the Gif an Interaction thread. :lol:

[Methais]

Maybe it's DR. But we can't blame it on the cash cow of course.



"Pretty constantly." I have done a whole ONE Dreavening so far tonight. Also I only spell 70 people up at a time, I don't do 150 at a time.

Only time I ever feel lag is when everyone is getting that "Sorry, system is slow blah blah blah" message, which literally never happens to me when Dreavenings are happening, but happens a lot when HoA is doing shit, but I also don't use StormFront because it's a laggy piece of shit and Wizard FE still blows it out of the water.

I wonder if that has anything to do with it. Didn't really think about it until this popped up on LNet:

[help]-GSIV:Alwina: "It stands to reason that if Dreavenings, or large gatherings of people in one place "doing things" if you prefer, was the cause of lag... that those locations would be laggy. I've never, ever had lag at a Dreavening, ever, at all, that I can recall."
[help]-GSIV:Alwina: "So I'm gonna go ahead and call a goblin in the woodpile."
[help]-GSIV:Arianiss: "Are you on SF or Wizard FE?"
[help]-GSIV:Alwina: "Wizard."
[help]-GSIV:Arianiss: "That's why. I'm the same."

[Archigeek]

I would never convert my gear to attuned for a paltry 25% discount. That should be like a 75% discount. I hope it's a short list of people who've been buying the attuned certs. On the other hand, in a couple of years there will be an unattune cert at HESS. You can undo that giant mistake you made 2 tears ago, but it'll cost ya!

[bunnymustdie]

I find it humorous that TG01 found the original post by Wyrom saying he could go back to 60 at a table, from the lower limit of 25, and yet, no one has gone on here (GM or otherwise) and apologized to him for falsely accusing him.

Posted on the officials. A minute later:


Due to this thread having devolved way more than it should have, the thread has now been closed. Any further replies will be pulled.

Thank you for understanding.


~Aulis
Platinum Co-Guru
Forums Manager
QC'er

Kind of a sad direction to have taken.

[caelric]

Yeah, that's pretty pitiful. Got the notifications for the 3 posts I put in there being pulled because the thread was being closed. Looks like they're just going to sweep it under the rug.

TG01, please let us know what bullshit excuses you get from the GMs.

[caelric]

Posted by Wyrom, which I thought was a pretty fair post, and almost an apology;



Catching up on the other thread, then personal attacks happened and Aulis shut it down. We'll just start up a new thread.

No more personal attacks, there is no need for it.

No one was given a pass on POLICY. We have talked with Dreaven, and he's been there. He has always been within the rules of the game with responding. Everyone receives a fair test.

Someone sent me a screenshot of a post I made in 2019 about 60 people stating I gave the all clear. That's true, and that's why I posted about it. I said things would be fine until there is an announcement. This is that announcement. I'm not sure why anyone would think that post would be deleted or that we weren't allowing that. No need to imply anything or turn this into something it isn't.

With all that said, we are doing our due diligence and working on the issues as much as we can on the backend. We have onsite working on the issue, pulling a lot of data to measure the exact issues. But this isn't an issue of the in-game population or the spellups directly. It's about the gathered people in a single room. The spellups do cause the game to work harder, which is compounded if there are large groups. But that's not the issue, and that's why we haven't dug into announcing this any bit sooner. Yes, Duskruin is running which shines a big old spotlight on lag, but to say lag wasn't going on outside of Duskruin isn't true. Duskruin is very efficient, and because we funnel people into their own arenas, heist rooms, and the sewers being spread out, it actually performs better due to the lack of groups. The entry rooms might be an issue at times, but I'm not seeing it.

The choking points are the large rooms. The game can't handle 125+ people in a room without silencing. Tables are exempt right now because the silence effect can't attach itself to a scripted room (which are every single table in game). That's the area we need to fix. That's the issue. The table can't grow in size. The chatter, RP, ambient messages, spell messages, etc are the problem. It doesn't matter if you're only spelling 70 of that 168 people up, it's messaging the 168 people. That's the problem. That's what we're trying to communicate, and that's why we're talking about limiting how many people can go to a single table. It's not shutting spellups down. There is no reason to twist anything being said by me right now. I am being very transparent and making sure the issue is known so when fixes come, it's not out of no where.

As for the lags SINCE this post, we've been running tests. Some of them I was not aware of. But I took this all the way up the chain so we could make sure we do what we can to make the game better. If there is some engine work that can help, we're going to do that. Dev has been working on it the last 2 days as well. The lag isn't any one specific issue, but a number of smaller issues that compound. It's many contributing factors. We're working on those choking points so there isn't a spike.

[Taernath]

Catching up on the other thread, then personal attacks happened and Aulis shut it down. We'll just start up a new thread.

No more personal attacks, there is no need for it.

No one was given a pass on POLICY. We have talked with Dreaven, and he's been there. He has always been within the rules of the game with responding. Everyone receives a fair test.

Someone sent me a screenshot of a post I made in 2019 about 60 people stating I gave the all clear. That's true, and that's why I posted about it. I said things would be fine until there is an announcement. This is that announcement. I'm not sure why anyone would think that post would be deleted or that we weren't allowing that. No need to imply anything or turn this into something it isn't.

With all that said, we are doing our due diligence and working on the issues as much as we can on the backend. We have onsite working on the issue, pulling a lot of data to measure the exact issues. But this isn't an issue of the in-game population or the spellups directly. It's about the gathered people in a single room. The spellups do cause the game to work harder, which is compounded if there are large groups. But that's not the issue, and that's why we haven't dug into announcing this any bit sooner. Yes, Duskruin is running which shines a big old spotlight on lag, but to say lag wasn't going on outside of Duskruin isn't true. Duskruin is very efficient, and because we funnel people into their own arenas, heist rooms, and the sewers being spread out, it actually performs better due to the lack of groups. The entry rooms might be an issue at times, but I'm not seeing it.

The choking points are the large rooms. The game can't handle 125+ people in a room without silencing. Tables are exempt right now because the silence effect can't attach itself to a scripted room (which are every single table in game). That's the area we need to fix. That's the issue. The table can't grow in size. The chatter, RP, ambient messages, spell messages, etc are the problem. It doesn't matter if you're only spelling 70 of that 168 people up, it's messaging the 168 people. That's the problem. That's what we're trying to communicate, and that's why we're talking about limiting how many people can go to a single table. It's not shutting spellups down. There is no reason to twist anything being said by me right now. I am being very transparent and making sure the issue is known so when fixes come, it's not out of no where.

As for the lags SINCE this post, we've been running tests. Some of them I was not aware of. But I took this all the way up the chain so we could make sure we do what we can to make the game better. If there is some engine work that can help, we're going to do that. Dev has been working on it the last 2 days as well. The lag isn't any one specific issue, but a number of smaller issues that compound. It's many contributing factors. We're working on those choking points so there isn't a spike.


Bolded is the Bill Lumbergh shit I hate. "I never accused him of anything! Except for the parts where I did, but that doesn't count. Anyway here's the announcement."

[bunnymustdie]

Posted by Wyrom, which I thought was a pretty fair post, and almost an apology;

Probably as much as a conciliation as Dreaven is going to get.

I'm happy they're doing their best on the lag issue, and can understand if they ultimately put in limitations to tables or whatever that impact Dreavenings. What I take issue with, though, are the following comments:


...we had asked the responsible party to limit groups to 30 characters at at time and they had agreed to that number then, but continue to disregard it now

And


...I know Estild and you talked and came up with a number of 30, but you've been doing 70 because no news was good news.


Giving everyone involved benefit of doubt, I can see maybe the two above statements stemmed from honest mistakes/miscommunications between Estild & Wyrom and plain old forgetfulness. I wouldn't see them as intentional or malicious. Nonetheless, these statements publicly accused Dreaven of failing to cooperate and/or purposefully neglecting the GM's requests, which turned out to be false given the post Wyrom made back in 2019. For nothing more to be said nor no specific apology to be made, and for the thread to be just locked and now with a lot of posts pruned from it, is just a shitty way to respond.

[Tgo01]

Bolded is the Bill Lumbergh shit I hate. "I never accused him of anything! Except for the parts where I did, but that doesn't count. Anyway here's the announcement."

He also specifically blamed Dreavenings for the lag then later said something like "No one said Dreavenings were the ONLY cause of the lag." Except....uhhh yeah you did. You specifically said the lag was because I was "constantly" spelling up 160 people.

Speaking of which, this WHOLE TIME, EVEN BACK IN 2019, they said the problem was with me spelling so many people up at once. The 30 person limit? That was the number of people they wanted me to spell up at once.

Now suddenly, 6 years of me doing this, 2 years of me doing this since their last request, nothing at all has changed, now it's "Oh yeah, the problem is 100+ people standing at your table, spells have nothing to do with it.

And let's not forget this all just so happened to have started the day after DR opened. Oh but DR is so efficient it actually makes people lag less!

Come on already!

I just noticed my post was pulled which linked to Wyrom's old post. How was that a "personal attack"?

[Tgo01]

I also love this shit.

Dreaven: Hey so I've only been doing Dreavenings between 1-9AM since Saturday since that is supposedly the cause of the lag.
EACH AND EVERY SINGLE DAY SINCE THEN PEOPLE HAVE COMPLAINED ABOUT LAG
Wyrom: Oh yeah, that's our bad! We're running tests and that's causing the lag.

How convenient.

[Tgo01]

Speaking of which, this WHOLE TIME, EVEN BACK IN 2019, they said the problem was with me spelling so many people up at once. The 30 person limit? That was the number of people they wanted me to spell up at once.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot the best part! A few days ago Wyrom blames the lag on me spelling up so many people at once, then he posts the supposed results of these tests which supposedly show where the lag is coming from, he posts this:

There are 115 players in room [Bleeding Heart Table].
There are 127 players in room [Bleeding Heart Table].
There are 143 players in room [Bleeding Heart Table].
There are 133 players in room [Knotted Kerria Table].
There are 145 players in room [Knotted Kerria Table].
There are 152 players in room [Knotted Kerria Table].
There are 168 players in room [Knotted Kerria Table].

And I say there is no way I am spelling people up during those times because I don't spell 168 people up at once, those are people just sitting and chatting waiting for the spells. Then a few hours later the problem is suddenly not the spells at all. Nope! The problem is with 125+ people in a room. Just being there, spells aren't the problem.

It's almost like they want to make some changes anyways and are making this shit up as they go along to justify these changes.

[Tgo01]

Posting my response on the officials here in case it gets pulled again for "personal attacks":

Since when is linking to an older forum post a "personal attack"?

>I said things would be fine until there is an announcement. This is that announcement.

Isn't it strange how I have done nothing different in the ~6 years I've been doing this (other than try to make Dreavenings more efficient and cause less scroll) and now suddenly there is a problem? How is that even possible?

>It doesn't matter if you're only spelling 70 of that 168 people up, it's messaging the 168 people.

But you and Estild specifically said the problem was with me spelling up "160" people "constantly." Which I am not and have never done.

It seems the GMs are just determined to put a limit on the number of people at a table because the narrative is constantly changing.

In the meantime I've been a good boy and have only been doing Dreavenings between 1-9AM since Sunday when there are fewer than 600 people on (usually drops to fewer than 400 by then), waiting for today to see what I can do to help things so the GMs don't have to put in a table limit. I'm assuming there is nothing I can do and the table limits are coming anyways?

[bunnymustdie]

Oh yeah! I almost forgot the best part! A few days ago Wyrom blames the lag on me spelling up so many people at once, then he posts the supposed results of these tests which supposedly show where the lag is coming from, he posts this:
And I say there is no way I am spelling people up during those times because I don't spell 168 people up at once, those are people just sitting and chatting waiting for the spells. Then a few hours later the problem is suddenly not the spells at all. Nope! The problem is with 125+ people in a room. Just being there, spells aren't the problem.


I think Wyrom just don't know how exactly a Dreavening works other than a vague idea of "bunch of people gathered at table, spells are then somehow cast". Maybe the larger group gathered during the pre-service waiting time does cause more issues than the smaller spellup groups. From the way the narrative have shifted, I honestly just get a pointy-haired boss vibe out of it.

[Tgo01]

I think Wyrom just don't know how exactly a Dreavening works other than a vague idea of "bunch of people gathered at table, spells are then somehow cast". Maybe the larger group gathered during the pre-service waiting time does cause more issues than the smaller spellup groups. From the way the narrative have shifted, I honestly just get a pointy-haired boss vibe out of it.

This is exactly why he should have come to me first instead of doing it the way he did. Now it all just sounds like bullshit, except to the people who have a hate-boner for Dreavenings, I'm sure they are lapping this up.

[Tgo01]

Here is my post referencing Wyrom's post from 2 years ago that gave me the go ahead to increase my group limits from 30 to 60:



Apologies to Estild. My memory is fuzzy and I thought Estild told me privately that I could go back to 60 group spellups, but it looks like I got that information from this post in 2019:

http://forums.play.net/forums/GemStone%20IV/General%20GemStone%20IV%20Discussion/Suggestions/view/320

>At this point, going back to casting for up to 60 people should be fine. If this changes, we'll make an announcement about it.

I'm not trying to be smart here, just want to show that I did in fact cooperate with what the GMs asked me to do back in 2019 and went back to normal after I was given the go ahead by the GMs.

Here is the reason I was given for why it was removed:


***** It was hidden because a previous post to which it referred was hidden, thus making your post out of context for the thread.

The bullshit is quickly piling up around me.

"You referenced a post from 2 years ago that hasn't been hidden, so I'm hiding this post because you referenced a post that was hidden."

[bunnymustdie]

This is exactly why he should have come to me first instead of doing it the way he did. Now it all just sounds like bullshit, except to the people who have a hate-boner for Dreavenings, I'm sure they are lapping this up.

Estild jumping the gun in that first thread really did not help. Wyrom's initial couple of posts there seemed pretty civil and neutral in tone. Thread took a nose dive after Estild's "continue to disregard it now" statement and threats on policy enforcement.

[bunnymustdie]

Here is the reason I was given for why it was removed:


"You referenced a post from 2 years ago that hasn't been hidden, so I'm hiding this post because you referenced a post that was hidden."

They hid that? They're really making it hard for someone to remain neutral and giving them the benefit of doubt. Good thing we have multiple links and screenshots to that post in this thread.

[Tgo01]

Thread took a nose dive after Estild's "continue to disregard it now" statement and threats on policy enforcement.

I was really pissed when I read that message because I knew for a fact that a GM gave me the go ahead to continue with Dreavenings as usual, and it turned out to be the top GM.

I literally had to take 10 minutes to calm down before I replied to his post because all I could do was type things I knew for a fact would get me banned from the forums.

[Taernath]

Posting my response on the officials here in case it gets pulled again for "personal attacks":

Since when is linking to an older forum post a "personal attack"?

They pulled your other posts and they'll pull that one too, it'll be like they never existed... unless...


https://i.imgur.com/FHmtGcJ.jpg

[Tgo01]

They hid that? They're really making it hard for someone to remain neutral and giving them the benefit of doubt. Good thing we have multiple links and screenshots to that post in this thread.

They hid the post where I referenced Wyrom's old post to show I have indeed been cooperating with GMs from the beginning. Wyrom's post from 2 years ago is still there, but that's rather moot because no one on the officials knows it exists now.

[bunnymustdie]

They hid the post where I referenced Wyrom's old post to show I have indeed been cooperating with GMs from the beginning. Wyrom's post from 2 years ago is still there, but that's rather moot because no one on the officials knows it exists now.

It's not moot. I bet there's more people who visit these forums than the officials anyway. We have the relevant posts all saved up here so anyone can make up their own mind just reading through them.

Recent posts they made regarding you:

https://i.imgur.com/Ql27kxU.jpg

Post from 2019 stating it's ok to go back up to 60 per group:

https://i.imgur.com/QIj97FU.jpg

And for good measure, the bit about the pre-services and how it related policy 18 per Wyrom's own understanding:

https://i.imgur.com/f3HVeco.jpg

All three images on imgur:

https://imgur.com/a/LG0UuG1

[Taernath]

>>Since when is linking to an older forum post a "personal attack"?

You're taking things as if they are directed at you. There were a number of personal attacks in this thread that caused Aulis to just close it. I'm not talking about you.

>>But you and Estild specifically said the problem was with me spelling up "160" people "constantly." Which I am not and have never done.

The problem at the time was that table. That specific table caused three spikes of 7 seconds of lag at 7:45pm ET. Casting even a single disk with that many people hits some strain. Not enough to notice usually, but add in everything else the game has to do, then it gets compounded. It's a single threaded game engine. Everything gets queued. That's why auction rooms crash the game. Or why we funnel people into a single space with limited actions. So if you're looking to take blame for gathering the people, I guess. I never said, "Hey Dreavenings are the problem!" This was my post.

>>>>The last few nights, we've been noticing lag, which has primarily been related to large groups at a table receiving spellups. These groups are getting over 125 people in size, which is way too much. We put some efforts in place tonight to see if that solves it, but it's likely going to need a lot more fine tuning and possibly limits on how many people can be at a table. Please plan accordingly.

In a later post, I even said:

>>>>No one is blaming just Dreaven or the spellups as the cause of all lag. Nor did anyone say that. But at that time, it was the sole responsible factor that caused some slow downs at 7:45pm ET the day I posted. We're also seeing some issues with people gathering in a few areas of the game right now.

No need to take this personal. It's a limitation on our game.

>>It seems the GMs are just determined to put a limit on the number of people at a table because the narrative is constantly changing.

If you're only spelling up 70, shouldn't be an issue. But just like we cut off the Reim group from growing, we just have to cut off the table crowds. No one said for you to stop the spellups at this point. We are notifying everyone (not just you) that things will have to change. Tables being exempt from silencing is a limitation on the system due to being a scripted. If you weren't at a table, this couldn't happen. We have to solve that part. That means a lot of things, which senior staff are currently working on.

>>In the meantime I've been a good boy and have only been doing Dreavenings between 1-9AM since Sunday when there are fewer than 600 people on (usually drops to fewer than 400 by then), waiting for today to see what I can do to help things so the GMs don't have to put in a table limit. I'm assuming there is nothing I can do and the table limits are coming anyways?

I've stated that it's not about how many people are in game. It's about how many people are in a room. The lag spikes have happened a lot. There were 17 between December 1st and January 31st due to large groups of players (over 125). I don't know exactly where those people were.

If you'd like to keep table size under 100, we can see what happens. But we will likely be working on this for several days/weeks taking as many shots at low-impact fixes as we can.

I don't get it, he can pinpoint lag spikes to your table, but he can't find the other group of 125 that is also causing lag?

It's not about you though. The lag we can measure was from you. But don't take it personal. Here are some examples of you lagging the game. The other guys, we don't know who they are. We do know it was you. No need to get worked up. But it was you.

[Tgo01]

I don't get it, he can pinpoint lag spikes to your table, but he can't find the other group of 125 that is also causing lag?

That part made me laugh. "17 lag spikes caused by 125+ people in the same room! I have no idea where those people were though, but I know for a FACT that on Saturday it was you!"

Also 17 lag spikes in a span of 2 months? Even if Dreavenings are to blame I do like 3-4+ Dreavenings a day. This seems like a complete non-issue.


It's not about you though. The lag we can measure was from you. But don't take it personal. Here are some examples of you lagging the game. The other guys, we don't know who they are. We do know it was you. No need to get worked up. But it was you.

I wonder how Wyrom will respond to this:

>I never said, "Hey Dreavenings are the problem!"

You did:

>Tonight's lag is purely Dreavenings. There are over 150 getting spellups pretty constantly. With the added load of people in Duskruin, the command queue is seeing a bump, which alone isn't an issue.

[Tgo01]

What really gets me about the "Tonight's lag is purely Dreavenings" nonsense is it points ALL of the lag at me. I think I did a Dreavening at 7PM that night, the ONLY Dreavening I did that day after 8AM. So you were lagging at 4PM? Dreavenings. Oh you were lagging really badly at 8PM? Yup, Dreavenings. Wait, you had really bad lag spikes at 11PM? Must have been those darn Dreavenings.

This is what happens when you make blanket statements like that, people are gonna think that because why not? That's exactly what Wyrom said. He didn't say "The lag spike that happened at 7:45PM was purely a Dreavening" he said "Tonight's lag is purely DreaveningSSSSSS", as in I was doing more than one throughout the night causing problems.

[drumpel]

I do enjoy when folks pester Wyrom or Estlid enough on the official forums, they eventually break and come out with the response:

"If you don't like it, don't play."


Usually I'm one of them pushing them in that direction, but I haven't said anything on the official forums about this issue...I haven't played as much as I normally do in the past two weeks. Not sure why, but something's triggered in my mind to just....eh, when I think about playing.

Anyway, we should take a pool and see who's going to trigger the angry "don't play" response from Wyrom this time around.

[Fortybox]

Their ultimate goal is to completely destroy the secondary market, and make all professions equally mediocre. Because they think that will make them more money. Except it won't, more people will quit, and Stillfront will hopefully be like "wtf are you idiots doing?"

Hard to say that right now since GS has rona population. They probably think they are doing real well right now b/c more people are playing.

My guess is that revenue per consumer is actually down.

[Skeletor]

After Corona, ohh probably by the 4th of July weekend I would say, watch the population plummet as people start going out to restaurants and theaters and get back to living.

[Fortybox]

Oh yeah! I almost forgot the best part! A few days ago Wyrom blames the lag on me spelling up so many people at once, then he posts the supposed results of these tests which supposedly show where the lag is coming from, he posts this:

There are 115 players in room [Bleeding Heart Table].
There are 127 players in room [Bleeding Heart Table].
There are 143 players in room [Bleeding Heart Table].
There are 133 players in room [Knotted Kerria Table].
There are 145 players in room [Knotted Kerria Table].
There are 152 players in room [Knotted Kerria Table].
There are 168 players in room [Knotted Kerria Table].

And I say there is no way I am spelling people up during those times because I don't spell 168 people up at once, those are people just sitting and chatting waiting for the spells. Then a few hours later the problem is suddenly not the spells at all. Nope! The problem is with 125+ people in a room. Just being there, spells aren't the problem.

It's almost like they want to make some changes anyways and are making this shit up as they go along to justify these changes.

Well obviously you shouldn't be doing a service that contributes to people roleplaying and having fun in one spot.

Thanks for destroying everyone's lives Tgo.

[Tgo01]

Well obviously you shouldn't be doing a service that contributes to people roleplaying and having fun in one spot.

Thanks for destroying everyone's lives Tgo.

:(

[Methais]

Well obviously you shouldn't be doing a service that contributes to people roleplaying and having fun in one spot.

Thanks for destroying everyone's lives Tgo.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/023/759/257.jpg

[Tgo01]

Why am I not surprised to see Krakii carrying so much water for the GMs?


>"The problem of lag is caused by 125-person groups at tables."

This is NOT a personal attack--on ANY of the six hundred eighty four people who created 125-person groups at tables--but a statement of fact.


Oh, and in your rush to defend Dreaven from the direct attacks against him (which were not), you COMPLETELY skipped over defending the whole crowd up in the Arena Cheap Seats this run, who were also directly attacked by the previous posts.
(Hint: they were not. They were pointed to as another factual datum, indicating that Large Groups Make Lag.)

So I guess he's just completely missed the part where Wyrom called me out by name, where Estild very obviously was referring to me to suggest I ignored their request 2 years ago and that he will have to make changes to POLICY to ensure that if I continue to "ignore" their requests there would be official repercussions, and Wyrom backed up these statements of his.

Of course he didn't miss those posts, he just chooses to ignore them because that's what Krakii does.

For fuck's sake, Estild literally referred to me as "the RESPONSIBLE party":


Just to note, any update we make probably wouldn't just be limited to tables, since you then could just leave the table to avoid any restriction. At the same time, the last time this was a significant problem (in 2019), we had asked the responsible party to limit groups to 30 characters at at time and they had agreed to that number then, but continue to disregard it now. We probably going to also have to address this issue via POLICY 5 and POLICY 18. This isn't something we want to do, but at the same time, it's not fair to ask the other 800 or so characters in the game during prime time to endure the lag to promote automated third party promotions.

"The GMs weren't blaming you, Dreaven! Why you taking it so personally?"

[caelric]

Krakii is an ass.

[Taernath]

I used to advocate putting Krakii on ignore, but I think he's similar to a dog that barks at the mailman, whenever the mailman leaves he thinks he's won and just barks louder. Plus his posting style is entertaining in a second-hand cringe sort of way.

[bunnymustdie]

I used to advocate putting Krakii on ignore, but I think he's similar to a dog that barks at the mailman, whenever the mailman leaves he thinks he's won and just barks louder. Plus his posting style is entertaining in a second-hand cringe sort of way.

It's like, every time my opinion of him goes up a little, he'll always go off and act retarded or obnoxious again for it to go down again. I mostly just greatly lower my expectations of him nowadays.

[Methais]

Why am I not surprised to see Krakii carrying so much water for the GMs?





So I guess he's just completely missed the part where Wyrom called me out by name, where Estild very obviously was referring to me to suggest I ignored their request 2 years ago and that he will have to make changes to POLICY to ensure that if I continue to "ignore" their requests there would be official repercussions, and Wyrom backed up these statements of his.

Of course he didn't miss those posts, he just chooses to ignore them because that's what Krakii does.

For fuck's sake, Estild literally referred to me as "the RESPONSIBLE party":



"The GMs weren't blaming you, Dreaven! Why you taking it so personally?"

Link? Krakii is that train wreck you want to look away from, but can't.


I used to advocate putting Krakii on ignore, but I think he's similar to a dog that barks at the mailman, whenever the mailman leaves he thinks he's won and just barks louder. Plus his posting style is entertaining in a second-hand cringe sort of way.

This is correct.


It's like, every time my opinion of him goes up a little, he'll always go off and act retarded or obnoxious again for it to go down again. I mostly just greatly lower my expectations of him nowadays.

This is correct.

[Tgo01]

Link? Krakii is that train wreck you want to look away from, but can't.

A lot of posts were hidden again, including his.

[gilchristr]

"t's not fair to ask the other 800 or so characters"

You don't ask characters, you ask players, derp. So that would only be like 150 asks, not 800.



"to promote automated third party promotions"

LOL at "automated third party promotions." They are NOT dreavenings, they are NOT spellups, say it with me now, they are "automated third party promotions."

On top of that, this particular individual ("the responsible party") is promoting these automated third party promotions. Ohh the horror!!! They should just skip the policy updates and "roleplay" the town guard enforcing a restraining order for this. They could even get the town judge involved, to throw books at him in-game for d10 damage... he wouldnt have a chance to get away from the books due to in-game lag - a very poetic sentence.

[Methais]

"t's not fair to ask the other 800 or so characters"

You don't ask characters, you ask players, derp. So that would only be like 150 asks, not 800.



"to promote automated third party promotions"

LOL at "automated third party promotions." They are NOT dreavenings, they are NOT spellups, say it with me now, they are "automated third party promotions."

On top of that, this particular individual ("the responsible party") is promoting these automated third party promotions. Ohh the horror!!! They should just skip the policy updates and "roleplay" the town guard enforcing a restraining order for this. They could even get the town judge involved, to throw books at him in-game for d10 damage... he wouldnt have a chance to get away from the books due to in-game lag - a very poetic sentence.

"All Dreavenings will be done on the boulder now. Thank you."

[Skeletor]

Wyrom Estild and co. are currently testing the waters to see how much backlash they'll get when they shut him down.

Absolute pieces of shit, boils my blood they are using Dreavenings as a scape goat for all the lag and to kill a mechanical (free) advantage to players all at the same time.

I'm really beginning to despise the management now. Getting way too greedy.

[Methais]

Wyrom Estild and co. are currently testing the waters to see how much backlash they'll get when they shut him down.

Absolute pieces of shit, boils my blood they are using Dreavenings as a scape goat for all the lag and to kill a mechanical (free) advantage to players all at the same time.

I'm really beginning to despise the management now. Getting way too greedy.

Simu likes to lie. Kind of a lot.

[Fortybox]

Wyrom Estild and co. are currently testing the waters to see how much backlash they'll get when they shut him down.

Absolute pieces of shit, boils my blood they are using Dreavenings as a scape goat for all the lag and to kill a mechanical (free) advantage to players all at the same time.

I'm really beginning to despise the management now. Getting way too greedy.

Rona pop is making them overconfident.

[Tgo01]

My latest post on the officials:


Okay made all my changes and tested it out tonight and so far it's working pretty darn good.

My table never went above 120 and everyone was good about filtering to the second table when the main table reached 120.

Again I can't promise the table will never go above 120 because I can't stop other people from inviting, especially when people can invite themselves if they are on someone's friend list.

But overall it worked out really well. Hopefully this helps alleviate some of the issues the game is having.

Let's see if this finally settles things or if the GMs bring up a whole new issue I have to tackle. I hope everyone sees that I am trying to be accommodating here. So far every time the GMs have come to me with an issue (or just threw me under the bus without discussing it with me first) I have always listened to their concerns and tried to address them as best as I can.

Really is hard to believe that all Wyrom had to do was send me a private message on Discord and be like "Hey can you make sure your tables never go above 120? We think it might be causing the lag" and this whole kerfuffle could have been avoided.

[gilchristr]

"Really is hard to believe that all Wyrom had to do was send me a private message on Discord and be like "Hey can you make sure your tables never go above 120? We think it might be causing the lag" and this whole kerfuffle could have been avoided. "

That's not hard to believe, he's got a jealousy boner for you man

[Tgo01]

That's not hard to believe, he's got a jealousy boner for you man

True dat.

[Tgo01]

Wyrom from officials:


After reviewing all the data for the week, we've decided it's in the game's best interest to limit tables to 100. We'll continue to monitor the situation if there is anymore fine-tuning needed. Other areas in the game that weren't allowing silencing that aren't the result of a GM-run event (storyline, merchant, quest, etc) will also be reviewed as situations come up.


We have also reduced the overall number to 100 instead of 125, as the data we had showed the game getting in a bad state at 115. This is when the silence falls over a room.

GMs:You're spelling too many people up at once! STOP IT!!! You're ruining it for everyone!

Me: Those numbers at the tables aren't when people are being spelled up.

GMs: Oh...well the problem is more than 125 people are at the table! STOP IT!!

Me: Okay, I've limited tables to 120 people.

GMs: Oh....okay......well we're still working on stuff on our end to see what we can do to help with the lag.

3 days later.

GMs: Okay so we've been monitoring the situation all week and the problem is more than 100 people in a room so we've limited table sizes to 100 and might have to lower it even further in the future.

If I didn't know any better I would say the GMs have no fucking clue what they are talking about and are just making up shit as they go along.

[Tgo01]

It's almost like Wyrom just threw out a random number of 125 to see if I would make changes to Dreavenings to conform with that number then once he saw I was willing to play ball he decided to just make that number even smaller.

[bunnymustdie]

Personally, if the limit stops at just 100, I'd consider it a pretty good end result/compromise. The worst that can happen would be they keeping tweaking things to fix the issue and continue to lower the table limit below 100. The way you got things set up now, can someone who will mostly be afk while waiting for the spells choose to go to the second table (with Teburu) to help keep the main table at a lower number?



If I didn't know any better I would say the GMs have no fucking clue what they are talking about and are just making up shit as they go along.

That's probably somewhat close to how it is. Game engine code is old and the GM guys who make up new scripted items for the events are probably not familiar with the game engine or the coding language used there itself. If I got to guess, a lot of the fixing of the lag issues is trial and error with them or some onsite guys they barely know trying things out and seeing if it makes a difference at all. Mix in the fact that at least some of the GMs involved, such as Wyrom, barely knows how a Dreavening's process works, and it explains a lot of the shifts in the narrative so far.

Estild came in with his fists swinging with that "...continue to disregard it now" post and I'm surprised at the GM silence over it despite multiple people bringing up that old thread with Wyrom giving you permission to go back to 60 characters per table. It looks very strange on their part to just sweep it under the carpet like that after a customer gets straight out accused of something untrue by them on their forums. It's actually made the accusation look less like an honest mistake and more of an intentional pretext for starting some rough crackdowns.

[Tgo01]

The worst that can happen would be they keeping tweaking things to fix the issue and continue to lower the table limit below 100.

That's what they are going to do. The number has already gone from 125+ to 100+ in a matter of days and the GMs have been looking for ways to shit all over Dreavenings for 2 years now.

[Gizmo]

That's what they are going to do. The number has already gone from 125+ to 100+ in a matter of days and the GMs have been looking for ways to shit all over Dreavenings for 2 years now.

Clearly a conspiracy to keep the man down...

[Tgo01]

A number of GMs have spent numerous hours over the last week optimizing code to help resolve the issue.

We're also considering a NPC spell caster that would periodically show up quietly offer spells. It would allow players to get spells without having to gather up all at the exact same time, could do so quietly (similar with MANA SPELLUP), and would allow players more time to roleplay at events and only have to leave for a few seconds to get spells, then can return to participate.

GameMaster Estild

I'm just glad Estild finally said the quiet part out loud.

"People are spending too much time roleplaying and having fun at Dreavenings!!!! We want to make sure people spend more time at GM events!"

[Gizmo]

I'm just glad Estild finally said the quiet part out loud.

"People are spending too much time roleplaying and having fun at Dreavenings!!!! We want to make sure people have more time having fun and roleplaying at GM events!"

People roleplay at Dreavenings?

Honestly, I'm all for dreavenings and appreciate you doing them for everyone.

I think the biggest issue here that the GMs may have with it, is how accessible it is for everyone to run around spelled to the gills in such a short time. (I'm perfectly ok with it, but I could see from a Dev point of view how it may be a nuisance)

I'm really surprised they never introduced some sort of spell-up NPCs in the past...It's pretty easy to make like a damn "Wizened" NPC of each profession that offers their professional spells at some sort of cost I'm sure, and can even be automated. Although lately I've been on the fence about defensive spells themselves and how rather easily obtainable they are for those outside of the circles.

Minority I'm sure, but I'd love to see this game changed towards having most spells/abilities that offer some sort of "Buff" to be self cast only, with the exception of "Mass" spells. But for this to occur, every profession would likely need a rehaul to balance stuff so that one profession doesn't necessarily reign king against the rest.

I'd be perfectly fine for example if all Mage spells were self cast only, so long as say a Rogue can also obtain similar buffs through profession specific ways...Same would go for any profession...As long as in the end the bonuses are as close to an even playing field as possible as not to lean heavily towards one profession or the other.

Mages? Waggle your fingers to obtain various bonuses!
Monks? Tap into your inner-self and meditate on things to obtain various bonuses!
Rogues? Create trinkets and tonics to obtain various bonuses!
Warriors? Twist and SHOUT, drinking the blood of your enemies to obtain various bonuses!

Meh, you get the idea..

[caelric]

I think the biggest issue here that the GMs may have with it, is how accessible it is for everyone to run around spelled to the gills in such a short time. (I'm perfectly ok with it, but I could see from a Dev point of view how it may be a nuisance).

Let's be honest here: they're perfectly okay with people running around spelled to the gills, IF they got those spells by MA'ing. However, if they get them from someone sitting at a table, and spelling up everyone, they are definitely not okay with it. It's clearly a revenue thing.

[Taernath]

It looks very strange on their part to just sweep it under the carpet like that after a customer gets straight out accused of something untrue by them on their forums. It's actually made the accusation look less like an honest mistake and more of an intentional pretext for starting some rough crackdowns.

Some day, you will become as cynical as the rest of us.

[Gizmo]

Let's be honest here: they're perfectly okay with people running around spelled to the gills, IF they got those spells by MA'ing. However, if they get them from someone sitting at a table, and spelling up everyone, they are definitely not okay with it. It's clearly a revenue thing.

Can't say that I disagree...And one wild reason why I'm surprised they never introduced spellup NPCs already, to kinda push out Dreaven and enter that "field" to gain more revenue from.

But I assume they haven't since even if they did, they couldn't stop him from doing these spellups...yet...which people would go to instead of paying an NPC in silver or Premie Points etc to get spells

[caelric]

Can't say that I disagree...And one wild reason why I'm surprised they never introduced spellup NPCs already, to kinda push out Dreaven and enter that "field" to gain more revenue from.

But I assume they haven't since even if they did, they couldn't stop him from doing these spellups...yet...which people would go to instead of paying an NPC in silver or Premie Points etc to get spells

They'll figure out some way to do it. Have to buy spell passes, maybe, or something like that.

[Tgo01]

I think the biggest issue here that the GMs may have with it, is how accessible it is for everyone to run around spelled to the gills in such a short time.

Apparently not since they are talking about creating an NPC that will hand out spells instantly and presumably the NPC won't be limited by mana so everything is all nice and instant.

[Gizmo]

They'll figure out some way to do it. Have to buy spell passes, maybe, or something like that.

Yeah. I just wish they'd update their freakin engine....I'm ok for here and there monetization in games now a days, but this one has gotten out of hand due to Subscription fees + every other known fee to man to play the extra. You'd figure with as much money that this game brings in lately, they'd be busy rehauling the entire game on the backend/side separately to ensure further longevity. My worry is eventually this game is just going to become so obsolete/cluttered it will just break heh

[Skeletor]

Apparently not since they are talking about creating an NPC that will hand out spells instantly and presumably the NPC won't be limited by mana so everything is all nice and instant.

Source for this? and details?

[Taernath]

A number of GMs have spent numerous hours over the last week optimizing code to help resolve the issue.

We're also considering a NPC spell caster that would periodically show up quietly offer spells. It would allow players to get spells without having to gather up all at the exact same time, could do so quietly (similar with MANA SPELLUP), and would allow players more time to roleplay at events and only have to leave for a few seconds to get spells, then can return to participate.

GameMaster Estild

I'm just glad Estild finally said the quiet part out loud.

"People are spending too much time roleplaying and having fun at Dreavenings!!!! We want to make sure people spend more time at GM events!"

LMAO THEY'RE TRYING TO REPLACE DREAVENINGS!

https://i.imgur.com/guumgDs.jpg

[Tgo01]

Source for this? and details?

Estild said this on the officials a few minutes ago. I quoted it in my other post:


A number of GMs have spent numerous hours over the last week optimizing code to help resolve the issue.

We're also considering a NPC spell caster that would periodically show up quietly offer spells. It would allow players to get spells without having to gather up all at the exact same time, could do so quietly (similar with MANA SPELLUP), and would allow players more time to roleplay at events and only have to leave for a few seconds to get spells, then can return to participate.

GameMaster Estild

[Tgo01]

LMAO THEY'RE TRYING TO REPLACE DREAVENINGS!

It's especially funny because the two main arguments from Dreavening detractors were:

1) It makes the game too easy.
2) It discourages people from talking and roleplaying because they don't have to ask other players for spells.

And the GMs are talking about automating the process even more which will do exactly these two things. I can't wait to see the detractors come out and say "ZOMG! This is the best idea the GMs have ever had!!!"

It's doubly especially funny because it's been a semi-joke for a while now that the GMs were looking at ways to replace Dreavenings, and now it looks like those are no longer semi-jokes but reality. I'm sure the GMs won't act like drug dealers either; offer their shit for free to drive out all other competition then start charging people once they have a monopoly.

Tin foil hat conspiracy there? Perhaps. But then again a few months ago people would have accused me of being a conspiracy theorist for suggesting GMs were looking at ways of replacing Dreavenings with NPCs.

[bunnymustdie]

Take a break from posting on the officials for the night, bra. You posting there pissed and being sorta trolled/lead around to more outbursts won't do you any good, will only give them a reason to ban you or mess with your services more.

[Tgo01]

will only give them a reason to ban you or mess with your services more.

They are apparently talking about creating an NPC that can spell people up instantly, there really isn't much more they can do to me.

[Wizardstrikes3]

They are apparently talking about creating an NPC that can spell people up instantly, there really isn't much more they can do to me.


Well.....I suppose they could make you so mad you quit (sad panda), thus saving them the time of coding an instant spellup NPC. With your absence there would be no need for an NPC. Sadly most of us know if it does get coded it will be put behind a paywall if profit could be made. That would require Dreaven to be banned or flat out quit. Either way win win on Simutronics part and a terrible loss for the community.

Coming soon to HESS:

Instant Drav certificates:. 100,000 bloodscrip or 75,000 bloodscrip attuned version
(Simply hand this certificate to: NPC Drav and instantly be spelled with all available spells that a Dreavening use to cast. Each certificate handed in lasts for 10 minutes or 15 minutes for the attuned version of the certificate). NPC Drav can be found climbing the stairs one room east of any town locksmith.

[gilchristr]

Instead of doing an NPC spellup dood, they should just fix the lag

[Tgo01]

they should just fix the lag

That's crazy talk. Wyrom has minutes of logs he went through and concluded that the problem was spelling up 160 people at a time, I mean 160 people being in the same room, I mean 125+ people being in the same room, I mean 100+ people being in the same room. He's finally got this lag problem licked.

[Methais]

That's crazy talk. Wyrom has minutes of logs he went through and concluded that the problem was spelling up 160 people at a time, I mean 160 people being in the same room, I mean 125+ people being in the same room, I mean 100+ people being in the same room. He's finally got this lag problem licked.

I wonder what they'll come up with for the next laggy night.

"After extensive research, we've discovered that the problem isn't with tables or Dreavenings, it's Dreaven's actual characters are buggy and causing lag, so we will have to delete them.

We will also be permabanning all of Dreaven's accounts for bug abuse for playing his characters that were discovered to be buggy."

[Tgo01]

"After extensive research, we've discovered that the problem isn't with tables or Dreavenings, it's Dreaven's actual characters are buggy and causing lag, so we will have to delete them.

We will also be permabanning all of Dreaven's accounts for bug abuse for playing his characters that were discovered to be buggy."

At this point it wouldn't surprise me.

[Skeletor]

https://i.imgflip.com/4yzo0n.gif

[Methais]

https://i.imgflip.com/4yzo0n.gif

:lol:

[caelric]

I think we've come to the real issue here:



lol, threaten dreaven's illegitimate income stream (his patreon which guarantees perks for people attending) and he just flies off the handle. good on gms, hit the fascist with some more sanctions.


Wonder who on the PC Breaux is? Back? Bhaalizmo? Blazar? Time4andraste?

[drumpel]

I think the biggest issue here that the GMs may have with it, is how accessible it is for everyone to run around spelled to the gills in such a short time. (I'm perfectly ok with it, but I could see from a Dev point of view how it may be a nuisance)



You have to remember that one of the reasons for the change to GSIV was the removal of ease of access to a lot of outside spells for everyone. The GMs wanted it to be easier to balance out end-game (capped) areas and that was impossible with the uncapped level system in GSIII.

Adjustments made going into GSIV to better balance the system:
* a hard level cap of 100.
* adjusted some spells to make them self cast only and/or short durations (60 seconds, such as Wizard's Shield and Wall of Force) so they didn't have to take them into account when balancing out higher-end hunting grounds. Having 919 or 1040 being a 60 second duration spell, the idea was to make them more of an emergency DS spell and not a "always active" DS spell they needed to account for.

Adjustments made since the change to GSIV to remove the balance changes from GSIII to GSIV:
* increased SK items
* adjusted spells/skills to increase AS/DS/TD/CS and at the same time reduce effectiveness of instant kills from spells/skills for players
* create more and more scripted items to increase AS/DS/TD/CS
* embraced pay events to dole out easy access to high-end items that continue to push AS/DS/TD/CS checks out of balance
* GMs become irritated folks are easily now bypassing AS/DS/TD/CS checks and not dying.....time to shift the paradigm and focus on non AS/DS/TD/CS systems to ignore all the crap they fed back into the game to create nearly invincible players
* adjust SMRv2 and shift CML to SMR2
- This is a two sided sword:
1) CML was awful by design for most players to defend against if you weren't trained in the same CML skill being used against you. So it's nice that this shit was removed from game.
2) SMRv2 defense was adjusted and shifted downwards to prevent pures from having the better SMRv2 defense while they stood in defensive stance. Now Forward stance is the most defense you can have against SMRv2 and the shift of everything going to a phantom dodge bonus system for races....as you level, you get a diminished return to your SMRv2 defense for all the skill ranks you can train in, which includes phantom bonuses from spells such as 911's dodge bonus (unless they changed how this calculates as you level, this is how it functioned in all the testing I did over a year ago).
2b) The SMRv2 defense impact I've seen on all my pures that they've lost upwards of 20-30 points of SMRv2 defense. Sure, CML attacks that used to always get them they can better defend against now, but on the flip side the other maneuvers that they almost never got hit from they are now getting hit by them more often.


Now with all these changes going on, the added scripted items, the ease at which a lot of spells are still shareable amongst the players, the ramped up pay events (mainly DR), the fact that folks are coming back to the game (probably due to the pandemic and folks staying home more) are all contributions to the aged game engine that cannot handle swaths of commands/input/output data as folks congregate into somewhat large groups in any place in the game.

Without them actually getting a person that codes (or several individuals) to re-write the game engine to handle the increased population and all the shit ton of scripts out there, sadly they're reduced to capping population at tables and basically muting rooms once the population exceeds their "magic" number - which happens to be 100 at the moment.

All they can do is band-aid the situation until something significant happen:
1) re-write the game engine (we all know this won't happen, they won't want to put the resources into doing that)
2) population of the game dies down (most likely to happen if life returns to some sort of normalicy)
3) they create a system of NPCs that replaces the need of Dreavening's spell ups (which sounds like something is in the works to head this direction) to hopefully reduce the number of people that attend the gatherings. Sure, some folks like to come and interact with others, but you have some that come just for the spells. A NPC spell up system may have the affect the GMs are hoping, but I'm not sure how that will fare with Dreaven and all the work he's put into all of this.


Sadly, the GMs came out and blasted that the Dreavening's spell ups were the issue at first. Not the gathering of a lot of people, but the spell ups. They did retract some and eventually came out to admit it was a limitation to how the system handles so many people in a room and it wasn't all just because of Dreavening's spell ups.....but how they jumped the gun and out rightly blamed Dreaven was pretty shitty.

They haven't said anything else in the game was causing lag issues, though, only large gathering of people in single rooms.....for anyone to outright believe this line from the GMs, well, you're a fucking retard. We all know that lag starting hitting in the recent 2-week period with the opening of DR.

Anyone remember previous lag issues that were caused from massive groups running Reim? Yet even here it was hard to get straight answer out of the GMs that yes, the larges groups running Reim were the issue.

Bottom line is, the system is aged and more and more scripted crap, additions to the game (looking at you Ascension) and the so far stable game population.....the GMs can't do shit to fix the problem outside of band-aid fixes if they won't re-write the game engine. The GMs should never have outed any one single person as being the problem and they should have owned up to the obvious that many players know. Shame on them for being dicks about the whole situation.

[caelric]

2) population of the game dies down (most likely to happen if life returns to some sort of normalicy).

Going to be a huge wakeup to the GMs when the population takes a huge cliff dive once everyone goes back to working at work, instead of working/playing from home.

[drauz]

It's especially funny because the two main arguments from Dreavening detractors were:

1) It makes the game too easy.
2) It discourages people from talking and roleplaying because they don't have to ask other players for spells.

And the GMs are talking about automating the process even more which will do exactly these two things. I can't wait to see the detractors come out and say "ZOMG! This is the best idea the GMs have ever had!!!"

It's doubly especially funny because it's been a semi-joke for a while now that the GMs were looking at ways to replace Dreavenings, and now it looks like those are no longer semi-jokes but reality. I'm sure the GMs won't act like drug dealers either; offer their shit for free to drive out all other competition then start charging people once they have a monopoly.

Tin foil hat conspiracy there? Perhaps. But then again a few months ago people would have accused me of being a conspiracy theorist for suggesting GMs were looking at ways of replacing Dreavenings with NPCs.

Are they RPing or are they just playing games you've made?

I don't like the way they've gone about calling people out fairly recently but it's fairly well known that lots of people in a room lags the game out. I think a better solution, than year round spellup bots, would be to offer a spellup bot inside DR for super cheap, since it seems to really go tits up during DR.

[Taernath]

Are they RPing or are they just playing games you've made?

Yeah, people RP there.

[Elgrim]

Coming soon! NPC spellcasters to give you buffs! All you need is this handy dandy SpellMeUp token, sold in the Simucoin store, and you can get 4 hours of buffs anytime you need!

They will find a way to tap into the market.

[Tgo01]

Coming soon! NPC spellcasters to give you buffs! All you need is this handy dandy SpellMeUp token, sold in the Simucoin store, and you can get 4 hours of buffs anytime you need!

They will find a way to tap into the market.

Estild said they are looking at introducing an NPC to spell people up instantly, wouldn't surprise me if it costs SimuCoins.

[Skeletor]

Estild said they are looking at introducing an NPC to spell people up instantly, wouldn't surprise me if it costs SimuCoins.

It's going to happen. Even though spell-ups are the traditional form of player2player services in Gemstone. If there is enough demand, Estild/Wyrom and co. want a piece of the action.

[stickyfingers]

[Town Square, Small Park - 288]
A small, shady park fills an old vacant lot behind a row of buildings, the bustling sounds of the square filtering through the passage to the north to animate the area despite its appearance of peace and serenity. A weatherworn grey marble statue of a stocky human in pioneer's clothing overlooks the park, his stone hat encrusted by the gifts of decades of passing birds and his right hand half-upraised as if it once held some now-missing object. You also see a half-elven invoker garbed in colorful layered robes

ask invoker about spells

Shaking back the layered sleeves of her multicolored robes, the invoker releases upon you a flurry of abjurations...

A light blue glow surrounds you.
Nothing happens.
Nothing happens.
A deep blue glow surrounds you.
A misty halo surrounds you.
A silvery luminescence surrounds you.
A bright luminescence surrounds you.
A brilliant luminesence surrounds you.
Glowing specks of light red energy begin to spin around you.
You feel much stronger.
You seem to blend into the surroundings better.
The air about you shimmers slightly.
You suddenly feel much more dextrous.
Opening your mind's eye to the progression of time, a myriad of possible future events fills your consciousness.
You feel your forehead pulse as your mind hardens to deter invading thoughts.
A whirl of spiritual energy streaks down from above, creating a dully illuminated mantle around your form.

4 hours on stackables 2 hours on others it seems, 103/202 were nothing happens on my cleric
Found out on lnet, don't see any official posting on main page or forums yet unless I missed it

[yesicj]

That was some fast ass turnaround

[bunnymustdie]

I wonder if the NPC is permanent.

[Methais]

[Town Square, Small Park - 288]
A small, shady park fills an old vacant lot behind a row of buildings, the bustling sounds of the square filtering through the passage to the north to animate the area despite its appearance of peace and serenity. A weatherworn grey marble statue of a stocky human in pioneer's clothing overlooks the park, his stone hat encrusted by the gifts of decades of passing birds and his right hand half-upraised as if it once held some now-missing object. You also see a half-elven invoker garbed in colorful layered robes

ask invoker about spells

Shaking back the layered sleeves of her multicolored robes, the invoker releases upon you a flurry of abjurations...

A light blue glow surrounds you.
Nothing happens.
Nothing happens.
A deep blue glow surrounds you.
A misty halo surrounds you.
A silvery luminescence surrounds you.
A bright luminescence surrounds you.
A brilliant luminesence surrounds you.
Glowing specks of light red energy begin to spin around you.
You feel much stronger.
You seem to blend into the surroundings better.
The air about you shimmers slightly.
You suddenly feel much more dextrous.
Opening your mind's eye to the progression of time, a myriad of possible future events fills your consciousness.
You feel your forehead pulse as your mind hardens to deter invading thoughts.
A whirl of spiritual energy streaks down from above, creating a dully illuminated mantle around your form.

4 hours on stackables 2 hours on others it seems, 103/202 were nothing happens on my cleric
Found out on lnet, don't see any official posting on main page or forums yet unless I missed it

The "nothing happens" usually means you already have the spell active, and with a longer duration than what having it recast by the player/NPC in question would give you.

They should name the NPC Dreovan.

[Taernath]

I wonder if the NPC is permanent.

If it is, there go the 'Dreavenings unbalance the game' arguments.


The "nothing happens" usually means you already have the spell active, and with a longer duration than what having it recast by the player/NPC in question would give you.

They should name the NPC Dreovan.

Honestly there should be some kind of in-game memorial. Change the statue to one of Dreaven, but keep the bird poop.

[bunnymustdie]

If it is, there go the 'Dreavenings unbalance the game' arguments.

The one thing I've always wondered about those types of arguments is that big MA groups unbalance the game much more. Not only do members of a MA group get outside spells, they also get group spells and have other characters from the same owner helping out in case any individuals gets stunned or otherwise disabled. They also cause a lot more annoyance to the other players in an area by spiking up the critter spawn and generally causing screen scroll. Yet I almost never see the "self spelled, uphills & both ways in the snow" crowd complain much of MA groups.

[gemstonefella]

Naijin must have been bored yesterday.

[stickyfingers]

The "nothing happens" usually means you already have the spell active, and with a longer duration than what having it recast by the player/NPC in question would give you.

They should name the NPC Dreovan.

I know that's why I was just mentioning which spells they were, although should be obvious with all others showing.

[Skeletor]

Heh, I think Dreaven is also Half-elven.

So is it free? (for now...)

[Taernath]

The one thing I've always wondered about those types of arguments is that big MA groups unbalance the game much more. Not only do members of a MA group get outside spells, they also get group spells and have other characters from the same owner helping out in case any individuals gets stunned or otherwise disabled. They also cause a lot more annoyance to the other players in an area by spiking up the critter spawn and generally causing screen scroll. Yet I almost never see the "self spelled, uphills & both ways in the snow" crowd complain much of MA groups.

The true grognards probably hate them too, but I suspect some have their own support crews they just don't talk about.

I suppose Simu could set Dreavbot to only spell you up once per day, but really that's all you'd need. How wild is it to make policies about spellup bots but then turn around and introduce an official one though?

[Skeletor]

I'm getting the distinct impression that GM Coase was actually the one holding back the barbarians from breaching the city. I'm not sure, does anyone else think so?

[drauz]

Great, now Dreaven can focus on the RP and not have to worry about all the spelling up. Sounds like a win.

[bunnymustdie]

I'm getting the distinct impression that GM Coase was actually the one holding back the barbarians from breaching the city. I'm not sure, does anyone else think so?

I had that thought when they were trying to turn the game's lore all politically correct in response to the whole BLM thing going on close to a year ago.

[stickyfingers]

Just noticed didn't see messaging for receiving blurs, but did get 4 hours of it

[Fortybox]

Going to be a huge wakeup to the GMs when the population takes a huge cliff dive once everyone goes back to working at work, instead of working/playing from home.

Like I said, they are getting overly confident of the rona pop thinking that it is 100% their own efforts that are leading to the increase.

[caelric]

Oh, and it seems the game is lagging right now. Guess that Invoker is not the best solution...

[Methais]

I'm getting the distinct impression that GM Coase was actually the one holding back the barbarians from breaching the city. I'm not sure, does anyone else think so?

Yup. He was apparently the gatekeeper of insanity, because this game has gone full retard since Wyrom fired him.

[drauz]

Yup. He was apparently the gatekeeper of insanity, because this game has gone full retard since Wyrom fired him.

https://media2.giphy.com/media/xThuW0u01331eeJUI0/giphy.gif

[Methais]

https://media2.giphy.com/media/xThuW0u01331eeJUI0/giphy.gif

https://media2.giphy.com/media/xThuW0u01331eeJUI0/giphy.gif

[mgoddess]

So is it free? (for now...)

Seems to be free, for now, yeah.

[mgoddess]

[Town Square, Small Park - 288]
A small, shady park fills an old vacant lot behind a row of buildings, the bustling sounds of the square filtering through the passage to the north to animate the area despite its appearance of peace and serenity. A weatherworn grey marble statue of a stocky human in pioneer's clothing overlooks the park, his stone hat encrusted by the gifts of decades of passing birds and his right hand half-upraised as if it once held some now-missing object. You also see a half-elven invoker garbed in colorful layered robes

ask invoker about spells

Shaking back the layered sleeves of her multicolored robes, the invoker releases upon you a flurry of abjurations...

A light blue glow surrounds you.
Nothing happens.
Nothing happens.
A deep blue glow surrounds you.
A misty halo surrounds you.
A silvery luminescence surrounds you.
A bright luminescence surrounds you.
A brilliant luminesence surrounds you.
Glowing specks of light red energy begin to spin around you.
You feel much stronger.
You seem to blend into the surroundings better.
The air about you shimmers slightly.
You suddenly feel much more dextrous.
Opening your mind's eye to the progression of time, a myriad of possible future events fills your consciousness.
You feel your forehead pulse as your mind hardens to deter invading thoughts.
A whirl of spiritual energy streaks down from above, creating a dully illuminated mantle around your form.

4 hours on stackables 2 hours on others it seems, 103/202 were nothing happens on my cleric
Found out on lnet, don't see any official posting on main page or forums yet unless I missed it

Now to put similar NPC's in towns other than WL (like, for example, TI/TV, Teras, Zul, KF).

Also, hoping it's permanent, too.

[Skeletor]

It's a bait and switch.

Get people hooked on this anytime instant dreavening. Then when real Deeavenings die, BAM! start charging the simucoin/silvers.

[caelric]

It's a bait and switch.

Get people hooked on this anytime instant dreavening. Then when real Deeavenings die, BAM! start charging the simucoin/silvers.

Like I said on the officials, first taste is free.

[Tgo01]

Glad to see they were so concerned about lag in the game and this wasn't totally just a personal grudge one or more GMs had.

GMs and some players: OMG! The ease of access to spells from Dreavenings is ruining the game!!!!
GMs: Here is an NPC that doesn't have mana and can instantly give you 4 hours of every spell, any time of the day!
Players: OMG! Best change ever!

[Tgo01]

How did I know the same people who whined about Dreavenings "making the game too easy", "making people too reliant on spells", and "are destroying player interaction", are the same people praising this new NPC? It's like I can see the future or something.

[Gizmo]

How did I know the same people who whined about Dreavenings "making the game too easy", "making people too reliant on spells", and "are destroying player interaction", are the same people praising this new NPC? It's like I can see the future or something.

Well, if your patreon flops now...At least you'll know you can work full time as a Fortune Teller instead..

[Tgo01]

Well, if your patreon flops now...At least you'll know you can work full time as a Fortune Teller instead..

True dat.

[drauz]

How did I know the same people who whined about Dreavenings "making the game too easy", "making people too reliant on spells", and "are destroying player interaction", are the same people praising this new NPC? It's like I can see the future or something.

And everyone knew you didn't really care about the RP, cause nothing about this affects your RP games and community. You're being just as disingenuous. This only affects people only coming for the spells.

I hope they only bring it out for DR but who knows what they're planning.

[2Sage]

You know, there was a line in the sand. It was kicked over in places, sure. It wasn't completely straight either.
But this means that officially, you actually must have all of these to be considered baseline.

[Skeletor]

I can literally hear the slurping of GM cock whenever I lurk on discord, it's cringe worthy.

Watch what happens when they start adding a simucoin price tag to that NPC.

"1,000 Simucoins for a spellup! wow! that sounds fair to me! ..slurping intensifies"

[Taernath]

And everyone knew you didn't really care about the RP, cause nothing about this affects your RP games and community. You're being just as disingenuous. This only affects people only coming for the spells.

Bear in mind that he didn't HAVE to create games, or competitions, or whatever, but he did, and people participated.

[mgoddess]

Not to really give them ideas or anything, but if they do decide to have this new invoker thing start charging silvers/bs/simucoin/etc... it'd be interesting to see an ability to give the invoker a Spell Up Pill to get all the spells, instead of paying in whatever normal way it'll be. Since the Spellup Pills are simucoin items already, it isn't like they're missing out on that revenue.

[Tgo01]

And everyone knew you didn't really care about the RP, cause nothing about this affects your RP games and community. You're being just as disingenuous. This only affects people only coming for the spells.

How am I being disingenuous? I started a 15 minute countdown specifically so I DIDN'T break any rules, i.e. I had everyone gather in one room then cast spells at everyone, this doesn't break any rules. I could just as easily have made it so I gave everyone full spells whenever they TAPped one of my guys, just like this NPC does, but that completely goes against their botting rules, which they strangely enough literally created bot to do now.

I created some games to help pass the time while the 15 minute countdown started, the large crowds encouraged socializing and roleplaying.

I really don't care about the GMs creating an NPC, I just wish the detractors and GMs were at least honest with it. It was never about "Oh no! Dreaven is making the game too easy!" because this NPC can be setup 24/7 and do spells instantly. Just look at Discord, filled with people saying dumb shit like "LOL! There goes Dreaven's Patreon!" Clearly this has been their issue the whole time, not game integrity, not "lack of socializing." Before I even had a Patreon their complaint was that I was "receiving too many silver tips." It's jealously pure and simple and people such as you refuse to admit it.

It was never about "OMG! You're lagging the game, Dreaven!" Because Wyrom has already settled on the problem being too many people in the same room at the same time, NOT the actual giving out of spells.

Honestly I have hardly played this game in about 2 years now, if the GMs were the slightest bit honest I'm sure they could check their logs/stats/whatever and confirm this. I have mostly kept my accounts up because people were enjoying the Dreavenings and I was keeping my scripts up to date. Contrary to popular belief I don't make much money via my Patreon, it barely covers the cost of 11 basic accounts, whatever is left certainly isn't worth all of the time I put into Dreavenings and making scripts, I did those things because I care about this community.

But if the community would rather get their spells from an NPC and people stop showing up to Dreavenings that's fine, I'll just close all of my accounts because then there is literally nothing left for me anymore in this game.

Just weird that someone who has maintained 11 accounts for years now, hasn't caused any trouble, mostly keeps to himself, and created probably the most popular event outside of GM events ever is the kind of person the GMs and certain players want to run out of this game, and it's even weirder that some people in this community cheer this odious action by the GMs on. It's pretty clear the GMs have become nothing but overgrown man-children who have forgotten all about what made this game great to begin with, and there are entirely too many toxic people in this community who praise whatever dumb shit the GMs do.

[Tgo01]

Also I never once said people don't come to the Dreavenings for the spells, I even said a lot of people DO come for the spells. I said SOME people come for the socializing and roleplaying aspects. Some people came for both.

If fewer people show up because they can get spells from an NPC whenever they want then that's fewer people to socialize and roleplay with.

Really why do so many people seem to not understand this? Because you're too busy licking the dirty assholes of every GM to realize that some changes they make are petty and vindictive and not for the betterment of the game.

[drauz]

Bear in mind that he didn't HAVE to create games, or competitions, or whatever, but he did, and people participated.

I get that, he's done a great service with his scripts over the years but at the end of the day he's concerned this will effect his bottom line.

[Skeletor]

How am I being disingenuous? I started a 15 minute countdown specifically so I DIDN'T break any rules, i.e. I had everyone gather in one room then cast spells at everyone, this doesn't break any rules. I could just as easily have made it so I gave everyone full spells whenever they TAPped one of my guys, just like this NPC does, but that completely goes against their botting rules, which they strangely enough literally created bot to do now.

I created some games to help pass the time while the 15 minute countdown started, the large crowds encouraged socializing and roleplaying.

I really don't care about the GMs creating an NPC, I just wish the detractors and GMs were at least honest with it. It was never about "Oh no! Dreaven is making the game too easy!" because this NPC can be setup 24/7 and do spells instantly. Just look at Discord, filled with people saying dumb shit like "LOL! There goes Dreaven's Patreon!" Clearly this has been their issue the whole time, not game integrity, not "lack of socializing." Before I even had a Patreon their complaint was that I was "receiving too many silver tips." It's jealously pure and simple and people such as you refuse to admit it.

It was never about "OMG! You're lagging the game, Dreaven!" Because Wyrom has already settled on the problem being too many people in the same room at the same time, NOT the actual giving out of spells.

Honestly I have hardly played this game in about 2 years now, if the GMs were the slightest bit honest I'm sure they could check their logs/stats/whatever and confirm this. I have mostly kept my accounts up because people were enjoying the Dreavenings and I was keeping my scripts up to date. Contrary to popular belief I don't make much money via my Patreon, it barely covers the cost of 11 basic accounts, whatever is left certainly isn't worth all of the time I put into Dreavenings and making scripts, I did those things because I care about this community.

But if the community would rather get their spells from an NPC and people stop showing up to Dreavenings that's fine, I'll just close all of my accounts because then there is literally nothing left for me anymore in this game.

Just weird that someone who has maintained 11 accounts for years now, hasn't caused any trouble, mostly keeps to himself, and created probably the most popular event outside of GM events ever is the kind of person the GMs and certain players want to run out of this game, and it's even weirder that some people in this community cheer this odious action by the GMs on. It's pretty clear the GMs have become nothing but overgrown man-children who have forgotten all about what made this game great to begin with, and there are entirely too many toxic people in this community who praise whatever dumb shit the GMs do.

You should get ahead of all this and just make a big announcement and quit. Then Simu will start charging maybe in a month or two from now and then people will miss Dreavenings.

I absolutely think it's abhorrent what they are doing to you. This has absolutely nothing to do with lag and more jealousy/envy by a few players of all these spells being free (I bet you they egged some of the GMs on to moce against you) and of course SimuGreed.

[Skeletor]

I get that, he's done a great service with his scripts over the years but at the end of the day he's concerned this will effect his bottom line.

The exact same could be said in terms of Simu's side as well.

I'd rather see a free/by your own choice donation rather than a forced "pay me bitch" Simu NPC.

[Taernath]

I get that, he's done a great service with his scripts over the years but at the end of the day he's concerned this will effect his bottom line.

None of us have access to his bank account to verify that, but if he says he barely makes enough to keep his accounts running I have no reason to disbelieve him.

Even if he were making money off it, fuck it, he's put years and hundreds of man hours into creating and running his scripts, he is entitled to it. If it's something that even slightly breaks the 'hunt-rest afk-hunt' paradigm in this aging, forgotten MUD it's a Good Thing™ in my book.

[Tgo01]

Uh-oh! I posted too much truth on the forums this time and got an official warning!

The post in question:


"My biggest question is has this solved lag forever? Or was this never about lag and more about punishment from a GM or two because they had some personal beef with me?"

And that really set Aulis off apparently:


Your message has been removed from the GemStone IV Forum for being disruptive and encouraging other people to flame. I understand that the game can be frustrating at times and we do encourage constructive criticisms that will benefit everyone. But posting text such as:

"My biggest question is has this solved lag forever? Or was this never about lag and more about punishment from a GM or two because they had some personal beef with me?"

on our boards does not help you get your problems answered and detracts from everyone's enjoyment of the message areas. If you have a complaint, we encourage you to offer us constructive criticism, but we need specifics.

We will absolutely not be flaming Simutronics staff on the forums. If you feel that a Staff member or two has a personal beef with you then you take the discussion to feedback@simutronics.com and keep it off of the forums. The forums are not the place to harass Staff just because you want to.

If you continue disregard forum policy and act in this manner then your posting privileges will be revoked for a period of 30, 60, 90 days, or permanently.

It's important to us that you understand why this kind of posting is not acceptable and if you feel unclear about the guidelines for posting, please click the Forum Policies link in the upper right corner of our Forums webpages. Our guidelines specifically request that members count to 10 and be kind when posting.

If you have any questions about my action in removing your message, please don't hesitate to email me at GS4-AULIS@play.net so we can clarify the issue to your satisfaction.

[drauz]

Also I never once said people don't come to the Dreavenings for the spells, I even said a lot of people DO come for the spells. I said SOME people come for the socializing and roleplaying aspects. Some people came for both.

If fewer people show up because they can get spells from an NPC whenever they want then that's fewer people to socialize and roleplay with.

Really why do so many people seem to not understand this? Because you're too busy licking the dirty assholes of every GM to realize that some changes they make are petty and vindictive and not for the betterment of the game.

While I think most reasonable people think the way they went about it was probably the worst possible way at the end of the day its nothing new that massive amounts of people in one room as been a known cause for lag for literal decades. I can feel for you for the time you've put into all this to have it washed away in a moment, that sucks big time. I would likely be mad as well.

Just like with reim they took the option for the players to self regulate and put restrictions on the zone. They are doing that now for you. I certainly don't find the idea of a year round spell bot appealing but I can stomach it during DR, I think giving everyone an opportunity for a somewhat level playing field a good thing.

I can't imagine that the actual spelling up was the fun part for you and the games maybe held your attention more. There may be less people that attend but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. You can still interact with friends you've made and people can still continue to enjoy the RP side of your events.

I wish you well in whatever you decide to do.

[Stolis]

Also I never once said people don't come to the Dreavenings for the spells, I even said a lot of people DO come for the spells. I said SOME people come for the socializing and roleplaying aspects. Some people came for both.

I just showed up for the cybering and parlor tricks, honestly.

[drauz]

None of us have access to his bank account to verify that, but if he says he barely makes enough to keep his accounts running I have no reason to disbelieve him.

Even if he were making money off it, fuck it, he's put years and hundreds of man hours into creating and running his scripts, he is entitled to it. If it's something that even slightly breaks the 'hunt-rest afk-hunt' paradigm in this aging, forgotten MUD it's a Good Thing™ in my book.

And I have no reason to disbelieve Wyrom when he says it's causing lag, it's certainly not reim anymore. It does suck that he's done such a good job that so many people want to be a part of his events for that to be a reason he can't continue as normal. It's a tough pill to swallow.

[gilchristr]

ask invoker about dreavening
The invoker says, "Sorry, but I don't know anything about that. You can ASK me about SPELLS"


They should have made an easter egg when you asked the invoker about dreavening. Something about "automated third party promotions" would have been nice

[Tgo01]

Even if he were making money off it, fuck it, he's put years and hundreds of man hours into creating and running his scripts, he is entitled to it.

For sake of transparency I just checked my Patreon for when I first started making a profit (after factoring in Patreon's cut, 11 basic accounts, the cost to move the money to my bank, oh yeah let's not forget I now have to report this money as taxable income and I'm not even counting that part in these stats): September of 2018.

Yup. Been running these Dreavenings for about 6 or 7 years now, had a Patreon for about a year before I quit a couple of years ago and never made a profit off that Patreon, came back roughly 2.5 years ago and took several months before I started making a profit. And again I'm not talking loads of money here like some people think. 11 basic accounts is 165 dollars a month, Patreon takes about 13%, and 25 cents to withdraw the cash (this is the one that really hurts, although I think this option came out like a year ago, prior to this it cost something like 20 cents plus 1% of the money being withdrawn.) And oh yeah, all of this information being sent to the IRS and now I am forced to report this as income, I haven't even factored this in yet.

I mostly keep it open to break even with the cost of the 11 accounts because there have been several times I have been tempted to quit over these past 2.5 years because as I said before I don't really play anymore and I can't see spending money to play a game I don't really play much anymore, but I wanted to keep the accounts open because people enjoy the Dreavenings so I might as well at least get my accounts paid for if people are willing to be so generous.

Honestly I probably could have made a fortune off of Dreavenings if I completely monetized it instead of doing it for free and asking for donations, but strangely enough I am being vilified by the toxic segment of this community as if I were monetizing it anyways. No good deed and all that.

[Tgo01]

And I have no reason to disbelieve Wyrom when he says it's causing lag, it's certainly not reim anymore.

Wyrom claimed the spells themselves were not causing lag so why the need for this NPC?

I have hardly done any Dreavenings since Saturday. Ever since Wyrom's bitch fest on 2/13 I only held Dreavenings at times of the day where I only got crowds of at most 90 people until Thursday night. Then Friday I started going back to regular Dreavenings but with a cap of 120 people at the table, I did this Friday and Saturday and a whole TWO times I had more than 90 people at the table. Then Estild's dumb table limit was forced into the game Sunday and I had to rewrite my scripts yet again to work with this retarded idea and I didn't do any Dreavenings until early this morning where again I got a whole 30 or 40 people at my table.

And yet lag has been a constant complaint each and every single day since 2/13. Wyrom is straight up lying about all of this shit because he doesn't want to admit the problem is obviously with DR.

[Taernath]

And I have no reason to disbelieve Wyrom when he says it's causing lag, it's certainly not reim anymore. It does suck that he's done such a good job that so many people want to be a part of his events for that to be a reason he can't continue as normal. It's a tough pill to swallow.

The reason I don't believe Wyrom and other GMs is that they are unnecessarily hostile to dreavenings, and what they say doesn't match my own observations. The game is lagging -right now- and there are no dreavenings going on. I'm sure dreavenings lag the game to a certain extent, but I think it's being misrepresented. I have never seen the game "grind to a halt" (per Wyrom in the first post) during a dreavening, but I HAVE seen it do that during HoA runs. And based off of posts on the officials, I think most people would agree.

[Tgo01]

ask invoker about dreavening
The invoker says, "Sorry, but I don't know anything about that. You can ASK me about SPELLS"


They should have made an easter egg when you asked the invoker about dreavening. Something about "automated third party promotions" would have been nice

I still can't get over that Estild is so dumb that he considers a player using their game to promote an in game event is considered an "automated third party promotion." If that one sentence alone doesn't prove this was never about lag then nothing ever will, people are choosing to be blind at that point.

[Methais]

I get that, he's done a great service with his scripts over the years but at the end of the day he's concerned this will effect his bottom line.

I would imagine that, at least until the loot cap, Dreaven could have been making a lot more money farming silvers with his crew in the same amount of time he spends doing Dreavenings on an average day. Way more if he just spent the day farming for real. Especially if he optimized his scripts for max efficiency, which he clearly has the skills and knowledge to do.

[Methais]

The exact same could be said in terms of Simu's side as well.

I'd rather see a free/by your own choice donation rather than a forced "pay me bitch" Simu NPC.

Once the NPC starts charging, Dreaven should hold all Dreavenings in the park.

[Fortybox]

How am I being disingenuous? I started a 15 minute countdown specifically so I DIDN'T break any rules, i.e. I had everyone gather in one room then cast spells at everyone, this doesn't break any rules. I could just as easily have made it so I gave everyone full spells whenever they TAPped one of my guys, just like this NPC does, but that completely goes against their botting rules, which they strangely enough literally created bot to do now.

I created some games to help pass the time while the 15 minute countdown started, the large crowds encouraged socializing and roleplaying.

I really don't care about the GMs creating an NPC, I just wish the detractors and GMs were at least honest with it. It was never about "Oh no! Dreaven is making the game too easy!" because this NPC can be setup 24/7 and do spells instantly. Just look at Discord, filled with people saying dumb shit like "LOL! There goes Dreaven's Patreon!" Clearly this has been their issue the whole time, not game integrity, not "lack of socializing." Before I even had a Patreon their complaint was that I was "receiving too many silver tips." It's jealously pure and simple and people such as you refuse to admit it.

It was never about "OMG! You're lagging the game, Dreaven!" Because Wyrom has already settled on the problem being too many people in the same room at the same time, NOT the actual giving out of spells.

Honestly I have hardly played this game in about 2 years now, if the GMs were the slightest bit honest I'm sure they could check their logs/stats/whatever and confirm this. I have mostly kept my accounts up because people were enjoying the Dreavenings and I was keeping my scripts up to date. Contrary to popular belief I don't make much money via my Patreon, it barely covers the cost of 11 basic accounts, whatever is left certainly isn't worth all of the time I put into Dreavenings and making scripts, I did those things because I care about this community.

But if the community would rather get their spells from an NPC and people stop showing up to Dreavenings that's fine, I'll just close all of my accounts because then there is literally nothing left for me anymore in this game.

Just weird that someone who has maintained 11 accounts for years now, hasn't caused any trouble, mostly keeps to himself, and created probably the most popular event outside of GM events ever is the kind of person the GMs and certain players want to run out of this game, and it's even weirder that some people in this community cheer this odious action by the GMs on. It's pretty clear the GMs have become nothing but overgrown man-children who have forgotten all about what made this game great to begin with, and there are entirely too many toxic people in this community who praise whatever dumb shit the GMs do.

They want a piece of the pie. It boils down to this.

They are much more likely to take action because the subscription #'s are up b/c of rona pop. It's not you, it's business.

[Fortybox]

I get that, he's done a great service with his scripts over the years but at the end of the day he's concerned this will effect his bottom line.

11 accounts with his Patreon service isn't making him a lot, lol.

Simu is doing this to effect their bottom line. You know this though.

[Tgo01]

I would imagine that, at least until the loot cap, Dreaven could have been making a lot more money farming silvers with his crew in the same amount of time he spends doing Dreavenings on an average day.

Easily. Back when I played and farmed a lot years ago it actually cost me money to stop farming and do Dreavenings. 15 minute countdown plus several groups and sometimes Dreavenings take 30+ minutes, so 2-4 Dreavenings a day and that’s 1-2+ hours a day, and silvers were going for like 6-8 dollars back then.

[Skeletor]

Once the NPC starts charging, Dreaven should hold all Dreavenings in the park.

They won't start charging until Dreaven "goes out of business". Dreaven should just take a break for a year and come back when they start charging.