Condemned houses

[rampant]

Going OT again, i cant see GOA ever closing or doing anything to the english servers, they are fulfilling their contractual obligations by providing it.

The servers dont need to close as long as they are still making money or (i imagine) covering their costs on providing the hosting for the WHOLE european game - dont forget that the service they provide is for european wide!

I would love to know where the funding for the WAR costs have come from - would be interested in seeing if it was from current revenue streams (as in DAOC funds are / were used for the setup of WAR) - or from an injection of cash from their parent.

 

[Chrystina]

Does it actually matter though? If you don't play it anymore and don't intend to ever play it again, do you really care if your house disappears?

it sure does! :touch:

I wonder what happened to my own private village (3 houses next to each other) ... maybe I should bite the bullet and sub for a month to check it out

 

[Esselinithia]

GOA is a brand of France Telecom... Need to say more about funding of WAR?

About the condemned thing: Look at how many people plays the game on Dyvet. I don't have to say: Enough empty lot means people can keep their houses. I have to say: with this size of playerbase housing, the houses vanishing will hurt the current playerbase.

Why? Because they had a chance to use the tools of a neighbor, they had a chance to use housing as a place where most NPC services are reachable within a short distance. They had access many CMs, many products on them.

If 99% of houses will be gone, the remaining houses will lose a lot of values, so existing players will face a choice: move (at a significant cost, and effort) or have the house in an empty zone without any services around it, without a comfortable change to shop at nearby CMs, etc.

You have to choose between an useful house, and what you have worked towards. And as you see this hurts the chances of getting players back. It is one more kick in the face of dyvet community.

Would you stay? Would you return?

GOA had every reason to turn off rent too, to maintain housing as an useful option on dyvet. You can see what plans they have to save dyvet...

 

[Conway]

About the condemned thing: Look at how many people plays the game on Dyvet. I don't have to say: Enough empty lot means people can keep their houses. I have to say: with this size of playerbase housing, the houses vanishing will hurt the current playerbase.

Why? Because they had a chance to use the tools of a neighbor, they had a chance to use housing as a place where most NPC services are reachable within a short distance. They had access many CMs, many products on them.

Good point. I left things set up for other people to be able to visit to craft and use merchants. Some people used to, if they are still around things are a bit less convenient for them.

 

[SoulFly]

Soul does! Its the only place he could safely stash his kobbie porn without his mum finding it

Damn ! The truth is out !

 

[Golena]

the houses vanishing will hurt the current playerbase.

Why? Because they had a chance to use the tools of a neighbor, they had a chance to use housing as a place where most NPC services are reachable within a short distance. They had access many CMs, many products on them.

I've seen the numbers of the current playerbase and can't see how this is truthfully going to make any difference to it.
Can you honestly and truthfully say that anyone is currently leveling up a new character on Dyvet at the moment? I've no idea why anyone creating a new character would even contemplate doing it on Dyvet as opposed to a server where it might be some use once you've leveled it.

Once a character is "done" as I assume almost all the characters on Dyvet are (as the people playing there don't want to give up their finished toons) then the need for housing pretty much vanishes. Yeah you could potentially craft there, but since you get bonuses for doing it in capitol cities then I can't see any reason to.

Since none of the houses currently being condemmed would actually show up on a market explorer then the only way of finding stuff on them would be to actually walk round the individual CM's and try to locate items of interest. I can't actually believe there's any item in the game that would be easier to find at a none stupid price in this manner than just going and farming the mob that drops it.

Since there isn't the population there to actually complete most of the new content coming along then changing your template to accomodate that isn't really going to be an issue either.


Everything i've heard so far sounds far to much like people desperately hunting for reasons to slate GOA for anything they do, rather than finding something that's an actual problem. Does anyone actually truthfully believe at this point in time that Dyvet is going to lose vast numbers of population because they can't find a forge near their current house?
Does anyone think that any other company anywhere else in the world would actively spend time, money and resource, as well as inconveniencing actual paying customers (yes implementing changes would delay patches across every server to keep an unused ghost town active) on the off chance that someone a year or 2 from now would pay £8 to wander round an empty games server and look at their virtual house?

Pay £8 now, make a movie of your house then watch that in years to come. It will have the same effect and doesn't need GOA to spend a week working on it for you!

 

[Esselinithia]

Golena: You are a prime example of the attitude that killed dyvet.

Yes: We lost a lot of items at prydwen crash, and almost entire guilds vanised with it, and with the waiting.

But it was up to the players to decide: We should step up and help each other, and care for the fun for others, run events, help them to farm new template, craft at lower profit, try to run groups that are more challenge and give them a change, etc. to keep the community together.

Or to flame the people who lost something to defend GOA, when they lied and abused their paying customers.

Community on dyvet choosen #2.

The people who lost due to it, and left due to it, was always from the current minority, and if this attitude says, it will happen when 3 players will play dyvet, and one will have a problem.

French and German clusters started to lose this population, and if we see this attitude there, and people will be slightly unhappy with population drop, and some who seen it on dyvet will leave, we will see a grim fate for the game.

France Telecom is a huge company, GOA is a France Telecom brand. If they screw things up, they can afford to say: Use 10 more database technicians, work on a patch, etc. but as long as they don't have to (they listen to the majority) they won't have to.

Since new players aren't the majority - the game won't be their home either. They won't stay and without new players the game will die.

To have more helpful and nice people back: GOA should make sure, they can offer something for people. Turning off this function wouldn't be hard. Fixing afew stuff won't be hard. But since they don't willing to do, people won't see improvements, and won't come back. With this, they kill the game.

Sadly, even the log in poll for dyvet would ask for current players. But if you want a dyvet community with many people again: They are the minority.

 

[Ctuchik]

US=!EURO.

and quite frankly I've stated my reasons enough in this thread

yes and that was "i want to keep my house just because".

well now ur gonna lose it "just because", unless u reactivate the account. so how bad did you want to keep that house again?

 

[cHodAX]

Do you think i could come round for tea and crumpets SF? I'll even bring my pink tea set!

Wahoo, elo pinkeh!


As for houses, leave them be, the population doesn't and never will again justify their removal.

 

[Golena]

Golena: You are a prime example of the attitude that killed dyvet.

Sorry, if pointing out the blindingly obvious is what killed Dyvet then erm, ok.
Maybe I should be sputing random uninformed innacurate drivel like your currently doing on the hope that that will help?

To have more helpful and nice people back: GOA should make sure, they can offer something for people. Turning off this function wouldn't be hard. Fixing afew stuff won't be hard. But since they don't willing to do, people won't see improvements, and won't come back. With this, they kill the game.

This is actually the attitude that killed Dyvet.
How much computer code have you worked with in your life?
Have you seen the code currently running on the Dyvet cluster?

If you can't answer YES to BOTH these questions then how the hell can you say turning this off isn't hard?
GOA is under contract to Mythic and what they are allowed to change in the code is controlled by Mythic.
So after gaining permission (which they probably won't be given) to turn off the code, they then have to work out how to do it. I can almost assure you that "easy" is something it won't be!
While doing this the patch on the German and French clusters will of course be delayed causing pain to those subscibers you seem to be waffling on about. All to keep one or 2 people who currently arn't prepared either now or in the near future to actually subscribe to their service happy.


The people whining about losing houses actually couldn't care less if their house is there or not. If their house vanised and no-one told them they would never ever know about it. What they have found is another reason to whine about GOA about anything at all if it's valid or not and are leaping on it.

If GOA announced that they were going to remove all level 1 characters on people's accounts that hadn't ever actually logged into the game and hadn't subscribed for 2 years to free up some names for new players then the same people would be here screaming blue murder that the name cheesehead was really important to them, and they might subscribe in 2 years time to log on and play cheesehead the level 1 mage that they hadn't actually even logged once into cotswold, would you still be here ranting that GOA were evil and killing the server?
The people complaining about this don't even want to come back and play on your precious server. They only want to be able to have the option to log in 3 years from now and look at their house. They are never going to fund any of this, or improve the state of the server in any way.. How can their whines possibly even slightly be taken seriously by a company trying to turn a profit!!!

 

[Raven]

All this will do is help illustrate how utterly empty dyvet is now, how many houses will be there 20? 30? It will make trying to find anything on the AH utterly pointless. Really spiteful, stupid move by Mythic/GOA.

 

[Chronictank]

Anyone mind checking House 1713, Erikstad, Jevaux
to see how much money is left on the merchant

There is a easy solution to this, simply make a guild and make it a guild house then it cant be destroyed when you unsubscribe

 

[Chronictank]

Also regarding the condemned houses, how can a house be condemned if the rent is still being paid?
It is classed as empty not condemned so any reasoning saying the acc is closed so the house should be destroyed is
Doesnt really follow the whole role playing ethos does it? nor does it make any sense in reference to the game

I suspect the people supporting it are the same people who were too late in buying a plot so have a house in the middle of nowhere, therefore would like all the main houses to dissapear so they can get the prime plots
Never mind the fact there will only be 20 houses left on the realm

 

[Imgormiel]

Also regarding the condemned houses, how can a house be condemned if the rent is still being paid?
It is classed as empty not condemned so any reasoning saying the acc is closed so the house should be destroyed is
Doesnt really follow the whole role playing ethos does it? nor does it make any sense in reference to the game

I suspect the people supporting it are the same people who were too late in buying a plot so have a house in the middle of nowhere, therefore would like all the main houses to dissapear so they can get the prime plots
Never mind the fact there will only be 20 houses left on the realm

No matter what happens, they aint condemning my house in hib, i let them do it in mid due to the high prices of everything and left the cash on my main toon there. TBH who gives a fuck, it's just a piece of graphic - hardly a sentimental momento. Although for some i guess it's like a memory of like i ripped off turd a and b and c and i got that and my epeen felt great just for a brief sad moment in my life. Not that I personally givf a shit. I paid to play, fake money was never an object of mine, just too sad that these gimps never played monopoly more than I did, they might have realised that it's full of crap. The great irony of it was the proposal that governments in real life were actually proposing to charge real life taxes for that crap, loooooooool.

 

[Esselinithia]

This is actually the attitude that killed Dyvet.
How much computer code have you worked with in your life?
...
If you can't answer YES to BOTH these questions then how the hell can you say turning this off isn't hard?

How much? and answer is yes. Shows how intelligent you are

The trick is: *IF* you ever seen how modern game / MMORPG works, you would see one surprising thing: An MMORPG doesn't isn't a single program, we can see database servers, we see some script interpreters, they have some processes working as game server, we see clients, patchers, some services that can interact with patchers (in case of daoc: some web server).

Some functions you better implement in game server code, others are best done as scripts, yet others are best done as stored procedures at database side.

Since you don't want to waste millions of $ with making your own database server, your support tools, etc. you start to buy what you can, and integrate them to a nice system.

The question is: how the condemned house thing can be implemented efficiently. AND(!) how can it be turned off or circumvented by modifying server side scripts, database, billing system (account states) in each case you will see: Hard coding condemned status to game server code would be silly and inefficient, would be against their policy shown in the past (when they turned off rent for major disasters), that is enough info for information.

If Mythic would try to put such things into the code, that would be a realy bad thing. Why? As you see, when GOA added barrels, etc. most of the spells, etc are scripted, and they made sure: modifying one such script has minimal inflience over other things.

In addition to making stuff scripted instead of hard coded, they can make sure: separate processes (and programs) execute these scripts, and if they are needed they can run on a separate machine.

Somehow I doubt that Mythic would forgot how to implement such features, somehow it would be surprising.

 

[Imgormiel]

How much? and answer is yes. Shows how intelligent you are

The trick is: *IF* you ever seen how modern game / MMORPG works, you would see one surprising thing: An MMORPG doesn't isn't a single program, we can see database servers, we see some script interpreters, they have some processes working as game server, we see clients, patchers, some services that can interact with patchers (in case of daoc: some web server).

Some functions you better implement in game server code, others are best done as scripts, yet others are best done as stored procedures at database side.

Since you don't want to waste millions of $ with making your own database server, your support tools, etc. you start to buy what you can, and integrate them to a nice system.

The question is: how the condemned house thing can be implemented efficiently. AND(!) how can it be turned off or circumvented by modifying server side scripts, database, billing system (account states) in each case you will see: Hard coding condemned status to game server code would be silly and inefficient, would be against their policy shown in the past (when they turned off rent for major disasters), that is enough info for information.

If Mythic would try to put such things into the code, that would be a realy bad thing. Why? As you see, when GOA added barrels, etc. most of the spells, etc are scripted, and they made sure: modifying one such script has minimal inflience over other things.

In addition to making stuff scripted instead of hard coded, they can make sure: separate processes (and programs) execute these scripts, and if they are needed they can run on a separate machine.

Somehow I doubt that Mythic would forgot how to implement such features, somehow it would be surprising.

Personally I support GOA's decision concerning last Friday's news. You point out some salient pieces of information here and tbh it isn't worth the effort. If there's money on CM's to pay the rent then leave em. It cuts down on manpower hours and wasted time on Rightnow. Customer is happy if he returns to his/her account. GOA is happy overall because they can spend that time doing other things. Everyone is a winner in this respect. I think some logic from peeps here is what is required. Dyvet is a dead duck sadly but if something happens in 2008 that magically transforms the status quo. Then the company and the customer win in one stroke without having to do anything. As the old adage is said, ' If it aint broke, don't fix it.' I for one know the problems GOA have when they mess with the code and how frustrated they are when they have to change something that's quite needless. But that conversation is off the record and stays that way.......

 

[Esselinithia]

Ouch, explaining why such features can be turned off, when GOA says, they turned it off already Hey, even GOA staff found the option

 

[Lamp]

<licks leviathane>

LMAO

 

[GReaper]

For those who haven't read the Friday news, here is a little snippet from the Friday news on 21st December:

Finally, some players received messages stating that some homes will disappear in a hundred days when they visit them. Don't worry, these homes will only disappear if the payments aren't made as normally required. These messages are related to a feature in the American servers that is not implemented in the European ones. We will fix the problem as soon as possible.

At the time this patch was announced in the US I was quite bothered about it, my characters on Dyvet were inactive and the server was in decline - but it still had a decent amount of players for some action. Now the patch is on EU servers I'm not so bothered, Dyvet is so dead I don't see the point in it anymore.

 

[Xeros]

Think Golena wondered if ppl still made new chars on Dyvet.

And yes, ppl are still doing it.

I made for example 3 extra chars on mid and I know some mids who did on Alb.

So ppl still make new chars.

Why?

Cause they still enjoy the Dyvet cluster. Not as much as in past, but the 2 main factors for me are still there. Friends and fun.

Many friends left though and new ones were made also.

 

[Golena]

Think Golena wondered if ppl still made new chars on Dyvet.

And yes, ppl are still doing it.

I made for example 3 extra chars on mid and I know some mids who did on Alb.

So ppl still make new chars.

Why?

Cause they still enjoy the Dyvet cluster. Not as much as in past, but the 2 main factors for me are still there. Friends and fun.

Many friends left though and new ones were made also.

I guess for many people that have refused to leave the fun that can be had playing on a populated server isn't apparent.
I didn't think Dyvet was that bad either, until I played for 10 minutes on a healthy server and realised quite what a pointless exercise logging onto Dyvet was!

If you have fun leveling by yourself on a deserted server then good on you I guess. If your not by yourself leveling then surely if you all moved (since you don't seem to mind the PvE'ing) you could all have even more fun somewhere else where is wasn't just the 3 of you on the server.

Guess everyone has different tastes tho.

 

[Golena]

How much? and answer is yes. Shows how intelligent you are

I think you'll find it's got nothing to do with how inteligent I am.

Come back in a years time when something went wrong because someone forgot they turned this feature off and something else didn't quite work correctly because of it. Then ask how many people actually made use of the fact their house was still there and resubscribed to go look at it and you might be able to make a point.

I'm still guessing that even if they leave the houses there, no-one is going to actually pay more money to visit them, so it will still of been a pretty pointless exercise.

How did the prydwen database crash occur after all? Because someone changed a tiny thing that then got forgottten about when doing something else would be top of any list of potential problems that might of caused it.

 

[Esselinithia]

Golena: Interesting assumptions about prydwen crash, but they are assumption, so unless you are one of the GMs from GOA...

But we know some things from sure: If they make backups regularly, at first sign of trouble check status, and if they can't explain it, and needs restart: Make sure they keep older backups as well, it would be a different story.

Not checking the source of known bugs, not fixning them, etc. is deadly as well. If you regularly check the server, adjust as needed, make backups, check for problems, document what you do, refine your procedures that can prevent many problems resulting from persistent problems on GOA servers.

 

[Golena]

Golena: Interesting assumptions about prydwen crash, but they are assumption, so unless you are one of the GMs from GOA...

Ofc they are assumptions.

My point is the more small changes you make the higher the chances of running into problems. I'm not saying that it WAS the cause of the prydwen crash. I'm saying that if I had to compile a list of what probably caused it without knowing. Changing small things that appeared harmless individually but that lead to a bigger problem down the line because someone forgot about one of them would be right at the top of my list. Everything you change adds extra stuff that has the potential to go wrong, no matter how easy just flipping that option may seem at the time.

The fact that any future database corruption would be pretty irrelevant anyway since if the people playing there actually cared about playing the game instead of hanging out in a chat room with their mates they would of moved on anyway by now. So I guess they might as well do a botched job and just take the risk they break something.

 

[Thorwyn]

Golena: Interesting assumptions about prydwen crash, but they are assumption, so unless you are one of the GMs from GOA...

LOL!

THIS coming from YOU is priceless.

 

[Cromcruaich]

Agree with Golena's overall attitude tbh though have sympathy with Ess.

What they should of done was code it so that a house on a dead account does not pay from the CM. Means that if youve got someone around who is still in contact with you and the game, or have other active accounts then things can keep ticking over for you by remembering to pay every 4 weeks.

But well, as Golena says, who really cares now in respect to Duvet anyway.

 

[Ctuchik]

Also regarding the condemned houses, how can a house be condemned if the rent is still being paid?
It is classed as empty not condemned so any reasoning saying the acc is closed so the house should be destroyed is
Doesnt really follow the whole role playing ethos does it? nor does it make any sense in reference to the game

Who cares? Mythic needed lot space on their servers and GOA werent allowed to change it so abandoned accounts wouldn't lose their houses over here.

and its been said before. the sub isnt THAT fucking much. if someone REALLY want to keep their house, its pretty easy to just resub a month every now and then.

but no, its much more fun to just bitch and complain insted about losing something they will never EVER use again.

 

[Ctuchik]

But we know some things from sure: If they make backups regularly, at first sign of trouble check status, and if they can't explain it, and needs restart: Make sure they keep older backups as well, it would be a different story.

that wouldn't have made a slightest bit of difference. why? because ppl would have complained and bitched JUST as much and left the server/game because of rollbacks that caused ppl to lose items, cash, ML's, ML xp and even whole toons that was PL'd in a day and templated with cash they had before the crash occured.

and they said first day of the crash that a rollback wasn't an option as the crash would have occured again anyway. so what we would have had then would be a cyckle of rollbacks and crashes.

you would have LOVED that right?

GOA had to choose between plauge or anthrax when they tried to fix the result of the crash.

nothing would have made the playerbase happy so they did what they thought was best. or rather, they did the ONLY thing they could/were alowed to do. ppl still seem to forget the fact that its Mythic that owns DAoC. and if they said NO, do this and that. then there isnt much GOA can do other then as they are told.

granted this is all speculations but i actually trust that GOA did whatever they could to sort that mess out. and unless we get ALL the facts about what exactly caused the problem (wich we never will get). all we CAN do is speculate.

so anyone saying "its ths hard" or "its that easy" doesn't really have a clue as they dont have all the facts.

feel free to speculate ppl, but dont try to act like you know anything about the crash. because you dont, and never will do. unless you have worked at GOA and first handed worked on solving the crash.

 

[Chronictank]

Agree with Golena's overall attitude tbh though have sympathy with Ess.

What they should of done was code it so that a house on a dead account does not pay from the CM. Means that if youve got someone around who is still in contact with you and the game, or have other active accounts then things can keep ticking over for you by remembering to pay every 4 weeks.

But well, as Golena says, who really cares now in respect to Duvet anyway.

theres a difference between coding it that way and simply running in and deleting things which essentially what this is
I dont care about my plot on a game i am unlikely (unless there is some super new feature which makes it all that more attractive) to play again,
however changing the ruleset to affect only people who are'nt subscribed is simply ridiculous

If they change it so money needs to be paid into the lock box instead from the CM for everyone then there is no argument, however this isn't even remotely the case

The fact that any future database corruption would be pretty irrelevant anyway since if the people playing there actually cared about playing the game instead of hanging out in a chat room with their mates they would of moved on anyway by now.

Welcome to freddyshouse an independant forum for more than one game
Believe it or not a mmo lives or dies based on its community, the fact that alot of people still chat here shows why daoc lasted as long as it did

 

[Golena]

theres a difference between coding it that way and simply running in and deleting things which essentially what this is
I dont care about my plot on a game i am unlikely (unless there is some super new feature which makes it all that more attractive) to play again,
however changing the ruleset to affect only people who are'nt subscribed is simply ridiculous

I can't see how having different rules for people that pay them money for a service and people who have decided not to pay them for a service classifies as ridiculous.
If you subscribe then being able to pay off the CM is a very nice feature. I can't see why they would want to take this away from people who might for instance go on holiday for 5 or 6 weeks if they are paying for the service.
If your not paying for the service then you shouldn't really have any say in what services are provided for you.

When I stopped paying Telewest they removed my online email account from their servers since I wasn't paying for it anymore. I wouldn't expect them to remove all the current subscribers mailboxes as well to "make it fair on me" or to keep mine since I don't pay for it anymore.

Welcome to freddyshouse an independant forum for more than one game
Believe it or not a mmo lives or dies based on its community, the fact that alot of people still chat here shows why daoc lasted as long as it did

I'm aware of that. The point is that I doubt many people on Dyvet are actually playing because of the action or challenge of the game. It's the people they get to log on and talk to. In effect it's like a fancy chat room with graphics. The people that actually wanted to play and challenge themselves with the game moved to a server where that is still possible. The people that viewed the community (their 3 mates they log on with) as the only reason to still be there stayed, since that aspect is still there.