End of the Week with Major Mal

[Teh_Troll]

Using the task manager to kill the awesomium processes will crash your game client.

No, it doesn't. I do this all the time and the game runs fine.

[chrisdinus7]

Using the task manager to kill the awesomium processes will crash your game client.

As others have noted, this is incorrect. I have not made a habit of blocking it / killing it, but doing so does not automatically crash the client.

[GermanicusMaximus]

The browser is consuming the same amount of resources as before, it’s just doing it in separate processes instead of all being rolled into dndclient.exe.

I'm not sure how you are measuring resource usage, but there does seem to be a fair number of people who are experiencing negative performance impacts with the the new implementation. You can see them discussing the issue in multiple threads, including your new Monday Morning thread.

[Captain_Wizbang]

We use Awesomium as our embedded browser. Just like Google Chrome, it creates child processes for robustness, so if one browser instance crashes, it shouldn’t crash the entire game client. In the past, we’ve had Awesomium set to run in single-process mode inside of our game to reduce confusion about the external processes. However, we discovered a bug where the browser (and by extension, the web store) would stop working if the URL got too long and we were running Awesomium in single-process mode. So we switched it to multi-process mode to address this issue. The browser is consuming the same amount of resources as before, it’s just doing it in separate processes instead of all being rolled into dndclient.exe. Using the task manager to kill the awesomium processes will crash your game client.

Thanks for responding, is there a way to limit the resources it uses?

AND what if any problems are you all aware of it causing, and a work around please and thank you

[burningwind]

the owlbear need three area of improvement.

1) survival- ac, evasion, dr wathever work..
2) dps- owlbear's dps should at least match normal hireling of it's level. for now they are like 4~5 level below
3) save- it seem these bear have no save at all, fail almost 100% of the time.. whenever there is a enemy spell caster the bear is mostly useless..

[Phemt81]

No replies for my questions

[sebastianosmith]

Thanks for responding, is there a way to limit the resources it uses?

AND what if any problems are you all aware of it causing, and a work around please and thank you

Well, some people are claiming the AwesomiumProcess is spiking their CPU every six seconds or so making the game unresponsive. I have not encountered this particular problem but have no reason to doubt the claim. While investigating the issue, I read several reports on other gaming forums alluding to a similar problem. There seems to be no commonality in hardware profiles other than most were reported on AMD-based systems which, in and of itself, is no help. The only fix I have seen mentioned is one dated April 16 of this year from the Tribes: Ascend forum stating that explicitly allowing AwesomiumProcess.exe through one's firewall might alleviate the issue.

[Dark_Helmet]

Thanks for responding, is there a way to limit the resources it uses?

AND what if any problems are you all aware of it causing, and a work around please and thank you

I have run 4 clients simultanously to test and don't see anything appreciable. Each Awesomiumprocess.exe (32 bit version) is using 4 threads and less than 5% CPU (most of the time they sit at 0). When lag shows up, killing the processes doesn't help. The DNDCLIENT.EXE is the issue and mainly when it gets above a 2 GB working set.

[forummuleonly]

I have run 4 clients simultanously to test and don't see anything appreciable. Each Awesomiumprocess.exe (32 bit version) is using 4 threads and less than 5% CPU (most of the time they sit at 0). When lag shows up, killing the processes doesn't help. The DNDCLIENT.EXE is the issue and mainly when it gets above a 2 GB working set.

I have had too many of these yummy orange juice and potato juice concoctions to really delve into it, but whqat you say just might **MIGHT** be true for your connection/rig, but is not true for me and my connection(comcast high speed) and my rig.

And be most assured, killing the processes helps 1000 fold times itself as far as lag/rubberbanding/load times/DC's.

[Flavilandile]

We use Awesomium as our embedded browser. Just like Google Chrome, it creates child processes for robustness, so if one browser instance crashes, it shouldn’t crash the entire game client. In the past, we’ve had Awesomium set to run in single-process mode inside of our game to reduce confusion about the external processes. However, we discovered a bug where the browser (and by extension, the web store) would stop working if the URL got too long and we were running Awesomium in single-process mode. So we switched it to multi-process mode to address this issue. The browser is consuming the same amount of resources as before, it’s just doing it in separate processes instead of all being rolled into dndclient.exe. Using the task manager to kill the awesomium processes will crash your game client.

Thanks for the answer MajMal, but you've been told to answer that... You didn't test anything.

With a few minutes of experiment you would have found that you can kill those processes without any problem, as long as you don't try to open any of the webpage from in game.

After a few more minutes you would have been able to detect which ones generate what can be called as lag spikes every 6 seconds or so.

And in less than 10 minutes you would have been able to determine which ones can be killed and which ones drive the Store so that you can still use the Store while getting rid of most
of the nuisance that the awesomiumprocess.exe is.

Seriously, I ( and I'm probably not alone in that ) really would prefer that you go back to the old system, even if that means that from time to time the store will be unresponsive.
( and honestly it's the job of the Web Designer at Turbine to make sure they create urls short enough so that it doesn't hit the limit. )

[susiedupfer]

I was so glad to see you started this again! Interaction between the staff at Turbine and the players is a good thing. I think you may have just single-handedly resurrected the forums.

[Ironclans_evil_twin]

MajMal assuming you're still with us in here; I've got a quick question:

What is to become of the "lore" affix on weapons seeing as they are removing greater/major/superior/lesser lore crit chance with the pass?

I know it doesn't seem important but consider: I have a Bladforged Sorc that wants a Skiver, I am not turning in 8 expensive as heck rare as hens teeth tome of legend pages if "greater arcane lore" becomes "improved cursepewing"(blech). Why do you care? Because I'm not actually going to level that character or play it at all until I know... Much like a lot of characters that are parked until the enhancement pass, I'm actually finding it hard to find things to do because of the pass hanging over my head on every build choice, and even gearing in this case. Of course if you guys would wake up and give us a one time unlimited class change LR with the pass instead of the nearly useless no + LR you've hinted at it would be a lot easier to make choices that might end up gimpy after the pass. Can you push that idea at the next meeting? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person playing less because I don't want to invest in a character that wont be fixable by a +0 LR.

[GermanicusMaximus]

Much like a lot of characters that are parked until the enhancement pass, I'm actually finding it hard to find things to do because of the pass hanging over my head on every build choice, and even gearing in this case.

Farm Monster Manual kills to hit the threshold to view mob hit points, and then hope that the post expansion mobs you encounter are implemented correctly so that their hit points are actually displayed.

Short of that, I've heard of this "outside" thing that sounds rather intriguing.

[Charononus]

Short of that, I've heard of this "outside" thing that sounds rather intriguing.

The yellow face burns us precious, gollum gollum.

[Missing_Minds]

The yellow face burns us precious, gollum gollum.

As college comp-scis were prone to say, "Day star bad."

[Ironclans_evil_twin]

The enhancement pass is hanging over our heads and making some of us not play... so they annouce Epic TR plans that will ALSO cause a bunch of people to not want to bother playing... (why farm ED XP if you plan to TR... as a Heroic TR in the new system will erase all but 1 of your ED's)

• Make a new alt? Nah my desired class splits will change when the new enhancements hit.
• Respec an existing character? Nah why waste an expensive LR when I will need to do it again after the pass
• Turn in tome pages for a Skiver? Nah just wait and park that toon... Greater Arcane Lore could turn into "shattermantle" </spit>.
• work on ED's on my characters? Nah I plan to TR, I'd just be wasting my time.
• work on my unusual multiclass, Nah the reasons to take X levels is going away in the enhancement pass
• finish one ED then TR and work on another ED to spread the grind? Nah they will wipe all my work if I heroic TR in the new setup

You guys have the entire (informed anyway) playerbase hanging in suspense here... And you just added another cliff hanger in the Epic TR system...

Do you guys talk about how your announcements impact current playing trends? All those Bladeforged that are just reaching Cap? They just stopped their plans of farming more than one ED unless they plan to never use the iconic TR they just announced.

[Ironforge_Clan]

The enhancement pass is hanging over our heads and making some of us not play... so they annouce Epic TR plans that will ALSO cause a bunch of people to not want to bother playing... (why farm ED XP if you plan to TR... as a Heroic TR in the new system will erase all but 1 of your ED's)

• Make a new alt? Nah my desired class splits will change when the new enhancements hit.
• Respec an existing character? Nah why waste an expensive LR when I will need to do it again after the pass
• Turn in tome pages for a Skiver? Nah just wait and park that toon... Greater Arcane Lore could turn into "shattermantle" </spit>.
• work on ED's on my characters? Nah I plan to TR, I'd just be wasting my time.
• work on my unusual multiclass, Nah the reasons to take X levels is going away in the enhancement pass
• finish one ED then TR and work on another ED to spread the grind? Nah they will wipe all my work if I heroic TR in the new setup

You guys have the entire (informed anyway) playerbase hanging in suspense here... And you just added another cliff hanger in the Epic TR system...

Do you guys talk about how your announcements impact current playing trends? All those Bladeforged that are just reaching Cap? They just stopped their plans of farming more than one ED unless they plan to never use the iconic TR they just announced.

Reminds of "Vast and Mysterious". It is a real **** shame that Turbine does this to the player base because it truly hurts the game when people are playing because they are nervous about what is going to happen to their character builds. They really aren't doing themselves or us much good by releasing this information early without having the systems fully in place for us to test. Again it is a **** shame.

[Teh_Troll]

Do you guys talk about how your announcements impact current playing trends? All those Bladeforged that are just reaching Cap? They just stopped their plans of farming more than one ED unless they plan to never use the iconic TR they just announced.

LOLz . . . I didn't think of that . . . there's no point in playing one of these unless you NEVER intend to TR.

EDs all flushed down the toilet, all that work thrown away.

utterly pointless.

[Ron]

I would like to submit the following topics for discussion in tomorrow's "EotWwMM" address, if it is not too late for their inclusion:

1) Buadry Cartamon: Progress on reopening this quest line? It has now been down for over two months.
2) Iron Defenders (and possibly other pets) propensity for going brain dead. This happens CONSTANTLY and is extremely annoying. What is the progress on addressing this bug?
3) AIs behavior regarding summoned pets. Specifically, their tendency to "circle" the pet. This can't possibly be good for the server lag situation. How is this being handled? Where are we on a fix for this?

Those are the issues that most affect me (as a low level soloing artificer, which is the character I am playing the most these days).

Thanks

-Ron

[Missing_Minds]

3) AIs behavior regarding summoned pets. Specifically, their tendency to "circle" the pet. This can't possibly be good for the server lag situation. How is this being handled? Where are we on a fix for this?

Actually if you watch you'll see that is AI behavior across the board, not just summoned pets.

It makes the ranged worthless, casters constantly get "you are not facing", all because they want to be in the fracking exact center of the target vs. being in range of the target. It makes for circle jerk playing of which the only ones that aren't really effected by it are melee given the hit box of their weapons vs the precission of spells and ranged.