Lag Reduction and Mailbox Limits: Last Call!

[DreamingReality]

First, I completely agree that once mailboxes have been trimmed to 50, I hope the developers allow at least 5 weeks for us to open the mail instead of 3. We may love DDO, but unfortunately we cannot physically open a portal to Eberron and truly live there. (I suppose this is best since this would create problems of its own, including increasing lag.)

Second, perhaps a compromise would be offering an ability to buy more "mail slots." VIP could maybe get an automatic 50. (Note: I am not VIP and would actually not become VIP for this, but it seems like a lot of the VIP feel especially hurt by the decision to trim the boxes, so this might be a good compromise.) Then, other players could use TP or maybe an additional 50 (or 25) could be a favor reward. Just like bags and bank space, there would be an upper limit on mail (maybe 200 for VIP and 150 for others).

Again, I do not have thousands of letters and am slightly in awe of those who do, but I can definitely see that 50 mail limit being reached. One of my characters is a guild leader, so after sending out stuff for that (and sometimes getting it back because the player has not logged in), and posting items on the auction, I frequently hit the 50 limit max. (Keep in mind, if you post 40 items on the auction, you will get 40 pieces of mail whether you sell it or not.) I do not have this problem with any of my other characters, so I see it as being something unique to the way I use the character of my guild leader and the frequent communication with others in my guild that this requires.

As to favor notifications, yes, I like those because you do have to find a person and talk to them. It is the same with TP- I don't want to keep opening the DDO store to see if I have earned it. However, once seen, these can generally be deleted immediately- especially those with TP. The way we have to delete mail (without a "delete all" button) is clunky. That in itself might keep people from easily purging their inboxes.

[JonD]

As to favor notifications, yes, I like those because you do have to find a person and talk to them.

I also find the favor notifications are useful, but they don't have to be provided via in-game mail. We get an icon for "you can advance a level" and "you have enhancement points to spend", so an icon for "you have crossed a favor threshold" with details of who to talk to in the tool tip could work.

JonD

[Denegrator]

First, I completely agree that once mailboxes have been trimmed to 50, I hope the developers allow at least 5 weeks for us to open the mail instead of 3. We may love DDO, but unfortunately we cannot physically open a portal to Eberron and truly live there. (I suppose this is best since this would create problems of its own, including increasing lag.)

Second, perhaps a compromise would be offering an ability to buy more "mail slots." VIP could maybe get an automatic 50. (Note: I am not VIP and would actually not become VIP for this, but it seems like a lot of the VIP feel especially hurt by the decision to trim the boxes, so this might be a good compromise.) Then, other players could use TP or maybe an additional 50 (or 25) could be a favor reward. Just like bags and bank space, there would be an upper limit on mail (maybe 200 for VIP and 150 for others).

Again, I do not have thousands of letters and am slightly in awe of those who do, but I can definitely see that 50 mail limit being reached. One of my characters is a guild leader, so after sending out stuff for that (and sometimes getting it back because the player has not logged in), and posting items on the auction, I frequently hit the 50 limit max. (Keep in mind, if you post 40 items on the auction, you will get 40 pieces of mail whether you sell it or not.) I do not have this problem with any of my other characters, so I see it as being something unique to the way I use the character of my guild leader and the frequent communication with others in my guild that this requires.

As to favor notifications, yes, I like those because you do have to find a person and talk to them. It is the same with TP- I don't want to keep opening the DDO store to see if I have earned it. However, once seen, these can generally be deleted immediately- especially those with TP. The way we have to delete mail (without a "delete all" button) is clunky. That in itself might keep people from easily purging their inboxes.

Sorry, but this is a horrible idea. The whole purpose of the mail cull was to reduce lag, you're proposing a system where mail can continue to bloat? Yes it sucks that people will lose a few items, but then again, why are they hoarding that much? Do they really need the stuff?

[Tetsugin7]

If this is causing lag issues for the rest of the community, sorry... all that needs to go.
We run into this issue at work all the time. Mail in it's original incarnation was not meant as a storage place at all.
Outlook even starts to have issues once 5,000+ emails appear in inboxes.
I can't imagine this barely functional email inside a game.
Perhaps people are skirting inventory limits and whatnot, but I don't care.
No b*tching, no crying.... be Nike... just do it!
Prune away Turbine, Prune away. I would prefer less lag.

[twinstronglord]

A Delete All button is the worst idea in the history of anything, ever.

[Ash21]

I don't think people were 'exploiting' the mailbox for increased storage as such. I used to auction all my loot gen and just let the stuff that didn't sell sit, there was no other reason (provided) to move it. If the timer for mail worked it should have deleted itself anyway. People just didn't want to spend the time to move it. And many don't use the forum, there was no in-game notice that said: "DO NOT USE MAIL FOR STORAGE".

Furthermore, (and this is not all rather encompassing), but in my guild, the cannith crafting amenity is right next to the Orion express amenity, and as you can access the airship from a lot of places, it is very easy to disjunct. (Yes I realise some may not have this amenity, but they can change that by getting in a guild that can, or buying one)

[Ash21]

As you may know, we recently implemented a system in DDO that limits your mailbox inbox to 50 mails. This was done to start addressing an issue where exceptionally-large inboxes were causing lag due to character data bloat. When we implemented this system, we asked everyone to voluntarily reduce their inboxes, and the system itself began preventing people from sending mail or posting things in the Auction Houses if they had more than 50 mails.

We appreciate everyone's efforts to address this issue. Remember that we won't see a lag reduction until players have smaller mailbox inboxes, so it's been up to you to help improve things by reducing your inbox. We're now at the stage when we need to take the next step. We have a command that allows us to prune inboxes down to fifty mails, and we will soon be running that command starting with the characters that have the largest inboxes (we have a couple that are literally in the thousands...) Consider this your LAST CALL. Please get your inbox down to 50 mails if you are above this limit and are concerned about losing anything in your inbox.

As of Wednesday, July 20th here's the player count of folks with 50+ mails in their inbox:

Argonnessen: 273
Cannith: 245
Ghallanda: 311
Orien: 216
Khyber: 219
Sarlona: 300
Thelanis: 307
Wayfinder: 45

Total: 1916

Some of these may be folks who are no longer playing the game, or who haven't logged in in a very long time, but we know some of these numbers include active players, so we're putting out this final call to voluntarily reduce your inbox size if you have more than 50 mails prior to running a command that will automatically prune things. Thank you!

Also can (Cordovan or) someone else official tell us whether this update will also cause the mail expiry timer to work correctly, and thereby delete all mail that has been on '1 day left'?

[trevitt]

It isn't the players that broke the game.

A lot of players (used to) post the good stuff up the AH for low prices.
Not to make gc but to help others out get their twink gear.
(That's also why there are active craftsmen out there helping others get their stuffs.)
If it didn't sell then you could always repost it at a later date or just wait for the mail to expire as you know you'll get something similar or better the next life.
Somewhere along the way the mailboxes didn't get emptied anymore.... and then you blame it on the players.
As said before, we didn't brake the game and I seriously doubt there is intent and foul play at hand.

Now what concerns me is that such few players could cause so much lag, this really makes me doubt the technical design of the game.

SERIOUSLY! It took you unlit a small thing like the mailboxes getting a overhaul for you to complain about the technical design of the game.

I love this game and have been playing in for over 5 years as a VIP but I started doubting the technical design a looong time ago.

[myddosstegner2]

As you may know, we recently implemented a system in DDO that limits your mailbox inbox to 50 mails. This was done to start addressing an issue where exceptionally-large inboxes were causing lag due to character data bloat. When we implemented this system, we asked everyone to voluntarily reduce their inboxes, and the system itself began preventing people from sending mail or posting things in the Auction Houses if they had more than 50 mails.

We appreciate everyone's efforts to address this issue. Remember that we won't see a lag reduction until players have smaller mailbox inboxes, so it's been up to you to help improve things by reducing your inbox. We're now at the stage when we need to take the next step. We have a command that allows us to prune inboxes down to fifty mails, and we will soon be running that command starting with the characters that have the largest inboxes (we have a couple that are literally in the thousands...) Consider this your LAST CALL. Please get your inbox down to 50 mails if you are above this limit and are concerned about losing anything in your inbox.

As of Wednesday, July 20th here's the player count of folks with 50+ mails in their inbox:

Argonnessen: 273
Cannith: 245
Ghallanda: 311
Orien: 216
Khyber: 219
Sarlona: 300
Thelanis: 307
Wayfinder: 45

Total: 1916

Some of these may be folks who are no longer playing the game, or who haven't logged in in a very long time, but we know some of these numbers include active players, so we're putting out this final call to voluntarily reduce your inbox size if you have more than 50 mails prior to running a command that will automatically prune things. Thank you!

Would it be possible to "eliminate" the mail notifications of Favor and have quick notifications posted after every quest as to the amount of favor earned in a separate window (NOT the center notification window that I would like to move out of the way) and in the general chat windows.

[Burdigalos]

This is very nice that turbine have some solutions to implement in Order to reduce the lag.
Please perform the purge as quickly as you can. If that not done already.

[jalont]

A Delete All button is the worst idea in the history of anything, ever.

Charge 250 TP to add a confirmation popup for the amazing people who seem to not be in control of their fingers, and it would be fine.

[SisAmethyst]

... We're now at the stage when we need to take the next step. We have a command that allows us to prune inboxes down to fifty mails, and we will soon be running that command starting with the characters that have the largest inboxes (we have a couple that are literally in the thousands...) Consider this your LAST CALL. [U]Please get your inbox down to 50 mails if you are above this limit and are concerned about losing anything in your inbox... Thank you!

Hi Cordovan,

I think you may want to put that into the launcher I just stumbled over that post by accident and surely not everybody read the forum frequently

[Krelar]

Hi Cordovan,

I think you may want to put that into the launcher I just stumbled over that post by accident and surely not everybody read the forum frequently

It's been in the launcher since the 21st.

[PrimeMoverX]

Cordovan and All,

I am one of the guilty active members on Thelanis. Not 1000s guilty, but maybe 300? Like several others that have posted, I am mostly guilty of allowing expired things from failed AH sales to sit around. I used to be very diligent about not letting things pile up because of that scary countdown timer within the mailbox itself telling me that my mail only had "1 week, 4 days left," etc., then when it got down to only a few days I would mill it. But then a funny thing happened: I wasn't able to log in for over a month due to computer issues, and when I came back, none of the mail that I had expected to have derezzed was gone! It was all still there with a "1 day" tag on it. I thought at first it would disappear when I tried to reclaim it, but no! There it stayed. So I got lazy. If something didn't sell I didn't rush to recycle it, I just let it sit, live to try on another day's economy I guess. For that I am guilty, though I had no idea the effect it had on gameplay until your post last month. Now that I have been made aware of the problem, I agree that a correction is in order.

But here's the rub, though I have been trying to reduce the backlog little by little, it is difficult to do if the primary means of unloading said loot, i.e. the AH, is denied to us. I can certainly understand not letting players with overfull mailboxes BID and BUY at the AH, but why are we blocked from SELLING? How then, do we clear out named loot that cannot be deconstructed?

During the time of The Great Purge, could not we, the repentant, be granted a small reprieve and be able to sell off rather than simply delete the excess?

With Appreciation,
PMX

[Caarb]

2 things:

1) Clearly this is an attempt to fix a mailbox exploit not fixing gameplay lag
2) Expect a legal challenge from Europeans who by EU law own their digital items (not license) and EU law trumps the EULA. (Same reason why EA had to refund Fifa points to people it banned)

[SisAmethyst]

It's been in the launcher since the 21st.

Uhhhh sorry, then I must have clearly missed it. I have only seen the info about Update 31 and the Downtime Notice and usually not scroll down to see older messages.
But I see that Cordovan pushed it back up to second place, thanks!

[Uska]

Cordovan and All,

I am one of the guilty active members on Thelanis. Not 1000s guilty, but maybe 300? Like several others that have posted, I am mostly guilty of allowing expired things from failed AH sales to sit around. I used to be very diligent about not letting things pile up because of that scary countdown timer within the mailbox itself telling me that my mail only had "1 week, 4 days left," etc., then when it got down to only a few days I would mill it. But then a funny thing happened: I wasn't able to log in for over a month due to computer issues, and when I came back, none of the mail that I had expected to have derezzed was gone! It was all still there with a "1 day" tag on it. I thought at first it would disappear when I tried to reclaim it, but no! There it stayed. So I got lazy. If something didn't sell I didn't rush to recycle it, I just let it sit, live to try on another day's economy I guess. For that I am guilty, though I had no idea the effect it had on gameplay until your post last month. Now that I have been made aware of the problem, I agree that a correction is in order.

But here's the rub, though I have been trying to reduce the backlog little by little, it is difficult to do if the primary means of unloading said loot, i.e. the AH, is denied to us. I can certainly understand not letting players with overfull mailboxes BID and BUY at the AH, but why are we blocked from SELLING? How then, do we clear out named loot that cannot be deconstructed?

During the time of The Great Purge, could not we, the repentant, be granted a small reprieve and be able to sell off rather than simply delete the excess?

With Appreciation,
PMX

Plenty of notice has been given

[Steve_Howe]

2 things:

1) Clearly this is an attempt to fix a mailbox exploit not fixing gameplay lag

ROFLMAO!

2) Expect a legal challenge from Europeans who by EU law own their digital items (not license) and EU law trumps the EULA. (Same reason why EA had to refund Fifa points to people it banned)

Good luck with that.

[PrimeMoverX]

Plenty of notice has been given

Uska,

The notice has been given, but the means of compliance greatly restricted. My point is not really to request more time, but rather more access. I can easily delete the items myself instead of forcing the script to do it for me, but in trying to extract the greatest remaining value from them, it would be helpful to be able to post them back to the AH a few more times before they expire for good. As it is, I have given quite a few things away, random acts of kindness as it were.

It seems like the natural attrition would take place if the mailbox timer just started working the way it was intended: let us go back to posting items on the AH, but when they return to the mailbox, they will expire automatically at the end of 3 weeks as the messages say them should. If the coding fixes what is actually not working properly, then the intended process will carry itself out without the Devs having to do individual maintenance on almost 2000 accounts.

That's all I was asking for, Uska, a little forbearance, not a full pardon.

~PMX

[Uska]

Uska,

The notice has been given, but the means of compliance greatly restricted. My point is not really to request more time, but rather more access. I can easily delete the items myself instead of forcing the script to do it for me, but in trying to extract the greatest remaining value from them, it would be helpful to be able to post them back to the AH a few more times before they expire for good. As it is, I have given quite a few things away, random acts of kindness as it were.

It seems like the natural attrition would take place if the mailbox timer just started working the way it was intended: let us go back to posting items on the AH, but when they return to the mailbox, they will expire automatically at the end of 3 weeks as the messages say them should. If the coding fixes what is actually not working properly, then the intended process will carry itself out without the Devs having to do individual maintenance on almost 2000 accounts.

That's all I was asking for, Uska, a little forbearance, not a full pardon.

~PMX

They have given more time than they should have people knew it wasn't working right and they took advantage of a bug they deserve no extra consideration