Why the TR cache disappears? PETITION to hire an engine programmer.

[Dread13131313]

Someone wrote a std::swap function like garbage? (If our engine is written in C++.) Is the cache written in no-SQL and that method is now out of style? I don't get it, but we need a code monkey to fix this.

<Tinfoil hat on> Your current developers are all working within higher level simplifications of the engine. You, and I mean SSG, do not employ anyone who understands the TR cache. The DEEP engine code is now a mystery to this company and you are (apparently) unwilling to hire anyone to figure it out. That's why the TR cache disappears. <Tinfoil hat off>

We're screwed on this one guys. This has been a problem for years---but this company isn't willing to employ someone to figure this out and fix it. We're talking about a core feature of the game. We're talking about how they sell boxes, xp pots, and VIP. The TR cache is broken because our management has been unwilling to fix it. After the TR cache disappears for people we should see an engineer comment on the problem. It's the engine programmers duty to deal with this kind of thing.

This is a petition to this company to hire an engine programmer competent enough to stop the TR crapche from causing people to leave and others to question the game's age. I love this game a lot and in order for to keep existing, this needs to happen.

Cheers and Love,

I'd vote "yarr" with a million accounts if i knew it would make a **** difference, but you know as well as I that it wont.
I give you extreme props and respect for trying though.

+1'd

Furthermore: I just canceled all 6 of my VIP accounts over this last night. This has gone on too far, for too long. This is an outrage and people need to revolt with their wallets.

When companies screw the pooch, there needs to be repercussions!

Companies need to be held accountable binding arbitration when stuff like his happens. Companies in the US and abroad have been screwing their customers for far too long getting away with it, THERE MUST BE CONSEQUENCES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've spent well over $800-$900 for this **** of a game and I am just ONE house hold. They just sold $300,000.00 worth of season passes FFS!

No one can tell me they dont have the revenue to fix this ****.

[Dread13131313]

As much I would love to have scroll cases and potion cases. None of those make sense first of all. Second, you are seeing posts about people losing stuff that should've been placed in the TR cache. It shouldn't have much time spent on it but at least some to fix these errors from recurring. Not to mention I have lost multiple items in these cases and they were recovered. They weren't misplaced on a different character or left somewhere or accidently deleted. These were low level old crafting shards like 10% melee alacrity at minimum level 1. I have lost those shards however because I transferred servers without giving a chance to recover the item. This is by mistake but most of the items I have lost were rare - Quiver of Alacrity. That was lost but recovered in a matter of hours thanks to the game moderators.

This is the game fault - not our fault.

Think twice before posting, please.

100% agree.

[Renvar]

We all want a solution that is easy to use and that works. Without knowing the effort and feasibility to make this happen, we really can't rate the best solution.

Something as simple as adding additional storage prior to TR bank removal might be too much for their system, or it might be very destructive to their revenue model. We don't know.

It would really be appreciated if everyone is open to other suggestions other than their own. I don't see how such suggestions are harmful to SSG, nor whey their needs to be some dispute or competition over whose idea is best.

Discussing pro's and con's could be helpful to devs, but our conclusions (in this issue) will be poorly formulated based on little information of the best path forward.

If they need to hire a programmer, I would say that is a good use of their resources, even at the expense/delay of other things I am interested in. TR should be their top priority (I think it is), followed by customer support for TR issues (unknown priority) and managing the situation in a way that gives players confidence (which seems to be a low priority).

Obviously, everyone should advocate for or mention the idea that makes the most sense to them/fits their experience and play style. In brainstorming there are no bad ideas. Even creating an app that takes pictures and posts them "on the line".

[Dread13131313]

So what happens to stuff you have equipped or in your backpack when you TR? Gone? You will need to program in a way to handle that. I guarantee a "warning" that you must be nekkid when TR'ing is not going to be enough.

I do agree, however, that something other than the TR cache needs to be implemented. Extra inventory has been just about the number 1 request over the years, as well as a better way to search it. All we have gotten so far is more shared bank space (which is ok) but it's expensive, too little, and too clunky of an interface. It needs a huge overhaul.

How about "dont unequip anything"..

Look guys, this stuff isnt hard.

As a DB admin for 3 different games (on private servers) all you have to do is set each EQUIPPED item in inventory to be "flagged" as TR-cache.

Then when someone TR's nothing gets unequipped. INSTEAD the stuff on the person gets flagged and turned RED.

Leave favor given bank slots alone.
Leave favor given INVENTORY slots alone.

Let people keep their favor-give bank and inventory slots.. Then the items on the persons inventory turns RED, or blue or whatever the hell color they deem necessary but gives no bonuses, gives no stats. Its like youre equipping an item, but its not giving you any stats whatsoever.

Then you have to put each item into a TR cache window that pops up when you log in. That way you ONLY are moving the items ON YOUR PERSON.

Thats like... 12 friggin items.

All the other stuff in inventory and bank does not get changed or touched.

No other **** dealing with "spending hours managing inventory to get naked to TR", which is a stupid requirement to begin with that ruins a good system "TR-ing".

This way, players only have to worry about losing equipped items in "the cache" AT MAX.

Sure there are probably ways to abuse this mechanic, players will always find ways to abuse something, but not everyone, the point here is TO PROTECT PLAYERS.

You're welcome.

[nokowi]

Obviously, everyone should advocate for or mention the idea that makes the most sense to them/fits their experience and play style. In brainstorming there are no bad ideas. Even creating an app that takes pictures and posts them "on the line".

Agreed.

There is actually a design process for determining the best solution, but there is little reason to mention or use such things when people are really just interested in advocating their own solution, which is too often the case here on the forums.

[Dread13131313]

I think the question here needs to be ask, and everyone (including SSG) really needs to be honest with themselves...

Why are we doing their job for them?

Why are WE (the paying customers) having to resort to fixing this issue because they either can't, or won't?

I understand this is all assumption, but its been mentioned a few times that this issue has been ongoing for years now.

I think its safe to assume that due to no communication or word from them re: this, that logic dictates either they can't or won't fix this problem.

And that says A LOT about this company as a whole.

[Fedora1]

This all works well enough on Epic Reincarnation. How many problems do you hear of people losing gear during an ER? Most have ML 30 stuff equipped when ERing. No need to be "nekkid".

The problems exist entirely in the transfer of all your inventory, worn items, and personal bank into the TR cache. If the game is not doing that, then the problem goes away.

The mechanic is significantly different when ER'ing. Same toon, same class, same alignment. Reset enhancements (like you can do anytime), reset destinies and fate points (like you can do anytime). The mechanic for TR/RR seems to be some sort of "delete the character" - not sure exactly. A TR/RR loses all quest progress, Favor, Raid completions, etc., whereas the ER does not. So I think the "transfer to cache" thing has to do with the differences, otherwise why wouldn't they have just done away with it years ago?

I still think you are correct, get rid of the TR cache. I'm just thinking out loud on some of the issues.

[Renvar]

I think I read somewhere that Cordovan said on a Live Stream recently (maybe last week ) that they were more likely to remove the TR cache than to make modifications to how it operates.

[cdbd3rd]

....

All we can do is make recommendations, but it helps to recognize our limited understanding on the technical side.

This part here.

(B/I/U emphasis mine)

[Chai]

Obviously, everyone should advocate for or mention the idea that makes the most sense to them/fits their experience and play style. In brainstorming there are no bad ideas. Even creating an app that takes pictures and posts them "on the line".

It is my belief that the issue is caused by deletion of the character along with lag, interruption in connection between client and server, or between server and DB. My suggestion would be to avoid those scenarios.

Suggestion 1:

1. Do not delete the character. Instead do a DB copy. This would not be playable on a server, but it would serve as a "backup"
2. Once the DB copy is done, the gear / tomes load out is all banked (not cached pre-deletion, since there is no deletion) - this uses same banking system as current.
3. Bank would be allowed to overflow, but players can only remove from the overflow space, and only place items back into space they have available (in case they are concerned with losing revenue over selling bank space - folks who have become pixel hoarders over the years would need to buy more space to be able to put back into bank just as they need to now, but not be forced to do so just to TR)
4. Copy storage can be scripted to purge daily, with a 30 day cycle. This keeps the character in the DB for 30 days should any issue arise.

Suggestion 2:

This one is a bit less conventional, but *might* be easier to implement. Really only one "step" here for the company. Step 2 is on the player.

1. Make all quest loot table items in the game BTAoE (can be sold on AH or ASAH until equipped, once equipped its bound to account). Raid items can be traditional BTA right off the bat.
2. Players manage their own inventory, can schlep it over to a mule character before TR.
The "con" in this one is the TR issue still needs to be fixed due to loss of non-nontransferable items due to being already consumed (tomes for instance) - however, if those were purchased there is already a record of the purchase in your receipts.

This would also stimulate the plat and AS economy. People would be more willing to play alts (such as healers) in raids due to being able to pull loot for mains as well.

Both suggestions essentially ditch the TR cache. It would only be left in game for those folks who have loot in there who have not reincarnated a character. When they do reincarnate they use the new system.

The two arent mutually exclusive - mix and match as needed.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

Some of you have a misunderstanding of the problem.

A TR loads your gear onto a new character.
It then creates the TR cache. On Korthos you can sometimes see items leaving your inventory and being put in the cache.

What causes the deletion of items isn't the TR cache (per say) but the swapping (?) of data onto a new character from the former character. The TR cache happens after this swap. The problem is that the new character does not (or is not able to) receive your loot from the previous life. This swap should occur in their database and should have nothing to do with what is stored locally on your computer. All this logging out business is silly for that reason. The problem occurs when you hit "character create" and then the servers fail to swap the gear and PL data onto the new character. Everyone who suffers from this bug reports that upon hitting "character create" that they can't load in. Eventually they go afk (or exit client) and the server drops them.

They log in and a character with the default loot values loads in.

[Dread13131313]

Some of you have a misunderstanding of the problem.

A TR loads your gear onto a new character.
It then creates the TR cache. On Korthos you can sometimes see items leaving your inventory and being put in the cache.

What causes the deletion of items isn't the TR cache (per say) but the swapping (?) of data onto a new character from the former character. The TR cache happens after this swap. The problem is that the new character does not (or is not able to) receive your loot from the previous life. This swap should occur in their database and should have nothing to do with what is stored locally on your computer. All this logging out business is silly for that reason. The problem occurs when you hit "character create" and then the servers fail to swap the gear and PL data onto the new character. Everyone who suffers from this bug reports that upon hitting "character create" that they can't load in. Eventually they go afk (or exit client) and the server drops them.

They log in and a character with the default loot values loads in.

I have a pretty **** good understanding of exactly what the problem is.

Its the devs who don't apparently.

Or at the very least, they dont know what the solution is.

[Tyrande]

Hiring a systems engineer probably won't help. They need to be willing to fix the problem from Eladrin the ole Systems Designer, and be willing to spend resources with no obvious monetary return.

The original TR intent was NOT designed to be having 100s of past lives as a noob versus leet gain. It was designed to be a system for people who made a mistake on their current character and re-level them, while giving them incentives from the past lives.

I would suggest getting rid of this TR system, process and TR cache and adopt a much simpler approach:

• Get rid of the TR process entirely.
• Have specific NPC vendor for specific TR chain completions, just like the current Eveningstar chain vendors, except the chain list is very long
• Have the rewards be ETR, Racial TR, class TR, Iconic TR, which would jsut add a line to your past life lists in your FEATS tab.
• We can call the TR vendors ETR Life Shaper, ITR Life Shaper, CTR Life Shaper, RTR Life Shaper.
• You keep all your current bank, shared bank, and current worn gear and class spreads!
• The quests listed by these vendors must be done either elite or better (R1->)
• Otto boxes stones would autocomplete those quests on R1 for a certain percentage and gain those XP.

The above steps would keep it simple and avoid the TR bugs entirely since TR cache, bank items, etc. are not moving or deleting.

It would also make accounting and banking by the player simple, and avoid player aggravation to clean their banks.

It would also keep the TR people happy, since the process is going to be much simpler.

It would also make SSG happy, since SSG doesn't have to debug/find these bugs, and can probably remove these code to make the code leaner and meaner; and save a lot of time to work on The City of Towers- Sharn Expansion and Classes.

SSG also makes more money selling more packs since the quests list and ML level they should be ran at is determined by the TR NPC.
(and probably also +20 lesser hearts for people to switch classes to gain Class Past Lives, also, no lost revenue(s) from free favor gains
from reincarnation and free TPs from the HTR)

Win-Win situation, don't you say?

[Sam-u-r-eye]

They need to be willing to fix the problem from Eladrin the ole Systems Designer, and be willing to spend resources with no obvious monetary return.

The monetary return is the people not quitting when their close friend loses all their stuff.

The original TR intent was NOT designed to be having 100s of past lives as a noob versus leet gain. It was designed to be a system for people who made a mistake on their current character and re-level them, while giving them incentives from the past lives.

I would suggest getting rid of this TR system, process and TR cache and adopt a much simpler approach:

• Get rid of the TR process entirely.
• Have specific NPC vendor for specific TR chain completions, just like the current Eveningstar chain vendors, except the chain list is very long
• Have the rewards be ETR, Racial TR, class TR, Iconic TR, which would jsut add a line to your past life lists in your FEATS tab.
• We can call the TR vendors ETR Life Shaper, ITR Life Shaper, CTR Life Shaper, RTR Life Shaper.
• You keep all your current bank, shared bank, and current worn gear and class spreads!
• The quests listed by these vendors must be done either elite or better (R1->)
• Otto boxes stones would autocomplete those quests on R1 for a certain percentage and gain those XP.

The above steps would keep it simple and avoid the TR bugs entirely since TR cache, bank items, etc. are not moving or deleting.

It would also make accounting and banking by the player simple, and avoid player aggravation to clean their banks.

It would also keep the TR people happy, since the process is going to be much simpler.

It would also make SSG happy, since SSG doesn't have to debug/find these bugs, and can probably remove these code to make the code leaner and meaner; and save a lot of time to work on The City of Towers- Sharn Expansion and Classes.

SSG also makes more money selling more packs since the quests list and ML level they should be ran at is determined by the TR NPC.
(and probably also +20 lesser hearts for people to switch classes to gain Class Past Lives, also, no lost revenue(s) from free favor gains
from reincarnation and free TPs from the HTR)

Win-Win situation, don't you say?

I like your idea. It involves a lot of UI work as well. We might even need 2 engine programmers.

[Dread13131313]

Hiring a systems engineer probably won't help. They need to be willing to fix the problem from Eladrin the ole Systems Designer, and be willing to spend resources with no obvious monetary return.

The original TR intent was NOT designed to be having 100s of past lives as a noob versus leet gain. It was designed to be a system for people who made a mistake on their current character and re-level them, while giving them incentives from the past lives.

I would suggest getting rid of this TR system, process and TR cache and adopt a much simpler approach:

• Get rid of the TR process entirely.
• Have specific NPC vendor for specific TR chain completions, just like the current Eveningstar chain vendors, except the chain list is very long
• Have the rewards be ETR, Racial TR, class TR, Iconic TR, which would jsut add a line to your past life lists in your FEATS tab.
• We can call the TR vendors ETR Life Shaper, ITR Life Shaper, CTR Life Shaper, RTR Life Shaper.
• You keep all your current bank, shared bank, and current worn gear and class spreads!
• The quests listed by these vendors must be done either elite or better (R1->)
• Otto boxes stones would autocomplete those quests on R1 for a certain percentage and gain those XP.

The above steps would keep it simple and avoid the TR bugs entirely since TR cache, bank items, etc. are not moving or deleting.

It would also make accounting and banking by the player simple, and avoid player aggravation to clean their banks.

It would also keep the TR people happy, since the process is going to be much simpler.

It would also make SSG happy, since SSG doesn't have to debug/find these bugs, and can probably remove these code to make the code leaner and meaner; and save a lot of time to work on The City of Towers- Sharn Expansion and Classes.

SSG also makes more money selling more packs since the quests list and ML level they should be ran at is determined by the TR NPC.
(and probably also +20 lesser hearts for people to switch classes to gain Class Past Lives, also, no lost revenue(s) from free favor gains
from reincarnation and free TPs from the HTR)

Win-Win situation, don't you say?

I agree I think this is an excellent idea. But the big question is, do they care enough?

CAN they do this?
WILL they do this?

While we hem and haw back and forth on this forum about such things, nothing is being done and more and more players are getting sick and tired of being sick and tired..

I feel like a guy who is living in a city, where they city charges exhorbitant taxes living there. Those funds are never used to build or fix the infrastructure. All the while it keeps getting more and more dated and decayed. I mean doesnt take long before I start asking the hard to answer questions, "what the hell is the city doing with everyones tax money?? Buying COKE? (and I am not talking about the kind you can drink either".

Lag has gotten worse.
Load screens have gotten worse.
Completely game breaking bugs abound.

No improvements what so ever. But I see season passes and AP tomes being pushed...

Someone's priorities are 100% out of whack.

Its only a matter of time before the exodus begins.

[guzzlr]

Build a new system. Turn off old system.

mmmmm donuts.

[blerkington]

Good on you for continuing this discussion productively, Sam.

Something desperately needs to change with this, whether it's a rewrite of the process so it is less buggy, a new approach that no longer uses a cache at all, or proper logging/saving of character files and significantly improved customer service for when problems occur. After making reincarnation so central to the game, the very least SSG could do is have a better process for it.

It's situations like these where a company shows what it really thinks of its customers. The lack of timely assistance to people affected by this terrible bug combined with contradictory excuses for why nothing appears to be getting done ('we have logs now' vs 'bad people are trying to rip us off so we can't help quickly') is really damning.

It would be really great to see some leadership coming from the company on this issue, not just silence or transparent excuses for mistreating its customers. Most of all, SSG really needs to lose its 'better to punish 100 innocent people than let one guilty one go free' approach to dealing with these situations in general.

Thanks.

[Aelonwy]

[*] The quests listed by these vendors must be done either elite or better (R1->)

Mmmm problem. Not everyone does elite or Reaper. A first life or new player will have difficulty completing either. The way it is done now players can gather XP on any difficulty and even get XP from Monster Manuals and Wilderness Zones.

Your method will also likely require content that not all players own. This would increase the value of VIP (elite open access and content access) while devaluing Monster Manuals, Wilderness zones, premium access on non-3rd lifers. If this is based off elite/reaper completions instead of XP value than how would XP potions be valued? Would slayer boosts still be worthwhile?

I realize it is NOT the same group of people saying both of these concepts but there are very conflicting views on these forums where one group says "Reaper is the new norm, embrace and adapt!" and the other group says "First lifers should NOT expect to be able to compete with vets and be able to do elite/Reaper."

In short, I don't agree that elite/reaper completions is the way to go. Perhaps something more like Epic Karma... a numerical XP value that doesn't track or care which quests or on what difficulty you did them to achieve the required XP value.

[GODDEATH]

I would hope they can figure something out
No idea how they can accomplish removing tr cache entirely, but it may make us feel safer tr'ing.

ideas would be in meantime
maybe something like how we copy to test server, and then tr. then player have a backup per say of that toon right before tr. mainly a list of items and stats to reference, this also helps devs for pinpointing issues
Yes it wont work with current test server ect, as people could make changes all too easily ect.

BUT it may be a window to think about,
a tr server to copy or "save to" giving a dev a chance to restore properley with review,
thus players could save to it. As a safety measure but cannot access the save.
, leave that for devs if a tr goes wrong, they could restore what went wrong and insight to what may have gone wrong?
as each case i read has diffrent things that occured to the toon.

just a thought, no idea what a dev may read and perhaps see possible within current params.
Kinda sounds old school "save game" at a certain point (tr) but might work. as it appears it may not always work in the current set up. and allows support to be responsive and swift.



Putting a bag of holding inside a portable hole will cause a rift to be opened to the Astral Plane, and both items will be lost forever.

[Tyrande]

Mmmm problem. Not everyone does elite or Reaper. A first life [...]

In short, I don't agree that elite/reaper completions is the way to go. Perhaps something more like Epic Karma... a numerical XP value that doesn't track or care which quests or on what difficulty you did them to achieve the required XP value.

So, for HTR and RTR you need to talk to a HTR or RTR NPC and then they reset your Heroic Karma. Then you need to fill that Karma (3.8M xp) for them to grant you that past life feat?

For ETR, you would need to talk to some ETR NPC then they reset your Epic Karma. And then you need to make (8.25M xp) for them to grant you that epic past life feat that you selected?

This idea is pretty good, just a question about how do you calculate ITR? Is there going to be another Iconic Karma? Is that (8.25M xp + last 5 levels, so that's about 1.7M xp = 9.95M xp?!?)

In theory though, these karma XP values should be exclusive, i.e. you could only work on one at a time. Otherwise, people could take all 3 karma quests and gain all 3 past lives at the same time.... well, may be the devs should do this to make the new players or alt players play catch up.