crash during team mission + relog = death

Hi,

Yesterday, I had a very bad experience (this is only the second time I am really fed up with bugs in this good game) with team missions. We were 6 players in a team mission and everyhing was fine except that:
- the mission was very very long (too long, this is my first complain; afer 1 or 1,5 hour we were still at 70%); it looks like there were around 100 mobs! The map was so huge that we spent a lot of time clearing all floors
- as a consequence to the first remark, at a moment we got lost when we retrieved an unlucky player who re-joined the team after diconnection. We were all running everywhere to find these elevators: why not putting elevator switchs in the map when they are discovered?????
- as a consequence to the second remark (this is my explanation) I was kicked out AO: strange, i got the usual exit screen (freeing memory) and then I got the login screen (although the first instance of AO was not completly closed????). It seems that also another player had the same problem; I do not know about others.
- the last thing, very very boring: I re-logged, and I appeared in the team mission, BUT FULL OF MOBS (althought before crash we were more than 78% completetion!). Of course I died after a few seconds and LOST 133k exp!

My conclusion is the following:
- limit the maximum size of the map and number of mobs (or at least give the possibility to change this as a setting of the mission)
- indicate the elevator switchs when they are discovered on the map
- DO NOT save the location of the players when they exit/crash in the mission. PUT THEM AT THE ENTRANCE OR OUTSIDE!

A few minor problems, still annoying:
- pet pathing! this is crazy how many times my pet was stuck in the middle of a table (how an elevator can end up in a small room with a table in the corner?). AO is may be 1 year old, and I was not there at the beginning, but I suppose pets were. So this is definitivly something that should have been fixed/investigated a long long time ago!

Leosonyc

Quote:

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Originally posted by LeoSonyc

As a consequence to the second remark (this is my explanation) I was kicked out AO: strange, i got the usual exit screen (freeing memory) and then I got the login screen (although the first instance of AO was not completly closed????). It seems that also another player had the same problem; I do not know about others.
- the last thing, very very boring: I re-logged, and I appeared in the team mission, BUT FULL OF MOBS (althought before crash we were more than 78% completetion!). Of course I died after a few seconds and LOST 133k exp!

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This is a known problem. The server your mission was on crashed. And instead of a periodic save so that they can roll back to that save after crashing (probably to reduce server load) it has to rebuild the mission from scratch. If you are more then 3 rooms from the entrance that usually kills you (unless you can calm)

Hey,

This is really a stupid bug then. If the server does not save the status of the mission, why the hell does it makes you log in the middle of it after rebuilding the complete map with mobs?

Damn, and this is a known problem :-(

Leosonyc

EXACTLY the same thing happened to me last night! 2 hours into a ql 190 mission, 3 floors up, and 96% thru. AO just suddenly closed. When I logged back in, the mobs were all back! I saw other team-mates wailing "OMFG THE MOBS ARE BACK!!!!!".

I lost nearly 3 million xp - half a level!!!

Funcom, PLEASE fix this! Dying thru your own fault is one thing, but losing xp like this must be the fastest way to lose players!!!!!!

It is not just in missions you see the problem. My sister Aalya as Shade hunting in GTC some time ago. The server crashed and the area was reset. The only thing she had time to see before she died when relogging was the big teeth of a sandworm. It should be simple to put players in a safe position or keep mobs away from players.

Same thing happened to me, but in my case i was soloing a ql 100ish team mission and I had just killed the boss and LOOTED him (but i hadnt completed the mission yet) when the server crashed. Upon relogging, i found myself again in the boss room with a NEW boss (different name) and two helpers. I hit the elevator and found 2 mobs above that I had to dispatch.

I returned to the boss room, killed all the mobs and looted the boss again :)

Approx 50% of the loot was identical to the first loot, but it was 100% junk.

Yeah, it's a server crash that causes mission mob resetting.

My observations are:

1) All chest's respawn identically (loot and trapped/locked status).

2) All normal mobs respawn identically (loot, type, level, etc etc blah blah)

3) Boss has different name, same type. I would presume different loot.

Oh yes, this is one of my "favorite" features of the game.

Solo mission -- Engineer.
Server crashes.
Relog.
Random room, MOBs restored.
Before I can even stand up -- White screen -- Reclaim terminal.

At least weapon-users are still armed when you reappear; pet users are unarmed.

Maybe it can be worked after the black doors/rubberbanding. They are even more annoying to everybody.

There is hope for our survival.

This time, when I could get back in, the mission was in the same state as it was when it crashed. That is, the MOBs didn't respawn and I was in the same room.

It's all still magic to me (and I've been in and around the computer business for over 30 years now).

Thanks to the programmers for a win for the players.

Dont set your expectations too high. Remember there are two ways to crash: server and client crash.

Server crash resets the mission/play field.

Client crash just disconnects you and the mobs probably kill you while still in game.

Both ways you will reenter where you left.

At least now you can petition, and in theory they can check to see if indeed the mission crashed, and refund xp. I've yet to have a mission crash on me in many many months, but when it happens I'll be petitioning to test this new policy out.