Outdoor sludge

Started by jhunter, April 11, 2003, 07:45:20 PM

This may already be somewhere and I just haven't seen it but I need to know.

Why is it you can be moving about the city, crafting, emoting your ass off and you hardly ever lag, but the moment you leave the city walls there it is...lag, constant, annoying and deadly lag?

It happens every single time and I have lost a char because of it before but now I'm just plain getting annoyed. Is it something coded or what?

I just would really like to know why this happens.

jhunter
Quote from: Fnord on November 27, 2010, 01:55:19 PM
May the fap be with you, always. ;D

Do you mean the movement lag? There's a set delay when you move from room to room, depending on the room type. City rooms are smaller, so they have much less movement lag, outside rooms are larger, and this is indicated by a longer movement lag. Hope that helps.

What makes this deadly is the lack of lag for the aggro NPC's.  You move south, a group of npc's can move in from the east and immediately hit you or your partner before a either PC can respond.  Would be nice if NPC's were held to the same rules PC's are.

You're sure they aren't? Why not?

I could understand if they were naturally fast, though, like desert elves or something I suppose.

I'm quite sure they're not.  There're a number of instances where an NPC can "arrive from the west." and "subdue you, despite your attempts to struggle away" in the same "heartbeat" of the game.  That's NOT playing by the same rules.

The staff never really seem to say whether this is intentional or a bug.

Quote from: "krelin"I'm quite sure they're not.  There're a number of instances where an NPC can "arrive from the west." and "subdue you, despite your attempts to struggle away" in the same "heartbeat" of the game.  That's NOT playing by the same rules.

The staff never really seem to say whether this is intentional or a bug.

This discussion has been had a dozen times over.  The reason why it is done is that any idiot on kank back can ride from Allanak to Tuluk if there is a delay.  People will just spam walk past Gith.  It isn't that hard, you used to be able to do it with ease.

NPCs and PCs don't play by the rules, pure and simple.  They can't play by the same rules.  You have a brain, they don't.   You can set up scripts until you are blue in the face, but NPCs will remain easily predictable.  They can't give intelligent chase, they can't set up non-predictable traps, they don't know when to stop chasing, and often times their scripts can be easily abused and used against them.  

When soldiers chased wanted people out of the city, people would just lead them away and kill them.  When the code was changed to keep them inside the city, people just sat off at a distance and shot them with arrows, abusing the fact that they won't leave a certain region.

Sure I would love super intelligent NPCs that you can match wits with.  However, there is no easy way to do this.  Either the NPCs are predictable in terms of intelligence and you always outwit them, or they just use brute force like some attacking NPCs do now.  

For instance, I am sure that they could easily write a script to make it so that the Gith ldesc changes to something 'a gith lies here, mortally wounded', and have a bunch of other Gith hidden in the same room.  You would probably fall for it the first time, got investigate the Gith, and be gang banged.  Would you do it again though?  How long would it take for people just to avoid gith that look mortally wounded?  Once people realize the trick (which would be very quickly, you still don't investigate fire ants do you?) all danger will be lost.

The other option is what we have now.  There is little avoiding the danger.  If you want to plow through Gith territory you better have an armed escort.  If you walk within a room of a gith, they will unintelligently attack.  You don't see it coming, but it isn't exactly battle of the wits.  However, unlike the other option, danger is maintained.

If you have another idea, feel free and throw up another thread to offer it.  Just keep in mind that danger needs to be maintained.  Setting NPCs so that they have the same delay as NPCs will make them completely unable to offer any threat to anyone who knows how to type 'e' and enter a few times.

They are delaying too... Just some delay less... Elves delay less, so an elf comes into a room and hides and even starts backstabbing before you may type "hit elf". But you may backstab an entering dwarf (for example, don't do that unhidden or without an emote.) A scrab can hardly pursue you. The new type of tarantulas can. And a raptor may track and pursue you. If the enemy's fast, it's OK. So I think we all have to accept it as it is. It looks logical to me. And soldiers may come in, try to subdue, hit and even kill in one 'heartbeat', because there are really a lot of soldiers around. The only exception to movement delay I saw are the soldiers. And it looks logical to me. They should find and subdue or kill a wannabe thief easily. They're used to their work and there are a lot of them in a big city.
I guess you're in desert and pursued by a fast creature. Probably you're a dwarf. The only solution is to start running, because they really have a great disadvantage, they don't run. Their speed never changes. (I can't say maybe they should, or all wannabe hunters will be dead.) So it's "run" or "die".
quote="Ghost"]Despite the fact he is uglier than all of us, and he has a gay look attached to all over himself, and his being chubby (I love this word) Cenghiz still gets most of the girls in town. I have no damn idea how he does that.[/quote]

I don't mind so much if NPCs are set to get that first strike in, as Rindan says, to add more danger to the world.

The only time I would disagree with this is if the NPCs could enter the room and paralyze you, thus negating any chance of freedom or escape before you're toast.

Even a subdue can be broken.  Paralysis guarantees enough time for your untimely death if there's enough critters beating on you.
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Not just the movement lag, but it seems to lag up during combat as well, you can be watchin the combat on your screen and everything seems to be okay then it suddenly blows a whole bunch of results by you and your trying to save someone who is now nearly dead because it lagged up and you couldn't try and save them until they're almost dead.

jhunter
Quote from: Fnord on November 27, 2010, 01:55:19 PM
May the fap be with you, always. ;D

I have the same problem jhunter, as long as I'm inside the city I get zero lag. I can spar, I can socialize and I can craft and not get a single lick of lag for hours and hours on end. However, just like flipping a light switch, as soon as my character steps out those gates I've got a good 10-30 seconds lag. Not movement lag, but connection type lag. Then I go back into the city and the lag is gone.

I'm at a complete loss as to how to explain it, though.

Kind of funny how any and all lag questions turn into debates about movement lag though, isn't it? We sure like to beat the crap out of dead horses around here, it seems.
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