2007-12-11 13:57:08
A Little Respite for the Heroes
The Beta of the hardcore, sorry, heroic, version of DOFUS has come to an end and the release of Oto Mustam, the server which will cradle this new game mode, was imminent. No definitive release date has been announced for the server, however. So… what’s going on? Well, we delayed it.
Why we did that, you ask. For one, we have to wait for the migration to our new hoster before we do anything. Since the migration planned for the end of this year has been pushed back to the beginning of the next, the heroic server will have to wait patiently in the wings. But that’s not all. In actual fact, a deeper and more obstructive obstacle lies in our path (well, above all in the path of the the valiant developers, after all, I only stand back and watch… )
This strange problem quickly became evident to the beta-testers, and many reported its occurrence: Frequent disconnections. The very principle of the heroic server mode is that all death is permanent outside challenges. Well, that’s okay so far, for those of you who agree to take the risk… Unfortunately, unlike in an ordinary video game, where you can play away in peace on your own, with an MMORPG, the wellbeing of your modem comes into play… mini-interruptions in signal, server lags, mood swings on the part of your ISP… The terrain is much more complex. As irritating as it is in DOFUS (it’s a problem we’ve been working hard to solve), it’s simply critical in the heroic mode. The smallest reboot from your modem can fry your hero instantly and for good. Frustrating to say the least
We are in the process of examining any and all possible solutions to improving the stability of your DOFUS connection. The migration to our new server is an integral part of this, but we are also concentrating on getting to the root of the lags, as well as a re-evaluation of one of our oldest projects… the d/c system (to reconnect after being disconnected.)The principle is simple: keep a player from being excluded from combat (and declared the loser) if his modem has a hiccup.
So if your modem loses the connection for one hour it won’t change a thing, but in case of a smaller interruptions, or a nasty lag, you’ll be able to continue where you left off. In practice, it’s more complicated since DOFUS is not really a game that lends itself to all this, but we still hope one day to resolve the interaction between turn-based play and frequent disconnections.
Unfortunately all this takes time, and we have many projects, but we’re hoping to get as much of this new approach as possible into development before the release of the new Oto Mustam server… to serve you, O players, and to save your nerves.
We’ll be keeping you posted during the beginning of 2008! Well, happy playing to everyone, and keep training, one day you might become the strongest… You have the potential, I can tell! So don’t give up hope.
Why we did that, you ask. For one, we have to wait for the migration to our new hoster before we do anything. Since the migration planned for the end of this year has been pushed back to the beginning of the next, the heroic server will have to wait patiently in the wings. But that’s not all. In actual fact, a deeper and more obstructive obstacle lies in our path (well, above all in the path of the the valiant developers, after all, I only stand back and watch… )
This strange problem quickly became evident to the beta-testers, and many reported its occurrence: Frequent disconnections. The very principle of the heroic server mode is that all death is permanent outside challenges. Well, that’s okay so far, for those of you who agree to take the risk… Unfortunately, unlike in an ordinary video game, where you can play away in peace on your own, with an MMORPG, the wellbeing of your modem comes into play… mini-interruptions in signal, server lags, mood swings on the part of your ISP… The terrain is much more complex. As irritating as it is in DOFUS (it’s a problem we’ve been working hard to solve), it’s simply critical in the heroic mode. The smallest reboot from your modem can fry your hero instantly and for good. Frustrating to say the least
We are in the process of examining any and all possible solutions to improving the stability of your DOFUS connection. The migration to our new server is an integral part of this, but we are also concentrating on getting to the root of the lags, as well as a re-evaluation of one of our oldest projects… the d/c system (to reconnect after being disconnected.)The principle is simple: keep a player from being excluded from combat (and declared the loser) if his modem has a hiccup.
So if your modem loses the connection for one hour it won’t change a thing, but in case of a smaller interruptions, or a nasty lag, you’ll be able to continue where you left off. In practice, it’s more complicated since DOFUS is not really a game that lends itself to all this, but we still hope one day to resolve the interaction between turn-based play and frequent disconnections.
Unfortunately all this takes time, and we have many projects, but we’re hoping to get as much of this new approach as possible into development before the release of the new Oto Mustam server… to serve you, O players, and to save your nerves.
We’ll be keeping you posted during the beginning of 2008! Well, happy playing to everyone, and keep training, one day you might become the strongest… You have the potential, I can tell! So don’t give up hope.
Then you will have N people who join a battle, N-1 will disconnect and quickly reconnect, and then N different instances of the same mobs to solo will spawn. This will place a heavier load on the game servers and be a boon to the kama sellers.
I do applaud this dev blog posting because it gives me some hope that the game devs aren't totally blind in regards to what I feel is a very important issue, at least in my eyes. This issue is the idea that many "anti-cheater" policies and code hurt the honest players more than the dishonest ones.
Take the "anti-bot" and "anti-farming" code as a stark example of this. The in-game kama sellers have not (and will not) go away, yet we honest players can't play for very long before we are penalized as if we are the dishonest ones. This is a deep problem, for a highly skilled honest "farmer" attempting to rapidly procure many resources to boost crafting skills quickly is quite indistinguishable in play style from a robot "farmer" run by a kama selling company. Since I feel it is worse to hurt innocents than it is to penalize criminals, were I a game dev, I would opt to remove most of the code that is "anti-bot" or "anti-farmer".
I feel much the same about most MMORPG disconnection behavior. I do realize that if this weren't there, some players might cheat and disconnect to avoid a death or to retry the battle. However the internet is not reliable as all that, and honest disconnections followed by character death and penalties have been responsible for the loss of -many- a guild member in other games and I suspect Dofus is no different in this regard. Any move by the developers to lessen or eliminate a disconnection penalty is warmly welcomed by this poster.
I do applaud this dev blog posting because it gives me some hope that the game devs aren't totally blind in regards to what I feel is a very important issue, at least in my eyes. This issue is the idea that many "anti-cheater" policies and code hurt the honest players more than the dishonest ones.
Take the "anti-bot" and "anti-farming" code as a stark example of this. The in-game kama sellers have not (and will not) go away, yet we honest players can't play for very long before we are penalized as if we are the dishonest ones. This is a deep problem, for a highly skilled honest "farmer" attempting to rapidly procure many resources to boost crafting skills quickly is quite indistinguishable in play style from a robot "farmer" run by a kama selling company. Since I feel it is worse to hurt innocents than it is to penalize criminals, were I a game dev, I would opt to remove most of the code that is "anti-bot" or "anti-farmer".
I feel much the same about most MMORPG disconnection behavior. I do realize that if this weren't there, some players might cheat and disconnect to avoid a death or to retry the battle. However the internet is not reliable as all that, and honest disconnections followed by character death and penalties have been responsible for the loss of -many- a guild member in other games and I suspect Dofus is no different in this regard. Any move by the developers to lessen or eliminate a disconnection penalty is warmly welcomed by this poster.
By: Dreamingness - (2008-01-08 10:52:47)
Please read this forum topic which contains some well-discussed, foolproof solutions to the disconnection problem. I think the best one is on the second page: http://forum.dofus.com/topic.php?id=55803
By: Elusial - (2008-01-10 16:41:56)
What about when you disconnect in a battle it saves the progress of that battle so when you relog you can continue that fight. That way when someone is exedently logged out by loosing internet or power, he or she is able to continue and win the battle. In multiplayer battles it yust takes you from the battle and let the other player go on. But when you relog you continue to fight the rest of the monsters on your own. Although some drops are rare and can only be dropped once a battle. For this is say the other players who didnt disconnect get the drops they would also get with the disconnected player and when the player relogs he can fight for the remaining resources and items.