A Message From Mender Silos: Derek's Disaster!

[Shandirra]

There is a league forming in KW2. Please bring the MM to KW2 as well.

[Giovanni Valia]

It's happening. The END!

[Deadly Fredly]

The admin  inability to plan for it being a multi-instance event makes me just resent this Monster Mash idea rather than celebrate it. Think harder and plan better next time. 

[Jimmy]

45 minutes ago, Shandirra said:

KW2 is up since KW1 is full. Will the event also come to KW2?

Unfortunately not 😞

 

The event is very intricate and manually run, and we've only got limited time on our hands. It's not possible to do it in two places at once which is why we're doing different dates on different shards. Each Kalisti Wharf instance supports 200 players (higher than any other zone) and even then, the server struggles to keep up with everything.

 

This is our first attempt at doing something like this - if it goes well, we'll certainly look to do more runs the next time around!

[ImpousVileTerror]

As far as experimenting with varied community appreciation events like this, I think you're doing an okay job, Homecoming Team.  As previously said by others; so long as these events are not something -unique- in a "miss it and there will never be anything else like it" manner, then I think it's alright for it to be a little cumbersome the first few times its run.  Not perfect, and maybe not even ideal, but the effort is appreciated.  And if critiques and feedback lead to even greater events in the future, then that's all for the better!

 

Perhaps a Weekly Discussion on Special Events would be a good subject to slip in to August or September, @GM Miss?

[Giovanni Valia]

Thanks for hosting the event GMs. It was a bit of a slideshow with the input lag and 14 FPS, but still. I had fun and thought the event was amusing. Like VileTerror said, I'm against having one time, you're there or you miss it event badges. Killing GMs with the rest of the community was reward enough IMO.

[GM Miss]

43 minutes ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

As far as experimenting with varied community appreciation events like this, I think you're doing an okay job, Homecoming Team.  As previously said by others; so long as these events are not something -unique- in a "miss it and there will never be anything else like it" manner, then I think it's alright for it to be a little cumbersome the first few times its run.  Not perfect, and maybe not even ideal, but the effort is appreciated.  And if critiques and feedback lead to even greater events in the future, then that's all for the better!

 

Perhaps a Weekly Discussion on Special Events would be a good subject to slip in to August or September, @GM Miss?

We have actually had one of those already, but one in the future is totally possible! 

Thanks for coming out everyone - we had a ton of fun! See you guys on the other shards later this month! 

[50caltech]

3 hours ago, Deadly Fredly said:

The admin  inability to plan for it being a multi-instance event makes me just resent this Monster Mash idea rather than celebrate it. Think harder and plan better next time. 

agreed......too few times planned with the limited amount of players in one zone only.......plus the fact that with so  many accounts on each server and every ones alts......many players will not be able to participate...todays first event had players fill the zone ahead of the time to start by one hour and the second zone was filling too........

Edited July 11, 2020 by 50caltech

[GastlyGibus]

I really hate to be the stick in the mud here. Truly, I do. And don't get me wrong, I appreciate everything you guys do to keep this game alive and give us (sometimes ungrateful) players cool events and things to do. It's a noble effort and I greatly commend your efforts. 

 

However, with that being said, this "Monster Mash" was just not fun. 

 

I logged out about twenty minutes in because the lag made the game literally unplayable. In those twenty minutes where I was there, I was able to fire off maybe five whole attacks. I even lowered my graphics settings to the absolute bare minimum. That helped a lot with framerate, but the lag was insurmountable. Having 200 players all crammed together in one spot, all firing off their entire powersets, along with massive spawns of monsters and baddies, just killed the connection. And as I told my league last night, "I didn't wait here to an hour just so I could stand here and lag to death."

 

If at all possible, things like this need to be spread out. If each of the leagues were each put in their own little corner of the map, it might help. But with how bad it was with lagging and connectivity, I just couldn't be bothered to stick around. I hope something can be done in the future to prevent this, but as it stands now, I won't be participating in future Monster Mashes with lag issues like this. 

Edited July 11, 2020 by GastlyGibus

[Yunamoi]

The event was a really nice idea, I agree with that and I would've been able to handle the lag and the framerates. 

My biggest problem was. that there were no rewards: I barely got any influence, XP was pretty damn low too and I did not get a single badge. 

 

The chat you guys prepared was really funny, though I did not wait 2 hours to read a funny chat.

As long as there are no more rewards than "you can do something with the community", which I do almost everyday, I won't be participating either.

 

Still, thank you for thinking of events and trying to keep this game alive! I really appreciate your efforts.

[Apparition]

2 hours ago, Yunamoi said:

The event was a really nice idea, I agree with that and I would've been able to handle the lag and the framerates. 

My biggest problem was. that there were no rewards: I barely got any influence, XP was pretty damn low too and I did not get a single badge. 

 

The chat you guys prepared was really funny, though I did not wait 2 hours to read a funny chat.

As long as there are no more rewards than "you can do something with the community", which I do almost everyday, I won't be participating either.

 

Still, thank you for thinking of events and trying to keep this game alive! I really appreciate your efforts.

Uh... Could you imagine the absolute outrage that would occur if a badge was given during an event that only 200 people could attend out of thousands or even tens of thousands?

[Skyhawke]

14 hours ago, Deadly Fredly said:

The admin  inability to plan for it being a multi-instance event makes me just resent this Monster Mash idea rather than celebrate it. Think harder and plan better next time. 

We seriously need “facepalm” added to the reaction emojis...

[DoctorDitko]

"I hate this free lunch!

And the portions are too small!"

 

 

...

Thanks for trying, devs!

Limitations of the game engine, manpower, or playerbase aren't your fault!

 

Technically, could clientside settings like Turn off Sending Buffs (forget the exact name) help at all?

Edited July 11, 2020 by DoctorDitko

[Jimmy]

8 minutes ago, DoctorDitko said:

Technically, could clientside settings like Turn off Sending Buffs (forget the exact name) help at all?

It depends on the exact issue you're encountering - there's two distinct problems:

 

Latency

• Caused by communication problems between your machine and the server
• The game was simply not designed to have 200 players fighting an army of enemies in one zone, so the mapserver starts chugging when we do stuff like this - and when the mapserver starts to struggle, you'll experience rubberbanding and powers taking a while to fire off (spreading out in the same zone wouldn't help with this)
• The best way to combat this is lowering the population cap in the zone back to a normal level (100~), but of course that means less players being able to participate - so it's a balancing act between stability and capacity
• A poor quality connection between yourself and the server can also exacerbate this issue due to the sheer amount of information that your client needs to receive (the setting you mentioned could potentially help mitigate this)
• Minimizing use of pets can also help a bit (we were routinely culling pets last night!)

Framerate

• Caused by your machine not being able to keep up with the insanity
• Not moving around much helps with this (When you move from place to place, the client has to very quickly load in all the entities in the new location you've moved to - staying raltively still means it only needs to load in the entities that walk towards / away from you)
• This can also be mitigated by turning your graphics options down

20 hours ago, Deadly Fredly said:

The admin  inability to plan for it being a multi-instance event makes me just resent this Monster Mash idea rather than celebrate it. Think harder and plan better next time. 

16 hours ago, 50caltech said:

agreed......too few times planned with the limited amount of players in one zone only.......plus the fact that with so  many accounts on each server and every ones alts......many players will not be able to participate...todays first event had players fill the zone ahead of the time to start by one hour and the second zone was filling too........

To give you an idea of the various factors we've got to balance:

1. The available time of our volunteers (planning and executing these events is no small feat)
2. The number of players that want to participate (nearly impossible to gauge in advance)
3. The stability of the event
4. Keeping the event fun for those that participate
5. Ensuring the event is not so special that it upsets those that can't make it (due to capacity or inability to make the limited time windows).

The lag was unpleasant for sure, but you the zone was full around 15 minutes (not an hour) before the event began, so anyone that turned up less than 15 minutes early wasn't able to participate - which, of course, really sucks. That problem would get worse if we made the event more exclusive and allowed fewer players to participate in order to reduce the latency issues. I think a little extra lag is a fine price to play to allow more players to join in.

 

We are reading all the feedback and will be improving where can - but everyone also needs to remember that this is a free, volunteer-run server, and their expectations should be set accordingly. We're going to do our best for as many players as we can with the resources that we have 🙂

 

With all that being said though - based on the in-game feedback from those that managed to participate last night - we're really happy with how it went, especially given that this is our first time doing something like this on one of the live shards!

[Patti]

What about rolling zone events like end of villains beta?   Tour zones in two teams of gm/devs.  One broadcasting their zones only when they arrive and the other team going to zones they pre-announced on the boards here?  Players can preplanned which zone to be ready in or they can gamble and try to chase the monster mash team as they zone.

[DoctorDitko]

Thanks much, Jimmy, for the edifying answer!

 

Does anyone know if Is there a list of best practices for this sort of event?

 

If not; suggested, based on above:

 

* GFX to minimum

* Kill all network-using processes except CoH; maybe even kick other users from LAN.

* Send no buffs

* Hide sfx when close

* Fewest pets possible

* Simplest costume available

* No auras

 

Starts to sound like Hami Raid suggestions, doesn't it? Granted, if I do this, it may not be appreciably helpful. But if everyone did it...

 

Incidentally, I've had trouble increasing the priority of the CoH process, it always reverts to "Below Normal." If there is a way to do that, can anyone share? Also, has anyone done A/B testing with the net error correction settings?

 

(Makes me long for the Windows XP days, when I replaced the windows desktop process with CoH. Saved a lot of CPU cycles back in the day!)

Edited July 12, 2020 by DoctorDitko

[DoctorDitko]

I was there for the Torchbearer event last night, and it seemed to go pretty smoothly, if at 24fps maximum.

 

Thanks for putting in the time and effort, guys!

 

[50caltech]

where is the turn in spot for the halloween salvage? normally it would be atlas/mercy or croatoa?  or do we wait untill this falls actual halloween event?

[ImpousVileTerror]

Croatoa and Nerva Archipelago.

The old witches in both of these locations have always been year-round, even on Legacy.  This was done to make it easy for players to get their costume slots on Alts during the off-season.

 

The Croatoa Witch is just south of the Tram, hugging the exterior wall dividing the town from the forest.
The Nerva Witch is on the tiny island you land on when you use the Base Telepad to access Nerva.

 

Edited July 13, 2020 by ImpousVileTerror
Further details.

[50caltech]

16 minutes ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

Croatoa and Nerva Archipelago.

The old witches in both of these location shave always been year-round, even on Legacy.  This was done to make it easy for players to get their costume slots on Alts during the off-season.

 

The Croatoa Witch is just south of the Tram, hugging the exterior wall dividing the town from the forest.
The Nerva Witch is on the tiny island you land on when you use the Base Telepad to access Nerva.

 

thanks

[Panthonca7034]

I was there for the Monster Mash, and got a few attacks in, but right before the pictures were gonna be taken, I got mapserved and I couldn't get back in afterwards... Felt kind of left out... 😞

[skoryy]

Here's some shots from today's Monster Mash.  Even Mender Brax was getting into the music!

 

[GM Brax]

Never let it be said that Menders are no fun!  Some of us wanna punch a hole in the sky!  Derek took that sentiment a little TOO literally!

Edited July 18, 2020 by GM Brax

[Captain Valiant]

On 7/18/2020 at 3:34 PM, skoryy said:

Here's some shots from today's Monster Mash.  Even Mender Brax was getting into the music!

 

Thanks for a great event and great pics. I am especially thankful that my head was cut off in that last one, as the "Ultimate Hero" product I was using in my hair didn't stand up to its advertised holding claims. I even managed to snag the "Watches the Watchers" badge during the Black Knight segment.

 

[GM Miss]

Dont forget about the costume contest on the 25th, see you all there!