Author Topic: Question about the upcoming hotfix
Churi-ya 
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Subject: Question about the upcoming hotfix
Does anyone know how serious this will effect Decal? Does anyone know which, if any "plug-ins" will need "cleaning up" to still function. Does anyone know if any plug-ins will still work at all?

Is it still to early to speculate?

 

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Paraduck 
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Subject: Question about the upcoming hotfix
Turbine never explicitly posted the threshold at which players would begin to be booted, so it's hard to predict with any great certainty. I don't expect LT or CraftBot to cause problems on their own, but we'll see tomorrow.

 

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Churi-ya 
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Subject: Question about the upcoming hotfix
Well, I certainly hope this isn't a move on Turbine's part to kill Decal itself. I can and do occassioanlly play Decal free. This said, for me, Decal and the various supporting plug-ins are a part of the game. Take it away - then you take away my enjoyment of the game. Now wait, just calm down you rabid anti-macro fanatics - I am talking about things like Castaway Bot, Buff Me, Alinco, Find It, Make It, Mule Trader - etc. Functionality that should have long since been IN GAME that isn't. Killing Decal is one way to ensure they (Turbine) can concentrate fully on LoTR and DnDo - as within a month, AC won't be fiscally solvent.

 

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Yula_the_Mighty 
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Subject: Question about the upcoming hotfix
It is simply a matter of the servers becoming overloaded due to the number of messages coming in from the clients.

In theory the other way to get around the problem is the replace all the hardware with modern servers. The game does not make enough money to justify that.

Turbine does not have anything against Decal or third party plugins. Certainly in cases like this Decal and its plugin buddies annoy the snot out of Crowley's people. I can not imagine Sev had much fun tracking this down. Or rreading all the complaints what the heck is his problem? Why does it take so long?

There is no hidden agenda here. Crowley's people did not create the problem in order to step on Decal. They did not drag their feet for almost three months to get us all worked up. They did not put in a change to destroy Decal and the plugins.

Most companies consider applications that spam messages as fast as can to their server software as a denial of service attack. They typically take extreme measures against these users.

In LOTRO is pretty easy to bump up against the message limits while using your mouse or keyboard. You do not get booted but you can not do anything that interacts with the server. You are locked out by the client. You get this fun message - Please slow down

 

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Jothony 
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Subject: Question about the upcoming hotfix
"Well, I certainly hope this isn't a move on Turbine's part to kill Decal itself....Killing Decal is one way to ensure they (Turbine) can concentrate fully on LoTR and DnDo - as within a month, AC won't be fiscally solvent."

If Turbine decided to shut down AC, I don't see them doing any long, convoluted process to accomplish it. They had no trouble shutting down AC2. As long as AC IS fiscally solvent, they have no reason to shut it down and turn off a source of profit.

I'm pretty sure that each game at Turbine has it's own team of developers. Not to say there isn't the occasional crossover, but shutting down AC isn't likely to make any change in the situation of the other games.

Decal was "broken" for many months after ToD came out. I think it would take a lot longer than 1 month to drive us all away lol.

 

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Churi-ya 
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Subject: Question about the upcoming hotfix
This is true - it would take longer than a month, though, sadly - that long period where there was no Decal with the Graphics Upgrade saw the end of literally hundreds of accounts. As I said before, I can and do routinely play without the aid of Decal. Though I do prefer the game with my conveniences. I personally get quite irritated at the people who log in after the monthly prop goes live, and ask on /general if Decal is up AND if the answer is no, they immediately log off. For them there IS no AC without Decal. I get it. But. I also have a character that I play excusively Decal Free. While he is fun to play, I will admit - he will never, ever, be super high level. I cannot see ever having the time or the patience to drone away inside a high yield XP dungeon for days and weeks on end - at the keyboard. While I may not have much sanity left, I would like to prefer the remaining bits as long as possible.

It would be nice to get modern, up to date, state of the art servers and equipment, a literal influx of all resources, a substantial upgrade to the graphics engine, yet leaving game play essentially untouched, many of the things we all like and prefer from our Decal Plug-ins integrated into the actual game - all of the nice things we have been asking for, for years. But as has been pointed out on mulitple occasions, the game is old and isn't the powerhouse it once was. The money just isn't there.

Ultimately, my worry is this. People lose what they have come to rely on, even for a little while, and they leave. They find something else to play. And for each one of these the numbers go down on the server populations - bringing us closer to that sadly inevitable day where there isn't an AC anymore. This I want to delay as long as humanly possible.

 

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JRexH 
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Subject: Question about the upcoming hotfix
I agree with Churi.

I'm almost one of those people who ask about Decal, and log off if it's not on. -- But, rather than logging, I go and do pointless stuff for a while.

My template can't function without buffbots. Being that buffots are usually abundant, it's not typically a problem.

But, no Decal, no buffbots. -- Some friendly people are willing to help buff you, but it's also difficult for -them- to buff -you- without Decal, and you don't really want to impose.

If Decal ends up indefinitely broken, I'm not sure if I would have nearly as much fun on AC. I've come to rely on too many things.

I doubt I would unsubscribe, but I'd very likely play less. (No big deal to Turbine, since they still get my $12.95, but, fewer people is bad for the health of the server, and will have sort of a snowball effect, that, if hardly anyone is playing, nobody will want to play. -- So, even if they wouldn't have canceled for loss of Decal, they may cancel from loss of people who rely on Decal.)

I hope things will turn out okay, though.

 

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Monolith_WE 
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Subject: Question about the upcoming hotfix
My question is, why has it not been a problem all these years, then all of a sudden?

 

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Magicon 
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Subject: Question about the upcoming hotfix
And with less player base no doubt. seems should have been addressed back in the hayday of things. lets be honest here, if it wasn't for plug ins for decal, AC would be in far worse shape than it is. Hopefully this wont screw up that.

 

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Yula_the_Mighty 
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Subject: Question about the upcoming hotfix
Monolith_WE posted:
My question is, why has it not been a problem all these years, then all of a sudden?
Each month Turbine puts more dung in the server bag for the server to run. AC is bigger each month requiring more memory and more CPU cycles. The Microsoft operating system grows or changes as time passes as each new service pack is applied. The same thing happens with the apps like anti-virus. They require more memory and more CPU after every update.

AC is like a lot of other real time apps. You keep adding dung and you get a gradual degradation in performance until you hit a breaking point. At which point the software just goes to pieces. That is what has happened with AC. When you hit a breaking point you only have three choices:

1) Roll the software back and stop making changes. That is never going to fly with the AC customers
2) Spend lots of money to buy new better hardware. Turbine not going to spend that kind of money.
3) Or do what they are doing - Restricting what the customer's actions

 

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Paraduck 
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Subject: Question about the upcoming hotfix
Monolith_WE posted:
My question is, why has it not been a problem all these years, then all of a sudden?
Most likely because the errant plugins did not exist then, or there were less people running them, or the messages were handled differently, etc. Hard to say for sure.

 

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