In each and every design I dream up, I always encounter the same problem: if I want to incorporate a permanent death, how do I deal with online gaming? What happens when a player gets disconnected? If they''ve been playing a character for days and get killed because of a technical problem, you pretty much ruin the gaming experience. I still use dial-up, and tried to give Diablo II Hardcore a try. Even got up as high as level 8 I think before it happened... disconnect, death. One solution, be it not perfect, is to give players the ability to create scripts that their character will automatically perform upon a disconnect. When disconnect: -Run -Fight to death, using combat mode ''full attack'' -Fight to 50% health, then run -Fight as long as all other teammembers are alive, if one dies, run -Cast spell to get out of combat (invisibility, teleport) -Drink available healing potions. When out of healing potions, run Just one example of how to deal with a disconnect, but are there any other good ways? (actually, the scripting option works out well in my game plan, as it gives the player the ability to transfer a personality upon the character. If you set your disconnect-script to ''run'' no matter what, you''ve just created a more cowardly character. If you set it to ''fight to death'' you created a brave (perhaps stupid) character)

Is there any way that perma-death could not apply upon disconnect? I know it creates the obvious problem of players yanking their connection when they know they''re about to die, but even with scripts I don''t think its a good idea to penalize the player so severely. With such a heavy consequence, they should be directly responsible and in charge when they die. I''d think not even something as small as UI should get in the way, and certainly not a modem problem.

You could use both a script and immunity, maybe. So if the player disconnects / is disconnected they stick around for awhile, then go invulnerable?

Or maybe you could just make them invulnerable but have only something like a disconnect allowance based on an average of the subscribers in their area?

This is a tough one to solve!



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Just waiting for the mothership...

WAV:

Tough indeed.

I''d hate to give players immunity, as one of the reasons to use permanent death is to give that added challenge of staying alive. It''s just too easy to just disconnect at a tense moment.

I guess you could think up systems that would use a limited amount of times that you can be disconnected and gain invulnerability for a few moments... or give players a set amount of those immunity instants (secret? random?)

Question:

Dial-up users: how many times would you say you get disconnected? How long on average before a disconnect happens?

Cable users: same question.

DSL users: same question.

Any other type of connection: same question

I'm not hesitant to point out that it is just as likely to stay connected, but lag so badly the server drops you and one side must resync before things even out again. Anybody doing decent TCP/IP knows about this and has to code special cases for things like SO_LINGER times, general case timeouts, and thrown socket errors.

Here's a radical idea. If you die, the PC you just croaked (either by foolishness, failure, or disconnect) goes to some kind of virtual afterlife and stays there equipped but dead for X number of game turns or hours/days or whatever.

If the player got disconnected, he can reconnect and go on a RECLAIM QUEST to retrieve the items or cash or powers once held by that previous player, before the funeral is over and the previous player character is de-rezzed (muahahaha Tron 0wnz! ).

This would defeat the script kiddie crap of pre-empting character death by hitting the power button, especially if you factor in that the ONLY time you can do a reclaim quest is the FIRST quest immediately following the death, assuming the de-rez timer has not yet expired. The items should be downgraded, damaged, or even looted, so that dying still carries a price no matter what.

If the player cannot complete the reclaim quest in timely fashion, he loses his old kit and essentially continues on throughout the game world as he would ordinarily.

Realistically there is only so much you can do to mitigate the drawbacks of your connection sucking hind tit. If you have good gameplay and good design, the connection will be upgraded to resolve player issues (I ought to know, I got DSL just to play UT and Homeworld, what a joke THAT idea was!).

I think of it as though I am Mohammed when I am building the gameplay, but I am the Mountain when it comes to connectivity. I am not responsible for some poor kid trying to play my game through AOHell on a noise-littered POP.

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-WarMage
...because going to hell is only fun if you get to come back and brag about it.





Edited by - WarMage on July 12, 2001 5:48:13 PM

quote: Original post by Silvermyst
Question:

Dial-up users: how many times would you say you get disconnected? How long on average before a disconnect happens?

Many users here in the UK are on a system where we get entirely free internet access, but get automatically disconnected after 2 hrs. We can dial right back up again, but that disconnection is gonna happen exactly on time, whether we''re in the middle of a fight or not. Food for thought.

quote:
Many users here in the UK are on a system where we get entirely free internet access, but get automatically disconnected after 2 hrs. We can dial right back up again, but that disconnection is gonna happen exactly on time, whether we''re in the middle of a fight or not. Food for thought.

Many people in the US are on similar systems. My question, however, would be ''Is that your only resonable choice?'' What I tell people who are using systems like that and complain about service is ''You get what you pay for.'' It is harsh, but it is the truth. Also, if you know you are going to be disconnected every two hours, you could (all-be-it a real pain) stop at a safe point just before that mark, disconnect, then reconnect. The bigger issue, IMO, is with pay services that just drop your connection for no reason.

Streich

quote: Original post by Streich
Many people in the US are on similar systems. My question, however, would be ''Is that your only resonable choice?''

Yes. Take a look at European phone rates and you''ll see that it is.

quote: What I tell people who are using systems like that and complain about service is ''You get what you pay for.''

I wasn''t complaining about service... just offering advice to someone writing a game. If your game design excludes large numbers of people, then it''s no good complaining when you don''t get as many people as you want.

The other thing is what about when their computer crashes because it is a lame pice of crap like mine is

I hardly every get disconnected, but my computer locks up rather frequently mostly 'cause it's underpowered. It's often right on the edge of the minimum requirements



...A CRPG in development...

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.


Edited by - Nazrix on July 15, 2001 5:29:14 PM

NAZRIX:

So true. My disconnects and crashes were pretty much even when I used to play Everquest (probably because of a memory problem that was finally fixed when I replaced the memory).

I''m just almost convinced that to give a player any kind of real challenge you HAVE to come up with a way that will deal with disconnects and crashes WITHOUT giving the player an easy way out of a tough situation.
("Oh no, I''m almost dead... what should I do? Aha... REBOOT")

I think it''s acceptable to give the player the option to use any of the available AI features. I mean, that would at least give them an even chance to survive, and depending on their choices (using the character''s strengths and weaknesses to determine the AI settings) can maybe even overpower any enemy forces (I think that I''d prefer a ''run away'' option for my disconnects and crashes, but if my character is slow, I might as well stay and fight).




Ol'' Silvermyst doesn''t even know how to program his own VCR, so take ANYthing he says with a big pile of salt...

Well this won''t cure your situation, but would help. You could adopt the Landfishian philosophies and have combat be a rare occurance. Again I know it doesn''t fix everything but I do think it could help significantly.



...A CRPG in development...

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.