Character resets

[Ghostflux 100]

Lately my character does get reset pretty often due to "Unable to load character, your character has been reset. A system administrator has been notified".

 

My question is, why does the server automate this process instead of letting the player choose if he wants the server to reset his character. A simple "Character was not found. Do you want to create a new character? Warning: Creating a new character will wipe all saved progress!"  message with a yes/no choice would be plenty.

[fnal 206]

Because the developers would have to set aside a lot of time to code in this prompt feature when there are more pressing issues to address. 

[Ghostflux 100]

Because the developers would have to set aside a lot of time to code in this prompt feature when there are more pressing issues to address. 

 

More pressing issues? Such as?

I'd say that any issues that completely wipe all the progress you make are pretty pressing. And let's be honest here, the amount of new code would be quite insubstancial. Message prompts are already in the game, and are very easily made. The function behind the prompt, such as the results of pressing yes or no are slightly more time consuming. But again, it's simply introducing a choice to a feature that is already in the game. So I honestly don't believe that it will cost "a lot of time".

[Flight96 99]

More pressing issues? Such as?

 

I think it pretty much goes without saying that our character's "progression" does NOT take priorty over things such as game optimization and stability at this current point in the game's development.

Edited January 14, 2014 by Flight96

[Ghostflux 100]

I think it pretty much goes without saying that your character's "progression" does NOT take priorty over things such as game optimization and stability at this current point in the game's development.

 

Optimization is not a feature, it's a work in progress. You don't finish optimization before you introduce new features. New features are likely to destabilize the build anyways, so it doesn't make any sense to talk about priorities when they are clearly seperate subjects.

 

Stability on the other hand is a very broad subject, character synchronisation within any given hive is one of the core features of this game and pretty tied into what you call stability. It doesn't really matter if you crash or if your character gets wiped, gameplay is interrupted and that's severe enough to require attention.

[fnal 206]

More pressing issues? Such as?

I'd say that any issues that completely wipe all the progress you make are pretty pressing. And let's be honest here, the amount of new code would be quite insubstancial. Message prompts are already in the game, and are very easily made. The function behind the prompt, such as the results of pressing yes or no are slightly more time consuming. But again, it's simply introducing a choice to a feature that is already in the game. So I honestly don't believe that it will cost "a lot of time".

 

I'm not sure you quite understand how programming works.  Do you program by any chance?  Just because a game has prompts doesn't mean any prompt you want to add will be cake.  And it is the very function of the prompt that would take time to code, which could also lead to other issues that aren't important right now.  Nevertheless, the developers have their hands full and the best thing to do would be to submit a report in the feedback tracker with as much relevant information that you can give.

[Ghostflux 100]

I'm not sure you quite understand how programming works.  Do you program by any chance?  Just because a game has prompts doesn't mean any prompt you want to add will be cake.  And it is the very function of the prompt that would take time to code, which could also lead to other issues that aren't important right now.  Nevertheless, the developers have their hands full and the best thing to do would be to submit a report in the feedback tracker with as much relevant information that you can give.

 

Let's just say that I've got a bit of experience, but let's leave it at that. It doesn't really matter. I can think of plenty of things that I could ask that would take a lot of time to complete. This however isn't one of them.

[shadowjack 254]

•  

  More pressing issues? Such as?

  I'd say that any issues that completely wipe all the progress you make are pretty pressing.

  The ONLY progress that matters at this stage of the game is the development of the game. Character progress counts for nothing and as an alpha participant you need to get your mind wrapped around that concept.

          I would think frequent resets are vital for the devs to get a feel for if character progression is flowing as they intend.

[djporternz 644]

Lately my character does get reset pretty often due to "Unable to load character, your character has been reset. A system administrator has been notified".

 

My question is, why does the server automate this process instead of letting the player choose if he wants the server to reset his character. A simple "Character was not found. Do you want to create a new character? Warning: Creating a new character will wipe all saved progress!"  message with a yes/no choice would be plenty.

Simple really. Your character didn't load. Therefore there was no character to load. Your character is already hosed, your progress is already gone, so where is the benefit from having any sort of yes/no prompt. It's just telling you the facts. There is no way back from here, you will respawn on the coast, and you will not have your gear with you.

 

One caveat, though, and it might only be applicable during the current Alpha. Sometimes after getting this message on a non-official server and going IMMEDIATELY back to an official server, I have managed to retrieve a 'lost' character. Seems to be a few people with paid servers (I'm loathe to miss-call them private servers ATM) are fiddling about in configs they shouldn't be or have severly misconfigured their servers.

Edited January 14, 2014 by DJPorterNZ

[Ghostflux 100]

 

•  

  The ONLY progress that matters at this stage of the game is the development of the game. Character progress counts for nothing and as an alpha participant you need to get your mind wrapped around that concept.

          I would think frequent resets are vital for the devs to get a feel for if character progression is flowing as they intend.

 

 

I'd respectfully disagree with that, in order for players to provide feedback they must have access to all available parts of the game. Let's say you want to test late-game features, but due to instability players never reach that point or stay alive long enough to try out the content. It would eventually mean that early-game features get tested far better than lategame features do. I am very aware of what an alpha is and I don't have any problems with having my progress wiped for the sake of development. Having my progress wiped for nothing however is just frustrating and doesn't work towards me giving better feedback about the game.

 

Simple really. Your character didn't load. Therefore there was no character to load. Your character is already hosed, your progress is already gone, so where is the benefit from having any sort of yes/no prompt. It's just telling you the facts. There is no way back from here, you will respawn on the coast, and you will not have your gear with you.

 

One caveat, though, and it might only be applicable during the current Alpha. Sometimes after getting this message on a non-official server and going IMMEDIATELY back to an official server, I have managed to retrieve a 'lost' character. Seems to be a few people with paid servers (I'm loathe to miss-call them private servers ATM) are fiddling about in configs they shouldn't be or have severly misconfigured their servers.

 

So let's see if I understand what's happening here.

 

The server you play on sends information about your location and gear to the hive where it can be fetched by any other server you play on. Sometimes the synchronisation between the game server and the hive doesn't work properly. What I do know however is that returning to the last server you've played on often allows you to recover your character if it hasn't been reset by joining another server. It then apparantly manages to resychronise properly and your character is once again safe from deletion. So if the reset doesn't happen automatically, you can atleast attempt to recover your character.

I used to think these issues were common on private servers, but lately I've been joining only official servers and these share the same issues.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Ghostflux

[blacklabel79 949]

how can you tell your "Progress" wasent whiped for testing purposes ?

 

 

Having my progress wiped for nothing however is just frustrating and doesn't work towards me giving better feedback about the game.

 

Playing Alpha Versions of whatever game will allways lead to all kinds of "frustrating" moments.

 

 

 

Anyways. I had the same happen as you when i thought my CHAR is gone but after loging in later everything was back and "fine".

 

Plus, there is enough warnings about that kind of thing, so it shouldent be suprising that it happens.

Edited January 15, 2014 by {Core}BlackLabel

[Ghostflux 100]

how can you tell your "Progress" wasent whiped for testing purposes ?

 

 

Playing Alpha Versions of whatever game will allways lead to all kinds of "frustrating" moments.

 

 

 

Anyways. I had the same happen as you when i thought my CHAR is gone but after loging in later everything was back and "fine".

 

Plus, there is enough warnings about that kind of thing, so it shouldent be suprising that it happens.

 

 

Because of two reasons I can tell it's not for testing purposes:

1. Any wipe for development purposes will probably be announced as a part of updating the game.

2. It would happen to everybody at roughly the same time, not just me.

 

It seems that you are quick to put me into the category "Didn't read or comprehend the warnings", yet that isn't my point to begin with. I am pretty accepting of the fact that this is an alpha and that it has it's issues. Heck I play the game a lot and I come across these issues every day that I have no problems with. I don't even have any issues with the fact that this does happen at this point in time. But instead of people sticking to the subject, they'd rather give me some run off the mill answer that isn't even worth discussing or learning anything from.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Ghostflux

[Boxxy (DayZ) 22]

There's no database yet, people have been having this problem all the time.