How to avoid character resets and death while logging off

[Mookie (original) 799]

Threads on this seem to descend quite quickly into flamewars a lot, so perhaps helpful if we pool our practical knowledge about avoiding these phenomena. I'm lumping them together because sometimes people are killed in the 30secs after logging, and therefore confuse the two.

 

I've somehow managed to avoid being reset or experiencing a logout death since the 0.49 wipe. This is probably quite a lot of luck, combined with some practical lessons. For what it's worth, this advice is aimed at all players, so if you're experienced and know it all already, please accept my apologies. Similarly, if I'm wrong about anything, or if you disagree, please feel free to correct me.

 

First: avoiding death while logging:

 

1. As a rule, try not to log out in or near a building, unless you are an uber-exploiting, ghosting PvPer. If you are logging back into a high pop server you will simply increase the chances of happening across another player who, startled at what s/he will see as your ghosting, will kill you. Similarly, Zs tend to be around buildings. Some players trust that closing doors behind them will rule out being bounced by a Z, but my faith in that isn't as strong as it could be just yet. Similarly, if you log out on an upper floor, you could find yourself stuck in the basement of the building when you log back in...

 

2. The best places to log out are in fir trees in the woods or behind bushes. Stay in game for at least a minute or two before you actually log out, in case you have been seen by a Z from a distance.

 

Second avoiding resets:

 

1. Let's get the obvious out of the way - you may have logged in to an experimental/first person server, which is a different hive and on which you will therefore start as a freshie. No problem. Just log back into to a third person server.

 

2. Some servers experience temporary, or longer-term disconnects with the main database/hive. If you're logging into a regular, third person server and experience this, hit escape as quickly as possible, in case the server manages to re-establish its connection with the public hive, and (unhelpfully) overwrites your character. Don't feel tempted to have a little splash about in the breaking surf, unless you actually want your heavily geared char to be dumped...

 

3. Some servers do not manage to make this connection with the main hive for several minutes after they restart. If you see a server at 9:01, or 12.02 or similar, think twice about connecting to it. Five or ten minutes past its restart clock time is usually ok.

 

4. Again, in this case it's possible that if you get back out quickly enough, your character will not be overwritten, and that if you go back into a different server, all will be well. But there is a lot of luck involved in this.

 

5. You can have a server in your favourites list and have used it many times in the past. That does not mean that it won't experience a problem, so don't assume that it's going to work for all time, or that if you log into it as a freshie, your character is gone for ever. If you're unlucky, you can log in repeatedly to servers which show you as a fresh spawn. That doesn't necessarily mean that your character is gone. I think my record (in 0.50) was eight different servers, all showing me as a bambi. I kept the faith (because they were showing me at different spawn points), and on the ninth, there was my guy in his Gorka-clad glory.

 

5. Reset problems seem more common after new patches, perhaps as servers are updated, etc. You may want to bear this in mind.

 

Anyway, hope this saves some lives and sorry about the wall of text.

[Mookie (original) 799]

Lesson learned today after a sweaty fifteen minutes; even if your character shows as a freshie on the main log-in screen, all may still be well.

[yazar8 584]

When I'm joining a server, If I get the "Wait for host" longer than 3 seconds, I abort the login. 

 

Haven't got a char wipe for a very long time. The last one was on the first week of November. And I can say I did it on purpose, joined a server straight after a restart, because I didn't feel like waiting much... But still I miracolusly saved my character, by spawnning between 1st person and third person, then a private hive, then back to the main server. I guess that was total chance, yeah..

 

My guess is that there is not one central hive, but many. Because that's what logical actually. If one has issues, you can use the backup one. Sometimes all of the hives are not updated as soon as possible, so if you get to find a chance which took your data from the other hive, you have a chance to survive (just a theory)

Edited December 22, 2014 by Yazar8

[thznutz 112]

good info presented clearly...thanks Mookie, have some beans :thumbsup: