Server Hopping Solution - Items don't save on player until X minutes after found

[DadisAjax 1]

This seems easy to solve. Simply make all player items not save to their character until a set amount of time AFTER they are picked up. Ie. they save with a post-date-stamp when picked up so that if the player logs out before the item timestamp it won't appear with them the next time they log in. That way, there will be no benefit of jumping from server to server looking to stock up on rare loot as you'd have to stick around and survive for at least X minutes (maybe 15?) before you get to keep it after you log out.

Or, make the time delay 5 minutes per log-in/out over the past 30 minutes. If you have to change servers because of a crash, lag, time of day, or because you crashed, no big deal, you only loose the last 5 minutes of items looted. But if you've server hopped 8 different places to find that uber gun you've been looking for, you now have to wait and survive 40 minutes before it's actually yours to keep. And if the server crashes in that 40 minutes... too bad. That's the risk you run for "cheating" the system in the first place.

Also, ammo more than say 1 mag of each type shouldn't jump servers with you at all. That way military weapons users have to work to keep their ammo instead of jumping servers with hundreds of rounds expecting to get into firefights with no worries.

[YoChris 1]

so what if server crashed within that time? or someone loses connection within this time because of the server? would be a little bit unfair.

Best solution would be that players can only play on 2-3 max servers a day?

[Tomez 1]

Best solution would be that players can only play on 2-3 max servers a day?

That, or there could be some kind of "cooldown" period for joining a server after you've disconnected from another server. Maybe something like 5 minutes would be enough. I think this could be quite easily implemented since every player needs to load the profile data from the main server..

[Miragenz 71]

so what if server crashed within that time? or someone loses connection within this time because of the server? would be a little bit unfair.

Best solution would be that players can only play on 2-3 max servers a day?

In theory that works, but currently i tend to switch alot due to incorrect times announced by the server, making it a pitch black night instead of day, ridiculous amounts of lag making it impossible to play.

And especially if you want to play with someone else, or play abit in the morning, afternoon or evening.

With the current unstable servers it wont work, maybe if the servers ever get stable and smooth.

[thygrrr 1]

I have a better, even simpler (i.e. programmer's) solution that doesn't restrict the non-hopping players:

Save any picked up items along with the server on which they were found (e.g. save pairs of data, timestamp + sourceserver) ... then, upon logging into a new server, if currenttime - timestamp > X or currentserver == sourceserver, spawn item in inventory, else discard item (or maybe reserve it on the server the player comes back to, unless overwritten (check space requirements, discard excess based on timestamp)).

That's like 20 lines of python code if you do it right.

It could curb server hopping a lot, I'm sure.

[DadisAjax 1]

so what if server crashed within that time? or someone loses connection within this time because of the server? would be a little bit unfair.

IMHO, that would be a very small price to pay for the benefit of not having players running around with hundreds of rounds of military ammo and every other rare loot in the game after only living for less than one day.

[liquidje 38]

This seems easy to solve. Simply make all player items not save to their character until a set amount of time AFTER they are picked up. Ie. they save with a post-date-stamp when picked up so that if the player logs out before the item timestamp it won't appear with them the next time they log in. That way' date=' there will be no benefit of jumping from server to server looking to stock up on rare loot as you'd have to stick around and survive for at least X minutes (maybe 15?) before you get to keep it after you log out.

Or, make the time delay 5 minutes per log-in/out over the past 30 minutes. If you have to change servers because of a crash, lag, time of day, or because you crashed, no big deal, you only loose the last 5 minutes of items looted. But if you've server hopped 8 different places to find that uber gun you've been looking for, you now have to wait and survive 40 minutes before it's actually yours to keep. And if the server crashes in that 40 minutes... too bad. That's the risk you run for "cheating" the system in the first place.

Also, ammo more than say 1 mag of each type shouldn't jump servers with you at all. That way military weapons users have to work to keep their ammo instead of jumping servers with hundreds of rounds expecting to get into firefights with no worries.

[/quote']

The point that time limits, cooldowns and "x range outside of loot place" systems have to have very high limits, as making people wait 5 minutes would just let people wait 5 minutes, and then continue doing it!