Devs please - Protect us already :(

[Lord Chaos]

With the new patches the client is more unstable than ever, my client crashes every now and then. I can live with that.

But PLEASE make it so that if you have not taken any PvP damage within one minute and are in some way disconnected, crashed or otherwise unable to play, then your character gets removed from the game for a grace period of maybe 2 minute or so, to allow us to restart our machines or restart the client.

So many times I've been killed by some little mob simply because the client have crashed, its even worse as a tamer, because your pet logs out, but you don't, so your tamer is left at the mercy at whatever mobs you were fighting.

Even worse, many mobs loot, so not only do I die, but they loot me as well and I have no idea which mob has taken it as I would be restarting the client.

So devs, please give us a grace period on crash or disconnect. As said, it wouldn't affect PvP, as it wouldn't work if you recieved PvP damage.

 

[canary]

With the new patches the client is more unstable than ever, my client crashes every now and then. I can live with that.

Well, honestly, if you want to say 'than ever' you'd be wrong, I think most long term vets can testify the client is WAY more stable than it ever was say, 7-12 years ago.

Not to say I love dying when the client does crash, mind you... just a feature I've grown accustomed to.

 

[Lord Chaos]

No, my statement is correct for me, I have never crashed as much and as often since the last major patch. Never in the over 12 years I've played.

Other than that, no, its just no fun going off hunting and then die due to no fault of your own and its unpreventable.

It not a challenge, its just dying with no chance whatsoever and its getting really tiring.

 

[Old Man of UO]

You must be using the old client, but then like Canary said, the classic client has always had stability issues.

Try the new enhanced client. I have to say that the enhanced client is more stable for me than any previous version of either client.

 

[Kellgory]

Sunday I was crashing quite a bit on the 2d client, but it seemed the majority of it was caused by pulling health bars just as the person was killed.

 

[Llewen]

I use the enhanced client and I very rarely crash, and I don't think I've crashed once since pub 66.

Sunday I was crashing quite a bit on the 2d client, but it seemed the majority of it was caused by pulling health bars just as the person was killed.

The 2d client has always had stability issues around death. I remember I used to crash almost every time a pet was killed in the middle of being healed, whether it was my pet or someone else's. I used to dread the sound of a pet dying. It took me some time to get over that after switching to the enhanced client.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Even if I were to use that incredibly ugly client, it wouldn't help anything, it doesn't prevent crashing, computer instabilities, connections lost, etc.

Honestly, how does dying to this enhance the game in any way? It wouldn't unbalance anything or make anything worse to give a grace period when disconnected. (either through crash, disconnect, etc.)

 

[Lord Chaos]

I use the enhanced client and I very rarely crash, and I don't think I've crashed once since pub 66.

Can you please stick to the topic and not derail the thread into a client war?

It doesn't matter what client is more stable, computers crash, programs crash, connections are temporarily lost, etc. the reasons are numerous, the point is that its not fair or fun to just let people die because of it and there should be some safeguard towards this.

 

[Black Sun]

it doesn't prevent crashing, computer instabilities, connections lost, etc.

No client is going to cure computer instabilities, that's unique to your machine. That's a big part of your crashing problems right there.

 

[Lord Chaos]

the topic is not about clients or peoples computers, please stick to the topic and quit derailing this into a client war or computer discussion.

 

[Llewen]

Even if I were to use that incredibly ugly client, it wouldn't help anything, it doesn't prevent crashing, computer instabilities, connections lost, etc.

Didn't a couple of us who actually use the client just tell you it is far more stable than the 2d client?

As for the op, I think this could be abused, even in pvm, and it would completely remove the tiny place that fires and camping have in the game, especially with the Siege/Muge rules set, where it actually can still be useful.

 

[Black Sun]

the topic is not about clients or peoples computers, please stick to the topic and quit derailing this into a client war or computer discussion.

You can't discuss a "fix" for a perceived problem without discussing the problem's causes.

 

[Winker]

Play with a group of friends, who are in vent with you. When you crash ask them to invis you. Job done!

 

[Lord Chaos]

As for the op, I think this could be abused, even in pvm, and it would completely remove the tiny place that fires and camping have in the game, especially with the Siege/Muge rules set, where it actually can still be useful.

Can you name me one possible way to abuse this?

How on earth do you place fires and camp when you're disconnected or crash?

You can't discuss a "fix" for a perceived problem without discussing the problem's causes.

This problem is not fixable at its root cause, it is not physically possible, please stop going down that route or I am going to having to start thinking its for other reasons.

So please stick to the OP, if you do not have this problem and don't have a problem even if it does happen, then just state so and be done with it.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Play with a group of friends, who are in vent with you. When you crash ask them to invis you. Job done!

Yeah, I'll just ask the Paladin to cast invisibility on me, that'll work, heh.

Or should we all be forced to never go anywhere unless in a large group, from seperate regions, where at least 2 or 3 people can cast invisibility and stay without range all the time?

 

[Black Sun]

So please stick to the OP, if you do not have this problem and don't have a problem even if it does happen, then just state so and be done with it.

Excuse me? When did you get to decide who can and cannot post in your thread? Last time I checked this was a public forum.

But as far as your OP goes, I think instead of putting in features as a band-aid fix, a real fix would be a better idea. Besides, even if the client was 100% bug free and reliable and there are still going to be people having clients crash because of problems on their machines. Why should the dev team waste time and effort coding a fix for what is essentially a user problem.

It's not as cut and dry as you're trying to make it sound. Nothing with UO is.

 

[Llewen]

As for the op, I think this could be abused, even in pvm, and it would completely remove the tiny place that fires and camping have in the game, especially with the Siege/Muge rules set, where it actually can still be useful.

Can you name me one possible way to abuse this?

How on earth do you place fires and camp when you're disconnected or crash?

non sequitur - you've almost raised that to the level of an art form...

The point is that what you are asking for would completely remove to the necessity of camp fires, and of inns for that matter. You could just insta log anywhere or any time you pleased. It's a bad idea. It would mean the removal of yet another of those little things that make UO, UO.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Excuse me? When did you get to decide who can and cannot post in your thread? Last time I checked this was a public forum.

i am not deciding anything, I am asking you not to derail it and quite possibly troll it.

But as far as your OP goes, I think instead of putting in features as a band-aid fix, a real fix would be a better idea. Besides, even if the client was 100% bug free and reliable and there are still going to be people having clients crash because of problems on their machines. Why should the dev team waste time and effort coding a fix for what is essentially a user problem.

It's not as cut and dry as you're trying to make it sound. Nothing with UO is.

There is no real fix. While this may be a band-aid fix, it does fix a vast majority of such issues. Most things in game are user problems, they're fixed anyway to improve the game experience. There's no reason why crashes/disconnects/other issues should mean death if you're near anything aggressive (even worse if tamer, as your pet logs out) and especially not in a game that has looting monsters.

It is a quite cut and dry situation, put in a grace period and most of the problems are fixed. thats pretty cut and dry.

 

[Lord Chaos]

non sequitur - you've almost raised that to the level of an art form...

The point is that what you are asking for would completely remove to the necessity of camp fires, and of inns for that matter. You could just insta log anywhere or any time you pleased. It's a bad idea. It would mean the removal of yet another of those little things that make UO, UO.

Ok, I'd like you to chose one of the following:

1. You're trolling
2. You didn't really read the OP at all.
3. You have trouble with english.

I would think and hope its 2, considering you're completely making up a false strawman angle to try and defeat my point.

 

[Llewen]

non sequitur - you've almost raised that to the level of an art form...

The point is that what you are asking for would completely remove to the necessity of camp fires, and of inns for that matter. You could just insta log anywhere or any time you pleased. It's a bad idea. It would mean the removal of yet another of those little things that make UO, UO.

Ok, I'd like you to chose one of the following:

1. You're trolling
2. You didn't really read the OP at all.
3. You have trouble with english.

I would think and hope its 2, considering you're completely making up a false strawman angle to try and defeat my point.

I'm not sure you understand the meaning of a strawman argument. God bless Wikipedia.

Again I have to spell things out for you.

The only ways I can think of that they could ensure that you would log off when your client crashed, would include logging you off when you deliberately kill your client. I can't think of anything specific at this moment, but my feeling is that would be open to abuse even in pvm.

And as I have stated twice already, it would completely remove the necessity for campfires and inns from the game. Why would you bother going to an inn, or making a campfire on Siege, when all you need to do is hit the little "x" in the upper right hand corner to kill your client?

 

[Black Sun]

i am not deciding anything, I am asking you not to derail it and quite possibly troll it.

I'm not trying to derail anything, I thought since you made a post about something you wanted to discuss is. Sorry, My error in thinking that.

There is no real fix. While this may be a band-aid fix, it does fix a vast majority of such issues. Most things in game are user problems, they're fixed anyway to improve the game experience.

If there is a problem, there is a fix for it. We just may not know what it is. There's no such thing as an unsolvable problem.

There's no reason why crashes/disconnects/other issues should mean death if you're near anything aggressive (even worse if tamer, as your pet logs out) and especially not in a game that has looting monsters.

It's called risk vs. reward. Playing a game with no risk of losing isn't fun for most people. UO has too little risk left in it now, no reason to inch even closer to playing in "god mode".

If you're worried about losing something on death insure it. That's why that system was put in the game.

 

[Black Sun]

The only ways I can think of that they could ensure that you would log off when your client crashed, would include logging you off when you deliberately kill your client. I can't think of anything specific at this moment, but my feeling is that would be open to abuse even in pvm.

Working a champ spawn, it gets too out of hand and you can't finish, so you pull the power cord out of your modem. Client sees this as a connection loss and safely logs you. Feel free to use that example if you want.

 

[LordDrago]

I use the 2d client, and have not had any issues since the recent publish with the client crashing, although I normally experience a crash about once a week or two.

I suspect if the OP is experiencing a lot of crashes, especially recently, then the issue may be something with their computer or their installs. Perhaps a wipe and re-install would fix the issue?

 

[Lord Chaos]

I'm not sure you understand the meaning of a strawman argument. God bless Wikipedia.

Do you understand it? You keep taking an argument that is not mine and then you defeat it using means not at all applicable to the OP.

The only ways I can think of that they could ensure that you would log off when your client crashed, would include logging you off when you deliberately kill your client. I can't think of anything specific at this moment, but my feeling is that would be open to abuse even in pvm.

Yes, you could deliberatly crash or kill your client, which would help you nothing as you couldn't do anything when the client is down.

And as I have stated twice already, it would completely remove the necessity for campfires and inns from the game. Why would you bother going to an inn, or making a campfire on Siege, when all you need to do is hit the little "x" in the upper right hand corner to kill your client?

Because as clearly stated in the OP more than once, then all it gives is a GRACE period, so it only protects you/logs you out/invis you for 2 minutes, then you're attackable again until the 5 minute logout period is over. So its not a safe way to circumvent camping or inns.

Also you cannot do this in PvP, as stated.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Working a champ spawn, it gets too out of hand and you can't finish, so you pull the power cord out of your modem. Client sees this as a connection loss and safely logs you. Feel free to use that example if you want.

Except, when the 2 minute grace period is up, you get pummeled by the spawn. So its not an issue.

 

[Black Sun]

Yeah, but in that particular case your system safely log you off for 2 minutes, but *in theory* the champ spawn anti-camping system would see it as a log out and boot you out of the area to a comparably safer area.

 

[Llewen]

Because as clearly stated in the OP more than once, then all it gives is a GRACE period, so it only protects you/logs you out/invis you for 2 minutes, then you're attackable again until the 5 minute logout period is over. So its not a safe way to circumvent camping or inns.

Ah, I didn't get that part. Having said that, I still don't like it, I think it's a bad idea, and I think it would be open to abuse.

As for your specific situation, you might want to consider updating your drivers, or getting a technician to take a look at your computer, or if you are running XP, it might be as simple as doing a defrag. And then of course there are the rest of the "usual suspects", do a spyware and a virus scan, etc.

 

[Lord Chaos]

I'm not trying to derail anything, I thought since you made a post about something you wanted to discuss is. Sorry, My error in thinking that.

It was a statement to the devs and sure I'll discuss the actual topic, not a different topic.

If there is a problem, there is a fix for it. We just may not know what it is. There's no such thing as an unsolvable problem. It's called risk vs. reward. Playing a game with no risk of losing isn't fun for most people. UO has too little risk left in it now, no reason to inch even closer to playing in "god mode".

To die due to not being able to play has nothing whatsoever to do with risk or rewards. I have yet to find a single person who enjoys just dying to no fault of their own and even possibly get looted without even being able to know who looted you.

to protect people from this has absolutely nothing to do with god mode whatsoever. In fact it removes god mode from the most powerful characters who can lose connection or crash without dying as they autodefend/leech life.

If you're worried about losing something on death insure it. That's why that system was put in the game.

Except you can't insure stackables (like bandages), sure you can insure loot, but that kinda ruins the whole experience in the first place.

 

[Black Sun]

If you're worried about losing something on death insure it. That's why that system was put in the game.

Except you can't insure stackables (like bandages), sure you can insure loot, but that kinda ruins the whole experience in the first place.

Sounds to me like you want a system put in place because you're worried about dying and losing your bandages and potions.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Ah, I didn't get that part. Having said that, I still don't like it, I think it's a bad idea, and I think it would be open to abuse.

Again, can you name any abuses? Why be deadset against a feature that would improve gameplay for many and is clearly unfair.

As for your specific situation, you might want to consider updating your drivers, or getting a technician to take a look at your computer, or if you are running XP, it might be as simple as doing a defrag. And then of course there are the rest of the "usual suspects", do a spyware and a virus scan, etc.

There's nothing wrong with the computer, its running flawlessly and is up to date. This is a problem specific to the new big patch in UO and nothing else. I am not the only one having this problem either.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Sounds to me like you want a system put in place because you're worried about dying and losing your bandages and potions.

Uhm, duh? Thats kinda what I said, I don't like dying to client issues, crashes, disconnects, etc. and then having to go back and restock or run around with a bunch of insured bandage summoning items.

That absolutely does not make the game any more fun. Maybe you enjoy it, but thats up to you.

 

[Mapper]

Uhm, duh? Thats kinda what I said, I don't like dying to client issues, crashes, disconnects, etc. and then having to go back and restock or run around with a bunch of insured bandage summoning items.

That absolutely does not make the game any more fun. Maybe you enjoy it, but thats up to you.

I have to agree with you here, Although dying in a dungeon because you were overwhelmed is just something that happens, you deal with it. It would be nice if when the client crashes, you are hidden automatically, as a client crash, although it may be something to do with your computer, is completely not your fault.

 

[Black Sun]

I don't enjoy dying period, whether it be due to my own mistake or a client crash. But I'm not so upset about losing a few bandages that I'd ask the dev team to waste time putting in a fail-safe so I don't have to recall home, grab a stack of something and recall back to where I was hunting.

 

[Kas Althume]

Sorry to tell ya, but i havn't crashed once in the 4 weeks (approx) that iam back into UO. I use a clean win7-64 with everything up-to-date. Iam using the classic client.

With win98 and winxp i always got a sound loop crash. Mainly when a pet of mine died it was the death sound that killed my client. Most often my mare. I havn't had that since is switched to win7-64.

Seems to be the most stable client for over 10 years to me. It seems that the win7 sound drivers work better with the client then the old drivers ever did.

 

[Lord Chaos]

I have to agree with you here, Although dying in a dungeon because you were overwhelmed is just something that happens, you deal with it. It would be nice if when the client crashes, you are hidden automatically, as a client crash, although it may be something to do with your computer, is completely not your fault.

Yeah, agreed. Invis, protection, log out or whatnot, just some form of protection for a short period of time to be able to log back in.

I don't enjoy dying period, whether it be due to my own mistake or a client crash. But I'm not so upset about losing a few bandages that I'd ask the dev team to waste time putting in a fail-safe so I don't have to recall home, grab a stack of something and recall back to where I was hunting.

Yeah, you just recall right back into Abyss, Ilshenar, the dojo or any other place you can't go directly to. *rollseyes* And you can lose quite a lot if you're somewhere you've hunted for quite a while if its an area you can't easily get back to.

Sorry to tell ya, but i havn't crashed once in the 4 weeks (approx) that iam back into UO. I use a clean win7-64 with everything up-to-date. Iam using the classic client.

Thats fortunate for you, that doesn't change that the client could have been changed in some way that makes it more crashprone with other hardware or actions.

 

[Black Sun]

Yeah, you just recall right back into Abyss, Ilshenar, the dojo or any other place you can't go directly to. *rollseyes* And you can lose quite a lot if you're somewhere you've hunted for quite a while if its an area you can't easily get back to.

Risk vs. Reward. You hunt in a place that isn't easily accessible you take that risk. It's part of the game.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Risk vs. Reward. You hunt in a place that isn't easily accessible you take that risk. It's part of the game.

Uhm no, its not part of the gameplay and insta-killing with no chance to escape is just wrong in so many ways.

Can you please tell me how it enhances gameplay in any way? Especially when its unfairly balanced against people who have issues vs. those who don't.

 

[Black Sun]

Uhm no, its not part of the gameplay and insta-killing with no chance to escape is just wrong in so many ways.

Can you please tell me how it enhances gameplay in any way? Especially when its unfairly balanced against people who have issues vs. those who don't.

I never said it enhances game play. I'm just stating a fact. If you hunt in some areas and you die (for whatever reason) you may not make it back to your body in time. It's a risk we all take.

A crashing client is not a balance issue. If it's crashing because of a problem with your computer, it seems to me as though that would be your problem to fix, not the dev team's.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Yeah, because its always the computer, its never connections, the internet, the client or any other number of reasons. *rollseyes*

In fact the UO team is record holder in program stability, their client has never had issues, stability issues or crashes under any circumstances.

 

[Phineas le Monge]

Only my newest computer is capable of handling the enhanced client. The others I play on use the 2d client, and I have encountered an incredible amount of lag on 2d since pub 66. 2d worked great for me before pub 66. I would still be using 2d on my new machine if win 7 would allow me to expand the play window...i prefer 2d. This is two different computers experiencing lag only on the 2d client. Any other games online or otherwise work fine on these machines. (One is running Vista, the other xp sp3)

 

[Zosimus]

No crashes at all and I'm on Vista with the 2d client. Works perfect.

 

[Tina Small]

With the new patches the client is more unstable than ever, my client crashes every now and then. I can live with that.

But PLEASE make it so that if you have not taken any PvP damage within one minute and are in some way disconnected, crashed or otherwise unable to play, then your character gets removed from the game for a grace period of maybe 2 minute or so, to allow us to restart our machines or restart the client.

So many times I've been killed by some little mob simply because the client have crashed, its even worse as a tamer, because your pet logs out, but you don't, so your tamer is left at the mercy at whatever mobs you were fighting.

Even worse, many mobs loot, so not only do I die, but they loot me as well and I have no idea which mob has taken it as I would be restarting the client.

So devs, please give us a grace period on crash or disconnect. As said, it wouldn't affect PvP, as it wouldn't work if you recieved PvP damage.

Can you provide any examples of what your character is doing in UO when you experience these crashes? For example, were you using a pet that was fighting multiple monsters so there were a lot of damage numbers flying? Were you looting? Were you partied? Were you in a dungeon? If yes, have you noticed disconnections more often in any particular one or area? Were you in a peerless instance? If yes, which one? Were there other people in the area? If yes, what were they doing at the same time, e.g., looting, recalling, fighting, etc. Were you using a rune book and if yes, which travel option(s) were you using (e.g., recall by spell, recall with charge, gate)? Were you modifying your options for the chat system? What other applications were running? (I know my computer slows down considerably when it is downloading updates for my anti-virus software or if I'm running a program like Rhapsody to play music and a new song is being loaded.) Does any particular monster seem to cause the crashes, and if yes, do they happen when it does something in particular? Do you play with the game sound on? Do you play with the game background music on? If you leave the game music on, did you notice anything strange with it before you crashed, e.g., it sounded like it was "stuck"? Did you notice anything unusual before you crashed, e.g., character started moving slowly or felt like it was stuck in mud, and if yes did the slowness coincide with anything else that happened in game?

Also, a patch that was made on October 22, 2009, added a "crash reporting dialogue box" that shows up after the classic client crashes. When you get this dialogue box, it includes instructions on where to send an e-mail to the UO team and what information to include from the dialogue box, as well as a description of what you were doing at the time of the crash. (You press Control-C while the dialogue box is in front of you, open an e-mail, and then paste the clipboard contents into an e-mail and send it to [email protected].)

Yes, it's a pain to do this when you've just crashed, but have you tried to do it for at least some of the crashes? Perhaps press Control-C to capture the info, log in and get yourself organized, and then do the e-mail? You could always just quickly open Notepad and dump the clipboard contents into a new document just to make sure you don't overwrite the crash reporting dialogue box copy and send the e-mail later.

 

[Kat]

I use the 2D client and haven't experienced any crashes since the last patch/publish.

LC - I'm not trying to derail your thread or anything, but this situation does seem like it may be related to your install or your machine. I would seriously consider reinstalling and see if that might alleviate your problems. I would also consider reinstalling UO Assist, if you use it, as that has been known to cause issues itself.

Sorry to hear you're having these problems. I can imagine it is indeed frustrating.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Uhm yeah, because I really have time to sit there and submit bug reports when my character is getting chewed up by some monster. :/

Either way, its not about fixing the client crash issues (which will happen anyway), as there are many more issues than just the client. Its about giving us a grace period so we don't have to log in half the time and be dead, especially sucky in places where there are looting monstes, like the rat spawn in the Abyss, where you have no idea which rat took your items.

Its also sucky that pets log out when you disconnect, but you don't. So you stand there alone facing whatever the pet was fighting.

 

[Tina Small]

Uhm yeah, because I really have time to sit there and submit bug reports when my character is getting chewed up by some monster. :/

Either way, its not about fixing the client crash issues (which will happen anyway), as there are many more issues than just the client. Its about giving us a grace period so we don't have to log in half the time and be dead, especially sucky in places where there are looting monstes, like the rat spawn in the Abyss, where you have no idea which rat took your items.

Its also sucky that pets log out when you disconnect, but you don't. So you stand there alone facing whatever the pet was fighting.

So you're one of those folks that figures it's up to someone else to use the bug-reporting tools because what you're doing is too important?

Gotcha.

 

[Lord Chaos]

And yes, I have reinstalled both UOA and UO, that didn't help. UOA has been borky for ages. It no longer stops veteran reward pop-ups and it doesn't stop the whole doubleclick pathfind/follow thing.

The crashes happen at several different moments. But its most often when I am moving, like if bandaging the pet and then moving, looting and accidently have activated pathfinding/follow at the same time, moving shot when on archer and so on.

It also sometimes happens when a renowned spawn, if I am house teleporting to Abyss and several other situations.

 

[wanderer1origin]

proably the third party detection tools first stage. detecting to see if you are at the machine by making you relog in.

 

[Lord Chaos]

So you're one of those folks that figures it's up to someone else to use the bug-reporting tools because what you're doing is too important?

Gotcha.

The bug reporting tool is not relevant to the point of the thread. You can't bug report a computer crash, some client crashes doesn't give you a bug report, you can't bug report a connecting loss, etc.

And oh wow, if they gave us a grace period, then we'd have time to submit error reports to them, instead of frantically scrambling to save the character.

 

[Cyric]

haha BlackSun a troll now thats funny

 

[Tina Small]

So you basically not only want all the rules that currently apply today to "secure log-out" areas extended to every tile of the game but also want those rules modified so that you log out instantly if you recently took damage from a monster, something that doesn't even happen today in your house? You just want to be able to close down UO wherever your character is at the moment and walk away without a care in the world?