New Publish Causing Serious Disappearing Pet Problem on Origin

[Tina Small]

I've had pets disappear temporarily now this afternoon with two characters on Origin. The first time was in Malas when my miner's fire beetle just poofed without warning while she was walking between spots to mine. It still showed up as taking control slots and reappeared when I logged out and back in again.

The second and third times occurred in the Abyss with a greater dragon. The first time happened while just running along right before reaching the Passage of Tears mini-champ spawn and the other time happened in the middle of the plague rat spawn in the Cavern of the Discarded. The GD reappeared both times after logging out and logging in again. (Did not have it linked to a pet summoning ball.)

Something's seriously buggy. I would urge anyone else who has characters on Origin and everyone else to get out on TC1 (or Origin) to get out with REAL pets and see if you can find a pattern to the disappearances. My initial reaction is they're disappearing when you run by certain landscape features, but perhaps that is not the case at all. The pet's life bar goes dark; there is no audible response to commands to the missing pet; and it is nowhere to be found in the immediate area or within a few screens.

This needs to be tested TONIGHT before it goes out to the rest of the shards.

 

[Marcus Blackwell]

Ack hope they dont roll the publish out without fixing this..dissappearing pets dont sound cool.

 

[guum]

Uhm...that's pretty big. Maybe publishes should stay on TC for more than 12 hours.

 

[Tina Small]

I can't log on at the moment, but thinking back on the previous disappearances I've decided one thing I definitely want to test is whether the pet tends to poof once it loses sight of its master. Somehow I have a hunch MAYBE something's been added to combat pets being left to hunt while their master goes elsewhere. GD's, especially new ones, are notoriously slow until their dex maxes out at 125. Other pets can walk/run very slowly if they're overloaded or irritated.

Anyway, that's my plan for later tonight. I hope a few more people will also give this a go because something definitely seems wonky.

 

[CassieDarksong]

Confirmed for me.

I was mining with my fire beetle. Went to target it to smelt ore and it vanished. Logged out and back in and it came back, but very discerning.

Edit: Okay...it's happened 3 times now. It's totally random and doesnt happen with every smelt, but it will randomly vanish when I target to smelt ore on the fire beetle.

 

[Tina Small]

Finally had a chance to log on and play for a bit before bed. Went into the Abyss via the Tomb of Kings entrance. Was headed over to the Cavern of the Discarded and decided to kill a lava elemental right before we headed over the black bridge below the Stygian Dragon spawn area. GD had it partially down and tamer was standing back a ways to avoid the area effect. Direct peaced the lava elemental just for grins and poof went the GD.

You can see from the journal text in the screen shot that it's as if the GD just checked itself right out of the game. No "You see: Grizz." Just space space Grizz and he's gone, his health bar is dark, and yet control slots are still filled.

Will give it another try and see what else seems to trigger the disappearing pet trick.

 

[Chrissay_]

I've passed this along for further investigation. If you know of any additional details please let us know.

 

[Tina Small]

So I'm lollygagging at the Buc's Den bank, where I logged out out to retrieve the pet, make the previous post and answer an ICQ message. Finally toggle back to UO and guess what? Grizz has checked himself out of the game AGAIN. I'd slapped a bandage on him to stop the poisoning, and then toggled away. Not quite sure when he took a break.

 

[Tina Small]

I've passed this along for further investigation. If you know of any additional details please let us know.

Okay, Chrissay. Will keep trying different things and keep adding to the thread. Hopefully some more people on Origin and Test Center will jump in and try some stuff too. Very puzzling.

 

[CassieDarksong]

Happened to me a fourth time now, this time just while Iw as mining sand on vesper Beach. It was there next to me for 10 minutes (I might be getting carpal tunnel from this sand digging)...then POOF....it's still showing in my list, but I havent bothered to log out to get it yet.

Starting to get very annoying

 

[Tina Small]

He just poofed again. I had been trying to see if I could get a better color for his name in the journal, and he just checked out again. It's beginning to feel like he's on a timer or something and can't stay out of the stable for more than a few minutes at a time.

 

[Eyes of Origin]

I logged into Origin to try this and sure enough, my dreadmare went poof on me while I had it killing a few brigands outside my castle. Logged out and in and it came back.. but I will be stabling all pets till its fixed cause all it takes is once for it to go poof permanently.

 

[Kiwillian]

I just logged in using the EC and got a message that my pet couldn't follow me because I was dead and to re-log. I didn't even have a pet. I was dead though.

Weird.

 

[Kiminality]

Uhm...that's pretty big. Maybe publishes should stay on TC for more than 12 hours.

It could have been on there for 12 days, and folk mightn't have noticed it.

 

[maroite]

Hope this gets fixed... and fast. I feel for the people on Origins.

On a side note, with all the tamer hate the devs have been flinging around lately, I wouldn't be surprised if this is working as intended.

 

[Tina Small]

Just poofed again. Seems to be about 10 minutes from retrieval, although I'll do more checking to verify. This time I was in front of the stable (on purpose) when he poofed and can show you this interesting shot:

Pet poofs and you see his name show up in the journal as he poofs.
Pet's status bar is dark.
Tamer's control slots still show 5/5.
Ask the animal trainer for a list of pets, and voila! The missing pet is at the top of the list, fat and sassy in the stable and still tying up control slots. What a stinker!

 

[Viquire]

Tina,

Have you ever logged him out through a hitching post? have one at your house?

 

[CassieDarksong]

I can answer on my firebeetle to that one: I haven't. I never stable it

 

[Tina Small]

Nope, don't have a hitching post on Origin and haven't used anyone else's. I've had Grizz since 5/4/2008, but he's been stuck in the stable for quite a while. Just pulled him out a few nights ago to use because the slightly better one isn't completely trained and his low dex was making him walk/run so slow I couldn't stand it.

I've been timing some different pets now at the Zento stable to see how long they stay out. So far I've had a lesser hiryu out for almost 21 minutes, a pack llama for 20 minutes, and a crow for 19 minutes. Wanted to see if any would poof and if so, would they all go at once or one by one. The hiryu and crow weren't bonded when I pulled them out, so they each bonded a few minutes after I pulled them out and realized their status.

 

[Tina Small]

The crow, the pack llama, and the lesser hiryu stayed out without incident for about 40 minutes. While they were out, I also timed having the radar map not in use and then in use (large version) for over 10 minutes and that didn't seem to have any effect. Am now on to seeing what happens with a cu sidhe.

 

[Viquire]

Well, on my only developed tamer. Cycled through the pets in the stables, took my horribly crappy GD to bedlam to wrok the doorway there a while, ran around. No problems that I can see.

I religiously log pets out at the stables. This acct is currently active under return program sub inactive six months. Thanks for showing me how much fun I am missing.

Oh and of course it does not have expansion sorry I can't wander into the void, but I may try to hit another dungeon sub server though.

 

[Tina Small]

The cu sidhe's been out for 34 minutes without any problems, killing silver serpents and helping to find Farmer Nash's pitchfork. Time for Grizz to come out again, I guess.

 

[Tina Small]

Decided to try the miner and her fire beetle instead. The beetle poofed 10 minutes after log-in, while the miner was tinkering some new shovels. He was in the stable, along with two pack animals.

 

[Tina Small]

Retrieved the fire beetle and took out both pack animals. Logged out and back in again. Went to Minoc to do a bit of lumberjacking. Made sure to put all the wood in only one animal to test whether it would poof if anything poofed.

Sure enough--fire beetle and the empty pack animal poofed like clockwork and the pack llama with something in its pack stayed logged in. And at the stable, even though the character's control slots say 5/5 with only the llama out, the beetle and the pack horse are IN the stable.

 

[Tina Small]

Approximately 10 minutes after emptying the pets and logging out and back in again, this time the empty pack llama disappeared (went to the stable but continued to use up a control slot). My character was cutting old logs into boards at the bank and riding the fire beetle at the time. The beetle did NOT poof, nor did the pack horse that still had some new boards in its pack.

 

[Tina Small]

Okay this time two nightmares popped themselves back into the stable 4-5 minutes after claiming them. I was looting some raptors at the time.

 

[Tina Small]

Tried the crow again and it stayed out without any problems for over ten minutes. Going to bed. Chrissay, if you guys need any further information tomorrow (today?) about the pets, let me know.

I'm going to list below the acquisition dates for the various pets I tested with. Unfortunately, I don't have exact dates for all of them. I have no idea if these dates have any significance at all. However, I do recall that not long after the GDs were introduced, something changed when you tamed pets. The original pet you were taming seemed to be replaced with a clone (with lesser stats/skills if appropriate) at the instant of taming. I don't know if that change you guys made at the time ties into this situation or not.

Animals That Poofed and Re-Stabled Themselves
Ziggy and Zapp (pack llama and pack horse) - Late 2007 (I'm certain these were purchased from an NPC.)
Tesoro (fire beetle) - March or April 2008 (My tamer tamed this pet.)

Brunhilda (nightmare) - March 18, 2008 (My tamer tamed this pet.)
Nell (nightmare) - April 5, 2008 (My tamer tamed this pet.)
Grizz (greater dragon) - May 4, 2008 (My tamer tamed this pet.)

Animals That Did Not Poof
D (pack llama) - Not sure, but I think it was around June 15, 2008. This belonged to a character I moved over from Atlantic. I released it after emptying it of its cargo and then decided my tamer could use a pack animal and had her tame it.
my crow (crow) - Again, not sure but likely summer or fall of 2008. Found it at the zoo and tamed it.
a lesser hiryu - Late 2008, early 2009. My tamer tamed this to train for another character.
Izzie (cu sidhe) - Late 2008. Poo tamed this and gave it to me. I can ask him if he remembers the date if it's important.

 

[Wenchkin]

Hmm, if I remember correctly the current publish testing on Origin included a fix for pets not logging out when their owners did. Sounds like someone flipped the switch so the pets are now logging out without their owners. Ick

Wenchy

 

[G.v.P]

Hmm, if I remember correctly the current publish testing on Origin included a fix for pets not logging out when their owners did. Sounds like someone flipped the switch so the pets are now logging out without their owners. Ick

Wenchy

lol I know this is a serious bug but the idea of pets logging out whenever they want is pretty funny

 

[Mairut]

I just logged in using the EC and got a message that my pet couldn't follow me because I was dead and to re-log. I didn't even have a pet. I was dead though.

Weird.

I get that message "pet can't join you" too, when my client crashes while I'm dead, trying to run from yew gate to spirituality to get a res (my client stalls almost everytime I try to recall or go into a gate, sometimes resulting in a crash ...). I believe it's from my Charger Of The Fallen. Maybe it does the same thing with other "statue" pets? Do you use an Ethy or anything like that?

 

[Tina Small]

Hmm, if I remember correctly the current publish testing on Origin included a fix for pets not logging out when their owners did. Sounds like someone flipped the switch so the pets are now logging out without their owners. Ick

Wenchy

My guess is that the change to make raptor "clones" called to aid their "original" in distress is at the root of this situation. For purposes of the coding for this change, the game may see pets tamed before approximately late to early June 2008 as "wild" and therefore subject to "poofing" after a set amount of time on the server (if they aren't mounted and/or have something in their pack). The coding to make them poof may include a special subroutine to speed up the poofing when they are in the area where raptors normally spawn.

Any QA testing for this change that may have been done probably occurred on a freshly wiped server that of course didn't include any pets tamed before late May 2008.

 

[CassieDarksong]

That might be it. I know my fire beetle has been in my possession since they were tamable...whatever year that was.