Relogin feature

[Psignosis]

From time to time the server goes down and people are bumped off.

How about a relogin feature to log you back into the server again after a disconnect?

[Mirashi]

That's something I don't understand. Every time it says the server isn't responding, it boots you. It would be so much easier (and less laggy), if you just waited it out and got reconnected when the server was up again. But not booted, because if you don't press Ok on that boot message, you can still stay ingame. In fact, I've been able to move with autorun when that message was up. I would press it, then he would run a few steps, and stop again, but he still moved, so the server isn't entirely down, it just boots you for no reason. In other games, I've been able to sit there after the server stops responding, and just wait for it to come back up while I move around and things.

[Karyuu]

Even though your character may run after the server boots you, that doesn't mean that your character is actually running on the server. That's something lag-related, and the server is not saving your position. You log back in after that run, and you'll be at the spot where you were when you first got the disconnect message.

There's no server conspiracy here If the server is down, it's entirely down. The only "boot for no reason" that I can imagine is you losing your connection, on your side. But once you're out, you're out.

[Seytra]

When you use mouselook in 3rd person follow and switch to autorun before the message pops up, then you can navigate the world perfectly well without connection to the server. In fact, since the server doesn't respond, you don't lose stamina or HP, so you can pretty much do whatever you want.
Still, the server is down and rebooting as has been said. Unplugging your network connection will give you the very same effect.

I do agree that it would be nice to just have the client wait for the server coming back up and then seamlessly reconnect and relogin. Basically go through the same sequence as when manually logging in, but without login screen, char selection, reloading the maps and setting up the GUI. This would mean that you get put whereever the server last saved you, and restored to that state, but that'd be less inconvenient than an entire quit-relog-reload sequence.
While this feature would, due to the great instability in the current state of development, be most useful, it is for the same reason - early development stage - that it probably won't get implemented yet. That's a feature for more complete games, and though it would of course work, I suppose there are more important issues to address.

Regarding the server conspiracy: it can happen that a connection loses so many packets, or that the server lags so badly, that the connection gets dropped despite the server being up. This happened a lot some months ago, but ATM the server's crashyness is the main source of loss of connections. Of course, a relog feature would help there as well, but see above.

[Ahriman]

ANother thing, sort of similar to this:

Boot the "Quit" button! Replace it with a "Log-Out" button! I hate to close the client, load it up again, connect over, and select my character... I'd just like it if you clicked that button, it'd give you a choice: "Main Menu' and "Quit".

[DaveG]

Well first of all, I must clarify the "moving" after a crash.  You're moving on your end, but nothing is registering on the server for it.  The client just hasn't come to terms with the servers's death yet.

About a logout feature:  This is one of the most requested features, and unfortunately would be a technical nightmare to implement currently.  You have to realize that the startup procedure is rather intricate, and honestly not exactly perfect.  The vast majority of which would need to be redone once reconnected to be in sync with the server.  (also note that some dynamic IDs may have changed, even if nothing else has)  Of course it's possible to create some sort of logout procedure and a coresponding relog procedure, but right now it's not worth the hair pulling it would take to write and get working.  And for crashes, a restart would always be best, if just to get a clean slate.  Preferably, we'd rather it just not crash.