@Bereror,

Working on it.  I will help out as best I can and try not to just complain about things.  I have a lot of respect for developers and in no way do I mean to belittle their efforts.  It's a great product you guys have pulled together.

But yes, if I had a clearly alpha product that I am letting volunteers and people alpha test for me, I would reset the server often.  In this case, the issue is taking away a significant part of the game for new players.  That's why I would recommend once a day.  At least every day people will know that it's a fresh start.  But if mobs do break, it does give people a chance to go off and explore other areas of the game and that's not a bad argument.  You need those parts tested too.  Apparently, this issue has been going on for several years now.  How many potential testers have you lost because of it?

EDIT: I would even agree that "breaking" the mobs on a regular schedule to force people to go off and do other things would be good for your testing, just so they know it's happening and not just some random bug.  Build in the capability to disable fighting for a few hours now and then.  The amount of time the server is left running is really arbitrary, do what needs to be done, but what I don't think you should do is let a major area of the game stay broken for longer than 24 hours. 

@resting,

Sure, I can understand needing to rest.  Maybe it's just the race I chose.  The elves seem pretty darn frail.  I agree with the concept, but I think the only issue I have is that walking takes too much energy.  I *really* want a penalty for running all the time, but everyone walks to rest when on a long journey.  They typically don't sit one minute for every minute they walk.  If the burn rate was just cut in half, it would help a lot.  And right now, the PP's for increasing endurance and strength are pretty high, even though my values are low.  Maybe they could be readjusted to encourage more points in them and make them higher as the skill gets higher? 

Hi guys,

I'm new and getting pretty frustrated at the mob issues with them getting stuck.  I decided to download the source and see if I could help any.  If I'm completely off base, just ignore.  I don't know how much time I have to help out, but I may try and download the full source and get a server going to test it.  I really can't commit, but if I can find anything obvious, I'll post.  Here are a few thoughts:

In the npcclient directory, the NPC::CheckPosition() method, it says right in the front comment that the position only needs to be checked once.  If I interpret that right, I would disagree with that.  It needs to be checked every time an NPC moves.  I don't see any other way to reset the mob.  If they got stuck, they would be stuck forever if I'm reading it right.  I don't see any reset code in the GEM or NPC logic other than in this method.  The only other way I saw to reset that condition was with an NPC::ClearState command, but again, I don't see it called anywhere other than the destructor.  Maybe it's being called from somewhere outside the GEM and NPC handlers?

Now, I don't much about CS, so maybe there is something that you are expecting it to do through a callback? 

One other thing I noticed.  In gemActor::MoveToValidPosition, there is some code that stops a falling entity from /unsticking itself, assuming that a PC will be able to do that.  Could that be blocking things since NPC's can't do an /unstick?  Just a thought.

I did get the heal spell and that sped things up a lot.  If I had a heal endurance spell, that would help tons.  I am thinking that it may be in game now, but I can't afford the glyphs at the moment, and that makes the broken mobs all that more frustrating.  They are the best source of income at the moment.  Mining is just plain expensive and hardly worth the effort from an economic point of view.

I'm not sure about movement though, unless it's just any movement.  A large number of mobs I see broken appear to be in their spawn points.  I just happened to notice that one cause I did move him down a small step when he broke.  That is probably one cause; there may be other reasons they break too.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I'd love to have enough progress points to raise endurance.  I'm working on that, but again, with the mob problem, I dumped all my points into tradeskills to have something to do.  Going to be a while before I get enough to raise those skills.

Okay, I know, 1000 posts on this issue, but that should be telling you something.  I will be respectful of the developers cause I'm a software developer myself and I can appreciate those bugs that just don't want to go away.  I seem to have a lot of time to post though because I'm constantly sitting to rest up.

This issue really needs resolving.  I'm new here and it's frustrating starting the game with nothing to do.  I understand your desire to RP first, but there needs to be something to keep the game moving.  Fortunately, I saved up a lot of my progress points while I figured out the game and can now mine and do metallurgy to keep things interesting, but running around (and resting every 20 feet) to find out all the mobs I'm capable of killing are broken is just irritating.

One thing I've noticed, and not sure if it's accurate, but it seems that the mobs break one at a time.  Once they break, it's over for that mob until a server reset happens.  Eventually, all the mobs are broken.  I fought a rat last night that broke on me and this morning he was still in the same location.  I'm wondering if you could just put in a reset timer on all mobs once every hour or something to work around the core problem for the time being. 

Think this issue and the amount of time I have to spend just resting all the time are the single biggest issues in the game.  I can appreciate a hard game and the rest I can understand, but these two items I think are just a bit over the top.  I should be able to walk across a small courtyard without having to sit down and rest. 

EDIT: It's not my intent to blast the devs.  There is a ton of hard work that went into this game and I appreciate that.  My main point, that I kind of forgot in the first post, is that all other issues should be stopped until this is fixed.  Please stop working on new additions until you correct the core game module.  Put all your resources on this problem, and I bet it gets resolved fast. 

Yep, I just realized I forgot about the repair armor skill.  What I suggested should really be covered by that skill and is already in the game.  I'm only left with being able to wear it correctly that should make a skill improve with armor, and that's kind of a shaky idea.  I like having the skill affect the amount of damage, but perhaps it should be less of an effect than some are reporting. *shrug*  I'm still a newb here.

Research medieval armor and weapon usage. This is a good place to start: http://www.thearma.org/ . Read some of their articles. Send them an email and ask them if training is beneficial, or even needed for wearing armor of any type. Until then, this discussion is meaningless, invalid speculation and misinformation.

Very good suggestion.  I scanned a few of the articles I could find on it.  One thing that kind of jumped out was that having armor implied a certain knowledge of maintaining it.  You had to know how to take care of the armors or else they would slowly degrade and become less effective.  You could look at your skill as being able to maintain your armor to its best proficiency.

But that's still layman understanding of it.  Asking some experts would be a great idea.

Getting paid for RP'ing would be counter-productive to the setting, if even possible.  How would you qualitatively define roleplaying?  You can't.  Unless you want a grammar parser that monitors everything every one says.  Maybe penalties for the number of times people say LOL? 

Speaking of economy, last I checked this game was free to play.  The dev's are building a world where they want to roleplay in.  In other words, they aren't driven by the number of people who log in each night because they don't get paid per account.  It is their right to enforce the rules of RP'ing as they see fit, though I do hope they keep some moderation to that as people do roleplay differently.  But if people don't like that choice, they are free themselves to go elsewhere.  I read the rules.  When I log in, I do my best to stay in character.  If I don't want to be in a world were roleplaying is encouraged, I can go play another game. 

I have the same problem when I play on RP servers in other games.  A lot of people simply don't RP there and they kind of mess it up, though I considered them to just be annoying NPC's.  They don't contribute to the game world other than to provide a source of conflict.  Ignore it or move on, which may be your best solution.  If a GM sees someone not staying character, ban them from chatting for a few days.  Let them play, but they just can't speak in game.  Kind of a global ignore.

Just my 2C.  I agree that roleplaying should be a reward in itself and that getting paid for it just really can't be defined well enough to be doable.

One way to look at armor skills is in how you use it.  Lets say leather armor is more than just a leather shirt.  There are straps that have to be fastened, various aspects of it have to stitched together on your body to provide the best protection.  If you lacked the skill to wear it correctly, you may as well not have any armor on at all.  Say for instance, you didn't have the skill to even be able to tell if you put the armor on backwards or not.  Or you didn't fasten things correctly and it ends up flopping all over your body.  But as you skill up, you begin to learn tricks to secure it to your body better.  You learn ways of putting it on to protect critical parts better.  You slowly get used to the weight of it till it feels like it's a part of you and it doesn't hinder your movement.  That's how you should look at your skill.  Your skill is what you do with the tools, not the quality of the protection the leather itself provides.

That said, there should be differences in the protection you get from each type of armor.  I'm not experienced enough in the game world to know how those mechanics work yet.  Things do seem a bit out of whack in this respect at this time in the games development, but I'm not sure where.