Laanx Database Reset

[verden]

http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=36199.msg412169;topicseen#msg412169

Proper reporting features or strategies need to be in place before a reset is done. The reset needs to not be treated as "The Reset", but as "a reset". In order to gain useful information about the world for purposes of balancing the game, then the reset should be done, and then redone at a specific date in the future. This might need to happen a couple of times over a year, or over a couple of years.

Accounts and characters. It seems that the basic functionality of account and character management works well. It may be that deleting all accounts and their associated characters will produce a situation where the server is basically paralyzed for a certain amount of time while many people re-create their accounts and characters. But doing so might give valuable information on the capacity and capability of the server itself. If this is done, then it needs to apply to player and GM characters, no exceptions.

Money. Due to past exploits, it is advisable to reset all money in the world to zero. But doing this without determining an overall strategy for managing the economy of the world as a whole would be pointless, as it might simply start building again and no knowledge would be gained. In order for this to be beneficial, there needs to be a way for the team to get report data on where money comes from, goes to, how it is hoarded, how it disappears from the world, et cetera. This would probably necessitate the addition of features to allow for comprehensive high-level understanding of the economy, unless they already exist. Player and GM characters, no exceptions.

Reset all inventories to zero with no exceptions. I am definitely including items like "Rings of the Past" and all quest related items. All items, no exceptions. Past and/or current duplication exploits make this a critical issue. Once again, if there is no way to see and track item generation, usage and consumption, then it would be best to put in those features before doing the reset. Player and GM characters, no exceptions.

Quests. All quests information reset for all characters. No exceptions. Player and GM characters, no exceptions. Functionality for reporting on quest usage needs to be in place prior to doing the reset.

Skills and stats. All accounts need to be cycled through, resetting their skills and stats to the base values for the race. Player and GM characters, no exceptions. Functionality to report on skill progression needs to be in place prior to doing the reset otherwise valuable information relating to how to balance the game will be lost.

Guilds. All guilds need to be reset. All guilds, no exceptions. The number of guilds that were created with past exploits has made this a necessity. The threshold for guild creation should also be raised.

Mobs and spawns. The number of mobs needs to be increased so that there are many more available after the reset. The scarcity of mobs in the world creates a nearly cruel situation for the players. This will also increase the amount of feedback that can then be used in considerations for balancing the game.

GM powers and rewards. The ability for GM characters to create money, items, raise skills and alter stats should be removed completely until after a period of information gathering and should only be enabled after the goals of the reset have been achieved.

Discuss amongst yourselves and flame me as much as you like. It is time to set some professional standards for the evolution of this game and get serious about things. You will not lose any players, and no amount of griping and complaining should have any bearing on the decisions of the development team. This is either the greatest project ever, or the biggest joke of an MMORPG in the world. Make the game balanced and fair and your project will live within the hallowed and empryean halls of game software until the end of time. But there is no point to resetting the database unless we are serious about goals and methods.

EDIT: I changed the last "you" to "we" as I honestly love this project as many others do. But I find it near impossible to play regularly these days because of a number of conditions that are basically intimated in my points above. I thank you.

[gaelfx]

The only aspect of this I find myself in complete agreement with is the portion concerning Money. The economy is very imbalanced, without a doubt. Many items are undervalued or have an improper (or possibly nonexistent) rubric for for valuation, such as metal stock not varying in price based on quality. Also, many worked metals lack any real value, which seems improbable in a world such as Yliakum where worked metal would be valued so highly. But, I'm sure I don't need to go too in-depth regarding the pitfalls of the current economy.

The rest of these points would only be affective if applied in series rather than parallel since it seems your goal is to identify the aspects of the game that need to be changed in order to improve performance and gameplay and making all those changes at once would make it just as difficult as it is now to identify such problems.

The main point I would like to make, however, is that most of these can be tested on EZPCUSA rather than the server that warrants more consistency (isn't that one of the most important aspects of RP?), or if they must be tested on Fragnetics, it is possible to test most of them by simply creating new characters in addition to the already existing ones (e.g. Quests, Skills, etc.).

Don't get me wrong, I believe that I understand your sentiment, but the particular method you have selected to express them is something I consider to be the "nuclear option." Make love, not war  !

[Sen]

Disclaimer: All of the following was said before the first coffee was drunken....

I read in this thread for the first time real points for a database reset instead of general topics without particular benefit
However, I see only very little connection between the points mentioned here and the referenced topic. Pretty much nothing of these things that are mentioned here as benefit would be true for a reset that happens soon[tm].

Im not going into each point in particular, since almost all are aimed at gathering information about where the devs must change the balancing. These are good points that I can agree to in general. A danger I see is that the information will be there but no one really looks at it. Thus there should be a schedule and responsibilities about who is evaluating the gathered data and plans made how to react to it.
Furthermore must there be a plan/idea how to refine [I hope that's the correct word] the raw data so the one looking periodically at it can see something useful. I see here quite some work that has to be done.

I like the idea of using e.g. only new data on laanx (to be honest, there's not much data to collect on ezpc until more people play on it), but I think that data would be flawed since some of the e.g. money will come from old accounts/characters without anyone know where it originates.

Apart from that do we already know from so terribly unbalanced things since years, that we anyway should fix that first before starting the nuclear option


Sen

[verden]

The other thread referenced above is really for debating the reasons for a database reset. This is just my two cents concerning a strategy for what should be reset, and what criteria should apply to the logic of the reset. And the term "wipe" is not accurate or specific IMHO. We are resetting values in a database.

[Prolix]

Umm if you are wiping characters there is no need to reset stats/skills, quests, inventories, and gm rewards. Anything less would be pointless. It might even be that deleting characters is not enough as an account that has all characters deleted does not reset the "tutorial done flag", it might even be that gms/devs have an extra flag indicating this status that is only created on the account when admitted to the team but never removed if they leave. Speculation there but if that were the case then account deletion might even be preferable to just character deletion.

[Socius Rockus]

Or they just make a little script setting all tut-flags false. I deem the devs more than capable of something like that

[PhoenixRizin]

Accounts and characters. It seems that the basic functionality of account and character management works well. It may be that deleting all accounts and their associated characters will produce a situation where the server is basically paralyzed for a certain amount of time while many people re-create their accounts and characters. But doing so might give valuable information on the capacity and capability of the server itself. If this is done, then it needs to apply to player and GM characters, no exceptions.

I think characters should stay. In the event that any other points about skills, inventory, etc are not used, at the least players should keep their characters, names and races intact. If trying to get rid of older players who have not logged to reduce server load, then send an email to all accounts stating that if you haven't logged in the last year, the account will be deleted. I say this long since many are students and may need the time to concentrate on studies, hence the time out of game.

Money. Due to past exploits, it is advisable to reset all money in the world to zero. But doing this without determining an overall strategy for managing the economy of the world as a whole would be pointless, as it might simply start building again and no knowledge would be gained. In order for this to be beneficial, there needs to be a way for the team to get report data on where money comes from, goes to, how it is hoarded, how it disappears from the world, et cetera. This would probably necessitate the addition of features to allow for comprehensive high-level understanding of the economy, unless they already exist. Player and GM characters, no exceptions.

No complaints. Maybe introduce a starting amount (ie 2000 tria) so people aren't thrust into the world with absolutely nothing, but again its optional.

Reset all inventories to zero with no exceptions. I am definitely including items like "Rings of the Past" and all quest related items. All items, no exceptions. Past and/or current duplication exploits make this a critical issue. Once again, if there is no way to see and track item generation, usage and consumption, then it would be best to put in those features before doing the reset. Player and GM characters, no exceptions.

Only agreed in exchange for all basic weapons available through NPCs. So for example, I could by a galkard, but an ornate galkard would only be available through drops, quests, or events. The same goes for all clubs, staffs, swords, daggers, wands etc.

Quests. All quests information reset for all characters. No exceptions. Player and GM characters, no exceptions. Functionality for reporting on quest usage needs to be in place prior to doing the reset.

Only agreed if a new set of quests is created. Maybe keep SOME of the old ones, but having to do all those same quests over are tedious with new chars, let alone the ones that already did them. The biggest culprit here are the winch quests.

Skills and stats. All accounts need to be cycled through, resetting their skills and stats to the base values for the race. Player and GM characters, no exceptions. Functionality to report on skill progression needs to be in place prior to doing the reset otherwise valuable information relating to how to balance the game will be lost.

I vote no here (if I actually have a vote). I'd only be in favor if players can choose 3 skills to max (or at least have at very high value) to legitimize their background. And I know this is kind of done in player creation, but we're talking 2-3 points here, not the 20 or 30 a player would need to be called average in some things. Also I'd need to know more technically as to how the database would change (are skills being removed? new ones added? what technical bugs warrant this deletion? or is doing this a non-technical decision but an issue of past exploiting and not current program failure?)

Guilds. All guilds need to be reset. All guilds, no exceptions. The number of guilds that were created with past exploits has made this a necessity. The threshold for guild creation should also be raised.

Guilds should be kept, as they are part of the roleplaying environment established. If no characters are to be deleted, then no guilds should be either.

Mobs and spawns. The number of mobs needs to be increased so that there are many more available after the reset. The scarcity of mobs in the world creates a nearly cruel situation for the players. This will also increase the amount of feedback that can then be used in considerations for balancing the game.

Agreed.

GM powers and rewards. The ability for GM characters to create money, items, raise skills and alter stats should be removed completely until after a period of information gathering and should only be enabled after the goals of the reset have been achieved.

Agreed.

[neko kyouran]

while I see the idea verden was trying to get at behind this thread and why it was made separate from the main one, it's been decided that the discussion should just be kept to the main thread.  

as such, going to lock this thread so we keep all thoughts in one central place.  feel free to repost your thoughts in the main thread.

thanks!