This scene will close in X minutes....

Ok, so I sit in the same scene (a PRT) for a few hours crafting.

I get a message that says the scene will close in 60 minutes. After a few more messages I decide to log out, get something to eat, and come back and craft some more.

I log into what should be a new scene (it's been longer than an hour) and I immediately get a new message that the scene will close in 60 minutes.

WHY ARE YOU GUYS DOING THIS? It's so disruptive and annoying. Please stop it.

There's no patch, so there's very little reason apparent to player why the scenes keep closing down. If I log into the game new you should be putting me into a new scene that isn't going to close down.

I've brought this issue up before, and I haven't seen this happen like this in a while so maybe it's a combination of events that are special to today? Whatever it is though, if someone logs in new, put them in a fresh scene, and if you're closing down one instance of a scene, for god's sake why would you move people over to another instance that would be closing soon? I just don't get it.

 

Can you say server side patch?

 

Seems like multiple ones.

I think there's some VM management going on here too. But the impact to the player may not always be considered. It's just really annoying to literally go from one scene to the next getting the same message. There's no justifiable reason to get that same message once you've switched scenes or logged out and then back in.

Even if it's a server side patch, it's really hard for me to believe that I personally need to be patched up so that I can continue to butcher wolf carcasses in Kingsport. I'm fairly certain that once I leave Kingsport whatever they patched up can be given to me then.

 

That's generally an indication that there is a patch happening. The first thing I do is check to see if there's a new patch up.

The architecture that allows people to play with older versions of the client is what's going on. First, if two people are running different client versions, they get sorted into different instances. When an update happens and it's marked as a forced update, people running the old client version still get to play in their existing instance for an hour.

Yes, this means that the old server version (apparently) is still running for until all its instances expire. I think of it as each scene instance is connected to a single running executable on the server, and each executable has a certain list of versions it supports, but only one version for its specific instance.

As to what happens with a "ninja patch", maybe that accounts for some of the times when a version number gets skipped. Right now I'm on 716, and I got the instance closing notice a few minutes ago. So maybe the server is now on 717. There would be no 717 client upgrade, but the server is listed as supporting client 716. It seems tricky, but they seem to have it working quite well.

 

Normally if there's a patch I'll see it queued up on Steam. Right now I'm on 716 as well. But I don't see anything queued up on Steam.

So I'm about to log off again, and when I log back in I should see that I'm on 717. However, this would still make me wonder why that didn't happen the last time.

EDIT: And I logged back in and I'm still on 716. So there's no real rhyme or reason that I can tell. I'm sure something is driving this, but from my perspective it's fairly maddening to go through it multiple times like this.

 

Like I said, if there's a ninja patch, it probably just bumps the server version (in this case to 717), but since it required no changes to the client, it simply forces existing instances to expire an hour after release. It has long been known that there are non-forced patches, with the result that they simply don't allow people on two different patches to play together.

Most people don't stay in the same instance for an hour unless they're grinding, so except for the warning, most players will have no effect on their gameplay.

 

you won't see anything on steam when it's a server side patch.

 

Right, which makes sense. What doesn't make sense is having to switch scenes multiple times because everything you enter into (even after logging out) is being shut down in X minutes.

 

when they do this, they have to have both versions of the server running at once to accomodate the people in old instances. that's not efficient to support one guy who wants to make his wolf hats without interruption. an hour is more generous that i would have been.

 

I don't disagree with that at all. But you may be missing my point.

Fine, kick me off the server and make me log back in. But don't kick me off the server and put me in a new scene that ALSO is shutting down in 60 minutes. If you're patching, all new scenes should be fresh to avoid people getting trapped in multiple versions of unpatched scenes.

It's very annoying to log out of a scene only to be log back in and still be in the same spot.

 

i don't think you're being put in old instances, i think they had more than one patch.

...and you don't have to log out and back in. you just need a new instance. switching modes would be enough.

 

Same amount of time for either option tho

 

Additionally, I always wonder why things like this have to be presented as dry, mechanical, server messages?

Why couldn't it be handled in a more in-lore role-played way?

For example, what if we had lore that the lunar rifts were sometimes unstable because of the cataclysm. Then when a scene reload was needed, what if the game played a brief, mysterious, moongate shifting effect for us, but never mentioned scene closing.

 

I don't know about the reason for the message in the first place. But I have an opinion about relogging after a break. I play solo mode a lot and farm a scene. Over time the resource respawn and mob respawn slow way down. Leaving the scene and returning seems to put me into the same slowed scene. There is a timer, I believe that won't let you leave a scene and return for a fresh start. Lately I think that timer length has increased to over 10 minutes from my experience. Now if you leave after receiving the 60 minute warning, perhaps returning within the "farming prevention" timer restriction you are put right back in basically the scene you left.

 

That sounds plausible!

 

I stayed in a closing scene once just to see what would happen. I was disappointed. I thought maybe Darkstarr and Lord British would show up, saying, "what the hell part of 'this instance is closing', didn't you understand?". Then attack me. Or send some of their minions to do it. Or maybe have all eight cabalists show up. Instead, it just loaded the scene again.