twbd periodic damage loss

[Rab]

there's something I've noticed happening in twbd, which is weird, but defo a thing and happens every day at least once

for periods of about 10-15 mins during a bd it seems like I can't kill anything, I go from about 4KPM to about 1KPM

it happens so consistently over many games on different days

my ?lag looks normal, reconnecting doesn't help, the only solution is to wait it out

the best way to play while this happens is to play full saari mode, may as well stay alive so it at least looks like a threat, spray a bit and see what sticks

then eventually bullets start working normally again, immediately noticeable coz stuff dies when I shoot it

[sarger]

Oddly enough, I've had the same feeling the past two weeks and it was enough to make me start messing with my screen settings to see if anything helped which is something I don't ever do.

[renzi]

Yep, it’s something I’ve seen others bring up, as well as myself, such as tj, lockdown, and jurassic. Jur suggested uso
g 5g connection instead of 2.4 since that seemed to work for him.

[zidane]

I really do wish we could take a look at the server, it is horrible. Every base game is so heavily impacted by lag, rep ignores have run rampant for years and only seem to be getting worse.

Is it a monetary reason we are using this server or functional/technical reasons?

[Banks]

This lag is quite awful I must admit. As someone who lives close to the server, and basically has no lag (or very little), you can still feel the impact.

These servers definitely need to be looked at.

[Rab]

Is it a monetary reason we are using this server or functional/technical reasons?

It was picked for being US-East location, with a reputable company, and seemed like good value on paper. Also at the time the zone was down, so something was needed quick, and there were various hurdles to overcome so we didn't want to complicate things by taking on too much.

At the time the donation pot wasn't growing, so it was viewed through a lens of how long the pot would last. There was a patreon set up but the fees were high and nobody signed up. Alternatively we just depend on the rich players, no idea how they feel about that. Clearly the money exists in the zone to do better.

Edit:
- IIRC it was about 3 years (the pot would last), and it must have been about that long ago, so an update on that would be interesting.
- Also there was some talk of switching to ASSS in which case we would want Linux instead of Windows. Haven't heard any progress on that since so probably shouldn't be a consideration for now.

[Exalt]

Alternatively we just depend on the rich players, no idea how they feel about that. Clearly the money exists in the zone to do better.

Imagine if all the less-wealthy players who win money in TWDT every season from dad/wirah's donations routed that money back to the server fund instead. Not doing so and then complaining about the server being bad in the game they love so much seems a bit... well...

"'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party."

[RageRitual]

At the time the donation pot wasn't growing, so it was viewed through a lens of how long the pot would last. There was a patreon set up but the fees were high and nobody signed up. Alternatively we just depend on the rich players, no idea how they feel about that. Clearly the money exists in the zone to do better.

I really feel like getting donations figured out should be priority #1. I really don't understand the logic as to why there is not some sort of easy to find automated donation button somewhere on TWD page.

Imagine if all the less-wealthy players who win money in TWDT every season from dad/wirah's donations routed that money back to the server fund instead.

I could be wrong but a lot of players did in fact want their money donated back to TW. (maybe Wirah could confirm that) I know I donated mine back to TW.

[Rab]

I really feel like getting donations figured out should be priority #1. I really don't understand the logic as to why there is not some sort of easy to find automated donation button somewhere on TWD page.

Yeah agreed. An annual transparency forum post explaining the current financial situation, plus an easy way to set up a monthly donation, then we just need to make sure it covers the server we want.

I could be wrong but a lot of players did in fact want their money donated back to TW. (maybe Wirah could confirm that) I know I donated mine back to TW.

Yeah I've always done this (with my pathetic winnings), partly because I can never make PayPal work (it hates me), and partly because I want to donate and it's a zero effort way of doing it.

[qan]

Yeah agreed. An annual transparency forum post explaining the current financial situation, plus an easy way to set up a monthly donation, then we just need to make sure it covers the server we want.

Good point about these updates. It's traditionally been very difficult to find someone with the time, energy and interest in doing this work. A lot of it is thankless in that it's only noticed when it isn't done.

Here's a quick update:

• Players have donated over $2000 in league winnings since our generous benefactors, Wirah and Dad, have stepped up to offer cash prizes for leagues. (There's no expectation that they'll continue to do so.) This is very close to the actual amount we currently have available in the TW coffers. That covers about a year's worth of server costs.
• There is now an easy and convenient way to set up a subscription donation via PayPal. https://trenchwars.org/donations has been repaired by Hookecho. If you want to set up a recurring donation there, you can. Currently only the first donation of a subscription will show on your donations total of your TWD username and give you a pubbux coupon, but we're happy to update this manually if you keep a sub running a few months.

As for a new server, Rab gave a decent explanation of the process we went through after the old server stopped being funded by PriitK and we needed to make an emergency switch to a new one. The old server worked because it was running a near-ancient version of Windows which likely played better with the networking in some fashion, but also because the connection quality may have been higher. (However, it, too, was plagued for years by bad hops off and on, as any vet can tell you.)

There were attempts made at hiring an outside network engineer to troubleshoot problems such as what was mentioned here. (An outside consultant with no vested interest in the game would be the safest way to proceed.) If we want to collect maybe $500-1500 to do this, I'm willing to go through the process of vetting, hiring and access. Is this something we want to do as a community? (Y/N)

If Y, we need someone to spearhead a campaign to do this. This is a blanket open invitation for anyone who'd like to try, and a commitment to follow through on it. (Just changing servers without knowing the source of issues would not be the intelligent move, as we might put in hours and hours of work with no actual improvement to our situation.)



A TWD donations link might be an easy way to go. We also have a QR code that could be added to various arenas:

[Lizzo]

Sell pubbux to raise cash. Accept Bitcoins. Eliminate purepub.

How much pubbux for donating?

[RageRitual]

There were attempts made at hiring an outside network engineer to troubleshoot problems such as what was mentioned here. (An outside consultant with no vested interest in the game would be the safest way to proceed.) If we want to collect maybe $500-1500 to do this, I'm willing to go through the process of vetting, hiring and access. Is this something we want to do as a community? (Y/N)

qan I wonder if we could set up some kind of gofundme page and link it on forums, steam, discords, etc, if as a community we can come up with the funds for this. I feel like if we are very clear on how much money we need and exactly what it would go to, people would be more likely to donate.

[Exalt]

qan I wonder if we could set up some kind of gofundme page and link it on forums, steam, discords, etc, if as a community we can come up with the funds for this. I feel like if we are very clear on how much money we need and exactly what it would go to, people would be more likely to donate.

This. I'd have no problem throwing some cash toward a server fund or even the coders who do all the thankless volunteer stuff behind the scenes, but it's not exactly been convenient to do so. Palpal has just never worked for me for various reasons.

[qan]

Interesting that people aren't seeing PayPal work for them. What is the issue coming up? You don't need an account to donate and can just use a credit card.

GoFundMe is a possibility, but they take a 3% cut, which is not nothing. It might be worth the transparency, though, and provide a clear goal for donations.

We'll also be looking at running a donations drive at the end of the year to cover server costs.


Lizzo: with the donations page update, it looks like the section that calculated how much you'll receive as a thank-you gift doesn't display anymore. I can check this when I get back. At the very least we could have a table showing that info.

[Rab]

Interesting that people aren't seeing PayPal work for them. What is the issue coming up? You don't need an account to donate and can just use a credit card.

Credit card only stuff works, it's making an account that's no good. Part of the initial set up is getting it linked to your bank / checking you're a real person - which makes sense, but it doesn't pass, and you're severely limited without it, so PayPal is basically useless. I guess there's been so much crime over the years they've tightened it right up, but now it's so tight a normal uk person fails the check. I didn't really want to use it anyway, feels like being forced to use a specific bank otherwise u can't buy anything, which wouldn't wash IRL.

GoFundMe sounds good.