Official DiSTENSiON Thread (Schedule)

[Exalt]

Part of the schedule says that Saturday will have a random host. It just so happened to be at 8:30 tonight.

To be fair, hockey ran for like 3 or 4 hours straight before that, so it's not like hockey was neglected.

Here's my issue though... if an event like hockey can run for 3 or 4 straight hours, and probably could have easily ran for another 3 or 4 straight hours after that as well...

why would you host an event that hurts that activity? Isn't it a GOOD thing that people enjoy something so much that they will play it and keep it active for 4+ hours (far more than that if not interrupted by distension, which happens to screw up the hockey bot)?

I don't know, maybe I'm using too much common sense here for a dying game that is badly in need of population and activity, but... this whole distension thing seems extremely counter-productive when it screws up one of the most active events TW has.

Why can't qan or whoever FIX distension already so it doesn't fuck up the Hockey bots? Nobody would bitch anymore if you actually did that. I mean, seriously, distension has been nothing but a headache since it was created. It used to crash the server everytime it was hosted, which was fixed. Now it simply ruins Hockey, which is the most popular arena TW has (and stays popular throughout the day). I simply do not understand why this isn't fixed, instead of mods saying "you can always find a staff member to host hockey for you" as if any staff member is actually going to host hockey for 4+ hours at a time to keep the population happy?

What this tells me is not that distension kills hockey, but that not having hockeybot kills hockey because nobody is willing to step up and host it manually for 1 hour a day.

This is exactly true. Beyond that 1 hour a day thing.. hockey runs for hours and hours and hours. Seriously, the other night, it ran for at least 10 hours straight. It might've gone on longer, but I wasn't about to stick around to keep measuring it. Hockeybot is very important for Hockey to run smoothly, and very few (if any) ERs or Mods on staff either A) know how to host hockey B) want to host hockey and/or C) Care about hockey. They also don't want to host it for 10 hours. This is my point. Distension kills hockey because it kills the Hockeybot, which is complete bullshit if you ask me. No event should be ruining other ACTIVE events whatsoever in TW.

To put it plainly, Distension is fucking broken, and until it is fixed, it needs to be scrapped. It was broken back when it crashed the server every time it was hosted, and it is still broken. Either fix it, or drop it. Why are you still hosting a broken event? People like it, so you feel you HAVE to host it? People like Hockey too. Why are we catering to one while screwing over the other? Hockeybot doesn't fuck over distension or any other arena/event, or I'd say scrap that too until it was fixed.

I'm also not mentioning how distension tends to ruin other arenas too, because there's simply no point. Nobody will listen or care. I just know that it does, because I see it every time. I'm ignoring that fact due to the possibility that distension is so popular (with it's 20 players) that everyone that would be playing other arenas decide to either A) play distension or B) Distension simply has bad timing and those players would've gone afk and/or left during that time period anyways. Who knows. Therefore, I'm focusing solely on the idea that Distension is broken and needs to be fixed, if it can be fixed.

[TagMor]

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we will always be stuck exactly where we are now

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[Ephemeral]

I don’t understand the need to cite the number of players in arena A or B; we are scheduling and running an event that is known to have issues.

We obviously have some players who like playing Distension. Just like we have players who like pub bucks or private frequency LTs in pub. Making lemonade out of the lemons might seem productive as long as we are willing to face and resolve what is really broken here; the zone rolls out broken, issue-laden features.

Arguing over the number of people we have hooked on broken features, or whether or not one flawed feature is any better or worse than the other flawed feature is laughable. Frankly it only serves to distract from getting our shit together. These little bitchfests have saddled the zone for years; yet everyone says the want to see TW change. We can change the people who are in staff. We can even change the way staff is structured. But if we aren’t willing to change how we do things we will always be stuck exactly where we are now.
eph

[LF]

As was stated in the post before mine and in the original post of this thread, Saturday is slotted for 2 hosts to accommodate both North American and European playerbases. While granted I did not alert the entire zone (How could I?), but I did notify the distension population after the first host was over that the next host would happen around 9ish PM EST (It started late at 9:26 partially due to the fact that I was waiting for the hockey game to finish). With that said, lets analyze some facts...

Hockey had exactly 25 people in the arena. 4 of which were in !notplaying, 2 were bots (Hockeybot and TW-Guard) and then there was me + 1 other that follows me like a lost puppy waiting for me to start distension. That means an active arena population more realistically at or about 17 people. Of those 17 people, only a maximum of 12 can actually play at a time. Ok roger that, 17 people actively participating in the automatically run hockey event that our zone offers. Cool beans +1.

At the start of distension, THREE (3) players only (not counting myself and my lost puppy) that were actually in the hockey arena came to distension instead (Afri, fiS and frightful for the record). So out of the 17 people that were actively participating in the hockey event, losing only 3 players to another event should have left enough players for a game with 2 full teams and 2 people left over.

What this tells me is not that distension kills hockey, but that not having hockeybot kills hockey because nobody is willing to step up and host it manually for 1 hour a day. I can sympathize with the people that really enjoy hockey, it sucks that the bots cannot coexist and i can't even explain why because I don't have a clue. I cannot offer a solution to the bot issue, because the coding that goes into them is something I know nothing about, but I can re-hash my old sentiment about this situation and offer a very viable solution... If you want to play hockey during distension, host it manually! I would even personally train anybody that wanted to learn (and the deans allowed) how to host it, because it really is the easiest event you could possibly host in the entire zone. Get 1 or 2 or even 3 people together, talk to one of the deans and discuss getting command access to the hockey arena only. I can't speak on their behalf obviously but common sense tells me that this is not an unreasonable request for the betterment of the general population.

So in the end please stop blaming us when a very real solution to your problem is well within your reach. Hockeybot was made by SpookedOne (I think) and is a privilege available 23 hours a day, not an entitlement. While I would never tell a player to go to another zone, i will encourage you guys to actually do something for yourselves instead of waiting for somebody else to do it for you...and just to clear one last thing up, every single event that is actually hosted by a live person gets exactly 2 adverts, not just distension.

[Frightful]

Just a random nitpick if I may:

Hockey had around 25 active people in it around 8:30 pm tonight. It was full, active, and running at full speed. It had a lot of non-tw players in it as well, especially from HZ.

Then all of a sudden... DISTENSION IS HOSTED! Why do we have a distension schedule if you can apparently host it whenever the fuck you want to?

Btw, distension managed to get... 20 people. I didn't enter the arena, so I don't know if anyone was in spec or not, but let us assume they were all playing and active.

Every other arena was dead except for pub at that point. Elim was active until distension. It was no longer active after distension was adverted... twice.

I won't say more than this, but my question is why do you have a distension schedule when apparently that schedule doesn't mean jack shit? I thought that schedule was to please EVERYONE on both sides? It was to let people who loved distension know when it was going to be hosted, and it let people who hated distension and who know that all other events are going to die to not log in during those time periods. Yet for some reason, distension is still hosted whenever anyone damn well pleases, even when hockey is going full speed.

What did the hosts tell the hockey players in .?go hockey? They said "If you want hockey, go to hz." Yes, that's what they said.

Why not tell all distension players "If you want distension, go play Distension Zone?"

Just my two cents. I logged off TW because after that, the only arena that had anyone not afk in it was pub, which was also pretty small at that point. TW WAS booming, but everyone logged off my chats after distension was adverted. Everyone in hockey left as well. Maybe they did go to HZ, who knows.

My point is this: If you are going to have a schedule for distension, keep to the fucking schedule. Otherwise, scrap the schedule and just admit you don't give a fuck about the rest of TW, and you certainly don't give a fuck about anyone that likes playing hockey in TW. Thanks. Have a great night.

Part of the schedule says that Saturday will have a random host. It just so happened to be at 8:30 tonight.

To be fair, hockey ran for like 3 or 4 hours straight before that, so it's not like hockey was neglected.

[Exalt]

Just a random nitpick if I may:

Hockey had around 25 active people in it around 8:30 pm tonight. It was full, active, and running at full speed. It had a lot of non-tw players in it as well, especially from HZ.

Then all of a sudden... DISTENSION IS HOSTED! Why do we have a distension schedule if you can apparently host it whenever the fuck you want to?

Btw, distension managed to get... 20 people. I didn't enter the arena, so I don't know if anyone was in spec or not, but let us assume they were all playing and active.

Every other arena was dead except for pub at that point. Elim was active until distension. It was no longer active after distension was adverted... twice.

I won't say more than this, but my question is why do you have a distension schedule when apparently that schedule doesn't mean jack shit? I thought that schedule was to please EVERYONE on both sides? It was to let people who loved distension know when it was going to be hosted, and it let people who hated distension and who know that all other events are going to die to not log in during those time periods. Yet for some reason, distension is still hosted whenever anyone damn well pleases, even when hockey is going full speed.

What did the hosts tell the hockey players in .?go hockey? They said "If you want hockey, go to hz." Yes, that's what they said.

Why not tell all distension players "If you want distension, go play Distension Zone?"

Just my two cents. I logged off TW because after that, the only arena that had anyone not afk in it was pub, which was also pretty small at that point. TW WAS booming, but everyone logged off my chats after distension was adverted. Everyone in hockey left as well. Maybe they did go to HZ, who knows.

My point is this: If you are going to have a schedule for distension, keep to the fucking schedule. Otherwise, scrap the schedule and just admit you don't give a fuck about the rest of TW, and you certainly don't give a fuck about anyone that likes playing hockey in TW. Thanks. Have a great night.

[roxxkatt]

Extended timer is great!

Was the shark limiter always there? I resisted playing shark for so long so I could have something else to do (since that seems to be all I do in twbd), so I never knew there was a limit. I understand the idea, but I feel like there could be a minimum number of sharks before it is enforced, instead of starting at 0 and then having the +2 shark max. Could let two sharks minimum start before it is enforced in order to establish rep rotation. Last match nme had 2 terrs but no sharks, and Forces pretty much dominated our terr when bot only let us have 1 shark. Letting a team start with 2 sharks could help relieve some pressure, though Forces' terr is pretty high level so it would have been hard either way.

Also, I don't know if it was distension related, but sometime this week, enemy tried to play a bd during distension hours and the bot died in-game. However, the bot got reset/killed and we tried another bd and the bot worked out fine. There was also a server recycle yesterday during distension

shark limiter was implemented fairly quickly, because sharks can regen reps and reps were initially bigger and lasted longer, so one team could have 4 sharks just sitting on the flag spamming reps until flag timer ran out and they won.
playing against a team with > 3 sharks fucking sucks


the bot core runs multiple bots and is not on the same machine as tw
dist sends lots of information and has a regulator
if there is any lag at all, bad things happen
including a server crash because server was written to be operated by humans
lag makes all the data pile up and then get sent all at once
priit actually put code in that says if(amiworkingtoohard()) killmyself();

[Ephemeral]

When Enemy tried to arrange the BD yesterday it was difficult to raise enough players because several were playing Distension and didn't want to quit it to come play the BD. This means;
1. Distension is so much fun/popular that players would rather do it then play in a TWD match
and/or
2. Distension is competing with other TW venues and this is not a good thing

If Distension wasn't running perhaps Enemy would not have even had enough players online to play a BD. Who knows? Once again we have no real data to discuss so we are left with just opinions. Do all of these TW features/events simply divide up the remaining pieces of the TW population pie or are they helping the zone population overall? Can anything be done to measure the real impact of Distension and other events to the zone or are we simply going to debate opinions Ad nauseam?

The zone is too complex and there are too many dependencies for simple approaches. You can't pull on one side of the TW cloth and not have it distort elsewhere. But we have 15 different people all doing things independently; a pattern that has been occurring over and over for years. Every time a new person is put in charge of something they ask for 'good ideas', implement them without anyway to measure their impact, deal with the exploits and other negative side effects that crop up, and justify the entire thing with 'we already invested in getting this done and there is XXX amount of players who like it'.

Sorry Qan, I know you want this thread to be about Distension but it seems to me that the discussion should be in the context of the entire zone. If Distension was a part of a bigger plan, and that plan had ways to measure the impact of the various components, we wouldn't be left with more questions than answers. Our direction would be clearer and we would save huge amounts of time.
eph

[project dragon]

Extended timer is great!

Was the shark limiter always there? I resisted playing shark for so long so I could have something else to do (since that seems to be all I do in twbd), so I never knew there was a limit. I understand the idea, but I feel like there could be a minimum number of sharks before it is enforced, instead of starting at 0 and then having the +2 shark max. Could let two sharks minimum start before it is enforced in order to establish rep rotation. Last match nme had 2 terrs but no sharks, and Forces pretty much dominated our terr when bot only let us have 1 shark. Letting a team start with 2 sharks could help relieve some pressure, though Forces' terr is pretty high level so it would have been hard either way.

Also, I don't know if it was distension related, but sometime this week, enemy tried to play a bd during distension hours and the bot died in-game. However, the bot got reset/killed and we tried another bd and the bot worked out fine. There was also a server recycle yesterday during distension

[Fusha]

The recent game was great fun - the longer timer definitely helps!
The zone crash was iffy tho :c

[Eren]

Please post bug reports here or contact qan (shhh... don't tell anyone, but they can also earn you RP if valid!)

• You can get out of the spawn point of intergalactic planetary inc using a weasel via a tiny gap under the "p" letter.
• +5% diversity bonus gets effective only when bot reloads after reaching rank 20 with a ship (or it gets effective but still displays the same bonus amount as before).
• Sometimes you don't get warped into the flagroom at round start.
• Kills made against non rearmed attachers at the moment of the attach registers as a kill outside the base, therefore giving much less RP.

[Exalt]

Let's have a chat later ingame to clarify things that were missunderstood and to leave the topic alone. PM sent.

Done and Done. See you in game to continue this private chat. Just remember, I am not against you personally fiS. Not at all. I may not always agree with you, but I do view you as one of the very good members of staff. Don't forget this.

As qan said you really need to start tightening up your points dude D: I want to help and I want to know what people think but its becoming such a chore to read a wall of text on literally every single point you have to make. Popular Army (and im sure other places as well) goes "Work smart not hard". For the first time ever I can actually say and mean "tl;dr". Perhaps a short summary of your ideas at the end of your posts? That would be a good compromise I think

It's the inner Writer/English Major in me that does it. I'll do my best, but I'm pretty known for my walls of paragraphs lol.

Oh, and the Navy says the same thing: Work smarter not Harder.... but they also say Work Hard, Play Hard... Sooooo lol

[LF]

As qan said you really need to start tightening up your points dude D: I want to help and I want to know what people think but its becoming such a chore to read a wall of text on literally every single point you have to make. Popular Army (and im sure other places as well) goes "Work smart not hard". For the first time ever I can actually say and mean "tl;dr". Perhaps a short summary of your ideas at the end of your posts? That would be a good compromise I think

[fiS]

Let's have a chat later ingame to clarify things that were missunderstood and to leave the topic alone. PM sent.

[Exalt]

#Exalt4CouncilScribe

I lol'd


Anyway, Qan wants this thread to be about distension, so Shadow (or whoever is this forum's mod)... I suggest you either create a new "Official DiSTENSiON Thread (Schedule)" thread full of updates about distension, or you just delete my posts along with everyone elses on this thread that has nothing to do with distension updates and blah blah blah. I only say this out of respect for Qan, but do whateva. I said my peace anyways.