Consignment House Problems
By
Father Xmas,
Posted on: 2010-01-25 11:46 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
how they have the market right now, its not that bad, it does horribly lag for a minute when opening the interface but after that its fine for me.
sigh
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This board isn't for second guessing design decisions or rally the masses to storm the devs. If you want raise the issue to a dev, PM Matt “The Television” Stults who just took over as leader of the programming team with your concerns. Be polite, be specific, don't speculate on the causes, just describe the problem and point him to that thread in Player Questions. | Discuss technical questions and/or bugs here! This is NOT a forum where official technical/QA support is available. To report a bug use the /bug command in game. For technical assistance email support@coh.com. |
Do not expect a fix, if one is coming at all, for at least six or more months as Going Rogue is currently being crunched. Then again it may already be in the pipeline but don't expect a "we'll get right on that".
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Widespread disconnects and crashes resulting from the use of the Consignment House is an error in computer programing.
Let's just ask to get it fixed so we can go back to enjoying our games.
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And do you speak for the game population in general, or is this YOUR personal experience.|
Originally Posted by hazard
Widespread disconnects and crashes
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Sweeping generalizations without factual support do not help your position.
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I've not crashed or disconnected more than twice at either Wentworth's or the Black Market since shortly after they were introduced. Not even when I go to Talos WW right after a Hami Raid when seemingly half of those that were at the raid are in WW.
Nobody I talk to in my global channels has reported more than the rare occaisional crash or disconnect at either markeet.
Not sure how you can refer to that as being widespread.
Could be an issue on your computer or along the network connection between you and the servers.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
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we already gave you a very effective way of doing this after you open the market for the first time. when you have it open all you have to do is set what you want it to search by using the filter. then it will only load what you have specified.
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Originally Posted by hazard
I started a thread in the Player Questions forum to see if the technical issues surrounding the Consignment House was being addressed.
My initial observation was that, on clicking on a Consignment House Representative, the game loads the entire database of transactions, which often causes long wait times and map-server disconnects. My question is: Why are more conventional ways of searching databases not being used? Generally speaking, when faced with a database, the user inputs search parameters and the program returns only the values based on those parameters. Forcing everyone to load the entire database seems very inefficient. It is my hope that other players, who feel - as I do - that there is a serious problem with the quality of experience with the Consignment Houses, voice their concerns in a effort to persuade the Developers to take action. |
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If you had looked into the previous thread, you'd see it contains accounts of multiple players experiencing problems with the Consignment House.
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Originally Posted by Ironblade
And do you speak for the game population in general, or is this YOUR personal experience.
Sweeping generalizations without factual support do not help your position. |
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A small handful of posts does not equate to a "widespread" problem.
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Originally Posted by hazard
If you had looked into the previous thread, you'd see it contains accounts of multiple players experiencing problems with the Consignment House.
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If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
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I did. A handful of people does not make it a widespread problem. In fact, if you had been paying attention, you would have noticed that I already posted in that thread advising that I had issues under certain circumstances. I still contend it's not as widespread or severe as your post made it sound.|
Originally Posted by hazard
If you had looked into the previous thread, you'd see it contains accounts of multiple players experiencing problems with the Consignment House.
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Oh, and by my count you had 6 people agree and 11 who either disagreed or made suggestions how to solve the problem.
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First, people are mentioning this issue in other threads.
Second, I am not about spend my free time (which I would prefer to spend playing the game) compiling an expansive list of player accounts of this situation. This is a problem for the producers. I am merely stating that I'm being effected by it, and want a solution.
It is my hope that other people, who are currently experiencing (or have experienced) problems with the Consignment House, voice their dissatisfaction about this bug as well so that the necessary actions can be taken to correct it.
If this bug does not effect you: 1) I'm am jealous of you. 2) Post in another thread.
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Literally tens to hundreds of thousands of people use the market without any delays or crashes. So there's obviously not an inherent design flaw.|
Originally Posted by hazard
My initial observation was that, on clicking on a Consignment House Representative, the game loads the entire database of transactions, which often causes long wait times and map-server disconnects.
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That's not to say you haven't found a legitimate bug. But your problem likely has something to do with software on your computer, or your Internet connection, and it does not affect the vast majority of users. You need to isolate the factors that people who have these crashes have in common. It's probably some kind of graphics driver bug, because most weird problems like this are "loose" pointers in third-party drivers. It's not at all uncommon for graphics driver problems to clobber data that have nothing at all to do with graphics, which makes such problems very hard to track down. This may also be bug in the game that appears only under certain circumstances: used with a particular graphics driver or some other piece of software on your computer.
The market does not load the "entire database" of transactions to your computer every time you open the market window. Because of the large initial delay the first time a character uses the market, it obviously uses some kind of caching or timestamping mechanism that initializes the first time you use the market on a character by setting up all the possible items locally. It seems likely that only the database information for the specific item you click in the left pane is actually downloaded (and the existence/nonexistence of bids for other items based on your filtering selections). That information is monitored in real time, which you can see because new bids and purchases (including your own) will appear as you watch. Only the item you're looking at is being monitored, and that is a very small amount of data.
You can monitor data transmissions from the server to your client by typing "/netgraph 1". When I monitor data while opening the market window I see a pause in the data transmitted to the client, then it increases a small amount, then it goes back to the base data rate. I'm seeing data rates in the range of 3-5K with only slight upticks occasionally.
The server software is obviously sending only changes to the clients, because the data rate is so low -- generally no different than when I'm standing there in Wentworth's with the market window closed.
Your problem could also be some kind of bug in the market caching or timestamping mechanism. Have you tried this with different characters? Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game?
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Stamping your foot angrily will not get you any results. You need to give the devs information so that they can isolate the problem. |
Originally Posted by hazard
It is my hope that other people, who are currently experiencing (or have experienced) problems with the Consignment House, voice their dissatisfaction about this bug as well so that the necessary actions can be taken to correct it.
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This may not even be a problem with the game. It could quite easily be caused by a key logger or some other kind of malware that only crops up with the market. In that case, no amount of screaming at the devs will ever resolve the issue.
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And, as was pointed out earlier in the thread, this is not the proper venue for it either, just as the other thread wasn't.|
Originally Posted by Rodion
Stamping your foot angrily will not get you any results. You need to give the devs information so that they can isolate the problem.
This may not even be a problem with the game. It could quite easily be caused by a key logger or some other kind of malware that only crops up with the market. In that case, no amount of screaming at the devs will ever resolve the issue. |
File a /bug report or send a PM to Arbiter Kim or to The Television. Arbiter Kim is the "go to" Dev for bugs, and The Television is the new head of the programming team.
Snide comments such as your remark of "But I just want to point out that a good programmer could really improve the functionality of this game." would not be appropriate commentary for those PM's. We have some extremely good programmers working on the game as it is. However, they have not written every line of code in the game and not all of the code was adequately documented by previous programmers. Even when code is properly documented, you still get moments of "how the heck is this piece of code affecting system y when it only deals with system x?"
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
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I don't think it does. When the market is responding slowly, clicking for more info on an item results in a blank last five transactions, which is filled in when the AH server eventually responds to the request. If the whole database was loaded, then the last five would always be available locally for all transactions (although possibly out of date).|
Originally Posted by hazard
My initial observation was that, on clicking on a Consignment House Representative, the game loads the entire database of transactions
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My understanding is that what the programme does is load all the AH *icons* from disk into memory. Any issues this causes are primarily related to your system. E.g. many people have reported significant improvements to AH performance by adding more memory.
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If this understanding is correct, my criticism would be:|
Originally Posted by Grouchybeast
My understanding is that what the programme does is load all the AH *icons* from disk into memory.
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"Why am I being forced to load icons that may not be relevant to my current interaction? Why should I load enhancement icons if I'm just looking for salvage? Could one improve the speed of the process by not loading all the icons initially? Why is this not being done?"
If my comments or criticisms seem snide or condescending, it is due to my frustration. As a player, I would like nothing more than to enjoy an interruption-free gaming experience, without having to give any thought to the mechanisms that make the game possible.
Furthermore, if the evidence supported the conclusion that the "Consignment House Choke" was an isolated issue with my machine, I would be pursuing other means of correcting the matter.
Finally, it is still my hope that by giving voice to this issue - which I'll be calling the Consignment House Choke from now on - actions will be taken to correct it, which should increase playability and game-satisfaction for everyone, even my opposition.
The screen shows the morning traffic report. Looks like bad news for commuters: heavy construction going on around the consignment houses. You see nerdy programmers ripping out the foundation. They're a blur with activity. What are they doing in there?
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One of them dropped a 1983 commemorative Star Trek coin and it fell through a grate near there.|
Originally Posted by The Television
The screen shows the morning traffic report. Looks like bad news for commuters: heavy construction going on around the consignment houses. You see nerdy programmers ripping out the foundation. They're a blur with activity. What are they doing in there?
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((Yay! Our chief programmer's droppin some 411! I think it's translated 'working on it.'))
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Ripping out the foundation...?
They're merging the markets!
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My biggest issue is the game does not like me selling Enhancements. Two characters I was working on the upper ACC IO badges frequently have "Tell me what you are doing" crashes... and recently had it happen to another character get that on a regular SO being added to the market (some times I can get none in, sometimes up to four before it crashes. occasionally no issues at all...)
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Programmers are now doing building demolition and construction? Does that mean that steelworkers and bricklayers are now doing the coding? |
Originally Posted by The Television
The screen shows the morning traffic report. Looks like bad news for commuters: heavy construction going on around the consignment houses. You see nerdy programmers ripping out the foundation. They're a blur with activity. What are they doing in there?
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Nope, they are leaving that to BAB. Now you know why he turned off his PM box.
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Originally Posted by Siergen
Programmers are now doing building demolition and construction? Does that mean that steelworkers and bricklayers are now doing the coding?
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If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
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This is great news!|
Originally Posted by The Television
The screen shows the morning traffic report. Looks like bad news for commuters: heavy construction going on around the consignment houses. You see nerdy programmers ripping out the foundation. They're a blur with activity. What are they doing in there?
|
I eagerly anticipate the ribbon-cutting.
Would be great if the Consignment house interface was made more efficent. I don't know if its inefficent now, Now I've never had a crash/disconnect while using the market but every now and then, (maybe during peak times, either for the game or internet traffic between me and the servers, no idea) I will have to repeat my bids several times for them to 'stick'
ie I'll put a Luck Charm up on the market for 1000 inf. but nothing will happen for a second or two, then the Luck Charm dissapears and is back in my inventory, so I will have to drag it back into the market again.
This is the only re-occuring problem for me and its intermittent.
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Gah, I give in... TV has gotten a firm hold of me and I like it. Can't stop.. watching...
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Originally Posted by The Television
The screen shows the morning traffic report. Looks like bad news for commuters: heavy construction going on around the consignment houses. You see nerdy programmers ripping out the foundation. They're a blur with activity. What are they doing in there?
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Any and all spelling, grammar and logic errors are intentional so this post will blend seamlessly into the Internet
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Unbelievable. You, [subject name here], must be the pride of [subject hometown here]!
I started a thread in the Player Questions forum to see if the technical issues surrounding the Consignment House was being addressed.
My initial observation was that, on clicking on a Consignment House Representative, the game loads the entire database of transactions, which often causes long wait times and map-server disconnects.
My question is: Why are more conventional ways of searching databases not being used?
Generally speaking, when faced with a database, the user inputs search parameters and the program returns only the values based on those parameters. Forcing everyone to load the entire database seems very inefficient.
It is my hope that other players, who feel - as I do - that there is a serious problem with the quality of experience with the Consignment Houses, voice their concerns in a effort to persuade the Developers to take action.