REALLY PISSED!!! Bug or bad code?

[Berendol]

Berendol is dead. A GMM attacked him on 3100', and I didn't know it was a GMM until my character was knocked out. Thanks to some four star lag followed by packet loss, I had no chance of doing *anything*. So I exited, and I tried to login with a second character for a full 30 seconds and was denied. I watched the clock, it was at least 30 seconds. I was informed that Berendol died. So I waited around for someone to take care of that stuff, and Berendol's equipment mostly was gone. After he took care of the GMM, I logged back in with Berendol assuming that my ghost would be in a wall, safe. No. I was next to a great storm wyrm. With no chance of escaping. I exited after running, hoping against hope that it wouldn't kill the ghost. But after logging in with my second character again, waiting almost 30 seconds, I discovered that Berendol's ghost died. Just like that.

I think that there's a serious problem if ghosts aren't placed in safe locations. Why was I put in the middle of an open room, exactly adjacent to a great storm wyrm?

Two things lead me to suspect a bug or sudden change in the code. One, I couldn't login a second character to ask for help until the first one died. Two, I was placed in danger upon death. There have been numerous other changes recently that were undocumented. Crimson, if you're going to tweak the code like this, I expect you to have the decency to tell us. Don't let us find out by dying. That's just wrong. I've long said that we need to know what changes you're making, and this incident just shows the need a little more.

[Big Juan Teh Furby]

Hoo YAH!  Big Juan went *POOF* in the same fashion...repopped right next to a pack of etheral hounds...Martos said the death and POOF messages were less than 1 second apart.

However, in Crimson's defense, both Martos and Angus told me that it's happened to them in the past.  I don't think it's something he just changed...although I agree with you, we SHOULD pop in a safe place.

[Big_Juan_Teh_Furby]

Guest poster?  WTB.

Oh well.

Anyway, the whole 30 seconds thing came about a loooong time ago...like just after Crimson took control of the server.

It's done that way so that you can't log 2 characters on from the same computer and share gear...you can only have one on at one time.  Since you quit in the dungeon, it takes 30 seconds for you to log off...that way, people don't go "oh god, I'm gonna die, better log on a bigger character to save my bacon", log off in the dungeon, log a bigger character on (or wait for someone big to clear the level) then log the small guy back on.  Same reasoning as with recall taking a bit to actually go off.

But I feel for ya...I lost a level 50 (I think he was 50...may have been 48-49, can't remember) in literally the blink of an eye...and I don't feel it should have happened, either...if I was in a wall, I would have been fine.

[Berendol]

Yeah... I was level 35, having just bought ESP the day before, and had just bought HI a few dives ago. Check it out, this is what I had! (Besides maxed stats, finally achieved on that same dive!)

Equipment list at time of death: Blade of Chaos of Burning, Ring of Dexterity +5, Ring of Constitution +6, Amulet of Wisdom +4, Robe of Permanence, Cloak +9, Large Metal Shield of Resistance, Golden Crown of Telepathy, Gauntlets of Agility (+4), Hard Leather Boots of Mirkwood. Much of this survived.

Inventory: All priest books except Wrath of God. Rod of Recall, Rod of Disarming, Staves of Speed, Teleportation, and Perception, Potions of Speed, Healing, and RLL, the key to the store (which contained about $2 mil in items) and some random stuff I found lying around. AFAIK most of this was lost.

[Maegdae]

I don't understand why his ghost would pop into an open room.  The way I understood it, ghosts always went into walls.  I've never had any of my ghosts go into the open before.  Yet, I saw his ghost killed by the Great Storm Wyrm in the middle of the room, as I frantically ran toward that side of the level. Is that a bug?  Popping and having things that move through walls isn't new to me, but popping in an open room?

[Big_Juan_Teh_Furby]

I agree, Maegdae...I was under that impression too.  But after Angus assured me that he'd repopped in rooms before, and that it's random, and given that he knows more about how the game works than most people...quite possibly even Crimson (no disrespect intended), I tend to believe him.

Berendol, take a break.  Believe me, this game draws you back...but it's normal, almost expected for people to sit back and lick your wounds after a crappy death like this.  Now, if it'd been a "legit" death, sure...but these dodgy deaths are questionable at best, and quite frustrating.

[Berendol]

I'll be taking it easy for a little while, maybe. Depends, I have the whole week off next week, I might just get some playing done since I'll have time. I'll be experimenting with new ideas using Vengeance until I hear back one way or the other from Crimson.

Or, I'll pursue my current project... does anyone know about client-server programming using TCP? With VB.NET? Or maybe a good tutorial on C# would be nice.

[Berendol]

To settle all disputes over the way ghosts are positioned... here is the relevant source code, from xtra2.c.

     /* Turn him into a ghost */
     p_ptr->ghost = 1;

     /* Teleport him */
     teleport_player(Ind, 200);


Notice that it calls teleport_player with the player number, and a range of 200. IIRC this is the same function that is called when you teleport yourself, and it does no location checking.

[Crimson]

I'm not sure where the myth got started about the ghost being teleported into a wall.  but, as you say, there's no checking at all.  The teleoport away is pretty much just to give the ghost a chance at surviving when it'd obviously be killed if it stayed put.

There's no way to avoid some types of death in either angband, or mangband.  It's part of the game.

Crimson.

[Domino]

I've seen a couple rants about this but just to let you all know, personally I have never knowingly had my ghost teleported INSIDE a wall upon character death.  Of course 90% of my deaths, and most others I would venture to guess, have been on un-enlightened levels and from what I can tell most people assume dark=inside a wall when this isn't the case.   Remember you no longer have your light...  Also I have on NUMEROUS occasions been teleported into hound packs, summoners and other big nasties upon death.

On another note (probably should post this to the wishlist) one thing that I would LOVE to see would be the capability of having the client load another .prf file on character death like say.. Ghost.prf?  Having your Undead Powers like blink, teleport self and the various offensive powers at hand would be a true character saver.   And while you could macro these to some of your less used keys..being able to assign them to whatever you normaly use for teleport or offensive spell/bow macro and having that loaded on character death would make using them second nature.  Wouldn't think it would be that difficult to do either.. A simple capture script could receive the death message from the server and then load a default .prf

Of course I could be completely wrong and seeing as I don't know how to do this under windows I think I'll shut up now  8)