Handling Err7s

Darth Marth

Darth Marth

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jan 2006

USA Midwest

Order of Celestial Guardians II [OCG]

Me/Mo

After well over a year of running Guild Wars, I'm amazed that Anet has done absolutely nothing to deal with people who are dropped because of errors, especially the dreaded error 007. They use the exact same message, "(Playername) has left the game" for people who honestly have to leave, ragequitters, and people who leave unintentionally due to errors. People should not be forced to continue playing minus one possibly crucial party member or restart because of technical problems beyond their control; a system to handle and restore dropped players could be easy to implement and make everyone much happier with their Guild Wars experience.

Whenever a plays leaves a team, the game can easily check the reason. If the player is still online and simply mapped out, or if the player deliberately logs out, no extra action will be taken; the player has left intentionally, with no chance of coming back. This would prevent people from quitting and returning to change builds or get different items.

If the player left due to an error, however, the game would be able to detect it; since it seems to notify you of any errors that affect you, it could obviously know when a player is dropped because of one. If this is the case and the player is forcibly logged out by an error, the player will get a message asking if he/she wishes to rejoin his/her group upon logging in. If the player accepts, he/she is returned to the area/mission he/she was in, with his/her party. To prevent exploits, the player's state (energy, health, skill recharge, items, position, and such) would have to be the same as when he/she errored out. if the player declines to rejoin his/her group, he/she would be return to the last visited outpost, as the game currently works.

Also, an easier and possibly complementary option to the above one is to replace dropped players with henchmen AI using the same character, instead of removing the character from the game. If the player were to rejoin later using the system above, he/she would simply retake control from the AI and continue playing. This would also mean that the player's state would not have to be saved; the game would simply play the character for the player until he/she returned. Even without returning dropped players, this would at least prevent the loss of an ally when a player drops.

Any thoughts on this idea/things that would have to be changed that I may have missed? Who thinks this is a good and feasible idea for fixing the problem of people erroring out?

EDIT: Also, as I mentioned earlier, the "has left the game" message isn't helpful at all. If a player drops due to an error, it should be a simple matter to send out a message to his/her teammates specifying the error.

EiS

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jan 2006

Save The Dragons

R/Mo

Actully thats a really good idea i doable just to get it to work correctly i think it will take awhile for it to work but i think it would work

llsektorll

llsektorll

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2005

Toronto, Canada

R/

yea i've heard rumors of them working on a reconnect feature... different players are concered about different things.. some are worried of their deep runs some are worried of the farming... i on the other hand am sick and tired of error7s in gvgs.. can't even begin to mention how many matches have lost/prolonged due to a error7. In the case of GvGs i don't think they would go as far as to put a healer henchment which will die in a matter of seconds when the original person there was a boon prot.

I really hope they implement this reconnect feature before the ladder unlocks.

Terra Xin

Terra Xin

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Mar 2006

New Zealand

Me/R

those arent rumours, Anet is supposed to be working on it. The rumour is 'when' they will impliment a reconnect feature, the most popular prediction is never...

Loviatar

Underworld Spelunker

Join Date: Feb 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darth Marth
After well over a year of running Guild Wars, I'm amazed that Anet has done absolutely nothing to deal with people who are dropped because of errors, especially the dreaded error 007. .
it is not as easy as you assume it to be as this game was deliberately designed (interview) not to be able to break into an instance to prevent griefing/hacking.

as to what they they are doing is trying to find something secure that works and you will get it if and when THEY not you are satisified it will work correctly.

from interview and people in interview
Mike O'Brien
James Phinney
Curtis Johnson
Isaiah Cartwright

Quote:
Is a "Rejoin Mission" option going to be incorporated into the game?

The "Rejoin Mission" function is probably one of the most difficult things to program into a game. And yet, we know it’s a popular request with fans, for a variety of reasons. In the long-run, some sort of functionality of this sort will be added to Guild Wars. We'll continue to investigate the possibilities and will weigh the merits and drawbacks in the context of several ideas we have on the table. It seems nearly certain that we will incorporate this option in the long term, although we can't provide a timeline right now.

mega_jamie

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Apr 2006

UK

Warlords of Ruin

A/Mo

As has been stated, this is already under consideration and has multiple suggestions.

and it's not that easy to see why a person has left.

Sure yeah you map out, it can tell
you hit F12 and selet to Log out it can tell

You Err7 or you Alt+F4 out - you cant tell the difference

But yeah, id love to log back in, especially when soloing and err7 after a ncie drop :S