Interview with Gaile Gray

Have a look (scroll down for english version):
http://gw.gamona.de/artikel/artikel.php?id=27

Including some infos about disconnections during missions

Edit: sorry gaile for spelling your name wrong *slap*. The reason is maybe the 100 hours of BWE gameplay

It's Gray, not Grey

Nice interview otherwise

new races! Whoot!

What do you think about the reconnect of users during missions?

I would be a nice feature.
Let the party (or leader) decide if someone can rejoin or a new user can join the mission.

Definately interesting interviews today!
Im excited that GW is signing up with Omni, the future chapters are gonna rock. Im really excited about the rejoin feature as well, i havent got kicked off in a while but the way my internet goes down i think it would be great. On the other side of things people are going to exploit everything to get what they want, So i say they completely disable it for PVP. Or just turn the person into a henchman that uses not your skills but henchman skills for your primary class, then you can rejoin.

The rejoin issue is going to be a very big and hairy one. There are just so many aspects and angles to keep in mind while trying to think of what exactly to do.

I'm positive that there is a way to detect if it was a legitimate disconnect or someone just voluntarily leaving. The issue with this, though, is that people can just pull the plug on their internet cord, wait for it to D/C, and then plug their internet cord back in and reconnect. So making the system utilize differentiation between legitimate disconnects and voluntary mission departure is out of the question.

Another option suggested on this thread was to let the players that are still in the mission choose to let the disconnected player reconnect. This is also open to abuse, since they could be just helping the disconnected player out, or having him go get a new skillset.

so if they were to implement this, I'm thinking it would be a combination of the two. The first one to semi-eliminate voluntary D/Cs (the ones that wouldn't know to just pull the plug instead of telelporting somewhere else or closing thoe program) and the second one to make sure the D/Ced person isn't being a dick and trying to use people for free xp. This is still subject to power levelling though, as some people that want to power level someone can simply have them join, pull the plug, then let them know we to rejoin at the end where they get the xp.

I think making a reconnect only available within x minutes of the disconnect would help out as well.

i think they should just plain not allow you to reconnect

I am going to have to agree here. I know its a booger when people disconnect either voluntary or involuntarily to have to go back or start over etc... But, we all have had these issues in every MMORPG we have played. It is one of the drawbacks of poor connection and online games. Get over it, deal with it, start the mission/exploration over, the game is worth playing over and over anyway. IMO

I my opinion, the Team Leader should be given the choice of replacing the disconnected person with a Henchman. (Even in PvP.)
This makes up for the loss of a player and at least give the team a chance they might not otherwise have.

(I like that Henchmen NEVER DROP.)

I think this is a very interesting idea, actually. There is, however, a potential for abuse and exploitation, even in this. Say you have a GvG battle going on and you find that your team just isn't cutting the mustard because you're lacking a few critical profession types. What if, in order to save your rating, you ask a few team members to disconnect and replace them with menchmen of the professions that you need. No likely, perhaps, but it would happen from time to time. I guess it shows that even a really good idea like this has drawbacks, and needs to be considered from every vantage point.

Oh, and just to make it clear, there's no way to tell if someone disconnected legitimately or if s/he simply hit the off switch. I once got so excited during a StarCraft match that I kicked the off switch on my computer. A couple of guys on the other side really thought I'd hit the off button. Or they did, until it was pointed out that my disconnect happened when my team was winning.

I will say again, I really do like this "replacement hencies" idea. I just feel it has some kinks to be worked out before it could be considered.

Gaile, In most situations a Player is far more useful than a henchman, Well, In my experience. I think that plan would work greatly. Also, great interview

Also, About reconnecting in a quest. Not in all quests, But alot, There are more than one mission objectives. If you are disconnected, and your party passes one of these objectives while you are disconnected, Would that update the disconnected Player's quest?

The solution is simple though, If its a ranger player, replace it with a ranger henchman. A monk then replace it with a monk henchman. Theres no need to really use the players skills, Just use the default henchman ones. The server does know what a players proffession is.

Other then that just make sure the team knows what happend, make a small popup saying "Synthos Raven has been replaced by a monk hechman because of a disconect"

I definitely agree with ^^ (Synthos & Auh). I just hope, if it is even implemented, that Gaile and the rest of the team can find a legitimate way of allowing this to happen. If not, then I'll have absolutely no problem with "dealing with it" and starting over again! Its a game... not your life! It may hurt ya but it certainly won't kill ya!

I can't think of many situations where any henchmen is better than a player. The exception might be the monk hench, as they have access to res and heal spells that could be critical if your own healer dropped or you don't have enough healing energy. To get around this dilemma I would just replace the dropped player with a henchie of the same class. You only get a monk hench if your own monk drops. This still isn't perfect (could be a melee monk/war?) but it gets around most of the drawbacks.

I think the disconnected player's character should stand there in the game idle, and fully able to take damage. If they disconnect cause they are about to die, they will still die after they disconnected since their character can still take damage. When they reconnect, they retake control of their character, dead or alive. With this type of system there is never any incentive to disconnect, and players will always be able to reconnect if they become accidentally disconnected. The problem now is simply a coding one, you dont want to destroy a player character after he has lost link, but instead leave his character's 'object' in the game. I.e. previously each player character had to be associated with a connection, and they seem to be destroyed when that connection dies. This process of destroying the pchar needs to be put on a delay, (say 8 mins) after which the character is removed from the instance and logged off..

I see this as the best solution, it is fairly simple and has no holes in it as far as i can tell.

What if the player is trying to get low deaths, and hes on an easy mission, and his computer crashes. Then while hes just standing there, an NPC wanders over and attacks him..


Thats why that wouldnt work.

But Gaile, the current henchmen's AI is just fodder. Other then the healer, everything else is laughable at best. When you need to retreat, your henchmen will get sniped off because their too stupid at the moment to know how to run unless your 2 miles ahead. There's no real drawback.

I think that is a great idea, one of my guildmates got booted 3 times in a row on the last mission before Lion's Arch. We would have kept her alive until she got back in. Even if we weren't able to keep her alive, death penalty is much better than starting the mission over...

How about replacing it with a henchman when they disconnect, with the same attributes, same max hp/current hp and all, even if they're dead. And they're giving about 8 minutes to reconnect before they're completely replaced. If they do get in before the mark, then they replace the henchman with the same everything the henchman had left off, whether they're dead or alive.

This makes sure that the team doesn't fail, because a henchman is better then noone. It also keeps the disconnected person happy when they get back as they can pretty much start off where they left. It even would stop alot of fake disconnects as it wouldn't benifit the person at all really, due to having a henchman who isn't as good as they would be take over.