That isn't the janitor, it's a product of how areas are loaded and unloaded from game memory and dates back to the early to mid-90s. You moving out of the hunting area caused the hunting area to unload which dumps everything in it that isn't supposed to be there long term.

Which essentially means "I'm sorry, it's irritating, but it's not something we can fix with a reasonable amount of effort". Which brings us back to the classic "If you value it don't leave it on the ground" and even more relevant "If you value it don't leave it behind".

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

>Thankfully you can wear bundles all over your body vs just over a shoulder now.

Uh, it's been that way for a long, long time. And it was better back in the day before skinning 2.0 when you could PULL tied bundles to generic worn in addition to belt, back, shoulder, shoulders, and waist. You could wear a TON of bundles. Although back in the day very few things could get to 200 items, most only went to 80, and extremely heavy things only went to 11 per bundle (I'm looking at you, rock troll skins).

The problem is that there's SO MANY belt-worn things, shoulder containers, a back pack, that you've only really got the waist and shoulders to wear a bundle.

Kaeta Airtag

"I have faith in the current crop of GMs to not screw people over"

>>Actually an opinion cannot be changed or corrected. Nice try back of line.-VERATHOR
>>But it can be wrong.-Starlear

>>Which essentially means "I'm sorry, it's irritating, but it's not something we can fix with a reasonable amount of effort". Which brings us back to the classic "If you value it don't leave it on the ground" and even more relevant "If you value it don't leave it behind".

Thank you Raesh. I appreciate the explanation. However, this seems to always be the answer. It's basically, "Sorry, that's your problem." And that's discouraging to hear, every single time something is brought up as an issue. I just don't understand why this has to happen so immediately. Can't a little bit of a delay be put in? Is this that much of a game breaker?

Yeah, luckily it was only a bundle, which I throw on the ground because it's scary heavy. I didn't walk off because I didn't care about it. Obviously it was something I wanted if I returned within 5 seconds. This is called an accident.

However, there are some serious situations where this isn't one. One of my first altered bows was lost by this same ridiculously zealous mechanic. I remember getting hit by a fireball, which broke my arm and dropped my bow. Immediately after that, I was sandstorm thrown from the room. By the time I got back up and back to the room(less than 10 seconds), the bow was gone. This is a situation was WASN'T my devaluing of an item. It was just a very terrible circumstance. However, upon bringing it up in a report inquiry, once again I was met with the, "Sorry, not our problem" response. That's more frustrating than the actual loss at times.


~Van

Additionally, for items you keep around longer than bundles, there is the Registration system.

While registering your items does not guarantee we can recreate them if they're lost, what it does is create even the possibility that we can in many situations, especially with altered and player crafted items. If you register your valued item, it creates an exact copy of its description and stats in your account record. Then, if it's a situation where a GM can replace your item, they have the physical ability to do so.

When an item (especially one that has anything unusual, altered, or variable about it) is not registered and is deleted by one system or another (areas unloading and buckets are some of the most common), in-game GMs are often left without any possible way to recreate the item for the player at all, no matter if the situation it was lost in would otherwise merit a replacement. At that point, there really is nothing in-game staff can do but suggest that the player email Feedback and see if they may be able to replace the item from backup. Feedback isn't always able to do this for various reasons either, but it's at least a last resort option to try.

There are also bonding potions that can help lessen the chances of losing certain items, and the new(er) DEPART options to further reduce the chance of loss via grave mechanics.

Item loss is absolutely something staff understand can be very upsetting (and generally unfun) for players. We know that people get attached to their awesome stuff! That's why over the years we keep adding ways to help reduce the impact of the systems and system limitations that we have far less (or no) control over. We're continuing to work on ways to reduce item loss issues, like the aforementioned at-feet slot as well as several others, but I really do encourage everyone to take advantage of the things in place currently. It can help a lot!

-Persida

>You know, I used to kind of like it when creatures hung for a while in zones. Some even spawning before people were there. Made it exciting, and it didn't feel like a hunting area "on/off" switch. You actually looked around for stuff. I understand the it's about resources.....but that was definitely fun, to me at least.

? I wasn't aware DR ever worked differently than every MUD of the same generation. Possibly when DR had a higher population, people were sitting in zones where you couldn't see them, keeping them up (zones don't always correspond sensibly to where you think their boundaries might be). More likely it just seems that way, sometimes, because the game loads zones and critters faster than it takes for you to move from one room to another. Milliseconds of time, if that.

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>Forgive my snark, but welcome to the life of a warrior mage.

Because everything in the bucket would either be lost when the area unloaded or would be saved to the area forever potentially causing awful item duplication problems.

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

Older game areas are structured... oddly as far as how it seems like they're laid out as you move through the rooms and how they're actually structured behind the scenes and far as loading and unloading areas goes. Old hunting areas doubly so (For example some really old one have a bunch of hidden rooms players can't access that creatures can wander in and out of. What's this accomplish? These days nothing but causing headaches. Back then? I think it was a work around for their more limited spawn controls... or at least that's what they were attempting to do even if they never actually worked that way).

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

And then, X years later and +50 Strength, when you're toting around 3 full bundles all the time and all the other crap acquired from X years of playing, you're thinking, "Man, these things are so light".

Or be a MM and shove it all into your servant. Because that's what servants are for. For literally vomiting up dozens of bundles to bury your Trader friend in bundles to sell every couple of months.

Or maybe that's just my Trader and another MM I know.

Kaeta Airtag

"I have faith in the current crop of GMs to not screw people over"

>>Actually an opinion cannot be changed or corrected. Nice try back of line.-VERATHOR
>>But it can be wrong.-Starlear

>> everything in the bucket would either be lost when the area unloaded

> These buckets would collect everything on the ground in each different area as it's unloaded

I'm assuming that since the game allocates memory on the fly(script instead of compile), it has to allocate memory for each new room created, on the fly. So it would also have to de-allocate that space when it's done using it. Which would mean that it would need to iterate through each room element one by one as it's de-allocating. That would give ample opportunity to collect items.

These buckets could be occasionally wiped.

>> or would be saved to the area forever potentially causing awful item duplication problems.

As long as the bucket is not duplicating the items it 'collects', I don't see how this would be possible. Item references are like pointers, yea? I couldn't imagine a game engine pushing around huge data structures like that. Chances of corruption would be sky-high, and it would be considered irresponsible coding practice. So I'm assuming they are pointer tables.

Honestly, these buckets should exist even besides this idea. They should be the ultimate destination of the janitor to unload his latest haul.

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IM: Dannyboy00001111

"Fool proof system do not take into account the ingenuity of fools, nor the power of numbers."