EZ Server

I have rolled out a new instance system that replaces waypoint-oriented functionality because the old system absolutely needs to go and causes a lot of lag issues aside from being able to do anything with the existing code. So as promised here it is.

I've made an effort to try and keep syntax and functionality as close to the original system as much as possible, so bear with us as we make this large transition. Most of it should be really solid, fast and lean, but if there are any issues to address. It won't be a problem.

/say instance

(http://i.imgur.com/Qa9nCYv.png)

Creation

• create [solo/raid/guild] instance - Creates an instance of the current zone that you are in
• create [solo/raid/guild] instance [zone_short_name] - Does a remote instance create when you use zone short name

(http://i.imgur.com/uGQfpEG.png)

Public Vs Private Instances

• When you first create your instance, it is marked as a public instance in which others can join, if you wish to have this instance be closed so people can't "enter raid akkadius qrg", you need to mark it as closed in the menu

(http://i.imgur.com/L6aVSKB.png)

Inviting (examples)

• raid invite templeveeshan player1, player2, player3 etc.
• solo invite nexus player1, player2, player3 etc.

Entering

• You must be added to someones instance in order to be able to enter it when it is private, however when it is public you can perform "enter" syntax to enter their instance without invite "enter [solo/guild/raid] Akkadius [zone_short_name]"
• Alternatively, you can click the saylink in your 'instance list' menu to enter an instance

Deleting

• As long as you are the owner of an instance, you can delete your instance, however you have a 12 minute delay before you can create another instance

Repopping

• Repopping functionality still inherits the old systems 10 minutes repop delay

Instance Types

• Situations where you had to be in the same group, raid for your instance to be valid are no longer an issue
• Guild instances can still be shared with non-guild members given a proper invite and can be seen via 'instance list guild'

Free Waypoint and Instance Costs

• Instance costs are still enforced like the old waypoint system and all of the restriction rules should reflect in the new code

Leave Instance

• All this does is physically remove yourself from an instance if you are in one, this does not remove you from the logical instance

Remote Creation

• Remote creation is still allowed, but zones that had restrictions on remote creation are still locked down

Guild Instance Creation

• When a Guild Instance is created, you will see a message that prompts other Guild members that it had been created, along with a link to immediately zone you into their instance

Instance Durations

• Instance life durations are currently set to 3 day expiry

Instance Payment

• Instance payment now happens directly from character inventory and not via the Waypoint virtual currency
• Because waypoint currency is no longer needed, I've put all of the account based balances to a character bound to the account that had logged on last and added the Platinum balance to that characters inventory balance. This waypoint currency should no longer be used and code in game will be completely removed soon

If there is anything wrong with this I'm sure you guys will let me know. But if you notice any issues please make mention of them here.

Thanks,
Enjoy!
Akka

Nice!!

Thanks

Not having to spam invites to raid instances will be awesome.

Sounds good Akka.

Thanks for all your hard work on the server.

(http://cdnpix.com/show/imgs/566e5583fec72cb04f87e7f6003a4c8f.jpg)

Thanks for the work, the changes look great.

Quick question though, would it be much of an issue to default the status to Closed vice Open.   I do not want Krincle hopping in my instances and taking all my stuffs.

Yeah thought about that. I'll probably end up doing that

Awesome(http://www.agenheimer.com/shia.gif)

Really Nice!!!

Thanks Akka

Is there a way that you can make a remote instance and not zone into that instance? (ie: toon that makes the instance is in ToV but makes a guild instance for anguish). As of right now when I make a remote instance, it zones me into that instance instead of asking me if I wanted to enter it.

Can we do without the creator name for guild instance? kind of trouble some.

/say enter guild rotic nexus

back to

/say enter guild nexus

Thanks.

No, Rotic, because now you can have multiple guild instances for any zone, based on who created. So you can have 5 GI for, say, T9.

Pretty awesome, yeah?

And thanks Akk! This looks awesome....was worth losin sleep for :D

That is a sweet change!    Multiple GI's ftw!

Truly awesome system.  I do have a question about repops... Is it the intention to not be able to repop an instance that you are not the owner of?

Nice! Thanks Akka!!

I was wondering if it was possible to create a raid or guild instance, and not automatically get ported in.
I would also like the instances to be closed by default.

Awesome! Thanks a lot for adding the delete instance function back in!

Lockout timer is rough for people working on SoT quest or EoN farming.

Working as intended or oversight of why would anyone want to make instances that fast?

So, I logged in today.  I hit my EON/EON2 button like I always do and I receive a message that I can enter GI Hole or wait 15 min's to create another GI.

I have these 2 buttons set up so I can go farm EON's, it has 10 of the zones listed one right after the other.  With this new system, it is going to take me over 4 hours to create all these instances.  Not including the time it takes to farm them.  In 3 days, I will have to spend another 4 hours.  With in 1 year, I will have spent 486 hours, just creating EON zones.  That's not to mention, TOFS, any of the Teir zones.  

How is this an improvement again?

Fixed

Thanks Warbash, sometimes I don't read things completely and see how much asshattery I actually have going.

Cooldowns were proposed as a way to counteract having the ability to delete and recreate instances. If people want to debate on a reasonable idea, I don't think I've ever been opposed to them.

I've not been on much recently, so need to catch up on updates

The new instance system is really nice, but have to agree with the timer on instance creation, it really is gunna slow down EoN farming etc
There should be a timer for deletion, to stop just recreating over an over

I think Hunter orig had a system where you could delete, but only when it was due or close to expire, as some zones do take a bit of time
Cant remember why is was removed
Ie,
create instance for 3 days,
Delete instance only available  when <1 day remaining on instance

Anyway, Just my thoughts

See ya's ingame

Love the changes, but agree with above....  the timer creation part puts is very annoying for EoN type farming where it may take under a minute to do the zone, ie Fippy Darkpaw.... create instance...ooops, needed version not up..... repop... still not up... now you have a 9 min 30 second wait to try in raid instance.  Also... Bravo on whatever you did to the expeditions... finally working for me again for the first time in a long time.

We had delete function before repop function was added.  I think it was reworked because the database was getting corrupted from so many interactions.

Akka, is there anyway to remove the delete function.  and in it's place if an instance has less than 6 hours on it, allow you to extend it for another 3 days instead of deleting and recreating. 
OR
Only allow delete function to work on instances that have less than 6 hours left.(time frame debatable)

I think back in the day before repop the recreation was linked to recreating the same zone, and was only 5 minutes.  Not a global cooldown on all creating of instances

I.E.

So If I deleted my GI tacvi, I was locked out from making a new one for 5 minutes, but I could make a new raid or solo, or any other zone for that matter.  Each zone and instance type had it's own timer.

If there is only the option for a global cooldown, I would say reduce the impact of delete, akin to deleting an instance only if it is due to expire. And eliminate the creation cooldown altogether, repop cooldown already accomplishes this.

I don't think there should be a timer on creating a GI or a RI or SI.
I don't mind there being a 15 min delay on recreating an instances.

I don't think delete really needs to work unless you can't finish your clear in time.

That's what we have repop for in the first place.

If it were a choice between the ability to delete an instance or 12 minute delay between creating instances, I'd forgo the delete function. For me it was a rare occurrence that I'd log in and only have an hour or so left in an instance like t7, and if that happened I'd just go to guild or raid that had more time. Now that we can create more than one guild instance this is probably even less of an issue.

But like one of the posters above said, maybe we can limit the ability to deleting an instance to the last 6 hours with no recreate penalty? Probably more complicate and not necessary due to my reasons above though.

I would agree that the create instance timer being applied to GI, RI and SI on create of any is a tad frustrating.

A couple  ways to resolve:

Set timer for instance type (GI, RI, SI) on create.
Set timer for instance type on Delete
Remove Delete entirely.    It does not seem to be a truly needed function

Keep delete. Nothing more annoying than logging in getting ready to run an instance and having the message "your instance will end in 15 minutes"  or whatever.

And yes the timer should either be on delete instance or tied to separate instance types.

Having not created this, I'm amused to see how unhappy people are with the inability spam instances. I realized it was an issue, but didn't realize how many instances each person was actually juggling.

On a positive note, it makes the 65k cap MUCH harder to break daily, which was causing instances to not work or let people in. (Not that any of you will acknowledge anything but the inability to skip respawn times)


-Hate

There are just specific instances where not being able to create instances quickly is a major handicap.  EoN and SoT come to mind.

Please elaborate.   To my knowledge there was no way to spam instances when delete was not available.     You get 3 instances of a zone per way point holder.     If you need to farm for X, what is wrong with creating 3 instances of the zone where X can be found.     You can repop every 10 min.    People either pay the Plat price or donate for this ability.         

The grind is tedious once you have done it 24-30x.   

If the 65k counter is an issue, perhaps a cleanup script could be implemented that resets the counter nightly, weekly or whatever makes sense.

I am not a smart man...

remove delete

repop would reset the instance timer(log in with 1 hour left in t7? repop it and have all the time in the world...)

remove the Global cooldown cause that shit is bad...

all is well in the world....

All reasonable suggestions.

I like the instance changes, and now I see we can create them without insta zoning in, which is also sweet.

One thing that's bugging me a bit though is that the repop timer is now linked for a characters raid/guild. I'm not sure if this is intended, but I don't see a problem keeping it like before, where the repop timer was individual for each instance.

And as suggested earlier in thread, no timer for creating the instances in the first place. Whenever I log on, and want to farm a new zone, it's a bit tedious having to wait to create a raid instance after creating a guild instance. It's not a big deal, just quality of service imo.

I'm going to say it 'once' here, for many to read.

When I made the initial post about this late in the morning I had spent 10 straight hours without lifting my ass off the couch to push through this update and get things done.

The issue isn't necessarily 65k as a reason for this system at all, but it is an issue and it can't really be avoided and personally its not a big deal to reset this counter, so really its a non issue.

Once again, I have no opposition to a healthy solution to do something different with cool-down timers, to me its a very quick change if I do anything.

For the wankers who want a reason as to 'Why' this system was necessary I will explain it once here. One, because its my job to make sure shit runs smooth, from a EQEmu community-wide standpoint as well as EZ, whether its appreciated or not. Hate shouldn't have to try and keep focused on the things that impact playing when mechanical oriented shit is malfunctioning. I can tell you first hand trying to manage both worlds will pretty much cripple you from making progress, Hunter knew this, and that is why he would update infrequently and 'deal' with shit in a very band-aid fashion. Not out of neglect, but because he chose to deliver content and things that affect the player experience rather than trying to fix issues all day long every day. Given yes, he had to deal with them, but he knew what his priorities were and I don't blame him one bit. When things blew up, so did my IM box from Hunter.

Sure, in the front view of the players of some, you might go 'Why change it if its not broke'. What you don't see is truly how broke it is and how poor it is on performance and overall server lag, DESPITE being an absolute horrid code nightmare of redundancy and spaghetti-like code that is absolutely terrible to maintain.

(https://v.cdn.vine.co/r/avatars/B283D497711135734512962486272_2261e3b08d4.0.0.jpg?versionId=T.yNxoSlm9KqHNLqTK2kxLNa2S_l2EVC)

Let me share with you some gold, a piece of history with our beloved Hunter. While intuitive and creative, he wasn't the most prestigious with engineering solutions efficiently, but he was always getting better at them.

Here is 'Most' (Not all) of the old instance code that Hunter created, some of you might be able to appreciate this:

• http://wiki.eqemulator.org/i?Module=Pastebin&Paste=wk85EYqF

(New code is a matter of 700 lines)

A huge chunk of this code is recycled code from what I originally donated to him as code 6 years ago so that he could provide instances to players. Don't believe me? I don't even think these forums go back that far to link you the proof, but I'm sure older players can attest.

Code wise: Yes its not the greatest. But if it truly wasn't causing issues, I'd be less inclined to change it just to change it, but it was absolutely necessary.

(http://d1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net/fd/b0/dedbbf5145998b030d92413eeb41/kevin-hart-let-me-explain.jpg)

Problems:

• The old instancing system used a Account based credit system developed once again by myself many years ago. It wasn't entirely a problem in the beginning but became more and more prevalent, and I'm going to tell you why it is one of the biggest problems.
• This is one of the largest issues be far that have also plagued the Expedition system as well because it relies upon a 'flag' tracking system that was developed in the EQEmu server code base a long time ago that many server developers use as a way to track flags to this day.
• Now, when I picked this up from Hunter's passing, we had 60,000+ of these flags in the database. Having these in the database isn't the problem, performance reading these from the database is not a problem. The problem comes in when when the excess use of 'Global' flags rises in numbers. This got gradually worse and worse overtime, this becomes a scalability problem
• When a 'character' flag gets set, its only loaded for that character when it enters a zone, so a NPC would know that you were at this stage, and we should react to the player X way. These are not a big deal, only a handful of them get loaded into a zone, a complete non-issue
• Each time, if you reference the instance code above that I linked, the code quest::setglobal is used, as a type 7 parameter, that is triggering a global flag update. Before this old instance system was removed there were over 12,000 of these 'global' flags. EACH and EVERY time a script event (hail, say, task updates) is triggered, this huge bucket of 12,000 flags get referenced which slows down ALL NPC and client interactions by a matter of .1-.3 seconds, which in the world of a 500-700 player server at times adds up to be ALOT.
• Ever 'feel' a zone hang when a box army of 6-12 as they all /bcaa enter zone X? Yeah...
• Remember when expeditions were causing so much lag? Same thing... Not to mention when every time these flags are triggered in code to update they also have to be re-propagated to every zone because they are global and other zones need to be aware.
• You may notice now that re-popping is actually much faster, this is part in partial to not having to reload the same amount of global flags. A LOT of different actions will be much faster because there is only a matter of 100 global flags in the pool being loaded in any zone now since old instance code is gone, as well as the old account based system which was global based. A LOT of these things are faster because A LOT of actions use qglobals.
• This is all part in partial to why Hunter put 'spam' code (which is now removed) whenever you say messages repeatedly because spamming hail would process 12,000-30,000 of these flags each and every time and would do micro hangs for .2-.6 seconds of the zone process main thread which can make things look terrible. This was once again a band-aid workaround without addressing the real problem.
• When expeditions were coded using this same flag system, you could tell anytime task updates occurred or when someone deleted or created an expedition, you would have massive hangs because every single character is firing scripts in the background that all take .2-3 seconds to process. With 18 characters this adds up very quickly 18 (18 * .3 = 5.4 approx seconds of hang). This is for each type of action or update: Creating an expedition, receiving task updates, ZONING (Remember the character drops on zone? I'm sure you do), destroying an expedition and anything else that simultaneously signals all players

So, I could keep going on about why, but to most of you why doesn't matter. But since I had been getting a lot of whiny comments about why it needed to change, there it is 'once'.

most notable thing for me was how fast commands registered. Porting to an instance is almost instant now whereas before there was generally about a ~1 second delay between entering a command and it actually registering. nice work!

Very good suggestion. Like it.


Akka the changes have been awesome. The server is snappier than ever. I rarely hang.

My comment regarding the 65k counter was not an instead of instance change but an addition to instance change suggestion.
A periodic script could be run as task/cron job.  It does not sound like it is a big deal though either way.

This seems like a lot of macros to move between instances. Is there anyway to change it from "enter guild toon zone" to "enter guild toon" or "raid join toon zone" to "raid join toon" but only if your in the same zone.

Not exactly sure why we'd want that.

So you can still have a generic command for your group to enter a guild or raid instance your main toon is making? Or am i missing something and i can have one macro to enter my mains guild/raid instance regardless of what zone were in at that time?

I am trying to write a constructive post regarding the recent changes in the instance system. Let me start off by saying that I am very happy with the new changes. :) It's running much more smooth, several guild instances is a plus, and I also understand the need to make this change from a coding perspective.

I've only had a few small requests regarding the fine tuning of the new system, as not zoning when you create an instance and repop timers not being linked. They are both small issues in my opinion.

Something I find a bit more tedious and awkward though is getting ported to zone in when switching instances. I don't mind this in most instances, but in TOFS, this causes some frustration. As with us all, we speak our own causes and mine is that I'm trying to UC up 10 characters in TOFS.

Right now, farming for rank 1-25 is _ok_, because you don't have to run for too long with characters each time you switch instance. But when trying to move further up, and especially on floor 4 (getting key) and floor 5 (for lvl 26-50 charms), it's a real pain right now. There is no need to repop even, because I would probably spend as much time getting back up, so the mobs have respawned.

I've already geared up at least ten characters with UC v1 in TOFS about a year ago, and it took quite some time. I can't even imagine how much longer it will take now. I am all for challenges, but to me this just feels awkward and time consuming for no purpose. I am not sure if this was intended or not, and if it was I guess I will have to live with it. Hope you take this as positive feedback and not whining. ;D


TLDR; Please consider letting us switch instances in TOFS, without getting ported back to floor 1 when we do so. Also, thanks for all the hard work you put in, it's really appreatiated.

I zone faster, cool!

thanks!

why do I zone faster? doesn't matter!

Thanks for the 10hr codefest though!

you rock  ;D

We can already do that using MQ2 - "enter guild toon ${Zone.ShortName}"

TLLDRR; Please let me continue to bypass content so I can get my shiny faster

I guess its not a problem, can always just either stay in current instance or change and run 40ft and hit the mirror back to T-room then hit the mirror where you want to go then move to where you were then start again, and by that time the damn place is re-spawned in the instance you were in, in the first place.....

yeah, wait that's dumb. going back to port in area in TOFS for switching instances is kinda dumb, but that's just me

This is what i plan on doing, I ended up troubleshooting a large issue that surfaced last night that i still need to fix. For those of you who were there that was the Nexus infinite loop of craziness, which ended up being related to light packets being spammed by the server.

For instances, I plan to:

• Adjust recreation timers: (to what not sure yet) - DONE, recreation timers are 2 minutes and deletion timers are now 10 minutes
• Tie instance repops to the instance itself - DONE
• When creating an instance that is local and not remote: create the instance bound to the creators local coordinates versus what the safe coordinates are designated for the zone. - Not sure this is necessary.

Agree with rent here. Or alternatively maybe change it for everyone but Balidet so he can enjoy running through TOFS   since he obviously loves it so much.

Updated above post

Sick work man, nice!

Thanks Akka.  :)

Thank you. +1

I hope more people speak up. I've been talking with some in game that really wants it to stay the old way (in TOFS atleast). Popping at floor 1 when switching instances really has a huge impact on Ultimate charm and resistance stones farming. Perhaps HoH is better for that purpose now, sadly.

agree

Not sure how old code let you stay where you were but in tofs it would be helpful. Not sure , akka's solution is best though. Make an instance on floor 6 repop instance ports group to me. Possibly exploitable. I do think the change will have a major negative impact on new people keying up. Wonder if there is a secret in hunter's code on how it was done.

At least that way you had get everyone where you wanted them at least once.

I understand why going back to ZI is done, but ToFS is a small issue, but not game breaking

One solution could be to add port component to keys, ( same as LDoN stone Level5 to 6 )
So key click takes each toon to that level at port in point

Every toon has to have the key, so cant bypass it, or do NPC like miner script, "teleport to level x" again key required to port you
Just saves running goons through every level, to get to the level you want

Just a couple ideas

Edit
Would also need to add instance id coding to port you into instance, so may not be doable

[/list]

Agreed

This works for me....and the logical alteration for invites works as well.

Akka, I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate the work you put into this.  Ever since you tweaked things I am back to good ping rates and lag times!  Ever since Halloween I have been piging around 400ms+ (as all the posts I had made stated) after you made these last round of changes I am at 56-59ms again!  I don't know what all you did but it made playing on EZ fun again! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!

Thanks a lot Orthanos, the kind words are very appreciated.

I also explained what was done here: http://ezserver.online/forums/index.php?topic=4613.msg60285#msg60285

One thing I have noticed.....instances arent naturally deleting themselves when they expire. They instead show "unlimited" and are unusable in that state....and need to be manually deleted.

I deleted an instance.  Rebuilt it, with never zoning it was odd.  And then the timer ran out on my original instance anyway.  So my guy had 2 guild anguish instances at the same time.

There is no auto deletion.

How hard would it be to add in a renew instance, that resets the timer to full 3 days?

It is working spiffy though Akka. Thanks

I have been messing around with the new instance system. I appreciate the changes. One thing I think a lot of folks and myself are wondering, Is there a way to not move our toons to the safe point like "Repop instance" used to do? I would like to move between Public, solo, raid, and guild instances without having my guys relocated to the safe spot. 

Thanks

^

So, if you just "/say instance", or if you "/say create [solo/raid/guild] instance" then follow the confirmation chat links, it will not create an instance for the zone you're in, it just says "Invalid zone request". Threw me for a serious loop. It looks like we always need to specify zone name, even if we're in the zone.

Feedback:

Is it time to just have 1 type of instance and reduce repop timer down to 3-4 minutes? (10 minutes/3 instance types)

This might decrease the bloke on the server and with multiple guild instances i see no real reason to have different types of instances other then for farming purposes and being able to repop in multiple places.  If repop is reduced can just farm 1 instance without making 2-3 to keep up with farming in.

Auto-deletion really needs to happen, list gets very bloated and with delete timer can't clean it up ourselves.

+1+1=+2

+2+2=+1 as well

Yeah, noticed a huge amount of "Unlimiteds" in list today....and dont have the patience to remember to re open the list every 10 minutes and delete them then wait for cooldown to delete again. Expired instances need to auto delete, like they did before.

Just purged 634 expired instances and they should keep themselves clean from here on out.

Thank you Akk!

Thanks Akka.

Thanks Akka.

Is it easy to add a filter feature for instance guild list? The guild instances are usually long for my guild

something like these will be nice

/say instance list guild frozenshadow

/say instance list guild rotic

Thanks.

Hi Akka,
Is there a command to change the instance status from closed to open other than clicking the link in the menu? Would be nice if there was but not a huge issue.

Thanks again for the instance update, its working slick.

There is no human interact able command currently. Are you just looking to have it in your macro?

No, just want to type it out with /bc commands. Have 3 fwp and will /bcaa //say create raid blah, would then like to do same to open vs having to tab to that screen, /say instance, click instance link and then set to open or invite toons to instance.
Probably not worth your code time to be honest but would be nice :)

Akka,
Tried creating a T8 instance with say links without FWP item. Got the instance costs 1.5 mil confirm? clicked the confirm link and the say command spits out "create raid instance confirm" same for guild. If it type out "/say create guild / raid instance templeveehsan confirm" it works.