New Boot Schedule.

[klarh]

I'm doing this because it was proposed by some player(s?) who wanted to be democratic about this and because people are mostly arguing here by saying the same thing over and over, so I'd like to be able to have a spot where any arguments to/for it can stand instead of me trying to say them over and over as we continue these arguments, though having the arguments is probably less likely as time goes on.

Since nobody else started this, I'll take a sneak attack with my views on the situation:

I, for one, think that this 24-hour boot schedule is just fine. What I hear from the chat channel at this time is, quite simply, a great load of whining. Not only this, but it came from mostly deftanks, who can quite literally be up and ready to exp two minutes(or less) after the server comes back up. It was proposed that this tune is in some way "unfair" and that only "Finns and others who don't have anything to do all day" would benefit from this. However, from these people who disagree with the schedule I didn't see one valid reason from anyone to change the boot schedule again.

The main argument that I'd like to discuss against the new boot schedule is that it somehow interferes with exping of those poor fellows who make experience during the time that the boot will now run every day, which I touched on previously. The way I see it, there is no way that this argument can hold water, except perhaps in one special case. A case was proposed as follows by these two quotes from chat channel:

Pyrana [chat]: from my point of view there is now a time period I would normally exp where it's not worth loggin - since apparently this is quietset time of mud as it is and as you point out belecam knowing that boot is impending you wont log on near it hence number of players around before boot will be even less
Aralus [chat]: depending on peoples work schedules and idleness, cooking, families, the party leader might get on an hour and half before boot, one person is idle, the other gets on 15 minutes later, it just makes it kinda "blah" to get started so late in boot, then when boot comes, its late

I feel that this is just plain wrong. Thanks to the new leatherworker tunes, boots only take about five minutes of downtime. This does not devalue experience gained at this time every night; it doesn't even affect it. It is not difficult to simply end runs, take your ereport, and sacrifice your hearts when there is one or two minutes until the actual boot comes and logs you off. This is a very minor inconvenience that is being attacked by a few determined individuals who seem to be convinced that the minority should be catered to, and I disagree with this. After this short five-minute break, all of the experience monsters are back in, fresh and ready for your reformed party to kill. If you would log in normally a fairly significant time before boot (10 minutes plus?), I see no reason that you would simply toss away time that would normally be spent making exp. As I have said, having a boot is just a minor inconvenience that is rewarded at the end with all new mobs.

Let's imagine that you make a 15k solorate or personal party rate at this time each night, which is probably generous. The new schedule takes out 5 minutes for boot time and perhaps 4 minutes or less are spent sacrificing hearts before boot and recasting your spells after boot. This is 9 minutes of exp-time lost, or 135k exp. To someone who is making a 15k rate, 135k should be pretty insignificant.

The new schedule mostly affects two groups: earth priests and eq trains. Assuming an earth priest logged in an hour before boot each day, he would be quite affected with the new schedule; he has to use two minions in his exping time when everyone else only has to use one. This might be enough to warrant not making experience in the time before the boot, although wizards would probably be kind enough to do something about this assuming an earth priest player came up with a nice, logical explanation of his problem. The second group, eq trains, are mostly positively affected by this new schedule. They no longer have to worry about crazy boot times destroying their freshly slightly hurt green dragon. In fact, not even any eq-train members from the US are affected, since we have this promise:

(15:28) Ginjeet <chat>: personally I give you this promise: if US manages to scrounge up a real eq train, I will extend the boot times temporarily to suit their needs

So there, catering to a minority, in a way that I can see as just. Imagine that!

Even though we're debating here, Icesus is not a democracy where decisions are to be influenced with your votes. Even if it was, the players from USA and other countries would lose, because Finland has most of the playerbase, who should like this tune. It is indirect discrimination, but it works fine and is no big deal even to the people who are affected. Wizards can code flying monkeyships with tazers, smokebombs, and banana hats if they want to, and players don't really have much to say against it.

So, let's have at this topic. I'd like to request that we keep any discussion civil and vaguely logical.

Disclaimer: This was mostly done from memory, except obviously where I pulled quotes from my logs.

[ginjeet]

I'd like to clear some common misconceptions about reboots.

WRONG: We need to boot because the server is overloaded.
In fact we have two instances of Icesus running on the server all the time, and even at peak hours we are barely using a third of the available resources.

WRONG: Reboot is necessary to pop certain eq monsters, reset resists, etc.
Most eq monsters are already on a reset schedule which is completely separate from reboots. Areas and quests can be coded for a timed reset schedule, as well.

WRONG: Reboot necessarily hurts certain guilds, such as earth priests, monks...
We are open to suggestions on how to improve these guilds so that they depend less on long uptimes.

WRONG: We have reboots only to annoy players.
This is of course complete rubbish. We don't need reboots in order to give you players a hard time.

Carry on.

[solar]

Derailing from the topic:

WRONG: We need to boot because the server is overloaded.
In fact we have two instances of Icesus running on the server all the time, and even at peak hours we are barely using a third of the available resources.

Sweet, so if someone were to suddenly make a hardcore icesus2000, the computer could handle it? >:)

And back to the topic:

Monk runes took another hit for 24h boot, but I see much good come out of non-random boot for any organized multihour activity, such as events and those said eqtrains. Too bad that a tiny percentage of our players have it hinder their activities, but such is life.

[torvus]

I honestly have no idea how good of an idea this is, but I'll throw it out there anyways. As a partial-time E-priest, who only has about 3-4 hours a night at max to play on weekdays, the time it takes to find a minion with a decent combat strat as well as get it to a decent level to exp is pretty much impossible. So I reinced, I don't believe minions should get much of a bonus in regards to "Less exp to level." As E-Priests, when played long enough already can make great exp as it is, without everyone running around with a top level minion.

A minor idea I would suggest, is that coffins be given another purpose. If possible, could they simply erase all of the minion you created's exp, armour and weapons. Randomize stats etc and leave it with the same combat strategy?
That way you wouldn't be guaranteed a great minion every time you played, but if you generally have a blaster willing to party, then you don't have to spend 2-3 minions who end up with the savage style to get one that can tank decently.
While the actual benefit to high level players is somewhat lessened, as they just recreate the minion at level 1 ready for arming. New players to the guild who spend a hour getting it to the point where it could be armed would at least be assured that there minion won't suck ass once they've got it ready.