Realm game keep-alive oddities

[Crystalion]

I read something today on AS that sounded odd, which is to say, doesn't sound odd at all when translated to implementation code-speak:

How long does a game have to be active on Battle.net before it will stay up without any other players in the game?
If the game has existed for less than 1 minute, it will stay up for 1 minute to make sure players can join the games they create.
If the game has existed between 1 and 5 minutes, it will go away immediately if there is no one in the game.
If the game has existed for over 5 minutes, it will stay up for an additional 5 minutes if there is no one in the game.

If you are a programmer, and you like puzzles, you might want to stop reading for a minute to enjoy puzzling out a couple implications of the probable implementation of these "rules".

Based on using a single account, I verified that I can start a game and *immediately* leave, then enter (join) that game with a different character such that the game quest (available) state still reflects the now (and eternally, since this is a "private game", to wit, one with a limit of one player) absent creator. The test done checked Den of Evil quest state. However I strongly suspect this works for the Countess chest and Duriel chamber staffed open states (notably among others).

While I've always known this could be accomplished with two accounts, that being similar to using two games in "LAN" mode, I did not realize previously that a game does not need to be held for five minutes to use the trick on realm.

I also had forgotten the evidence that realm games have an idle timer and will kick you out and end the game after a length of time (I don't see this documented on AS--anyone else notice it and have the time-out number?). I suspect this exists to lower server load and to make it punatively harder to get the initial 2 hours of play logged that is required for a character to not be potentially deleted after 48 hours past creation (this is a bit fuzzy, as I suspect they don't queue up a garbage collect precisely 48 hours after every character is created and further, if you create a character and only start to play them in a game 46+ hours later I doubt your character will be zapped while you're playing).

In any case, if you haven't puzzled it out yet, the "fun" in this 1 minute after creation "keep alive" is that one character can psuedo-simultaneously (on one account, and without violating terms of service, afaik from reading the agreement today) play in two solo (i.e. just them) games.

I'll give you a moment to puzzle that out...

This was tested today, in a v1.09 US West realm game, with a brand new barb (now level 6 with a level 6 cold arrow hireling, no stat or skill points distributed) who spent his requisite couple of hours bouncing back and forth between two games (both created by him and only played in by him).

This means he cleared the den of evil in one game and immediately bounced to the other where Akara rewarded him for it even though in *that* game he'd never even entered the place. It also means he killed Blood Raven in one game, bounced over, and got rewarded in the game he'd never entered the burial grounds in. Interestingly enough he touched the tome triggering the Countess quest in one game and the other (game) didn't recognize it but the first game remembered it still when he bounced back. So some quest sub-states are tied to game trigger state in an interesting way (we all knew that already, I'm sure--I've seen a lot of examples of that sort of thing, including a "new" one today, for me, that doesn't seem worthwhile to mention here).

Okay, enough time. Bzzt! Puzzle spoiler follows...

If you just use the 5+ minute keep-alive for 5 minutes then you can't get two games going with (one character and) one account because getting the second game to keep-alive state takes long enough that the first game expires. But the first minute keep-alive is a separate "rule" and implementation of both keep-alives is simple and thus can be finessed as follows...

(example times for illustration only, there is some flex in the schedule, naturally--there are no "pauses" between leaving and entering, so the difference in times shown is meant to indicate that you typically can perform the switch in under the time difference here, *not* that you should wait for some reason between leave-then-enter steps)

00:00 create/enter game A
05:15 leave game A (which now has 5 minutes grace)
05:30 create/enter game B
05:35 leave game B (which is still running under the 1 minute from creation initial keep-alive)
05:45 re-enter game A
06:10 leave game A (which now has a refreshed 5 minutes grace, ending at ~11:10)
06:20 re-enter game B (in the nick of time before the 1 minute grace ends)
10:40 leave game B (because we've now logged 5+ minutes since creation, so we now have 5 minutes grace)
10:50 re-enter game A (in the nick of time before 5 minute grace ends)

At this point we have nearly 5 minutes grace going for both games and can ping-pong back and forth easily between them ad infinitum. In my case I set a kitchen cook timer for 4 minutes and every time it went off wrapped up fairly quickly and switched to the other game, keeping both going, as I said, for a couple hours. Once BNet lagged me out at the chat channel, locking my interface for a while and forcing me to log back in, so it was a good thing I had the timer set at 4 minutes instead of closer to the 5 minute allowance.

An interesting result of this fun and foolishness is that the "what is known" maps were maintained *correctly* for both games. I was impressed by that (and, of course, pleasently surprised, as I'd really expected to lose it between switches).

Playing this way makes for a lot of travel, so thankfully Waypoints are plentiful. I know it's silly, but it is kind of amusing. It is also fun, when you're playing through for the first time, that finding a waypoint in one game "grants" it to the other.

It also creates the realm trivia that it is probably possible to start a game with a character where you haven't killed Baal yet and thus are not allowed to open the MooMooFarm, but can get that credit in another game and return and be so allowed. Also, of course, if you were just playing along happily in your own little game and a friend messaged you to come to his game as he was ready to rush you past a particular quest, you could probably do that and then return to your original game. No news there, but interesting to consider.

[Ferengi]

I strongly suspect this works for the Countess chest.

Yes and No.

For many games in 1.09, people ignore the Countess as too time consuming. When I learned that it was a good rune source, I began running the Countess. I noticed that sometimes the chest opened and sometimes it did not, eventually I started joining public games with a char missing that quest in order to figure this out some. Joining games that had the Contess quest available (generally in NM) did not open the chest. Because of the Hostility nuisance, I rarely partied in such games. I never found a reason for the eariler chest openings. But the chest in not involved usefully in the rune drops, so the matter was dropped.

Since initially, I had been doing the normal diff Countess to gain practice and in such games, I would party, provide a requested waypoint and move to my task, I suspect that may make it work, but in a useless difficulty . What I do remember is that it happened for awhile and then never happened again.

It's certainly true for the Duriel staff opening. Quest status is a state machine and stored with the character, and you are storing and reloading whenever switching games, so the other incidents you cite are no surprise. I'm sure I've seen 3 maps saved, and perhaps 4.

[Crystalion]

Joining games that had the Contess quest available (generally in NM) did not open the chest.

I am not having any trouble controlling the quest state for the v1.10s nm Countess chest to open repeatedly. Of couse I'm doing this "LAN", not realm, so it was rather simple to control the initial conditions until I found what seems to be necessary.

The countess chest doesn't seem any better in its drops than what is already lying around on the level (chests, raw gold) so this doesn't seem like an "exploit" to pay any attention to.

Unfortunately I'm not presently equiped to test this on realm. Perhaps once v1.10 comes out I'll take the time to have "real" characters to test things on the ladder.

If someone wants to test it... the game creator needs to not have done the countess. My test (game creating and act 1 sitting) characters have also not done bloodraven and the den of evil (though I doubt that matters). A character that hasn't done the countess should be in the act (afaik this is a requirement in general, though I've not done any testing on the subject and my recollection, as always, might be in error). The countess, of course, needs to not have already been done in the game. It isn't necessary for the countess runner (who, of course, has done the countess before) to be partied with an eligible player.

I have no idea if this is also true for v1.09 LAN, so testing it on v1.09 realm might be a waste of time.

[Ruvanal]

The countess chest doesn't seem any better in its drops than what is already lying around on the level (chests, raw gold) so this doesn't seem like an "exploit" to pay any attention to.

The countess chest uses the same TC and ilvl as the rest of the containers and gold piles on the level, so I would not expect a lot of difference. In fact the other random chests might be a little better in that you can get your gf% and mf% on them when you open them. You are not actually opening the chest, it is triggered as a part of the quest code. The drop is some preset potions several piles of gold an some number of cycles through dropping the chest TC for the area. This can be very apparent if you mod the TC for the area to have a NoDrop=0 and 1 item drop of say r03 (Tir Rune).

From my experience the chest fountain will account for about 40% of the items and gold that can be obtained from that level. Nice if you get it and are wanting the gold (most items are not worth more than selling for more gold if that); and no great loss if you do not get it.

The requirements to get the drop are that the character that made the game has not completed the countess quest. They need not be in act 1 or even in the game at the time of the countess being killed to get the fountain. I have been aware of this for quite some time as I could regularly count on seeing the fountain when doing rune runs in a game that I knew had been created by one of the all too numerous rushees that currently exist on the realms. To my knowledge this aspect of the countess quest has been in place and unchanged from one of the earliest versions of the game (v1.00?). It is just that prior to the mass rushings and the countess being given a TC that was doing runs for, not many would have really noticed it.

It isn't necessary for the countess runner (who, of course, has done the countess before) to be partied with an eligible player.

This is highly preferable that they not be partied in case where you are having one of your mules to make the game. Then you will be able to get the extra gold for gambling time and again. B)

As for the rest of the disscussion, i am not sure what you are trying to get at. It sounds like a minor rehash of the character save file information. And how the game uses the creating character as the templet model for setting up the games quest data structure.
http://phrozenkeep.it-point.com/forum/view...opic.php?t=9011
You can skim the technical details, but you will probably want to check a couple of the links for what they list about what is saved with the character (WPs, Quest statuses, etc.).

[Crystalion]

The countess chest uses the same TC and ilvl as the rest of the containers and gold piles on the level, so I would not expect a lot of difference.  In fact the other random chests might be a little better in that you can get your gf% and mf% on them when you open them.

Ah, very interesting, thanks.

The requirements to get the drop are that the character that made the game has not completed the countess quest.  They need not be in act 1 or even in the game at the time of the countess being killed to get the fountain.

I have verified this v1.10s LAN play (WinXP user switching). I also verified that there are quest state changes for carry-alongs that do indeed depend on whether they are in the act (at least effectively, and I don't mean the trivial examples of quest states requiring presence for non-carry-alongs). Some quest state transitions have rather odd logic, from the standpoint of the net resultant state you can get into if you work at it (an example follows later)

As for the rest of the disscussion, i am not sure what you are trying to get at.  It sounds like a minor rehash of the character save file information.  And how the game uses ...

Hmm. This was a minor post that, in summary, had three diseparate trivia discussed:

1. my surprise at learning a solo realm game doesn't need a 5 minute hold before switching (if you can do the create/switch within the first minute). This is a trivia worth mentioning since some people, such as myself before stumbling upon the AS info, would have wasted an extra 4 minutes setting up certain games

2. a trivia that the implementation behind this lets you do a very silly thing: create and play a single account in two games (one realm) psuedo-simulataneously, perpetually ping-ponging between them every few minutes (this is, of course, trivial if you make use of other accounts or residual games from other accounts)

3. That one silly use for #2 (one account, no five minute wait) when you're doing countess runs anyway is to start the game with a non-countess credit char, in order to get the death cload opens chest effect

In follow up posts it was questioned as to whether that could always work and I replied that I thought I had a condition set that always did, even in (the objection cited case of) nm. I erroniously thought this might be one of those rare cases where quest transition effects are altered by whether a party member is in-act.

None of these are particularly important. Since I'm fairly impatient I do like knowing #1 and thought I'd share it while tossing in #2 & #3 to add value to the minor post (and because they are amusing).

Your comment about character save file info (quest state) and link raise interesting points however (I had read that thread before, as I do occassionally Lurk the PK, but thanks for the reference). The quest state info in the .d2s would be nice to have a reader for (simple GUI) rather than relying on the simplified junk in-game. However even so paying too much attention to it greatly suffers from a problem I prefer to illustrate by example...

Librarian wrote (in another thread in reply to my question):

>> 2. ?are IGs recreated at caster clvl for new games, or forever stuck at their original mlvl assigned when summoned long ago?

Since blizz fixed the IG-Bug so your tin soldier meets you in every game till he dies it is the same mechanics as in 1.09
That means he will be recreated every time you join a game, and the skillboni of the gear you wear while joining will define his quality.

Librarian tends to give quality info, so I'm inclined to accept this (testing would be better, but I don't have limitless time or patience). However, vis a vis the current discussion, imagine that I'd relied on explorations of the .d2s to help settle the issue... if I think I see or don't see the presence of a mlvl saved there for the Iron Golem I may be inclined to conclude that correspondingly the mlvl is or isn't used in recreation. This would, however, be quite a leap, as the code is free to do whatever it does, without being constrained by mere sensibility.

So, similarly, for the quest states being saved/exposed for our examination/restored. My recent quest tests suggest that the effective complexity of the interactions between game and player quest state is beyond the intuition of mere mortals like myself. Indeed I have been able to produce a fair number of truly odd states legitimately in-game that I'm sure Blizzard didn't intend or anticpate (none of them are worth reporting as "bugs" as opposed to oddities, imho). I will give one example because I find the oddity amusing...

In the Great Race thread, iirc, I recently stated I didn't know of a weakness in the first new Act 2 interlock (although I've reported on the weakness in the second in several places). As a side benefit to today's testing to prove to my own satisfaction that I wasn't imagining some dependancies on act presence for some quest transitions I indeed found a minor weakness. Here is what you can do (bear in mind this trivia isn't useful, since as long as carry-along is allowed that dwarfs pretty much any other technique you might consider)...

I now have a character, WalkOnBye (v1.10s LAN play), who was rushed for Andy, and partied with another character when that character *initiated* a particular quest, but otherwise did not party, and did not perform any quests in act 2 other than to complete act 2. Yes, he completed act 2 without killing anything (since, strangely enough, some prior character seems to have gone through and slaughtered all the monsters), without questing to release either the lift-darkness or summoner interlocks, and, of course, without being portaled into any area from the palace through Duriel's chamber. He knows no waypoints.

How? When I had another character approach Drognan after finishing life-darkness, I briefly partied with WalkOnBye (who was still stuck in act 1 at the time) for a second. This started the "explore the palace" quest in WalkOnBye's second quest tab (which he could not, at that time, see). Subsequently he was rushed past Andy (and could then see just that quest active in his act 2 tab). He then joined a game created by a Duriel staff-placed drone in which I'd already cleared monsters, including Duriel.

He proceeded to walk into the Palace, down to the Arcane Sanctuary via the basement portal, through the red summoner area portal into the true tomb down the hole through the doorway to Tyriel, to town from that portal to talk to Jheryn and Meshif (and thus on to act 3). On the entire walk, had he ever cast a TP and left, he would not have been able to return through it ("impossible"). Had he bothered to grab any of the three waypoints he passed, he would have been able to use them back and forth.

Very amusing. YMMV.

So the short answer to "what you are trying to get at"? would be: just noticing minor quirks along the way, as I test other things.

The fun screenshot Bolty has up is just one such, where the "hidden" quirk that isn't usually important and therefore isn't well known is that teleport can adjust your location when the destination is itself not proper, but the teleport is allowed--this is the same effect you know and love with door hydras, thus the picture contains the hint for how to do the teleport. FYI, in case you didn't know, teleport is apparently restricted on Duriel's chamber level to be line-of-sight, so you can't just trivially teleport past the door, and, indeed, even if the door is open teleporting in that chamber doesn't work the way you're used to--must be all that Horadric magic infused into the floating stones nearby (perhaps modders have a different explanation :P ).

[Ferengi]

Very interesting. I've seen the quest box pop up for partied players in other acts before, but never traced it down. But it seems that you have just shifted the requirement from the Altar to the Staff. A one layer Snake maze is easier than the 3 layer Maggot maze. Or I've forgotten how all these Act2 quests are triggered, it's been a long time since patch 1.07 {which is when I finally made a Hell staff mule}. However, your experiment opens a different concept to explore.

When I was rushing, occaisonally there would be some problem contacting Jeryn. I suspect that was generally caused by the first person seeking to enter the Palace failing to chat with Drognan [1]. In some cases it could be cleared up by everyone chatting with Drognan, otherwise a TP solution was required. The TP can be placed at the foot of the stairs down from Jeryns level, which is not part of the maze to the Arcane [2]. The point is that while you could not enter the Palace, you could enter the TP.

The really intriguing thing about the post is "What about all those other times I got a Quest Box". Now combine that with Mad Scientists cascading multiple players, but put them into different acts to trigger various quests within the same game. Hmm, I smell cheese, or is it sleaze?


[1] Once I suspected this, I always made sure I talked to Drognan and beat everyone to Jeryn. I stopped having any problems, since the worst that could happen was clicking on Jeryn while he was inside. It was not uncommon for "tail end charlie" to get stuck in Act2 even when I did this.

[2] It's actually the strangest level in the game. It is the only place outside of the act camps that is totally free of monsters. I guess it fits into the storyline and was created in the early days of the project. I've always thought that it has an Easter Egg someplace.

[Ruvanal]

[2] It's actually the strangest level in the game. It is the only place outside of the act camps that is totally free of monsters. I guess it fits into the storyline and was created in the early days of the project. I've always thought that it has an Easter Egg someplace.

Are you forgetting The Forgotten Tower level in act 1? This is the little area that you go 'down' through from the Black Marsh to get to the Tower Cellar Level 1. NO monsters are set up for it.

Another close canidate is the Inner Cloister. While there are monsters set up to appear there; the minimum spawning distance from a VisX (jail and cathedral links) or Portal (waypoint) is such that there is only a very small amount of area in three of the corners that monsteres are allowed to be randomly spaced inside of. There will be times when no monsters will be spawned in this area due the minimum distance restriction. The Forgotten Tower Cellar levels 2 and 4 in normal difficulty (all difficulties in v1.09) can also end up devoid of monsters for the same reason if their maps are not created in one long straight line.

[Ferengi]

Yup. I was mostly trying to remember any after Act2.

I've been killed in the Inner Cloister twice, plus it is not unusual there for the Catheral door to burst open spewing monsters as it is approached. Monsters can spawn at the end of the small area by the Jail entrance, anything fast there creates problems for low-lvl fragile builds.

[Bolty]

Are you forgetting The Forgotten Tower level in act 1?  This is the little area that you go 'down' through from the Black Marsh to get to the Tower Cellar Level 1.  NO monsters are set up for it.

In the Diablo II Closed Beta, that level DID have monsters in it. Players complained so much of loading lag kills there and "cheap jumps" by the monsters that they removed them from the level. I'd have to admit the players were justified, especially since at the time of the beta, people had slower computers and the loading lag could easily take you down before you got to see the level.

-Bolty

[kier]

The time aloud for you to be inactive is 15 minutes, but this may be shorter if you haven't been in the game for more than 5 minutes, and You may be able to get around the code by:-

a) talking to a NPC/In trade with a NPC
B) In trade with another player
c)watching video/loading next act

There are probably a few other tricks. Could celetape right button down so a char is constantly attacking (without moving), or if in town is "i can't do this here" (or if your sorc/nec/ass/druid has alot of mana/mana rej can cast spells continuously [frozen armour, bone armour, bos, etc etc]

V interesting about switching games, allthough using this method to mule items over is very risky, due to battle.net's reliability :P

[Ferengi]

Actually, there are some very interesting implications and interesting questions, for instance, can more than 2 be juggled with the assistance of one additional player?

It is most likely that the timer is reset on any game action, pacing back and forth works fine for instance. The idea of an attack is even simpler.

[AtomicKitKat]

When "pinging" my characters to prevent the dreaded 3 month(is that right?) deletion, I usually just walk them out of town to spam attacks(if they have no "townable" spells), or spam a summon/shapeshift till they run out of mana. An alternative would be to "adjust" equipment, especially + pools charms. If you have a +10 life charm, for instance, you could remove it, put it back on, and your character would now have 10 "missing" hp, give or take any regeneration. Basically, anything that might alter your "saved state"(as per emulators), will work. Walking around(unless done for the required duration of the timer), as far as I know, doesn't.

[CelticHound]

Librarian tends to give quality info, so I'm inclined to accept this (testing would be better, but I don't have limitless time or patience). However, vis a vis the current discussion, imagine that I'd relied on explorations of the .d2s to help settle the issue... if I think I see or don't see the presence of a mlvl saved there for the Iron Golem I may be inclined to conclude that correspondingly the mlvl is or isn't used in recreation. This would, however, be quite a leap, as the code is free to do whatever it does, without being constrained by mere sensibility.

Isn't testing the Iron Golem easy? It doesn't get Thorns until level 2, so have 1pt in IG and some form of +skills. Try casting with 1pt and then entering a new game with +skills equipped, then try the opposite..

Edit add: Yes, I'd been using the initial 1 minute when refreshing my characters on the realms. Make a game, shift something in inventory to dirty the character, then exit and bring in a new character so I didn't have to go through the new game creation queue. Also noticed the map thing from exiting one game and making a few temporary games to try and find just the right merc.

Trivia question: Blizzard's battle net and the clones (bnetd) - how do they compare for handling multiple logins on the same account?

-- CH