That's ok, when I clicked the collectables for the treasure hunt event all last week, they kept jumping around as if they wanted to get away from me. They should have called it the Whack-a-Mole event.

Mick13000 said:

Ok..so no, I haven't been drinking. Well..not at any rate for the last few days.

Is it me or has anyone noticed that when you log in and see King Leonidas sitting there, he has beer dropping on him?

 A few days back..he was slightly turned to the right...and the beer was no where near him-now it looks as though they guy is dripping beer on his head and he is facing more to the left.

Ahhh..too much damned time on this game.

Tell me I'm not crazy.

Respect.

Mick

Hello Mick!

Are you referring to this photo?

If so then yes you are right this wasn't the game's image few days ago but it is now cause it's the Oktoberfest Beer Festival! So beer is all around! 

Cheers! 

Xena said:

Mick13000 said:

Ok..so no, I haven't been drinking. Well..not at any rate for the last few days.

Is it me or has anyone noticed that when you log in and see King Leonidas sitting there, he has beer dropping on him?

 A few days back..he was slightly turned to the right...and the beer was no where near him-now it looks as though they guy is dripping beer on his head and he is facing more to the left.

Ahhh..too much damned time on this game.

Tell me I'm not crazy.

Respect.

Mick

Hello Mick!

Are you referring to this photo?

If so then yes you are right this wasn't the game's image few days ago but it is now cause it's the Oktoberfest Beer Festival! So beer is all around! 

Cheers! 

Yes-have had that image, but there was no beer even close to Leonidas's head. Ahh..it's ok..just was wondering if I was seeing things.

Pete said:

That's ok, when I clicked the collectables for the treasure hunt event all last week, they kept jumping around as if they wanted to get away from me. They should have called it the Whack-a-Mole event.

Tell ME I'm not crazy.

Your not crazy-and you are correct. I clicked on the collectibles, then it disappeared and jumped down..I was like..WTF!

Pete said:

That's ok, when I clicked the collectables for the treasure hunt event all last week, they kept jumping around as if they wanted to get away from me. They should have called it the Whack-a-Mole event.

Tell ME I'm not crazy.

Clearly a cowardly Persian trick! The best solution is to pin them down with spears.

But as for the art on the loading page, I am pretty certain it didn't change. If it did, our Art Department is playing very sneaky jokes.

Mick said:

Your not crazy-and you are correct. I clicked on the collectibles, then it disappeared and jumped down..I was like..WTF!
Game has us on the ropes like we are a punch drunk boxer....LMAO:))

Thought so, thx for confirming that it aint just me.

Dimitri said:

Clearly a cowardly Persian trick! The best solution is to pin them down with spears.

Is that greek for buggy?

Pete said:

Is that greek for buggy?

In all seriousness, this could have been caused by a few things. A minor bug with the game client, lag, browser/flash-related troubles. Fortunately, the issue itself seems harmless, if a tad annoying.

Dimitri Molchanov said:

Pete said:

Is that greek for buggy?

In all seriousness, this could have been caused by a few things. A minor bug with the game client, lag, browser/flash-related troubles. Fortunately, the issue itself seems harmless, if a tad annoying.

In all seriousness: how is this lag, browser or flash related?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bempalnbofam5f9/Wack-a-Mole.mp4?dl=0

If its a bug, and it is, then own it and dont palm it off ... and fix it, dont make excuses to paying customers.

Pete said:

In all seriousness: how is this lag, browser or flash related?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bempalnbofam5f9/Wack-a-Mole.mp4?dl=0

If its a bug, and it is, then own it and dont palm it off ... and fix it, dont make excuses to paying customers.

If this was an overall bug with the collectibles feature, we would have seen a lot more people affected by this issue. From the feedback we received, the biggest problem affecting collectibles happened at the very start where they would not display for players. But that was fixed straight away. As for them "jumping", you and Mick13000 are the only people who reported this thus far. Which leads me to believe something else might have caused this. For example, it's possible that when you click on the collectible and your game client believes that you have gathered it sends information to our server, but due to one error or another, the server does not process it and sends feedback to the client, causing the collectible to re-appear. That sort of issue could easily be caused by unstable connection between the game client on your computer and our server, or flash player not displaying/processing information correctly. Unfortunately, I can't confirm this for certain now that the treasure hunt is over and without involving our technical specialists. But if in the future we find out the issue was more widespread, we will investigate it.

Dimitri said:

 I can't confirm this for certain now that the treasure hunt is over

Yeah, it is NOW. 

Youre telling me you cant test or debug your events unless theyre active? That explains alot.

you and Mick13000 are the only people who reported this thus far

Looking at the number of people in this place, mick and me make about 10% of your visitors. Sure hope the game has a few more, not counting alts and bots.

it's possible that when you click on the collectible and your game client believes that you have gathered it sends information to our server

Well then thank God the Game Client has nothing to do with Plarium, you had me worried there. And even if: the server then puts new collectables on the map??

... unstable connection ...
...  flash player not displaying/processing information correctly ...

Anyone else you wanna blame? 

My connections fine, but even if not: you have an online game that cant handle disconnects??

Flash is no good? Anyone NOT know that? Plarium chose Flash as platform, so deal with it.

You sound like my insurance salesman when I try to make a claim.

if in the future we find out the issue was more widespread, we will investigate it.

You only investigate widespread issues? Can we have a list?  Is widespread like everyone and their moms complaining about persian positions?

Pete said:

Yeah, it is NOW. 

Youre telling me you cant test or debug your events unless theyre active? That explains alot.

Looking at the number of people in this place, mick and me make about 10% of your visitors. Sure hope the game has a few more, not counting alts and bots.

Well then thank God the Game Client has nothing to do with Plarium, you had me worried there. And even if: the server then puts new collectables on the map??Anyone else you wanna blame? 

My connections fine, but even if not: you have an online game that cant handle disconnects??

Flash is no good? Anyone NOT know that? Plarium chose Flash as platform, so deal with it.

You sound like my insurance salesman when I try to make a claim.

You only investigate widespread issues? Can we have a list?  Is widespread like everyone and their moms complaining about persian positions?

Pete, there is a lot more we look at when looking at issues reported by our players. It is not just forum for Sparta, we get feedback from other communities, across all our projects as the engine and servers work the same way, so this bug you have encountered, if widespread, would have affected people playing most of our other games. In addition to that, we check with Support about what sort of issues were affecting our playerbase. So when I say that this is the first time I have seen this issue mentioned, I do not mean on this forum, but in all those sources. 

If you play online games a lot, you should know that minor connection-related issues can happen everywhere. Unfortunately, we cannot have our developers retroactively investigating a minor bug that did not break the game, affected a very small percentage of players as per our reports, could have been caused by so many things not relating to our servers and that had a very easy workaround of clicking on the collectible again. They have many other things to focus on right now.

And issues with Flash right now are somewhat more prominent as most browsers no longer support it. We are, of course, working on solving that particular problem.

I would also like to point out once more that Persian Positions are not bugged, nor were they. If you are having issues, the best advice anyone can give is to look up guides that other players have written or speak with your Coalition members who you know are doing well at Positions. You could even try contacting players who frequently take top rankings and ask them to share their tactics.

Dimitri Molchanov said:

Pete said:

In all seriousness: how is this lag, browser or flash related?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bempalnbofam5f9/Wack-a-Mole.mp4?dl=0

If its a bug, and it is, then own it and dont palm it off ... and fix it, dont make excuses to paying customers.

1.) "From the feedback we received, the biggest problem affecting collectibles happened at the very start where they would not display for players"

 2.) Which leads me to believe something else might have caused this. For example, it's possible that when you click on the collectible and your game client believes that you have gathered it sends information to our server, but due to one error or another, the server does not process it and sends feedback to the client, causing the collectible to re-appear. That sort of issue could easily be caused by unstable connection between the game client on your computer and our server, or flash player not displaying/processing information correctly"

In regards to # 1-The issue was resolved by a Mod informing to log out/log back in and re-establishing connection with server. 

Issue resolved:)

In regards to # 2- As a "network/cyber" guy-your explanation and hypothesis as to why this particular incident happened is correct.

The Plarium platforms are spread out across the globe and hosted. While my connection(s) appear fine, someone else has or might be experiencing "latency". 

If the connection "times out" and your browser is "open to the game", you will need to re-establish a connection to whatever server you are logging in to. 

This "type" of incident happens in the real world of business-e.g your office allows you to use the VPN to work from home. You log in, start to work. After a few hours, you get up, feed the hawk, grab a cup of coffee, make breakfast. 

The VPN "rule set" has a "connection keep alive" set of rules. No movement (work)-no connection (technically you still have your https connection, but you need to re-establish the connection) to let the server know you are still working (playing game). This makes the applications wake up and make "calls" for new data. Hence the "wack-a-mole" incident. 

Thank you Dimitri.

Hope this information was of some assistance and guidance.

Respect to all.

Mick

Thank you for the detailed explanation, Mick! These sorts of issues can be quite tricky to deal with, though of course our dev team is trying to minimize any impact on the game. 

Dimitri Molchanov said:

Thank you for the detailed explanation, Mick! These sorts of issues can be quite tricky to deal with, though of course our dev team is trying to minimize any impact on the game. 

I do have to ask though if feeding the hawk is a turn of phrase or if you actually have one as a pet? 

The hawk is not a pet. Several years ago when I purchased this home, I began feeding it and It would land on the deck. I would leave pieces of chicken breasts.

It's been coming back ever since.  I am looking into getting a falconry license though. Would love to have a peregrine falcon. 

Best regards to you Dimitri.

Mick