items poofing at cleanup (WAS: mystery of the deleting red dragon hide gear)

Locke Cole
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Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2002 5:00 am

items poofing at cleanup (WAS: mystery of the deleting red dragon hide gear)

Post by Locke Cole »

Well, here's something I wasn't aware of until recently. MajorMUD, during it's cleanup routine, as we're all aware, deletes items flagged Del@Maint, for example, and hides items not flagged with Visible@Maint. Apparently WCC put in some exceptions, or maybe it was Metro, to these rules that allows for an item to be deleted if it's on the ground, even if it isn't flagged Del@Maint.



In the case of the red dragon hide gear, it seems that if the item has a value of 14 gold *or* less, the item auto-deletes anyways, ignoring whether or not the item is flagged Del@Maint. If you look at the vast majority of dragon hide gear put in by Metro, you'll note that except for the tunic items, they're all 1 gold usually. Now NOTE, this only affects items *on the ground visible*. For *hidden* items, the test changes. It seems that if the value of the item, regardless of the currency type, is set to 0, the item is deleted, with or without Del@Maint.



This is why it was likely hard to track down what was causing this, because if the item was visible when you died, it would poof, but if it was hidden, it would stick around.
Raybdbomb
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2001 6:00 am

Re: items poofing at cleanup (WAS: mystery of the deleting red dragon hide gear)

Post by Raybdbomb »

interesting....



how/where did you find that? trial and error? heh
Locke Cole
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Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2002 5:00 am

Re: items poofing at cleanup (WAS: mystery of the deleting red dragon hide gear)

Post by Locke Cole »

Originally posted by Ray Dillyo

interesting....



how/where did you find that? trial and error? heh

The wonderful world of reverse engineering. I was going through their cleanup routine code recently and stumbled across it. Seems kind of retarded to me to do either of those things considering any item that might flood the realm could easily be marked Del@Maint (they already have the padded boots, padded vest, etc, marked that way), so this is all kind of useless it seems. And, in this case, causes way more problems than it'd ever solve. =)
Platinum
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Joined: Wed Oct 24, 2001 5:00 am

Re: items poofing at cleanup (WAS: mystery of the deleting red dragon hide gear)

Post by Platinum »

Originally posted by Locke Cole



The wonderful world of reverse engineering. I was going through their cleanup routine code recently and stumbled across it. Seems kind of retarded to me to do either of those things considering any item that might flood the realm could easily be marked Del@Maint (they already have the padded boots, padded vest, etc, marked that way), so this is all kind of useless it seems. And, in this case, causes way more problems than it'd ever solve. =)



Metro likes to cause problems as opposed to solving them, so that makes sense..snicker.
Kain
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Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2003 8:30 pm

Re: items poofing at cleanup (WAS: mystery of the deleting red dragon hide gear)

Post by Kain »

Thank you Locke for that information, it's veryhelpful
iNViSiGOD
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Joined: Wed Jul 10, 2002 5:00 am

Re: items poofing at cleanup (WAS: mystery of the deleting red dragon hide gear)

Post by iNViSiGOD »

Yes thankyou! I've always wondered what caused alot of items in lunar to poof even w/o the flag, THANKS!
Rust In Peace

Re: items poofing at cleanup (WAS: mystery of the deleting red dragon hide gear)

Post by Rust In Peace »

Originally posted by Locke Cole

Apparently WCC put in some exceptions, or maybe it was Metro, to these rules that allows for an item to be deleted if it's on the ground, even if it isn't flagged Del@Maint.





Great find. One note though. You made it sound like this is inefficient. I think it's a great double-check kinda procedure. Actually I think it provides a better and easier method to separate what deletes during cleanup. I'd rather clean-up items by cost than the flag. Would be even better if users can "invest" money into the item to make it more "valuable" so it doesn't del@cleanup.



And I'm guessing it's WCC that put this exception in. Great vision by Lance.. It can't be Metro, otherwise they would know why red dragon hide gear poofs.
syntax53
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Joined: Wed Apr 03, 2002 6:00 am

Re: items poofing at cleanup (WAS: mystery of the deleting red dragon hide gear)

Post by syntax53 »

Originally posted by Rust In Peace

Great find. One note though. You made it sound like this is inefficient. I think it's a great double-check kinda procedure.

well, i agree with locke on this one. i see your point, but a flag would be better. things that are hard coded like that can be (and in this case has been) overlooked or forgotten. something like the cost of an item shouldn't effect whether or not it poofs in some of totally seperate piece of code. you are right, it does work. but from a programmers standpoint it's not good practice.
Locke Cole
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Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2002 5:00 am

Re: items poofing at cleanup (WAS: mystery of the deleting red dragon hide gear)

Post by Locke Cole »

Originally posted by Rust In Peace

Great find. One note though. You made it sound like this is inefficient. I think it's a great double-check kinda procedure. Actually I think it provides a better and easier method to separate what deletes during cleanup. I'd rather clean-up items by cost than the flag.

And I would be inclined to agree with you if it weren't that it only checks floor visible items, and then only if they're 14 *gold* or less in value. If it's 14 *copper* or less, it sticks around. If it's 14 *platinum* or less, it also sticks around. See the issue? And then if it's hidden (either because the player died and the game placed the item in a hidden slot, or because someone manually put the item there), all bets are off, and the item only deletes if the value is zero (no matter what currency it's in).



The Del@Maint ability is really all that is needed-- it sounds like this was put in because someone was too lazy to go through all the items and properly flag things that needed to be deleted every cleanup.
EvanElias
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Joined: Mon Jul 05, 2010 12:42 am

Re: items poofing at cleanup (WAS: mystery of the deleting red dragon hide gear)

Post by EvanElias »

Perhaps this functionality was added *before* the Del@Maint flag was added?



I'm thinking that it's entirely possible that chunk of code is so old that it goes back to the first betas on DSOE, perhaps Gold was the only form of currency and Del@Maint flag didn't exist yet. (This could probably be verified by searching through the really old release notes, shrug?)
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