Eliminating the time penalty for idling on character page

[Doug R.]

Most players know that if you sit around on the characters page and do nothing, and then click a character, you lose that time. Some players also know that to get around this, you just have to log out and then log back in.

However, giving a time penalty for being on the character page makes no sense, because you aren't actually playing. This penalty becomes a huge factor when you forget to log out after a long idle, or you are in a department and using admin tools and then check a character without logging out.

Since there is already a workaround for knowledgable players, why not simply eliminate this time penalty that makes no sense and causes more server lag (isn't logging in constantly more taxing than sitting doing nothing?) so that the players that don't know the workaround stop getting penalized (and accidents stop happening that cause significant minute loss).

[Phalynx]

Take it you made the same mistake as me recently!

[Sicofonte]

Last week I was translating the tips about avoiding time loss to the spanish players, it is a common annoying issue for everyone in Cantr.

I agree with Doug's suggestion. At least, time accounting could ignore the time being in the characters page (I'm not sur about the page's name, but that where you see your character's list), discounting only the time between clicks into a concret char (between the click for selecting a char, and the click to come back to the characters page or to logout).

[Doug R.]

:lol: Take it you made the same mistake as me recently!

No, I'm just tired of logging in and out 1000 times a day.

[Jos Elkink]

I would implement this if I knew an easy way to do it ... The problem is that there is no continuous 'state' on the server side. The server cannot see you are looking at a page ... It only sees when you click on one. So how could I calculate how much time you're idling there?

[Phalynx]

You mean you are NOT all powerfull?

*rubs hands with glee*

Mwahahahahaha!

[sem]

Try checking @$HTTP_REFERER to see where a page has been linked from. If the page is something like "www.cantr.net/index.php?s=123456789&page=player" then don't count the time.

[Doug R.]

I would implement this if I knew an easy way to do it ... The problem is that there is no continuous 'state' on the server side. The server cannot see you are looking at a page ... It only sees when you click on one. So how could I calculate how much time you're idling there?

Jos, it already calculates how much time you're idling there. I want it not to.

[Chris Johnson]

This has now been implemented -
Time spent on the player page will still count towards playing time if you subsequently access a character but no more than 5 minutes in total.

We have to count some time to take into account people refreshing the player page waiting for a character to light up - this is still a drain on system resources

[Phalynx]

[Jos Elkink]

We have to count some time to take into account people refreshing the player page waiting for a character to light up - this is still a drain on system resources

And the solution for this, for the players that is, is practically implemented too - just undergoing some testing.

[Doug R.]

[Marian]

This is great, thanks! I leave it on the char list page a lot, because when you're busy around the house it's a lot faster to just hit F5 whenever you pas by the computer then to go through the trouble to log in (especially when you're on a dialup.)


Also, on a related subject, is it possible for it not to count when you're browsing around in the build or clothes menu?

[SekoETC]

Why not have a limit of clicks instead of minutes? A person reading a page doesn't eat up bandwidth, it's the loading that does. Currently if you have a slow connection, you will spend more minutes than someone on broadband even though the amount of bytes loaded is the same.

[Rusalka]

Because people would become less active. They will not say what they want to say, cause it costs one 'click' it would be similar to action points or something like that.